192Title: Princeps
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Gen
Content Notes: Time travel, angst, present tense
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: This part 2800 words
Summary: Harry has worked for years as an Unspeakable to identify the best point where he might go back in time to change the impact of Voldemort's war. Now he knows: he will have to return to his parents' Hogwarts years and encourage the Slytherins to stand on their own instead of following a leader. He knows how to assume the post of Defense professor and how to reach the Slytherins. And from there, well, surely nothing can go too wrong.
Author's Notes: This is one of "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics for this year. The title comes from a Latin word for the leader of the Senate, and also "first, foremost," sometimes considered as "first among equals." There will be three parts.
Princeps
Harry walks slowly to the middle of the ritual chamber. He's moving slowly from sheer shock. All of this preparation and time and struggle, and now the ritual is done. The circle awaits him on the floor.
Well, not a circle. A pentagram. And instead of the bowls of earth and water, the contained spells for water and fire, he has bowls of cobalt and iron instead, a diamond lying alone in the bottom of a silver basin and an emerald pried from a piece of Black jewelry on a small pedestal. Harry himself will stand at the fifth point of the pentagram.
It's strange, but it's what his research uncovered as the best way to travel in time.
Harry lets his grey robe drape around himself as he folds his arms. He'll appear in the middle of the past Department of Mysteries if all goes well, and he'll need the other Unspeakables then and there to know he's an Unspeakable. He shudders a little at the thought of what they might do otherwise.
He bows his head. The research was what took so long. The actual ritual itself is simple, but it had to be constructed in a certain way to meet the requirements of time, space, ingredients, and incantation.
"Vade retro."
The world around him blurs. Something like a great pendulum made of white light swings back and forth in front of him. Harry feels the taste of iron in his mouth, and he thinks he sees the diamond and the emerald slam violently into each other before his sight becomes entirely unreliable. He doesn't see what happens with the cobalt.
He's too occupied with the sensation of his body being played like a harpstring.
When he opens his eyes, he's in the middle of the stone ritual chamber, but surrounded by other Unspeakables. All of them have their hoods back, and he notes that he doesn't know any of their faces. Harry waits, and then a tall woman with long blonde hair in three braids steps forwards and bows her head to him.
"It is July 31st of the year 1975, Unspeakable. We assume that you have achieved what you wished from your time travel?"
Harry conceals a thin smile. Yes, they would assume that, since otherwise, his body would probably be a three-dimensional portrait of organs along corridors of time that no one ever treads.
"Yes, Unspeakable." Harry nods to her and reaches up to touch his hair. It's straight and dark, the way the ritual also mandated and that he searched for a way to do. He doesn't want to look too much like a Potter. He reaches up and traces his fingers over his chin and cheeks, and they're also reshaped. He relaxes.
"Your eyes, Unspeakable?"
"No," Harry says, shaking his head. He wasn't able to bring himself to give up that link to his mum, and he couldn't find an Arithmantic equation that would tell him how to do it anyway, but it doesn't matter. Few people will be looking for a link between a Muggleborn fifth-year, as Lily Evans will be right now, and the new Hogwarts Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
"Very well. Your name?"
"Henry Salvare," Harry says without pausing. He chose it for a reason. He'll sound like a half-blood with an assumed name, which is exactly the way he wants to sound. Being a Muggleborn would mean he couldn't influence the young pureblood supremacists, while trying to claim ties to a pureblood family in this time wouldn't be intelligent.
"Very well," the Unspeakable repeats, and she moves out of the way, bowing to him, to allow him to leave the chamber.
Harry nods to them and exits. He appreciates them treating this like a normal occurrence, but then, it is. He has himself seen seven people come through the ritual chamber, on their way back and forth through time to repair ravages or achieve some research objective. Time is a much-more-raveled garment than ordinary wizards assume.
However, its general shape holds because time and history fight back against being changed. Harry knows they will do the same to him. But it doesn't matter, as long as he can convince Severus Snape and his Slytherin compatriots not to follow Voldemort.
"I admit I was not expecting a candidate for the post of Defense professor so late in the summer, Mr. …Salvare."
Harry smiles a little. Albus Dumbledore can never resist seeking answers to mysteries, and the long pause between the possible title and Harry's possible last name is full of inquiry. But Harry doesn't answer it. He just shakes his head and sits back. "I know, but I was traveling, and it wasn't possible for me to apply before now."
