The two Snapes hurryingly left their quarters. “What’s wrong, Dad?” Harry asked worriedly. “What do I have to do?”

Salazar sighed and gave his son the explanation he needed. “A dragon is attacking the Giant Squid in the lake. I don’t know where it came from and why it is attacking, but we have to do something about the dragon before it can attack the castle. All the teachers are outside trying to stun the dragon, but as your wish magic is much stronger than the normal magic of everyone else put together, we would like you to help.”

“Of course, Dad, Let me try.” Knowing that he couldn’t run, Harry jumped on his broom and flew down the empty corridors towards the huge Entrance doors with his father following directly after him. When they flew over to the lake, where the teachers were busily sending spells at the Dragon, Harry noticed a wave of relief spreading around. He sighed inwardly. What did they expect from him? Did they forget that he was only twelve years old? He wasn’t very healthy, and hadn’t even known that he was a wizard until 18 months ago. He made up his mind and glanced at the Dragon that was frantically attacking the Squid.

‘Do I have to fight against the Dragon? Will it be enough to wish it stunned on the ground? Maybe the Dragon understands Parseltongue and I can ask it why it’s fighting in the first place,’ Harry thought, while he landed next to the lake. He summoned as much magic as he could access and wished the Dragon to be on the ground next to the lake, stunned. Letting out a huge amount of magic, he stumbled and quickly sat down on the ground before he fell. While some of the teachers ran over to him, worriedly, he saw that some of the others were still firing spells at the Dragon. He held his hand out to stop them and said urgently, “Wait please. I’d like to try something first.” He tried to get back onto his feet, leaning against his father, who was standing next to him, and tried to assess if the Dragon could speak Parseltongue.

“Hello,” he hissed. “Can you understand me?”

“Yes, I can understand you. I was just flying over the lake here, when thisss big fish attacked me, sso that I lost my egg and it fell into the lake. Now, I want my child back, but the fish doesn’t help, and the stupid people try to attack me. Can you help?”

Harry sighed. “I can probably help you. Please promisse that you won’t attack anyone elsse and wait, while I tell the others what happened and try to retrieve your egg.”

The Dragon agreed, “Yesss, but please be quick, because it will be too cold for my baby down in the water. I have to get my egg back fast in order to warm it.”

Harry gave her a short confirming nod, turned to the teachers, and hurriedly explained what the dragon had told him.

“Thank you, Harry. Now, sit down and rest for a while,” Dumbledore told his grandson and addressed the Giant Squid. He talked to the Squid for a few minutes and managed to coax it into diving for the egg and handing it over to him. Albus immediately came over to Harry and put the egg down in front of Harry. “Now, Harry, before you release the Dragon from your spell, could you please ask her, where she comes from, why she is here, and where she is living? We cannot allow this to happen again.”

Harry picked up the egg, scrambled back onto his feet, and went over to the Dragon. He placed the egg directly in front of the Dragon, so that the Dragon’s feet touched the egg. “As you see, your egg isss safe, and I will let you go in a minute. However, I’ve a few more questions for you. Can you please tell me, what you’re doing here? Where do you come from, and where are you living? I don’t think that this place will be safe for you and your baby.”

“I don’t know where I came from. I lived together with a huge family, but I got lossst. And the large human living over there took me in and promisssed to keep me and my egg ssafe. But I just had to fly for a moment today, and then thisss happened. I’m sssorry.”

“You don’t have to be ssorry, it’ss all right. I mean nothing happened. Now, I cannot promisse anything yet, but we’ll try to get you back to your family or at least to a place where many dragonss live – that’s much safer for you.” Then Harry turned to the teachers and explained what the Dragon had told him.

“I’ll go to the ministry and ask them to take the Dragon away immediately. They can take him to the Dragon preserve in Romania. However, someone should watch her until the Aurors come in case she manages to break Harry’s spell. I hope it won’t take too long,” Dumbledore said, transformed into his phoenix form and was gone in a red flame.

“I’m going to stay here and keep her company,” Harry said immediately and sat down next to the Dragon.”

“I won’t leave my son here alone, Minerva. However, the rest of you can go inside and release the students. It’s time for lunch anyway,” Salazar told the Deputy Headmistress, trying to keep his face free of emotions.

“All right. Thank you, Harry, Salazar, and please be very careful, both of you,” Minerva said and ushered the other teachers back into the castle.

Harry and his father didn’t have to wait long. Twenty minutes later, a few Aurors arrived on brooms from Hogsmeade in order to take care of the Dragon. “We will fly to Romania and accompany the Dragon to one of the huge Dragon preserves,” one of the Aurors explained to Salazar and Harry.

