Purposes

That day Sev cut the class short with Beamy. He had decided since he received Malfoy's letter that he would try performing the Druid ritual on his birthday. It was showing that everything he meditated on in a certain way was coming true, and although it was not a special astronomical date, it was for him, and it was also the date of his tree, the fir, which perhaps had even more power.

So he told him, "Today I have to leave earlier, I have to do something."

"Are you going to spend your birthday alone? Don't you want me to come with you?"

'Ugh… The boy must have been waiting all this time for me to invite him to walk with me after class, and I always prefer to go alone.And precisely today more than ever, because I have to concentrate well on the request.It has already been seen that it can turn out the opposite of what you expect.'

"Today I need to be alone, Beamy. Excuse me, but what I have to do is very private and I must concentrate."

"Is it something magical?"

"Yes. Tomorrow, if you want, we'll take a walk together in the Forest after class, and I'll show you my favorite places."

"Okay…" he answered excitedly.

He went to the fir tree thinking well what he was going to ask for. When he arrived, it seemed to him that it was not necessary to carry out the previous meditation, the very power of the tree would inspire him if he connected with it immediately. And he still had one more idea, the whole Forest was magical, perhaps also by putting his feet in contact with the ground, the magic would intensify.

So he cleared of snow and dried a small space in front of the trunk. He took off his shoes, which despite being magical, part of the uniform, had been kicked around the Forest so much that in three months they were destroyed and had lost their waterproofness, and his socks were damp. He took the opportunity to dry them too.

He stood close to the fir tree, barefoot, hugging the trunk and resting his left cheek on it.

He meditated, 'Universe, I am infinitely grateful to you for giving me notice of what awaits me in time, and I beg your forgiveness for having been so blind to my own fate and for having reached the point of seriously endangering what I love the most.'

While he meditated the joint magic of the Forest and the fir invaded him from the bare parts of his skin with a sensation of warmth that he had never felt before. He felt loved, protected and in absolute communion with Nature.

He continued, 'Give me the keys to do the right thing.I don't care what happens to me, just that Lily is safe.But I must not make the decisions alone, but also take into account what she wants.Inspire her to choose the best for herself, that in this situation she should be away from me.'

He was crying bitterly.

'I also ask you something for myself, time, help and cunning enough not to fall into the abyss, but I do not do it thinking about my own safety, but about Lily, my mother, Lily's parents, Remus and Cecile and also Beamy, all the people who love me and would suffer for my misfortune.For my part, I will do everything in my power to avoid it, I do not expect miracles, I know that I must work hard to remedy what I did wrong.

'In return, I promise you that if, despite your help and my efforts, I do not escape from falling into darkness, I will never be an architect or an accomplice to crimes, I would rather die than harm innocents.

'On the other hand, if I succeed, I swear to fight the Evil that almost trapped me to its last consequences, also giving my life for it if necessary.

'Thank you, Universe, for having opened my eyes and listening to me, for the gift of life and of magic, for having allowed me to discover love, friendship and trust.My life has been worth it even if it ends at this very moment.'

He stayed for a long time feeling full, forming part of the Everything, at peace. It was hard for him to abandon his sacred tree, his protector, his guide. But he had to fulfill what he promised. 'I have to arrive in time to have lunch with Beamy, I'll also propose to do something in the afternoon, now I regret not having spent more time with him.It's Friday, the students will arrive on Sunday and who knows if we'll ever be like this again.'

When he got to the Great Hall, the boy was already seated, he received him with a smile. "Hello Snape! Has your magic worked out for you?"

"I still don't know, but I hope so," he replied with a sad smile.

"Sure it will, your birthday is your lucky day."

'I'd like to ask him when his is, but maybe he doesn't even know.Well, yes, he should know, even if he didn't know his parents, all wizards are registered at Hogwarts on the day they were born, I'm probing him anyway.'

"When is yours? In summer?"

"Yes... How did you guess?"

'I'm not telling him because he looks smaller, otherwise I might offend him.'

"Because you are a sun."

'He is puzzled, how strange that I would have said something like that.'

