The wizards inside the Celestial dream strolled through the illusory Hogwarts at will.
"How strange. Are we really inside a dream right now?" James crouched by the shore of the Black Lake and reached into the water. A cool sensation surged over his hand, no different from the slightly chilly lake water of summer in his memories.
He stood up and looked around. Most of his companions had already gone far away. Some had headed toward the main castle, while others wandered near the Forbidden Forest. James noticed that once they moved farther away, their figures gradually blurred, as if sinking into fog. Hagrid, who had walked the fastest, had almost completely disappeared.
After everyone scattered, James realized that fog had risen around him at some point. It hid the main castle behind gray-white clouds, leaving only a hazy silhouette. Mist spread in every direction, and only the area within about sixty feet remained clear.
"Hey! Guys, is no one going to wait for me? All this white fog is pretty scary, to be honest."
James turned and looked around, only to find that Snape was the only one still standing where he was. This strange Potions professor never showed unnecessary curiosity. His expression was mostly impatient, and he showed no reaction at all to James's call.
"Hey, Snape," James greeted him.
It was strange. Since his resurrection, more than a month had passed, yet James had barely exchanged a few words with Snape. As a resurrected wizard laborer, he spent day and night in the White Tower and rarely had contact with the outside world. Snape stayed in the castle during the day and came over at night to brew potions, always coming and going alone. The two of them had almost no overlap.
"…Is there a problem, Mr. Hacker?"
Hacker was James's alias. His full name was Jim Hacker, chosen for him by Skyl, though he had no idea what meaning it was supposed to have.
"There's fog everywhere. Don't you think it's a little frightening?"
Snape glanced at him, then explained, "In the dream world, spatial distance does not merely represent how near or far something is. It also represents the connection between soul entities. In this Hogwarts shaped by shared memories, a single person's recollection is too weak to support such a vast space, so fog appears around us."
"I get it. It's like replaying memories in a Pensieve. Anything too far away becomes blurry. Still, you really do know a lot." James praised him dryly.
"All of this is explained in detail in the Guide. Oh, right, you still don't have the Guide. Perhaps you should work harder, then you would not need to peek at other people's books."
"I know you were reading about a ritual to resurrect the dead." James secretly gritted his teeth at Snape's sarcastic tone, but right now, he needed something from him, so he could only force a smile.
Snape's face went cold. He immediately turned and walked away, while James hurried after him, sticking close like gum on a shoe.
The surrounding fog shifted with the two of them as its center, always maintaining a visible range of about sixty feet.
"Don't misunderstand me, Snape. I can help."
"I do not believe you are of any great use, young man. You are not yet capable of involving yourself in such a great field."
"Maybe I really did live a few years less than you, but that doesn't mean my ability is worse than yours, Snape. We're colleagues, at least. Can't you trust me for once?"
They wandered aimlessly along the lake shore. Suddenly, a tall beech tree emerged from the fog ahead. When James saw it, his expression turned joyful, because this was the place where he and his friends had most often lingered during their school days. They were used to sitting beneath its shade after class and chatting. This tree could almost represent his entire student life.
Snape saw the tree as well, but unlike James's happiness, his expression showed hatred and pain.
Memories surged through both of their hearts, and powerful emotions radiated from their souls.
The range of the fog expanded slightly. Then, a group of Hogwarts students suddenly emerged from the mist, talking and laughing as they came to stroll by the lake.
"What is this?" James and Snape were both stunned. They looked at each other, shocked by this sudden change.
Then, from the fog, a pale-faced black-haired boy walked out. He was lowering his head and staring at a parchment exam paper, his greasy, straight hair bouncing with his stumbling steps.
James recognized who the boy was. It was Severus Snape in his fifth year.
The old bat beside him began to tremble, his expression turning terrifying. He snapped at James, "We are leaving."
"That person is you? Did we enter your memory?"
"I said we are leaving!" The old bat looked desperate to go. He did not want to see the memory that came next.
James stood there blankly. The old bat almost could not resist coming over to shove him, but he held himself back.
