[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Princeps, gen, PG-13, 2/3
Part One.
Title: Princeps
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Gen
Content Notes: Time travel, angst, present tense
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 3900 words
Summary: Harry has worked for years as an Unspeakable to identify the best point where he might go back in time to change the impact of Voldemort’s war. Now he knows: he will have to return to his parents’ Hogwarts years and encourage the Slytherins to stand on their own instead of following a leader. He knows how to assume the post of Defense professor and how to reach the Slytherins. And from there, well, surely nothing can go too wrong.
Author’s Notes: This is one of “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics for this year. The title comes from a Latin word for the leader of the Senate, and also “first, foremost,” sometimes considered as “first among equals.” There will be three parts.
“Professor Salvare?”
Harry turns around with a slight smile. It took Regulus Black longer to approach him than it did Severus. Then again, that makes sense, Harry thinks. Regulus is younger, and he doesn’t stand out in Slytherin House the way Severus does, with his self-confidence and his skill at Potions and his Gryffindor friend. It’s taken Regulus longer to decide that he deserves answers, or that he’s not going to get them just from watching the older Slytherins.
Regulus stands in front of him and twines a quill around his fingers. It’s already broken, so Harry doesn’t comment on it. He just nods. “Yes, Mr. Black?”
“I-heard something. I don’t know if you want to act on it, because it’s a rumor, but I heard something,” Regulus says rapidly. From his tone, Harry reckons that other professors have scolded him for bringing “rumors” to them before.
“That’s all right, Mr. Black. You can tell me and I can investigate it.”
Regulus nods, looking relieved. “I heard that my brother and his friends were planning to play some kind of trick on Prince-Severus, I mean.” Regulus sounds a little self-conscious, maybe because Severus has been speaking with him for the first time. That’s cute, and it distracts Harry for a moment from the words.
When he hears them fully, he can feel his cold heart falling into his belly. Shit. He knows, he just knows, that this is one of the tricks that the force of history is pulling, trying to align things back into what they were before.
“Where?” he asks sharply.
Luckily, Regulus doesn’t take his tone the wrong way and get silent the way he sometimes does in class when he has the wrong answer to a question. “It was somewhere around a tree,” he says. “Sorry, sir. That’s all I know.”
Harry nods and tears out of the class as though someone’s lit him on fire.
Hopefully, that will be enough “information” to make it seem reasonable that he managed to guess where he was going, if someone asks him about his “knowledge” in the future.
*
“What do you think you’re doing, Mr. Black?”
Sirius freezes when Harry abruptly looms over him and Severus. They’re not far from the Whomping Willow, and Sirius was just speaking about the “mysterious secret” located there and betting Severus that he wasn’t man enough to face it.
Harry has no idea of whether this happened the first time or not. All the participants in the Prank were dead by that point, and no one else had ever known the details.
He knows, though, that he has intervened in time this second rotation through. Sirius droops and looks away, projecting guilt so strongly that Harry doesn’t understand how the other professors always seem to be fooled by the Marauders’ excuses. Then again, most of them seem to be less suspicious of Gryffindors than Slytherins.
“Professor Salvare.” Severus draws himself up a little. “I don’t really know why you think you need to interfere. This is a private matter between me and Black, and we’re outside of class and it’s not curfew yet.”
Sirius perks up a bit, as though thinking that means he’ll get away with it, but Harry withers him with one careful glance. Then Harry sighs and turns to face Severus. “I don’t think that you can’t handle yourself,” he says. “But I do know that if you go down that tunnel into the Whomping Willow, you’ll regret it.”
“Why, sir?” At least Severus is listening.
“Because there’s a werewolf at the end of that tunnel, and he can either infect you, kill you, or scare you so badly that you’ll have nightmares about werewolves for the rest of your life,” Harry says bluntly. “Personally, I think your chances at infection are higher, because you’ll probably freeze in surprise.”
“How did you know that Remus is a werewolf?” Sirius blurts out in shock.
