Apparition was much better, Severus now remembered, when done under one's own power, with deliberation and determination. Harry had drawn two rough circles in the grass outside the gates of Hogwarts after apparating them both from the alley by the pub and had demonstrated apparition from one circle to the other. Severus was not surprised to see him vanish and reappear—he clearly remembered apparating, after all—but he was very surprised that Harry did it without the customary "crack" that alerted magical folk nearby that someone had appeared—or disappeared.

Harry lectured at Severus about the "three Ds" and the danger of splinching (how could one leave one's eyebrows behind anyway? What kind of example was that? Why not warn him with something dire like a misplaced head or reproductive organs?) and cautioned that one could not apparate inside the grounds of Hogwarts. Severus finally sighed in resignation, turned on the spot and with a gentle crack disappeared then reappeared on the other side of Harry. Then did it again. And again. Harry pivoted around in place, following the subtle cracks that sounded more like the whooshes or air being displaced.

"Riiiight," said Harry, drawing out the word and shaking his head slowly. "You could have told me you remembered." Severus rolled his eyes, shook his head and opened the gates. "As much as I'd like to pop back and forth around you for the next hour, I'd rather go in and use the loo."

The session with Stuart went as had most of the others. A memory—of Snape searching through Sirius' old bedroom at Grimmauld Place and finding the letter Lily had written—had been restored and Snape had, as usual, come out of it in a melancholic mood, uncommunicative and brooding. He'd disappeared from the infirmary as soon as Poppy turned her back.

"Where did Severus go?" asked Harry, popping into the infirmary after his longer-than-anticipated meeting with Minerva. They'd been going over his first week of lesson plans and Minerva had offered solid advice and feedback. More spell work and less lecturing the first week. Engage the students, especially the first and second years. Challenge the older students immediately. Tread carefully in the Gryffindor/Slytherin classes—never show preference for one house over the other, allow the students to choose their own partners sometimes but other times pair them up randomly.

"He slipped out of here thirty minutes ago," replied Poppy. She was standing in front of a supply cabinet on her tiptoes, taking inventory. "I'd look for him outside, Harry. He was visibly upset—he probably went out to burn off some excess energy."

But Severus was waiting for Harry at the bottom of the great stairs. He was standing with his arms folded in front of himself, looking at the four hourglasses and their jewels. The jewels were all in the top half of the hourglasses, suspended there by magic. Severus looked up as Harry started down the marble staircase.

"I need a girlfriend," he said as soon as Harry was within range to hear him. "I have been pining after your mother most of my life and it isn't healthy."

Harry froze, looking down at Severus in relative shock.

"OK," he said at length. "Um, I've not been in the dating scene for a long time…"

"I know how to ask a woman out on a date," snapped Snape. "I just need to meet some...women…witches."

Harry suddenly understood.

"You want to date witches," he said.

Snape stared up at him. They were separated by nearly 20 stairs and their voices echoed off the vaulted ceiling.

"I've never dated wizards," he dead-panned. "So yes, witches."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Witches as opposed to Muggle women," he said, feigning exasperation. "Not as opposed to magical…men."

"So you'll help me?" asked Severus as Harry continued down the stairs.

Harry sighed. "Severus, you had a half-dozen marriage proposals a couple days ago by owl post when news of your survival hit The Prophet. You haven't even opened all your mail yet—there were at least forty new letters the morning! Damn owls have virtually painted my porch railing if you know what I mean. I don't think you'll need my help in finding women to date." He was having some trouble assimilating the fact that he was talking about dating with Severus Snape, despite this…friendship…yes, it felt quite a bit like a friendship…that they'd developed the past week.

Had it only been a week?

"Still," said Severus as Harry reached the bottom stair and they fell in line with each other and walked toward the castle doors, "it will be of some…comfort…to me to have assistance in this endeavor. Perhaps you know of someone…?"

"How old?" asked Harry, sighing in resignation. He knew a lot of someones, from Ministry employees to Quidditch players to extended family—Angelina had an aunt, for example, that sometimes came to the Burrow. "Any specific requirements—height? Hair color? Education? House affiliation?

Severus eyed him speculatively. "Let me think about it while you're on holiday," he said.

Harry sighed exaggeratedly, feeling as much relief as he was feigning. "A reprieve," he said, smiling.

They walked quietly together for a few minutes and then Harry said quietly, almost to himself, "I have that photo, if you'd like to see it again."

Severus had been walking with his arms clasped behind him, eyes trained on the winged boars of the great gates as they approached them. He'd been meaning to ask where the castle's name had originated. He continued walking silently, thinking about Harry's offer, considering.

