Chapter beta read by Forty-Two Dreams. All remaining mistakes are mine.
BACK IN TIME (PART 1)
Snape looked around warily, hoping he hadn't appeared in the middle of an all too private memory of Wilson's. He thankfully hadn't. He was in the middle of a restaurant where Wilson and Lupin were having dinner. They looked a few years younger - though it was hard to tell with Lupin.
Resigned to go through this - it wasn't as if he had much choice anyway - Snape crossed his arms over his chest and absentmindedly observed the brother and sister. They seemed to be having some kind of awkward conversation, with Lupin talking almost shyly and Wilson keeping an embarrassed silence, nodding every now and then. Both looked very tired.
While Lupin was in the middle of some unimportant sentence, Wilson suddenly blurted out: "I just had a job offer."
Lupin froze in surprise, his fork in mid-air. "That's great," he eventually said with a smile. "I knew you wouldn't remain unemployed very long after you left the Ministry's - "
"It's abroad. In Portugal," she interrupted uneasily.
"Oh. Portugal, eh?" Lupin replied as he put his fork down. "Last I heard your Portuguese wasn't exactly up to date," he joked in an obvious attempt to hide his discomfort.
This last sentence was followed by a nervous silence, both of them toying with their food.
"I'm leaving at the end of the week," Wilson announced solemnly, looking up to her brother to see his reaction.
Lupin's mitigated smile vanished. "At the end of the week? Why– why so soon? Why so suddenly?"
"Remus, I…" Wilson sighed heavily. "You can't expect me to stay here, in this house…" her voice trailed off. "I can barely stand to – "
"You can stay at my place if you wish," Lupin offered, "you know I don't mind."
"But I do," she countered. "I need to distance myself."
Lupin nodded sadly after a few seconds. "I understand. But if you ever need – "
The surroundings blurred around Snape and he found himself in another place, one he was quite familiar with: Hogwarts.
A young girl with brown hair - Wilson - was waiting anxiously outside the History of Magic classroom.
Snape took a peek through the open door and saw it was a seventh year lesson with Gryffindor and Slytherin. McGonagall was one step inside, telling Professor Binns she needed to talk to Lupin. Snape briefly saw his younger self taking a quick look over his shoulder before focusing on his studies, guessing easily what he had in mind that day - NEWTS.
Lupin followed McGonagall outside the classroom.
"Come with me; the Headmaster would like to talk to you two," the witch ordered.
Snape followed as Lupin and Wilson walked behind McGonagall, his curiosity aroused. Lupin cast a questioning look towards his sister, and the young girl shrugged, obviously at a total loss.
Snape's surroundings blurred again - talk about the ill effects of alcohol - and Hogwart's stone walls were soon replaced by the warm and cosy environment of a house.
It seemed he was back to a memory closer to present since he immediately spotted an adult Wilson. She was waiting outside what seemed to be a child's room. A few seconds later, a young man Snape instantly identified as Jonathan Wilson stepped out of the room backwards and closed the door silently.
"Can we pick up our conversation where we left it?" the witch said in a low voice.
Jonathan Wilson sighed softly. "Endora, I know you're concerned, but – "
"Of course I'm concerned," she whispered back. "I've been concerned since day one. Look, Jonathan, I know you love your job, and I understand why this is so important to you. But it's no longer just the two of us, and it's getting way too dangerous."
"Endora, I…" Jonathan Wilson sighed again. "I can't give up now. I'm… I'm this close," he said, raising his hand and placing his index and his thumb an inch apart. "Just a few more months."
"That's what you told me a year ago," the witch retorted.
"In a few months, I'll be done with it. I promise. Only a few months," he insisted.
"A few months?" Wilson asked, undecided.
"A few months," the wizard confirmed. "I promise."
Wilson nodded slowly. "All right," she said sadly, stepping forward to allow her husband to take her in his arms.
Snape rolled his eyes and sighed impatiently, hoping to jump to the next memory soon and wishing it to be the one he was there for at last.
If his first wish was granted soon - his surroundings blurred again until the house was replaced by another - his second wasn't.
Snape was now in another house, at night. Once he got used to the obscuring darkness, he managed to make out the silhouette of a young child advancing silently in the dark. Certainly Wilson - this was one of her memories after all, and the child seemed to be alone.
As she briefly stepped in a ray of moonlight, Snape managed to evaluate her age to four years old. The slightly mischievous smile on her face boded no good in Snape's opinion.
