Petunia nearly let the words burst out: “None of your business!” But this man had saved her.
That was a fact beyond dispute.
She had no business being rude to him.
The words rose to her lips and were swallowed back down.
Besides, she knew that nothing she said would change Snape’s cold, cutting manner.
She shoved him away and scrambled to her feet, smoothing out her disheveled dress.
Her heartbeat hadn’t fully settled yet.
The shock and embarrassment of that sudden rescue tangled together, and she felt heat rising to her cheeks.
Snape stood as well, his gaze drifting over her, looking her up and down.
Petunia’s hair was in disarray from the commotion, and the hem of her dress had been torn, exposing the white blouse beneath.
If she went back looking like this, it would cause unnecessary disruption at Lily’s wedding.
“Reparo!” As the incantation landed, Petunia felt nothing more than a light breeze pass over her, and in an instant, her torn clothes were whole again.
The sudden change left her both curious and faintly wary.
She ought to keep her distance from this unpredictable wizard.
“Thank you for your help.” Petunia turned back to look at the dark-haired, dark-eyed wizard and did her best to sound sincere.
“If — and I do mean if — you could manage to rein in your words just a little, I’d be even more grateful.” The corner of Snape’s mouth curved into a mocking arc.
“I cannot fathom what made you think I would care in the least about your gratitude.” His attitude brought her up short, and a nameless irritation flared inside her.
She pushed it back down, drew a slow breath, and decided she was done giving this person her attention.
She turned and walked back to the wedding, folding herself into the crowd of laughter and chatter.
Snape watched her go, then turned and walked away from the noise himself.
When the wedding ended and Petunia’s family lingered together in conversation, she found she couldn’t quite leave the question alone.
“Lily?” “Mm, what is it, Petunia?” Lily asked.
Petunia seemed to be trying to recall something.
Her brow knitted slightly, and the faintest curve touched the corner of her mouth.
“Oh, right — didn’t you used to have a friend?
Rather an unusual name.
Something like…
Snape.
How come he wasn’t at the wedding today?” The movement of Lily’s hands came to a sudden stop.
An earring hung suspended in midair, as though time itself had frozen in that moment.
Something complicated flickered across her eyes, but she covered it quickly and well.
“Oh.
You mean Snape.” Lily let out a soft sigh.
“We’ve…
parted ways.” “Parted ways?” Petunia seemed genuinely surprised.
“Why?
I seem to remember he used to treat you quite well.
He seemed to like you.” “How could someone like him ever feel anything genuine toward someone of my background?” Lily drew a slow breath and began to paint Petunia a picture of the Wizarding World she knew.
“In the Wizarding World, there’s a certain kind of person, people who hold deep hostility and prejudice toward wizards who weren’t born into wizard families.
They see us as outsiders.
They believe our blood isn’t pure enough, that we’re not fit to stand among them.” “Before I started at school, he became my friend, perhaps only because he hadn’t yet met any other wizards.
But once he stepped into that world, once he started associating with people who despised me, his attitude began to change.” “He sank into the kind of Dark Magic that corrupts a person.
He became just like the rest of them.” Her words carried a trace of helplessness, a thread of sorrow, and a quiet frustration at the choices he had made.
Petunia took it all in with some skepticism.
Looking back over the day, Snape was cold and cutting, but he had undeniably saved her life.
To credit that to some innate goodness in him, to imagine he would willingly reach out to a near stranger, was plainly too much of a stretch.
The only thread connecting them was a single name: Lily.
Petunia couldn’t help but suspect that Lily’s existence, and Lily’s alone, had been the real reason Snape intervened.
As for what the truth actually was, for Petunia, and indeed for Lily, it didn’t really matter.
Well.
That was genuinely what Petunia believed at first.
She assumed the name Snape was, for her and Lily both, nothing more than a passing cloud.
Trivial, and already gone.
But the wheel of fate was not something she could so easily predict.
— From that chance encounter at Lily’s wedding onward, the figure of the man called Snape clung to Petunia’s dreams like a shadow that refused to be shaken.
Each time night fell, he arrived uninvited, slipping into the world of her sleep.
Those dreams were always vivid and strange, as if Snape were truly standing right in front of her, watching her with those deep, somber eyes.
She remembered him clearly.
His hair had a texture that was straight yet slightly greasy, as though it had gone without proper care for a long time, and yet it carried some quality she couldn’t name, a melancholy of its own.
Every strand seemed to carry a piece of his story.
The secrets woven between them were like a fathomless ocean, mysterious and somehow impossible to look away from.
His eyes were the part of him that had settled deepest into her memory.
Dark and bottomless, like two voids, swallowing everything around them.
➤ Next: Smutty Trash