Disclaimer: I do not own 'Harry Potter,' nor do I have rights to the bits of lyrics I use.
A/N: I must apologize to all of you that received alerts on this story before. I accidentally created a new chapter when I meant to replace an old one that had a few spelling errors… That's what I get for being so anal about my writing, so again, I'm sorry. :( This chapter was fun to write in some ways, difficult in others. In this chapter, Harry finds something he didn't expect on the other side of the door, and Ron pays a visit to our favorite little airhead, Luna, who finds that she's probably much less of an airhead than he thought, and he discovers something about the nature of Ginny's 'elixir.' I hope I did OK with Luna, of all the canon characters, she's probably the most difficult one to recreate. Let me know how she turned out!
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Chapter 12: The Nargle Hunt
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I finally got to talk to you and I told you just exactly how I felt,
then I held you close to me, and kissed you and my heart began to melt.
Girl, you've got control of me,
'Cause I'm so dizzy, I can't see,
I need to call a doctor for some help.
Dizzy.
I'm so dizzy, my head is spinnin',
like a whirlpool, it never ends,
And it's you, girl, makin' it spin.
You're makin' me dizzy.
Excerpt from the song 'Dizzy' by Tommy Roe.
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It looked a pleasant little cottage, the shingled walls were stained a sunny yellow, while the trim was painted a clean white. An ancient looking fieldstone wall surrounded its well-kept front lawn, which was divided by a brick walkway that led to the front farmer's porch. Ron opened the wide, wooden gate and walked into the yard.
He paused when he heard some odd, grunting noises coming from around the side of the house. He followed the dirt path that led around to the garden that was barely visible from the front of the house. As he entered the garden through the rose covered, trellised archway, he saw Luna Lovegood swinging a broom haphazardly around an apple tree. As usual, she had her wand wedged behind her ear, held in place by her waist-length, dirty blonde hair that was whipping violently around her like a blonde tornado as she jumped around and swung her broom madly. She was wearing a pair of red, spandex shorts that caught his attention immediately. He eyed her shapely bum for a few moments before his eyes traveled a bit further up to see that she was also wearing a powder blue half-tee, which hung off her breasts to dangle loosely about her tanned midriff well above her belly button.
Ron chuckled to himself at the uncharacteristic look of concentration on Luna's face as she purposefully swung the broom at seemingly nothing. He found the look amusing because it was so atypical of her usual vacant expression.
She heard his laughter and looked towards him for only a moment while she continued to madly swat at the air. He walked up to her, being careful to stay just out of the broom's radius.
"Hi, Loon- a," greeted Ron, just catching himself from calling her 'Looney.'
"Hello, Ronald. It's a pleasant surprise seeing you here. Have you come to help me with the mistletoe?"
Ron looked up into the apple tree and indeed saw dozens of sprigs of mistletoe clinging to the branches.
"There's another broom by the shed. Make sure you get the one with the split-reed bristles, they'll chew on the straw bristles, you know."
He looked up at the branches again. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he asked, "What will chew on the straw bristles?"
"The Nargles, of course. A family of them moved in last month and they're starting to multiply. I told daddy about them, but he didn't think it was a problem then."
Ron decided to humor her, hoping to put her in a good enough mood so he could ask her to look at the formula. He grabbed the appropriate broom, walked back to the tree, and with a barely concealed smirk, started swinging at the air under the apple tree.
He was loathe to admit it, but he was having fun, standing in a garden, beneath a tree, wildly swinging a broom around and laughing the whole time. On about his tenth swing, he felt a slight impact vibrate through the handle of his broom, at the same time Luna's head snapped to the side, her protuberant eyes following an invisible 'something' through the air. A moment later, he heard a slight 'snap' sound against the side of a nearby birch tree.
"You got one!" squealed Luna excitedly, "there are only three more left."
Ron's jaw dropped and his mouth hung open as he stared blankly at the trunk of the birch tree, looking for any sign of… anything. He felt it. He heard it. He didn't see it. He was about to turn and ask if she could actually see the Nargles, when he felt a sharp impact on the top of his head. Not hard enough to hurt him, but still hard enough for him to yelp out, drop his broom and hold his hands on his head.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Ronald," apologized Luna, who had evidently just swatted his head with her broom, "It looks like they are attracted to your red hair."
