DISCLAIMER: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, who isn't me. The only profit I get from this is personal satisfaction.
Interest of Time
Dumbledore looked at his blackened hand. If Severus was correct, the Headmaster would be dead in less than two years, and from the looks of things it would be a very slow and painful death. If he was lucky, the Saintlike One might be able to help make his inevitable death quick, painless, and meaningful, but with the paranoia of the Weasley twins, Dumbledore worried that the Saintlike One might become permanently unavailable for discussion on the matter.
Several sets of footsteps echoed up the stairs. The staff rarely came in large groups unannounced, so it was likely that Mr. Oliver and Mr. Black had found someone for the Headmaster to talk to. The door opened and they were there, along with three Weasleys, Mr. Jordan, and Miss Tonks.
Mr. Oliver spoke. "I'm pleased to inform you that the Saintlike One has been exposed."
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Could you please elaborate on that?"
"I promised this lot some memories, so you and the twins can get the full disclosure first," Mr. Oliver said as he approached the Pensieve and deposited a slurry of wisps into it. "While you three have fun, I'll get the requests from the rest of the group for their memorial tours. Now go on."
The Headmaster watched the two young gingers place their heads in the Pensieve and he followed suit. The memory they fell into was that of young George Weasley's Sorting.
"Yet another easy Weasley," the Sorting Hat said. "Go join your twin in GRIFFINDOR!"
"Why has this memory been tampered with?" Dumbledore asked.
Fred Weasley shrugged. "As far as I'm aware, that's completely accurate."
Dumbledore paled. If the Saintlike One had caused delusions in the twins, who was to say that the Headmaster had been under his influence without realizing it as well. Maybe he should have taken their paranoia more seriously, before this radical change of heart.
"Just keep watching," George Weasley advised. "It should all make sense later."
And watch they did, but that sense seemed very long in coming. Nearly every prank the twins had gotten in trouble for (and quite a few that had never been discovered) was featured—though the Quidditch incident was conspicuously absent.
"Merlin, we are unoriginal," Fred Weasley lamented.
"Be fair," his twin replied. "He did have a head start."
The memories advanced through time and it soon became apparent that they were watching events that could not have possibly happened yet. The twins dancing on a table saying, "We've got Potter!" definitely seemed out of place and the future kept on advancing.
"Why did he invent a false sequence of memories for you?" Dumbledore asked. "Is this supposed to be an apology for altering what your future could be?"
"You haven't figured it out yet?" George Weasley asked.
"What we're watching really happened, as the Saintlike One remembers it," the other twin explained. "He just jumped back in time a couple decades."
Dumbledore shook his head. "That is quite impossible. The timestream simply cannot sustain alterations of this magnitude. Time-Turners all but necessitate a stable time loop and even the few alternate methods I've heard of are completely reliant on the traveler's adherence to previous events—and none can jump anywhere near this far back in time. If wizards ever find a way to move even a few years, it will be several decades—if not centuries—from now."
"Well, we'll just have to keep watching to find out how to do it," George Weasley said.
They did.
George saw Dumbledore and the twins emerge from the Pensieve. Dumbledore looked completely dumbfounded as he went to examine a metal device on his shelf that probably had something or other to do with minds or time. Fred and George, on the other hand, were notably excited by all the pranks they had managed to pull off in the future.
"With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go with holey?" Fred quoted his future self.
"I stand by that decision," George said.
"What decision?" Tonks asked.
"How I came to be known as Saintlike," George said. "If you want it in your memorial tour, I'll put it in. Be warned that there's a lot of blood involved."
"Then why did you let the twins watch?" Charlie asked.
"It was when I lost my ear. It was kind of important," George said as he emptied the Pensieve.
"Before you send them in, there's something in your memories that I think you don't know about," Young George said.
"How?" George asked. "I'm pretty sure the whole point is that I remember the things I put in the Pensieve."
"Just go revisit your last night in the old timeline," Fred said.
