I'm just a mawkish goth, what can I say?

Chapter 37

"Uh oh," said the Doctor, and instantly regretted it, because uh oh wasn't something you wanted your companions to hear. Luckily, his only companion on the bridge of the TARDIS at the moment was M. M was looking at the same monitor as the Doctor. "The timeline is splitting. Something happened in the wee hours of the morning, November 1, 1979," said the red-haired Time Lord.

"I thought as much. This timeline is too fragile now. We can't touch it anymore."

M bit his thumbnail nervously, "After you told Harry we were going straight home, he sent a message to Tom, saying he was sorry we couldn't say a proper goodbye due to circumstances, but that we'll see him in seventeen years. Well, Tom will see Harry in eleven years, but you know, Harry won't know him yet. This divergence hasn't changed that, has it? It hasn't distorted our timeline?"

"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure we're intact, a clean separation from the off-shoot."

The Doctor's expression was grim. M rested a hand on his shoulder, and looked at the monitor again. "It looks good to me. I'm still having trouble seeing the way I used to, but the future we're moving toward appears stable."

The Doctor smiled weakly, and placed his hand on top of M's. "When they wake up, for better or worse, we bring them home."

"July 19, 1996, just before midnight. The first day of the rest of your life," said the Doctor.

"Feels more like the last day of the beginning of my life," said Harry.

The bespectacled young man paused for a moment in front of the door of the TARDIS, then threw it open and stepped forward.

The clearing was the same, the moonlight identical. Harry felt a rush of fear as he recalled in vivid detail what had happened that night, two years ago. "Harry," said a voice, not so dissimilar from the one he remembered, but when he turned towards the source he was greeted not by Voldemort, but Tom Marvolo Riddle-Figg-Dumbledore, the man he knew and loved and trusted.

Tom hugged him for a very long time. "It's been so strange, Harry, seeing you but you weren't you...I don't know how to explain it."

Harry pulled back and looked at his graying hair, at the wrinkles on his face, which were rather distinguished, he thought. Harry jolted when he saw a long, brutal scar that bisected Tom's lower lip down to his chin. Then a memory surfaced from nowhere, of a politically-motivated assassination attempt three years previous. He had read about it in the paper, as a thirteen-year-old. "Doctor, if things have changed...are changing...and the reasons for us going back in time don't exist anymore, then how does that work?"

"Is it important to know the details? You came to the forest tonight to meet Tom," said the Doctor, simply.

Everyone had filed out of the TARDIS: Hermione, Ashley, the Doctor and M. Tom hugged them each in turn. "Mum and Dad will be so happy to see you."

"Dumbledore's still Headmaster?" asked Harry.

"Of course."

Harry swallowed hard. "Have you seen my parents? Lily Evans and..."

"James? Yes, of course. Oh, I'm sorry I keep saying 'of course'. From your perspective this must be very disorienting. Your mother is the Charms and Chemistry instructor here at Hogwarts, Harry."

As soon as Tom said that, Harry remembered. He experienced an odd jolt, almost of pain or disappointment, followed immediately by a burst of excitement, like lightning striking his brain, and suddenly there bloomed memories that hadn't been there a minute ago. He remembered not remembering, he remembered the Dursleys just as they'd been, and simultaneously recalled a life with his parents. He recalled his room at the cottage at Godric's Hollow, bedecked with Quidditch posters and crammed with toys and books. He recollected it all with clarity, in full color and sound, right down to his earliest memory: sunlight shining through the fiery sheet of his mother's hair as she applied sunscreen to him at the beach. The cool sensation of her fingers on his skin, the gentle crashing of waves, the smell of the air, the feeling of comfort, of protection. Harry remembered other things: a moth circling the light outside the hall of his room, the door left ajar, the sound of his parents' arguing drifting up to him from the floor below. Harry remembered the sting when his father couldn't see him off on his first day to Hogwarts, called away by Auror's duties. Harry remembered walking into the kitchen and seeing his mother wipe her eyes hastily. Harry remembered wondering why his father stayed out so late night after night, and Harry remembered the moment he realised why. "They...they're divorced."

"Yes, they are."

Harry felt weak in the knees. Tom held him by the elbow. "They love you, Harry."

"I know. I know they do. I guess I thought...I don't know what I thought."

"Everything will be alright. Let's go inside."

The front hall of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry looked much the same, except for a large glass case in which were prominently displayed, side-by-side and intact, Helga Hufflepuff's cup, Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, Salazar Slytherin's locket, and the Sword of Godric Gryffindor.

