Chapter Fifteen of "Anularius'- Moral Decisions and Charred Stones
Chapter Fourteen.
Title: Anularius (15/16)
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 Fifteen-Moral Decisions and Charred Stones
“Come in, my boy,” said Dumbledore’s voice an instant before Harry could knock on the door of his office.
Harry rolled his eyes, but he was smiling by the time he urged the door open and stepped into that confined, gleaming room filled with glistening silver instruments. Dumbledore listened to portraits and so on all over Hogwarts. It wasn’t a surprise that he could seem all-knowing.
Dumbledore had a long robe on it that depicted sleeping dragons, red on gold, and a droopy hat on his head topped by a puffball. He also had a thick book on his lap that was bound with leather and silver clasps and looked impressively dangerous. He put a finger on the page and smiled at Harry. Harry could swear that he saw a pair of tiny jaws reach out of the surface of the page, only to be absently swatted back by Dumbledore.
“What is it?” Dumbledore asked gently. “Last-minute regrets?”
“I thought of something, and I couldn’t sleep.” Harry sat down in front of the desk and silently accepted the steaming mug Dumbledore passed him, although he didn’t know what was in it until he sipped. Hot chocolate, with an aftertaste of something Dumbledore probably wouldn’t have given him when Harry was a student here.
“About the ritual? I am afraid I have given you all the help I can.” Dumbledore looked at him thoughtfully this time, and shut the book with a swipe of his wand. “If you wish me to look it over again before you perform it, however, I will.”
Harry snorted. “Not the ritual. I leave understanding it up to Severus. I could never grasp half of what he was babbling on about.” He stuck his hands beneath his chin and stared into the fire. “But I have to admit, it-it’s not right to leave the other version of him stuck here with all those sad memories to grow bitter about.”
“Even if that is what has to happen for him to become the man he was in your time?”
Harry sighed and looked up. “I don’t know. I got the impression he had plenty of bitterness because of what happened to him when he was at Hogwarts and in the first war. I never meant to add to it, you know.”
“Indeed, you did not mean to, even if you did.” Dumbledore’s hand pulled at his beard. “Is there any solution to this dilemma?”
Harry hesitated. “You said you could remove the memories that the copy would have of visiting the Department of Mysteries in my time.”
Dumbledore nodded, eyes never moving from Harry’s face.
“What about-removing the memories of me as well?” Harry asked. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing? It would mean he didn’t have to mourn me leaving and going away with a version of him, and he wouldn’t be as bitter about it as he would otherwise be.”
Dumbledore tapped his fingers on the desk. “I could do as you ask. But you must consider, my boy, whether that would be beneficial. Do you know whether the copy of Severus would rather keep those memories, or discard them?”
“We’re already getting rid of some others,” Harry said, and despite himself his shoulders tightened and his voice turned cold. “To protect the timeline, and to make sure that the-new version of Severus doesn’t know where Severus went and why. If he knew, he would probably attempt to follow us, wouldn’t he?”
Dumbledore nodded silently again.
“No,” said Harry, and shook his head. “I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want-” He clenched his hands silently. “How can I just let it happen?” he asked Dumbledore. “The deaths that the war caused? The way he suffered in the years after this? How can I just stand back and know that it’s going to happen to someone, even if that someone isn’t the person who’s going to come back to my own time with me?”
Dumbledore watched him calmly for a long, long moment. Then he said, “Do you think you could keep all of this from happening if you simply time-traveled long enough?”
“Yes,” Harry said instantly. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He knew where most of the Horcruxes would be even in this timeline, except for Nagini, which hadn’t been made yet. Why hadn’t he gone and destroyed them? Prevented the whole war from happening in the first place?
Then he paused. How was he planning to get the Horcrux out of the younger version of himself? It had only been Voldemort’s Killing Curse that had had the power to kill that soul shard, he was pretty sure. Otherwise, Dumbledore would probably have tried a less dangerous method first.
Or Dumbledore hadn’t really known and had made a gamble in desperation. Harry wasn’t sure that he could make the same gamble even now, let alone do it and then go back to his timeline. It wouldn’t be his timeline anymore, if he tried such a drastic change. The people wouldn’t be the ones he knew anymore.
“You see,” said Dumbledore, his voice so gentle that Harry started. Dumbledore reached out and casually took his hand, squeezing it once before he let it go. “You see what dangerous decisions must come from a position of power.”
