Chapter 21 - Lost but not Forgotten
Line = POV change! :)
The sudden chills of the room startled me. I'd forgotten that Snape liked to keep his quarters a few degrees below freezing, stupid bloody snake. I scanned and immediately clocked the shallow glowing stone dish Peeves had been describing. The 'pensieve' was sitting smack bang in the middle of Snape's desk.
It just oozed mystery, with a light sapphire glow sitting atop a swirling liquid that looked something like molten silver. As I crept closer and could see the beautiful dish more closely, and the curiosity began to build.
There, shimmering on the surface was my face. At least, I thought it was from a distance. But up close, I realised I'd never had hair like that and my eyes weren't brown. It was my dad. My dad's face was sitting in a bowl on Snape's desk.
Being a Gryffindor at heart and a curious (some would say nosy) girl by nature I felt it would be rude not to investigate. After all this was my dad. In Snape's strange little thought dish. My hands closed around the cool, smooth edges and even though I'd never seen one before, there was something instinctive that told me I already knew what to do.
Taking a deep breath, more for courage than respiration, I plunged my face into the silky-strange liquid. A plummeting feeling pulled at my stomach and I was suddenly half-falling, half-floating in black abyss until I hit the floor with an ungainly thud, legs splayed and arms flailing. My first thought was I recognise this place!
It was the Great Hall at exam time. But instead of the familiar faces of my year I saw...Snape. Young, teenage Snape. He was bent over almost double, nose (somewhat straighter back then) very close to the parchment on which he was scribbling furiously. Tearing my eyes away from the strange sight, something hit me.
Why weren't people looking at me? A girl had just dropped into the middle of the room, seemingly from nowhere and no one cared? Even for the wizarding world, that was odd.
"Hello," I murmured but no one looked up. Couldn't they hear me? I leaned over to see if Snape could see me but something in the periphery caught my eye. A boy with black tousled hair and that familiar thin, prominently boned face was sitting nonchalantly in his chair, looking very bored.
If it had been real life I would have tripped in my haste to get to him but in this strange dream-like state I almost glided. Then there he was. My dad. Sitting in the middle of the Great Hall looking around, tousling his already messy hair. I reached out with my hand to touch him, to try and hold what I couldn't remember ever having but my hand slipped through his form. A very real and solid feeling of disappointment formed in my gut but I tried to steel myself. After all it was just a memory, and this was gift enough, to be able to watch my dad.
"Five more minutes!"
I jumped at Professor Flitwick's squeaky little voice ringing through the Hall. He was walking past a boy sitting behind my dad, a boy in the row behind. A boy with silky, black, shoulder-length hair who three girls (at least) were openly ogling. My grin grew even wider. Sirius! And two seats to the left of him; Lupin! My heart felt like it was going to burst with happiness.
My dad turned round and gave Sirius thumbs up who in turn smirked and nodded, mouthing "Easy". Remus was looking a little less pleased, rather pale but I guessed that was because it was nearing his time of the month.
"Quills down please!" squeaked Professor Flitwick. "That means you too, Stebbins! Please remain seated while I collect your parchment! Accio!"
All the parchments zoomed towards the front of the Hall with alarming speed (nearly taking young Stebbins, who was still clutching his tightly, with them) and catapulted into the outstretched arms of poor little Flitwick who was knocked over in an instant.
A couple of the more conscientious students at the front sighed and went to haul the man back to his feet. Snape was still engrossed in the question paper but Dad and the other Marauders were starting to trickle out the Hall.
Could I go with them? This was Snape's memory after all...An agonized sense of panic rushed through me as I looked between my dad who was laughing and tousling his hair, and Snape whose nose was practically glued to the parchment. I wanted to go with them both.
Luckily, Snape began to follow the little troupe out of the Hall into the grounds, where the clear, warm summer sun brightened the grass and seemed to visibly lift a burden off the students' shoulders. Snape went to sit by the lake still reading through that exam paper (in a perverse way, he kind of resembled Hermione) and the troupe of three people who I held very dear, and one despised enemy went to sit under a large tree.
I sat in frozen awe and just watched. To anyone else it might have seemed the most boring conversation in the world but I treasured every second. The content absorption of Uncle Remus' face as he read his book, occasionally replying to something one of the others said, Sirius lounging back in the grass, and looking (though pretending not to) at the sixth year girls and him and my dad just talking and laughing. It tugged at my heart.
But...for all it was brilliant to see them, it wasn't exactly what I'd imagined it to be. They were clearly quite bored; my dad had produced a snitch from his pocket and was absent-mindedly releasing it and snatching it back in. Every time he did this, Wormtail would let out a sickening squeak of admiration, clapping his hands with sycophantic glee.
I'm telling you if I could have, I'd have given him a good smack and told him to shut up but Dad just smirked, and caught the little fluttering ball again. Almost as if – no. Well. As if he enjoyed it, this blatant brown-nosing. And he kept tousling his hair, forcing it upward into that 'unruly' state. My stomach twisted uncomfortably. This wasn't exactly how I'd imagined things, and a sense of ill foreboding settled on my chest.
I should leave now, I should go, I'd seen them and that was enough. In fact, it was brilliant. Only I didn't know how - Merlin this was the first time I'd been in a bloody Pensieve! I tried whispering a few little chants like "End memory" and "Stop" but nothing seemed to happen. Where was the innate sense now?
