lomonaaeren

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Chapter One.

Title: Kairos Amid the Ruins (23/?)
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-Three—Connections Like Threads of String

“I wanted to let you know that Mr. Potter has been removed from school for the duration of the term, Miss Chang. He will take the OWLS at home, and it is—being considered whether he should return at all.”

Louise Chang relaxed with a loud sigh and clutched the sides of the chair with both hands. “Thank you, Headmistress.”

Harry frowned to himself as he studied the relief rising from Chang like mist. He should have realized before this that she was worried about retaliation from Aethelred. It didn’t speak well to his powers of observation and care for his students that he hadn’t. He resolved to try and be more careful in the future.

“Did you have any other questions that you wanted to ask me, Miss Chang?”

“No, Headmistress. May I go now? Um—I have a study group for our OWLS meeting in the library, and I don’t want to miss it.”

“Of course, Miss Chang.” Rowan nodded, and Chang did something from the chair that wasn’t quite a curtsey and then fled towards the door.

Harry started to stand—he’d assumed he’d been brought along just to handle the situation if it had turned out that Aethelred was in the Headmistress’s office—but Rowan turned to him. “Sit down, please, Professor Evanson.”

Harry cursed, but only inside his mind. On the outside, he nodded and said, “Of course, Headmistress.” He sat down again and waited for the interrogation that was probably going to follow. She was an ally of the Potters to have had them up in her office.

But Rowan only stared at him, and the moments chimed past. Harry frowned at her. What did she think was going to happen? He was going to crack open and spill all his secrets at her feet?

Rowan finally gave up on the tactic of eloquent silence and said, “The Potters came to me yesterday with claims that you were probably treating their nephew unfairly in class due to the fact that they thought you a bastard Potter child and would take it out on him. In fact, they seemed to expect Aethelred to come to my office with a report right after class. It was—unexpected when you brought him instead.”

“I find his arrogance and attitude insulting,” Harry said. He would give her some pieces of himself, but not the whole. He owed no one here that. “But what truly crossed the line for me was that he intended to torture another student. And why? I noticed your report on the consequences for him included nothing about that, Headmistress.”

“Young Mr. Potter has had several unfortunate consequences of the magical accident that killed his parents heaped on him,” Rowan said quietly. “I believed his mind to be unstable even before this. His behavior has been getting increasingly out of line, although because it most often occurred outside of class, only his Head of House had reported her concerns to me. I have seen him several times here over the last few months, and urged him to find a Mind-Healer at St. Mungo’s, but he refused under the impression that it would make him seem weak. However, I did not believe that it would increase to the point that he’d try to torture another student. My word to you.”

Harry studied her for a second, and then nodded. “I believe you, Headmistress. I didn’t believe that he would do something like that, either. I’m glad that he’ll be punished, and that he won’t be allowed back until he has Mind-Healing.”

Rowan smiled for the first time, her eyes narrowing a little. “Your addition is noted, Professor. Evanson. And I promise, the Potters will have to show me both that their nephew has received Mind-Healing and that his behavior has changed before I allow him to return.”

“Then that’s all I can ask for.”

Harry’s mind turned to what he would say to Chang, in case she felt threatened by Aethelred, and then he started when he realized he was still sitting in front of Professor Rowan’s desk and she was studying him in utter silence. “My apologies, Headmistress. I was woolgathering.”

“I’m glad that you were. It gave me time to decide how I want to approach you about the other part of this.”

Harry raised his head and tried not to show the way the stiffness raced through his muscles in response. “Oh?”

“You did nothing wrong, Professor Evanson. I am simply wondering why you are denying your obvious connection to the Potter family.”

“How many people know?”

Rowan shook her head. “It’s suspect, rather than know. And I realize that you were telling the truth when you said that you weren’t a bastard child. Fleamont’s brother Charlus was younger than he was, and somewhat wild when he was an adolescent. They must have wondered. You would be about the right age for a half-brother of Aethelred’s, especially if you’re older than you look.”

Harry felt a pulse of distant sadness that he had never known enough about the Potters in his original timeline to be sure whether Aethelred and Charlus had existed there, or not. Well, he knew Charlus had, because he’d been married to Dorea Black on the Blacks’ family tapestry, but Harry had had no idea what their relationship was to Fleamont and Euphemia, his own grandparents. “I was involved in a war before I came to teach here. I think you know that?”

“Professor Greyhand said something about it, yes.”

“As a result of the war, I committed—war crimes isn’t the right word for it, but it’s the term that comes closest to it.” What is the right term for shattering the timeline and making everyone worse off than they probably were? “But those crimes spread out to touch many, many people. I know that they affected the Potters, although only indirectly. I can’t—be part of them. I once wished I could, but that’s not the way things are, and I have to accept it.”

