Author's Note: I'm so sorry, guys. I have been waiting and waiting for to resolve their email alert issues, and clearly it has yet to happen. But I don't think I can keep you all in suspense any longer.

If you're reading this, it means you've been checking back for updates, and I can't even tell you all how much I appreciate your dedication! If fixes its problems, I'll post the next chapter as soon as that happens. If it doesn't, the final chapter (excepting the epilogue) will probably be posted on the 2nd or 3rd, so Happy New Year!

When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was on the floor of the Room of Requirement. My head ached horribly, and a few shards of broken Time Turner were embedded in my fingers. I tried to remember who I was and what on earth I was doing, but came up with nothing.

There was a pretty lilac potion in a vial lying next to me, and I uncorked it and drank it, mostly for lack of anything better to do. In a minute or so, I remembered who I was: Susan Potter. And I'd just broken the Time Turner I'd been using for the last year or so. I had no idea, though, what time I was in now.

I managed to peel myself off the floor and stagger out into the hallway, where students ran past me on their way to class. I squinted at them in confusion. None of them looked too familiar, but that didn't mean much. Every bit of me hurt. All I wanted was to know when I was.

Then I heard a familiar voice coming from below. "Wotcher, Juno!" cried a young man. "McGonagall's in a right state today; don't even try to cross her."

I staggered to the nearest balcony and looked down to find the source of the voice. There he was -- Jamie Lupin. Two floors below.

"Jamie!" I yelled, or tried to yell. It came out as more of a screech.

He looked up, and within a moment, a look of utter astonishment registered on his face. "S-Susan?"

"Help!" I managed to call, then fell down on the stone floor. I'd never felt anything like this pain. My head felt like it was about to explode.

I didn't black out, but things became very fuzzy for the next ten minutes or so. The next thing I knew, I was in the Hospital Wing with good old Madam Pomfrey tending to me.

"I knew to expect this," she told me in a low voice. "I remembered seeing you twenty years ago. And then you didn't show up for school this year. I knew you'd turn up sooner or later, timesick and near death."

"Timesick?" asked Jamie, who was fretting by my bedside.

Madam Pomfrey looked at him sharply. "It's for Susan to tell you -- when she feels better, of course." Then she gave me more of the lilac potion I remembered from the Room of Requirement, and a pink one, and a green one. Under normal circumstances I'd have asked her what they were for, and what was wrong with me, but I could barely speak.

Jamie took my hand and sat by my bed in mute horror. I thrashed in pain and fear in my bed until, mercifully, I passed out a few minutes later.

I must have slept for a good long while, because when I woke up, Jamie was gone, but I felt much better. My mouth was cottony, and my eyes were crusty. I rubbed them before opening my eyes fully.

When I could focus on the world, the first thing I saw was Mum. I wanted to cry in relief. She was peering down at me with a face full of concern and guilt, but it was my mother -- my responsible, loving, adult mother.

"Mum," I croaked, and she fell on me, hugging me fiercely, sobbing incoherently. I squeezed my eyes shut, reveling in the hug only a mother could give. Then I looked over her shoulder.

He was a little taller than I'd last seen him, and he'd filled out a bit. His features had gone from boyish to decidedly masculine. But the slouch, with his hands in his pockets and his hair falling over his forehead, was unmistakeable.

"Dad," I said, half in wonder, half in satisfaction.

Hearing this, Mum drew back enough to look me in the face. When she saw my focus was behind her, she stood up slowly and, as if she almost dreaded what she would find, turned around.

I was the only witness to my parents' reunion; Madam Pomfrey was consulting with Professor Kegg, the Potions Master, as to how best treat my timesickness, and the Hospital Wing was not housing any other patients besides me. It was the most heartbreaking sight I believed I would ever see. Mum clearly could not believe the apparition before her; she reached out and fumbled with Dad's clothing, trying to convince herself he was real. The look on her face was sharp with grief.

Dad, to his credit, did not rush her. He merely held out his arms and said quietly, "Gin."

With that, she stumbled into his embrace, and they clung to each other, finally able to see and touch each other for the first time in eighteen years. I watched, silent and fiercely joyous. Did I also feel a tinge of envy? I pushed that feeling down and let myself soak in the moment.

To their credit, they swiftly remembered the presence of their incapacitated teenaged daughter; within a minute or so, they'd drawn up two chairs and sat down by my bedside. They held each other's hands tightly, but besides that and the drying tears on their faces, there was no indication that they'd been kept apart for nearly two decades.

"How are you feeling, kiddo?" asked Dad quietly. I marveled at how much he'd grown up in the intervening years.

"Better," I said hoarsely.

Mum surreptitiously wiped a tear from her eye. "Madam Pomfrey told us it's a classic case of timesickness. Hermione had read about it, but she said there was no way to avoid it. I'm so glad you're all right, sweetheart."

"Timesickness?"

"When you use a Time Turner, it takes you through the hours, or years, in your case, gradually, though very quickly. When you smash one, however, it just plucks you out of one time and deposits you in your own time," Mum explained patiently. "The human body isn't really built for that sort of manhandling. It would certainly kill a Muggle."

"You would have died if you hadn't been here," Dad said gravely. "Madam Pomfrey was expecting you and had the appropriate potions on hand."

I didn't quite know what to say to them, so I just smiled weakly.

Mum leaned down then and smoothed the hair back from my face. "Honey, thank you. Thank you so much. You've saved us all."

