Harry and Amelia Potter

7.36

Harry and I make it to the Headmasters office. It looks the same, but darker. Grim. I stare in awe as my brother moves across the room towards the Pensieve. The reason we came here in the first place.

Harry flings open the cabinet, snatches the Pensieve and slams it onto Dumbledore's old desk. He pries the cork from the flask with his teeth, tips the silvery-blue liquid into the basin. As the Pensieve swirls, I look up, at the portraits of past Headmasters hanging above. All the frames are empty. I frown, disturbed by this, but look towards my brother. He takes my hand and we plunge our faces into the basin.

Falling into a dark abyss. Moving towards the dark village in the distance. Frantic breathing. We stop. Still.

A two babies cries separate briefly from the breeze.

Circling about, we locate a face hovering, then falling. It's Snape, chest rising and stricken. Concerned.

"Lily... Lily... Lily..."

Then we're in a meadow, a young girl, looking annoyed, comes waltzing up.

"Lily! Come out of there! Now!"

Lily Evans emerges from some brush, a flower upon her palm, opening and closing its petals like some bizarre oyster. Her sister, Petunia, stares, then knocks the flower away.

"We're going home." Petunia takes Lily's arm, turns, and stops. A skinny boy sits beneath a tree, watching them. Without a word, he opens his hand and a leaf flutters from his palm like a butterfly, circling Lily once, then drifting up and away. Lily smiles, charmed.

Petunia eyes the boy fearfully, then pulls Lily away. The boy watches them go. As Lily glances back it goes black around us.

Years later, Snape moves through a dark garden, his face like stone. He eyes the door ahead, hanging from its hinges. He peers up to the window above. The babies cries rise again. His eyes glitter. He moves on, disappears inside.

Back at the meadow, Lily and the boy lie together, staring up at the sky.

"She's jealous. Because she's ordinary and you're special."

"That's mean, Severus." Lily says.

"It's true. You know so yourself." Snape turns his head, notes the frown knitted across Lily's brow. He peers back up, staring hard at the tree limb above. The leaves begin to tremble, then burst free, fluttering like a cloud of butterflies.

Lily watches impassively and then, slowly smiles, shifting her gaze to another branch. Seconds later, those leaves burst free and the two fluttering veils pass back and forth high overhead, merging briefly, then separating, again and again. Lily laughs, a beautiful sound, and the hiss of a train engine is heard. The leaves turning, everything around us dissolves to smoke, drifting from the Hogwarts Express.

The boy peers out the window, watching Lily and Petunia on the platform arguing, their voices muted.

Finally, Lily turns, dashing for the train in tears. The boy straightens up, running the flat of his hand over his lank hair.

Moments later Lily comes up the aisle, eyes stinging. She stops, seeing him. They stare at one another and then, finally, she steps inside the compartment, and sits down. The boy reaches over, pulls down the blind, wiping the screen and we emerge from the darkness of the sorting hat, sitting upon a stool in the candlelit Hall, House tables aglow with a sea of rapt faces.

Two boys, Sirius Black and James Potter, sit together at the Gryffindor table, watching as a young McGonagall sweeps the hat from the stool and calls out a name. James Potter watches Lily smile nervously at the boy next to her, then rise and make her way to the top of the Hall.