Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent

“Harry?” Hermione suddenly said. “Why are you hitting your forehead?”

“Oh? Huh? Um--no reason. Never mind,” he responded, embarrassed.

“Harry?” Hermione said again, softer this time, not taking her eyes from the two people across the room.

“What?”

“Why don’t they say something? About us, I mean.”

Harry frowned. “Hermione--these are memories. We’re not really in the past. It’s not like a Time Turner.”

The realization washed over her; her eyes widened. “Oh! That’s right! So stupid--”

He patted her arm. “You are way too hard on yourself. The first time I was in a Pensieve I expected people to take notice of me, too. Come on, we’re probably the only students at Hogwarts who’ve used both a Time Turner and a Pensieve.”

“Sssshh!” Hermione said. “They’re saying something.”

Lily was leaning over a potions text, reading. “You know, Severus, you didn’t tell me why you wanted to make Eutharsos Potion, or what it was for--”

Young Severus Snape suddenly panicked and grabbed the book from her, putting it on the side of the cauldron away from her.

“It--it doesn’t matter, does it?” his voice shook. “Thank you for your help. I would’ve botched it, most likely.” Snape? Harry thought, trying not to laugh. “Where are--your friends?”

“They’re--off doing things they don’t want me to know about.” She sighed. “For the past year--” she began, then looked up at him, shook herself, changed the subject back to the potion. “Actually, if you’d have boiled anything but the roots, you certainly would botched it up. But you still haven’t let me read what it’s for--”

She reached for the closed book he’d set down just as he poured the potion into a beaker, straining it through cheesecloth just as Harry had done when he’d made his Eutharsos Potion. Lily was still paging through the book, searching for the right potion recipe. He noticed for the first time that she wore a silver prefect badge; Snape did not.

Snape stared at the murky concoction and then drank it all down, just as Lily cried, “Aha! Here it is...”

But as she read, Snape began to look rather peculiar. Harry remembered the sensation of each individual part of his body going to sleep, then waking up again, and the clarity with which he could see afterward. When the young Snape shook himself and his eyes lost their glassiness, Harry could tell the potion had taken effect.

Lily was frowning, a vertical line developing between her brows. “I still don’t see why you need to...”

But Snape had put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. He looked extremely determined, and his eyes burned.

“Lily,” he said in a firm voice, no longer shaking. “I have to tell you something.” He pulled her closer to him; she looked up at him, a perplexed expression on her face.

“I love you,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers. Harry wanted to avert his eyes, but he was too horrified to move. Lily seemed frozen, unresponsive at first. Then she slid her hands up around his neck, while he pulled her closer and the fevered nature of the kiss increased...

Harry could not watch any longer; he turned to Hermione, making a face, expecting to see a similar expression on hers, but her jaw had dropped.

“Wow,” she breathed. “That’s some kiss.” Harry grimaced, closing his eyes.

“Hermione! That’s my mother! And Snape!”

“I know...” she trailed off. Evidently, the kiss wasn’t over yet.

Don’t ask questions if you don’t want answers. Yeah, yeah, thought Harry. Serves me right.

Harry turned back to them; they looked like they might be getting ready to end the kiss. Suddenly, Lily pulled back and slapped him hard across the face.

“Yes!” Harry cried gleefully. “Go Mum!”

Hermione hit his arm with the back of her hand. Harry held his arm, pretending it hurt, grinning. He was about to say something to her, but his sixteen-year-old mother was speaking now.

“How dare you!” she cried, backing away from Snape, her chest heaving. She pulled her hair behind her with her hands, then nervously began twisting it into a coil. She wouldn’t look at him. He had an expression of complete and utter confusion on his face.

“She was kissing him back,” Hermione hissed, indignant.

“How dare I--” Snape began, confused.

