Lost Memories

lxxiv. memories

Harry glanced hopelessly at Dumbledore's deserted frame, which hung directly behind the headmaster's chair. He dropped my hand and walked over to the stone Pensieve that lay in the cabinet by the window. Harry heaved it onto the desk and poured the flask into the wide basin with its runic markings around the edge.

"Come here," Harry said quietly.

My feet felt heavy as I walked over to Harry. With my hand in his, Harry placed his head in the blue liquid and I followed.

I fell head straight into the sunlight, and my feet found warm ground. I looked over to Harry, who stared at the nearly deserted playground. Two girls were swinging backwards and forward, and a skinny boy was watching them from behind a clump of bushes. His black hair was overlong and his clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate.

Harry pulled me closer to the boy. It was hin. . . Snape looked no more than nine or ten years old, sallow, small, stringy.

"Lily, don't do it!" shrieked the elder of the two.

But the girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the air, quite literally flown, launched herself skyward with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly.

"Mummy told you not to!"

"But I'm fine," said Lily, still giggling. "Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do."

Petunia glanced around. The playground was deserted apart from themselves and, though the girls did not know it, Snape. Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush behind which Snape lurked. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster.

"Stop it!" shrieked Petunia.

"It's not hurting you," said Lily, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground.

"It's not right," said Petunia. "How did you do it?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Snape could no longer contain himself but had jumped out from behind the bushes.

"What's obvious?" asked Lily.

"You're— you're a witch," whispered Snape.

She looked affronted.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!"

"No!" said Snape. He was highly coloured now.

"You are," said Snape to Lily. "You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one, and I'm a wizard."

The scene dissolved, and before I knew it, reformed around us. Harry and I stood in a small thicket of trees. Two children sat facing each other, cross-legged on the ground. Snape had removed his coat now; his odd smock looked less peculiar in the half-light.

"— and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school, you get letters."

"But I have done magic outside school!"

"We're all right. We haven't got wands yet. They let you off when you're a kid and you can't help it. But once you're eleven," he nodded importantly, "and they start training you, then you've got to go careful."

There was a little silence. Lily had picked up a fallen twig and twirled it in the air, leaned in toward the boy, and said, "It is real, isn't it? It's not a joke? Petunia says you're lying to me. Petunia says there isn't a Hogwarts. It is real, isn't it?"