Chapter 39

M was dancing circles in the snow around his red TARDIS. Tom was looking at him funny, but he didn't care. Both timelines were humming along nicely, and M felt good about what they'd accomplished. The Doctor would wake up in a few minutes. Would he be angry? Proud? M was only eleven, after all.

Would he receive a Hogwarts letter?

"Just one more question," said Tom.

M paused his jig and chuckled. "Uh huh?"

"When they spun the Time-Turner the universe split into two parallel timelines. I get that. But what I don't get is if everything went the same up to that point, with us helping them along, what went wrong in our timeline?"

M's smile fell. "I don't know. We'd have to ask someone who was there...Lily or Remus."

"Remus. I'll call him, see if he's free to meet."

"You two are close?"

"You could say. When he was a student, my dad had the bright idea of having him endure his werewolf transformations in this house in Hogsmeade that became known as the Shrieking Shack. I found out about it after Snape was nearly killed by Lupin one night. I commissioned some Wolfsbane potion from a Potions master I know in Sweden, we gave Remus access to a private room in the castle, and never had another problem. When that Potions master passed away, Snape himself took over making the Wolfsbane. Right before he killed himself, he made a concentrated version, the equivalent of ten thousand individual doses. He would've won an award for that. It was a major breakthrough. Anyway...he left it labelled with specific instructions. If Remus lives to be one hundred and fifty, he still won't run out."

Tom dialed his mobile. Remus told them to come by. He shared a large flat with Sirius. It was a little ostentatious for Lupin's humble taste, but he didn't mind certain comforts. They met in the study he used for his counseling sessions with werewolves. Tom introduced M as Michael, and Remus offered them chocolate. "We're trying to understand what happened that night, for Harry's sake," said Tom.

"For Harry...yes, Sirius told me he was asking about Severus earlier this year."

"Did you ever doubt Snape's guilt?"

"I didn't want to believe it, but...considering the evidence..."

"Did you attempt to gather any evidence?" asked M.

Remus eyed him suspiciously. Tom said, "Don't worry. Anything you tell us is just for personal satisfaction."

Remus took a deep breath and ate another piece of chocolate. "That night, while I was waiting to see how James would recover, Lily came to me and asked for help. She had a stolen Time-Turner, and we went to James' place to see if we could witness what had happened. We needed to turn it six times, six hours. The first five turns went fine, but on the sixth the Time-Turner...stuck. I forced it, and it broke. Just fell apart into pieces. We didn't get to see what happened. We were too late. Lily was inconsolable. Ultimately, we had no choice but to accept the evidence."

Remus ate another piece of chocolate. It wasn't helping to calm him down at that moment. He added, "I still don't understand it. I'd used a Time-Turner loads of times before."

"Time doesn't like to be forced. Sometimes it does weird things to prevent worse things," said M.

Remus frowned. "I'm sorry...but who are you, exactly?"

"A time scientist, and a close friend of the Riddle-Figg-Dumbledore family."

"He's family," corrected Tom. "Thank you for telling us about the Time-Turner. Harry was having a hard time with the idea that his mother just gave up on Severus and starting dating James. The fact that she tried to get to the truth will mean a lot to him."

"It might mean more coming from her. I think she still feels like she betrayed Sev...but if you'd seen her then...she wasn't herself, and James took advantage of that."

"It's been such a long time. Maybe it's best to respect her silence about it."

Remus nodded sadly. "Well...I hope I've been helpful, at least."

"Very much. Have a Happy Christmas."

"You, too."

Tom Apparated them back to Hogwarts. M shuffled around in the trail of footprints he'd made earlier. "Now we know. In this universe, the Time-Turner broke. In the parallel universe, it worked."

"He was innocent, and nobody here knows. If we tell them, will it just hurt them more?"

"The people who really knew him and loved him all seem to know the truth already, even if they don't want to admit it. That'll have to be good enough, because I'm sure James destroyed that wand ages ago. He got what he wanted, and it still didn't work out the way he'd hoped. I guess that's a kind of justice."

They shared a moment of silence, staring up into the clear night sky, awash in stars. M continued, "On the bright side, there's a place where he's alive. Maybe nobody ever really dies."

Christmas was broken up into a succession of meals. On Christmas Eve, Harry had dinner with his mother, Remus, and Sirius. Then he went to his dad's flat where they ate together, just the two of them. The next morning there was a gauntlet of present-opening at both locations, then Harry dined at the London mansion with Albus and Arabella Riddle-Figg-Dumbledore, Tom and Saskia, Ariana and Ara Malacrea (Saskia and Tom's daughters, now thirty-one and twenty-nine, respectively), Hermione, Ashley, the Time Lords, Fawkes, and an assortment of cats and Kneazles. After that, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Rory, Amy, the Doctor and M met at the Burrow for the final feast. The Doctor received a sweater from Molly Weasley, emblazoned with a huge 'D'. M got the same classic gift, and so did Amy.

After dinner, Harry went outside and walked far from the house. He took out the rolled-up scroll, his long and harrowing account of the events they'd averted. He put it down in the snow and used his wand to set it on fire. When he turned to go back to the house, M was standing there. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

"It's alright."

M hesitated for an instant, then went ahead. "There's something I think you ought to know. Your mum tried to use a Time-Turner to see the truth about what happened that night with Snape. In this universe, she was too late. But another timeline split off, Harry. I saw it, and in it, things are different. We'll never know exactly what happened in this timeline, but in the other one Snape was innocent and he didn't go to Azkaban. He's alive, he's with your mum, and they're happy."

Harry's eyes were glistening. "R-really?"

M nodded. Harry hugged him. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

"You're welcome," he said, and a moment later he yawned, finally, finally feeling sleepy.