Fic: Rewind For Victory (2/?)
Title: Rewind For Victory (Ch. 02 - I'll Explain This If You Explain That)
Author: mirrored_illusions aka 3am_moonlight.
Rating: Teen.
Fandoms: Harry Potter - JKR.
Timeline: Pre-Hogwarts/late Marauder Era.
Characters: Harry Potter, Lily E. Potter, James Potter.
Pairings: James/Lily, past Harry/Hermione.
Disclaimer: The HP 'verse is the property of JKR.
Summary: Hadrian Potter travels back in time in an attempt to save his parents lives, give his younger self a happy childhood, and make the British Magical World a better place for everyone.
Word Count: 4,312 (this chapter) & 8,336 (so far).
Links: AO3 | FF.net | HPFFA
Note: This chapter was originally posted on April 5th, 2018.
Baby Hadrian and his future counterpart had a short exchange in the sibilant language before their parents had enough and demanded they switch back to normal English.
“My apologies,” the elder one replied while the younger one simply gurgled happily at his mother. “I've spent so much time either believing the ability was transferred from the Dark Tosser who killed my parents or with the uncertainty of how I'd gotten it that I just wanted to enjoy it for once. Even if it was only a light conversation with a toddler who has a limited vocabulary. I didn't mean to scare or alarm you.”
James and Lily accepted the apology a little shakily but politely asked him to refrain from doing it again without their consent. Hadrian, not wanting to alienate his parents, readily agreed but added.
“Back in my time, after the Second Blood War ended, I made sure to learn as much as possible about both Parseltongue and what it really means to be a Parselmouth. To my surprise, it turned out there are countries in the world where people with the ability are highly revered and sought after. Countries such as Greece and India, and some countries in South America.
“The first person in recorded history who had the ability was a healer. He was later named as a Greek god, one of Apollo's sons. His name was Asclepius, and he later became known by a symbol of a rod wreathed with a snake. A symbol we now associate with healing and medicine. In Greece, snakes were sacred beings of wisdom, healing, and resurrection. According to the myth a snake gave Asclepius secret knowledge in return for kindness rendered.
“Over the generations, anyone with the Parselmouth capability in Greece was trained in Healing, even if they were not particularly skilled in the field. The reason for it was because any spell cast in the serpent language is amplified due to the intent of the caster and the magical language. The language itself is also well-matched to improve health.
“In the same vein, all Parselmouths are sought after by people dealing with snakes, certain reptiles, and in some cases dragons. Obviously, this is because we can speak directly to the animals and therefore get their cooperation more easily by explaining what we want to happen. This doesn't always work since they are in no way forced to do our bidding. They are also much simpler than humans and generally only want food, warmth, and safety. However, if you can supply them with all three they are much more inclined to comply with whatever you want from them.
Hadrian gave them a serious look but tempered it with a small smile. “Personally, I ended up going for the third option when I finally found out the Potter's used to be legendary for creating and maintaining Wards. Sealing a Ward with Parseltongue, and, of course, using it to cast most if not all the spells, makes it pretty much unbreakable. Even if you are one of the rare people who can speak the language, you'd still need to know the specific counters in order to undo them. This happened at a time of turmoil after the Second Blood War, so it made people very eager to protect their homes. Consequently, my newfound application of a previously feared ability, coupled with warding, made me very rich, very fast."
Truthfully, the reason for that wasn't just the latest Blood War, but he'd get back to that later. There was a lot of information and that particular bomb could wait. Right now he needed to deal with the upcoming Halloween Incident and make sure his parents understood the importance of baby Hadrian learning about the significance of his gift. Parseltongue didn't make anyone evil, but killing or ostracizing everyone with the ability was akin to shooting themselves in the foot. Or, since they were in the magical world, hexing themselves in the foot without knowing basic magical first aid.
"You should also know that the main reason Potter Manor hasn't been breached is due to the Parselmagic on the building, the grounds, and the surrounding area. They were raised by Kelton Potter sometime between 1194 and 1198. Because of Salazar Slytherin, this wasn't announced to anyone outside of the Potter Family, and it was restricted information even within the family. Parselmouths have been rare in the Family and this is directly responsible for how it's been kept a secret for so long. Only the Head of the Family and his direct Heir was told for centuries. It was verbally told from father to son, rather than reading it from a book or scroll, and because of this, the information was lost in 1648 when the Head of the Family and his Heir were both killed on the same day. The Heir's oldest son was only eight at the time and hadn't been told, as a result, the knowledge was lost."
"If this knowledge was lost," James questioned, "Then how do you know?"
Hadrian smiled sadly, "My wife craved knowledge the way other people crave air. She read through the Potter and Black Libraries and came across a scroll with some of the information. Most of it was written in Parselscript, but there was enough in Old Latin for her to get the gist of what it was. Most of the Old Latin was simply a list of who had known and when they had been told. She turned it over to me."