Harry stares at Sirius for a moment, until he can think about what he said, and turn as red as he always seemed to get in anger. “I pay attention,” Harry says finally. “And I thought that I didn’t have to intervene, given that the Headmaster obviously decided to let Mr. Lupin attend the school, until I saw the despicable prank you were going to play, Mr. Black.”
Sirius tries to clear his throat. “It was just-it was just a joke.”
“One that could have seen a student either killed or turned into a werewolf, or at the very least traumatized.” Harry shakes his head and casually casts a shield that will float around them, invisible until it’s needed, and which will herd Sirius and Severus in the right direction. It’s charmed against letting animals through, too. The last thing he needs is Sirius assuming his Animagus form and slinking away. “Come on, Mr. Black. We’re going to the Headmaster’s office, and you can explain why you thought this was an appropriate joke.”
Severus clears his throat, with more success than Sirius. “Do I need to come to, sir?”
“Oh, yes,” Harry says, and swallows his grin at the look of absolute dismay on Severus’s face. “In fact, you can explain to me what you were doing, trusting someone I know you think of as an enemy.”
“You don’t think of me that way, Professor Salvare,” Sirius says, with a note of hope in his voice.
“You are hardly threatening enough to be an enemy to me, Mr. Black,” Harry says, and doesn’t glance back to see the wind taken out of Sirius’s sails. “Now, come on. To the Headmaster’s office with both of you.”
*
“Ah, Professor Salvare. Did you think that you needed to punish both of them?”
“No, actually,” Harry says blandly as he watches the bees dancing on Dumbledore’s colorful robes. They’re blue and even have little golden hives and flowers on them. “I was going to give Mr. Prince a scolding for being stupid, but I thought you’d want to talk to both of them to find out exactly what went on.”
“Ah,” Dumbledore says again, in the ambiguous way that Harry isn’t sure if he cares for or not, and sits down behind his desk, watching Sirius and Severus both over the top of his glasses. “And what is this prank?”
Sirius stumbles his way through an explanation. Harry waits, giving Severus a reassuring glance when he tenses. Sirius isn’t giving a very good accounting of himself, but he is all but protesting his innocence, and Severus seems to think that will convince Dumbledore and Sirius won’t be punished.
Well, that was true last time. It won’t be this time, Harry thinks firmly. History will have to find another way to fight back.
“Hm.” Dumbledore turns to Severus when Sirius finishes his recitation. “And I’m sure that Mr. Snape will be happy enough to keep the secret of Mr. Lupin’s lycanthropy to himself, in exchange for not getting in trouble?”
Severus stares at him with burning eyes and opens his mouth. Harry’s elbow collides unsubtly with his ribs. And honestly, Harry doesn’t care if it’s unsubtle. He knows that Severus is about to get himself in the trouble Dumbledore seems to be offering to get him out of.
“I don’t see any reason why Mr. Prince should be in trouble at all,” Harry says pleasantly. One thing he’s come to see during his few months in the past is that Dumbledore isn’t a bad man, but he does have a soft spot for the Marauders-maybe he was like them during his time as a student-and he looks the other way far too often when he’s trying to defend them. “Mr. Black was the one who betrayed his friend’s secret and was putting another student in danger of infection and death. I think he should be disciplined, absolutely.”
“I’m afraid that without a promise from Mr. Prince, I cannot let him simply go back to his common room.” Dumbledore leans back in his chair and frowns at Harry. “Mr. Lupin’s attendance here is conditional on his lycanthropy not being known.”
“And presumably also on his lycanthropy not putting anyone else in danger, right, Headmaster?”
Dumbledore hems and haws for a second. Severus catches Harry’s eye. He looks frankly amazed. Harry smiles slightly back. He knows that Severus hasn’t had many people to stand up for him, which is a shame, but Harry is here to prove them wrong and get Severus used to this kind of thing.
It’s all part of getting him ready to be independent enough that he’ll never even consider falling for Voldemort’s honeyed words.
“I don’t see that he was any danger to other students, Mr. Salvare, since you came along.”
“But he would have been without that, Professor.”
“Mr. Lupin’s attendance at Hogwarts is something of an experiment,” Dumbledore finally admits. “I hope that it will prove to be a successful one so that the young werewolves of future generations will not be denied the education they need. Such prejudices only make them outcasts in our society.”
