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Anularius	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 11886 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Twelve—Smoke and Rubble
            There was a problem that Harry really should have thought of earlier, as he was able to admit to himself when he sat down in the corner of the Leaky Cauldron with the golden cross and stared at it. He was supposed to destroy it, because it was the Horcrux. Hermione had impressed on him several times how important that was.
            But it was also the artifact that he was supposed to use to get home.
            Harry grimaced. He supposed the simplest move was simply to get home and then have the Unspeakables destroy the Horcrux. He was still irritated with them for not having realized that the artifact they were pressing on him was one of the bloody things. Didn’t they have people in the Department of Mysteries whose job it was to sense things like that?
            But Hermione had also said that her research suggested that the Horcrux would be difficult to find in the present because it might have been crumbled into pieces and scattered. At least, she’d said, that would explain why the rituals she’d performed to locate the Horcrux had produced a number of random, conflicting answers. So destroying it whole, in the past, would be for the best.
            Which means I’m changing the timeline.
            Harry breathed out, a little, and picked up the mug of Firewhisky he’d purchased to take a sip. He should have thought more about this, talked more about this, when he was home with Hermione. It was immensely reassuring to know that the timeline would still be the same when he got home and nothing he had done with Snape had changed it—couldn’t, if Hermione was right and destroying a Horcrux back in the past wouldn’t change anything, either.
Except getting rid of Voldemort.
Harry swore and lowered his head to the table. Time travel confused him. He wished with all his might that he could have given his “gift” to locate Horcruxes to Hermione instead. She would have been wise enough to figure out it was the cross when she arrived back in 1983, and she would have destroyed it at once and discovered some other way to get home, and there would never have been this mess with Snape.
So what should I do?
Harry lifted the cross in front of his eyes and peered at it again. There had to be a hearstblood jewel in the Department of Mysteries enchanted to pull him through time, Snape had said. That made the travel enchantment on the jewels make sense, and it meant—it should mean—that pulling one jewel out of the cross and keeping it should take him home and let him destroy the rest of the Horcrux. If it didn’t, well, at least he would go home with only one jewel and the Unspeakables could take over destroying it from there.
He peered once more at the cross, and then nodded and stood up, tossing a Galleon to Tom. It was hard to make ordinary people pay attention to him, and Tom looked around suspiciously, but just like he had given the Firewhisky out to Harry after a while, he accepted the money now. His face smoothed over as he apparently came up with some mental explanation that satisfied him.
            I wish I could come up with one that would ease my guilt over Snape, Harry thought, and took himself outside with his cloak over his face.
*
            Harry stood near the center of the Forbidden Forest, in a hollow dark enough that he had ringed it with fire so he could see what he was doing. He doubted most creatures would come near multiple burning fires right away.
            He had a moment to contemplate the Horcrux in front of him and think about what he was doing.
            Then he shook his head and turned the cross over. He’d chosen a heartsblood jewel near the end of one arm, on the (possibly mistaken) hypothesis that a gem far away from the body of the cross would be the least missed.
            When he pulled on the jewel, it came out suspiciously easily in his hand. Harry blinked and stared, but then shook his head. All right. That probably explained why the Horcrux could have been in pieces before the Unspeakables found and assembled it again. The heartsblood jewels were meant to come out. As Borgin had said, you could hold onto one and travel anywhere that another lay.
            Harry wrapped the jewel in a protective bubble of cool air and cotton, a spell Hermione had taught him, and then stepped forwards and laid the cross in the middle of the circle. Then he retreated until he stood among the fires, and after a few deep breaths, spoke the incantation for Fiendfyre.
            There was a sullen spark of red light from the center of the hollow, and then a flicker of gold, and suddenly the fire was there.
            Harry swore as he watched the gamboling, melting demons seize the cross and hold it up. For a moment, he wondered if they would actually destroy it. Fiendfyre was rebellious, never doing anything you wanted it to. What if they flung the Horcrux away, and he lost track of it while he was subduing the flames?
            But then a beast that looked like a lion with the head of a crocodile opened its mouth, and the demon holding the cross gave a soundless laugh and tossed the thing into its jaws. The lion snapped those jaws shut and looked very smug, turning its head back and forth as if it wanted everyone to admire it. Harry heard a sound like melting metal, and then a faint, distant scream.
            Then he began to raise the cold walls that would shut in the Fiendfyre and keep it from spreading beyond the ring of bonfires he’d built and into the Forest.
            The minute he started the spell, the creatures in the Fiendfyre turned towards him. And then they began to run at him, burning over the grass faster than a charging dragon.
