The Potter Twins and the Deathly Hallows {7}

39. The End of All Things

"Hearts on fire tonight, feel my bones ignite. Feels like war, feels like war. We go together, or we don't go down at all." - A Love Like a War, All Time low ft. Vic Fuentes. 

We fall headlong into the sunlight, and my feet find warm ground. When I straighten up, I see that we're in a nearly deserted playground. A single, huge chimney dominates the distant skyline. Two girls are swinging backwards and forwards, and a skinny boy is watching them from behind a climb of bushes. His black hair is overlong, and his clothes are so mismatched that it looks deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smock-like shirt.

Harry and I move closer to the boy. Snape looks no more than nine or ten years old, sallow, small, stringy. There is undisguised greed in his thin face as he watches the younger of the two girls swinging higher and higher than her sister.

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

But the girl has let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flies into the air -- quite literally flies -- launching herself skywards with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soars, like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly.

"Mummy told you not to!"

Petunia stops her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground, making a crunching, grinding sound, then leaps up, hands-on-hips.

"Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!"

"But I'm fine," says our mother, still giggling. "Tuney, look at this. Watch what I can do."

Petunia glances around. The playground is deserted apart from themselves and, though the girls do not know it, Snape. Lily has picked a flower from the bush behind which Snape is lurking. Petunia advances, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waits until Petunia is near enough to have a clear view, then holds out her palm. The flower sits there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster.

"Stop it!" shrieks Petunia.

"It's not hurting you," says Lily, but she closes her hand on the blossom and throws it back to the ground.

"It's not right," says Petunia, but her eyes have followed the flowers flight to the ground and lingers upon it. "How do you do it?" she adds, and there is a definite longing in her voice.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Snape can clearly no longer contain himself but has jumped out from behind the bushes. Petunia shrieks, and runs back towards the swings, but Lily, though clearly startled, remains where she is. Snape seems to regret his appearance. A dull flush of colour mounts the sallow cheeks as he looks at Lily.

"What's obvious?" asks Lily.

Snape has an air of excitement. With a glance at the distant Petunia, now hovering beside the swings, he lowers his voice and says, "I know what you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You're...you're a witch," whispers Snape.

She looks affronted. "That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!"

She turns, nose in the air, and marches off towards her sister.

"No!" Snape says. He is highly coloured now, and I wonder why he doesn't take off the ridiculously large coat, unless it is because he does not want to reveal the smock beneath it. He flaps after the girls, looking ludicrously bat-like, like his older self.

The sisters confront him, united in disapproval, both holding on to one of the swing poles as though it is the safe place in tag.

"You are," says 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."