Instantly panic broke out, even inside the shop. Salazar rushed over to Harry and gripped his arm in order to apparate them away immediately, before he mumbled, “Anti Apparition wards! S…!” What should they do? He would, of course, like to fight the Death Eaters to repay them for all the evil they’ve done, but his son couldn’t fight, and he surely had not come to the past in order to lose his son.

Harry quickly said, “Dad, grip my tail feathers” and transformed into Breeze. His father obliged, and in a flash of a whirlwind, they were gone. An instant later, they reappeared in the sitting room of their quarters.

“Harry, are you all right?” Salazar asked worriedly, as his son had never flashed over such a distance, especially not with a passenger.

Harry slowly transformed back and sat down on the sofa. “Yes, Dad, I’m all right,” he said wearily, his limbs still shaking from the shock.

Salazar Accio-ed a Calming Draught and handed it to Harry, before he made a Floo-call to the Headmaster and told him about the Death Eater attack at Diagon Alley. He excused himself immediately after as he didn’t want to leave Harry alone at the moment.

When Harry told his friends about the events, Lily nearly cried. “Oh my, Harry, please be more careful! I don’t want you to give up your life, in order to save mine. However, you managed really well,” she admitted.

“Yes, Harry,” James agreed. “And if you’re able to flash your father over such a distance, you should be able to flash at least two of us within Hogwarts.”

“Hmm, probably,” Harry said pensively, “however, Dad has forbidden me to flash anyone except when it’s an emergency.”

James snorted. “Do you know what, Harry? I don’t know if it’s because you came from the future or some other reason, but I think everyone is very overprotective of you.”

Severus sneered. “Salazar is Harry’s father, and since Harry doesn’t have a mother, he is raising him by himself. Of course he is protective, especially as Harry’s health is not good. Being a parent means to be protective.”

“And how would you know that?” James asked, ignoring the upset looks his friends threw him.

“Severus is right, I think. I’m only Harry’s friend, but I can’t help feeling as protective of him as if he was brother. I feel like I should take care of him, especially since he doesn’t have a mum,” Lily said, smiling fondly at the boy she didn’t know was her son.

“Anyway,” Harry said quickly, “in case we were stuck somewhere in the castle, I would either flash four times to get you all back or I would try to flash two of you at the same time. So, are we going to do something tonight? We still have two hours until curfew.” Harry efficiently changed the topic.

-----

Early on Sunday morning when it was nearly time to get up anyway, a spell Salazar had put on Harry notified him that his son was in trouble. When he rushed over to the boy’s room, he saw a scene similar to one he had witnessed a few weeks ago. Harry was obviously having another vision.

Harry found himself in the room he had seen before, where he was speaking to his followers in their Death Eater attire. “You know that the train leaves Kings Cross at 11 a.m. It should be on the bridge between 1:45 p.m. and 1:48 p.m. Avery, you’ll be on guard at Frogs’ hill and alert Malfoy as soon as you can see the train. Malfoy, you give notice to Crabbe and Goyle. All others hide on the bridge and attack as soon as the train arrives. Avery and Crabbe, you take the driver. Afterwards, you search for your faithful sons and let them show you who the Mudblood students are. Keep them with the luggage; I shall arrive at 2 p.m. Do not disappoint me. We shall show the Muggle-loving old fool who he has to deal with today.”

Harry slowly opened his eyes and, seeing a blurred figure at his bedside, croaked, “Tell Dumbledore he’s going to attack the Hogwarts Express. They have to stop the students from boarding.”

Snape didn’t waste a minute and ran over to the Floo to alert the Headmaster, who stepped over into the Snape quarters a minute later.

“Harry, do you know what a Pensieve is? Do you think you could put this memory into a Pensieve?” Dumbledore asked Harry, who had just finished vomiting into a bucket his father had conjured right in time.

“Yes, I know what a Pensieve is, and yes, I can put the memory in,” he replied a little annoyed. ‘Dumbledore should be on his way to warn the parents, before it is too late, and not wasting time with me,’ he thought, however pointed to the shelf, where his own Pensieve stood, which the future Albus had given him for his birthday.

His father fetched the Pensieve and watched the memory together with the Headmaster. When they emerged from the memory, he said, “We should not alert all parents via Floo-call or owl, because we cannot let the Death Eaters know that we are conscious of their plan. Instead we should let the students board the train normally. Several members of the staff, as well as a few Aurors, should be on board, at least two for each carriage, each of them equipped with two Portkeys. They can gather the students in their carriage as soon as the train has left the station and activate the Portkeys.”

“And for the luggage, we will send the house elves as soon as the train is out of sight of the platform,” Dumbledore added contently. “All right, Severus – sorry, Salazar – let us have a staff meeting directly after breakfast. We tell the others the news and decide who will accompany the train. I will alert the Aurors and a few friends of mine and ask them to join us for our staff meeting.”