Ron couldn't tell for sure, but he could have sworn that he saw the corners of her mouth twitch, nearly breaking the vacant expression that always seemed to mask her face. He picked the broom back up and started swinging wildly again, but keeping a surreptitious eye on Luna's broom. He saw her eyes lock onto something and she gave a mighty swing, turning her head away from him with the follow-through. He grinned and took the opportunity to swing his own broom, swatting her sharply on her bum.
She gave out a loud squeak as her head snapped quickly towards him, her crystal-blue eyes, wider than he'd ever seen them but still with the vague, detached stare, locked onto his.
He grinned at her and cheekily said, "You're right, they do seem to have a thing for red."
Luna stared blankly back at Ron, which didn't surprise him at all… at first. A full thirty seconds passed with him expecting some kind of reaction, comment, retort, reply, response… anything… The grin that he was holding soon became very uncomfortable and began to falter. Still, she held her vacant, distant gaze in the general direction of his face. His smile dropped completely, and he was just about to mutter a hasty apology when she suddenly burst out into hysterical laughter, the abruptness of which made him nearly jump out of his shoes.
His grin returned after a few moments as he watched her double up in laughter. He even found himself laughing along with her for about a minute. Long after his laughter ceased, she was still snorting at each breath between her riotous chortling. He was becoming concerned, as her face had flushed to a bright red and her breathing had turned into coughing. He gingerly patted and rubbed her back, trying to settle the convulsing blonde.
He had his hand on her upper back between her shoulder blades, when his hand abruptly stopped rubbing. He gulped and a very surprised look washed over his face as he realized that he couldn't feel a bra strap under the relatively loose-fitting half-tee she wore. His hand flew from her back, opting instead to gently pat her shoulder as his own face reddened at the thought of her bare breasts being only hidden by a few inches of material.
Luna didn't notice his expression or his sudden crimson flush. She had stopped laughing at that point, but she was still bent over with her hands on her knees, gasping for breath.
"That was funny, Ronald," she managed to gasp out, "You thought I hit your head… as a joke, so you hit my red shorts… as a joke, but everyone knows that Nargles are allergic to Lycra, that's why I wore them."
Ron stood there, looking into her bulging eyes, which were staring back into his. She wore an odd expression… well, odder than usual. He thought she looked as if she were expecting something, but was unsure what. After an uncomfortable minute, he broke the silence by retrieving his broom from the ground and started swinging it again. Luna smiled distantly, grabbed her own broom, and joined Ron, bouncing on her feet as she waved the broom.
Now that Ron was fully aware of the missing undergarment, he couldn't help but to keep glancing to her tee, mesmerized as it rode up ever so slightly with every swing she'd take. She was smiling happily, as she bounced around under the tree and brandishing the broom, arcing it above her with abandon, seemingly oblivious to his frequent, lingering glances.
Ron's eyes suddenly widened and his breathing hitched. During a particularly high bounce, he caught a glimpse of it. The lower half of a pair of nicely tanned orbs peeked out from under the torn hem of the half-tee. His throat went dry as the fact that they were 'tanned' sunk in. He was blatantly ogling her shirt after he caught that glimpse, his mind playing with the idea of Luna, naked, stretched out on a lounge chair while lazily sunning herself.
He was so enthralled with watching her breasts jiggle and jostle around under the loose cloth, that he didn't notice that she snuck a glance at his face. Her smile widened as she turned to face him and leapt high off the ground. A grunt escaped her throat as she gave a particularly violent swing with the broom, knowing exactly what that would cause.
Ron's blood pressure skyrocketed and his face turned redder than it had ever turned in his entire life. A small trickle of blood ran from one of his nostrils, the result of the aforementioned blood pressure spike. His eyes, that seemed at that point more protuberant than Luna's had ever been, rolled up into his head as he fell flat on his back, out cold.
Luna still had her vacant, empty stare, but she also had a wide, satisfied grin plastered on her face.
Ron came to about thirty seconds later. He opened his eyes to find Luna standing above him at his head. Her upside-down face was smiling down at him as he laid there. As his eyes regained full focus, he realized that, from his vantage point on the ground, he could see directly up under her half-tee. His mouth, once again, gave a very convincing impersonation of a goldfish as he stared at the undersides of the bronzed mounds of flesh. His eyes traveled further south along her body, where he discovered that the spandex shorts she was wearing displayed a very clear 'camel toe' through the thin, clingy material.
"Welcome back, Ronald," said Luna airily, "at first I thought a Nargle got you, but we chased the rest of them away over a half hour ago."