“How dare you take that--that courage potion and then kiss me! Is that what it takes for a boy to tell me he cares about me and kiss me?” Harry thought A boy? Was she perhaps talking about someone other than Snape? “I’m so sick of being treated like a disembodied brain floating around here, like I don’t exist from the neck down. ‘Ask Lily, she knows the answer.’ I’m a human being! I have feelings, and needs. Taking a potion to talk to me is--insulting. Am I so scary?” she demanded of him. Frankly, thought Harry, yes. More than a little scary.

“No, Lily, that’s not it. I was just--just nervous. I’ve wanted to say this for so long...”

“Then you should have just said it! Damn you...” she trailed off, looking like she was going to cry. He stepped closer and put his arms around her. She acquiesced at first, putting her head on his chest, then pulled away, wiping her eyes, adopting a more businesslike manner.

“You meet me under the oaks by the greenhouses in four days time, or however long it takes that potion to wear off. Don’t take any more of it! Then if you want to tell me you love me and kiss me--well, we’ll see! But don’t you touch me until that damn potion wears off!” Her eyes were blazing, and she turned and stormed out of the room. Snape stared after her, Harry thought, with a lovesick expression on his face that was--he thought of Hermione’s new favorite word--extremely un-Snapelike.

Harry looked at Hermione, who was grinning back at him. “I like her!” she said.

“Hmmph,” was Harry’s only comment. He had not expected his mother to be so--

“I mean,” Hermione went on, “I totally understand what she’s talking about!” Her voice grew softer. “Viktor was the first person to treat me like I wasn’t just a disembodied brain...”

“Hermione! I--we--I mean--”

“Sshh, Harry. I’m fine now. After all, you didn’t need a courage potion to kiss me.”

Harry remembered then that the Eutharsos Potion he’d taken had probably still been in effect on the day of the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match. Was that how he’d gotten up the nerve to kiss Ginny? He glanced at Hermione, deciding that he wouldn’t mention his own experience with the same potion. He didn’t feel like getting his foot mashed again.

But suddenly, the dungeon was dissolving in the way that Harry had experienced before, in Dumbledore’s Pensieve. There was nothing to see but smoky greyness; he could see his own body and he could make out Hermione, through the murkiness, but only with great difficulty. A whirlpool of darkness engulfed them both.

Suddenly, Harry felt solid ground beneath his feet again. Hermione was beside him once more, just as if they had not moved. They were out of doors. It was a crisp autumn day, and they were standing near the greenhouses. The landscaping was different from Harry’s and Hermione’s time. There was an allee created by paired oak trees leading from the rose gardens to the greenhouses, the branches arching overhead and meeting, forming a corridor, a protective canopy, a space both indoors and outdoors. The trees were a riot of crimson and gold, cinnabar and saffron, the ground was littered with acorns and leather-brown leaves. Snape was sitting at the base of one of the oak trees nearest the greenhouses, in the shade.

“That’s funny,” said Harry. “These trees are huge. Why did they chop them down?”

“I remember Professor Sprout saying they used to have oaks here for potions ingredients--you know, the leaves for memory potions, the acorns for tea to help seers sharpen their inner eye--as if anything of the sort would help--the bark and roots for various medicinal purposes, and the sap as a binder for potions. But she said the oaks developed a fungus on their roots, and had to be destroyed.”

Harry looked perplexed. “You obviously pay much more attention in Herbology than I do.”

“That goes without saying,” she said, her eyebrows raised. There she goes again, he thought.

Snape seemed nervous. Clearly, the Eutharsos Potion had worn off. At the far end of the corridor of trees, they could see a slender figure with long hair approaching, black Hogwarts robes billowing behind her. Snape watched her approach as though he were mesmerized. When she reached him, he started to stand, but she was lowering herself to the ground as he was half-way up, and he had to awkwardly fold his long legs under himself again. In fact, the two of them looked like the most awkward people Harry had ever seen. He tended to think of his mother as having moved like a dancer, gracefully. She actually moved more like a colt who had only a vague idea of what to do with so many limbs at the same time. Every movement seemed to be thought out so far in advance, it was wildly inappropriate by the time it was executed. She was just a bookish young woman who never thought much about how she appeared to others. He could even see a little of his Aunt Petunia’s jawline, now that he looked. It seemed less horsy on his mother, but the resemblance was there.

