-Hogwarts, 25th November 1976
The day after the incident at the castle everything had been " solved".
Severus spoke to the head of Slytherin and managed to convince him to finally do something to control the situation...
And to everyone's surprise, Professor Slughorn took action, and very soon all the pages of parchment that said "THE BEGINNING OF VOLDEMORT'S RISE TO POWER" that were in Slytherin were either burnt or taken out.
In the other houses the situation was the same, Amelia told the Head of House in Ravenclaw and he took it upon himself to talk to the Heads of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff to remove all these pages from their houses.
Of course, these three had thought about talking to Slughorn so that he would do the same, but Amelia informed them that she had already spoken to Severus Prince and that he would take care of informing the Head of Slytherin about everything.
The Heads of the other three houses doubted that Severus could convince the proud Slughorn to do anything, but it wasn't long before they found out that he had succeeded and that Slytherin had also returned everything to "normal" thanks to the intervention of their Head of House.
In addition to this, Headmaster Dumbledore was personally present to remove from the castle all the pages of parchment that were in the many corridors, rooms, and stairs.
With his help, it was only a matter of moments before the castle was restored to its former state.
And today, the 25th of November, Severus had arranged to watch the second Quidditch match of the tournament between Ravenclaw and Slytherin with Pandora.
This was going to be an interesting match as both Olivia Greengrass and Amelia Bones were going to be playing against each other.
Severus arranged to watch the Quidditch match with Pandora to take advantage of the fact that she didn't seem to care much about the result and even though Severus enjoys watching Quidditch matches a bit as they make him remember various things from the past, he doesn't really have any preference as to who wins.
Today Severus was wearing a white shirt, as usual, the typical Slytherin tie, his black waistcoat over the top, and his robes covering him along with black trouser.
Although this was the usual outfit for most young wizards in Hogwarts, being all suited, with a few personal touches to better suit his body and mobility, it looked very good, it was unfortunate that they didn't allow him to wear anything other than the Hogwarts stipulated clothing, but at least Severus did a good job with what he had.
Severus was ready to meet Pandora, and honestly, he was quite curious to know the outcome of the match between Slytherin and Ravenclaw, even though he as Snape went to several matches, he never paid attention to how Olivia or Amelia played, so he wanted to see this as well.
Once he arrived at the meeting point, he waited for Pandora, a few minutes passed and she didn't come, so, with nothing else to do, he sat down and began to read quietly.
Several minutes passed and Pandora arrived just in time, her hair was a mess and her clothes weren't much better.
Still, she approached him and greeted him with a smile.
"It's good to see you Sev, did you have to wait too much?"
"Just a few minutes nothing important, now tell me, did something happen?" said Severus with a raised eyebrow as he saw how she seemed to have gone through a rather complicated situation, her appearance almost made him remember how Padme looked after... well... after doing some intimate things together.
Of course, he wouldn't think Pandora did such a thing..., though anything was possible.
She just smiled embarrassed though her embarrassment was only for knowing that she left him waiting, if she knew what Severus remembered seeing her like that she would surely be embarrassed for something else.
"Sorry Sev, it turns out I wanted to try a new spell today, and well... it didn't go as I expected, and this was the result heh," she said as she pointed to herself.
"I see, maybe next time you'll have better luck, if you need me to give you a hand let me know."
"I'll think about it, thanksss. So..., are you ready to go?" she smiled.
"Sure, like a few minutes ago," Severus joked.
"And you, are you planning on going in that way?" he added.
"Hmm yeah, would you mind?"
"No, Not at all, let's go then."
"Great, then I'm more than ready to leave for the Quidditch match," Pandora said enthusiastically.
"By the way, they didn't say anything to you in Ravenclaw about watching today's match with a Slytherin?" asked Severus just out of curiosity.
"Uh-oh, well, some of them just protested a bit about it being an important match, that they need Ravenclaw's full support and that I can't be with someone from the opposing team..., but nothing important," said Pandora.
Severus just smiled in amusement, she didn't really care about such things.
"There seem to be a lot of Quidditch fans in the magical world who tend to react like that..."