"Do you know the exact date?"

"The twenty-third of August."

'Narrow Virgo, Earth, hence her Huffle traits, though I'm Earth myself and don't have them at all.The conventional zodiac is solemn nonsense.'

"Did you know that the Celts had magic around the trees? According to your date of birth, one corresponds to you, just like the signs of the zodiac, and the Druids, who were their sorcerers, performed rituals to acquire their magic."

"Is that what you did today?"

"Yes."

"Wow… how interesting."

"Would you like to know which one is yours? I have a book that says so. Maybe it's in the Forest and we can look for it tomorrow."

"Really, Snape? Don't you mind going to the trouble?"

"Of course not, in fact, I really want to do it. After lunch I'll go to look for the book and we'll look at it together. It's not snowing today, we can sit under the beech tree, in front of the Lake, it's one of my favorite places. In addition, it is also a sacred tree, that of the winter solstice."

'His look reflects that a whole world has opened up before him.'

"All right…"

After lunch they went home for their cloaks and book and went out together to sit under the beech tree, as Sev had done so many afternoons with Lily and no one else.

"Let's see, first I'll let you read over the rituals, so you can see what the story is about."

Sev waited as the boy did, looking at the Lake and thinking of Lily. 'Can we ever sit here together again?'

After a while Beamy told him, "It's very long, can you lend it to me until tomorrow so I can read it in its entirety, please?"

'Ugh... me and my bad habitof annotating the books.'

"I can't, Beamy. There are parts annotated with private information. Read it in its entirety now if you want, we have time."

"I'm going to take a long time and you're going to get bored."

"No. Don't worry about it, I'm comfortable contemplating the landscape. You can also ask me or comment on things that call your attention."

"Thank you very much, Snape."

And indeed, Beamy asked him questions and comments that Sev answered to the extent that he could, based on the experiences he had lived.

"That's why you were here on the day of the solstice."

"Did you see me?"

"I did… but I didn't want to bother you."

The boy was in awe. "You have discovered a magic that we are not taught at school."

"Yeah... But I still don't know very well how it works, for the moment the things I ask for are only being fulfilled to a certain extent, I don't know if it gives you real power."

Beamy finally finished reading the part about the rituals.

"Shall we look for your tree?" Sev asked.

"Yes!" he exclaimed very excited.

Sev browsed. 'The Cedar.From August 14th to 23th.The Trust.It could not be otherwise.'

He laughed and handed him the book again. "Come on, take, read your tree. Let's see if it get the personal characteristics right."

Beamy glanced at it. "Don't you want to read it with me?"

"I don't know, it's quite personal, maybe something will come out that you don't want me to know. You better read it and tell me if you want."

"But if you can still read it later."

"I will not do it."

"You know I wouldn't mind."

"Yeah... but still."

Beamy began to comment, "The cedar, the trust… is that my main characteristic?"

"Yes, and it hits you right."

"It says that it only grows in North Africa, the Himalayas and the Middle East. We're not going to find it in the Forest."

"Do not believe, if the Celts knew it, it is that there must also be them in the United Kingdom. Then we'll go to the Library and investigate if there are any in the Forest."

"Okay… It's a symbol of art and religion."

"Oh…"

"It was used to build ships, and it says it smells very good."

"How interesting."

"It says that I have a unique beauty, which makes me arrogant."

"It's true, you're very handsome, with light hair and black eyes, that's very strange, you're going to dazzle the girls when you grow up a little more. But you are not arrogant at all, in that it does not hit you."

"Waiting for the one true love."

'Wow, like me.'

"I am very adaptable to all kinds of situations," Beamy continued.

"It's also true, you managed very well before Hogwarts and here too. You have even managed to connect with me, which already has merit."

"Not at all, Snape. You're very nice too."

"Thank you, but don't underestimate yourself. It was you who approached me."

"It says that I like luxury and the good life."

'And he is an orphan, to know the miseries he suffered.'

"Yeah…"

"It's right about that too, at my friends' house I live very well, I even have a room just for me."

'Steed and his sister, wealthy.'

