Parallel Time and Space 3

With that, she turned and walked back to the center of the office.

Dumbledore's gaze deepened, and he spoke the truth in a single sentence. "My child, you know Severus."

It was not a question, but a statement.

"Yes." Lily nodded gently. "Severus and I grew up together."

It was an answer the trio had not expected.

"To this day, I still don't know how you met that Snivellus, let alone became friends with him." As soon as James felt safe, he began to speak boldly.

"Potter!" Lily shot him a fierce glare.

James clamped his mouth shut at once, forcibly swallowing the rest of what he had been about to say against Snape.

Silence fell over the office.

McGonagall looked at the two lively, radiant figures before her, her heart full of emotion. They were Gryffindor's two most brilliant, high-spirited graduates, but also children who had died many years ago, forever frozen in time. It was as though she could still see them as they once had been, full of youthful spirit.

Harry took a deep breath, mustered his courage, and caught hold of Lily's robes.

To tell the truth, this was the situation Lily had least wanted to face. But the bond of blood and the familiarity deep in her soul could not be severed.

She slowly turned and gazed quietly at Harry.

Without a word, James walked over to Harry's other side.

Standing between his birth parents, Harry looked from one to the other, unable to get enough of this long-overdue reunion. Eleven years of longing and yearning finally broke free. Choking back sobs, he softly spoke the words he had repeated in his heart countless times:

"Mom... Dad..."

Two pairs of remarkably similar green eyes met.

Lily's eyes reddened, and tears slipped silently down her cheeks as she reached out and held Harry tight. Even if they were close in age, even if the road ahead was uncertain, and even if she and James remained entangled in conflict, she could never bring herself to ignore this child, born because of them and never once blessed with his parents' company.

James reached out too, drawing them both into his arms, his heart a tangle of emotions. Surprise, shock, bitterness, and heartache intertwined.

After that brief rush of emotion, reason abruptly returned.

Why did this child feel such intense attachment and longing for them, when they had never been there with him?

He soon thought of that. Why was it so? What made a child feel this way about his parents? Was it because they had not been there as he grew up? And why had they been unable to be there? There was only one thing that could keep parents from being with their child: death. Death had separated them.

Hermione covered her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes. At last, she was absolutely certain of the two people's identities—they were Harry's parents, who had died young, as they had been in their youth, vibrant and untouched by hardship.

Even Ron, the slowest of them, finally understood everything.

Dumbledore spoke softly, offering a gentle reminder. "Harry, do you remember what I once told you?"

Harry nodded through his tears, his voice choked. "Love is the greatest magic in the world."

Lily loosened her embrace and looked up at Dumbledore, her gaze resolute. "Headmaster, is there still a chance for us to return to our original timeline? I'm willing to share a memory with you. A memory from before I came here..."

James instinctively assumed she meant to tell him about falling down the stairs and thought no more of it.

Dumbledore pointed to the Pensieve in front of his desk. "Come, my child. Tell me all about it."

Lily did not know whether, after this journey through time and space, everything would start over again. So she put the entire plot of the original Harry Potter story, every path and fate of the next twenty years, into the Pensieve.

When she had finished, she handed Harry the pumpkin bag, full to the brim with candy. "Happy Halloween, Harry. I'm so glad I finally got to meet you."

Harry clutched the heavy pumpkin bag as tears poured down his face, leaving him unable to speak.

James stepped forward in silence and gave his son a solemn embrace. He could clearly feel the pull of time and space now. His and Lily's figures were gradually becoming translucent, and they had little time left.

"I'm sorry we can't stay with you for long." His voice was low, full of guilt. "All we can do is leave you a little something to remember us by."

He had no valuables on him, only an old family photograph, which he gently placed in Harry's hand.

Lily also took out a photograph of herself and Petunia. "Goodbye, Harry. I hope we have another chance to see each other."

The two turned together and waved goodbye to Professor McGonagall, whose eyes were red, and Dumbledore, whose expression was complicated. "Goodbye, Professor McGonagall. Goodbye, Headmaster."

Light and shadows shifted, and their figures faded.

Professor McGonagall stood with tears in her eyes, staring at the spot where the two had vanished completely. For a long time, she did not move.

After a long while, Dumbledore spoke softly, comforting the three children, who were at a loss. "All right, children, it's time to return to the Gryffindor Common Room."

Harry walked slowly out of the Headmaster's Office, clutching the two still-warm photographs and holding a bag full of candy. Ron and Hermione quietly accompanied him, one on either side. The entire wizarding world knew that he had lost both parents as a child and had thus earned the title of the Chosen One.

"I'm all right. At least they left me something to remember them by, didn't they?" Harry tried to make the best of it.