lomonaaeren

Chapter Twenty-One.

Chapter One.

Title: Kairos Amid the Ruins (22/?)
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 Twenty-Two—The Challenge

“And if you were expecting to face a duelist armed with two wands,” Harry said, pacing back and forth in front of his fifth-year Defense class, “what would you do?”

That made a lot of his students exchange glances that had an edge of panic, but Harry had expected this, and he held still and waited. Finally, a fifth-year student in Ravenclaw with long dark hair raised her hand.

“Miss Chang.” Harry nodded to her and tried to avoid seeing the glimpse of Cho superimposed over her features. This girl, who went by the name Louise, was her own person, considerably less confident than Cho even though she was a great Defense student.

“Um.” Chang bit her lip and settled back in her seat as if Harry was about to let his Patronus charge her. “I don’t think I would expect it. Most people don’t have two wands.”

Harry nodded. “But part of this class is to bring expectations into reality,” he said, and saw her relax. That was a phrase from one of Professor Greyhand’s Defense books, which Harry had kept when he started this class. The Ravenclaws, in particular, reacted well to Harry referring back to the books. “So. Think about it. What would you do?”

Chang shut her eyes and waited for a few seconds. Then she opened them and nodded. “I think I would try to set up an ambush so that I wouldn’t be at such a disadvantage.”

“Good!” Harry said. “Five points to Ravenclaw.”

Chang beamed, then sank lower in her seat as someone scoffed from the other side of the classroom. Harry sighed and turned around, to face the bane of his fifth-year Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Defense classes. “Mr. Potter, you had something to say?”

Aethelred Potter was a sturdy boy with unruly dark hair and blue eyes and twice the swagger that Harry had seen his father display in Snape’s Pensieve. He rested with his arms stretched out along the back of his chair now, and stared straight at Harry even though he sounded like he was speaking to Chang. “Setting up an ambush is dishonorable.”

“Would you rather be dead than dishonored, Mr. Potter?”

Aethelred grinned with only his teeth as he leaned forwards. “Now you’re getting it.”

Harry stared at him and said nothing. His mind was working, but honestly, it wasn’t fear of Aethelred. He didn’t fear someone so self-absorbed that he never looked around to see what anyone else was doing before he made an enemy.

Besides, Aethelred had a powerful family backing him up, but Harry had the Minister for Magic and the family of the Boy-Who-Lived and Orion Black.

Thoughts of Orion made Harry want to grimace, and it was a struggle to keep his voice calm when he replied to Aethelred. “All right, Mr. Potter. Tell us what you would do if you faced someone with two wands.”

“I wouldn’t do anything, because that isn’t real. It’s just a testing scenario that you made up.”

“Really?” Harry flicked the Elder Wand and wordlessly Summoned Aethelred’s wand from his pocket and over to his own hand. “Now you’re facing someone armed with two wands, Mr. Potter. Tell me what you would do.”

Aethelred surged to his feet, but his grin remained on his face, and his voice as he barked, “Give me that back!” sounded feigned.

Harry stared at him again. There was some point here that he wasn’t seeing, some plan going on under the surface. Aethelred wouldn’t have challenged a professor like that on a normal day, Harry knew. He did listen to the way the other professors talked, and none of them thought Aethelred was disrespectful. It was just a struggle to get him to pay attention in class.

Harry briefly felt along the handle of Aethelred’s wand, without taking his eyes from the boy’s face, to see if there was a trap or curse buried in the wood, but it felt normal to him. And the Elder Wand would probably have reacted to it, anyway.

So this had to be something else.

“You still haven’t told me what your strategy is to handle someone with two wands, Mr. Potter,” Harry said, and as usual, tried not to twitch at hearing his own last name come out of his mouth.

Except that it wasn’t his own last name anymore, was it? His own actions had taken that away from him. He kept his eyes locked on Aethelred, and waited for the next move.

“In this case,” Aethelred said, and struck a pose that was probably meant to make him seem heroic, “to challenge them to a duel.”

“Interesting,” Harry said. He was sure that that was part of the plan, from the confidence with which Aethelred had said it, but it couldn’t be the ultimate one. “How are you going to conduct a duel without your wand?”