Lily Potter gave him a sympathetic look and asked, a little tentatively, "We're sorry for your loss?"
"Thank you. She was hit by a terrible curse we were unable to find the counter-curse for, and she ended up dying slowly and very painfully. Going back in time to undo Dumbledore's manipulations was her idea."
His parents looked shocked and saddened by the news, but everyone has a reason for doing things. This was his. Well, it was one of his reasons. They had worked together and Hermione had sketched out an elaborate plan, spanning several years. When they'd finished, she'd made him memorize it all. The ritual he'd used was a one-way trip, meaning he was stuck in the past and had to live out the rest of his life here rather than returning to the future. Not that it would've mattered if he'd been able to go back, Hermione would've still been dead and Hadrian would've been without the love of his life.
The rules of time travel stated that you could go back to the past, but it would cause the time stream to split, and therefore create a new timeline running parallel with the original one. In other words, if he'd been able to travel forward in time to where he left, he'd arrive in an alternate future caused by his actions in the past. Meanwhile, his original timeline would be intact but Hermione would still be dead and no version of himself would be there since he'd gone back in time.
Magical Time-Turners somehow managed to circumvent this since two versions of the same person could exist simultaneously without the universe trying to tear one of them apart. Hermione had theorized that the reason for this was that you needed to stay for somewhere between 24 and 48 hours before the Universe noticed, and Time-Turners only allowed you to go back eight hours at the most, preferably two hours or less, and you couldn't return twice in the same time period. She hadn't known what would happen if three or four versions of the same person existed at once, but both Professor McGonagall and the Unspeakables she'd later discussed the topic with had all believed the ramifications would've been catastrophic.
But he didn't want to talk about his wife's terrible demise or the improbability of getting his version of her back. She was dead in the future, but here in the past she was very much alive, and if he had anything to say about it she, and his younger self, would have a much brighter and safer future than their original selves had to go through. There was too much at stake for him to fail.
"I read through the scroll and the ward schematics. They were pretty advanced for the time period and included some things I hadn't seen before or after I read the schematics. Over the years I updated them with various new wards and other defensive and offensive magic I came across. Eventually, I had to take everything down and re-do them from scratch because it was too much of a patchwork job, but the end result was bloody brilliant."
The patchwork job was only part of the reason, the other half was that he wanted to perform all the spells with the Elder Wand. He only told his wife that he didn't destroy the Wand of Destiny and he kept it well hidden from everyone. It was imperative that the few people who knew about it believed it had been destroyed so no one would come after him or his family in the hope of gaining control of it. He didn't know how people found out he had it, but, in the end, he had publicly destroyed a replica of it and used his Holly and Phoenix Feather Wand to burn the pieces to ashes. The scene had caused a major outcry and a public backlash, but he'd ignored it. The media and the magical population was fickle at best and in time he'd be their hero once again.
In the Magical World, the Tale of the Three Brothers had been considered to be nothing more than a children's story by most people. Xenophilius Lovegood had been one of the few people who believed in the Deathly Hallows, and even he didn't know where any of them could be found. Hadrian had inherited the Cloak of Invisibility so it was rightfully his, he'd won the Resurrection Stone by somehow defeating Voldemort as a toddler and it had been reinforced several times after that making the Resurrection Stone legally his along with everything else that once belonged to Tom Riddle and the Gaunt Family, and he had won the Elder Wand's loyalty from Draco Malfoy who had disarmed Albus Dumbledore - its previous owner. By the Inheritance Laws, the Elder Wand was his since it should've been passed down through the generations rather than for people to keep murdering and stealing it.
What it all came down to was that he was the rightful owner of all of the Deathly Hallows and therefore the Master of Death. It could be argued that now that he was in the past and his father owned the original version of the Cloak he couldn't be the proper owner. Particularly since Dumbledore had the Wand and the Stone was still a Horcrux. Well, to be fair, the actual Stone had never been a Horcrux, it had been the ring it was attached to. The latter two he could acquire, but he couldn't take the Cloak from his father. Hopefully, the two objects were able to co-exist without their power being diminished. But he did intend to combine the two Wands and the two Stones.
On the bright side, no one had connected his Cloak with the Peverell Cloak of Invisibility, nor did anyone know he'd ever been in possession of the Resurrection Stone. Ron had known, of course, but in a fit of paranoia after the Battle of Hogwarts, he obliviated all knowledge of the Deathly Hallows from the mind of his fair-weather friend. He'd proven too many times he would leave his friends behind if his jealousy overtook him or things got too hard, and, like Hagrid, he couldn't really be trusted with keeping secrets. It was a bitter realization, but one that had been coming for years. When he'd gone back to the past they'd still been on friendly terms, even if it was more of an acquaintance than anything else.