"No, I don't think so," he said at length. He looked over at Harry as if gauging to determine if Harry was upset by his answer. Harry's expression was neutral, if thoughtful. "I found several photos of your mother in my quarters; but photos or not, I do not think that I can ever forget her. That one…" he paused, gave a deep sigh. "I defaced that one. It is a photo of your family in happy times and I selfishly made it mine."

"That memory—the one you got back today—was painful," said Harry. "It…touched me. More than the others."

Severus nodded, acknowledging the pain, but didn't react otherwise. The two men waved to Hagrid who was turning over a plot in front of his cabin.

"How is it that you have that photo?" asked Severus at length.

"I found the half you…discarded…in Sirius' bedroom at Grimmauld Place. We—Hermione, Ron and I—we stayed there for a bit when we were hunting down the horcruxes. And the other half—the half you kept—was face down underneath your Pensieve in your office. I found it when I went back to your office to view the memories you gave me."

"And you've kept both pieces, all these years," commented Severus.

Harry laughed. "No, not really," he said. "I got them back recently."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"They were in your tomb," said Harry. "I buried them with your robes and wand and boots."

Severus stopped walking and Harry, a step or two ahead, turned and faced him.

"Both halves?" asked Severus, his voice higher-pitched than normal.

"Both halves," answered Harry. He paused, then raised his eyes to Severus.' "Because everything you did for her, you ultimately did for me, didn't you?"

The two men stood looking at each other for a moment that stretched on, but not uncomfortably so. Finally, Severus nodded incrementally. Harry's face registered the smallest hint of a smile.

"I think that chapter is closed, Severus," he said. "We're on even ground now. Come on, let's go clear out those owls and find you a girlfriend."

/

On Wednesday of the following week, Harry was shoulders deep in the Mediterranean, serving as a make-shift diving board for young Potters and Weasleys of all shapes and sizes. The red-headed Weasleys, all five of his brothers-in-law, in fact, seldom allowed the kids on their shoulders as their fair skin burned so easily, despite copious application of Madam Ulna's UV Blocker and Freckle Restorative Cream.

"Hey! No sitting on my head!" he exclaimed as Hugo wobbled above him. They had rented a large beach house surrounded by a group of private Wizarding cabins. The stretch of sand just outside their cluster of cabins was dotted with umbrellas, towels, lounges, beach toys and even a Muggle golf cart that Arthur used to shuttle people and belongings from the cabins to the beach. He was sitting in it now, Ginny beside him. She had on a wide-brimmed straw hat and sunglasses and was holding an ice cream cone.

The vacation was already going by too quickly. Days in the sand and the water with the kids, evenings on the veranda of the big house, rattan fan blades moving the balmy air around, watching the older children play pick-up Quidditch over the ocean while the adults relaxed, played cards and talked, sipping iced tea or fruit and rum concoctions or bottled ale while the sun went down and the stars took to the sky.

Teddy Lupin was there, as he always was. He was a man now, 22 years old, and while all of his friends called him Ted, family was another thing altogether. He'd always be Teddy to Harry and to the Weasleys. He'd grown up as an adopted Weasley, after all, living with his grandmother Andromeda but spending lots of time with Harry, and by extension, the Weasley family. He sat with the adults on the veranda and drank ale from a bottle and watched the younger children play Quidditch, already reminiscing about his days at Hogwarts as his Godfather's generation so often did.

On Wednesday night, Teddy settled on the end of the all-weather sofa beside Ginny. She was snuggled up next to Harry, already sleeping, her head on Harry's shoulder. Harry had an arm around her and he knew that his children, when they had run out of the house fifteen minutes ago, were comforted by this picture of normalcy, no matter that it didn't feel normal at all to Harry.

"Some week you've had, Harry," said Teddy. He'd dropped the "Uncle" a couple of years ago, on his own. "What's Snape like, anyway?"

"Professor Snape," said Harry automatically. Ron laughed so hard his ale ran out of his nose and Charlie, who'd been able to join them this year, slapped his brother on the back.

"Such a child," he said, snorting himself.

"Professor Snape, then," laughed Teddy. "He didn't seem at all like I'd imagined. Just seemed like a normal old bloke."

"He won't like that 'old' part," replied Harry, grinning. "He just found out that he's sixty years old and he thought he was in his late 40s, maybe 50. That had to be a shocker."

"But he also found out that he's likely to live well past 100," said Hermione. "That should have tempered the blow."

Harry shrugged. "He's definitely not 'just a normal old bloke.'"