She bent down at the knees and wiped the blood from under his nose, giving him an even closer view of the underside of her breasts. She wiped her fingers on the back of her red spandex shorts. "Don't worry… being a girl, I've got blood on these before. Sometimes it can't be helped… it won't stain, it blends right in, see?"
She turned around to show him that the color of the blood did, indeed, blend right in with her shorts, but he was much too busy observing how well the material of the shorts hugged the shapely bottom that was being wiggled a few feet from his face.
He gulped again.
She turned around, and, upon seeing that he was making absolutely no effort in lifting himself from the dirt, she reached down her hand to his and tried to pull his rather large frame from the ground.
Only when he was on his feet, and didn't have her womanly bits staring him in the face, did he become coherent enough to understand what she had said earlier.
"Wait a minute… They've been gone for a half hour? Then why have we been swinging these brooms around since then?"
She wore a slightly confused expression and shrugged, "You're the one who started swinging the broom after they were gone." A smile then twitched at the corner of her lips, a smile that anyone who didn't know her would never have caught, "I thought you were doing it for fun, so I joined in."
He stared blankly at her for a moment before a smile crossed his lips, too. The smile quickly faded as he remembered his reason for the visit. He was having so much fun, that he completely forgot about the formula. He drew a deep breath, preparing to ask the favor when her voice interrupted his train of thought.
"It's doesn't only work at Christmas time, you know." She stated flatly, her eyes fixed on someplace in the distance behind his head.
"What?" he asked stupidly.
She simply pointed up into the apple tree and started humming a vaguely familiar tune. His gaze followed her finger up into the boughs. His eyes furrowed in concentration, maybe she meant that the Nargles had come back? Then his eyes locked on the sprig of waxy, dark green leaves surrounding small red berries that hung directly above Luna's head. He looked back down at her, and realized at the same time that the tune she was humming was, of course, 'Weasley Is Our King.'
Now, Ron knew he wasn't the sharpest tack in the box, but he wasn't exactly stupid, either. The thought began playing in his mind that maybe, just maybe, all the jumping, swinging and flashing was her way of letting him know that she was, indeed, a woman… and maybe she was trying in her own odd way to find out for herself if he fancied her?
By the tightness he felt in his pants, just maybe his did fancy her. She seemed to sense his thoughts through his eyes, because she chose that moment to flash him a beaming smile. He bent his head down and lightly touched his lips to hers, giving her a chaste little kiss.
A shock ran through his body when she suddenly threw her arms around his neck, crushed her lips hard onto his and thrust her tongue into his mouth. He only resisted a moment out of surprise before he wrapped his arms around her bare waist and lifted her off the ground, pressing her shapely body firmly against his.
Again, he was surprised when she quickly wrapped her legs around his hips the moment her feet left the ground. He barely had the presence of mind to spin her around to rest her back against the trunk of the apple tree, snogging each other into a stupor.
The instant that the need of oxygen caused their lips to separate, she pulled her arms more tightly around him and crushed herself against him in a bear hug, resting her chin on his shoulder and keeping her legs firmly wrapped around him. They both were panting loudly, trying to catch their breath. Ron felt dizzy as he held her to his chest. That kiss was better than anything he ever got from Lavender, and it was nothing like the ones he got from Hermione. What a difference it makes when the girl puts a little emotion behind it, something he never felt with Hermione.
"That kiss was adequate, Ronald, but I think that with practice, we can do much better."
His smile dropped at the mention of 'kiss practice,' causing thoughts of Hermione to surface in his mind. That returned his attention to the real purpose of his visit. He figured it would be best to ask now before she caused him to forget again totally.
"I need help interpreting an Arithmantic formula," he stated bluntly.
Puzzled at the disappearance of his smile, and at the sudden change of topic, she climbed off of him and replied, "Why not have Hermione do it? She's much better at it than I am."
He almost cooked up a quick lie, but something inside told him it would be best not to, so he just held out the parchment that he copied the formula onto and asked again, "Could you just take a look at it?"
Luna shrugged, took the parchment from his hand and unfolded it. Her eyes were uncharacteristically focused as they danced across the paper. She studied the formula for about five minutes before stating, "This is a very complex spell, Ronald."
"It's not a spell," he simply stated.
Her eyes flashed up to his and she said, "Of course it's a spell. It's a non-verbal spell cast by ritual, it looks as though there's a physical component to it, too. Hmm… One of these reagents is rather dark. And this equation here… it is… it's… no…" Her usually large eyes got even larger and an angry scowl appeared on her face. Ron heard a guttural growl escape her lips before she suddenly yelled, "NO!"
