Salazar pulled Lily into the room, frowning that she felt so hot to the touch.

Harry, who had come over hearing his father’s gasp when he opened the door, sent Lily a worried glance and asked, “What’s wrong, Lily? Are you ill? Why are you here?”

Salazar steered Lily over to the sofa and helped her to lie down, before he waved his wand over the girl to assess her condition. “She seems to have bronchitis along with a very high fever,” he said to Harry worriedly, before he walked over to his private lab and brought back a few Potions.

Lily gulped down the Potions, relaxed visibly, and began to talk. “Thank you, Salazar. I’ve had this cold for two days now, and this morning I really felt bad, so I decided to stay in bed. I didn’t think about the fact that it’s Christmas and that I should watch out for owls. Anyway, my sister must have tricked the owls into giving my mail to her, saying that I was sick and she’d give it to me. But she didn’t. In fact, she must have been reading my letters, because she suddenly took all my presents from under the tree into the backyard, set fire to them and screamed something about having me was bad enough but having a son of mine would be unbearable. I woke up to her screaming. My father then told me what had happened. Anyway, I just ran out of the house, called the Knight Bus, and here I am. I won’t go back there anymore.”

“Oh, Lily, I’m so sorry,” Harry said horrified. He looked at his mother and noticed that she was only wearing her school robes on top of her pyjamas. “It’s all my fault, because I called you ‘Mum’ in my letter. I’m so sorry,” he repeated. Huge tears were running down his cheeks.

“No, Harry,” Lily croaked hoarsely, “you couldn’t know.”

“All right, Lily,” Salazar spoke up. “I suggest that you sleep for a few hours to improve your condition, and when you feel better we shall talk about it. In the meantime, I am going to inform your grandparents. As they are your magical guardians, you will probably be able to stay with them without returning home if that is what you want. Harry will stay here with you, all right?”

Lily gave him a consoled smile and mumbled, “Yes. Thank you very much, Salazar and Harry.” She lay back onto the cushion Salazar had placed under her head and closed her eyes.

Harry carefully tucked her in as his father had often been doing at his bedside during the last months and went to get a wet cloth, which he placed over her burning forehead. Then he sat on the edge of the sofa, holding her hand and sadly watching his mother sleep. ‘How could I be so stupid?’ he thought. ‘I know Aunt Petunia, and still I had to send Mum a book about Potions and to write a letter telling her ‘I love you, Mum’. And now she’s very ill, only because she ran around in the snow in her pyjamas and her school robe when she was already sick – and that’s no one’s fault but my own.’

He spent the next few hours there, watching his mother and bathing her flushed face with a cold cloth he wished ice cool every now and then.

After nearly two hours, Salazar returned to their quarters, only to proceed to his Potions lab immediately in order to brew a more efficient Potion for Lily. After inserting the first two ingredients, however, he banished the Potion and started brewing twice the amount of it, thinking that there was quite a possibility that Harry would get ill as well after spending so much time with his sick mother. Taking this Potion for a few days should be able to prevent that.

Salazar had just returned to the sitting room with one phial of the Potion in his hand and waved his wand over Lily, when she woke up. Harry helped her to sit up, and Salazar handed her the phial. “How do you feel?” he asked then, taking back the empty phial.

“Better now,” Lily replied. “I’m hungry.”

Salazar immediately called a house elf and ordered soup and sandwiches for them, which popped up on the table in the dining corner a minute later. After finishing their late lunch, Salazar sent Lily to bed, suggesting she should use the second bed in Harry’s room, which they had left there so that Severus could stay any time. It was then that Albus and Minerva arrived with Lily’s luggage. They put the luggage in Harry’s room and joined Harry, who sat on the edge of Lily’s bed and was quietly talking to her.

“Lily,” Minerva addressed her granddaughter, “we have talked to your parents and they have agreed to allow Albus and I to be your guardians in the future, not only in the magical but also in the Muggle world. Therefore, you will never have to go back there if you don’t want to.”

Lily threw her grandmother a grateful look and croaked, “Thank you, Granny, Granddad. I appreciate it very much. I don’t want to go back to my parents’ house again, at least not as long as my sister lives there. May I stay here with Harry and Salazar, until school starts again?” she added questioningly.

“If Harry doesn’t mind and you are all right with it, you may,” her grandmother ensured her. “And later, we will set up a room for you in our quarters.

