New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤
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Outside Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, Callan, Lily, and Snape chose a table and sat down.
Petunia and her parents were clearly not done being curious about the wizarding world, so they decided to keep looking around.
Lily stayed behind because Snape still looked far too pale.
Callan generously ordered three sundaes, which finally made Lily ask the same question again.
“Callan, where did you get so much money?”
Snape looked up at him, his expression complicated.
He did not seem to want Lily to know about that sort of thing.
Callan glanced between them and said carelessly, “So if I say I am poor, you just believe me?”
“What else were we supposed to think?” Lily asked.
Callan spread his hands.
“I am an orphan with a lot of money on me.
Do you really think that is something I should talk about openly?
“Spinner’s End is not exactly safe.”
He neatly avoided the source of the money and shifted the point to safety instead.
Whatever Lily imagined from that was no longer his concern.
“Forget that.” At the crucial moment, while Lily was still looking at him suspiciously, Callan gave a wicked little smile and told her about Snape’s earlier embarrassment, completely ignoring the murderous look Snape gave him.
To Snape’s surprise, Lily did not look down on him at all.
She laughed, then asked with genuine curiosity whether the drink had really been that awful.
“I… I don’t remember,” Snape said, blushing.
“It is difficult to describe.”
After laughing, Lily smoothed the orange kitten in her arms.
It was a half-Kneazle she had just bought, a little female she had named Balian.
Lily took another bite of ice cream and asked hesitantly, “Are you two really not buying pets? The school allows them, doesn’t it?”
Callan shook his head.
“The school has public owls. Toads are disgusting. As for cats…” He looked at Balian with disdain.
“I have no interest in finding myself a master.”
Balian returned his contempt with a look of her own.
The boy and the cat immediately began glaring at each other.
Snape said nothing.
He could afford a pet now, but he clearly did not want to waste his few Galleons on a useless hobby.
He was nowhere near as extravagant as Callan, or even Lily.
“Right.” After glaring at Balian one more time, Callan withdrew his gaze and said to Lily, “When your family goes back, take Snape with you. Otherwise he will have a hard time carrying all his things alone.”
“What about you?” Snape asked before Lily could speak.
“How are you getting back?”
Callan shook his head.
“I am not going back.
“Until school starts, I plan to stay at The Leaky Cauldron. It is only a few days. It will not cost much.”
Lily and Snape exchanged a look.
Both ignored how rich that sounded and asked, “Why did you suddenly decide not to go back? Then when we…”
Callan shook his head again.
“I already have my train ticket.
I suppose I will see you when school starts.
“As for why I do not want to go back…”
He had no choice but to repeat what he had once told Dumbledore.
“Because it is an orphanage.”
Snape and Lily fell silent.
For a long time, neither of them had forgotten that fact, exactly, but they had both stopped feeling it.
They had grown used to meeting in the woods, studying there, and talking there.
This sudden change left both of them uneasy.
Even Snape.
After all, he had very few friends.
Lily was more openly emotional.
Sadness showed on her face without disguise.
She ate her ice cream one slow bite at a time and seemed to have no desire to speak.
“Oh, come on!”
Callan suddenly shouted, making both Lily and Snape jump hard.
“I am only not going back to Spinner’s End. You do not need to start planning my funeral in advance.”
Lily glared at him.
She was coughing too hard to speak.
Snape hurried to pat her back, but his hand stopped halfway.
Callan watched the scene with amusement.
“All right, I am leaving now. Tell your parents and Petunia for me, will you? It saves me saying it again.”
With that, he used his wand to cast a few neat Levitation Charms and movement spells, gathered up his luggage, and walked away, leaving Lily and Snape staring at each other across the table.
“He really left?” Lily asked in disbelief, turning to look behind her.
Callan was already gone.
Snape was equally startled by his decisiveness.
He looked back as well.
“I think so. He left awfully fast.”
Before long, though, Snape realized one simple fact.
Only he and Lily were left.
‘Did Callan do that on purpose?’
Lily handled it far more naturally.
She only puffed out her cheeks in annoyance.
Then, as if something had just occurred to her, she frowned and asked Snape in a slightly petulant voice, “Dark magic?”
“What?”
Snape had not caught up.
“Dark magic.”
Lily tapped her spoon rhythmically against the table.
“Severus. Your wand. Dragon heartstring.”
“Oh. Yes.” Snape nodded numbly.
“A tendency toward Dark magic. Right.”
“Severus!”
Lily called his name angrily.
“Are you even listening to me? Callan said all that for a reason.”
The topic made Snape frown.
He forced out a defence.
“Dark magic isn’t everything Callan makes it out to be. A lot of it is little more than prank magic, and…”
“Power,” Lily said, taking the word from him.
“Power.
I know.
Callan said that too.
“But did you see the Levitation Charm he just cast?
I remember you saying first-years begin with a feather.
Do you think you can match Callan right now?
“If not, do you still think Dark magic is that powerful?”
Even hearing Lily compare him to Callan, Snape could not find any anger in himself.
He only answered dully, “Callan is different.”
He repeated it.
“He is different.”
“Severus.”
Lily’s voice suddenly softened, as if something inside her could no longer stay hidden.
“Do you remember what Mr. Ollivander said?”
“Do you really want to die a glorious death?”
Snape stared at Lily, as if he were properly seeing her for the first time.
In the end, he swallowed the words he wanted to say.
‘For you, I would.’
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Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.