Harry looked around with a kind of wonder on his face he'd not had since his first ever trip to Diagon Alley. Ross was just trying to keep his amusement off his face as he watched the young man look up at the sky to where the Earth was on full display for all to see.
"Didn't the Doctor take you to see much farther in your future than this? I remember you saying something about New Earth," Ross queried.
"Yes, but this is the moon. Earth's moon. I can see the Earth from here," Harry responded.
"I should make an atmospheric bubble and bring you here in your own time if you really want to see something spectacular. This is the forty-second century, there's so much light pollution you can't really even see the stars properly. Welcome to Luna University. By this time both the magic and non magic communities have reunited with each other and live as peacefully beside each other as humans ever do. Meaning a few disputes between neighbours and whatnot but no burnings or major wars between the two populations. All you had to go through, and then Reta Skeeter of all people leaking the story out as best selling books was a major part of all of this you see around you happening."
"She's going to write what?!"
"Sorry Harry. Not a lot we can do about it. For what it's worth she made me seem to be an even worse arse than I actually was. A great achievement considering how much of an arse I was being," Ross apologised.
Harry just sighed. "For the greater good yea?" It wasn't really a question as he looked around him. People from different species were walking around together going to and from classes, or just meeting with friends to go have fun or study. One group were openly practicing some advanced magic, much to the amusement of a small child of an indeterminate species. Robots floated around maintaining the grounds by doing things like tidying and gardening. "I guess I'm used to it."
"For what it's worth your part in it is as over as you want it to be," Ross replied, "it's very much in flux what you decide to do next. Your destiny is your own again. You can do anything you want to."
"So why did you bring me here anyway?" Harry asked.
"Maybe I'm just trying to make up for how I've treated you over the years," Ross replied.
"It's okay. I actually get it. I was used by Dumbledore just as badly as you were. Yet there really wasn't another way. Voldemort wouldn't have taken it well if you had acted fond of me. You were the only one who bothered to tell me the truth about my father. Dumbledore tried to play it off as being a lot like how things were between myself and Draco Malfoy. The two of us hated each other, we would do things to get each other in trouble, but neither of us ever tried to do something that would have gotten the other killed deliberately. Anyway if I still hated you I'd not have spent the last few months hanging out with you almost every day. I can see you're not who you were then. But really why are we here?"
"I don't know."
"How can you not know?" Harry asked, somewhat incredulous.
"Well I got a message from the Doctor to meet him here. Wouldn't tell me why, just to bring you with me. I can tell they found Brax and Narvin, but that's about all I can tell. Speak of the devil and he shall appear…" Rossadelaser trailed off. "Oi! Dahrama shit for brains!"
A man who was rushing by towards what a sign proclaimed to be the theatrical studies department stopped dead in his tracks and looked over. "Who you calling such crude names, fish breath?"
"That the best insult you got? Well Harry take note, it's true what they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks," Ross added.
"Nor can a savanna prey animal come up with good insults," the man replied as he walked over to them.
"Pfft… You just wish you were as cool as me," Ross replied with a grin and shifted into his animal form which looked like a female deer only red with orange spots and highlights.
The man shifted as well into a wolf-like creature that had white fur with blue highlights. The wolf pounced on the deer but at the last second the deer kicked its hind legs up and hit the wolf square in the jaw which dropped it. Bewildered Harry just watched as they shifted back to normal and burst out laughing. They both saw the look on Harry's face and burst into a fresh wave of laughter.
Finally Rossadelaser calmed down enough to say, "It's ok, we're old school friends of sorts. We were just playing. Let me introduce you, Harry this is Irving Braxiatel. Brax I'd like you to meet Harry Potter."
"Pleased to meet you Mr Potter," Brax said to Harry and shook his hand.
"It's just Harry. Rossadelaser here put me off being called Mr Potter for life," he joked.
"Yes sorry about that. He was following the programming I put into his transformation. I did try and mitigate the nasty parts of Snape's personality as much as possible but there was only so much we could do. Some of the Dalek's agents killed the original Severus Snape, Lily Evans and Albus Dumbledore as babies. The three of them volunteered to take their place since they were stuck as babies and needed to grow up as humans anyway. Maybe it had always been this way or maybe you're not the original boy who lived as a result. It's hard to tell really. It all amounts to the same thing though," Brax mused then turned to Ross, "So you got the Doctor's message then?"
"Yes, but why he wanted us to come here I haven't got a clue," Ross stated.
