31 – Not for Anything
Snape didn't want to hear Voldemort's suggestion, and he did everything in his power to block it from his mind. The room started to spin, and he fell to a knee. It kept spinning faster and faster, and the lights around him were changing from dark to navy, navy to gray, obscure faces were flashing inches from him, and suddenly everything became still, like a university library on Saturday morning. He was transported back to the Spinner's End Carnival, the first time he'd ever seen Lily…
As a boy, he'd always heard about soulmates and love at first sight, and a bunch of other stuff that he considered absolute rubbish. And this year, it seemed to have found its way to the Spinner's End Carnival where esteemed matchmaker, Henrietta Harrison, was running a dating contest called Everlasting Passion. The game had come from a chapter in her latest best seller in her wildly successful series of dating how-to books: Find You and Find Love (…Then Find Passion!); You've Found You But Have You Found Love?; You've Found Passion But Not Love; You've Found Love But Not You; and the latest, You're Not Sure What You've Found.
Henrietta was explaining the game to the contestants and giving a speech about love at first sight, claiming that unless it's been experienced, no one could believe that it's true. "Blah, blah…" said Snape, but before he could get out a third "blah," there was a girl with lollipop red hair on the other side of Henrietta's stage. He locked eyes with her for just a moment, and she gave him a small smile. Snape felt something in the pit of his stomach that he'd never experienced before. What was it? It couldn't be love. It wasn't everlasting passion. And yet, it was something, almost as if this girl had a gravitational pull on him that others didn't. Or perhaps some kind of connection? Or understanding? All of these thoughts were swirling in Snape's head when a boy—tall, handsome, muscular, and wearing a T-shirt that said, Football is everything, and Everything is Football—took her hand in his, and just like that, Snape's love at first sight moment turned into something else.
When the girl and boy left the dating game, he followed them to The Bends, a game where contestants tried to kick a goal past local soccer hero, Caesar Cordozo. If successful, they could choose from the carnival's finest: stuffed animals, squirt guns, taffy, canned wasabi nuts, and more. The boy was trying to win a stuffed koala bear for the girl, who he was calling, "Lily." (Snape thought the stuffed silver doe was nicer and somehow fit her better.)
Snape made sure that the boy wouldn't get the ball past Cordozo. Of course, with a little magic for himself, he was successful in getting the koala, but he had no idea what to do next.
The girl was now on the Ferris wheel with the boy, and they were snogging, and meanwhile this crazy-looking fellow with long white hair, a long white beard, and half-moon spectacles was standing with him. The man understood that he had a gift like his mother's and had even asked if he put the ball past Cordozo with his mind. Normally, Snape would've had a thousand questions for someone like this.
Except the girl was all that he could think about.
The Ferris wheel seemed to be moving as slowly as the London Eye, and Snape's heart was pounding. With each passing minute, he could hardly stand watching her kiss the boy, each kiss getting more passionate than the last. When the boy's hand liberally moved across Lily's shirt, she slapped him but continued snogging anyway.
"It's not fair, is it?" asked the man with the half-moon spectacles.
Snape had forgotten for a moment that he was even there. "She's not like that. I know it. And what is she doing with him!"
"Love finds a way to be the most simple yet most complex thing in this world. An amazing contradiction really."
"He just wants a cheap feel and to snog her all day long."
The man chuckled a little.
"What's so funny?" asked Snape.
"It stings more at your age, but it's not so different even for an old man like me. Well, I best be going… is it okay if I contact you? "
"For what?" said Snape, barely looking at the man. His eyes were fixed on the Ferris wheel where Lily had slapped the boy two more times. Her sister Petunia was now yelling for the two of them to stop it. "This is absolutely gross!"
When their compartments finally made it to the ground, Petunia rushed out. "I'm going home!"
"Tuney, wait!" Lily chased after her, and then stopped. She ran back to the boy and gave him one last kiss and then ran after Petunia again.
Snape was going to run after Lily, but really what was the point? She'd just kissed another boy for what seemed like hours, and what would she say when he came up to her and gave her a stuffed animal? She didn't even know who he was.
He looked around for the man with the half-moon spectacles, but he had vanished. Snape briefly wondered why the man wanted to contact him but quickly became engulfed in everything around him. There was such energy, such life—bright signs advertised Coke floats, cotton candy, popcorn, chocolate-covered strawberries, and more; Caspian the Great was performing a magic trick with knives and smashing cups, making the crowd ooh and ahh with his every movement; caged tigers were surrounded by little kids, who dared one another to get closer to the bars separating them from the wild beasts; Henrietta Harrison was announcing the winners of Everlasting Passion...
Such life, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling of her—the moment they had locked eyes. Was it just him, or was something bigger in that moment? Was it possible he could really feel that he already knew her, daresay belonged with her?
The boy that Lily had been kissing was joined by more boys, and they were all high-fiving him. "How far did you get?"
"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell," the boy told his cronies. "But I'm no gentlemen. I touched..."
Snape blocked out the next sentence, but he couldn't constrain himself from following their group through the carnival crowd past Caspian's stage and the dunk tanks. Through the Ring Toss, Duck Pond, and Dime Pitch games.
"Do you think you'll make it further with her at the dance?" one of the friends asked.
"Of course. That was just a preview."
"I want to go with her," said the friend.
"No way, not after tonight."
"Come on, what'll it take for you to let me take her? What about my Cordozo football jersey?
The boy laughed. "Cordozo was lucky I didn't get a goal past him today. I don't want his lousy jersey."
"What about your hero, Kevin Keegan?"
This caught the boy's attention and he didn't say anything right away. "You'd give me Keegan's jersey? A real one?"
"Yep, my dad knows the manager of his club."
Snape couldn't believe what he was hearing. When the boy agreed to let his friend take Lily to the dance for a football jersey, he'd had enough. "How could you do that?" The question was spoken softly yet pierced through all the carnival sounds.
The group swung around in unison in Snape's direction. "Who are you, freak?" asked the boy.
"How could you trade her… for a football jersey?"
"What's that?" asked the boy pointing to the koala bear. "Did you win that for her? You think that's going to do you any good?"
Coming from the boy who had just made out with Lily, he had a point. Snape looked at the koala bear. "I'm not sure she'll stay with a loser. You couldn't win it for her, could you?"
"What's that, freak? You calling me a loser?"
"And something tells me, she's not with you for your brains, so—"
The boy got in his face, but he didn't step back. "I wouldn't trade her for anything."
"You're such a stupid freak." The other boys were pulling their friend back, telling him it wasn't worth it.
Snape never dropped eye contact with the boy, and even as the group wandered off, he said, "Not for anything."
He smiled, and it remained even as he was ripped from his dream and came to. Voldemort, inches from his face again, was smiling as well, but it was a different kind of smile. "Did you have a nice trip down memory lane, little boy." It wasn't a question. "So what are you willing to do to fix our situation?"
"I said anything."
"Hmm… interesting. Then you're willing to give up the Yule Ball with Lily for our work?"
Snape looked to the ground and thought about the boy who'd traded going to a dance with Lily for a football jersey. He wondered where he was right now and if he ever regretted the decision. "Yes," said Snape . "Now, get me back to Hogwarts."
"There's one more thing I'm going to need from you. It might hurt a little." Voldemort patted Snape on the shoulder as they left the room.
