EPILOGUE

It was one evening sometime early in the year 1996. The Snapes’ fireplace at Hogwarts, where Severus was living happily together with his wife, his son and his two daughters, flared.

“Severus, could you please come to my office for a while,” he could hear Albus’ voice and groaned. He was just doing an experimental Potion together with his 15 and 13-year-old children.

“I’ll be there in five minutes Albus.”

He went up to the Headmaster’s Office and wondered about the solemn face of his old mentor and friend. Minerva, Albus’ wife and Deputy Headmistress as well as Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, and Remus Lupin were there as well. A moment later, Lily entered the room as well.

“I have called you here to show you a few, no, frankly speaking a lot of memories which were put in my Pensieve 20 years ago, when a certain Harry Pane visited us from the future. You do remember him, don’t you?” His friends nodded eagerly. Of course they remembered him well, their Great Grandchild, son and in Severus’ case his best friend forever.

“Until now I have never told anyone, but while he was here, I let him put lots of memories from his future in a Pensieve. He will come back in September and will be in a lot of trouble, because being in the past he has changed the future very much. When he comes back he will still have his old memories of his own time line and will have difficulties adapting to the new realities, which for all of us here is the normal time line. Although now Harry is living here with us in this time line, when he returns from the past, he will not have the memories of this time line at first. Therefore, I want to use the next few months until the summer to show you all my memories about his old time line in order for you to be able to understand and help him dealing with his problems. As he spent two whole years in the past, viewing the memories will take a lot of time, so I would like to ask you to come here every evening at a fixed time, for example curfew, to watch for about two hours. Will the five of you be willing to do this for Harry?”

The five nodded their agreement. “Of course Albus.”

“I appreciate that very much, thank you, because apart from me, the five of you are the only ones who have not been obliviated about him, as you were the closest to him.