“Dad?” Harry timidly interrupted their conversation. “Could you stay here with me? I still don’t feel well, and when Voldemort gets to know that his plan failed, he will be so angry that I’ll be having another vision – as it was the last time.” ‘Plus I don’t want to lose my Dad, whom it took me twelve years to find,’ Harry thought frantically.

“All right, my boy.” Albus turned to Harry. “Your father will stay with you. He should attend the staff meeting, however. Would you mind if I showed your memory at the staff meeting?”

Harry shook his head and winced at the pain. His father Accio-ed two potions from his lab and helped his son to sit up and drink the potions, which worked immediately. Now feeling better, Harry insisted on getting up and joining the others for breakfast – a decision he would soon regret.

While everyone was eating breakfast, Albus recounted what he had seen in the Pensieve, interrupted by many questions and comments of the teachers. Finally he said, “I have alerted the Aurors and a few friends, for example the Potters and the Longbottoms. Everyone will be here in half an hour. Therefore, I would like all teachers to remain here after breakfast.”

Then he turned to Harry and said, “Harry, my boy, I’m sorry, but the Aurors have requested to meet you as well, so that they can ask you a few questions.”

Harry’s face had turned white hearing this announcement. Very hesitantly, he asked, “What are they going to ask, sir? I cannot tell them anymore than I told you.”

Salazar turned to the Headmaster. “It is up to my son whether he will comply with the request of the Aurors. However, I shall not allow anyone to use Veritaserum on my son. Just to let you know of the conditions under which they may question Harry in case he agrees at all.”

Harry threw his father a grateful glance. As annoyed as he was, he didn’t want to anger Professor Dumbledore and decided to attend the meeting. The Aurors asked many questions, and Harry tried to answer them as well as he could without letting them know who he was and where he came from.

Finally, Professor McGonagall said, “I think that’s enough. Leave the boy in peace. Thanks to him we can do something to save our students, and that should be the topic of this meeting. If you are not willing to help with this, you should leave our meeting now, so that we can concentrate on important matters.”

Harry sat back, very relieved, and smiled thankfully at his Head of House, still admiring how young she looked in this time. Then his gaze wandered over to the Potters. Until a month ago, he would have believed them to be his grandparents. How excited would he be now if that was the truth! For the rest of the meeting, he was so wrapped up in thoughts that he didn’t notice when the meeting was finished and was startled when his father suddenly called his name.

-----

Everything went according to plan, and at 11:30 a.m. all students and teachers arrived safely at the Entrance Hall via Portkey. After a few minutes of confused chattering among the group, everyone quieted when the Headmaster’s voice could be heard.

“My dear students, welcome to Hogwarts, First Years, and welcome back, older students. As you have noticed, we have pulled you off the Hogwarts Express. This happened for the first time as far as I can remember and – of course – for a good reason. We had notice that Voldemort and his Death Eaters were going to attack the train. Therefore, we had to take this extraordinary measure.”

He looked around at the students, whose faces had turned into a shocked expression and continued, “Don’t worry; as long as you are here at Hogwarts, nothing will happen to you. We have decided to go forward with our Welcoming Feast and the Sorting as previously planned, but just a bit earlier. Now, I want our older students to sit down at your House tables and the younger students to wait for a minute until our Sorting Hat is ready to begin.”

At 1:30 p.m. the feast was still on its way, when Harry decided to head for his own room. It would be thirty minutes at the most until Voldemort knew that his plan failed, and Harry didn’t want everyone in the Great Hall to witness him having a vision. He whispered to Lily, who was sitting next to him, “Don’t worry. I’m just going to my own room,” and left the Hall, not noticing that several pairs of eyes were watching him worriedly from the Head table.

Severus, however, noticed and hurried after his ‘supposed to be cousin’, knowing that his older self wouldn’t be able to leave the Head table at this time. The two boys headed straight to Harry’s room and sat down on Harry’s bed.

“You know, you didn’t have to do that,” Harry said, feeling a little uncomfortable that his friend had left the feast on his behalf.

“No problem, Harry. As my older self is too busy to look after you at the moment, I can very well keep you company for a while, can’t I?”

It took Harry a minute to really comprehend what Severus had said. His older self? Did that mean he knew? Then he would also know that he was his son. “You… wait! What? You know? Why? Did he tell you?”

“No, of course not,” Severus said, rolling his eyes. “But as he told me I am not a dunderhead.”

“Oh, yes,” Harry said laughing. “That’s about the biggest compliment you will ever hear from him… Dad.”

Severus gave him a small smile. “Don’t let anyone hear that, Harry. Even Lily doesn’t seem to know yet.”

At this moment, there was a knock at the Entrance door to their quarters. When Harry quickly went to open the door, Lily came in and threw him a worried glance. “Ah, Severus, good. I’m glad you’re here. Are you all right, Harry?”

