The Dark Past: Confusing Times

Chapter 6: Trains, Red Hands and Green Feet

Harry found himself on the Hogwarts Express in the same compartment as Evan, who took up a whole side by himself, and Florence and Snape. They all looked nervous and Harry noticed that they had their trunks gripped firmly in their hands.

"Are you sure about this?" Evan asked, in a voice that was the whiniest Harry had ever heard it to be.

"Of course!" Snape said, looking quite offended, but he still looked nervous.

"If we die I'm going to haunt you," Evan asserted, getting up.

Snape shrugged and slowly moved to the door. He slid it back, poked his head out and then turned to look over his shoulder.

"The food lady is on the other carriage, no one will see us, come on!"

Harry wondered what they were up to. All three of them slipped hoods over their heads, so their faces were totally covered, and then hefted their trunks (no one seemed to own an owl) and left the compartment.

They hurriedly made it to the very end of the train and Harry watched as all three of them stole out the rear door. Harry's mouth dropped. What were they up to?

He tried to open the door but his hand just went through the doorknob; shrugging, Harry stepped through the door. Florence and Snape were huddled against the guard rail since Evan took up most of the platform by himself. Their hair was being whipped around violently as their cloaks and robes threatened to tear off their bodies. It was a good thing all three of them seemed to wear Muggle clothing underneath their robes.

"Okay!" Snape shouted over the roar of the wind. "I'm going to enchant all three trunks, and on the count of three, after I say three, grab onto them and yell Up!"

They were going to jump off the train! Were they crazy?! And Snape had gotten mad at him for flying a car!

Snape took out his wand and tapped each trunk. They rose so they were above the guard rail and hovered there. Each person had both hands on the handle of their respective trunk.

"1, 2, 3!" Snape screamed. "Up!"

As all three shot up to hover in the air, the train sped away. Harry blinked. He wasn't on the train anymore, but on the ground below them, on a railroad track.

"It worked!" Snape said, trying to rub his stomach and then accidentally letting go and plummeting to the ground. He rolled when he hit and came to a stop, sitting up, looking slightly green.

"Oops," he muttered. Snape waved his wand at the trunks and they slowly lowered themselves down. Harry noticed Snape's hand was a bit scratched.

Evan landed, dropped his trunk, and hauled Snape up by the front of his robes. "That was a close one," Evan grumbled as Florence came up behind him.

She was beaming and didn't seem to care that her hair was a rat's nest. "Thank you, Severus," she said, hugging him.

"Ewww!" Evan said and turned away.

Harry followed suit. They had started to kiss!

"You can look now," Florence said, laughing.

Harry blushed and turned around and then remembered she hadn't been talking to him. He wasn't actually with them. Shaking his head, Harry wondered if he should get out of the Pensieve soon. He had no idea how long he had been in it and didn't now what time it was out of the Pensieve. He didn't have his watch on, having taken it off before he went to bed. But he didn't know why Snape had joined Voldemort. He would stay until then and then get out.

"Well, let's go!" Snape said, grinning a bit foolishly, as he slung an arm around Florence and started to walk away from the railroad tracks and into the forested hills that surrounded the tracks on both sides.

With a wand tap from Evan, the trunks floated up and started to follow them.

"How far away is this place?" Evan asked, having to keep his stride down so he didn't outdistance Snape and Florence.

"A two day's journey from here," Snape answered. "I brought plenty of food," he added, patting his cloak. "Except for you Evan. I guess you could catch your own."

Evan nodded. "Yeah, I much prefer catching my own food to having it served me. That's the only thing I don't like about Hogwarts. Students don't get to catch and kill their supper."

Snape laughed, taking his arm off Florence. She was busily trying to straighten her hair out with her fingers as they walked.

"I think most students are quite glad of that!"

Evan smiled as he looked back. "Especially you! I saw how you cringed when we had to kill those slugs in Herbology and then made me and Florence do all the work."

