Chapter 25: Prince family

-Muggle London, 1 August 1976.

Severus sighed as he sipped his drink from his glass.

He walked out of the technology exhibit once again disappointed by the things he had just seen.

To everyone else, the exhibits were new and interesting, but to Severus, it was ancient, very ancient history.

Now it was the beginning of August, it had been almost a month and a half since Snape had merged with Vader and he had met Hermione and Draco.

He had spent most of that time training his physique, the Force, and the different magics of this planet.

He had also put the Prince's family business, potions, back on track and had come up with several new potions and others that were more efficient than the ones that already existed.

Severus had been very busy with the potions factory, but now luckily the production of potions at Prince's Factory was going quite fast, all the potion makers who worked there were quite capable of brewing potions according to the instructions.

So, once Severus explained to them what they had to do and how they had to do it, it didn't take them long to get the potions properly prepared, so mass production had already started a few days ago.

The only problem was that Severus had to talk to the British Ministry of Magic after the news came out that the Prince's factory had started selling new potions.

This was because the only one with the power to do that was the Lord of Prince House, which meant that he had to reveal himself, but now he didn't care.

Now that Severus had stabilised his situation, he no longer bothered to hide his status as the new Lord of the Prince family, Severus Prince.

The Ministry of Magic and the Wizengamot did not take kindly the fact that Severus did not announce to them that he was the current heir and Lord of the Prince Family.

But they couldn't do much about it either, especially when most of the Noble families were interested in re-opening pending negotiations with the Princes or making new ones.

Besides, for the last years, the Prince family had been affiliated with the Ministry of Magic, so they were "supporting" them.

But Severus made it clear that the Prince family would not take sides in the current conflict and would be neutral, just like several other Noble families.

This made the Ministry quite indignant, but at the moment they don't want to make enemies like the Prince, their situation with the Dark Lord already has their hands tied.

So things turned out much better than Severus had expected, for now at least...

Today Severus went to see a technology exhibition in London, at first he was going to go alone, but when Hermione found out she insisted on going with him, she even managed to convince Draco to join them.

The funny thing was that he wasn't the only one who was disappointed, as Hermione was also quite bored with the limited technology on display.

In fact, the most intrigued was Draco who didn't know most of the things on display.

It was obvious that he had never lived in the Muggle world or used its technology.

To be honest, Severus didn't care about the technology of this world, he just went to get an idea of the impression this technology made on the people of this time.

If he wanted to introduce new technology to this planet, he couldn't do it carelessly, he would have to go slowly and make people adapt and this exhibition gave him an idea.

"So you guys liked the exhibit?" Hermione asked trying not to show on her face how boring she had found it.

"Hmm, it was really good," Severus joked.

"Magic is better" Draco clarified shamelessly as he was the one who enjoyed the exhibition the most.

Hermione rolled her eyes at Draco's comment and looked at Severus.

"Well, it was... interesting, thanks for the tickets, Severus," Hermione smiled embarrassed that she had actually insisted on coming but hadn't enjoyed the exhibition, but she would never admit that.

"Oh, I'm glad to hear that because I have tickets to two more exhibitions this month and you could join me," grinned Severus amused at Hermione's frown.

She hid it very well, though.

"Sure..., I'd be delighted..." she smiled tensely.

"I suppose I wouldn't mind going," Draco added emotionlessly, but it was very clear to Hermione and Severus that he was interested in the idea.

"I still don't understand how you got the tickets" Hermione commented staring at Severus.

"Oh, that's because I was invited, nothing important," Severus replied.

"You were invited?" Hermione asked again.

"That's right," Severus nodded and smiled mysteriously.

"I see..." said Hermione with a frown, even though she had a lot of questions she decided not to bother him, she already knew that when he wanted to say something he was quite direct in the matter.

So she didn't bother to ask any more questions, knowing that he would just dodge her.

The truth was that since Severus had created Skywalker Industries, he had been making several investments, especially in technology.

It was then that the organisers of the technology exhibitions contacted him to invite him to participate in three exhibitions that would be taking place in the month of August.

They naively thought he would spend money on other people's stuff when he could create his own.

"So what do you say we go back, with Draco we take the exam in three days, we'll have to go over everything," said Hermione.

