He said, find her and kill her.
...
1978. April 13. London, England
Severus Snape awoke at seventeen in the morning, cold and dark, and held him there for a few seconds after he regained control of his body, feel the numbness and soreness that comes from sleeping in a bad position all night.
The first thing he did when he was able to move his fingers was to hold his wand.
Severus Snape sat up and looked out onto the balcony, where he could see a dark gray cloud that was almost black. The chilly winds of early spring were squeezing into the room, trying to strip away all the temperature that wasn't there.
The sky was low and close to the mountains, and there was a faint golden tint brewing, but it was so bright that it seemed to be dying against the overwhelming darkness.
He got up and went to the bathroom, where he washed his face Messily and casually, in front of a wall without a mirror. The whole bathroom is filled with a cool smell of potion materials, old and new. Some had just been poured in yesterday, others had begun to decompose in April, out of the grip of the winter cold. There is also a damp mossy smell mixed together, mixed with a similar smell of burnt leather. There was no light. It was as black as Severus Snape's head-to-toe costume.
He walked out of the bathroom, picked up the cold coffee on the table that he hadn't finished before falling asleep, and downed it in one gulp. Then, he poured some magic potion into the sticky coffee powder at the bottom of the cup and shook it twice before pouring it into his throat again.
Finally, a crumpled sandwich, with dried leaves and onion rings chewed like soggy parchment.
Severus Snape finished, wiped her hands, and just then the doorbell rang.
The Lucius Malfoy wore a black cloak of retro-printed dark flowers that dragged to the floor, the buttons on his collar burning his eyes with gold. He covered the watch with his hand, which was covered with dark brown leather gloves, and put it back into his coat pocket. He moved his free hand once more, and the metal snake-head cane twirled in his hand for half a turn, ready to knock on the front door again.
Then the door opened, and Lucius saw the potions genius new friend that the Dark Lord had been talking about now and then.
An 18-year-old boy, not yet officially graduated from Hogwarts. They had been at the same school for only a year, and Lucius had graduated and left Hogwarts, so the impression was thin. The only memory is the other side of the dark and withdrawn temperament, and the identity of the half-blood.
As for potions, he hadn't noticed. Because there was so much more to do at that time that was worth his absolute energy and attention.
Lucius stood in the doorway, glancing up at him with his chin slightly raised, a gesture that gave him an air of natural pride. The young man in front of him was slender and long. His black hair was thick and messy, and his face was pale and morbid like a ghost. He was wearing a black hospital gown that could be washed with a rough edge, and there were obvious bruises under his eyes from staying up all night.
But the look in his eyes was hard not to notice.
At first glance, Lucius was certain that it was a look typical of Slytherin's, the sharpness beneath the layers of cautious indifference, the poise before the serpent's fangs.
"Mr. Marfaux, what a surprise." Severus Snape saw the man clearly and opened the door a little more. The faint light of dawn fell on him, added to the gloom of his body. He hid his wand behind the door, affixed the lock, and his deep teenage voice was smooth and soft, without a ripple or warmth.
Lucius pulled a clear glass test tube from his pocket with a note on it, it contained half a capacity of shiny silver thread. "Master asked me to send you this. By the way, he heard about your performance yesterday and is very satisfied with you."
Severus Snape glanced at the test-tubes and immediately understood what they were. Then he took them without hesitation. "Thanks a lot. I'll take care of it."
"Don't let your master down," said Lucius, whose gray-blue eyes resembled the sky overhead, strewn with erratic rain and clouds.
"I will."
"Good luck with that."
"You too."
Closing the door, Severus Snape flipped the note on the test tube, revealing Legend's handwriting. The inky black ink on the pale brown paper seemed to be ageless, so gorgeous that even writing about death was an amazing art.
He said, find her and kill her.
Severus Snape went down to the basement, emptied the contents into the pensieve, and sank into the swirling expanse of silvery white.
He knew whose memory it was, for he had taken it out of the man's head himself yesterday. So Severus Snape thought he would be greeted with a cold, angry depression, but did not expect to open his eyes into a ball of brilliant warmth.
The smell of fresh grass, the refreshing aroma of Freesia, the bright and gentle sunshine, so warm that the palms are hot.