They climbed many staircases to Dumbledore's office. Amy and Rory leapt up from their seats as they entered, staring at Tom Riddle. "Is that...oh god, it is...but, yeah...of course it's Professor Riddle-Figg-Dumbledore," stuttered Rory, brow scrunched in confusion. "N-not...Vol-you-know-who."

"Who's you-know-who?" asked Amy.

"It doesn't matter." He smiled in amazement. "It doesn't matter!"

Rory jumped for joy and let out a whoop. Amy's eyes widened. "How long were you gone?" she asked.

"Two years and eleven days," said Hermione.

"What?" shouted a voice behind them.

Hermione turned, saw Ron, and launched herself into his arms. "I missed you so much," she mumbled into his neck.

He pulled back and scrutinised her face. "You've been gone two years in twenty minutes? But you look exactly the same!"

Hermione kissed him for that. She kissed him and kissed him and never wanted to stop, but eventually they needed air. "Let's get married," she said.

"Oh...kaaaay," he said, breathless and befuddled.

Harry looked around for Dumbledore, then recalled that he'd asked him to wait in the dungeons. His mind felt foggy. It probably had something to do with time travel and all the new and different memories, all the moments that were crowding in on him from every corner, then receding like a wave, then crashing back again. He thought of the calm of the beach in the deepest part of his mind, and steadied himself.

They found Dumbledore on the staircase leading up from the dungeons, flexing his right hand and examining it curiously. The skin was healthy. The curse was gone, and the memory of it was fading like a dream. "I believe this has been a rather eventful evening, Harry," said the Headmaster, smiling slightly.

Harry beamed for a moment, then his eyes filled with tears. "I've...I've got to go see my parents. I'd rather...go alone, if that's alright with everyone."

Hermione was crying, too. "Go, Harry."

"I'll come back, after. Or...I'll meet you at the Burrow tomorrow morning?"

"That's perfect, mate," said Ron.

"Thank you. All of you."

Words failing him, Harry turned on the spot and vanished. Hermione gasped. "I thought you couldn't Apparate within Hogwarts."

"We did away with that rule," said Dumbledore. "It wasn't safe. Now people can Apparate out, but not in."

"What do you mean, not safe?"

"In case of attack, you know."

Hermione remembered, and felt as if she were going to be sick.

Harry Apparated to his mother's house by instinct. Lily Potter lived on an estate not far from Hogwarts. When he saw the handsome stone cottage on the generous acreage, Harry recalled that she had received half of James Potter's assets in the divorce, and she enjoyed a quite comfortable lifestyle. The lights were on. He approached the door and knocked, his entire body trembling. A minute later, Lily opened the door and laughed. "Did you lose your key-"

Harry hugged her. "I love you."

"Love you, too. Everything alright?"

"Yes, I think so."

"It's after midnight. What's going on? Is junior Auror training going okay?"

Right, that's what I've been doing all summer, thought Harry. "Mmm-hmm. I'm gunna go see Dad."

Lily frowned. "It's late, Harry. Why don't you get some sleep here, and go see him tomorrow?"

"You know I have a better chance of catching him at odd hours. He's probably up in the Auror's Office with Sirius, going over that case for the millionth time," Harry said, the words sounding alien as they sprung from his mouth.

The F.B.M. Killings, he suddenly recalled from the papers and from conversations with his father and Sirius. Female Brunette Muggleborns, being killed by someone who had eluded capture for the last twenty-three years. Nine bodies had been found, and many more women were missing and presumed dead. The case of the century, at least for the Wizarding World. One of the victims had even been a teacher at Hogwarts, murdered within the school grounds. How could he forget? Well, things had been different. There had been a war. "There was no war."

"What, Harry?"

"Nothing. Sorry for acting so weird, I'm just tired. I'll see you soon."

"Text me when you get there."

"You mean owl you?"

"Oh, no! Did you lose your phone again?"

Harry felt in his pocket and pulled out a rectangular mobile phone. He stared at it in disbelief. "No, wait...oops. I have it."

The phone had a slightly purplish glow to it. As he watched, a tiny shower of silver sparks appeared in the upper right hand corner and a message appeared on the touchscreen next to an animated image of Ginny Weasley's smiling face: "Miss you, luv. Planning a wicked 16th birthday. jus u n me. :-) xxxxx". Technology works around magic! screamed his mind. No, not 'around'...in tandem with. We have mobiles. We have the internet. We have technology that surpasses Muggle technology. Ginny loves me! "Are you sure you're alright?" asked Lily.

"Yes, Mum. I'll text you as soon as I get to Dad."

He kissed her on the cheek and Apparated before she had any further objections.

