18 – The Aftermath

"WHAT WAS THAT?" repeated Lily. She was responding to Snape's boggart the way she responded to seeing her first fire-breathing dragon years ago—with a mixture of horror and fascination.

Snape looked at the pile of ash in front of him. He was still trying to process the scene that had unfolded, himself, not sure what to make of his greatest fear as depicted by the boggart. It had shown him the prospect of marrying Lily, something that made him feel elated; then he saw a cloaked figure enter the picture, give him a black back box, and separate her from him; and the last part was completely baffling when his own double instructed a miniature version of Lily (in a black dress) to tell the other Lily (in a wedding dress) to… love him? Was this some kind of wish, or was it something else? Could it be that his double was using the dark arts, maybe even the—

"Sev? What was all of that? My boggart was a wimpy troll." She looked to the ground, almost ashamed at how simple her boggart was in comparison to his. "Yours was—what was that?"

He didn't answer her right away. Had his double really given the instruction to love him? He wasn't certain, but he was pretty sure that's what happened. He couldn't get the picture out of his head of the miniature Lily jumping onto Bride Lily's shoulder, leaning in to her red hair, whispering in her ear.

"Love him," he whispered, barely audible. He looked at Lily. "I think it was trying to tell you—" He stopped mid-sentence. He pictured the miniature Lily coming out of the black box with the doppelganger root on it. "Doppelganger root…" His eyes suddenly grew big.

"What? What is it?" she asked.

"Well, I think that…" He looked around the room, to the left, then the right, and started kicking some of the dirt on the cave floor. "So... did you see anything unusual outside of here?"

"No. Why? Sev, don't change the subject. You know what it was, don't you?"

"What what was?"

"Stop it. You know I'm talking about your boggart."

"Well, I can't be certain what it was."

"What did that scene mean?"

He chose his next words very carefully. "Maybe we… should both… confirm what we saw. Why don't you go first. What did you see?"

Lily sighed. "I came back to see what was taking you so long, and there was a lot of smoke. I could see the back of your head—"

"Are you sure it was me?" he interrupted. "Where I'm standing right now? Or did you see someone—er—did you see me further in the distance?"

She looked at him as if he just asked if Dumbledore knew the summoning charm. "Of course it was you. You were standing right where you are now. Anyway, there was a lot of mist, and it was really hard to see things. It looked like there was a woman in a white dress, but I couldn't tell who it was because your head was blocking her." She sighed again. "But what really scared me was that THING. That little witch in the black dress on her shoulder."

"Ahem." Snape coughed several times. "Did the witch"—he cleared his throat—"look like anyone you know?"

"There was so much smoke, I couldn't see her very well. Oh, one more thing! I could see the blue root glowing in the background. Just like the root on the black boxes in the mural."

"Very curious. Very curious, indeed." His hand stroked the quasi-, nearly invisible beard on his chin, as a philosopher might have done with a real beard while being deep in real thought.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Do you know what it was, or not?"

Snape pretended to investigate the ash once more, and he used the moment to exhale. He was relieved that she hadn't seen his double or the cloaked figure. Even better, as luck would have it, the smoky mist had made it impossible for her to recognize her own double and the miniature Lily.

"Well, I too saw the root in the background. I'm guessing it was a minor detail, probably something about my worries that this journey goes okay. And I saw the woman in white and you—er—thing on her shoulder, but I can't say that I recognized either one." He looked away from her.

He had deliberately lied, something he'd never done to Lily, unless counting white lies, which didn't seem to fit in the same category. There were occasions when she asked how he felt about something James or Sirius had done, and he never knew how truthful he should answer. Should he say that he wouldn't mind if they met in an unfortunate collision high over the Quidditch Field? And that in their collision, he'd be okay if they accidentally shot stray beams from their wands, giving James a second head and Sirius a third leg, or perhaps some flesh-eating organism that… Yes, he was certain that in some instances being entirely truthful was a bad idea, especially since she got upset whenever he showed animosity towards anything. However, what he'd just said about his boggart escalated well past a white lie.

And Lily seemed to know it. "You really don't know your greatest fear? No idea?"

"I told you before we came into the cave, I don't fear things like trolls or werewolves."

She looked at him head on. "There was a doppelganger root in that scene, and you know you're curious about it. You're sure you don't fear using it for something… bad?

"No. No, of course not. You shouldn't doubt that."

"It wouldn't be the first time today," she said under her breath.

"What was that?"

"I'm just saying, this isn't the first time we've argued today about the doppelganger and what it can do. What your friend, or whoever, wants you to do with it."

"Well—"

"And it's not just that. You were okay with those peasants in the mural being slaves. How's that different than controlling someone with the Dark Tourist curse? I'll answer for you. It's not different at all. So don't tell me, a wizard of your potential has no clue what his greatest fear is." For the second time that day, she stormed off in frustration.

"I swear on Merlin's Beard, that's the fieriest spirit I've ever seen," said Snape. He stood frozen, dazed for a moment, then rushed off after her. "Okay, you're right. I'm not comfortable explaining my boggart. I didn't want to frighten you."

They reached the end of the tunnel, and the daylight blinded him as they stepped out into the fresh air.

"Frighten me?"

"Yes. My greatest fear is someone using a curse on you." He didn't have the desire to mention that, according to his boggart, that someone was him. He wondered if omitting information was a white lie or a deliberate lie.

Snape continued to squint from the daylight. He could hear the wind whistle around him, and he knew Lily was weighing what he just said.

"Aw, Sev. Your greatest fear is for me?"

She took his hand, and for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day, crisis seemed to be averted.

As his eyes adjusted to the daylight, he was suddenly reminded why he was standing outside of Boggart Cave in the first place—Willow Gorge. The enormity of it took him by surprise. Here, they were on a rocky precipice that overlooked the canyon, full of weeping willows, easily thousands covering the terrain. The long, thin branches reminded him of champagne-colored fireworks that hung in the sky, slowly streaming to the ground.

"This is…" He couldn't finish.

"I know, it's beautiful, isn't it?"

They took in the view a moment longer, and occasionally the wind seemed to rip through the canyon making the willow branches swirl upward like hair under a hot dryer.

"Strong wind," said Lily.

Snape continued to watch Willow Gorge; the swirling of the branches moved from one end to the other. He imagined a Quidditch player flying between the trees, the tailwind lifting the branches as the broom sped past. What was strange was that the tailwind seemed to originate in numerous spots on both the east and west ends of the Gorge, and passed one another in the middle, before moving to the opposite ends. "It's like wizards flying on brooms past one another. But how can that be?"

"What do you mean? It's just the wind," said Lily.

"Yeah, but it shouldn't be moving like that. It's like the wind is passing itself in the middle."

They continued watching the imaginary wizards flying through the Gorge, the champagne branches swirling up everywhere.

"Lily, it's not the wind. There's flashes of blue. It's—LOOKOUT!"

Galloping towards them was something out of children's fairy tales, except this unicorn was blue, and it looked more like a horned bear with red eyes.