Luna abruptly crushed the paper in her hand, quickly snatched her wand from behind her ear and, before Ron could move to stop her, vanished the paper into nothingness.
"Why did you do…" began Ron before being interrupted by Luna who looked oddly unnerved.
"Forget you ever saw that formula, Ronald," Commanded Luna, with absolutely none of her usual dreaminess, "I don't know where you got it, but I never want to see it again."
Ron instantly became worried, he has never known Luna to become flustered over anything, "Why? What's wrong with…"
"It's Necromancy, Ronald. It's very, very, dark magic. I can't imagine where you got that formula, but it's not safe to even experiment with it, if that's what you were thinking of doing with it. I should know. That's what happened to my mother. She was so consumed with acquiring knowledge, she just had to know everything there is to know… The experiment that killed her was about Necromancy. That's what will happen to you if you even think about…" Luna paused and wiped the moisture from her large, slate-coloured eyes before continuing, "As I said, I suggest you forget you ever saw it."
Ron opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off by saying, "It's almost time for lunch. I have to cook for daddy, and he will be home soon. I'll talk to you later, Ronald."
With that, she turned on her heel and went into her house at a near run, slamming the door behind her, leaving Ron staring at the ground with a pained look on his face.
He left the garden, walked across her lawn and out to the main road through the front gate. He looked back longingly at the house, not really believing that he was actually regretting showing that formula to Luna, not believing that he could get so upset himself about her being upset with him. He clutched at the second parchment in his pocket, the copy of the entire page that he found in Ginny's room.
He let out a heavy sigh, and a moment later, he disapparated with a loud crack.
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*Harry's gaze dropped to the floor as he pulled open the bathroom door, realizing that he was either going to meet a very angry Hermione waiting for him on the other side, or, a once again, empty house.*
He was surprised to see a pair of dirty, black boots sticking out from beneath a faded, black cloak. His eyes widened and shot up in time to see a pair of beady, black eyes peering out at him from under a mop of greasy, unkempt black hair. He heard an oily voice mutter 'Stupefy' before blackness enveloped him.
The same pair of black, beady eyes greeted Harry when he awoke. He found that he was still in the Dursley's house… his house, bound to a conjured hard, wooden chair in his uncle's old bedroom with Hermione similarly tied, but apparently still unconscious, sitting in the chair next to him. Her hair was still damp, and small beads of water were clinging to the very tips of the curls that were limply hanging over her face.
"Snape!" hissed Harry, "You murderous, cowar…"
With a flick of his wand, Snape silenced Harry mid-sentence. "Don't… call me a coward," whispered Snape dangerously. He started pacing the floor in front of the pair, tapping his wand against his palm and looking as if he were trying to find words that seemed to be eluding him. He stopped and gave Harry a sideways glance, accompanied by the sneer he always reserved just for him.
"I must admit, I was rather surprised when the ward I placed here alerted me to your presence. I didn't expect you'd actually return to this… place," said Snape as he glanced around disdainfully. He noticed that under the hateful glare Harry was silently giving him, he detected a glimmer of fear.
"Come now, Potter. If I were so inclined, you would already be dead, and if I wanted to take you to the Dark Lord, you wouldn't still be here. I obviously knew of this place, Merlin knows how many nights I've stood outside of this hovel protecting you for the Order."
Snape resumed his pacing and continued, "I am a dead man if I stay here, Potter. Obviously, both the ministry and the Order are out for my head. Although I was forced to end Albus's life, I'm afraid that by doing so, it sealed my fate with the Death Eaters, as well. I have known all along that I was never really fully trusted, and since I can't resume my role as a spy, my 'usefulness' to the Dark Lord has come to an end. After I leave here, I'm leaving Britain… even if you aren't as incompetent as I believe you are and you manage to kill the Dark Lord, I can never return."
Harry, while still holding a glare, gave a half-shrug indicating that he couldn't possibly care less about Snape's 'employment' problem. Snape seemed to be pointedly avoiding looking directly at his eyes, keeping his gaze on the floor in front of where he was pacing.
