A/N: This is my entry into the QLFC Season 6, Finals Round 1. Beater 1 for Pride of Portree. The theme this week was time travel. I had to write a story based on the HG Wells novel The Time Machine. My optional prompts were: (word) mindless and (quote) Life is a series of embarrassing moments which leave you feeling alone in your confusion and shame. - Miranda Hart.
This is a Severus lives AU.
W/C: 2,852
Beta love to my fellow Pride teammates: Litfreak89 and Story Please!
Summary: Severus Snape spent years trying to undo the events of October 1981. When he finally has a chance to go back and fix his mistakes, he ends up in May 1998 instead, saving his future self from inevitable death.
Tempus Machina
July 1989
Severus Snape was quite sure this wasn't going to work. But he'd been tinkering with the machine for the better part of five years. The students had just left the castle; if there were a mishap, he'd have two months to fix it before the little buggers were back. It was now or never. Severus took a deep breath as he contemplated what he was about to do. The machine was based on the infamous device from the H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine. When the idea to travel through time first occurred to Severus, he hadn't been sure of where to start, so he went back to books from his childhood.
The Time Machine had been a beloved novel, one of the few that his mother had owned, and Severus had read it over and over again before coming to Hogwarts. Now, it was his inspiration. He'd used similar materials on his machine used in the book. Ivory and crystal turned out to be perfect conductors to move through time. He was pleased with every test he'd run thus far, only sending the machine a few hours or days into the future, never the past. He couldn't spend so many years perfecting the machine, only to lose it in the past. It worked perfectly going into the future, so he just had to hope that it would work for the past as well. It had to—it was his sole reason for creating the machine.
He planned to return to October of 1981. He was going to save Lily if it was the last thing he ever did. He took one more pass around the time machine, inspecting it from all angles to ensure that it was in perfect condition.
The Shrieking Shack was filthy, and despite Severus's liberal use of the Scourgify charm, it remained thus. The floorboards creaked around him as stepped around the final corner of the cube he had built. The door opened bifold, and inside were two levers of ebony. They were beautiful in Severus's opinion, and though he had only used the right one, the one that sent the box to the future, he longed to push the left one. The one that would hopefully send him to the past to save Lily.
He sighed. Lily. He knew that even if he did save her, it was likely she would still want nothing to do with him. That was honestly alright with Severus. He would do anything to have her back in the world, even if she still hated him. Severus clenched and unclenched his fists once, taking one more deep breath and slid inside the cube. It wasn't quite tall enough for him to stand in, so he hunched over as he fingered the left lever. He had calculated that holding the lever down for approximately three minutes would result in him landing eight years and three months into the past. October 1981. The worst month of his life. Severus pulled his stopwatch out with his right hand and clicked it the same moment that he pressed the lever down with his left.
Nothing seemed to change. The box didn't seem to move at all. At exactly three minutes, Severus pushed the lever back up to neutral and stopped the stopwatch. He planned to Apparate to Diagon Alley and get a copy of the Daily Prophet to check what the date was, but when he left the box it was dark inside the Shrieking Shack.
That's alright, he thought to himself, he hadn't been as concerned with time of day as he had been with getting the right month and year.
He'd begun building the time machine in the upper level of the Shrieking Shack to try and keep any nosy children from seeing it by peering through the ground floor windows. As he stepped out of the door of the cube, the floorboards beneath his feet groaned horrifically.
Suddenly, he heard speaking below him.
"Severus," a high-pitched voice hissed. "I am sorry, my faithful servant." Severus's blood ran cold at the term 'faithful servant.' It's what the Dark Lord had always called him. But he and the Dark Lord had never been to the Shrieking Shack together. Did that mean he wasn't in the past? Was he in the future? He shivered at the sound of his former master's voice. He had always hoped the Dark Lord was gone for good, although he knew that Dumbledore didn't agree with that assessment.
He cast a Silencing charm on his boots and the floor beneath him and crept toward the stairs. The Dark Lord was speaking about the Elder Wand. A fantasy, surely. The Elder Wand was just a children's tale. It wasn't real, was it? He reached the bottom of the stairs to find a much older looking version of him, and his heart sank. The time machine only moved forward? How was that possible? He had been sure he programmed it correctly. He felt embarrassed that he seemingly hadn't programmed the machine correctly. He was supposed to be brilliant; he should have been able to do this one thing right, this one thing that would redeem his soul and the thing he regretted more than anything else in the world.
