lomonaaeren

Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter One.
Title: Kairos Amid the Ruins (14/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry Potter/Orion Black, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, mentions of various canon pairings
Content Notes: Time travel, heavy angst, Harry mentoring Severus, violence, gore, minor character deaths, AU
Rating: R
Summary: Harry’s attempt to time travel and fix the past went badly awry. Time shattered, and the various pieces of the universe clung to each other as best they could. Harry finds himself in 1961, with Albus Dumbledore the Minister for Magic, Gellert Grindelwald his loving husband, Voldemort newly defeated…and Severus Snape being proclaimed the Boy-Who-Lived
Author’s Note: This is going to be a long story, focusing on Harry mentoring Severus as the Boy-Who-Lived, with flashbacks to an alternate World War II. The Harry-Severus mentorship will remain gen. However, the romantic pairings are a prominent part of the story. The word “Kairos” comes from the Greek, meaning a lucky moment, or the right moment, to act.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Fourteen—From a Position of Strength

“Albus?”

Albus looked up. He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard Gellert sound like that, half-strangled. Even when they had discussed the terms of his surrender and negotiated the visits to a Mind-Healer, he had worn a sneer half the time.

But now he held a letter in his hand and stared at it as if it was the key to making him humble. Albus rose and walked across the drawing room to him. The last few days had been filled with more mundane Ministry business as Izzy had said that she would have to find a way to make sure the time traveler couldn’t damage their next piece of seeking magic, but Albus had the feeling that was about to change.

“Gellert?” he asked quietly, when he came to a stop next to his husband and Gellert had still made no motion to give him the letter.

Gellert started and handed him the letter, then went back to rubbing his hands on his robes, as if he was cold. Albus eyed him and built up the fire with a flick of his wand, but Gellert only gave half a laugh and shook his head.

“If only that would work,” he whispered, then closed his eyes.

More disturbed than he could express, Albus turned to read the letter.

To Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, greetings.

You should know that the time traveler who chooses to call himself Harry Evanson has powerful allies, ones that you would probably not wish to anger. But he is willing to negotiate, and he sees no reason why he can’t grant you a certain oversight of his actions in return for certain considerations.

He and I have spoken together, and we have come up with a plan. I know that you are seeking a new Defense professor for Hogwarts, but having trouble because Professor Greyhand refuses to retire until he meets someone who fits his standards. I believe Mr. Evanson will fit them. You would know exactly where he was at all times, and he would have to abide by the requirements of the oaths for Hogwarts professors that you introduced in your second term as Minister. In return, he would request that you no longer chase him away from gainful employment and force him to consider abandoning Britain because of your rash actions.

Albus felt a long hiss of breath leave him without his permission. The time traveler had been going to run from Britain? That would have increased his ability to cause chaos exponentially. They would have had no idea at all how he would have altered the timeline in other places, other countries.

I hope this plan meets with at least your thoughtful rejection, if not your approval. If you need to make modifications to it, please send me an owl back. If you are not averse to discussing it as it stands, then I invite you to a meeting between myself, the both of you, and Mr. Evanson in two days’ time, at one-o’clock in the afternoon at the Leaky Cauldron.

Sincerely,
Mariana Prince.

“Did you know that he would go and make an ally out of the Prince family?” Gellert demanded, snapping the letter back with one hand almost before Albus was done reading and waving it around. “What are we going to do now?”

Albus grimaced and shook his head, sitting down on the couch next to Gellert. He wondered now how long Mariana Prince had known about Evanson. Her actions of the last few years, carefully reminding the paper about her grandson’s achievement as the Boy-Who-Lived on more days than just the year or six-month anniversary of his deed, now looked calculated.

Of course, that made him wonder how she had been able to find the time traveler in the first place. Or why she hadn’t reported him to the Ministry.