“And why people haven’t used time travel to change history already?” Harry asked. His throat hurt. He reached out blindly, and gratefully took the cup of hot chocolate up again. “I mean, I thought it was only because time travel devices were rare and hard to get.”
“No.” Dumbledore’s eyes were kind. “There are still enough people who have had access to them that we would expect constant journeys through time, constant changes. We would never have an accurate history book.” He chuckled. “I can see upsides to that, mind you. Perhaps it would persuade historians to write more interestingly, or stand the chance of seeing their books outcompeted.”
Harry shook his head. “But it’s not that?”
“No.” The chuckle was gone from Dumbledore’s voice as though it had never been. He locked his gaze with Harry’s and spoke slowly and emphatically. “The theories about time healing injuries to itself are right. Things would still happen in the same large configuration-or you would go back to a change that would have altered memories, as well, so that you would be left as the only one who remembered what things had originally been like. Can you say that the changes you would make would be the right ones?”
“More people would survive,” Harry argued instantly. He was better about it when he had someone to oppose him, he thought. “That has to be good.”
“Indeed. What about the people killed in the war with Lucius Malfoy?”
“What war with Lucius Malfoy?” Harry blinked at Dumbledore, wondering if he should even have started this train of thought. Dumbledore seemed to have decided to suddenly talk in riddles.
“I mean,” said Dumbledore, “that one of the reasons no Death Eater tried to step up and take Voldemort’s place is that the Dark Marks on their arms did not fade. What would happen if they did? You could return to your time to find that another war had swept through and reduced many of those lives that might have escaped to rubble. Or some of the ones that still exist.”
Harry hesitated. “You can’t know that. I mean, you can’t know that my timeline would be unhappier without the war.”
“Neither can you know whether it would be happier.” Dumbledore turned his hands over. “And keep in mind that many of the people in the world cannot change history-the reason you were able to pass unnoticed by so many. I assume that many of those people are your friends?”
“Yes,” Harry muttered.
“But some of them would have the power to change history. I assume you have those among your friends as well, or at least your allies.” Dumbledore gave him a deep glance that Harry didn’t have any trouble understanding the meaning of. Dumbledore at least had to suspect that Harry and Severus hadn’t been on such good terms in the past-well, Harry’s past. “And among your enemies?”
Harry ran a hand over his forehead. “I want to make sure no one suffers,” he said. “That was the only thing I was trying to do.”
“And I honor you for trying.” Dumbledore sat back in his seat and swept a negligent arm along his desk, as if inviting Harry to look at all the silver instruments and thick books and the rest of the paraphernalia of the Headmaster’s job. “However, it is impossible. You are thinking of Severus’s suffering, and not others’. Perhaps not even your own. You can only guarantee it on an individual level, though. You can’t know, not for sure, that your decision to spare one person suffering won’t result in it for someone else.”
Harry eyed Dumbledore. “That explains a lot about some of the actions you did, sir.”
“Does it?” Dumbledore smiled back at him. “Well, I am always happy to increase the amount of understanding in the world.”
Harry scowled back, a bit, but Dumbledore remained blandly smiling no matter what happened, so Harry finally rolled his eyes and settled for, “You can take his memories of me out, then? I mean, I suppose that the amount of bitterness he has towards me might not change the timeline significantly, but it matters to me.”
“Then you are more concerned about your own well-being than his?”
“No!” Harry sat up, scowling. “I do want to spare him some suffering! I just don’t understand how having him hate me because of this, as well, will actually do anyone any good!”
Dumbledore raised a hand. “I believe you, Harry. I was only checking to see what you would say.”
“Then I want to spare him some,” Harry said, holding back the complaint about how Dumbledore was always testing him. He was asking Dumbledore to help him, after all. “I can’t be sure about doing anyone else any good, but this time, I can.”
“I will do it.” Dumbledore gave him a sad smile. “And I can come up with an excuse for the amount of time that he will appear to be missing, as well.”
Harry hesitated. “Is he going to blame you for that?”
“Oh, yes,” said Dumbledore. “But I have done some things that Severus has the right to blame me for, and as for the rest-I have broad shoulders.” He stood and held out his hand to Harry. “It was nice to meet you, my boy. I hope the Severus that currently exists is happy in your timeline. I will do my best to care for the new one.”
Harry hesitated one more time, then said, “Thank you, sir. For everything.”
