Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter, it means a lot. Thank you! I hope this one doesn't seem too much like an information dump!
Chapter Three: Dead Men Walking
Softly closing the door, Severus allowed his gaze to linger over the old headmaster. It crossed his mind that what happened to him had also happened to Dumbledore. That, one moment, he was being fired off the top of the Astronomy Tower, then the next he was picking himself up and dusting himself down in 1976. Maybe they had it all wrong about the afterlife. There was no heaven, no pearly gates or red-winged Seraphim. There was just the '70s. If that was indeed the case, however, Dumbledore gave no sign of it. He sat in the same old seat, back straight and fingers steepled as he regarded Severus curiously over the gold rims of his half-moon spectacles.
"Ah, Severus. Please, come in. I had intended to visit you earlier, so I beg you forgive an old man's procrastination and take a seat." Dumbledore motioned toward a chair in front of his desk, the same one he had occupied countless times before as they spent hours closeted together planning the latter stages of the war.
Severus entered the office properly. Like the old man himself, the room remained much as he remembered. Not just from Dumbledore's time, but even his own stint as Headmaster. So much so, he couldn't resist taking another look around. Noting the gyroscopes and astrolabes, the moving model of the solar system and the constellations lit up in silver and gold. The ruby set in Gryffindor's sword winked suggestively at him from its display cabinet and the shelves of books reached from floor to ceiling. On a perch beside the large oak desk, Fawkes the Phoenix smouldered at the edges. The bird lifted its head, tracking Severus's progress with beady amber eyes as he took the proffered seat. "Thank you, sir."
"I read Professor McGonagall's report of yesterday's meeting. In it, you claim all those eye witnesses were mistaken in what they saw. Which is most curious, indeed."
"You know I would never lie to save Potter's skin, sir."
"Which serves only to add yet another layer of intrigue to this already intriguing incident, Severus."
"I could have gone along with it, I suppose. It would have been easy. Just pretend he knocked me out, get him expelled and live out my days as if nothing had happened."
"So, why didn't you?"
"Because something did happen, sir. Quite a lot, in fact." Severus hesitated. There was no easy way to explain what happened, or the unknown phenomena that had occurred and knocked him back in time. But unless he was going to stammer out the same vague half-arsed missives he had fed McGonagall and Slughorn, he had to start somewhere. "Because the truth really is that I got up and walked away. Sir, can I show you my memory? A pensieve or through occlumency, it matters not. I need you to see it and everything that happened after."
Dumbledore's brow creased. "You've been taught occlumency?"
'By you,' Severus thought, but it was too soon for that. "Yes, sir."
He brought the memory to the surface, grateful it wasn't one of those given to Harry Potter however much the incident itself pained him. Then Dumbledore met his gaze, sapphire blue sliding into onyx black almost imperceptibly. Although Severus couldn't see where the other man was at in the memory, he let it play out in his head. The world turning upside down; foul soap suds dripping from his mouth, blood rushing to his head as the taunts and jeers washed over him in a wave of humiliation. Lily's furious intervention and his temper snapping. His own voice echoed down the decades, "…filthy little mudblood…" The shame he felt was real, a palimpsest of sounds and images that resonated through the decades. It was such an odd feeling to wrestle with the fact that, technically, none of this had happened. At least, not yet.
It was over quickly and Dumbledore broke eye contact, ending the memory reading. He looked more baffled than ever.
"How curious. Miss Evans did say you opened your mouth to speak, and that is when Potter sent you crashing head first into the ground. I think we are both eternally grateful that this time she did not get to hear what you had to say."
It was Severus's turn to not quite make eye contact, but not for magical reasons. "I'm sorry for it. I'll be sorry for it even if it didn't happen here. But, sir, how? How is it I got up, lived my life and then suddenly find myself back here?"
"Time is not the straight forward, linear thing people like to think it is. It's more complicated than that. Time turners can be used, within reason, even if it is not you yourself in possession of one-"
"But sir, it's been over twenty years. I lived two whole decades before dying and waking up here, in 1976." Now the old man looked shocked. His expression froze as the words "twenty years" hit home, the enormity of the time shift throwing him for a loop. One would need a much bigger time turner for that. While Dumbledore kept his stunned silence, Severus continued: "And even if I or Lily used a time turner, we couldn't make James Potter drop me on my head."
