“You are angry at your mother? “Snape questioned.

“Huh?”

“You said that all you felt was anger. Towards your father and godfather. But you also said that you were angry at Lily, why?”

“Because she left!” Harry replied incredulously. “I know you called her a mu- a you-know-what, which was horrible, but she shouldn’t have just left.”

“I told her that I didn’t need her help, Potter.” Snape said like Harry was the one being unreasonable.

“Yeah, you did. But she should've tried anyway. She gave up too easily. My dad was… he was… being a git… he was hurting you. If one of my friends were in your position, I would have helped them no matter how angry I was at them. You don’t give up on your friends. Would you have left if my dad was messing with her instead of you?”

Harry waited for a response but he didn’t get one. Snape just had that blank face that Harry was getting familiar with, a carefully created expression that didn’t give away what he was thinking. So they just waited in silence instead until they heard a low growl.

They were by the Whomping Willow, James was pulling on someone's leg, who at the moment had the upper half of his body in a tunnel under the branches of Whomping Willow. As Harry guessed it was Snape. Harry winced as Snape's chin scraped along the tree root as James continued to pull him out.

Harry got a sick feeling in his stomach as he realised that James was once again bullying Snape. Though this time he was alone, Sirius, Remus and Pettigrew weren't with them. James let go of Snape and tapped his wand on a knot between the branches. The branches flailed around and hit James and Snape. Harry shivered as he heard a growl, louder this time, followed by a large wolf that was straining to get out of the tunnel.

Harry realised that James wasn't bullying Snape, he was trying to save Snape from Remus. He wondered how Snape had been brave enough to jump in front of a werewolf, which also happened to be Remus, in Harry's third year to protect Hermione and him. Though he shouldn't be suprised Snape had saved him a lot of time. Though he wondered if that's because of his friendship with Lily or because James had saved Snape and Snape was just returning the favour by protecting Harry now that James was dead.

“Damn, you Potter, you broke my ankle!” Snape said.

“Broke your ankle? Saved your-“ James was saying when abruptly the scene changed and Harry got an eyeful of Lilly and Snape kissing.

“Ew ew ewwww oh my god why did you have to” he said waving his hands towards the memory. “Oh thank god.” He breathed when the memory stopped and they were back in present. Suddenly he was glad that he couldn’t feel Snape’s emotions anymore.

“Did you have to use that memory?!” Harry asked, his voice coming out a little high-pitched.

Harry squinted at Snape. His face looked a little pink. That was the first time he had seen any colour on Snape’s face. Though, Harry guessed it must be nothing compared to his own most likely bright red face. Harry thought he understood why Ron complained about his parents making out, but now he felt enlightened.

Snape put on his blank face again. Harry rolled his eyes.

“Its not working. I need a stronger memory.” Snape said, having composed himself.

“Yeah, but we don’t have much time.” Harry said eyeing the cracks on the globe. They had gotten bigger and if he strained he could hear the faint sound of cracking glass. “It could break anytime.”

Snape dragged a hand along his face. “It’s all about emotions. We need a memory that induces strong emotions.”

“Can you think of any other memory?” Harry asked, surely he had to have better memory than that. He groaned internally at what he was about to say.

“Sir?”

“Hmm?” Snape said absentmindedly.

“You don’t have to hold back.” Snape turned to look at him at that. “You know if you aren’t using a memory because of me.” He cringed but continued. “Like if it's about my mum. If it, like you said induces a strong emotion you should use it.”

Snape snorted. “Trust me, Potter. If I had a good memory I would have used it.”

Harry sighed in relief. As much as he wanted to get out of here. He didn’t want to see his mum making out with anyone. “Professor you said it was just about emotions, then maybe it doesn’t have to be a positive emotion, it just has to be strong. You could just use anger or something.”

“No, Potter that won’t work. You channelled a lot of strong emotions during your panic attack, but you only succeeded in nearly destroying the globe.”

“Oh yea…” he hadn’t thought about that.

“Hmm…”Harry looked at Snape. “I think I have a perfect memory. But that's not enough” Snape said.

"Not enough? But you just said it's a perfect mem-"

Snape removed his wand from his cloak and pointed it at Harry.


“What?” Harry asked, raising his hands out of reflex.

“Wand out, Potter. Quick.” Snape said hurriedly.

Harry removed his wand and then did as Snape told him to.