However, Snape clearly thought her awkwardness was endearing; he was looking at her with undisguised adoration, obviously putting her on such a high pedestal that if it were not for the potion, he never would have said or done anything. At least with that out of the way, the ice was broken somewhat--although he looked like he wished he had more of that potion. His hands were shaking visibly.

She looked at him squarely, and said with no preamble, “Well, Severus?”

He moved his eyes down to her hands in her lap, and picked up one of them, twined his long fingers in between hers, raised his eyes to hers again. “Lily,” he began, his voice catching. He cleared his throat, then tried beginning again. This is painful, thought Harry. “Lily,” came the second try, “I meant what I said in the Potions Dungeon.”

She looked at him reprovingly, shook her head. “Try again.” But she did not remove her hand from his.

He cleared his throat yet again. Harry was actually starting to feel sorry for him. No wonder his father found it hard to approach her.

“Lily,” he said louder and firmer, as though he’d made up his mind to simply get it over with. “I love you.” And he leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. He pulled back after the quick kiss, examining her face, waiting to hear whether he had to try yet again.

But she smiled this time, looked down at their linked hands, then back up at his face. “There, now was that so hard? I mean, without potion?” He shook his head, a slight smile pulling at his mouth. “But that kiss,” she went on, “wasn’t much like the one from the other day, was it?” she said in a lower, more suggestive voice, her green eyes glittering.

Both Harry and Snape opened their eyes wide as she leaned in toward him, clearly opening her mouth.

Harry reflexively covered his eyes, saying to Hermione, “Tell me when it’s over.” Beside him, Hermione sighed with exasperation.

“Oh, honestly, Harry. It’s like going to the movies with my little cousins. ‘Tell me when the mushy parts are over.’” Harry peeked through his fingers at her.

“You’re enjoying this?”

“Well,” she seemed reluctant to admit any such thing. “I suppose I’m not as invested in it. That’s not my mum over there.”

“And that’s not my dad,” Harry reminded her. “That would be different.”

He dared look at them again. They were ending the kiss. Thank goodness, thought Harry.

Snape looked at her seriously again. “There’s something else I want to tell you, Lily. Something no one else knows. Well, no other students. I want you to know everything about me.”

His mother seemed somewhat apprehensive, as if she were unsure about the whole situation now that he’d made that statement. She didn’t say anything, just gazed at him expectantly, withholding verbal judgment, and yet somehow looking rather judgmental at the same time. If she’d have raised me, Harry reflected, I wouldn’t have gotten away with anything.

Snape went on. “I want you to know the truth, about why I avoid the sunlight, and eating garlic, and that potion I have to get from Madam Pomfrey...”

Lily backed up from him a little, pointing at him. “Sirius was right!” She looked alarmed and vindicated all at once.

“What?”

“Well, avoiding sunlight, and garlic, and going to Madam Pomfrey for potion regularly--Sirius saw it, but I didn’t want to! James thought he was crazy, but--you’re a vampire! Oh, my god, I let you kiss me...”

Snape’s jaw dropped. “Is that what--” He looked both angry and sad. “No, Lily. I am not a bloody vampire. Pardon the pun. I have porphyria.”

She looked perplexed. “Porphyria?”

“It’s a liver disease. I take Porphyry Potion for it, made largely of spleenwort, with love-lies-bleeding as well. There’s also a topical salve I can put on, to increase the time I can spend in the sun. Porphyria is a little like hepatitis, but it’s hereditary. It’s not usually found in wizard bloodlines, but I had a Muggle great-great-grandfather or something like that, and he had it. Some of the symptoms are photophobia--”

“Oh,” she said, “sun-sensitivity.”