Harry smiles warmly. That sounds more like the Dumbledore he knows, and a notion he can get behind. “I certainly hope that young werewolves get the education they need, too, Headmaster,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean indulging their friends’ desire to get other students in trouble. Have you considered the trauma Mr. Lupin would have been put through if Mr. Black had succeeded in this ‘prank’? How he would have felt knowing that he had infected or killed another student?”
Sirius gulps and shrinks. No, he hadn’t considered that, obviously. Harry wants to sigh about the fact that his godfather has changed so little over time and space, but Dumbledore is speaking.
“That is true enough.” Dumbledore looks sternly through his glasses at Sirius. “Mr. Black. Detention for a month, with Professor McGonagall, and one hundred points from Gryffindor.”
Sirius’s mouth tumbles open. “But, sir-”
“I’d like to request that at least one week of Mr. Black’s detention be served with me,” Harry says firmly. “We have some lessons on responsibility and ethics to discuss.”
Dumbledore nods, his expression cordial. “I’m certain that Mr. Black will benefit from the lessons.” He turns to Severus. “And, Mr. Prince, may I ask for your word that you won’t betray Mr. Lupin’s condition to anyone who does not already know of it?”
“Yes, sir.” Severus smiles without much humor. “In exchange for Black’s word that he won’t prank me again.”
From the outraged look on Sirius’s face, Harry thinks he knows how history will attempt to mend itself. Sirius will be so angry that he and James and maybe even Remus will play another prank on Severus, and this will be the one that breaks apart his friendship with Lily and makes him bitter.
Well, Harry can do something about that, too. He catches Sirius’s eye, and Sirius freezes. Harry holds the glance and then turns back to the desk, in time to see Dumbledore looking back and forth between him and Sirius. Well, let him. He can’t prevent Harry from teaching lessons, the way a professor is supposed to do, and each professor at Hogwarts also runs their own detentions.
“I think that makes more than enough sense,” Dumbledore says. “A good proposition, Mr. Prince. Ten points to Slytherin.”
Severus looks stunned. Harry conceals his grin and listens carefully to the promises, Sirius’s sullen one and Severus’s clear-voiced one. Well, Sirius is as sincere as he can sound. Harry is going to spend some time drilling ethics into that stubborn head of his during Sirius’s detentions.
When they leave the Headmaster’s office, Sirius runs away without looking back at Harry. Severus walks at his side, and speaks in a slow voice when they reach the bottom of the moving staircase. “I owe you a Life-Debt, sir.”
Harry blinks, a bit wrong-footed by this. Then again, probably time is thinking that it’ll fasten the life-debt to Harry since it can’t do it to James. He just shrugs and says, “I didn’t actually prevent you from being bitten by a werewolf, Mr. Prince. Not for certain. You never came face-to-face with the werewolf. I’m sure that it doesn’t satisfy the oldest requirements for a life-debt.”
“Nevertheless, sir.”
Severus’s eyes have that hero-worship in them again, and Harry only hesitates for a second before nodding briskly. He can work with this. “Then I’ll ask nothing more of you than to keep your word to the Headmaster about not telling other people that Mr. Lupin is a werewolf even if Mr. Black pranks you again.”
“But what do I do if he pranks me?”
“Come and tell me, Mr. Prince.”
Severus loses the battle against his smile then. “I’ll do that, Professor Salvare.”
*
Harry opens the classroom door, and Sirius slinks away. Harry shakes his head after him. He knows Sirius is smart; he has to be to have become an Animagus so young. But he’s also stubborn and sulky because he knows that he did something wrong, and he doesn’t want to admit it.
Well, no matter. Sooner or later Sirius is going to hear Harry’s lectures on ethics.
“Professor?”
Regulus is hovering there. Harry nods to him. “Did you have some questions about the homework, Mr. Black?”
“No, sir. I was hoping I could talk to you.”
“Of course.” Harry lets Regulus in and shuts the office door behind him. “Is someone in Slytherin bothering you because you came to me about Mr. Prince being in trouble?” He knows that some of the Slytherins, notably Evan Rosier, are still suspicious of him because of his last name and his refusal to favor Slytherins over Gryffindors.
