I want to thank Dan for beta-ing this chapter.

Chapter 57.

Space Travel, Part XIV: Time Pressure (I)

4:31 pm, August 3rd, 1993

In his headquarter office, Harry sat behind his desk, and practised his confident and soft smile to Mad-Eye: "Mr. Moody, could you take a look at these notes, and see if there is anything that you can read?"

Mad-Eye shot Harry a very suspicious look, as if he wanted to say something, but decided to start flipping through the large stack of duplicates of doodling notes instead.

Harry sighed inwardly for his failed experiment on pretending to lead in another style - Draco had suggested that Harry should at least give it a try.

-OK, I wouldn't be surprised if Mad-Eye suddenly throws several spells at me. Actually, Mad-Eye is probably using wandless and wordless checking charms on me now.

This was another moment when Harry's practise of secrecy, and the distrust between Mad-Eye and Severus, might cost him time. Harry knew some of the notes Mad-Eye was skimming through were things Harry had shown Mad-Eye and Severus while they were trying to figure out how to lock Harry and all the Riddles in Time by the Mirror. Back then, Harry handed over Dumbledore's unreadable notes during the past two years, plus anything in his Line of Merlin heritage that was chronologically near to readable notes containing the concept of "Mirror". At that time, neither Mad-Eye nor Severus claimed that they could understand any magic related to the Mirror from the notes, but neither of them commented on whether they could understand anything else on those notes in the presence of each other. And afterwards, well, Harry let them erase each other's memory.

-I should have asked them separately what they had understood. However, since neither of them felt the need to give me any particular hint to speak to me privately, I guess none of the stuff would be all that important or concerning. Unfortunately, neither of them is very sharp on certain matters.

A certain part of Harry felt pretty good about being the smartest person in their conspiracy, but sometimes, even that part got a bit tired, and he hoped someone else, - say, Hermione, - would catch up with him.

Mad-Eye's hands stopped on a page about one fifth through the stack, and said: "This is Albus' draft years ago, on the techniques of Time-Turner making." Mad-Eye paused, gave Harry a glance, and continued, "I think a number of people in the Department of Mysteries and Aurors who are authorized to investigate crimes related to Time-Turners know how to make a common one, and this improvement doesn't contain any additional layer of Interdicted magic."

Harry's eyes lit up, and glanced at the page again, which still looked like nonsense lines and drawings to him, and he felt a headache upon the ignorance of wizards: Since a bunch of Ministry employees plus probably a number of other people know the secret already, Mad-Eye didn't consider the making of a Time Machine important enough to bring up when we were working on the Mirror!

Admittedly, Severus was present during the whole time, which might mean Mad-Eye did consider this piece of information very important, which would also lead to the conclusion that the mistrust between his two most powerful subordinates was causing him time.

Harry was always up to the challenges of more secrecy, but somewhere in the back of his brain, he felt as if he was missing something - again.

While a significant portion of Harry's brain was trying to figure out the question "what I think I know, and how I think I know it", another part of Harry who worked on autopilot had to ask: "I have already formed several guesses on that. Is it timeless physics? That time is an illusion?"

Mad-Eye was obviously confused by Harry's sentence, but Harry could see the old Auror might have relaxed a bit upon hearing something that was very "Harry".

Harry looked at the page again, which still failed to show any sensible word.

-OK, maybe timeless physics is too advanced for the ancient wizards or witches who invented Time-Turners. Let's go down a bit.

Harry asked again: "Is it that Time is another dimension, similar to Space, and only with a limited capacity for going backwards?"

Harry took a look at the page again, and saw a description in plain English in Dumbledore's handwritings:

"Time is a river that runs downstream, and we only have a limited ability to wade against the flow. After Professor Saul Croaker's improvements on the Hour-Reversal Charm, - very ingenious indeed - we can use cheaper materials such as gold, silver, and quartz to make Time-turners, instead of expensive and rare materials such as mithril and adamantine. I also have some thoughts on the Hour-Reversal Charm, or maybe it should be called Time-Reversal Charm, since the time reversed would no longer be restricted to full hours… "

Although Harry had owned a Time Machine for almost two years now, he was still happy beyond himself to actually know how to make one - and an improved one, no less. Harry always considered it ridiculous that the Time-Turner could only reverse Time in whole hour increments, and it was very unlikely that Time could only be reversed six exact hours. There had been some arguments in magical history books on the inventor of Time-Turners, but all books agreed that it was invented after Merlin, and before the foundation of Hogwarts. From all Harry knew, back then, hours were defined by 1/24 of a day. Although the inventor, -or inventors,- might think differently, it was extremely unlikely that 1/24 of the average rotation cycle of an unimportant planet in a remote area in the Milky Way somehow coincided with one exact quantum amount of Time that could be reversed, and the maximum number of quanta that could be stretched in each twenty-four quanta was exactly six. Harry thought he had read it somewhere that the apparent solar time each day was different every day, and varied from year to year. Even if the maximum Time that could be stretched per twenty-four hours was something like six hours plus one millisecond, Harry would still like to know it, for that might relate to something fundamental for the entire Universe.

