Dreams were mysterious things.
Sometimes they could reveal the future, just as Harry had once experienced. Sometimes they could link souls together, letting everything unattainable in daylight appear in the haze.
Most dreams were strange and unknowable, but for the Borderland's lucky little messenger…
dreams were buns.
The Borderland was still shrouded in a vast white mist today. Walking through the familiar fog, the black cat found that dream-bun.
Though it rarely looked into other people's dreams—it had no wish to pry into the hearts wizards hid away—today was different. Today, it had to invite a guest out of a dream.
Within that endlessly rainy dream, the black cat saw a young Professor Snape, and a Spinner's End that did not quite match the one in its memory.
In its memory, Spinner's End had been shabby, yes, but never like this—never filled with such terrifying arguments.
Inside a cramped room, a man roared in rage while a woman screamed her heart out. And so, the boy ran.
The black cat found him in an almost deserted playground.
A great factory chimney stood stark against the distant skyline. Two girls were on the swings, while a skinny boy hid behind a bush and watched them.
The boy's black hair was long, and his clothes were absurdly mismatched, almost as though he had dressed that way on purpose:
a pair of jeans that were too short, an oversized old coat that looked like an adult's, and beneath it a bizarre shirt that looked almost like maternity wear.
The black cat's ears twitched. Even the children at Hollisey Orphanage were not dressed that badly.
Young Professor Snape's face was sallow, his frame small and wiry.
He watched the smaller girl swing higher and higher than the older one, and an undisguised yearning showed on his thin face.
"Lily, stop that!"
the older girl shrieked.
But at the highest point of the swing, the little girl let go and flew into the air.
She really was flying, laughing brightly as she flung herself toward the sky.
She did not come crashing down onto the asphalt of the playground. Instead, she glided through the air like an acrobat, lingering there for quite a while before landing lightly on the ground.
"Mum told you not to do that!"
Petunia dragged her heel against the ground to stop the swing, producing a sharp, grating screech, then jumped up with her hands on her hips.
"Mum said you mustn't do that, Lily!"
"But I'm fine,"
Lily said, still giggling.
"Petunia, look at this. Watch what I can do."
Petunia looked around. The playground was empty except for the two of them—well, and Snape and the black cat, though the girls did not know that.
Lily picked up a wilted fallen flower from the very bush where Snape was hiding.
Petunia walked over, looking both curious and displeased, torn between the two.
Lily waited until Petunia was close enough to see clearly, then opened her hand. The petals in her palm kept opening and closing, like some strange layered oyster.
"Don't do that!"
Petunia screamed.
"I'm not doing anything to you,"
Lily said, though she still crushed the flower into a ball and threw it to the ground.
"That's not right,"
Petunia said, but her eyes followed the flower as it fell, and lingered there for a long time.
"How did you do that?"
she asked again, with a yearning she could not hide.
"Isn't it obvious?"
Young Snape could hold back no longer and jumped out from behind the bushes.
Petunia let out a scream and ran for the swings. Lily was clearly startled too, but she stayed where she was.
Young Snape seemed to regret revealing himself so rashly. He looked at Lily, and a faint flush rose on his sallow cheeks.
"What's obvious?"
Lily asked.
Young Snape looked both nervous and excited. He glanced at Petunia pacing near the swings in the distance, then lowered his voice and said,
"I know what you are."
"What do you mean?"
"You're… you're a witch."
Young Snape said it softly.
Lily looked offended.
"It's very rude to say things like that to people!"
She turned and strode toward her sister, chin lifted.
"No!"
Young Snape said. His face had already turned bright red, and the black cat saw his hand twitch beside his pocket.
The black cat no longer wanted to think about why he would not take off that ridiculous oversized coat—
he did not want the shirt underneath to show.
He ran after the two girls, sleeves flapping like wings, so that he looked almost like a bat.
The sisters looked at him with the same displeased expression, both clutching a swing post as though it were a safe zone in a game of tag.
"You are,"
Snape said to Lily,
"you are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. There's nothing bad about it. My mother's a witch, and I'm a wizard."
Petunia's laughter came like cold water.
"A wizard!"
she shrieked.
The boy's sudden appearance had startled her badly just now, but she had calmed down, and her courage had returned.
"I know who you are. You're that Snape boy! They live down at Spinner's End by the river,"
she told Lily, in a tone that made it very clear she thought it a filthy, low sort of place.
"The people there are all coarse, stupid trash!"
"That's not true,"
the black cat murmured in quiet rebuttal, not noticing that in the shadow beside a tree trunk, a tall figure had suddenly fixed its gaze on it.
And so the dream abruptly changed, dissolving into emptiness. The black cat turned its head and found Professor Snape studying it.
"What are you doing here?"
Snape's tone was dangerously sharp. He stared at the fading dream scene, then turned toward those green eyes.
"Looking for you,"
the black cat answered honestly.
Snape froze for a moment at that, then gave a cold snort and said nothing more.
His dream began collapsing at once. That was the price the waking always had to pay. In the final second before the dream shattered and they both fell into the Borderland, the black cat saw a pair of green eyes.
Strangely enough, they were not quite the same as the ones from just now.
In the white, mist-filled realm, the vigilant Potions professor kept scanning his surroundings.
He saw the crumbling remains of a Victorian-style building, with a faded sign on it that read: Children's Home.
Along the road stretching ahead, the streetlamps flickered on and off.
Snape also saw a number of houses, and by them, statues of black cats. But in his opinion, they looked far too unlike the real thing.
"Ugly,"
he sneered.
Then, as if realizing something, he paused.
The statues were ugly because they were inaccurate, not because there was anything ugly about the cat itself.
But he said nothing. He merely let out another cold laugh.
What he was actually thinking was, somewhat alike, at least, but by the time the thought reached his lips, it had already turned into mockery again.
The black cat did not mind.
The professor's tongue and his thoughts had never matched.
Just as it already knew, not knowing how to love was a defect acquired later in life.
Like muteness.
Very few people were born mute.
If someone could not speak, it was because they had never been able to hear.
~~~
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