“I don’t mind at all. Why should I?” Harry asked confused.

“Because this is your room, which you shouldn’t have to share with anyone,” Lily replied hoarsely.

“Don’t talk too much, Lily,” Salazar joined the conversation and added, “If you feel well enough, you may get up for Christmas dinner, which will take place here in our quarters, Lily.”

-----

Christmas dinner was a funny affair, which Harry enjoyed very much. Although his mother was still sick and Poppy put her to bed immediately after eating, Harry was very happy to have her here. Everyone seemed to be impressed with the interesting decoration of the Christmas tree.

“What charm did you use for this?” Professor Flitwick asked interestedly.

“Um… it’s not really a charm, Professor. I just did it with wish magic,” Harry replied quietly.

“You are capable of wish magic?” Professor Sprout asked unbelievingly. “That’s very rare, isn’t it, Albus?”

Dumbledore nodded and said, “Yes, it is indeed very rare. However, I believe that it happened from time to time in the Merlin family, and as my great grandson he is an heir of Merlin just like Lily and I.”

“Wait!” Flitwick exclaimed. “Your great grandson? Yours and Minerva’s? How can Lily have a child? She’s much too young!”

Harry laughed and shrugged. He didn’t mind Sprout and Flitwick knowing that he came from the future. He smiled at the two professors, when Dumbledore told them who they were.

-----

The next two days, Harry spent sitting on the edge of Lily’s bed, working on his translation. From time to time he wiped her face with a cool cloth, or when Lily was awake and felt well enough, they talked for a while. He even stayed with his mother for the meals instead of going to the Great Hall. On Friday evening, she was finally allowed to get up, so that they could join the others for dinner in the Great Hall.

When they returned to their quarters, Harry said, “Dad, Lily, um… I would like to go to the Chamber of Secrets in order to get a few more books in Parselscript. I’ve already finished the first three books I borrowed. Would you like to come with me?”

Salazar threw Lily a piercing glance, but when she nodded eagerly, he said, “All right, shall we use the fire place, or would you prefer to flash us, Harry?”

“I can Flash you,” Harry replied, quickly went to his room to get the books, and transformed into Breeze. When they arrived in the Chamber, Amaterasu greeted them happily. Harry talked to her for a few minutes, before he followed the others into the library. They only spent an hour in the chamber, scanning the shelves for books in Parselscript. When they had gathered about twenty books, Harry selected a few, which he wanted to translate next. He was very tired and just wanted to go home. Most of the books were indeed Potions books, but Harry also found one about Hogwarts in the time of the founders and one, which looked as if it was some sort of diary. He took these two books as well as three of the Potions books with him, when he Flashed them back.

“Maybe we should ask our friends if they could join us in the Chamber for a few days in order to search for all books in Parselscript,” he said after they returned to their quarters.

“We also have to continue cataloguing the books,” Lily added.

“You know,” Harry said pensively. “Our friends are going to come back the day after tomorrow, so we will have exactly one week of holidays left. As you want to practise your Animagus transformation, we should spend every morning here in our room and practise. So we still have the afternoon and the evening left to do other things. I know that James suggested making a map, but we could do that in the afternoon and spend the evening in the Chamber to do the cataloguing.”

“You shouldn’t help with the cataloguing,” Salazar said firmly. “I’m willing to help, and I can imagine that Albus and Professor Flitwick would offer to help as well. You have much more work than the others, translating all these books.”

“That’s true,” Lily agreed immediately. “You can still join us in the Chamber and just sit down on the sofa in the living room. The Basilisk will be glad to have you there anyway.”

Harry laughed. “Yes, she seems to be quite clingy.”

-----

When Harry woke up in the morning, he knew immediately that he was ill. He was hot and cold at the same time, and he could hardly breathe. Glancing over to Lily’s bed, he noticed that it was empty. How late was it? A look at his watch showed him that it was already 9:00 a.m., but he was in no condition to get up anyway. He groaned and closed his eyes again, thinking that his father would come to look after him if he didn’t get up.

The next time he woke up, he felt a cool hand on his forehead and unconsciously leaned into the touch. Then he heard two voices talking next to him. “What’s wrong with him, Sal? Does he have the same thing I had?”