The Weasley family hadn't taken it well when he'd chosen not to get back together with Ginny after the War, and Ron and Hermione hadn't really managed to get into a relationship, to begin with. Their personalities and expectations for the future hadn't meshed at all. Ron had expected to get married right away and for Hermione to stay at home popping out a lot of babies while he worked. Hermione had wanted to finish her education and get a good job afterward. After a major blow-up at the Burrow, their pseudo-relationship and their friendship had shattered, and Hermione had convinced Hadrian to go to Australia with her to find her parents. By the time they got back a year and a half later, Ron had gotten married to Lavender Brown and they were expecting their first child. Ginny had still had her sights on Hadrian but was in a relationship with some pureblood wizard more than a decade her senior.
It hadn't mattered. Traveling alone with Hermione had caused long-buried feelings for his best female friend to re-surface and it hadn't taken long for them to become a couple. It hadn't been easy, but they had both been invested in making it work. Hermione thrived the most when she was reading and researching while Hadrian was a man of action and def-defying stunts both with a wand and on a broom, but they had made it work because they wanted it to work. And they had been so happy together, despite everything. In the end, they'd lost contact with most of the Weasley's and only remained acquainted with Ron and George.
"The last Parselmouth before me was Ambrose Potter who died in 1612. However, none of them ever updated the Parselwards on the Potter Mansion, and simply created regular wards on any new properties the family acquired."
At this point, Lily interjected with a question of her own, "If Riddle was able to get through all the wards on this cottage, including the Fidelius Charm Dumbledore cast, does that mean there are no Parselwards on it?"
Hadrian nodded, "Correct. This cottage was purchased by a cadet branch back in the 1860's and while it does have some great wards it's nothing compared to the wards on the properties bought by the main branch."
He turned towards his father, "This cottage has belonged to the main branch since 1942, do you know why it wasn't upgraded?"
"Back then the war against Grindelwald was still going strong and all of the remaining Potter Cadet Branches were part of the voluntary forces fighting against him. Over a three year period, most of them were killed. Due to the unrest in Europe and the number of properties belonging to the family some of them fell by the wayside. Especially since they were all turned over to the main branch as the Cadet Branches feel in the war again Grindelwald. There simply were not enough people to go from estate to estate to check and upgrade the warding schemes aside from reconfiguring them to the head of the family. Then the war against You-Know heated up and the rest of the family was killed until your mother and I was the only ones left. To be honest, I'm not sure why nothing was done before we moved in here, other than Dumbledore stating it was safe."
Hadrian barely managed to not roll his eyes. Why was he not surprised that the old coot was responsible for the lack of wards on his family's residence? He was willing to bet a sizable amount of money that Dumbledore had somehow managed to remove some of the better wards on the cottage to make it easier for Riddle to force his way in to kill the Potter's after he'd gotten access to the Fidelius. Judging by the way his father was talking he hadn't taken over the wards on the cottage, simply leaving his family's safety in Dumbledore's corrupt hands.
"So, what you're saying is that not only did you allow Albus Dumbledore to convince you to move into a house with limited protections when you knew full well that Potter Manor has never been breached in the entirety of its history, but you also completely trusted Albus Dumbledore to check and upgrade the wards on a Potter property, and then you allowed him to cast the Fidelius Charm on the cottage with Peter Pettigrew as the Secret Keeper. At no point did either of you check the wards yourself. This being the middle of a major War it didn't occur to either of you to err on the side of paranoia and make Pettigrew swear an Oath to not reveal the location to anyone without your consent?"
Both of his parents stared incredulously at him for a few moments before his mother spoke, "Albus is a great wizard and we trust him. Or we trusted him until you came along. Why wouldn't we believe him when he told us it was safe for us to stay here?"
"Because the Potter Family is world renowned for their wards." He looked directly at his father, "I know you chose not to follow the family tradition and become a ward specialist, but still, I'm sure your father and other family members taught you at least some of the trade. Enough to keep the knowledge alive. You should've used that knowledge to keep your family hideout secure and not just trusted an outsider, no matter how much you might like or respect them. By reading the warding journals going back centuries, I know it's standard for a Potter to make anyone, even family members, who cast any kind of security or wards on something Potter owned to swear an oath to not betray the family. So why didn't you make Dumbledore and Pettigrew swear an oath?"
That had been bugging him ever since he found a passage about the standard security measures in his great-great-great-grandfathers warding journal. Every Head of the Family had one, even his father. James Potter's journal had been pretty short, and had, for the most part, included prank material reworked as safety measures. It was innovative and definitely outside the box, and if nurtured properly could've been highly effective. It had given him some great ideas for his own warding schemes.
During the process, he had ended up writing an entirely new book on Potter Wards. He'd taken all of the family's warding journals, not just for the Head of House, but any Potter who had written down anything which would be helpful in warding a building or property, and gone through everything. Then he'd sorted the wards by category, alphabetized each category, made a proper index at the beginning, a list of all Potter properties and which wards were on each of them, and a registry (person who added the ward(s), year, language, etc) at the end to easier find what you were looking for. Hermione had added a lot of details, including a basic outline at the beginning of the Book to show the bare minimum a basic ward needed to incorporate, and a spell which connected all family journals, deeds, properties, and legal documents to the book as long as it was signed by a member of the main Branch, magically updating it whenever something new was added.
