[From Litha to Lammas]: Potens, sequel to Princeps, PG,-13, gen, 1/3
Title: Potens (1/3)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None, gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU, time travel, present tense, violence
Wordcount: This part 5100
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU, sequel to ‘Princeps.’ Harry has changed time in a way he never anticipated, and now he has to deal with followers, assassination attempts from Voldemort, questions from Dumbledore, and being Hogwarts’s first returning Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in a decade.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It’s the sequel to my fic “Princeps,” posted last year, and you really need to read that one first, as, among other things, this fic spoils the ending of that one thoroughly. This will have three parts, to be posted over the next few days. The title is the Latin word meaning “powerful.”
Potens
“What is that?”
Harry smiles at Regulus, who’s loitering in the doorway of the Defense classroom and gaping at the image floating in the middle of the air. Harry supposes it is pretty impressive, even if you don’t know what it is. It looks like a spiderweb of intricate silver lines with a sapphire egg in the middle, spinning softly. Sometimes the lines change position.
“It helps me keep track of all of you who decided to enslave me,” Harry replies.
Regulus visibly droops for a second before he straightens up and scowls at Harry. “You wouldn’t have taken our oaths and made ones of yours in return if you really thought that way, Professor Salvare.”
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“For the expression on your face.”
Regulus eyes him and then turns back to the silver-and-blue image. “You still didn’t explain what this really is.”
“A visual representation of the oaths you and I and the rest of us swore,” Harry explains. He stretches and sits down in the chair behind his desk, where he can watch the silver lines near the edges of the image. He wonders idly if Regulus has noticed yet that some of them are less attached to the sapphire picture in the center than others. Well, it’s not like he really needs that explained to him yet. “I meant what I said about not branding you like that insane Dark Lord, but the one advantage of doing something like that is that the one who does it can keep track of his followers more easily, and know when one of them is in trouble, and call them to him.”
Regulus shivers a little. “I’ve heard about him calling his followers to him, but-never anything about him responding when one of them is in trouble.”
“I said he would know, not that he would do something about it.”
Regulus nods slowly. “And you think that you’ll be able to keep track of us with our oaths alone? What if-I mean, I don’t want a brand, but I would do it for you, Professor Salvare.” And there’s the hero-worship shining in his eyes that helped to change the course of history.
“Please don’t ever say something like that, Regulus.” Harry doesn’t have to glance at the image to know which silver line is the closest to the sapphire hub in the middle that represents his magic. He leans forwards and holds Regulus’s eye. “I don’t want to brand you.”
“So I shouldn’t speak the truth?”
“You should be careful of whom you speak it to,” Harry says sharply. “Especially if you don’t know who’s listening.”
Regulus pauses, then says, “Well, that’s sort of what I’ve come to speak to you about, Professor Salvare. You know that not everyone in Slytherin swore to you.”
Harry sighs. “Yes, I know.” Honestly, more of them swore than he’d like. He came back in time to encourage independence among those young Slytherins, not just change whom they follow. He can only hope that he’ll be able to make them think and perhaps reconsider standing on their own in the future.
“The ones who didn’t swear are spreading rumors.” Regulus lowers his voice. “They’re saying that they’re going to tell You-Know-Who about you. And they’re gloating that You-Know-Who is going to punish you for taking away people who he wanted.”
Harry meets Regulus’s eye, and probably startles him with his earnestness. But that’s all right. This is the most important thing Harry has ever told him, except maybe the ethics lessons that he gave Regulus earlier this year. “I promise I’ll protect you. You don’t have to worry about Voldemort.”
Regulus shivers at the name, but doesn’t look as if he wants to run, which is an important. “I know that, professor. I wanted you to know that so you can be aware that we’re going to protect you, too, and none of us are going to turn and run away because some of the sixth-years think they’re impressive, serving a madman.”
“You can’t face him on your own.” Merlin, that’s all Harry needs, someone who would otherwise have been a Death Eater deciding he’s going to be a hero and trying to confront Voldemort for the sake of honor and glory. Or, worse, deciding that he has to “prove” himself to Harry.
“Who said we were going to?” Regulus has this superior expression on his face that frequently appears there, and just as frequently drives Harry mad. It says that Regulus is going to reassure Harry, and that he’s the adult and Harry is the suicidal teenager. “We’ll face him together, sir, the way you said. We’re united and strong in purpose.”
“You’re not ready for that,” Harry says, and Regulus finally drops the condescending smile and appears to actually listen. “I know you’re good at Defense, but even at my side, you wouldn’t be ready to duel Voldemort. Or the Death Eaters he keeps around him in his inner circle, either,” he adds, because he’s sure that’s where Regulus’s busy little mind will go next. “You’re only fourteen, Regulus-”
“Fifteen.”
Harry rolls his eyes a little. “Voldemort is not going to find a teenager terrifying.”
“Is that so important? What’s important is that I want to help you. And you’re going to face the Dark Lord this summer, aren’t you.”
It’s not a question. Harry would wonder how Regulus finds these things out, but honestly, it just seems to be the way his mind works. Harry is really sorry that he never got to know the Regulus from the original timeline, the one Harry changed by traveling back. He bets that Regulus was just as smart, if he put together clues about the Horcrux.
“It’s important,” Harry says. He dismisses the image in the center of the classroom with a snap of his fingers, and ignores the way Regulus jumps. It’s good for him to be a little off-balance, lest he think that he really can go wherever he wants on his own. “I’m going to make Voldemort focused on me.”
“Then he’ll target us anyway.”
“Focused on me,” Harry repeats. “He’ll want to get at me, sure, but he’ll much more want to defeat me in open combat. He doesn’t think he has anything to be afraid of, yet. He’ll challenge me to a duel in front of his followers.”
“You’ll win it.”
Harry smiles, because there’s a slight questioning tone in the bottom of Regulus’s voice. “Of course I will, but I can’t defeat him permanently just yet. There’s a few things I need to make sure of before I try.” Like checking out some of the Horcrux locations, and also what his time travel did to the prophecy.
“I don’t see why this is so important to tell me.”
“Liar,” Harry says affectionately. Regulus’s chest is slightly puffed-out, and he’s all but strutting, as much as someone can who’s also leaning on a doorframe. He likes knowing things before anyone else does. “And the important thing is that I want you to stay out of sight right now, not attract his attention, or he might get obsessed with defeating someone else who challenges him instead of me.”
Regulus sighs. “All right. But you’ll need to tell the others that, too.”
