Harry spent another five days as baby phoenix, cuddling with Fawkes who did not leave his side and his grandfather who joined them frequently. On Friday afternoon, Icicle was alone with Lily, sitting on her shoulder. Suddenly Icicle slowly descended Lily’s arm and hopped down onto the sofa walking until he reached his favourite spot, which the others always kept open for him. Then he asked his mother to get one of his robes from his room and cover his body and when she complied without questioning him, he transformed back into Harry. Lily immediately sat next to him and watched him anxiously. He looked just normal, as if nothing had happened.

“Harry?” She softly asked her son. “Is everything alright?” Harry threw a small smile at his mother and murmured,

“Yes, Mom, everything is alright except from the fact that the transformation was very strenuous for a baby phoenix; therefore I am very tired.” Lily laughed relieved and asked,

“Shall I take you to your room?” But Harry was already asleep. She went to his room, fetched sweatpants and a shirt from his room and dressed him, as he was completely naked under the robes that only partly covered his body. Finally she tucked him into a blanket and let him sleep, feeling very glad to have her son back again.

Harry woke up two hours later by a huge commotion, when everyone filed into the Snape quarters in order to have dinner together and noticed the empty bird’s perch before spotting him on the sofa. After he heard the fifth person asking about him, he sat up, looked around and said,

“I am fine, everything is okay, I am sorry for having you worrying about me, but please don’t make such a fuss! Now, can we have dinner please? After weeks of baby birdie food I am hungry.” Everyone laughed at this and quickly sat down at the dinner table. Harry could not remember when he had eaten such delicious food for the last time. He was still tired from transforming but felt better than he had in years, so he had a huge appetite and was able to really enjoy his dinner. After dinner, Poppy insisted checking on him and Harry grudgingly followed her into his room accompanied by his parents, while Minerva was busily keeping Marina and Violet out of his room. Poppy checked on him twice and said,

“He is tired, almost certainly from transforming, but otherwise fine. Concerning his immune system we have to ask Healer Uehara; however, I hope that this illness has gone as well, but I don’t know this definitely. Apart from this, he doesn’t have any problems. Congratulations Harry – you found the best possible way to get rid of the pneumonia and the bad condition you were in during the last year.” Harry snorted and grinned at her, before he said jokingly,

“Thank you, Aunt Poppy. I know I am a genius.” Dumbledore didn’t waste any time and brought the Japanese healer to Hogwarts on the next day. Poppy called Harry to his room in the Hospital Wing, so that Uehara could check on him. After waving her wand over Harry, she smiled at him and said,

“Congratulations, Harry. You efficiently managed to get rid of your illness. Although,” she turned to Poppy, “this has only cured the illness itself in order for his immune system not to be further damaged, his immune system should now be able to restore its ability to resist illnesses from outside. However, it will take a long time to restore its strength if this will ever be possible at all. Therefore, he will be safer against illnesses; however, his health condition itself will not be stronger during the next months or maybe years. For example, when he overdoes it or works too much, he will easily get fevers as result, and this problem will continue for a while, so that he has to be careful not to overdo himself. The more he worsens his condition, the longer the healing will take.”

During the next two weeks, Harry spent most of his time preparing for his lessons, while Dumbledore took care of the children during the daytime. His grandmother, who had completely taken over the position as Headmistress by then, still made time for him to discuss things with her every day. He slowly began to adjust to the thought of teaching on his own and started to feel comfortable with it. In the evenings nearly everyone who came down to the Snape quarters for dinner stayed for tea and long discussions, so that Harry got the feeling of having a kind of a party every night. When bedtime for Marina, Violet and Brianna arrived, Harry gave them a bath and put them to bed after reading them a story. Most evenings Ginny joined him, and Harry noticed happily that she was acting very comfortably around his sister and cousin. They always let Brianna sleep together with the other girls; sometimes the Lupins took her with them when they went home, other times she just stayed at the Snapes’.

Exactly a week before the start of the new school year, Lily and Severus joined Harry in his room after breakfast for a small talk.