“Go and fly with them. They won’t harm you; they will take you back to your family. Good luck with your egg,” Harry told the Dragon, for once not caring about the fact that others could hear him speak Parseltongue. Then he released the spell and watched as the Dragon took into the air, followed by the Aurors, who had to hurry in order to catch up with the fast flying animal.

“I am very proud of you, son,” Salazar stated, looking straight at his son. “I am happy that you didn’t get hurt except for the fact that you depleted your magic again,” he added, throwing his son a fond smile.

“I’m glad too, Dad. I don’t think I’d have been able to battle her,” Harry replied in a small voice. “Anyway, let’s return to our quarters. The others will be waiting for us.” They headed up to their quarters, where Harry’s friends surrounded them as soon as they opened the door.

“Are you all right, Harry?” Lily asked frantically, tears running over her face.

“Lily! What’s wrong? Of course I’m fine,” Harry answered, shocked about her behaviour, and threw an enquiring glance at James.

“We saw everything,” he explained reluctantly. “The window in your room… you know you see the lake… We were so worried.”

Salazar handed Lily a Calming draught, and she stopped crying immediately. “I suppose you haven’t had lunch yet, right?” he asked, and when the students shook their heads he called a house elf and ordered lunch for the six students. Then he stated, “All right. I have to leave for the first afternoon lesson. What’s your first lesson?”

“History of magic, sir,” Remus replied with an expression on his face that told the teacher that he didn’t care at all if he was going to miss the lesson.

The edges of Salazar’s mouth went slightly up, and he told them, “I shall excuse you for the first lesson. Eat your lunch and be ready to attend the remaining afternoon classes. Harry, you may only attend lessons if you feel well enough. I shall come and check on you after the first lesson.” He strode through the room and vanished into his office, his robes billowing behind him.

“I always wonder how he does that,” Sirius commented and everyone laughed.

-----

Remus spent another two nights in Harry’s room, taking the Wolves Cure Potion. Finally, on Wednesday night, Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore accompanied the boy to the Shrieking Shack, hoping it would be the last time. The professor decided to spend the whole night together with the student. In case Remus turned to a wolf, Dumbledore would transform into his phoenix form and stay safely on a ledge in the upper part of the wall. If Remus stayed human, he would remain with him in his human form to watch over him, making sure that he didn’t encounter any problems because of the Potion. In this case, they had agreed, Albus would send his phoenix Patronus to Salazar to let him know that the Potion had worked.

Harry was extremely upset. If Dumbledore could stay in the Shack in his phoenix form, he would be as safe as the professor when he transformed. Poppy had forbidden him to do any magic at all for a week, but this was a very special case for which an exception should be made, especially as Harry felt well enough to transform.

“It’s not my fault that you had to call me to solve the fight between the Dragon and the Giant Squid while the teachers were helpless now is it? Maybe the next time I should refrain from helping the teachers and save my magic to do things I value like for example being together with a friend when he needs me,” he ranted at his father when his friends had left shortly before curfew.

“You probably saved many students’ lives the other day. If the fight had gone on, the Dragon would definitely have won. And she certainly would have attacked the castle afterwards. Remus will be fine and alive in the morning whether you stay with him or not. Moreover, I am sure that Remus prefers to have you here safe, than having you there so that he had to worry about if nothing happened to you in case he transformed.” Salazar handed Harry a potion. “Here, drink this; it’s the Sleeping Potion from the recipe you translated recently. It’s a tad different from our normal Dreamless Sleep Potion, but it is not as addictive as the normal one.”

Harry’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Is that true? Then maybe I should make a list with the titles of all recipes in Slytherin’s Potion books, and you could look over it and tell me which ones to translate first.”

“That’s a good idea, Harry, and we can start to do this tomorrow. Now take the Potion and sleep. When you wake up, we’ll already know if the wolves cure worked.”

Although Harry badly wanted to start skimming the books immediately, he for once relented, took the Potion, and let his father tuck him in, before he fell in a deep, dreamless sleep. He didn’t even have the time to think about what Remus would be doing.

When Harry woke up, Remus was sitting on the edge of his bed. “Hello Harry,” he beamed.

“Remus! Did it work?” Harry asked excitedly, glad to see his friend so happy.

“Of course it worked. I only…” the rest was drowned as Harry pulled his friend into a hug – an action that Remus knew was extremely rare when it came to Harry.