For the first time since the beginning of class, the grin dropped off Aethelred’s face, and the boy stared at him with his eyes narrowed. “You’re going to give it to back to me, of course,” he said, enunciating each word. “Mr. Evanson.”

The way he spat Harry’s last name seemed filled with genuine hatred, but Harry had no idea why. Aethelred didn’t have the same conceit and pompous arrogance that Harry had had to deflate in some of the other purebloods, and he didn’t seem to care about blood status. It made the tone of this whole encounter even more bizarre.

“When you face this situation in the real world,” Harry said, with a carefully exaggerated sigh, “do you think your opponent is going to give you your wand back just because you ask nicely?” He wriggled the two wands he held at Aethelred. “Come on, Mr. Potter. Tell me what your solution to this problem is.”

Apparently, it was a charge. Aethelred shouted and covered the distance in between them before Harry could blink.

But although he was fast, he wasn’t trained. Harry spun to the side and leveled his leg in the air. Aethelred tripped over it and went sprawling. The class gasped, with a few people hovering on the edge of laughter.

Harry made sure that he kept his wince to himself. The last thing he wanted was to humiliate his students in public; he saved that for the very few there was no other way to teach. But on the other hand, he couldn’t back down now in front of this young man and hope to keep any authority over the others.

“Now, Mr. Potter.” Harry made sure his voice retained the bored tone as Aethelred levered himself back to his feet and stared at the blood dripping from his scraped palm disbelievingly. “Are you going to tell me some solution that will work?”

Aethelred stared at him with very hazel eyes. “You’re dishonorable.”

He breathed it like it was a revelation, but Harry merely shrugged. “Battle can only be honorable when people abide by the rules,” he said. “So far, you haven’t shown that you intend to. First you refuse to answer a question. Then you charge me without declaring the opening of the duel. Are you going to ever answer the question or not?”

Aethelred blinked. “But—you don’t hold to honor with someone dishonorable.”

Harry snorted. “That’s convenient, then. I don’t have to hold to honor with you, either.”

Aethelred’s face went a brilliant red. Harry watched him with the closest to a dispassionate expression that he could. He didn’t want this to happen, he hadn’t wished it on himself, and there was something more than just this student’s desire not to answer the question behind it.

“If I answer the question,” Aethelred finally squeezed out, “will you give me my wand back?”

“Yes,” Harry said. He didn’t ask for any other promises. He was pretty sure he knew what would happen the moment Aethelred had his wand in hand again, and for the boy to be this aggressive around him, maybe it needed to happen.

“All right,” Aethelred said, clipped. “I’d raise a Shield Charm first, then try to find cover or help. If I couldn’t do that, I would retreat. Someone who’s skilled with two wands is just too dangerous to take on with no preparation.”

It was a fairly good answer. Harry nodded, tossed him his wand back, and turned to face the class. “So, as you see—”

Aethelred tried to hex him in the back, just as Harry had predicted. Harry sighed as the Stunner spread out over the shield he had raised before he entered the classroom, just as he did every time, and turned back to face Aethelred. His face was an almost unhealthy red now, his hand clenched around his wand as if he couldn’t believe he had failed.

“I suppose,” Harry said quietly, lifting his eyebrows a little, “cursing someone in the back is not dishonorable?”

It had made his point better than any kind of scolding he could have given the boy would have done. Aethelred panted, staring at him with hot eyes. Then he jerked his head and charged straight at Harry again.

People squealed, and one of the other Gryffindors used their own wand to move the desks out of the way. Harry simply stepped back and turned the floor beneath Aethelred to ice, as he had in his duel with Greyhand. Aethelred stumbled and went down heavily.

He tried to get back to his feet, but they slid out from under him. Harry just watched in impassive silence. He didn’t need to do anything else unless Aethelred showed that he was capable of standing right now. He glanced at the other students and found a few of the Gryffindors as red-faced as Aethelred, but most of the others enthralled by the duel. At least it didn’t seem likely someone would interfere.

Aethelred cursed him quite comprehensively, but with words and not magic. Harry listened for a moment, then said, “Five points from Gryffindor for your language, Mr. Potter.”

This time, Aethelred at least tried, firing a Knee-Reversing Curse at him. Harry deflected it with the shield, and it went into the wall, where it sizzled and made a hole. This time, there were some gasps.