“They’ll move on Voldemort if I don’t?”
Regulus tilts his head. “I’m not betraying any particular person’s plan, but yeah.” He glances away, and Harry immediately faces him, because he can tell something else is coming up. “Um. I was hoping you could recommend a place that I could stay this summer.”
“Your parents’ home would be dangerous for you, yes.” Harry tilts his head in response. “I would recommend the school, but Professor Dumbledore has a policy of not liking students to do that.”
Which has never made sense to Harry, honestly. Yes, Professor Dumbledore has said things like, “Students need a chance to reconnect with their families and stop being students of the school for a few months,” but what about the ones who are safest being students and have terror waiting for them at home?
Harry sighs away his frustration, and the memories. It doesn’t really matter. If he can’t fight someone head-to-head, he just steps around them.
“Yes, sir.” When Harry glances back at Regulus, he’s perched on the arm of the chair in front of Harry’s desk, his head bowed and his fingers twining together. “I already asked him, and he said no.”
Harry nods. “Then I’ll install you at the Decoy House.”
“Decoy House?”
“That one hasn’t made the rounds in Slytherin yet? I’ve purchased a house that’s exactly as extravagant and overblown as Voldemort would expect from someone challenging him. It has wards beneath wards. Even if he attacks it directly, he would have to hammer on it for hours with a full circle of helpers to have any impact, and I’d be there by then. It’s an old Selwyn manor house. I’ll make sure to tell the elves to prepare a room for you.”
Regulus stares at him, and his face is devastated. Harry sits up slowly. “Regulus?” Damn, he’s not omnipotent, but he hasn’t made a misstep this bad in a while.
“Just-thank you.” Regulus bows his head and swallows. “Could there be room for other people, too?”
Harry nods. “Of course. I had a few other students I was going to ask.” He doesn’t plan to reveal their names, because he has no idea if Regulus knows that Severus is abused at home or that Sirius is reconsidering his plan to go to the Potters’. “There’s plenty of space, though, so you can stay away from each other easily if you don’t get along.”
“That’s the last thing I’m worried about.” Regulus bows his head and looks away, and Harry politely averts his eyes. He has some idea how difficult this is for Regulus. The Sirius of his timeline offered him sanctuary from the Dursleys, and Harry was ready to go with him on the spot.
If it had ever worked out…
Well, it didn’t, Harry thinks firmly. And everything is different now. Sirius and the rest of the Marauders never played their terrible prank on Severus. And James and Lily started dating this year, instead of later, so who knows what children will be born to them?
“Thank you, Professor Salvare,” Regulus finally says, when it sounds like he has his voice under control.
Harry smiles at him. “No problem.”
*
“Young Henry, if you could stay behind? I had a question for you.”
Harry turns around with a smile and lingers against the wall in the staff meeting room as the rest of the professors file past him. Minerva gives him a tight-lipped smile that Harry returns. She thanked him at the start of the meeting for giving ethics lessons to Sirius Black and “taking the Marauders in hand,” although Harry isn’t sure how much she knows about what he did.
But as long as those young men have a better future than before, Harry’s not sure that it matters.
“Yes, Albus?” Harry asks, and settles back in the deep leather chair he rose from when Albus waves at him. The man, meanwhile, is fussing with arranging his long beard and picking up a cup of steaming tea that’s popped into being on the little table next to his chair.
Harry has found that he’s been able to accept Albus far more easily when he came back in time than he could right after the man died. Then, he was baffled and angry, and he was trying to win a war. Now, he’s winning it more easily. And Albus isn’t a bad man, simply blinded by his fondness for Gryffindor.
And his fondness for controlling people, Harry thinks as Albus leans forwards in a faux-casual attitude. Though Harry is probably the only person in the castle it would read that way to.
“I wondered about the source of these rumors I’m hearing.” Albus carefully selects a lemon drop from a canister he carries around with him, and holds it out to Harry. Harry smiles and shakes his head, the way he always does. Albus sets the canister aside with no sign of hard feelings. “Do you know about them?”
“Which rumors, sir?”
“True, this is Hogwarts, there are always rumors.” Albus nods with a smile of his own. “The rumors that the young Slytherins swore loyalty to you and plan to follow you as a leader.”
“Those rumors are exaggerated, sir. It’s some Slytherins in the fifth and fourth year, plus a few of their comrades in the years above. Not nearly all of them. I wouldn’t have accepted an oath from anyone younger than third year, anyway. They’re not old enough at that age to understand the completeness of what they’re asking for, and it’s not right to bind still-maturing magic that way.”
Albus’s eyes widen a little. “I expected you to deny them completely.”
“You believe I’d lie?” Which isn’t necessarily a surprise, but it’s important information for Harry to have.
“That’s not what I meant.” Albus hesitates for the first time since the start of the conversation. “Why would you accept the oaths of students that young at all?”
Harry eyes him. “So the rumors I also heard about the Order of the Phoenix were completely exaggerated? You never asked for the oaths of any students who wanted to join that?”
Albus actually stares outright, as astounded as Umbridge in the other timeline when Harry finally managed to get her arrested. Then he takes another lemon drop. “I-may I ask where you heard those rumors?”
“Around,” Harry says. He knows he’s being unhelpful, but it’s true that mutters about the Order of the Phoenix course through the school, and students always think professors have more hearing problems than they really do.
And if some of his information came from traveling in time, who’s going to prove it?
“The same way I heard yours, yes.” Albus waves his hand in a gesture like a duelist acknowledging the end of a duel. Harry just waits, relaxed. He doesn’t think it’s the end. “I have a very different purpose for the Order than you have for the students who follow you.”
Oh, this ought to be good. “What purpose do you think I have for my students, Headmaster?”
“To guide them into serving you.”
Harry blinks. He thought Albus was going to accuse him of being a recruiter for Voldemort. “No. I swore to protect them and to work with them, and I will.”
“Work with them to do what?”
“To change the world.”
Albus sighs. “Alas, reform takes a long time and is a dangerous goal to promise an organization full of such young people.”
“Well, I suppose you would know.”
Albus blinks at him. Harry is rather enjoying his new power of astonishing the Headmaster. He’s sure it won’t last for long, but it’s nice while it does.
“I am recruiting a group of people to fight a war,” Albus says, a bit stiffly. “And I recruit from among the sixth-years and seventh-years only. Those who have attained the age of seventeen and are competent to make the decision for themselves.”