"It's as if all the sharp and rough edges Severus always had have been sanded down," said Arthur. "But he's essentially the same underneath. Smart—brilliant, really—Albus always said he had the mind of a quiet genius. Honorable. Wary. The man never trusted easily."

"The sign of one who's learned not to trust," commented Teddy, sagely. "What's he going to do now that he's got his magic back and is starting to remember his old life?"

"I'd like to see him back at Hogwarts teaching Potions," said George, rolling his shoulders a bit to irritate his wife. He was sitting on the stairs, a step below Angelina, and leaning back against her. "Put Fred through a little of what we had to suffer…"

Angelina slapped him playfully on the side of the head and rolled her eyes.

"Snape doesn't deserve Fred," she said, shuddering.

"He won't be going back to teach at Hogwarts," said Harry. "He's been appointed to the Board of Governors—didn't Arthur and Molly tell you?"

All heads swiveled to stare at Harry. The few who already knew—Ron, Hermione, Arthur, Molly—looked inordinately pleased at the appointment. The rest looked gobsmacked.

"But…but…he's practically a Muggle," breathed Victoire, leaning in from her spot on the arm of the sofa beside Teddy.

"Though he's a former Headmaster," said her father, figuratively weighing these two contrasting pieces of information.

"I bet Professor McGonagall is…"

"Thrilled," put in Harry, completing his godson's sentence for him. "The Board of Governors has been her bane these past twenty-odd years. She's always had a soft-spot for Severus, I think, and she really likes the man he's become…" He paused, appearing to consider something a moment. Then he laughed. "Nah…I don't think that's what he had in mind.."

"What, Harry?" asked Hermione. She put down the book she was reading—Introducing Magical Children to the Birds and the Bees in Post-War UK—and eyed him speculatively.

Harry grinned. "He told me he'd like to meet some witches and I was thinking…"

"Ewwwwww! No! My ears! I mean my ear!" George grabbed the sides of his head with his hands and managed to look ill. "I did not just hear you thinking about setting up Snape and McGonagall!"

Harry laughed along with his family and they continued bantering though the conversation eventually veered away from Severus Snape's love life and back toward the Hogwarts Board of Governors. While opinions differed on whether Severus was an appropriate choice to fill the vacancy, all were unanimous in thinking that Lucius Malfoy had no idea what he was getting himself into.

/

In northern Scotland, on Wednesday afternoon, Severus Snape had tea with Professor McGonagall in the Headmistresses' office in Hogwarts Castle. He had spent Monday packing up his Muggle office for his planned six-month sabbatical and on Tuesday had taken Anna to Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park where they watched the bird lady and Anna sung songs from Mary Poppins then took him by the hand and pulled him along the wide walkways toward the round pond where the raucous swans begged for food and a small squirrel climbed his leg and snatched a biscuit out of his hand.

Today Anna was with her nanny on this, their last week together, and Severus had apparated directly to just outside of Hogwarts, to his great satisfaction rending the air with only the smallest of cracks, and had spent several hours in his old dungeon quarters packing his possessions into charmed boxes that weighed practically nothing when you picked them up. With the help of a house elf which had appeared almost as soon as he mused aloud "Now how am I going to get all of this home?", the boxes were transported back to his home in Surrey. He filled several more crates with items he no longer wanted or needed—a half dozen Slytherin school ties, an intricate tobacco pipe, some old hair gel that made his fingers feel slimy, several pairs of very uncomfortable looking shoes and a stack of Potions journals from the 1970s. At the back of the closet near the front door he discovered his Death Eater robes and mask and promptly incinerated them with a spell he didn't recall knowing, but it turned the repulsive items into ash leaving only a smudge on the floor where the ashes fell. He looked at the smudge with narrowed eyes then spat on it and rubbed the spittle into the ash with his shoe. He then removed the shoes, incinerated them too and put on a comfortable pair of green house slippers that he found beside the bed.

He was wearing the house shoes when he joined Minerva for tea an hour later, but though she glanced at them as he entered her office, she didn't comment.

She watched him shrewdly as they visited and soon steered the conversation to the philosophy of education and to Severus' opinions of other British public and private institutions of learning. He discussed his years at University after he was established in the Muggle World as Stephen Squires, Anna's time at her public primary and their forages into special schools for her pursuit of the harp.

By the time the tea was gone and they'd both eaten far too many scones, Minerva was sure she had her champion. Oh, Severus was essentially the same man she had known as a colleague for nearly fifteen years, but freed from the shackles of the vow he had made to Albus and the tragic mistake he'd made as a young man, he was no longer angry. The lack of active anger, she knew, was the big difference, and what a difference it made. The wry sarcasm and sharp wit served as biting needles to a man consumed by anger and pain, but were no more than annoying barbs from a moody, intelligent scholar. Severus Snape was a man who solved problems, driven to succeed by inner demons, still desiring, forty plus years after his father died, to prove himself worthy.