“Harry,” Lily began, “you have worked very hard during the last weeks and Granny told us that you are well prepared for your lessons. Therefore, we want you to take a rest during the remaining holidays, and as this probably won’t be possible here at Hogwarts, we are thinking about going to Snape Manor for a few days. What do you think about it?” Harry was stunned. Yes, of course, he wanted to go to the Manor to see his grandmother. But on the other hand, he wanted to spend some time with Ginny, because he didn’t know how much time they would have for each other when the school year started. When his parents saw him hesitating, Severus asked,

“Harry, I have the feeling you want to go, but something is keeping you here. What is it? Can you try to share your thoughts with us please?” Harry glanced at his father and replied,

“Yes, on one hand I would like to go. But on the other hand I would like to spend as much time as possible with Ginny.” His parents exchanged a glance, before Lily asked,

“Harry, maybe we could ask Poppy if Ginny could come with us for a few days? If Ginny wants to go and Poppy lets her leave, we just have to ask Mrs. Weasley, but I cannot imagine that she will forbid her to come with us.” Harry gave his mother a hopeful glance, and Lily floo-ed over to the hospital wing to discuss their plan with Poppy and Ginny. Finally, Ginny was allowed to go, and in the evening of the same day, they took a portkey to Snape Manor.

Harry and Ginny spent the mornings just on their own in Harry’s room or in some other place within the huge manor where nobody was able to find and disturb them – at least not two five-year-old troublemakers. During this time, Ginny told Harry everything about her apprenticeship. With the help of the parchment Healer Burnham had provided for Ginny, Madam Pomfrey had been able to arrange for her to spend every Tuesday at St. Mungos, where she would receive special healers’ training in order to not only get a Hogwarts certificate after her three years apprenticeship but also to be a certified healer of St. Mungos. Harry was stunned but of course also very happy for his girlfriend. Ginny glanced at him lovingly and said,

“Harry, I know that I have to thank you for that. Poppy told me that without the parchment and the recommendation of Healer Burnham St. Mungos would never have agreed to that.” Harry shook his head and replied,

“No Ginny, it is not because of me. You have to thank Aunt Poppy. It is only because she is a very good healer as well as a very good teacher, which Healer Burnham knows because it was she who taught me about natural healing. Anyway, I am very happy for you, and I hope that Aunt Poppy will let you go early enough in the evening, so that we will have as much time for each other as possible.”

At other times, Harry told her about his preparations for his Head of House position. He had thought of several things he wanted to introduce to Merlin House but was a little unsure and was glad to get Ginny’s confirmation that his ideas were very good.

The afternoons were spent at the lake, where Ginny and Harry tried to teach Marina and Violet how to swim. Marina could nearly manage it by now, but Violet had never been swimming before and was a bit afraid of the water at first.

One day, when they were lying on the grass after swimming for a while, Harry turned to Ginny and asked,

“Ginny, do you want to learn to become an animagus?” Ginny sat up and gasped at him.

“What? An animagus? Of course I want to, but I don’t know if I will be able to.” Harry laughed and said,

“Of course you will be able to. Why not? If you want to learn, I can teach you. We just have to find time for it. I also want to teach my godmother, although I haven’t yet talked to her about it.” Ginny was all for it, so they spent the evening in the potions lab to brew the animagus potion. When they finished the potion and bottled it, Severus came over, checked the mixture and commended his son for a flawless potion.

“Very good,” he said. “So, you want to learn to be an animagus. What do you think your animal will be?” Ginny hesitated for a moment, before she replied,

“I am not sure, but some kind of bird anyway. I would like to be able to communicate with Harry when we are in our animagus forms.” Severus laughed and said,

“Good luck. By the way, Harry, is there a reason that you have made the double amount of potion?” Harry grinned and told him,

“Yes, Dad; I would like to ask Amelia to become an animagus too. I didn’t have the chance to ask her, but I just hope that she will agree to learn.” Severus shook his head about his son’s ideas and suggested,

“Then why don’t you just fire-call her and ask her? Or even better, invite the Lupins for lunch tomorrow and tell them to stay for the afternoon. Then you can ask her in the afternoon, while the children can play together. Maybe Julia and Anna can watch the three kids; otherwise, Lily and I will take over. And if she concurs, you can try the potion immediately.” Harry happily agreed and went to the fireplace in the living room to call his godparents.

