Author: neddiheht
Rating: A possibly racey R in places
Pairing: Snarry (Severus Snape/Harry Potter)
Word count: 2435
Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Severus Snape and all other characters, places, etc. from the Harry Potter universe are the property of J.K. Rowling. No claim of ownership is intended by this piece of fan fiction.
Summary: When Harry is sent back in time to avoid the killing curse, he finds himself in a mask of his own creation, faceless, voiceless, friendless, teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts for his sole confidante, Albus Dumbledore. But one of the professors is suspicious, and won't let the secrecy of the new Defense professor go.
---
"We are doing an exercise," said Professor Evans.
"You mean like, actually casting?" asked a nervous Slytherin in the front row.
"Yes, Amelia, like really casting. What good is knowing defenses against the dark arts if you have never cast them?"
"But sir," said Marcus Billpot, a Gryffindor in the third row, "we can't... these are hexes and curses and..."
"It's an exercise. No one has to participate. I just hope that you will. But be warned. We will be using real curses. Madam Pomfrey and Professor Snape will be on hand, but the curses are dangerous. Not all curse wounds can be healed."
"Why?"
"Because, it is not enough to know, Mr. Billpot. Can you deflect a curse when you're injured and scared? When the world seems to be falling around you. When dementors fly in the winds above and your life is at risk?"
"I don't know."
"Would you rather know now, Mr. Billpot?" asked the professor. "Or when the life of a wife and a son rely on the knowledge?"
"I..."
"Are you sure Professor Dumbledore knows about this?" asked Amelia.
"He does. He was reluctant, but has acquiesced," said Harry. "And your head of house will be there. You need not fear the Gryffindor in me will prejudice me against you."
The room chattered suddenly. Professor Evans had never revealed anything about himself, ever, beyond his name. Not his voice, not his face. Not even his given name. There were still students who suspected it was a woman under those voluminous robes.
"Enough. Yes, Mr. Billpot. I was in Gryffindor."
"We thought you went to Durmstrang," said Marcus softly.
"There is no need to gossip about me, Mr. Billpot. Five points from Gryffindor."
"I thought... if you were a Hogwarts student that you must be Slytherin," said Amelia.
"The sorting hat certainly thought so," said Harry quietly. "But it placed me in Gryffindor all the same. And Ms. Shaddersford... five points from Slytherin. I would have thought you would have found a way to ask if you had questions. By seventh year you should all know better."
"Will we really need any of this? I mean, you-know-who, he's gone now isn't he?"
"Leaving behind countless unknown death eaters and no body. Hmmm. Yes, I think you may need this. Was there not a Grindelwald before there was a Voldemort," the room hissed in surprise as he said the name. "Students who do not wish to participate may elect not to. It will be dangerous, and there will be injuries. Real injuries."
The class quieted. "You really think we'll need this don't you?" asked Marcus.
"I think it's my job to prepare you whether you ever need it or not."
"Professor..."
"Yes, Mr. Billpot. I am sad to say that there is evil in this world yet. And I would never forgive myself if you left this class less than prepared."
---
Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Madam Pomfrey all sat in the faculty box of the Quidditch Pitch. Several students sat in the stands, having elected not to participate, or who had parents who had refused to allow it. On the ground Professor Evans stood, twenty students from seventh year arrayed around him.
"This is not a proper exercise," he said, his voice magnified by the Sonorous charm, "without a scene you can understand." As he spoke walls rose, and crumbled and they realized they were standing all of them, in a facsimile of the courtyard of the castle - absolutely and utterly flawless. Above them the sky darkened and dementors flew, and the magical wards of the castle crumbled. Walls had shattered and there were bodies on the ground. The students in the stands hissed as they saw their own faces among the illusory dead.
"Understand this. The Ministry does not outreach well to magical creatures," said Evans, his sibilant tones rasping from his throat, "and should the day come when we see war again, we can rely on this. Some will fight for whatever dark wizard decides to force his views upon our world." Centaurs and giants appeared among the buildings. "If they hit you, it will hurt. But they are constructs only and can be dispersed with any hex or curse. Your only solid enemies are the dementors above and myself. Treat them with the caution I have taught you. Because they are real, sent from Azkaban."