“Yes. And sensitivity to the alium bulb, and all related bulbs--onions, garlic--”

“And since it’s a liver disease, it affects your blood.”

“Yes. So, at one time, it was thought that people with porphyria needed other people’s blood. Hence the whole idea that those suffering from it were vampires.”

She looked confused again. “But--there are real vampires, aren’t there?”

“Oh, yes, and they can’t go out in the sun either. And I do have a reflection--not that I care much for it...But they really do drink blood. People with porphyria don’t, although it was assumed that they did--that we did--for centuries. And vampires are only repelled by garlic; I have a bad reaction to anything related to alium--usually the worst for me is elephant garlic and shallots--but it certainly doesn’t kill me. Neither does the sun, for that matter; I wind up looking rather jaundiced and blistered if I get much sunlight. I can’t process the nutrients from it, like most fair-skinned people, who are fair to make it easier to absorb sunlight. Sun and alium bulbs just make me feel rather sick, which is what I am anyway. It’s a chronic, incurable disease, both in the wizarding world and the Muggle world. It can be treated, managed, but there’s no cure, and if I have children, there’s an excellent chance they’ll inherit it.”

Lily looked at him silently, pityingly. Snape saw, and then Harry saw the Snape he knew for the first time: angry. “Don’t look at me that way, Lily. Don’t pity me. That’s not why I told you. I just thought you should know.”

“Oh, Severus,” she said, linking her arm through his, putting her head on his shoulder. He looked down at her, smiling slightly, but unsure. Perhaps he’s afraid she’s just feeling sorry for him now, Harry thought. But he seemed to forget about that as she moved to kiss him again...

Harry turned to Hermione, to have somewhere else to look. “Have you ever heard of porphyria?” he asked her. He should have known what to expect.

“Oh, yes. Some people think George III had it. You know, ‘The Madness of King George.’ And plenty of people suspect Vlad the Impaler had it too, you know, Vlad the Bad, in Romania. He was sort of the basis for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Of course, Stoker had plenty of contact with real vampires, but he couldn’t put anything in the book that hit too close to home. He was a vampire hunter, you know. A really powerful wizard, killed loads of them. Evidently, he wanted more Muggles to know what to do, too, to make his job easier, so he wrote the book as a kind of instruction manual, disguising it as entertainment. He taught Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts for a while. I read about it in--”

“‘Hogwarts: A History.’ I didn’t know any of that. Have you memorized that book?”

She laughed. “Not yet. Working on it.”

He smiled, shook his head. Then something struck him. “You mentioned madness...”

Hermione looked grim. “Yes. Near the end of life, it causes madness. Dementia. Earlier than that, though, people with porphyria tend to be rather tetchy, you know--quick tempered.”

Harry grimaced. “That explains a lot.”

“Actually,” she said, “this also explains why Lupin assigned us that vampire essay after Snape assigned us that werewolf essay in third year. He obviously thought Snape was a vampire all these years, and wanted us to figure it out, like I figured out Lupin was a werewolf after I did the werewolf essay. Except that it never occurred to me that Snape was a vampire because I knew I’d seen his reflection. You know, in the glass beakers and things in the Potions Dungeon. That wouldn’t have happened if he were really a vampire...”

Then the world around them seemed to evaporate into the grey smokiness again, and when it resolved itself, they found themselves standing in the Great Hall.

“How long did it take you to get used to that?” Hermione asked him, clutching at her head as though it ached.

He swallowed, looking around at the familiar setting. “I’m not sure I am used to it, yet.”

Hermione was still on her vampire kick. “Harry, do you suppose the first vampire was someone with porphyria who was cursed? Say, three-thousand years ago or something, a wizard had an argument with someone who had porphyria, cursed them, and the first vampire was created...?”