"I'm in good health," Beamy continued. "It's also true, I almost never catch a cold."

"How lucky…"

"I am observant, not shy and sure of myself, do you think?"

"On the target. You pierced me very good, you weren't afraid to get close to me and you were faithful to what you believed in despite others."

"You're right, and you know that I don't regret it at all."

"Thanks again Beamy."

"Do not give them to me, it has been lucky to have met you. I am very determined and optimistic."

"Of course."

"Yes, I think so too. I tend to be somewhat impatient."

"It's true, but you control it, that doesn't hit you too well."

"I tend to help others."

'Wow, yes, without knowing it, maybe he will save me from the abyss.'

"You're doing it with me."

"Oh really? I thought it was the other way around. I like to impress others."

Sev laughed, he remembered when he made the Patronus the first time and how he would show off when he put a spell on him.

"I think it's right about that too."

"I am a hard worker, I am very confident in my talents and persevere until I reach my goals."

"Totally true."

"I am able to make decisions quickly. It is true."

'I think so.If he stayed at Hogwarts to meet me when who knows how he found out I was doing it, he was quick as lightning.'

"Well, it get almost everything right," Beamy concluded. "What a good horoscope, it's not like that nonsense of the zodiac. Is yours right for you?"

"Yes, quite."

"Can you tell me something about what it tells you? What is your main feature?"

"The mistery."

"Wow… wow yes…"

"Come, give me the book and I'll read you what I can."

Sev took the book from his hands and looked for his page. "I have good taste, I love everything beautiful and I am sober."

"What does sober mean?"

"That I don't like excesses."

"Ah…"

"I have a lot of dignity, I am temperamental, demanding and selfish."

"I don't believe that last one."

"Well, yes I am, although I try to change it. I take great care of those closest to me."

"Like your family and your friend, but now you are no longer with her and they can attack her."

'Ugh!Will it be possible?Have I done everything wrong?Have I put her in danger by apparently driving us away?They threatened her, but they never dared to do anything to her while they were seeing her with me... what a blunder.But if we come out into the open again, they'll know we've been hiding out of fear, and they'll have me even more caught.'

"Yeah… I think you're right," he continued reading. "I am modest, ambitious, hardworking, resourceful, talented and intelligent."

"It seems that they have written it just for you."

"Very reliable, reserved and loyal to my friends."

Beamy didn't respond to that.

"Well, we know each other a little better now," Sev said. "Can you let me ask you a personal question? If you don't want to, don't answer me."

Beamy thought about it. 'He must think I want to pry him about his friends.'

"Okay," he finally said.

"What the hell did you say to the Hat to Sort you into Slytherin? You are a very strange snake, you look like a Hufflepuff."

Beamy laughed. "Don't you think me cunning and intelligent?"

"Yes, without a doubt you are, but also very confident, Slytherin doesn't suit you."

"Well, I did have to fight with it a bit, it couldn't make up his mind. I convinced it because I had met my friends on the train and they were already going to Slytherin, but mostly because I saw someone who I thought was my family at the table, and it confirmed it when it told me that my ancestry was green-silver."

'Half-blood disowned by a pureblood family, just like me.Only he ended up in an orphanage.Ugh…'

"And that person who looked like you... is they still at school?"

The boy looked down.

"Not anymore."

"And you didn't try to meet them?"

"He was one of the bad guys."

'Who would he be?Of the last two promotions, who are the ones he has met, I know them all, and I can't thinkabout anyone who looks like him.Maybe he has made it up.'

"Shall we go to the Library to look for that cedar?"

"Great!" He seemed relieved to change the subject.

They went there, Sev looked in the Herbology section, 'Hogwarts Forbidden Forest Tree Species', and they consulted it on the back bench, which he hadn't sat on since the previous year, when he did with Lily.

"You always sat here with your friend," the boy told him.

'Wow, he had me totally controlled.'

"Yeah…"

He looked in the index, there it was. "Look, yes there are," he leafed through. "It says that there are few and they are isolated."

"Then it will cost us a lot to find it."