"Ah you don't know. That's so typical of him to try and be so cryptic. Well I suppose it would probably be best for you to see for yourself. If you hurry you should be able to catch up and sit in on her lecture. It's the big tall building with the hanging potion ingredients garden in the magical end of the university. Classroom number PRW 138. Now if you excuse me I need to go teach my own class of unruly students, can't really get out of it until the end of the semester," Brax instructed before saying goodby and running off again in the direction he was originally headed.
"What was that about?" Harry asked.
"I've got no idea, but we probably should do what he said and see where it takes us," Ross replied before leading Harry towards the magical part of the university.
After stopping and asking for directions every so often they found the building and the right classroom. They got in and were greeted by the professor who hadn't started class yet, "Who are you two then?" She asked.
She was rather pretty and seemed familiar to Harry somehow, with her red hair and green eyes. Ross had frozen and was gaping like an idiot so Harry answered, "We were told we should sit in on your class by another professor, Irving Braxiatel."
"Who?" She asked a little confused in the way a name seems familiar but couldn't quite put her finger on why. "Never mind just sign in on the sheet and go sit down. You're in luck we have enough spare for the two of you to join in the practical lesson. We're starting the wolfsbane potion."
"Really? Normally you need to brew it on a full moon, which is a pity because it means a werewolf always has to get the potion from someone else. But we're on the moon so I wonder how that affects things?" Harry mused quietly to Ross as they signed the sheet. He wondered why Ross wrote Severus Snape and not Rossadelaser as he'd insisted on being called since that day in Dumbldore's office. He just replied sheepishly when the man in question gave him a questioning look as they took their seats, "Hey I have actually been paying attention to your classes over the years…. Some of the time. It's something I was interested in actually learning so I could help Remus."
He just shook his head and sighed. "I still need to get you tested for ADD. I swear you manage to mess up the simplest first year potion, yet something really complicated that you really want to learn, no problems."
"I'm not quite that bad. I saved Ron's life once by remembering what you told me in first year about bezoars."
"And the fact I left my old potions text book in the cupboard knowing Slughorn would give it to either yourself or Weasley didn't help you remember at all," he drawled.
"That may have jogged my memory, yes," Harry admitted, "Thanks for that by the way. Not sure I would have made it through sixth year potions without it. I'm guessing you knew I had it long before I messed up with Draco."
"If anything I was the one who messed up not you," he confessed, "I should have looked through the book first and removed anything dangerous. You act so mature sometimes because you were forced to grow up so quickly that I often forget you're just a kid. I was an angry and arrogant arse when I was that age, and done a lot I'm not proud of. You know most of my least proud moments already. Harry, the professor in here she's—"
"Quiet please as I take the roll call, I need to make sure everyone is here that should be since this potion will take multiple classes," the professor in question interrupted. She started calling out names and people answered that they were there or the occasional non answer. She finally got to the bottom of the sheet they signed and she scowled. "Harry Potter and Severus Snape."
There was a burst of laughter throughout the classroom. As both of them answered in the affirmative.
She sighed, "Did Miles or Benny put you up to this?"
"Who? What?" Harry asked, confused.
"You at least I can give a good review of your performance back to Miles. You've got to be one of his students. Props for effort, you got the messy black hair, green eyes, glasses, and even a scar. You though." She turned to Ross. "You need to grow your hair out, remove the dye, and what is that you're wearing?"
"I'm just Severus Snape after he escaped by faking his death and dressed in a way that stops people from recognising me." He stood up and gave a twirl. "I borrowed this coat from the Doctor, he wore it in his sixth incarnation I believe. Got to admit Lily, nothing about this screams Severus Snape."
When Harry heard him call her Lily his jaw almost dropped. He knew why she was so familiar now. "Mum."
She actually laughed. "This is what I get for telling Miles and Benny I had strange dreams about being Harry Potter's mother Lily. Also my name being Lily Evens." She shook her head ruefully. "I practically asked for this. Mr Snape! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
"Aren't you supposed to ask him that," Ross answered pointing at Harry.
"No, he's supposed to be my son, and you are the one that was picking on him so turnabout is fair play," she replied to uproarious laughter from her students. "Let's try again. Snape, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
"I'd look in your ingredients cupboard over there," he replied cheekily.
"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Snape?"
Harry couldn't help it; he burst into laughter along with the others as Rossadelaser just gave her a very Snape-like glare.
Lily continued with the first year potions bit. "What's the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Ross just sighed as everyone laughed around him, but was secretly glad to see Harry doubled over with laughter about this performance. "For your information Lilly, as you well know, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. Very handy for faking the death of meddling old coots. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons, including Nagini's venom. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. So how did I do?"