Albus glanced at the letter, and his plan to bargain back with a hint about Prince’s possible criminal actions faded. She had obviously planned for that. And if she went public about the Ministry pressuring her and that boy, then she wouldn’t have to mention a thing about the time traveler, while Albus would have to explain to the Wizengamot why he hadn’t reported a time traveler the minute he knew there was one.

Not to mention explaining about using a deadly weapon at the instigation of a house-elf…

Albus sighed. “We thought we were cleverer than we were. We should negotiate with them.”

Gellert studied him with narrowed eyes. “What about the damage that Evanson could do to the timeline?”

“According to Izzy, he already did it. We need to make sure that he doesn’t do more, and pushing him into fleeing does that.” Albus shook his head. He really wished this had worked out differently, but perhaps it had been inevitable from the moment they let Evanson slip through their fingers in that Diagon Alley shop. They should have gone in more cautiously, more prepared to trap him, more prepared to see him run.

“We can’t give Prince everything she wants, though.”

“Why not? She’s at least right about this being a reasonable compromise, and that we would know exactly where Evanson was at all times.”

Gellert raised his eyebrows. “What’s to keep her from talking, and letting other people see that this is a good way to pressure the Minister?”

“No one else is grandmother to the Boy-Who-Lived, or has the intimate knowledge she does of the time traveler.” Albus almost laughed when he saw the disgusted expression that crossed Gellert’s face. “Does it pain you that much to admit that we fucked up, and we should have handled the situation more carefully?”

“Yes.” Gellert folded his arms. “I wanted—well, there were ideas I had that might not have come to fruition. But I wanted the chance to talk to the man, and this way, he’s not going to think that he owes us the truth. He’ll only think that he owes Prince.”

Albus eyed him and wondered again if Gellert would have asked the man about that other timeline, but it wasn’t time to worry about that right now. “I think we might be able to persuade him to tell the truth, if we represent the advantages of doing so to Prince.”

Gellert snorted and faced the fire. Albus asked his profile, “Is Prince’s owl waiting for us to send a reply?”

Gellert jerked his chin at the letter, and Albus supposed that, after all, he should have known that, given that the letter itself asked for a response. He went to find the quill and parchment, still looking back now and then to watch Gellert over his shoulder.

There were times—days, hours, moments—when he wondered if he knew his husband at all.

*

Harry remained close to Mariana as she guided him through the door of the Leaky Cauldron. Severus had wanted to come, but for once, both Harry and Mariana had been unanimous about his need to stay at home. Harry still felt as jumpy as though he was going to be asked to protect a whole herd of children.

Both Dumbledore and Grindelwald wore disguises, a kind of illusion that Harry had never seen before, rippling and stretching like a film of water as it hovered over their features. It didn’t hide them from Harry, and probably not from Mariana, given that she headed right in their direction. But Harry could catch a glimpse of the pipe-smoking, brown-haired wizards of indeterminate middle age that they would both appear to others.

“Gentlemen. Thank you for coming.”

Mariana’s voice was brisk as she sat down in the chair across from them at the table. Harry ended up snagging a chair from another table where two people glanced at him and waved him on. He was aware that his skin was prickling, and that neither Dumbledore nor Grindelwald had stopped staring at him from the moment he walked through the door.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot,” said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry for a moment. It was odd to see those blue eyes he remembered so well without a twinkle, and flickering in and out behind the illusion of a younger wizard who appeared to have grey ones. “You know who we are, but we didn’t intend to harm you.”

“Someone informed me that I might be held prisoner, or executed,” Harry said, keeping his voice low. Mariana had given them all sharp glances and then went to order food. Harry had already told her he wouldn’t be eating. His stomach was dancing like those illusions. “Excuse me for wanting to avoid that fate.”

“You don’t act like most people who do what you did,” said Grindelwald. He had his hands folded around a mug of beer, both in illusion and in reality, but Harry would be surprised if he’d drunk any of it. “Why did you hide yourself instead of trying to take advantage to changes to the timeline?”