George shrugged and placed the night of the Trickster back into the Pensieve. It played back as expected until, when his memory-self closed his eyes and the Trickster deadened his memories of his future family. That's when things changed.
A void with nothing but a blond young man standing before George. How did this get in my memories? he wondered. Is it possible for the Pensieve to be contaminated?
"Hello, George," the blond said with a smile. "This is a subconscious memory that I have implanted in your head in order to bypass the universe noticing me. I've already shielded your mind and wand from universal observation, as was done to me before I came here. You're not the first time traveling twin and I ask that you ensure that you are not the last.
"My name is Lysander Scamander. Just a little while ago, I was born to Luna and Rolf Scamander. What I'm doing in your version of the universe is my business, but it is my own twin driving my actions now. As for you, do what you need to do, but please also find an identical twin who you trust to not ruin everything and prepare them to jump from your reformed timeline to an earlier one. I don't know how many long-range time travelers have existed, but there were at least four before—or after, rather—me."
Out of thin air, Lysander pulled out a large book. "This is the Memory Book. It contains everything we know about our version of time travel and the ways we can augment it—like what I'm about to do that will make the first thing your twin consumes act as a catalyst for your possession. Memorize it, add to it what you think you should, and pass the memory of it on to your successor."
Lysander flipped through the pages too fast for George to read much of anything. I guess I'll be revisiting this memory a lot in the near future.
The blond closed the book. "I know that you're in a critical time and you have to be careful about where you focus your energies, but I ask that you prepare your successor as soon as possible. If you die and the information is not passed on, those dark times prior to you will be locked into history forever. Voldemort and Grindelwald destroyed so much and we can change that. So you were right: I want you to change the timeline and change it a lot. I figure you already are by the time you relinquish this memory to prove your origins. If it's before Halloween of 1990, I'd appreciate it if you saved Grandma Lovegood before her experiment goes wrong in front of Mum. And if for some reason George isn't in the Pensieve right now, could you get him to watch all of this please? Thanks and good luck."
The memory resumed exactly as George remembered, and at its conclusion, he emerged from the Pensieve.
"Do you have any candidates in mind for your successor?" Dumbledore asked. Apparently in the time George was in the Pensieve, the Headmaster had sorted out everything in his mind and was now back to his usual calm demeanor.
"The only trustworthy twins alive now that I know are the Patil twins," George said, "and they're not going to start Hogwarts until next year. I'd rather get someone who is of age already if it's at all possible. And now I really wish that either Uncle Fabian or Uncle Gideon had survived that Death Eater attack since that would make this a lot easier."
"I'll make some inquiries and get back to you later," Dumbledore promised. "In the meantime, you have a line of people who you promised memories for."
After George gave everyone their memorial tours, he decided to continue to use the Pensieve to study the Memory Book. Time travel was proving to be both less and more complicated than he had expected.
The mechanism to travel through time was a simple one: just an incantation. Not even a wand was necessary. Just saying the incantation out loud would send a signal to something called the Server of the Universe. The Server would then redirect all temporal energy in the universe that was available at that point in time and focus it on the person casting the spell. The purpose of the signal was to allow large-scale corrections to happen, but only as a last resort. The person who spoke the incantation could, with the theoretical help of some unknown entity outside even the multiverse, channel the temporal energies into moving someone else a certain amount of time. In the version of the universe the channeler remained in, it is postulated that time travel would cease to function until the temporal energies could be renewed. The individual who was catapulted through time, however, would still be able to use the temporal energies that existed prior to the divergence to fling yet another back through time, and so on.
The role of the channeler was the hard part and, of course, was the part George would have to take whenever he got around to sending someone back in time. It generally involved him perfecting his focus such that he did not think of anything except for the target person existing in the target time. Fortunately, it seemed that Occlumency would help him do that. Unfortunately, George's Occlumency abilities weren't exactly something to be proud of. He had been able to convince the healers at St. Mungo's that he was crazy when they probed his mind and not much else.