Harry snorts. “You think age makes that the case? It’s a useful cut-off line to avoid objections from parents, I’ll grant you. But I’ve seen seventh-years in my classes who still have the emotional maturity of an eleven-year-old and fourth-years who know exactly what they want from life.”
“You speak of Mr. Black, I assume.”
“Sirius Black just finished his fifth year, Headmaster.”
Albus sets down the canister of lemon drops hard enough to rattle the table. It’s too small to do that, so he must have added magic to his gesture. That probably makes some people cringe once they realize it, but Harry isn’t actually intimidated. He just widens his eyes and smiles a little.
“I mean Mr. Regulus Black,” Albus says between his teeth. “Who came and asked me for sanctuary a few days ago, and was cast down when I had to refuse him, but then seemed perfectly happy this morning.”
Harry shakes his head. “Headmaster, why refuse him when you know what awaits him back home? Honestly, it’s for the best that I was able to offer him sanctuary-and bound to do so, as someone who accepted his oath. But Hogwarts has more room, and you must know that he would have been happier here, in a place he knows.”
Albus looks lost now, probably because Harry isn’t making the kinds of arguments that Albus anticipated. “I cannot offer sanctuary to any student at the school.”
“You need to rethink that policy in terms of students from abusive families, and families who follow Voldemort,” Harry says. “You can’t just maintain a policy with no exception when you’re a teacher. It doesn’t work.”
“It has worked well so far.”
“Has it?” Harry lowers his voice a little. “Did it work well when you ordered Tom Riddle to return to an abusive Muggle orphanage in the middle of a war?”
Albus goes very still. Then he says, “One wonders how you know these things, Professor Salvare.”
“One wonders about one’s purpose for dragging one in here and questioning him.” Harry stands up. “You haven’t made it clear what’s objectionable about the students I took under my protection, Headmaster.”
“You are gathering a private army.”
Harry snorts. “Just because that’s what you see when you look at yourself in the mirror…”
“You are being disrespectful.”
“Better to do that to a person than to students who needed sanctuary whom you refused,” Harry says crisply. “I haven’t committed a crime, Headmaster, and you have yet to accuse me of one that you haven’t done yourself.”
Albus stands up, his face thunderous, although Harry frankly doesn’t know why. “You cannot take students who you aren’t related to into your custody like this.”
Harry smiles. “Are you going to challenge me over it?”
“I am in loco parentis for all students while they…”
He trails off, and Harry nods. “While they’re in Hogwarts. Not during the summer, Headmaster. You made that clear to Regulus and to Tom Riddle and to many others down the years. I don’t think you did it for evil reasons. I think you’re someone who lost his family and now desperately wants to buy into the myth that blood family is happy and the best place for a student at all times. But it’s not always true.”
“Who are you?”
“Your Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor.” Harry salutes him with an idle flip of his hand and walks out of the room.
*
“Professor Salvare, I need to talk to you.”
Harry glances up from his packing. It’s not often that one of his sworn Slytherins comes to his quarters instead of his office, unless it’s Regulus. On the other hand, from the way Evan Rosier leans panting on his door, he might have gone to Harry’s office first.
“Of course, Mr. Rosier. What is it?”
“There’s-” Evan leans down, panting, hands on his knees, and Harry stands up. So this isn’t just a fight with Gryffindor students, the way he assumed at first. Evan forces himself back up and gasps, “Severus. Someone took him.”
Harry feels cold whip through him, and for a moment, he listens for the chime that will tell him history is trying to reassert itself. But he doesn’t hear it. And it’s entirely possible that, yes, new things are happening because he changed the timeline.
He calms the urge to shout and nods. “Can you take me to where he was?”
Evan shoots him a nervous look, but nods and begins to run. It’s only when they’re rushing down the corridors of Hogwarts that Harry notices the probable reason for the nervous look. There’s a blue glow coming from his wand, glowing against the dark walls more noticeably than it did in the firelit room.
Harry has never believed in waiting until the beginning of the fight to prepare his strength.
*
“Can you learn anything about what happened, Professor Salvare?”
“Give me a moment, Mr. Rosier.”
Evan goes silent. Harry crouches down near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The anti-Apparition spells are still intact, which means that it wasn’t Apparition. He turns his head, nostrils flaring, and casts a spell wordlessly that won’t technically be invented for another twenty years.
But, well. Such spells are commonplace in the Department of Mysteries.
The ground flares for a second, and then blue light races away from Harry and begins scribbling in the dirt. Harry growls triumphantly. Yes, there was a Portkey used here, and it went from Hogwarts-what the spell is writing in the dirt on one end of the long arrow-to-
“Mr. Rosier.” Harry stands. “I need you to return to the Slytherin common room and make sure that your Housemates are safe and in their beds. Start with your yearmates first, then work your way higher.” He feels a bit bad about it when he sees the strained, white face Evan turns towards him, but there’s no way in hell he’s taking a teenager with him into what he knows will be a trap.
“I want to come with you, Professor Salvare!”
Yes, Evan Rosier was a talented, loyal Death Eater, Harry thinks, remembering a line that he read in a history of the first war with Voldemort. He keeps his voice gentle. “I understand that, but I would be distracted trying to protect you.”
Evan flinches as from a blow. Then he looks down and swallows. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
“You’re welcome. And I do need someone to check on the Slytherins. I don’t know if any others in our fellowship are missing, or if…”
He trails off, reconsidering the wisdom of just blurting it out like this to Evan, but the boy’s eyes are already hard. “I know, Professor Salvare. If any of the upper years who don’t follow us are gone.”
After a moment, Harry nods. “I’m sorry, Evan.” He would have spared fifth-years and fourth-years in Slytherin from knowing that someday they’d have to fight their friends, if he could.
“It’s not your fault, Professor Salvare.” Evan wipes his hand across his face, and then stands up straight and tall. “What should I do if I find someone who looks like they’re about to leave? One of ours or…not?”
Harry meets his eyes. “I trust that you’ll remember the spell you excelled at the most during our class’s practice sessions.”
Surprise flashes across Evan’s face, and then he nods. He was the best in the class at the Dreamless Sleep Charm, which is an older alternative to the potion. It drops someone in their tracks for two hours, if cast properly.
“You don’t want me to duel them at all?”
