The midday sun warmed his back as Severus Snape made his way toward the edge of the lake. The water was extraordinarily calm, and like a mirror reflected the sweeping towers of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry which stood behind him on the crest of a hill. The peacefulness unnerved him, and he quickened his pace as he followed the line of the water. The former potions master found himself in the grips of a sudden panic. His fast walk turned into a run as he raced away from the school and the sun toward the safety of the shadow of the Forbidden Forest.
As the forest grew nearer, he heard what sounded like a wounded bird over the sound of his own breathless grunting. Snape stopped, holding his breath, and concentrated on the sound. It was not a bird as he had first guessed, but the soft cries of a young woman. He bristled- term had ended almost a week ago; the school should have been deserted. Refusing to succumb to the terror coursing through him, he drew his wand and followed the sobs.
He walked in silent footsteps, a talent he had learned from years as a spy and double agent; and as he came upon the origin of the sound, his bravado failed, forcing him to steady his trembling wand with both hands. One large oak tree stood between him and his mysterious query. He pressed himself flat against the tree, and peered silently into the thicket. Beneath a sapling willow tree was the crumpled figure, no more than a teenage girl; her red hair shrouding her face as she wept into her hands. But even without her face, he knew her; he had spent too many years at Hogwarts not to recognize-
"Lily?" his voice came out raspy and dry as if he had not spoken in a decade. She seemed not to hear him over the sound of her own sobs. He stepped from behind the tree, and moved toward her as though some invisible force was pulling him. The closer he got to the weeping girl, the more certain he became that it was indeed Lily. The auburn hair streaked with blonde from the summer sun, the curve of her back, the elegant yet powerful hands: there was no doubt in his mind. As he reached her, he found himself wanting to help her- wanting desperately just to hold her.
"Lily?" he said again, a quiver replacing the rasp in his voice; and, again receiving no response, he held out his hand to touch her.
His fingers had barely reached the first crimson hairs on her head when an earsplitting screech caused him to falter and stumble backwards against the tree. The girl raised her head howling as if she had been burned, revealing her face. The urge to retch passed over Snape as he stared, motionless, at her. It was indeed Lily, but the place where her bright green eyes had been was now rotted and empty; her smart smile had been replaced by a gaping, jagged slit. The cream colored skin had turned a dull green and hung loosely from her cheekbones. The Lily-creature's wail stopped suddenly, and it's gaze, if you could call it that, fell on Snape.
"Youuu," the word turned into a growl as the monster spoke. The creature moved slowly toward him in a jerky crawl; and as it moved the creature changed, and the rotted form of Lily changed into the rotted form of his mother, then the Diggory boy. The hollow, maggoty face of Cedric transformed into the angry, hollow face of Sirius Black. Snape tried to move, tried to run, not from Black, but from the figure he knew to be looming just beyond him; his legs, however, proved useless.
The creature was almost at his feet as it changed for the last time; and Snape looked down to seen the decayed face of Albus Dumbledore staring up at him. The growling had subsided, and Snape saw a single, greasy tear roll out of the sockets that once held Dumbledore's piercing blue eyes.
Slowly, almost weakly, the Dumbledore corpse raised its arm. Snape stiffened, trying hopelessly to sink into the tree. The creature's arm fell suddenly, grasping Snape's arm. Instantly, an almost unbearable pain rushed from the crux of his elbow, flooding every pore of his body. Snape began to scream, and with him the creature raised its own howl, a sound that seemed to encompass the voices of its many faces.
Snape sat straight up in his bed, grasping his arm, his own scream still on his lips. He ripped the sleeve of his nightshirt up, and saw the Dark Mark; burning black on the spot the monster had seized him. Still panting, he left his bed and hastily readied himself to depart.
His master was waiting for him.