His older self was trying to explain something to a grey-faced monster of a man. Was that the Dark Lord? He looked nothing like he had the last time Severus had seen him. What had happened? How far into the future was he? His older self appeared so old. He should go back upstairs and figure out what went wrong with the time machine, but he found he couldn't keep his eyes from the scene before him.
"Nagini," the Dark Lord hissed. Severus was confused. What was a Nagini? A soft, papery, slithering sound reached his ears then, and from the shadows of the room a large snake leapt forward and bit the older version of himself in the neck, once, twice, three times. Severus felt disgust roll through him heavy and hot. Bile rose in the back of his throat, and he wanted to vomit, but also felt rooted to the spot as his counterpart slumped to the floor, his hands pressing uselessly against his neck. Attempting to stem the blood flow, he was sure. The Dark Lord and the snake, Nagini, left the Shrieking Shack and before Severus could move, three teenagers scrambled forward.
"Professor Snape!" a boy who looked eerily like James Potter said. A girl with bushy, brown hair knelt on the other side of him, her wand busy as she tried to stop the blood.
"Out of the way," he growled, pushing the girl from his counterpart. "Vulnera Sanentur," he chanted over and over again.
"Here's some dittany," the girls said, shoving a vial into his hands. Severus poured it over the wounds.
"Who are you?" the girl asked, her eyes bouncing between the dying man and Severus.
"Doesn't matter," Severus grunted. He reached into an inner pocket, pulling free a Blood-Replenishing Potion and shoving it down the other Severus' lips. "Any idea what sort of snake?"
"Some sort of viper," the girl said. "No idea what kind."
"Fine," Severus grunted and dug through his inner pockets once more, finding a bezoar and shoving that down his counterparts throat as well. The bleeding had slowed considerably by this point, and he was reasonably sure that the older version of him was going to live.
He stood quickly; he had to get out of here. It was bad enough that he knew what was going to happen, but he'd been seen by people who clearly knew him. He needed to leave. The blood on his hands made his stomach roil in nausea again, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold off the vomiting for much longer.
"Wait!" the girl cried. "Where are you going?"
"Back. I have to go back," Severus said mindlessly as he sprinted up the stairs. He placed a complicated ward at the bottom of the stairs to prevent any of the three of them from following him.
"Who was that 'Mione?" one of the boys asked.
"No idea," the girl replied. "We have to help Professor Snape though," she said.
Severus stopped listening to them as his nausea finally got the better of him, and he fell to his knees, retching everything he had in his stomach up. He hated blood. Always had. And seeing a version of himself covered in it? Almost dying? That had been the worst part. Severus felt mindless as he wiped the spittle from his mouth and fell over onto his side. He took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He was in the future, but Severus had no idea how far into the future he was. The other version of himself looked old. And the Dark Lord was coming back. When would that happen? He felt like he'd done a good thing, but he hadn't saved Lily. And the boy, he looked more like James Potter than anyone had a right to. Was that James and Lily's son? Harry Potter. He'd been dreading Potter's arrival at Hogwarts for years, and now, before he was ready, he'd come face to face with the boy. A teenager now. Maybe seventeen? Which would make this 1997 or 1998. Perhaps this could be salvaged.
Severus gathered himself and stood, lurching toward the ivory and crystal cube. It was strangely beautiful in the dilapidated room. If he pushed the lever down for three minutes to move forward in time by the same amount he was trying to move backward. What would happen if he pushed the lever up for six minutes? Hopefully, he'd go back to October of 1981.
Perhaps he'd done something wrong, and pushing either leaver down made the machine go forward. Severus hoped that pushing the levers up would reverse the machine. He felt rather foolish that he hadn't worked all of the kinks out of the machine yet. It made him think of a quote his mother had always mumbled to him: 'Life is a series of embarrassing moments which leave you feeling alone in your confusion and shame.' He felt all of those feelings now as he pushed to doors of the machine closed behind him.
Once again, Severus pulled out his stopwatch. He made a snap decision and pushed both levers up, clicking the stopwatch at the same time. Once more, it didn't even feel like the machine moved. At six minutes, he stopped the stopwatch and put the levers back into a neutral position. He paused for a moment but didn't hear anything outside of the machine. Opening the door, he found he was alone in the Shrieking Shack.
Severus peered outside, pleased to see it was daylight and promptly Disapparated to Diagon Alley. It was unbearably hot, similar to the day he had left from 1989. That didn't bode well for him ending up in October 1981. He couldn't recall the weather in October 1981, but he had to assume it wasn't scorching. He found the first news seller and bought a copy of the Daily Prophet. The date at the top read, July 3, 1989. His heart sank. It was the same day he left.