“You think I want to risk you?” Harry demands, despite the fact that a clamor in his head is urging him to go and find Severus. All of his followers are important, even if some have an exaggerated importance in his head because he knew them in his original timeline. “If you can’t safely hit them with the charm, retreat and be ready to report when I return.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Shit, a bit too commanding there at the end, Harry. But it would waste time to stay and argue about it, so Harry nods shortly to Evan and then runs towards the edge of the anti-Apparition spells. When he reaches them, he whirls on his heel without slowing his run and Apparates to the destination his spell inscribed in the dirt at the other end of the arrow.
To Malfoy Manor.
*
Harry is moving the instant he lands, because he knows this is a trap, and he knows that he’s going to have to fight for his life, and Severus’s.
The Cutting Curse aimed at him flies wide. Harry gets his legs back beneath him and drops into a crouch, watching the blond man who moves towards him with a Death Eater mask over his face. He’s inside the grounds of the Manor, which he didn’t expect; he thought he’d appear outside the gate. They must have dropped the anti-Apparition spells to “welcome” him.
“My lord said you didn’t have a brand on the boy.” The Death Eater brandishes his wand. “I would advise you to mark your property more visibly.”
Harry curls his lip. He doesn’t know the voice, but he knows who this must be, simply based on age and the Dark Mark glowing with long corruption to his senses. “If I wanted advice from a slave, I’d take it, Abraxas,” he says, and then he pitches himself into the duel.
His speed appears to take Malfoy by surprise, but Harry doesn’t care much about showing off his skill. He fights with brutal efficiency, determined to lay Malfoy down so that he can search for Severus.
To that end, he Vanishes the bones in Malfoy’s legs and wand arm after dodging a few more curses and raising one shield. Malfoy cries out as he slumps to the ground. Harry steps on his wand, snapping it, as he walks past.
He casts another spell that no one outside the Department of Mysteries is likely to know, and a more active image of the blue orb with the silver strands that Regulus saw snaps into being beside him. When Harry concentrates on the nearest silver strand, he can feel the emotions, and he can feel the tug that comes from it.
The oath he made with Severus leads him around a flowerbed and a small copse of trees and a pond.
And there’s Severus, staked out on a patch of dirt that’s shifting and heaving slowly underneath him, all his limbs spread-eagled and bound with chains. Slow tears are making their way down his face, which chills and crystallizes Harry’s rage. He can only imagine how much pain Severus must be in to show that emotion.
Standing over him are two men in Death Eater masks whom Harry doesn’t know, at least not for certain, and an older version of Tom Riddle. Harry gazes at him. He has absurdly pale skin and brilliant red eyes, but still some black hair and a nose.
“Henry Salvare,” Voldemort purrs. “You indeed snatched up the bait.”
Harry doesn’t bother replying. Voldemort wants some contest of wit, probably, despite the fact that he has two unarmed people on his side. Harry knows what the dirt heaving beneath Severus is-a curse that is feeding on his life-force, draining it into the earth. It will be literally impossible to separate him from that patch of earth without breaking the chains, and impossible to break the chains without separating him from the patch of earth. There’s a counter that undoes both at once, but the Death Eaters are already stepping forwards, drawing their wands, while Voldemort watches and cackles. They’re not likely to give him that time.
Not that it matters.
Harry flicks his wand and pulls.
The patch of dirt with Severus attached to it tears out of the surrounding ground with a shower of soil and water. Severus cries out, but Harry floats the dirt in the air and speeds it towards him. The curse will hold it together.
Voldemort, wiping dirt from his face, is no longer laughing.
“Kill him!”
The Death Eaters are spreading out, no doubt intending to divide Harry’s concentration and make it harder to duel them while holding Severus safe. But Harry takes a ball of silver wire from his pocket and rolls it rapidly towards them across the grass.
He left the Department of Mysteries, but not all of it left him.
The ball billows outwards as it nears the Death Eaters, and the reaching wires stab them both the through the left leg. The men immediately start to cast curses that would snap most metal-if the little ball was made of that. Instead, the magic glows, and then snatches the Death Eaters into the little ball. Miniature versions of them hammer and pound on the sides, yelling soundlessly, as the prison rolls to a stop.
Voldemort stares at them, then up at Harry. Harry arranges the patch of dirt with Severus on it so that it’s floating behind him, and stares back.
There’s hatred on Voldemort’s face, though it’s not as pure or hot as Harry got when he was Harry Potter. He feels almost indignant.
“I will destroy you,” Voldemort whispers.
Harry rolls his eyes. “Like that makes me special, Tom. You want to destroy everyone.”
Voldemort recoils, and then seizes his yew wand and lifts it on high. And Harry knows that it’s time to go. He doesn’t dare try to duel Voldemort with his vulnerable student here. Such a fight would take his full concentration, and he might still not win. He’s never faced Voldemort at the height of his power.
He does, of course, still intend to confront Voldemort this summer, as he told Regulus. He didn’t tell Regulus that he fully intends to cheat his way through that one.
“Severus,” Harry murmurs, backing one step. Voldemort tracks him with those quivering, reptilian eyes.
“Professor Salvare,” Severus says, and then moans in agony.
“Hang onto me,” Harry says, and grabs Severus’s hand. Severus’s fingers wrap around his wrist in a desperate hold.
Then Harry flicks his wand-not towards Voldemort, but towards the enormous oak tree in the corner of the Malfoy Manor gardens that he knows, from experience as an Auror before he became an Unspeakable, anchors the Malfoy anti-Apparition wards.
The tree explodes, his curse obliterating the trunk. Voldemort jerks around. The wards fall.
Harry whirls and Apparates, bringing Severus, dirt and chains and all, with him. The minute they’re on the Hogwarts grounds again, he casts the counter to the curse.
Severus shivers and makes another low noise of pain as the countercurse destroys all the dirt around him and all the metal both at once. The buttons on his robes disintegrate with a series of sharp pops.
“I’m sorry,” Harry murmurs. “I would have spared you that if I could.” He doesn’t think Severus has any other metal on him, but he isn’t sure.
Severus lies still with his eyes shut. Then he opens them and turns his head.
Harry has to look away from what’s in his eyes, the way he had to look away from Regulus’s relief at being offered shelter for the summer.
“Thank you,” Severus whispers. “Thank you, thank you, I thought I was going to die-”
He begins to shake. Harry conjures a wool blanket that he heats with a murmured Warming Charm and wraps around Severus.
“Come on,” he whispers. “We’ll get you to the hospital wing.”
If Severus leans on him all the way there, it’s not something anyone else sees, with Harry going by the secret passages half the time, and it’s not something to be ashamed of, and it’s not something Harry is going to mention.