Just as Harry expected, his father and Sirius Black were burning the midnight oil in their office. Harry could barely comprehend how they could stand to work on the same case year after year, but he knew his dad was nothing if not obsessive. They handled lots of other cases, too, and had a very high closure rate, but catching this particular killer was a sticking point for James. Maybe it had started as an excuse to spend time away from his difficult marriage, and over the years had become something of a morbid fixation. "New angle: the killer is Severus Snape," said James, idly levitating a tennis ball with his wand.

"That's not funny, Prongs," said Sirius. "It's wrong to speak ill of the dead."

"Dead?" Harry asked from the doorway.

"He-ey, what are you doing here?" asked James, smiling at his son.

Harry didn't smile back. He wanted to run to his father and hug him, then do the same to Sirius, but he felt frozen to the spot. "Did you say Severus Snape is dead?"

The Aurors squinted at him in confusion. "You know who that is?" asked James.

He did and he didn't. He knew there had been a person named Severus Snape, but he could not recall anyone ever mentioning him. He wasn't sure what to say, so he shrugged. James slammed a fist onto his desk and said, "Why can't she just keep her mouth shut?" he snarled.

"James," said Sirius in a warning tone.

"Well, she shouldn't be talking about stuff like that! What's the point of telling him about it? Harry, I'm not angry, okay. Just tell me what your mother told you about Snape."

"She didn't. Who is he?"

"See?" James gestured toward Harry, while looking at Sirius. "See how he's on her side?"

"I'm not on a side! She didn't tell me anything! I heard Tom, uh, Professor R.F.D. mention him to Dumbledore. I guess Snape was legendary at Potions?"

Harry hoped this made-up explanation would fly. James only seemed to get angrier. "The greasy little git was up to his eyes in the Dark Arts. It was obvious from the moment we met him."

"Was it, really?" asked Sirius dryly.

"You thought so then."

Sirius looked away. James smirked. "Listen, Harry, that guy was a freak and a loser, and he met with the end he deserved."

Harry choked down an awful feeling that was steadily rising up inside of him. "What happened?"

"He killed himself."

"O-oh. And...why would he do that? You think he's actually...connected to these murders?"

"No, that was just a joke. A bad joke," said Sirius.

"I don't understand. Who was he to you? Just someone you knew from school?"

"Yeah," said James, and did not elaborate.

Someone you tortured for fun, he thought but couldn't say. He finally had his father back and he didn't want to think bad things about him, even if they were completely true. "Okay," he said simply. "I'm tired. I'm going home."

He turned and left. He was nearly out of the building when Sirius caught up with him. Harry got the hug he'd wanted earlier. "Listen, Harry...I don't want you asking someone and getting the wrong information, so here's what your dad left out. Your mother had been friends with Snape since they were kids. Your dad and Snape were enemies at Hogwarts, and they sort of fought over Lily, and Snape won, or rather, she chose him. They were together until a couple years after graduation. There was an incident...Snape hurt your dad really badly-"

"Don't tell me he used Cruciatus."

"No, he used a cutting curse, something he invented."

That must be the same curse I saw in the vision...the one he used on M, back at Malfoy Manor. Sectum...something. "Why'd he do it?"

"It's unclear. There was an argument. Alcohol was involved. He did a year in Azkaban for it, and when he got out he took his own life."

"What? How much worse can it get than Azkaban..."

"Not much worse than it was back then, back when they still used Dementors. They said you'd forget everything good that ever happened to you...but I think hope must survive on some deep subconscious level. I imagine he was able to endure because he thought Lily would be there when he was released. When he found out she was with your dad...it must've been unbearable."

"My mom started dating James while Snape was locked up?"

"She married him."

"And had me. She couldn't have been thinking clearly. I mean, it was obviously a mistake."

Harry felt tears threatening. Sirius placed a hand on each of his shoulders. "Your parents love you."

"I know that, why do people keep telling me that? I'm okay with the fact that their relationship didn't work out. It happens all the time. I just...need to know the truth...and sometimes the truth...is really painful. So tell me the truth, Sirius...do you think he met with the end he deserved?"

After a long moment's contemplation, Sirius shook his head. Harry asked, "Who did she love more?"

Sirius shook his head again; he couldn't or wouldn't say. It didn't matter. Harry already knew the answer.

The days passed, despite the feeling that there was a hole in his heart that bled and bled and bled. Harry imagined the blood slowly filling the spaces he inhabited, from floor to ceiling, dungeon to tower. He would've gladly floated in it, letting go of the world, except the world ceaselessly called to him and tugged at him with distractions and comforts.

