Chương 297: Ch287- Lilies and Memories

Cassian kicked Sirius' door open hard enough that the hinges whimpered. He wrinkled his nose at the stink of firewhisky. Sirius sat slouched in a chair, two empty bottles on the floor, a third in his hand. He looked up with a foggy glare.

"Oh, brilliant," Sirius muttered.

"Rosier. Exactly what I bloody needed. Do I need to put a sign on the sodding door?

'Not accepting visitors unless they bring a resurrected James Potter'? Because-" Cassian grabbed him by the front of his robe and slammed him against the wall so hard the castle rattled. The breath went out of Sirius in a grunt. The bottle slipped from his hand, hit the floor, and rolled under the desk.

"What," Cassian said, "possessed you to dump that on Harry without context?" Sirius' hands went to Cassian's wrists, but he didn't push. His grip was loose, unfocused.

"He needed to know." Sirius hissed.

"He needed to know the context," Cassian snapped.

"Instead you gave him the ending of a story he didn't know the beginning of." Sirius' eyes flashed.

"Don't you dare... don't you dare stand there and act like you understand anything about that night. About them."

"This isn't about the past," Cassian said.

"This is about you throwing a live curse at a boy already hanging on by threads." Sirius' jaw clenched.

"He listens to you more than he listens to me." Cassian blinked.

"Is this what this is about? You're arse-hurt that he listens to me?" Sirius looked away. His breath shook, a tiny, ugly sound he probably didn't mean to let slip.

"He trusts Snape. Isn't that enough?"

"So you punished him for that?"

"I didn't punish him."

"You bloody well did," Cassian said.

"You tore into him because something about that set you off, and instead of stopping yourself, you poured it straight onto the nearest sixteen-year-old." Sirius' eyes snapped back to him.

"I didn't-" He started but couldn't finish. Instead, he glared up at him, jaw tight.

"He deserved the truth."

"Yeah, the whole truth," Cassian shot back.

"Not the bit you threw at him because your pride was bruised." His hand curled like he meant to put Sirius straight through the wall, but he forced it open again. That was the only mercy Sirius got.

"You don't get to pull that line after today," Cassian said.

"You've had him for what, two years? And you're already unloading every trauma on him." Sirius bristled, shoulders hitting the wall.

"Don't talk to me like I'm some stranger. He's my godson."

"And you weaponised that bond and trust that came with it," Cassian shot back.

"You threw the worst fact you had at him because you were angry."

"He needed to hear it!"

"No," Cassian said.

"You needed to hear yourself say it." Sirius looked away, jaw tight enough to crack. Cassian didn't ease up.

"You can be furious at Snape all you like. I'm not asking you to knit him a jumper. But Harry's not your punching bag for old schoolyard ghosts." Sirius flinched, and Cassian caught it.

"What's actually eating you?" Cassian asked.

"Because this-" he flicked a hand at the wreck of bottles and Sirius' ruined expression "... isn't about Snape. And it isn't about Harry either." Sirius scoffed.

"Oh, brilliant. Go on then. Enlighten me." Cassian held his stare.

"Why'd you go for him like that?" Sirius shifted, restless.

"He came in here defending Snape like... like nothing's ever happened. Like the man's a saint because you said he's fine." Ah. There it was. Sirius didn't hear Harry say "Snape's alright." He heard, Cassian says so. And I believe him.

"So," Cassian said slowly, "you felt replaced." Sirius barked a laugh that didn't sound like a laugh at all.

"Don't flatter yourself."

"You're the one picking fights with a child because he quoted me." Sirius' eyes flicked up, furious for a second, then uncertain, then furious again.

"You think Harry doesn't trust you?" Cassian asked. Sirius looked like he wanted to spit back yes and no at the same time. Nothing came out.

"You think I'm sitting around stealing your place?" Cassian added, deadpan. Sirius glared.

"You act like you're the only one who gets him."

"I don't," Cassian said.

"I just don't shout the house down every time he brings up something you don't want to hear." Sirius stepped forward, finally pushing Cassian off him.

"You don't know what it's like. Watching him look at the very person who caused James... Harry's parents die, like he's... like he's some lost uncle. Watching him take your word like Scripture."

"You told him because you wanted him back on your side," Cassian said.

"Even if it hurt him." Sirius' voice cracked thin.

"He's... all I've got left." The room went quiet. Cassian's jaw tightened.