Severus Snape fell into this group of too vivid memories, eyes open the moment, the face into a wanton beautiful smiling face. His warm brown eyes were bent with a bright delight, and his clean, soft blond hair was spread out on the grass like the tail of a peacock, wrapped around the tender leaves of the grass, and the void between his fingers.
It was the image of a very young girl, frozen in Emond John Field's memory with great clarity, that captured his whole memory.
The girl lay on the ground and laughed at Snape, who had fallen just above her head, shaking a bunch of Freesia in full bloom. Then she got up, furry leaves of grass in her hair, and sprinted behind Severus Snape, her thin arms outstretched to embrace the young man squatting not far away, as if it were her whole world.
"Daddy!" The girl shouted.
"Aurora." Emond touched her hair, kissed her forehead, picked her up, and rubbed her neck with her stubble-streaked chin, causing her to laugh and drop her freesia.
Aurora finished laughing and rubbed her eyes as she looked at him. "You're not coming back this time, are you?"
"I'll stay a little longer this time," Emond said, his eyes darkening for a moment.
Aurora's shoulders sank, and the light in her eyes faded. "Are you still going?"
"Don't worry, we'll be together forever. I promise, Honey."
"But it's my birthday the day after tomorrow."
"Then I guess we can have this birthday together."
"Really! ? With Mom!"
"And mom."
Severus Snape looked a little dazed, not the way he remembered his father, and the memory was so tender that he wondered if he had picked up the right part yesterday.
"Let's go home."
"Let's go home."
Severus Snape quickly followed. He needed to know the field's address so he could complete the task the Dark Lord had given him. He needed it, and after the loss of his beloved Lily, a soul so empty that nothing could ever fill it, it had to be filled falsely in this way. Ambition, power and status, he was like a terminally ill condemned man who could no longer reach the green, the color of Lily's eyes, no matter how long he stretched his hand.
Severus Snape had been staring at Slytherin's badge for a long time, and had finally realized that the green of the badge would never mesh with Lily's eyes. They are so different, one cold and deep, one bright and innocent.
Sometimes he would get up in the middle of the night and sit in the floating lounge, watching the sparkling water above him, feeling like he was about to be drowned by the rich green.
His incorrigible pain, his masochistic forbearance, was helpless.
The memory begins to fluctuate wildly, and Severus Snape falls into the next vortex. When the picture stabilizes, he stands in the pouring rain. The transparent drizzle of rain penetrated his body and fell to the ground, shining dimly in the light of the street lamps around him.
In front of him stood a muggle-society gift shop. The little girl, Aurora, stood facing him through the clear glass, staring intently at the music box on the wooden shelf in the window. A little figure in a white tutu kept a pose in the circle, the crisp smooth music slowly faint.
"Dad, I want this. Can you give it to me for my birthday?"
An Owl flew into the shop in the pouring rain and landed in Emond's hand. The smile on his face evaporated as he opened the almost-drenched letter.
"Sorry, Roth, I have to go."
"What? !" Aurora's voice trembled as she raised it. "You promised to stay for my birthday! Today!"
Emond took her by the shoulders, her tone as determined and mournful as the rain outside the window, "I'm sorry, Roth... I-I have to go now. Will you go home with Mom, I Promise I'll be back soon..."
"You can't leave! You promised me! You Lied to me!" Aurora shook his hand. "You're shaking. You Don't know when you'll be back! You're a liar!"
With a thud, the music box fell to the ground. Aurora ran into the rain and into the darkness, running from Severus Snape's side. Her tangled hair pierced his hands and arms.
"Ross!"
Severus Snape glanced up at Emond, then turned and tried to follow in Aurora's footsteps, only to find herself caught up in a new whirlpool.
It was a dark and dilapidated house, and the only source of light was a dying lantern, in which Emond was trapped by dark shadows growing in all directions.
He wrote letters, "Dear Professor Dumbledore, I'm willing to give my life to fight Voldemort. I beg you to protect my family and keep them from bad luck. I beg you, I beg you with everything I have..."
Severus Snape looked down and saw crumpled paper strewn across the floor, covered in shadows, all the same:
"Love, Marianne, Roth. I love you."
"Love, Marianne, Roth. I love you."
"Paper thin love, Kiss My Love a thousand times."
"I did it for them, and I did it for you."