Harry smiled a little. The spell had caused that effect only because the wall had no knees that it could force to bend, but it was interesting to know that some of them could still be concerned for him.

“Fight me—like a man!” Aethelred’s elbows slipped out from under him, and he went down again, hitting his chin sharply on the ice.

“And again I ask you,” Harry said, staring down at his student as he bled from a new place, “is it an honorable man’s stance to curse someone in the back?”

Aethelred stared up at him, breathing heavily. Harry waited. This was the point where either Aethelred would realize how much he was embarrassing himself and yield the duel out of sheer mortification, or—

Aethelred whipped his wand around to point at Chang.

Or he’ll try to take it out on someone else.

Harry had a shield raised between Chang and Aethelred the minute he saw the boy’s wand turn anyway, but any lingering amusement he had went flying out the window when Aethelred snapped, “Cru—”

“That is enough!”

The Elder Wand’s aura snapped out of Harry’s hand, and absorbed the slight sizzle of the Unforgivable that had managed to emerge from Aethelred’s wand. Harry stalked forwards, banished the ice with another flick, and hauled Aethelred to his feet. Most of the time, he’d have had to use a Lightening Charm, the boy was so sturdy, but right now, Harry could have hauled around Marcus Flint.

“You pathetic little coward,” Harry said in a low, deadly tone, focusing on Aethelred’s wide eyes. All his desire not to humiliate the boy who was (somewhat) related to him had flown out the window. “What in the world are you doing? Trying to torture someone because they got the right answer and you didn’t—” Harry shook his head, beyond words. “You disgust me. You are coming with me to the Headmistress now.”

“But—”

Harry ignored his bleating and took his wand away again. Then he cast a hex around Aethelred that would enclose him in Harry’s own variant of a globular shield, safe and protected but also unable to move more than a foot in any direction. Harry turned back to Chang. “I’m so sorry, Miss Chang. I hope that you’re all right?”

Chang swallowed, large tears standing in her eyes for a moment before she blinked them away. “I’m all right, Professor. His curse didn’t actually touch me.”

There are other ways of not being hurt, Harry thought, and nodded to her. “All right, Miss Chang, but please come talk to me later. Class dismissed,” he added over his shoulder as he hauled Potter towards the Headmistress’s office.

*

Headmaster Dippet had retired after the turn of the year, as if Professor Greyhand not being there any longer had been some kind of signal. Harry hadn’t chosen to look into it. If Dumbledore or Grindelwald had put pressure on Dippet, he didn’t want to know about it.

The Transfiguration Professor, Julia Rowan, had become the new Headmistress. She was in her seventies, with chiseled dark features and long hair that had gone entirely white. Harry wasn’t surprised, for some reason, to come up the moving staircase and find her behind the desk with two people he recognized as the Potters from Diagon Alley sitting in chairs across from her. It had been that kind of day.

Playing on the floor was—

No, not my father, Harry chided himself sharply when his eyes would have turned to the boy. James, that’s all. A toddler.

“Why are you manhandling my nephew?” Euphemia Potter asked in a low, flat voice. She had her dark hair coiled around her neck in a severe braid, and she leaned forwards as if she could reach across the distance between them and wrench Aethelred away from Harry.

“Because he just tried to cast the Cruciatus Curse at another student,” Harry said, and released Aethelred from the shield. At least he was ready for it and didn’t stumble, even as he did stand upright and gave Harry a look of hatred. That would have been all Harry needed, to get the boy wounded in front of his aunt and uncle, his (adoptive) parents.

What had happened to Aethelred’s parents had been some kind of magical accident, and that was all Harry knew. He wished, now, that he had paid more attention to that, but he avoided news about the Potters, turning his face away. Even more than the Blacks, he could have no connections to them.

“What?” Euphemia asked. “Aethelred, is this true?”

“He took my wand away!”

“In the sort of manner that might be expected to happen in a Defense classroom,” Harry said flatly, when Euphemia and Fleamont turned identical expressions of outrage on Harry. “And after he refused to answer a question, implied that both I and another student were dishonorable, and otherwise acted like a willful child.”

“Casting the Cruciatus curse is illegal,” said Headmistress Rowan.

