Chapter Fourteen of 'Anularius'- Working Out the Ritual
Chapter Thirteen.
Title: Anularius (14/16)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Warnings: Angst, time travel
Rating: R
Summary: Traveling back in time is safe. All you have to do is keep away from people who affect time, who are pretty rare. It's just Horcrux-collecting Harry Potter's luck that Severus Snape is one of them.
Author's Notes: A late Advent fic for thebookivore, who gave me this prompt: Harry/Snape. Time travelling Harry. As an unspeakable explains to Harry, time travel is actually very safe, because most people cannot affect the time stream except a rare few. You can tell who can affect time because they can see time travelers, otherwise "it's similar to how most Muggles cannot see magic, their minds naturally shy away from it and come up with the most incredible explanations for what they have seen". Harry knows to hide out from himself but doesn't realize that Snape can see him ...
I meant to complete this fic on time for Advent, but it got too long for me to finish on time, so I’m posting it as a chaptered story. The title is Latin for “maker of rings.”
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Fourteen-Working Out the Ritual
“I do not think we will be able to do it on our own.” That was Snape’s disgruntled voice, and Harry tensed automatically before he remembered that he wasn’t about to be punished for doing a potion wrong. Harry shook his head and reached up to pinch his glasses off and rub his forehead. He was seriously being hampered by reacting to everything like a Hogwarts schoolboy. He hoped he’d be able to get rid of those reactions soon.
“But who else can we tell? That would change the timeline further. And maybe defeat the whole point of this ritual in the first place,” Harry had to add. He could think of some people who would want to prevent Snape from ever finding happiness in the first place.
“We can tell Albus. He is appropriately ruthless with even his own memories. If he wished to shed them, or if I asked him to shed them and he agreed that it was necessary for my happiness, then he would.”
Harry blinked at Snape a little. “Earlier you seemed puzzled when I suggested that you were that close.”
“We had some….discussions while you were gone.” Snape’s lip peeled back, and his eyes blazed. “Certain things that he thought I should have seen long since came clear to me. And I intend to take every advantage of them.”
Harry lowered his head and watched Snape for a moment from beneath his eyelashes while Snape stared into the cauldron he’d been attempting to use to brew this potion the ritual needed. Snape, being Snape, turned around and caught him at it soon enough. “What?” he added.
Harry looked away and swallowed. “I suppose I just-don’t understand how we’re going to do this and still leave a copy of you behind. He’ll have all the same memories, won’t he? He could change the timeline after we’re gone by trying to follow us, or treating the younger version of me differently, or something else.”
“The ritual leaves only certain memories in the copy’s head,” said Snape, speaking in a tone that suggested he was talking to an idiot. “Otherwise, it would not be useful to those who have to flee the country after the commission of a crime. If the copy could go and talk to the Aurors, who would use it?”
Harry flinched a little. “And that’s what makes me certain that we’re going to have a future for you, but not a future for us,” he muttered.
He hadn’t intended Snape to hear that, of course. But Snape had sharp ears. He turned towards Harry and seemed to settle, in a way that meant he was probably about to take a fighting stance. “Explain what you mean by that.”
Harry sighed. That sigh wasn’t enough to put Snape off, from the way he kept staring, although Harry felt as if it should have. Surely it showed him Harry was like a little kid in some ways still and not worthy of him?
But it apparently didn’t, so Harry had to explain. “I like that you’ll have a better chance in the future. A chance to be happy. But you still treat me like I’m an idiot half the time, and I’ve had it with being treated like that in the future. I can’t stay with someone who thinks I’m stupid.”
Snape was utterly still for a few moments, eyes scanning over him. Then he nodded, and put down the cauldron with a clang on the floor in front of him.
Harry held his breath, not sure whether he wanted Snape to declare that he would stay here and not use the ritual, or come to the future with Harry and simply never bother to associate with him again. Either way, it would solve some problems that were beginning to matter more to Harry the more he thought about them.