The students hissed in disbelief. "There will be no quarter asked or given until I surrender, save that those injured severely will be apparated away for treatment," said Harry quietly. "And there is no hold or limits, save that the Unforgivables are, of course, forbidden." Then with a pop and a blur of white light he was gone and the scene began to move.
Albus surveyed the field. "You are sure this is necessary," he asked the young man who had appeared beside him. He had watched the shocked looks on the faces of the students as the first student fell and was quickly apparated away. He had watched them running in terror from dementors as they tried desperately to seize a happy thought for their spell.
"Evans's students are doing well," said Severus. "Only one has fallen. In this nightmare," he gestured to the scene. "Yet I do not see them yet facing dark wizards, Jamie."
"Patience, Severus. First they must lose hope. Then they must see that it can get much much worse." He paused. "Besides. The Dark Lord always preferred to send those he considered lesser creatures into battle first, before risking the purity of wizard blood."
Severus looked at the scene and nodded. "True."
Albus looked at him with a certain amount of terror. "What are you going to do?"
The boy apparated away with a pop and then he was on the ground in the midst of the students, throwing curses and then apparating away, a column of flowing silvery light that dodged and weaved and cursed and counter cursed.
Amelia fell to the ground with two broken bones, vomiting frogs before she lost consciousness and was apparated away for Madam Pomfrey to treat and in her place an illusion of her, lifeless on the ground.
Marcus looked around him in terror. The professor hadn't been kidding. His right arm hung loosely from his shoulder as he desperately tried to curse the wily bastard with his wand in his left hand. Nothing seemed to stick. The young Gryffindor managed to fight off the giants and the centaurs, blasting several with curses, but it was like Evans was everywhere at once, casting curses he'd never seen or even heard of. He felt hope seep from him as the dementors circled lower.
The scene stopped as Evans sibilant voice sounded in their skulls. "You are doomed, you know. Would you join your friends? Surrender him... surrender him and I will be merciful. Surrender Mr. Billpot and I will stop this now..."
His fellow students looked at Marcus suddenly with torn eyes as the dementors descended yet lower. Marcus felt despair. Again the professor was among them. Sectumsempra! came a cry and a Slytherin fell their chest crossed with blood as though ripped open.
They were only five now, back to back, blocking curses which seemed to come from everywhere, four boxing in a fifth who desperately tried to maintain the shield of silvery light to keep the dementors from approaching them from above. They were all agreed not to surrender Marcus, but they could make no progress. Not one curse had hit the professor. Not one. The giants and centaurs kept coming, an endless stream. And the professor, with a pop, would appear and hit them again with a curse. Mr. Everett had been hit with the strange slicing curse that the professor had used and was still casting curses as blood foamed from his mouth.
"Sectumsempra?" said Snape as Evans appeared in the booth again briefly. "An unusual curse..."
"Indeed, Professor. Unique," said Evans. He turned to the headmaster. "Will you give them hope, Albus?"
He glanced at Evans. "And what if you win?"
"I'm good, Albus, but I think, probably not that good. And should I win, there is still a lesson. One person cannot fight a war for them."
Albus nodded as Snape shook aghast at Jamie's implication... that he stood a chance against Dumbledore.
"Come at the appropriate time, then," said Harry, and apparated back onto the field, throwing another curse.
They were down to four now. Everett incredibly still stood, his face white and shaking, blood running down his robes. Billpot stood in the center of the other three, casting his hope, what he had, at the dementors above. There was a crack as Albus Dumbledore appeared amid the ruin. "Enough!"
A second crack sounded opposite Dumbledore, Evans, artfully blocking the curse Everett sent his way. "Come to save your students?"
"Dispel your dementors, Jamie," said Albus, his voice calm.
Evans spun his wand artfully and pointed his wand to the sky, "Expecto Patronum!" he bellowed the words and the silvery light from his wand bounded forth towards the sky, the silvery glory of the stag tossing and rending the dementors aside.
"You would challenge me yourself?"
"I will protect my students. They do not enter this alone."
Evans apparated next to the remaining students carrying them into the stands and then reappearing on the field. "Then let us begin." He pulled his wand to his chest and then to his side in the traditional duel salute and then spun in a wild circle, his arms wide as he circled the winds in his wand and tossed the vortex at Dumbledore, casting him into one of the walls of the construct.
