lomonaaeren

Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter One.

Title: Kairos Amid the Ruins (15/?)
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 Fifteen—A Necessity

Orion sat back with a certain amount of satisfaction as he watched the owl winging towards him. While he still might wish that Harry had come and found sanctuary with him, any place that meant he could have an owl was a good sign. It meant that the Minister hadn’t caught him yet.

The owl landed in the middle of the breakfast table, making Regulus goggle with his mouth open. Orion rolled his eyes a little. “Regulus, no one wants to see half-chewed porridge.”

His son shut his mouth hastily, and Orion took the letter. The owl spread its wings, but only flew to the back of Sirius’s chair. He stared at it and slowly reached up to tickle its breast feathers. The owl watched him tolerantly.

A reply is expected then. Excellent. Orion tore the letter open, only humming absently when Sirius asked something about when they would get to see “Mr. Harry” again. He might know the answer to that question in a minute, anyway.

The letter was longer than he’d expected it to be, and as he read on, Orion felt cold grow in his stomach.

Mr. Black,

I thought you would be pleased to know that I have a stable position now, and also that I’ve struck a deal with Minister Dumbledore and his husband. They won’t chase me from place to place if they know where I am, and it turned out they were most worried about me going to another country and changing the timeline, anyway. With me as the new Defense Professor at Hogwarts, assuming the old one accepts me as a worthy successor, it’s an acceptable compromise to everyone.

Mariana Prince helped me set this up. She disapproved of my plans to flee Britain, and with hindsight I can see why. I don’t want to deprive the children I’ve taught of anything I can do to help them. On the other hand, I don’t want to spread around word of my time traveling to anyone who doesn’t already do it. This way, I can teach many children, and teach the ones I’ve committed to.

That includes your sons, Mr. Black. I will be happy to visit you at Grimmauld Place as soon as possible and discuss how my tutoring is going to continue. That is, if you want it to. I realize that by not accepting sanctuary with you, I may have forfeited my chance at seeing Sirius and Regulus again. I do hope that’s not the case.

Awaiting your response,
Harry Evanson.

Orion put the letter down on the table with a shaking hand that he thought contained a great deal of self-control, and closed his eyes. Well, he supposed this was only to be expected. Harry didn’t want to oppose the Minister or Grindelwald, and Prince had made the first claim to him. Orion wouldn’t get what he wanted by holding out sanctuary and hoping it was accepted.

But there were other things he could do.

*

“Be polite.”

It was the only advice that Mariana had given Harry about dealing with this Professor Aurelius Greyhand, and Dumbledore and Grindelwald hadn’t been forthcoming, either. He took a deep breath and stepped into the wide classroom that he couldn’t ever remember visiting in his own timeline. Perhaps it had been used for something else there.

There was a tall, broad man sitting behind the desk, who stared at Harry through a face that resembled Mad-Eye Moody’s. Well, there was no magical eye, and he had his own nose, but his cheeks were crossed and crisscrossed with writhing scars. Greyhand’s left eye was sunken in a pit so deep that Harry was surprised he could see. His left hand was a mere claw that looked as if some disease had bent it. But he had long, pure white hair, longer than Harry remembered Dumbledore’s being, and he rose to his feet with no sign of strain or agony.

“You’re the latest person Albus is trying to pawn off on me as successor?” The man eyed him and snorted. “You’re a child.”

“One who’s been through a war,” Harry said, and then stopped and waited. He would probably say something rude if he kept going much longer.

Greyhand stepped around the desk and studied Harry for a second. It was probably meant to take Harry off-guard, but Harry was watching his wand hand, and saw the moment when he whipped out a long shaft that looked like it was made of ebony and fired off a curse.

Harry took a step back to avoid it, raised a shield, and then conjured water to pour down from the ceiling. Greyhand was already moving, though, and this time, the Bone-Breaking Curse was what streamed towards Harry.

So much for being polite, Harry thought, and sacrificed his shield whirling it into the path of the curse; that one was notorious for shattering everything that it hit. At least his shield fizzled out and took the Bone-Breaker with it. Greyhand blinked for a second, and Harry froze the water on the floor and conjured skates for his own feet.

Greyhand didn’t try to move out over the ice, instead turning carefully in place to keep Harry in view as Harry shot towards him in a wide curve. His mouth was relaxed, his face shining with pleasure. Not approval, Harry thought, not yet. But probably as close as he could come to it on this short acquaintance.

Greyhand waited until Harry was almost to him—and, he would think, committed—before he cast his next curse. This one would turn Harry’s knees backwards and probably hurt him even more than usual with how fast he was skating.

At least, it would have if Harry had ever intended to let it hit. He spun neatly to the side and spread his legs wide, so the curse flew through them and hit the ice, and then lashed out with his fist as he slid past Greyhand.