“No, I’m sure he got it from you, but it seems to be worse. If I’m correct, it’s pneumonia, and his temperature is at 40.5 degrees, which can be dangerous if it gets any higher. I don’t know if the Potion I made for you will work here, so I’m going to get Pomfrey. Can you stay with him for a few minutes please, Lily?”

“Of course,” Lily replied and sat down on the edge of Harry’s bed.

Harry groaned when the cool hand vanished from his forehead, but it was immediately replaced by another. “Hi, Harry,” Lily whispered. “I’m sorry you’re sick.”

Harry lazily opened his eyes and threw his mother a helpless glance. A moment later, Poppy and Salazar entered the room. “Yes, you’re right. Pneumonia,” she said after checking on Harry. “In fact, I should take him with me,” she mused pensively.

“No,” Harry groaned. “Please let me stay here. I’ll do everything you want, please,” he begged hoarsely.

“Yes, yes,” Pomfrey replied absent-mindedly, attaching a wrist band to Harry’s right arm. Then she turned to Salazar. “What I can’t understand is why the Potion didn’t work. You gave him the same Potion you gave to Ms. Evans for three days, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Salazar replied simply. “I thought it would prevent him from getting sick.”

“It should have,” the Healer agreed firmly. “But obviously it hasn’t. Therefore, I need you to brew a Potion against pneumonia. Do you have any recent Potion you could make?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes,” Salazar’s answer came quickly. “He caught pneumonia a year ago, and the Potion I brewed then worked for him. So I shall make the same Potion again. It will take an hour to brew.”

“All right. If his oxygen level gets any lower than it is now or his temperature goes up, I’ll have to take him with me. I’ll be back in a few hours,” Pomfrey said after glancing once again at Harry’s wrist band and left the room.

The next few days passed in a blur for Harry. He drifted in and out consciousness. Sometimes he noticed the voices of Lily, Severus, Salazar or Poppy, and whenever he felt something cool pressed against his lips he swallowed obediently. When he finally woke up, Severus and Lily were sitting on the edge of his bed, talking to him in a soft voice. “Wake up, son, you have to get better, school is going to start again soon,” he heard his father’s voice.

Harry lazily opened his eyes. “Sev’rus?” he asked tiredly. “Whattimeisit?” he added, slurring the words.

“It’s already Wednesday,” Severus explained. “You have been very ill for a few days, Harry. I’m glad you’re a little better now. Wait a moment; I’ll get your dad for you.”

“I’m glad you’re finally awake, Harry,” his mother said, stroking his still flushed cheeks. “We were so worried about you.”

“Sorry, Mum,” Harry whispered. “It’s all right; I’ll be fine.”

Salazar came and studied his son. “Good to see you conscious again, Harry,” he stated, before he waved his wand over him.

“Dad?” Harry asked desperately. “You know, the others have all come back early in order to practise their Animagus transformation. Can they come in here so that I can teach them? I mean, I don’t have to do a lot; I just have to watch them. Please, Dad.”

Salazar sighed. “Definitely not today, Harry. Maybe tomorrow. Let’s talk about it again tomorrow morning.”

On the next day, Salazar noticed that Harry’s condition had finally started to improve and had grudgingly allowed his friends to come over for an hour to practise their Animagus transformation.

-----

“When are we going to start with the map?” Harry asked one evening. Noticing that everyone threw curious looks at him, he elaborated, “Sirius, or was it James, had the idea that we should make a map showing everyone at Hogwarts, right?”

“Ah, yes, of course,” James fell in. “Yes, we wanted to start immediately when we came back, but we wanted to wait for you to participate as well, and we didn’t have time as Lily made us go into the Chamber every day to catalogue the books in the library.”

“You did what?!” Harry exclaimed, completely stunned. “But how could you go into the Chamber? You have to speak Parseltongue to either open the Chamber or to Floo over.”

Sirius laughed. “You know that your father’s Animagus form is a snake, right?” He transformed and opened the Entrance in the girl’s washroom, and he talked to the Basilisk, telling her that you were ill and couldn’t come but had ordered us to work in the library, and she didn’t have any problems.”

“Fortunately you had introduced your father to her before,” Lily threw in. “We have put all books in Parselscript together. I think we found about twenty, plus the twenty we collected before, so there’s a lot of work waiting for you, Harry.”

