Snape: I Hate Seers

At that moment, Harry Potter could not help recalling Snape's terrifying sarcasm from their very first Potions class, the kind that had given him nightmares for ages.

And all the other overt and subtle ways Snape had targeted him.

He had been best friends with my mum when they were at school?! Harry's eyes widened so much they nearly tore out of their sockets.

But seeing Roger's absolute certainty, and Snape's twisted expression as he remained silent after Roger's question, a thought flashed through Harry's mind.

...Could it be true? For a moment, Harry's little heart was filled with huge question marks.

"...Roger!" Unlike Harry, whose eyes were wide with shock, Snape's pupils were filled with fury, like a dragon whose reverse scale had been touched.

"Hmm?"

Seeing Snape grit his teeth as he said his name and slowly draw his wand, looking ready to have a go at him, Roger hastily waved his hands. "Don't misunderstand. I'm not here to pick a fight."

As he spoke, Roger also prepared himself for battle.

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

"I merely wanted to help Harry learn more about his family... You know his circumstances. Besides you, there should be many other staff members at Hogwarts who have memories of Harry's family. I will visit them one by one afterward as well."

"However, you should be the person at this school who knew Harry's mother best. After all, you knew her before you received your Hogwarts acceptance letters, which is why I came to visit you first."

"I..."

"Shut up!" Snape growled, cutting Roger off.

As his words fell, Snape slowly clenched the fabric of his wizarding robes over his chest with one hand.

The flush of anger on his face faded, returning to pallor—an almost deathly pallor.

The memories buried in the deepest corners of his heart surfaced one by one at Roger's words, their dust wiped away. Everything was as clear as yesterday. All those bittersweet moments were like a sharp blade coated in sweet poison, wildly twisting through his chest.

Snape raised his wand.

Roger met his gaze calmly.

In the end, Snape's wand did not point at Roger. Instead, he pressed it to his own temple.

With a flick of his wand, Snape drew a strand of silver-shining memory from his mind.

"Annoying seer, shut those peeping eyes of yours. Take these memories and get out of my office! Immediately!" Snape, radiating oppressive gloom, slowly stepped forward and glared down at Roger with a sharp gaze.

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

Roger calmly brushed a finger over the surface of the Pensieve, then paused. "...Professor Snape, you put a little resentment in there too."

"Is that not allowed?" Snape, standing close enough to touch Roger, curled his lips into a cold sneer.

"They can do it, but I can't say it?"

Roger had come to ask for memories of Lily, but Snape had thrown in a bonus: memories involving Harry's father, James Potter.

They were not pleasant memories.

Roger nodded at that. "Of course you can."

Yet as he spoke, he reached his hand into the Pensieve, which allowed someone to experience memories firsthand, with an effect similar to Virtual Reality inside one's mind.

The next instant, a nearly imperceptible flicker of surprise crossed Snape's face.

He watched Roger take the memory Snape had placed in the Pensieve out with his bare hand.

Then, as though unraveling silk, he cut out every part involving James Potter.

This skill... Before Snape could react, Roger placed the two strands of memory back into the Pensieve, one after the other.

Snape's increasingly gloomy gaze suddenly froze. He could not understand what Roger meant by this.

Roger was not someone who liked to keep people guessing. He said directly, "Everyone is multifaceted and complex. They have good sides and bad sides. I want Harry to understand something more real, rather than a gorgeous painting that has been prettified."

"Of course, I'll let Harry view the more controversial parts last. When the time comes, he can judge right and wrong for himself. I won't interfere."

Roger's deal with Harry was that Harry would become Roger's "technical miner," while Roger would help him resurrect his family.

Throughout that process, Roger wanted there to be no deception whatsoever. He also did not want Harry to truly revive his parents, only to discover that what he got was not quite what he had expected.

Besides, if Harry got halfway through the process and then saw something during the journey through time and space that shook him to the core, causing him to begin doubting whether everything was right, that would be even more troublesome.

It would be better to remove every hidden danger from the start, then decide whether to embark on the journey.

That was Roger's true reason for bringing Harry to see Snape.

Even if Snape had not given him any memories of James Potter, Roger would have asked him for them in the end.

Roger and Snape met each other's eyes again.

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

Staring into Roger's eyes, Snape understood somewhat why, although some of Roger's traits were so similar to those of that person from the past, Dumbledore's attitude toward him was different.

In certain ways, he and that person were fundamentally different.

You could be wary of Roger, even hostile toward him, but you would never need to suspect him.

"Hmph. Shut the door properly when you leave." Though he understood that Roger had not come deliberately to provoke him, he still could not bring himself to like this seer with no sense of boundaries.

Tch. Annoying seer.

"So... Snape really was good friends with my mum?" Harry did not fully recover from the shock until he and Roger had left the Head of Slytherin House's office.

It could not be helped. This was simply too shocking.

That was Snape! To the Gryffindor students, especially Harry, whom Snape targeted the most, Snape's image was practically synonymous with the Dark Lord.

"The relationship between them was rather complicated. Once you've watched the memories, you'll understand for yourself." Roger had no interest in hiding anything; it was simply that the matter was too complicated. If he were to explain it, he would have to recount everything involving James Potter, Sirius, and all sorts of other messy matters.

It would be far too much talking.

"Then why does he treat me like that?" Harry lowered his head. His mind was a mess. Within just over ten minutes, the familiar world he knew had turned into something utterly strange.

"That has to do with your parents too... Actually, although Snape seems to find fault with you everywhere he looks, in truth, he is one of the few people in the world willing to protect you at any cost, even at the risk of his own life."

Roger turned his head to look at Harry, whose face was once again written with an expression of being shocked for an entire year, and said, "It's true. Don't forget, I'm a seer who can see the future."

"Would you like to see it? A glimpse of the future."