How were they ever going to adapt to each other? They might have some people who were happy for them, but not very many. And for all the point that they would be near the same age, Snape could still find people more like him, more mature than Harry, to share his life. That might be the best thing for him, in fact.
It just seemed more and more unlikely the more Harry contemplated it.
Snape stalked towards him and reached out to take his face. Harry met his eyes. Now that he could admit there was a possibility he might stay with Snape and not have to leave him behind, he could admit how attractive it was-that intensity, that passion.
Not least because this time, he knew it was real, even if it was angry and not sexual.
“Explain why people have treated you like an idiot in the future,” Snape whispered.
Harry raised his eyebrows. “They didn’t think I knew what I wanted, or who I really was,” he said, and elaborated when Snape gave him a calm, inquiring look. “They thought I was a crazy, attention-seeking idiot for a while. The Heir of Slytherin for a while. The perfect Savior, and then I didn’t act like it.” He scratched the back of his neck. “It’s calmed down since the end of the war, but it does seem as though that’s only because I’m doing what they wanted.”
“What was that?” Snape reached up and rubbed the back of his neck as though he assumed it would be dry and painful where Harry had scratched it.
“Oh, become an Auror and go on saving the world.” Harry shrugged and leaned back into the touch. When Snape wasn’t being an arsehole, he could be someone whose hands were soothing. Harry sighed and let his eyes drift shut. “I don’t know what they’re going to think when I show up with you.”
“I cannot wait to find out.”
Harry cracked an eye and looked at him skeptically. “Despite how much it’ll irritate you to be asked questions constantly?”
“You seem to think that I am the man who you watched die, not the man I am now,” said Snape, his voice a shade cooler. “I do not mind being asked questions in the service of a good cause, such as by students who are trying to honestly garner more information about Potions, and not simply get out of doing work. Or being asked what right I have to claim a famous man as my lover.” His hand tightened on the back of Harry’s neck.
“You’re right,” Harry said a minute later. “Sorry.” It was true that the man he still pictured Snape as being would have resented the questions, but that man would also never have become his lover in the first place.
Snape nodded once, in sober approval, and then asked, “And now you approve of involving Albus in our ritual?”
“I think we do have to,” Harry said. “I don’t particularly want to involve him, but I do want you to come forwards.”
From the way Snape slowly inclined his head, Harry realized that was one of the absolutely best things he could have said. He smiled back, feeling a little more confident. Sometimes, I’m not horrible at this trying to make Snape feel better thing.
*
“Yes, the ritual is a tricky one,” Dumbledore said, humming under his breath as he moved his fingers through the pages of the book that Snape had been using. Harry sat and watched him, wondering why his breath didn’t catch more painfully in his chest. Maybe he still resented Dumbledore for some of what he’d done.
Or maybe it was because Dumbledore had agreed at once to separate some of his own memories into a Pensieve never to be touched and never asked anything about his own future. He didn’t seem curious about it.
To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. Harry was looking at a man who believed that, he thought.
“Ah, yes, I believe I see part of your problem.” Dumbledore adjusted the glasses on his nose and peered more closely at the book. “This says that you must decide on a destination beforehand, and it must be a destination that the person is intimately familiar with.”
“Professor Snape just knowing the Department of Mysteries wouldn’t be enough?” Harry asked, with a sinking stomach.
“I thought you called him Severus, my boy,” Dumbledore said, without looking up from the book.
Harry ducked his head under a lash-like glance from Snape. He knew this wasn’t about playing their parts in a deception anymore, either. “Sorry,” he murmured. “Could Severus visit the Department of Mysteries?”
“Not in this time, no.” Dumbledore folded his hands on top of the book and smiled blandly at them both. “Because that would not be his destination, would it?”
Harry had to shake his head. No, the ordinary Department of Mysteries was far enough away from the one Harry had left that thinking about it in terms of distance didn’t even make much sense. How did “when” correspond to “where”?
“So we must make one journey to the future?” Snape-Severus, Harry supposed he should call him-shook his head hard enough that Harry thought he could hear his brains sloshing back and forth. “Impossible. That would mean the copy would remember the future, and the ritual. And he would perhaps contrive to follow us.”