“Nothing has happened so far. But it will be a matter of minutes, so I’d prefer to return to my room.” Harry ushered his friends into his room, made them sit down on the two chairs in front of his desk, sat on his bed and conjured a bucket. Maybe he would need it.

“Wait, Harry. What potions does he give you normally when it happens?” Severus suddenly asked.

“Pain Reliever and Fever Reducer,” Harry answered. By the time Severus had rushed over to his future self’s potions lab to get the potions, Harry’s vision had already begun to fail. Harry just managed to mumble, “It starts,” before he found himself in the room with the stone floor.

Voldemort was furious. Harry felt as though he himself was very angry. He was surrounded by five Death Eaters. “My most faithful servants of my inner circle, the time has come to question if you are really as faithful as I always believe. How could the Aurors or the Muggle-loving old fool have known about our plans to free Hogwarts from the Muggle-borns? I only can imagine one reason – we must have a spy in our midst!”

The Death Eaters fell to their knees. One of them, whom Harry could not recognize because he was wearing a hood, spoke up, “My Lord, I do not know how anyone could know about your plans, but I cannot imagine a spy here in your inner circle. Maybe one of the others have heard anything about it and warned the school or the Aurors.”

“Impossible, Malfoy. Nobody was here this morning, and I put my Anti-Apparition wards up, so nobody could get in or out while we were talking.” He looked straight into Malfoy’s eyes, and suddenly strange scenes played out in front of Harry’s eyes.

Scenes of Death Eater attacks flew by so quickly that Harry was hardly able to grasp what was happening. Suddenly the Hogwarts Express came into view and he could see Platform 9 ¾, where the students were just boarding the train.

The scene changed and the Hogwarts Express came to a halt on a high bridge. Two Death Eaters jumped onto the front part of the train where the driver should have been. One of them returned seconds later and shouted, “The driver is gone.” The other one came back seconds later from one of the carriages and said, “Nobody is on the train. They must have known.”

Malfoy apparated back to Voldemort.

At this point, the Legilimency spell ended. Voldemort asked each of the four others if they had an idea how this could happen, but nobody could give him a reasonable explanation. So he angrily proceeded to punish his followers immensely, ignoring their painful cries and apologies, while they were wriggling along the floor. “Sorry is not enough! I expect better from all of you. I am very disappointed. You are dismissed.”

Harry’s mind slowly turned back to awareness. Before he was even able to open his eyes, he knew that he was going to be sick and turned to the side, where, just in time, Lily managed to arrange the bucket under his face. After vomiting heavily, he lay back, slowly getting aware of the fact that someone was carefully wiping his face with a soft, cool cloth. He lazily opened his eyes and saw his mother sitting on the edge of his bed. “Thank you, Mum,” he mumbled and closed his eyes again. ‘Oh no,’ a thought popped up in his head then, ‘I’m not allowed to call her that’.

“Harry!”

He heard a voice call him from far away. It was his father’s voice. Suddenly he felt a cold phial pressed against his lips and he quickly swallowed it down. After gulping down the second phial as well, he felt better and opened his eyes. Both his parents were now sitting next to him.

“Thank you, Lily, Severus,” he mumbled tiredly. He still didn’t feel good; in fact, it was much worse than it had been the other times. “I still don’t feel well, I’m afraid,” he murmured and closed his eyes again.

“Lily, can you go and get his father, please,” Harry heard Severus say, and a few minutes later, the voices of Madam Pomfrey and the older version of his father penetrated to his ear. “He appears to be suffering from the after effects of the Cruciatus Curse,” he could hear Poppy say, followed by a multiple gasp.

He opened his eyes once more and said hoarsely, “He punished the Death Eaters with this curse and it felt horrible.”

“You could feel the curse he did on his followers?” his father asked horrified, and Harry gave him a short nod.

“When I had the vision, I could not only see and hear what Voldemort and his Death Eaters say, but I could feel his emotions and felt every curse he placed on someone. I even could see into Malfoy’s mind when he did a Legilimency spell on him.”

“Severus, would you be willing to help me brew the Anti-Cruciatus-Potion, please? If you helped me, it would only take us an hour to brew. Lily, would you stay with Harry until we get back?”

Lily nodded. “Of course.”

“I don’t know this potion, Salazar, but of course, I’ll help,” Severus said, glancing helplessly at his older self.

“That’s all right. You cannot know because I only invented it a few years ago. Poppy, I think Harry will be all right when I give him the potion.”

Pomfrey nodded and left the room, muttering to herself about professors who knew everything better than her.

When Severus and his older self had retreated to the Potions lab, Lily turned back to Harry. “Harry, do you want to drink something? Or can I get you anything else?”

Harry gave his mother a tired smile. “Thank you, Lily. I would like a glass of water, please.”

Lily went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses and a pitcher of water. She helped Harry to sit up, handed him a glass and asked hesitantly, “Harry, may I ask you something?

“Of course you may,” Harry answered immediately.