Resigned to the fact I wouldn't be getting out anytime soon, I went to sit back down. Then my heart plummeted. Snape was walking over and my dad looked like a dog that'd spotted a squirrel.
"Snivellus!" The casual whispered malice sent a shudder down my spine. Sirius turned to look and shared the same grin.
"Oy!" Sirius shouted to Snape's retreating form. Quick as a flash the scrawnier boy turned, diving into his robes, pulling out his wand but – "Expelliarmus!" – My dad's voice and suddenly Snape's wand was flying out of his hand, landing in the long grass ten feet away.
Snape turned to run get it but Sirius sent him flying, careering into the castle wall, his body smacking with a stomach-churning sound.
My dad walked over, smirking to himself and Snape let out a long and (nearly) incomprehensible string of curses but Sirius, who was closest, definitely got the drift.
"You hear what he called you James – called us?" Sirius said, a pretence of shock smothering the obvious pleasure of being the biggest boy in the playground.
"I can imagine..." Dad smirked, then, "Scourgify!"
Snape began choking and gagging on the stream of pink frothing bubbles that were spewing from his mouth. Some of the onlookers laughed nervously and others just watched in curious fascination. From behind me I heard an angry shout, and a slim red-headed girl with angrily glinting eyes pushed her way through the crowd.
"Hey! Stop that!" Lily Evans yelled, pushing James Potter hard in the chest. Mum and Dad. My heart almost stopped.
He ruffled up his hair in indignation, lowering his voice by an octave.
"What's it to you Evans?" He proceeded to prove himself and his total power by casting a rigidity curse on an irate, shaking Snape, levitating him three feet into the air and turning upside down. The crowd that had gathered now laughed in earnest as Snape's robes fell down to his ears and his spindly little legs and grey boxers were exposed. It was clear he wasn't the most popular student. I felt a pang of sympathy and embarrassment resonate in my chest.
Mum puffed herself up as he let Snape fall to the floor. She was looking very like Crookshanks when someone rubs him the wrong way, positively filled with hatred. I didn't get it. Didn't everyone say my parents were in the throes of love? Had Snape twisted this memory in his favour? I doubted that given his current position. Everything had begun to feel like some oddly lucid dream, which I supposed in a way it was.
She strode up to Dad, stabbing him vehemently in the chest with her index finger, punctuating her epithets.
"You think you're some school hero, some Gryffindor golden boy but you're not, you're just a pathetic little bullying scumbag," she spat with such venom that even Lupin, who was determinedly trying to remain neutral, cringed. She leaned down to offer Snape a hand up but he flinched away.
"I don't need help from a filthy little Mudblood," he hissed, bristling. She blinked, shock registering on her face for a millisecond to be instantly replaced by an icy demeanour.
"Fine. I won't bother in the future," she said, and turned on her heel, leaving Snape to the mercy of my dad. Although mercy was definitely not the right word, as the latter looked filled with vindictive fury at Snape's words.
"RIGHT!" he bellowed, sending the weaker boy back up into the air, "Let's see what Snivellus keeps in his boxers shall we!"
I let out a gasp of horror but it was nothing compared to the heart-racing jolt of horror that ran through my bones when I felt a hand gripping my arm, strong and painful. I turned, the breath sucked out of my lungs in fear, to see an apoplectic full-grown Snape, face contorted into anger I had never seen before. All blood rushed into my stomach and I felt sick.
Then the world went black.
An insurmountable wave of rage washed through me, shaking my bones and tensing my muscles. How dare she? My private thoughts, the innermost hidden secrets of my humiliation laid bare for her to laugh and jeer at. I felt my being quiver with an amalgamation of self-loathing and sudden hatred for the girl whose wrists I was gripping with vice-like tightness. I wanted to squeeze and rip and tear at something until it was as truly destroyed as I felt.
Forcing myself to look up, our gazes locked for an indefinably short moment.
There were flashes of emotion in her eyes but suddenly I could not bear it and I thrust her from me, turning away, attempting to regulate the harsh speed of my breathing. From behind there was a little clunk, and she had stumbled over her own damned feet, fallen and collided with the desk's legs. This only served to intensify the indefatigable rage that was burning a black hole in my chest.
Her hands clutched at her head, her eyes glinting. I expected fear but no. There was something tender, something too much like pity to be borne in my current state and I bellowed, bellowed to try and shake the ground she stood on because fear, hatred, anything would be better than -that.
"GET OUT POTTER!"
I turned again; bracing my hands against the cool wood of the desk, feeling my knuckles whiten and the hard material push back against the pressure. The word POTTER resonated around the room until my head was vibrating with the syllables. There was movement at my feet.
She rose slowly; agonizingly, slowly. Head held high, the ever-defiant Gryffindor hero, she touched my shoulder gently, consolingly, as she walked out and I spun, swelling with anger, wanting to strike out at her, to see her shaking on her knees, with all trace of that look and touch irrevocably removed.
But she was gone and there was nothing remaining but a cold, hollow emptiness in the room which was not a consequence of the chilling charms cast over the dungeons of Hogwarts.
The frustration built within my tensing muscles until they screamed and contracted, needing violent release, sending the desk toppling over. Smashing and clashing and dripping noises filled the room with chaotic harmony that soothed the raging, livid fire. My fists uncurled a fraction.
The pool of leaking memories, dribbling from the cracked Penseive parted around me and seeped into the cracks of the stone flags, evaporating with miniscule hisses.
If only it were so simple.