"The soul returns, and love remains."
Love.
The word came up so many times, it almost burned, that it burned Severus Snape's vision. He blinked, waiting for the next memory fragment to emerge.
Again, twisted and broken, Severus Snape stood behind Emond and looked at the hut in front of him. At a glance he saw the house number he wanted and located the field house.
It was time for him to leave the memory that did not belong to him.
But before he could do anything, Severus Snape was sucked into the next scene.
There was no warmth in the memory, the heavy repression Severus Snape was familiar with. The first to enter the senses was Bellatrix's shrill laugh, exaggerated and morbid, the kind of terror that pierced the chest. Severus Snape frowned habitually, trying to keep the woman's lunatic laughter at bay.
He was different from Bellatrix. The woman's blood flowed like hot lava instead of blood, and when she went mad, she could destroy everything, regardless of the consequences. Severus Snape prefers a calm and collected approach, one that exploits all the value in the other to deal with the problem later.
At times, though, he has to admit that Bellatrix's methods have been effective.
Emond was lying on the ground, his face smeared with blood, his thin, blackened hand clutching a small, blood-soaked bundle, his pale lips twitching slightly, the brown eyes that had lost their light looked straight and hollow at Severus Snape.
He saw the little girl's smile in Emond's eyes, pure and bright as the morning sun.
Severus Snape had seen the same smile on Lily's face a long time ago, and it was so beautiful that when she smiled, the whole world was eclipsed.
Aurora lifted her head from Emond's cold, brown eyes and stared at him intently.
Severus Snape jerked his head out of the pensieve and slumped, somewhat disheveled, into the dusty old chair behind him. The chair let out an immediate groan of pain.
If he remembers correctly, Emond ended up holding a cloth bag containing a strand of light blond hair. It was similar to the trademark malfoy hair color, but far warmer and softer.
Severus Snape wiped his face and left the basement for the first floor, where the cold wind was blowing in his face, burrowing through the hole in his collar and kissing his pale, slightly jagged but strangely seductive collarbone.
He looked at the note from the dark lord in his hand. It was written in heavy and somber writing:
Find her and kill her.
...
Plymouth is not far from London, but it is not very close. Severus Snape arrived just before noon.
He changed into a black dress without any other adornment, as he had done every time he had received instructions from Legend. This color, which endures and obscures any color, makes Severus Snape feel trustworthy.
When Severus Snape arrived at the Fields' house, it was so quiet that no one seemed to be there. The locksmith who designed the lock for Muggles obviously never thought that his work would face a wizard when he designed the lock. Moreover, even if the intruder was a muggle, it might not be useful.
He walked into the room as if he owned it.
And then Severus Snape made sure that there was really no one here.
There were several books on the table, most of which Severus Snape had seen before, the top of which was "Hogwarts, a history of the school," which happened to open to the page of Slytherin's academic instructions.
Severus Snape has no penchant for prying into other people's homes, nor does he plan to sit in the living room and wait for the little girl to return, in the style of Bellatrix, to achieve the effect of a thriller. So when he found no one there, he chose to wait in the courtyard opposite.
It wasn't long before he saw the girl and one of his most hated men, Siris, Sardinia Blake.
As arrogant and more foolish as his cousin. Bellatrix is at least a Slytherin. Maybe that's the nature of the Blake family.
He watched coldly as the three men entered, and then the boy with the golden brown eyes turned and ran in his direction.
Severus Snape moved into the boy's blind spot until he entered the room in front of him, and soon there was a blast of abuse.
It's perfectly normal. Severus Snape did not look at the father and son, but returned to the Fields' house, where the later Remus Lupin entered. It was then that Aurora looked straight ahead, and her eyes met Severus Snape's for a brief moment.
He suddenly thought of Lily, the girl with the fire in her eyes, and whenever he saw her, everything seemed hopeful. The bright, blazing light would never leave her eyes, as if it were burning from the soul.
Aurora had a handful of shapeless water in her eyes, focused and quiet, gentle and clear.
They didn't even have the slightest resemblance from head to toe, but somehow they brought Severus Snape together for a moment in Lenovo.
The next second, she seemed to shiver and slam the door.
Then, Severus Snape realized, probably because both their eyes were so open and unprepared, you could see right into their hearts.