"We have ample space here," she said as she escorted him from her office and down to the castle doors. "And the acoustics are phenomenal…." She walked with him outside and indicated the view of the lake, the parapets of the castle, the forest spread out below them. "And the views! These grounds are an artist's Mecca."

"You don't need to convince me," said Severus as he turned and looked up at the façade of the castle. He nodded at her and thanked her for the tea, then paused and added "Minerva if you could only accomplish one thing this coming year—make one significant change before you retire in July—what would it be?"

Minerva pursed her lips, thinking as she gazed again at the magnificent view before her. Art, music, literature, required mathematics, world history outside of the magical world…what would she ask?

"The houses are still too divided, even after all these years," she said at last, leaving all her other dreams in the dust in the face of practical reality. "I would mix the classes from first year forward. I have suggested it time and again…"

Severus smiled, wondering how his life here at Hogwarts would have been different if the Marauders had had less "together" time. He reached out and took Minerva's hand and brought it up to his mouth, bestowing a gallant kiss on her knuckles.

"An excellent choice, Minerva," he said, already forming the arguments in his mind.

As Severus strode across the grounds toward the gates, his simple black robes billowing out behind him in a hauntingly familiar way, Minerva walked into the castle and paused at the doors of the Great Hall, looking in at the four long tables, the house colors, the traditional banners.

It had to be done, so why not by Severus Snape? She had known few people in her life in which all the traits of the founders—the ambition of the snakes, the courage of the lions, the loyalty of the badgers, the intelligence of the eagles—were so ingrained. She hurried up the stairs—she had a report for tomorrow's Governors meeting to prepare and she wanted to get her wording just right.

/

On Friday morning, Harry was nursing a sprained ankle and a rather severe sea anemone sting. Magic was all good and wonderful, not to mention extremely useful, but no one in his extended family had healer training. Hermione and Molly were really the best at it, and they'd done a good job neutralizing the venom from the sting and helping to reduce the swelling with an orange salve, but it was still extremely sore. Lily, Rose, Hermione and Ginny had walked on down to the ocean to search for shells while Harry sat on the veranda, foot bound and resting on a chair, holding that morning's Daily Prophet which the resort provided as a courtesy to its British guests.

Laughter from the shore distracted him and he looked up to see Lily and Ginny standing in the water, the waves about their ankles. He stared a long time at his wife, willing himself not to wish he had more, not to want so deeply the partner…the friend…the lover…that Ginny had been. From this distance, it was easy to pretend that this was the Ginny that two summers ago had taken Lily on a broom ride over the ocean and had helped bury Harry up to his neck in the sand. This week had been a good one for Ginny, and for the children, creating that illusion of normalcy they hadn't had for more than a year. He'd learned this week that the behavior Ginny demonstrated that he'd thought of as "childlike" was really not childlike at all. Rather, it was tentative, as if she were getting a feel for an environment that was foreign to her. She did seem to be drawn to Harry, to like him in a shy sort of way, but she would cuddle up to Arthur or Molly the same way she would with him—like a child with her parent.

"She seems stronger here than at the Burrow." Harry looked up to find Charlie watching him, and nodded his head. Charlie was the only Weasley that didn't live in the UK, and they saw him less frequently than the rest of the family. Still, he visited home every couple months, and had taken a leave from work early last summer when Ginny had been hurt.

"How's the foot doing?" asked Charlie, walking up the stairs and sitting down on the sofa next to his brother-in-law.

Harry wiggled his toes experimentally.

"Sore, but I probably could walk on it by now. However, Hermione read me the riot act and warned me to stay off of it for 24 hours. Gave me the 'sprains are worse than breaks' lecture."

Charlie grinned. He had never married and produced grandchildren for Molly and Arthur, but he appeared to be happy with his job in Romania. Harry and Hermione privately thought he had more to keep him happy in Romania than dragons, but Charlie wasn't sharing and they didn't press the matter. He sat quietly next to Harry a few minutes, both of them watching as Hermione took one of Ginny's hands and Lily the other and they continued walking in the waves, stopping occasionally to stoop and pick up a shell.

"You've had a busy month, I hear," said Charlie finally. "I bet Minerva did a little victory dance when she got you to sign that contract. Are you looking forward to teaching?"

