"That's the birthday party," Hermione said in a flat voice and sighed.
We sat next to each other on the bed next to Pat. Silent, Lou settled into a chair next to the headboard, occasionally stroking Pat's sweat-soaked hair, thinking it might help. He himself was as white as the sheet on which he lay, his eyes were closed, and perspiration appeared on his forehead.
"Madame Pompfrey says that everything will be fine," I said in a voice that was not my own, "now he is just sleeping."
"And I warned you," Lou raised her feverishly shining eyes to us, "I said that Pat was in danger! This is indeed they wanted to poison him!"
She looked pointedly towards the nurse's office. He was there and talked to her about something. Lou uttered her phrase in such a tone, as if she were directly blaming Snape for his son's suffering because of him.
"But Snape knows about poisons!" Whispered Hermione, shaking her head, "wouldn't he have recognized the poison in his own jug of water?"
"Maybe I wouldn't have recognized it, because in "own," I suggested languidly, "I would have sipped a glass at night to check the essay, and the whole school would have walked at the funeral..."
"Harry!"
"Don't pay any attention to me, I'm still in shock. It's not every day that my best friends are poisoned in front of me. I don't have many of them to make it easy to donate one."
Lou turned to me and gently squeezed my shoulder.
"What a blessing that you remembered about this contraption in time."
Say thank you him," I smiled weakly and glanced towards Madam Pompfrey's office, "that he managed to knock me at least some knowledge."
At that very moment, the door to the office swung open and Professor Snape and a nurse stepped out. For a moment our eyes met, we silently looked at each other, and then at the same time looked away. And I realized that I now managed to see the professor without his usual mask of cold contempt for everyone around. He was still as pale as death, and his face expressed... Confusion? But at the same time, his eyes flashed furious lightning, and I shuddered at the thought that if the person responsible for this failed assassination were here now, he would be unhappy. And somehow, the display of those human emotions on the professor's usually lifeless face, the thought that Snape was worried about his son, suddenly made me feel better. The double doors swung open and Margaret Random flew in, accompanied by Professor Dumbledore and Lupin. And in just one evening, I managed to see the manifestation of another emotion that is not characteristic of our gloomy Potions Master. I mentally chuckled, for the first time in hours. Oh, who would have thought that Severus Snape is not afraid of Voldemort, and not even Dumbledore, but Aunt Mаg! How she looked at him! What a sizzling look! Even Sirius, with his sincere "liking" for Snape, was not lying around here. Aunt Mаg silently hugged me. And then it really dawned on me that I had saved my friend's life.
"Mrs. Random clearly doesn't take kindly to Professor Snape," Hermione remarked as we moved a little further from the Hospital Wing. Lou remained "to sit a little longer," but I could no longer be there.
"Why does she love him? Prodigal fathers are rarely loved. It's not for nothing that she didn't send Pat to Hogwarts," I shrugged, "how would you treat him in her place?"
"Of course, she can be understood," she agreed, "but still… He did not know that he had a son. Now, if he left Pat's mother, knowing about her situation..."
"Hermione, we don't know what happened there," I cut her off.
"Yes, of course," she said, a little embarrassed.
In the distance there was a noise and a malevolent muttering from somewhere above.
"It's Peeves," Hermione rolled her eyes tiredly, "I think he's doing something outside Flitwick's office."
She moved in the direction of the impending incident, but I grabbed her hand just in time.
"You are crazy?" I asked, "I had enough impressions for today. Don't want to sleep?"
"Harry, I'm the head girl," she said importantly, although at that moment it seemed to me that right now she was not enthusiastic about it.
"You are off duty and should be in your living room at the moment. Come on, let's go around the other stairs" and I dragged her by the hand towards the Hospital Wing.
"But, Harry…" she tried to protest languidly.
"If your conscience bothers you, we can send Filch an owl!"
We were already approaching the double doors when I heard footsteps approaching. My sixth sense and my left heel told me that bumping into someone right now would be undesirable. I pulled Hermione by the statue. We were in complete shadow, we could not be seen.
Harry, what...
"Shhh!" I hissed at her, and although she frowned, she fell silent.
Someone left the Hospital Wing. Two. I wonder who... Oh, mom... How embarrassing... Hermione put on her most pained expression. I felt extremely uncomfortable, as if I had just brazenly entered into someone else's personal life. But... Someone has to tell Patu about it!
"You know what, Snape," Margaret Random said in a threatening tone, "I never liked you..."
