As much as Hermione wanted to bring her parents back from Australia right away, she knew she couldn't do so while four other people, herself included, were intruding in their home. That notwithstanding, Hermione also wanted to get a place for herself. This called for a family discussion.

"I think we should stay in England," Bryan started. "Sure, it'll be uncomfortable and we'll see ourselves as foreigners, but this is where Dad is and there's no need to avoid the press at this moment in time."

"Why can't we stay in Schwalmstadt? It's not like we're going to be there during the school year. Only for summer and breaks. That's home."

"Roman, hun, Ron and Harry would question why I'd just leave. And Germany—they'd find it so random."

"Mum, I'm pretty sure you're going to be hiding who we are from them for a bit anyway. It's not like you told them everything, even before... you know."

"I agree with Bryan. You gotta remember that we aren't home anymore. The life that we built there, the community, the friends—they all aren't there yet. Either way, we're starting over."

"If you say it that way… I'd still rather go back there, but I guess it doesn't matter that much."

"So we've established we're staying here, and places in mind? I already have a few."

"Somewhere with the same feel as before—the quaint countryside, small village kind. You know the areas here more than me…"

"Great, it's all up to me then? I've always wanted to live in Sussex… by the sea…" Here, Hermione broke into a dreamy smile. "And the stillness is the same as our old home. I visited once as a child, and that's how Dad and I settled on our Schwalmstadt home."

"I hope you didn't just forget that you already told us that loads of times…"

"Oh, right!" She seemed to snap back into reality. "Let's go house hunting, then."

"I thought we were low on funds?"

"We are, but that doesn't mean we can't look first," Hermione replied.

"We could also just stop at Gringotts first! Please?"

Hermione chuckled at Roman. Gringotts was a novelty for the children. Though it was the only wizarding bank in this time, more branches had sprung up by their time, and so the Snapes rarely went to the main branch: the only one that boasted such a fun coaster ride to the vaults. "No harm no foul. Let's go then."

The boys cheered.

Diagon Alley was quieter than Hermione remembered. Many shops were still suffering from the aftermath of the war, and it was too early for parents to be doing their shopping for school supplies. Roman gravitated toward Florean Fortescue's, but Hermione managed to lead him toward the goblin-run bank. As she walked up the marble steps, she cowered when she realized that the dragon-napping incident was still fresh on the creatures' minds. Her change in body language was evident, and so Bryan walked in front, clearly gesturing that he could handle it.

Not afraid of any goblin, he went up to the first one and said, "I'd like to reactivate the Prince vault." The goblin looked at him with disdain, clearing seeing Bryan as just another upstart. Hermione glared daggers at her eldest. Addressing the goblin, she said, "excuse us for a moment."

"What are you trying to do, steal your father's money? I know the terms of the will as much as you do, but it doesn't feel right with Dad not knowing about it in this time."

Eileen's parents had been furious when she married Tobias, and she was promptly disowned. What she never knew was that they didn't want their family wealth to be passed onto strangers or a distant cousin's branch, so they froze their vaults and stipulated that it would reopen when Eileen's first grandchild reached maturity and came to claim it. If circumstances were ever to make it so that such a grandchild would never come to exist, the vaults would be donated to the Ministry. Severus had received quite the shock when Bryan got the letter last Christmas hols when he turned seventeen. He had gotten along quite well on his own and never counted on having access to his family vaults. Therefore, he had advised Bryan to not claim ownership until after Hogwarts—to stay away from the gold for some more time.

Thus Bryan was acting completely on a limb now.

"That money never belonged to Dad anyway, even though I agree it rightfully should have. We're stuck in a new place, and I don't think you can support yourself and the three of us with just your bit of gold. Let's see what those nasty Prince grandparents left us, eh?"

"I'll have you know that I can support you three fine," Hermione huffed. "And remember what your father said? He wanted you to graduate first!"

"I know, but circumstances have certainly changed. Besides, being Lord Prince could be useful. I could help you guys out with a seat on the Wizengamot if any legal proceedings came to be."