"You'll do," she replied with a smile. "Alright class, enough fun for now, we need to make a start on this potion."
-x-x-x-x-x-
The Doctor watched as Rossadelaser and 'Lily' argued with each other in the bar. They had gone to one of her classes and followed her after. She stubbornly refused to believe the truth as Ross explained it to her, and Narvin and Brax interject with facts to fill in the gaps.
"Look, Miles, Marvin you got me good, but really you guys can cut the act now. First all the stuff about Lily Evans then about being a Time Lord or whatever named Naomi. You do realise you've hit really bad fan fiction territory."
"Then how could I tell you details about Lily Evans' childhood that you remember in your dreams, but is not in the books," Ross pleaded.
"I don't know, but this all seems to be utter nonsense," she replied.
"I'll prove it, that I was Severus Snape," he said, more exasperated than ever. As a time lord he didn't need a wand to do magic, or as a child of the TARDIS even used words because one of the abilities displayed by people like him was the way they used magic via intent rather than thinking or saying words to direct it. It was much like the way children often do accidental magic only they can control it and don't grow out of it. Indeed one of the consequences is they never grow out of accidental magic either. But he was going for dramatics so he waved his arm and yelled, "EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
What would be mistaken for an Earth doe because it is silvery in colour rather than it's normal red and orange coat, burst into life and pranced around the bar. Harry decided to join in and pulled out his wand and proceeded to cast his own patronus charm and a silvery stag joined in with the doe skipping and jumping around the place.
"Now what are the chances 'Miles' as you keep calling Brax, managed to find two people with the same patronuses, one of which is a dead ringer for Harry Potter, to come and 'play a part'," Ross asked as Lily watched the patronuses as they ran around.
"Look I get it. I didn't fully believe any of this until I saw Albus Dumbledore regenerate right in front of me. Then I went on a few weeks of adventure through time and space with the Doctor and Rose. Mum it's all true," Harry implored.
"But they were all just dreams," she replied clearly more shaken.
"No, I'm afraid this is the dream," Brax interjected.
"Fine, I'll open the damn watch but if nothing happens you are all in for it," Lily said as she finally opened the watch and was surprised as she was engulfed in golden light and screamed in agony. When it finished she found herself on the floor because she had fallen in the process. She looked up to see Rossadelaser, her soulmate holding out a hand to help her up. She took it and she let him pull her into his arms. "Rossadelaser I'm so sorry for all I put you through." She proceeded to kiss him quite passionately causing Harry to look away embarrassed.
They pulled apart and Ross replied, holding back tears, "It's ok Naomi, you did what needed to be done. Sometimes as a time lord there are just things we all need to do to keep the web of time intact."
"I think I'd rather be called Lily now though. I've grown attached to the name. Oh and one last thing…" she slapped Ross hard across the cheek "…That's for how you treated my son during his school years, and I don't care how much of it you had to do to maintain your cover, you deserved it and more!"
"Yes you're right I do. James Potter may have been a bit of a prat, but that didn't justify me taking it out on Harry. I'll forever do anything to make it up to the both of you. Please, my lady give me any command on what I can do to make it up to you and I will of course do so," Rossadelaser replied, getting down on one knee and bowing his head in submission.
"Oh get up you fool. What you can do is whatever Harry thinks is right. He is the wronged innocent party here after all," Lily admonished.
"Actually I've already forgave him. He was used just as much as I was," Harry interjected, "He's been doing lots to help me with my studies to make up for things. He's really helped both myself and Neville with potions by actually trying and making it interesting. He's also been teaching me Occlumency for real this time. Helped Aunt Petunia kick out Uncle Vernon and put up wards to make sure he can't come back when he gets out of jail. Even been helping me redecorate because Aunt Petunia wants the place to look nothing like it did when Uncle Vernon lived there."
"Oh I wish I could go back and visit, it doesn't surprise me Vernon was the problem. Alas it would damage timelines too much if I did. Oh Harry, come here," Lily said as she held out her arms to Harry who gratefully took up her offer as they hugged each other tight, "It's okay Harry I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere. You're my son and I love you, and frankly having you was worth everything I went though and I'd do it all over again."
"I love you too mum," came Harry's muffled reply as he cried in his mother's arms, being held by her for the first time since he was a baby.
"Come on, I think the three of us should go back to my place and talk. We have a lot we need to talk about.
-x-x-x-x-x-
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