Thank you for the review and the add. 10 points and some of McGonagall's biscuits. I'd offer Hagrid's treacle fudge, but we all know how that would end. :)
As ever, Harry and his friends belong to JKR...I'm just mucking about in her sandbox.
On the second day, finally feeling at least a little refreshed, Harry reevaluated his plans. Since he had landed a full year later than they had intended, there were a number of things to consider. First, he would have to find a way to speak to Snape. As long as he was in his fifteen-year-old self, getting out of the castle would be difficult. It would be much easier if he had Snape's assistance and cooperation. Second, he could not bypass the opportunity to stop Delores Umbridge. The woman had gone on to be responsible for hundreds of deaths with her damnable Muggle Born Registration Act. He briefly considered sending a patronus to Dumbledore, but rejected the idea. The man had too many secrets for Harry's taste and he did not want his plans interfered with. Harry checked his planner, no potions until tomorrow. He sighed. He was going to have to do this the hard way.
Harry waited until the rest of his classmates were enjoying their free afternoon, and made his way to the potions lab. He walked slowly, taking time to enjoy the feel of the castle. He was nearly to the dungeons when he encountered Malfoy. He tried to glare at the Slytherin, but he couldn't do it. When he saw Draco, he didn't see the fifteen-year-old prat that had tormented him at school. He saw the frightened boy who had died screaming for his mother in the first Battle of Hogwarts.
"Lost, Potter?" Draco sneered. Harry just looked at him and kept walking. The act seemed to take Draco by surprise. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't being ignored. "Potter!" He shouted.
Harry sighed and turned around, "Yes, Malfoy?"
"I was speaking to you!"
"I heard you, Malfoy. But as I have nothing to say and am clearly not lost, I decided to ignore you."
"Ten-points from Gryffindor, Potter. You need to learn to respect your betters."
Harry rolled his eyes. Like losing points was the worst thing that could possibly happen. "Malfoy, I need to get going. Are we done here?"
"Why Potter? You don't have anywhere to be down here. What are you up to anyway?"
Harry leveled a look at him and decided to tell the truth, or at least part of it. "I'm thinking of ways defeat the Dark Lord once and for all without getting thousands of people killed." The pale boy turned positively white and ran. Well, Harry thought, that was probably stupid. I wonder if I could blame it on being fifteen again. On the other hand, he's probably on his way to tell Umbridge, so maybe I can get that problem handled sooner rather than later.
Harry ducked into the toilets, cast a disillusionment charm on himself and walked the rest of the way to the potions lab. He let the scents of brewing cauldrons wash over him. It was more peaceful than anything he had experienced since his return. No matter his school experiences, the potions lab no longer frightened him. It smelled more like coming home.
The door was closed, so he simply waited in the corridor. The class looked like first years, so he figured it wouldn't be long before something exploded. His patience was rewarded fifteen minutes later when a cloud of acid green smoke began leaking from the room. Harry shook his head. Someone had stirred their boil healing solution too many times. He smiled, wondering what the Snape in this time would think if he realized Harry could tell that now just by the after effects.
Soon enough the cloud dissipated and the classroom emptied. Thankfully, the child who had ruined the potion was a Slytherin, so the consequences were mild. A two-foot essay on the properties of nettles and one detention. Harry smirked. If he had made that mistake it would have been ten points, a five-foot essay and detention for a week. When the room was emptied, Harry cast a silencing charm and waited. Right now, he needed privacy and time and he knew the potions master was unlikely to grant either to the boy who had so recently, in his time, violated his privacy.
He waited until all of the potions ingredients were safely on the shelves. Snape could be jumpy as hell and Harry wasn't interested in destroying the lab today. He had far too many good memories associated with it. Once the potions master put the last ingredient on the shelf and magicked the cauldrons to one side for some poor student to clean on detention, Harry broke the charm and revealed himself.
"Good Afternoon, Professor," Harry reminded himself to use the formal address. He was only fifteen after all.
"Potter! What are you doing here?" Snape bit out. Oh, Harry had rather forgotten how very angry the man was. Or maybe he never truly realized since it had been years before he spent any time with him outside of class hours after that. The man looked positively lethal.
