17 – Boggarts Cave (Part II)

—poof! The troll shape-shifted into a Slughorn lookalike, who was tilting back a bottle of butterbeer, spilling the drink all over his chest. Lily let out a hearty, "HA!" and the lookalike disintegrated into ash. She gave a sigh of relief. "I wasn't sure I could do that."

Snape was breathing heavily from having run to her aid, but now he stood in front of her awkwardly. Since his Riddikulus charm had failed, he wasn't exactly feeling like a knight in shining armor. "I don't know what happened. It didn't work, I couldn't focus, it was all wrong!"

She reached out to his hand and pulled him down to the cave floor next to her. "It's okay. I know you're protective of me."

"I tried to get it to shape-shift. I tried to distract it. Anything!" His words were firing out. He felt as ashamed as the day when Sirius used the Carpe Retractum charm to tear his robe into two.

"It was my boggart, Sev. It didn't even know you were here, so its attention was all on me."

"It shouldn't have mattered. My charm should have transformed it."

"But not if your mind wasn't clear and focused. You were worried about me—it's okay." She patted his hand, but he didn't move. "It's not like we're expected to be as good as Dumbledore yet. These things happen sometimes. "

"They shouldn't happen to me," he said, a shade too coldly. "And I'll be as good as Dumbledore."

"I believe you will." She patted his hand again for encouragement, but still he didn't respond. "I can't believe how real that thing looked. Did you see your boggart yet?"

There was silence. He stared at the cave floor, lost in his own thoughts.

"Sev? HEL-LO, Severus?" She smiled at him and finally the scowl left his face a little.

"No, I didn't see one. Come on, let's get out of this cave."

He helped her to her feet, and they began heading back to the larger room. After a few meters, Snape was surprised to see something in the mural he hadn't noticed the first time—some of the peasants had miniature versions of themselves. (They were roughly the size of stone statues of angels, fairies, gnomes, and other creatures that muggles sometimes put in their gardens). At first, he thought the mini-peasants were children walking with their parents, but they were too small. And something else about them seemed off. He couldn't put his finger on it, but they just didn't seem like children.

When they reached the altar, Snape showed her the druids working magic to clone the oxen. "I suppose the druids must have had some magical powers, but they were working with muggles. They were using the doppelganger together ages ago. Muggles and druids—together. It's unbelievable."

Lily didn't seem to find this concept of mixing the two groups unfathomable. Snape wondered if it was because she had grown up with Petunia, her magic-less, dimwitted sister. Petunia hadn't liked him from the start, and probably wouldn't have minded if he disappeared to some remote desert island, nor would he have been too upset if a stray, purple beam had left his wand accidentally giving her a pig nose.

"Help me understand this better," said Lily. "The doppelganger makes it possible to clone things?"

"Yes, but only creatures. Not anything human."

"So how is this different from the Dark Tourist curse?"

Snape lit up like a professor about to share an amazing finding with his colleagues. "Well, cloning is just one use of the doppelganger root, but the Dark Tourist isn't about cloning, you see." His train of thought abruptly vanished as he continued scanning the mural. "But I don't see anything that indicates the druids used it." He continued poring over the details, searching for any sign of the curse.

"Okay. But what is it? I mean, what does it do?"

"You see, it makes the subject believe she's acting of her own free will, but of course that's not the case. What's really happened is the castor has brought a foreign being into the subject's mind, and it's controlling everything. Everything." He repeated this to let it sink in. "It's like a dark tourist is sitting on the subject's shoulder, whispering into her ear, planting every thought, emotion, impulse… until it becomes a part of her. And the dark tourist follows her everywhere. It's utterly…"

"Awful," said Lily.

His expression soured some, but she didn't see this because she was moving closer to the mural. She held a finger to the wall and traced it over some of the peasants.

"Hmm. I don't know that the peasants and druids were working together," she said.

The peasants—especially the ones approaching the altar—were drawn with dread in their eyes. They offered the iridescent, blue roots to the druids at their feet, some of them kneeling, others bowing in worship, in what clearly revealed a subservient relationship. "Are you sure there aren't any traces of the Dark Tourist? These muggles look like they might have been slaves. How terrible."