Mad-Eye handed that page and three pages after that to Harry, and Harry immersed himself into Advanced Time Machine making.

In the meanwhile, Slytherin noted: hey, Mad-Eye seems to be happy about me showing the notes to him first, and Severus later. If Severus is similar to Mad-Eye on this issue, he may feel alienated. Unfortunately, Severus might not even care anymore.

Harry sighed inwardly. If he were going to form an alliance with some powerful lords and ladies from other countries, he'd better learn how to interact with an ally with an easy case - such as one Severus Snape, who had a phoenix as his proof of character, and could speak only technically true statements if asked in Parseltongue. Moreover, everyone Severus cared about was already sort of in Harry's charge - that man had even handed Harry a small strand of hair from his deceased mother, Eileen Snape when he returned a lock of hair from Lily to Harry a few days ago. Harry knew a certain level of manipulation might have been involved here, he still felt quite personally responsible for everyone in Severus' family, and Harry had strengthened his resolution on reviving every sapient being that had ever lived. As for the thirty-something top wizards in the world, there was no definitive proof of character; there was no guarantee that they would tell even partial truth; not only were their family and loved ones not by Harry's side, they could also be used by dark wizards to force the lords and ladies to stand against Harry; and every one of them could defeat the combined forces of Severus, Mad-Eye, plus a bunch of Aurors.

Harry really resented the potentially grim prospect of having allies who were less intelligent yet more powerful than he was.

From a very dark corner in Harry's mind, a voice quietly suggested a very "creative" idea: Although it is hard to gain a lot of magical power in a short time, it is possible to - well, you know, if we can gather all the top wizards together, and construct a carefully calculated timed antimatter bomb…

Everyone else - including Slytherin - gasped in horror, yelled in righteous fury, and started throwing punches on Dark Harry, for all of them knew it was WRONG, and the disappearance of all top wizards would definitely lead to instant chaos - if not World War III.

Harry decided to shut down his dark mode for as long as possible - or at least until the next crisis really called for it.

Dark Harry sneered.

Just as Harry was trying to get his dark side under control, with a twist in his lips, Mad-Eye, who had been observing Harry for a while, brought out a colored paper copy of a yellowish black-and-white magical photo of - a bearded Severus Snape with a hole in his chest?!

-WHAT?!

Harry's brain wanted to deny the possibility of Severus' death, then the parts that were still functioning as they should realized that the corpse couldn't be Severus Snape: for the sake of Merlin, the photo is too old, and Mad-Eye is too calm.

Although Mad-Eye and Severus fought like cats and dogs everyday, Harry didn't think the no-longer scarred Auror would so calmly show the Boy-Who-Lived a photo of a deceased Severus. The Mad-Eye Moody in Harry's head should be snarling "constant vigilance" and summoning members of the Order of Phoenix to protect Harry and the Stone six hours before he found Severus dead - whether the black-haired wizard was killed by Voldemort, some other dark wizards, or even Mad-Eye himself -

-Unless this isn't Mad-Eye Moody…

As Harry was pretending to be in shock, while inwardly grinding his brain to figure out an escape plan, the man in front of the Boy-Who-Lived snarled with a raspy voice: "Shocked? Me too. I recently did some diggings of the top secrets of the former USSR, and got this rare photo of our old Ivan Pokrov - or at least that's the so-called real name I can get - commonly known as Lord Rasputin, after his death and with all his magical disguises worn off. Well, one can never know enough about dead dark wizards."

Rasputin, oh, of course, the powerful Russian Lord and true seer, would and should change his appearances, and adopt a new identity, before meddling with muggle politics. Harry reasoned. Somehow, his disguise magic failed after his death. But why does Severus resemble him so much?

Harry's imagination was quick in generating a number of explanations for the amazing resemblance, ranging from the most innocent one such as Severus was Rasputin's descendant, to the possibility that Severus was born/made as a magical clone for the purpose of the Russian lord's revival, and to ones that sounded really familiar: as a true seer who had foreseen his own death, Rasputin might have made a horcrux before he was assassinated, and this horcrux somehow wanted to make baby Severus a living horcrux, but the magic botched and imprinted Rasputin's looks and parts of his character on the baby.

Part of Harry really resented the last possibility, for that would mean Harry wasn't that special.