Harry shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Why do you suppose we’re here?” He looked around the huge space. The ceiling was deep sapphire blue, with a crescent moon visible amid a crowd of stars. The tables were all occupied; it looked like the evening meal. They went instinctively to the Gryffindor table, but the people sitting there talking seemed to be speaking gibberish. Harry saw his mother, sitting next to a blond girl he did not know, and then he saw his father, across from her, and if he didn’t have his mother’s eyes and hadn’t gotten his hair cut, it would have been like facing a mirror. James Potter, wearing a prefect badge on his Hogwarts robes, was laughing at something a young Sirius Black was saying, seated next to him. Hermione was looking at Sirius in a way Harry didn’t like, as when had she stared at the young Severus Snape. Okay, he told himself, she looked at you that way too, when you got your hair cut. Get a grip.

Seated on the other side of his father was the young Remus Lupin. Harry noticed that the backs of his hands were rather hairy for a sixteen-year-old, and that he had the most facial hair of any of the students. He leaned over his plate, shoveling in his food as though worried someone would snatch it from him any moment.

On the other side of his mother--Harry did a double-take--was the young Peter Pettigrew. Harry stared at the boy who would betray his parents and cause their deaths in just a few short years. He thought for a moment; in three years, his parents would marry, in four he would be born, and just over a year after that...he would be orphaned because of the small, insecure boy sitting next to his mother, watching her out of the corner of his eye. She was oblivious to Peter, laughing at something her girlfriend had said.

“Why can’t we understand them?” Harry asked Hermione.

She shrugged, walked over to the Slytherin table, where the young Severus Snape was eating, head down, not talking to anyone around him.

“Harry, the Slytherins sound just fine. Come here.”

He walked over to where she was standing. The Slytherins had several conversations going at once.

“And then I grabbed the Quaffle and did a fake to the left--” a hulking blond boy was saying to a pimply black-haired girl with olive-colored skin.

“Man, how many goblin rebellions is Binns going to rehash?” said a boy with chocolate skin and cornrowed hair. “I’m having trouble sleeping at night, I’m getting so much sleep in his class...”

“Well,” said the hawk-nosed boy beside him, “maybe you’ll catch a certain someone wandering around,” his voice dropped, “looking for bloooood...”

Snape jerked his head up from his plate at that, fixing the hawk-nosed boy with a glare that Harry recognized from Potions class. So, Harry realized, even the Slytherins thought he might be a vampire.

Suddenly, Hermione spoke. “I know, Harry! These are Snape’s memories; we can only perceive details as well as he could. Well, maybe a little better; we’re really much more aware of our environment than we think we are. Important things are easily accessible in our conscious brain, but a lot of details still get stored in the rest of our brain, and we just don’t normally access them.”

Harry nodded; it made sense. Snape would have been vaguely aware of where the Gryffindors were sitting, but he wouldn’t have been able to hear their conversations. Then Harry saw something out of the corner of his eye; he turned to see the teenaged Sirius Black creeping toward the Slytherin table with a goblet in one hand and something vaguely spherical and bulky in his other. Snape must have had a vague awareness of this--or perhaps it was because of his knowing what happened after the fact. Remus Lupin was leaning around James Potter’s back to see what Sirius was doing, a grin on his face.

When Sirius reached the Slytherin table, he tapped Snape on the shoulder. Snape whirled around, just after Sirius discreetly handed the goblet and round item to the boy sitting next to Snape, who switched Snape’s goblet for the one Sirius had brought and placed the round item in the middle of Snape’s dinner plate. Even the Slytherins were in on it.

“What?” Snape barked at Sirius, turning away from his plate.

“What what?” Sirius said, trying not to laugh. Snape glowered at him, then turned back to his dinner. When he saw the head of elephant garlic on his plate, he pushed it away from him in a panic, banging it into his goblet. Nervously, he picked up the goblet and gulped, but lowered it almost immediately and spit out the contents.