"Well well. Someone read all about this!"

"Hey! Johnny's the bookworm, not me!" A distinct blush had appeared on his cheeks. "Just let it be, Mum. Besides, I'm pretty sure the goblin will have my neck if I tell him I didn't mean it."

Hermione threw her hands in the air. "Fine! If your father finds out and gets upset with you, you'll only have yourself to blame."

"He doesn't even know about the terms in this time."

Hermione ignored him and faced the goblin. Seeing this, Bryan did the same.

"The Prince vault, you say? So you think you can succeed where Vincent Bulstrode failed?" Bryan had no bloody idea who Vincent Bulstrode was or what the story was, but he nodded nonetheless. The goblin bared his teeth and rubbed his hands together. "Gornuk! Take these four to a sitting room and see if that boy speaks any truth!"

A smaller goblin got up and walked over. He gave a small, reassuring smile only when the head goblin looked away. Following his lead, the four were brought into an ornate looking room. "Don't mind Bondok, he's just always grumpy." A pause. "Although you, Miss Granger, give him reason to be." She respectfully dipped her head down in shame. "I'm quite curious to see who your Prince progenitor is. It's been a mystery for decades." He brandished a blank sheet of parchment. Just spill a drop of your blood here." He pointed to a spot in the center but near the top.

Bryan did so, but Johnny's eyes crinkled in confusion. "Is it not obvious who he's related to if he's claiming the Prince vaults? It's Severus Snape."

The words were clearly a surprise to the goblin, who glanced at the parchment, waiting for the results to show. When the lines began to appear, they clearly indicated Bryan's parents to be Severus Snape and Hermione Granger. Gornuk began to chuckle. "The whole of the wizarding world has been going about this all wrong."

"Pardon me?"

The small goblin waved his words aside. "I can hardly believe it. Atreus's line is alive." Apparently, he didn't care a jot as to whom Bryan's mother was. "You don't know the story?"

Bryan coughed a little. "Let's get on with this process, maybe? I don't care about bygone Princes. Now that my paternity is established, I'd like to officially become head of the Prince house."

"You'll have to go up to the vault. They left the ring inside."

Without further ado, the four plus Gornuk got aboard a cart that was waiting outside the sitting room and went for the ride. "The Prince family is one of the older ones, and so their vaults will be deeper down." When they finally stopped, Gornuk pointed to a whole half hallway. "919 to 925 are all the property of the Princes. Now that they're unfrozen, any member of the Prince family can enter them. That includes the Severus Snape himself."

Hesitantly, Hermione wondered, "Does that include me? In another life, we were bonded through marriage."

"Miss Granger, or should I say Mrs. Snape, I trust you know the implications of a bonding? Bonding is the highest level of connection between two people. Any dimension traveling or situations of the like should not be able to break that."

Hearing that, relief broke across Hermione's face. She still had a connection to him in this time!

Gornuk gave his attention back to Bryan. "The ring should be the first thing you see when you open vault 919. Your great-grandparents intended for next person to open the vault to be the head of house."

The moment Bryan laid his palm on the golden door, it slid up to reveal a large room of what could only be described as treasures. Spotting the ring, he picked it up and put it on. It consisted of a thick platinum band embellished with emeralds and sapphires. The Prince crest, which he recognized from old Wizarding family books, was displayed proudly for all to see.

"Just like all house rings, if you will it away, it will be invisible for all but you." Though Bryan already knew, he thanked Gornuk nonetheless for the piece of information. "I'll leave you to explore your vaults, Lord Prince."

Bryan, being unaccustomed to such a title, quickly replied, "just Bryan will do."

As Gornuk was about to leave, Hermione hurried over to him. "I don't think it would be a shock if I asked you to keep this quiet, would it?"

"The fact that there is now a Lord Prince again? Or your relationship with the Severus Snape?"

"Both, but very much so the latter. I really can't afford to have this come to light yet," said Hermione.

Gornuk gave her a long stare before smiling kindly, unlike any goblin had every done before. "Your secret's safe with me. I sense there is more to your story than you are telling."

