Chapter 1: An SOS is sent to the past
It was a strange, cold but dry, early January Saturday for Professor Severus Snape when he received a charmed letter and parcel from an unknown sender. It was only the seventh of January but his birthday was on Monday, the ninth, so he was not totally surprised by the arrival of a parcel. It must be from Narcissa, he thought initially before looking at the handwriting. Since it was not Narcissa's familiar script, Severus Snape thought twice about opening the letter and parcel here at the Head Table during breakfast. No, it could wait until later, when he checked it out in his office.
The young Professor had been enjoying the peace of the last three months but was still sad over the death of his friend, Lily, on Halloween. There was no body found for his Dark Lord and as a result, his Light Lord and employer, Albus Dumbledore, believed that Voldemort was waiting for the right time before he came back. Really, both Lords could be as bad as each other, Severus Snape thought but it was better to have only one Lord to report to than two. Everyone else in the magical world seemed to want to forget the horror of the war and just live in peace.
So here he was playing the watching and waiting role of the sleeper spy. Professor Snape, as the Head of House for Slytherin, was able to watch those families who participated in the war, who were linked with the house of the cunning. He was currently trapped here as the Potions Master cum teaching slave to Albus Dumbledore, as Dumbledore offered the only protection Severus had in this new world order, even though he was one of the best Potions Masters in the world today.
Taking the parcel and its letter he retired from the Great Hall to his office to wait for the drop-in students from his House coming to see him. There were not many who had stayed over the Yule break so he did not expect to be busy, but office hours were office hours. Those horrible, pesky things you did when you had students. The rest of the students would be back tomorrow to start the second semester of the year. Sitting in his office after sweeping the parcel and letter for curses and traps he found the items to be clear. After debating with himself, he finally opened the letter.
oOoOo
My dear Severus,
My wise and cunning friend, please read this letter and take action to save us all. Of course, as the sleeper spy, you will need to read and keep this correspondence confidential. Do not share the details or the fact you have received a time communication with anyone else, not even the illustrious Headmaster. The Department of Mysteries alone would lock you up for the rest of your days and that would be a total waste of your mind and talent.
Professor, you asked me to call you Severus and I did so for many years but in my mind when I reminisce about you, I always think of you in your Professor mode, as you taught me so much both in and out of the classroom, although you would never tell me how you would get your robes to billow they way they do, you great dungeon bat!
This letter is an act of desperation, my Professor. You would be so angry with me but I am so desperate that I have probably sacrificed my existence and my magic in the adaptation of a number of archaic rituals to send this parcel of hope to you. I am desperate enough that I am willing to chance Fate's revenge. Please make sure that you read this correspondence in private. This letter is not a cruel joke or a twisted trick but rather a plea for help. I am from your future and I am the best friend of Harry, the son of your best friend, Lily Evans Potter.
The reason for this time travelling correspondence is that I have to attempt to make the future better for you, Lily's son, Harry, and for so many others. I am a muggleborn witch and in this time period, 20 years from now, I am one of the last members of the Order of the Phoenix. My life expectancy was already non-existent, so I risked it all in the hope that something better would come out of my meddling with time. Why am I so desperate, you ask? I can hear your sneer at me in my mind, calling me a dunderhead. Thanks to the lack of resistance and the idiotic, sheep-like behaviour of the magical community, who believed that either the Ministry or some child would save them from the return of Voldemort, we were all doomed to the death of magic. Sorry, as you prefer, Sev, I will call him the Dark Lord rather than that name.
Yes, young Harry defeated Tom Marvolo Riddle, your Dark Lord, when he was 15 months old, but he did not kill him as his spirit still survives. Using a particularly foul dark ritual, Riddle split his soul, storing the pieces of his soul in objects known as horcruxes. The problem is that he did not do it just once; oh no, the sick, twisted bastard did it a total of seven times by our calculations.
