-Evans' house, Muggle London, 25 July 1976.
It had been three weeks since Draco and Hermione had met Lily at the potions shop.
Hermione had been nervous about how Severus would react once he heard everything once they got back, but he didn't return to Manor Prince.
He even notified them that he wouldn't be there for several days.
It wasn't until the 20 of July that Severus returned to the Manor Prince, but as usual, he didn't ask them anything about what they had been doing nor did he tell them much about what he had been doing during that time.
Although Hermione did manage to know a few things from talking to him, it was mostly superficial.
She thought about telling Severus about it repeatedly, but he didn't seem interested in knowing what they did in their private time.
Or as he said: "As long as you don't drag me into it I have no problem whatever you do, I know you have a lot of plans that I'm not interested in, just keep it to yourselves and everything will be fine"
Draco and Hermione had spent all those days with Lily studying because at the beginning of August they had to take their Hogwarts entrance exams.
Lily had kindly invited them to study at her house.
Hermione had been impressed with how diligent Lily was and how easily she could handle someone like Draco.
During these weeks, Draco was tortured mercilessly by Lily as he had to take notes on a lot of things that were different during this time,
Which for him was just taking boring notes every day.
The only interesting thing for him was making potions for the day-to-day and Lily was a great potions teacher.
But that didn't last long because in spells and potions both Draco and Hermione had a lot of knowledge.
The most important thing was all the theory that was given at this age but not in theirs and Hermione was very grateful to have Lily to tell them exactly what they needed to know.
"Very well, it's been three weeks since we started and I dare say they could be good enough to take TIMOs in several classes," commented Lily this morning at home.
Draco just snorted, he just wanted to stop studying all that boring old stuff, the knowledge he had was more advanced than what he was studying now.
'Bloody hell, I'm not Hermione, I don't like reading things that are useless just for the sake of reading them' he grumbled internally.
" Yes, now we know essentially everything we need until the fifth year of Hogwarts" nodded Hermione.
"Thank you, Lily, you were very helpful" she added in appreciation.
"I still don't understand why we basically studied EVERYTHING, just reviewing would have been good enough to be at OWL level," said Draco.
"Yeah, but we were shooting for the big picture Draco," Lily told him with a smile.
Draco almost fell for that smile if it wasn't for the fact that over the past three weeks he realized that she was very good to convince people just by smiling and sweet talking.
Although he had to admit that it was impressive, he thought that Gryffindors didn't use their brains like that, but it seems that Hermione and Lily are exceptions.
'Annoying exceptions' Draco concluded as he sighed and shook his head.
"Alright, so now that the study is over, how about we go to Diagon Alley and celebrate your future admission to Hogwarts?" asked Lily.
"Hmm, although I'd rather celebrate after I get in, I wouldn't mind going for a cocktail" smiled Hermione.
"Fine, but I don't want to hear you two review," Draco said seriously.
"Sure, that won't be a problem!" Lily said excitedly,
"Well, let's go then" Hermione added and so the three of them said goodbye to Mrs. Evans and set off for Diagon Alley.
As they arrived Draco's shoulders slumped.
"Really...really, this place?" he groaned looking at the tea shop called, Rosa Lee Teabag.
"What's the matter, too boring for you?" Hermione joked knowing Draco would disagree.
"Yes! Bloody hell, I've been stuck with you two studying for three weeks!" Draco roared as he began to walk away from the tea madwoman.
"You two do whatever you want! But hell, I need to have fun! I'm not a study freak like you two, in case you didn't know!" he added as he walked away.
Lily frowned.
"Well, I guess it's just the two of us," she said.
"So it seems, don't worry about Draco, I'm sure he'll go to some broom shop or something," Hermione said.
"Alright then, today will be our day!" Lily smiled excitedly along with Hermione.
"Now come on, we still have a lot to do before Draco regrets it and comes back" commented Hermione amused.
-Manor Prince
In the meantime, Severus had been busy these days.
He took the time to diligently review all the investments he was making and how they were progressing.
After reading all about the current market, he came to understand the big picture of everything that was happening in the magical and Muggle world.