“Not if he was Obliviated,” Dumbledore said gently. “And I volunteer myself for that task. As an experienced Legilimens, I can be sure that I will not damage his mind.”
Snape turned and looked at Harry in silence. Harry looked back, blinking. He had thought Severus knew that he’d accepted this. Then he realized what Severus was waiting for, and blushed as he put his hand into his robe pocket and pulled out the heartsblood jewel that could bear them to the Department of Mysteries.
“May I see that?” Harry handed it across the desk to Dumbledore, ignoring the way Severus tensed up. “Ah.” Dumbledore turned it back and forth enough to make the ruby-like facets sparkle, and then chuckled and gave it back. Severus only seemed to breathe again when it rested in Harry’s palm. “A clever enchantment. And capable of doing what we need it to do.” Dumbledore beamed at them. “Did you know that it is enspelled to allow several trips back and forth, rather than only a certain number of trips to a designated point? Or in a designated direction?”
Harry grasped it faster than Severus, at least from the way Severus blinked, which surprised Harry. Then again, he knew more about what the situation looked like in the future.
“Bloody Unspeakables,” he muttered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they knew this had to happen, or something.”
Dumbledore nodded happily. “Part of the timestream healing itself, or flowing in the same direction-whichever metaphor you prefer.” He sat back and stroked his beard. “You might as well leave from this very office and come back to the same destination. That way, you can be sure no one else will see you and question what you’re doing.”
Harry swallowed and extended his hand to Severus. Severus came forwards to clasp it, now watching Harry as if he was the one who might prove untrustworthy if he had the heartsblood jewel. Harry shook his head to stop himself from wondering what Severus wanted, and waited until the man’s strong fingers had closed around his wrist.
The touch unexpectedly made his heart beat a little faster. Harry blinked. Huh. Maybe this can work out in the future, after all.
Severus seemed to know what he was thinking. There was a faint smile on his face as he nodded to Harry, and Harry tightened both his hold on Severus’s hand and his hold on the jewel as he spoke the sentence he had already prepared.
“I wish to return to the Department of Mysteries on the day that I originally came from, in the timestream I originally came from, and taking the man and the individual objects I am touching with me.”
Severus opened his mouth to ask a question, but didn’t get the chance to, before the world dissolved around them into the familiar ruby-colored sparks.
*
Of course, because of the way Harry’s life worked, he simply asked it once they leaped back into the Department of Mysteries.
“-why did you ask about individual objects?”
“Because I didn’t want to bring the floor I was standing on with me, while I did want to show up with the jewel and my robes and wand,” Harry muttered back, and turned around to face the first of the Unspeakables running towards him. He was glad that they wore their heavy grey hoods all the time. That meant there was less chance they would have to take the memory of faces away from the copy of Severus that the ritual would create.
“We expected you to return,” said the lead Unspeakable simply, after coming to a stop in front of Harry. He looked as if he hadn’t been running just a moment before. He put his hands together in his sleeves and bowed deeply to Severus. “And Severus Snape. Welcome again.”
Severus said nothing, but his eyes were sharp and alive. Harry decided it was his turn to glare at the Unspeakable and voice something. “So you knew this would happen? You knew when you sent me back in time that it would end up with me making a huge ring somehow?”
“A ring is a simplified way to describe what has been happening,” began the lead Unspeakable.
“And you shouldn’t give me too many details anyway,” Harry interrupted. “Fine. I just want to know one thing. Did you know the cross you gave me was a Horcrux before you sent me back in time?”
“The possibility was theoretical, and hotly-debated.” For a moment, the Unspeakable bowed his head. “We had the cross in many pieces, because with its heartsblood jewels in place, it formed an artifact of incredible power, more than we were comfortable housing in this Department. Once it came back together, then it reassumed its Horcrux nature.”
Harry closed his eyes, his head whirling.
