1613 by Whitetail
Summary: The Potioneer’s Society - a name that conjures images of prestige, brilliance, and fame. But beneath its shining complexion lies something sinister. Evelyn, having fled from the witch hunters to London, has uncovered what very few within the Potioneer’s Society even know: Being brewed in secret within its hallowed halls is a potion that will spell disaster for the Wizarding race should it ever fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, the wrong hands are the ones brewing it. With nobody to turn to, she calls Severus Snape and Harry Potter back in time once more, to the year 1613. A daring plan arises immediately, but with only fourteen days to accomplish the break-in of the 17th century, they soon realize that the enemy has everything to gain, and they have everything to lose.
Categories: Snape Equal Status to Harry > Comrades Snape and Harry Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Original Character
Snape Flavour: Snape is Kind
Genres: Action/Adventure
Media Type: None
Tags: Time Travel
Takes Place: 1st Year
Warnings: Character Death, Romance/Het, Violence
Prompts: Sequel Challenge
Challenges: Sequel Challenge
Series: 1612
Chapters: 20 Completed: Yes Word count: 78979 Read: 51858 Published: 01 Sep 2012 Updated: 02 Jan 2013
Gloom and Earth by Whitetail
Author's Notes:
Harry isn't in this chapter. For a while the chapters will be split so you know what's going on on both sides of the plan. The next chapter will have Harry's introduction to the Potioneer's Society.

"Come on!" Evelyn hissed anxiously to Severus as they marched toward the Potioneer's Society gate on their way out. "What are you doing?"

Furious, and worried that he was going to give them away, she wondered why on earth he was examining the flowerbed, which had a number of ornately carved stone ornaments. Sure, the flower garden was beautifully kept, but she could not figure out for the life of her why he was paying so much attention to them. For a moment, she saw the flash of a wand in his hand, but it was gone no sooner than she had seen it.

"Quite a lovely arrangement," he said rather loudly. "A nice change from the crops we grow."

"Yes, I am afraid the farm has been looking a little dull as of late," Evelyn replied, hiding her utter confusion quite well as they walked out of the gates, which opened briefly and then clanged shut behind them.

It was only when they had reached the safety of the house that Evelyn rounded on him, all the anxiety and fear from leaving Harry behind finally catching up to her and coming out in her tirade at Severus.

"What the hell was that about?" she spat furiously. "You could have blown the whole bloody operation, and what, for a few pretty flowers? FLOWERS!"

"Evelyn," said Severus calmly, "let me explain. I had an idea, something we should have thought about before. We need to know that our tunnel is on the right course, correct?"

"Yes," she said resentfully.

"Well, I do not think we can trust this to a few quickly done measurements," he said carefully, "so I placed a tracking charm on one of the stones in the flower bed. I can pick up the signal with my wand, and we will know which direction to dig, as well as how far of a distance we need to go."

Evelyn sat down.

"Brilliant!" she said under her breath, all anger gone.

"I'm not such a crackpot after all, hmm?" said Severus, looking rather pleased with himself.

"I'm sorry, Severus," Evelyn said a little sheepishly. "I should have trusted that you had a good reason."

"If I could have explained then and there, I would," he told her. "There is no need to apologize."

"Well, we've lost enough time. Let's eat something for lunch and get digging."

"Indeed," said Severus under his breath. "The sooner we get Potter out of there, the better."

They wasted no more time in getting started, and a while later Evelyn was pacing back and forth in front of the open trap door. Spread across the floor before it was thin old quilt. She was anxious to get some headway on the tunnel, for what with having to pack the necessary things for Harry to take with him if he was apprenticed, and experiment with good excavation spells, they had yet to dig a sufficient depth to start tunnelling forward.

There was a shuffling noise, and a hand reached up out of the blackness. Evelyn took it, and helped pull Severus up into the room. Dirt showered from his clothing and onto the ragged quilt. Severus wiped sweat off his brow, and pulled his arm across his chest to stretch, looking weary.

"Well?"

"The water starts about twenty feet down, so I say we leave it at about fifteen," Severus said matter of factly. "The ground is quite rocky, and a bit soft in some places, but it should hold fairy well."

He was quite a sight, with the dirt streaked all across the clothes that had once been Ellery's, and the smudges of dirt on his face. He continued to tell her about the soil and how they should go about digging the tunnel, but Evelyn could hardly listen. In the end she burst into peals of laughter. It was difficult to take someone seriously when they had so much dirt on their face, and she had not had a reason to laugh in months.