"I, uh,"
"Today, Potter! Unlike many in this school, I have better things to do than pander to the Boy-Who-Cannot-Mind-His-Own-Business."
Harry supposed he deserved that. If he had time, he would let Snape vent whatever anger he needed. Unfortunately, they weren't guaranteed any such luxury. They had, perhaps, a week. One week to change everything that had gone wrong. It couldn't be enough time. It had to be. "I need to speak with you, Professor."
"Obviously." Snape drawled with his usual sneer of contempt.
Harry almost laughed, almost. "It's important Professor, a matter of life and death."
"Yours?" Snape asked in a tone that said one could only hope.
"No. Everyone else's, Professor." Harry said seriously.
"Get out, Potter. Get out of my sight." Snape ordered.
"No, Professor. I can serve detention next week or you can hex me into the hospital wing as soon as we're done, but I'm not leaving. I am truly sorry about what happened with the Pensieve. It will be years before you believe that I was not being malicious. Stupid, yes, but not malicious. I am not asking your forgiveness, I know it's far too soon for that. I am asking for an audience, Professor, and an open mind."
Snape was stunned. Harry couldn't remember ever seeing that look on his old friend's face. The Potions Master crossed his arms, raised his brow and said, "Continue."
Harry considered it a victory. At least Snape was listening. "I am not your Harry Potter."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"Don't interrupt." Harry snapped. The man was infuriating! "I am Harry James Potter and I am twenty-five years old."
"Detention, Potter! I will not stand here and listen to your ridiculous lies!" Snape bit out. He strode past Harry to the door and reached for it, only to be thrown back when Harry cast a blocking spell.
"What have you done, Potter?" Snape growled.
"Cast a barrier between you and the door. Dead useful, that spell. You taught it to me. Though I doubt you suspected I would go back through time and use it against you." Harry said bluntly. Then he asked, "Is your office warded, Professor?" He knew it had been in later years, but was uncertain about the time he was in now.
"That is none of your concern, Potter." Snape continued to glare. He could pace inside the barrier Harry had cast, but he could not walk out. Harry knew the man could do wandless magic, but was counting on the Snape in this time not wanting to reveal that knowledge.
Harry leveled a gaze at the other man and stood. He lifted his wand and began the complex movements required to place the wards and ensure their complete safety and privacy. From the corner of his eye, he saw Snape reach for his own wand. Though his first instinct was to disarm and immobilize the stubborn man, he didn't want to engage in a duel. He spoke instead, "If you hex me before I finish casting these wards, you'll kill us both, so for the sake of the love you bare my mother, please sit down, keep quiet, and let me finish."
His last words, more than anything else he had said, captured the professor's attention. Harry had not planned on using that information, it seemed….unfair. But he simply did not have time to fight with Snape. He needed the man's cooperation.
Snape watched, furious, as Harry worked. What he saw was not the brash, careless motions of a fifteen-year-old wizard. Instead, he saw the precise, economical movements of someone used to having to cast quickly and effectively. Still, it made no sense.
Harry finished his warding then returned his attention to Snape. He removed the barrier spell and watched as the Professor strode directly to the door. "You can't leave, Professor. The wards are keyed to me. You cannot even summon a house-elf through these wards. And you developed them, so believe me when I tell you they cannot be broken even by the Dark Lord." Not for lack of trying, Harry thought ruefully.
Snape's face turned purple with rage. "Enough. I don't know what you're playing at boy, but you will pay dearly for this insolence."
"I have no doubt. But as we are safe and have extraordinary privacy at the moment we will stay in this room until you hear me out," Harry said placidly.
"Congratulations, Potter," Snape said in his deadliest voice, "Your insolence has reached a new record."
Harry was growing frustrated. How could he make Severus listen? He thought over what he remembered of his fifth year and what he now knew about the man before him. The difficulty would be in telling him something that his fifteen-year-old self could not have learned from anyone else. Once he considered it, the answer came quickly. Harry turned to the other man and asked, "If I tell you something, something I couldn't know, will you listen to the rest of what I have to say?"
Snape continued to glare. "Please, astonish me." He answered dismissively.
