Chapter 2: The Sage
o
I walk into the kitchen to fix a pot of much needed coffee. As usual, Potter lingers next to the window, staring into the gloom of not-yet-awakened London. What's less usual is the way he's hovering: upside down. Grey pre-dawn light spills through his transparent form. In it I find my way to the stove and turn the knob. The burner spits out a rosette of hissing blue flames. I set a pot of water over them and fumble through the contents of my cabinet in the dark. Finally, my fingers close over the familiar brown bag and I shut the squeaky door.
"Night's bloody boring for those of us who can't sleep," Potter complains, tense and edgy, hanging inverted like a chameleon off a branch, with his shiny large glasses and skinny, awkward limbs. His lips are in a thin line as if suppressing a yawn, and his hair sticks out around his head like a halo. Or like bed-head, as if the brat had slept after all. "Morning, Snape."
"We're leaving in fifteen minutes," I bark, "Be ready." What? Did he expect a civil conversation and a greeting?
"What, where?" He looks shocked.
"I'm fulfilling my side of the bargain, Potter. I should hope that you will be as quick to fulfil yours."
He stares at me, uncomprehending. When finally it dawns on him, he somersaults like a giant rotating hourglass until he's upright with his back to the window. "The survivor!" he cries, "You're really taking me, aren't you? Bloody hell, I didn't think it'd be so soon!"
I glance at the clock hanging above the table. It's almost five a. m., as good a time as any. If we hurry, we might beat the morning rush. "We can always set the date back a year or two, if it's an inconvenience," I sneer.
"No, no, today is fine," he grins widely and looks ready to dance. "It's brilliant!"
Yes, indeed: never a better time to get rid of an irritating ghost.
"So, where is it? Who is it? Tell me! Do I know them?" He's so excited he'd be breathless, if only that were possible.
"You'll see when we get there. I might just change my mind if you continue this incessant questioning."
"Fine," he consents, but continues asking nonetheless all the way through my morning coffee.
"Hope it's someone I know," he exclaims going around in circles like an over-exuberant pup as I put away the milk and the sugar and rinse out the cup. "Anyway, they'll know me. They'll listen to me. Together we'll figure out something, you'll see, Snape." He glances at me defiantly, ready to take on the world.
Naïve little brat. I snort and stare him down. "Don't be so hopeful," I finally manage to say. The boy really has no idea, does he? Doesn't matter, after today he isn't my problem. The next time I'm back here, he won't be constantly getting in my way. What a relief that will be.
I march into the bedroom and take out a wrapped parcel from the bottom of my wardrobe. Potter eyes it curiously but doesn't ask. I empty out one pocket of my coat to take the parcel. Several banknotes folded neatly into squares and a set of keys are replaced in my left pocket, joining my wand, which I'd already taken from underneath my pillow. Perhaps it's not sensible to take my wand with me in case it's discovered, but leaving it in the flat wouldn't be sensible either. If someone in power suspects me of possessing magical artefacts, they will not be above breaking into my home to search for them. Useless though it is, I'd rather have this narrow stick of birch with me at all times.
"Is it someone from Hogwarts? Did they go there? I'll tell them that the school is still standing – they'll probably be glad to hear that."
Potter rambles on like a cheerful pup yipping for joy at the prospect of a walk. It's a wonder he isn't leaping up and down the hallway and bouncing off the walls stirring dust and mischief. I put on my coat and button it up to the very top. The heavy dark cloth reminds me a little of my robes: it wraps me in another layer of protection, like the walls of a fortress. The collar goes up as well, under the lank curtain of hair at my nape. Potter is fortunate not having to deal with the morning chill.
With my hand on the door handle, I turn to him. "Are you coming?"
I'm expecting the infuriating ghost will rush right through me and the closed door in a hurry to get out, leaving everything else behind in hopeless disarray like my toothbrush and my soap, like the stack of newspapers he scattered all around my floor. Like my life.
He stays still in the murky hallway.
I wait.
"I know I must've been a pain on the arse these few days, but thank you, Snape. I really mean it."
Foolish boy. I turn away and let my face resume its former blankness before speaking. "Don't thank me yet," I throw over my shoulder and swing the door open, motioning to it with my eyes. "After you."
o
The dirty staircase fascinates Potter. He dashes back and forth, always a few steps before me, glancing at the multiple doors with their faded paint and aluminium numbers and knobs. He'd never seen any of it before, had he? After all, he didn't just walk up the stairs and ring my doorbell like an ordinary visitor.
He pauses when I step outside and sticks his head out like a rat peering from its hole to see if a snake's around. He then rushes into the light of early morning spinning on the sidewalk and taking in the surroundings: brick buildings and patches of dirt that were originally meant to be flowerbeds, but didn't survive the rough treatment.
"Are we going there?" he waves at the neighbouring building and the line of trees behind it, where he knows the train tracks run. "How close are we to King's Cross?"
I cast him an angry glance. Foolish child, this isn't some primary school excursion, and I'm not his nanny. And to the left, dears, is Platform 9¾, where the big boys leave from to go to school every year. Do watch out for the Muggles and come along now, no lollygagging.
"Would others be able to see you?" I ask, looking him up and down. Although he's faded in the light of day, Potter is still quite visible to me.
He shakes his head, "Not unless I make an effort."
"Good." Stay invisible to them, infuriating child, and keep out of my way. I do not want to shock random passers-by in my efforts to avoid stumbling into an unseen form, any more than I want them blinking at the sight of a transparent, bumbling imbecile trailing by my side. "Follow and don't attract attention." I duck through a narrow arch nearby and turn into the alleyway, into the ever-present stench of boiled fish and rotten onions, where my footsteps raise brittle echoes in the cold, stale air between the two closely placed brick walls.
Two street turns later I check to see if he is still behind me. He huddles behind my back as if attempting to protect himself from the harsh wind. If I didn't know better, I'd say he is shivering. Nonsense. Ghosts don't need warmth; lucky him. I tug my collar closer to cover my throat and keep walking, past Regent's Park and the turnoff to Euston Station.
