Let's get back to the third year. With the help of Miss Granger, I finally managed to turn a beetle into a button in Transfiguration class, albeit barely. When I prodded the button with my wand, it would still scurry around on the table, trying to avoid me. Just because one is a highly skilled wizard doesn't mean their offspring will be the same. I'm proof of this theory. I don't get frustrated about my failures in Transfiguration class anymore – at least I am better than Longbottom, I thought, perhaps a bit unkindly.
The corridor was bustling and noisy after class. Everyone was carrying their school bags and heading towards the staff room, because today's Defense Against the Dark Arts class wasn't held in the usual classroom. Defense Against the Dark Arts was now the favorite subject among the Gryffindors. Especially after being tormented by the charlatan Professor Lockhart for an entire school year, everyone had been looking forward to what new and exciting hands-on activities Professor Lupin would bring us this week almost since Monday
Dad doesn't like Professor Lupin – it's not really that strange. I often feel that apart from Mum and me, he doesn't particularly like anyone. But his attitude towards Professor Lupin was even colder than his usual indifference. At the beginning of the term, he specifically reminded me to keep my distance from Professor Lupin outside of class hours.
I asked curiously for the reason. Mum softly called out, "Sev," interrupting what Dad was about to say.
I looked at Mum in confusion, then at Dad. Mum just stroked my hair with her fingers and said: "Professor Lupin will be a good teacher. You'll learn a great deal from him."
Dad didn't say anything, but it was obvious that he was a bit displeased. Later, I happened to overhear Potter and Black talking to Professor Lupin about their fathers, and then I learned that Professor Lupin had once been part of Mr. Potter's little group. No wonder Dad didn't like him.
A huge crowd of students were squeezed in the corridor, all chattering and speculating about what kind of monster they were going to deal with today. There was a sudden moment of silence among the Gryffindors. I looked up and saw Dad coming out of the staff room, wearing his usual black robe, his face still gloomy.
It might made me seem very naive back then, but I was really afraid of meeting Dad at Hogwarts outside the Potions classroom, especially when I was among a whole bunch of Gryffindors. He didn't come over. He just stood there, gave me a look, and then turned and walked in the other direction.
"Come in, everyone," Professor Lupin, wearing a shabby robe, stuck his head out of the staff room. "Thanks to Professor Snape, we've finally got everything set up."
After we filed in, he pointed to the old, rattling wardrobe and introduced us to the Boggart. The girls seemed a bit scared, but they all lined up in a long row under Professor Lupin's guidance.
For the first time, I started to seriously think about what I was most afraid of, and then I realized that I had never thought about this question before. The Boggart could figure it out at a glance, something that I couldn't even answer immediately. Did it see into people's hearts? Or could our fears actually be directly sensed? While I was randomly pondering these questions, the line was getting shorter little by little. From time to time, a burst of cheerful laughter rang out in the classroom. Fear seemed unable to linger here for more than a second.
Infected by this atmosphere, I walked to the front with a silly smile. The strange creature with a burning tail had filled the whole classroom with smoke just now. I stared wide-eyed, curious about what the Boggart would transform into because of me. Until I saw a beautiful woman approaching me gracefully from the end of the smoke.
My mother, Lily Snape, appeared in front of me. This made me freeze, my hand tightly gripping my wand. And the classroom, which had been so lively just now, was now plunged into silence. I looked at Professor Lupin in a bit of a panic and found that he was looking at my mother thoughtfully.
Fine, I needed to deal with my own Boggart independently like the other classmates. I tried hard to focus on the spell I had just learned, and then I noticed that my hand holding the wand had started to sweat. And my "mother" had already walked up to me with a small, brightly colored suitcase. She reached out with a beaming smile to touch my face. I realized that although she was smiling, her eyes were full of tears.
"My dear, my Iris," she said softly. "Mom is leaving now. You take good care of yourself."
"Where are you going?" I asked her blankly, momentarily forgetting that I was actually in a classroom full of classmates. The moment I saw her turn around, a cold shiver ran through my heart. I was at a loss and tried to grab her hand.
"Anywhere," she still smiled, her fingertips were terrifyingly cold. She forcefully shook off my hand with a frightening strength. "Mom is just too tired. Mom has to leave—"
"No, Mom, no—" I ran towards her figure, weeping and wailing. At that moment, I forgot that it was just an illusion created by the Boggart. I was convinced that once my mother turned around, she would never look back. There was an endless road ahead, and she was about to abandon my father and me to pursue her own light, warmth, and freedom.
Someone grabbed my wrist and pulled me backward. The scene in front of me disappeared as a hand covered my eyes. At the same time, from the other side of the classroom came the familiar male voice shouting "Riddikulus". The explosion sound caused by the Boggart's transformation filled my ears.
Slowly, I realized that I was trembling and crying weakly. The hand covering my eyes was finally removed. The whole class of classmates looked at me with various expressions. Some were still whispering to their companions.