"I'm here to fulfill Dumbledore's last instructions to me." Harry was surprised to see a pained expression flicker across Snape's face before the scowl returned. "I know what you are doing. I know about the horcruxes, and I know how many you have managed to find. With the diary, ring and locket out of the way, assuming, of course that you managed to destroy it, leaves three to be…"
Snape paused when he caught the strange expression on Harry's face. It wasn't an expression of surprise at him knowing about Voldemort's horcruxes, it was more of an urgent need to impart information. With a flick of his wand, he cancelled the silencing hex on Harry.
"How do you know about them?" demanded Harry, "The Professor never told anyone about…"
Snape let out an exasperated sigh. "Of course, he told me about them. I was the one who helped him destroy the ring without getting himself killed. It was unfortunate that he had to lose the use of his wand hand, but it was a sacrifice he was more than willing to make. I knew where you both were going to on the night that…" Snape fell silent and closed his eyes as the pained expression returned. Neither of the men noticed the slight twitch of Hermione's head.
"On the night you murdered him!" yelled Harry, unable to keep his emotions in check.
"I had no choice! Albus ordered me to kill him to spare Draco's and my own life!"
"I was there! I watched you murder him in cold blood! He said nothing to you, except to plead for his life! He was defenseless, and you just… just…" Harry couldn't continue, a sob escaped his throat at the memory of that night on the Astronomy Tower.
Snape looked into Harry's eyes and simply said, "Vernon Dursley." He only locked eyes for a moment before he looked away again and said to Harry, "Fat, thieving git… I can see the 'fat git' part of it, but he didn't appear to me to be the type that takes after Fletcher."
Harry stared open-mouthed at Snape. That was the single phrase that popped into his mind the moment he had mentioned Vernon's name, and Snape seemed to pick it up without actually casting legilimency on him.
"In any case, that is how Albus gave me his last instructions, which were to save Draco, to assist you with what I'm about to tell you, and to kill him before the poison did, so that the Unbreakable Vow, which he knew about in its entirety, would be fulfilled."
"You expect me to believe that he ordered you to kill him? You could have done something! A bezoar, or some kind of antidote, or"
"If you paid attention in any of my classes, you would know that bezoars do not work on all poisons and there are some poisons that do not have an antidote at all. I'm telling you that he was dying, there was nothing that could be done about it, and he knew it! Tell me, when you returned to the tower with him, did he tell you to fetch me?"
Harry looked as though he was going to be ill, "I told him I was going to get Madam Pomfrey, but he insisted on…"
"Me," finished Snape, "because he knew he would be dead before long, and if he didn't die at the hand of either Draco or myself, then all three of us would be dead. Draco was forced into making an Unbreakable Vow, just as I had been. With both Albus and me dead, you wouldn't stand a chance to complete the Prophesy."
Snape gave Harry a final glare, but still not meeting his eyes directly, before continuing to pace the floor. "I hope that tale was amusing for you, but I doubt that your arrogance would allow you to believe me. It doesn't matter to me. As I was saying, with three of them destroyed…"
"Two of them." Harry mumbled, just loud enough for Snape to hear him.
Clearly annoyed, Snape stopped again as a sneer once again crossed his lips, "So, the 'Famous Harry Potter' can't figure out how to destroy a magical object. I knew you were…"
"We didn't get the locket."
"What did you say, Potter?" snarled Snape with a true expression of alarm.
"The real horcrux was gone and a fake was left in its place," spat Harry, "Dumbledore died for nothing."
"How do you know it was a fake? What spell did you use to determine its properties?"
"I saw the real horcrux in Dumbledore's pensieve. I know what Slytherin's Locket looks like and the one we found wasn't it." Seeing that Snape seemed to know almost as much about the horcruxes as he did, he decided to just spill the rest of the beans, "and there was a message to Voldemort inside of the fake. It taunted him, and said that he was one step closer to mortality, so for all I know, the locket was destroyed by this 'R. A. B.' character."
"Regulus Aldebaran Black," whispered Snape, staring at an empty spot on the wall in thought, "so that's why he ran. He must have discovered the Dark Lord's secret…"
"Regulus Black? Sirius's brother?"
"Yes, as I'm sure you heard from the mongrel that his brother was a Death Eater before he 'disappeared' almost twenty years ago. It makes sense now."
Harry gave a hateful scowl at the 'mongrel' comment, but let it slide. There wasn't much he could do about it in his current position anyway.
