"I hope you enjoyed our trip and that you will continue to use the Knight Bus."
"Thank you," he said, stepping off the vehicle and taking a deep breath, feeling much better than the first time, and without turning around, he headed towards home. The next moment, the bus simply disappeared, leaving behind only a light gust of wind and the surprise on the faces of the ordinary people who witnessed it.
Muggles couldn't see the bus because they didn't possess magic and didn't even know it existed, due to the International Statute of Secrecy, signed in 1689, which prohibited telling or performing magic in front of ordinary people. If Muggles violated this rule, they were subjected to Obliviation, a spell capable of altering memories, and the wizard was severely punished.
As he approached Spider's End, Alan immediately frowned, feeling the tracking spell he had placed on the house wear off, which meant only one thing: someone had broken into the building.
It looks like I'll have to postpone my vacation… he thought with a tired sigh, his expression not changing at all, as he still sensed someone in the house and didn't want to scare them away.
Calmly opening the door, he looked towards the slightly open basement and raised an eyebrow in slight surprise.
I'm surprised: he even managed to find this door. I can only praise this magician, who was able to see through the illusion spell…
"Please, stop doing this, let's get out of here…" an agitated female voice sounded, causing Alan to frown slightly, as he immediately recognized its owner.
And so, a few seconds later, a red-haired girl emerged from the basement, struggling to drag a grown man who was trying to escape her grasp and return to the basement. But as soon as she noticed him calmly watching her, the sorceress turned suddenly pale and, letting go of Severus's father, immediately grabbed her wand. Before she could do anything, it flew out of her hand and landed in Alan's.
"Lily... that's why you're so restless..." he muttered irritably, slamming her into the wall with telekinesis. Then, walking past the trembling Evans, he cleared the living room of all the furniture except for the table, onto which the cauldron had landed. "Why do you keep pestering me? You have James, so go to him and leave me alone. You just don't understand how hard it is for me to keep from killing you and getting rid of this problem at its source."
"S-Sev, w-why are you doing all this?" the girl said, her voice trembling as tears began to well up in her eyes.
"Eh... women really are strange creatures..." He shook his head, approaching her and extending his hand toward her neck. She closed her eyes, expecting the worst, but it never happened. When she opened her eyes, she saw a lock of her long, red hair in Snape's indifferent hand. "First you claim I'm not 'he,' and now you're calling me 'him.' You should probably decide."
"Sev would never hurt me..."
"You may be right, he, yes, but I..." His hand moved sharply to her slender neck and squeezed it lightly, "...I can, but I won't." Unclasping his hand, he turned and headed for the cauldron, drawing his wand. "I swear by my magic that I am Severus Snape and no one else." Under the girl's shocked gaze, a light flashed above the wand, indicating that Snape had not lied. "Lily, you never understood me, considering me a Dark wizard, and I wouldn't even be surprised if in your head you placed me on a pedestal equal to the Death Eaters."
"That's not true! I've always considered you my friend!"
"Then why, instead of supporting me in my study of Dark Magic, did you only criticize it? Because Dark Magic is evil?" Seeing her bite her lip, Alan shook his head. "You're too narrow-minded. Tell me, do you consider Merlin a Dark Mage? Evil incarnate?"
"Of course not!"
"But he was a Dark Mage, one of the most powerful Dark Mages in his time. Of course, he also wielded Light Magic, but in battle, he always used Dark Magic because it was more powerful. And if we follow your logic, he was even more evil than Voldemort," the girl shuddered at the last word. "Now, you criticized my 'friends'..."
"Because they were all terrible people!"
"I'm not arguing, but tell me: did you want me to live in complete solitude? Like a puppy waiting for its owner's call?"
"N-no, that's not true, I just wanted..."
"Help me, open my eyes to them? Didn't you think I already knew that?" Alan said, looking irritably at the startled witch. "Lily, I was in Slytherin, a house full of purebloods. Tell me, who am I supposed to associate with there? I'm a half-blood, Lily, do you understand that? In these turbulent times, when the Dark Lord started recruiting people, do you think anyone would associate with me, a half-blood, a non-pureblood wizard? And when such people finally appeared, you immediately began criticizing them and telling me to stop associating with them, meaning losing the only 'friends' I could make in my house. Lily, you're selfish, do you understand that? While you had friends with whom you were having fun, I had to be alone and at your first call I had to rush over at the same second, that's what you wanted, right?"
"No! No! I never thought that! I just wanted…"
Raising his palm, stopping the girl's speech, he returned to the living room and, taking out a bag, began to take out certain needles, which after a few seconds turned into jars with ingredients.
"Sev... why did you do this to your father?" Lily asked him quietly, her voice trembling, turning her gaze to the basement, from which indistinct muttering was coming.
"It's called 'revenge.'"
"Revenge…?"
"Yeah, hey! You damn oaf, get up here!"
Tobias emerged from the basement with heavy steps, swaying from side to side, his eyes no longer filled with rage, but only horror as he looked into Alan's indifferent face.
"Tell me, why am I tormenting you?"
"Y-you're a m-monster..."
"A monster, you say? So that's what you think... you still haven't realized your mistake, and I wanted to keep you alive..." He shook his head in disappointment and looked toward the photograph lying in the corner of the room. "Tell me, what did you do to my mother?"
"I… I… beat her to d-death," Tobias's words sent shivers down Lily's spine, and shock showed on her face, because she didn't even know that Severus's mother had died.
"What did you feel at that moment?"
"I... was... happy that the w-witch... died..." He uttered each word with a face as pale as a corpse, struggling and trembling.
"I see, but when did you beat her in the last ten years?"
"I... I felt alive! That damn witch should have died a long time ago and left me alone!"
"Now do you understand why I'm doing this?" he asked Lily with a smile, her face as pale as Tobias's.
"Sev... stop... you shouldn't stoop to his level, I understand that he did something terrible, but..." but before the girl could finish speaking, Alan's hand landed on her cheek.
"Lily, you are too naive a girl, you don't understand that our world is not a fairy tale. If you continue to think like that, then in the end you will die young, mark my words... Obliviate..."