The Girl Who Hid | ✓

|148| Truth

The castle was completely empty; even the ghosts seemed to have joined the mass mourning in the Great Hall. We ran without stopping and did not slow down until we reached the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office.

"Password?"

"Dumbledore!" said Harry instantaneously.

The gargoyle moved and revealed the spiral staircase. The office was empty, much like the feeling in my chest. The portraits that hung all around the walls were empty. Not a single headmaster or headmistress remained to see us; all, it seemed, had flitted away, charging through the paintings that lined the castle, so that they could have a clear view of what was going on.

Harry glanced hopelessly at Dumbledore's deserted frame, which hung directly behind the headmaster's chair.

"H-Harry," I coughed.

Ignoring me, he dropped my hand and walked over to the stone Pensieve that lay in the cabinet by the window. Harry heaved it onto the desk and poured the flask into the wide basin with its runic markings around the edge.

"Come here," Harry said quietly.

My feet felt heavy as I walked over to Harry. With my hand in his, Harry placed his head in the blue liquid and I followed.

I fell headlong into the sunlight, and my feet found warm ground. I looked over to Harry, who stared at the nearly deserted playground. A single huge chimney dominated the distant skyline. Two girls were swinging backward and forward, and a skinny boy was watching them from behind a clump of bushes. His black hair was overlong and his clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smock-like shirt.

Harry pulled me closer to the boy. Snape looked no more than nine or ten years old, sallow, small, stringy.

"Lily, don't do it!" shrieked the elder of the two.

But the girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the air, quite literally flown, launched herself skyward with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly.

"Mummy told you not to!"

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

Petunia glanced around. The playground was deserted apart from themselves and, though the girls did not know it, Snape. Lily had picked up a fallen flower from the bush behind which Snape lurked. Petunia advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oysters.

"Stop it!" shrieked Petunia.

"It's not hurting you," said Lily, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground.

"It's not right," said Petunia. "How did you do it?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Snape could no longer contain himself, but had jumped out from behind the bushes.

"What's obvious?" asked Lily.

"You're— you're a witch," whispered Snape.

She looked affronted.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!"

"No!" said Snape. He was highly colored now.

"You are," said Snape to Lily. "You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one, and I'm a wizard."