Severus tried again and again over the years but was unable to make the machine travel back in time. It went forward in time and would return to the time it left from, but no matter what he did, it would not go backward.
It had taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure out that the machine required the levers to be pressed up double the length in time that they were pressed down when going forward in order to send the machine back to where it originated. And the levers themselves? They seemed to do the same thing; there appeared to be no difference between the two. Severus had done several experiments on both of them: using them in tandem or solo, they did the same thing. Down sent him forward in time; up sent him back to where he originated. Once he had pushed them up for only a quarter of the time, he'd pushed them down for and found he hadn't moved from the future at all. Nothing he did seemed to make the machine work in the way he had originally designed.
July 1998
Severus' slow recovery in St Mungo's was nearing an end. He'd successfully dressed himself and walked down the corridor and back again. He was pleased that he would once more be able to live in obscurity in his childhood home. Although he had no idea what he was going to do when he got there. Severus had refused all visitors from the moment he woke up in St Mungo's. He had no plans to be helpless in a hospital bed as all and sundry came to castigate him. All he wanted was a quiet retirement making potions. And being left alone.
The healers had just left to get the final parchmentwork, and Severus sat heavily on his bed, his back to the door. He dropped his head into his hands and breathed deeply. He had no idea what waited for him out in the real world. He'd also refused to read the rag that was the Daily Prophet, although his healers regularly brought him copies. He incinerated them on the spot.
The door opened behind him, and Severus straightened. "When will the Aurors be here?"
"Why would the Aurors come?" Granger asked. She stepped around the bed to face him.
"What are you doing here?" Severus spat. "I asked for no visitors."
"Technically, you are being released today. Therefore, I am not a visitor," Granger smiled slightly at him. Severus didn't respond. He glared at the silly chit until she began to squirm. "Why are you expecting Aurors, Professor Snape?"
Severus flinched at the honorific. "To take me to Azkaban for war crimes. I thought you were supposed to be bright." His tone was scathing, but the girl didn't acknowledge it.
She did laugh, however. A high, tinkling sound that should have set Severus' nerves on edge, but didn't. A warm feeling in his belly kindled at the sound, and Severus barely tamped down his horror. He couldn't find a student attractive. Embarrassment and shame flooded him, and he tipped his head forward, hiding his face behind his hair.
"I know you refused visitors, but didn't you read the Daily Prophet?" Granger asked.
Severus glared at her balefully.
Granger's eyebrow rose expectantly, and when Severus still didn't respond, she huffed slightly before going on.
"You were exonerated, Professor. The Wizengamot listened to testimony given by Harry, Ron, and myself as well as testimony given by your fellow professors. You are a free man."
Severus flinched at each use of 'professor.' He moved his head down, hiding his face once more and stared at his half-clenched hands. He hadn't been a very good professor in the last year. As Headmaster, he'd allowed children to be tortured under his watch. It would be his undying shame. He still didn't say anything as he processed what Granger had told him. He hadn't been free in his entire life, and confusion was his first emotion. He didn't know what being free meant.
"It was you, wasn't it?" Granger asked softly, breaking him from his mindless reverie.
"Hmm?" He hadn't meant to say anything, but she startled him into a response.
"You saved yourself. Somehow you came forward in time and saved yourself," Granger said. She stepped closer to him then, and Severus glanced up sharply.
Granger lifted a hand, brushing his hair out of his face. Her hand was warm and he inhaled, an overwhelming scent of cinnamon and vanilla invaded his nostrils. Her hand traced the contours of his face, and he tried to glare at her, but couldn't bear to move his face when she touched him so gently.
"It was, I can still see him in you," she whispered.
Severus felt his body responding to her nearness and he stood abruptly, pushing her away from him.
"If there will be nothing else, Miss Granger!" Severus snapped. She squeaked and stepped away from him.
"Sorry for taking liberties, Professor," she mumbled. Then said louder, "I just wanted to let you know that you are a free man now. And that your service to the wizarding world hasn't gone unnoticed."
She summoned a copy of the Daily Prophet and handed it to him. Then she left the room. Leaving him alone once more. Severus stared down at the paper to see his face glaring back out at him. 'HOGWARTS HEADMASTER EXONERATED!' read the headline. Then the subheadline: 'GRANGER CREDITED WITH SAVING SNAPE'S LIFE!'
Shame and revulsion rose up and Severus forced himself to swallow it back. The healers wouldn't let him leave if he vomited now. He buried his emotions once more under a veil of Occlumency and prepared himself for his re-emergence into the world.