            Harry swore, cast the spell anyway using the calm that had been trained into him by the Aurors, and then began to run. He had to dodge between tree trunks and leap over roots, though, and when he glanced back, one particular tendril of Fiendfyre had escaped the trap. It was racing straight towards him, not even pausing to burn the branches that swung past it.
            If it lost interest in him, it could burn most of the Forest up. Harry turned, his wand in his hand. He would at least stop that from happening.
            The lion that formed out of the Fiendfyre landed in front of him with one claw raised to swat. Harry cast the spell that would raise a wall of ice to melt it in front of him, at the same time as he clutched the heartsblood jewel. The Unspeakables had told him that when he was ready to come back to his own time, he should clutch the cross and tell it to take him home.
            He hoped the instructions would work just as well when all that was left of the cross was one jewel.
            His hand closed on it and he watched the cold water pour down on the Fiendfyre lion, as he whispered, “Take me home.”
            The Forest and the raging fire in front of him dissolved into a dozen whirling specks of light. He saw the lion roaring at him in frustration and then exploding into a shower of sparks of its own, and he had time to smile before he felt a great force gather him up and kicked like a boot into his arse.
            Bet Snape would have enjoyed seeing me kicked like that, Harry thought, as he flew through time.
*
            Harry landed on grass, to his surprise, and in an area so cold that he began to shiver. He turned around. Had the Unspeakables come up with a special area in the Department of Mysteries for him to appear in? It would be like them, although he didn’t know why they would have had to imitate the outdoors.
            He wasn’t inside walls. He was standing in the middle of a village, on a cold, dim night, and behind him lay what looked like a shattered wall.
            Dazed, Harry stared around. He reached into his pocket for the heartsblood jewel, half-expecting to find it a puddle of melted sludge. Or maybe it had cursed him, because part of Voldemort’s soul was alive in it after all, and had sent him in completely the wrong direction. He shook his head when he found the hard edges with his finger.
            Then what…
            Someone was moving inside the broken house. Harry flinched and cast a Disillusionment Charm. He hoped the force of his arrival hadn’t shattered the wall. Was he in a Muggle neighborhood? He didn’t think so, from the absence of electric lights around him, but he didn’t know for sure. Maybe time-traveling magic was powerful enough to have knocked the lights out, too.
            But it seemed to be only one person, and they weren’t rushing outside to see what had happened. They were wandering around in the house instead. Now and then, Harry could hear a low sob. Once the figure crouched down, which Harry could clearly see through a rent in what had been the sturdy stones of the wall, and picked something up from the floor. It looked like a hairbrush, or at least it had that general shape. Then it flung it away again and began to cry and moan once more.
            Harry edged towards it. Maybe this was a newborn Voldemort, and he was in the future where the eighth Horcrux had resurrected him. It made as much sense as any other theory, at least right now.
            But while the Disillusionment Charm concealed him, Harry hadn’t bothered with any magic that would hide his sounds, and the figure sorting through the rubble spun abruptly towards him.
            Harry gasped, and he couldn’t have hidden it even if he had Voldemort’s wand pointed at him.
            It was Snape. Snape even younger than Harry had seen him a few hours ago, his face so pale that it looked as though he’d put on a mask made of salt. His eyes were distended, the skin puffed around them with bags that made it obvious he’d been crying. His hands were closed into claws so extreme that they looked as if they were deformed, and no matter how he tried, Harry couldn’t take his eyes away from the awful state of them. What had Snape done? Was this what he had sunk to once Harry left?
            No, because he looks younger.
            So Harry had gone into the past, and that meant—
            “Finite Incantatem,” Snape said, pointing his wand at Harry. His voice was weirdly calm for someone who looked the way he did.
            Harry couldn’t speak as he became visible again. He was so damn sorry that his voice would have broken if he’d tried. He looked at Snape, and shuddered, and looked away again. His hand closed on the heartsblood jewel in his pocket as he wondered if he dared try another jump, when this one had gone so spectacularly wrong. The jewel should have worked the way the Unspeakables said it would! It should have taken him home, damn it!
            Then Harry’s head jerked to the side; he felt as though someone had slapped him.
            Home…that didn’t necessarily mean just his own time. And it didn’t mean the Department of Mysteries, for sure, where Harry had always been uncomfortable even when he was there on official Auror business instead of being chased through the crazy corridors by Death Eaters.
            What if…
            Harry looked at the crumbling house and then around at the night, and his memories aligned with what he was seeing to tell him the truth. Yes, this was Godric’s Hollow, and this was the night his parents had been murdered.