Severus wrote several letters to different companies and industries around the world, he was planning to invest and buy several companies that were going through very complicated economic situations at the moment.
The Muggle world was constantly growing and this also brought a crisis for industries as there was a great economic inflation, and all the prices of existing goods and services in the market started to increase constantly.
All materials such as metals began to rise in price rapidly, something that would complicate his future plans, but he would manage, as he bought the metal smelters.
The world also had a problem with the workers who started to demand a wage increase that the industries could not pay with the massive increase of things, so they ended up going on strikes which increased the social and political crisis.
This gave Severus even more reason to go ahead with his plans to create droids to do the work.
Many companies started to lag behind and ended up closing down.
Everything was constantly changing, but this crisis was something Severus wanted to take advantage of to gain wealth and a lot of power.
It was the perfect time to invest if you had the money and a viable project.
And Severus not only had wealth but also had a lot of useful knowledge to use.
After sending the letters with the different offers he was making to each company, Severus moved on to his other objective.
Currently, the only thing that identified the Prince in the magical world was the potion factory they owned along with a few shops where they distributed and sold their potions.
With 51% of the shares, the Prince family usually receives only 7000 gallons per month, from which they deduct all the expenses that the family has, leaving only a profit of 2000 gallons per month.
When added to the gallons earned from the shares of other magical companies, the Prince family earns a total of approximately 3000 gallons per month.
Compared to the salary of a senior official in the Ministry of Magic, who earns between 700 and 1000 gallons, this may sound like a lot, but it is not when you consider the investment made in the factory.
For this reason, Severus planned to use several of the potions he had created to increase the popularity and profitability of the Prince Potions factory.
On top of all this, he was going to add the profits he would be making in the Muggle world.
Severus wanted to move forward and place himself at the centre of the magical and Muggle economy.
Only then would he be able to accelerate his plans.
He had already begun the necessary steps to set up the branch of his industry in the Muggle world.
Gradually, everything was coming together as he wanted it to, it was only a matter of time...
After finishing the last things for his future plans, Severus went to train.
Severus began an intense training regimen for his body but quickly found himself making revisions as he adapted quite quickly.
His body was finally starting to get into an acceptable state.
In just these few weeks, Severus had already reached the level of a Jedi knight, but he was still far from being in peak form.
He also began to experiment with his wand and the Force.
Every time he tried to replicate a spell without a wand, he was amazed at how easy it was to cast spells with the wand.
It was incredibly tedious to use magic spells without a wand, but he had made great progress.
Though he wasn't going to deny that he was also a little frustrated by the exaggerated difference between using and not using a wand.
"It is rather unfair to think that a wand can make things that should take years of arduous training to learn so much easier," sighed Severus.
He had also discovered that the effect of dark magic on some wands was very weak, almost to the point that some wands refused to make use of such magic.
This had caught Severus' attention, but he concluded that it was due to the core and the tree from which the wand was made.
Depending on whether it was more aligned with the Light Side of the Force on the planet or the Dark Side.
This concluded his conjecture that each being had a symbiosis with a particular side of the Force on this planet and that they were not neutral.
Regardless of all that happened by using the dark side of the Force, Severus did not believe that it was bad or good.
He concluded that the potential of the Light and Dark Sides lay in the user, not in the Force itself.
There was no inherent evil in the Force.
The user of that power is responsible for whether it is evil or good.
However, it is important to clarify that the use of the Force of the Dark Side requires one to have an extraordinary mentality and willpower or one will be corrupted.
Both the Light and Dark sides could be used as long as the intent was not evil and a balance was maintained between the two.
Severus saw the dark side as something inside himself to be avoided, not something in the Force.
He reasoned that if the Force was the energy that flows through all life, the dark side simply came from the corruption of the various life forms in the Universe.
If one could maintain one's morality and ethics, one could be immune to the dark side by maintaining a balance and therefore could use any technique one wanted as long as one maintained this balance.
In short, one can make use of the Dark Side of the Force but one must be extremely careful with its use and must always be moderate so as not to be corrupted.
-Muggle London, 1 August 1976.
Severus sighed as he sipped his drink from his glass.
