The Potters always had at least one dinner with Minerva and whatever other Hogwarts staff cared to come over the Christmas holidays. Harry had started it the first year he was out of school, inviting her, Hagrid and Poppy when he wanted to show off the new renovations to Grimmauld Place. Generally the children enjoyed the company of the headmistress, who turned into a kindly, if strict, aunt when they were out of school.

This would be the first such dinner that James had ever missed. Ginny had sent him an owl earlier asking him to come home for the evening, at least.  She never mentioned getting James’ reply, so Harry could only conclude that James had said something that she thought would upset him. Ginny often played Beater between Harry and James.

Harry just couldn’t understand what was going on between the two of them.  Last night Ron had been telling him it was just a phase. “You remember what it was like,” he’d said. “I think he feels like he has to live up to his dad’s reputation. He’ll settle down.”

This was one of those times when Ron’s advice was just not that helpful. If James had decided to go into professional Quidditch, then perhaps Harry could have trusted that James would settle down, but the boy was chasing dark wizards, for Merlin’s sake. James had always been a little too wild for Harry’s taste.  Since he was tiny, the boy had loved risk for risk’s sake.

As a matter of fact, Harry could not remember what it was like, and he told Ron so. What Harry remembered was his relief when he finally comprehended (with Phoebe’s help) that, as an Auror, he wasn’t expected to personally take care of every single dark wizard out there.

A little morosely, he picked at his food.  As always, Kreacher’s cooking was excellent, but Harry’s appetite failed him.  

Tim was playing with his food more than eating it, as well. Harry knew that the day had taken a lot out of him. The child had gone to sleep for two hours when they arrived home. Harry didn’t like how peaky his son still looked. Ernie had been reassuring, but that didn’t stop Harry and Ginny from worrying.

Alice was chattering happily to the children as if she were a teenager herself. She was very popular with the students at Hogwarts since Neville had brought her there to live two years ago.  The Tears potion had wrought a miracle in her case. Her mind was still damaged, but in the last four years she had improved beyond anyone’s hopes. “Miss Alice,” as the students called her, was quite capable of tutoring the first, second and third years in most of their classes, and she also helped Poppy in the hospital wing. She loved being surrounded by children. There were still times when she could be haunted and fey, but those times were fewer and farther between every year.

Harry was always sorry that they hadn’t found the formula years ago, but at least Augusta had lived long enough to see Alice speak again. It had been a comfort to the old lady in the last years of her life.

For the millionth time, Harry said a little private prayer to whoever might be listening to keep Severus Snape’s soul safe, wherever he was.

 Ginny tapped his foot under the table.

“Hm?”  Harry asked absently.

“Minerva asked you a question,” Ginny said pointedly.

“Oh. Sorry.” He felt his cheeks grow a little warm. “I was miles away.”

Minerva smiled indulgently—she always managed to make him feel about fifteen years old. “I was asking, Harry, if you thought you might come and speak at the memorial in May? It will be twenty-five years, next year.”

“Er.” He barely restrained himself from flatly turning her down. “Ah…have you asked Ron?” He tried to divert her.

“Yes, I have. And he has promised to say a few words, as has Hermione, but it would be splendid if you could be there.” She held up her hand, stopping him from responding before she finished. “You don’t have to give a long speech, just a few words will do.” She smiled rather wickedly. “You could use the speech you wrote for the first anniversary. It’s been so long since you spoke in public, no one would remember. Neville and Luna are also scheduled to speak.”

Albus spoke up. “Why don’t you ever speak at the memorials, Dad?”

Lily, Tim and Alice all turned their attention to him. Millie looked as though her ears were perked up by the question too.

Harry shrugged uncomfortably. “I just don’t like to. I don’t like public speaking, you know that.”

Tim tilted his head curiously, his eyes reflecting that eerie maturity he sometimes had. “They said at school that you’re really famous. They wouldn’t believe me when I said you didn’t like all sorts of Prophet stories and pictures of yourself with famous people on the wall. I mean,” Tim nodded at Ginny, “Mum’s got that picture of herself with her team accepting the World Cup. The Minister was there and everything.”

Harry glanced at Ginny, who gave him an understanding smile. “Oh, your mum’s a lot more famous than me,” he said wryly. “Quidditch is a lot more interesting than old wars, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, but Dad,” Albus said, “you’re in the history books. They said you’re immune to the Unforgivables and all sorts of things.”

Lily nodded. “They say you could be Minister of Magic.”

