The Tale Of The Two Rings

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐃𝐨𝐨𝐫

Lily Evans lived in a long row of houses that were all joined together. One morning she was out in the back garden when a boy scrambled up from the garden next door and put his face over the wall. Lily was very surprised because up till now there had never been any children in that house, but only Mr.Snape and Mrs.Snape, a husband and a wife, an old bachelor, and an old maid who always argued and shouted. So she looked up, full of curiosity. The face of the strange boy was very grubby and his hair was very oily. It could hardly have been grubbier if he had first rubbed his hands in the earth, and then had a good cry, and then dried his face with his hands. As a matter of fact, this was very nearly what he had been doing.
"Hullo," said Lily.
"Hullo," said the boy.
"What's your name?"
 "Lily Evans," said Lily. "What's yours?"
"Severus Snape," said the boy.
"I say, what a funny name!" said Lily.
"It isn't half so funny as Evans," said Severus.
 "Yes it is," said Lily.
"No, it isn't," said Severus.
   "At any rate, I do wash my face and Hair," said Lily, "Which is what you need to do; especially after —" and then she stopped. She had been going to say "After you've been blubbing," but she thought that wouldn't be polite.       
 "Alright, I have then," said Severus in a much louder voice, like a boy who was so miserable that he didn't care who knew he had been crying. "And so would you," he went on, "if you'd lived all your life in a miserable home where you're not even allowed to go out often and gets beaten up by your father just because you and your mother are wizards and he's not."
"Wizards? As if good wizards from The Wizard of Oz?" Asked Lily Curiously.
"Umm... Well, sort of." Replied Severus, He was paying his attention to the flowers that were beside Lily which unusually started floating."I think you are too."
"I'm a what exactly?" It was Lily. 
"If I'm right, You are a witch."Lily was shocked by this reply.
"A witch? Am I that bad?"
"Oh no, All witches aren't that bad. There are good witches too. Remember? Muggles haven't actually met good witches that much. That's why they tell you all witches are bad."
"Muggles?"
"Muggles are Non-magical people. You are a Muggle-born. Which means both your parents are muggles. I'm a half-blood, My mother is a witch and Father's a muggle."
"Ooh," Lily Smiled at Severus, Amused by the new information she learned.
"Why are you looking so sad?" Lily asked seeing Severus's Gloomy face.
"My mother's very ill these days. Everyone thinks she's 'bout to die. Father's been bad as ever." Said Severus Tears rolling through his eyes. Lily Hugged him.
"I'm really sorry Sev." Tears started falling through Lily's eyes too. Severus was shocked because after his mother no one has given him affection or even attention."If you want anything, you can always come to our home. Tuney would also like to meet you." Severus smiled at her.
"Is Mr Snape really mad?"
"Well either he's mad," said Severus, "or there's some other mystery. He has a study on the top floor and Mother says I must never go up there. Well, that looks fishy to begin with. And then there's another thing. Whenever he tries to say anything to me at meal times — he never even tries to talk to Mom — she always shuts him up. She says, "Don't worry about the boy, Tobias" or "I'm sure Sev doesn't want to hear about that" or else "Now, Severus, wouldn't you like to go out and play in the garden?"
"What sort of things does he try to say?"
"I don't know. He never gets far enough. But there's more than that. One night — it was last night in fact — as I was going past the foot of the attic stairs on my way to bed (and I don't much care for going past them either) I'm sure I heard a yell."
 "Perhaps he keeps a mad wife shut up there."
 "Yes, I've thought of that."
"Or perhaps he's a corner."
 "Or he might have been a pirate, like the man at the beginning of Treasure Island, and be always hiding from his old shipmates."
 "How exciting!" said Lily, "I never knew your house was so interesting.".
 "You may think it interesting," said Severus. "But you wouldn't like it if you had to sleep there. How would you like to lie awake listening for Uncle Andrew's step to come creeping along the passage to your room? And he has such awful eyes."
