The Weasleys and Hermione had gone back to Gryffindor tower. Harry had shut himself in his room and Sirius, Tonks and Remus were in the common room by the fire in silence. They heard the portrait open and none other than James Potter come in.

"How did you get in?" Remus asked frowning and a little annoyed, he did not want to have this talk right now.

"Simple, I realized my adult friends haven't grown up as much as they think," James answered.

"Oh, that was Fred's idea of a funny joke," Sirius said.

"May I see my son?" James said in a calm but serious tone that said he was annoyed. He hadn't appreciated Sirius taking the boy away on that manner.

"No, you may not," Sirius answered in the same tone.

"Why not? He is my son!" James barked back.

"Exactly for that reason," Remus answered calmly. He knew what Harry was feeling; he himself had feared rejection a million times. "He doesn't need to see his father think poorly of him over something he has no control of. He gets enough of that from strangers."

"You think I will reject him because he is a parselmouth? I wouldn't, even if he was born one! Which I know is not the case, or need I remind you that you told us that Voldemort transferred some of his powers to Harry. I'm able to put two and two together, you know? And you Moony, of all people think that, when have I ever rejected you?"

Remus felt embarrassed. He was right, he shouldn't have thought that of James, but he was so used to everyone prejudging him, and with all the articles Fudge had been putting out about how Harry was deranged and dangerous, he had overreacted a little.

"You're right, I'm sorry Prongs," he said, "I should have known you better, but Harry doesn't, and he is afraid of what you and Lily would think. He loves you two so much, but doesn't really know you."

"That's why I'm here. Now, can I see my son," James said again in a much lighter tone.

Sirius nodded and said, "He's in his room. You can knock; don't know if he'll answer though."

James went but didn't knock; he opened the door, went in and closed the door behind him. Harry was seated by the window ledge hugging his knees. He didn't even look up to see who had come in. James walked to him and while he seated at his side said.

"Molly wants to thank you."

Harry looked up and saw his father. He didn't understand, he was sure his father would never want to see him again.

"Why did you run Harry? Your mother was worried?"

"When everyone found out I was a parselmouth on second year, they thought I was the heir of Slytherin and was letting a big basilisk loose on the school," Harry answered. "There was an article too, last year saying that I had to be evil because I was a parselmouth that befriended werewolves and half giants."

"Last time I checked, I befriend werewolves and Half Giants too. We are talking about Hagrid right?" James said and Harry nodded, so he continued "You thought we would think the same?" again Harry nodded. "So Dumbledore said that we are defined by the choices we make not by the abilities we have on your second year?" Harry looked at him surprised, James chuckled and said "Dumbledore was a very good friend of my parents. He was often at my house and said that sometimes too. I figured that he was the one you were honoring but couldn't fathom why he would have said that to you."

"So you don't care?" Harry asked in a small voice.

"Why should I? I saw you use your ability to save Ron's life, and Dumbledore told me you had used that before to save Ginny's," James said.

"He saw that on my mind on one of the lesson's and asked me what happened," Harry said.

"See, what matters are the choices you make," James said and he pulled his son into a hug. Harry felt relieved as he never thought he could. He wouldn't bear to be rejected by his parents.

"Lucky you were there, too. I don't know what a snake was doing there," James said.

"Wasn't just any snake, it was Nagini. Voldemort's snake," Harry said.

"How do you know?" James asked.

"She was there, on the night he came back. He was going to feed me to her," Harry said shivering on his father's embrace. James held him tighter.

"Dad, did Peter know were you'd be?"

"Yes," James answered grimacing. "We had to tell him. He was asking us to have lunch with him, but we couldn't. This was the only day you'd be out of the school, and if we didn't tell him, he would suspect we were on to him. He tipped Voldemort off. Slimy rat!"

---

To Harry's Amazement nobody at the school seemed to know he was a parselmouth. Fred told him that Arthur had words with Bill and Charlie forbidding them to tell anyone. Harry was impressed to see that the boys had complied, until on Monday morning, Bill approached him and he understood that Arthur didn't just have words with them but used some heavy psychological pressure.

