Harry Potter’s Book of Sin

In the slightly cold potion preparation room, the cauldron was steaming strangely colored.The gurgling sound of liquid boiling echoed in the quiet air.

Snape was squeezing the sleepy bean with the side of the silver knife, precise, subtle, and in one step.

On the side of the potion preparation room, Maca was lying on a hospital bed that had never been used before, with one hand gently resting on a small hourglass.

This is an hourglass with a timing of only 5 seconds. Every 5 seconds, he will turn the hourglass over and make a crisp sound like a chopstick broken.

"...Click...click..."

"...Click."

"A quarter of a second slower."

Snape didn't look back, but his voice suddenly sounded in this quiet space, deep and cold, full of boredom.

"Ok."

Maca replied softly, and the ending seemed to tremble with a trace of restlessness.

"Click."

Quiet, still going on.

Probably when the "click" sounded ten more times, Maca suddenly laughed.

"Professor Snape, do you know the'harassing fly'?"

"What?" Snape said casually.

"Harassing the fly," Maca said, turning the hourglass over again, "'It's a creature that cannot be seen by the eyes, and it floats to people's ears and messes up people's brains'..."

"Never heard of it." Snape replied rather simply.

"Have you never read "Singing and Singing"? That magazine is very interesting..."

Snape cleaned and wiped the silver knife, put it back in the tool box, and walked to the boiling pot.

"never heard of that."

He said as he walked, not even the content of the answer was bad.

"Don't be like that, the professor's words are always so dry, it's easy to get sleepy..."

It was quiet again.

After the "click" sounded a few more times, Snape gently dripped the juice from the sleepy beans into the cauldron, emitting a few faint white smoke.

"……once."

"Ok?"

When Snape spoke suddenly, Maca paused when he was about to turn the hourglass.

"Once, there was a boy who lived on the outskirts of a dilapidated small town. There were low old houses everywhere, dilapidated, and few people..."

"The boy's parents are terrible... The mother is slightly better, but still terrible. They quarrel from time to time, never looking at the time and place..."

"Well, it's worse for the father to think so, because he picks it up every time...sometimes he beats his mother, which is really bad..."

"So that boy has always been ignored... that family, there is no temperature."

"But one day, he saw a girl in an abandoned park on the outskirts of the city..."

Snape's cold voice hovered in the air, as if he was really telling a story that had nothing to do with him.But Maca knew that the protagonist of this story was Snape himself.

"The boy, when he saw the girl at first glance, he fell in love with the girl. Because he could feel that the girl was just as smart, calm, and full of curiosity as himself..."

"So, the boy and the girl met. They naturally came together and made friends. They often played together in that shabby suburb, lying by the river listening to the sound of the water, and looking at the clear sky."

"Well, that tattered suburb..." Snape seemed to recall, and there was a faint warmth in his cold tone, "That suburb is really shabby, there is nothing, the facilities in the park are still It's bad, you can't use any of them."

"But the river is very reassuring, there are green grass everywhere,You can see the town from far away...The girl often said,'The big chimney in the town has never smoked before, so what is it for?'"

He said lightly, even his voice softened.However, this rare softness quickly faded away.

"in case……"

His voice suddenly cooled down, making it particularly abrupt.

"If there is a man who meets the child of a woman he once liked and still loves... what do you think that man should do?"

Because this question came too suddenly, in a little bit of amazement, Maca's originally groggy mind suddenly became sober.

To talk about the "man" in Snape's words, undoubtedly refers to himself.

But how should I answer this question?

Maca thought of Harry for the first time, and then immediately thought of Harry's mother, the little girl in the story, Lily.

In the end, he thought of Luna who was still at Hogwarts Castle at the moment.

If this happened to him...no, he found that he couldn't imagine it...or rather, he didn't want to think about it at all.

What kind of life Snape has lived all these years!

Not only have to face the loss of love, but also the death of the cherished one, and even guard the sons of the women they like and other men.