This was the sort of talk that had turned James’ head, Harry was sure.

“I’m not immune to the Unforgivables, Al,” Harry told the boy quietly. “We’ve talked about this. And I can’t think of anything I want to do less than be Minister.” He shuddered at the very thought.

“Well, why could you kill Voldemort and no one else could?” Albus was not going to let this go.

Alice cried out inarticulately. She had flinched at the name, knocking her water goblet over. “Oh, my. S-sorry.” She seemed at a loss as to what to do about the unexpected mess.

“It’s all right Mum,” Neville said gently. He produced his wand and muttered a charm to pick the water up. Millie righted Alice’s goblet, patting her hand across the table in a maternal way.

“Sorry, Miss Alice,” Al said, looking mortified. “I forgot.”

Alice laughed, a brittle high pitched sound. “Don’t worry Al,” she said. “I just can’t get used to it. That it’s all right to say…” she visibly steeled herself, “V-vold-em-mort…,” she stuttered through the word, “out loud.”

The adults around the table looked at each other, slow smiles blooming on their faces. It was the first time she’d ever been able to utter the word. It was a major triumph, as much as the first word she’d spoken after she’d been treated with the Tears potion.

Neville wrapped one arm around his mother. “Well done, Mum,” he whispered. Alice covered her mouth with her hand, as though waiting for something terrible to happen. When a full minute ticked by with no disaster and everyone looking at her with approving grins, she took her hand away, her expression so pleased and happy that Harry wished he had a Muggle camera available that would capture just that single smile.

Minerva was looking decidedly misty-eyed, and cleared her throat before speaking. “This is why you should come to the memorial, Harry. So many were hurt in the War. We shouldn’t let people forget what you did.”

“No, people shouldn’t forget that there were lots of other people involved,” Harry said vehemently. “Dumbledore’s Army, Shacklebolt’s resistance fighters, the Order. It was their victory. I was just unlucky enough to be tied up magically with the bastard.”

Lily and Al were paying rapt attention, Harry noticed.

“Then you should say that,” Neville said positively. He picked his knife and fork up again to resume his meal. “I’m going to be speaking about Snape and what he did for the War.” He glanced at his mother. “I don’t want that forgotten.”

“Snape?” Alice asked curiously.

“Yes, Alice,” Minerva replied. “You remember: Severus Snape.  He was in the year behind yours. He became the Potions master.”

“Oh, yes, of course I remember,” Alice agreed. “He used to come visit us in the hospital every week.”

Neville choked. Cleared his throat. “What?”

The white haired woman nodded, a little smile on her face. “He used to like to come and read to me. He had a lovely speaking voice. You know, I never understood what Lily saw in him when we were in school.” Her expression dimmed to a pensive frown. “She was heartbroken when he finished with her.  Cried for days.”

“He finished with her?” Harry asked surprised. It had never occurred to him before to ask Alice about anything that happened prior to her injuries; he wasn’t sure how she’d react.

“Well, she never talked much about what happened.” Alice sighed. “But she spent the rest of that term just moping around. He tried to get back with her, but she wouldn’t have that. I always thought he must have been seeing someone else, maybe one of the Slytherin girls. She never said.”

So, his mother had never told people what had happened between her and Snape.

Alice was going on, “But, that’s the only thing we could think of that would upset her so much that she wouldn’t take him back.”

“So, they were serious, then?” Harry asked, fascinated.

“Oh, yes. We all thought they’d end up together. Most of the Gryffindor girls didn’t like him, but I think a lot of that was being a half-blood.” Alice looked apologetically at Harry. “We all knew that your father wanted her to see him. One of the girls even asked her why she’d want to waste her time with Snape when the son of a pure-blood house wanted to see her and didn’t care that she was Muggle-born. Lily was so angry with her. They had a terrible fight. Well, we all wondered the same, but thought it would be rude to say. I suppose being Muggle-born she didn’t really understand, so it really was a good thing that Snape finished with her. I mean, she only went with James first to make Snape jealous.”

Alice’s speech had gotten faster, as it sometimes did when she felt excited about something, as though she were afraid that the words would go away if she slowed down. “It was very strange, actually, to all of us that she’d want a half-blood when a pure-blood boy wanted to see her.” She also tended to repeat things. “I mean, who would? And being Muggle-born, of course, it put her at such a disadvantage, already. If she had children, they’d always be seen as the child of a Muggle-born. In those days, they were always afraid that people with Muggle-born parents would have Squibs for children.”