"It doesn't matter, we can skip class tomorrow and look for it until nightfall, we'll grab something from the kitchens and have lunch in the Forest."

"And if it snows?"

"It will not snow, in fact, there will be clouds and clear all weekend."

"How can you know?"

'It's true… how can I know?Normally I guess if it is going to rain, snow or have good weather in the next few hours or the next day by looking at the sky, the temperature and the humidity, but never so far in advance and with total security.And besides, today it didn't look any better.How odd.'

"I don't know… we'll see if I hit the mark. If it snows, Impervius, and inside the Forest we will be more sheltered. Let's take a good look at what the tree is like to identify it when we'll see it."

"We could draw the leaves."

"There's no need. Haven't you noticed that it's a conifer, like mine? They are related, the leaves are similar to those of pine and fir. We are lucky that it is perennial, otherwise now it would not have. But in order not to confuse it with the others, we should draw the pineapples, which are very different. Will you ask Pince for supplies to write? She really dislikes me, and otherwise we'll have to go home."

"Sure, Snape, right away." He soon returned with the supplies and told him, "Draw them yourself, I don't know how."

"Well, I'll try, don't think I control much either. I haven't drawn anything since I was eight years old." Sev took pains to reproduce the engraving on the parchment, and to his surprise, it was perfect.

"Wow, well, not to know, you've done great, it turned out identical."

"Yeah… I'm going to also draw the shape of the tree." The same.

"Wow, Snape… you're discovering secret talents."

"It seems so. Do you want to copy the information too? So you have everything about your tree."

"I can do it any other day, now I've noticed where the book is."

'He doesn't want to waste time with that, he prefers to continue chatting with me.'

"Okay. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know, and you?"

"If it were clear I would take you to the courtyards to see the stars, but we can do it tomorrow after returning from the Forest. There is a crescent moon and it will also be seen. Do you like Astronomy?"

"Yes…"

'He did not sound very convinced, he said it so as not to disappoint me.'

"Well, we'll think about it tomorrow. How are you doing with your homework? Have you finished them yet?"

"Well, yes… it's been days."

'Poor boy.He's been alone all Christmas to stay with me and I've barely paid attention to him.It must have been very boring, I feel so guilty, I tell you I'm selfish.'

"What do you think if I check them for you so that you have them perfect?"

"Would you do that, Snape? Do not care?"

"Of course not. I don't know if you know that the OWL syllabus, which I have to do this year, includes topics from the third year. It is going to be very good for me to review. Shall we go home or do you prefer to do it here?"

"Better at home, I have there the books."

"I don't need books at all, I remember almost everything. If I have any questions, we also have them here."

"But I prefer mine, I have them written down."

'Wow… like me.'

"Okay, then to the dungeons."

They settled in Sev's corner, with three candles for good light. 'He is very excited to sit here with me.How many times must he have watched me without my noticing?'

Beamy had carried homework and books for three subjects so far.

"What have you brought?"

"The ones that are worse for me. Arithmancy, Potions and Transfiguration."

"Wow… You have taken Arithmancy even though you are bad at it."

"Well, not so much, and besides, it seems very important to me. It is used for many things."

"Yes, it's true, and almost nobody realizes it. Soon you will be able to use it to improve Potions and you will advance in that one too. Let me take a look at your homework and then if you want I'll explain how to apply it in the potions, so you can get ahead of the syllabus."

"Wow, great! You are an ace in Potions, if you explain it to me, I will advance a lot."

'Stevens must have told him.'

Sev reviewed his Arithmancy problems, barely found three or four mistakes, and explained them to him in detail. "Well, if this is the worst you do, you must be a brilliant student."

"The truth is that I am. I never go down from Exceed Expectations."

'Like me.'

Sev reviewed his Potions and Transfiguration homework as well. Since it was theory, they were perfect. 'In addition, the boy writes with a good style, he does not limit himself to copying from books verbatim as almost everyone does.Of course, he is diligent and talented.'

"You have them perfect."

"Yeah, actually it's practice that I'm worse at."

