Title: Paradox
author: AvalonParadox
Summary: After the war went bad, and his cover was blown, Snape had been captured by the dark lord. Now free, he goes back to the only one who can offer him hope, Hogwarts. Sended back in time, he has to go through school again, trying to change the future.
Chapter 1
The night had been dark and cool, leaving the grass white in the soft sunlight, that only just appeared when the sun peeked over the horizon.
The night had the feel of a peaceful autumn night, but the scene was broken when a dark robed man walked, or more stumbled, bare feet, through the wet and cold grass. The hem of his robes getting moist because of the tiny droplets of dew that clung to the grass.
Where he stepped red stains appeared, tiny droplets of blood from the tiny wounds in his feet, and also blood from other hurts slowly seeping from wounds, making its way down the man's legs, making his robes stick to him with half congealed blood. He staggered on, not letting his wounds deter him from his goal.
Ruins were visible from where he stood taking a break when his muscles started spasming again. Crucio curses, too many to count, were used on him, and not just recently. He had been under them long enough to hurt him and bring him to the edge of madness, but never to bring him over it, never giving him sweet release from reality.
The spasming finally stopped, and he could walk again, to the place that he had once called home, Hogwarts, the most magical place that had ever existed. At least before the war turned really bad. Before Voldemort lost what little that was left of his mind.
The man tried not to think of that. He tried to think of that tiny bit of hope, the kind of hope that made men do desperate, crazy things. Dangerous thins. It was the kind of hope one held when all other hopes were lost.
He reached the building and touched it with what once was his hand, now deformed to claws, because of bones broken and set incorrectly, giving the bones the time to knit together again and the pleasure for his torturers to break them once again.
When he touched the ancient stone, memories flooded back, memories from so long ago. When hope was fresh and people did not yet fear what was hidden in the dark.
He had lived here, under guidance of Albus Dumbledore, the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever has had. He, as a spy for the light. Then the war really had begun, Lord Voldemort, tired of waiting for Potter to fall into his hands had decided to come and get him. Snape had long ago vowed to protect him, the son of his best and only friend. When the dark lord finally came for the young boy, he had saved Potter at the cost of his cover as a spy.
Potter had survived, but the dark lord had him to work out his anger with. He had been imprisoned by the dark lord, and the dark lord let him feel all the disappointment that he had felt for losing not only Harry Potter, but also such a trusted spy. A year later Voldemort had finally captured Harry Potter. He had been killed before the turncoat's eyes. It had not been a clean death, it had not been painless either, but at least he wouldn't suffer anymore. Like him, death was too good for someone like him.
After that, the light side lost hope quickly, like the blood that had seeped out of Potter while he was bleeding to death in front of the mad man's throne. Voldemort had even made sure that one of his minions' memory of it reached the Order of The Phoenix. He wanted to break them as swiftly as possible.
They had dropped like flies. One by one captured and tortured for information, or simply killed in battles. Some deaths were quick and painless, a quick Avada Kedavra finishing them off, some weren't as clean, but all died. Until it was only him left of course.
His escape had been short of a miracle, who would have thought that Pettigrew actually had heart enough to get a heart attack. He had fallen just close enough for Severus to get the keys and to unlock the door. He had stolen Pettigrew's clothes and wand, quickly disappearing from his prison before anyone noticed he was gone.
He didn't know how long it had been, but he wasn't surprised to see Hogwarts untouched by nature. No moss clung to its stones; no grass grew in between them.
It was a magical place, Hogwarts, so magical that it actually was sentient, just like the sorting hat. He had once had a terrifying conversation with the hat, about the heart of the school.
The heart of the school was filled with the magic of all the creatures that had died in the building itself or on its grounds. The founder four, Albus Dumbledore, Minerva, hundreds of children who died in the battle of Hogwarts, and all the people who died before that.
The sorting said that Hogwarts would hamster the power for one final act of magic that could change even the fabric of time and space, when it was necessary. And with change the hat had meant change, not like a time turner does, go back in your own timeline but nothing really changes, but more like an eraser, erasing time until it came to a time were things still could be changed enough. Only Hogwarts would remember what happened before.
The hat said that Hogwarts only had done it once before, a long time ago when wizard kind had been brought to the brink of annihilation. He told Severus that he had to keep in mind what the hat had told him that day, that it might come in useful.
He walked to the headmaster's office. The proud gargoyle that once stood guard was now a pile of rubble. He stepped over it, while whispering "lemon drops". Somehow it didn't feel right to not say a kind of sweet when requesting permission to enter the headmaster's office.