"And instead of saying that," Cassian said, "you dropped a truth on him sharp enough to skin him." Sirius swallowed hard, looking sick. Cassian stepped back, giving him space but not letting him off the hook. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"You want him close," Cassian said.

"Fine. Say that. Don't lash out at a sixteen-year-old because you're afraid he trusts more than one adult." Sirius dragged both hands down his face.

"I didn't mean for it to go like that." Cassian moved toward the door.

"Fix it," he said quietly.

"And don't make him carry your ghosts again." Sirius didn't answer. Cassian paused at the threshold.

"And for Gods' sake," he added, "stop making me the villain in your head. I'm not your competition." He opened the door.

"Harry deserved better than what you gave him today," Cassian said.

"So give him better tomorrow."

Cassian nudged Snape's door open with his foot, plastered on a bright, deeply untrustworthy smile, and held up a half-empty box of chocolates.

"I bring gifts." Snape looked up from a stack of essays as though someone had wafted manure under his nose.

"What have you done." Cassian stepped inside anyway.

"Why do you always assume I've done something? Maybe I'm being friendly. We're practically mates." Snape's eyes narrowed into a slow, venomous slit.

"We barely tolerate each other." Cassian sighed, shut the door behind him, and dropped into the chair opposite.

"Fine. I slipped something, and I wanted you to hear it from me. Not because you threatened to kill me if it ever gets out." Snape's whole expression drained into something far more dangerous.

"Do not tell me-" Cassian held up both hands.

"Before you start hexing, let me get the sentence out. Sirius told Potter a bit of information today. A bit I also learned today." Snape's jaw tightened. His hand clenched on the arm of his chair.

"What bit." Cassian took a breath.

"The prophecy. The part you carried." Snape shut his eyes, slowly, as if forcing down a scream. When he opened them, he looked ready to flay someone alive.

"He told the boy," Snape said. No question, pure acid. Cassian nodded.

"Yeah. And not with care. Or context. Or anything resembling foresight." Snape's fingers curled harder.

"Black has the self-control of an unsupervised toddler with a wand."

"That's generous," Cassian said.

"Toddlers don't have trauma, ego, and a bottle of firewhisky. Or three." Snape's eyes were on the far wall, fixed on nothing, breath thinning. Cassian leaned forward.

"Potter's shaken, but he's not broken. I told him what he needed. The truth in full. Not the slice Sirius flung at him like a brick." Snape's gaze snapped back to him.

"What exactly did you tell him."

"That you didn't know it was about them. That you didn't know it was him. That if you had..." Cassian let the sentence finish itself. Snape heard it anyway. A muscle jumped in Snape's jaw.

"He should never have learned it at all."

"He's sixteen," Cassian said.

"And Voldemort's favourite chew-toy. Information finds him whether we want it to or not." Snape didn't move, but something in him was getting dangerous. Cassian rested his elbows on the desk.

"He also knows about your Patronus now." Snape went utterly still.

"You told him."

"No," Cassian said.

"I implied it. He worked out the rest." Snape looked like he might be sick. Or murderous. Possibly both.

"Rosier... I warned you." Cassian lifted both hands, palms out.

"Alright, ease your hackles. I didn't exactly have choices left. The kid was ready to hex the carpet off the floor. He wanted your head, Sirius' head, and Dumbledore's beard in a jar. If I left him like that, we'd have a sixteen-year-old sharpening grief into revenge with nowhere to put it." Snape said nothing. His hands clenched so rapidly, Cassian could hear something pop. He wasn't sure if it came from Snape's knuckles or his patience. Cassian dragged a hand through his hair.

"Look. He doesn't hate you anymore. He isn't thrilled, obviously. You didn't become his favourite professor overnight. But he stopped aiming blame like a cursed dartboard." Snape didn't rise to it. Cassian leaned back in the chair, weighing how far he could push without Snape turning him into experimental vapour. Well, Snape did warn him not to tell anyone. It happened earlier that year.

When they were still refining Moonspit, Spineguard and Heartflare, Cassian and Bathsheda took the work into the forest to test the structure without walls interfering as his Tree Patronus drew attention. Bathsheda stood beside him, one hand up near her brow to block the glow.

"It's stronger outside," she'd said as she admired the Tree Patronus once again.

"Everything's stronger outside," Cassian replied.