I blushed. I'd only done what I'd been told to do, more or less, and I'd never felt like I had much of a choice. I didn't deserve to be treated like a hero. I was more curious as to what Dad had been up to all these years. "Dad?"

He leaned forward too. "Yes?"

"Where have you been?"

He chuckled at that a little, but Mum looked to him with the same curiosity on her face that I felt. "An easier question would be, where haven't I been?" He looked at the two of us and realized we wanted real answers, so he took a deep breath.

"Well, I tried sticking around at first, but that was -- difficult." Tears welled up in Mum's eyes again, but Dad went on. "I did stay around long enough to see you be born, Susan. I didn't want to miss that. Then I traveled. I had my broomstick, and I had Fawkes." At my surprise, he smiled. "Yes, Fidelius doesn't quite work on non-humans. So I've been all over Europe. I actually managed to learn some of the stranger non-human languages: Mermish, Gobbledegook, Fairy. I never stayed in one place too long, but I liked going places where there'd be non-humans who would recognize me. And you came with me," he said, the last bit having been addressed to Mum. Dad pulled out the changing photo Mum had given him during their last Christmas together and handed it to her for her to look at. Then he turned back to me. "I had a couple very close calls with some very dangerous creatures, but I managed to make it home once in a while. I think you may have seen me a few times, am I right?"

I smiled. "Yes. My eighth birthday."

He smiled back. "I tried to make it home for your birthday every year. When you were a baby, you saw me all the time; I'm sure you don't remember. As you got older, though, you lost that ability. Your eighth birthday was the last time."

"What's today?" I asked, suddenly cognizant of the fact that I had no idea of the answer.

"May 1st, 2016," Mum said gently. "You've been gone here for months and months."

That would explain why Jamie was so shocked to see me. But my curiosity was not sated. "What happened . . . the day I left?" I managed to get out.

But Dad shut down that line of questioning: "Not now, all right, honey? Let's wait for everyone to be together again, yeah?"

I nodded and closed my eyes. I was overcome with emotion and exhaustion, so I dropped off quickly.

I drifted in and out of consciousness for the next three days or so, and each time I woke up, there was a new family member smiling at me: Grandma, Edouard, Aunt Mi-Mi, Uncle Ron. Madam Pomfrey finally saw fit to discharge me on the morning of the fourth day, and Mum and Dad took me home to our flat.

It was just as I remembered it; Mum hadn't changed a thing. I walked around slowly, touching all the relics of my childhood. This was where I belonged, there was no question. But I knew I'd miss the past for the rest of my life.

Mum, who'd taken off work for the rest of the week, took me and Dad shopping that day. Dad hadn't been able to get much in the way of clothes for the past eighteen years, and I'd actually outgrown much of my own wardrobe, so it was a necessary trip. It was also enormously fun: on the one hand, it was a little like being back with them as they'd been as teenagers; on the other, I was finally able to walk around Diagon Alley with both my parents, holding both their hands, running up to store windows and begging them like a little kid for a new set of Gobstones. It was easy to make them laugh nowadays, happy as they were with their reunion and their roles as members of a complete family.

When we got home that evening, I opened the door to our flat to find a huge banner hanging up that said WELCOME HOME, SUSAN, and a moment later, two dozen people suddenly removed their Disillusionment Charms.

"SURPRISE!" they cried, and I grinned. It was my whole family -- Grandma, Grandpa, all my uncles and aunts, my cousins who hadn't started Hogwarts yet -- along with Remus and Tonks.

Apparently they'd been in the flat all day getting ready for us, so there was all sorts of wonderful food to be had. Mum sent me to my bedroom to change into a new fancy set of robes we'd bought for me that day, and when I came out, everyone exclaimed that I'd grown so, especially Grandma.

Though it was ostensibly a coming-home party for me, it was also a reunion for Dad. It wasn't long before he and Ron and Hermione migrated to a corner of the room and began discussing all the time they'd lost. It made me smile; some things never changed. Ron and Hermione's children, Henry, Chester, and Lynnea, were gathered around me, chorusing that they'd missed me something awful, and had I brought anything back for them? My other little cousins played with each other as their respective parents tried to keep them mostly in check. Mum and Grandma sat, happy and quiet, surveying the scene.

After only about half an hour, I realized that I felt as though someone were missing. It only took me a few minutes to realize just who wasn't there.

As though she could read my thoughts, Mum sat beside me as I sat staring off into the distance and put an arm around me. "I didn't invite him," she said in a low voice, so no one else could hear, "but I did let him know you got home safely."

I looked at her with tears in my eyes. "Mum, I --"

"I know, love," she said, and hugged me tightly. I tried my best not to cry. "It's the same story everywhere, throughout time: we journey to make a difference, and when we return we find ourselves the thing most changed."

Mum let me go and reached up to her neck to unclasp the crystal ball necklace she was wearing. Then she fastened it around my neck. "You left this with your letter, remember?"

I chuckled a little through my tears. "Of course I remember. It's not even a week ago for me."

"Sorry," she said. "Can you get through the party? We'll talk about the rest later."

I nodded, dashed the tears from my eyes, and stood up, anxious to enjoy the rest of my time with my whole extended family. The night was long, but I did love them all, and it was good to see them. When Hermione and Ron left with their brood, they promised to return the next day, when they would debrief me about what had happened on the day Voldemort attacked Hogwarts.