But this kind of feeling, he couldn't let go of it anyway, and it has continued to the present.

In order to show respect for this unrelentingly heavy love, Maca forced herself to think about it, then sighed softly.

"...Anyway, that kid... is part of the one you love... right?"

Maca finally understood why Snape had always been in that dry tone.Because his voice is the same now, it's also so dry, without the slightest anger.

The fact is also true, if Maca is in that situation, I am afraid it will feel like this too!Being always entangled by his own contradictory psychology, he can't be liberated for a moment.

Just as Snape had never had a good face to Harry... Except for acting for Voldemort, probably the pain of love and hatred was one of the reasons.

"Part of her... is that true..." Snape said in a dazed manner with his back to Maca, "Is it true!"

The voice settled quietly, and both of them felt a little depressed in the sound of "click" again and again.It was as if something was stuck in the chest, and people couldn't help but want to breathe.

"That kid... is it called Harry Potter?"

Maca felt suddenly that he must say something.After all, Snape was suddenly talking about this here. Although he didn't say it clearly, it was indeed a disguised expression.

You know, with Snape's awkward personality, it's not easy to do this step.And this man, holding back in depression for too long, he needs an opportunity to vent.

And Maca is willing to provide him with this opportunity.

But Maca did not expect that Snape was surprisingly calm at the moment.

"You know?" There didn't seem to be too many surprises in his tone. "Did Dumbledore tell you?"

When Maca heard the words, he was thinking about pushing it to Dumbledore just like that-because he had planned it this way.

However, at that moment, he suddenly stunned.

"The river... the low house... the big chimney?"

Words flashed through his mind one by one, and a certain picture in his memory was re-excavated by him, and it became clear bit by bit.

It should be correct, it's that... But why?What is the truth?

Here, it seems that there is still missing a key point to connect the front and back!

"No," Maca murmured, "Tell me a photo."

"what?"

Snape turned around suddenly, frowning slightly.

"What photo?"

"A picture of a Muggle." Maca gradually came back to his senses, his face full of incomprehension, "Yes, a black and white photo taken by a Muggle camera."

"What the hell is going on?" Snape asked quickly, walking to the hospital bed.

Maca tilted his head to look at Snape, and soon realized what Snape was anxious about.

"No, it's not what you think..." he said immediately, "that picture has nothing to do with Harry's mother."

He didn't even think about it clearly. Just now, it was purely because of the potion in the body, and his thinking was a little slow, so he couldn't help but speak out.

"Well... wait a minute, I just thought of... you let me sort my thoughts first."

After that, Maca frowned and thought.

Snape looked a little impatient by the hospital bed, but when he looked at Maca a few more times, he forced himself to calm down.

He is very clear about how bad Maca is now.In this case, he couldn't demand too much of Maca.

In fact, in Snape's heart, he had already recognized Maca, a "precocious" teenager who was both a student and a friend.If not, he couldn't pour out his story in a roundabout way.

As a result, the potion preparation room became quiet again.

After a long time, Maca finally let out a sigh, but his brows wrinkled tighter.

"Professor, is your mother with long black hair?"

In Snape's anxious expression, Maca did not immediately explain, but first raised an inexplicable question.

"...Yes." Snape asked suspiciously. "Why are you asking this?"

"Is the skin white and black eyes?"

"That's right," Snape said impatiently. "So, why ask this? You see a picture of my mother?"

"No, maybe your father..." Maca hesitated. "Dark short curly hair, tall and thin, stern face... and a little double chin?"

"That's it?" Snape said hurriedly. "Although you don't know where you saw my parents' photos, does this have anything to do with the question I just mentioned?

"Background, the background of that photo is the same as you described!" Maca said feebly, "especially the big chimney...maybe anyone who has looked carefully will not forget it."

"So, I have one last question—"

He paused and raised the volume slightly.

"Professor, do you have a... younger sister?"

(End of this chapter)