He followed her as she silently walked down a flight of stairs.
"Remus?" she called in a whisper. "Remus? I saw mom take you here tonight."
The stairs seemed to be leading to some kind of dark cellar. But why would their mother take her son to the cellar instead of his room? Snape suddenly wondered. And understood just as suddenly.
The moonlight. It was a full moon. Oh Merlin.
As he watched the little brown haired girl walking further down the stairs, calling her brother, Snape had a sudden vision of himself as a teenager, walking down a dark tunnel under the Whomping Willow. He followed her down the stairs somewhat anxiously.
The cellar was plunged in darkness. The child advanced slowly, groping her way along.
"Remus?" a shy voice called with a hint of fear. "Remus, is that you?"
Her question was followed by a loud and chilling growl. The next instant, an ear-splitting high-pitched scream resounded, the scream of a child scared to death and obviously sobbing at the same time. There was another menacing growl and the scream and sobs redoubled. Snape couldn't see what was going on but from the sound of it Wilson had stumbled backward.
A growing light appeared in the staircase as someone rushed down. It turned out to be a witch in a dressing gown, holding a lit wand in her hand.
Thanks to this new source of light, Snape managed to see a young wolf - or rather werewolf - all fangs out, restrained behind the bars of a large cage. As for the witch, she had knelt next to young Endora - who was still crying her eyes out.
"Oh my, Endora dear, you're wounded!" the witch exclaimed, sounding half panicked. Her eyes kept moving from the wolf in the cage to the little girl's arm - which was bleeding. "Did he bite you?" she asked anxiously.
Young Endora sniffed loudly and shook her head. The witch let go a sigh of relief and picked up the child in her arms.
"Mom, where's Remus?" the girl asked and sniffed again.
Snape caught the pained look on the witch's face as she walked past him, her daughter in her arms.
The dark cellar suddenly disappeared to be replaced by Hogwarts again. Snape recognised a hallway on the second floor. An eleven year old Wilson, dressed in her Ravenclaw uniform and holding a couple of books in her arms, was talking to a seventh year Lupin. Snape scowled when he spotted James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew standing next to their friend.
"But mom said – " the girl began.
"I know what mom said," Lupin interrupted, "but I can't always – "
He was cut short when someone jostled his sister. A seventeen years old Severus Snape, as a matter of fact, hanging with a couple of other Slytherins: Avery, Rosier and Wilkes. Oh yes, Snape remembered that day, it had ended in a pretty nasty way, he recalled with an evil smirk.
"Hey, watch where you're going, Snivellus," Black called out.
The group of Slytherins instantly stopped walking and turned to the group of Gryffindors.
"Am I dreaming? Did you just manage to form a coherent sentence, Black?" teenage Snape asked. "It will take you days to recover from the effort."
The other Slytherins sniggered. Black glared at him for a long moment before taking his wand out in a swift movement. But Snape had anticipated his move and had drawn his own wand at the same time. In a few seconds all eight of them had their wands in their hands, just like a chain reaction, each trying to support their own clan.
Wilson looked a bit lost in the middle of all this mess. When young Severus Snape turned a menacing glare towards her, she instantly recoiled behind her older brother with a look of fear.
Adult Snape smirked with satisfaction, while Lupin put a protecting arm in front of his sister.
Just as things were about to get interesting, Snape's surroundings blurred once more and he soon found himself in the hall of a house.
There was an approximately three year old girl walking down the steps of a wooden staircase, dragging a worn stuffed animal behind her. As she was about to step on the landing, the entrance door burst open.
A man rushed in, carrying a roughly ten year old boy in his arms. The boy was unconscious and breathing loudly, looking seriously wounded. Snape soon identified the boy as Lupin.
"Angerona!" the man called. "ANGIE!"
A woman hurried in the hall, half panicking at the sight of the wounded boy. "Remus! Oh dear… What happened?" she asked frantically.
"I'm not sure; I found him like that down the street," the man replied hurriedly. "What the hell was he doing out there so late at night?" he wondered out loud before asking suddenly: "Can you heal him?"
The woman took a wand out of her pocket and examined the boy. "These are bites," she remarked with a frown.
"Yeah, I think I saw some kind of dog running away when I arrived," the man replied. "Or it could have been a wolf, I can't tell exactly."