Professor Rowan’s eyebrows had climbed as she listened to him. “I am aware of how the term war crimes is used in the Muggle world. I am surprised that you admit to them.”

Harry shrugged limply. “Like I said, it’s not exact. But the best thing I can do now is stay far away from them. Especially since they thought I was a bastard child and their result was to get angry at me instead of approach me.”

“Fleamont and Euphemia are very prideful. They thought it was your place to approach them.”

Harry just nodded, but Rowan went on. “And Charlus and Dorea left a great deal of money from both her family and Charlus’s investments in various experimental spellcrafting ventures that only began to bear fruit right before they died. I think that Euphemia and Fleamont wondered if you would try to claim it.”

“Why would I have a claim to it if I was Charlus’s bastard son?”

“Oh, not a legal one. And you wouldn’t have a legal entitlement to Dorea’s share. But you could make things uncomfortable enough that the Potters might have to pay you off to avoid a public scandal.”

Harry lifted his hands and covered his face, trying to hold back the laughter that bubbled up his throat. He kept it back, mostly, but enough emerged that Rowan said in a sharper tone, “Professor Evanson, are you all right?”

Harry let his hands drop to his lap, and nodded. “Yes, Headmistress. Fine,” he added, when she kept staring at him. “I just—that’s so far from crossing my mind that it’s absurd. If I’d tried to connect with them, it would have been to have a family, not for money. I find family infinitely more valuable.”

“I see.” Professor Rowan studied him some more, then nodded. “Very well. I cannot presume to advise you on your family relationships, Evanson, not when I hardly have contact with mine—”

“Thank you—”

“But I will tell you about some other rumors that are circulating concerning you, and that you may wish to attend to.”

Harry bit his lip to avoid giving an exasperated sigh, and nodded. It was better to know about them than not, even if he just ended up ignoring them, the way he suspected he would. The way he probably had to.

Rowan gave him a short glance as if she’d heard that thought, then turned and studied the wall behind his shoulder. Her fingers were linked together on her desk. “Some people are saying that you used to be an Auror.”

Harry breathed through the silence, and didn’t answer.

“That you have a close connection to the members of the Black family. That you got the Defense job here because of Ministry favor. That you are a bastard child of the Black line yourself, which would—explain much.”

“That one’s not true,” Harry interjected before he could stop himself.

“But that implies that one of the others is.” Rowan sighed. “Others say that you used to be an Unspeakable, that you are a powerful Dark wizard concealing his true allegiances, that you were a follower of You-Know-Who before his fall.”

Harry shook his head. “That’s a ridiculous amount of rumors to be circulating about me. Is it just because some people think I’m a Potter, or a Black?”

“No,” said Rowan, her head tilting a little. She wasn’t easy to read, but Harry had the feeling that he’d surprised her. “Because you have true power, Professor Evanson. Because you appeared from nowhere and you’re an excellent duelist and making your mark as a professor. Because you have passionate beliefs that are bringing you into conflict with some students and their parents, and few people can believe that they did not hear of you before this.”

Harry closed his eyes. There was a brief memory of a taunting voice that sounded suspiciously like Voldemort’s, except that he’d never said something so complimentary to Harry. You will never be normal, no matter where you go. You never go unremarked.

Harry finally opened his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Professor Rowan. I haven’t deliberately attracted attention, and I’ll do my best not to attract more of it.”

“If you told people the truth, they might not spread rumors so easily.”

“If you think that, then I can only guess that you haven’t been the target of many rumors.”

For a moment, Rowan looked as if she would object, and then she sighed. “I only want to make sure that you do not present a danger to the students of my school, Professor Evanson—”

“I’ll swear an Unbreakable Vow here and now if you want.”

Rowan continued without a sign that she’d heard him, except a slight widening of her eyes. “And I want you to be happy. I want to retain you,” she added, probably because Harry was staring at her. “You are the best successor to Greyhand that I could imagine. Most of your students like you, even the ones who find your views challenging.”

Harry paused. That hadn’t been what he’d expected to hear. A second later, he nodded. “Thank you for telling me.”

“If you could be happier,” Rowan continued in a lower voice, “then I wouldn’t have to worry about you leaving.”

“I like it here,” Harry said. “I like my students. I like teaching.”

“And you won’t claim the family that’s yours, as anyone can see from that hair, or do anything to make yourself happy.”

“Teaching makes me happy.”

Rowan sighed.

*

“What exactly did you think you were doing?”

Fleamont winced away from the sound of Orion’s voice and glanced at his wife as though she was going to provide an excuse for him to stand up and walk away. Euphemia merely scowled. “He was prancing around looking like a Potter and making no move to acknowledge us! We had to do something.”