After he emerged from his study in the Pensieve, he brought his concerns to Dumbledore.
"It seems to me that you should make use of your former Potions Master," the Headmaster suggested. "His skill with Occlumency greatly exceeds my own."
"And here I thought you only pushed Harry onto Snape as a second choice," George said. "So, I guess I'm off to the dungeons."
"Actually, Severus is currently on Sabbatical," the Headmaster corrected.
"What?" George asked. "Why would he want to do something like that?"
"I insisted that if any of my professors will be looking for Voldemort, it should be him," Dumbledore replied. "It would strengthen our control over the situation, certainly."
"I guess," George muttered. "So where is he now?"
Dumbledore shrugged. "He plans to wander Europe looking for clues to his former master and he'll try to throw off anyone who might be following him. Would he recognize your Patronus if you sent it to him?"
"Only if you told him what it looked like," George replied. "I guess I'll have to use trust passwords to get him to meet me. Expecto Patronum!"
George's bright raccoon jumped out of his wand. Prince, you have 60 seconds to use Muffliato on anyone who might need it. If you are not the intended recipient, please disregard this message.
The raccoon headed south towards Snape and, one minute later, George cast another Patronus for his old Potions professor. Hi, I'm Saintlike. Don't believe me? I once got a sword by fighting skeletons. To prove that I know more than someone like me ought, you accused a flower of being dirty after having your robes upturned. Worst. Memory. Ever. I'll wait for you at the most famous Muggle place in France in exactly a week. We need to talk, but there's a couple of things I need to do first.
George decided to save the Polyjuice for later and went to the Lovegoods' house while under heavy transfiguration. He knocked at the door and soon a blonde woman answered it.
"Greetings," the woman—Mrs. Lovegood, George presumed—said. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
George held up his hand, which he had marked with the sign of the Deathly Hallows. "I understand that at least one person here is on the Quest?"
"Xeno is," Mrs. Lovegood said, "but I tend to focus on other mysteries of the world. Do come in—he's conducting an interview for The Quibbler at the moment, but he should be done soon."
"Thank you," George replied as he stepped into the circular kitchen. Luna was painting a strange little fish onto one of the cupboards.
"What kind of creature is that, Luna?" George asked.
"A Gulping Plimpy," Luna replied. "How do you know my name?"
"I'm something of a seer," George said with a grin. He had seen the future, just not with any method his old Divination professor would have considered valid.
"You should talk to Mummy about that, then," Luna replied. "She wants to develop time travel that allows for paradoxes and she thinks seers can change the future."
George was stunned. Luna lost her mother to time travel? "I think I could make time for her." Her grandson went back in time and sent me farther back to save her life. Yeah, she's not going to get rid of me anytime soon.
Mrs. Lovegood smiled. "Have you seen the conversation we are having right now, or should I consider you a fraud?"
"Neither," George replied. "I just think that whatever you are going to try on Halloween is going to backfire."
"What do you know of my experiments?"
"Not much," George admitted. "I just know that your experiments are dangerous and you should stop before someone gets hurt."
"All Hallows Eve is the time when the veil is thinnest. That means that the laws of our world are more malleable. If there is anytime where we can mold time to mortal will, it is then. I am planning to induce a paradox then and if you saw it going wrong, that is why: you saw the potential failure while the reality is the success. Successful paradox."
"That's not how time works," George said. It was a good thing that he had been studying the Memory Book or he'd probably end up sounding like an idiot. "The universe allows for minor duplication of certain things, provided that the timestream is stable, but greater time travel is not within our grasp without sacrificing the universe itself. Trying to harness temporal energies—even on a Time-Turner level—is extremely dangerous. You are not an Unspeakable, Mrs. Lovegood. Let the professionals do what they are trained to do and maybe we can create paradoxes in a few generations from now, but not now."