Blood spattered on the tablecloth and his robes, and on the people on either side of him. “Eeeew--” some Slytherin girls complained. Snape had blood on his teeth and around his mouth. Blood. Sirius had given him a goblet of blood.

He was back at the Gryffindor table now, laughing with Remus. Peter Pettigrew tried to be a part of their joke, also laughing, but he was largely ignored by the other boys. James Potter glanced over at the Slytherin table, looking uncomfortable. Lily seemed to be trying very hard not to run over to Severus Snape and comfort him--or trying very hard to resist putting a hex on Sirius Black; Harry could see she was torn, looking daggers at Sirius and regarding Snape with a desperate expression. Snape looked over at the Gryffindor table; Lily had turned to hear something James Potter was saying to her, then James turned and met Snape’s gaze, frowning.

Harry and Hermione watched as McGonagall hauled Sirius off, saying something about a detention (Sirius looked like he thought it was worth it), and Dumbledore came to the Slytherin table to check on Snape. He put his hand on his shoulder.

“Everything all right, Severus? Do you need to see Madam Pomfrey?” He obviously knew about the porphyria.

Snape looked up at him with an inscrutable expression; not gratitude, not resentment at being singled out...but he shook his head, saying, “No, Headmaster. I’m fine.”

Dumbledore nodded, looking shrewdly around at the other Slytherins. So much for house loyalty, Harry thought. He wouldn’t trust any Slytherin as far as he could throw one. Except--Snape was Slytherin...Harry felt conflicted and confused. He was also not feeling particularly happy about Sirius.

“Well,” Hermione said, “That was unpleasant. I can’t believe Sirius--ah!” she cried, as the world slipped away from them again and they were surrounded by the grey nothingness. Harry held his breath, wondering where they would find themselves next.

When the fog cleared, Harry saw that they were standing in the corridor outside the Gryffindor common room. The fat lady in pink was slumbering in her portrait, snoring softly. Lily and Snape were standing before her, their arms around each other, her head on his chest. Oh, no, thought Harry, preparing to avert his eyes again...

Then he saw that the two of them were slightly older; his beard and mustache didn’t look as insubstantial, and then he saw the Head Girl badge on her robes. They must be in seventh year now, he thought. She raised her head and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

“I--oh, Severus, last night was just...”

Harry saw through the high window in the corridor that a pink dawn light was starting to appear around the edges of the clouds that were visible. Oh, god, thought Harry. They spent the night together...

Suddenly, James Potter appeared as if from nowhere. Harry turned to see his dad whipping off his Invisibility Cloak and standing with his wand pointed at Snape, the most furious expression Harry had ever seen on anyone clouding his face.

“Get your hands off her.” He clenched his jaw shut again after he spoke, breathing through his nose. He wore a Head Boy badge on his black robes.

“James! Stop that! Put your wand away!” his mother scolded him.

“Great examples, your parents,” Hermione commented suddenly. “Head Girl and Head Boy, sneaking around all night.”

Harry grimaced at her. “You should talk,” was all he said. She shrugged.

“I have an excuse. You and Ron corrupted me.” She smiled now. “Kidding, Harry. Can’t you take a joke?” But Harry was thinking about the fact that she’d mentioned Ron; it might not have been conscious, but it seemed they’d been avoiding saying his name.

Lily had removed her wand from her robes and pointed it at James now. It was an eerie feeling for Harry, seeing his parents as teenagers, looking angrily at each other with their wands out. How did they ever get together? he wondered. He had the feeling that each could do serious damage to the other if they really wanted to.

Harry heard footsteps, and turned to see Sirius, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew coming round the corner. Lupin looked exhausted, limping slightly, leaning on Sirius. Pettigrew brought up the rear, looking nervous.

“What’s going on?” Lily wanted to know. “Where have the four of you been all night?”

James was incredulous. “What? You’re asking us that? When it’s obvious that you two...”