On the next day, the Lupins arrived shortly before lunch, which Harry enjoyed very much. When they were sitting at the huge dining room table, he looked around happily. During the new time line, he had of course been used to his family, but during his old time line, he had always wished for just one person of family – be it a father, a mother or a godparent. And now he had his own parents, grandparents, great grandparents, sisters, god parents, a ward he wanted to be kind of a father for and a girlfriend – it was still hard to believe how much had changed because of his own interference. Harry threw a very happy smile at the people sharing the table with him until Remus suddenly pulled him out of his thoughts by asking,

“Are you ready to teach, Harry?” Harry slowly came back to reality and smiled at his godfather.

“Yes, Remus, in fact I am looking forward to it very much. It will be good to hold classes just on my own after teaching together with Granny for about half a year. And I intend to be a very different Head of House from Granny or my mother. I nearly can’t wait for the students to come. You know,” he whispered, “I think I am as excited as a first year.” Remus laughed and said,

“You will do very well, Harry. I have heard a lot of things your animagus students were telling on the animagus party; therefore I know a bit about your teaching, and I’m confident that not only you but also your students will enjoy your classes very much.” Now Harry remembered something.

“Um, Remus. You know the cause for inviting you all here today was that I wanted to ask your wife if she wants to become an animagus. I have promised to teach Ginny the transformation, and I thought if Amelia was interested, they could perhaps learn together. I always feel sorry for her during the nights of the full moon. Do you think she would agree?” Remus threw him a stunned look and asked sternly,

“Can you please explain to me why this never occurred to me? I always regret that she is not able to come with us, but I have never thought of teaching her.” Harry grinned and told Amelia, who was sitting at the opposite side of the table that he would like to speak to her directly after lunch. He ushered Ginny and his godparents into his room and threw a locking charm and a silencing charm at the door, before he explained everything to Amelia. As surprising the whole story was for her, as excited she was when Harry finished.

“Of course, Harry, thank you. I would like to become an animagus very much!” she assured him immediately and agreed to have her lessons together with Ginny every Sunday night after curfew.

“Maybe Anna wants to learn with us?” Ginny suggested, but Harry explained to her that as a teacher he could not teach such a thing to just one student because other students might be jealous and could accuse him of favouritism.

“Moreover, as she is a seventh year, she will have the opportunity to learn the transformation in spring. I will probably start directly after Christmas with a voluntary animagus class for the seventh year students,” he added. “Alright; do you want to take the potion now?” he asked, and when Amelia and Ginny nodded and agreed that Ginny should take the potion first, he motioned for her to sit on his bed, drink the phial and make himself comfortable in a lying position on his bed. Ginny followed his instructions and transformed into a white parrot with a bright orange beak and green feet. She was pretty although Harry had to admit that she looked a bit funny with the orange beak and the green feet, a bit like a small goose, but of course he would never tell her that. When she was back to her own self, she groaned because everything hurt but nevertheless seemed to be very happy.

“At least it is a bird, so I will be able to communicate with you, won’t I?” she said happily. “Alright, now it is your turn, Professor Bones-Lupin,” she added. Harry laughed and declared,

“I see; when this is finished we have to ask the house elves for a drink, and I have to introduce you properly to each other. But go on Amelia, we want to see your form as well.” Amelia did as she was told and transformed into a light brown kangaroo.

“Wow,” Harry and Ginny exclaimed at the same time, “what a great animal!” As soon as Amelia had turned back, Harry called one of the house elves and asked her to bring four butterbeer for them. When they all held a butterbeer in their hands, he addressed his friends,

“Amelia, this is my girlfriend Ginny. Ginny, this is my godmother Amelia. I think both of you know my godfather Remus. As the two of you will be having an animagus class together, maybe you should practise to call each other properly.” He smirked and added, “We will start on the first Sunday in the new school year, and your homework is to research as much as possible about your animal. It is essential for the transformation to know the animal as well as possible and to know exactly what it looks like.”

The next two days passed much too quickly, and on Saturday morning the Snapes headed back to Hogwarts. The students would not arrive until Sunday evening, but according to Harry’s parents, there were still lots of preparations to be done. Harry was very glad that both his parents were not only teachers at Hogwarts but also Head of House, so that they knew exactly what to do, and both had – of course – promised to show him everything.