The same thing was done when a new property was acquired. The book would list which wards were already there and when new ones were added the book reflected the change. This only included the Main Branch, but since Hadrian was the only one left when he wrote the book, it didn't really matter. Over the years the book had quite literally been a life saver, particularly since one of the charms Hermione had added was one which alerted him when something needed to be redone or upgraded to maintain everything properly. He'd never gotten around to sell anything, and since Sirius had fallen through the Veil he'd inherited all of the Black Estate as well. Adding even more properties, including Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. When Hermione had remembered that she'd promptly made sure their warding schemes had been added to the Book. It was a good thing the Book was magical or it would've been bloody gigantic. More than a millennium's worth of journals from two families added up to a lot of information.
Hermione being Hermione had adjusted the procedure, as far as it was possible, with other subjects. An index of all of their books and which libraries they were in, had been on the top of the list to nobody's surprise. The project had taken decades to complete since she kept getting sidetracked by reading the books, trying out various spells, and, of course, attending to her own life. It had pretty much been her own personal heaven and Hadrian had simply left her to it, just making sure she took proper breaks and spent time with the family.
While Hadrian's mind had been wandering, his parents had been struggling to find a reply that didn't amount to 'we blindly trusted Dumbledore'. "I'm sorry, Hadrian. I can't explain why we didn't at the very least make them swear an oath to keeps us safe. Because you're right, that has been drilled into my mind since I was a child and it should've been instinctive, but somehow it wasn't done. It never even crossed my mind until now."
A pensive Lily added, "You think Dumbledore did something to us, or at least to James. You mentioned earlier that he used the Imperius Curse on Sirius to change Secret Keepers, do you think he did the same to us? Or do you think he used something else?"
"More likely than not he used Memory Modification Spells in combination with Legilimancy. My wife began studying both Legilimancy and Occlumency a few years after the Second Blood War when she discovered a book on the subject in the Potter Library. Years later she found another book on the Mind Arts in the Black Library describing morally ambiguous ways of using the skill, and also highly illegal ways of taking advantage of people's stray thoughts and how to get people to think about something they wouldn't verbalize. When we compared what was in the book with Dumbledore's behavior towards me and other people over the years there was an extremely high similarity."
While they had half-way been expecting it because of how Dumbledore seemed to know a lot more than he should and then combined it with his long-time reputation of knowing just about everything that was going on, the result had been unsurprising, but it had still hurt to essentially have it confirmed. The man had been hailed as the Leader of the Light and all things good for so long and then finding it's based on basically mind-raping people on a regular basis and clearly not having any moral qualms about it...
"Which reminds me, the two of you need to learn the Mind Arts - particularly Occlumency. It not only protects your mind from Legilimency attacks but it also improves your memory recall."
His mother gave him a reassuring smile, "I already know Occlumency. A childhood friend and I learned it together back in our third year, mostly for the memory retention. He found a mention of it in a book his mother gave him and convinced her to borrow a book from her family library on the Mind Arts he could study. We studied it carefully from the end of the year and regularly practiced it."
Hadrian noticed his father slightly scowling at the mention of the childhood friend, which meant it could only be one person she was referring to. It added up. "You and Snape learned Occlumency together?"
"Yes. You've met Severus?" Her green eyes widened and she smiled slightly.
"Yes. He was the Potions Professor and Head of Slytherin." Try as he might, he couldn't keep all of the bitterness out of his voice and both of his parents noticed. Only his father seemed to approve of his dislike of their old classmate. His mother appeared conflicted.
Rather than allow this to become a drawn-out Q&A side session, he simply added, "Snape is a hypocritical bastard who proceeded to spend about a decade and a half deliberately ruining peoples chances of passing Potions. He systematically sabotaged the students in his class by deliberately frightening them in various ways. One of his favorite ways was to stand behind them during crucial points of the brewing process and breathe down their necks, and when they failed he gleefully gave them a zero for the day, in addition to taking points and/or assigning detention. This directly caused there to be fewer potions masters, Aurors, and Healers. To mentioned a few. The few who did pass were mostly Slytherins and they were then allowed into the NEWT class. Everyone else either had to get private lessons during the Summer or try for another profession.
"And that's ignoring his part in your murder and the attempted murder on me. His consistent bullying of all non-Slytherins, him deliberately targeting me because of you." Here he made eye-contact with his father, "And him using his Legilimency to mind-rape just about everyone, just because he could, and probably sharing what he learned with both Dumbledore and his fellow terrorists."
Hadrian drew a deep breath to calm himself down. He hadn't intended to talk about Snape so soon. Crap. His parents were looking upset and baby!Hadrian was getting fussy because of the loud voice. A second deep breath, and a third. He could do this. He could stop Snape, Dumbledore, and all the other bloody idiots who had ruined Magical Britain. He just needed to keep calm, be reasonable, and get it done.
