𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑

the one with the cleansing spell

"What?"

"Ethereal."

"Pardon?"

"Like I had all the power in the world," I jumped from my stool and stood up. "Like my veins were on fire, like my senses were heightened. Like," I smiled. "Like I could do anything in this world. Like I could destroy everything with it. Like I could do anything. Anything at all."

I think I freaked him out or impressed him because his eyes widened and that's the most anyone could get out of him. I felt a flavour of tangerines on my tongue and that too, I had to ask him. Lately I've been feeling this feelinga that aren't mine and getting strange flavors on my tongue too.

"Can you do it here?" he asked after a moment.

I stopped. I sat back. "I'm scared."

"Why?"

"See," I said softly leaning forward. "When I did it in the Common Room no one was around. So it affected no one. What if," I sighed, "What if it's a bad spell? Something horrible? I did feel like I could destroy everything with it."

"Did it feel like one?"

"I don't know!" I groaned. "I never used bad spells before. I don't know what it feels like to use the bad curses or hexes."

"You don't have to. It's the feeling when you use a spell that explains what it is."

"But, my father was a Spell Maker. He made half of the horrible curses that exist today. What if I'm like him? What if I'm also only capable of making evil, just like him?" I snapped. The fear was creeping in the back of my mind. It had always been there, but in my gut which I could ignore after stuffing myself with food. But it was as if it was crawling right up to my neck, into my brain forcing me to acknowledge it.

"I was always very scared of my mother, and what I got from my mother. She was The Evil. I look like her. I feel like her. I see her everywhere, in dreams and boggarts and everywhere! But now, my father is in the mix too. I never really acknowledged him and his part in this whole Voldemort things, because supposedly he was the sensible one. But he was the sensible one in a cruel, vile way. He was sensible enough to create Morsmordre but not use it on himself directly. He used it on my mother. My parents were horrible. Fearless, wreckless, shrewd and just bad. What if I am like them?"

"Skylar," Professor Snape said, leaning forward and there was that flavor of tangerines again. "You parents weren't Evil."

"What?"

"Your parents were misjudged, misunderstood kids who fell on the wrong side of the road. People aren't born evil. Evil is nurtured and made. Your parents did bad things but only because they thought it was right," he said softly. "Right is subjective, Skylar. What's right for you may not be right for your parents. Besides," I think he smiled, "Sometimes you have to choose between what's right and what's easy."

I stared at him long and hard. I definitely hadn't thought of it that way. My parents were bad people. But maybe I wasn't. Maybe I got my parents' gifts but it's upto me how I use it.

"When I created Sectumsempra, I felt powerful in a bad way. I felt," Snape said, "Evil, if you may say. It was a spell to hurt people. It made me feel like I wanted to hurt people. So, did your spell make you feel like that?"

I thought.

"No," I said. "It made me feel like the Patronus made me feel. Warm and safe and, above all, powerful."

"So, show me."

I purses my lips and gulped down whatever was rising in my throat. I fished out my wand from my pocket.