“Did any of you have a look at the Parselscript books? Are there any books, which aren’t about Potions?” Harry asked curiously and elaborated, “I’ve already finished the book about Hogwarts at the time of the founders and I’m about to finish the diary of Slytherin. At least it’s kind of a diary, and it’s very interesting. But I’ll finish this tomorrow as well, and everything that’s left are Potions books.”

“Potions books are the most important, Harry,” Severus said vividly, glaring at Harry.

“Yes, I know, but they are the most difficult, and as I’m still not feeling completely well I prefer something easier for the moment,” Harry replied apologetically.

Severus stood up and fetched the three Potions books from the shelf, looking through all of them. “Harry, I believe that most of these Potions are already lost in our time. You would do the wizarding world a huge favour by translating these Potions books.”

“Yes, Severus, I know that, and I’ll do it, but please give me a few days,” Harry replied a little upset. During the evening, he finished the other book and started to translate the first Potions book. It was difficult as he didn’t know the exact names of the ingredients, but his father and Severus were eager to help and took the translated recipes with missing ingredients, which Harry didn’t know, for correction. If they saw the other ingredients and the purpose that was described together with each recipe they could guess easily what the missing ingredient was.

The translation of the first Potions book went very smooth, and Harry had already gained a little confidence in translating these difficult books. He immediately started with the next one. However, as classes started on Monday, he didn’t have so much time anymore.

-----

Harry’s friends, who had come to know Harry quite well, believed that he wasn’t really well enough to attend classes for the whole day and had decided to do something – play pranks. Sirius had received a book from James for Christmas with lots of interesting pranks. During the week when they had stayed in Gryffindor on their own, the four friends had planned and prepared a few of them, and now seemed to be the right timing to set them into action.

On Monday, Salazar made Harry eat breakfast in their quarters; therefore, he didn’t notice the tension and anticipation within a certain group of third year students at the Gryffindor table. When Harry entered the Transfiguration classroom, his friends were already there, but they were the only ones. Tired from climbing all the stairs, Harry approached a chair in the last row, but before he could sit down, James pulled him back.

“What are you doing? I want to sit down,” Harry demanded indignantly.

James, however, whispered, “Not yet, Harry, wait a moment, and you’ll know.”

Harry groaned and waited impatiently. Suddenly a group of students entered the room and sat down – only to utterly disappear the instant they touched the chair. Harry threw James a strange glance, and James pulled him over to one of the chairs the students had tried to sit down in only instants before. Their friends sat down as well. Other students entered the room, but they, too, vanished as soon as they sat down, except for the few who sat down on chairs that had been occupied before. Then suddenly, several first year students arrived. However, they didn’t come through the door but via Portkey, gasped when they noticed where they were, and hurried out of the room.

Seeing Harry’s suspicious glance, James proceeded to explain, “Harry, listen. We’ve placed Portkeys on each of the chairs except for McGonagall’s. They’ve all been transported to the Potions Classroom. The people that arrived here came from the Charms Classroom, and…”

His explanation was interrupted by the arrival of Professor McGonagall, who frowned seeing the half-empty classroom. “Does anybody know what happened to your classmates?” she asked, looking straight at Lily, who had an extremely innocent expression on her face.

“I’m sorry Professor, I don’t know. I just arrived myself, and at breakfast everyone seemed to be all right,” she explained calmly.

‘How can she lie so easily?’ Harry thought. He was on the verge of laughing; he would never be able to lie straight into the Professor’s face.

The first lesson was already half over, when a part of the remaining students finally arrived. They had been so confused when they arrived in the Potions classroom that they had spent several minutes feverishly discussing what might have happened until Professor Slughorn threw them out, threatening to take points. Seeing that the students, who sat down in the Potions Classroom, were whisked away, too, a few of the students had even tried to sit down, hoping they’d be taken back into the Transfiguration Classroom – however, they arrived in the Herbology greenhouse, from where they had to walk up to the Transfiguration Classroom. It was utter chaos all over the school that lasted more or less until the end of the first lesson.

Unfortunately, in the third year, Gryffindor and Slytherin students had a double lesson with Professor McGonagall, and the Professor was so angered about the stupid prank that had cost valuable lesson time that she took the opportunity to announce a pop quiz for the second lesson. As Harry had been working on his notes from before Christmas over the weekend, the quiz was fairly easy for him, and he turned his parchment in after twenty minutes – at the same time as Lily. When they left the classroom, Lily asked, “Now, Harry, as we have a free period until lunch, do you want to go to the library together?”