"Time is running out for me, so I suggest that you pay attention. Before I abandoned my role with the Death Eaters, I found what may be useful information. The Dark Lord discovered something recently that seemed to upset him greatly. I can only assume he found out about the search for his horcruxes, but I cannot be certain. He has had a few of his inner circle stationed in East Anglia near Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. That may be an area you would want to concentrate your search on. He has also sent teams out to the Continent, I don't know where, except that it's somewhere in Eastern Europe."
Snape began pacing again, wearing an unreadable expression that Harry had never seen on him before. After a minute, he stopped pacing and fixed his gaze on the same point on the wall in front of him.
"The Dark Lord has standing orders to the Death Eaters that if you are found, you are to be taken to him alive. Do you have any idea why the he doesn't want you killed by anyone other than himself?"
Harry simply shrugged.
"Dumbledore told you that he believes that the Dark Lord's snake, Nagini, is his sixth and last horcrux. What he didn't tell you that there might be one more, one that even the Dark Lord isn't sure about. Dumbledore thought that your scar might be a horcrux that the Dark lord accidentally created. It's well known that the Avada Kedavra leaves no marks upon the people it kills, yet you ended up alive, and with that scar. Dumbledore was afraid to suggest to you that, if it is indeed a horcrux, then the Dark Lord wouldn't be able to truly die while you are alive because a piece of him will always be within you."
Snape walked towards the door saying, "Do what you will with this information, my job is done."
Harry was having a difficult time believing anything Snape was saying. The only thing that gave him a glimmer of trust was the fact that he was neither dead nor kneeling before Voldemort. He couldn't help but to ask the question that had always gnawed on him.
"Although you've never physically hurt me during your classes, I know that you've hated me with a passion. I've never fully understood it, but I accepted it. Now, I have every reason to ignore everything you just said, and almost nothing to suggest that you can be trusted in the least, but Professor Dumbledore always stood up for you. He always said that he trusted you implicitly. Why? What could you have possibly told him to convince him that you'd turn your back on your 'master'? What could he know about you that would generate that kind of loyalty? You surely understand the importance of what I have to do… I need to know! I need to believe what you are telling me!"
Snape turned and walked to the door while saying, "You should be safe in this house for the next week, at least until your birthday. The wards on this building should be enough to shield you until then, but absolutely no longer than that, after then you will have to find a more secure location. Miss Granger should be awakening soon, your wands are downstairs on the counter."
Not turning back to face him, Snape casually flicked his wand over his shoulder at Hermione and she slumped in the chair as her bonds fell loosely to the floor.
"What Dumbledore knew of me is of no concern of yours. Suffice it to say that you do not want to know, and I'm not the one to tell you. Good-bye, Mister Potter." He said as he stepped out of the doorway.
"Professor!"
Snape stopped.
"Please, I need to know. If you truly want me to follow Professor Dumbledore's instructions, if you want me to stop Voldemort's madness, you need to tell me!"
Harry watched as Snape's shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. "As much as it would please me to see the look on your face, I cannot, I…"
Snape remained silent for a full minute, just standing in the hall and, from what Harry could tell, staring at the floor.
"Very well. If this is what it will take for you to believe what I say, then so be it, but don't say that I didn't warn you."
Snape turned around and looked Harry directly in the eyes for what seemed like the first time ever. Suddenly, a youthful image of a vibrant, beautiful girl forced it's way into Harry's mind's eye. Flowing red hair glowed with brilliant highlights from the mid-day sun. Beneath a pair of piercing green eyes that seemed to stare into his soul, a wide, beaming smile splayed across an angelic face… his mother's face. Harry's breath hitched as an emotion, with as much intensity as what Harry felt as he looked at Hermione after stumbling upon her in the shower earlier, crashed into his soul. His mind staggered at the implication. He did not want to believe it, but he could tell that the emotions projected by his former Potions professor were genuine.
"No!" Harry whispered desperately, a wave of nausea overcame him before shouting, "NO! You loved her? You loved my mother? You were the one to cause her death! It's your fault she's… she's…"
Harry's shouts trailed off into silence. He finally understood. He had the face of his father, reminding Snape of the man who married the woman he loved, and he had his mother's eyes, reminding him that it was, indeed, Snape's fault that the woman he loved was killed. It wasn't Harry he loathed, it was the memories, the guilt…
For the first time that Harry could remember, he saw Snape express an emotion other than hatred. His eyes conveyed a profound sadness as he simply said, "I told you that you didn't want to know." Snape, once again, turned his back on Harry and said, while walking down the hallway to the stairs, "Good-bye, Mister Potter, we shall not meet again."
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