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

Chapter 58.

Space Travel, Part XV: Time Pressure (II)

5:40 pm, August 3rd, 1993

Harry observed Severus carefully as the black-haired man's knuckles whitened on his wand, his black eyes glittered, and his face twitched and un-twitched.

Stella on Severus' shoulder looked both confused and tense. She looked like she wanted to coo a comforting song, but was silenced by a glance from her master.

Fawkes, who had been summoned by Harry upon Mad-Eye's request, stopped eating chocolate frogs scattered on the small table the moment Mad-Eye pulled out Rasputin's photo and Severus began to tense up. He looked back and forth with his black beady eyes between Mad-Eye and Severus, unable to grasp the rising emotion from the master of the other phoenix.

Harry could feel there was magic building up around the man each time his cheeks jumped, and it was like water rising, rising, and rising, like the gushing Congo River in the rainy season held back by nothing but a thin string pretending to be a dam. The magic didn't exactly go wild, but not going wild somehow became more frightening by the second.

The magical fire burning in the fireplace in Harry's headquarter dimmed and quivered, shuddering as if it, too, was afraid of what might happen if the black-haired wizard lost control over his magic.

Harry had experienced Severus' emotional unrest in close range before, and he had told Mad-Eye to allow Severus time to calm down by himself. However, this time, the magic tensing up around Severus was way more frightening than the time Harry unwisely told Severus why Lily did not forgive him, but offered James Potter forgiveness generously.

Harry racked his brain, trying to figure out something truly wise to say. None of Harry's mentally prepared scenarios matched this level of intensity - the magic in air began to resemble that radiating from Dumbledore when the ancient wizard was in his righteous fury. And apparently, Stella couldn't comfort her master who did not desire comforting.

Harry stole a glance at Hermione, who was definitely better at this sort of thing than Harry, but it seemed that the Girl-Who-Revived didn't have much to say, either.

"Lad -" Mad-Eye began in a sympathetic tone that was quite rare for this rough auror.

"Shut, up!" Severus seethed through his teeth.

Mad-Eye's lips closed at once, and almost before Harry could realize, Mad-Eye's normal eye widened, and his wand was already pointing toward Severus -

Before Harry could do something to stop Mad-Eye and Severus from killing each other - or rather stop Severus from killing Mad-Eye, the black-haired man grabbed Stella, and vanished in a burst of flames.

-Err...

Harry didn't think it would a good idea for Severus to be alone, going who knows where in this emotional state, but he didn't know if getting someone to console Severus would be a good idea, either, for the man might not want his godson or his newly-found best friend to know about his family tree.

This is just the Rasputin stuff. We have not even begun with the other Prophecies, such as the one with the Potions textbook. Have you all seen why Dumbledore kept his mouth shut yet? End your useless moral dilemma, and keep your secrets from now on. Seethed Slytherin. Oh, and by the way, with Severus' intelligence, he might also figure out that he had been manipulated by Dumbledore his whole life on a deeper level than he had known. Guess what, he might even figure this out during his trip to the Moon, and he might conveniently destroy the scrolls containing magic on how to save Dumbledore, and Obliviate himself.

He wouldn't do that! He has a phoenix! Protested Hufflepuff.

Slytherin scoffed: yeah, why are you so sure that Stella won't be convinced by her master, and think that it is for the greater good? Fawkes didn't leave Dumbledore when he purposefully sacrificed our parents.

Then Harry noticed something: Mad-Eye pointed his wand toward his own lips, and cast something.

Harry knew magical children had accidental magical outbursts, but Severus was too old for accidental magic to seal Mad-Eye's lips, or was he?

Harry had always wondered how magic worked. Most spells used in western wizarding society nowadays were in magical pseudo-Latin, while spells taught in magical schools in Asia were in words resembling their own native languages. Therefore, though within a certain pseudo-language system, the exact wording and wand movements did matter, a particular language was not required for magic to serve certain functions, such as stunning someone. Now it seemed that Severus could seal Mad-Eye's lips just by a strong desire without words in the magical pseudo-Latin that the ex-Head of Slytherin had been trained to use.

"If not for Fawkes still liking the lad, I would be sure that he is occupied by Rasputin. Severus shouldn't gain so much power so quickly even if Shakhov and Grindelwald are mentoring him together. I could only somewhat verify Perenelle Flamel's body, though; I am not sure if the heap of ash was actually Master Nicolas Flamel..." Mad-Eye's sound trailed off.

When first hearing of the news on the condition of the Flamels' "bodies", Harry had thought that was because there was actually only one Flamel. However, there might be another possibility: Lady Baba Yaga and Perenelle had really loved each other, so the Dark Lady decided to quit her career, and took on the identity of Nicolas Flamel. And while dueling Lord Voldemort and/or his pawn, the Dark Lady managed to escape, leaving the pretense that there was actually one Flamel. And that was why the senior Tom Riddle thought Perenelle, as a teenage girl, managed to kill Lady Baba Yaga.

-If Lady Baba Yaga is still alive…

-That explained a lot, actually. Lady Baba Yaga probably has some fondness for Hogwarts, so she might kill the acromantulas, plus the dark wizard behind the acromantulas. Moreover, she might teach Lucius the advance shielding charm, not as being particularly kind, but in the same way that she parceled out secrets and powerful magic to Dumbledore when she saw that Lord Voldemort was winning. Just this time, she parceled out one of her secrets to all of us, and Lucius was just a conduit.

-Come to think of it now, the knowledge that the secret of Grindelwald's invincibility and the role of the Death Stick might be from Lady Baba Yaga as well. I might have wronged Severus on this.