"Yeah, I am," answered Harry. "It's a big change but it was time. I need to be there for the kids now that Ginny…" His voice caught and he trailed off. "Sorry, emotions getting all wonky on me lately."

"Don't apologize. I can't imagine going through what you've been through already with her. And now this thing with Snape—that must have come out of the blue."

"It did," admitted Harry. "I've always thought he was around somewhere, hiding in some old mansion making potions in the basement or sleeping in a coffin or something." They both laughed. "But to find this ordinary man, raising a daughter in Surrey of all places, and doing research on dementia and memory loss…"

"Sounds like fortuitous timing," said Charlie. "He's helped with Ginny I hear."

"It was his suggestion that we bring her on this trip," answered Harry. "He sat Molly and Arthur and me down on Friday night and explained all about the brain. You should have heard him—if he can figure out how to merge all he knows now about the brain with all he knew twenty years ago about potions, he'll be unstoppable—and I think he knows it. That gleam in his eye is scary. Anyway, he explained that the brain needs stimulation—new experiences. It may or may not be able to heal itself, but it can reroute things, use different parts of itself to learn and store new things or relearn old things."

"Yeah, Dad told me a bit about that," said Charlie. "He told me about Ginny making the cake—and how she counted out the eggs she had used for you all."

"Her brain isn't processing language the way it used to," explained Harry. He watched his wife for a long moment, her shape silhouetted against the sun. "Hell, it's not processing a lot of things the way it used to."

"Harry…"

"No, it's OK Charlie." He shot the man a sideways glance. Beside him, Charlie looked pensive. "We soldier on, right? I learned that a long time ago. Life knocks you down, you struggle to your feet and go on." He swallowed.

"Harry."

He looked over at Charlie again and the other man smiled at him, a smile tinged with sadness, Harry thought, but a smile nonetheless.

"You'll always be family, Harry. Remember that."

"That's what keeps me going," said Harry. He shot a grateful look at his brother-in-law, who grinned.

"Done with the paper yet?" asked Charlie, changing the subject and giving Harry a reprieve from his emotions.

"No, haven't even opened it yet," answered Harry, flipping open The Daily Prophet and glancing down at it.

"Whoa," said Charlie, making a grab for the paper. "Nothing like sliding into a new job with as little splash as possible." He spread the paper out in front of him and Harry leaned over to get a better look.

"Severus Snape Joins Hogwarts Board of Governors," read the main headline. It was followed by, "Snape Proposes Reforms in Inaugural Meeting" and "Read more. See 'Reforms' page 6A. Excerpt from Upcoming Unauthorized Biography of Severus Snape, page 7A. Has Snape Changed His Nose? Before and After Photographs, People Section Page 2B.

The photograph that accompanied the story showed Severus with the other six members of the Board of Governors. He stood out with his short hair but had managed to dig up some appropriately severe robes, probably those he'd worn as Headmaster. His turtleneck could barely be seen above the high collar of the robes. He and Lucius Malfoy were the only two members of the Board that looked younger than 90.

"Turn to page 6A," said Harry, fiddling with the paper. Charlie slapped his hand away and turned to the inside of the paper, smoothing it out again so that they both could read. They scanned the article together and Harry whistled softly.

"Did you see this part?" asked Charlie a minute later. He had read ahead nearly to the bottom of the article.

"The Hogwarts Board of Governors will attend the Welcoming Feast and Sorting Ceremony this year and will make periodic visits throughout the term to assess the potential positive and negative impact of the changes proposed by Snape."

"Hey, listen to this part," said Harry. "Snape also proposed that the quarterly Board of Governors meetings be moved from a quarterly to a monthly recurring schedule and insisted that the meeting end at 6 p.m. when the meeting dragged on after a scheduled 5 p.m. close, as he had to get home and make dinner for his daughter."

"I can't wait to meet him," said Charlie, folding up the paper and waving at his father who was driving toward them in the golf cart. "Might be worth coming back to England from time to time to see how he's shaking things up."

Harry agreed. He picked up the paper again as Charlie left to join Arthur and Molly in a game of shuffleboard, and opened it to page 7A, anxious to see if Rita Skeeter's unauthorized biography of Severus was as interesting of a read as his own had been.

"The size of his nose was only rivaled by the size of his ego," said childhood neighbor Petunia Evans Dursley. "And he wore women's clothing."

Harry grinned. Interesting read indeed. At 40 years old, he was no longer incensed at the tripe that Skeeter produced. He adjusted his foot on its pillow, noting that it was beginning to throb rather painfully and that he could no longer wiggle his toes, and settled back to read the paper.