"Harry, give her a piece of chocolate," I heard Professor Lupin's voice from above. The rustling sound of the wrapper being peeled made me raise my eyes to the side. Only then did I realize that the person who had just grabbed me and covered my eyes was actually Harry Potter. Almost reflexively, I shifted to the other side, putting some distance between us.
"Fear cannot be resisted by closing our senses," Lupin said to us gently. "Of course, Mr. Potter's attempt is commendable, and Mr. Malfoy's spell-casting reaction was also very quick. But since the Boggart's attention is still on Miss Snape, the effect isn't particularly good. However, because you bravely tried to protect your classmate, I will award five points each to Gryffindor and Slytherin."
The chatter in the classroom grew louder. It wasn't unheard of for both Gryffindor and Slytherin to be awarded points for the same thing, but it was definitely a rare occurrence. However, the discussion didn't last long. Professor Lupin waved his wand and conjured up a funny balloon, which attracted the attention of all the students. Then he announced that the class would continue and asked the students who hadn't yet experienced the Boggart to line up again.
I was glad that the giant spider in front of Ron Weasley effectively diverted everyone's attention. Apparently, they had stopped discussing the topic related to me, especially after Lavender Brown shrieked and ran backward, accidentally falling flat on her back. I found the most secluded corner with a view and sat down. The chocolate in my hand had started to melt a bit, but I didn't feel like eating it.
"Are you okay?" As soon as I sat down, Harry Potter came over. I gave him a somewhat strange look. Didn't he notice that his good friend was almost too scared to speak by the spider?
"Thanks," I said briefly. "I'm fine."
Potter scratched his messy hair. Since I really didn't have anything else to say to him, I turned my head and looked elsewhere.
Draco was standing far away by the window, with Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson beside him. I probably should have thanked him too, but as soon as he noticed me looking at him, he averted his gaze and turned to watch the big spider in the middle of the classroom, which was slipping all over the floor as it was being skated around by a pair of roller skates. There was a sneering smile on his face. I wondered if he was laughing at the fact that I had been reduced to such a mess by a Boggart.
"Have some more chocolate," Professor Lupin stopped me as I was packing my schoolbag when the bell rang. Looking at the half-bitten chocolate in my hand, he said to me gently, "It will make you feel much better."
"You won't tell my dad what happened in class today, will you, Professor?" I lowered my head and picked at the golden decoration on the chocolate wrapper, asking him in a small voice.
"No," he said. "This is your personal matter, Miss Snape. But I suggest you have a talk with Lily, okay? Your mother is one of the nicest people I've ever met."
"Okay," I nodded, knowing that I wouldn't do it.
He turned around and called out to Longbottom. He hadn't let Longbottom face the Boggart just now. I guessed he was worried that Longbottom's Boggart was You-Know-Who – but I thought it was more likely that Longbottom's Boggart was my dad.
"Where are you going?" Just as I left the staff room, Draco's drawling voice sounded slowly behind me.
"To the library, and then to have dinner," I replied casually, lowering my head and stuffing the chocolate into the outer pocket of my schoolbag.
"Fine." He grabbed my wrist. "Let's go."
I was thus led downstairs towards the library in a daze, not knowing what was going on in his head. First, Harry Potter had grabbed my wrist with great force, and now he was pulling me like this. I suspected these boys never realized that I wasn't a sack but a girl.
I didn't follow Professor Lupin's advice to tell Mum what had happened today. She was very busy, and I didn't want to distract her from her work with such a trivial matter.
Time flew by, and it was the last weekend before Christmas when we could go to Hogsmeade. Everyone was very restless, so much so that almost everyone was absent-minded during Friday's Potions class – only when met with my dad's gloomy gaze did they quickly pull themselves together and throw a few ingredients into the cauldron and stir vigorously.
"Oh, my god, I poured the wrong thing…" I heard Lavender Brown, the girl at the back table, whisper and shriek. I turned around and saw that the potion, which was supposed to be semi-transparent, had turned into a sticky, brown mass stuck to the bottom of the cauldron. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. "Professor Snape will fail me!"
Miss Granger turned around and gave a friendly suggestion, "It's still not too late to pour it out and start over. There's still most of the class left –"
I grabbed a large handful of the remaining ginger root powder on my board and threw it into Brown's cauldron. A cloud of yellowish-brown steam billowed up with the sound of violent boiling. Brown quickly stepped back and hid behind her female friend. The look of fear in her eyes seemed to accuse me of playing a trick.
The smell of this steam was really unpleasant. I was choked by the pungent smell until my nose ran and tears streamed down. I shook my head and continued to stir vigorously in a counterclockwise direction.
"The textbook says this potion should only be stirred clockwise, Miss Snape," Miss Granger reminded me from the side.
