The Founding of Happiness
by Healer Pomfrey
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.
COMPLETELY AU! Partly OOC! Time travel!
It is my story, and I intend to write it the way I want it. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Reviews are very welcome, as they inspire my muse. Thank you very much for the kind reviews for the previous chapter!
Salazar pulled his wand and reached out to use it lifting Harry's chin, so that he looked him straight into the onyx eyes.
"Harry James Potter! You will do as your mother says, and if she tells you that you mustn't flash for three weeks, you won't flash for three weeks, especially not with a passenger. Is that understood, Thunderbolt?"
"Yes sir," Harry replied in a small voice, "but..."
"No buts. Believe me, Thunderbolt, Snape will behave in my presence."
'Why did I listen to him and bring the greasy git here? Now I'm stuck with him through my holidays,' Harry mused and stomped off, feeling completely annoyed with himself and the whole world.
Before Harry knew where he was going, he was on the stairs to the Chamber of Secrets to visit Amaterasu.
"What'sss wrong, my friend?" the basilisk hissed, noticing that Harry was not his usual cheerful self.
Harry quickly told his friend what was wrong, before he sat down on the floor and curled up, leaning his back against the basilisk, where he slowly drifted off to sleep.
His parents were angry when he missed lunch, but their anger turned into concern when he didn't show up for dinner either. Since nobody had seen the child since that morning, nor did they have any idea where he could have gone, Godric finally transformed into his phoenix form in order to flash himself to his oldest son, finding him fast asleep on top of the basilisk, who had raised him from the cold stone floor to rest on her own curled up form to help him stay warm.
Godric roused a very sleepy Harry and brought him to the Great Hall, where everyone was still waiting at the dinner table.
Helga and Rowena forced the boy to eat a bit, while Godric explained where he had found him.
"Potter, may I speak to you in private for a few minutes?" Snape asked when Harry finished his dinner, causing Harry to throw him an appraising look.
"Yes," he replied wearily, groaning inwardly.
Before he knew what happened to him, he felt himself being reprimanded by his father. "It's 'Yes, sir,' Thunderbolt," Salazar said sternly, throwing the boy a menacing glare that clearly said, 'Behave yourself, young man.'
"Yes sir, sorry sir," Harry replied automatically, yawning. Seeing that everyone rose from their seats, he slowly stood up and led the professor into his own room, where he let himself sink into the chair next to his desk, motioning Snape to take a seat opposite him as well.
"I'm sorry, Potter, for my behaviour towards you in the past," Snape spoke up completely unexpectedly, causing Harry to open his eyes wide in surprise.
"It's all right, sir," he mumbled in a hardly audible voice. "I'm sorry for bringing you here without forewarning you what was happening."
Snape sighed. "Well, it would have been easier if you had just let Professor McGonagall excuse you. I made a mistake by misjudging you for your birth father without noticing that you're in fact completely different from him. Anyway, I'd like to start again from the beginning. As long as we're here in the past, I'm going to be a student, so you may call me Severus. When we're back in the future, I'll go back to being your professor of course."
"All right," Harry agreed. "Truce then?" He slowly extended his hand to the man, who shook it slightly and agreed, "All right, Harry. Now I believe it's time for you to go to bed."
ハリーと幸せの願い
During the next two weeks, Harry didn't have any problems with Snape. He studied according to the plan Salazar had made for him, while Snape had lessons with Godric and Rowena in the morning and joined Harry and Salazar in the Potions classroom in the afternoon.
On Friday afternoon when Salazar left Harry and Severus alone for a few minutes in order to run an errand for Helga, Harry motioned Severus over to where he was brewing a potion. "Just to let you know, sir, I'm going to flash into the future tomorrow to finish the last week of the school year. I need to get my book list and the books for the next school year as well as my summer assignments, so that I'll be able to do them. Nobody will know, because I intend to arrive back here at the same time tomorrow morning. I just wondered if you'd like to come? I'm going to flash back to the Potions classroom a few minutes after we left."
"Yes please," Severus replied immediately, before he gave Harry a piercing look. "Why don't you tell your parents? Aren't you allowed to flash yet?"
"Well, Mum said three weeks, and it's nearly three weeks, but if they knew, they'd worry unnecessarily. Can you come to my room at five tomorrow morning? Then I have a bit of leeway to flash us back between five and seven, before anyone notices that we're missing. We have to take Löwi back with us too."