"Even me." She rolled her eyes. Cassian lowered his wand slightly, the tree had already rooted itself in the grass. Somewhere beyond it, tucked between two thick oaks, someone straightened abruptly. Snape. He wasn't meant to be out there. But judging by the satchel at his feet and the half-crushed stalks of white lilies, he'd been gathering for some potion. Cassian offered a weak wave.

"Evening." Snape didn't answer. Cassian expected a familiar scowl or at least a sigh the size of Wales. Instead, Snape's face drained. Fully. Not pallor-from-exhaustion. Not I'm-annoyed-you-exist. Something closer to gut-punched horror. He took one stiff step back. Bathsheda glanced between them.

"Is something-" A shape rushed out of the wand's tip. A doe. It landed lightly on the grass beside him. It looked around, before stepping toward Cassian's tree. Before it could fully take shape, Snape flicked his wand and the doe vanished on the spot. Snape didn't speak. His wand arm hung slack, his face thunderous. Murderous even. Tight enough that the dirt at his feet seemed to shrink away. Ash appeared from Bathsheda's arm, lifted her head and hissed.

Staring at Snape, who looked at the two of them with visible intent to kill. Cassian stared.

"Well," he said quietly, "that's new." Snape had been crouched over a patch of lilies. A flower with one, very specific name attached to it. Bathsheda had seen far too much of Severus Snape during school not to be suspicious. She remembered the fights he used to have with James, the corridor silences, the way Lily's eyes always softened, never for James back then, only when she spoke to Severus.

She remembered Lily Evans conjuring a doe during one of the classes invited by Flitwick to demonstrate for younger students. She remembered Snape watching her too often. So when the doe burst from his wand in the forest Bathsheda connected the dots. It wasn't the flower he'd been thinking about. Cassian's Patronus had done something neither of them anticipated. It had activated something when the memory clicked and forced it into form.

The tree had never behaved like that before, but his magic had oddities, and it seemed that if someone nearby thought their happiest, the tree would catch it. When the shock had ebbed, they tested it with safer company. It didn't work every time, but it worked enough. Stand near Cassian's Patronus, slip into a memory with too much clarity, and the Patronus could spill out on its own. A few students managed it by accident. Two professors did as well.

But if anyone knew the trick was possible, the magic refused to cooperate. So Cassian said nothing. Instead, he learned to nudge people into thinking of their happiest memories. It was a coincidence. Pure and simple. That day, crouched over a stalk of flowers, he hadn't been thinking about lilies at all. He'd been thinking about Lily. And in the space of a heartbeat, Cassian's Patronus had ripped that truth into the open. Cassian remembered when Bathsheda told him her theory. At first he'd just stared at her.

Then something in his brain clicked. Right. That. His mates had been talking about that scene all the time. A dozen of them crammed into someone's flat, arguing over whether Snape was tragic or unhinged while the clip played again on someone's laptop.

"After all this time?"

"Always." Half of them swooning. Half of them taking the piss. Memes everywhere the next day. Screenshots. Dramatic edits. Someone had put sad music over it. Someone else had turned it into a joke about undying loyalty to Tesco meal deals. But when Bathsheda laid out the lilies. The doe. The look on Snape's face in the forest. The memory resurfaced properly. He'd been in love with Lily Evans. Deeply. Stupidly. Permanently. And somehow Cassian had managed to yank that truth out of him with a bloody tree. Brilliant.

Snape gathered the lilies, stuffed them into his satchel, then hissed at Cassian.

"Control your magic." He snapped the satchel closed.

"If either of you," Snape said, voice low enough to chill the air around them, "ever breathe a word of what happened here... if I so much as hear a whisper of it... I will remove your tongues, pickle them, and mail them to your grieving families." Cassian blinked.

"That feels excessive." Snape stepped closer, eyes narrowed to slits.

"Try me, Rosier." Ash hissed from Bathsheda's shoulder again, smoke curling from her throat as if she'd tasted the fury radiating off him. Back in the office, Cassian pushed himself up from the chair.

"So," he said, dusting off his sleeves, "I did briefly consider chopping my tongue off and gifting it to you in a jar, but then I remembered I actually use it. Daily. For teaching." Snape's glare stayed fixed on him. Cassian eased a step back.

"Right. Message received." Snape didn't blink.

"Get out."

"Excellent idea," Cassian said, already halfway to the door.

"I'll... yes. Leaving." He let himself out before Snape could come up with anything involving acid, jars, or creative anatomy removal. He closed the door gently behind him, sighed down the corridor, and muttered under his breath, "Brilliant. Two crises down. Seventy to go."