Title: Inverse Theory

Author: DhampyrX2

Genre: X-over

Series: Sorcerous Solutions

Rating: PG-13, just to be safe

Summary: In the last moments of the final battle several things have been resolved, including Severus Snape's loyalty. As the last blow is is struck in the fight between Harry Potter and Tom Marvolo Riddle, all present must ask themselves if any of the devastation and pain that brought them there could have been prevented if they had just seen it coming in time. Severus is about to find out...

Timeframe: First at the end of Book Seven, Post-HBP; then MWPP, fifth year, just as Sirius and James hang Severus upside down.

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. Don't sue me, I'm poor.

Author Notes: I don't know why I'm putting this down. The same people that are wailing over certain deaths obviously are the ones that didn't read the intro and timeframe stuff before, but still it's there for them. Either way, here's the next installment.

Author's note 2: About the Dragon Slave, oops, my bad. Sorry. Shabranigdo is the power source for the Dragon Slave, not L-sama. Well, L-sama created who whole universe, so it might be a part of her in the sense it come from the universe, but she's not the direct link. As for the Ragna Blade being more powerful than the Dragon Slave, that's a matter of perspective. Ragna is powered by L-sama, yes, but it's only effective to the range of the blade. If you lose control of it, it dies out once your life force gives out. Some might call it more powerful than the Giga Slave because it's a more controlled version of the same energy, but I think most will agree that something that opens a void that could conceivably engulf the whole world unchecked is more powerful. In that sense, the Dragon Slave beats the Ragna Blade for the simple fact it takes everything out for a square mile. Call me old school with my Slayers but I think of the top two as the two 'slave' spells. It's just how I see it.

The first thing Severus experienced after the sensation of fading away was peace. The kind of peace that almost made him want to forget his last dark fantasy about having the strength left to punch that prat Sirius Black in the jollies as his final act. ti felt like he was home for the first time in his miserable existence.

The second sensation was the though, "Well shit. I guess I am dead," as he noticed the formless black void surrounding him.

The third was a need to genuflect repeatedly as he caught sight of a figure with flowing blonde hair standing before him and over him, as the figure was at least five times his size, floating there in the sea of unbroken shadows around them.

"Be at peace my child, you are home within me once more," a soothing voice declared from all around him as he looked into the lidded eyes of the goddess that created the four realms, she from whom all came, L-sama herself, the Lord of Nightmares.

"My Lord. Then this is..." Severus asked in a voice filled with hope.

"Yes, Severus, you have returned to the Sea of Chaos. As I said, descendant of Lina, you are home," the deity state with a small quirk of her lips.

Despite the fact she looked more than half asleep, Severus felt a warmth the likes of which one would expect if she were beaming at him like a proud mother, while hugging the stuffing out of him. There were unshed tears in his ethereal eyes as he let out a shaky, "I...I never thought I'd...be accepted here. I thought that the wizardry would..."

"That your mother's 'foolish wand waving' would somehow taint you and remove you from me," L-sama interjected with ill concealed ire. "A lie. A lie your father forced into you from the time you were small. If not for your later tutors and the aid of the Saillune Princess in your youth, I may have lost you totally just so you could escape him. He has met his place. He will not torment you here, my child. He was a blight on your birthright with his desires to suppress you. He feared your power, a power not seen since the time sorcery was well known, and my influence undisputed. Now he can remain second to you for all time. He could not call upon Shabranigdo's power, nor could he face me."

The mention of the 'Saillune Princess' brought old pain to life again in Snape's heart as he remembered just who that forgotten hereditary princess was. A fact that the Ministry overlooked as well, which allowed her to be invited to Hogwarts when she showed a talent for wand waving. That princess was Lily Evans nee Potter, descended from the white sorceress Amelia Wil Tesla Seyruun. Ironic really, when one considered that Bella's genealogy could be traced back to the later generations of the house of Naga the White Serpent, whom was rumored to be Amelia's older sister. One might say Bella was a serpent from time immemorial, but they would also imply the most devastating female Death Eater and the mother of the Boy Who Lived were distant cousins. That tidbit certainly would have turned a few heads, no matter how many generations the relations were apart.

Still, thoughts of Lily and Bella brought up an interesting question. One, Severus had no chance to voice. "..."

"No, scion of the House of Inverse, they are not with me. The White Princess resides with her mate, son, and mentor in the place those beyond me go for their just rewards. Such was her choice, to stay with her family. The Black Serpent was too twisted by her choices, her peers, and her false mate. She could no longer hear me when I called to her beyond the Veil. She is where your sire is," L-sama sorrowfully replied.