They were sideways to us, but you could see how Snape even managed to curl his lips into a grin. It's a pity Aunt Meg doesn't work with such cheap tricks. And I bet the professor looked at her warily.
"I always told Michelle about this, but now it doesn't matter anymore... I don't care that you were such an idiot that you couldn't keep the only woman who needed you..."
Snape's face began to look more like a grimace, but Mrs. Random was furious.
"…and I never blamed you for her death. But Patrick..."
"Whoever did this..." He began, but Aunt Meg interrupted him.
"I don't care who did it! The Aurors killed those responsible for Michelle's death, so what?! It brought my sister back to me?! Did that give Patrick his mother back?! I don't have anyone else, Snape. So you know, - she raised her finger threateningly - in her anger she looked like the embodiment of retribution, - if Patrick gets hurt because of you, I swear to God, I will kill you!"
The next day, before dinner, Lou and I went to the Hospital Wing. Hermione was urgently summoned on some business concerning the elders.
"Oh, he hasn't woken up yet?" Our friend drawled, worried and disappointed.
"Probably," I shrugged my shoulders, and turned away from the dozing Pat, "we'll come in later?"
Then a stir was heard from behind, a delicious yawn and Pat's voice, hoarse from a long sleep, said:
"Haven't slept this well in years!"
We instantly turned to my friend, who was rubbing his eyes, and Lou literally pounced on him, knocking over a chair on the way, and almost strangled him in her arms.
"You're awake! What a joy!"
"Yes," Pat said dumbfounded, not driving in, why such a violent display of emotions, "I woke up. Joy, for sure... Ah... what am I doing here?"
"We moved you from the Slytherin bedroom to the Hospital Wing at night," I couldn't resist, "a birthday present. You're always whining about not sleeping well in the dungeons."
He stared at me suspiciously, still not understanding anything, and then once again carefully looked around the large chamber and the vials of potions on his bedside table.
"The poison had a bad effect on your brain activity?" I inquired.
"I?!" Pat's eyebrows shot up.
"Do you remember anything?" I chuckled.
He frowned, staring at a single point in space.
"The last thing is how you told me: "Don't drink!"."
"Did you tell him so?" Lou wondered "why?"
"Intuition," I chuckled.
"So there really was poison?" Finally it dawned on my friend, and he turned pale. Madam Pompfrey ran out of her room at that moment. In her hand was a vial of an unpleasant-colored liquid.
"Mr. Random, you are awake," she stated the obvious fact, looking sternly at us, "drink this."
"What is it?" Pat squinted at the bottle.
"It's rue extract," the nurse looked at him expectantly until he dumped the entire contents of the vial into himself in one fell swoop.
"What an abomination," he announced to everyone, grimacing, "can I go?"
"Are you out of your mind?!" Madame Pompfrey stared at him. "Yesterday you drank a large dose of poison, and today you were going to leave? If it wasn't for Potter, we wouldn't even be talking to you right now! You will stay here for at least a week!"
Pat sank into a pillow from such an emotional response. Only when the nurse mentioned my name did he give me a quick glance. However, within minutes, Lou and I were kicked out of the Hospital Wing for lunch.
The school, of course, was full of rumours. The fact that the notorious Patrick Random was poisoned in Snape's office and saved by the also notorious Harry Potter was known to every student, not excluding undergraduates. They habitually stared at me - but I didn't care anymore. Pat's friends among his associates frowned, went to visit him in the Hospital Wing, and brushed aside the silly gossip that was traditionally the sea.
"Snape wanted to kill him!" some assumed.
"Random decided to commit suicide!" Others chuckled wisely.
"Malfoy poisoned him!" - said the undergraduates, who were most interested in the civil strife in the dungeons.
"Harry Potter poisoned him!" The smartest ones whispered, causing me fits of uncontrollable laughter.
And only Deirdre, who came up to me one day after dinner, quietly asked:
"Potter, someone wants to kill Professor Snape?"
"You said it, not me," I shrugged.
She gave me a look, chuckled, and left.
The week without Pat differed from others only in the absence of my friend. He himself moaned in the walls of the Hospital Wing without cigarettes, and a day later he presented us with a theory that he did not have time to voice on the day of his poisoning. If you believe his words, in nature there are substances that include elements unknown to scientists. Unknown - because the wizards hide them, and it was impossible to find them. These elements have special properties, which in the common people (that is, the entire magical community) are called magic.