Author: mirrored_illusions aka 3am_moonlight.
Rating: Teen.
Fandoms: Harry Potter - JKR.
Timeline: Pre-Hogwarts/late Marauder Era.
Characters: Harry Potter, Lily E. Potter, James Potter.
Pairings: James/Lily, past Harry/Hermione.
Disclaimer: The HP 'verse is the property of JKR.
Summary: Hadrian Potter travels back in time in an attempt to save his parents lives, give his younger self a happy childhood, and make the British Magical World a better place for everyone.
Word Count: 4,312 (this chapter) & 8,336 (so far).
Links: AO3 | FF.net | HPFFA
Note: This chapter was originally posted on April 5th, 2018.
Baby Hadrian and his future counterpart had a short exchange in the sibilant language before their parents had enough and demanded they switch back to normal English.
“My apologies,” the elder one replied while the younger one simply gurgled happily at his mother. “I've spent so much time either believing the ability was transferred from the Dark Tosser who killed my parents or with the uncertainty of how I'd gotten it that I just wanted to enjoy it for once. Even if it was only a light conversation with a toddler who has a limited vocabulary. I didn't mean to scare or alarm you.”
James and Lily accepted the apology a little shakily but politely asked him to refrain from doing it again without their consent. Hadrian, not wanting to alienate his parents, readily agreed but added.
“Back in my time, after the Second Blood War ended, I made sure to learn as much as possible about both Parseltongue and what it really means to be a Parselmouth. To my surprise, it turned out there are countries in the world where people with the ability are highly revered and sought after. Countries such as Greece and India, and some countries in South America.
“The first person in recorded history who had the ability was a healer. He was later named as a Greek god, one of Apollo's sons. His name was Asclepius, and he later became known by a symbol of a rod wreathed with a snake. A symbol we now associate with healing and medicine. In Greece, snakes were sacred beings of wisdom, healing, and resurrection. According to the myth a snake gave Asclepius secret knowledge in return for kindness rendered.
“Over the generations, anyone with the Parselmouth capability in Greece was trained in Healing, even if they were not particularly skilled in the field. The reason for it was because any spell cast in the serpent language is amplified due to the intent of the caster and the magical language. The language itself is also well-matched to improve health.
“In the same vein, all Parselmouths are sought after by people dealing with snakes, certain reptiles, and in some cases dragons. Obviously, this is because we can speak directly to the animals and therefore get their cooperation more easily by explaining what we want to happen. This doesn't always work since they are in no way forced to do our bidding. They are also much simpler than humans and generally only want food, warmth, and safety. However, if you can supply them with all three they are much more inclined to comply with whatever you want from them.
Hadrian gave them a serious look but tempered it with a small smile. “Personally, I ended up going for the third option when I finally found out the Potter's used to be legendary for creating and maintaining Wards. Sealing a Ward with Parseltongue, and, of course, using it to cast most if not all the spells, makes it pretty much unbreakable. Even if you are one of the rare people who can speak the language, you'd still need to know the specific counters in order to undo them. This happened at a time of turmoil after the Second Blood War, so it made people very eager to protect their homes. Consequently, my newfound application of a previously feared ability, coupled with warding, made me very rich, very fast."
Truthfully, the reason for that wasn't just the latest Blood War, but he'd get back to that later. There was a lot of information and that particular bomb could wait. Right now he needed to deal with the upcoming Halloween Incident and make sure his parents understood the importance of baby Hadrian learning about the significance of his gift. Parseltongue didn't make anyone evil, but killing or ostracizing everyone with the ability was akin to shooting themselves in the foot. Or, since they were in the magical world, hexing themselves in the foot without knowing basic magical first aid.
"You should also know that the main reason Potter Manor hasn't been breached is due to the Parselmagic on the building, the grounds, and the surrounding area. They were raised by Kelton Potter sometime between 1194 and 1198. Because of Salazar Slytherin, this wasn't announced to anyone outside of the Potter Family, and it was restricted information even within the family. Parselmouths have been rare in the Family and this is directly responsible for how it's been kept a secret for so long. Only the Head of the Family and his direct Heir was told for centuries. It was verbally told from father to son, rather than reading it from a book or scroll, and because of this, the information was lost in 1648 when the Head of the Family and his Heir were both killed on the same day. The Heir's oldest son was only eight at the time and hadn't been told, as a result, the knowledge was lost."
"If this knowledge was lost," James questioned, "Then how do you know?"
Hadrian smiled sadly, "My wife craved knowledge the way other people crave air. She read through the Potter and Black Libraries and came across a scroll with some of the information. Most of it was written in Parselscript, but there was enough in Old Latin for her to get the gist of what it was. Most of the Old Latin was simply a list of who had known and when they had been told. She turned it over to me."
Lily Potter gave him a sympathetic look and asked, a little tentatively, "We're sorry for your loss?"
