Potion's Master Nephew ( Discontinued)

Chap.1

Chapter One

~ In which fifteen is hell ~

Severus Snape opened his eyes. He felt warm and comfortable, and didn't seem to be staring at the dark, barely visible stone ceiling of his dungeon. The ceiling above him was lit a light pink from the setting sun, and a warm breeze wafted through a nearby window. He blinked bemusedly around when a blur of black fur suddenly obscured his vision, hurling itself towards him and latching on to his face.

"Get off!" he choked, tearing the furball from him and throwing it away.

The kitten twisted its body in midair, landing gracefully on its feet and bolting under the bed. But Snape wasn't paying any attention to the cat; he was staring very hard at his hand in front of him. He looked quickly around for his wand, and seized it from the bedside table. He was just about to summon a mirror when he caught sight of his blurred reflection in the looking glass next to the sink. Unable to believe what he was looking at, he brought his hands up to touch his face before cursing violently and stumbling awkwardly out of bed towards the mirror.

He glared at his clear reflection and gasped. A horrified, teenage boy was staring back at him.

***

"So, until we have a counter-potion I am afraid you are stuck like that, Severus."

Snape stared into space as Albus Dumbledore paced the room, still unable to comprehend how the recent chain of events had come about.

Much to his horror, the house-elves had already cleaned up the mess in the dungeons, leaving not a drop of spilled liquid behind. The Potion Masters at Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, along with various doctors from St Mungos were each contacted one after the other, but to no avail. Each had replied promptly that such a case was not possible to happen in the first place and were quite curious as to why Dumbledore would enquire such a thing. Snape was horrified at being made a laughing stock, so Dumbledore hadn't bothered to reply.

The enormity of his condition just starting to sink in, Snape's moody stare flicked from the blank wall before him to out the window, at the glittering lake below. He couldn't help but feel that Dumbledore would think he'd done this on purpose, as if to get out of whatever nasty job was in store for him. He felt unusually cowed as he sat there, suddenly unable to meet the Headmaster's eyes.

"I don't blame you for what happened, you know," murmured Dumbledore, breaking the long silence and reading Snape's averted gaze like a book.

"I know that," replied Snape curtly, feeling horribly uncomfortable but forcing his eyes to glare back up at Dumbledore's. To his surprise, Dumbledore was looking back at him with a half smile on his face.

"You know, Severus, although it's an unpleasant ordeal for you, this is still quite a notable achievement that you've stumbled across," he said. "I believe this is the first successful body-age reduction of all time."

Snape snorted loudly, though straining his brain as he tried to mentally run over all of the different combinations of ingredients, and then all of the potions they had been combined in, and then all of the possible ways they could have affected his Polyjuice Potion...

"It wasn't successful at all," he said eventually, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice as his brain gave up in frustration. "It was an accident - and a ridiculously clumsy one at that."