As I'm waiting on a streetlight in front of the empty crosswalk Potter pokes his head from behind my shoulder and drifts up until his face is illuminated by the light's red glow. It seeps through the back of his head, rays refracting through his messy hair, turning it to a blood-red halo. Suddenly the red winks out and Killing Curse green flares through his chest instead. He flinches backward, out of the glare.
He frowns and remains silent until we cross the road, then reverts to his usual, obnoxiously carefree self.
o
The Tottenham Court Road Underground entrance is mostly empty at this hour. I turn into it and descend the stairs thankful for any protection from the harsh wind. Potter follows close as he did throughout the trip; only his gaze wanders far and wide. His hair is in disarray from constant, fruitless attempts to rearrange the fringe over his forehead. As if anyone can see him, let alone his blasted scar. It's on the tip of my tongue to berate him for his foolish vanity, but I have no wish to seem a fool or a madman myself in the eyes of the few passers-by.
And few indeed they are: at this early hour there is hardly anyone in sight. Even the blind violin musician so fond of playing "Lucy in the Sky" is gone from his usual spot next to an especially bright patch of the mosaic mural.
The train isn't due for some time yet. The Central Line platform is empty. Away from the tracks, in a disarray of newspaper sheets and handfuls of strategically placed dirt sits a homeless couple. The old man, with long, matted beard and mismatched, ragged clothing, swings his hands back and forth as if conducting a nonexistent orchestra, rattling a bracelet of rainbow beads around his wrist. He pauses to say something enthusiastic and nonsensical to the equally ragged-looking old hag on his left. Her peaceful smile is unmoved by each ranting outburst as she sits slumped against the wall. An occasional, startling snore and a few twitches of her arms are the only signs that she is alive at all. The movements clank oddly against the tiles; one of her hands is gone, and in its place is an artificial claw, a metallic Muggle contraption.
Potter glides past them without a second thought. He regards the platform and sticks his head over the tracks, then floats down and balances himself over the rails. "Always wanted to do that," he grins. "Are we taking the tube? 'Bout time. I'm tired of walking the streets."
The old man hums "Ring-a-ring-a-rosy" contentedly and takes a handful of marbles out of his pocket. I watch him push the marbles into the small piles of dirt one by one. Some marbles are buried in pairs, some in solitary graves, and others are set aside altogether by some strange logic known only to him.
"It's silly to walk all the way here if you ask me." Potter says zooming back and forth across the tracks. "Where are we going anyway?"
I do not answer his silly questioning. The man starts tracing long series of planetary seals with his fingernail over the makeshift marble graves. Mercury, Saturn, and Pluto are mixed in with the series of digits in a neat numerological layout I learned during my one and only year of Arithmancy. He doesn't finish, apparently distracted by the imaginary match of noughts-and-crosses taking place right in front of his nose.
I shake my head at the ghost and clutch the parcel in my pocket. "We're here, Potter." I might as well get this over with quickly.
"But where's the . . ." He looks around, not comprehending yet.
Slowly, I nod toward the couple in the corner and take a step toward them. The woman coughs and splutters awake. She glances at me with her unfocused, bloodshot eyes and displays a toothless grin. I hand her the parcel and motion toward her oblivious companion. "Make sure he gets it."
"Thanks, son," she mutters cheerfully and rips away the wrapping with her good hand to reveal a pair of brightly coloured socks. Yelizaveta's knitting, of course. She tucks them away in one of her many pockets.
Potter looks at her for a while, searching for a glimpse of something, perhaps a flash of familiar features. Slowly his expression dims from hopeful to unsure before settling into the gloom of disappointment. Whatever he was looking for, he didn't find it in her face. And then his glance slides lower to the ranting old man, huddled with his marbles in the dirt.
He stares.
The man's tall, yet fragile form folds at an extreme angle into the space where the brightly speckled mural meets the floor. Give him a stronger push and he'll break apart, scattering against the hard surface like a handful of his marbles. There are thin ribbons woven into his dull white beard, the festive kind people tie around their gifts on holidays and birthdays. He must have one to match every colour used in the mural behind him. The high-heeled boots on his feet look oddly like a woman's shoes. I take a second glance. Perhaps they are.
Even now, after I've had years to get over the initial shock of my discovery, I still do not dare to call him Albus in my mind. The Albus Dumbledore I knew is where he belongs, at Hogwarts. His striped 'bumblebee' dish of odd-tasting sweets sits on the table. An occasional phoenix quill sticks out daintily behind his ear. The laugh lines around his eyes deepen with time, familiar to my eyes as the cracks in his chipped china or the creases of my own hand. Albus Dumbledore, the strongest wizard of his time. But his time has passed, and there are no wizards left any longer. Still, this man isn't him. He cannot be.
"Can't be. No!" Potter shakes his head frantically.
The man raises his eyes, sky blue and unfocused on his wrinkled, unwashed face. There's a sparkle hiding in their depths.
The train arrives, roaring and screeching, onto the station, coming to a stop with an extended hiss. The doors open and several figures stumble out, hastily making their way up the escalators.
Potter doesn't notice them.
"Headmaster," he says in a shaky voice. "Can you hear me?"
The man looks alert for a second but then his eyes drift and focus on someone in the small crowd walking past us to the exit.
"Cherish the moment, my boy," he says, quietly but clearly. He reaches out his wrinkled hand right through Potter in order to chase something invisible to us. "It flew by already. Pity." Potter jumps back a step but the man pays no attention to him. "Hurry!" he exclaims after the last person to rush onto the escalator, "Cherish the next one."
"Can you hear me?" Potter repeats.
"He won't answer," I say after making sure that no one besides the homeless couple is there to listen. "He only hears what he chooses to hear nowadays." Which is, perhaps, for the best.
The old man, this Dumbledore, picks his toys out of the dirt and polishes them clean with his sleeve. The marbles have been cracked and chipped in places, but haven't lost their shine. Tentatively, he selects one, a deep methylene blue, from the set and stares through it with a curious eye, like a diviner peering into a crystal ball. His gaze wanders back and forth until finally it stops on me.
"You look blue today, Severus," Dumbledore says, one eye still peering through the marble, the other closed. "Have the students treated you badly?"