Their duel lasted over two hours. At the end, soaked from head to toe, with three broken limbs, burns, and wounds across his body, Albus Dumbledore knelt painfully, head bowed, and presented his wand. It was without surprise that Harry noted that Dumbledore had chosen to duel him without using the elder wand. Evans knelt across from him, taking the older man into his arms. Albus looked up. "You give me hope, Harry," he said quietly so that only Harry would hear his words. "If you can defeat me... maybe..."
"It's best not to speak of such things, Albus," said Harry quietly, glancing at the stands. Then he stood and swept his hands in a circle, dispelling the illusion and the constructs he'd created.
"This exercise is over," he said, his voice echoing over the field. He'd have a busy evening getting all the dementors back to Azkaban. "Fifty points to Slytherin House, for Mr. Everett's defense of Marcus Billpot against others within his house. Twenty points to Gryffindor for each of their three survivors of the exercise. Twenty points to Slytherin House, for Mr. Everett also survived and fought while gravely wounded to the very end. Students who participated in the exercise are dismissed without homework for the weekend. Students who did not will give me two feet on strategy and what they saw in the exercise. That is all."
---
Harry met Dumbledore back in the headmaster's chambers.
"What are you doing here," asked Madam Pomfrey, her gaze a silent accusation.
"I came to check on the headmaster, and to receive treatment myself," said Harry quietly.
"I have no treatment for you..."
"Pomfrey!"
"Yes, headmaster?"
"You'll treat him," said Albus. "And you'll do it here, privately."
"But headmaster..."
"He asked. Before I entered the arena. And he expected to lose."
"Then one of my assistants can..."
"No. It has to be you," said Harry.
"Why?"
Harry let his robes fall to the ground, revealing a body battered by curses and elemental forces. The white of the scar on his forehead stood in stark contrast to the soot and burns across his face. Madam Pomfrey gasped staring at him as the significance registered. "Mr. Pot..."
"Jamie Evans. Here I am only Jamie Evans," said Harry quietly.
She turned to the headmaster. "You knew." Her blistering glare got a tired nod from the headmaster.
"What was the meaning of that exercise anyway," she said turning to Harry. "Filling my hospital wing."
"I was giving them a chance to live," said Harry. "They will not need it today. Or indeed for many years, I hope. But when they do, they will remember."
Madam Pomfrey treated his wounds, and, for all her bluster did so kindly. When she was done and gone and Harry dressed once again in his dementors cloak, Severus Snape arrived in Dumbledore's rooms via floo. Harry had time, barely, to draw up his cowl, as Snape stepped into the room.
"Headmaster. Evans," said the potion master.
"How are your Slytherins?" asked Albus.
"Demoralized. As are the Gryffindors, though they show it less."
"You would prefer I let the head master win?" asked Harry. In truth he had been dealt a blow himself by defeating Dumbledore. He'd had practice, of course. His only human contact during his year of self imposed exile after the war had been dark wizards coming to find him and duel. He'd become rather an expert out of pure necessity... much as he had with all the other dark arts. Well, that and helping poor Kreacher make repairs to the damage done to Grimmauld Place. He sighed softly. Molly would be horrified if she'd known. Frankly so would Arthur.
Snape shook his head. "They are still students, Evans. Was that really necessary?"
"Would the Dark Lord have given them quarter just because they were students?" asked Harry quietly, his voice his own.
"You know he would not," said Snape, then hesitated and looked at John directly. "Does not. I saw Remus Lupin and at least one Weasley among the dead in your little game, Evans. When is he attacking? Give us information we can use!"
"You know I cannot, Severus. All I can do is make sure those I teach are prepared. The students need to know how real it can be."
Severus glanced at the head master who shook his head. "Still won't tell us, Jamie? You have to know some of us have figured it out."
"It's best not to speak of such things," said Harry. "The world keeps its own secrets."
"Jamie... Please..." Severus reached over to take hold of his hand.
Harry felt a pleasant jolt as Snape's delicate fingers took hold of his.
"You felt that," said Severus. "Would the world let you feel it if it objected so?"
Albus cleared his throat.
"Tea?" said Severus.
Within his great cowl, Harry nodded.
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