Snape looked affronted. "Slugs have every right to live just like people do!"

"You don't seem to mind eating flobberworms," Florence teased, looking at him with a smile while her hands tried to pulled apart a rather nasty tangle. Snape didn't seem to care that his hair was a mess. Maybe it was so greasy that it could untangle itself if given enough time.

"Flobberworms?" Evan said, stopping "Those things are edible?" He looked disgusted, and frankly, so was Harry.

How could Snape eat flobberworms?

"They're very tasty once you get used to their strange flavor, and very filling. And they're free," Snape added. "Free food is always good."

Harry didn't feel quite so disgusted anymore. He knew what it was like to be hungry. Not a pleasant feeling.

"Sorry," Florence said sheepishly.

The memories swirled.

Harry was standing in a small clearing in a forest, right next to a laughing Snape. Snape was laughing so hard that he was on the ground, rolling around. Florence was sitting on a rock, looking confused and sleepy while Evan was standing and staring at his hands with a slightly dark look on his face. Then Harry noticed that Evan's hands were red! Bright red.

"I caught you red-handed!" Snape laughed, holding his stomach. He was on his stomach, pounding the ground and Harry could see tears streaming down his face.

"Ha, Ha, Ha," Evan muttered.

"What happened?" Florence asked.

"He tried... he tried... he tried to get in the... the trunk... the trunk of sweets," Snape spluttered out, gasping for breath in between laughs.

"Evan!" Florence said, looking shocked and amused. "You promised!"

"Yeah, well," Evan finished lamely while he stared down at Snape's form with annoyance. "I didn't get any!"

Snape was slowly gaining control and rolled over onto his back and sat up, wiping his eyes. Dirt, grass, and twigs now adorned his hair and clothes.

"Good thing I had charmed it against lock-pickers!" he smiled.

"You did more than charm it, Sev," Florence giggled. "How did you turn his hands red?"

Snape winked. "I'm creating a potion for Filch, to paint on the doorknobs of rooms that students aren't supposed to be in. The potion will turn the student a different color depending on the room they tried to get into. My first try is red for the kitchens. But," he said, waving to Evan, whose hands were now back to normal, "it doesn't last very long and only works on the hands. Filch will never be able to catch rule breakers unless I can make it last longer and turn their whole bodies the color. I painted it on the trunk lock."

Evan shook his head and sat down. "You do realize that if you succeed all of the students will hate you."

Snape shrugged. "By the time I perfect the potion I shall be long gone! Studying to be a Seidr in whatever country Melusine sends me to."

Florence looked at him. "With me, right?"

"Of course," Snape gently smiled. "Even Evan, if he wants."

Florence looked at Evan. "Just separate residences."

Evan snorted. "I wonder why?" he grinned, looking lewdly at Snape.

Snape blushed purple.

Evan slapped his thigh, his booming laughter dying out as the thick amount of trees around them swallowed the sound.

"You three!" came the voice of a girl.

Harry spun around and saw her; Narcissa Malfoy, or Jones as she was called at this point in time. She looked beautiful and happy. Her long blonde hair was carefully combed out and fell around her shoulders to her waist. Her pale blue eyes were just like Snape's, full of warmth. She was strangely enough wearing Muggle clothes. A dress. It came to her ankles and up to her neck, it even came to her wrists but it was beautiful; made of pale green material that shimmered as she walked. She wore no jewelry.

"Dad was afraid you were hunched over the railroad track throwing up when I told him what you had planned, Severus," Narcissa informed Severus with a twinkle in her eye.

Severus grinned and hugged her. "Glad to see you made it without your big brother to help you through the wilds of London."

Narcissa tilted her head. "It was hard going, I assure you," she said as they started to follow her through the forest, keeping on what looked like a sort of worn path. "First I had to wrestle a cab to the ground before it would take me anywhere. Then the driver made me sing opera for him while he wrote love letters to his sweetheart, a dementor. And then..."