The old man staggered a little, and then raised his hand to his face. A trickle of blood was sliding out of his nose, and he stared at it for a second as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Harry, meanwhile, had ended up in the far corner of the office with another shield in front of him and his skates lightly braced for the next time he needed to use them.

Greyhand blinked once and lowered his hand. “You would use Muggle methods in the middle of a duel?” he asked.

Harry shrugged. He wasn’t going to say anything, but Greyhand really seemed to have paused, instead of trying to use the words to lull Harry into dropping his guard, so Harry finally replied, “The important thing isn’t fairness or acting like a wizard.”

“Then tell me what it is.”

“Survival.”

Greyhand nodded and seemed as if he would say something else, but then launched a curse at foot level instead. Harry didn’t recognize this one, a brilliant white and shaped like the lightning bolt that had once been on his own forehead. He took a swift dancing step to the side, but the curse hit his shield, dissipated it, and kept going.

Harry wasn’t there anymore, though. He skated to the side, bent over, and then cast a hex above Greyhand’s head. Greyhand sidestepped it, looking faintly contemptuous.

At least until the shelf behind him collapsed, toppling books onto his head.

Harry watched for a minute more or so, to make sure that Greyhand wouldn’t be getting back up any time soon, and then Vanished the skates and the ice. He strolled towards Greyhand, another shield hovering on the tip of his wand like a firefly. It would grow to enormous size the minute he needed it.

Greyhand groaned and shrugged the books off his head. For a moment, he rubbed the contusion on the side of his temple. Then he glanced up, met Harry’s eyes, and grinned.

“You’ll do,” he said. “I don’t know where you’ve been hiding all these years, but you’re the answer to such prayers as I can bring myself to speak.” He glanced down at what seemed to be an enormous bruise forming on his hip, and nodded. “Where did you train?”

“In a different place, a very different place.” Harry sighed and holstered the Elder Wand, which throbbed in disappointment in his hand. It wanted to be used to hurt Greyhand some more. Harry ignored it. “Where people didn’t think I should be excused from fighting a war on account of my youth, and then thought I should become an Auror.”

“Then teaching should be easy.”

Harry snorted breathlessly and shook his head. “I’ve taught before, even though it was just a group of other students because our Defense instructor at the time was useless. The questions and the demands about why they can’t get a spell right the first time and the sneers behind my back at how I could do this when I wasn’t ‘perfect’ myself made me almost prefer battle.”

Greyhand surveyed him. “Well, I must say that you’re a better candidate than I expected them to send me. But I’ll still want to see how you do the job. I’ll stay around for a month or two after term begins, sit in the back of the class and see you how you handle it.”

Harry snorted again. “And when the students appeal to you instead of me, or try to use us against each other?”

Greyhand’s sunken eyes were bright. “It’ll be an exciting challenge for you.”

Harry reached the point where he couldn’t help but laugh, and held out his hand. Greyhand clasped it in a less-than-crushing grip, and nodded. “Let’s look at your classroom and the storage places for your books and clothes. The quarters aren’t large, but they’re still better-positioned than some of the others…”

*

“Did you hear that they have a new Defense professor at Hogwarts?”

Mariana glanced up with a smile that she needed no effort to make pleasant. “Is that so? They finally found someone who could satisfy old Greyhand?”

“Yes.” Seneca was frowning at the paper, which only increased Mariana’s cheer. “Last name is Evanson. I’ve never heard of his family. Can you believe they would bring in someone who’s a Mudblood? Half-blood at best.”

“It’s strange,” Mariana said placidly, and looked across the table at Severus. “Severus, hold your fork less like a knife, please, and make sure that you place small bites in your mouth.”

Her grandson scowled at her. Mariana just raised an eyebrow. Good manners were something that didn’t matter just to pure-bloods or people with the last name “Prince,” which meant she was going to make sure Severus learned them.

Severus stabbed moodily at the piece of chicken in front of him with his fork, but at least it was stabbing, not cutting. Mariana nodded. She knew he longed to say something about who Harry Evanson really was, but he knew it was less than wise in front of his grandfather.

“The whole world’s going to wrack and ruin, with Mudbloods as Hogwarts professors,” Seneca complained, and tossed the paper aside. He ignored the byplay with Severus. Manners were one of those things he left it up to Mariana to teach, now that Severus was at an age where he should know them. “What do you think they’ll do next, let them into the Wizengamot?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Mariana said, although actually she would be. The Wizengamot was one of the most closed-minded, and closed, institutions in the wizarding world. Even Muggleborn Aurors who had risen high in the ranks had to have pure-blood “chaperones” to accompany them when they went into the courtroom to testify.