“You see now the wisdom in keeping silent,” Severus murmured. “I do not bewilder myself with facts that would only confuse me, and I may receive answers that are less than useless.”
“You’re annoying, too, sometimes,” Harry muttered. “And don’t tell me that you didn’t understand that.”
“You could if you wished to.” Severus’s voice was suddenly harsh. “You are not stupid. That is a pose you retreat to when you don’t wish to expend much effort.”
Harry opened his mouth, but the Unspeakable interrupted. “There are many reasons that this ring exists, but one of the reasons is that it has always existed.” He nodded to Severus. “We have Seers who can practice the craft of Divination more reliably than the frauds you are familiar with. They saw you in the future, and were puzzled as to how Severus Snape could be there when he was dead. But this is one way.”
“One way?” Severus tilted his head like a curious dog.
“Of course,” said the Unspeakable. “It might also have been that you were a ghost, that you had faked your own death, that Harry Potter had resurrected you-”
“Why would he have the power to do that?”
Harry interrupted again. Yes, he would have to have a conversation with Severus about the Hallows and being the Master of Death, but he would prefer that it be after they had both become part of the future timeline again, in the way they were supposed to be. “So you knew this had to happen?”
“Yes.”
“But where did the timeline ring, or loop, or whatever it is, begin?” Harry had heard Hermione talking about time loops, but to be frank, that was one of the things she had been trying to drill into his head while he was frantically preparing for a journey back in time, and he hadn’t listened.
“It has no beginning.”
Harry gave up again. Severus chuckled heartlessly, but squeezed Harry’s wrist in a way that said he hadn’t forgotten about the resurrection line.
For the moment, Harry was busy thinking of other things. “So, do we need to take a tour of the Department?” He glanced at Severus. “You were the one who read up on the requirements of the spell. How long do you need to stay here?”
“Albus was the one who found that part in the book,” Severus corrected him. He sounded as though he was on the verge of laughter. “I might as well remain here for a few hours that won’t mean anything in the face of flowing time, and learn more about you.” He turned to the Unspeakables again. “What accomplishment would you say that Harry Potter is most known for?”
“This only makes more knowledge that Dumbledore needs to Obliviate!” Harry hissed in warning.
Severus paused once, then shook his head. “One gets rid of all the knowledge contained in a single experience, if one is careful with the Memory Charm,” he said. “All the events of this experience will go with the Obliviate, no matter how many there are.”
“I’ll have to accept your word for that,” Harry said. His only real experience with Memory Charms was with Lockhart’s. He turned back to the Unspeakable. “So we can go back to the past now?”
“There is no reason why not,” the lead Unspeakable said, after appearing to consider a moment. The other Unspeakables weren’t much help, Harry thought, standing around and whispering excitedly, but not approaching them. “There is no reason that you need to remain longer than you’re comfortable with.”
“But I am exceedingly comfortable where I am,” Severus murmured. “Tell me. Is Potter that well-known for killing the Dark Lord?”
“He is also an Auror,” said the Unspeakable, in a sort of confused voice. Harry couldn’t blame him. He must think that someone from the past would probably have more important things to find out, especially if they intended to emigrate to the future.
“I meant more than that,” said Severus, and laughed a little. “If I am to appear out of nowhere, it would seem strange if I didn’t have the sort of knowledge that most of the people around me are assumed to have.”
Harry rolled his eyes at him and made a grab at his arm. “We aren’t going to pretend that you’re from this time period. How can we? Unless you want to lie about who you are.” He paused, thinking of something else, and turned to the Unspeakable. “Is it possible that the Ministry would try to arrest him for some of the things that he did in the past?”
The Unspeakable laughed gently. “There haven’t been many precedents for situations like this, but enough. The Ministry would probably concede that, having paid with death, he cannot reasonably be expected to pay with anything else.” He glanced back and forth between Harry and Severus. “I do hope that you’ll tell me how you achieved this, someday, as well as the reasoning behind your questions.”
“Later,” said Harry firmly, and reached out and gripped the heartsblood jewel again. “Take us back to Dumbledore’s office in the time and place we just left.”