“I didn’t want to break it further.” Harry frowned at the man and glanced at Dumbledore. He had a twinkle in his eyes now, but he was listening intently, so maybe he agreed with Grindelwald. “I think that I hurt everyone I knew personally in my old timeline by changing things, and even people I didn’t know personally probably ended up worse off than they would have. If I’d left things alone…”

Harry trailed off and shook his head. Fine, he wouldn’t talk about that, and he didn’t need Mariana’s slight warning touch to his shoulder as she came back to urge him away from it. It would make him seem both weak and criminal in front of two people who were looking for weaknesses if he started talking like that.

“What was my fate in your original world?”

“I asked you not to ask him about that, Gellert.”

Harry glanced back and forth between the two men, and wondered what was going on there. He decided not to get involved in it, and answered as vaguely as he could. “You didn’t win the war.”

Grindelwald turned from him abruptly and took a long drink from his mug. Mariana shook her head. “You didn’t come to ask him questions you might not want to know the answers to. You know as well as I do what the purpose of this meeting is.”

“Yes. I must ask, Mr. Evanson, what knowledge of Defense you have. While in some ways the solution our friend here proposes is ideal, I will not subject the students of Hogwarts to an untrained and incompetent professor.”

Dumbledore’s words steadied Harry, to his surprise. Maybe it was just that he could appreciate Dumbledore caring for Hogwarts, whether or not he was the Headmaster. He met Dumbledore’s eyes and said quietly, “I fought in a war for several years. I have two years of Auror training under my belt. I led a Defense group for more than twenty of my fellow students one year when our Defense professor really was incompetent and untrained. I earned an Outstanding on my Defense NEWT in—another place. I can duel and demonstrate just about any countercurse that you’d like to see of me. I can’t be sure that I’ll impress this Professor Greyhand that Mariana has talked about, but I’m willing to make a good effort.”

Grindelwald leaned forwards. “Was the war against me?”

Harry barely shook his head. He was more inclined to keep looking at Dumbledore, who seemed a little surprised by what Harry had said, but more heartened.

“Well. That’s more than I hoped to get.” Dumbledore paused. “Why didn’t you complete your Auror training?”

Harry grimaced and gestured to the world around them. Dumbledore nodded and paused another moment before asking, “What is your experience with the Dark Arts?”

“Nearly nonexistent.”

“Nearly?”

“I learned what trainee Aurors learn about them, and I cast two Unforgiveables in the course of the war I told you about. I consider the first one necessary still—it was the Imperius Curse used to break into a place we couldn’t have otherwise approached and retrieve an artifact that we had to destroy to harm our enemy. But I used the Cruciatus in a moment of temper, and I regret it.”

“The Killing Curse?”

Harry couldn’t help the flinch of revulsion that traveled over his face. “No. I wouldn’t consider it.”

“So he has flexible morals,” Grindelwald muttered. “We knew that already. Let’s get on to the important questions that you have to ask him.”

“I want to know how our friend here,” Dumbledore said, turning to look at Mariana, “found out about you. And how many more people you intend to expose the secret to.”

“My family possesses an artifact that allows us to sense the presence of time travelers.” Mariana didn’t turn a hair, and Harry blinked, expecting some kind of response from two men he had to assume both knew Legilimency, but nothing. Maybe the lie of “an artifact” was close enough to the Peverell talent she had told him about to pass as truth. “A time traveler greatly harmed my family once in the distant past. My ancestors considered it worthwhile to develop our—gift.”

“I don’t intend to tell the secret to anyone else,” Harry added. “You don’t think it’s shameful enough? I know what I did was wrong. I don’t want to involve anyone else in this. I would have tried to stay in the background for the rest of my life, but—well, I have responsibilities to people here. Responsibilities I thought I could put away. I was going to run.” He glanced at Mariana, who simply gave him a calm, confident smile. “Our friend was the one who convinced me to stay.”

“What kind of responsibilities?”