For just a moment, I am convinced he sees, truly sees what is happening. Alas, the moment passes and so does my conviction.
"Tell Minerva hello, she's been worried about you," he waves toward his neighbour. At that, the woman next to him rolls her eyes and gives me another toothless grin. Obviously she's grown used to his naming quirks long ago.
"He knows who you are," Potter cries out in relief. "Tell him that I am here, Snape. Tell him to look."
Tiredly I slump against the wall and rub the bridge of my nose in hopes of postponing the pain starting to throb inside my head. "I won't do that."
I cannot do that. Who am I to persuade Albus to leave his happy little universe and shiny toys? What have I to offer him in return? The bleak reality? He is probably the last one of us to think that magic still exists. In his world, everything unfolded according to his plan: the Boy-Who-Lived defeated the Dark Lord and we all live happily ever after. Who am I to rob Albus Dumbledore of his grand delusion? It's the last thing he has left.
"Tell him. You owe me this much!" Potter demands.
I rest the back of my head against the wall and take a deep breath. It was a bad idea to bring Potter here. Why didn't I see it earlier?
"Promise you'll go easier on yourself, my dear boy. You are starting to look more and more like Fawkes. Every day has been a burning day for him lately." Dumbledore sighs and sets the marble aside. I don't get a chance to nod my obligatory and pointless agreement before he does. Too late.
"I won't do it, Potter."
"But why?"
Why? Because I know what it's like to make the most terrible mistake with the best of intentions. Because Albus doesn't deserve the guilt that would follow. Because I owe much more to the memory of Albus than what Potter fancies I owe him. Would Potter prefer my list of reasons sorted alphabetically and in writing for later perusal?
"Knowing the truth would hurt him most terribly," I finally say. The old hag casts me a disinterested look at that and nods off again. She must've grown used to hearing people talk to thin air. I don't even know her real name: the only one I've ever heard is Minerva.
"We're a part of the universe," Dumbledore mutters to no one in particular and picks up another marble, a faded green with a ghostly-white swirl. "The universe is a part of us as well." He rolls it between his thumb and forefinger and looks through it at the artificial white lights. "Do we live in the universe, or does the universe live in us?" he exclaims positioning the marble to get a good view of the empty tracks and the brightly coloured wall mosaics. Potter slumps beside him with a lost expression on his face.
"It's not him. It can't be him," I hear Potter whispering. Then he stills and stares at Dumbledore in some kind of shocked, befuddled wonder.
Dumbledore stares right back at him.
Potter opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. I hold my breath. Could this be?
"Oddment!" Dumbledore lets out a startled gasp, as if he'd caught a glimpse of something unexpected in the depths of his makeshift crystal ball. His hand shakes and the marble slides past his fingers onto his palm and drops down onto the dull white tiles of the platform floor.
I reach for it. After years of minding clumsy pupils in close proximity to glassware and acids, it's no more than an instinct.
Too late. It shatters.
Brittle, jagged shards of glass explode against my fingers.
I must be getting old; my instincts are failing. But it's only a marble; it doesn't matter.
It seems to have mattered to him, however.
Dumbledore gazes at the glistening splatter of shards on the floor as mournfully as if the entire world was contained in that glass ball, a world that came to a quick and ruthless end. "I've lost another one entrusted to my care so long ago," he murmurs, like an elegy.
I inspect my hand for damage. Not too much, considering the impact. As I pluck a couple of needlepoint glass pieces out of my index finger, Dumbledore leans over with the blasted methylene blue marble in front of his eye again and winces at the sight of blood.
"I'm sorry, Severus, that must've hurt. But then, my boy, you always were doing exactly that."
Moments like these make me wonder if Albus is the only sane person out of all of us and I'm the one who is mad. A madman with delusions of a ghost conveniently invisible to the sane majority.
No matter how loud Potter tries to shout after that, or which marbles he tries to get in front of, Dumbledore doesn't respond to him at all.
He talks to me some more, always in short, delirious phrases: asks me to be kinder to Minerva, and out of the blue he starts the story of the birth of the chimaera. "Once upon a time, a goat with a snake for a tail had wandered into the lion's den . . ."
He never finishes it.
The platform fills with people at certain intervals of time, always busy, always coming and going somewhere, never paying too much attention to our corner.
"Doesn't anyone take care of him? Any family?" Potter questions when he gives up on his most recent fruitless attempt to get Dumbledore's attention.
"Aberforth refused to leave Hogsmeade during the final battle," I say. "That should sufficiently answer your question."
"Oh." He glances suspiciously at the old woman napping against the wall. "Friends then?"
Does he ever give up? "Weren't you paying attention, Potter?" I snap. "Yes, he has friends: 'Minerva', marbles, every stranger from here to the Northern Line, what more do you want?"
My outburst startles the old woman out of her sleep. She glances at me questioningly and furrows her short, thick eyebrows.
Potter looks like a fish desperately gasping for water and getting only air instead. "What do I want?" he cries, "I want magic back! I want him to hear a single word I say. I want the walls to stay solid for a change. I want you to stop being a bloody git and say SOMETHING to me without making me feel like a firstie all over again! But who gives a damn WHAT I want because NONE of it will ever bloody HAPPEN, WILL it?"
"If you don't wish to be treated like a first-year then stop bloody behaving like one!" I shout back at him. My words echo at me from the tiled walls and ceiling. As they finish ringing in the air I realise how strange they must've sounded to the rest of the world without anything to prompt them.
The old woman called Minerva frowns and throws me a very displeased look. "Go on," she says. "Find yourself another corner, son. There're plenty for everyone. If you're just going to disturb him, you might as well leave." A stern gaze lets me know I've overstayed my welcome. She eyes me like a dragon with a single egg eyes a hunter in the distance.
Albus leans over to her, reacting not so much to my shout but to the worried tones of her voice. "Hush, Minerva," he whispers. "Watch closer." He motions her to lean forward, pushes his beard aside, and tugs his breast pocket open. "Look, there are pixies hiding in that one, and an odd dust bunny or two. Who knows what kind of house they might build if we'll let them live and prosper together?"