“But you do this all the time! And you never--you never talk to me about it--” her face started to crumple, and she swallowed, struggling now to stay in control. “I thought we were friends,” she said softly, seeming to direct this at James in particular. He squirmed, looked at his three other friends, then back at her.

“I can’t tell you Lily. Believe me, you wouldn’t want to know...”

Sirius looked defiant. “Anyway, shouldn’t he go climb back into his coffin?” he sneered at Snape. “The sun’s up.”

Snape moved forward and grabbed Sirius, shoved him up against the stone wall, his face a mere inch away from the other black-haired boy. “I’m tired of you, Black,” he hissed softly. “Watch your back.” Then he shook himself and stepped back from Sirius, still angry. He walked to Lily, put his arms around her and kissed her soundly, then glared at the others and strode away. As he did so, Harry and Hermione were engulfed in grey fog once more...

...only to find themselves outdoors, at night, near the Whomping Willow. “Oh, Harry,” Hermione breathed. “Is this going to be what I think it is--?”

Harry swallowed and nodded. “I think so.”

He wished he knew what else had happened there in the corridor, after Snape left. Had his mother and father dueled? He thought for a moment that he could ask Sirius, but then he realized--no, he couldn’t possibly do that.

He searched the sky; the moon hadn’t risen yet. Where was Snape? How could they be here if he wasn’t? Then Harry spotted him; he was hiding in a clump of bushes just out of reach of the tree’s wildly flailing branches. Harry looked toward the castle; here they came, the four of them, Lupin looking quite wild already, hairier than usual, a red light in his eyes. Harry had never really seen a werewolf transform before; he hadn’t been paying attention when coming back from the Shrieking Shack in third year, he was simply trying to get away before Lupin could hurt him or Ron or Hermione.

But now, he could watch safely, knowing there was no way for him to be hurt. The four of them arrived at the Whomping Willow, and his father found a long stick which he used to press the knot that stopped the branches from moving. Harry lifted his eyes to the night sky; the moon was rising. Lupin was looking progressively worse. He crawled into the tunnel under the branches, followed by Pettigrew. Down the tunnel, Harry could hear Lupin begin to cry out, presumably because of the transfiguration progressing. Snape leapt out from his hiding place.

“So! Sneaking off to Hogsmeade in the middle of the night! A gang including no less than our Head Boy! What are you all up to? Planning to do a little breaking and entering? Or a little vandalism?” Snape looked accusingly at Sirius and James, who looked very panicky.

Sirius smiled at him; Harry thought it was the most untrustworthy smile he had ever seen. This was a very different side of his godfather. “No, as a matter of fact--well, you can go see for yourself, Snape. Just come on in and find out...”

Sirius stooped down to enter, and Snape did the same. James’ breathing seemed to be irregular. Snape took his wand out before he went in, approaching the tree cautiously. He ducked down, putting his head into the tunnel, then started to move on his hands and knees into it, as the others had done.

Harry heard a low growl, a rumbling that made his hair stand up on the back of his neck. Hermione reached out and clutched at his hand; she had squeezed her eyes tightly shut. They knew Snape and the others would be all right, but somehow, being in this time and place was incredibly nerve-wracking, and Harry felt like he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.

Harry heard the growling growing louder, and then suddenly, his father leapt and grabbed Snape by the foot. Snape banged his chin on a tree root as James extracted him from the tunnel, then his dad hit the knot with his wand, making the branches flail about again. Snape and James were each struck by the Whomping Willow; Snape had a gash on his forehead and a bloody nose; James had a lump on his temple. The terrible growling was very loud now, and Harry and Hermione saw what appeared to be an enormous wolf straining to get out of the tunnel, trapped by the branches across the entrance and the other limbs doing their frantic, macabre dance. The wolf was red-eyed and salivating, and as he looked at him, Harry could feel his heart beating very loudly in his ears. He thought he was probably even more frightened than when he was facing Voldemort. There was just something about the possibility of being mauled by a wild animal...even if, technically, there was no chance of its happening.