Part Two.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: None, gen
Content Notes: Angst, AU, time travel, present tense, violence
Wordcount: This part 5100
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU, sequel to ‘Princeps.’ Harry has changed time in a way he never anticipated, and now he has to deal with followers, assassination attempts from Voldemort, questions from Dumbledore, and being Hogwarts’s first returning Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in a decade.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. It’s the sequel to my fic “Princeps,” posted last year, and you really need to read that one first, as, among other things, this fic spoils the ending of that one thoroughly. This will have three parts, to be posted over the next few days. The title is the Latin word meaning “powerful.”
Potens
“What is that?”
Harry smiles at Regulus, who’s loitering in the doorway of the Defense classroom and gaping at the image floating in the middle of the air. Harry supposes it is pretty impressive, even if you don’t know what it is. It looks like a spiderweb of intricate silver lines with a sapphire egg in the middle, spinning softly. Sometimes the lines change position.
“It helps me keep track of all of you who decided to enslave me,” Harry replies.
Regulus visibly droops for a second before he straightens up and scowls at Harry. “You wouldn’t have taken our oaths and made ones of yours in return if you really thought that way, Professor Salvare.”
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“For the expression on your face.”
Regulus eyes him and then turns back to the silver-and-blue image. “You still didn’t explain what this really is.”
“A visual representation of the oaths you and I and the rest of us swore,” Harry explains. He stretches and sits down in the chair behind his desk, where he can watch the silver lines near the edges of the image. He wonders idly if Regulus has noticed yet that some of them are less attached to the sapphire picture in the center than others. Well, it’s not like he really needs that explained to him yet. “I meant what I said about not branding you like that insane Dark Lord, but the one advantage of doing something like that is that the one who does it can keep track of his followers more easily, and know when one of them is in trouble, and call them to him.”
Regulus shivers a little. “I’ve heard about him calling his followers to him, but-never anything about him responding when one of them is in trouble.”
“I said he would know, not that he would do something about it.”
Regulus nods slowly. “And you think that you’ll be able to keep track of us with our oaths alone? What if-I mean, I don’t want a brand, but I would do it for you, Professor Salvare.” And there’s the hero-worship shining in his eyes that helped to change the course of history.
“Please don’t ever say something like that, Regulus.” Harry doesn’t have to glance at the image to know which silver line is the closest to the sapphire hub in the middle that represents his magic. He leans forwards and holds Regulus’s eye. “I don’t want to brand you.”
“So I shouldn’t speak the truth?”
“You should be careful of whom you speak it to,” Harry says sharply. “Especially if you don’t know who’s listening.”
Regulus pauses, then says, “Well, that’s sort of what I’ve come to speak to you about, Professor Salvare. You know that not everyone in Slytherin swore to you.”
Harry sighs. “Yes, I know.” Honestly, more of them swore than he’d like. He came back in time to encourage independence among those young Slytherins, not just change whom they follow. He can only hope that he’ll be able to make them think and perhaps reconsider standing on their own in the future.
“The ones who didn’t swear are spreading rumors.” Regulus lowers his voice. “They’re saying that they’re going to tell You-Know-Who about you. And they’re gloating that You-Know-Who is going to punish you for taking away people who he wanted.”
Harry meets Regulus’s eye, and probably startles him with his earnestness. But that’s all right. This is the most important thing Harry has ever told him, except maybe the ethics lessons that he gave Regulus earlier this year. “I promise I’ll protect you. You don’t have to worry about Voldemort.”
Regulus shivers at the name, but doesn’t look as if he wants to run, which is an important. “I know that, professor. I wanted you to know that so you can be aware that we’re going to protect you, too, and none of us are going to turn and run away because some of the sixth-years think they’re impressive, serving a madman.”
“You can’t face him on your own.” Merlin, that’s all Harry needs, someone who would otherwise have been a Death Eater deciding he’s going to be a hero and trying to confront Voldemort for the sake of honor and glory. Or, worse, deciding that he has to “prove” himself to Harry.
“Who said we were going to?” Regulus has this superior expression on his face that frequently appears there, and just as frequently drives Harry mad. It says that Regulus is going to reassure Harry, and that he’s the adult and Harry is the suicidal teenager. “We’ll face him together, sir, the way you said. We’re united and strong in purpose.”
“You’re not ready for that,” Harry says, and Regulus finally drops the condescending smile and appears to actually listen. “I know you’re good at Defense, but even at my side, you wouldn’t be ready to duel Voldemort. Or the Death Eaters he keeps around him in his inner circle, either,” he adds, because he’s sure that’s where Regulus’s busy little mind will go next. “You’re only fourteen, Regulus-”
“Fifteen.”
Harry rolls his eyes a little. “Voldemort is not going to find a teenager terrifying.”
“Is that so important? What’s important is that I want to help you. And you’re going to face the Dark Lord this summer, aren’t you.”
It’s not a question. Harry would wonder how Regulus finds these things out, but honestly, it just seems to be the way his mind works. Harry is really sorry that he never got to know the Regulus from the original timeline, the one Harry changed by traveling back. He bets that Regulus was just as smart, if he put together clues about the Horcrux.
“It’s important,” Harry says. He dismisses the image in the center of the classroom with a snap of his fingers, and ignores the way Regulus jumps. It’s good for him to be a little off-balance, lest he think that he really can go wherever he wants on his own. “I’m going to make Voldemort focused on me.”
“Then he’ll target us anyway.”
“Focused on me,” Harry repeats. “He’ll want to get at me, sure, but he’ll much more want to defeat me in open combat. He doesn’t think he has anything to be afraid of, yet. He’ll challenge me to a duel in front of his followers.”
“You’ll win it.”
Harry smiles, because there’s a slight questioning tone in the bottom of Regulus’s voice. “Of course I will, but I can’t defeat him permanently just yet. There’s a few things I need to make sure of before I try.” Like checking out some of the Horcrux locations, and also what his time travel did to the prophecy.
“I don’t see why this is so important to tell me.”
“Liar,” Harry says affectionately. Regulus’s chest is slightly puffed-out, and he’s all but strutting, as much as someone can who’s also leaning on a doorframe. He likes knowing things before anyone else does. “And the important thing is that I want you to stay out of sight right now, not attract his attention, or he might get obsessed with defeating someone else who challenges him instead of me.”
Regulus sighs. “All right. But you’ll need to tell the others that, too.”
“They’ll move on Voldemort if I don’t?”
