Volume 6: Summer at Spider's End Alley Chapter 428 Questions and Answers
"Snape has always kept a way out for himself in the UK. When he was a vice-headmaster in the UK, he had contact with this potion shop in Knockturn Alley, using the alias of Prince to supply the shop with illegal potions. At the same time, after the two parties had cooperated for a long time and had built trust, he deposited a sum of money in the potion shop and agreed that as long as anyone came to his shop and said the name Prince, no matter who said the name, they would have to give him the money."
Lily knew all the memories of the potion shop owner, and it was easy for her to distinguish those related to Snape.
Jon was not surprised by this. It was normal for Snape to have a fallback in England. If he had been in a high position for so many years without any preparation for himself, that would have seemed wrong to Jon.
"So our clues are gone now?" Jon said, pinching his chin.
Lily spoke calmly while clearing the memory of the horrified shop owner.
"No, after getting the money from this store, he used the fireplace in the store to leave. Just ten minutes ago, we can still track down his whereabouts."
Jon's face couldn't help but look a little strange. He couldn't help but recall the private conversation Dumbledore had with him before they set out, in which he was told to just protect Lily and not to worry too much about Snape.
Leaving clues behind in this situation seems like a deliberate attempt to lure people into the trap.
He blinked his eyes. Could it be that Lily didn't even notice such a problem?
"Professor Potter, wouldn't Snape have guessed that one of us had been following him?"
Lily's expression was calm, but she kept moving, taking Jon towards the room behind the store.
"Even if this is a trap he set up on purpose, as long as he doesn't dare to go back to the master who abandoned him, we will be able to catch him sooner or later even if we follow the trap."
Her words were as emotionless as dead water, but Jon could hear the determination in them.
"Reopen the store door. The owner will regain consciousness in two or three minutes. Don't let him have any unnecessary suspicion."
Jon turned around and reopened the door of the potion shop. There were not many customers in Knockturn Alley. You could hardly see anyone walking on the street, and even fewer people could enter the store to consume. So unless their luck was extremely bad, Jon and his friends didn't have to worry about other people entering the store and finding something wrong within a few minutes.
Then, he followed Lily and came to the room at the back of the potion shop. There was a fireplace there. Although there were only some ashes left in the fireplace, the temperature at the edge of the fireplace showed that someone had just lit it not long ago.
After confirming that this fireplace was the one that had been used by someone, Lily reached into the stove and took out a handful of ash, grinding it gently in her hand while raising her wand and waving it at the dust.
The next moment, the dust suddenly gathered together in the fireplace again, and then a weak flame was rekindled!
"Pinch some Floo powder, and then watch me do it. Don't recite any place names in your mind when you walk into the fire. It's best not to think about anything and empty your mind."
As she spoke, she sprinkled the Floo powder in her hand into the fireplace. The originally weak flame suddenly became brighter as if a bucket of oil was poured on it. The green flame became stronger. Just when the flame was at its strongest, she walked into the fire.
The flames enveloped her and she disappeared into the fireplace.
Jon was left alone in front of the fireplace. He looked at the remaining green flame in the fire, silently put the Floo powder back, and lightly snapped his fingers. The next second, a golden flame lit up in front of him!
Jon walked into the golden flames, and his figure disappeared in the fireplace. Then the entire fireplace seemed to have been cleansed by a cleansing spell. The ash residue and the haze on the fireplace wall were all swept away, making it clean. No one would find anything from the remaining traces here.
When Jon felt his feet touching solid ground again, he could smell a choking musty smell that was constantly drilling into his nose.
He pinched his nose, frowned, and waved the hand holding the wand at the ashes around him that had not been cleaned for who knows how long and were probably moldy. At the same time, he also saw the situation clearly.
Lily was holding her wand, looking ahead expressionlessly and silently. At the point where her gaze was focused, there was a fireplace, which was now lit with green flames, and the flames formed a human face with greasy hair.
Maybe it was because the original paleness on Snape's face couldn't be seen under the green flames, but John actually felt that Snape had become very energetic, and even his facial expression looked bright and energetic.
"I knew it was you. If you knew I had escaped, you would definitely come and catch me yourself. You would never give such a great opportunity to someone else."
He stared at Lily without blinking, and his voice did not sound particularly complacent, but seemed to conceal a different kind of sarcasm.
Lily seemed to have no intention of looking at the image of Snape that was being transmitted by Floo powder. She held her wand and walked straight to the figure of Snape formed by flames. She reached into the fireplace, trying to find any remaining ashes to determine Snape's current location.
As a result, she actually grabbed a handful of ashes.
Lily wanted to repeat the same trick. Although the fireplace in front of her was occupied by Snape, the fireplace when they came was still empty. But after she threw the ashes into the fireplace, it did not light up like before.
"Do you think I'm that stupid? This is a backup plan I prepared five years ago. I've always kept a door key here. If one day I have to disappear from this world, I will use it to guarantee the rest of my life."
Snape seemed to be sitting on a chair. He squinted at Lily. Lily also stopped her futile attempts and confirmed that the ashes were really just ordinary, moldy and useless dust that had been left there.
