Gifts

This was a dream. No wonder Eddie Watt had asked her whether she was real.

She saw the glowing Pensieve and walked toward it without hesitation.

"I want to leave that home." After leaving the dining hall, she found the publicly humiliated Slytherin first-year on a small slope near the greenhouse.

"Why?" asked the older Hufflepuff girl.

"My mother used to be a player on the Highstone team when she was young." He threw a pebble, startling a bird into flight. "I really don't know what she saw in him."

"Who is he? Your father?"

"Tobias Snape, a Muggle." He threw another stone. "He won't let my mother use her wand, but he's always rough with her!"

"You hate your father?"

"No!" Snape picked up a snail shell and threw it. "I just can't understand why she doesn't fight back."

Unless she used a wand, a woman could not possibly be a match for a man. Pomona herself could not understand what sort of relationship would make a witch endure domestic abuse from a Muggle rather than resist.

"Maybe because she doesn't want to hurt him." It was the only reasonable explanation Pomona could think of.

Snape gave a cold smile, as though he did not believe his Muggle father could be hurt.

"He betrayed her!" Snape said gloomily after a long while. "I saw him dating a Muggle woman. Maybe they'll get divorced soon. I need money. Can you help me?"

Poor child.

She opened her arms, only to find two people before her. The adult mercilessly shoved the younger one aside, like chicks fighting over food.

"She's mine. Get lost!"

The younger one refused to yield, raising his wand to fight back.

"He never truly liked anything, never." The teenage boy with the large nose leaned against her chest. "My mother gave me this name because she hoped I would love something sincerely."

Yes, the whole world knew that you sincerely loved Lily Potter.

She wiped away her tears and was about to turn around when she discovered a hand beneath the seat gripping her ankle.

"Help me," he said weakly. She recognized him as the demon who had always called her a stupid woman.

Dumbledore shook his head at her from the other end, as though it was not yet time.

"Pomona..."

She heard that desperate voice calling again. This time, he was not pretending to be pitiful.

After the fifth-year Ordinary Wizarding Levels, James Potter went after him again. At the time, he had not yet learned Dark magic. After being hit by Expelliarmus, he could only be at their mercy. That was why he hated James.

It was not because Potter came from a prominent or wealthy family. He hated the feeling of being unable to fight back, just like his mother, Eileen Prince. She clearly had power, yet did not resist, allowing herself to be bullied, humiliated, and even betrayed by someone weaker.

In the end, Muggle men should still be with Muggle women. Even if a Muggle man initially found being with a witch exciting, after enough time he would come to fear her power and find her habits different from his own. They would gradually drift apart, yet the witch would stubbornly continue loving him.

"Our experiment to change fate with the Time-Turner failed, Tom," Pomona said to the obsessive monster. "Sirius Black still died in the end. If I revive you with the Resurrection Stone, I don't know what effect it will have. Do you still want to continue the experiment?"

She remembered how out of control Harry had been after learning of Sirius's death. He had thought Sirius would return as a pearly white ghost.

Sirius should have had his soul sucked away by the Dementors beside that lake long ago. Harry saved the Hippogriff Buckbeak, and Sirius ultimately lived two more years, giving him and Harry a brief happy life together. That was roughly the value of a life.

Mages had originally been priests, gaining the authority to borrow divine power in the material world through the sacrifice of life. But time magic worked in reverse: only by saving lives could one gain more time to live.

Do you understand, Tom?

The little bit of soul Tom Riddle had left was filled with terror. Pomona knew he was not ready yet.

"Maybe I'll come see you again." She stroked his bald head, smooth just like Robby's.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"You know who I am?" She sighed and stood up. This time, she was going to find herself a husband who was not particularly handsome.

It was impossible to use a Time-Turner to save someone destined to die. They had tested that already. The subject had been Sirius Black, and the location had been Hogwarts' Forbidden Forest. Otherwise, how could Harry, a third-year who had only just learned Expecto Patronum, possibly have driven away so many Dementors?

That old bastard Dumbledore loved conducting experiments, and he would not tell the subjects until the very last moment because he wanted their genuine reactions!

Walking out of the white, hazy station, she returned to Hogwarts. She followed the steps down to the water's edge and stared into the depths of the Black Lake. After a long while, a stream of bubbles rose to the surface, followed by a beautiful woman. Her wet hair clung tightly to her scalp, revealing a smooth forehead and green eyes. Her lips curled upward. If not for her fishtail, one might have thought she was a beautiful woman who had accidentally fallen into the water.

"What did you bring us to eat today, Pomona?"

"Dumbledore said I should spend more time with my friends." She crouched down and sat directly on the ground, just as she had in the Divination classroom before. "There's no food today. We'll just chat."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"How did you come to Hogwarts?"

"We swam here along the water."

"Then why did you settle here?"

"There are magnificent buildings underwater. We like them. Do you want to see?"

She thought about it, then shook her head.

"From the bottom of the lake, we can see your school. We can observe humans through those windows." The mermaid wound a lock of hair around her finger. "You know, like how you keep goldfish in glass tanks, only the other way around."

She thought again of the inscription on the Mirror of Erised.

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi

Reading it that way had no meaning. Only when read backward did it reveal its meaning.

"Severus, do you just want a beautiful woman for a wife, or do you want me?"

"You. Of course it's you!" he said tearfully.

That idiot had nearly been blinded by power like Tom and made a series of wrong decisions. That punishment should have been enough just now, right?

She lay on the ground and gazed up at the sky. Against the blue sky, a plane flew through the sea of clouds, leaving a long white trail behind it. Muggles could fly now too.

So were wizards becoming more and more like Muggles, or were Muggles becoming more and more like wizards?

"Why is it so hard for me to make a fortune growing flowers and plants, and have a romance now and then?"

The mermaid did not understand what the human girl lying on the ground was complaining about. Seeing there was no food, she flipped over and returned to the water, stirring up a small wave before vanishing without a trace.