Lily's eyelashes fluttered. She understood the meaning behind Harry's words, and her expression grew complicated. "Yes, my Patronus is a Doe."
"Sev's Corporeal Patronus was a Doe. I never expected that. Back then, I thought... there would never be any connection between us again."
"Sev..." Harry froze, not even reacting at first.
He had always remembered only Snape's surname and normally addressed him that way. He had little impression of Snape's given name.
Lily let out a long sigh and told Harry about her past with James Potter, Sirius Black, Lupin, and Snape.
After hearing Lily's story, Harry felt a suffocating heaviness in his chest, as though something were lodged there that he could not breathe out no matter what.
He truly had not expected that the gloomy, vicious old bat would be such a complicated person in his mother Lily's account.
It also made him realize something else. "Mum, Dad and the others... they used to like picking on Snape... Professor Snape?"
"The circumstances back then were complicated. But James and the others were indeed wrong in this matter." Lily sighed deeply. "There is no excuse for that kind of behavior."
"But in that environment, with the external influence Voldemort brought, the relationship between Slytherin House and us... well... it was far worse than merely bad."
"Everyone wanted to make trouble for the other side, and the Slytherin students were extremely unfriendly toward everyone else as well... I once tried to persuade Sev not to get too involved with Dark Magic, and not to get too close to the other Slytherins."
"But... but..." Harry called out in frustration. "Dad and Sirius, they still... still ganged up on Professor Snape, didn't they?"
As though worried that he had not made himself clear enough, he added an example. "Like the way