Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Chapter 9

Dumbledore's speech comes from the 1930 version of All Quiet on the Western Front.

*****

Oh, sinnerman where you gonna run to?
Where you gonna run to?
All on that day

Severus sits at his window, head cradled against his arm. The sunlight floats through the iron bars, warming his face. Snowdrops dot the courtyard. Spring has finally arrived. He closes his eyes, soaking in the heat. It makes him feel sleepy and stupid. The record turns, a new song starts. Music always had a way of making him think about Potter. His dumb face, and his dumb smile, and the way he taps taps taps against the door, as if desperate for Severus's attention. Music and Potter had become forever linked in his mind.

I run to the rock
Please hide me, I run to the rock
Please hide me, I run to the rock
Please hide me here
All on that day

When he opens his eyes again, puffs of smoke billow up in the distance, in the direction of Diagon Alley, maring his perfect blue skies. The smoke is thick and black, and the flickering glow of flames shine bright beyond the spires of a church. A pair of mediwitches walk out into the courtyard, hands on hips, one shielding her eyes from the sun, pointing and staring at the smoke.

But the rock cried out
I can't hide you, the rock cried out
I can't hide you, the rock cried out
I ain't gonna hide you here
All on that day

The two witches scream and leap back. Severus grips the windowsill tightly in his hands. No longer slouching, he is sitting with his back straight, his muscles tense, ready to leap, ready to flee, as he watches a green spectre fly into the air. A skull erupts from the smoke, monstrously large, and as it extends his jaw, a snake slithers out between its teeth.

So I run to the Lord
Please hide me, Lord
Don't you see me prayin'?
Don't you see me down here prayin'?
But the Lord said
Go to the Devil, the Lord said
Go to the Devil
All on that day

*****

"You knew!?" Lily shrieked. "You knew this entire time!?"

James dove to the other side of the owlery, putting a giant eagle owl between him and Lily. He grasped the perch like it was staff and the owl angrily flapped its wings at the pair of them. "If Severus wanted you to know, he would have told you himself!" He shouted back, which wasn't the brightest thing he ever said, because Lily whipped her wand out and flung a spell at his head.

He ducked, and the owls took flight. It was a whirlwind of feathers, wings beating against their faces, ears deafened by their wild shrieks.

"I had no idea what happened to him!" Lily's voice echoed against the stone. James buried his head in his arms and pushed forward, into the sea of feathers. "I thought he might have been hurt! Or dead! And there was nothing I could do! No one would tell me anything! And you knew!"

The last bird fled, out of the window and into the sky, leaving behind only James and Lily. He found her sitting on the floor in a mound of feathers, knees drawn up, her face buried in her hands. He approached her cautiously, like she was a wild animal.

"You played it cool," he said.

She snapped her head up, green eyes wet and blazing. "We were nine when we met. I'm eighteen now. That's half my entire life. He's a part of me now, whether I want him to be or not."

James settled on the ground next to her. "Do you want to see him?"

"I don't know."

"He needs people, Lily."