“But Professor—Evanson says that he tried,” said Fleamont, puffing up his chest beneath his long white beard. Harry sneaked them a glance from under lowered eyelashes. He had known that his paternal grandparents were old when they had James, but it was a different thing to see it. “Therefore, he can’t be punished with Azkaban.”

“No,” Harry said coldly. “But he can be punished with detention. Professor Rowan, if you want to handle it, then I’ll understand.” That would get him neatly out of the confrontation with the Potters he could feel building.

Although what they were doing here in the first place, when they couldn’t possibly have known of Aethelred’s indiscretion, was puzzling Harry.

“You had an absolutely appropriate reaction,” Professor Rowan said, and turned one of the freezing expressions she was good at onto the Potters when it sounded like Euphemia was about to make a noise of protest. “Your nephew tried to torture someone, Mrs. Potter. I abide by Professor Evanson’s term for it.”

“It was just—” Aethelred broke off, although Harry had the impression that was because of the way Fleamont frowned at him rather than because he was really thinking about how he sounded. But then the boy switched tactics, and pointed a long finger at Harry. “Anyway, none of this would have happened if not for him.”

“You refused to answer a question and then acted inappropriately when you lost a duel, Mr. Potter. You should—”

“You should stop prancing around shaming our family!”

Harry felt as though the air had turned to water in his lungs. He coughed and shook his head. “Mr. Potter, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no connection with your family.”

Professor Rowan’s lips pinched shut, and she stared at him. Too late, Harry remembered that she was a Legilimens, with the ability to sense lies. He’d tried to avoid telling any in front of her, but this one was blatant.

“We came here because you do.” Euphemia narrowed her eyes, and then turned the full force of her glare on Aethelred, who stopped looking pleased with himself. “We suspect the connection may be unfortunate, but we hoped you would approach us before something like this happened.”

“It’s more than unfortunate, he’s a bastard, he’s shaming the Potters! Why is he being allowed to get away with it?” Aethelred shouted.

Harry drew himself up slowly. This, at least, he could answer. “I’m not a bastard Potter child, Mrs. Potter.”

Professor Rowan blinked. “He’s telling the truth,” she said, and nodded to the Potters when they glanced at her.

“Then who are you?” Euphemia didn’t seem inclined to let it go, if the way she leaned forwards and stared at him was any indication.

Harry shrugged. “An Evanson. Someone who never intends to make a claim on the Potters.” He knew from the way Rowan nodded—subtly, she probably thought—to Fleamont and Euphemia that she would have registered the truth of that statement, as well. “I haven’t gone around naming you as my family or anything of the sort.”

“But we’re rich!” Aethelred burst out.

Harry stared at him. “What does that have to do with it?”

“You’ll want to make a claim on us because of that.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “My wages as a professor here more than see to my needs.”

“The truth,” said Professor Rowan.

“I—am sorry this unfortunate incident happened, Mr. Evanson.” Fleamont’s voice was a little stiff, but it sounded sincere. James stood up and toddled over to his father, and Harry fought as hard as he could to keep his eyes locked on Fleamont’s face and off the boy who would have been related to him in a different timeline. “We waited for you to make yourself known to us, and when you didn’t, we thought you would try blackmail or something of the kind.”

“Suspicious, aren’t you?”

The words were out before Harry could stop them, but Fleamont only nodded. “When your family reaches the level of prestige that ours does, then you’ll understand what it means to have enemies.”

Harry held back the bark of laughter that would have made everything worse, and nodded. “Perhaps so.” He faced Professor Rowan. “Would you please give me a reassurance that I can take back to my classroom, Headmistress?”

“What kind of reassurance?”

“That the student who tried to torture another student will be punished.”

“And you don’t want any kind of redress for yourself?” Euphemia asked, in a voice that slathered everything with more suspicion.

Harry shook his head. “I could give detention, which I’ll do after I have that reassurance.”

“Yes, of course,” said Rowan, and gave Aethelred a disappointed glance. “No matter what sort of grievance you thought you had against your professor, attacking another student with an Unforgivable is beyond the pale, Mr. Potter.”

Harry nodded, then turned and walked out of the office. He was sure Potter eyes followed him.

But he didn’t care. He couldn’t afford to care. It was unlikely the Potters would hire him to tutor James or Aethelred, after all.

And he already had more than enough links to families from home, and enough concerns.