"Hey Brian, may I speak with you?"

"Ok, what's up?"

"Well," Bill started ruffling his hair, "I want to thank you for saving Ron. Dad said that if you hadn't stopped that snake he would have died and our family would be broken forever, with no way to recover. So, thank you, and don't worry, me and Charlie won't breathe a word." And the boy left living a very amused Harry behind.

This was much better than second year. Mainly because no one knew what happened. But what made Harry truly happy was his parents' reaction. On Sunday Lily came up to the castle alone to reassure him that nothing had changed. She had wanted to let James talk to Harry alone first but wanted to make sure he knew she didn't care either. They spent the whole day together. Harry liked that a lot because even if he had spent a lot of time with his parents during the holidays, he had never spent alone time with Lily, only James.

Molly and Arthur also popped in on Sunday to thank Harry. He was very pleased. They always were family to him, and even if he knew that the Weasleys of his time line didn't care, he found that this time line's Weasleys opinion of him mattered too.

Today was Wednesday and they were once again poring through the books on ancient magic that Remus and Dumbledore had brought to the time travelers quarter. Even Fred and George were researching hard, which, for anyone that knew those two, told the gravity of the situation. Ginny was taking notes and scratching her nose with the quill. She had managed to smudge her nose with ink and Harry was debating with himself if he should tell her. But she looked so cute like that; he had noticed more and more lately how beautiful Ginny was. Then, suddenly he shook his head. No what was he thinking? This was Ginny. He suddenly was very aware that she had six older brothers.

Sirius chuckled at his godson's behavior. He had seen where Harry's gaze had been directed and wondered how much longer Harry would wait to act. He fondly remembered when Ginny was born. James had told Arthur they should start arranging the marriage and Arthur had told James to hold his hippogriffs, that maybe the kids wouldn't fancy each other. But James had brushed that off saying that Ginny possessed all the important Potter traits. Molly and Lily had laughed at this and said that maybe Harry wouldn't have his father taste on hair color, but James said that was nonsense. Now Sirius was thinking that James had been right. He was brought out of his thoughts by Hermione's excited voice.

"I think I found something!"

"What?" all the others said hurrying to where she had been reading. Remus started reading over her shoulders.

"What? What did she find? I don't understand a word," Sirius said frowning at the text.

"That's because this is ancient runes," Remus said, "but I think you're right Hermione. Want to explain?"

She nodded vigorously, Hermione loved explaining and Remus knew that.

"This text explains how the break of powers and the entrapment work. According to this, when another time line is created, the people from both time lines are linked by their magic energy, by their powers. So, if a wizard or witch in one of the time lines dies, or loses their powers, there is a break and the same wizard or witch from the other time line will have their powers diminished. Not significantly, the person most likely won't even notice. But if this happens to the person that casts the spell in the first place, the break is enough to have the spell reversed, and that is were the entrapment enters."

"So what you're saying is we have to kill Voldemort here to be able to go back. Easier said than done," George said.

"He doesn't necessarily has to die. Just lose his powers," Remus said.

"Oh! Glad to know. Because that is so much easier!" Sirius said sarcastically.

"As I was saying," Hermione continued, "that is where the entrapment enters. To reverse the spell someone has to entrap the spell's essence and then return it as the opposite in the original time line."

"The essence?" Ron asked.

"Yes, Ron, the green light we saw was the essence," Remus explained, "like the red beam of a stunner is the essence."

"We're doomed then. Even if, somehow, we managed the break of powers, no one would have done the entrapment!" Ginny said desperately. All of them sat there in silence. Sure they would never go back home. Then something stirred on Sirius memory and he asked:

"How would one entrap the essence of a spell?"

"On a magical object of some kind," Remus answered. "Why are you asking? Not like knowing will do us any good."

"Right before we left I saw one last person arrive to the battle," Sirius answered pensively "Dumbledore," and a smile started spreading on his face, "and he was carrying a very strange object."