            And in front of him was Snape right after his mother had been murdered, his mouth hanging open and his breath rattling in his lungs as if he was going to squeeze Harry in his arms and suck his breath like a vampire sucking blood.
            Harry moved a step back, not sure at all what was going to happen, not sure if this was what Snape had meant when he talked about dreams of Harry coming to him among the smoke and rubble of a distant place. Snape took the chance to wonder away from him, anyway, by aiming his wand at Harry again.
            “You’ve come to disturb Lily’s rest,” he whispered. “Haven’t you. Haven’t you!”
            Harry didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he could even damage the timeline further at this point, if Snape was having dreams of him in this place, at this time. But on the other hand, if Snape was having dreams of him that he didn’t remember were real, then he probably hadn’t interacted with Harry in any prolonged way.
            Harry only backed a step away and shook his head in response to Snape’s question. His wand rose behind him, tracing a line that he hoped would give him some kind of plausible deniability in this situation. This particular spell was one he had never cast wordlessly, because he didn’t use it all that often, but his desperation drove his strength, and the white glow that was the answer to his plea rose around him.
            Snape stared and squinted, one hand going over his eyes. Harry knew that wasn’t because the light was so brilliant. Rather, it made the white glow shimmer and dance around him, and that meant it was ghostly, luminous.
            And since only ghosts shone like that, Harry hoped Snape would tend to the simpler explanation. Or at least think he was hallucinating, instead of thinking someone had really been there.
            “I came to honor her,” Harry whispered, and at his will, the glow slightly altered its direction and intensity. He heard Snape stop breathing altogether as it fully illuminated Harry’s face and his eyes. “Do you deny my connection to her?”
            “No,” Snape whispered back, on a long exhale.
            Harry nodded and moved past him, to stand for a moment in the center of the ground floor, where Snape had been moving. He looked up for a second to the bedroom where the confrontation had taken place, and then turned his back. No, he couldn’t go up there for any reason right now. Will had nothing to do with it. His legs simply locked.
            He wandered for a moment as Snape had done, and then bent down and pressed his hands against a piece of wall scorched by a missed spell. He kept his head bowed as he did so. This was…
            This was as much honoring of his parents as he could do right now. And although he thought their bodies had to have been taken away along with him, because he couldn’t hear the crying of a baby or see any sprawled legs or arms, he still couldn’t bear to go up to that bedroom.
            “Who are you?”
            That was Snape’s voice again, behind him. Harry stood up and turned around, and a truth rose to his lips that he knew would come out differently. But at the same time, it was the truth, the most profound truth that he was going to get out of this situation.
            “A lost soul.” His eyes held Snape’s, and Snape dropped his wand so that it rolled away into the rubble. “Just like you are, Severus Snape.”
            Snape stared dumbly at him. Harry shook his head, and raised his hands. He didn’t know what he would do with them, either, the way he hadn’t known the words that would come out, until the last moment. Then his hands came to rest on either side of Snape’s face.
            “Someone lost,” Harry whispered. “We’re both lost here.”
            He didn’t kiss Snape. It would have been unfair. But he had never been so tempted, even during the time he had spent with Severus in 1983. Snape’s eyes locked on him, and there was simple devastation in them. Something Harry could understand, something that Harry didn’t distrust or want to turn his back on because it would change the timeline. Sometimes some things had to happen, whether or not they affected history.
            Harry moved forwards, and enfolded Snape in his arms. Snape gave a confused, sobbing sound, and his arms moved so that his hands brushed Harry’s hips, in what Harry could have called an embrace if he was so moved.
            They stood like that for long enough that Harry felt Snape begin to stir. He would recover his wits in a few minutes, he would ask awkward questions, and they were questions that Harry had no answer for. He silently slid one hand down and into the pocket with the heartsblood stone, which he gripped again.
            This time, his whisper was different. “Take me to the time where I need to be.” That ought to be enough, specific enough, to take him back to the timeline he had emerged from, instead of a random timeline that the heartsblood gem had chosen.
            The gem sparked, and the same whirling sparks dissolved Harry as before. He caught one glimpse of Snape’s wide, dark eyes, seeking him out. Of course, Harry dissolving that way in what obviously wasn’t Apparating would certainly make his tale of being a ghost more conveniently true.
            It didn’t stop Harry from feeling as though he’d had a body-blow.
*
            Harry opened his eyes, barely needing to move to know that he wasn’t in the Department of Mysteries this time, either. He turned his head back and forth, staring, trying to understand.
            He was in an earthen tunnel, with a slight gleam of light towards both ends. He tried to straighten up, and bumped his head. There was the smell of wood and wet soil. Roots dangled above him.
            He was in the tunnel leading up to the Shrieking Shack.