Surprised, I watch years of tension disappear from the woman's unfriendly face. She looks down at Dumbledore and grins. Her whole face lights up. "Yes," she says cautiously and stares into the empty pocket as if it contains the most wondrous creatures of the world and the slightest sudden movement can scare them away. Whatever her own mental state is, clearly she is far more able than I am to understand him now. When she looks up, apparently in order to ask me to leave once more, her expression is mild.
She doesn't ask me after all.
Instead she reaches into her rucksack and pulls out a half-empty bag of potato crisps and a bottle of water setting them down on the newspaper corner free of dirt. "Let's get you some breakfast, dearie," she says and starts the obviously familiar task of holding out the crisps one by one. Once in awhile she flicks an angry glance in my direction but she remains quiet.
Potter gives them one last look and turns away as the old man leans forward eating the crisp from her fingers, open-mouthed like a baby phoenix struggling amid the pile of his ragged, ash-coloured garments. "I've seen enough."
I've felt like an intruder in this scene for some time now. "It's time to go home," I agree.
"Yes, home," Potter echoes absentmindedly.
I take my chance when Dumbledore is holding a marble to his eye again and step in front of him. "I have to go now. Good bye. Take care of him, Minerva."
"Merry meet, merry part, merry meet again." Dumbledore waves cheerfully. "Don't get too attached to spirits, my boy. It's not good for your health."
I make a point of not looking in Potter's direction, so I don't have to see him gawping at me. Instead I turn around, find my way around the small crowd gathering at the platform and head toward the exit.
At the escalator I glance back at the raggedy figures against the shiny, white tiles. All the oranges and reds of the brightly-coloured mural above them look like a pair of widely spread wings. Two wings on fire, like a phoenix on his burning day.
o
I've witnessed Muggles survive under Cruciatus for hours and still scream out their powerless attempts at curses. I've seen wizards half-buried under tons of rubble from buildings that collapsed when the magic in their foundations ran out. They were still holding on to useless wands, muttering Leviosa as long as breath lasted. Everything I've seen and heard convinces me that hope is the foremost thing that we hold on to and the last thing we lose.
I hadn't lost hope when my house wards gave way, when I stumbled into the entrance of a small church with a swollen, raw Apparation wound slicing through my chest, razor-thin, but most probably fatal.
I hadn't lost hope during my first summer on the streets of Muggle London: thrown alone into a pit, a giant crucible with a mixture of refuse and dross to be melted down and discarded, a place for refugees who had nowhere else to go.
I hadn't lost hope for months afterwards, grasping the handle of my wand until it was worn, darkened with skin oils more now than it ever was during years of use. Lumos! Lumos! And never a spark of light.
I kept looking for people who knew more than me, had more than me, who were able to do something. I've looked for someone who could help, knowing that hundreds were seeking the same, hoping that somehow my quest would turn out to be more successful than theirs.
Hope is truly the last thing people lose. Take it away and what remains?
I hadn't lost hope at Tottenham Court Road, when I first saw Albus, ranting and delirious, at the Underground station on the Central Line platform. I saw him dressed in filthy rags against the pristine white tiles and bright mosaic and my hope still remained.
People foolishly hold onto hope like they hold onto the feeling of a lost limb. Fingers still itch although there is nothing there. It took me another three months to realise that the itch was only an illusion.
I knew by then that Albus couldn't help me; for the first time in his life, in my life, he was powerless to do so. The bulwark, the tower to hide in, the shield and the shelter that was always there for me was no more. What took me longer to understand was that I couldn't help Albus either.
He is perhaps better off than some of us. It's easy to disappear as a vagrant, easy to avoid the interrogations and the procedures, the watchful eyes of the officials. Who would notice that the homeless man who'd sat in the corner for years didn't seem to be aging as fast as he should? Who would notice him at all? Albus has someone to take care of him now, someone who understands his delusions. I am powerless to help him any more than what already has been done.
When I lost hope, it wasn't a revelation or a sign from above. There was no lightning bolt, no thunder, no sudden rain. I wasn't even in the Underground standing next to Albus when it happened. It was afterwards.
I simply started to walk. I followed Tottenham Court Road until it ran out, and I just kept going, walking for the sake of watching the road scrolling in front of me, through concrete deserts, past rail yards and towers where Muggles lived as crowded as house-martens. Then my surroundings changed, from genteel old terraces to a high street lined with a colourful profusion of odd little stores. Some of them offered clothing that diverged enough from Muggle blandness to remind me with a pang of long-vanished Diagon Alley. Some even pretended to offer divinatory services; I scowled at the malformed symbols in the storefronts. Muggles! They're like children, aspiring to powers they could never possess. Powers I will never possess again.
At that moment my aimless gaze paused at a tavern that filled the point of the wedge where the high street and Camden Road crossed. I settled into a seat at the bar and spent the rest of the night there, letting the last bit of hope I had left dissolve itself in a drunken stupor.
Muggles were as good as any wizard at producing means to escape from reality, and in the end any Muggle brew tasted just the same as potent elixirs from hand-blown flasks charmed against light and heat and breakage.
What remains after all hope is lost? An empty life? Perhaps reality stripped of illusions. Perhaps the truth.
Now, as I walk past that same tavern beside the Underworld nightclub, closed and silent at this early morning hour, I stop and stare. The name of the tavern jumps out at me, in plain large letters over the dark windows. That name answers the question I've never even formulated fully, an answer that lies in plain sight.
'The World's End'.
When everything comes to that, when the rest of the body is numb enough, it's easy to ignore that illusory itch from the phantom limb of hope, realise once and for all that there is nothing in its place but the plastic and steel prosthesis of reality, and admit that you are crippled.
What did I do in the end? Nothing. Anything. What I always do best, survive.
I will go home and persuade Potter to leave because that is the only chance for me to numb that useless itch of hope. I refuse to catch the disease of optimism and senseless confidence from him. I will not be trapped in one of his dream worlds from which there is no escape.