The surrounding scene continued. The fifth-year James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew came together to the beech tree by the lake. They began chatting with relaxed ease, while not far away, beside a clump of bushes, young Snape also sat on the grass, still carefully reading his exam paper.
"Go!" the old bat roared.
"No, wait." James's eyes were eager. He looked around, searching the crowd for Lily.
A group of female students came to the lakeside, took off their shoes and socks, and stretched their legs into the water to cool down. They were delighted, laughing so hard as they talked that they leaned back and forth, buried their faces in their friends' shoulders, and reached out to tickle one another under the arms. Amid their cries of surprise, their pale legs slapped the surface of the water like oars made from white birch.
Among those girls was Lily Evans.
She looked truly beautiful, more refreshing than a snow wind blowing across a mountain meadow.
The old bat's face turned into a neon sign, flashing red and white, his teeth clenched until they clicked.
What happened next was just as it had been in the memory. Young Snape got up and crossed the grass, and James and Sirius, sitting beneath the beech tree, called out to him, "All right, Snivellus?"
Snape shuddered all over. When he saw the four of them, his expression was like that of someone facing a mortal enemy. He suddenly drew his wand, but in the next instant, a Disarming Charm from James knocked it away.
Snape lunged for his wand, and James immediately said, "[Impedimenta]." Invisible ropes tripped him and sent him falling to the ground.
James and Sirius closed in on the fallen Snape, while the students around them slowly gathered.
The old bat shouted, "Have you seen enough? Hacker, we are leaving now. Immediately!"
This memory was one of Snape's most painful experiences. He did not want to remember even the smallest part of it.
The surrounding scene continued. The old bat fell silent, trembling all over.
Seeing the old bat's pained appearance, "Hacker" suddenly felt sincere guilt.
As someone who had personally experienced this incident, he knew everything that would happen next all too well.
James and Sirius mocked the fallen Snape, and the surrounding students also burst into laughter. Because Snape was not popular, most of the students were happy to see him bullied.
Snape opened his mouth to fight back, but James's spell soon filled his mouth with foam, almost suffocating him.
At that desperate moment, Lily Evans appeared.
She pushed through the crowd and said to the two people bullying Snape, "Leave him alone!"
The old bat closed his eyes. He was unwilling to keep watching. To Lily, she was saving her closest friend. To Snape, embarrassing himself in front of the girl he loved was worse than dying pathetically right there.
"Hacker" watched as his younger self showed off in front of Lily, humiliating Snape so badly he wanted to die.
When he was young, Snape often associated with several bad sorts in Slytherin. Later, all of them became Death Eaters. Snape did not care much about what his friends did, and even if he himself had not done anything particularly outrageous, in the eyes of others, he was an accomplice to bullies.
James's reason for being hostile to Snape had not been pure. He had not been standing up for the students bullied by Slytherin. He had wanted to use the chance to attract Lily's attention. Young men thought the social world of men was like a pride of lions, and that as long as they proved themselves stronger than others, they could win the love of the opposite sex. They did not understand how terrible the consequences of doing so could be.
In the end, James achieved what he wanted. He bullied Snape badly enough that Snape said that word, "Mudblood," to Lily. The proud Lily immediately broke with Snape. Only after that did James get the chance to develop a relationship with Lily, until they finally confessed their feelings to each other.
This kind of behavior was certainly a young man's rivalry over love, but looking back now, James admitted that he felt guilty. He had not won Lily's love in an open and honorable way, and he had caused permanent harm to another young person.
If Snape had truly been an evil man, James could still have considered himself righteous. But now, Snape was a professor at Hogwarts, and with his exquisite skill and serious scholarship, he had earned the respect of the other professors.
More importantly, they had all grown up. They had to take responsibility for the past instead of continuing to run away.
"Snape, let's go." James looked at Lily with lingering reluctance one last time, then said quietly to the old bat, "I'm very sorry. Truly."
"…Forget everything you saw."
"I absolutely won't tell anyone. Also, about that resurrection ritual you were reading, I really can help."
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