"It's like radiation," my friend said, and his eyes shone with delight, "radioactive elements were also discovered much later, and they also significantly transform everything around."
It seems that Pat no longer regretted that he plunged into the magical world. As soon as he felt the rational-scientific ground under his feet, his brain immediately began to spin and process the information surrounding him. He would never have received so much material for research. But now no one was against my version of Snape as the intended victim. On Wednesday I came to Remus and told him about what I think about both Snape and Lucius Malfoy. Lupin found my reasoning quite worthwhile.
"It looks like the truth," he said, "especially in light of what's going on in the Ministry right now, but it's all kind of strange, don't you think?"
"Stupid assassination, I know," I replied, and Rem nodded.
"Anyway, Snape is furious," Lupin chuckled, "someone not only almost killed his son, but broke into his office with impunity."
"By the way, how did you manage to do that?"
"Who would have known," Rem said thoughtfully, "everything was done so subtly. It was as if someone had skillfully removed the spell and cast it again. Or just passed through them."
"Is it true that he dreams of becoming a Defense teacher?" I asked, watching him absentmindedly sort through the books on the table.
"Severus? Yes, he is interested in this position," Lupin smiled, "people say that Dumbledore does not want to give him this position, so as not to lead him into temptation... Because of dark magic, you understand? Although, in my opinion, the director does not want to lose a valuable employee."
"what do you mean?" I didn't understand, wondering how the Gryffindors would react to the phrase that Snape was a valuable employee.
"Well, you must have heard. It is said that the position of Defense teacher is cursed and no teacher can hold it for more than a year.»
"And you?"
"Oh, I'm only holding on by a miracle. Or rather, thanks to Dumbledore's protection. You see, people like me," he smiled sadly, "are not very eager to hire. Especially teaching children. The Pettigrew case gave me some advantage - many trustees decided that since I discovered it, I really was competent in my field. But now... I don't think I can hold this position for long. Moreover, according to quite reliable rumors, the Ministry is preparing to pass some anti-werewolf laws…"
Strange this people, wizards. Maybe because I was raised on the media, I didn't care if werewolf was human or not. Or maybe I've just never seen Rem howling at the full moon? Although no, there is not even a question of whether a person was a werewolf. Werewolf or human. Normal, right? The fact that Malfoy Sr., in his right mind and solid memory, once wore a mask with a wand at the ready, in company with the same cretins, and tortured Muggles - that means nothing... It can be forgiven...
"It's just that no one knows anything about werewolves," Pat said when I relayed our conversation with Rem to him, "how do they live? What are they doing? Everyone just sits and is afraid of them. Lupine should write a book!" - gave him an idea.
"Yeah," I agreed, "and call it "Popular Wolfology in Pictures." Or better yet, "I am a werewolf"."
... Pink rabbits jumped around me - they danced around my chair, trying to take away the parchment and convey to me some kind of sacred knowledge. But I didn't hand over the parchment. How - this is an essay on Transfiguration...
"Harry… Harry…" muttered the rabbits.
"Mmm…"
"Harry… Wake up!"
"А?" I jumped in place from a poke under the ribs.
Lou looked at me. Turns out I fell asleep while reading that essay for McGonogall with my head in my hands. I adjusted my glasses, which had fallen to the side, and took a deep breath, finally waking up. Lou smiled and pointed to my right cheek.
"Half of your essay is on your face," she said.
I automatically passed my hand over my cheek.
"How did you end up here?" I asked.
"I was with Pat."
"And what were you doing there?" I chuckled.
"Nothing you can't do in the Hospital Wing," she rolled her eyes, "Aunt Mag was there. By the way, I'm long gone. I just got lost in the castle. Look, I found Neville's toad."
"Ah ... He has been looking for her since yesterday. I hope you didn't run into Snape?"
"No, I was chatting with a portrait of a crazy knight. How is it… Sir Cardigan? Camelot?"
"Cachalot," I laughed.
"Fack off! ...Are you not going to sleep?" Lou asked, watching me go back to the parchment.
"I need to finish it," I said, rubbing my face with my palms.
"Can I sit with you?"
"Sit." I squeaked with the fountain pen that Lou had given me, trying to focus on the Transfiguration.
It turned out weak. Moreover, after a couple of minutes, our friend said thoughtfully and a little sadly:
"Pat is very worried. of the father."
"Because they want to kill him?" I raised my head.
"No, at all," she shrugged.
"Did he tell you that himself?"
"He said, how…" Lou snorted, "as if you don't know Pat!"