"Thank you. She was hit by a terrible curse we were unable to find the counter-curse for, and she ended up dying slowly and very painfully. Going back in time to undo Dumbledore's manipulations was her idea."
His parents looked shocked and saddened by the news, but everyone has a reason for doing things. This was his. Well, it was one of his reasons. They had worked together and Hermione had sketched out an elaborate plan, spanning several years. When they'd finished, she'd made him memorize it all. The ritual he'd used was a one-way trip, meaning he was stuck in the past and had to live out the rest of his life here rather than returning to the future. Not that it would've mattered if he'd been able to go back, Hermione would've still been dead and Hadrian would've been without the love of his life.
The rules of time travel stated that you could go back to the past, but it would cause the time stream to split, and therefore create a new timeline running parallel with the original one. In other words, if he'd been able to travel forward in time to where he left, he'd arrive in an alternate future caused by his actions in the past. Meanwhile, his original timeline would be intact but Hermione would still be dead and no version of himself would be there since he'd gone back in time.
Magical Time-Turners somehow managed to circumvent this since two versions of the same person could exist simultaneously without the universe trying to tear one of them apart. Hermione had theorized that the reason for this was that you needed to stay for somewhere between 24 and 48 hours before the Universe noticed, and Time-Turners only allowed you to go back eight hours at the most, preferably two hours or less, and you couldn't return twice in the same time period. She hadn't known what would happen if three or four versions of the same person existed at once, but both Professor McGonagall and the Unspeakables she'd later discussed the topic with had all believed the ramifications would've been catastrophic.
But he didn't want to talk about his wife's terrible demise or the improbability of getting his version of her back. She was dead in the future, but here in the past she was very much alive, and if he had anything to say about it she, and his younger self, would have a much brighter and safer future than their original selves had to go through. There was too much at stake for him to fail.
"I read through the scroll and the ward schematics. They were pretty advanced for the time period and included some things I hadn't seen before or after I read the schematics. Over the years I updated them with various new wards and other defensive and offensive magic I came across. Eventually, I had to take everything down and re-do them from scratch because it was too much of a patchwork job, but the end result was bloody brilliant."
The patchwork job was only part of the reason, the other half was that he wanted to perform all the spells with the Elder Wand. He only told his wife that he didn't destroy the Wand of Destiny and he kept it well hidden from everyone. It was imperative that the few people who knew about it believed it had been destroyed so no one would come after him or his family in the hope of gaining control of it. He didn't know how people found out he had it, but, in the end, he had publicly destroyed a replica of it and used his Holly and Phoenix Feather Wand to burn the pieces to ashes. The scene had caused a major outcry and a public backlash, but he'd ignored it. The media and the magical population was fickle at best and in time he'd be their hero once again.
In the Magical World, the Tale of the Three Brothers had been considered to be nothing more than a children's story by most people. Xenophilius Lovegood had been one of the few people who believed in the Deathly Hallows, and even he didn't know where any of them could be found. Hadrian had inherited the Cloak of Invisibility so it was rightfully his, he'd won the Resurrection Stone by somehow defeating Voldemort as a toddler and it had been reinforced several times after that making the Resurrection Stone legally his along with everything else that once belonged to Tom Riddle and the Gaunt Family, and he had won the Elder Wand's loyalty from Draco Malfoy who had disarmed Albus Dumbledore - its previous owner. By the Inheritance Laws, the Elder Wand was his since it should've been passed down through the generations rather than for people to keep murdering and stealing it.
What it all came down to was that he was the rightful owner of all of the Deathly Hallows and therefore the Master of Death. It could be argued that now that he was in the past and his father owned the original version of the Cloak he couldn't be the proper owner. Particularly since Dumbledore had the Wand and the Stone was still a Horcrux. Well, to be fair, the actual Stone had never been a Horcrux, it had been the ring it was attached to. The latter two he could acquire, but he couldn't take the Cloak from his father. Hopefully, the two objects were able to co-exist without their power being diminished. But he did intend to combine the two Wands and the two Stones.
On the bright side, no one had connected his Cloak with the Peverell Cloak of Invisibility, nor did anyone know he'd ever been in possession of the Resurrection Stone. Ron had known, of course, but in a fit of paranoia after the Battle of Hogwarts, he obliviated all knowledge of the Deathly Hallows from the mind of his fair-weather friend. He'd proven too many times he would leave his friends behind if his jealousy overtook him or things got too hard, and, like Hagrid, he couldn't really be trusted with keeping secrets. It was a bitter realization, but one that had been coming for years. When he'd gone back to the past they'd still been on friendly terms, even if it was more of an acquaintance than anything else.