Dumbledore had abandoned any pretence of calm understanding. That usual air of stillness was fracturing as he rose to his feet, clearly deep in thought. His brow was creased deeply as he began pacing, eventually coming to a rest beside a large window overlooking a quadrangle. Severus watched him, noting how he looked out over the grounds without really seeing what was before him. This was how he knew the situation was serious. When Albus started behaving like this. He'd seen it many a time before as an adult.
"You think I'm going to join the Death Eaters, don't you?" said Severus. "Even now, when I'm only sixteen."
Dumbledore turned sharply to face him again. He almost looked stung, but was clearly couching a delicately phrased answer until Severus spared him the effort.
"I did join. When I was eighteen. But at twenty-one, I turned and started working for the Order of the Phoenix. I was your spy on the inside."
"The Order of the Phoenix hasn't even been formed yet," said Dumbledore, more to himself than to Severus.
"It was you who taught me Occlumency, sir. When I first turned. You trained me morning, noon and night. You said the first mistake I made as a spy would be the last, so I had to master it."
He talked as if trying to jog the headmaster's memory, as if it might awaken something deep in his subconscious to prove that Severus' life had been real. Even he couldn't quite comprehend that none of this had happened yet. That there was no memory to jog.
"You said that you died. How?"
"The snake, Nagini. The Dark Lord had her kill me."
"So, the snake does exist?" Dumbledore replied, again more to himself than anyone else. "Did he find out that you were a spy?"
"No, the Dark Lord wanted me out of the way because he thought I was the master of the Elder Wand. Your wand."
That came as another shock to Dumbledore – it hadn't occurred even to Severus that no one knew where the headmaster's wand came from yet, never mind that it was the Elder Wand. He thought he could see the Headmaster's body absorb the impact, the implications dawning slowly behind those bright blue eyes. "And you sacrificed your life, rather than tell him who the real master was?"
There was genuine admiration in the man's tone, so it almost pained Severus to have to disabuse him of the heroic notion. "It's a bit more complicated than that." It felt better than saying 'you were dead too', but he realised it was still a brush off. Before they could go further down that road, however, Severus continued: "In five years time, half the people in my year will be dead, as good as dead, missing in action or in prison. Surely, we can use the knowledge I have to stop the Dark Lord in his tracks before any of that happens? That seems rather more important than going along with the idea that James Potter tried to kill me."
Finally, Dumbledore returned to his seat, his expression grave but business-like. "You say Voldemort killed you, twenty years from now? I take that to mean this madness is set to last for another two decades, with no end in sight?"
"Not quite. The Dark Lord vanished in 1981. He tried to kill a baby whose mother sacrificed herself to save him. The curse rebounded, almost destroying him but sparing the baby. He was gone for over a decade, but an old servant found him and restored him to life. And the cycle began again." Severus was growing impatient. If they could get through this initial confusion and put their heads together, they could change everything. Nothing had to be the same. Not this time.
"Why did he go after a defenceless baby?"
"A prophecy was made that a child born at a certain time would have the power to defeat the Dark Lord." Severus himself had forgotten the precise wording. It was so long ago, to him, that time and age had dimmed the edges of his own recollection. And not to mention the guilt. The guilt he had carried to his death, an albatross dragging him ever downwards. "The prophecy said the baby would have powers that the Dark Lord would never understand or possess. So he searched for babies born at the relevant time. Two fit the bill. One born on the precise day mentioned. And he went after him, killing his parents and failing to kill the child."
Dumbledore was hanging on every word, although his expression seemed a touch more distant. "A mother's love. Of course, Voldemort would never understand that. Such ancient magic. Who were the child's parents?"
"Lily Evans and James Potter."
Dumbledore snapped back to attention, the flash of alarm passing over his face like a storm cloud. "Lily and James?"
"I was the Death Eater who overheard the prophecy," he admitted, quietly. He looked away, directing his line of sight out of the old casement window. From somewhere deep in the castle, a stampede of student's feet could be heard rushing for the Great Hall where lunch was due to be served. Shamed by his own confession, Severus continued: "I reported the prophecy back to the Dark Lord. When I realised he intended to kill Lily, I sought you out to protect them and I agreed to be your spy-"
"Ah, so that's what turned you, Severus?"