From the smile Dumbledore gave him, he knew Harry was thanking him for something more than was immediately obvious. But he only nodded, and watched benevolently as Harry left the office.
*
“You cannot interfere in the ritual,” Severus told Dumbledore, not looking up from the cauldron bubbling in front of him, which Harry assumed had something to do with the necessary potion. He hadn’t tried to follow Severus’s instructions about the brewing. Severus did it all himself anyway, and Harry didn’t see the point of purely theoretical knowledge. “You can only do whatever you must to comfort the copy afterwards.”
“Of course.” Dumbledore stood off to the side, out of way of the spiraling pattern of red and black stones that Severus had placed on the floor of his quarters. Severus cast him a suspicious glance, but Dumbledore only smiled at him.
They had a silent staring contest that made Dumbledore’s eyes twinkle. Either dismissing that or realizing he wouldn’t win anyway, Severus turned to Harry with a disgusted snort. “Are you ready?”
“For the spell you told me you need me to cast.” Harry clenched one hand around his wand and shivered a bit. The power shimmering from the stones-which Severus insisted were only ordinary rocks and jewels until they were enchanted, but still-combined with the cold air of the dungeon to make little hairs rise all up and down his arms.
“That is what I needed you to cast, good, well done,” Severus muttered to himself, and then he dipped a long ladle in the potion and cast it forwards to splash down in the middle of the spiraling pattern.
Harry opened his mouth to speak, because Severus had told him the first step would be the spell he was supposed to cast, not the potion. But he saw the green liquid reaching out to lap over the first incomplete circle of the stones, the first turn of the spiral, and he figured out what it meant. Severus had said that Harry should cast the spell when the stones began to turn green.
Harry grimaced and turned into the first motion of the spell, his wand slashing up and down and then flying out to the side as though he was trying to draw a wing in the air. Here, the incantation was short, but the wand movements were unexpectedly long, and needed to be performed with a degree of precision that made Harry’s head spin.
Severus splashed more potion. Another turn of the spiral blazed green. Severus tossed something else, and Harry nearly lost track of his place in the spell as the potion caught on fire, burning blue and violet flames that danced violently up and down. He risked a glare over his shoulder at Severus, who gave him a deep smile, without shame, and pulled out another-well, it looked like a firework-to toss into the potion
Concentrate on the spell in front of you, Harry chanted to himself, something more than one of his instructors had told him during Auror training, and he spun into the wild motions of the spell again.
The drawn wing in the air grew longer and drooped, in Harry’s perception, a folded pinion of power over the stones. The flames rose up from them, cold, and Harry hissed as they touched his magic.
But he didn’t stop moving the wand, because Severus had been very clear about what would happen if he did. The wing grew longer and longer, drooped more and more, and Harry wondered if he was shielding something that was supposed to happen, or shielding them, maybe. Severus had tried to explain more of the theory behind the spell and ritual, but Harry hadn’t understood them much more than he did the theory behind the potion.
Severus cast one more glop of the potion into the air, and Harry winced again as it passed through his field of magic. There was a huge, cold spark, and the flames on the potion and the stones leaped so high into the air that Harry flinched, certain they’d scorch him if this continued.
A second later, he reached the moment when he had to speak the incantation that was dancing on his tongue. It seemed to shove itself out his mouth with little legs clinging to his teeth, and little wings flaring as it jumped.
“Creo exemplarem!”
His voice boomed and filled the chamber from end to end for a moment, louder than the hissing of the flames and the cold pressure of the stones and the clang as Severus dropped the ladle back into the potion and sprinted forwards. Harry gasped as the power wrenched and unspooled out of him, faster and faster, winding around the stones and the magic already there and the burning potion and the outer end of the spiral.
Half the stones flew into the air with a soundless leap that became a more than audible crash as they slammed together. Harry stumbled to his knees, one arm over his head to keep any stone shards from falling on him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to manage the Impervious Charm to keep himself safe from them right now. It felt as if he might not be able to manage any small spell for weeks.
He nearly tried, though, when he saw Severus leaping along the spiral as if the stones were stepping stones in a swamp.
“What the hell,” he asked in a croaking voice. Severus hadn’t mentioned this during his explanations of theory and ritual.
Of course, perhaps he had and once again, Harry hadn’t paid attention.
Severus’s face was set in an expression of forced serenity as he hopped from one stone to another, or shard to another, or glimmering image to another; Harry knew the stones had flown into the air and crashed together, but he could also see stones still on the floor. He had no idea if those were real stones or afterimages. He didn’t have an idea about much, he thought, except that he wanted to stretch his hand out to rescue Severus.