"It is a perfectly sound idea," Severus said, scowling deeply and only making Evelyn laugh harder. "We should have some form of light, and those jars with the flames in them would be perfect. It's not funny in the least."

"I'm sorry Severus," Evelyn gasped. "The light idea is fine, it's just you, you have ..."

And she was laughing again.

"Have what?"

Evelyn took a deep breath, finally starting to regain her senses, "I'm sorry, I'm just so tired it is terribly funny. You have streaks of dirt under your eyes that make your look like some sort of bandit."

"Wow, what a surprise, I just dug twenty feet into the ground. Who would have thought I might have dirt on my face?" Severus said dryly, although he sounded partially amused himself. "Now help me get these buckets of dirt back into the hole. We need to fill it up to the right level, unless we want to go swimming every time we try to go down into the tunnel."

Evelyn agreed and took a deep, calming breath before she stepped onto the dusty and dirty quilt to look down into the hole cut beneath the trapdoor. She peered down into the blackness, her wand illuminating the damp walls of the tunnel shaft. Severus had used magic to dig a wide shaft about fifteen or sixteen feet down into the ground. After that, he had dug a much smaller shaft about a foot in diameter into the ground in order to test where the water was lying at, so they wouldn't have to worry about the tunnel flooding. Previously, she had been helping him by vanishing the buckets of earth he sent up by magic, and then lowering down the empty bucket again for him to fill. It had gone very quickly due to a number of good digging spells. When Severus had begun to dig the smaller shaft in order to figure out how far down they would hit water, Evelyn had started to pile dirt up in the washtub she usually used for bathing so that they might fill the small hole back in.

Severus swung down into the mouth of the hole, his feet firmly planted on one of the pieces of wood they had lodged into the side of the shaft like ladder rungs. He then shuffled down into the darkness, the sound of his boots scraping on the dirty makeshift ladder ringing strangely as he descended.

"Send me down a jar," Severus called up to her.

Evelyn got a jar and held it over the hole before saying, "I'm levitating it down right now."

In the gloom down below, Evelyn saw Severus' pale hand reach up to catch it. There was the clatter of him opening the lid of the jar, and then the swish of his wand. A warm orange glow burst forth, illuminating the damp walls of the shaft, and shining on Severus' dark hair. He set the little jar on one of the ladder rungs, being careful not to put one of his feet in the smaller shaft. Then, he looked up at Evelyn.

"You can start sending down buckets of dirt," he called up to her.

Scuffling and clattering rang through the room as Evelyn filled the bucket with earth from the heaping washtub and sent it gliding down into the shaft of the tunnel with a levitation charm.

She heard a light scraping noise, and then a wet shlop, and so she presumed that Severus had caught the bucket and dumped the earth into the hole. Sure enough, a moment later the bucket glided up, empty for her to fill again. They did this for about five minutes before the little shaft was packed full. Severus emerged once more, shaking the dirt from his clothes again.

"I think I prefer vanishing the earth than putting it back," Severus said distastefully. "It's much quicker. But still, this is going to be quite the job."

Evelyn nodded, brows furrowed with thought. "We can take turns digging, at least. I just wish that there was somewhere we could dig from that would be closer to the Society. Pity we couldn't find an empty building to dig from. I hate how crowded London is. Not a bit of privacy anywhere in this wretched city."

Severus frowned for a moment as Evelyn glanced over at the hole rather morosely. They had discussed all the possible places they could dig before, but this seemed to be the only option.

"I know we can't risk being out in the open and revealing ourselves," began Severus, "but ... what if we posed as gravediggers in a churchyard nearby?"

"Clever, but there are members of the clergy there all the time. I don't think they would appreciate what we were doing." Evelyn sighed slightly. "We'll just have to dig from here as fast as we can."

Severus looked oddly relieved. "I can't say I am not glad for that. I do not wish to disturb the dead," he said, shivering slightly.

"What, are you afraid of ghosts?" Evelyn asked, a little amused.

"Let's keep digging, shall we?"

"If you say so," Evelyn said, surprised by how pale Severus had gone. "Let's start the tunnel going forward then."

And Severus was climbing down into the dark hole again. Evelyn watched him, waiting for the bucket to come soaring up so she could vanish the dirt in it. It made things a lot easier if she did the vanishing, as Severus could dig twice as fast, and vanishing from the bucket was far easier than vanishing the loose soil in the tunnel.