"You aren't here for Xeno, are you?" Mrs. Lovegood asked.
"Well, I thought I'd tell him that I had seen the Master of Death, but my act of observing it may have made it unlikely to happen."
"So there is a link between time and death?" Luna asked.
George shook his head. "Not inherently except that, given enough time, everything will die. Though, of course, given enough time, practically anything will happen. What matters is how those things happen, Mrs. Lovegood, and I am going to do everything I can to stop you from giving your daughter a reason to see Thestrals. Do not mess with time."
"You really have seen the future, haven't you?"
"And I've been doing my best to correct it," George replied. "I can't see how my revisions will affect things until they happen in real time, but I'm still the best seer you're going to get and I can guarantee that nothing good will come from your attempt to change the nature of time."
Mrs. Lovegood nodded. "Very well. I will refrain."
George took that as his cue to leave.
"Wait!" Luna said as she chased him outside. "Who are you? Aren't you going to talk to Daddy?"
"Would you believe me if I said I was Harry Potter?" George asked. Luna's eyes bulged at him. "I'm not him, but that's as good as an alias that you're going to get right now. If the real Harry fulfills his destiny, I'll be sure to come and let you know."
And with that, George Apparated away to begin his journey to France.
Severus Snape stood next to the Eiffel Tower. He had no idea what the Saintlike One was playing at, but hopefully he would get some answers.
Severus heard a voice speak in his ear. "What is the deadliest spell in the Half-Blood Prince's Potions textbook?"
"Sectumsempra," he replied. "Are you the Saintlike One?"
"Yep," the voice said. "But you should ask a security question anyway."
The Potions Master thought a moment. "What was the first thing you checked in Dumbledore's office the night of the sword?"
"Pensieve. It was empty."
Severus nodded. "What do you want with me?"
"Not here. I'm Apparating us somewhere else." An invisible hand touched his shoulder and there was the familiar sensation of being sucked through a tube. They emerged in a dark bedroom of some sort.
"Okay, we have about twenty minutes before the hotel's cleaning ladies arrive, so I'll have to give you the condensed version," the man said as he became visible. Severus recognized him as the one-eared barman responsible for Black's escape: James Oliver.
"You cannot truly be the Saintlike One," he said flatly.
"If this is about your grudge against Sirius, he's been in Azkaban for something he didn't do," Oliver said. "If all the Potter-traitors are going to have a party, you're going to have to spend it with Pettigrew, not him. And I'm wasting time. Basically, what you need to know is that I'm a time traveler from the far future and I plan to stop Voldemort from starting a second war. Dumbledore suggested I learn Occlumency from you."
"I think you should return to St. Mungo's," Severus said.
"Probe my brain," Oliver said. "I need serious help with my Occlumency anyway, so we can hit two brooms with one Bludger."
Severus shrugged and decided to humor the man. "Legilimens!"
The shields were, in fact, quite pathetic and Severus went immediately for the traumatic memories. He found the incident where James Oliver lost his ear and, to the Potions Master's surprise, an older Severus seemed to be the one casting the spell. That spell was one he had invented in his youth and never used on another human being, even in his darkest Death Eater days. But Oliver had all but confessed earlier that he'd gone snooping through Severus' old Potions textbook, so it was possible he had tried it out and subconsciously reconstructed a memory with it that the crazy man would perceive as real. Severus left the memory as quickly as possible and he tried to find something legitimate and without his face in it.
Some memories were locked up tightly and Severus recognized when there would be no point in going against them, unless he wanted to put more time than Oliver was worth into it. He stumbled across one that didn't seem too special at first, save for the somber undertone: Oliver, before the loss of his ear and with red hair, was with a double of Potter and one of himself.
"Harry," Oliver's Doppelganger said. "I know that everyone knows what happened now, but I still can't believe it."
"Me neither," the memory of Oliver added. "You were there. You saw it. Please just say it and maybe it'll finally sink in."