Snape was doubled up on the ground, holding his leg, blood running into his left eye, which he squeezed shut. His right eye was wild with pain. “Damn, you Potter, you broke my ankle!”

James was lying flat on the ground, trying to get out of range of the tree’s reach before standing. “Broke your ankle? Saved your life, more like!”

The two of them glared at each other. The growling continued.

“What about them?” Snape suddenly said to James, still sounding snappish. James looked nervous, as though he were afraid of giving too much away.

“They’ll be fine. They’re used to it.”

“Used to being bitten by a werewolf?”

“No, you git!” James stood now, holding his arms out. “Look at me; the moon is up and I’m not a werewolf, am I?”

Snape looked suspiciously back at the growling, snarling animal still trying to get out of the tunnel. “But how--”

“Can’t you just be glad to be alive? Listen; we both need to go to the hospital wing, and you probably can’t walk without my help. Here,” he said, extending a hand to Snape, who looked up at him with a clear hatred on his face that was eminently familiar to Harry; it was the expression he’d seen on Snape’s face on his first day of Potions when he was in first year, looking every inch like the boy who’d saved his life.

Finally, reluctantly, Snape took the hand and grunted as he stood. James put Snape’s arm across his shoulders and put his arm around Snape’s waist. He had to hop on his right foot, holding his left knee bent to avoid putting weight on the broken ankle, which was where James had grasped him to remove him from the tunnel before Lupin could get him.

Harry finally felt prepared for the swirling greyness when it took over this time; when it cleared, he and Hermione were in the hospital wing, the sun shining in the windows. Snape and his father were the only two patients, his father still asleep, Snape fingering the bandage on his forehead, turning to glare at the boy in the other bed. The door to the infirmary opened and Lily entered, running to Snape’s bed, looking frantic.

“Oh! This morning, McGonagall said--Oh, Severus, are you all right?” She took his hand, looking at his bandaged face, then down at his ankle, still sporting another bandage to protect the boneset salve that would soon mend it.

He nodded at her, looking like he had a lump in his throat.

“What was it? You said--you said you would find out for me what they’d been doing. Did you?”

He nodded again, then said quietly, “They’ve been covering up for Lupin. He’s a werewolf.”

She looked shocked. “A werewolf?” she said, almost inaudibly. “But how--wouldn’t they be in danger themselves?”

“I don’t know how they avoid him attacking them. But Black was going to let it--him--kill me, until Potter...”

She turned to look toward James’ bed. “Yes?”

He grimaced, seemed to be unwilling to give James any credit for doing anything right. He swallowed. “Until Potter pulled me out of the way.”

She turned to look at James again, who was awake now, looking back at her. He seemed very calm.

“Hello, Lily,” he said simply. She gazed back at him as though seeing him for the first time.

“You--you--” she struggled. “You saved Severus’ life.”

He looked embarrassed. “Yes, well--if he had died, it would have made you sad,” he said softly. He looked into her eyes earnestly, a pleading expression that was unmistakably full of love. Lily caught her breath, recognizing it, and looking frightened of it at the same time. His expression of love was replaced by one of misery, as he closed his eyes, turning over on his side, away from them.

Snape had seen the look they’d exchanged, and he was obviously disturbed by it; he looked hunted, threatened. Lily bent down and kissed him on the cheek.

“Get some rest. I’ll be back later.” He nodded at her silently. She turned again to James’ bed, put her hand on his shoulder; it looked suddenly like a very intimate touch, far more so than when she had kissed Snape. “I’ll bring you your notes and homework assignments, all right James?”

He turned over, giving her that look again. “Thank you, Lily.”

She looked like she shivered under his gaze, but it was only for a second, and then she moved toward the door, glancing over her shoulder just before she left.

But she looked at James Potter, not Severus Snape.