The Weasley family hadn't taken it well when he'd chosen not to get back together with Ginny after the War, and Ron and Hermione hadn't really managed to get into a relationship, to begin with. Their personalities and expectations for the future hadn't meshed at all. Ron had expected to get married right away and for Hermione to stay at home popping out a lot of babies while he worked. Hermione had wanted to finish her education and get a good job afterward. After a major blow-up at the Burrow, their pseudo-relationship and their friendship had shattered, and Hermione had convinced Hadrian to go to Australia with her to find her parents. By the time they got back a year and a half later, Ron had gotten married to Lavender Brown and they were expecting their first child. Ginny had still had her sights on Hadrian but was in a relationship with some pureblood wizard more than a decade her senior.
It hadn't mattered. Traveling alone with Hermione had caused long-buried feelings for his best female friend to re-surface and it hadn't taken long for them to become a couple. It hadn't been easy, but they had both been invested in making it work. Hermione thrived the most when she was reading and researching while Hadrian was a man of action and def-defying stunts both with a wand and on a broom, but they had made it work because they wanted it to work. And they had been so happy together, despite everything. In the end, they'd lost contact with most of the Weasley's and only remained acquainted with Ron and George.
"The last Parselmouth before me was Ambrose Potter who died in 1612. However, none of them ever updated the Parselwards on the Potter Mansion, and simply created regular wards on any new properties the family acquired."
At this point, Lily interjected with a question of her own, "If Riddle was able to get through all the wards on this cottage, including the Fidelius Charm Dumbledore cast, does that mean there are no Parselwards on it?"
Hadrian nodded, "Correct. This cottage was purchased by a cadet branch back in the 1860's and while it does have some great wards it's nothing compared to the wards on the properties bought by the main branch."
He turned towards his father, "This cottage has belonged to the main branch since 1942, do you know why it wasn't upgraded?"
"Back then the war against Grindelwald was still going strong and all of the remaining Potter Cadet Branches were part of the voluntary forces fighting against him. Over a three year period, most of them were killed. Due to the unrest in Europe and the number of properties belonging to the family some of them fell by the wayside. Especially since they were all turned over to the main branch as the Cadet Branches feel in the war again Grindelwald. There simply were not enough people to go from estate to estate to check and upgrade the warding schemes aside from reconfiguring them to the head of the family. Then the war against You-Know heated up and the rest of the family was killed until your mother and I was the only ones left. To be honest, I'm not sure why nothing was done before we moved in here, other than Dumbledore stating it was safe."
Hadrian barely managed to not roll his eyes. Why was he not surprised that the old coot was responsible for the lack of wards on his family's residence? He was willing to bet a sizable amount of money that Dumbledore had somehow managed to remove some of the better wards on the cottage to make it easier for Riddle to force his way in to kill the Potter's after he'd gotten access to the Fidelius. Judging by the way his father was talking he hadn't taken over the wards on the cottage, simply leaving his family's safety in Dumbledore's corrupt hands.
"So, what you're saying is that not only did you allow Albus Dumbledore to convince you to move into a house with limited protections when you knew full well that Potter Manor has never been breached in the entirety of its history, but you also completely trusted Albus Dumbledore to check and upgrade the wards on a Potter property, and then you allowed him to cast the Fidelius Charm on the cottage with Peter Pettigrew as the Secret Keeper. At no point did either of you check the wards yourself. This being the middle of a major War it didn't occur to either of you to err on the side of paranoia and make Pettigrew swear an Oath to not reveal the location to anyone without your consent?"
Both of his parents stared incredulously at him for a few moments before his mother spoke, "Albus is a great wizard and we trust him. Or we trusted him until you came along. Why wouldn't we believe him when he told us it was safe for us to stay here?"
"Because the Potter Family is world renowned for their wards." He looked directly at his father, "I know you chose not to follow the family tradition and become a ward specialist, but still, I'm sure your father and other family members taught you at least some of the trade. Enough to keep the knowledge alive. You should've used that knowledge to keep your family hideout secure and not just trusted an outsider, no matter how much you might like or respect them. By reading the warding journals going back centuries, I know it's standard for a Potter to make anyone, even family members, who cast any kind of security or wards on something Potter owned to swear an oath to not betray the family. So why didn't you make Dumbledore and Pettigrew swear an oath?"
That had been bugging him ever since he found a passage about the standard security measures in his great-great-great-grandfathers warding journal. Every Head of the Family had one, even his father. James Potter's journal had been pretty short, and had, for the most part, included prank material reworked as safety measures. It was innovative and definitely outside the box, and if nurtured properly could've been highly effective. It had given him some great ideas for his own warding schemes.
During the process, he had ended up writing an entirely new book on Potter Wards. He'd taken all of the family's warding journals, not just for the Head of House, but any Potter who had written down anything which would be helpful in warding a building or property, and gone through everything. Then he'd sorted the wards by category, alphabetized each category, made a proper index at the beginning, a list of all Potter properties and which wards were on each of them, and a registry (person who added the ward(s), year, language, etc) at the end to easier find what you were looking for. Hermione had added a lot of details, including a basic outline at the beginning of the Book to show the bare minimum a basic ward needed to incorporate, and a spell which connected all family journals, deeds, properties, and legal documents to the book as long as it was signed by a member of the main Branch, magically updating it whenever something new was added.