Regulus tilts his head. “I’m not betraying any particular person’s plan, but yeah.” He glances away, and Harry immediately faces him, because he can tell something else is coming up. “Um. I was hoping you could recommend a place that I could stay this summer.”
“Your parents’ home would be dangerous for you, yes.” Harry tilts his head in response. “I would recommend the school, but Professor Dumbledore has a policy of not liking students to do that.”
Which has never made sense to Harry, honestly. Yes, Professor Dumbledore has said things like, “Students need a chance to reconnect with their families and stop being students of the school for a few months,” but what about the ones who are safest being students and have terror waiting for them at home?
Harry sighs away his frustration, and the memories. It doesn’t really matter. If he can’t fight someone head-to-head, he just steps around them.
“Yes, sir.” When Harry glances back at Regulus, he’s perched on the arm of the chair in front of Harry’s desk, his head bowed and his fingers twining together. “I already asked him, and he said no.”
Harry nods. “Then I’ll install you at the Decoy House.”
“Decoy House?”
“That one hasn’t made the rounds in Slytherin yet? I’ve purchased a house that’s exactly as extravagant and overblown as Voldemort would expect from someone challenging him. It has wards beneath wards. Even if he attacks it directly, he would have to hammer on it for hours with a full circle of helpers to have any impact, and I’d be there by then. It’s an old Selwyn manor house. I’ll make sure to tell the elves to prepare a room for you.”
Regulus stares at him, and his face is devastated. Harry sits up slowly. “Regulus?” Damn, he’s not omnipotent, but he hasn’t made a misstep this bad in a while.
“Just-thank you.” Regulus bows his head and swallows. “Could there be room for other people, too?”
Harry nods. “Of course. I had a few other students I was going to ask.” He doesn’t plan to reveal their names, because he has no idea if Regulus knows that Severus is abused at home or that Sirius is reconsidering his plan to go to the Potters’. “There’s plenty of space, though, so you can stay away from each other easily if you don’t get along.”
“That’s the last thing I’m worried about.” Regulus bows his head and looks away, and Harry politely averts his eyes. He has some idea how difficult this is for Regulus. The Sirius of his timeline offered him sanctuary from the Dursleys, and Harry was ready to go with him on the spot.
If it had ever worked out…
Well, it didn’t, Harry thinks firmly. And everything is different now. Sirius and the rest of the Marauders never played their terrible prank on Severus. And James and Lily started dating this year, instead of later, so who knows what children will be born to them?
“Thank you, Professor Salvare,” Regulus finally says, when it sounds like he has his voice under control.
Harry smiles at him. “No problem.”
*
“Young Henry, if you could stay behind? I had a question for you.”
Harry turns around with a smile and lingers against the wall in the staff meeting room as the rest of the professors file past him. Minerva gives him a tight-lipped smile that Harry returns. She thanked him at the start of the meeting for giving ethics lessons to Sirius Black and “taking the Marauders in hand,” although Harry isn’t sure how much she knows about what he did.
But as long as those young men have a better future than before, Harry’s not sure that it matters.
“Yes, Albus?” Harry asks, and settles back in the deep leather chair he rose from when Albus waves at him. The man, meanwhile, is fussing with arranging his long beard and picking up a cup of steaming tea that’s popped into being on the little table next to his chair.
Harry has found that he’s been able to accept Albus far more easily when he came back in time than he could right after the man died. Then, he was baffled and angry, and he was trying to win a war. Now, he’s winning it more easily. And Albus isn’t a bad man, simply blinded by his fondness for Gryffindor.
And his fondness for controlling people, Harry thinks as Albus leans forwards in a faux-casual attitude. Though Harry is probably the only person in the castle it would read that way to.
“I wondered about the source of these rumors I’m hearing.” Albus carefully selects a lemon drop from a canister he carries around with him, and holds it out to Harry. Harry smiles and shakes his head, the way he always does. Albus sets the canister aside with no sign of hard feelings. “Do you know about them?”
“Which rumors, sir?”
“True, this is Hogwarts, there are always rumors.” Albus nods with a smile of his own. “The rumors that the young Slytherins swore loyalty to you and plan to follow you as a leader.”
“Those rumors are exaggerated, sir. It’s some Slytherins in the fifth and fourth year, plus a few of their comrades in the years above. Not nearly all of them. I wouldn’t have accepted an oath from anyone younger than third year, anyway. They’re not old enough at that age to understand the completeness of what they’re asking for, and it’s not right to bind still-maturing magic that way.”
Albus’s eyes widen a little. “I expected you to deny them completely.”
“You believe I’d lie?” Which isn’t necessarily a surprise, but it’s important information for Harry to have.
“That’s not what I meant.” Albus hesitates for the first time since the start of the conversation. “Why would you accept the oaths of students that young at all?”
Harry eyes him. “So the rumors I also heard about the Order of the Phoenix were completely exaggerated? You never asked for the oaths of any students who wanted to join that?”
Albus actually stares outright, as astounded as Umbridge in the other timeline when Harry finally managed to get her arrested. Then he takes another lemon drop. “I-may I ask where you heard those rumors?”
“Around,” Harry says. He knows he’s being unhelpful, but it’s true that mutters about the Order of the Phoenix course through the school, and students always think professors have more hearing problems than they really do.
And if some of his information came from traveling in time, who’s going to prove it?
“The same way I heard yours, yes.” Albus waves his hand in a gesture like a duelist acknowledging the end of a duel. Harry just waits, relaxed. He doesn’t think it’s the end. “I have a very different purpose for the Order than you have for the students who follow you.”
Oh, this ought to be good. “What purpose do you think I have for my students, Headmaster?”
“To guide them into serving you.”
Harry blinks. He thought Albus was going to accuse him of being a recruiter for Voldemort. “No. I swore to protect them and to work with them, and I will.”
“Work with them to do what?”
“To change the world.”
Albus sighs. “Alas, reform takes a long time and is a dangerous goal to promise an organization full of such young people.”
“Well, I suppose you would know.”
Albus blinks at him. Harry is rather enjoying his new power of astonishing the Headmaster. He’s sure it won’t last for long, but it’s nice while it does.
“I am recruiting a group of people to fight a war,” Albus says, a bit stiffly. “And I recruit from among the sixth-years and seventh-years only. Those who have attained the age of seventeen and are competent to make the decision for themselves.”