" Yeah, it's quite normal, I know quite a few, but well, my housemates were too excited to discuss much, so they didn't really tell me too much," Pandora said.
The two walked together towards the Quidditch stadium, as they both chatted and joked about everything although the most important topic was the match, Amelia, Olivia, and the new spell Pandora was trying out.
They both arrived at the Quidditch stadium just in time for the match to start in a few minutes, apparently, their chatting on the way there delayed them a little, but luckily they were on time, although if they had been late, neither would have minded too much.
But since Olivia and Amelia were playing in the game, they didn't want to miss it either.
The game lasted a few hours.
The Ravenclaw players and students were victorious as they were the ones who won the game, apparently, it was a hard-fought game until Ravenclaw's seeker managed to catch the golden snitch...
A good game where both teams could have won and both Olivia and Amelia had a great game.
Even though Slytherin lost, there were almost no snakes complaining about the result, a rather quiet atmosphere...
Although there were a lot of frustrated students for not being able to win.
As well as many Ravenclaws celebrating the victory.
Now if Slytherin's defeat had been against Hufflepuff or Gryffindor, Severus was convinced that the snakes would be quite angry.
The first to leave were the Slytherin players while the Ravenclaw players stayed for a while.
As the students began to leave the stadium, Severus joined Pandora and they decided to go and congratulate Amelia.
…..
- Hogwarts, December 12th.
The night sky stretched over Hogwarts and Gryffindor Tower.
In the women's dormitories in Gryffindor, Lily Evans closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and leaning a little closer against the window frame of her room.
The cold, the darkness, the stars, the flecks of light on the glassy lake, they were beautiful.
They were among the most beautiful things Lily could imagine, especially when she remembered how she used to spend her first days at Hogwarts far away from home, far away from her parents...
When she was just starting Hogwarts her first years were difficult, she had a hard time adjusting to being away from her parents for so long, in a completely new world...
Yes, it was exciting, it was magnificent, it was magical...
Who wouldn't want to live in a magical world?
But she always had a good life with her family and her mates in the Muggle world, so even though everything was magical, it was still hard to be away from everything she knew.
It was those nights when she felt furthest away from her family that Severus used to sneak off with her into the castle to look up at the night sky and tell her all sorts of stories in an attempt to distract her a little.
Lily could only laugh at the thought of the nervous and tense expressions Severus' face made when she looked like she was about to cry.
He was a genius at many things, but when it came to dealing with feelings, emotions, or a crying girl, he was a disaster, but at least he tried, despite the awkwardness, he always had when faced with such situations.
Severus' attempts to help her may never have been very efficient, but his company was enough to make her feel comfortable in those cold, dark, depressing moments.
Those moments and memories were the ones that made her fall in love with the night landscape...
That's why there were days when she used to spend hours looking at this landscape like today, but this had to end.
"Lily, are you awake?" came Marlene's voice from her own bed, and Lily turned to see her friend, peering through the curtains of her bed.
She was still mostly lost in the landscape and memories.
"You know this is the fifth night already."
'It was the fourth' Lily thought, but she didn't argue the point because she knew it was true that ever since she had returned to Hogwarts this year she had been getting lost in her memories as she looked at the nightscape, she had already been several nights without a proper night's sleep.
"Go back to sleep, Mar."
But her friend just rolled her eyes and stood up and walked over to her, then Marlene stared at her seriously.
Sighing, Lily turned her gaze away, rested her chin on her hands, and closed her eyes, praying for sleep ... just five or six hours ...
The fourth night in a row... The fourth sleepless, beautiful, exhausting night in a row.
And the seventh time this month.
'A new record' thought Lily considering it hadn't been that long since December had started.
"Lily!" called back the voice of her friend who was now standing in front of her.
Lily turned her head away, she didn't want to pay attention to her, she didn't want to be kept away from this...
"Lily, it's 9:30 at night!"
"So?" asked Lily, it wasn't that late yet, well she might have missed dinner at eight but she doubted Marlene would get up just to tell her that...
'Shit' suddenly she remembered something important, Lily's eyes widened and now there was also Alice standing over her next to Marlene, her hands on her perfectly slim hips, while one brown eyebrow was arched.