"No I won't, I already told you I'm not going to keep studying, so I won't," said Draco.

"Draco we have to..." Hermione continued to insist him.

"Hermione, we already know basically everything we need to pass the ordinary level exams and that's good enough to have the OWL level and get into Hogwarts, I don't think reading any further will help us at all" commented Draco.

"You're wrong Draco, there are a lot of things we have to go over if we want to have extraordinary in every subject" replied Hermione as if it was obvious.

"Having everything extraordinary is really so necessary, isn't one TIMO enough for you?" Draco complained.

"No, and you should learn from Severus, he has extraordinary in every subject except for Transfiguration."

"Huh?, and what does that have to do with us?"

"We can't aim any lower than that, Draco," Hermione said.

"Besides, the TIMOS are very important, they affect the jobs we'll be able to apply for and everything" she added firmly.

"It doesn't do any good to study that hard."

"Yes, it does..."

Severus just chuckled, he couldn't help it, the way they were acting reminded him so much to him and Obi-Wan.

They both heard Severus chuckle and turned around in surprise.

Severus ignored their stares and walked past them, his head full of nostalgic memories of his past or future life.

"Hey, Hermione, did he laugh?" Draco's eyes snapped open and he asked in shock.

" Kind cute..." she mumbled as she quickly put her hand over her mouth as she realised what she said.

She looked at Draco in embarrassment to see if he had heard her, but thankfully it seemed that he hadn't.

"What was that?" asked Draco.

"Nothing!" Hermione replied.

Draco looked at her quizzically for a moment but then shook his head and continued to think about what he had just seen.

Hermione sighed.

Then the two of them followed behind Severus and returned to Prince Manor.

~~~~~~~

-Diagon Alley, 5 August 1976

Hermione and Draco had already passed their Hogwarts entrance exams and Lily invited them to celebrate.

"So, I saw on the news that the Prince factory has come out with a lot of new potions and I hear Severus Prince is the Lord of the family now, that must be his cousin, right?" commented Lily as she took a sip of her drink.

She had seen in the paper that the Prince were mentioned and was very intrigued to know more about Draco and Hermione's family.

Lily only knew that they had a distant cousin who lived here.

Now she knew that person's name was Severus Prince, Lily laughed at the thought that with all the trouble she had been having in her head over her ex-friend, now it turned out that their cousin had the same name.

It was as if life was playing a joke on her.

Draco and Hermione got a little nervous at what Lily said, but they didn't show it on their faces.

Severus had already shown his identity to the Ministry so they were no longer forbidden to talk about him, but it would be awkward to tell Lily about him.

Especially since they were not supposed to "know" that they knew each other.

"Yeah..., our cousin's actually been doing a lot of things these past few days," Draco nodded.

"That's great, come to think of it we never talked about him..."

"He must be good at potions right..., with all the improvements in potions he made along with the new ones they started making " Lily began to ask excitedly.

She had never talked about this with them before because of the embarrassment she felt when they told her that their families had died.

But now that the conversation had come up she had the opportunity and was excited to find out more about the two of them.

Draco and Hermione looked at each other for a few seconds until they both sighed in defeat.

"Well, he doesn't like that we talk about him too much, he's very reserved, but yeah, he's a genius at potions," Hermione said surprising Lily.

"Wow..., Hmm, so you two don't talk to him much?" asked Lily intrigued.

"Not about our lives, but we usually practice magic and other activities together," said Draco.

"Huh...Why?, aren't you family?" Lily was confused, being the only three Prince's left, it was strange that they weren't more supportive of each other.

"As I said, he is quite reserved, plus it's a good thing he's let us live with him, he's a great support," said Hermione.

"I see..." Lily understood what they meant.

Not many wizards from noble houses like the Prince's would accept distant relatives who had no close ties to them and neither Hermione nor Draco were likely to have figured in their family tree so their cousin had done them a great favour by welcoming them into the family.

Seeing that the atmosphere had become a little tense, Lily decided not to ask any more questions despite her curiosity.

In another time she could ask more questions, but now they were celebrating.

Now was not the time to be thinking about complicated things.

Changing the conversation they began to talk about Hogwarts, the subjects they had decided to attend, and several other activities.

In this way, the three of them spent the whole day.