-----

On Monday morning, Harry had breakfast in the Great Hall for the first time since coming back from the winter holidays. As soon as he reached the Slytherin table, his eyes fell on the front page of The Daily Prophet that was lying on the table. The main headline was

‘Death Eaters in Azkaban receive Dementors’ kiss’

Harry quickly sat down next to Severus, frantically trying to sort his thoughts. Wasn’t he supposed to travel to Azkaban in order to obliviate the Death Eaters? Why hadn’t Minister McNeill asked him to do so?

“Harry, what’s wrong? Are you all right?” Severus asked suspiciously.

Harry gave him a short nod and pointed to the newspaper. Severus sighed and said, “Yes, I’ve already read the article. Why couldn’t they wait for you to deal with them? It’s incredible!” He took a sip of his pumpkin juice, adding, “However, I’m glad that you don’t have to go there, I wouldn’t have liked it at all. It’s told to be the most horrible place in England.”

“That’s true,” Harry mumbled and picked at his breakfast, until James came over from the Gryffindor table with a mischievous look on his face.

“Harry! Do you remember the prank we talked about last week?” He unobtrusively handed Harry a wand that immediately took over the outer features of Harry’s own wand when he held it into his hand. “Can you try to exchange this with your granny’s wand as soon as she enters our classroom?”

Harry gave him an anxious glance. “I don’t know, but I’ll try. Let’s head to the classroom and settle in then.”

Severus and Harry quickly stood up and approached the classroom together with their other friends. As soon as the professor came through the door from her office, Harry exchanged the wands. When he was still wondering if he had succeeded, he suddenly noticed having McGonagall’s wand in his hand. Anxiously he wished it away to the desk in her office and it vanished from sight immediately. Harry leaned back into his chair and let out a relieved sigh, which resulted in the Professor interrupting her speech and looking over to Harry.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Snape?” she asked concerned, continuing her talk about transfiguring silent objects into noise-making objects as soon as Harry gave her a nod and smiled. The professor pointed her wand at the button lying on her desk and mumbled something. However, the only effect was that orange sparks came out of the top of her wand forming into letters saying, ‘this doesn’t work.’ Her next try was rewarded with bright green words, ‘I need a holiday.’

Very angrily the teacher looked around the class, obviously sending a special glare at James and Sirius. “I expect my wand to be back to normal by the end of the class, otherwise the culprits will be in real trouble. Now as you seem to think that you’ll be able to go on without my demonstration, change your button into a plush cat. Then in the next step, you make it miaow by saying the incantation ‘Sonitus Adiectio’. Mr. Snape, be so kind as to demonstrate this transfiguration.”

Harry took his wand, a bit consoled by the thought that his magic hadn’t yet recovered completely, so he wouldn’t have to be afraid of the spell coming out too strong. Nevertheless he hated to have to do things in front of the whole class. A few seconds later a pretty black cat with green eyes was sitting on his desk meowing.

“Thank you, Mr. Snape, very well done. 10 points to your Houses. Now, those who are done with this transfiguration may transfigure their button into any plush animal they like and have it make sounds.”

Harry didn’t have to be told this twice. He immediately transfigured his button into a wind phoenix letting him trill a beautiful melody. “Wow, that’s ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ by Mozart, isn’t it?” Lily whispered in awe, and Harry threw her a satisfied smile, glad that his other classmates were busy with their own spells. Only the teacher noticed what he had done and threw a proud glance at her grandson.

The rest of the lesson Harry spent thinking about the Death Eaters that had been kissed by the Dementors. He knew that there were some of the Slytherins, who had one or even both their parents in Azkaban. Moreover, many of these Death Eaters had been put into the wizarding prison when they had been captured after their fight in front of the ministry. This, however, had been Harry’s fault because he had stunned the Death Eaters so that the Aurors could arrest them. He hadn’t wanted to take all these kids’ parents away, and he was very angry at the Minister of Magic, because it would have been so easy to just obliviate the Death Eaters of everything concerning Voldemort and send them back to their families. If anyone knew how bad it could be not to be able to grow up with parents, it was Harry.

“Harry, are you coming?” he suddenly heard Lily’s voice and noticed that the room was empty except for them and their friends, who were obviously waiting for Harry.

“Harry, can you wish-Accio the fake wand back to you, please,” James whispered urgently as soon as they had left the classroom.

Harry concentrated and a moment later he held the wand in his hand and quickly gave it to James.

“Thank you, Harry. Now, let’s do the same in the Charms lesson this afternoon.”

Harry groaned and urgently said good-bye to everyone as he intended to spend his free period looking through the Potions recipes in Slytherin’s books.