Harry snorts. “You think age makes that the case? It’s a useful cut-off line to avoid objections from parents, I’ll grant you. But I’ve seen seventh-years in my classes who still have the emotional maturity of an eleven-year-old and fourth-years who know exactly what they want from life.”
“You speak of Mr. Black, I assume.”
“Sirius Black just finished his fifth year, Headmaster.”
Albus sets down the canister of lemon drops hard enough to rattle the table. It’s too small to do that, so he must have added magic to his gesture. That probably makes some people cringe once they realize it, but Harry isn’t actually intimidated. He just widens his eyes and smiles a little.
“I mean Mr. Regulus Black,” Albus says between his teeth. “Who came and asked me for sanctuary a few days ago, and was cast down when I had to refuse him, but then seemed perfectly happy this morning.”
Harry shakes his head. “Headmaster, why refuse him when you know what awaits him back home? Honestly, it’s for the best that I was able to offer him sanctuary-and bound to do so, as someone who accepted his oath. But Hogwarts has more room, and you must know that he would have been happier here, in a place he knows.”
Albus looks lost now, probably because Harry isn’t making the kinds of arguments that Albus anticipated. “I cannot offer sanctuary to any student at the school.”
“You need to rethink that policy in terms of students from abusive families, and families who follow Voldemort,” Harry says. “You can’t just maintain a policy with no exception when you’re a teacher. It doesn’t work.”
“It has worked well so far.”
“Has it?” Harry lowers his voice a little. “Did it work well when you ordered Tom Riddle to return to an abusive Muggle orphanage in the middle of a war?”
Albus goes very still. Then he says, “One wonders how you know these things, Professor Salvare.”
“One wonders about one’s purpose for dragging one in here and questioning him.” Harry stands up. “You haven’t made it clear what’s objectionable about the students I took under my protection, Headmaster.”
“You are gathering a private army.”
Harry snorts. “Just because that’s what you see when you look at yourself in the mirror…”
“You are being disrespectful.”
“Better to do that to a person than to students who needed sanctuary whom you refused,” Harry says crisply. “I haven’t committed a crime, Headmaster, and you have yet to accuse me of one that you haven’t done yourself.”
Albus stands up, his face thunderous, although Harry frankly doesn’t know why. “You cannot take students who you aren’t related to into your custody like this.”
Harry smiles. “Are you going to challenge me over it?”
“I am in loco parentis for all students while they…”
He trails off, and Harry nods. “While they’re in Hogwarts. Not during the summer, Headmaster. You made that clear to Regulus and to Tom Riddle and to many others down the years. I don’t think you did it for evil reasons. I think you’re someone who lost his family and now desperately wants to buy into the myth that blood family is happy and the best place for a student at all times. But it’s not always true.”
“Who are you?”
“Your Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor.” Harry salutes him with an idle flip of his hand and walks out of the room.
*
“Professor Salvare, I need to talk to you.”
Harry glances up from his packing. It’s not often that one of his sworn Slytherins comes to his quarters instead of his office, unless it’s Regulus. On the other hand, from the way Evan Rosier leans panting on his door, he might have gone to Harry’s office first.
“Of course, Mr. Rosier. What is it?”
“There’s-” Evan leans down, panting, hands on his knees, and Harry stands up. So this isn’t just a fight with Gryffindor students, the way he assumed at first. Evan forces himself back up and gasps, “Severus. Someone took him.”
Harry feels cold whip through him, and for a moment, he listens for the chime that will tell him history is trying to reassert itself. But he doesn’t hear it. And it’s entirely possible that, yes, new things are happening because he changed the timeline.
He calms the urge to shout and nods. “Can you take me to where he was?”
Evan shoots him a nervous look, but nods and begins to run. It’s only when they’re rushing down the corridors of Hogwarts that Harry notices the probable reason for the nervous look. There’s a blue glow coming from his wand, glowing against the dark walls more noticeably than it did in the firelit room.
Harry has never believed in waiting until the beginning of the fight to prepare his strength.
*
“Can you learn anything about what happened, Professor Salvare?”
“Give me a moment, Mr. Rosier.”
Evan goes silent. Harry crouches down near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The anti-Apparition spells are still intact, which means that it wasn’t Apparition. He turns his head, nostrils flaring, and casts a spell wordlessly that won’t technically be invented for another twenty years.
But, well. Such spells are commonplace in the Department of Mysteries.
The ground flares for a second, and then blue light races away from Harry and begins scribbling in the dirt. Harry growls triumphantly. Yes, there was a Portkey used here, and it went from Hogwarts-what the spell is writing in the dirt on one end of the long arrow-to-
“Mr. Rosier.” Harry stands. “I need you to return to the Slytherin common room and make sure that your Housemates are safe and in their beds. Start with your yearmates first, then work your way higher.” He feels a bit bad about it when he sees the strained, white face Evan turns towards him, but there’s no way in hell he’s taking a teenager with him into what he knows will be a trap.
“I want to come with you, Professor Salvare!”
Yes, Evan Rosier was a talented, loyal Death Eater, Harry thinks, remembering a line that he read in a history of the first war with Voldemort. He keeps his voice gentle. “I understand that, but I would be distracted trying to protect you.”
Evan flinches as from a blow. Then he looks down and swallows. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
“You’re welcome. And I do need someone to check on the Slytherins. I don’t know if any others in our fellowship are missing, or if…”
He trails off, reconsidering the wisdom of just blurting it out like this to Evan, but the boy’s eyes are already hard. “I know, Professor Salvare. If any of the upper years who don’t follow us are gone.”
After a moment, Harry nods. “I’m sorry, Evan.” He would have spared fifth-years and fourth-years in Slytherin from knowing that someday they’d have to fight their friends, if he could.
“It’s not your fault, Professor Salvare.” Evan wipes his hand across his face, and then stands up straight and tall. “What should I do if I find someone who looks like they’re about to leave? One of ours or…not?”
Harry meets his eyes. “I trust that you’ll remember the spell you excelled at the most during our class’s practice sessions.”
Surprise flashes across Evan’s face, and then he nods. He was the best in the class at the Dreamless Sleep Charm, which is an older alternative to the potion. It drops someone in their tracks for two hours, if cast properly.
“You don’t want me to duel them at all?”