-And the matter with Severus. Lady Baba Yaga might want to raise someone again, the same way she raised Dumbledore. And within our small circle of conspiracy, Severus is probably the only one who might have the potential to hold off Voldemort for a while before Hermione or I gain enough power that she could understand. And since Lady Baba Yaga is not arrogant, she might consider me to be too clever, and Hermione to be too moral.

Harry heaved a sigh. This was probably the second time that a really powerful Dark Wizard decided against taking him as an apprentice. He couldn't even tell if this was a good sign.

Just as Harry's Slytherin side and Hufflepuff side began to debate whether he should let Mad-Eye know about Lady Baba Yaga, a bright light ball appeared in the room.

In the ex-Head of Slytherin's tired voice, the patronus said: "Mr. Potter, please let me in your place by phoenix."

Parts of Harry were relieved that he got a good excuse to postpone a decision for a difficult problem.

Harry quickly waved his wand, and allowed Severus to come back. He was glad that Severus managed to calm himself down within, err, six hours or less.

A flame later, Severus was back in Harry's headquarters. His new expensive robes were littered with spots of mud, his black eyes were slightly bloodshot, the wrinkles around his eyes might have grown a bit, and his face was otherwise blank.

Before anyone could say anything, the black-haired man took out a black metal box from his pouch, and handed it to Harry. "Mr. Potter, the box contains locks of hair from my father, my maternal grandmother, and my paternal grandfather. Oh, well, at least I think the bodies in their respective graves are my ancestors'. Please run your scientific test with them, and see if Mad-Eye's theory is true."

-Err…

Harry nodded gravely to the man in distress, and asked: "Is there anything I can do for you, Professor Snape?"

Severus looked as if he wanted to give Mad-Eye a deadly glare, but in his currently exhausted status, it was just a roll of his eyes. Severus sat down on the sofa, and said resentfully: "You may ask Mad-Eye to show some respect by not digging up graves. And by the way, if any of the remaining Lestranges outside prison alert the authorities about the burglary in their family cemetery, you know which Auror to send to conduct this so-called investigation. If I am not mistaken, Mad-Eye probably has already run DNA tests in several Muggle labs. However, ever since I knew about the role father's bones play in a revival ritual, I did some cover-up on the graves of my recent ancestors, and I am glad my work was not completely wasted."

Hermione gasped at the implication, and her brown eyes darted to Harry as if pleading with him to do something, or to prevent something.

Harry didn't remember exactly whether tampering with one's ancestors' graves called for blood or death challenges in the etiquettes of the Most Ancient Houses, but to tamper with fake graves might not require such revenges.

-Or maybe Mad-Eye did find the true graves, and he just did a great cover-up, so Severus wouldn't have an good excuse to kill him for the offence.

-On another thought, maybe Severus did find out that Mad-Eye tampered with the true graves, and he just pretended that he didn't figure this out, so that he would have an excuse not to kill Mad-Eye for family honor - probably not wanting to cause world destruction, or to make it easier to escape punishment after assassinating Mad-Eye. Remember, Severus didn't say it in Parseltongue.

-Oh, great. Now the most powerful wizard in our conspiracy has found a justified reason to kill the second-most powerful one.

Somewhere else, a non-plotting Harry still felt pretty sorry for Severus, for Harry would feel upset if anyone tampered with James and Lily's monuments, let alone digging up their graves without Harry's consent.

Slytherin tried to soothe Harry: hey, we know that is what Mad-Eye has to do. Mad-Eye would definitely ask us if he needs something from our parents' bodies, and he would also ask Minerva for similar matters. Plus, Severus himself and Mad-Eye had put interesting stuff into the supposed tomb of You-Know-Who's father. Tom Riddle, Sr., who was probably innocent, lost protection to his calm in death because of his son's conducts. We considered that act completely justified. Similarly, Severus joined the Death Eaters by his own free will - we have not asked Severus how many people he killed before he defected to the Light, have we? By the same logic, the tampering of Severus' ancestors' graves is just an unfortunate collateral damage as well. Back me up here, Hufflepuff?

Hufflepuff was almost in tears, Gryffindor was in dilemma, while Ravenclaw argued that trying to figure out whether your ally was under a curse did not constitute as good a reason as trying to stop a dark lord from crawling back to life.

Before Hermione in Harry's mind or the real Hermione could say anything, Severus continued: "More importantly, I think Time is pressuring us. We really need to speed up our space travel schedule."

The possible descendant of a true seer sighed, and said to the Boy-Who-Lived and the Girl-Who-Revived in bewilderment: "If the school schedule is similar to the schedule when I was here, the pre-semester staff meeting should be held within two weeks, by which time the professors for the next school-year should be determined. Minerva is begging Lupin to continue teaching Defense class, and she is committing a slow suicide by teaching Transfiguration and being the Headmistress at the same time. In the meanwhile, we have a list of extraordinarily qualified witches and wizards - including Lord Grindelwald - applying for various staff positions. I wouldn't be too surprised if some mishap happens to any of our current staff members before the next semester starts. Even if we are lucky enough to keep all the staff of last school-year, Mr. Potter, I do not want to imagine the scene when Minerva meets Trelawney after the summer break, let alone the many occasions that our beloved Divination Professor would have meals in the Great Hall. And as I now reflect on it, Mr. Potter, Albus might have been actively preventing you from knowing more Prophecies."

Professor Trelawney's hallow icy voice from Harry's first year began to echo in Harry's mind: ""HE IS COMING, THE ONE WHO WILL TEAR APART THE VERY -" And then, Dumbledore dragged Trelawney away in mid-sentence by phoenix fire. And there were also the words in Dumbledore's letters confirming that Harry should not learn more Prophecies.

And this time, the presence of the new phoenix owner himself might trigger a Prophecy.

Harry sighed inwardly. "Yes, we definitely should speed up."