/In Hell./ Snape's mind painfully elaborated. /Oh Bella. I was looking so forward to seeing you without Azkaban's sickness hurting you./

"Do you still wish to see that, my child?" the Lord of Nightmares inquired in a kind tone.

"What?" Severus asked, startled by the question.

"Do you wish to see your friends again. To see them before they were tainted by the darkness of the would be Wizard's King? Yes. You do desire that. To see them, the child of the White Princess, and even your most hated enemies once more. After all, you said it yourself...

"...There is a similar tale of sorrow in each person here, on both sides of this war, that are saturated with 'if only's'. If only Riddle's father had been a good man and raised his son this may have been prevented. If only Albus had taken more decisive steps back then to curb and lead the boy instead of writing him off because he was Slytherin's heir. If only I had realized what was going to happen and been in time to save James and Lily. If only the Ministry had worked with us in the beginning to stop this instead of burying it. That's the problem. Too many 'if only's' and no way to apply them,"...

Snape's voice rang out around them as a picture of the recent final battle appeared off to his left for he and L-sama to watch. "Too many if only's indeed. You showed great wisdom for one so young. And so foolish," L-sama mused with another minimal grin from her yet unopened eyes.

"Wisdom I might have, Dark Mother, but I have no way to apply it. They, and I, are dead," Severus responded evenly. It was getting harder to get passionate about his pain. He just felt too complete to worry about it in L-sama's presence.

"And yet, if you could change it, any of it, would you, Young Inverse?" L-sama asked just as evenly.

"Yes. There are many things I wish I had done differently. Of course, it is hard to say what I would change if I could. After all I couldn't, for example, kill James Potter in our youth to save Lily from giving birth to the child that lead to her death, as I had often fantasized about. To deprive her of a family she would leave you to be with is unthinkable. I'm not even sure how to do some things. Lucius was too pretentious to listen to me, so I doubt I could have saved him. And...I wouldn't of known how to save Bella, short of killing the misogynistic, closet fey, sycophant her shrew of an aunt sold her off to in order to redress the 'shameful crime' of allowing Andie to escape the family and marry her muggleborn husband with only her removal from the family tapestry as her punishment. That pureblood marriage contract was a key factor in destroying her happiness, but it was hardly the only factor. I would have poisoned Rudolphus and Rastaban both by my second year of I knew what they were truly capable of bringing to my friends," Snape replied critically. It was interesting to brainstorm like this, but it really mattered little. All parties mentioned, save Lucius, were dead. The only success Severus ever truly managed was saving Draco. Granted, the boy would never forgive him for dying like that after making certain his father was going back to prison with that Demona Crystal, but still at least he would live to not forgive his godfather.

"And yet the part of you still mortal, the part that barely conceives what it means to float here, with me and within me upon the Sea of Chaos, does want that chance. It does sing with 'if only's'," L-sama chided with a wag of her finger, as if correcting a mischievous child for trying to change the subject.

"I suppose it does at that," Severus responded with a shrug.

The Lord of Nightmares just stared at him after he said that. Stared at him for an unfathomable amount of time, for indeed time had no meaning here upon the Sea of Chaos, before she smiled her sleepy half smile again and her voice rang once more from her unopened mouth, "Then I shall give you that chance, my nearly lost child. I shall return you to a key point, and you shall have the chance to redress that which has passed. To find happiness for yourself, and for those whom were denied it as matters have taken place," she declared dreamily.

Severus knew not what to say. If fact he just floated there, mouth agape, for what may well have been an eternity, before he incredulously inquired, "Why?"

"Why not?" was L-sama's playful reply. "Remember where you are, scion of Inverse. You float upon the Sea of CHAOS. From this entropy that I am, the four pillars of the four worlds were created. All was made from chaos and nothingness, made for ME, to make what is reality. At it's very truest essence, chaos is change. You desire chaos, you desire change, and it is in my nature and my power to grant it. I shall return your mind to the time you knew of as your fifth year of schooling in magic of wands, to your body of that time. From there, what you do shall be yours to decide. But know this, I will not leave you weak. As with your mind, so shall I return your control over your sorcery. No longer will you simply be a wizard in training, but a full sorcerer of the first Order, MY Order, as well."

"L-sama...this is. I don't know what to say. I humbly thank you for this opportunity," Snape finally responded with a bow of his head.

"Thanks are not needed. The changes you shall bring will be all that ask for. But know this, Scion of the House of Inverse, just as chaos is change, so is it contradiction; so that some thing will NOT be changed. You will not prevent the conception of the one known as Harry Potter through the White Princess and her mate. Though protecting him was her death once, he is still a child of Prophecy, and must come to be. Nor will you destroy the one called Voldemort until after Harry of marked and ready to face him. He too, is a child of Prophecy, and must face his destiny in its truest time. Do you understand this?" L-sama instructed imperially, her tone leaving no room for argument.

