Little Problems

He held his tiny hands up before him, terror and disbelief evident on his small face.

Panic, cold and stark, rolled down his body as he glanced down at the child within Snape’s oversized robes. 

He had been home brewing, as he has been every day since he had left Hogwarts over ten years ago. As a fifty-year-old man, it had basically been an early retirement, peaceful and unobtrusive, just as he wished his life had always been. 

Now he stared in horror at what looked back at him from the old cracked hallway mirror of his dingy home on Spinner’s End. The eyes of a terrified young boy stared back, his hair long and unkempt and his obsidian eyes wide.

Severus brought tiny unfamiliar hands up to his face once more, staring at them as one might a severed limb. He looked down at his own body, now much closer to the ground than it should have been, and began to rip away at the massive clothing that had fit him perfectly just a few seconds ago. Underneath, as anyone could have predicted, was the same scrawny little boy he had seen in the mirror.

Of course, he knew who this boy was, he had carried this boy’s trauma around for the entirety of his life. The boy in the mirror was none other than Snivellus Snape, the bane of his own existence, himself.

But how did this happen? How was it possible? 

He racked his brain.

Neural base,

Bitter root,

Snowdrop,

Abraxan hair,

Veela blood,

And one fuzzy caterpillar, cut into cubes.

He hadn’t done anything wrong. This was the correct mix and yet something had gone horribly, terribly wrong.

Could he have accidentally taken a shrinking potion? No, and he certainly hadn’t made a de-aging potion.

He repeated these ingredients to himself as he quickly and carelessly climbed the counter, nearly toppling on his own clothing, to snatch wildly into a jar of tiny, smooth, pebbles. Scooping a handful, he shoved them into his mouth and forced himself to swallow them painfully down. He then promptly vomited into an empty cauldron.

Pigeon grit, when taken immediately, should make you expel the remainder of an alkaline potion.

Looking down into the sick he realized there was a pearly sheen that should not be there. It could have been his own bile but it looked far too pearly. 

Surely it was the Veela blood. Something had been wrong with it and he hadn’t even noticed. Whatever this contamination was was the answer to his dilemma.

Holding down his nausea, he used his wand to extract a small disgusting sample into a vial before vanishing the contents of the cauldron and setting about collecting all of the ingredients once more.

Bitter root, snowdrop, abraxan hair, v-

Severus stared down at the last couple of drops of perfectly normal-looking Veela blood. 

“Quo Revelio”   he cast and the Latin text that bloomed into life in his handwriting revealed nothing to contradict his earlier assessment. The other ingredients bore much the same results and the fuzzy caterpillars were no fuzzier than normal.

Well. Then he would simply wait for it to wear off. Surely something like this couldn’t be permanent. That would mean he’s created the elixir of youth and that would be ridiculously unlikely. Especially not with five relatively easy to acquire ingredients.

While he waited, he would contact his seller for more Veela blood.

Yes, it was all rather simple. It was a mistake and he would be able to reverse it without issue because he was the most impressive potioneer of his age. Right?

He took a fortifying breath to hold back the flood of strange emotions about him and, scooping up his robes so he wouldn’t trod on them, scuttled off up the stairs from his freezing brewing basement past the magical cold barrier into a disgustingly sunny house. He managed to trip only once. 

His owl not recognizing him was a startling surprise, particularly as she could scream quite loudly. She nearly sent him back down the stairs with the alarmed shriek she gave.

“Billy! Stop! Wait, it's me!” But Billywig had no intention of disabling the alarms. Twice she attempted to take his fingers as he tried to calm the owl down. Once he finally got the little black owl to settle, he gave a huff and summoned a quill and parchment, trying not to think about how he had to climb the chair to his kitchen island or how his legs could not reach the ground from his seat.

“You’re a menace, Bill.” He muttered to the owl as she hopped onto the counter to watch him aggressively order more Veela blood.

She really was a menace but being his only companion at home, he’s grown quite fond of the little owl. She was even quite pretty. Black with thin white bands that looked almost like stars and obsidian eyes like his.

With her sent away, he attempted to fix his oversized clothing. A shrinking charm worked just fine on his trousers but left his shirt ill-fitting. It would have to do.

Hours later, Billywig returned to find her master looking panicked and disheveled. It was nighttime now and Severus was still 4 and a half feet tall. 

In a frenzy, he snatched up the order that Billywig had brought home and ran downstairs to brew, sans his usual protective attire since it could not be shrunk to size without breaking its enchantments.

Once finished, the resulting brew was tested with diagnostic charms and chemical testing alongside a portion of his own sick from vial only to find that he had not recreated the potion that had done this to him. It was simply the regenerative potion he had initially set out to make.

Something was missing and he could not find what it was. 

He recreated this process countless times, testing each ingredient and researching potential reactions to other substances. Nothing bore him any progress at all. It wasn’t until he received an angry letter from a customer complaining of their late order that he realized he had been working in a frenzy for a whole week and he was growing tired and desperate. 

He was getting nowhere like this. He needed help.

He brewed the client his damned potion and left the warded safety of his home, apparating directly in front of the gates to Hogwarts castle just as the sun breached over the tall Scottish mountains.

As the immensely private man that he was, there were very few people he would ever ask for help, let alone with something as mortifying as this, but what choice did he have? Everyone he had ever trusted was dead now, all but one.

The wards let him past the heavy iron gates, which swung open with a groan, still recognizing him as a professor after all this time. 

The castle was thankfully empty this time of year. For now, it housed only professors. 

He made his way through the empty winding castle and looked for her, the only person he could ever bear to come to for help. He found her in her office, looking at him in bewilderment from her seat at her desk.

“Young man! How did you-“

“Minerva!” The usual commanding bite in his tone had little effect when it came from the sneering lips of a little boy, but it still gave the intended result. McGonagall became dead silent with shock. Her eyes slowly widen in realization as she takes the boy in.

“It would appear I’ve made a groundbreaking discovery.” He started, little fists balling at his side in anger as he struggled to keep his composure. 

This predicament was of course,  enraging to him. Having to ask for help was already something he hated to do but all of his emotions have been inexplicably intensified since the incident.

“And I am in dire need of your assistance reversing it.” He finished, angry tears threatening to form beneath his onyx eyes.

“Severus..?”