“Nothing like that, sir. In fact, Evan told me he was happy I helped Severus.”
Harry notes the transition to first names and smiles a little. He’s glad that Regulus is starting to feel at home among the older pure-bloods. Harry is just going to make sure that doesn’t translate into Regulus following them merrily down the path to Voldemort, which it probably did in the first timeline. “Then what did you want to talk to me about?”
“I-I just want to know why you listened to me. Not many people do, you know. Some of the professors just think I’m a prig who’s trying to get my brother in trouble, and my parents don’t listen to me because I’m the younger one, and Sirius doesn’t listen to me because I’m in Slytherin.”
“I try to listen to everyone as much as possible,” Harry says quietly. “I made mistakes in the past when I didn’t do that and didn’t value people the way I should have. Now I know I should.”
“So I’m not special, sir?”
Harry can hear the yearning in Regulus’s voice to be told he is, and he has to respond to it. “I didn’t say that. Professor Slughorn tells me that you’re highly-talented in Potions, and I know that you’re doing well in my class. What I mean is that you’re not less special than others because of your last name or your House or your position in the family, but you’re also not more special than they are because of those things. Do you see?”
Regulus’s brow is wrinkled. He nods slowly. “I think so, sir. It’s-I’m as special as Sirius is, right?”
“Right,” Harry says firmly. Maybe he can get Regulus to challenge his parents, too.
“Then would you give me special lessons like you’re giving Sirius?” Regulus asks in a rush. “I want to learn about ethics, too!”
Harry is surprised into a chuckle. “Mr. Black, I don’t know what your brother told you, but those aren’t lessons that I arranged just for his benefit, even though he needs them. They’re detentions.”
Regulus reaches out without taking his eyes from Harry’s, and casts a spell that rips a small chunk of stone out of the classroom floor. “Oops,” he says.
Harry rolls his eyes. “Detention, Mr. Black.”
Regulus grins. “Yes, sir.”
*
“But they’re bad people.”
Harry sighs and sips a little from the teacup that he started bringing to these detentions two nights ago. “I know the reputation of your parents, Mr. Black, and I’m not going to argue with you. But that’s not the same as everyone who comes from their old House being evil, and I think you’re old enough to know it.”
Sirius clenches his hands on his knees. “I saw what being Sorted into Slytherin did to Reggie. He started imitating all those pompous pure-bloods who think there’s something wrong with being Muggleborn.”
“It’s true that your brother does need to learn to modulate his rhetoric,” Harry murmurs. It’s one of the things that he’s working with Regulus on, patiently pointing out to him that none of the “theories” on why pure-bloods are supposedly better hold water. “But look at you, Sirius. You were Sorted into a House that has the idea that there’s something wrong with Slytherins, and you picked up those ideas right away, didn’t you?”
Sirius blinks and stares at him. Then he shakes his head and says, “It’s not the same thing.”
“Why not?”
“It-the pranks are harmless, and despising Muggleborns isn’t.”
“You know your prank could have killed Mr. Prince, Mr. Black. If it didn’t also kill your werewolf friend.” Harry puts his teacup down. “You need to stop thinking that nothing is wrong with hating Slytherins, that nothing is wrong with hating people in general. You’re extending your hatred every day. I know full well that you hate Slytherins, and you hate your family, and you hate Dark wizards, and I heard you the other day talking about Ravenclaws with a jeer in your voice.”
“Some of the Ravenclaws are Dark! Some of them were talking about joining that Dark Lord who’s running around!”
“And you haven’t heard similar talk among the Gryffindors, Mr. Black?”
“Wh-what? Who?”
Harry shakes his head. He doesn’t intend to betray their names, much less that he knows those names from history rather than actually overhearing discussions of their desire to serve Voldemort. “I don’t need to name them to know that they exist. You must gain control of your temper, Mr. Black. I know that most of the time you truly mean no harm, but sooner or later, that will not be enough. You’ll kill someone, and if you aren’t expelled and your wand snapped, then someone will declare blood feud on your family and kill you that way.”