But hey, what you don't like doesn't have to be true. Part of Harry offered. Rasputin was famous for his fondness for any breathing female. Severus might just be his descendant. Before other parts of Harry could sneer, Harry's Ego continued, you know, rumor says the Malfoys jinxed their own bloodline so that all the male descendants would look like their ancestors, which makes a lot of sense when they expect their ancestors to revive someday -

Then Harry got it: Lord Rasputin expected himself to rise again - no, he probably foresaw his own revival.

Harry knew that true seers couldn't remember the Prophecies they told, but this didn't mean they couldn't know through other means. Considering the fact that Merlin threw away his life and magic to make the Hall of Prophecy, which recorded all the Prophecies made in the world, magical sound recording devices must have been invented during or before Merlin's time. And for a cunning true seer like Lord Rasputin, it made a lot of sense for him to carry several such devices with him all the time.

Harry secretly smiled to himself, as this could be a good sign for his plan to revive every sapient being that had lived.

Mad-Eye's next sentences diverted Harry's train of thoughts: "One of the major difficulties of revival through a horcrux is to create a perfect body for oneself. There is no guarantee that your servant would willingly sacrifice his or her flesh after your death, and your father's bone could be tampered with - Snape and I had put quite some interesting stuff to the supposed tomb of Tom Riddle Sr., which obviously didn't serve its due purpose. However, it might not be too difficult for really powerful wizards to put a curse onto themselves and all their descendants, and I am wondering what the so-called Lord Rasputin might have tried in that department."

Mad-Eye's normal eye shifted slightly, as if he was not comfortable implying matters of a certain nature in front of the thirteen-year-old Boy-Who-Lived.

Being a Ravenclaw who had read too many books that he was not supposed to read, Harry had fully understood Mad-Eye's implications. In the back of his mind, Hufflepuff gasped in horror, Gryffindor wanted to track down the evil lord's horcruxes and put all of them in eternal fire, Ravenclaw tried to point out the fact that a male's mitochondria couldn't be passed down to his descendants, but Slytherin sneered and pointed out that Rasputin might have cursed his sisters - if he had them - as well. And in a dark corner, someone suggested that the Russian lord might actually have had kids with his sisters - or even his mother - to maximize his chances of success.

The no-longer old Auror's lips twisted in regret and anger. "I've checked up on Snape when Albus took him under his wings - but not enough, - you can never be vigilant and paranoid enough, as it turned out. There had been a rumor among the pureblood families that Eileen Prince's supposedly maternal grandfather, Serpens Lestrange, was sterile; and her mother, Virgo Prince nee Lestrange, was the illegitimate daughter of some wizard in Europe. I really should have tracked her true grandfather back then, but I was distracted by Voldie and all that. Although I've checked muggle public records, and the earliest record that I could find on the Snape family was in 1918, somehow I failed to make the Russian connection, until the lad gained too much power too quickly after his trips to the former Soviet Union. Albus had always told me to read more Muggle newspapers; if I did as Albus told me, I might have known that the rich Muggles fled Russia several years before Comrade Shakhov ousted his wizarding enemies."

This news should be way more alarming than it was if there was not a phoenix on the shoulder of Severus. Stella was probably a good living proof that Severus had not been occupied by someone's horcrux.

Moreover, there was another question that had been circling in the back of Harry's mind for a while -

"Mr. Moody, what do you think on how you obtained this information?" Harry asked.

Mad-Eye was probably expecting this question, for he quickly answered: "I greased a few palms, and a bunch of memory charms were also involved. But for whether the photo is real - well, I assume everyone with half a brain knows the Snape lad is related to the protection of the Stone, and a number of cunning ones might have noticed the Russian connection. And there it was, an old top-secret photo lying there among piles of old files, waiting for my discovery."

This did sound quite suspicious regardless of whether Severus was indeed a result of a powerful wizard's curse onto his bloodline. If it were true, some ex-Comrade, or some other powerful and cunning wizard or witch who had access to top secrets of the former USSR, might have noticed the resemblance, plus Severus' role in the protection of the Stone, and devised a scheme involving Mad-Eye obtaining the photo; if it were false, well, someone must have faked the photo, and planted it there.

As a matter of fact, there was a test that could prove or disprove the kinship between Severus and Rasputin, one that many wizards probably didn't know about: a DNA test. And if Harry remembered it right, the male part of Rasputin was soaked in Formalin, and on display in a museum - though there was no guarantee whatsoever of its authenticity.

Before Harry could suggest the idea, Mad-Eye drew out another two photos, a magical photo of a sullen looking young witch in silver and green trimmed Hogwarts robes, and an old Muggle mugshot of an angry-looking middle-aged man.

