Volume 6: Summer at Spider's End Alley Chapter 443 The Past
Jon and Lily found an inn near Spinner's Tail and stayed there.
Lily was indeed not as impatient as Jon had imagined, and seemed ready for a protracted battle with Snape here.
They did not use Apparition to frequently travel back and forth between Britain and France. Not only would that make their targets too obvious, but no one could guarantee that the Department of Magical Transport within the British Ministry of Magic could resume normal operations.
After a night's rest, Lily went out early in the morning after breakfast and began to wander along Spider's Tail Alley as if taking a walk.
She did not use her original identity, but she and Jon drank the Polyjuice Potion together, turning into two middle-aged Muggle men, acting as if they were traveling here.
In fact, Jon really treated this trip as a journey. Originally, the job assigned to him by Dumbledore was to take good care of Lily and he didn't have to worry about anything else. The previous mission of bringing the Dursleys back to France was already considered overtime.
And Lily's actions did not seem like she was looking for Snape. It seemed more like she was getting familiar with the city again, which had become somewhat strange to her.
After she got married with James, she never came back here, not to mention her exile in the UK for nearly a decade, which left her with neither the opportunity nor the time to revisit her old place.
John's previous memory was somewhat wrong. It was true that the Snape family lived in Spinner's End, but Lily's family did not live in this narrow alley, but in a house not far outside the alley.
Now the house has a new owner, but Lily and Jon just looked at the house from a distance for a while and then left. It seemed that she had no intention of disturbing the current owner of the house or going in to visit.
Around 11 o'clock in the morning, they arrived at a emerald green lawn that looked out of place in this almost completely gray city.
There were some children playing on the lawn, and it looked peaceful and tranquil.
Lily didn't walk any further, but sat down with Jon on a nearby bench to rest. She looked at the children playing on the lawn and spoke softly to Jon.
"Are you interested in hearing my story, Jon?"
Jon raised his eyebrows. In fact, he could feel that Lily's mood was significantly different from before since he came to England.
It was not only the hatred for hunting down Snape, but also mixed with a sense of remembrance and sadness.
He snapped his fingers.
"Of course, but it'll have to wait, Professor."
He stood up and walked to a nearby dessert cart, asked for two cones, then returned to the bench and handed one to Lily.
Lily looked at the dessert he handed over and was obviously hesitant, not knowing whether she should reach out to take it. As a result, Jon stuffed it into her hands without saying anything.
"Hey! Professor, don't be so reserved. You are going to tell me a story, so now we don't have to limit our identities to teacher and student, right? Besides, before you know you are going to taste something bitter, of course you have to use sweetness to neutralize it."
Seeing Jon winking at her while he spoke, Lily didn't hesitate any longer. She took the ice cream cone that Jon stuffed into her hand, took a light bite, and continued speaking.
"Actually, when I brought you out of that orphanage, Jon, I felt that you were not an ordinary boy."
Jon ate half of what he had in his hand in one gulp and spoke incoherently.
"That proves that you, professor, are still capable of teaching Divination part-time."
"Maybe. It's also possible that I was thinking that if Harry were to live, he could actually go to a magic school the year you were admitted to Hogwarts."
When talking about this, her voice sounded relatively calm.
But if someone met her eyes, they would see the pain revealed in those dazed and unfocused eyes.
Jon's face gradually turned serious from his playful expression at the beginning. He knew that Lily's current depression could not be soothed by his simple few jokes. All he had to do now was to be a listener, a qualified listener.
"Before I became completely disappointed in him, I was actually very grateful to Snape."
Lily's voice was low and calm.
"My parents are both Muggles. When I showed my talent for magic at a young age, I was actually at a loss. I was only nine years old at the time, and I thought I had some strange disease. It was at that time that I met Snape, who was the same age as me, here, on this lawn that was out of place in this city."
"He told me everything about magic and let me know that I was actually a wizard, not some freak as Petunia said. You should have discovered when you took the Dursleys away that Petunia didn't like me at all. In fact, we had a good relationship when we were young, but it was only after I knew that I was different from others that our relationship became cold."
"This matter also has something to do with Snape. After all, we are more like the same kind of people, which makes her feel as if she has become redundant. Snape was very disdainful of this at the time. He told me that Penny was jealous that we could perform magic and go to Hogwarts. That was the first time I taught him a lesson. He didn't seem to care much about it. Instead, he enthusiastically told me about the wonders of magic and the wonders of Hogwarts."
"I learned a lot from him. We could talk about almost anything and became best friends. This was the same even when we went to Hogwarts. Even though I was sorted into Gryffindor and he was sorted into Slytherin, two houses that seemed like rivals, we still maintained the closest relationship. Even though many of my friends at the time advised me to have less contact with Slytherin people and his friends also advised him to ignore Gryffindor people, it never stood in our way."
"What happened later that caused this to change?"
She looked at the green lawn, as if recalling what had happened in the castle.