She met Snape's gaze, and those eyes that had never shown any emotion finally filled with a fire of hatred.
"You want to live the rest of your life in peace?" She said in a flat but clenched voice, "Why do you think you shouldn't pay for everything you've done? Severus Snape! Do you think everything can be over?"
Snape in the flames looked at Lily quietly, as if he was seriously looking at the expression on her face. Then he seemed to lean forward, and the face made of green flames filled the fireplace.
"You also think that past hatred should not be forgotten, right? Then as a smart, fair witch who represents justice, you also tell me, Lily Evans, what James and the others did to me in school must not be let go, right? So my revenge is just, and I have never taken such anger out on others, just like you. Even though you chose him and became his other half, I begged my master not to let him hurt you. I have done my best. Is there anything wrong with that?"
Jon quietly found a small stool next to the fireplace and sat down. Of course, he couldn't say a word about the conversation, so he just sat there quietly as a spectator.
Well, even from the perspective of a spectator, Jon could actually see how insincere Snape's ridicule and sarcasm were. He obviously said that deliberately, but what the purpose of doing so was, Jon didn't know yet.
But as the person involved, Lily certainly couldn't see so many things. Snape obviously understood her much better than anyone else. Just a few words from him stirred her heart, which had been silent like a dead water. She stretched out her hand towards the fireplace regardless of anything, as if she wanted to catch this Snape made of fire in her hand.
"Then why did you kill my son? What did he do wrong? Why did you kill Harry? Tell me! When did my son offend you?"
Her hand passed through the flames and there was no way she could catch the phantom made of Floo powder. The green flames lingered around her hand, like something she had always wanted to catch but could never catch.
Snape still looked at her with his head held high, not seeming to be moved by her current emotional fluctuations.
"I didn't kill your son, Mrs. Potter. If you want to pin the blame for James' death on me, I will certainly accept it, but not Harry Potter. My great master went to your house like that, it's impossible that he went there just to avenge me, right? Harry was his target, and the reward I provided him in exchange for your safety. Otherwise, why do you think you are still alive and can talk to me here? So, remember what I said to you every time I saw you? I am your benefactor, you should be grateful to me."
Lily's face turned cold, as if she was suppressing her outburst of emotions, and she looked at Snape coldly.
"Then why don't you meet me in person? Only when we are face to face can I thank you properly!"
Snape shook his head. He seemed to enjoy the way he was communicating with Lily.
"It's rare to hear you talk to me like this. Don't you want to find me? Then we can make a deal now. I will ask you three questions. You must make sure that you are telling the truth. At the same time, I will tell you my location information. Similarly, I also guarantee that this information is absolutely valid and not false. How about it?"
Jon, who was sitting aside watching the show, raised his eyebrows. He really didn't expect that Snape, who looked like a taciturn person and couldn't say a word for a long time when he was in Hogwarts Castle, could actually come up with such a deal now.
Lily had completely calmed down, and her expressionless face returned to normal. She had survived all these years, and even though Snape's words had aroused the suppressed hatred in her, she would not lose her mind so easily.
"What do you want to know?"
Snape just looked at her like this. From the moment Lily appeared in the room, his eyes never shifted, even when he noticed John was there at the beginning.
"If I hadn't called you a 'mudblood' that time, would you still have broken up with me?"
When Lily heard this question, her expression didn't change at all, and she even sneered.
"What do you think, Snape? It's already now, you really still can't figure out why I was so determined to break up with you? Just because of that insult? When you walked with your pure-blood classmates in Slytherin, began to explore the dark arts, became interested in Voldemort's theories, and had contact with the notorious , what did I say to you? Do you remember?"
Snape was silent.
Of course he would never forget what Lily had said to him at that time. They were still friends, best friends at that time. She advised him to stay away from classmates who had an affair with Voldemort, and told him not to delve deeper into those banned drugs and dark magic.
But at that time he simply ignored these suggestions, or rather he was completely obsessed with it. His achievements in black magic and the sense of identity he gained from interacting with pure-bloods made him unable to extricate himself, and these were the key reasons why they parted ways.
Could it be that Snape really couldn't figure out the answers?
This question arose in Jon's mind as he sat aside, and he soon came up with the answer himself.
It's not that Snape couldn't figure it out, he just wanted to find a great excuse to justify all his past mistakes. All his previous actions were actually adding gunpowder to the powder keg, and the word "mudblood" was the fuse of all this.
So he had actually been deceiving himself all along, making himself think that his only fault was the word "Mudblood". If he had not uttered that word in the first place, then everything that followed would not have happened.
However, this was just self-deception, and now Lily exposed the lie he used to deceive himself.
It was just Snape's silence that left Lily without any feelings or emotional fluctuations. She no longer had any other feelings towards Snape as she had in the past. After the night that destroyed her family , all that was left was blood feud!
"I answered the first question," she said coldly.
Snape also came back to his senses, and he made his promise in an indifferent tone.
"Don't worry, I won't leave Britain. I will always be here. No matter Dumbledore or my former master, they can't drive me away from this place. If you want, then find me on the island of Great Britain."