They arrived back in the future half an hour later than they had left three weeks ago, just as a slightly upset Professor McGonagall entered the Potions classroom to fetch Harry.
Harry quickly filled her in about what had happened, causing her to throw her colleague an amused glance, who was at that moment magically cleaning the remaining cauldrons from Harry's detention. 'Over the last two weeks, Snape behaved really civically,' Harry mused on the way back to his own room. 'I'll just hope that it'll continue while we're here.'
During Harry's last three detentions before the Leaving feast, to which Dumbledore insisted that both Harry and Snape attended, Snape let him brew difficult potions and even explained about their background, their effects, and possible difficulties while adding the ingredients, before he let Harry brew the potions.
'I'm amazed, he's really teaching me something,' Harry mused in surprise, listening with rapt attention to his teacher's explanations. Only when they were back in the past a few days later, Harry realized that these potions were part of his training program and that Severus had obviously asked Salazar what he should let Harry brew. 'Snape really has improved greatly since going to the past with me,' Harry mused while he concentrated on his summer assignments.
ハリーと幸せの願い
Two weeks later, he had finished all of his homework and proceeded to reading books from the library during the two hours after breakfast each morning. However, it was getting difficult for him to study either in his own room or in the library, because his five siblings, who were between the ages of two and seven, would find him, wanting him to play with them.
When he once complained to his parents at lunchtime, Helga told him in a stern voice, "Leofost, I want you to go out onto the grounds and play instead of studying even more during your free time. You could take the children and play ball or even fly with them, provided that you have an eye on the little ones. I don't want them to get hurt as much as you hurt yourself when you were their age."
Harry grudgingly agreed and proceeded to play with his little brothers and sisters every morning until the beginning of his lesson with his father Salazar.
One day, Snape invited the whole group to come with him horse riding. After confirming with Rowena that everyone except for two-year-old Niamh, Harry's youngest sister, was allowed to ride a pony, Harry agreed, looking at the Potions Master in surprise when he offered to take Niamh with him on his horse. They all had a lot of fun on this beautiful summer morning, enjoying their ride over the vast land that surrounded Hogwarts immensely. Two hours later, everyone was groggily sitting beside the lake having a small picnic.
Her mouth still full of fruit cake, seven-year-old Lily queried, "Harry, I'd love to prank our parents. You know, Dad and Uncle Salazar sometimes prank Mum and Aunt Helga. Do you have an idea, how we could prank them all?"
Harry laughed, remembering the prank war he had fought with his Daddies against his Mummies when he had been about Lily's age. "Hmmm, that's difficult," he said pensively. "Mum is extremely good at Transfiguration, so we could only use a potion, which they won't be able to counter immediately." All of a sudden he remembered they were in the presence of Snape and thought, 'Can't she bring up such a delicate topic without my professor being there?'
"How about brewing a potion, which turns your parents' hair a different colour like green or blue?" Snape asked, raising an eyebrow at Lily.
"Yes!" all of the children chorused at the teacher's suggestion, and Lily threw Harry a pleading look, "Oh yes please, Harry. Can you brew such a potion for us?"
"I'll brew the potion for you. I believe I still have to get back at Professor Slytherin for at least two pranks he played me," Snape threw in, glancing at Harry.
"I'll assist," Harry promised, smirking. "But we'll have to do it at night, since Dad spends the whole day in the Potions lab or in the classroom, and you never know when he will come into another room that we may use to brew it."
Harry and Severus agreed to meet in the Potions classroom at four o'clock in the morning, and a few hours later, the four Founders were sitting at the breakfast table with their hair dyed in their House colours.
"Thunderbolt!" Salazar came to the conclusion, after confirming with his yellow-haired wife that his hair was indeed a luminous green, that Harry was behind the prank.
"Dad?" Harry asked innocently. "Is that a new fashion you're wearing this morning?"
Salazar threw a suspicious glance at Snape, who had put up a blank expression and busied himself with his breakfast, apparently ignoring the conversation completely.
"Harry, you should take one of the house elves to the future some time, so that he can teach our house elves how to prepare such a delicious breakfast," he smirked.
"That's a good idea," Harry agreed immediately. "Dad Godric, may I do that?"
"Only if the future house elves teach our house elf how they cook in the future," the Headmaster growled. "Leo, I want an antidote now!"