            Harry groaned softly, and pounded his scar with his palm for a few seconds. Why did this keep happening? Would he have to speak a whole sentence to the heartsblood jewel that it couldn’t possibly misinterpret?
            I’ll just have to hope that I’m not in the middle of a battle situation when I use it, this time, he thought, and his hand went back into his pocket to clutch the jewel, because there really was no time like the present.
            But someone groaned down at the end of the tunnel of light, as if in answer to him, and Harry knew when he had come, and why.
            He turned around and stared gloomily up the tunnel. Then he began to move forwards, ducking his head. He wondered for a second if his other self was there, and if he would run into him and change history.
            But he didn’t. Instead, the tunnel came out in a hole that was also smaller than Harry remembered it, and he was dragging himself up into the dusty Shrieking Shack. His foot slipped on the floor.
            Well, that would be on account of all the blood flowing from the ragged wound in Snape’s throat.
            Harry took a deep breath and knelt down. Well, fine. At least this time, he didn’t think he would really change history, if only because Snape would die and be unable to tell anyone what or who he’d seen. And Harry reached out and gently placed his hand on the slashes that Nagini’s fangs had caused, holding them closed as much as he could. He would conjure a glass of water for Snape, he thought, but he doubted the man would be able to drink it with that throat wound.
            Snape’s eyes opened. He had groaned sort of on instinct, Harry thought, but he was looking straight at Harry now, and another, more heartfelt moan came out of his mouth. Harry nodded, but didn’t know what to say. Sorry I showed up to torture you in your final moments as well? Hope you can forgive me for something that was almost twenty years in the past? Sorry we don’t have time for a last kiss?
            Snape continued gazing at him. Then he reached up with a trembling, bloody hand.
            Harry held still, not sure whether Snape was going to slap him or hold him or what, but confident that whatever it was, he would deserve it.
            Snape’s hand settled on his cheek, and he feathered his fingers out, digging in with one nail and then another, shaking his head a little. He probably didn’t expect to find real skin, Harry thought, holding patiently still. Or maybe he was looking for evidence of reality. He must think he was dreaming now, hovering on the edge of passing out.
            “Real,” Snape breathed, and Harry knew his guess had been right.
            “Yes,” Harry said simply, and bent down. He did think that he would at least try to kiss Snape’s cheek, this time, and never mind that it was tacky with spilled blood. Snape deserved at least this much.
            If he’ll let me.
            Snape opened his mouth and parted his lips. Harry let his lips touch Snape’s, and his tongue touch his, too. Snape leaned his head back on the floor and closed his eyes. His face had no expression now.
            He must be on the verge of death, Harry thought. His wand hand twitched. He wanted to do what he could to repair those injuries, although he was no Healer, and he didn’t think he could do anything about the poison.
            But more to the point, Snape had died. He knew that. Harry had no idea what damage it would wreak on the timeline if he lived, but he also knew it was probably going to be more than just keeping a stolen heartsblood jewel from the cross.
            Snape’s voice sighed out, and his hand fell to the floor. Harry’s heart seized up, and his fingers fumbled for his wand.
            He found the heartsblood jewel that he was holding instead, and his fingers leaped in shock when he felt a similar spark of magic from somewhere in the room.
            From Snape’s pocket. It was coming from his pocket.
            Harry reached out with a numb hand. He dipped it into Snape’s pocket, and out came another identical heartsblood jewel, other than the protective wrapping around it. That seemed like an ordinary silk handkerchief, although it had also been enchanted with a charm that would keep the jewel unbreakable.
            Harry stared. The spark of power between the jewels was unmistakable, and he had seen the cross not an hour ago—at least in his own, subjective timeline. He supposed, numbly, that it was almost fifteen years ago in real time.
            I don’t understand this.
            He shook his head roughly and plunged his hand back into his pocket. This time, he spoke the sentence in detail, as calmly and firmly as he could.
            “Take me to the evening of August 20^th, 1983, in the Hogwarts quarters of Severus Snape, Potions professor, the one I left not that long ago.”
            This time, as the jewels sparked and whirled him around, Harry felt a cold, grim determination filling him. He was going to get his answers.
            He looked at Snape’s body lying on the floor in the moments before the sparks consumed him again.
            And some justice for him, if I can.
*
Anon: Hope this doesn’t count as a cliffhanger!
moon: Thank you!
Jan: I promise that it only has a few more chapters left.
Severus1snape: Sorry. But now it is!
LeaniaSTL: Well, Harry is going to try and figure out when Severus stole the heartsblood jewel, so that will form part of the action of the next chapter.
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