I walk past the crowds starting to gather on the sidewalks now as it approaches mid-morning and the sun warms up the air. I turn the familiar corner, walk by the grey patches of dirt and enter the doorway. Climb up the stairs chequered by the sunlight streaming through the windows and unlock the door to my flat.
"Come in, Potter," I toss behind my shoulder and step inside.
There is no response.
Slowly I turn around.
Everything is silent. On the empty stairway, only dust motes glow in the air disturbed by my passing through the sunlit space.
o
The day elapses without disruptions, without irritating noise. It hasn't been this quiet in my flat for a while. Not since Potter made an appearance two mornings ago.
There is no spectre lingering just behind the corner, no ghost materialising next to the window or the book shelf, no rattling in the bathroom or the kitchen, no transparent head poking through my walls when I least expect it. At last.
I glance behind my shoulder just to be sure.
He must've finally done what I tried to persuade him to do all along. Infuriating whelp. It's just like him to take off without any warning whatsoever, leaving behind the slightest, nagging shadow of doubt in my mind. What if it's all just part of some silly joke, and any minute now he'll stick his head through the curtains, laughing? "Tricked you! I knew you'd look for me!"
If the irresponsible twit had been haunting anyone else, they'd probably be idiotic enough to worry about him. They'd think that something happened on the way or that he got lost on the streets. It's typical of the brat not to consider that.
What if he did get lost?
London is difficult to navigate and, judging by his behaviour this morning, he'd never seen those streets before. Perhaps I walked back from the station too fast and confused him by turning a corner too swiftly. Is he sitting in some dark alleyway, or a busy walkway, almost merged with the wall, trying to avoid the passers-by stepping right through him, his form turning more ethereal and faded by the minute? Did he retrace his steps and find his way back to Dumbledore? Would he even want to?
Nonsense. Ghosts cannot get lost. If they could, hauntings would be so much easier to stop.
It's not like him to disappear without making some sort of dramatic exit. I look around the room again; check the hallway and the kitchen. After a thorough inspection of my flat, I concentrate and try to detect any tell-tale sign of the nagging itch at the back of my head, that sense of being watched by invisible eyes.
Is he still here? He must be. It's hard to tell for sure.
Damnation. How hard can it be to determine if I'm still haunted or not? The irritating pest might not be responding; he'd done it before. Maybe he's just tired from the trip.
Berating myself in advance for this unwise behaviour, I look around the room and call out: "Potter."
There is no answer. The newspapers in the corner do not stir. The bottles in the hallway do not rattle.
This is foolish, looking for a ghost. A ghost who isn't supposed to be here in the first place. How many times did I ask him to leave me in peace? I just didn't expect this to be so sudden: no sign, no indication. One moment he is doing his usual annoying routine of following my every step and the next there is nothing. I just want to be sure that he's truly gone.
I recall the trip back. Camden. The Underworld. The World's End. The streets just starting to fill with the usual morning crowds. When exactly did the pest stop following me?
Or did he follow me at all?
"Potter," I call out. I glance into the hallway and repeat it once more, louder this time. Three times in a row. If he's here but weakened by the trip, here is his last chance to show himself.
When did I see him last? What did he say to me?
It must've been during the way back, or was it the Underground?
It was the station. Potter threw a fit, I snapped at him. The usual. It's not like we ever break that particular routine.
Then I said I'll be going back to the flat. He agreed with me, I remember something. He responded at some point. He did. "Yes, home," he echoed in the end.
Of course, why didn't I see it before? Home. He'd never refer to my flat this way. This place isn't home to him; it's further from home than anything. Why did he say it then? Could he have meant Hogwarts instead?
This is madness.
Why would he disappear to go back to Hogwarts right there on the station? Without telling me first.
Deep in the back of my mind I know the answer to that. But it's better to leave it hidden where it is. It's much easier that way, to continue pretending. Nothing is wrong. Potter left. That's final.
I will not think of it.
I'll go through the day without fretting any more about the ghost's fate; this much I'm capable of doing.
I prepare my supper and eat it in the kitchen without accusing, envious glances in my direction. In the bathroom, I fill the tub with water hot enough to steam up the mirror so that I cannot even see where the razor goes as I finish shaving. With a curtain of wet hair sticking to the back of my neck and my limbs at odd angles to fit as much of my body underwater as possible, I soak in the water for hours or so it seems. I even leave the door open to let in a little extra air and light. Finally I can do that without the fear of my every move being watched even behind closed doors. It's a relief to be alone again, not to be under constant surveillance from the minute I wake up to the minute I fall asleep, and even in my dreams.
Everything is just as it should be.
Is it now? "Oi, ne lgi, vnychek," my mind's voice interferes in Baba Olga's all-knowing tones. True, I really shouldn't lie. Lying to others is a necessity; lying to myself is a pointless act, a mental and moral weakness. The least I can do is admit the truth.
The brat had pinned all of his hopes on this trip. Why shouldn't he? Finally leaving greasy, sour Snape who didn't give a damn and meeting someone, anyone who might listen to whatever wild schemes he had thought up. Instead I took him to see the mad man, the lunatic who used to be his guardian, his teacher, who was the embodiment of magic to all of us.
I, of all people, should have known better. Had I already forgotten my own shock at discovering Albus in such a state? I forced Potter to retrace my steps and made him suffer through my despair.
I might try to lie to myself, but deep inside the truth whispers in the back of my mind. The only possible reason why he left so suddenly: he lost hope, just as I lost hope one day years ago in The World's End.
I have sunk to a new low. No one deserves such an ordeal. Even him.
Especially him?
No! I owe him nothing. I didn't drive him away. The whelp only got what he deserved. He had to leave, and the sooner the better; we both knew it. I won't miss him.
No. I most certainly will not miss him.
I walk into the unlit bedroom with my hair still dripping against my back, water soaking into the thin material of my nightshirt. With hands still wrinkled and tingling from the hot water I fumble in the deepening shadows for the box of matches I left on the bookshelf yesterday.
It's night already. The days in April are still too short.
Matches in hand, I seek out a candle left on the edge of the table. I really have no need for one. The absence of light doesn't bother my eyes as much as light itself often does, but without at least one light source the room turns gloomy: dark and silent, like a tomb.