"He started to learn poison spells and evil curses when he was eleven years old, just after entering Hogwarts. He knew more dark magic than some seventh-year students. But I didn't think it was a big deal at the time. The Unforgivable Curses are dark magic, but dark magic is not limited to the Unforgivable Curses. At that time, even in Gryffindor, there were many students who used poison spells to play pranks on people. But Snape was really talented in the dark magic. In the fourth grade, he could already create new evil curses by himself, which was the throat-locking and tongue-blocking curse you used before. But I still thought it was nothing at the time, until he started to get in touch with some people I didn't like very much, Avery, Mulciber, and later even Evan Rosier, Wilkes, and Bellatrix Lestrange, who was killed by you. They were all staunch supporters of the bloodline theory before Voldemort rose to power."
"At the same time, his research on the dark arts became more and more in-depth. It was not limited to curses and poison spells, but began to develop more dangerous curses. I warned him to stay away from his so-called friends. In fact, those people had already contacted Voldemort outside when they were in school. Some of them, like Lucius Malfoy, joined the Death Eaters directly after graduation. At that time, Snape, who was in school, still maintained a good correspondence relationship with him."
"Snape agreed to my request in a perfunctory manner. He said that his friends were actually nothing and that he would make them change their views on people like me in the future. However, he integrated into their social circle and became more obsessed with the study of dark magic. I was fed up during that time. I didn't know if Snape understood what he was doing. I didn't know if I should still consider him a friend if he really joined Voldemort's ranks like Lucius Malfoy and his people."
Jon had finished the ice cream cone in his hand. He did not remind Lily that if she didn't pay attention to the cone, the cream would melt completely, because he knew that the story had reached its turning point.
"Finally, during a bullying incident where he was humiliated, he called me that name." Lily's voice was very flat, and it sounded like she didn't actually hate the name that much. "Just when I was cursing at James and defending him to the people around him, he called me a mudblood."
"I was very angry at that time, so I fought back against him and called him a snotty person. From that time on, I began to realize that there was really no way we could be together. He had chosen another path, a path that I could not accept and could not accept me. From that time on, I broke up with him, but he did not seem to realize this. He apologized to me after that day and said that he did not mean to call me that. I did not accept this because this was not the reason he should apologize and change."
"Later on, I got together with his mortal enemy James. To be honest, before the sixth grade, I never thought I would accept James. He seemed so arrogant in school, looked down on everyone and used violence against others. But in fact, he always saw things more clearly than me. He knew from the beginning to the end that Snape would never turn back. He resented the half of his blood that his father brought him, so he recognized the surname Prince so much. It was a symbol of pure blood. It was also because of this that he was obsessed with black magic and Voldemort's theory, and was so close to real pure-blooded wizards. Even in Hogwarts, he kept in touch with the Death Eaters. He was very good, but he was only good to me. I had no right to blame or resent him for anything. At that time, I thought that since we could no longer be friends, we should just go our separate ways and not be involved with each other in the future."
Lily lowered her head. She didn't look anywhere else because the next story would involve the biggest scar in her heart.
"After graduating from Hogwarts, James and I got married. Although we didn't join the Order of the Phoenix directly, we had a deep relationship with Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. At that time, Voldemort had already gained great influence in Britain. They slaughtered mugwort wizards and wreaked havoc everywhere. James and I were also targeted by him, but we were lucky to escape. And at that time, as I expected, Snape didn't change at all. After graduating from Hogwarts, he directly joined the Death Eaters and became Voldemort's lackey. Being able to serve that man is not just as simple as expressing one's support and loyalty to the theory of bloodline."
"They are a group of terrorists, and if you want to blend in with the terrorists, naturally your subordinates have to be stained with blood." When she said this, Lily's voice began to become obviously cold. "In those years, I heard a lot about his deeds, such as his participation in a massacre of Muggles, the attack on a Muggle area, or his more glorious achievements for his master. James never regretted what he did to Snape when he was a student. Long before he started to target Snape, he had already begun to move closer to those people, but James knew that I was not qualified to accuse Snape of anything, so he never asked me to say anything unpleasant with him."
“And then what happened that night.”
Her voice, which had been calm till now, began to tremble slightly uncontrollably .
Jon also remained silent.
"Voldemort came to my house, James stood between Harry and me, and then he died." Lily clenched her hands tightly, and the joints were visibly white from the excessive force.
"I knew I couldn't resist. I begged humbly, asking the man to let Harry go, to kill me, and to let Harry live. At first he was very impatient. I was very excited and nervous. I could feel that the magic in my body was undergoing some strange changes because of my emotions. Such changes could connect to Harry and perhaps save Harry's life!"
"But at that moment, things suddenly went wrong."
Lily suddenly trembled and said in disbelief.
Jon also held his breath at this time. As the only person alive that night, Lily must know what happened that led to all this turn.
"It was like he suddenly became a different person. He no longer looked impatient, but calm, surprised, and... excited. Then, instead of using magic, he grabbed a broken table leg on the ground and knocked me out."
