Happy anniversary, guys. As of today (May 28, 2018) this story is officially one year old :)

I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed, followed and/or favorited my story. I went through all of the reviews again and they all made me smile. You are amazing, guys. Thank you for all the support. Every time I get an email telling me about someone who likes my story, it makes me incredibly happy. They inspire me and keep me going. I have had a couple of stressful months and I know the ones to come will not be any easier. Sometimes a few nice words are everything it takes to turn someone's day around.

Enough with the feelings. Have fun with chapter 62 of A Slytherin Through Time:

Draco had been on his way towards Snape's office a few days later. He had wanted to discuss his DADA homework. But before he reached the door, he could hear someone yelling, a smash, and then saw Potter running towards him. He strode right past him, pale and shaking.

Draco opened the door to his godfather's office carefully, peeking inside. Snape was standing beside his Pensieve, seething, and looked like he was about to kill someone, so Draco slowly closed the door again and fled the scene.

This was probably none of his business.

Unsurprisingly, the universe decided to make it his business.

"Can you talk to him?" Hermione Granger asked, the next morning. She was standing beside him, her hands on her hips, her head tilted to the side.

Draco blinked a few times. "I am supposed to talk to Potter about his problems? Have you gone mental? Who do you think I am?" He pushed his porridge away from him, turning around on his seat to face her.

It was the last thing he had expected when Neville and Granger had approached him this morning in the Great Hall, that they wanted him to have a heart-to-heart with Potter.

"Draco, please," Hermione went on, "he hasn't talked to any of us since his Occlumency lesson yesterday and he seems to be pretty upset. He is hiding in the Room of Requirement and doesn't want to talk to any of us."

"You're his friends, if he doesn't talk to you, why would he talk to me?" When had everyone's problems become his problems as well?

"You are his friend, too," Neville argued and Draco raised an eyebrow at that. "Don't give me that look. You can deny it if you want, but it's true."

"Et tu, Nev? I still don't get why he would talk to me if he isn't talking to you."

"I don't know," Neville admitted, "but you have a knack for this type of thing and you're good at mediating between Snape and the rest of the world. If you can make me get along with him, Harry shouldn't be a problem."

Draco groaned. "Urgh - fine. But I'm telling you, it won't work."

Hermione's face lit up. "Thank you, Draco."

Draco reluctantly made his way towards the Room of Requirement, leaving his half-eaten breakfast behind. He had had this thought several times before, but never quite reached a satisfying conclusion: Where he and Potter really friends? Sure, they did not hate each other anymore, and they spent a lot of time together and helped each other out every once in a while... but friends?

Maybe it was easier for the others to see, because they had only seen them as enemies for a little less than three years. But Draco had a whole lifetime of animosity he remembered, so the concept of being friends with Potter seemed far more outlandish to him.

It must have been that Quidditch match in their third year, Draco concluded right before he reached the Room of Requirement. He had saved Potter's life and now everyone thought they were friends.

Surprisingly enough, wanting to talk to Potter alone allowed him to find and open the door and he soon stood inside a dark and gloomy room. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Draco could make out Potter. The boy was cowering in a corner, looking crestfallen.

Draco sank down next to him, not saying anything.

It didn't take long and the talkative Gryffindor told him everything that had happened. How Snape had left the room during their lesson, how he had looked inside the Pensieve,...

"You did what?" Draco almost yelled. "Do you have any idea how disrespectful and intrusive that was?"

"Don't you think I know?" Harry snapped. In his defense, he did look miserable. "I don't know what I was thinking. He's always so mean to me and he is hiding something and - I don't know, I am an idiot. I thought I might find out more about my mum."

Seeing the young boy so devastated sparked some resemblance of fatherly feelings deep inside of Draco. The sadness that accompanied the thought of his own son he squashed down. "What exactly did you see?" Draco rarely felt like the grown up he was, but whenever scared or sad children were involved, he felt a need to protect them that was uncommon for children.

"Uhm-" Harry fidgeted. "I am not sure..."

"It's okay," Draco mumbled. "If it's really that bad I guess it's good if you keep it to yourself. Respect his privacy at least to some degree..." Draco mused. "But I doubt it's something new to me. I know him pretty well, you know." All the horrible things Harry could have seen flashed before Draco's inner eye. His home life, perhaps. Definitely something that would disturb the Boy-Who-Lived. Or the Shrieking Shack incident. Or maybe Snape joining the Death Eaters. If he had seen that, things were over and Draco would never be able to get them to get along.

Harry considered this. Finally, he started to talk. "I- I saw a younger version of him. End of fifth year. He... he had an.. uhm... altercation with my father and his friends..."

Draco groaned. He knew quite a lot, more perhaps than he wanted to, about the relationship between Snape and the Marauders. At least it weren't any memories of torturing muggle borns. "There is a reason, you know, why Snape and Sirius hate each other so much."

"I know now," Harry said bitterly. "And you know what? Snape has every right to hate them! They were horrible! Bullies! They targeted him, humiliated him, just because they felt like it!"

Draco looked at Harry who was shaking now. That was what he was upset about?

