Still, all this enjoyment at Dumbledore's misery came at the cost of more patrols, in a practically deserted school, which was a waste of time. The issue was Severus often liked to use the holidays to focus on his research, and not just walk around a castle aimlessly looking for an invisible threat.
Severus' inner rant was interrupted by a familiar voice, "You know, you could do with a little less scowling. No wonder the students are utterly terrified of you."
It was Aurora Sinistra, the Astronomy Professor at Hogwarts and probably one of Severus' few true friends. She was a couple of years above him in school, but she did help him learn the ropes of their house as a fellow Half-Blood. She always gave him a helping hand whenever he was about to make a blunder, and she had heard him rant many times about Potter and his idiotic friends.
The Potion master's scowl lessened, "Yeah, I know. I always hated this time of year."
"Ah," the woman took a deep breath, "It's been over a decade, Severus. I know you miss Lily. Merlin knows that I miss her too. But you need to move on, and to stop being stuck in the past the way you've been."
"It's not that simple," Severus answered while sighing.
No, it really wasn't. Almost everyone thought that Severus was pining after Lily in school. In a way, it was true. Lily Evans was smart, beautiful, and charming, and he was attracted to her. He might have even had feelings for her at one point, but Severus knew her before she went to Hogwarts, and he could say that she was one of the most terrifying people he had ever met.
The Lily Evans that everyone knew, the golden girl of Gryffindor, who valiantly showed up purebloods with her talent, defiant to everyone's expectations, was a lie, one that she crafted the very first day she came to the castle.
She was brilliant. Oh, by Merlin, she was a brilliant witch. She had even some basic control over her magic at the age of eight, making flowers bloom wandlessly, which was extremely rare. She was devious, vindictive, cunning, so much so, that Severus was sure the only reason she didn't join him in Slytherin was that she understood what would have happened to her if she was sorted there.
And that mask that charmed her professors, that James Potter fell in love with, grew over the years, but in the shadows, with Severus, she learnt dark magic. She was even more proficient than him by the time they graduated. Honestly, Severus was sure that if it wasn't for the Dark Lord's overwhelming power and support, Lily Evans would have ended up as a new Dark Lady.
Severus didn't understand why she chose to get involved with Potter. He didn't know if she was in love with him or wanted to use him in some way. He didn't question her motives, but they did get into a fight when he complained to her that she chose Potter, the immature bully who went out of his way to harass Severus for no particular reason. They said some things that they never could take back, and in the end, their friendship was in tatters.
But without Lily, there was just something missing in his life. He foolishly joined the Death Eaters, thinking that servicing the Dark Lord might have helped fill that void, but it didn't. He just saw a monster that wanted to see everyone in the world suffer.
Aurora seemed to have taken his pause as some kind of grief and grabbed his shoulder, "I know it probably is, but she's dead. Come on, I haven't seen you once speak to her son outside of class. Her legacy is in her castle, one of your own snakes. I know he looks like Potter, and you hated that ass, but I haven't heard of him bullying anyone. When I look at him, he reminds me of Lily."
"That's what I'm afraid of," he muttered under his breath.
Yes, the Potter boy. He looked like a clone of his father, but the truth was that he acted like his mother. He could tell he was like her. It was in the eyes, you see. They held this cunning, this intelligence inside, that was hidden from the world. The boy was probably more brilliant than his mother, when it came to magic, but was very good at cultivating a good image of himself. He had even heard rumours that his invitation to the Court of Slytherin the following year was essentially guaranteed.
The boy who had survived the infamous fire of Godric's Hollow, a fire that Severus would bet anything was started by Lily. The arcane nature of the fire was just like her. She liked to experiment with her magic and her son seemed to share the same 'hobby'.
Yeah, an attack like the one in Godric's Hollow shouldn't have fazed Lily at all; the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr. couldn't hold a candle to Lily. The rest were run of the mill Death Eater grunts. Severus knew Lily's capabilities, especially when it came to wards. She would have had hundreds of escape scenarios, yet she chose to commit mass murder, killing herself in the process, only for the sake of her son's survival.
There was something else that Severus wasn't seeing, and he was waiting for the shoe to drop. And it all revolved around her son. Severus had tried to subtly antagonize the boy, to see any hidden motives. He tried to make him a pariah, but the boy didn't seem to care, and his friends still stood by his side, attracted by his brilliance. The Potion master had hoped to spare them the grief of having an Evans as a friend, but that didn't work.
Harry Potter was his mother's son, and that terrified Severus to the core.
"What?" the astronomy professor asked.
"Sorry, I was just lost in thought. You're right, I should move on. Please excuse me, there's a potion that I need to finish urgently for Poppy and my patrol is over."
Severus went down the stairs to the dungeons. He arrived at his lab, trying to do his best to not hyperventilate. He took a gulp of calming potion that he always had in hand. It has been a while since he actively thought about Lily. Damn, Aurora for bringing her up.
At least his useless patrol was over. There were more faculty than students currently in the castle. Any chance of the Heir of Slytherin striking before the end of the year was null. Severus was honestly tempted to just dose every resident of the castle with some Veritaserum and interrogate them. That would probably convince Dumbledore that the Heir wasn't in the castle, and Severus could spend his holidays in peace.
The Head of Slytherin hoped this issue would be resolved quickly and the idiot who petrified people to support this stupid blood-purity policy would be expelled promptly. But if that wasn't possible, he wouldn't mind seeing Dumbledore struggle for the first time.
After all, who wouldn't want to witness the suffering of a man who forced them into servitude at wand point?
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