As soon as they arrived at Hogwarts, Dumbledore came over to their quarters to keep Marina and Violet company, while Julia was glad to escape from the two little ones and went to enjoy the still quiet library. Harry and his parents had to attend a teachers’ meeting in the staff room. Harry was the only new teacher, so that no introductions were necessary. McGonagall had taken over the Headmaster’s position from Dumbledore and Severus was her successor as Deputy Headmaster, but apart from these two facts, there would be no major changes in comparison to the last years. Furthermore, among the names of the around fifty new students, there was no name which gave cause to worry or take special precautions. Therefore – or maybe because Minerva handled things differently from the way Albus did – the meeting was quite short and ended well before lunchtime.

In the afternoon, Lily accompanied Harry to Merlin House, where Tori greeted him happily and told him,

#Now, didn’t I tell you? Welcome, new Head of my House!# Harry happily greeted him back and told him, he would like to go in with his mother and would come back later to talk to him. Lily told him, that although the house elves hardly made any mistakes, he should better check if there were enough beds, chairs and wardrobes in the dormitories, and if all beds were made properly. They also had to check the bathrooms and the common room. Of course, everything was perfect, but while he was walking around the house with his mother, he made a few mental notes about small changes or extras he was planning.

When they were back in their quarters, Harry asked the little ones if they wanted to go for a walk on the grounds in order to pick up some flowers. Of course, they agreed immediately, and Albus decided to join them as well. Harry was deep in his thoughts, but suddenly noticed that Marina and Violet were having a fierce discussion, whom the flowers were for.

“They are for Mummy, that’s clear,” Marina pointed out, but Violet contradicted,

“No. They awe fow my Daddy, fow Hawwy!” Dumbledore was just standing there listening amusedly, and Harry could not help giggling either.

“Dear Marina and Violet,” he addressed the two five-year-olds; “you may of course pick up a bunch of flowers for Mum as well, but these flowers are for the common room in Merlin House. You know, when the students arrive tomorrow, they will have to get used to being here again. Maybe they will miss their homes and their families very much. Therefore, I want the common room to be a bright, happy place, in which they will feel well, you know. And I think flowers are very nice to have in a room, don’t you think so?” After thinking about what Harry had said for a few minutes, both children agreed with him and went on to pick up flowers.

Thirty minutes later they had not only enough flowers for the Merlin common room, Lily’s office and the Snapes’ living room, but also enough to take a bunch of flowers up to their great grandmother’s office. Albus and Harry waited at the Gargoyle, while the two little girls brought the flowers to Minerva, who was very pleased to get such nice flowers for her new office and thanked the girls profoundly.

As the two girls had never been in one of the Hogwarts Houses before, Harry decided to give them a tour around Merlin House under the pretence to be asking for their help. Before they left the Snape quarters, where they had left the flowers for Lily, he went to his room to fetch a box. This time, they took the short way through his office to get to Merlin House, where he introduced the two little girls to Tori and translated his greetings for Marina and Violet.

When Tori finally opened the portrait hole, he motioned the two girls to enter and showed them around the common room. Finally, he ushered them into the first dormitory. The girls were stunned. They never had imagined the house to be so huge and comfortable. And the view onto the lake was just beautiful. It must be so great to be a student here! Suddenly, Harry produced the box he had brought unnoticed by the girls, took out a few chocolate phoenixes and asked them to put one phoenix on each bedside table. The girls were all for it, and after only ten minutes a chocolate phoenix was sitting on each bedside table in Merlin House. Silently two more chocolate phoenixes wandered into the little helpers’ hands.

On Sunday morning, Harry caused a huge discussion during breakfast with the harmless question – at least he thought it was harmless – if a Head of House was allowed to train the house’s Quidditch team. Just everyone had to say something about the topic. Minerva thought it was a good idea, Lily found it was rubbish, Severus grinned and agreed with Minerva, Madam Hooch appreciated it because of the fun they would have to watch, Poppy frowned because she feared more injuries if the students were trained by people like Severus or Harry, and Albus’ eyes were twinkling merrily.

This never-ending breakfast as well as the ongoing discussion finally was interrupted by Dobby, who came to ask if they would like to have lunch immediately, or if they wanted to have a half-an-hour break in between, as it was already lunchtime. They decided to skip lunch and just have tea together at the Snape quarters at 2 o’clock. Until then, Harry hid in his office and produced a kind of calendar, consulting the students list, with which Minerva had provided him. When he went over to Merlin House to put it up on the wall, Tori asked him to decide on a password, and Harry chose ‘Merlin family’ for the time being.