-----

During the next few weeks, Harry was very busy. Apart from lessons, homework, and Animagus study with his friends, he spent every free minute translating the titles and summaries of all Potions recipes in the 45 Parselscript books he had found in the Chamber. Salazar and Severus were taking turns to look through Harry’s writings and ask him about Potions that seemed to be interesting. Their main priority was finding something they could use for Harry. However, so far they hadn’t found anything useful apart from the Sleeping Potion they discovered the other day, although there seemed to be many interesting potions recipes, which he would translate as soon as he had skimmed through all the books first.

One evening, when Harry had gone to bed and Salazar had checked on him and tucked him in, Harry suddenly asked, “Dad, I’ve thought about something. You know,” Harry said excitedly, sitting up again, “We have changed the future so much that this time I won’t be living with the Dursleys, so I shouldn’t have the health problems I have now, right?”

“Yes, I believe that should be true. However, I’m not sure if your future self will just be the ‘you’ of the new time line, or if both types of ‘you’, the old one and the new one, will get mixed together. At the moment, Albus and Poppy are researching about this; however, so far I do not believe they have found any information I believe.”

He stopped for a moment as if to decide if he should say more, before he finally continued, “As far as I can imagine, it will be like this: The new timeline ‘you’ will grow up with Lily and my younger self, having no problems at all. And then, we’ll come back to the future, and from that time onwards, you will be a mixture of your other self and you as you are now with all your bad experiences and memories because of the Dursleys. However, I have no idea how the two types of ‘you’ will mix. The only thing I know is that we shall get through this together as I shall have similar problems because of my experience with the Death Eaters. I will help you as far as I can, and I am sure Lily and your Great Grandparents will help us as well.”

Harry threw his father a tired smile and mumbled, “Okay, Dad, good night.”

“Good night, Harry.” Salazar kissed his son on the forehead before he switched off the lights with a flick of his wand and left the room.

-----

On Sunday afternoon, Harry and Salazar were called to the Headmaster’s office.

“Hello Harry, Salazar, how good that you could find the time to join us,” Dumbledore greeted the two people he cared so much about, while Minerva poured tea in four cups waiting on the table.

“In fact, I had something to show to you, Harry,” the Headmaster continued and handed Harry two small books. One had a dark blue cover, which was decorated with small twinkling stars. The title said, ‘The Diary of Salazar Slytherin – translated and edited by Harry Snape’. The other book had a green cover, decorated by the same twinkling stars. The title was ‘Hogwarts at the Time of the Founders’. The subtitle said, ’Written by Salazar Slytherin, Translated and Edited by Harry Snape’.

“Flourish and Blotts agreed to print them for me with a first print run of 250 copies each. I have got twenty complementary copies of either book and would like to ask you for one for the library and one for my office; the other eighteen copies of each book are for you to keep or give to your friends or whatever you want to do with them.”

Harry threw his Grandfather a huge smile. “Thank you, Grandfather. I appreciate that very much.”

“Harry, for every sale of your books, which is sold, you receive 20 percent of the book’s price from Flourish and Blotts. This money is being put directly into your vault at Gringotts. Moreover, they have promised to print each of the Potions books you want to have printed. However, I think you, Salazar and Severus should discuss what to do with the Potion recipes. I can imagine that your father would like to sell some of the Potions without anybody else knowing the recipe. The three of you should talk about this at least before you go back to the future.”

Harry shook his head. “No, I think this should be completely up to Severus. We won’t be around for quite a long time anyway, and he should be able to decide on his own what he wants to do with the recipes.”

“No, Harry, we shall discuss this with Severus during the next weeks,” Salazar contradicted firmly.

-----

It was a few weeks later on a Monday morning in early March. Harry and his Gryffindor friends were enjoying their free period after the Transfiguration lesson in the morning sitting near the lake. They were eagerly talking about the Map, discussing how to add a spell to it that would show the password, which was needed in order to access one of the hidden passages they had discovered. Harry had so far been staring over the grounds, deeply wrapped up in his own thoughts, while he observed a few crows playing at one of the outer window sills of the Shrieking Shack. Suddenly he jumped up and turned to his friends. “I’m sorry, I have to go and talk to Dumbledore. I’ll see you at lunch time.” He transformed into Breeze and flashed away.

“What’s up with him? First he’s far away in his thoughts and then he suddenly leaves. That’s not like Harry normally behaves,” James put into words what everyone was wondering about.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, Granddad will be able to help him,” Lily replied to calm herself.

But Harry didn’t come to lunch. Lily consoled herself and the others with the fact that Dumbledore wasn’t there either and that perhaps they were still talking together. However, when he didn’t show up for any of his afternoon lessons either, his friends really began to worry.