He walked out of the technology exhibit once again disappointed by the things he had just seen.
To everyone else, the exhibits were new and interesting, but to Severus, it was ancient, very ancient history.
Now it was the beginning of August, it had been almost a month and a half since Snape had merged with Vader and he had met Hermione and Draco.
He had spent most of that time training his physique, the Force, and the different magics of this planet.
He had also put the Prince's family business, potions, back on track and had come up with several new potions and others that were more efficient than the ones that already existed.
Severus had been very busy with the potions factory, but now luckily the production of potions at Prince's Factory was going quite fast, all the potion makers who worked there were quite capable of brewing potions according to the instructions.
So, once Severus explained to them what they had to do and how they had to do it, it didn't take them long to get the potions properly prepared, so mass production had already started a few days ago.
The only problem was that Severus had to talk to the British Ministry of Magic after the news came out that the Prince's factory had started selling new potions.
This was because the only one with the power to do that was the Lord of Prince House, which meant that he had to reveal himself, but now he didn't care.
Now that Severus had stabilised his situation, he no longer bothered to hide his status as the new Lord of the Prince family, Severus Prince.
The Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot did not take kindly the fact that Severus did not announce to them that he was the current heir and Lord of the Prince Family.
But they couldn't do much about it either, especially when most of the Noble families were interested in re-opening pending negotiations with the Princes or making new ones.
Besides, for the last years, the Prince family had been affiliated with the Ministry of Magic, so they were "supporting" them.
But Severus made it clear that the Prince family would not take sides in the current conflict and would be neutral, just like several other Noble families.
This made the Ministry quite indignant, but at the moment they don't want to make enemies like the Prince, their situation with the Dark Lord already has their hands tied.
So things turned out much better than Severus had expected, for now at least...
Today Severus went to see a technology exhibition in London, at first he was going to go alone, but when Hermione found out she insisted on going with him, she even managed to convince Draco to join them.
The funny thing was that he wasn't the only one who was disappointed, as Hermione was also quite bored with the limited technology on display.
In fact, the most intrigued was Draco who didn't know most of the things on display.
It was obvious that he had never lived in the Muggle world or used its technology.
To be honest, Severus didn't care about the technology of this world, he just went to get an idea of the impression this technology made on the people of this time.
If he wanted to introduce new technology to this planet, he couldn't do it carelessly, he would have to go slowly and make people adapt and this exhibition gave him an idea.
"So you guys liked the exhibit?" Hermione asked trying not to show on her face how boring she had found it.
"Hmm, it was really good," Severus joked.
"Magic is better" Draco clarified shamelessly as he was the one who enjoyed the exhibition the most.
Hermione rolled her eyes at Draco's comment and looked at Severus.
"Well, it was... interesting, thanks for the tickets, Severus," Hermione smiled embarrassed that she had actually insisted on coming but hadn't enjoyed the exhibition, but she would never admit that.
"Oh, I'm glad to hear that because I have tickets to two more exhibitions this month and you could join me," grinned Severus amused at Hermione's frown.
She hid it very well, though.
"Sure..., I'd be delighted..." she smiled tensely.
"I suppose I wouldn't mind going," Draco added emotionlessly, but it was very clear to Hermione and Severus that he was interested in the idea.
"I still don't understand how you got the tickets" Hermione commented staring at Severus.
"Oh, that's because I was invited, nothing important," Severus replied.
"You were invited?" Hermione asked again.
"That's right," Severus nodded and smiled mysteriously.
"I see..." said Hermione with a frown, even though she had a lot of questions she decided not to bother him, she already knew that when he wanted to say something he was quite direct in the matter.
So she didn't bother to ask any more questions, knowing that he would just dodge her.
The truth was that since Severus had created Skywalker Industries, he had been making several investments, especially in technology.
It was then that the organisers of the technology exhibitions contacted him to invite him to participate in three exhibitions that would be taking place in the month of August.
They naively thought he would spend money on other people's stuff when he could create his own.
"So what do you say we go back, with Draco we take the exam in three days, we'll have to go over everything," said Hermione.
"No I won't, I already told you I'm not going to keep studying, so I won't," said Draco.