He completed his junior Auror training, he spent time with family and friends, he courted Ginny with natural ease. He even studied with Hermione in preparation for their sixth year at Hogwarts. She was in raptures over the wealth of knowledge now available via the Wizarding World Wide Web. "This is all because of Tom and Saskia...do you realise that, Harry? Thanks to them uniting Muggle science with magic and being brave enough to teach it, and founding graduate schools to train us to actually use our knowledge, we have a future open to us that I never imagined before. Someday, the Statute of Secrecy will no longer be necessary. We'll co-exist openly with Muggles. Working together, maybe we'll even go out into the stars. No, not maybe. We will."

Her eyes were sparkling and intense. Harry had never seen her so happy, so full of purpose. Everyone around him seemed radiant, just by virtue of being alive. The Wizarding World was not without its problems, of course, but that was to be expected. Pure-bloods were still trying to take over the Ministry, but were met with stern resistance from those who supported the new advancements in universal magical studies. Hermione was right: technology and freedom of information held more power than anyone had imagined.

Things were better than before in almost every way save one. Harry tried not to think about Snape, tried not to notice his absence. The man had always been a shadowy figure lurking around the periphery of Harry's life. He shouldn't have been so difficult to ignore. Yet, the bleeding refused to cease.

There was no grave to visit.

Harry went to Spinner's End, but the house had been sold long ago. Wearing his cloak of Invisibility, he peeked inside. It had been renovated, modernized. It revealed nothing about its former occupant.

Harry went to the dungeons of Hogwarts, to the rooms where Severus had resided and would never reside. It was full of a stranger's possessions, rather cluttered, and the stones were silent.

Harry went to the Potions classroom, where Snape had and had not taught. He sat in the same seat he'd occupied in his first year, and tried to feel the intensity of that glower, that bitterness projected onto him. He felt nothing except the same intangible loss. Tom stepped into the room. "Oh, Harry! What are you doing here?"

"I'm not really sure. What about you?"

"Getting ready for class. It starts tomorrow, you know."

Harry blinked. Wandering around in abstract mourning, he'd completely lost track of time. "I haven't bought any books or anything."

Tom opened a cabinet set into the wall, pulled out a textbook at random, and placed it on the desk in front of Harry. "Here's Potions, at least."

"Tom...um, I've been meaning to say good job on passing the anti-Dementor legislation. And everything else you've done."

"I'm sorry that I couldn't...do more."

"You did amazing. I'm proud of you."

Harry looked so very young to Tom, it was almost funny to hear him say a thing like that. Almost funny but not actually funny, because Tom had very badly needed to hear it. "I tried, Harry. I visited him in Azkaban as often as was allowed, and when his sentence was up I stayed with him for weeks, I got him all the help I could...but as soon as I left him alone..."

"It wasn't your fault. It's okay."

"Is it?"

"It has to be. The Doctor said there's no going back anymore. Anything else we do will cause the timeline to split off. It won't change anything for us."

"Oh. Oh...I had thought to ask."

"We have to move on," Harry said, but his heart wasn't in it. "I'll leave you to get ready."

He rose and made his way to the door. "Don't forget your book," said Tom, striding over to hand it to him.

Harry was on his way to the Gryffindor common room to see if Ron, Hermione, or Ginny were around, when the book slipped from his grasp and fell open on the floor. As he stooped to retrieve it, he noticed the pages were crammed with hand-written notes. His eyes lit upon the words, "For enemies: Sectumsempra."

He let out a sound of disbelief. He gingerly picked up the book and closed it, then held it against his chest. He went to the Astronomy tower, sat down, and proceeded to read every word, every scribble in every margin between the shabby, worn, black covers.

Everything was there: his brilliance, anger, and a secret sense of self-worth that made Harry's heart ache all the more keenly. Finding a journal would not have revealed as much, would not have been nearly as poignant. When he was done reading he closed it gently, pressing the small volume between his palms. He looked around the tower where Snape had and hadn't killed Dumbledore. It was too sad, just too sad to stay there any longer. He left the castle and walked to a particular spot near the Herbology greenhouses. He stretched out on the grass on his back, the book resting on his chest, and finally felt something. A sense of peace and calm, a photo of his mother in a black frame, full of letters, full of bittersweet love. Letting go of a black frame with lost love inside, a battered black book with a life inside, the remnants of a life. "I'm sorry it went this way," said Harry, tears seeping from the corners of his eyes. "I'm sorry your life was so hard. I'm sorry it was so unfair. But you were loved. You were."

After a time, after the sky had grown dark, he sat up and held the book once more. He desperately wanted to keep it, but he knew it wouldn't be right. He dug a hole in the earth with his bare hands, dug until his fingers were trembling and his arms burned from the effort. He put the book in the hole and filled it in, handful by handful, wishing that somehow this task would never end, but it did. He didn't want to stand up, but he did. And as he walked away, even though it felt selfish he sighed in relief as invisible sutures began to lace their way through his heart.