"An antidote?" Harry chuckled, "for what?" Snape and he had agreed not to admit to anything and to let the colours wear off by themselves, which would take a few days. Unfortunately, as soon as the two mischief makers stood up after breakfast, they suddenly transformed into baboons, throwing horrified looks at each other, before they turned around to the Head table, seeing Godric and Rowena smirk.
'Well, let's have some fun then,' Harry decided and began to run around the Head table, causing his siblings to laugh and Severus to playfully run after him, chasing him around the Great Hall for a few minutes.
'Wait what we're going to do next,' Harry mused and transformed into his phoenix form and back into his human form, causing Rowena to throw him a proud look.
Snape followed Harry's example and changed into a chameleon, before turning back into his human form, throwing the two Founders a menacing glare.
"That's a beautiful Animagus form," Harry said in complete amazement. "I love chameleons."
ハリーと幸せの願い
One morning, Harry sleepily walked down to the Great Hall, stopping dead in his tracks when he opened the doors. The whole room was transformed into a huge playground, and his brothers and sisters were already playing happily, while the teachers were sitting at the Head table having tea.
"Ah Thunderbolt, it's about time you got your lazybones out of bed," Salazar called him over, causing Harry to pout.
"Maybe someone should have woken me up," he complained in a slightly upset voice. "It wasn't my choice to brew potions until midnight."
"It was your choice. I offered to brew the potion," Snape reminded him, and Harry threw him a glare.
'Of course I wanted to brew the potion for my little brother,' he thought angrily, remembering how shocked his parents were the night before, when they found out that Brian had come down with the wizard's flu, an illness often fatal, for which they didn't have a potion in their time. Harry had immediately begun to brew the future's flu potion, instructing his father how to assist him.
"Is Brian all right?" he queried, glancing at his mother, when he all of a sudden spotted an unexpected face between Helga and his empty seat. "Godiva!" he blurted out in surprise.
"Hello Harry. Happy Birthday," the girl replied, and Harry felt the warmth of her brown eyes spread over his whole body.
"Birthday?" he mused aloud. "Oh my, the holidays are passing much too quickly."
"Brian is fine, Leofost, thanks to you. He's still asleep, but Severus told me he'd be up and about after the next dose of the potion," Helga replied, before she rose from her seat and stepped over to Harry, pulling him into a bear hug. "Happy Birthday, Leofost."
"Thank you," Harry said, blushing, and quickly sat down next to Godiva to spare himself other embraces in front of the girl.
To Harry's chagrin, the next four weeks of the summer holiday passed even faster, especially as he enjoyed having Godiva at the castle. During the day while he studied with his father, Godiva attended her Healing lessons with his mother, but in the evenings, they spent much of their time walking around the lake and having tea later on with Harry's parents and Snape. Godiva even helped Harry put his younger siblings to bed and read bedtime stories to them every night.
Two weeks following Harry's birthday Godiva was enjoying her Healing lessons very much, and after Harry had spent one day in the hospital room with the wizard's flu that Brian had spread to the rest of his siblings, he knew that she was not only enjoying herself but that she was extremely talented as well. She was very gentle and could make him feel better with nothing more than a smile from her warm eyes and the soft, cool touch of her hands on his face.
As soon as his mother let him out of bed, Harry went to Godric's office. "Dad, I need your help," he said hesitantly. "I want to ask Godiva to be my girlfriend."
"A very good choice, Leo," his father replied, beaming with joy.
Harry sighed. "Thank you, Dad. However, I'd like to give her something that reminds her of me while I'm away, maybe kind of a friendship ring or such. Can you help me to make something?"
"We could make a small golden ring with an engraved phoenix on it," Godric suggested, causing a huge smile to spread across his oldest son's face.
Godric helped Harry to make a ring, which was small but absolutely beautiful, at least in Harry's opinion. Now he just had to ask the girl, which seemed to be the most difficult part. Over the next two weeks, he pondered how to address her, in spite of being scolded by Salazar and Severus to concentrate on his brewing in order not to get badly injured several times.
Finally, when they were walking around the lake in the evening before he was to return to the future, he summoned all his courage and turned around to face her.
"Godiva, I know that it's difficult, because I'm away over most of the school year, but I'd like to ask you to be my girlfriend," he told her in a small voice, pulling a wrapped blueberry drop out of his robe pocket, handing it over to the girl.