The answer is even true, which will satisfy Dumbledore's ability to detect lies. The man nods and studies Harry's paperwork. He has the true scores that he achieved in the Defense OWL and NEWT, which have been issued to him without the year, and he has an essay that he wrote discussing some of the theory that he studied as an Unspeakable. He knows that Dumbledore is in particular need of someone who can hit the students hard on theory, since records from Harry's time show that students who took their OWLS and NEWTS in the spring 1975 almost all failed that portion of the exam.
In the end, Dumbledore utters a soundless sigh and looks up at him. "There have been no other candidates," he admits, "and I wasn't looking forward to asking the Ministry to send us a rotation of injured Aurors to fill in one at a time. The students need continuity. Welcome to our school, Mr. Salvare."
Harry shakes the hand offered to him, ignores the way that Fawkes fluffs up his feathers and croons at him, and takes back the essay and dossier. "Thank you, Headmaster. Can you show me the quarters that will be mine?"
"Hey, where's Auror Moody? I thought we were getting a lesson from him!"
Harry sends a tempered smile in the direction of Sirius Black, and continues studying the students in front of him. There are Gryffindors and Slytherins paired together for the Defense class. Harry can see why that arrangement didn't endure in his time, but he's glad for it right now. It means that he can show the students that he doesn't favor one particular House and tone down some of that bitter rivalry.
It sends a small pang to his heart to see green-eyed Lily Evans sitting next to Severus Snape, but Harry pushes it away with the ease of long practice. He researched ten years before he was able to construct the ritual to send him into the past, and that's on top of two years' work as an Auror and five as an Unspeakable. He has his driving goal, and that's more important than any individual.
Not that he won't enjoy the chance to get to know his parents. But when he went through the ritual, he gave up a position in his own time. Time will flow around him like a river around a rock, and someone else will be born the son of James and Lily Potter. Harry will take that. He'll take it happily, if he can prevent a war.
"I applied and Professor Dumbledore selected me, which means that I'll be your Defense professor for the next year," Harry says mildly. "I'm Henry Salvare. Professor Salvare. I hope that you'll learn well from me."
He sees the eyes of the pure-bloods sitting around Snape sharpen, and then one of them raises his hand. Harry nods to him, asking, "Your name?" even though he thinks he knows. He did study history for a long time before he made this jump, after all, which included Daily Prophet photographs of some prominent Death Eaters.
"Evan Rosier, sir." There's a bit of doubt in Rosier's voice about whether Harry deserves the title, but Harry lets it pass. "I don't recognize your last name. What line do you come from?"
"The Salvare line," Harry says blandly. He sees Snape tilt his head in response, and Lily nudges him and whispers something. Harry overlooks it for now, although he hopes they don't make talking in class a frequent occurrence. "Yes, Mr.—?"
"Tiberius Wilkes, sir." This young man is heavyset in the way that Rosier is lithe, although they both have dark hair and intense blue eyes. "I've never heard of the Salvare line, sir."
"How clever of you, Mr. Wilkes. One point to Slytherin." Harry sees some of the Gryffindors straighten in outrage, but he ignores them. "What does that suggest to you?"
"That it—doesn't exist?"
Harry winks at him and turns away to look at the Gryffindors. "Any questions from this side of the room?"
"James Potter, sir." James sounds a little more polite than the would-be Death Eater recruits, but only until you meet his eyes. "What House were you in when you were at Hogwarts?"
"What makes you think I went to Hogwarts?"
"Well, sir, you do have a British accent," Sirius jumps in, and coughs when Harry looks at him. "Sorry. Sirius Black."
Harry just nods without looking as though the name is news to him. "There are such things as private tutors, Mr. Black. Yes, miss?" he adds as Lily raises her hand. It takes all his self-control from saying her name.
"That's not the same as saying you went to them," Lily tells him.
Harry tips her a wink, too, and then raises his hand for a casual wave at the blackboard. He can hear the gasps that spread across the classroom as he makes the words of the first lesson appear there without a wand. For once, he revels in the attention. The more impressive he can appear, the more likely his Slytherin students, and others, are to pay attention to him, and absorb the lessons he has to teach about standing alone and not following a leader.
"Now, I have to admit that your Defense education up until this point has been abysmal, and you've been lucky rather than otherwise to achieve good scores. I assume you don't want this practice to continue in your OWL year, therefore…"
"Professor Salvare, I had a question."
Harry hides his pleasure in the fact that it took Severus Snape less than a fortnight to approach him, and nods to him instead. "Of course, Mr. Snape. What was it about?"