Sirius looks paler than he ever did when Harry knew him for the first time. His eyes look almost black, and he abruptly clutches his hair. “It just hurts, all the time,” he whispers.
“What does, Mr. Black?”
“The-the knowledge that no matter what, I can’t fit in.” Sirius stares at him. “At home, I’m the Gryffindor Black who shamed his family. At school, I’m the Gryffindor prankster who goes too far and is probably a secret Slytherin at heart. And you’re telling me that I’m just as bad as my family.” He drops his head into his hands.
“Not as bad,” Harry reassures him, clasping Sirius on the shoulder. “I promise, Mr. Black. You’re already doing better at keeping people you don’t like alive. You’ll learn better. And one thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to follow the people your family does or the ones your Gryffindor yearmates do.”
“Who should I follow, then?”
“Yourself,” Harry says gently, and sets about teaching him how.
*
Regulus is a little harder, but then again, he’s also younger than Sirius, and he did grow up hearing that rules were good things and believing that.
“Some of the older Slytherins talk about the Dark Lord,” he confesses to Harry, eating an ice that the house-elves brought from the kitchen when Harry asked. “But they do it less since you’ve been here.”
Harry smiles and slides his own half-eaten ice across the little table to Regulus. He’s still expecting history to strike back in some way, but all seems to have been quiet since he stopped the prank on Severus. “What do they talk about now?”
“Whether it’s true what you said, that Muggleborns can be just as strong as pure-bloods in Defense.” Regulus grabs Harry’s strawberry ice and inhales it.
“What do you think, Mr. Black?”
Regulus still freezes up when Harry asks him a question, but he’s getting better at it. He sits back with a deep breath and a bit of smeared strawberry on his cheek. “I think that what you said made good sense. There’s no-there’s no way of tracing someone’s blood when it spills out of their veins. It’s all the same color. Blood doesn’t know anything.”
Harry nods. “And if magical humans and Muggles were all really different from each other, we couldn’t have children together. And there would be no Muggleborns and no Squibs.”
“That’s true,” Regulus says softly, staring down at his hands. “You know, our parents don’t like Sirius much, but at least he’s not a Squib. That’s the most shameful thing a Black can be born. Much more shameful than a Gryffindor or someone with Light magic.”
“I know.” Harry squeezes Regulus’s hand. “You know, I believe that people who do have the kind of power we do have a duty to make the world better.”
“For who?”
Harry smiles. Regulus has a sharp mind under his floppy black hair. “Squibs. Muggles. Muggleborns. Pure-bloods who don’t want to just do what their families tell them. Gryffindors. Slytherins. Goblins. Veela. House-elves.”
Regulus stares at him with his mouth open, and Harry laughs a little. “I’m sorry, that probably went too far for someone raised as a pure-blood Black.”
Regulus swallows. “N-not really. I just never thought about it before.” He ducks his head and spends a moment picking at the cloth of his robes. Then he whispers, “You really think that we can change the world?”
“I do,” Harry says firmly. “It has nothing to do with names. That’s why I told Mr. Prince that he had to be the one to choose his name. It’s about what we value and what we believe in and what matters.”
Regulus swipes the strawberry piece off his cheek and nods slowly. “Yeah. It would be.”
Harry frowns as he hears a chime that seems to ring from all the corners of the room at once, but Regulus doesn’t react to it. That’s because he can’t hear it. Harry is the only one here who can.
That’s the chime of history, signaling a significant event. This is going to matter, somehow, Harry thinks as he distractedly sends Regulus back to the Slytherin common room. Maybe time is going to try to push Regulus in the direction of being the next Dark Lord, to replace Voldemort, who most of the Slytherins won’t follow now.
Harry narrows his eyes. Well, he’s just going to stop that, and give Regulus enough strength and self-confidence that he won’t need a fake Lord. That’s the way it is. That’s what he came back in time to do.
The mocking chime sounds again, like the tolling of a death bell this time.
Harry raises his head and stares into the distance. “You don’t frighten me,” he murmurs.
This time, time is silent.
Part Three.
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