Potter's double took a deep breath and spoke. "Snape killed Dumbledore."
What? Snape thought. I would never do such a thing! Why is he making this up?
Back in the real world, Oliver seemed to read his thoughts, though Severus knew his Occlumency was better than that. "Yes, you killed him, but you did it for a good reason. Harry later named one of his kids after you and Dumbledore, after he found out that you loved Lily and sought redemption for telling Voldemort about the prophecy."
"Why did Dumbledore tell you that?" Severus hissed. The Saintlike One had earlier implied that he knew of Severus' worst memory, but there had been several students there and it was possible that one of them talked. No one but Dumbledore and himself, however, had known the reason Severus had defected. "Your grip on reality is tenuous at best. Has your insanity increased Dumbledore's?"
"Dumbledore tells me hardly anything, especially not things strictly between you and him," the Saintlike One said. "In 1998, you gave Harry a bundle of memories so that he would know he could trust you when you relayed Dumbledore's instruction to eliminate the Horcrux within himself. I didn't see the memories myself, but I know what was in there. For one, you watched Lily and Petunia on the swings right before you told Lily about our world and her heritage."
And there it was. A detail no one would know unless Severus himself had revealed it. Lily and Petunia would never have thought of mentioning what happened before that historic meeting and Severus certainly hadn't mentioned it to anyone. Dumbledore, let alone his new lackey from nowhere, couldn't have known unless the Saintlike One was telling the truth.
"You're a time traveler," Severus said.
"Yep."
"And you know everything about me."
"Well, not everything," the Saintlike One said. "I'm sure there were plenty of things you decided to keep to yourself even through death, but I could probably predict what you would do in a wide variety of situations."
"You let me see those memories, didn't you?" Severus asked.
"Maybe a little," the Saintlike One grinned, "but you probably would have been able to break through anyway. I'm pretty haphazard when it comes to focusing my brain."
"If you simply show me your memories I won't be able to assess your Occlumency properly," Severus chided.
"Fine, I'll go into total lockdown." A dead look came across the Saintlike One's face and Severus launched his attack in full force.
The Saintlike One's mind did not seem as pathetic as the initial probing had indicated, but there was still plenty of room for improvement. Severus was only able to unleash complete memories a couple of times (and then only of something wholly irrelevant) but the emotions behind most of the memories bled through.
"You are trying too hard to protect your mind and not doing enough to conceal it," Severus said.
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Definitely not. The fact that you are protecting something implies that your mind contains something of worth, and you have left hints about what they mean to you. A good Occlumens is able to reflect whatever sort of person they want someone to believe they are, and that usually means camouflaging their minds to look like someone unversed in Occlumency methods."
The Saintlike One nodded. "Oh, and through all of that, did you ever pick up on who I really am?"
A smile nearly touched Severus' lips. "Of course: you are Fred Weasley."
The Saintlike One chuckled. "Actually, I'm George, but close enough." The sound of an Intruder Charm rang out. "And that's our cue to leave."
"Goodbye then," Severus said, but the one-eared man grabbed his arm before he could Apparate away.
"I probably should have told you that Dumbledore was fairly insistent that I stay with you for a while."
Severus groaned internally. "How long?"
"Either after I become an expert Occlumens or when you meet up with ol' Moldy-shorts—whichever comes last."
This time the Potions Master could not keep the groan from escaping his mouth as the old version of George Weasley Apparated them out.
Author's Note: And I'm back! I've got a pretty good idea of how it all ends now, but that doesn't mean that I'm not going to add something I didn't expect as I finish up. There will be a minimum of five more chapters, though likely more than that.
Also, I've updated the summary to be a better reflection of the story's content. The earlier summary promised more of a humorous bent—and while I think I have given it to you, this story tends towards the more serious side of things.
And maybe I'm just flattering myself, but if anyone wants to use any of my ideas for your own work, go ahead. Just let me know so I can send people after it—and so I can read it myself ;).