Due to the manipulations of the demented old coot better known as Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, you and many others sacrificed way too much. The old fool used the excuse of the 'greater good' and unwittingly enslaved our world of magic into a darker, dying society. Now, again, in my today, thanks to Riddle's attacks, the muggles hunt us magicals as terrorists and social deviants, like the medieval witchhunts of old, except now they have the technology to track and hunt us remotely. Nowhere is safe in the world and we are on the most wanted list of every country. While Harry in the end defeated the Dark Lord, it came at too high a price. Harry, Lily's boy, my best friend, was never just Harry. To Dumbledore, he was a chess piece that he would mould into the tool he believed Harry needed to be. Harry was Dumbledore's pet tool, never really a child, never free. My friend ended up paying the ultimate price of the giving of his life when he did not have to.
He was not alone in making this sacrifice, as there have been too many deaths, much too much suffering and great hurt for far too many, both magical and muggle. One of the hardest experiences I had in my short life was holding your hand as I watched you pass on to the next dimension or journey in your cycle of life. Yes, you die in the future. Of course, we all die at some time and even then, at the end, you were thinking of your Lily. The night you died was the night I also lost my best friend, it was the night when the Battle of Hogwarts took place and children were forced to fight. So many innocents were killed just for being school students.
After you passed, Harry and I watched your memories of Lily, along with the memory of the Headmaster rationalising the greater good to you. His order to you to euthanise him instead of allowing a murder mark on the soul of Draco Malfoy was another memory that horrified us both. Dumbledore believed that bearing the burden of his death would corrupt the boy but what about your soul? Sure, it gave you greater access to the inner circle and secured your position in the Dark Lord's army, but at what cost? After seeing your memories I then had to watch my best friend walk out to a one-on-one duel with the Dark Lord and die in the process of killing him. This was after an eight-month search for his soul containers, with little or no guidance, while on the run from Riddle's agents and the corrupt Ministry of Magic. I have included the vial of your memories so you can verify that they are real.
I beseech you to keep your promise to protect Lily's child. Please don't trust Albus implicitly anymore, as he believes that he infallible. Yet, he is human like the rest of us and it is through his actions, where he believed in his hyped-up fame as the greatest Light wizard of the century, that chaos and disaster ensued. I would question his eminence, as I have come to believe that even if he was not as evil as Tom Riddle, it was partly his fault that this abomination was created.
In the second war, the Order of the Phoenix ended up having their wings clipped by Dumbledore's failure to share information and his insistence on the greater good myth. The Order in the end, was a group of ostriches or big chickens. The reality was that in the second war against the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, the Order of the Phoenix was too late and too ineffectual. Albus' decisions wasted lives, time and resources. Too many lives, and way too much in the way of resources. The Queen once said that grief is the price we pay for love, but we have paid so much more than just grief, since we have lost so much.
As the great spy that I know you are, I ask you to do some research to verify my information and assure yourself of the situation. Utilise your contacts, both light and dark.
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Born in 1926 at Wool's Orphanage, London. Halfblood. AKA Lord Voldemort (which is an anagram of his real name). Slytherin.
Father, Tom Riddle buried in Little Hangleton cemetery. Muggle. Local Lord of the Manor.
Mother, Merope Gaunt. Pureblood. Her family home is a shack near the cemetery in Little Hangleton.
There is a ring horcrux hidden in the shack. Be careful as there are many curses in the shack and the ring itself also contains a dangerous curse, along with a compulsion charm on it that needs be removed before touching it. This ring is the one that killed Albus in my time line, in Harry's and my 6th year. The Gaunts are descendants of Salazar Slytherin and Cadmus Peverell. The stone in the ring is one of the Deathly Hallows.
Yes, that means the Dark Lord is a half blood; how would all those Pure Blood fanatic followers like to know this information?
SIRIUS ORION BLACK
Born in 1959. Pureblood and your childhood bully, along with James Charlus Potter, Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin. Gryffindor. Auror and Hitwizard.
Never received a trial. He was not the secret keeper but another Marauder was the Judas. Remus Lupin was a werewolf (also died the same night as Harry, together with his wife) and much of your potions research has been for the development of a cure for this horrific disease. Due to his monthly transformations while in school, the rest of the Marauders all became illegal animagi. Moony is Remus' Marauder nickname.
Sirius' animagus form is a Grim and this is reflected both in his Patronus and in his nickname of Padfoot. Peter Pettigrew, the betrayer, is a rat animagus and was called Wormtail. Wormtail is a marked Death Eater. He joined the Dark Lord in his 7th year and he later resurrected the Dark Lord in Harry's and my fourth year at Hogwarts. In your time, Wormtail is currently in residence at the Weasley home, The Burrow, under the guise of Scabbers, young Percy Weasley's pet rat.
