The sun rose as usual, slipping in through the crack of the window and lighting the resurrected woman—her body dazzling like silver, her hair a deep red like fire in the night.
Snape flicked his wand. Water surged and coiled, transforming into a spotless white robe that wrapped around the one newly born from death.
"Mom?" Harry leaned close to his mother. His heart was overflowing with disbelief and wild joy.
Lily Potter opened her eyes. They were a dead, ashen grey.
So many people said Harry's eyes were exactly like his mother's, but at this moment Lily's gaze held none of that emerald brilliance.
She looked at the son she'd been separated from for so long as if she were staring at a stranger.
Harry's heart plunged into an icy sea. Trembling with fear, he clutched her hand and pressed it to his own face. "It's me—Harry."
Lily looked at him. There was no reflection of Harry in her pupils.
His mother didn't say a single word.
The Death Eaters' cheers and oily flattery ebbed away like a retreating tide. Everyone could see it—something was wrong.
Harry couldn't believe it. He whispered, "There's no reason… it can't be… how could this happen? It shouldn't… even if you're only a manifestation of longing, you shouldn't be like this. Talk to me, Mom, talk to me… You can feel how much I miss you, can't you?"
Snape knelt beside her, calling softly, in a gentleness no one had ever heard from him before.
"Lily Evans—"
At the sound of that name, a faint light stirred in her eyes.
Slowly, a smile appeared. The lifeless grey of her eyes was dyed through with a surprising, heart-lifting green.
Lily Evans rose slowly and looked around. The dark wizards around her stared in astonishment.
"My Lord, you succeeded. Bringing the dead back to life—you've defeated Death!" Barty Crouch Jr.'s facial muscles were still twitching from the aftershock of the Cruciatus Curse, but he offered his reverence at once. The Death Eaters hurried to pile on their flattery, their low, fawning murmurs buzzing like a swarm of bees.
Snape fixed his gaze on Lily. He stepped forward slowly, lifting a hand as if to touch her cheek.
A scream of panic rang through Harry's mind—and his wand moved faster than thought.
"Crucio!"
The once-arrogant Snape collapsed. He curled up in front of Harry, howling like a wounded dog—yet his eyes stayed wide, locked on Lily, unwilling to shift even a fraction. He endured the agony with everything he had, just to keep looking at her.
"How dare you touch her?!" Harry heard his own voice—so cold it shocked even him. "Avada—"
Before the wand could spill that sickly green light, Lily reached out and stopped Harry.
"Mom." Harry couldn't see his own face, but everyone else did—how, in an instant, he shifted from merciless frost to a warmth like spring sunshine. The sudden change made even the most deranged Death Eaters shudder.
"Mom, move aside. I'll deal with this guy in a second." Harry's voice cracked, like a leaking bagpipe.
Lily Evans stood in front of Snape.
A disheveled Severus Snape. A steadfast, fearless Lily. And Harry's face—so strikingly like his father James Potter.
It was like yesterday, replaying their school days.
Lucius Malfoy flicked a quick glance left and right, then stepped out to plead for Snape. "My Lord, please spare Severus. Without his help, we couldn't have dealt with Dumbledore so smoothly. And the preparations for this resurrection ritual—the materials, the method—Severus gave everything he had."
Harry's mind and his actions were two completely different people. Inside he was stunned; his hand was decisive.
Another Cruciatus Curse slammed into Lucius Malfoy.
Draco watched his father roll on the floor like a pale grub, and he burst into tears, crying out in grief, "No—Dad!"
"He's nothing," Harry heard himself say. "Just because he was in the same year as my mother for a few years, he thinks he can point fingers? I should've killed him for my father a long time ago. I can ignore the way he insulted me again and again at school—but he dared…"
"Lily…" Snape rasped. "I'm sorry, Lily. I'm so sorry."
Lily Evans turned. She had come out of Dagda's Cauldron, and she couldn't speak—only answer with silent eyes. When she reached out and gently stroked Severus Snape's cheek, the Death Eaters around them looked terrified. They all saw Harry's expression.
It could no longer be called merely twisted—like a bolt of lightning had pierced straight through his features, cold, vicious branches running everywhere, baring teeth and spittle.
"Get away from her. I'm ordering you, Snape—do you hear me?!"
No—there was no way. Snape's left arm was gone, and with his other hand he could barely prop himself up; he had no strength left for anything else. Lily wiped his cheek and forehead with her long sleeve, soaking the white gauze with sweat, her green gaze gentle as the sea.
Harry stepped forward, but Lily Evans stopped him with a severe look. When she was angry, she looked like a lioness. This was not the reunion Harry had imagined. In the scene he'd dreamed of, his mother would hold him tight, promise him again and again that she would make up for the love he'd lost these last ten-plus years.
Harry cried out in disbelief, "Mom, why? Don't you know how much I've missed you? I'm the one who brought you back! So why are you helping him?"
Snape's exhausted face sank into a warmth of release. That peaceful, regretless calm only made Harry more confused.
What, exactly, was the relationship between that detestable Professor Snape and his mother Lily?
Harry didn't know the grudges of the previous generation.
But one thing was crystal clear: the revived Lily was not Harry's mother—she was the manifestation of longing in Snape's heart.
He stole my mother!
As a surge of fury flooded Harry's chest, the world in front of him began to change. The faces around him melted like wax held over a fire.
His vision seemed covered in a thick veil. Dimly, he saw his mother's dress turn to ash, her porcelain body cracking into fragments—then a boy's heart-rending scream exploded beside his ears, then more and more shouts. The air snapped again and again like countless people whipping hard, and black robes crawled across the floor like filthy water.
A brutal light erupted. Harry looked down and saw the Killing Curse bursting from the Elder Wand in his hand like fireworks.
Chain Avada Kedavra!
Fiendfyre exploded.
The doors and windows of the Dursleys' house let out a soundless roar in the shrieking blue flames.
Woooo—
A piercing train whistle sounded. Harry spun around in a daze, and the scene twisted in an instant.
Those burning Death Eaters shot backward at terrifying speed; walls and rooftops blurred, the ground smeared as if swept by a giant brush. Then a clear sky appeared, and railway tracks stretched from the horizon—while the scarlet Hogwarts Express screamed its whistle.
Wooo-wooo—
Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was about to depart.
In a blink, the world changed again, and Harry still hadn't recovered from the violent shift.
He felt like he was going mad. That rage, that grief, that disbelief, that confusion at the truth, the fear of being abandoned, the regret of everything slipping away—gone in a flash. But when the tsunami of emotion receded, it left only ruins behind.
Harry, from the bottom of his heart, felt tired.
He didn't even know why he was here. There was a chunk missing from his memory—something had been forgotten.
The sky was clear. The winter sun was warm.
Students returning to school laughed and chatted, their young faces bright and carefree.
He wanted to sob—truly sob—but he only stood there, staring in a daze.
The crowd flowed past Harry without stopping.
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