I knew, of course. Pat has always been a more reserved person than he seemed at first glance. Yes, of course, all his jokes, sarcasm, irony... But all this is just rubbish, a husk, few people see what is going on inside him. Of course, it is difficult for him now, who can argue? When a father appears in your life, about whom you didn't really know anything for sixteen years of your life, and even if this father is Severus Snape... But after all, the whole catch is that only they themselves can help these two in this situation.
"Lou, what do you think," I asked suddenly, "what is there to love about Professor Snape?"
"Are you talking about Pat's mom?"
"Well, not about her own..."
Lou looked at me with her clear eyes and said a little surprised:
"But it's clear."
"It's clear?" I was amazed, "just don't tell me that she took pity on him."
"And what about pity?" she grinned, and began to twirl someone's pen in her hands, "well, how can I explain to you... Imagine what Pat's mom observed at school - Snape is a teenager, gloomy, withdrawn, no one likes him, he is shunned and bullied..."
"Sirius said that he himself was not in debt," I interrupted, "and that in his first year he knew dark curses no less than some seventh year…"
"Doesn't matter," Lou stopped me, "he was defensive. If desired, you can always find an excuse. And here you need to find the difference between pity and... What word to choose..."
"Compassion?" I suggested.
"No... well, imagine... Most normal girls dream of a prince on a white horse..."
Imagining Snape on a white horse, I snorted.
"What are the princes doing?" Lou asked.
"Riding white horses," I giggled.
"Harry, you're not listening," she indignantly pushed me on the shoulder, "princes are saving!"
Almost any girl subconsciously waits for a man to appear who will protect her from all dangers and stuff like that...
But the opposite happens.
Lou looked into my eyes, not noticing how she broke the pen in her hand.
"Sometimes she wants to be the savior herself, Harry. I guess Snape always seemed to her a victim of circumstance. And she wanted to protect him—from the bullying at school, from herself, after all... She wanted to save him, Harry."
"And why didn't she succeed?" I raised my eyebrows.
Lou chuckled and said softly:
"It is difficult to save a person when he himself does not want it."
There she is, my friend. Some people are convinced of her impenetrable stupidity, but to spite them, she always says something worthy of the Dalai Lama.
Pat fought his way out of Madam Pompfrey's abode by the following Monday. Hermione was pleased to say that she personally heard Snape advise the nurse to hold "Mr. Random" for a couple more days. She, out of love for others or just out of curiosity, was very interested in the question of "prodigal father and found son" at Hogwarts. But Pat himself, for no apparent reason, became somehow absent-minded and thoughtful. It wasn't even depression. He joked little, talked little, ate little, and seemed to sleep little. He smoked a lot and thought a lot. There were no more of his abstruse theories - he just languidly went to classes, thinking about something that is not available to us. It could be said that the girl left him. Lou couldn't get through to him either. They, in tandem with Hermione, looking at such cases, began to press on me, demanding to talk to a friend.
"I think" I muttered, relaxing in my chair after practice, when they both sat on opposite sides of me, "there is one and only person in this school that a conversation with whom would help him. But he's just as grim and stubborn as Pat."
"You think it's because of Snape?" Hermione frowned.
"Not because of me," I snorted.
"Do you think Snape said anything to him?" Lou asked.
"No, I think Aunt Mag told him something. After her last visit, he became so..."
A couple of days later, I myself began to rage because of the behavior of my friend and already made the decision to go and hit him with something on the head. For his own good. Very much like a Gryffindor. But all plans were knocked down by Lou, giving me not the most pleasant news. Lou quietly came into my bedroom shortly before dinner on a Saturday. At the time, I was lying on the bed. Yes, I just lay on the bed in a fit of laziness and mild depression - Pat went into deep melancholy, Hermione did some educational work with the first-year students, Lou staggered in an unknown place, and I had absolutely nothing to do. No, of course, it would be possible to do homework, but something didn't feel like... Probably, call me now on a date with Romilda Vane, I would go, it was so boring...
"Hi," Lou greeted Neville, who was currently in the room, and sat down on my bed.
Neville choked, made some inarticulate sound, almost dropped the cactus from his bedside table and decided to leave the room.
However, he had long ago acquired the habit of dropping everything in her presence. Veela charms, regardless of the desires of their wearer, worked flawlessly. I sighed and it finally dawned on me why I was considered some kind of nightmarish heartthrob. Of the male friends, I only had Pat, I usually appear in the company of Lou and Hermione, plus Lou's colorful memories aloud of Sue, plus someone then heard Pat listing the list of my "ex-girls"...