“You think I want to risk you?” Harry demands, despite the fact that a clamor in his head is urging him to go and find Severus. All of his followers are important, even if some have an exaggerated importance in his head because he knew them in his original timeline. “If you can’t safely hit them with the charm, retreat and be ready to report when I return.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Shit, a bit too commanding there at the end, Harry. But it would waste time to stay and argue about it, so Harry nods shortly to Evan and then runs towards the edge of the anti-Apparition spells. When he reaches them, he whirls on his heel without slowing his run and Apparates to the destination his spell inscribed in the dirt at the other end of the arrow.
To Malfoy Manor.
*
Harry is moving the instant he lands, because he knows this is a trap, and he knows that he’s going to have to fight for his life, and Severus’s.
The Cutting Curse aimed at him flies wide. Harry gets his legs back beneath him and drops into a crouch, watching the blond man who moves towards him with a Death Eater mask over his face. He’s inside the grounds of the Manor, which he didn’t expect; he thought he’d appear outside the gate. They must have dropped the anti-Apparition spells to “welcome” him.
“My lord said you didn’t have a brand on the boy.” The Death Eater brandishes his wand. “I would advise you to mark your property more visibly.”
Harry curls his lip. He doesn’t know the voice, but he knows who this must be, simply based on age and the Dark Mark glowing with long corruption to his senses. “If I wanted advice from a slave, I’d take it, Abraxas,” he says, and then he pitches himself into the duel.
His speed appears to take Malfoy by surprise, but Harry doesn’t care much about showing off his skill. He fights with brutal efficiency, determined to lay Malfoy down so that he can search for Severus.
To that end, he Vanishes the bones in Malfoy’s legs and wand arm after dodging a few more curses and raising one shield. Malfoy cries out as he slumps to the ground. Harry steps on his wand, snapping it, as he walks past.
He casts another spell that no one outside the Department of Mysteries is likely to know, and a more active image of the blue orb with the silver strands that Regulus saw snaps into being beside him. When Harry concentrates on the nearest silver strand, he can feel the emotions, and he can feel the tug that comes from it.
The oath he made with Severus leads him around a flowerbed and a small copse of trees and a pond.
And there’s Severus, staked out on a patch of dirt that’s shifting and heaving slowly underneath him, all his limbs spread-eagled and bound with chains. Slow tears are making their way down his face, which chills and crystallizes Harry’s rage. He can only imagine how much pain Severus must be in to show that emotion.
Standing over him are two men in Death Eater masks whom Harry doesn’t know, at least not for certain, and an older version of Tom Riddle. Harry gazes at him. He has absurdly pale skin and brilliant red eyes, but still some black hair and a nose.
“Henry Salvare,” Voldemort purrs. “You indeed snatched up the bait.”
Harry doesn’t bother replying. Voldemort wants some contest of wit, probably, despite the fact that he has two unarmed people on his side. Harry knows what the dirt heaving beneath Severus is-a curse that is feeding on his life-force, draining it into the earth. It will be literally impossible to separate him from that patch of earth without breaking the chains, and impossible to break the chains without separating him from the patch of earth. There’s a counter that undoes both at once, but the Death Eaters are already stepping forwards, drawing their wands, while Voldemort watches and cackles. They’re not likely to give him that time.
Not that it matters.
Harry flicks his wand and pulls.
The patch of dirt with Severus attached to it tears out of the surrounding ground with a shower of soil and water. Severus cries out, but Harry floats the dirt in the air and speeds it towards him. The curse will hold it together.
Voldemort, wiping dirt from his face, is no longer laughing.
“Kill him!”
The Death Eaters are spreading out, no doubt intending to divide Harry’s concentration and make it harder to duel them while holding Severus safe. But Harry takes a ball of silver wire from his pocket and rolls it rapidly towards them across the grass.
He left the Department of Mysteries, but not all of it left him.
The ball billows outwards as it nears the Death Eaters, and the reaching wires stab them both the through the left leg. The men immediately start to cast curses that would snap most metal-if the little ball was made of that. Instead, the magic glows, and then snatches the Death Eaters into the little ball. Miniature versions of them hammer and pound on the sides, yelling soundlessly, as the prison rolls to a stop.
Voldemort stares at them, then up at Harry. Harry arranges the patch of dirt with Severus on it so that it’s floating behind him, and stares back.
There’s hatred on Voldemort’s face, though it’s not as pure or hot as Harry got when he was Harry Potter. He feels almost indignant.
“I will destroy you,” Voldemort whispers.
Harry rolls his eyes. “Like that makes me special, Tom. You want to destroy everyone.”
Voldemort recoils, and then seizes his yew wand and lifts it on high. And Harry knows that it’s time to go. He doesn’t dare try to duel Voldemort with his vulnerable student here. Such a fight would take his full concentration, and he might still not win. He’s never faced Voldemort at the height of his power.
He does, of course, still intend to confront Voldemort this summer, as he told Regulus. He didn’t tell Regulus that he fully intends to cheat his way through that one.
“Severus,” Harry murmurs, backing one step. Voldemort tracks him with those quivering, reptilian eyes.
“Professor Salvare,” Severus says, and then moans in agony.
“Hang onto me,” Harry says, and grabs Severus’s hand. Severus’s fingers wrap around his wrist in a desperate hold.
Then Harry flicks his wand-not towards Voldemort, but towards the enormous oak tree in the corner of the Malfoy Manor gardens that he knows, from experience as an Auror before he became an Unspeakable, anchors the Malfoy anti-Apparition wards.
The tree explodes, his curse obliterating the trunk. Voldemort jerks around. The wards fall.
Harry whirls and Apparates, bringing Severus, dirt and chains and all, with him. The minute they’re on the Hogwarts grounds again, he casts the counter to the curse.
Severus shivers and makes another low noise of pain as the countercurse destroys all the dirt around him and all the metal both at once. The buttons on his robes disintegrate with a series of sharp pops.
“I’m sorry,” Harry murmurs. “I would have spared you that if I could.” He doesn’t think Severus has any other metal on him, but he isn’t sure.
Severus lies still with his eyes shut. Then he opens them and turns his head.
Harry has to look away from what’s in his eyes, the way he had to look away from Regulus’s relief at being offered shelter for the summer.
“Thank you,” Severus whispers. “Thank you, thank you, I thought I was going to die-”
He begins to shake. Harry conjures a wool blanket that he heats with a murmured Warming Charm and wraps around Severus.
“Come on,” he whispers. “We’ll get you to the hospital wing.”
If Severus leans on him all the way there, it’s not something anyone else sees, with Harry going by the secret passages half the time, and it’s not something to be ashamed of, and it’s not something Harry is going to mention.
Part Two.