Like a cupboard.
"Couldn't you leave a candle burning?" My memory, ever so accommodating, supplies the next line. Damnation. Even when he's gone, the brat is playing mind games with me.
Curse him.
When the first candle is lit, in the faint, flickering light of it, I reach under the bed and search by feel rather than by sight until my fingers grasp the desired object on the dusty floorboards. The second candle. The third candle is sitting next to the bookend on the shelf; the fourth is balanced on the arm of the chair. I find at least half a dozen and when I am done, I return to the table, gathering all the candles to my chest.
I do not question my actions when I light them one by one, one from the other. Light against the darkness. Candles for the dead.
Soon the shadows are driven back to the furthest corners, and the collection of tiny flames fills the room with a gentle, flickering glow.
Perhaps it's my way to offer apology. If that's true, then it's good that Potter isn't here, lurking invisible. It's good that he can't witness this madness.
It bothers me that deep inside I don't want this apology to go unnoticed. It bothers me that I catch myself constantly listening for something in the silence of the room. It bothers me that his absence alone has managed to disturb me more than his infuriating company.
I leave the candles lit, even after I retire to sleep.
o
I dream of the tunnel again, of the magic coursing through my body: dynamic, vital, perfectly in tune with my heartbeat.
It drums in my ears and pulses in angry red flashes behind my closed eyelids. No wand. No wand.
The darkness of the enclosed space is deceptive. The ceiling might as well be twenty feet tall and just as wide if I don't try to spread my arms apart to feel my way through the passage. If I take no notice of the dry roots tangling in my hair scattering moist bits of soil over my head and shoulders when I move. If ignore the countless memories of this place all telling me the same thing. The ceiling hangs low enough in places forcing me to bend down in order to avoid all the roots. The walls are narrow enough to scrape my forearms and knuckles. By the time I'm running hurriedly through the tunnel, they'll be scratched raw. Memory also tells me that no matter which way I turn, right or left, the end will be just the same.
There'll be no phantom strangers wandering into my nightmares tonight; there'll be no offered hand to pull me out. It's surprising how fast one gets addicted to an easy escape. I may as well start moving. I'll have to see this through to the end, without a shortcut, the hard way.
Far away and somewhere ahead, a hushed, whining sound resonates, muffled by the closed door.
And so it begins.
It doesn't take long for me to make the required decision.
Last time I stayed immobile. I tried to escape the time before that. Neither choice had been successful. None of them ever were.
I'll go toward the noise this time.
It seems pointless, suicidal. What will I do when I reach my destination? Spread my arms wide, leave my chest bare, tilt my head: here I am, kill me please? Absurd.
It sounds like something Potter would do.
Come to think of it, that's exactly what he did. The greatest warfare scheme ever devised by Albus Dumbledore: nothing but a suicide mission with a twist. Albus always did prefer to keep things simple.
I stumble through the dark, forward. When Dumbledore's doing the planning, what can go wrong? A few dry chuckles graze my throat at the thought. Is the laughter I hear really mine? I sound like a madman, or Black, or both. Or is it this place starting to twist my senses as well?
It's been too long and I haven't heard another sound besides my own. Am I going the right way? Too many times the tunnel deceived me into choosing the wrong direction just to prolong the hunt, to send me running through it with the monster at my back for its own twisted pleasure. At times I think the tunnel is a living, breathing creature, and I wonder what kind of cruel game it's playing with me. Where is it leading me? What will it do to me next?
I turn the corner and run into something flat and hard.
Dead end.
This is not supposed to be here. My hands roam across a flat surface in the dark. What is it? Where did it come from? Who put it here?
It's a door. A small, narrow door. A door with a knob and a lock from what my fingers can determine. I try to open it, but it doesn't budge.
Could this perhaps be the end to my nightmare? The monster is gone, trapped behind this doorway for good. For a blissful second, I dare to hope.
But no, it must be a trick. Another twist in the nightmare? The door is much too small for such a large fiend to ever fit through. Where is it then? And what is behind it? It doesn't seem like a regular entrance: the door's lintel is not only low but sloping oddly, like a storeroom or a closet.
I hear someone breathing.
Quietly it starts: a broken, muffled series of sobs, the sounds of a throat constricting against inhaled air; so hushed it's barely noticeable. But it's there, behind this door.
I lean toward it, putting my ear against the hard wood.
The noises grow louder. It sounds like a child crying and trying not to at the same time.
"Who are you?" I call out. Abruptly, the noises stop.
What kind of trickery is this?
Slowly, I slide down onto the cold, damp stones until only my back is leaning against the smooth, unyielding surface.
"Why are you here?" I call again.
I hear a gasp, then silence. Is it frightened? Of me?
I rest my forehead against the door. The painted surface is slightly cool against my skin.
"I'm not going to harm you."
Seconds pass, measured by my heartbeat and no other sound.
Finally, a soft, unsure voice, a child's voice, answers back: "I live here. Who're you?"
I'm shocked at what I'm hearing, but also shocked that I haven't made such a simple connection before, for who else would have free access to my dreams this way? No matter how absurd, how bizarre the notion is, nonetheless, it only seems right. "Potter?"
I hear yet another gasp in the series of uneven, rushed breaths. "How'd you know my name?"
It's him! Of course it's him. Who else would be capable of putting a blasted mystery door in the middle of my nightmare? Relief washes over me, so strong that I can actually chuckle at the absurdity of it all. Only this impossible brat is crazy enough to think of such a thing. "Potter, why are you hiding in the closet?"
"It's a cupboard," the voice insists, with the stubborn certainty of the very young.
Ah, that makes all the difference, of course. "Why are you in a cupboard, Potter?"
"I told you, I live here."
What is he playing at? "You live here? Since when?" And will this living condition remain permanent from now on?
"Since they all went away and left me alone," the voice confesses softly. "Are you going away too?"
Am I? "No, I'm not." It's a dead end. There is nowhere else to go.
To my horror, I make out a disturbing sound coming from the other end of the tunnel. Claws scratching against wood, the crashing of a heavy body breaking free. I know too well what follows.