                 That was how Lily and Severus got to know one another: and as it was just the beginning of the summer holidays and neither of them was going to the sea that year, they met nearly every day. Their adventures began chiefly because it was one of the wettest and coldest summers there had been for years. That drove them to do indoor things: you might say, indoor exploration. It is wonderful how much exploring you can do with a stump of candles in a big house, or in a row of houses. Lily had discovered long ago that if you opened a certain little door in the box-room attic of her house you would find the cistern and a dark place behind it which you could get into by a little careful climbing. The dark place was like a long tunnel with a brick wall on one side and a sloping roof on the other. On the roof, there were little chunks of light between the slates. There was no floor in this tunnel: you had to step from rafter to rafter, and between them, there was only plaster. If you stepped on this you would find yourself falling through the ceiling of the room below. Lily had used the bit of the tunnel just beside the cistern as a smugglers' cave. She had brought up bits of old packing cases and the seats of broken kitchen chairs, and things of that sort, and spread them across from rafter to rafter so as to make a bit of floor. Here she kept a cash box containing various treasures, and a story she was writing and usually a few apples. She had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger beer in there: the old bottles made it look more like a smugglers' cave.
       Severus quite liked the cave (she wouldn't let him see the storybook) but he was more interested in exploring.
"Look here," he said. "How long does this tunnel go on for? I mean, does it stop where your house ends?"
"No," said Lily. "The walls don't go out to the roof. It goes on. I don't know how far."
"Then we could get the length of the whole row of houses."
"So we could," said Lily,"And oh, I say!"
"What?"
 "We could get into the other houses."
"Yes, and get taken up for burglars! No thanks."
"Don't be so jolly clever. I was thinking of the house beyond yours.",
 "What about it?"
"Why, it's the empty one. Daddy says it's always been empty since we came here."
"I suppose we ought to have a look at it then," said Sev. He was a good deal more excited than you'd have thought from the way he spoke. For of course he was thinking, just as you would have been, of all the reasons why the house might have been empty so long. So was Lily. Neither of them said the word "haunted". And both felt that once the thing had been suggested, it would be feeble not to do it.
 "Shall we go and try it now?" said Sev.
 "Alright," said Lily.
"Don't if you'd rather not," said Sev.
"I'm game if you are," Lily said.
 "How are we to know we're in the next house but one?" They decided they would have to go out into the boxroom and walk across it taking steps as long as the steps from one rafter to the next. That would give them an idea of how many rafters went into a room. Then they would allow about four more for the passage between the two attics in Lily's house, and then the same number for the maid's bedroom as for the box room. That would give them the length of the house. When they had done that distance twice they would be at the end of Severus's house; any door they came to after that would let them into an attic of the empty house.
"But I don't expect it's really empty at all," said Severus.
 "What do you expect?" 
"I expect someone lives there in secret, only coming in and out at night, with a dark lantern. We shall probably discover a gang of desperate criminals and get a reward. It's all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there was some mystery."
"Daddy thought it must be the drains," said Lily.
"Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations," said Sev. Now that they were talking by daylight in the attic instead of by candlelight in the Smugglers' Cave it seemed much less likely that the empty house would be haunted.
When they had measured the attic they had to get a pencil and do a sum. They both got different answers to it at first, and even when they agreed I am not sure they got it right. They were in a hurry to start the exploration.
 "We mustn't make a sound," said Lily as they climbed in again behind the cistern. Because it was such an important occasion they took a candle each (Lily had a good store of them in her cave). It was very dark and dusty and draughty and they stepped from rafter to rafter without a word except when they whispered to one another, "We're opposite your attic now" or "This must be halfway through our house". And neither of them stumbled and the candles didn't go out, and at last they came where they could see a little door in the brick wall on their right. There was no bolt or handle on this side of it, of course, for the door had been made for getting in, not for getting out; but there was a catch (as there often is on the inside of a cupboard door) which they felt sure they would be able to turn.
"Shall I?" said Digory.
 "I'm game if you are," said Polly, just as she had said before. Both felt that it was becoming very serious, but neither would draw back. Digory pushed round the catch with some difficultly.

                                                      To Be Continued...

Author's Note - Hope you liked the book so far. Sorry For the cliffhanger!!! The real chapter is too long so I have to write it as two parts. I'll update this book every week.

Yours,
Cassiopeia...