"The book also says that the ginger root powder must be added last – Potions isn't an art that follows rules blindly," I shrugged. "As long as it can be made, that's what I think."
After the boiling gradually stopped, the potion left in the cauldron was clear and shiny, showing the kind of luster described in the book as "having a slight metallic sheen in the sunlight".
Unfortunately, before Lavender Brown could give me the warmest smile she had given me in three years, my dad's cold voice sounded behind me. "Miss Brown, if you can't complete (he emphasized these four words coldly) another one independently before the end of the class, I still won't give you a passing grade."
Miss Brown's smile froze on her face, and she even gave me a fierce glare.
"Iris." At the end of the class, as I was burying my head to tidy up the cauldron and ingredients, I heard Dad calling me from the podium.
There were no other students in the classroom, neither Gryffindors nor Slytherins. They all couldn't wait to go back to the common room to embrace the weekend.
"Dad?" I shuffled slowly towards him and called out.
"Using the violently boiling ginger root powder and the high temperature from the steam to skip three unnecessary steps," I heard him ask. "Did you come up with that on your own?"
"Yeah." Not sure if he was pleased or thought I was fooling around, I answered honestly. "I just thought –"
"Ginger root powder can be somewhat corrosive at high temperatures." He reached out his wand and tapped my robe in front of my chest. Only then did I notice there were tiny spots of damage on the robe. With a flash of a faint light, it became neat and new again. "That's why it's not done this way in the textbook. Show me your hands."
"I didn't touch it. I used a long-handled spoon." Even though I said this, I still handed him my hands. My hands were still small. Unlike Mum, I didn't have slender and beautiful fingers. He gently squeezed my palms.
"Good job," he said. "But don't make such attempts that you've only thought about in your head alone in the future."
"Okay." I nodded obediently.
He didn't stroke my head, and I wouldn't snuggle up in his arms and act coquettishly. We didn't have the affectionate gestures that were common among other fathers and daughters. He didn't often keep me after class.
Just like me, he rarely shows our father-daughter relationship in front of others at Hogwarts. Some people naturally have an obstacle when it comes to being affectionate. They're not good at expressing their feelings, let alone love. Even when their hearts are full to the brim and love is about to spill out from their eyes, their faces remain stiff, and they're stingy with even a smile – this is something I understood much later. At that time, I also came to realize that there are many forms of love. Just like not all flames burn brightly and radiate light, there are also flames that quietly curl up in a corner, giving off a faint glow and silently generating heat. Love is always there; it's just that we often discover it too late.
I kind of regret choosing to go to Hogsmeade this weekend. The Christmas atmosphere permeates the entire village. It seems that a wreath could appear out of thin air at any time and land on those giggling heads. Every shop is full of people. I think the Shrieking Shack might even be packed with reveling ghosts right now – isn't Peter Pettigrew still being hunted? Hogwarts blocked all the rat holes before. How come everyone seems to have forgotten about that now?
"Potter isn't with his two lackeys – oh, and you're not with your little girlfriend either – right, your little girlfriend isn't old enough to come to Hogsmeade yet."
Just as I was about to use my wand to open a butterbeer, Draco suddenly turned to the other side and sneered towards the bar entrance. Harry Potter appeared alone at the door. Without Black or Weasley, it was indeed a rare sight, so Draco immediately perked up and went to provoke him.
"Ginny isn't my girlfriend," Potter replied calmly. "If you keep spouting nonsense, Malfoy –"
I got burned by the glass bottle, hissed, and shook my hand.
"You're so stupid," Draco pushed his already-opened butterbeer towards me and took the bottle from my hand. "How could you still get burned by this thing?"
"Because it's really hot," I said, happily watching him grimace in pain the moment he grabbed the bottle. He didn't have the time to bother Harry Potter anymore.
He's been really into making jokes about Ginny Weasley lately. I don't know what he's up to. These jokes have really annoyed Miss Weasley's brothers. I even overheard the twins having a heated discussion about how to punish him with dung bombs one day.
"Going home for Christmas?" Draco asked me with a lazy tone.
"Of course," I said. But actually, I really don't like it when Mum takes me to Aunt Petunia's house. And I dislike addressing that huge lump as "cousin" even more.
I took a sip of butterbeer and then realized that the bottle in my hand wasn't full. I stared at him with wide eyes and asked, "You gave me the one you've already drunk from?!"
"Forgot," Draco saw Longbottom who was talking to Miss Granger. His eyes narrowed like a hunter spotting his prey.
"Don't mess with Longbottom," I grabbed his wrist when I saw he was about to stand up. "Draco, for the sake of Christmas which is coming soon."
"I'm just going to buy you another bottle of butterbeer," he said with a smile, looking in a rather good mood. "If you want to keep drinking this one I've had a drink from, I don't have any objections."
"Go on, hurry up. Shoo!" I gave him a push. Maybe it was too hot in here, but I felt my face flushing.