It only took a few minutes for them to begin to set a good pace. Down below Evelyn heard the scraping sound of Severus slicing away chunks of dirt with magic, and then the grating noise of his hands packing the dirt into the empty bucket. When the sound stopped she knew the bucket was coming her way, and as the sounds of Severus cutting way more dirt rose up to her, she was already sending the empty pail back down.

It was not long at all before Severus had gone far enough into the side of the shaft for Evelyn to descend into the dimly lit tunnel too in order to vanish the dirt faster. Now she was handed the bucket instead, and the speed increased. Half way through their digging Evelyn switched to the one cutting away soil, and Severus did the vanishing. They mostly worked in silence. The damp smell of the earth filled Evelyn's nostrils, and the silence that hung in the air when they stopped was deafening. It was hotter down here too, somehow. She didn't really understand why, and after a while she asked if Severus knew. So for the rest of the time they dug, Evelyn scraped away dirt while Severus told her of modern day discoveries- how the earth had a molten rock core, and that the farther down you went, the hotter things were. He told her of many scientific discoveries, of the planets and stars seen since her time, and advancements in healing. Evelyn hung onto his every word, fascinated by everything that could be learned.

Therefore, it was not hard to imagine why her mind was buzzing as Severus held out his hand to help her out of the hole in the floor. Her body was tired, her face streaked with dirt, but her head filled with wonder and questions. How much was there to know? But, seeing that Severus was tired, she kept these questions inside her for another day as she dragged out the washtub, which had since been liberated of dirt and scrubbed with magic.

"Ladies first," Severus said tiredly. "I will start making dinner."

"Thanks," said Evelyn, remembering with delight that Severus could cook fairly well, for she had tried a soup he had made the last time he had been in the past.

She found it strange for a man to offer to cook when there was a woman in the house that could easily do it. The future seemed to be full of so many odd things. She found the differences a little bit unnerving, between now and the time Severus was from, that was. But still, it was refreshing, and as she hung a sheet around the washtub she felt quite content, despite the long day that had been spent digging.

It felt good to get the dirt out from behind her ears, and in her hair. The water was practically black in the washtub. Yet, however nice it was to get clean, Evelyn felt rather strange, bathing with someone else in the house. Ellery had only been with her for about two weeks; she had been in solitude so long she had forgotten what it was like to live in a house with more than herself. This she contemplated as she dressed and combed her hair. The soft, light green dress she had put on looked gorgeous compared to the old, patched and ragged one she had designated for digging. It had gone from light brown to dark brown within the day. She made a mental note to wash it later tonight.

"Your turn," she said to Severus rather shyly, twisting her hair up into a bun behind her head before getting out her smaller, wooden laundry tub to get her digging clothes scrubbing up against the washboard.

After filling the laundry tub and spelling the clothes to scrub themselves, Evelyn prodded the coals in the fire, and threw another piece of wood into the dying flames. Some sort of onion and meat stew was simmering in a pot hung over the fire. It was the last of the food, and she reminded herself that they would have to go to the market some time, after Severus made a few more chairs. She was brought from this thought as the wind rattled the windowpanes. Looking out into the dark night, she wondered how Harry was getting along. Her stomach squirmed at the thought of where he was. Evelyn still couldn't help but wonder if this was a good idea. Hoping for some reassurance that he was alright, she went over to unroll the magical piece of parchment, to see if Harry had managed to record anything to send to them. It was blank.

"Severus?" asked Evelyn.

"What?" he said impatiently behind the curtain after a slight splash.

"Do you think Harry is alright?"

"Has he sent a message yet?"

"No."

Severus took a moment to reply. "Well, we would know if something happened. McTavish has never seen him before, and apprenticeship laws will keep his mentor from doing him any harm."

"I guess you're right."

"Of course I am. Now, if you're done with questions, I have to wash my hair."

Evelyn couldn't help but laugh at the disgruntled tone in his voice.

"You have the weirdest sense of humour," his voice said back as it drifted over to where she was standing.

The End.
End Notes:
Well, hope that was okay, and not too dry. I kind of had to get to them tunneling eventually, and I hope it was at least sort of interesting. And yes, I know it hasn't got any Harry and Snape interaction, but there will be some in some of the upcoming chapters. I promise! ;)


This story archived at http://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction/viewstory.php?sid=2855