HORCRUXES
The horcruxes at your point in time are:
Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, currently located in Bellatrix Lestrange's Gringotts Vault.
Tom Riddle's Diary. In your time period it is in the procession of Lucius Malfoy and is believed to be hidden at Malfoy Manor. We destroyed it in 1992 when we killed the basilisk, as another child had been possessed by the diary, which was using the child to control the basilisk. Please note that basilisk was in the Chamber of Secrets and over 60 feet long. The poisoned fang of the king of serpents was plunged into the diary to stop the possession and destroy the horcrux. At the time we did not know what the diary was, nor did we learn until much later than only basilisk venom or fiendfyre can destroy a horcrux. When we talked about this horcrux a couple of summers later, you advised me that you did not believe that Lucius truly knew what the diary was. Lucius had been horrified that an incredible large and deadly snake was sneaking round the halls and pipes of the castle where his son and heir was going to school.
Salazar Slytherin's Locket. Regulus Black died stealing this from the Dark Lord. Before his death, he gave it to the Black house elf, Kreacher, who has it with him at 12 Grimmauld Place. Regulus had instructed Kreacher to destroy it but Kreacher was unable to do so. You will need to get Sirius to help you get the locket from him.
Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem, currently located in the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor of Hogwarts. The house elves know the room as the "Come and Go Room.". You need to walk three times past the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy and the dancing trolls, asking for a room to hide something.
Riddle's familiar, Nagini. A highly venomous snake, whose bite wounds do not heal easily. In your time, Nagini is not yet a horcrux. She is made into a horcrux in about 1994, when Riddle is reanimated with a new body. The snake needs to be killed to remove the horcrux. Also, you need to do some serious anti-venin work as she bites people far too frequently. It would be advantageous for the spy to have some protection from this weapon. In the parcel, I have included some vials of her poison, which I milked from her dead carcass. I have included my notes on the antidote development we have already done and some samples of the developed formulation so far as well.
The current Albanian wraith, ie, the Dark Lord's current condition. The wraith will possess Professor Quirius Quirrell sometime during his sabbatical research year in Albania. This occurs some time in 1990 to 1991. The possessed Professor will return for the 1991/1992 academic year and Harry ended up killing him merely by touching him, due to the protections afforded him by Lily's sacrifice.
The last one... is young Harry himself. His lightening bolt scar. Albus is a bright professor but he does not know everything and he limited his research to wizarding literature. The goblin healers can quite easily remove this soul fragment from the boy without killing him. It is not necessary for my best friend to die to stop the Dark Lord.
I have given you a full Potions Master's kit that I have expanded to include many very rare ingredients for your experiments. The ingredients are all freshly collected within the last three months so they should be good for you. I have made a copy of all your potions journals for the last 17 years and combined them into one journal. I have also provided you with your own grimoire that I have started for you with the translations of the spells and potions from Salazar's secret library from the Chamber of Secrets. I rewrote all your journals in case sending them back wiped them out. I have provided a journal for financial trading so that you can use your knowledge of the stock market to make money to help fund a new front, separate from the Order of the Phoenix, that can improve the integration between both worlds and work to protect children. I have also provided other materials for your perusal, so that you know what happened in the second war and in the last twenty years. Information can help you build a third way or battlefront. Why can't we have a balance or unity of both light and dark? This third front can be the Freedom Alliance, that is grey in attitude since there is no such thing as light or dark magic, but just magic. It is the intent of the user that makes it good or bad.
At no time do all seven horcruxes exist together, so if you can remove them as quickly as they are made it would be most helpful. We can get rid of the Dark Lord early in Harry's education, perhaps during his first year, and get rid of this threat to our world as soon as possible. At the same time, we need to revolutionise our world – we need to innovate and develop. If we can change, we can build links and have a better association with the non-magical world.
