The last chapter before the end-chapter/epilogue starts crying Okay, enough with the sappy stuff. Kathryn (since I bet you are the only one left reading this) I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm sorry the overdrive scene is so short (only one or two lines) I know you love them but I hope chapter 19 gave you enough satisfaction for that.

Lierin had to cover her eyes to protect them against the bright devine light.

A wonderful warm feeling engulfed her, washing her fear, pain and worries away. A little seed of hope blossomed inside her and Lierin welcomed it. Slowly she started to walk and noticed that the pain in her leg was gone. A soft warm myst surrounded her and Lierin assumed that she had failed, that she had died.

"Hello?" she yelled, hoping that a welcoming angel would guide her around or at least tell her what was going to happen next. Of course there was no reply.

"Hello, Lierin. You do not have to fear.  You have reached your goal.

Or our goal to be exact. Congratulations."

Lierin turned around quickly and sure enough they were there. Gryffindor, Helga, Rowena and Salazar. They were all smiling at her and for some unexplainable reason they seemed to be proud of her. Proud!

Lierin choked back a few tears. Rowena stuck out her arms but a sad smile appeared on her face as she lowered them.

"If I could, I would hug you. You did splendidly darling. Just splendid."

"Why?" asked Lierin, tears running down her face, "Why are you smiling at me? You should hex me to Hades!"

"Why to Hades?" asked Helga, then she smiled, "Ah, let me guess. You're heathen dog from Hades theory."

Lierin groaned.

"No, not you too!"

Gryffindor erupted in a fit of laughter.

"Yes, we too!" he roared happily, "You have no idea how often you made us laugh."

"And cry," added Helga.

"And cheer," said Rowena.

"Most of the time we just shook our heads in dismay though!" came Salazar's reply in his familiar cocky manner. But Lierin knew him well, the small twitching of his lip didn't go unnoticed.

"Still, why are you not angry with me? I ruined everything. The plan, the goblet, the school, the students. It was all my fault. Goderic, you warned me so many times not to let my feelings cloud my judgement. But that's exactly what happened!"

"My dear, you were in love. You still are! You couldn't have known about our friend Pettigrew's betrayal," he replied.

"Pettigrew? What does he have to do with this?"

"Well, in the world you just came from, he betrayed Harry's parents by reveiling their hiding place. Ask Remus and Sirius. They know all about it."

"What you don't know however, is that he betrayed you as well," said Rowena, "He betrayed you, Severus, Remus and Sirius in our time. That's why you were the ones we appointed as the key persons in the Clouds of Time."

"I knew him of course, but what did he do. How did he betray me?"

"Just think about it, Lierin. Who was the filthy rat who convinced you that Severus killed Remus? Which leech convinced Severus that Remus was trying to keep him away from you?" Salazar hissed.

At this moment her mind just refused to co-operate. It was too awful to think about.  Lierin refused to believe she had been so easy to manipulate.

"No, you must be wrong. He said he had witnessed..."

"Right. He said. The plan was easy. Voldemort knew we were up to something and attacked the weakest link. No offence, but your feelings indeed clouded your judgement," Salazar said.

"Right, he began with Remus of course. Told him that Severus was spending way too much time with you. In response Remus tried to strengthen his bond with you by spending more and more time with you." Helga continued.

"And Severus was his next victim. He told him that Remus was against his relationship with you and that he was trying to keep him away from you," Goderic said, "Of course you know what Severus is like. Instead of talking about it, he began to fight with you. Peter only had to wait for the right time to act. Unfortunately for him, Sirius found out about the scheme so Peter had to find a way to set him up. So, knowing that Sirius would go after him if her were spotted, he let a few people see him and thus set the trap."

Salazar took over again.

"And of course Sirius fell for it. He chased him and just like Peter did inside the barrier, he blew up the street and staged his death. But the dementors never took him to Azkaban like they did inside the barrier. Outside it, he hung himself.

He was too ashamed that he was the one who had given Pettigrew the opportunity to betray the Potters. You were the one who found him, remember?"

Lierin had a flashback from her vision. She saw the man with black hair and his bulging eyes staring into forgetfulness. Again she saw his tongue, sticking out of his mouth all swollen and blue. Again she saw the cord around his neck. It had been Sirius she had seen in her vision. She nodded her head.

"Peter had succeeded in his plan. Sirius was dead and unable to warn Remus about the scheme plotted against him, you and Severus. Now Peter could carry out the last phase of the plan. There was no one left to stop him from murdering Remus and there was no one to keep you from believing Peter that Severus had killed Remus in a fit of rage."

"And there was no one left to keep me from handing Voldemort the goblet with the ruby, filled with the elixir of life," she whispered.

"This goblet in turn for Severus. Dead."