Hermione let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding and sent him as much gratitude as she could convey in one look.

As Gornuk left, Bryan waved his brothers and mum in to explore. While the boys were completely taken by the random jewels and baubles that were probably worth more than a fortune, a single sealed envelope attracted Hermione's attention. Expecting it to be an old artifact from a centuries-old Prince, she was surprised to see it was dated rather recently; 1965 in fact. Could this be the answer to Severus's longtime resentment of his maternal grandparents?

To our heir,

You must be little Severus's firstborn. I except we are long gone by now, so our image is less important. How to begin? There is nothing we regret more than disowning our dear daughter. Eileen, being our only child, was the light of our life. We had such high aspirations for her. Though you might not believe it, we disliked Tobias Snape not just on the basis of his non-magical blood but also on his character. You see, we could see from the start what sort of a man he was, while Eileen was only head over heels for him. Disownment might have been a bit much, but with all the other pureblood families looking on, I'm afraid we let our damn pride get in the way of our love for our daughter. Seeing the state she is in now (yes we do check on her, but she does not know), our hearts cry at the dead eyes and the poor, abused child she calls son.

Now, we could have written our will to pass our fortune onto little Severus when he comes of age, but we are well and truly hapless. We are not in our sixties yet, and we plan to be alive in twelve years when Severus becomes seventeen… we do not believe we would have the face to tell him this directly. If we are allowed to live to our natural ends, then we estimate we will be gone by the time our first great grandchild turns seventeen.

Son or daughter of Severus Snape—we want you to know that you had a set of great-grandparents who were thinking of you when your father was still a toddler! We apologize for being so caring of what the other families think of us.

All our love, if you will take it,

Tiberius and Nancianne Prince

Hermione's heart was thudding as she considered how Severus would react to this. On the one hand, he would be indifferent. He had long buried his grandparents into the past, and it wouldn't do the stir them back. On the other hand, he would scoff. "So caring of what the other families think of us"? He had gone through two wars; such an excuse meant nothing. Only on the third hand, if there ever was one, would he feel a twinge of appreciation that his grandparents weren't the cold, pureblood couple he had imagined them to be? Duplicating the letter, she slipped the newer version into her pocket. Severus would get a kick out of this.

Suddenly, Johnny called out, "Mum, look what I found! Properties!" It was a piece of parchment with a list of places along with their locations in coordinate form. Underneath, there was a box. When Johnny dusted it off and opened it, they saw that it was filled with portkeys and keys.

"Great. Of course the Princes had properties. Wait till I tell Draco."

"No, but Mum, this is relevant to us! Why don't we just go to one of these houses and settle? Then we wouldn't have to go through the trouble of house searching and buying and all that."

"That's all good and true, Bryan, but I don't think they'd just coincidentally have a place in Sussex…"

Without replying, the boys started reading though the list. "Oxfordshire, Glasgow, Nice, State College, Karlsruhe—"

"Ayy, they've got a German home too? That's pretty cool!"

"If I could just finish, Roman… Nah, Mum, why don't you look over this list and see if there's anywhere that fits your description. We don't really know as much as you."

So Hermione scanned the list. Definitely no Sussex. Edinburgh, Paris, even Scania… until she saw it. One word: Cornwall. If this property was situated in the right place, it could potentially be perfect. Definitely a time saver if this worked out. Charming the portkey using the coordinates given, she and the boys were promptly whisked to the southwestern most county in the country.

It was almost love at first sight. As Hermione had hoped, it was a cottage rather than a huge castle. They were a few feet away from the edge of a cliff, and beneath them was the wild sea, crashing onto the rocks with each passing second. Hermione breathed in the air and felt more at ease than she had in months. One strange fact was that the grass was not run wild; instead it seemed like someone had taken care of it all these years.

Opening the door with a key from the box, they half expected someone to appear and throw them out for being trespassers. Luckily, no one came. Not right away, at least.

"Mistress is finally home!"

Hermione stared. Of course the Princes had house elves.