Warnings: Slash - HP/SS; Time Travel; AU from book 7

Author's Note: I don't know if I will finish the story but god I hope so this is coming out pretty darn good for what I usually write if I do say so myself.

Chapter 1

Harry couldn't understand what he was doing wrong. For the last four years he'd been chasing after that blasted potions professor, Severus Snape. It had all started in 7th year when Snape had a near death experience at the shrieking shack. He'd been bitten by Nagini, however he was no fool. He was a potions master after all, and knew that whenever he had to work around that wretched snake that he would need to carry an antidote for her poison with him, just in case. The only problem was that he couldn't reach it in his pockets once he'd been bitten.

When Harry had arrived, Snape had a choice to make. Give the boy his memories and finally die in peace, no longer having to worry about this world and its inhabitants, perhaps to be reunited with his lost love beyond the veil, or tell the boy where the antidote was hidden and have him pour it into the wound. In another universe, perhaps he would have just let himself die, but the split second decision that he made saved his life.

"The antidote… left side, 3rd pocket… inside the robe." He tried when Harry came to his side. As the boy rushed to find the vial, Snape laid his head back on the wall. "Your pity… is welcomed…" He said through a cringe.

Harry frowned at that statement. "My pity has never been given to you, Professor." He stated, finally finding the vial. He followed gestured instruction on what to do with it. "You've had my hatred, you've had my fear, and as of late you've had my respect, but I have never for one second pitied you."

Snape scoffed which turned into a cough and he turned his head away from Harry. "You can't… honestly say you don't pity… an old man on his death bed… whilst you heal him."

"No, I don't." Harry stated adamantly. "I am worried about you though, so shut up and let me do this."

That was the moment that Harry had seen into his mind. He'd been practicing legilimency for the last 2 years before then, alongside occlumency. He'd done a quick raid of Snape's mind when he initially saw him through the window, however with Snape's primary focus being on staying alive and the hole in his neck, Harry somehow managed to get through and view the very memories that Snape was considering giving to Harry should he have chosen to die.

Harry had no pity for the man, but he did have a strange sense of loyalty that developed. Alongside this loyalty came an urge to get closer to the man, which had sparked his apprenticeship within the Ministry of Magic where he became an intern, learned how the aurors operated, and subsequently applied for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

This was his first before-term meeting after he'd been accepted to the position by one Minerva McGonagall. For the last 4 years he'd been preparing, studying, working as an intern, and assuring his position within the school's staff, all so he could sit down and talk with the man about what he'd seen in his mind. Yes, he could have tried to schedule an appointment; however he knew that unless he refused to relent on a near constant basis that Snape would refuse to part with the information he so sought.

As Harry was preparing himself for a long stay at Hogwarts, he could have never foreseen what was happening in the castle around him. The castle was a sentient being, one that had been so since the founders had first instilled the wards. All of the magic that had been poured into its walls, its grounds, it all came together in the heart of the castle; the Great Hall. Over the years the castle's sentience had grown exponentially, and it began to form a telepathic bond with the headmasters. It would soak in all of the knowledge of the headmasters in exchange for alerting them of who did what where and how all over its grounds. With each passing headmaster it learned a little more and a little more, until it came into contact with one Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore had been the one headmaster with a secret that the castle had never heard before; the one with a power so rare and so unique. The man had learned quite by accident one day that if one were to place a magical object around the neck of a phoenix as said phoenix fell into ashes and was reborn from them, that the phoenix would absorb the magic in the object. He'd only done this twice, once by accident with a universal language translator that allowed the phoenix to understand everything being said around it, and once on purpose with a time turner that allowed the phoenix to traverse through time, with or without a tag-along.

Upon learning this, the castle sought to invade the mind of its first non-headmaster and non-human target; Fawkes. The castle waited, however, until Dumbledore was no longer around as it did not know what this telepathic link would do to an animal, so once the old man died and once Minerva had settled in as the headmistress, the castle went to work. It learned the secrets of time travel and picked up quite a few languages it didn't already know, but it left the bird a shell of what it once was, unknowing and simply a phoenix.

The castle then lay in wait, searching for the perfect target with which to experiment on. With anything, sentience carried the burden of curiosity. It waited until it had two witches or wizards who were powerful and smart enough to handle such a journey. When Harry Potter started working at Hogwarts, the castle knew it had its people; one a stoic man who could keep calm in the face of anything, and the other a young dreamer who had a magical power greater than any headmaster the castle had ever worked with.

Upon the evening of their before-term meeting where they would receive notice of who was and wasn't on the staff that year, Snape and Potter had a chance meeting and the castle used it. They'd just barely crossed paths on the Grand Staircase when the castle used the magical core that it had built up over the years, grabbed on to the two men's cores via a spell learned some 2 centuries ago, and hurdled them through time with the knowledge it had gained from the phoenix.

Snape and Potter were sent falling from one staircase that had been there a moment ago, to the stairs below it. They landed, Snape on his back and Potter on his front on the cold, dark steps below them. Harry groaned and moved his hand, gripping a moss covered stone. Snape coughed, nearly feeling as though he were going to cough up a lung, as his own hands gripped roots and vines below him. They both stopped and took in their surroundings.

The walls were holey; no light was coming from anywhere that they could see except from the outside where the sun was shining. The castle was quieter than either of them had ever experienced and as their eyes adjusted to the dimness, they could see the empty portraits hanging on the walls. Most were gone, lost somewhere throughout time. The few that remained had no prime subjects, and most of those were ripped, slashed, or faded. The windows were built up with grime so much so that the light couldn't even be seen through them. Below them the stairs creaked as though they were trying to move, but they simply couldn't thanks to the many roots that gripped them tight and had grown through the walls.

Harry scrambled to his feet and stumbled over to Snape, offering a hand to help him up. "At last, you are finally here!" A voice called. It sounded like a mix of both a male and a female voice.

"Show yourself!" Snape roared, standing to his feet with his wand drawn, his attention not focused on the gash on his arm.

"I am all around you, Professor Snape." The voice called eerily. Even the sound of nature had stopped around them. "I am Hogwarts. I have waited for so long. I did not know when I had sent you, it's been so long." The castle said, eager to have them there. "Many questions are going through your mind right now, but I do not have long. I will not be able to sustain my core much longer. Through the years I have soaked up the magic performed in this school, and through the years the magic has worked to give me a great power, however that magic has drained. I am on my last leg of life. The school has been abandoned for a century now, though I haven't seen the two of you in at least 3 centuries. Please… I need… you… to…" The voice stopped.

Harry and Snape looked wildly around. Were they to believe this voice? Why had it stopped? What did it want them to do? As the sounds of birds, insects, and wildlife out in the forest started to return, the two felt a sinking sensation. They had been thrown 300 plus years into the future. How different would the world be? Everyone they had ever known was dead. What would the Minister of Magic be like? Most importantly, where were children going to learn about magic if not Hogwarts?