The remains of a closet were only recognized because he knew that it must have been there. He pushed away some pieces of wood and stone and took the object that was lying there in his hands. He blew once, to remove the dust from the object and then he put the sorting hat on his head. Voldemort must have been mad to leave and object of such power lying around in rubble.
"Severus Snape, you have returned I see". It said in a sad way.
"I have come to set things right", Snape said to the hat, his voice rough from constant screaming and little other use.
"I see what you are planning to do, Severus" the hat said in a mild tone, "I too think it's the only way."
"Could you show me where the heart is?" Snape asked softly.
"I will show you." And in his head the whole layout of Hogwarts appeared, and he began his track through secret doors and corridors he never knew where there, passwords triggering stairs to move to places he had never seen them move before, until he finally came to the room known as the heart of Hogwarts.
The room was dead center in Hogwarts, it was not a big room, the size of a classroom but the air seemed to buzz with magic. Snape entered, he could feel the hairs on his arm stand on end.
"What do I do now, hat?" he asked, a bit intimidated by the pure power that laid to rest in this room.
"Talk to her, she will answer." The hat answered. Snape swallowed.
"Hogwarts, I came here to seek your help." He began, and then he gasped. Light seemed to pour from the walls until it came to the middle of the room, a shape came from the puddle of many colored lights. It could have been a man or a woman, the light radiated from its form in beams of pure power.
"I know your plight." It said, sounding like multiple people talking in choir. "You must know the risk that it will bring."
"Risk? I thought you had done this before?" he said, afraid that what he wanted was not within the school's power.
"I have turned back time, once before, at request of the then current headmaster. I was whole then. Now I am broken, a mere fragment of what I used to be. I will never be able to merge with the one I was before, I am too different from what I should be." It said. Its voice wasn't loud, but with the power it seemed to be booming as loud as church bells.
"So, we are doomed now?" he asked, his voice breaking. Everyone was going to die or join the deatheathers. But the muggles would surely die, they had no choice, all those thousands and thousands non magical people would lie dead or be enslaved and used as mere entertainment.
"Perhaps we are not," Hogwarts' voice sliced clear through his thoughts, "there is still one possibility left."
Hope returned deep within him. "Which is?" he asked quietly with an desperate edge to his voice.
"You will go back to the past, to a moment where you can change everything, and I will merge what is left of my mind with yours to warn my past self of your arrival. There is however risk involved."
"What risks?" was the question from the dark haired man, who was thinking more than before. He had never expected that he would go back; only Hogwarts would have gone back and warned the people in the past of the things that were going to happen.
"The past Severus Snape will cease to exist and you will take over the body of your past self. You will be Paradox, the one who shouldn't exist."
"There also will be a terrible magical backlash, not only from the power that I will use to make such transfer possible, but from our merge."
"Your power will overflow when mine comes to you. When that has happened you shall be more powerful than Merlin ever hoped to be." She said. Snape gasped.
"Surely no more powerful as Merlin, not even Dumbledore, Potter and Voldemort together are as strong as Merlin was. How could this be?"
"Merlin died at this exact spot, creating me. My real name is Avalon and Merlin gave me live when he lost his. Since then I have only been growing in power. Much will be lost, but enough will be saved, and you Severus are going to be the vessel to contain it. At least if you survive."
Severus pondered about his options; on the one hand he would suffer from magical backlash. He had read a lot about it, and even felt some of it. It hurt, a lot, and the last comment made him think.
"If I survive? The backlash, could it be enough to kill me?" he asked.
"Yes, most bones in your body will break; you will suffer lacerations when the magic will try to rip your body apart. When the transfer is complete I will ask Hogwarts past to send for help, but only after, we cannot risk interruption."
"So will you do it?" the hat spoke again. Snape started, he had forgotten that it had still been on his head.
"What will happen to you hat?" Snape asked.
"I will merge with Hogwarts the moment this magic will activate, I will be with you, though as part as her." He said he would lose himself in the bigger picture.
"So Severus Snape, what say you?"
"I'll do it." He said.
Hogwarts nodded and spread her arms. Her many colored lights filled the room, becoming brighter and brighter, surrounding him, going through him. A white light flashed and he was surrounded in the darkness, suffocating him.
And then he breathed again, air pulled in oxygen starved lungs.
He could feel his soul leave his old body behind and move through time and space, cradled in the arms of magic greater than he had ever felt before.
He was slowing down, feeling him being put back into a shape, but the magic was pulling and tearing at him, he could feel bones break under the pressure and skin tear until he was coated in blood. Finally the magic all found place in his core, and Hogwarts was ready to call for help. Only he wasn't IN Hogwarts.
He opened his eyes and then whished he hadn't when he came face to face with a werewolf and this time instead of running in death's terror he stood still in shock and didn't even scream when those teeth tore into him.