Severus shifts his weight from foot to foot. It took Harry less than a week to start thinking of him by his first name. He's simply too different from the dark, sour-faced man Harry thinks of when the name "Snape" pops into his head. "Do you know anything about my history?"
"Should I, Mr. Snape? I do try not to pry into my students' personal lives unless they force me to." Harry is already famous for the fact that, when he finds snogging couples on his rounds of the castle, he gives his opinion of their technique in a loud, booming voice, and then sends them on to bed while they're still flushed with humiliation. From the fleeting smile on Severus's face, he's heard about that.
But the smile doesn't last long, and he casts his eyes down before he takes a deep breath. "My mother's name is Eileen Prince."
"All right," Harry says, pretending to think. "I know a little about the Prince family. Did you want to tell me about them? I can promise that they don't have any alliances or enmities with me."
"No. It's just—you said that we should think about how to bring glory to our own names. How any name can have glory if we let it. That it doesn't all depend on how ancient our family is or whether they're magically powerful or—or even if they're pure."
Harry smiles. "I do believe that, Mr. Snape. I'm a half-blood myself, so it would be hypocritical of me to preach blood purity."
Severus tenses. "I'm a half-blood as well."
Harry nods. "All right," he repeats. "Is there something you'd like me to do to treat you differently in class? I believed I had been fair, but please tell me if I haven't." He's working in four directions when he teaches the Gryffindor-Slytherin classes, both showing the Gryffindors that he won't get upset just because Slytherin's symbol is a snake and that he won't favor them unduly, and both showing the Slytherins that he won't automatically praise Gryffindors because of their "Light" reputation and that he doesn't care a whit about blood purity. It's a delicate balancing act, and there's always the chance that he did make a misstep.
"No, Professor. You've been fair." Severus hesitates. "But I wondered—I'd like to claim my mother's name publicly. I've used it privately, but everyone knows that I go by Snape and I get some ridicule for that. Do you think I should change my name?"
Harry considers it, tipping back against the desk. There are too many variables here. This could be a genuinely new change, or it could be time asserting itself and trying to drive Severus Snape back into the arms of the Death Eaters.
In the end, though, Harry gives the answer he would give if history didn't matter, the one that he thinks would benefit Severus the most. "If you think this would give you something new, a source of strength and pride, then you should. But that strength and pride has to come from within. A name can't give it to you."
Severus hesitates for a long moment. Then he says, "So I have to think about it."
It doesn't sound like a question, but Harry nods and smiles encouragingly. "Of course. And remember that you can come and talk to me if you want."
Severus says, "Thank you, Professor Salvare," and sounds like he means it.
"I see that we have you to thank for young Mr. Prince's name change, Henry!"
Horace Slughorn is the one speaking to Harry, but professors are listening all down the table. After all, Severus will have corrected most of them from referring to him as "Snape" in the past few days. Harry turns around with a smile. "Yes, he asked my advice, and I told him that I thought it was a good idea if the name would give him what he was seeking."
"And what's that?" Horace leans forwards eagerly. He seems fascinated with Harry, but also keeps a cautious distance just in case something changes and it turns out that Harry isn't that powerful or well-connected after all. "He seemed inclined to credit you with everything!"
Harry chuckles and sips from his goblet of pumpkin juice. For a second, he looks straight into Albus's twinkling eyes, but not long enough to risk any Legilimency. He turns back to Horace with a patient smile. "Strength and pride. I told him that names don't give people that. But if he thought he had those qualities within him and the name could bring them out, then he should change it."
"Well. That is a profound thought." Horace hesitates. "I have found that names can be a source of those things."
Harry snorts. "Considering how many powerful Muggleborn students and how many cringing pure-bloods we have, I don't think strength really comes from it. You may be blinded by history, if you don't mind me saying it, Horace."
Horace laughs as if he doesn't mind at all, but he does turn away and leave the conversation after that. Harry nods to Minerva as she leans in.
"Mr. Prince really did sound as if it was all your idea, when I asked him," she says. "He was singing your praises all afternoon."
Harry shrugs. He knew that would probably happen, and honestly, as long as Severus isn't singing the praises of Voldemort or Dark magic, it's an improvement. "You know how young people are. They lack nuance. He was still the one who had to make the decision."
"Hmmm," says Minerva, an interestingly ambiguous noise, and leans back to answer a question from Juliana Arias, the Muggle Studies teacher, on the other side of her.
Harry glances casually towards the Slytherin table and sees Severus staring at him with eyes that might hold burgeoning hero-worship. Harry smiles at him and glances as casually away.