"I know how it feels, you know? I know how it feels to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers. It happens to me all the time. It happened when everyone thought I was the evil heir of Slytherin. It... it's basically what's happening this year... I know exactly how Snape must have felt. And by the looks of it, my father was every bit as arrogant as Snape has always told me!"

Draco was rather surprised. He'd thought Harry was upset because of what happened between him and Snape, but he had apparently been wrong.

"Harry," Draco started, not quite sure what to say. "Maybe you shouldn't judge your father solely on what you've seen in the Pensieve. It is only a snippet of the life he lived, seen through the eyes of an enemy. And he was only - what, 15?"

"I am 14 and I know better! And I know it's just a small piece of my father's life and that I didn't see everything that had happened between them before that... and Merlin, I know what a prick Snape can be, but no one, not even an enemy, deserves to be treated like that. He didn't do anything to them. He was just minding his own business, and they attacked him. Because they were bored. Snape was defenseless and outnumbered and they humiliated him in front of the whole school for no good reason. No matter what he did before, or after, no one should treat anyone like that."

Harry took a few deep calming breaths.

"You are a better person than most," Draco finally concluded. Better than even adult Draco would ever be. Similar to Astoria, Harry seemed to be able to see the good in everyone and he seemed to have a great capacity for forgiveness.

Harry shook his head. "I keep wondering whether he would have bullied me had we been in school together. If the hat had put me into Slytherin... I am pretty sure I would have hated my father, had we been in school together. He was-"

"Just like me?" Draco interrupted Harry. It hurt, but Draco knew it was the truth. He had been an arrogant bully in his school days. And he knew that the arrogance and vindictiveness of his past were still somewhere inside of him.

Harry didn't say anything and looked away.

Draco sighed. "I've been just like that during our first two years here. People change, you know."

"You never told me why, though," Harry said. Apparently, Harry had still not tired of this line of inquiry.

Draco snorted. Stubborn Gryffindors. "Probably never will, either. But we get along now, right?"

Harry nodded his head.

"So if I can change, so could your father, right?"

Harry nodded again. "It's just... I have never known my parents and everyone has always told me what wonderful people they had been. It's all I know of them and now I find out that it's all been a lie. And my mother, she hated him. I saw it. How come she married him? Did he force her?"

Draco sighed again. "Harry... I am sure your parents loved you and each other. They died for you. They both gave their life so you could live. Maybe they weren't the overall perfect, wonderful human beings everyone talks about. They made mistakes, just like everyone else, but they were good people."

Some of the tension left Harry, but he seemed resigned. "And what about Sirius? He is still like that."

"He's pretty pigheaded," Draco admitted. "But I'm working on it."

That made Harry chuckle and he looked a little better.

"I'll try to help you on that front."

"I think they could be great friends, Snape and Sirius, if they didn't hate each other so much."

"You think?" Harry furrowed his brows.

"They are so similar. They are both quite clever and incredibly stubborn." They are also both full of regret and quite lonely, Draco's mind added.

Harry laughed.

Draco smiled. "Maybe you should talk to them. Sirius and Lupin, I mean."

"I will," Harry said, but then new worry filled him. "But what about Snape? He hated me before, but now? I think they need to create a new dictionary entry to describe just how much that man despises me."

"What did he do when he found you in the Pensieve?"

Harry looked embarrassed. "He grabbed me real hard, and shook me, and he threw a jar of dead cockroaches at me. And he ended our Occlumency lessons."

Draco frowned. "Snape should not have done that."

"I need those lessons! I was making good headway lately."

"Talk to him. And for Merlin's sake, apologize."

Harry looked rather pale, but didn't argue. "He'll kill me."

"He'll do that either way. But if you apologize you'll at least die with your conscience clear."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Thanks," he muttered, "that's helping."

Draco laughed. "If Neville can make peace with him, so can you."

Harry smiled at Draco, but then his expression darkened again. "I think Prof. Slughorn made a mistake. In the memory I saw... Snape and my mum did not get along at all." Draco felt like Harry wanted to say more, but didn't.

"None of your business," Draco sighed, "but as far as I know, they had a falling out at some point during their time at school."

Harry nodded his head. "Not all that surprising, I guess," he sighed, "considering they were in different houses and everything."

Draco closed his eyes, thinking about all the pain that could have been avoided if people were able to put aside their prejudices. "We can only try to learn from the past," he finally said.

TBC

This chapter and Harry's thoughts reminded me a bit of Back to the Future. "Writer and producer Bob Gale conceived Back to the Future after he visited his parents in St. Louis, Missouri after the release of Used Cars. Searching their basement, Gale found his father's high school yearbook and discovered he was president of his graduating class. Gale had not known the president of his own graduating class, and wondered whether he would have been friends with his father if they went to high school together." (wikipedia on Back to the Future)

I love how in the books, Harry does not enjoy seeing Snape's memories at all. He hates Snape but still resents seeing him humiliated and suffering. No "Schadenfreude" there. I doubt many of the other characters or people in general would react like that if they saw an enemy struggle like that.

There's been a lot of talking in the last chapters... Hope you still enjoyed it though. Let me know in the reviews.

The next few chapters will have more action, promise ;)