Emma Potter; Going to War

42: Ikigai

"But why haven't you got Occlumency lessons anymore?" said Hermione, frowning. 

"I've told you," I muttered. "Snape reckons we can carry on by ourselves now we've got the basics. . . ."

 "So you've stopped having funny dreams?" Zoe said skeptically. 

"Pretty much,"I said, not looking at either of them. 

"Well, I don't think Snape should stop until you're absolutely sureyou can control them!" said Hermione indignantly. "Emma, I thinkyou and Harry should go back to him and ask —"

 "No," I said forcefully. "Just drop it, Hermione, okay?" 

It was the first day of the Easter holidays and Hermione, as was hercustom, had spent a large part of the day drawing up study schedulesfor the three of us. Zoe and I had let her do it — it was easierthan arguing with her and, in any case, they come in useful. 

Zoe had been startled to discover that there were only six weeks leftuntil their exams.

"How can that come as a shock?" Hermione demanded, as shetapped each little square on Zoe's schedule with her wand so that itflashed a different color according to its subject.

 "I don't know . . ." said Zoe, "there's been a lot going on. . . ."

 "Well, there you are," she said, handing her her schedule, "if youfollow that you should do fine." 

Zoe looked down it gloomily. 

"You've not even given me breaks!"

Hermione said nothing. She was looking at me, who was staringblankly at the opposite wall of the common room while Crookshankspawed at my hand, trying to get his ears scratched."What's wrong, Ema?" 

"What?" I said quickly. "Nothing just tired. . ." 

I seized my copy of Defensive Magical Theory and pretended to belooking something up in the index. Crookshanks gave me up as a badjob and slunk away under Hermione's chair. They didn't push it.

Leaving my mind free todwell, ever more miserably, on what I had seen in the Pensieve. I felt as though the memory of it was eating me from inside. I had been so sure that my parents had been wonderful people that I never had the slightest difficulty in disbelieving Snape's aspersionson his father's character. 

Hadn't people like Hagrid and Sirius told me how wonderful my father had been? (Yeah, well, look whatSirius was like himself, said a nagging voice inside my head. . . .He was as bad, wasn't he?) Yes, I had once overheard ProfessorMcGonagall saying that his father and Sirius had been troublemakers at school, but she had described them as forerunners of theWeasley twins, and I could not imagine Fred and George dangling someone upside down for the fun of it . . . not unless they really loathed them . . . Perhaps somebody who reallydeserved it . . . 

I tried to make a case for Snape having deserved what he hadsuffered at James's hands — but hadn't Lily asked, "What's he done toyou?" And hadn't James replied, "It's more the fact that he exists, if youknow what I mean?" 

Hadn't James started it all simply because Siriussaid he was bored? I remembered Lupin saying back in Grimmauld Place that Dumbledore had made him prefect in the hope thathe would be able to exercise some control over James and Sirius. . . .But in the Pensieve, he had sat there and let it all happen. . . . 

I reminded myself that Lily had intervened; my mother hadbeen decent, yet the memory of the look on her face as she hadshouted at James disturbed me quite as much as anything else. Shehad clearly loathed James and I simply could not understandhow they could have ended up married let alone have children. Once or twice I even wondered whether James had forced her into it. . . .