Neville touched Alice’s arm. It was important to remember that Alice had no internal censor and tended to say whatever crossed her mind. “Oh. I beg your pardon, Harry.” She realized that she was running on a bit.

Harry smiled at her gently. “It’s all right, Alice. I’ve spent the last twenty five years trying to get people over that one,” he sighed, resigned to his fate. “Minerva, if you like, I’ll come talk for you.”

Minerva acknowledged him with a grin.

“So, Mum? What did you mean about Snape coming to visit you?” Neville asked, curiously.

“Oh, he came, perhaps, once a week. He was always very kind.”

“Snape? Kind?” Neville stared at his mother. “Are you sure it was him?”

“Professor Snape was always very kind to me,” Millie said softly. “Neville, I know you and he had… differences… but you never knew what he could be like. He was always very good to us.”

“I know that, Millie,” replied Neville. “You and every other Slytherin who’d talk to me has told me. I just can’t reconcile the two images. That’s why I had Roz write that chapter for the book.”

Alice nodded in agreement and fixed Neville with an intent stare, “He used to tell me how you were doing in school. He told me you melted cauldrons all over his classroom.” She turned away from Neville. Her eyes found Minerva’s. “He told me…” Her eyebrows knitted together as she tried to recall the details of those long-ago conversations. “He told me lots of things I don’t remember. Mostly just how Neville was doing. There was this time though… I remember because he was so frightened and sad. He said something terrible had happened. I don’t remember what, just that he was so upset. Something dreadful had happened. He said it was dangerous for him to be there, with Frank and me.” She stopped, considering. “He said someone had died and they were making him headmaster. He wasn’t happy at all and he said you were ever so angry at him, Minerva. He said that you said terrible things to him.”

The woman’s attention focused inward. “You know, I think he might have visited us just once or twice after that. I seem to remember him coming and telling me that I’d be able to leave the hospital one day. He told me that he was making a potion to make it stop hurting and make everything not so…” Alice shuddered as she seemed to grope for a word, “hard. He said it would take a very long time and that in the meantime I should just know that I was safe and no one would hurt us again. He said he’d make sure of it.”

Awkward silence followed her words. No one knew what to say. Alice looked on the verge of tears.

Harry remembered after the War that Neville had been surprised that his parents had been left alone by the Death Eaters. He and Augusta had both feared that Bellatrix would have tormented them for sheer entertainment.

Apparently this was yet another of Snape’s secret acts of protection.

Tim stood up and turned to the woman. “Miss Alice?” he said softly, plucking at her robe.

She turned a watery smile onto the boy, who stepped forward into her open arms. Harry couldn’t hear what they said to each other in whispers.

Ginny sniffed beside him. Harry felt the distinct need to blow his own nose.

“You’re a good child,” Alice said softly as Tim let go of her and retook his seat.

After dinner, they all sat in the drawing room, the adults chatting about inconsequentials and the children and Alice playing more card games. Harry was quiet, watching the children and pondering his agreement to speak at the next memorial. He hadn’t done that in twenty years.

It was almost ten o’clock when Minerva, Neville and Alice took their leave. The children all went up to bed, worn out by the day.

“Funny about Snape visiting Alice,” Ginny said, as she sat with her feet up on the coffee table. “Did Augusta know, do you think?”

“She must have,” replied Harry. “Although maybe she thought it was only occasionally, to help him with his researches.”

Ginny nodded, looking thoughtful. Harry poured her some tea from the pot Kreacher had brought up and took both their cups over. He sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Hey, Dad? Mum?” Tim stood at the doorway in his pajamas. He leaned up against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest, “Do you have a minute?” His tone was tentative.

“Of course, sweetheart.” Ginny scooted over to make room for the boy between them.

“What’s up?” asked Harry as Tim sat.

“Erm.” Tim bit his lip, hesitating. Harry and Ginny exchanged concerned looks over the boy’s head. “Do you remember me saying about the Dark Man?”

“Yes,” replied Harry.

Tim took a deep breath. “So, he’s back. In my head. He’s been back since I hit my head.”

Ginny’s face drained of color. She picked her wand up from where she’d set it on the side table and laid it across her lap.

“What do you mean back?” asked Harry slowly, feeling for his own wand.

“Well, I mean…back. Like talking to me and…” Tim shrugged. “He’s angry about something, but that’s not new. He’s afraid too. I don’t know why.”