"That can be arranged."

The words of downfall. The beginning of the end.

No one said a thing.

"But why go through all this trouble? I mean, things happened in an entirely different manner in an entirely different order. And now Voldemort managed to get his hands on the original Goblet of Might."

"But we couldn't know that now could we? We just wanted to go back to the time when Pettigrew was manipulating you, we ended up eighthundred years in the past instead. Do you realise how difficult it was to guide you to Hogwarts where we left you our diaries? Do you have any idea how hard it was to predict your courses of action?"

"I bet it was very hard indeed. But does it matter now? I mean, I'm not going to betray everyone... The entire reason why we are here is in fact gone, none-existent."

"No it's not, when we summoned the clouds, we used that same prophecy.

In order to banish the clouds and turn everything back to normal, the prophecy must be fullfilled! We already guessed things would be different, so we kept the prophecy as vague as possible." Goderic said and glanced at a worried Rowena.  

"Lierin, sweety. You have to go back now. Hogwarts is almost gone and the dementors have Severus surrounded. You and him are the last persons to reconcile. But first you must vanquish the dementors," Rowena said softly.

"But the prophecy... what about Remus and Sirius?"

"Remus already took care of that, as he was the only one left allowed to reveil the secrets of the clouds. Sirius no longer blames himself for the death of Lily and James. Severus finally gave up his grudge against Remus. He no longer blames him for keeping him away from you. He might not show it... at least not very often. But that man deeply loves you."

"No, he doesn't! He hates me. He can't love, there's no love inside him!"

"Yes there is! Just because his father beat every bit of feeling out og him, doesn't mean he's not able to learn!" Goderic said. Lierin started to cry, at one hand for Snape and his ruined childhood and at the other hand for herself, for not allowing herself to see past his scars.

"Go Lierin. Go now! It's not too late yet! You know what to do. Look deep in your heart and remember Lierin! Show him!"

"But we need the..."

"No! Not this one time! You'll find the power within you! You just havo to remember and let Severus remember as well!"

Slowly the ghosts of Goderic, Helga, Rowena and Salazar vanished and the forcefield lifted. Once she opened her eyes again, she looked right in two black doubtful eyes.

"There's much to be said. And little time to say it." Severus said, barely audible.

Lierin looked around her and noticed hundreds of dementors streaming down the hallways of what was left of Hogwarts towards them.

"Let's just concentrate on them first, shall we? We can talk later!"

"Ah, so you want to expell them with the patronus spell. Don't you think there are a couple of hundred dementors too many?"

"Save your sarcasm for later, Severus. Patching things up quickly won't make the dementors disappear, we have to vanquish them first and then we can lift the barrier. You see, the dementors have have breeched it, dementors are the only creatures able to travel between magical barriers. They must have found our barrier and Voldemort must have ordered them to stop us. We must first completely seperate the two worlds before... No matter, there's no t ime to explain."

They were surrounded by dementors.

"I hope you still remember how to change. You need to draw the power from within you and so do I. So focus!"

Severus opened his mouth to say something but Lierin cut him short.

"Please remember Severus. You know we did this before. And don't mind Achille's ring and Achille's spear. We have to do this on our own!"

Lierin closed her eyes and concentrated. Time took her back to the original Hogwarts, where the entities had also been summoned to protect the school. Now, they had to protect again.

"Cbayg du sa, cbayg du sa, ahdedo rettah eh dra lnocdym'c binedo.

Dyga so vmacr, syga ed cdnuhk, du vyla so ahaseac yc E ku ymuhk.

Ahdedo, ahdedo, huf eh bayla, syga sa ehjehlepma mega Ylremmac!"

The ancient words stopped the dementors dead in their track. Once again Lierin summoned the entity Crejy and this time she did it on her own. Severus focused hard and his lips started moving, words formed. Words that Severus hardly remembered, words that he hardly understood.

Tyng Saccakhan eh drec nehk, drec csymm edas oad bufanvimm drehk.

Dyga so vmacr, syga ed cdnuhk, du vyla so ahaseac yc E ku ymuhk.

Ahdedo, ahdedo, huf eh bayla, syga sa ehjehlepma mega Ylremmac.

Diabolical black leather wings sprouted from his back, ripping his robes apart. His eyes grew even darker, all light disappeared from them, long black hair cascaded down his shoulders. A large scimitar appeared in his right hand.

The harvester was ready to reap.

A battle cry welled up from deep inside him and together with Crejy, 

Tyng Saccakhan charged towards the dementors ready to slaughter the creatures that couldn't be killed by ordinary wizards. Crejy created her icy forcefield around the enemies and Tyng Saccakhan created a black forcefield by swirling the scimitar around, they directed their force of ice and decay towards the dementors, just as the clouds closed around them...