Hogwarts: Proficiency Panel

Chapter 516 517: A Kind of Misfortune

Dreams are a fickle, shadow-steeped existence.

Sometimes they serve as a window into the future, as Harry had experienced;

other times, they act as a bridge for the soul, allowing the things unattainable

by day to manifest in the silver-grey twilight of the mind.

To most, dreams are treacherous and unpredictable, but to the Messenger of Good

Luck in the Lands Between…

Dreams were simply spheres of shifting vapor.

The Lands Between was blanketed in its usual eternal, white mist. The Black Cat

padded through the familiar haze until he located a specific dream-sphere.

Though the Cat rarely peered into the dreams of others—having no desire to pry

into the boarded-up cellars of a wizard's heart—tonight was an exception. He had

to invite a certain guest out of his slumber.

Stepping into that rain-slicked dreamscape, the Black Cat found himself looking

at a young Severus Snape and a version of Spinner's End that felt slightly

different from the boy's memories.

In Sean's own memory, Spinner's End was dilapidated and grim, but it lacked the

sheer, visceral violence of the argument echoing now. Inside a cramped, narrow

house, a man's voice roared with a thunderous, shaking rage, met by a woman's

soul-piercing screams.

A boy bolted out of the house.

The Cat found him in a nearly deserted playground. A massive, soot-stained

chimney loomed on the distant horizon like a warning finger. Two girls were

playing on the swings while the thin, sallow boy watched them from behind a

cluster of overgrown bushes.

The boy's black hair was long and lank, and his clothes were so poorly matched

they looked like a deliberate costume of poverty: a pair of jeans that were far

too short, an oversized, tattered overcoat that clearly belonged to an adult,

and an odd, smock-like shirt that resembled a woman's maternity tunic.

The Cat's ears twitched. Even the children at the Hollysey Orphanage dressed

better than this.

Young Severus Snape was a sickly shade of greyish-yellow, small for his age and

painfully thin. He watched the younger of the two girls as she swung higher and

higher, surpassing the older one. His gaunt face was twisted with an

undisguised, starving look of longing.

"Lily, don't! Stop it!" the older girl shrieked.

But the younger girl simply let go of the chains at the peak of her arc and took

flight. She didn't fall; she soared, laughing as she dove into the sky. Instead

of slamming into the hard asphalt of the playground, she glided like a trapeze

artist, suspended in the air for a long, impossible moment before landing as

light as a feather on the ground.

"Mummy told you not to!" Petunia dug her heels into the dirt to stop her swing,

the screech of rubber against gravel sharp and jarring. She jumped off, hands on

her hips. "Mummy said you weren't allowed, Lily!"

"But I'm fine," Lily said, still giggling. "Tuney, look at this. Look what I can

do."

Petunia looked around. The playground was empty, save for the two of them. They

had no idea they were being watched by both the young Snape and a divine black

cat.

Lily reached into the bushes near Snape's hiding spot and picked up a fallen,

withered flower. Petunia approached, her face a mask of conflicting curiosity

and disapproval.

When Petunia was close enough to see, Lily opened her hand. The petals of the

dead flower began to flap, opening and closing rhythmically like some strange,

multi-layered oyster.

"Stop it!" Petunia shrieked.

"I'm not hurting you," Lily said, though she crumpled the flower and tossed it

to the dirt.

"It's not right," Petunia snapped, but her eyes followed the flower to the

ground and stayed there for a long time. "How do you do it?" she asked, her

voice trembling with a hunger she couldn't hide.

"Isn't it obvious?"

Young Severus could no longer contain himself. He leaped out from behind the

bushes.

Petunia let out a scream and bolted back toward the swings. Lily was startled

but held her ground. Young Snape seemed to immediately regret his sudden

appearance; a faint, blotchy flush crept up his sallow cheeks as he looked at

Lily.

"What's obvious?" Lily asked.

Severus looked nervous, his eyes darting toward Petunia, who was hovering near

the swings. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "I know what you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You're... you're a witch," Severus whispered.

Lily looked as though she had been slapped. "That's a horrid thing to say to

someone!" She turned on her heel, chin held high, and marched toward her sister.

"No!" Severus cried. His face was now a brilliant red. The Cat saw his hand

twitch near the pocket of his coat.

The Cat understood now why the boy wouldn't take off that ridiculous, heavy

coat—he was terrified of showing the maternity-style shirt underneath. Severus

flapped his long sleeves like a bat as he scrambled after the girls.

The sisters watched him with matching looks of disdain, both of them gripping

the poles of the swing set as if it were a "safe zone" in a game of tag.

"You are," Snape told Lily. "You're a witch. I've been watching you for a while.

There's nothing wrong with it. My mother's a witch, and I'm a wizard."

Petunia's laugh was like a bucket of ice water. "A wizard!" she jeered.

Her initial fear of the boy's sudden appearance had vanished, replaced by a

biting, defensive courage. "I know who you are. You're that Snape boy! They live

over on Spinner's End by the river," she told Lily, her tone making it clear she

thought the neighborhood was the gutter of the world. "The people from that

place are all nothing but ignorant, low-life scum!"

"They are not."

The Black Cat offered the quiet rebuttal, unnoticed by the girls. However, a

tall, dark silhouette standing in the shadow of a nearby tree suddenly fixed its

gaze upon him.

The dream shifted violently. The playground dissolved into nothingness. The

Black Cat turned his head to find the adult Professor Snape watching him with a

cold, piercing intensity.

"What are you doing here?"

Snape's voice was dangerously low. He stared at the vanishing remnants of his

childhood before turning his dark eyes back to the Cat's emerald ones.

"Looking for you," the Cat replied honestly.

Snape froze for a heartbeat. He let out a sharp, dismissive huff and said

nothing more.

His dream collapsed entirely—the price of awareness. In the final second before

they plunged back into the misty expanse of the Lands Between, the Cat caught

sight of a pair of green eyes in the void. They were strange... not quite like

the eyes he had just seen.

Back in the white world, the Potions Master remained on high alert, his eyes

scanning the impossible horizon. He saw the half-ruined Victorian buildings and

the faded sign for the "Home for Children."

Along the misty paths, the streetlamps flickered rhythmically. Snape noted the

small cottages and the black cat statues perched beside the doors.

"Ugly," he sneered, looking at a carving that bore no resemblance to the

creature beside him.

Then, as if realizing his own rudeness, he paused. The statue wasn't ugly

because of the subject; it was ugly because it was an imperfect imitation of the

truth.

But he said nothing. He simply let out another cold scoff. His mind whispered,

'It has a certain likeness,' but his tongue, as always, chose the path of

mockery.

The Black Cat didn't mind. He knew the Professor's heart and tongue had long

been at war with one another. He understood that the inability to express love

was often an acquired deformity—like being mute. A man cannot speak the melody

of the heart if he has never been allowed to hear it.

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