Chapter 45: Snape: I Hate Seers

At this moment, Harry Potter could not help but recall the horrifying sarcasm from Snape that had given him countless nightmares ever since his very first Potions class.

And all sorts of other deliberate or unintentional targeting.

He and my mother were very good friends when they were at school?!

Harry's eyes widened to the point where they almost split their sockets.

Yet, looking at Roger’s confident and certain expression, and hearing Snape standing in distorted, wordless silence after Roger’s inquiry, a thought flashed through Harry’s mind.

……Could it actually be true?

For a moment, Harry’s tiny heart was filled to the brim with giant question marks.

“……Roger!” Unlike Harry, whose eyes were wide with shock, Snape’s pupils were flooded with anger, resembling a dragon whose sacred scale had been touched.

“Hmm?”

Seeing Snape gritting his teeth as he uttered his name, slowly drawing his wand as if he intended to spar right then and there, Roger quickly waved his hands. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not here to pick a fight.”

As he spoke, Roger prepared himself for combat.

Just in case Snape acted rashly in the heat of the moment.

“I merely wished to help Harry understand his family a bit better… You know his situation well. It’s not just you; there are undoubtedly many other faculty members at Hogwarts who hold memories of Harry’s family, and I shall visit them one by one afterward.”

“However, you must be the person in this school who understands Harry’s mother best, especially since you knew her even before you both received your Hogwarts acceptance letters. That is why I came to visit you first.”

“I—”

“Shut up!” Snape growled, cutting Roger off.

As the words fell, Snape slowly gripped the fabric of his wizard’s robes tightly over his chest.

The flush of anger that had reddened his face faded back to a pale, almost deathly white.

All those memories buried deep within the bottom of his heart rose to the surface one by one at Roger’s words, the dust wiped away. Everything was as vivid as yesterday; those bittersweet experiences twisted violently in his chest like a sharp blade coated in sweet poison.

Snape raised his wand.

Roger met his gaze calmly.

In the end, Snape’s wand did not point at Roger, but instead pressed against his own temple.

With a flick of the wand, a wisp of silvery-white memory was drawn out from the depths of his mind.

“Hateful seer, close your prying eyes, take these memories, and get out of my office! Immediately!” Shrouded in a low-pressure gloom of fury, Snape stepped forward slowly, glaring down at Roger with piercing, fierce eyes.

The silvery-white memory fell into Roger’s Pensieve.

Roger calmly tapped the surface above the Pensieve with his finger, then paused: “……Professor Snape, you even threw in a bit of resentment.”

“Is that a problem?” Snape, standing within arm's reach of Roger, curled his lips into a cold sneer.

“They are allowed to do it, but I am not allowed to mention it?”

What Roger had come to ask him for were memories concerning Lily, but Snape had offered a buy-one-get-one-free deal, tossing in his memories regarding Harry’s father, James Potter, as well.

And those were hardly pleasant recollections.

To this, Roger nodded. “Of course not.”

Yet, as he spoke, he reached his hand straight into the Pensieve—a magical basin that allowed one to physically interact with memories, producing a virtual-reality-like effect within the mind.

The next instant, a flicker of imperceptible astonishment crossed Snape’s face.

He watched as Roger actually extracted his memory from the Pensieve with his bare hands.

And then, with meticulous precision, as if pulling silk from a cocoon, he completely ‘edited out’ all the parts concerning James Potter.

Such a technique… Before Snape could even react, those two strands of memory were tossed back into the Pensieve one after the other by Roger.

Snape’s increasingly gloomy gaze suddenly stalled; he failed to grasp the meaning behind Roger’s actions.

Roger was not someone who enjoyed playing guessing games, so he spoke directly: “Everyone is multifaceted and complex, possessing both good sides and bad. I want Harry to understand something more authentic, rather than a whitewashed, glittering portrait.”

“Of course, I will let Harry view the controversial contents last. At that time, he can judge right and wrong for himself; I will not interfere.”

The bargain between Roger and Harry was that Harry would serve as Roger’s ‘technical miner,’ and Roger would assist him in resurrecting his family.

Throughout this process, Roger hoped there would not be a shred of deception, nor did he want Harry to discover that the resurrected parents didn't quite match the expectations once the resurrection was complete.

Besides, if Harry made it halfway through only to encounter something on their temporal travels that shook his soul and caused him to doubt the righteousness of it all, it would lead to even greater trouble later on.

It was far better to unearth and clear away all hidden mines from the very beginning before deciding whether to embark on the journey.

This was Roger’s true intent in bringing Harry to see Snape.

Even if Snape had refused to give him the memories of James Potter, Roger would have eventually sought them out anyway.

Roger and Snape locked eyes once more.

Roger’s gaze remained calm and open, while the gloom and hostility in Snape’s eyes gradually faded.

Staring into Roger’s eyes, Snape began to understand why, despite certain traits of Roger’s bearing such a striking resemblance to ‘that person’ from the past, Dumbledore’s attitude toward him was entirely different.

In certain fundamental aspects, he and ‘that person’ were decisively distinct.

One might remain wary of Roger, or even feel hostile toward him, but one would never need to harbor suspicion against him.

“Hmph, close the door properly on your way out.” Although he now understood that Roger was not deliberately trying to pick a fight, he still could not bring himself to like this boundary-less seer.

Hmph, annoying seer.

***

“So… Snape really is a good friend of my mom’s?” It was not until they had emerged together from the Slytherin Head of House’s office that Harry finally recovered his composure.

There was no helping it; the shock this had delivered to him was simply too immense.

That was Snape!

In the eyes of a Gryffindor student, especially one like Harry who received the brunt of his targeting, Snape’s image was practically on par with the Dark Lord.

“Their relationship is rather complicated. Once you view the memories, you will understand for yourself.” Roger had no interest in explaining; the matters within were genuinely intricate. To recount them all would mean rehashing James Potter, Sirius Black, and a whole mess of other chaotic business.

It was far too exhausting to talk about.

“Then why does he treat me like that?” Harry lowered his head, his mind in complete turmoil. In the span of just ten minutes, the world he thought he knew had transformed into something entirely foreign.

“That has to do with your parents as well… Actually, regardless of how it seems like Snape finds fault with you everywhere, in reality, he is one of the very few people in this world willing to risk his life and everything he has to protect you.”

Roger turned his head slightly to look at Harry, whose face once again bore the expression of someone ‘profoundly shocked for a whole year,’ and spoke: “It is true. Don’t forget, I am a seer who can see the future.”

“Would you like to see? A glimpse of what is to come.”