My nightmare is not over.
Anxiously, my fingers search the smooth surface of Potter's door for a hidden latch of some kind. I twist the knob and pull, then push against it. Useless. It's Potter's domain and he seems to be the only one who can let me inside.
"Potter, this is important. You need to open this door."
"I can't," he argues. "They locked it."
"Yes you can." I think of Potter altering my Potions classroom walls into the dungeon stairway on a mere whim, and almost smell the scent of cinnamon on my hands turning into the scent of coffee beans. "You can do anything you want."
"Really?" Potter seems very surprised at the idea.
"Yes."
The distant noise of clawing stops, replaced by the sound of a large creature running through the narrow space. It's heading toward me.
I don't have much time.
"The Dursleys said . . . I'm just a . . . I'm no good," the voice states dejectedly.
The Dursleys. They must be the Muggle family he stayed with. If Potter is telling the truth, they aren't at all what I expected them to be. And it's certainly not what I ever expected to hear from the lips of the Boy Wonder, the Almost Saviour of the Wizarding World.
This can't be the same child who helped a murderer escape from school grounds, who dared to raise his wand to a teacher, who broke a dozen school rules without blinking an eye. What happened to him? The Dursleys 'said' and suddenly he's reduced to this? "It doesn't matter what they say; you're a wizard, boy."
"A what?" He sounds quite shocked.
"A wizard." Doesn't he know what wizards are? I don't have time for a lecture.
"Y'mean I'm magic?" the voice asks excitedly. "Like in fairytales?"
"Yes," I assure him and wince at the sound of running feet, so much closer now than a second ago. "You make things happen."
He needs to do so soon. The beast is almost at the corner. I press against the wood in a futile attempt to slide through it like Potter so easily does. "Open the door. Now."
"I can't," he cries out. "It's not moving."
"Concentrate."
"I'm trying."
Damnation! "It's not good enough. Do it. Picture it open."
"I can't!"
Cold air rushes against my back. The beast turns the corner and I'm out of time.
"Open it NOW!" I close my eyes against the sound of movement, right at my back. It's over. It must be. Let it be over.
Suddenly, all is silence.
Only silence. No tunnel. No beast. And in that silence there is a slow, maddening squeak and a click of a lock turning.
I grasp the knob and pull. The door swings back easily.
In the dark, tiny space behind the door sits a child. Chameleon's eye glasses and ill-fitting clothes. He can't be older than seven. Pale and skinny, he doesn't seem strong enough to survive to turn seventeen.
"I did it! I really did," the boy exclaims.
I look behind me; the tunnel is gone. I'm inside a house. The narrow hallway is lit only by the streetlights' glow from the outside streaming through the window shade. A room to the left of me is completely dark; so is the stairway leading up and over the cupboard space.
Everything is still. Even the framed photographs on the wall aren't moving at all.
So this is where Potter, or, at least, this child, lives.
I look back inside the narrow space. He is still huddled in a corner with a blanket and a flashlight.
"Are you going to stay there all night?" I berate the scruffy urchin. "One might think you were raised under the stairs the way you keep hiding in there."
The boy nods, embarrassed, and pulls further back into the shadows.
Oh. He was?
I live here. Wasn't that the first thing he said to me?
All these years I was convinced that Potter came from a doting family of Muggles who supported his every whim. Poor little orphan, but look, he can spell his hair to grow back in a day, such a talented boy, our precious wonder. James Potter's behaviour indicated a spoiled childhood, why would Potter Jr. be any different from him? I've made a mistake in my assumptions. A drastic mistake.
"Well, come on," I extend my arm toward him, as cautious as if he's a caged animal more likely to sink his teeth into my palm than take my hand.
Tentatively, a small hand wraps around my fingers, just as tense and nervous as mine.
It's a start. He pulls himself up, takes a step. Then another.
When Potter comes out, something about the boy has changed. The same baggy clothes hang on his skinny form, not fitting any better than before. The same ridiculous glasses shine under the sparse lighting: clumsy as two vial bases, connected by a nose piece broken and put together too many times to fit properly. But he seems taller and his grip feels stronger against my hand.
He looks more now like a stubborn first-year, like he did when he first came to Hogwarts, determined not to pay attention when it was most needed. The son of his father; from the first time I saw him I had no doubt of that.
I pull my hand back in haste.
"I can't believe you spent your entire childhood here," I say the first thing on my mind, mostly to disguise the sudden motion. It won't do me any good to reveal my anxiety through my actions.
"Not all of it," he answers. "I'll show you."
He seizes my hand and the environment around me shifts before I have time to agree. It feels like I am dragged up the stairs and through the upstairs hallway in matter of seconds, as if his hand is a portkey.
Whoosh, and we're inside a small room with a barred window and sparse furniture. An old bed sits in the corner. An empty owl cage rests upon a large trunk propped against the wall.
The door is closed and nailed shut, making me doubt that we ever entered this space through it. Is it to keep someone out or to keep someone in?
Perhaps both.
"This is where I spent the rest," Potter explains. I do not turn around for the fear of seeing something – accusations, his unease, or an echo of my own – behind those large glasses.
This room feels familiar, though I've never seen it before. I can almost smell the pungent, burnt scent that results from an insect flying too close to an open flame, can almost hear my father's voice arguing with my mother in the room below. I wonder what Potter did here on the long summer evenings to keep boredom at bay? Did he ever reach the point of casting the Killing Curse on flies simply because they were there? Because they would've burnt themselves on a candle sooner or later and Avada was a much cleaner way to die.
"I should've never survived," Potter says, "or should've stayed in the cupboard. Would've been better for the Dursleys and everyone else. That way I wouldn't have ruined so many lives."
I chance a look at him. Potter is slumped in the corner on the bare floorboards, against the equally bare wall. An eleven-year-old with the weight of the world piled up on his shoulders.
"No matter what I do now, I'll never be able to fix it all."
He reminds me of Albus, this ghost, the way he traps himself inside his own dreamscapes; caught in pursuit of some grandiose scheme for the good of the universe while the ordinary, mundane parts of existence slip by him unnoticed.