"Draco we have to..." Hermione continued to insist him.
"Hermione, we already know basically everything we need to pass the ordinary level exams and that's good enough to have the OWL level and get into Hogwarts, I don't think reading any further will help us at all" commented Draco.
"You're wrong Draco, there are a lot of things we have to go over if we want to have extraordinary in every subject" replied Hermione as if it was obvious.
"Having everything extraordinary is really so necessary, isn't one TIMO enough for you?" Draco complained.
"No, and you should learn from Severus, he has extraordinary in every subject except for Transfiguration."
"Huh?, and what does that have to do with us?"
"We can't aim any lower than that, Draco," Hermione said.
"Besides, the TIMOS are very important, they affect the jobs we'll be able to apply for and everything" she added firmly.
"It doesn't do any good to study that hard."
"Yes, it does..."
Severus just chuckled, he couldn't help it, the way they were acting reminded him so much to him and Obi-Wan.
They both heard Severus chuckle and turned around in surprise.
Severus ignored their stares and walked past them, his head full of nostalgic memories of his past or future life.
"Hey, Hermione, did he laugh?" Draco's eyes snapped open and he asked in shock.
" Kind cute..." she mumbled as she quickly put her hand over her mouth as she realised what she said.
She looked at Draco in embarrassment to see if he had heard her, but thankfully it seemed that he hadn't.
"What was that?" asked Draco.
"Nothing!" Hermione replied.
Draco looked at her quizzically for a moment but then shook his head and continued to think about what he had just seen.
Hermione sighed.
Then the two of them followed behind Severus and returned to Prince Manor.
-Diagon Alley, 5 August 1976
Hermione and Draco had already passed their Hogwarts entrance exams and Lily invited them to celebrate.
"So, I saw on the news that the Prince factory has come out with a lot of new potions and I hear Severus Prince is the Lord of the family now, that must be his cousin, right?" commented Lily as she took a sip of her drink.
She had seen in the paper that the Prince were mentioned and was very intrigued to know more about Draco and Hermione's family.
Lily only knew that they had a distant cousin who lived here.
Now she knew that person's name was Severus Prince, Lily laughed at the thought that with all the trouble she had been having in her head over her ex-friend, now it turned out that their cousin had the same name.
It was as if life was playing a joke on her.
Draco and Hermione got a little nervous at what Lily said, but they didn't show it on their faces.
Severus had already shown his identity to the Ministry so they were no longer forbidden to talk about him, but it would be awkward to tell Lily about him.
Especially since they were not supposed to "know" that they knew each other.
"Yeah..., our cousin's actually been doing a lot of things these past few days," Draco nodded.
"That's great, come to think of it we never talked about him..."
"He must be good at potions right..., with all the improvements in potions he made along with the new ones they started making " Lily began to ask excitedly.
She had never talked about this with them before because of the embarrassment she felt when they told her that their families had died.
But now that the conversation had come up she had the opportunity and was excited to find out more about the two of them.
Draco and Hermione looked at each other for a few seconds until they both sighed in defeat.
"Well, he doesn't like that we talk about him too much, he's very reserved, but yeah, he's a genius at potions," Hermione said surprising Lily.
"Wow..., Hmm, so you two don't talk to him much?" asked Lily intrigued.
"Not about our lives, but we usually practice magic and other activities together," said Draco.
"Huh...Why?, aren't you family?" Lily was confused, being the only three Prince's left, it was strange that they weren't more supportive of each other.
"As I said, he is quite reserved, plus it's a good thing he's let us live with him, he's a great support," said Hermione.
"I see..." Lily understood what they meant.
Not many wizards from noble houses like the Prince's would accept distant relatives who had no close ties to them and neither Hermione nor Draco were likely to have figured in their family tree so their cousin had done them a great favour by welcoming them into the family.
Seeing that the atmosphere had become a little tense, Lily decided not to ask any more questions despite her curiosity.
In another time she could ask more questions, but now they were celebrating.
Now was not the time to be thinking about complicated things.
Changing the conversation they began to talk about Hogwarts, the subjects they had decided to attend, and several other activities.
In this way, the three of them spent the whole day.