Harry gave an exasperated sigh. "I forgot how much you once despised me." He looked directly at Snape and began to reconsider his opposition to Legilimensy. "Sixteen years ago, you overheard the first half of a prophecy. You took what you learned to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and he used it to target my parents. When you learned it was my mother he would go after, you went to Dumbledore and confessed. You begged him to protect her and became his spy. The protection failed and my mother died to keep me alive. The killing curse backfired and You-Know-Who vanished. That night, you told Dumbledore you wished you were dead. Not being one to miss an opportunity to advance his cause, he extracted a vow from you to protect me. You have done that every moment from that day to the day you sent me back here. Though I confess, we both thought I would return to fourth year."
Snape looked confused. He knew Harry could not have come by knowledge of the prophecy by accident and found himself intrigued almost against his will. "Why fourth year?"
Harry gave a rueful chuckle. "Our relationship was significantly less adversarial before I had the bad grace to look into that Pensieve and this is not easy information to consider. Plus, you had not yet been forced to resume the mantle of spy. In returning to that year, any time prior to the final task, we might have been able to stop his return. However, we either did not make our intentions clear, or the events of last year had to transpire as they did. Whatever the case, there is not a single moment of this particular year I would choose to repeat."
"Thus far, I can only imagine why." Came Snape's sardonic reply. "Poor little princeling isn't being fawned over every minute. It must be unbearable."
Harry knew Snape was waiting for his temper, that had always been so close to the surface his fifth year, to flare. But he was not that boy. He just rolled his eyes and said, "Indeed, but perhaps I can remedy that while I'm here as well. Do you know how Umbridge conducts her detentions?"
Snape looked confused, then said, "I presume she assigns lines or some other equally mundane task. Nothing so taxing it cannot be borne."
Harry looked at his hand, pleased to see the scars had already begun to form. He walked slowly toward his teacher, palm open. When he was close enough for the marks to be seen, but not close enough to risk contact, he turned his hand so the writing could be easily read. "Look at my hand, Professor. Read what is there."
Snape did so and gasped. "What is this?"
"Marks from a blood quill. The scars are faint now, but by the end of this year, they will be permanent. 'I must not tell lies.' She started making me write that after the first time I refused to back down in her class. Of course, now I understand how very, very, stupid it was of me to antagonize that evil woman. But regardless of my own stupidity, she's using that blood quill on children, Snape, even on first years."
"What else?" Snape asked. This time without as much dismissal in his tone.
"You mean besides Umbridge?" Harry shook his head. "This is the year everything got worse. The death eaters attack the ministry, people die, in the summer I'll even get my aunt, uncle, and cousin killed. Not a banner year for me. Or you for that matter. You find out about Umbridge, but not soon enough to stop her. You know about the impending attack, but not soon enough to prevent it. You'll see children die and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named will solidify his power base." Harry began to feel sick as he considered all that happened that year.
"Impossible." Snape sneered.
"And yet, here we are." Harry replied.
"Even if the rest of your inane tale is true, your relatives are protected by the blood wards." There was a hint of desperation in Snape's voice. A longing to be correct rather than a belief of being so.
"Only as long as we all agree that Number 4 is my permanent home. This summer, after I return to Surrey, things get bad. The worst they've ever been. My aunt and uncle kick me out, and this time I don't refuse to go. This time I pack my trunk and walk out. The blood wards fail almost instantly and by nightfall they're all dead and I'm in hiding."
It was Snape's turn to look ill. He asked nothing for a time, but when he did, it was obvious his doubts were clearing. "How? Dumbledore? A time-turner perhaps? Or a spell?" He asked in voice that was just above a whisper.
"Dumbledore is long dead, the time turners are destroyed when the ministry is attacked this year and as the ministry is no longer on the side of the light we could not risk a spell that could be traced." Harry stated bluntly.
It was more Harry's delivery than his words that finally convinced Snape. There was no hesitation, no softening of the message, just a simple statement of fact. He watched the boy in front of him, considering. "Then how?"
"A potion." Harry said simply. "We created and used a potion."
How do you think Snape will react to that news? And what else does Harry have to say? Please take a moment to comment or review.