"Where have you been?" I asked.
"I was at Professor Trelawney's," she replied, somehow doomed.
"Welcome to the limits of the mind," I grunted darkly, twirling my wand in my hands.
"Harry," Lou began softly. Even somehow unusually quiet "what would you do with a person who overheard the prophecy?"
"I would have nailed it to the wall by the ears," I answered without hesitation, and then suddenly it dawned on me. I sat up in bed so abruptly that I felt dizzy for a moment.
"What?!" I exclaimed, "did you find out who it is?!"
"I..." Lou began, carefully avoiding looking me in the eyes, "I just asked Trelawney about her interview with Dumbledore… Well, she sucked up a little," she grimaced, "she said that the director must have immediately noticed such a talent... She stated that he was amazed... And that they were eavesdropping... another one... Candidate…"
"Snape," I whispered, closing my eyes tightly and clenching my fists, for it seemed to me that the rage that suddenly surged through me would explode inside me and erase everything around me.
"How did you guess?" Lou was amazed.
"You wouldn't talk to me like that," I said, "if it was a person out of my reach. Snape..."
"Harry," she gripped my arm in fear, "you're not going to kill him, are you?"
I silently stood up, freed my hand, and abruptly left the room. I think Lou called out to me, but I didn't hear her. The living room was full of people, many turned to look at me, but I didn't care. Hermione looked at me with fear - apparently, my face at that moment expressed a lot.
"Harry, what happened?" she asked me, but I walked past and left the living room in silence.
I walked around Hogwarts without quite realizing where I was going. I didn't know I could be so angry. So much hate. So much rage. Who is guilty? Who is to blame for the death of parents? Voldemort killed them. But before that, Pettigrew's betrayal. Before that, a prophecy. The one who overheard him. The one who gave it to Voldemort. The Dark Lord and Pettigrew were somewhere far away, and he was right here, nearby. Every day. And every day is hate. And he hates me? Why? For making me an orphan? I left the castle in the same unconsciousness - today the sun was shining brightly. Only when I unconsciously walked to the stadium, I realized that I was still clutching a wand in my hand. It took me a while to realize that I was not alone in wanting to be here. But it didn't take me long to recognize the figure of a man who had climbed to the very top stands. It was Pat, of course, with his heightened thirst for heights of late. Son of a Death Eater. The son of one of those responsible for the death of my parents. My best friend. Closer than brother. Indeed, the irony of fate...
"And what did Aunt Mag tell you that you had an unplanned depression?" I took it right off the bat, flopping down on the bench next to a friend.
He thoughtfully lit a cigarette, exhaled the smoke and said:
"About my mom and... Hmm... My dad.
"Understood," I replied.
"You know," he drawled, "she left him herself. As soon as I realized that she's pregnant... What was she to do? To have a brand on your hand yourself? Raise another Death Eater out of your son? She didn't want to send me to school... Wanted to teach me... She loved him, after all," Pat said with some surprise, "can you imagine, the terrible Severus Snape was loved too!"
Under the influence of these words, I felt the anger inside me subside. I remembered the smile of the woman in the photograph at my friend's house. "Looks like Ingrid Bergman" What did she love about him? Was this woman able to find light in the soul of Severus Snape?
"Pat, you mustn't—"
"No, I must," he snapped suddenly, harshly, "precisely you owe. My father loved another woman," he turned, and with some sudden interest looked into my eyes, "her name was Lily Evans. Lily Potter. He loved your mother all his life, Harry."
I stared blankly into his eyes, as black as Snape's. There was some strange bewilderment written on my friend's face. He turned away and I covered my face with my hands.
Damn it…
"I'm not a romantic and I haven't been a child for a long time," Pat said almost cheerfully, "and I understand that not all children are born as a result of greater and brighter love."
"It was Snape who overheard the prophecy," I said wearily.
We fell silent and sat in silence for about ten minutes, considering the news. Yes, I was wrong. Snape has a lot to hate me for. The son of the woman he loves from the man he hates the most...
"By the way, thank you."
"For what?" I didn't understand.
"Yes, you kind of saved my life," he chuckled.
"My father saved yours, but they hated each other. Your father loved my mother, but indirectly influenced her death. And I saved your life and we are best friends," I listed
Pat thought for a few minutes, lit another cigarette, and finally said:
"Life is a damn complicated thing.