"Well, we're going to solve the Potions thing as soon as I explain Arithmancy to you, and I can also help you with Transfiguration. It was the subject that I was the worst at, but this Christmas I have made a lot of progress and I can explain to you how it is done. Which do you want to start with?"

"By applied Arithmancy."

They jumped to the corresponding topics. Sev explained the tables and gave him homework. "In any case, you won't be able to check if they come out until you apply them to the potions. You know, it's all about intuition, you don't know what to do until you're at it."

"Yeah…"

"Sometimes you will have to clean everything and start over."

'Now that I think about it, Lily has everything written down in notebooks. Tonight I'll ask her to send me the third year one, it will arrive tomorrow, just in time for Beamy to copy the modifications.'

"Tomorrow I will leave you my notes for the third year, so you copy them and the potions will be perfect for you the rest of the year."

"But that would be cheating…"

'Merlin! How innocent he is.'

"Well, then try to do it yourself and use them just to check that you haven't made a mistake."

"Yeah…"

"But remember that in the written exams and in the exercises that you hand in you have to be faithful to what the book says."

"Sure… but what nonsense. If potions are better modified, I don't understand why you can't write that too."

"Yeah... nor me. I think we're late for dinner. Let's go?"

They had dinner and a letter from Lily arrived.

"If they have already sent you a package in the morning, why do they write to you again?"

"Because there was no letter in the package. I receive them at night and who sends them to me receives mine in the morning. That's why I always leave the house to answer them."

"Where are you going? To a place where you can see the moon and the stars?"

"Yes."

"I like to see the Lake through the window, but the truth is that I miss seeing the sky through the windows."

'Of course, this boy shouldn't have fallen into Slytherin. And to think that he did it to be with someone he didn't know and turned out to be evil. At least he found good people, though he would have done just as well in any other House.'

They returned home. When Beamy saw Sev sit down in his corner to answer the letter, he asked him, "Aren't you leaving today?"

"Bah, today I can't see the sky. If you wait for me a little while, when I'm done, we'll continue and I'll explain Transfiguration."

"Cool! Thank you, Snape, I'm going to get further in an evening than I have in the whole term."

"Do not give them to me, I should have worried before about giving you a hand."

When Sev finished with the letter, which he cut short so as not to keep him waiting too long, he told him, "Will you accompany me to the owlery? It's great to walk through the empty castle at night."

"Great!"

And Sev led him through secret passages and dark corridors, teaching him to move in the dark, in silence. "Stealth is also part of Defense, if you don't get caught, you avoid confrontation, or you can catch your enemies off guard. In addition, it is a characteristic of our Patronuses, the felines."

"Of course…"

'He is living quite an adventure.'

They arrived at the owlery. "You don't have an owl, do you? You always get a different one," asked Beamy.

"No, I do not have. But even if I did, I would still have to send the ones from the castle, otherwise I would blow it up, I write every day. Have you got one? Which comes to you is always the same."

"Yes. But it's not mine, it's my friends'. They wanted to give me one, but I preferred a cat."

'A rare familiar in Slytherin, too affectionate.'

"Oh really? Do you have a cat? And why don't you let it walk around the Common Room, now that there's nobody there?"

"When you leave I take her with me, but I leave her in my bedroom when you're there, so she doesn't bother you."

"Well, what a nonsense, you could have asked me, I wouldn't have cared."

"Maybe yes, because she's very cuddly and I'm sure she would spend her time trying to climb on top of you."

"Well, when we get back, let her go out for a while, even if she bothers us a little. The poor thing has been locked up all afternoon."

They came home and Beamy went for his kitten. Although she was already an adult, she was smaller than usual, beautiful, completely black with green eyes. 'With my hair and Lily's eyes.' She was indeed very affectionate and sociable, she spent most of the time in Sev's lap, but she didn't bother him at all, she curled up and purred.

"I already knew she was going to like you," Beamy told him.

Sev was delighted, he had never had a little animal like this. "Another feline, like our Patronuses, fits us."

Sev taught him how he had learned to Summon and Transform, and although the boy didn't make it, at least he already had the bases to continue practicing on his own.

They went to bed early to be fresh the next day.