Even Alice had come to the dormitory to fetch her, that must be why Marlene stood up.
"You slept on the windowsill again and missed dinner, Lily," Marlene said, as Lily stood up.
"Alice. Is it 9:30?" asked Lily ignoring what Marlene said, she didn't have time to argue about it.
Alice nodded.
"So our partners...?"
"They went to the feast half an hour ago. When I saw you weren't with your partner I assumed you were here again lost in your thoughts, so I told them to wait for us there and that we would go later," Alice said.
"Or would you rather not go?" she asked.
"No, it's fine, just give me a few minutes and I'll be ready," Lily said and then looked around the dormitory, trying to find her clothes for the party.
Alice, with a slight smile on her painted pink lips, pointed to Lily's bed.
"Thanks," Lily said grabbing her clothes and heading to the dresser.
"You know, you should talk to Poppy," said Marlene who was now sitting on her bed.
"What do you mean?" asked Lily, only half paying attention as she quickly changed and put on her makeup.
"Well, maybe Poppy could tell you what's been going on with you lately."
Lily gazed with her green eyes at Marlene in her mirror reflection.
"It's nothing serious..."
"Probably not," Alice said interjecting into the conversation.
"But it's affecting you, that's for sure" she added.
"Oh... yes, umm well, it probably has something to do with school being so stressful lately and you know... all the rest of it..." said Lily running a hand over her soft, beautiful red hair and deciding that she would have to comb it a bit.
"Right" Marlene nodded,
"I'm sure it is for that, but Poppy could help with it" she added.
Lily bit down on her fleshy red lip leaving a faint mark on her white teeth from the red rouge she was wearing.
"What about you two? Are you... Losing sleep...?"
"Oh no, I'm fine, sure I have my days with some boys, but nothing serious, well...studying can be a pain but only that" Marlene replied lightly.
Nodding Lily turned to look at Alice.
"Neither, I mean, maybe once in a while, but nothing serious, considering... you know..., Frank's position," Alice said, her tone of voice a little louder and more concerned than usual.
Yes, her boyfriend Frank Longbottom was already an Auror and part of the Order of the Phoenix...
Given the recent events in the magical world with the Dark Lord and his followers creating chaos, it's only natural that she would be worried about him.
Especially now that the threat seems to be getting worse every day, since what happened on the 1st of November it seems that the Dark Lord stopped caring about the consequences of his actions, it was no longer a war in the shadows, now it was public...
Now the entire magical community knew about him and feared him...
If before the people and the newspaper preferred to pretend that everything was under control, now it was impossible to continue thinking that, there was a war and no one could be sure that the Ministry of Magic would manage to win it.
"Alice..., I'm sure Frank will be fine, he's a very skilled and strong wizard, he knows how to take care of himself."
"I know, thank you, Lily" Alice just smiled.
"Now hurry up we're going to be very late already" she added.
A few minutes passed and Lily was finally ready.
"Alright shall we go then?" asked Alice.
"Yes, let's go" sighed Lily as she looked in the mirror at her reflection deprived of sleep, she was already tired just thinking about how much talking she would have to do at the feast, especially since they would ask her why she was so late, she would have to come up with some excuse.
Alice shook her head already knowing what she was thinking.
"We'll see you later, Mar."
"Right. See you, have a good time you two..." said Marlene.
"Oh and ... Lily... I'm sure it's nothing bad, but just in case try to relax with your partner, I'm sure he'll be more than happy to help you" she joked with a coquettishly smile as she winked at her.
Lily just rolled her eyes, Marlene had a lot of strange ideas...
She finally left the room with Alice and they both headed for Professor Slughorn's party.
…..
- Hogwarts, December 12th
In the last weeks, Draco and Hermione were always in a good mood, they always spent a lot of time chatting and socialising with everyone in Gryffindor and other houses.
After the two of them killed the basilisk with Severus' help, they took the opportunity of their trip to Hogsmeade to go on their own to the forest outside the village of Little Hangleton where the Gaunt Shack was located, which was the ancestral home of the Gaunt family.
Yes... they went there to look for one of only two Horcruxes they knew where it was at this time.