Albus is far past saving, but perhaps Potter still stands a chance, my mind suggests, unexpectedly.
None of it's his doing; even I realise it, so why can't he? None of it's his fault. The world would bring ruin upon itself just fine without Potter's assistance. "You aren't responsible. You already gave it your all. No one could expect you to do so again."
He considers my words, then shakes his head. "I don't have to. But I will anyway." He stands up, and continues to rise, growing inches in mere seconds. His features shift, his nose and his chin strengthen, the shadow on his cheekbones and jaw line intensifies. His fists clench in determination, large and bony against his short, stocky form. Only his eyes stay the same, blazing with years of stubborn will behind those ridiculous glasses.
Having two images for comparison like this, it's disturbing to notice how unlike a child he is. Seen like this, it's impossible to ignore that Potter is an adult. An adult with a few deceptively childish habits perhaps, but he isn't a child at all. The Boy-Who-Lived grew up as all children do, long ago, and I didn't even notice it happening right before my eyes.
He closes his eyes and concentrates on something with a thoughtful, sad expression on his face. The room with the barred window stretches far and wide to become the Great Hall at Hogwarts. A place lit only by the moon charmed to appear on the ceiling and a few candles floating above the aisles.
The place is silent and sombre, decorated only by black curtains and black banners hanging along the walls.
Slowly I start walking toward the teachers' seats, looking right and left along the house tables, picturing faces long gone now or changed beyond recognition. Potter follows me. He is doing something to time or space, I realise, because the short walk along the benches is taking me much longer than usual. Minutes pass. Or is it hours? I do not care; I simply walk, and remember.
No words are necessary. I look up to the empty seat at the centre of the high table and imagine Albus Dumbledore sitting there as he had done on countless occasions. Without checking behind me, I know that Potter is thinking the same thing.
It's a memorial ceremony for the ones long gone and the ones still with us. Too many of them haven't received one.
This is for Albus, for the great things he did and for the way he did them. This is for countless other faces blurred out of focus in the corners of my vision.
And in some way this is also for Potter. For the boy he never was and for the man he never had time to be.
In the silent hall, with Potter following close behind, I keep on walking.
o
As I enter the kitchen the next day I can't help wondering: when did it become a neutral territory for conversations with my ghost instead of simply a place to prepare a meal?
"Morning, Snape."
Potter stands between the table and the counter wearing the same dark-grey coat that I've seen him appear in before, only now it's buttoned up to the very top. There is something else different about him, aside from his age, which is more obvious to me now, making it much harder to think of him as a 'boy'.
A pair of rimless, half-moon glasses rests on his nose. I'm surprised to note they're like the ones Albus used to wear when he was still at Hogwarts. The pair that nowadays seems to have been replaced by marbles. Oddly enough, I understand the impulse behind this change. I've bought bags of lemon sherbets for months after I saw Albus, leaving them to grow sticky from the humidity and then congeal into yellow clumps in a dish on my kitchen table. I never ate them. Perhaps Potter will get more use out of his commemoration.
Behind the small, shiny semicircles of glass, Potter's face seems thinner and that much older, with the sharp angles of his jaw and heavy eyebrows in plain view.
"I'm sorry about the dream," he says.
"Don't mention it," I wave it away.
He slouches, his head and shoulders bowed, his form pale and glowing and awkwardly still in the morning light that streams into my kitchen window. "Thank you for making me open that door. No telling how long I would've stayed in there otherwise."
I doubt that the he would've stayed there for long, with or without me. I suspect that deep inside he wanted to be heard, otherwise his cupboard door would've never appeared in the middle of my dream.
"Anyway." He shuffles uncomfortably, like a stallion penned up in a stable he outgrew long ago. "Just wanted to let you know that before I left."
Left? He's leaving? Now? After all this time, it seems more like a joke when spoken out loud.
The glasses do not hide Potter's face as much as his old pair with its thick frames and round lenses. The ghost's unsaturated eyes appear grey-blue behind them and they seem to have caught the twinkle that Albus always used to have, but I can also see that, even with that mysterious spark present in his stare, this is no joke.
Of course he's leaving. That was the deal, wasn't it? It's just that, suddenly, questions crowd my mind: things that I haven't had a chance to ask him, thoughts that never even crossed my mind before yesterday. Where would you go? Would you like to talk about Dumbledore? Did they really keep you in a cupboard all those years?
"Well, I'm going now." he murmurs and looks down at his feet. "Good bye, I guess."
He remains still despite the promise. Then again, what did I expect? Ghosts do not ring the doorbell, say their greetings, and step politely through the opened door. It only makes sense that they would not leave that way either. What will he do? Disappear in a spark of light? Melt into thin air? Is he growing more transparent already?
No, wait. I have too many questions. And there is no time to ask them. Where do I start? Which one do I ask first?
"Stay." The word comes out of nowhere, and it shocks me to the core.
It shocks him as well; his disbelief is obvious. "Here? Are you sure?"
I said it; there is no sense in taking it back now. I shouldn't repeat myself. "You can stay until you find a better solution."
What am I doing? A sensible part of my mind screams out in shock, I'll never get rid of the pest now.
I must have grown used to his quirks, because the thought doesn't irritate me nearly as much as it should.
What would he have done if he left, anyway? Was he planning to go back to Hogwarts, watch the castle grow even more abandoned and barren day by day? Would he witness the moths blindly fluttering into the open windows in summer and pass by the spiders spinning their sticky webs across the corridors without the need to brush them aside? Would he hold conversations with the portraits on the walls out of boredom? Would he shout his anger into the silence of the empty hallways; cry futile protests at the sight of his home fading slowly into ruins, until Hogwarts only survived in his dreams?
It's like the Zen koan. If a ghost speaks in a castle and there is no one there to hear him, does the sound exist at all?
Ghosts are only as strong as our memories of them. If there is no one to remember him, there is nothing to keep him from fading away completely. He needs to be around someone who realises that he is still here. He deserves to be with someone who would see him, who would listen and respond to what he says.
He should be with me.
Oi, ne lgi, vnychek (Rus.): Oi, don't lie, grandson.