“I’d like to go out and sit down near the lake for a while,” Harry countered. “I haven’t been outside since before Christmas.”

Lily gave him a fond smile. “I know, my dear. All right, let’s go out, but we have to get our cloaks first. I’ll come down and meet you at your quarters.”

“All right, thank you, Lily,” Harry answered and returned to their quarters, put his warmest robe and his scarf on and sat down on the sofa to wait for Lily, who arrived five minutes later. They spent the time until lunch outside, walking half around the lake. Finally sitting down, they leaned their backs against a tree and talked animatedly.

“Yesterday,” Lily told Harry, “our grandparents invited me for tea in their quarters.” Seeing that her son was listening intently, she continued, “Granddad says that they would like to adopt me, if I agreed.”

Harry gave her an astonished look. “That’s very nice of them. And it’s great, Lily. You’ll do it, right? Or is there something wrong with it? I mean, would anything change?”

Lily laughed. “No, Harry, nothing would change. They are my guardians now anyway. The only thing that would change – but only if I want it to – is my name. I’d be Lily Dumbledore instead of Lily Evans.”

“Is that bad?” Harry asked. “And where does the name ‘Evans’ come from? Is it the name of your mother? Your father’s name should be Dumbledore too, shouldn’t it?”

“Granny explained that my father took on my mother’s name when they married because he didn’t want to be in any connection with the magical world – and of course he didn’t want his children to get to know the connection to the Dumbledores in case his children were magical.”

“Oh, I see. So, have you decided yet what to do?”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to do it,” Lily answered, smiling at her son.

“That’s good. And why should I mind? It’s up to you to decide.”

-----

Their last lesson of the day was Charms – a Double period as well. Sirius and James had still another joke prepared for the day. The clocks on the classroom walls were charmed to show the time the Headmaster’s watch showed. However, the two Gryffindors had – with Remus’ help – conjured a new clock, which looked identical to the other, and glued it onto the wall in front of the other clock.

Of course, they had done this during the night when they had come to place the Portkeys on the chairs. But now, five minutes after the beginning of the lesson, Sirius, who was sitting on the far left side of Harry’s friends, bothered Professor Flitwick with a question about a Charm he had read about, while James, who was sitting on the very right end of the row, pointed his wand to the clock and advanced it twenty minutes.

Harry nearly groaned. ‘What do they think they are doing?’ he thought. ‘Nobody is stupid enough not to notice when the lesson is twenty minutes shorter than usual.’ However, Professor Flitwick didn’t notice anything and dismissed them, saying, “Oh, we have lost too much time with the Charm Mr. Black brought up. So I cannot give you any homework today; please just read over the chapter in your book.”

Harry, Lily, and Severus went up to Harry’s room and quickly did their homework, which they managed to finish an hour before dinner. Afterwards, their other friends joined them to practise their Animagus transformation, while Harry used the time to translate a few Potion recipes.

Sirius was the first, who managed to turn his left hand into the left front paw of his dog form.

“Wow, congratulations, Sirius,” Harry beamed. “Now, change this hand forth and back several times, until you can do it quickly and without thinking about it. Then you can try to transform your right hand as well.”

A short while later, Lily and James managed to transform their left hands as well. “Very good, Lily and James.” He gave them the same advice he had given to Sirius the day before. “Now, let’s finish our practise here. We’ll meet here again tomorrow evening after dinner.”

“All right, thank you, Harry,” James said happily.

“Thanks, Harry. I’m so glad I’ve improved at least a little. I can’t wait to be able to fly,” Lily added, beaming at her son.

“You’re welcome,” Harry replied, his eyes twinkling a little. He, too, was very glad that his friends had managed to do the first step on their way to being an Animagus. If only his father would manage soon, otherwise it would be hard for him to watch the others proceed. “Severus,” he addressed his friend. “I believe that it will take you much longer as you have to change your whole body at the same time. It’s much more difficult than all the other forms.”

“Thank you, Harry,” Severus replied with a small smile.

When his friends had returned to their dormitories just before curfew, Harry continued translating for a while.

At three o’clock in the morning, Salazar was shaken awake by Harry. “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, worried about his son’s condition.

“Sorry, Dad,” Harry replied impatiently. “Sorry to wake you up, but I couldn’t wait until the morning. Look at this!” he added, sitting down on the edge of his father’s bed and holding out a parchment.