"You hid them in Godric's Hollow under the Fidelius Charm. But their secret keeper betrayed them."
"Dare I even ask who that was?"
"Peter Pettigrew. The same man who found the Dark Lord years after his fall and returned him to full health."
Removing his spectacles, Dumbledore buried his face his hands, rubbing his eyes slowly. If he was exhausted from hearing the story, it was little compared to Severus retelling it. But after keeping it bottled up for days, he had to press on. He needed to know that they could stop the war before it even had a chance to gain traction. But then, the headmaster finally spoke: "Nothing is written in stone, Severus. We can change things. We will change things. But I need to know everything. I need all your memories, everything you can tell me."
"When the Dark Lord tried to kill the Potters' baby, a piece of his soul tore away from him and latched itself onto the nearest living thing-"
"The baby?"
Severus nodded. "I don't have the memory of you telling me that. I had to give it to the Potters' son once he was grown and ready to take on the Dark Lord. But I know that's what you told me. It's like a dream I can't remember but I know it happened. It is important, though, isn't it? That fragment of soul that tore away from the Dark Lord?"
"Voldemort is just a man. And for a man to survive a killing curse without a mother's protection…" Dumbledore trailed off. "I couldn't have told you much else, since you were Voldemort's spy. It would have been too dangerous, even if with your occlumency."
"There's something else, sir."
"Go on."
"You obtained a ring and put it on, cursing yourself with powerful dark magic," he said. "Whatever was in that ring condemned you, but it was a step toward defeating the Dark Lord. I stopped the curse, but it wasn't enough to save you. But you never did tell me what was in that ring … Sir, I don't have the memory of the ring. But there's something else I need to show you."
Understanding that he meant legilimancy, Dumbledore once more looked him dead in the eye. He even leaned in closer as Severus selected one of the memories he had of their many arguments toward the end of Dumbledore's life. One he had given to Harry Potter, but there were others all in the same vein. He and Dumbledore, in this very room years in the future, discussing Draco Malfoy and the assassination plots around Dumbledore himself. Dumbledore pleading with Snape to be the one to finish him off, for the sake of a quick, clean death and the untarnished soul of a child who had been nothing more than collateral damage in his father's war. Severus held the memories, allowing Dumbledore to peruse them at his will until, after what seemed an age, he broke off eye contact and snapped back to attention.
Snape didn't know what to expect from Dumbledore after this revelation. But it certainly wasn't admiration. "You did that for me? To protect all those children?"
He was almost blushing. "Sir, I died before the war ended. I don't even know if it did end. They could all be dead now for all I know."
"That's not the point, Severus. You did it. You gave your life."
"And woke up here with everyone telling me James Potter tried to kill me."
"Yes, that is something of an anomaly."
Dumbledore always did have the knack of a graceful understatement. Beyond the doors of the office, lunch ended and the stampede reversed itself as students rushed to classes. Fawkes still fixed Severus with a beady eye, reminding him of one more salient detail.
"Sir, there's another problem," He rolled up his left sleeve and revealed his inner-forearm to the Headmaster. "The Dark Lord has a Death Eater he doesn't know about yet."
Dumbledore took Severus's arm in his hands, narrowing his eyes as he scanned over the dark mark. It was like a bad taste souvenir he had brought back from a day trip to Blackpool Promenade. A misguided tattoo he'd woken up with after a drunken night out.
"No one must find out about this. Not a soul. If word reaches Voldemort it'll be you he's hunting down and I doubt he will be so patient as to listen to theories about time travel."
Arm released, Severus covered up again and nodded his assent. "So, what now? What do I do? Live my life all over again and just hope to avoid the same mistakes? In my head, I'm thirty-eight."
It was always the little things they overlooked. And compared to the fact he'd been thrown back in time, largely equipped with information to defeat Voldemort, the fact that he was thirty-eight and masquerading as a teenager did seem like a little thing. But it still felt utterly wrong.
"For now, I don't want anyone suspecting anything is amiss, Severus," Dumbledore replied, at length. "Not until I understand what's happened here. For now, play along. We're the end of term, you have no lessons-"
"But I do have detention," he interjected.
Dumbledore sighed heavily. "How have you managed that, Severus? You were only discharged this morning."
