A/N: The concept of the size of a memory in a Pensieve being driven by subconscious emotional attachment is directly quoted from a poster on the HPFGU Yahoo group, though I can't remember his/her screenname. If any of you do, please let me know so I can give proper credit.
Chapter beta read by Forty-Two Dreams. All remaining mistakes are mine.

CHAPTER 27
BACK IN TIME (PART 2)

Wilson took her wand out and pulled on the handle cautiously. She walked in silently. Snape followed. She stepped forward slowly, her wand up and ready to shoot. The house was completely silent. Oddly silent even.

When Wilson took a turn in the hallway, she suddenly froze at a doorstep, a look of shock and confusion on her face. Her wand arm fell limply to her side. Her gaze was locked to a spot on the ground.

Snape caught up with her. Inside the room were two bodies laying lifeless on the ground. A man - Jonathan Wilson - and a young boy - two or three years old. Snape got round Wilson and stepped in to take a closer look. As he did so, his attention was caught by a dark silhouette hiding behind the wall, unbeknown to Wilson.

Judging from the build it was a man. He was in full Death Eater gear, his face concealed behind a mask. He was holding his wand tightly and observing the doorstep closely, obviously aware of Wilson's presence. And in the meantime, Wilson was standing only a few inches away, immobile, with her wand down, still staring at the ground.

How idiotic could she be? Snape wondered. She had seen the green light, she had to know the murderer was still around!

She eventually took a step forward. The Death Eater chose that moment to walk out of his hiding place and point his wand straight at Wilson.

"Avada Kedavra!" he cried, but Wilson had enough sense to whirl behind the wall before the spell was cast.

A green light shot through the open door and crashed on the opposite wall.

The next second Wilson reappeared in the doorframe. "Expelliarmus!" she shouted.

The Death Eater's wand escaped his hand and flew to Wilson's. Just as the witch caught it, the Death Eater swiftly took a second one out of his pocket.

"Repulso!" he cast wildly. Wilson was hit full blast by the curse. She flew backward and crashed into the opposite wall.

Of course, Snape thought. Many Death Eaters always carried a spare wand, just in case.

The Death Eater took this opportunity to run for the way out. But before he was gone Wilson managed to pull herself together and to pick up the wand lying next to her.

"Impedimenta!" she exclaimed, stretching her arm towards the fleeing Death Eater.

A blinding white light erupted from the tip of the wand, so bright that even Snape had to close his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, Wilson was still lying on the ground, her eyes closed, and the Death Eater was gone. The spell had backfired.

Oh yes, Snape remembered. There were a few Death Eaters who liked to Charm their wands so that no one could use them beside themselves. And in her haste Wilson had picked up the Death Eater's wand instead of hers.

At least this piece of information could narrow down the range of his investigation…

But why didn't Wilson move yet? Why didn't she stand up? Snape wondered. He walked closer to where she was lying. She seemed to be hurt, for her face was contorted with pain. She rubbed her still closed eyes with the back of her hand, muttering nasty curses under her breath.

Snape took a closer look, and eventually noticed something odd: a few tears of blood at the corner of her eyes. He suddenly understood: a backfire curse, set by the Death Eater. She was blind - quite literally.

His deduction was confirmed when Wilson began to crawl across the hallway, keeping her eyes closed and feeling her way around.

A blinding backfire curse… Very, very bright. And quite efficient. And above all, extremely devious… Yes, definitely Lucius' doing, Snape concluded. Malfoy had always been quite a short tempered wizard, especially where Muggle-borns were concerned. It kind of made sense he would be the one to lose patience under Jonathan Wilson's thorough investigation…

"Jonathan?"

Snape turned at the sound of Wilson's weak voice and found she had managed to find her way to her late husband. She had bent over him, her eyes still closed, and was clumsily checking for his vitals. When she understood there was no hope, she burst into tears, overcome with grief, before straightening suddenly a few seconds later.

"Stephen?" she called softly. "Stephen, sweetheart, come on… Tell mommy you're all right," she said with a sob in her voice as she began to crawl towards where her son was.

Once she found him, she picked up the boy in her arms, checking his pulse as she had done with his father. Her sobs redoubled as she hugged the child tightly, rocking him back and forth.

Snape sighed. Why was he still in there? he wondered. He had already seen everything he needed to in order to identify the murderer. The Death Eater was now gone. So why wasn't he emerging out of the Pensieve? Had Wilson put in more memory than was necessary? Apart from the few irrelevant souvenirs he had already seen…

Damn Firewhiskey.

But he knew that even if it was intellect that drove the selection of a memory, it was subconscious emotional attachment to the event that drove the size of the memory.

Wilson slowly and carefully put the child back on the ground, still shaken and crying, before starting to crawl again.

All right, where was she going, now? Looked like she was heading for the chimney.

Once there, she fumbled about and eventually managed to knock a pot over. The powder it contained spread over the ground - floo powder as far as Snape could tell. Wilson took a handful and threw it in the chimney while muttering something - certainly a name or a place.

The witch cursed when nothing happened. Of course nothing happened, no part of her body was in the fireplace, not even her head - even though it was probably hard for her to tell where she was standing exactly.

Wilson picked another handful of floo powder and readjusted her position. During split seconds flames lit the chimney, but no floo connexion was established - she was still out of the fire. She tried again and again, concluding each failed attempt with a curse.

As she was obviously about to give up, a familiar face appeared in the flames at her last attempt.

"Hum, hello?" The voice was uncertain.

"Remus? Remus, is that you?" Wilson asked hopefully.