"I understand, My Lord," Snape responded evenly and without fear. He would not be fool enough to defy L-sama. None, save perhaps Tom Riddle, were ever quite that much of a fool.

"I know," L-sama retorted kindly, as she gave another of her warming smiles to him. "May my blessings smile upon you in this chance, my child. I shall enjoy looking upon the changes when you return to me once more."

And with that, Severus Snape faded from the Sea of Chaos...

...only to hear something he had last heard just over two decades ago.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" shouted an all too familiar voice from Snape's sudden compromised position of being hung upside down by Black and Potter as she drew her wand on them.

"Don't make you hex you Evans." James warned nervously.

Snape knew how this drama played out. He called Lily a mudblood in a fit of embarrassed anger, taking a page from the arguments his parents were fond of before the debilitating spells took place, she was mortified with him and wouldn't speak to him for weeks, he became more hated by the bystanders in his little war with the Maridiots, and a crappy time was to be had by all. Well, that's what happened when you pit two fifteen year old bullies against a fifteen year old with few recourses to defend himself at the time. Of course two decades of revising how it should have been handled, and being the most fearsome teacher to ever remove a thousand points for Gryffindor on a bad week whether they knew it or not, changed the playing field.

"What's the matter, Potter?" Severus calmly drawled. "Embarrassed she caught you trying to see forcibly get me starkers when you keep pestering her to hide you preferences? I suppose I should say I'm flattered you and Black want a third for your little games, but I just don't swing that way. By the way, Miss Evans, as much as I appreciate the sentiment, I doubt these fumbles have the brains to know what to do with me, much less execute their sick little gang-rape fantasies."

All present looked on in jaw-dropped shock at the cruel and cutting remark the young, in their eyes, Slytherin had uttered.

"Why you miserable slimy little..." Sirius began to growl.

"What's the matter, Black? Afraid Potter might really be straying from your exclusive butt-piracy together after one off color comment? Well, neither of you were known for faithfulness, so I guess I can see your point." Snape responded as he concentrated on breaking the body bind he was in. He might have been wandless, but he knew enough magic, wandless wizardry and sorcery alike, to concentrate his power to.../Ah! There it goes./ he thought with a proud smile as a burst of unrefined power overwhelmed the half-trained James' hex and freed his arms.

The loud crack, and sudden mobility of the Slytherin was enough to halt Sirius in his tracks in confusion, even as Lily smiled in satisfaction. She didn't know how he did it, but she sure knew what sorcery felt like compared to witchcraft at this distance. She just hoped Severus didn't get too extreme. Just as she had a talent for White Sorcery; Severus, like most Inverses before him, had a talent for Black Sorcery. Most of what he mentioned his father trained him in after they discovered each other's talents second year were the types of things hard to explain away without an expulsion. Still, those prats had a good thrashing coming.

"Not this time, little boy," Severus sneered with a savage grin, "Source of all power, light which burns beyond crimson, gather into my hand... FIREBALL!" he chanted as he tossed the resultant ball of flame the size of a melon at Black's feet. "Oh my, look who doesn't need a wand to kick both your arses," Severus added with a gallows smile as he looked back and forth between the shocked and afraid eyes of his two primary tormentors.

James, being the more level-headed of the two antagonistic Marauders, took a step back, even as Sirius gathered his Gryffindor courage to make a blind run for Snape. This talent for weird wandless magic might be a new wrinkle, but that didn't mean he was going to be afraid of Snivelly. Nobody noticed the sudden lack of either Remus or Wormtail.

"Oh, yes, Sirius. Do try again. You have no idea how long I've waited to show you I'm not going to take you shite any more," Snape leered. Once Sirius was foolhardy enough to make his rush, Severus smiled nastily as he spat "Mono Volt!" and stopped the bigger boy right in his tracks with a painful shock of electricity.

Severus was contemplating what spell to use next, something really painful if he could manage it, when a voice rang out to end his fun. "MISTER SNAPE!" Deputy Headmistress McGonagall snapped as she stormed toward the scene.

"Yes, Minerva?" Snape blandly returned out of reflex. /Probably wants to whine about points I stole form her precious little Gryffs, or berate me about some dunderheaded first year I made cry in Potions aga...oh no./ he thought as he realized what was wrong with that dynamic just as she seized his arm and began to drag him toward Albus' office while ordering Potter to take Black to the Poppy Pompherey for medical attention, before she berated him for his lack of manners and cheeky familiarity on top of her other complaints.

/Well, L-sama, you wanted chaos. Here's your first taste at me expense./ he thought sourly as he was dragged away.

END PART 2