"Well, they weren't the ones who knew magic," said Snape quickly.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm just saying—"

"Well I'm saying"—she paused for effect—"these druids must have been pretty terrible to the muggles, because they drove them into this cave to create the mural. Can you imagine how many people it took to do this? To express these feelings of oppression? I bet they formed their own shadow society."

"A shadow society? I'm not so sure. They could have been here on their own volition."

"Why not a shadow society? They were driven underground to draw in the shadows because they rejected normal life."

"Yes, but it makes some sense that the druids were in charge and they weren't. They didn't know magic…" He was going to share his ideas about wizards and witches ruling instead of muggles, and how Voldemort was going to make this possible soon, and how it would all be for the better, but he could see Lily's concerned, and rather frustrated, expression.

"They should not have been slaves."

"Well—"

"SEV!"

"Okay, I'm not saying slaves." A few seconds later he added, "Of course not. But, then again, they probably shouldn't be in charge."

Lily muttered something under her breath, which sounded like a wizard swear to Snape, and a few sparks randomly shot out of her wand. "If the druids made the muggles their slaves, they could very well be using the Dark Tourist, or Fourth Curse, or whatever you want to call to it. It's just another form of control. Going to get the doppelganger root is starting to feel like a bad idea. Again." She took his hand suddenly and stopped him in his tracks. "Sev, I hope you trust this person you're getting the doppelganger for."

Those green eyes, the ones that could look like jade spears, had returned.

"I do."

If Lily was waiting for a longer explanation, she didn't show it. She simply nodded and began moving forward again.

Snape decided not to push the conversation any further and thought that, maybe in time, Lily would agree with him. If she could see what it was like with the magical community in charge—everything in its right place—maybe her feelings would change. Until then, he knew he had to push on with Voldemort's plan and get the doppelganger root, no matter how long it took them to get to Willow Gorge.


The mood remained tense, and they didn't speak for awhile as they moved further into the cave. Even after leaving the larger room, and entering into what felt like more of a cramped hallway, the mural continued on and on. It showed the oxen on their journey, carting the doppelganger to an unknown destination, and there were more peasants with their miniature versions. Again, Snape got the feeling that there was something off about the mini-peasants. Even more mysterious, there were a number of druids in this section of the mural holding black boxes, each box with a crank on its side and a picture of the iridescent, blue root on the front. Both he and Lily wanted to ask the same question, but they were in a battle of wills, neither wanting to be the first to speak after their argument. And neither wanted to be the first to ask the question out loud: What was in the black boxes?

After having passed about twenty druids holding them, a pattern evolved—a druid held a black box. The next druid on the cave wall had a mini-peasant walking beside him. The third druid in the sequence was alone, since the mini-peasant had run off to reach a peasant who looked exactly like it.

Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer. "I wonder what"—he coughed a few times—"is in the black boxes?"

"I KNOW! It's driving me crazy."

"And there's some kind of pattern—"

"Light! Look, Sev!"

Lily had spotted the first sign of light at the end of the tunnel and ran off before he could complete his sentence.

Krch. Krch. Krch. He heard footsteps behind him. Krch. Krch. Krch.

The hair on his neck instantly stood up. He whirled around, pointed his wand, and said the first charm that came to mind. "Carpe retrac—"

Except he couldn't finish. Somehow, Lily was standing in front of him dressed in the most beautiful, white dress he'd ever seen. He turned back around. Hadn't she just run towards the light at the end of the tunnel? He became very confused for a moment and tried closing his eyes to gather his thoughts. Maybe the Lily that ran out of the tunnel was a boggart, and this Lily… He turned again and opened his eyes. This Lily was right in front of him. "Lily?" asked Snape, trying to assure himself that he wasn't seeing an apparition.

She didn't respond but did give him a mischievous smile, and he felt even more drawn to her. He tried to turn back once more to see if the other Lily was really gone, except he couldn't find the strength. The Lily in front of him—he'd never seen her look so striking. "What… When…" He didn't know where to start. "Your dress," was all he managed to get out.