“I suppose we can always fight back against it.” Seneca grunted, and then focused on her. Mariana sat up a little straighter in her chair, feeling one of those old sensations of fear drift over her. She hadn’t feared her husband since she had learned to Memory Charm him, but that gaze still brought memories breaking into her mind like slabs of ice.

“I was thinking that we should have another child,” Seneca began.

Mariana didn’t have to fake the dropping of her jaw or the widening of her eyes. This was something she’d never have thought of. “Beg pardon?” she croaked, and then managed to shake her head and sit up straighter. “We have—enough to do with raising Severus, I would have thought. And another child could make competition for him.”

“We can always do more.” Seneca surveyed her with a narrow gaze. “Now that Severus is older. And it’s precisely because of Severus that I wish to have another child.”

Mariana glanced at Severus, but although he sometimes had private conversations with his grandfather, there was no indication that he had known about this. His eyes were wide with astonishment—and the beginnings of a temper tantrum, Mariana thought.

“Because of him?” Mariana had to clear her throat before she could finish that little sentence.

Seneca nodded sharply. “Discussion of that Mudblood professor reminded me. There’s every chance that Severus will be pushed to marry a Mudblood when he’s older, to show that he’s not ‘old-fashioned’ or to please the Ministry or some such nonsense. Or he might fall in love with one on his own, that’s the kind of ridiculous thing that happens these days.”

“Yes?” Mariana said faintly, still not sure where Seneca was going with this.

“It’s imperative that we have a daughter who can provide an alternative for him.”

“You’re…talking about having Severus marry his aunt?”

“I’m not doing it,” Severus said, in so firm a voice that Mariana jumped a little. She had almost forgotten she was there, her brain was whirling so hard with Seneca’s horrible idea.

“You will do what we tell you, sir.” Seneca didn’t bother looking at Severus. He was concentrating on her instead. “And I know that we are both skilled enough in magic to make sure that no Squibs result, either from your pregnancy or from the eventual marriage.”

“I won’t do it,” Mariana whispered. “You’re—have you forgotten the example of the Gaunts? How they went mad as they interbred?”

“They didn’t have the magic to cleanse their blood and keep it from affecting their magic.” Seneca flicked his fingers as if dusting them off. “I know that we do. And I will have a good marriage for Severus. One that produces Prince children, one that keeps the blood pure.”

Mariana shook her head. “I will not bear such a child. I will not use my magic in the service of…so horrible a project.”

“It is inevitable, Mariana.” Seneca bent towards her, his eyes shining in a feral way that caught her attention. Yes, he had sometimes looked like this when he most frightened her in the past, before she had learned to stand up to him, but there was still something off about it. “Do you not see? To preserve purity, we have a limited number of choices. This is the best one.”

“You didn’t care so much about preserving purity even three weeks ago. Then you were talking about choosing Severus’s spouse based on her political power!”

“I want to marry someone different,” Severus said loudly. “All the little girls you introduced me to are stupid.”

Again, Seneca ignored him. “This is the only way, Mariana. Mudbloods everywhere, and who can say that some pure-blood girl who gets introduced to us won’t have a Muggle somewhere back in her family tree, or some agenda to integrate Muggles into our world? We need to have control of her, and she needs to be a true Prince!”

He was almost ranting now, but in a quiet, compressed voice, which wasn’t like him either. Mariana Stunned him with her wand pointed at him beneath the table.

“Grandmama? What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know, darling.” Mariana stood up and circled around the table. “But you can be sure that I’m going to find out.” She trussed Seneca and then revived him. The Legilimency she needed to perform wouldn’t work if he was unconscious.

Seneca opened his eyes and started talking again about blood purity. Mariana dipped into his mind without paying attention to the words.

His mind was a mess. Shards of memories overlapped each other like books tipped off a shelf. Mariana probed further and further, and discovered drifting pieces and shreds, all revolving around the idea of blood purity that had been planted in the middle of his thoughts. The only glimpse she could catch was of a hooded figure who had pointed a wand at Seneca next to a grimy wall that could have been in Knockturn Alley.

Or almost anywhere else, for that matter.

Mariana hissed and sat back on her heels. She couldn’t just Obliviate Seneca and have done with it this time. His memories were too scrambled. He might forget his obsession with incest, but not with blood purity, and his memories would either settle to revolve around that planted idea again or drive him mad and then catatonic as they scattered further and further.

Her first thought was Harry, but as far as she knew, he had no expertise in the Mind Arts. There was only one person she knew who did.

Knew of. And the tentative connection they shared was no reason to think that he would help her.

But she had little other choice. This was someone who had attempted to manipulate Seneca to use his position as grandfather of the Boy-Who-Lived to promote blood purity. Mariana was sure of it.

And so, she Stunned Seneca one more time to make sure he would stay unconscious, hugged Severus and reassured him again that he would marry no one he didn’t want to marry, and went into her study to write a letter to Orion Black.