Ridiculously, he felt abashed despite Dumbledore clearly suppressing a smile beneath that mane of a beard. "I accidentally swore at Professor McGonagall. I got frustrated when trying to guess your password."
"Like I said, play along. Until we form a plan, at the very least. You're just going to have to do it. Now I must insist you go to the Great Hall and eat something. You are as thin as an adult as you are as a teenager. Something I must say, I found rather alarming."
"Thank you, sir."
"I will send for you soon and we can talk again, once we've both absorbed the shock."
Severus nodded, sending a stray lock of hair sliding across his line of sight. Ignoring it for now, he rose to his feet and looked to the window, realising with a jolt that it was already late afternoon and the final bell would ring at any minute. But as he reached the door, Albus's voice called out once more. "One more thing, Severus'."
He'd reached the door, but stopped and glanced back to find the headmaster writing a hurried note. "Sir?"
"Tomorrow, I want you to go into Hogsmead and, assuming you can, apparate to Diagon Alley. Once you get there, perform some more magic. Any magic. I want to know if you have a trace on you. You trust Miss Evans with your life, no?"
"Absolutely."
"Bring her too, and have her perform some magic. If she is flagged by the Ministry, leave them to me."
"If she is flagged?" he repeated. "You sound fairly convinced already that I will not be."
"It is a rather strong hunch I have, but I would like it confirmed beyond all doubt." With that, Albus waved his wand over the note and sent it fluttering across the office to Severus, who plucked it from the air. "Take that, in case anyone tries to stop you leaving the school."
He turned to leave, only to once again be called back. "And to spare you any further detentions, it's 'Caramel Cobwebs'."
Caramel Cobwebs. He'd forgotten those things ever existed. He glanced back over his shoulder, to where Dumbledore was openly chuckling, but removing gossamer threads of memory from his head and depositing them into the pensieve. Another telltale sign that things were getting serious.
Outside, the corridors were quiet. Students were either in their final lesson of the day or out in the grounds, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine by the Great Lake. His footsteps echoed off the cold stone walls as he headed for the library, although he knew Lily would have given up waiting for him a long time ago. As he walked, he cast his mind back over the meeting with Dumbledore. They had barely scratched the surface of his future but if he was stuck here forever he supposed he had all the time in the world to go over it.
As he rounded the corner toward the library, he was grabbed from behind and dragged backwards into an alcove, beside a suit of armour. "What the-"
"It's me."
Shoved against the wall, he found himself face to face with James Potter. On instinct alone, he reached for his wand while deftly squirming out from under Potter's grasp as one hand still attempted to pin him in place. "What do you want, Potter?"
James backed away quickly. "I don't want trouble, Snape. I just… I just-"
"What?"
He looked bewildered. A number of expressions chased themselves across his dumb visage, his jaw working as though he wanted to speak, but words failed to form. Quickly losing patience with this nonsense, Severus was about to shoulder his way out of this ambush and leave the other boy flapping his gums like a fool. Until …
"I wanted to thank you." Only James Potter could make a show of gratitude as aggressive as this. "I don't know what you said, or why. But McGonagall no longer wants to flay me alive. So, thank you."
His sixteen year old self would have hexed Potter to hell and back by now. But his adult self, knowing what he knew, almost pitied him. For all his bullish arrogance and nonchalant charm, he was dead long before his time through a betrayal of one he trusted. All of them, Severus himself included, were a lost generation that had willingly thrown themselves into a hail of human mincemeat in some vain effort to stop a madman taking over the world. They were all dead men walking.
"I didn't do it for you," said Severus. "It did it because it was the truth."
James straightened up, his expression suddenly curious. Intensely curious. "You know I didn't do it on purpose?"
"Yes. Can I go now?" The question was rhetorical and Severus was already walking away.
"So what did happen?" Potter's voice followed him back out into the corridor. "What happened, Snape?"
Severus kept walking. If he turned back now, he would do as Dumbledore asked and act like his sixteen year old self and end up even deeper in the shit. No matter how dead he was, he always loathed Potter. His footsteps grew faster, until he broke into a jog. For one sickening moment he thought Potter was following him. But as he barged through a set of side doors and into a quadrangle, he found himself breathless and mercifully alone. Just breathe, he told himself. Just keep breathing.
Thank you for reading, reviews would be greatly appreciated if you have a moment.