Both of them knew that after the death of the Gaunt family, the house was deserted and that Lord Voldemort decided to use this place to hide one of his Horcruxes, which was the Gaunt ring.
They visited the small ruined hut and found the ring.
Hermione along with Draco found the ring under the floorboards in the ruins of the house in a golden box with some sort of curse placed on it.
Of course, it was not easy to access this Horcrux as they both had to deal with many powerful spells that protected the place from intruders such as themselves.
It was Draco who destroyed the ring with one of the fangs that had the basilisk venom in it...
Well, actually, Hermione wanted to do it on her own, but Draco's reasoning telling her that it was better for him to experience for the first time how it felt to destroy one was enough to convince her to let him do it while she watched that everything went well, after all, she already had experience dealing with Horcruxes and he did not.
Now... they had actually thought about finding and destroying Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem first, as they knew it was at Hogwarts in the Room of Requirement among the many other things in the Room of Hidden Things...
But Hermione thought that the Diadem could be very useful, so once they found it they didn't destroy it instantly, but kept it..., she was still researching some method by which she could destroy the Horcrux without destroying the Diadem.
After they destroyed the ring, Hermione was in charge of safekeeping the Resurrection Stone.
It came as a shock to them when they returned to Hogwarts and found out everything that happened in Hogsmeade with the Dementors, the giants, and the death eaters.
They regretted not being there when such a bad situation required them but were relieved to know that there were no deaths among the students.
This new incident finally made them realise how much their time travel had begun to alter things, as that attack on Hogsmeade village should never have happened, or at least not on that day.
They were also quite intrigued by Alice and Lily's description of the figure in black who had helped everyone and who apparently wasn't a death eater...
Draco and Hermione thought that maybe it could be Severus...
Of course, that was only because of the description of the sword that was similar to the one he had used against the basilisk, but beyond that, they couldn't draw any more conclusions and they weren't going to ask him directly.
Also, they didn't think it was possible that Severus could do all those strange movements Alice and Lily mentioned that this figure did, neither that he could defeat those giants on his own with that sword..., but the doubt remained.
Until then they could only be grateful that this figure in black had decided to intervene to help.
Another surprise was what they read in the newspaper about the attacks of the Dark Lord's followers on different villages, the Minister of Magic and the former minister who ended up being killed along with her whole family.
Anyway, in the past few weeks, Hermione and Lily had become good friends, although she was still not as close to her as Alice and Marlene.
Hermione was also beginning to accept that James was not yet Lily's current love interest and that it would take time for that to happen, after all, it was only in the 7th year that James Potter began to mature and behave that Lily really took notice of him.
The marauders also became closer and more friendly with Hermione and Draco, telling jokes and even laughing at many things with Draco, with Sirius being the one who got the closest to him.
As strange as it sounded, Draco and Sirius seemed to have a lot in common and Sirius Black loved the idea of having a partner to flirt with young women, and with his friend James Potter getting more and more lost in just Lily Evans, it was great for him to have a new partner to pick up girls.
Initially, Draco seemed very uncomfortable, as it was strange to get along with the Marauders, but strangely he didn't have a bad time hanging out with them...
Although he and Hermione always kept an eye on Peter Pettigrew, even though that rat was not yet the despicable man he had been in the future, they couldn't be too safe around him.
Still, none of these things stopped the Marauders from playing a lot of pranks on the two of them...
Although with Hermione they were much more reserved and careful since she hung out with Lily a lot and James didn't want to leave a bad impression on his crush.
Draco wasn't as lucky as her as in his own dormitory the marauders had played all sorts of pranks on him, although he always got back at them, but this only made them get along even better with each other...
Yes..., unlike with Severus who was a Slytherin, with Draco who was a Gryffindor who didn't let himself be teased so easily, and who also used to give Avery and Mulciber a good kicking, the marauders were quite pleased with him.
Well..., Sirius and James had a hard time accepting that they were familiar with Severus and that they had a good relationship with him, something Sirius Black and James Potter hated so much, but they reluctantly agreed, after all, they thought Severus was supposed to be the only family the "Prince" had left.
During this time, more and more news of attacks appeared in the newspapers about the Dark Lord and his followers, all of which clearly indicated that Voldemort was more active than ever.