But he was too exhausted, and too far from the center of the ritual. He wondered with a moment of despair if that was something else Severus had planned, one reason he had asked Harry to contribute all the magic except what they needed to brew the potion.
Severus wound himself around to the end of the spiral, and leaped into the air. Something covered him, netted him, a glittering blue sheet of light that was breaking into sharper patterns as Harry watched. Some of those patterns outlined Severus’s arms and legs and shoulders, and others seemed to swoop into and out of him. Harry watched helplessly. He had no idea what those things were doing.
Something else I should have paid attention to.
Or maybe Severus simply hadn’t bothered to explain, since he knew Harry would probably have wanted to intervene if he did.
I wanted to intervene anyway, and stop him from doing something I thought was suicide. Harry leaned back against the wall with a scowl. He was going to talk to Severus about this, and about the way that Harry felt when people he liked put themselves in danger.
The blue light, meanwhile, had stopped crackling like a thousand miniature lightning bolts, which was what it had done at first, and was instead hooked into Severus’s skin, seemingly feeding from his blood. It was slowly flushing red, at least. Severus took a deep breath and bowed his head, his black hair hanging limply around his face. His body shuddered, one time, two times, three, as though someone was slamming a hammer into his stomach. Harry flinched again.
Then something seemed to rise from Severus, and meet the surging cold flames of the magic as they broke through and added themselves to the wing of Harry’s power. Harry gasped as the potion and the flames and his own power and the glowing thing soaring up from Severus’s body all mingled in midair. It spun and twisted on edge like a die that someone had tossed, and Harry shook his head in wonder.
It was acquiring more colors as it turned. Severus was crouched on the floor and shuddering some more as he watched. But Harry could see his face now, with his head tilted back and his hair falling away from it, and he knew that Severus wasn’t shaking from fear. This had been supposed to happen.
I still wish he’d bloody explained.
The magic wove flesh around the thing made of light in the center, which Harry thought might be part of Severus’s essence, carved out of him to become the replica’s soul. He squinted as the air around him seemed to take on sharper and sharper edges, making tears run out of his eyes. And magic was flooding from all around the room to become the replica’s magic.
A silent bang and flash of light convulsed the room, so large Harry thought for a second that he’d simply missed the boom and it would catch up in a moment. But when he could blink away the light and see again, he noticed the limp figure lying at Dumbledore’s feet. It was as tall as Severus, dressed in the same robes, with the same long black hair.
And as Harry watched, it drew a shuddering breath and became something more, something other than dead.
Dumbledore looked up at Severus and Harry, and nodded. Then he touched his wand to the figure’s temple, and began to murmur. Harry had the impression he was doing something considerably more complicated than a Memory Charm.
He didn’t get to find out what it was, though, because Severus was already on his feet and sweeping around the spiral. He had a pair of shrunken trunks in one hand, presumably with all the clothes and books and Potions supplies he had wanted to bring. He had insisted on packing himself, so Harry wasn’t actually sure what he had in there.
“Come,” he said, and took Harry’s arm.
Harry hesitated, looking at the new Snape that lay near Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s magic was calm and thrumming around Snape’s temples, but there were small moans of pain coming from between his lips.
“Come,” said Severus, and his eyes were showing their whites and his head was held at an angle the way it had been before he attacked Harry in their duel. “Unless you have changed your mind and wish to remain with him instead.”
“I was saying goodbye,” Harry mumbled, and followed Severus out of the room. He trusted Dumbledore would manage to explain the charred stones and cauldron on the floor somehow. Perhaps he was going to use them as part of his excuse, to say that Snape had been practicing a ritual and it had gone wrong and taken away his memory.
It was still strange to him. He was prone to think of the real Snape as the one he had known, the one who had died in the Shrieking Shack. But that had been a replica of the real Severus all the time…
Or he would be, now, but hadn’t been before. Harry closed his eyes with a grimace. Time travel was horribly confusing.
“You will not need to, once we have traveled,” Severus said, and he looked at Harry expectantly as they came to a halt near the stairs that led out of the dungeons.
Harry took a deep breath, reached out and held Severus’s hand, and gripped the heartsblood jewel with his other hand. “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.”
He was sure he saw Severus roll his eyes, once more, at the specificity, before the world dissolved around them.
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