Again the world around them dissolved, but not before Severus looked at the Unspeakables around them and smiled.
Harry was a little worried to try and find out what that smile meant.
*
“Ah, boys,” said Dumbledore, although Harry wasn’t sure how he knew they had “gone” at all, since from his perspective they had probably only appeared to bounce a little. “A successful journey?”
“Obviously, since we came back.” Severus turned at once to Harry. “Why are you so shy of having others tell me about you?”
“Because I don’t like the gushing,” Harry answered, and turned to Dumbledore. “Is there a way to make sure that the ritual doesn’t go wrong in the middle of it? Any preparations we can take that we haven’t already taken?”
“You forget that I don’t know what you’ve already done, my boy,” Dumbledore chided him gently, and Harry flushed, because it was stupid to forget like that. “But I assume Severus will have no trouble brewing the potion. He must also make the golem that will become the copy’s body himself. However, you might help him cast the spells and create the final burst of magic that will bring the golem to life.”
Harry nodded in silence and glanced over at Severus. Severus had simply watched him steadily all through Dumbledore’s speech, as if he hadn’t heard it. Well, perhaps there was nothing in it that was new to him. After all, he had known about this ritual and spell long before Harry had, or he wouldn’t have been able to suggest it.
“Thanks, Headmaster,” Harry said, and took the book back. “Nothing else that we need to do before we begin the rest of the ritual?”
“No, nothing,” Dumbledore said, and leaned back with a small smile at them. “Don’t look so worried, Harry. I am sure this will be successful.”
At least this plan doesn’t depend on hunting Horcruxes or some bizarre last-minute taking of memories from Snape, Harry thought, nodding to the Headmaster, and they departed his office.
Severus spoke up when they were at the bottom of the moving spiral staircase, as if he thought Dumbledore would hear should he say something closer to the actual office. “What do you mean by ‘gushing’?”
“The wizarding world doesn’t have enough celebrities,” Harry said. “So they take way too much interest in what I eat for breakfast and what I’ve done since defeating Voldemort and in my sex life and all the rest of it.” He turned and glanced up at Severus. “That’s one thing you’ll have to get used to if you stay with me after we go back to my time. The press is going to pounce on you if you say we’re lovers.”
Severus had been looking thoughtful, but at the last words, his gaze swung around and locked on Harry again. “You say that as if there were going to be an if.”
Harry shrugged as he stepped off the bottom of the staircase. “I’m warning you. A fair warning.”
“If you cared that much about what the press says and how I might react to it,” Severus breathed, putting a hand on his arm, “you would have let the Unspeakables tell me the truth when I asked for it.”
Harry halted and looked at him. At least, with this, unlike with the ritual and the time travel that Severus knew so much more about than he did, he was on firm ground.
“It’s embarrassing,” he told Severus. “No matter what it might be like now, I wanted to be a normal kid when I was younger. I was unusual because unusual things happened around me and I didn’t know it was magic, and then I was unusual because I had that stupid Boy-Who-Lived title. The people who can’t let it go and keep assigning me other stupid titles are the least important people in my life. If you pay too much attention to them, then you aren’t going to get to know the real me.”
Severus looked at him with that blank expression Harry hated, because it hid what he thought so effectively. Then he reached out and put the gentlest of hands on Harry’s cheek.
“I want to know all about you,” Severus said. “All sides. But if you want me to pay attention more to what you say than what they do, you only need give me something to listen to.”
Harry nodded. There was a lump in his throat, which was stupid, because the words were simple and just decent, what an ordinary human being should do, right? Not something that was a big heroic sacrifice the way his friends would have made for him.
Then he figured it out. Sometimes he was as slow as the Snape he had known thought he was.
Normal. That’s what I wanted, someone who would treat me normally.
And even if Severus’s gaze had gone searching again as he brushed past Harry and down towards the dungeons, it was all right, because he didn’t know what that gesture meant to Harry. But Harry had plenty of time to explain.
Chapter Fifteen.
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