Back in their quarters, where everyone was just arriving for tea, he went to look for his sister.

“Julia,” he addressed her sternly, “sorry to bother you, before school has even started, but I need you to do something. As you are one of the fifth year prefects, you will have to lead the first years to the common room after dinner. The elder students will follow you as well, as they don’t know the password, which is ‘Merlin Family’, by the way. Now, I want you to tell everyone to gather in the common room as soon as you have shown the first years to their dormitories. They may get comfortable for about five minutes, but then I want everyone to come down for a house meeting. Alright?” Julia smiled and said,

“I’m glad to have you as Head of House. Yes, I will see to it; no problem.” Harry grinned at his sister and confided,

“You know, I am more excited about this Head of House thing than about teaching classes. I feel like a fist year.” Julia laughed at her brother and told him,

“Just be yourself, and everything will be okay. But…. Do you want to talk about it?” she asked carefully and Harry nodded. He explained to her what he had thought to do, and Julia listened carefully before she answered, “I think that’s great, Harry. We will…” She could not speak further on, because at this moment Lily entered the room and asked in a more than upset voice,

“What are you doing? We have already called you about five times. Now come out for tea please. Harry, you know exactly that you should not miss a meal.” Harry groaned, thanked his sister for her encouragement and joined the others for tea. Much too excited to eat anything, he only pushed his food around the plate, until the meal was finally finished. Before he could get up from his chair, his mother came over to him and suggested he should drink a calming draught and take a nap for an hour. She could understand him very well; when she had started to teach, she had also taken over the Head of House position at the same time and could remember well, how excited she had been at that time. After getting the promise that he would be woken up before the students arrived, he complied and went to his room for a nap.

Unfortunately, Marina and Violet could not understand that he wanted to sleep during the day, although he was neither sick nor tired, and bothered him for at least half an hour, until Lily finally noticed and sent them into their room. However, after a short time, his nap was disturbed again. Harry had just fallen into a deep sleep, when Severus entered his room and sat on the edge of his bed.

“Harry,” he called him. Harry only mumbled something and turned away. “Harry, you have to get up,” Severus tried again, and Harry slowly opened an eye.

“What? Don’t want breakfast, ‘m tired,” he murmured, but finally consciousness outweighed his sleepiness, and his father told him,

“Harry, Minerva just fire-called me and told me, Poppy has fire-called her and said that Hagrid has come down with dragon pox, and therefore she would like you to take the first years from the station to Hogwarts – you know, with the boats. You have to leave for the station in a quarter of an hour, so you should better get ready. As far as I know, Hagrid has already prepared everything, so that the boats are already at the station in Hogsmeade.” Now Harry was not only wide-awake but on the verge of throwing up.

“But Dad, I don’t know what to do. How do I move these boats? And how….”

“Harry,” Severus interrupted him, “I’m very sorry, but I don’t know either. But as Minerva asks you, I am sure that it will be all right. I would accompany you, but as Deputy Headmaster, I have to stay here in the castle. Sorry my boy; don’t worry.”

Harry was just glad that he had taken a calming draught before; otherwise he would have panicked even more. He jumped out of his bed, changed his clothes as quickly as possible, while he thought feverishly about what to do. Where was Hermione when you needed her? Of course, he remembered, she was on the Hogwarts Express, and as Head Girl, she would have other things to worry about. He nearly grinned when he thought about the fact that his father even in this time line was calling her an insufferable know-it-all. But he caught himself and quickly left the quarters, ran through the castle and cast an invisibility charm on himself before he entered the hospital wing looking for Hagrid. When he finally found him, he was fast asleep, and it took several minutes for Harry to wake him up. And then he was only able to tell him,

“You’ll be alright; the boats will move; you just have to see that you get all the students into the boats in time, and that nobody goes overboard. Otherwise you’ll have to jump in and rescue them.” Harry felt his knees getting weak. He still had enough of Grindylows and Brombylows. He thanked Hagrid and was on his way out of the hospital wing. However, of course the not very silent opening of several doors in the otherwise quiet wing had not gone unnoticed, and when Pomfrey saw that Hagrid was awake in spite of a strong sleeping draught, she found out very quickly who had disturbed the quiet of the wing. She frowned and went to fire-call Lily. Harry was definitely in for trouble.