The top of her dress was made of tiny diamonds that twinkled like stars in a fairytale, night sky, while its back swirled to the ground, stretching into a white, silk aisle fit for a queen's throne. His eyes drifted to the necklace sitting on her chest—it was an emerald that could have been stolen from Oz. It matched her eyes perfectly and complimented her red hair the way Christmas green and red are perfectly matched. He took a step closer, and she smiled but still didn't speak. Suddenly, he heard music coming from an invisible orchestra, playing Pachebel's Canon in D. He didn't know why, but right then, he knew he was supposed to marry her. This felt like his wedding day. This had to be the real Lily, he convinced himself.

In that moment, Snape felt something he would never feel again, and it wasn't until years later that he realized that sometimes you only get to feel a certain way once. And like so many wonderful moments, this one was fleeting, and it ended the second he saw someone behind her.

There was a man a few paces away. He wore a cloak, masking the top half of his face, and the part that showed was as pale as snow, with a slightly curled lip forming a permanent sneer.

"Who is that?" he whispered to Lily, but she simply gazed back at him. Snape clenched his wand, and his hands began to sweat. A smoky mist appeared in the cave, collapsing on them like a sudden fog in a valley, and he lost sight of the cloaked figure. He raised his wand, ready to spout out charms to defend them, but then he saw the top of the cloak moving away.

There was a sucking a noise, and the smoky mist began swirling like a tornado, only to vanish into the cave's ceiling. Now, the cloaked figure was in full view, and he was handing a black box—with the blue, iridescent root on it—to… himself. "He's handing it to me?" asked Snape.

He looked closer at the person before him, and he felt like he was looking into a mirror. Snape was definitely looking at a double of himself. He turned away from the scene quickly. "You're my boggart? I'm my own—all of this is my boggart?" he asked the fake Lily, hoping that something would change, hoping they could go back to what felt like their wedding, but he knew this wasn't possible. This had to be his boggart, his greatest fear, so feelings of perfect happiness weren't possible. The word "Riddikulus" was on the tip of his tongue, yet he couldn't say the counter-charm; he felt as if he'd looked at Medusa and turned to stone, for he couldn't tear himself away from the scene. He had to know what came next.

The fake version of Lily pointed to the Snape double and the cloaked figure, who'd begun arguing about something, though no words were being exchanged. The Snape double had raised his arms in anger. In response, the cloaked figure pointed a yew wand to the ceiling, and the smoky mist returned, swirling around Lily, separating her from everyone. Pachebel's Canon in D changed to Mozart's Requiem. The back of Lily's dress, stretching out like a white aisle only moments before, was now black water, forming a moat around her.

This greatly upset the Snape double. He began turning the crank on the black box. The lid shot off and a small figure jumped onto the box's brim. The Snape double whispered in its ear, seemingly giving it instructions.

"It's a jack-in-the-box," said the real Snape, confusion still in his voice.

He tried making out the small figure. It had jumped off the box to the cave floor and was moving in his direction with a ferocious velocity. It hopped over the moat and onto Lily's shoulder—Snape gasped. It was a miniature version of herself, same red hair, green eyes, and thin build, even the same clothes down to the emerald necklace. It was all the same except for the dress, which was black.

The miniature Lily leaned in and began speaking into the fake Lily's ear, and Snape craned his neck to hear anything, and he might've heard the words, "Love him." But the scene became a blur, and the doubles of Snape and Lilly, miniature Lily, and the cloaked figure all vanished, morphing briefly into a troll, then morphing into Slughorn throwing back a butterbeer.

Behind him, Lily had shouted "Riddikulus," and was now laughing, making the boggart disintegrate onto the damp cave floor.

Snape couldn't speak, and he didn't need to. Lily's voice filled the tunnel with a boom that must have echoed for hundreds, maybe thousands, of meters. "WHAT IN MERLIN'S BEARD WAS THAT?"