"I get the point," Severus cut her off. "It was easy."

Narcissa turned to him and nodded her head. "Plus grandpa came to pick me up when I wrote to mom and dad about what you were planning on doing."

Severus stuck his tongue out at her. "I told you you needed help."

Narcissa shrugged.

Harry looked around him as the forest got darker and the sounds coming from it got scarier. It sounded worse than the Forbidden One.

"Keep you shoes on at all times in the Dark Forest," Severus said. "Parasites and other nasties like to burrow up through feet."

As he said this, he took off his own shoes. Harry stared. His feet were green!

"Then why are you?" Evan asked, staring down at his feet. "And why are they green?"

Severus waved his foot around. "Because Melusine puts a potion on our feet that makes them tough and impenetrable. It also dyes our feet green, though."

"Oh. What about you?" Florence asked, nodding to Narcissa; noticing, Harry guessed, that she had shoes on.

"She doesn't have it," Severus answered, looking at Narcissa with a smile. "So she has to wear shoes."

"Why?" Evan asked.

Both Severus and Narcissa shrugged vaguely.

"Take off your cloak and robe too, they are going to get ripped up otherwise," Severus added.

They did so. Harry grinned at Severus's shirt. A huge cobra, its hood puffed out, adorned the black T-shirt. He had written, in green paint across the bottom, Slytherins Rule.

He needed to get a red shirt with a Griffin on it and write Gryffindors Rule on the bottom of it. He wondered what Severus; Professor Snape, Harry chastised himself, not Severus; would do if he ever caught him wearing it?

They tucked all their robes and cloaks into one of the trunks, Evan had to sit on the thing, and then went on their way again. The air got stuffier, it got darker, and Harry could feel his skin crawling. The spiders that Harry got glimpses of, the ones that crawled on the bark of trees, were bumpy and hairy and Harry didn't like them. The trees themselves weren't that great. They were gnarled, bent, and misshapen. The undergrowth was composed almost entirely of thorn bushes and brambles that trailed on the ground. There were no flowers or other niceties due to the lack of sunlight.

Harry caught sight of a few animals, squirrels that looked seedy, deer that looked menacing, and some owls that looked annoyed at having people tramping around them during the day.

Harry glanced in back of him and noticed that Evan and Florence where staying awfully close to Sever-, Snape, and then Harry realized that he was too. Shaking his head at himself, Harry boldly stepped away and then felt even stupider. This was a Pensieve, he didn't need to be bold.

"This place is freaky!" Florence said.

"This is nothing. We are at the edge of it," Snape smiled at them all.

Harry shuddered. He had figured they were in the center of the thing. They continued to walk and it got darker, until Severus... Snape stopped and reached into one of the trunks that Evan hadn't sat on to close. He pulled out a bag and then reached into it, pulling out a feather that glowed bright blue. Harry blinked against the brightness until his eyes adjusted to it.

"Feather from a Firebird!" Snape explained. "Melusine has a bunch of these and gives them to everyone that comes in here to live or is born here."

Narcissa took hers, it was bright red, out of a pocket Harry hadn't noticed her dress had and slipped the cord it was attached to around her neck. Snape... Severus did the same for his.

"This way," Severus explained, "our wands are still free to use."

A far-off cry sent shivers through Harry and though he wasn't actually with them, he was glad Severus was armed. And gauging from the calm look on Narcissa's face, she could handle herself too. But, she would have had to. She had gone looking for Severus and his friends by herself.

Harry relunctantly followed them, remembering what Severus had said about his family. A deaf father, a deformed and burned mother, a half-troll grandfather, and a half-dementor grandmother. Did Harry really want to see those people?

But his feet carried him onwards and Harry had to remind himself, for what felt like the millionth time, he wasn't really here and they, most importantly, couldn't see him. Besides it would be cool to see how the people in the Dark Forest lived.