Lupin looked down and eventually saw the witch. "Endora? Yes that's me, did you try to floo here? I noticed something weird going on with the fire, so I took a chance…"

"Yes I tried to, I… Oh Merlin…" She started crying again. "I arrived too late, I… I tried to stop him, but he managed to leave and now they're both gone…" she finished sadly.

"What are you talking about?" Lupin asked, totally confused. "Endora, I didn't understand a single word! And what the hell are you doing on the ground?"

"I didn't know who to call, I, I…" she stuttered between two sobs. "I don't know what to do, Remus…"

Lupin now looked positively concerned. "All right, don't move!" he instructed. "I'll be there in a second!"

Lupin's face disappeared from the fireplace while Snape sighed with exasperation. He had already lost enough time as it was. Now all he wanted was get out of there, tell Wilson it was Malfoy all along, and be done with it at last.

He could just leave the Pensieve right now. But there was still the slight possibility that Malfoy would come back… So Snape decided to stay, just a little longer, to confirm his thoughts if he had the opportunity.

Lupin flooed over and immediately stepped out of the fireplace to help Wilson up. "Endora, what's going on?" He suddenly frowned. "And what happened to your eyes?" he asked, putting a hand on each side of her face to examine her more closely.

Wilson shrugged his hands off. "I used his wand, it backfired," she replied with a sniff.

"Whose wand?" Lupin queried at a total loss.

"I don't know!" Wilson started sobbing again. "I don't know…"

Snape suddenly wondered how she would react when she would learn it had been Malfoy. Malfoy was the kind of wizard you didn't want to have a grudge against. Even if Malfoy was now wanted by the Ministry and on the loose, he was powerful and still had a lot of influence in the Wizarding World.

"Endora! Endora, please, calm down!" Lupin tried to reason, holding his sister by the shoulders. "What happened? Where are Jonathan and Stephen?"

This was exactly what he should not have said to help her calm down. "Over there," she managed to articulate with a nod towards where the two bodies were.

Lupin turned and blanched when he spotted them. He immediately left his sister's side and hurried towards his stepbrother and nephew.

What exactly would Wilson get from knowing the murderer's identity apart from being able to put a face on a masked silhouette? Snape kept wondering. What would she want to do, to go on a personal vendetta against Malfoy? Not that he cared - neither for Malfoy nor for Wilson. But since she had no way to reach Malfoy Senior, would she get carried away with his son that she had to see several times a week?

"I could have come home earlier," Wilson explained sorrowfully while Lupin was checking the man's and the boy's vitals. "I wanted to finish something, you know how I can get… And when I came back…" She didn't finish her sentence.

Lupin looked totally horrified when he came back to her. "Did you see who did this?" he asked earnestly.

She shrugged. "He was wearing a Death Eater mask… I almost stopped him… Remus, I almost did…"

Lupin took his sister in his arms when she started crying once more. He himself seemed to be on the verge of tears, but was fighting them back hard.

Good. All Snape needed was two whiners on his hands. And why hadn't he left already?

"What am I supposed to do now?" Wilson sobbed.

Lupin seemed unable to give her any answer. Snape couldn't help a snort. Lupin had never been of the decision-maker kind, why would that change in a situation of crisis?

Wilson suddenly took a step away from her brother and started to talk at a frantic speed. "We should… We should get in touch with the Ministry, contact the Aurors, tell them there's a Death Eater in the neighbourhood, they can probably still catch him…"

"Endora, he probably disapparated as soon as he was out…" Lupin countered, trying to stop Wilson from using the floo on her own. "With the security Charms you put in place, we would have been able to trace him if he had disapparated from inside the house, but now … He's gone…"

"We should still warn them!" the witch insisted.

"Of course," Lupin agreed. "But I'm taking you to St Mungo first."

"Remus, I'm fine!" Wilson exclaimed angrily.

"No you're not!" Lupin retorted firmly. "You can't take a single step without feeling your way around! I'm taking you to St Mungo."

"But what about – " she began.

"I'm taking you to St Mungo," Lupin repeated determinedly. "You need to be healed, and you're too confused to handle anything. I'll take care of everything while you're there. I'll warn the Ministry. Come on," he concluded as he guided her towards the fireplace.

Just as they flooed together, the vision stopped, and Snape found himself back in the Potions classroom. Wilson was still sitting in front of him, and the Pensieve was still on the table between the two of them. The only difference was that the bottle of Firewhiskey was now empty.

"Took you an awful lot of time," Wilson complained while she began retrieving her memories from the Pensieve.

"Had you been sober enough it might have taken only a minute," Snape retorted bitterly.

Wilson frowned. "What do you mean?"

Snape sighed. "Never mind." She probably didn't want to know she had shared more than one memory, seeing who hesitant she had been to allow him to see only one.

"So?" she went on. "Any interesting clue?" she asked hopefully.

As Snape was about to tell her he had managed to discover the identity of the murderer, he suddenly hesitated. What good could come from this? Lucius Malfoy, of all people… Might as well tell her the Dark Lord himself had killed her family.

He could tell her about Malfoy. But somehow, after sharing these memories, he couldn't see her react coolly, replying 'oh, fine, thanks' before moving on to something else. Oh no. He could see revenge coming all the way.

So he lied, and shook his head lightly.

Wilson nodded slowly, looking very disappointed. "Ok… I guess I'll never know then…" she muttered sadly. "Thanks for trying anyway," she added. She was now on the verge of tears. "It's getting late, I'd better go," she concluded quickly before leaving hurriedly.

It was only the next day, a Sunday, when Wilson didn't come to the Potions classroom to work on the cure that Snape gave it more thought. And he realised that, considering the Ministry had stopped investigating years ago, this had probably been Wilson's last chance to find out the identity of her family's murderer.

Coming Next: In the Teacher's Lounge