Chapter 345: Snape and the Photo

In the slightly gloomy potion preparation room, strangely colored steam was bubbling from the cauldron. The sound of boiling liquid echoed in the quiet air.

Snape was squeezing Sleepy Bean with the side of the silver dagger, precise, subtle, and one step at a time.

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

This is an hourglass with a time limit of only 5 seconds. Every 5 seconds, he will turn the hourglass over and make a crisp sound like breaking chopsticks.

"...click...click..."

"... click."

"A quarter of a second slower."

Snape didn't turn his head, but his voice suddenly sounded in this quiet space, low and cold, full of a kind of boredom.

"Ok."

Maca replied softly, and there seemed to be a tremor of restlessness at the end of the sound.

"Click."

Quiet, still going on.

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

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

"What?" Snape said casually.

"The Harassing Gadfly," Maca said, turning the hourglass over again, "'It's an invisible creature that floats into people's ears and messes up people's brains'..."

"I've never heard of it." Snape replied quite simply.

"Haven't you read The Quibbler? It's an interesting magazine..."

Snape cleaned and cleaned the silver knife, put it back in the tool box, and then walked towards the still boiling cauldron.

"never heard of that."

He talked as he walked, and he didn't even miss the content of the answer.

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

There was another silence.

After a few more "clicks", Snape gently dripped the juice squeezed out of the sleepy beans into the cauldron, and a few wisps of faint white smoke came out.

"……once."

"Ok?"

Hearing Snape speak suddenly, Maca paused with his hand that was about to turn over the hourglass.

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

"The boy's parents were terrible...the mother was slightly better, but still terrible. They fought every now and then, never looking at the time and place..."

"Well, it's worse if you think about it this way, because it's him who provokes it every time... Sometimes he even hits my mother. It's really bad..."

"So that boy has been ignored all the time... that family has no warmth."

"But one day, he met a certain 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.

"That boy fell in love with that girl the first time he saw that girl. Because he could feel that that girl was just like him, smart, calm, and full of curiosity..."

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

"Well, that dilapidated suburb..." Snape seemed to be recalling, and there was a hint of warmth in his cold tone, "That suburb is really dilapidated, there is nothing, and the facilities in the park are all there. It's broken, none of it works."

"But the riverside is very reassuring, the ground is full of green grass,

You can see the town from a distance... The girl would often say, 'The big chimney in the town has never smoked, so what was it made of? '"

He spoke lightly, even his voice softened. However, this rare softness soon disappeared.

"if……"

His voice suddenly cooled down, appearing particularly abrupt.

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

Because this question came too suddenly, Maka's drowsy mind suddenly became sober when he was a little stunned.

To say that the "man" in Snape's mouth undoubtedly refers to himself.

But how to answer this question?

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

And finally, he thought of Luna who was still at Hogwarts Castle at the moment.

If this happened to him... no, he found 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 do you have to face broken love, but you also have to face the death of your loved one, and you even have to protect the son of the woman you like and another man.

And this kind of feeling, he couldn't let go of it no matter what, and it has continued until now.

In order to show respect for this love that is so heavy that it cannot be added, Maca forced himself to put himself in his shoes and think about it, and then sighed softly.

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

Maca finally understood why Snape always had that dry tone. Because his voice is similar now, it's also so dry, without any anger.

The fact is also true, if Maca is in that situation, I am afraid it will feel the same way! I was always entangled by my contradictory psychology, and could not be freed for a moment.

Just as Snape never had a good face towards Harry... In addition to acting for Voldemort, probably the pain of love and hate is also one of the reasons.

"A part of her...is it really like this..." Snape turned his back to Maca, and said in a daze, "it really is like this!"

The voice settled down quietly, and amidst the "clicks" again and again, both of them felt a little suffocated. It was as if something was stuck in his chest, and he couldn't help but want to take a big breath.

"That kid... is called 'Harry Potter', right?"

Maca suddenly felt that he had to say something. After all, Snape suddenly mentioned this matter here. Although he didn't say it explicitly, it was indeed a disguised confession.

You know, with Snape's awkward personality, it's not easy to achieve this step. And this man, who has been depressed for too long, needs an opportunity to vent.

And Maca is willing to provide him with this opportunity.

But Maca didn't expect that Snape was surprisingly calm at the moment.

"You know?" There didn't seem to be much surprise in his tone, "Did Dumbledore tell you?"

When Maca heard this, he was about to push it on Dumbledore just like that—because that's what he planned to do.

However, at that moment, he froze for a moment.

"Rivers...low houses...big chimneys?"

Words flashed through his mind one by one, and a certain picture in his memory was dug out again, and became clearer bit by bit.

It should be right, that's the one... But, why? What is the truth?

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

"No," Maca murmured, "it was a photograph that told me."

"what?"

Snape turned around abruptly, frowning slightly.

"What photo?"

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

"What's going on?" Snape hurried to the hospital bed and asked hurriedly.

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 it through himself, just now it was purely because of the potion in his body that his thinking was a little slow, so he couldn't help but speak out.

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

After all, Maca frowned and thought.

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

He is very clear about how bad Maca's current state is. In this case, he couldn't demand too much from Maca.

In fact, in Snape's mind, he had already recognized Maca, a "precocious" boy who was both a student and a friend. If not, he would not have been able to tell his story in a roundabout way just now.

As a result, the potion preparation room fell silent again.

After a long time, Maca finally let out a breath, but his brows frowned even tighter.

"Professor, does your mother have long black hair?"

With Snape's anxious expression on his face, Maca didn't explain immediately, instead he asked an inexplicable question first.

"...Yes." Snape said suspiciously, "Why do you ask that?"

"Is it fair skin and a pair of black eyes?"

"That's right," Snape said impatiently. "So, why are you asking? Are you seeing a picture of my mother?"

"No, maybe your father..." Maca hesitated, "Short dark curly hair, tall and thin, with a straight face... and a little double chin?"

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

"Background, the background of that photo is the same as what you described!" Maca said weakly, "especially the big chimney... probably no one who has seen it carefully will forget it."

"So, I have one last question—"

He paused, and raised his volume slightly.

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