Ginny closed her eyes and took a couple deep, steadying breaths. Harry remembered suddenly Dudley talking about “triggers.” Like Dementors, triggers could suddenly throw one back to terrible things that happened years ago. 

“So, what’s he been saying?” Harry asked the boy softly. Ginny opened her eyes, her mouth pressed into a determined line.

“Not much, really. He’s just there.”

Ginny put her arm around Tim’s shoulder, while keeping her hand on her wand. “Sweetheart?” she said, gently squeezing his shoulder. “Have you had any times where you couldn’t remember what you were doing? Like gaps in your memory?”

Harry felt his stomach drop when the boy nodded.

“Like when?” Ginny’s voice was only a little higher pitched than usual.

“Well, I can’t remember anything between the morning before that potion blew up and Healer Ernie fixing the bleed in my head. Well, except the headache I had.”

Both the adults relaxed minutely. That sounded more related to the head injury.

“He’s used my magic a couple times, like he used to, but he hasn’t just taken over since then. It seems like he’s afraid he’ll hurt me.”

“Why would he think that?” Harry asked, carefully.

Tim knitted his brows in thought. “I’m not sure. He just doesn’t think it would be good for me. He’s pretty certain he doesn’t belong here anymore.”

“Here?”

The child tapped his temple with his finger. “In my head.”

“Right.” Harry pulled his wand from his sleeve, “Hold still for a minute, love,” he said. “I just want to do a couple diagnostic spells—make sure there isn’t anything odd going on.” Well, odder than one’s son telling one that someone was in his head.

A complicated spell that Roz had brought back from Haiti just after the War was standard for Aurors now.  Harry muttered the incantation, waving his wand in the pattern of revealing. “Koute m 'non! Mwen sorselri limyè a nan majik sa a pitit ou a. Moutre m 'kè sa a timoun nan ak nanm. Revele fè m 'relasyon l' yo. Moutre m 'fanmi l'. Moutre m 'zanmi l' ak rayisab l 'yo. Moutre m 'ki te kite mak yo sou nanm li. Moutre m 'fwontyè ki separe peyi kè l'.”

Tim’s magical aura glowed around him in shifting light.  Blue predominated, layered with silver and gold. The gold was Ginny, whose aura extended around the child as a mother’s should, and the silver was Harry himself.

Other colors shot through the blue, as well. The marks that the people who loved Tim and who Tim loved in return left on his soul. As always, Harry thought this was a particularly beautiful spell. Lily’s soothing lavender and Al’s deep green surfaced and sank into the background of blue, looking like reflections of sunlight on water. The fiery red that was James figured prominently, almost as strong as Harry’s silver or Ginny’s gold. Other colors moved around the blue, some Harry was able to recognize by their feel.

There was no taint of darkness, nor any presence that should not be there. No sense that anyone or anything was “riding” the child. The edges were solid and the colors, though they shimmered like brightly colored fishes through the blue of the boy’s soul, didn’t mix, meaning the boy’s mental boundaries were intact. No trace of prolonged Legilimency or anything like Imperius had been used. The silver and gold of the child’s parents were as separate as they ought to be in an eleven-year-old, and gratifyingly, Smith’s rusty orange color had almost disappeared entirely.

A gold that wasn’t Ginny flashed through as Harry invoked the spell more deeply. That would be Tim’s Nana, then. He always said Ginny was like her. Mary Dawson’s traces appeared as a purple not dissimilar to Lily’s.

Ginny could see the light show as well, and searched for herself, looking for places where the colors might bleed together or shadows gather. She shook her head, looking only slightly reassured—it was always possible that an alien presence could hide or flee from this type of magic.

“Why don’t I send an owl to Healer Phoebe tonight?” Ginny asked as Harry let the spell fall.  One of the reasons Phoebe had been able to take Tim on was that she was a mind healer who specialized in helping people deal with trauma involving Dark Magic. She had many more diagnostic spells at her disposal and would know what to do next.

Tim nodded, chewing his lip nervously. “I’d like that.”

Harry put his arm around the child and his hand on Ginny’s shoulder.

For a long time the three of them sat on the settee together, not speaking. Ginny put her feet back up, but her posture was much tenser.

The next time Harry glanced down at his son, the boy was asleep against his side. “I’ll take him up,” he told Ginny softly. “I’ll put the monitoring charm on his room.”

She nodded, summoned a quill and parchment. “I’ll be up, as soon as I owl Phoebe,” she said.