"A wolf?" the witch asked for confirmation with a terrified expression on her face. "But tonight's a full moon…"
"The full moon? And what - wait, you mean… they exist?" the man asked incredulously.
"Of course they exist!" the witch exclaimed. "We have to take him to St Mungo immediately! Come, we'd better use the floo network!" she added quickly as she moved away.
"I'm still not very comfortable using it," the man said.
"We'll go together! Come on, quick!" the witch hurried him.
A few seconds later all three of them had disappeared in the chimney with a loud pop. All that was left was a three year old girl, dragging a worn stuffed animal behind her as she sucked her thumb, standing alone in the middle of the hall and looking as if she hadn't understood anything of what had just happened.
Another second later the witch reappeared in the chimney and ran towards the child.
"By Merlin's beard, Endora, I almost forgot you!" she apologised and quickly picked up the girl in her arms before heading for the chimney again.
The house disappeared in a blur and Snape blinked, blinded by the sudden daylight. He sighed with exasperation. When was this supposed to be over, exactly? If at least it was any fun…
He looked around. He was standing in a well kept garden. The sun was shining brightly - it was probably the summer. At his feet, a seven or eight year old Wilson was playing with a girl her age.
Oh great. He would really have missed this if it hadn't been one of these wonderful memories he had been allowed to live.
As he turned round to vent his frustration, he noticed a group of teenagers sitting in a circle at the other side of the garden. Four boys. Namely Remus Lupin, James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew.
Now that could be interesting…
Snape walked to where the boys were sitting. In the middle of the circle they were forming was a strange-looking piece of parchment. It seemed to be some kind of map.
"Now that's the tricky part," Black said.
"We could go to my place tonight. My parents have plenty of books about Charms, I'm sure we could find something," Potter offered.
Lupin shook his head. "I won't be allowed to. Tomorrow's a full moon, and you know how my mom is, she won't let me out tonight."
The three other boys nodded knowingly.
"Come on guys, it can't be that hard to Charm a piece of parchment to remain blank until a trigger sentence is said out loud!" Potter exclaimed.
"Until we find out how to do it, we can still decide on the trigger sentence!" Pettigrew suggested joyfully.
The others nodded. While they began to scratch their brains, Snape bent over the piece of parchment. The map seemed to represent Hogwarts, and there were dots moving on the surface. Snape was strangely reminded of the piece of parchment he had confiscated from Harry Potter a few years before, with these four nicknames insulting him.
It was the same one, he just knew it. He had known back then that there was more to it… So Potter had a magic map of the school, eh?
"What's that?"
Snape jumped when he heard Wilson's light voice. None of the boys had heard the girl coming, and Potter quickly snatched the piece of parchment.
"That's none of your business," Lupin retorted coldly.
"It looked like a map," the girl insisted. "What are you trying to do with it?"
Lupin sighed. "We're trying to make it invisible so that nosy people like you won't get to read it."
"I'm not nosy!"
"Yes you are!"
"No I'm not!"
"Oh, so you're not the one who keeps stealing my books, uh?" Lupin replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
Young Endora Lupin hesitated and then pouted. "I'm only borrowing them!" She paused and looked at the spot where the map had been a few seconds before. "Why don't you try this Delusionment thing they talked about at the magizoo?"
"Well first, it's called Disillusionment," Lupin observed rather harshly. "Second, it's stupid. The Disillusionment Charm only works on living creatures. And what did you come over here for, anyway?"
The girl glared at her brother angrily. "Mom wants you to know the snacks are ready," she said coldly before turning round and walking away.
"I'm sorry about this guys, she can be such a pain…" Lupin apologised to his friends.
"Want to swap for Regulus?" Black offered ironically. "I would. Any time."
"Hey, we still have to find this trigger sentence," Pettigrew reminded.
"Ok, what about 'I solemnly swear – '" Potter began but Snape would never know what he was about to suggest for the sunny garden was replaced by the entrance to a house.
Damn it. As if going through these stupid memories wasn't boring enough. No, he also had to miss all the parts where he could actually learn something useful, like the trigger sentence to this map.
Snape looked around with a sigh. Quiet neighbourhood. The sun was down and an adult Wilson - looking a couple of years younger - was standing in a porch, yawning and stretching. As she was about to lay her hand on the handle, a green light flashed through the nearby window.
Wilson froze and tensed visibly - as did Snape. He had the odd feeling this was it at last. He had to pay close attention now.
Coming Next: Back in Time, part 2