A Potter Secret

Loss and Snape's Memories

Ron walks ahead, toward the Great Hall. Puts his hands to the doors pushes them open. Poised on the threshold, looking in. Triage. The House tables have been pushed to the walls. Harry stands in the doorway, taking it all in, as if some invisible force prevents him from going further, his face a mask as he views the dead laid out in the middle of the Hall, among them Remus and Tonks, their blood-stained fingers clumsily intertwined.

A heartbreaking sob draws his gaze to George, who kneels over a familiar body, tears dripping from his eyes. Beside Harry, he hears a gasp, Hermione, but he doesn't turn, his eyes instead lost on Ginny, puffy-eyed and pale, standing alongside a distraught Arthur and Molly. Ron comes into view then, having left Harry in the entryway to join his family. As he drapes his arm over George, drawing his brother into a limp embrace, the lifeless body comes into view, Fred. Hermione glances back at Harry briefly before joining the Weasleys. Seeing her, Ginny begins to cry, burying her face in Hermione's shoulder. Gently, slowly, Hermione strokes Ginny's copper hair, over and over, murmuring something softly.

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Harry flings open the cabinet, snatches the pensieve and slams it onto Dumbledore's old desk. He pries the cork from the flask with his teeth, tips the silvery-blue liquid into the basin. As the Pensieve swirls, Harry looks up, at the portraits of past headmasters hanging above. All the frames are empty. Harry frowns, disturbed by this, but looks away and plunges his face into the basin, falling into the vision.

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"Lily," Snape calls.

"Lily! Come out of there! Now!" Petunia cries. Lily Evans emerges from some brush, a flower upon her palm, opening and closing its petals like some bizarre oyster. Her sister Petunia stares, then knocks the flower away. "We're going home," Petunia demands. Petunia takes Lily's arm, turns, and stops. A skinny boy, young Snape, sits beneath a tree, watching them. Without a word, he opens his hand and a leaf flutters from his palm like a butterfly, circling Lily once, then drifting up and away. Lily smiles, charmed. Petunia eyes the boy fearfully, then pulls Lily away. The boy watches them go. Lily glances back.

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Snape moves through a dark garden, his face like stone. He eyes the door ahead, hanging from its hinges. He peers up to the window above. The baby's cry rises again. His eyes glitter. He moves on, disappears inside.

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Lily and the boy lie together, staring up at the sky. "She's jealous. Because she's ordinary and you're special," young Snape assures.

"That's mean," Lily sighs.

"It's true. You know so yourself," Snape replies. Snape turns his head, notes the frown knitted across Lily's brow. He peers back up, staring hard at the tree limb above. The leaves begin to tremble, then burst free, fluttering like a cloud of butterflies. Lily watches impassively and then, slowly, smiles, shifting her gaze to another branch. Seconds later, those leaves burst free and the two fluttering veils pass back and forth high overhead, merging briefly, then separating, again and again. Lily laughs, a beautiful sound, and the hiss of a train engine is heard.

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Smoke, drifting from the Hogwarts Express. The boy peers out the window, watching Lily and Petunia on the platform arguing, their voices muted. Finally, Lily turns, dashing for the train in tears. The boy straightens up, running the flat of his hand over his lank hair. Moments later Lily comes up the aisle, eyes stinging. She stops, seeing him. They stare at one another and then, finally, she steps inside the compartment, and sits down. The boy reaches over, pulls down the blind.