“I made a commitment to protect and teach a few different children,” Harry said, keeping his eyes fastened on Dumbledore’s. He didn’t want to flinch or back down when Mariana had risked so much to protect him. She was the only reason he was here at all—well, her, and Severus, and Sirius, and Regulus. But she was the only one Grindelwald and Dumbledore would actually get to see. “I didn’t want to abandon them.”

“But you were prepared to.”

“I thought I would endanger them by staying around. Our friend is the one who convinced me that I wouldn’t, that I might even put them in further danger by leaving.” That one was a slight exaggeration, but only slightly.

Grindelwald lifted his wand and cast a spell that made his words muffled. It reminded Harry of the Muffliato spell that Snape had created.

His Snape. The Snape of the world he had come from. Harry grimaced a little. He wondered if it was a bad thing that, when he thought the name “Snape” now, his mind corrected it automatically to “Severus” and his mental vision was of a small, mightily frowning little boy, and not a bitter man.

Harry shook his head and focused on the task in front of him. He would probably never have any chance to see any of the people from his original timeline again, and he couldn’t shatter the world a second time because he missed them. He had to pay attention.

“What do you think?” he murmured to Mariana while Dumbledore and Grindelwald talked behind the spell. “Was it enough to convince them?”

Mariana smiled at him. “They’ll probably want some practical demonstrations of your skills, and for you to swear some oaths. Of course, the professors at Hogwarts have to take variations of those oaths. But when they have you bound and some assurance that you won’t run off the way you wanted to, then I don’t see any reason they shouldn’t accept you.”

“The professors at Hogwarts have to take oaths?”

“Of course. Some of them have jobs that make them responsible for the care of hundreds of children. Why would we allow them be around our children without that protection?”

Harry shook his head and said nothing. In his world, no oaths had bound Snape, except the one he had given Dumbledore to protect Harry.

But that was another place, another time. He had to stop thinking of those people. It would only make it harder for him to survive in the world that was his now.

“Mr. Evanson.”

Harry faced Dumbledore again. Someone had removed the privacy spell, and Dumbledore gave him a faint smile.

“What your—friend said was true. We’ll want oaths and a practical dueling demonstration.” Apparently the privacy spell didn’t prevent them from overhearing someone talking, then, Harry thought, even if that person was talking in a whisper. “But we’ll also want the answers to a few questions.”

Harry nodded, not blinking as Dumbledore looked at him. He could only hope that he would feel Legilimency if the man used it.

“What is your true name, and your blood relation to families here?”

Harry let out a long, slow breath. “I don’t know about my mother. I haven’t heard of her or met her here. She may not exist.” He hesitated. “Can I have your word, informally for now, that you won’t approach or harm the family I used to belong to here? They’ve done nothing.”

Dumbledore nodded. Grindelwald looked vaguely curious. Harry looked at him, and he rolled his eyes. “It’s probably nothing all that interesting, but yes, my informal word as well.”

“Harry Potter. My father was from that family.”

Grindelwald’s eyes widened a little, but Dumbledore only looked pleased. “Yes, I thought you had the look of Fleamont Potter. Well, I’m sure he would be pleased to know that someone from his line succeeded in a different universe.”

“Your word, sir.”

“I can encourage you to approach them, however,” Dumbledore said gently. “Our family is often the only stronghold we have in this troubled world.” He looked weary, and Harry wondered if the same history with Ariana and Aberforth had happened here. Maybe not. Probably not.

“Maybe someday, sir,” Harry said evasively.

“I’m glad that we managed to settle this so amicably,” Dumbledore said, putting his mug on the table. “Shall we go somewhere else to arrange the dueling demonstration and the oaths?”

Harry stood up slowly, still mentally reeling, astonished that they had managed this, and it seemed as if he would in fact get away with shattering the timeline and retaining his connections to people in this time. He glanced at Mariana and found her smiling. She leaned towards him as they left the Leaky Cauldron.

“You should talk to the Potters.”

“I don’t want to drag them into this mess.”

Mariana shrugged and said nothing.

It was only later that Harry remembered he hadn’t asked for her informal word.