This only made Draco and Hermione's interest in finding the 3 missing Horcruxes even greater.
But, despite all this, Draco and Hermione couldn't help but feel pretty good lately, things may have changed quite a bit but now they had already destroyed one Horcrux, were in possession of another, and only had three more left...
Besides, their practice with Severus had greatly improved both of their skills in magical dueling.
And their relationship with him was also quite good, even though they used to hang out with Lily, her friends, the marauders, and other Gryffindors, he never seemed bothered by it and never said anything to them about it...
In fact, to this day, Hermione was still in charge of summarising everything that Dorbuck the Prince's goblin manager at Gringotts would send Severus...
Yes, since she had helped him make a detailed summary of all the Prince's investments along with their total value, Severus had decided to give her a job in the Prince family in exchange for galleons, something she had accepted immediately since money was what they needed most at the moment with Draco.
It was strange working for Severus, but she got used to it pretty quickly and she even liked doing it since they had a lot in common so they could do things together efficiently and quickly, she was pretty sure that he had given her the job for that reason.
Today December 12th Hermione was getting ready to go to Professor Slughorn's feast, even though it was her first year at Hogwarts she had been invited by the professor because she got twelve Outstanding O.W.L.s.
And her date was none other than Remus Lupin...
Yes, he had been invited to go too.
Now, Remus used to go to every Slugh Club meeting or party with Lily, but this time she had been invited to go by the same 7th-year boy she had gone to Hogsmeade.
Lily was certainly grateful to this Ravenclaw for going to find a teacher to help them when they were in trouble, of course, she was a little disappointed that he had gone without helping them with the Slytherins that were intimidating Sirius and James, but she couldn't deny that he had a point in what he said that day either...
That was exactly why Lily had agreed to go with him to the party, of course, she had first asked Hermione if she could go with Remus since she didn't want to leave him alone...
And Hermione was delighted to do it, she had always wanted to get closer to Remus, but he never allowed it, so this was a good opportunity.
Hermione knew that Lily might have misunderstood some things, as she probably thought that since she always seemed to be looking to get closer to Lupin, she might be interested in him.
But since it didn't really bother her that Lily thought that, Hermione preferred to let her think that rather than tell her the real reasons.
On the other hand, in these weeks James became more and more fierce in his attempts on Lily after he found out that she wouldn't be going with Lupin like she always used to and that she would be going on another date with this 7th-year Ravenclaw.
It was more fun than anything else to watch these days James' unsuccessful attempts at flirting with Lily.
…..
Severus Prince sat quietly in the corridor waiting outside the Ravenclaw common room for Amelia Bones to appear.
So here he was, dressed in a simple white shirt that perfectly accentuated his body along with a black suit and black trousers.
Finally, he looked up as he heard the sound of someone coming out of the common room, and to his great delight, it was Amelia.
She dressed in simple black clothes just like him, she was wearing a sweater with long sleeves that only covered to the top of her stomach, leaving her beautiful soft white skin of her belly exposed, and along with this, she was wearing a long black skirt that fitted her body, revealing her beautiful figure.
Today Amelia had her blonde hair down, her eyes blue and her white skin tone looked great in contrast to the black colour of her clothes.
Observed him as she looked around the corridor.
She walked over to him when she saw him and he stood up.
"Wow, you look good" she commented, glancing at him.
"Thanks, it must be true if the compliment is coming from you" Severus joked.
"By the way, you look great too" he added with a smile.
"Oh, thanks, I can say the same for a compliment from you" she smiled amused.
"I don't know what you mean" Severus replied pretending ignorance.
Amelia just rolled her eyes at his audacity.
"So, would you like to walk together? I mean, we're going to Slughorn's, aren't we?" she asked.
"Yes, I do, and sure, let's go," Severus replied offering his arm for her to take.
"Quite a gentleman," she said playfully as she took hold of Severus' arm.
" Let's go then, I don't want to be too late. Otherwise, Slughorn won't leave us alone the whole night," she added with a soft laugh.
Severus only nodded with a faint smile and the two of them walked down the corridor together in the direction of Professor Slughorn's feast.