Severus, my friend you don't have to do this alone; you have friends and allies who are willing to fight this third front with you. Let go of the feud with the Marauders. Reconnect with Remus and brew a better Wolfsbane. Let him see his young son and see him grow into a future. Get the rat, Peter Pettigrew; a good ally would be Amelia Bones, in more ways than one, as she is not a great fan of Dumbledore and hates the Dark Lord for the death of most of her family. Get Sirius out of prison. He has grown up and Harry needs him to be his godfather. My Harry grows up in a home like your childhood and I know you protect your snakelings from abuse and neglect. Please protect him too in the same manner. Make life different for my Harry. Harry once said he would have been a Slytherin. except for a run in with Draco Malfoy, who reminded closely of his cousin Dudley who bullied him.
When you have your accident on you birthday this year that will prove to you that I am not a total crackpot. Get Poppy Pomfrey to do the initial healing and then go and make contact with Drs Dan and Emma Granger. Allow those specialist dentists to do the repairs. You did the repairs in my fourth year after talking to me about my parents' professional skills and specialisation. After treatment with them you wished you had taken up the Muggle approach earlier, as it gave you much relief from pain and constant suffering, which I am sure is why you were always so short with us in class. Dan Granger can be an ally for you, as he was before his death. My Father, Dan, was actually a squib son of a squib, descended from the famous potioneer, Dagworth-Granger. The only one I believe you can share the details of what is going on with is my father but please don't tell him it was me who sent the information into the past. There is a letter for him in the parcel that doesn't say anything much about what has happened but I pulled on his heartstrings to do this one action of going with you to Gringotts bank for an inheritence test. I have also included a letter for Gringotts supporting the pair of you claiming the Dagworth-Granger Estate on my behalf and appointing both of you joint regents. The regency letter is a letter of magical authority that I have imbued with my magical essence. Don't forget to swear the Gringotts officials to secrecy. If you can pick someone to work with, I suggest Griphook, as he is a devious goblin at the best of times. Remember you need watertight oaths to protect yourself and my family, Sev. I know, I know; stop trying to teach a master spy to suck eggs. Together with the financial information and the Dagworth-Granger seed money you can fund the third front and your research.
In addition to your potions journals, I have also included the key articles in potions and Muggle science research that you may like to explore. We can use this information to make advancements that profit the alliance and the fight against the Dark Lord's followers.
I have included the information to access the Chamber of Secrets, along with the big picture ideas we bounced around in the long dark nights at Headquarters after the resurrection of Dark Lord. Recruit the other Heads of Hogwarts' Houses to the alliance. Recruit the remaining loyal Marauders. Turn Lucius and Narcissa as soon as Sirius has been cleared. Lucius will regret being marked when he finds out the lies Tom Riddle had told and the threat he makes to his son. At the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, Narcissa defected and took Draco and Lucius from the battlefield before becoming exiles on the continent. In the end, a Muggle hit squad sent by the Estrange brothers assassinated all three Malfoys in Naples.
So what about your Dark Marks? I have provided my research notes for the development of a lotion to help you fade and break the links of this corrupted Protean Charm. We used this lotion to reduce your link when you were exposed as a double agent. We had postulated that the Goblin Nation's healers, who left not long after the Dark Lord's reanimation, would have been able to help remove this dark magic if they can deal with soul jars. It simply would be the case of paying enough money to convince them to provide this service.
One of the factors we thought about is what about changing your name from Severus Tobias Snape to Severus Snape Prince in a re-birthing ceremony? Get rid of the damage that you father did to you physically, mentally and emotionally. Remove the link to the Dark Lord.
Treat me as any other child that you teach and if we become friends, we become friends. I really don't expect to have a long life in the magical world, thanks to my meddling. I believe the Fates and the laws of time will punish me but I am willing to accept this punishment if it stops the disaster of what is happening now.
I have also included a birthday present for this year for you, along with some other odds and ends that I believe you will find useful.
Please, my friend: change the roll of the dice and save them all. There is a folio of newspaper news reports along with vials of memories for you to review as soon as you can get a pensive and take the time to work your way through them.
May you find love and have a long and fruitful life that is peaceful after you have dealt with the Dark Lord. You are worthy of love and you can have redemption. You have been redeemed from your teenage mistakes, both calling your best friend that name and taking that awful mark.
Best wishes, my friend and mentor
Hermione (Mia) Granger