Jamie’s mind swam with questions, so many questions. Her fingers gripped the bark tighter, cutting into the soft flesh of her tawny palm. Bright green eyes shone with not only confusion- but horror at what she was witnessing.

She didn’t want to believe her own experience, gooseflesh prickling up her arm. Hermione’s warm, comforting grip was the only thing grounding her to earth. She was dizzy, lightheaded as she stared at an earlier version of herself from across the frozen lake.

Black wraiths of jagged cloth, which had formerly swooped down in groups to consume any happy memories she had left, were now fleeing from a cerebral light, like moths to a flame.

The version of her beaten and bruised, hallowed and clinging to a limp body of an Azkaban prisoner, looked upon the source of the dementors repellent with awe.

There, across the dark mirror of ice, a little ways from where Jamie currently hid, stood a magnificent doe.

It was a patronus, fully corporeal, something she had been trying to achieve all year. It wasn’t the animal made of pure light, tossing her head back proudly, that really shook Jamie- although sparks of jealousy prickled among her torrent of other emotions.

It was who cast the damn thing- the pillar of black robes lurking among the shadows, twilight providing the perfect camouflage.

Someone Jamie happily thought wanted her dead, someone who would turn her over to Voldemort himself. That was a comforting mindset, because he hated her Dad just as much- so logically they had to be mortal enemies.

Thats how it had been since first year, and Jamie was perfectly content to stay in her bubble of Gryffindor glory and Slytherin rivalry.

So why was that pale visage, illuminated by the thread of white coming from his wand, glaring with hardened determination at her other self, giving off the illusion he was trying to protect her?

She snorted through her trance of bewilderment. Snape, protecting her?

Yet the events unfolding right in front of her contradicted even that. Everything she had once thought of the dungeon bat was brutally shattered.

Jamie’s entire body tensed with an uncomfortable shiver, like a cat getting thrown into water.

It was only when Hermione started to tug her did she move, otherwise she might’ve stayed gawking for weeks.

“Jamie-! We have to go! He’ll see us!” Hermione whispered harshly, and Jamie suddenly made the connection that her friend was also seeing this, which offered a minuscule amount of comfort.

Hermione would know what to do.

She always knew.

Jamie’s battered reeboks crunched on the leaves as they fled the scene, but with all that had happened today, she just decided to congratulate herself on actually being able to force her limbs into motion.

One thing was for sure: She was getting answers from Snape one way or another.