The same thing was done when a new property was acquired. The book would list which wards were already there and when new ones were added the book reflected the change. This only included the Main Branch, but since Hadrian was the only one left when he wrote the book, it didn't really matter. Over the years the book had quite literally been a life saver, particularly since one of the charms Hermione had added was one which alerted him when something needed to be redone or upgraded to maintain everything properly. He'd never gotten around to sell anything, and since Sirius had fallen through the Veil he'd inherited all of the Black Estate as well. Adding even more properties, including Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. When Hermione had remembered that she'd promptly made sure their warding schemes had been added to the Book. It was a good thing the Book was magical or it would've been bloody gigantic. More than a millennium's worth of journals from two families added up to a lot of information.
Hermione being Hermione had adjusted the procedure, as far as it was possible, with other subjects. An index of all of their books and which libraries they were in, had been on the top of the list to nobody's surprise. The project had taken decades to complete since she kept getting sidetracked by reading the books, trying out various spells, and, of course, attending to her own life. It had pretty much been her own personal heaven and Hadrian had simply left her to it, just making sure she took proper breaks and spent time with the family.
While Hadrian's mind had been wandering, his parents had been struggling to find a reply that didn't amount to 'we blindly trusted Dumbledore'. "I'm sorry, Hadrian. I can't explain why we didn't at the very least make them swear an oath to keeps us safe. Because you're right, that has been drilled into my mind since I was a child and it should've been instinctive, but somehow it wasn't done. It never even crossed my mind until now."
A pensive Lily added, "You think Dumbledore did something to us, or at least to James. You mentioned earlier that he used the Imperius Curse on Sirius to change Secret Keepers, do you think he did the same to us? Or do you think he used something else?"
"More likely than not he used Memory Modification Spells in combination with Legilimancy. My wife began studying both Legilimancy and Occlumency a few years after the Second Blood War when she discovered a book on the subject in the Potter Library. Years later she found another book on the Mind Arts in the Black Library describing morally ambiguous ways of using the skill, and also highly illegal ways of taking advantage of people's stray thoughts and how to get people to think about something they wouldn't verbalize. When we compared what was in the book with Dumbledore's behavior towards me and other people over the years there was an extremely high similarity."
While they had half-way been expecting it because of how Dumbledore seemed to know a lot more than he should and then combined it with his long-time reputation of knowing just about everything that was going on, the result had been unsurprising, but it had still hurt to essentially have it confirmed. The man had been hailed as the Leader of the Light and all things good for so long and then finding it's based on basically mind-raping people on a regular basis and clearly not having any moral qualms about it...
"Which reminds me, the two of you need to learn the Mind Arts - particularly Occlumency. It not only protects your mind from Legilimency attacks but it also improves your memory recall."
His mother gave him a reassuring smile, "I already know Occlumency. A childhood friend and I learned it together back in our third year, mostly for the memory retention. He found a mention of it in a book his mother gave him and convinced her to borrow a book from her family library on the Mind Arts he could study. We studied it carefully from the end of the year and regularly practiced it."
Hadrian noticed his father slightly scowling at the mention of the childhood friend, which meant it could only be one person she was referring to. It added up. "You and Snape learned Occlumency together?"
"Yes. You've met Severus?" Her green eyes widened and she smiled slightly.
"Yes. He was the Potions Professor and Head of Slytherin." Try as he might, he couldn't keep all of the bitterness out of his voice and both of his parents noticed. Only his father seemed to approve of his dislike of their old classmate. His mother appeared conflicted.
Rather than allow this to become a drawn-out Q&A side session, he simply added, "Snape is a hypocritical bastard who proceeded to spend about a decade and a half deliberately ruining peoples chances of passing Potions. He systematically sabotaged the students in his class by deliberately frightening them in various ways. One of his favorite ways was to stand behind them during crucial points of the brewing process and breathe down their necks, and when they failed he gleefully gave them a zero for the day, in addition to taking points and/or assigning detention. This directly caused there to be fewer potions masters, Aurors, and Healers. To mentioned a few. The few who did pass were mostly Slytherins and they were then allowed into the NEWT class. Everyone else either had to get private lessons during the Summer or try for another profession.
"And that's ignoring his part in your murder and the attempted murder on me. His consistent bullying of all non-Slytherins, him deliberately targeting me because of you." Here he made eye-contact with his father, "And him using his Legilimency to mind-rape just about everyone, just because he could, and probably sharing what he learned with both Dumbledore and his fellow terrorists."
Hadrian drew a deep breath to calm himself down. He hadn't intended to talk about Snape so soon. Crap. His parents were looking upset and baby!Hadrian was getting fussy because of the loud voice. A second deep breath, and a third. He could do this. He could stop Snape, Dumbledore, and all the other bloody idiots who had ruined Magical Britain. He just needed to keep calm, be reasonable, and get it done.