Harry didn't need to read the fine lines on the bottoms of the photos to realize that these were Severus' parents, who both resembled Severus a lot, and more importantly, resembled each other.

"The photo of the young Eileen Prince is less likely to be fake, for many people in the wizarding world knew her, and the memories, photos, and paintings are consistent; as for Tobias Snape, well, at least the memories of the Muggles whom I have checked did not tell me anything differently." Mad-Eye said.

Harry felt a surge of sadness. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Severus' parents were unhappy as a couple, but they didn't choose to divorce, or in Eileen's case, just took their child and went to somewhere that Tobias could never find, for if a clever and evil lord cursed his own bloodline to inbreed according to Prophecies, the same curse would ensure they try to make more babies no matter what.

The only thing that came sort of as a comfort was that Severus had loved Lily for many years, even though Lily didn't return his favor. This meant Severus could still fall in love when the influence of the possible curse was absent.

- On another thought, Severus' ill fate might be determined by Prophecies all along. His birth, for example, was very likely to be one.

- Moreover, Dumbledore probably wrote things on Lily Evan's Potions textbook according to a Prophecy. That act caused a great fight between Severus and Lily, increased the chance for Lily and James' marriage, ensured that Lily knew how to make her sister beautiful, and finally, led to the birth and proper upbringing of Harry Potter.

- Not to mention, Dumbledore had also arranged for Severus to overhear one of the Prophecies, so that particular one would be delivered to Voldemort, the one which would later cause Severus to defect to the Light side.

Hufflepuff suggested sadly: since Dumbledore was definitely acting on Prophecies for matters related to us, we might have wrongly reproached him for using Severus in a harsh way. For if he had relieved Severus' burden of guilt and grief, or ended Severus' infatuation for Lily earlier, there might not be an evil Potions master for us to publically defy, and the other Tom Riddle wouldn't teach us the valuable lesson on how to lose.

Then, Harry's mind helpfully remembered the hysterical laughter that Dumbledore had after Harry blackmailed him: Dumbledore might have just realized why Prophecies demanded an evil Potions master in Hogwarts until that day, and how all the sufferings of both the students and Severus himself served to properly motivate the hero. Moreover, Dumbledore might have already pondered on the comprising solution that Severus left the younger students alone, yet still was abusive towards students in their fifth year and above, for quite some time. There might even be Prophecies about that as well.

Harry wanted to bang his head against his desk. He still had a problem accepting that Time and the Universe worked that way.

On a positive note, Slytherin said, Severus' above-average level of intelligence and magical power might also come from Lord Rasputin. Otherwise, he wouldn't get the chance to become the first wizard to go to the Moon, and possibly bypass the Interdict of Electronics and the Interdict of Merlin. The personal happiness of one particular human being that we happen to know, plus that of a handful of Rasputin's other descendants, plus that of the former students taught by Severus, is just a small price to pay to save every sapient being on the planet, isn't it? Don't forget, our parents' lives have been sacrificed for this goal.

All the reasonable parts of Harry accepted Slytherin's logic, yet he all of a sudden understood the reason Merlin constructed the Hall of Prophecy, so that the ones involved in Prophecies would be aware of their fate: it was simply too sad to be manipulated by Prophecies your whole life without knowing anything.

Harry's Slytherin side split into two parts.

Slytherin Number One sneered: hey, are you sure that your desire to let Severus know isn't because you see the similarity between Severus and ourselves? Dumbledore must have felt guilty about manipulating us to the level of smashing our pet rock, yet that good man was wise enough to keep his mouth shut until his departure. We should do the same.

Just as Hufflepuff and Gryffindor began their protest, Slytherin Number Two offered an effective counter argument: what if Severus runs into a Russian witch, or a female magical creature while he is running all over the former USSR? I can't see how starting a family under the influence of Rasputin's magic could be good for our mission.

Moreover, there is a decent chance that Shakhov would have some notes from Rasputin. Do you want to imagine what Severus might find out while that man was on the Moon? Ravenclaw added.

Slytherin Number One conceded: I don't think Severus is sharp enough to connect himself with Rasputin if he comes across something on how to curse your own bloodline, though it is possible that Shakhov might have left a note or a sketch to be watchful for witches and wizards with a particular look. OK, just the Rasputin part, then.

Harry breathed in, and breathed out. "We have to notify Professor Snape about this."

Author's note:

Alan Rickman was the actor who played Severus Snape in Harry Potter movie series. His performance in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny won him a Golden Globe. My fabrication of the kinship between Severus and Rasputin here was not only a part of the theme on the pursuit of eternal life (through good, not-so-good, and evil means), but also a tribute to Alan Rickman, who passed away in 2016.