“And that included sending your shatter-brained nephew to confront him?” Orion closed his eyes and pulled back his own magic into his body. He could feel the cold, crackling power ready to break forth, and he would make no point he wanted to make if he hurt the Potters or even simply froze a lamp. “I suppose it didn’t occur to you that there’s a reason for his close association with the Blacks?”

“I thought maybe he was a Black bastard, instead of a Potter,” Fleamont offered.

“He’s the man I intend to marry.”

That made them both sit up as though hit with a pain hex. Euphemia shook her head back and forth, her braid swaying a little. “But why? He’s scruffy, he acts as though he doesn’t care about appearances or family, he’s poor, he’s probably illegitimate, no one knows a thing about where he comes from—”

“I know.”

Orion gave a superior smile at the startled expressions on their faces. Back when he had been trying to maintain a close alliance with the Potter family, trying to forge the kind of nearness that would mean their sons would be friends, he would have hinted. But now, he simply enjoyed the feeling of having something he could hold over their heads.

It fueled the fire that had begun burning in him the minute he had heard about the incident at Hogwarts. So the Potter boy hated Harry and wanted to strike out at him, to the point of getting himself removed from Hogwarts? Harry, of course, would think that punishment enough, but Orion knew the kind of hatred Aethelred Potter had wielded, the kind that could make someone think anything was justified.

He would watch out for the boy, and make sure that he didn’t pop back up behind Harry’s unprotected back at the worst moment. He would be Harry’s shield.

And his sword, if necessary.

“Where does he come from?” Euphemia demanded. “Is he really Charlus’s bastard son? He said he wasn’t in front of Headmistress Rowan, and she told us that he was telling the truth, but—”

“You should have accepted her assurance,” Orion said, while slow delight moved inside him like a crocodile. “I am certainly not going to tell you.”

“Orion!” Fleamont slapped his hand down on the arm of his chair. “We only want to know that he doesn’t have some sort of claim over the Potter estate!”

“You don’t know a thing about Harry, if you think he would want that. He barely accepted the money I gave him as a courting gift.”

“Taking money from a courtship is one thing, and thinking you have a claim to it because you should have inherited it is another.”

“Harry doesn’t want the money. I think that he would have told you the same thing himself if you’d given him a chance and approached him like ordinary people, instead of playing this game where you were afraid that you would seem to be spurning someone you should have taken in if you ignored him and afraid that you would remind him of his claim on the estate if you approached him.”

“Is he Charlus’s bastard son?”

Orion savored the taste of the knowledge a moment longer, then released it. “No.”

It hardly satisfied them. Euphemia shook her head and set her braid swaying again. “Who is he? Why does he call himself Evanson? How can he look so much like a Potter while not being one?”

Wouldn’t you like to know. Orion smiled a little. Then he said, “I think this conversation has gone on long enough. Harry’s secrets aren’t mine to spill. If you want to know, then ask him, and remember that you should do it in some way other than pointing a wand at him.” He rose.

“Wait, Orion!” Fleamont slammed his hand on the arm of his chair again. “What about the alliance we were discussing? That you would train Aethelred, that James would spend some time with your sons?”

“The training has become more imperative now that Aethelred will be out of school for the next term at least,” Euphemia added in a complaining tone.

Orion raised his eyebrows, savoring the delicacy of the irony this time. “Why would I want to train someone who aimed a wand at my beloved?”

Euphemia leaned forwards. “The boy was perfectly all right. And I don’t buy that this Evanson is your beloved. Blacks don’t know how to love in the regular way, we all know that.”

“Yes,” Orion acknowledged calmly. “We love in a driven, obsessive way, and I plan to protect Harry whether or not he ever accepts my suit. You should think about what that would mean if I was left in a room alone with your nephew.”

“But—damn it, Orion, not even Evanson felt that Aethelred was a danger! He didn’t hold a grudge against him.”

“Not for your nephew’s actions against himself, I’m sure. My beloved is too forgiving.” Not that I can complain about that when it’s the trait that might permit me to earn a place at his side someday. “But the Chang girl he attempted to torture? I don’t think Harry will forgive that. Which means I won’t.”

“It was—Aethelred’s been under a lot of stress.”

“Not as much as Harry.”

“How can you possibly know?”

Orion offered them another superior smile, and a bow, and his exit. When he had Apparated back to Grimmauld Place and settled down his sons in the kitchen with biscuits, he took out the folded letter from his pocket again to read.

He had written Harry offering to do something about the Potters and Aethelred, and got back a response that looked hastily-written, probably because Harry had imagined that Orion would storm off in vengeance right away and he needed to do his best to keep Orion from doing something “foolish.”

No, I don’t want you to do anything to them. Your offer of help is appreciated, but unnecessary.

Orion lingered on the word “appreciated,” as he had before, and closed his eyes to savor it.

To savor the burning in his chest, too, that wasn’t like any other feeling he had ever known.