Snape understood perfectly why James had appeared here. He had merely found out somehow that Snape would be attending this party, and that Lily would be coming as well.
"This child..." Slughorn shook his head helplessly. "Never mind, it's getting late. Time to head back, children, or we'll be in trouble too."
The little golden clock on his desk had already passed ten.
The students filed out one after another. Slughorn heaved himself out of his chair and accompanied Fabian downstairs.
When they returned to the dormitory, it was just the two of them again. No one knew what Mulciber had gone off to do; lately, he had been returning very late every night.
Aber eagerly gave Snape a thumbs-up.
"What did I just see? A Slytherin mocking Gryffindor for blood prejudice! Tsk, tsk, you made it sound so real. Terrifying."
"Don't slander me. I'm absolutely the biggest supporter of Muggle-born wizards in the entire Wizarding World right now."
Snape replied irritably as he patted his pillow into a more comfortable shape.
"Potter actually wanted to attend the party this time. It's not as if Old Sluggy hadn't invited him before." Aber changed into his pajamas and climbed into bed. "Still, the party really wasn't much fun. Don't expect me to go with you next time."
"Suit yourself." Snape swung his legs up and got into bed, lying comfortably against his pillow as he watched the wavering glimmer of light on the glass window.
"Aber, that poor girl who was killed over thirty years ago... who do you think she was?"
"How would I know?" Aber said with a yawn.
"Then who do you think would know what happened back then?"
"So many years have passed. Apart from a few old professors, who else could know? Maybe you could ask the Headmaster yourself."
"Wait." Aber suddenly sat upright, instantly alert. "Even though everyone has changed, the ghosts have always been at Hogwarts."
But he immediately lay back down again. "Forget about your Little Tom. How could you possibly earn today's medal with a story from over thirty years ago?"
"That's hard to say. Besides, don't you think uncovering these ancient secrets is interesting?"
Snape drew the curtains around his four-poster bed.
"We have Care of Magical Creatures tomorrow morning. Good night."
Early the next morning, Care of Magical Creatures teacher Silvanus Kettleburn led the scattered handful of students toward a crooked shack at the edge of the grounds.
"Children, come with me."
He sat in an unusual wooden chair that served much the same function as a Muggle wheelchair, except that it had four short legs capable of moving forward in alternating steps.
In their third year, Kettleburn had once complained to the students that if Dumbledore had not personally made this chair for him, he would have retired long ago.
Beside the crudely built shack, the Gamekeeper Hagrid was already waiting for them. At his feet stood a low mound of earth.
Only when they drew close did Snape notice the shallow pit beside Hagrid.
A shovel larger than a rubbish-bin lid lay beside a wooden barrel. Clearly, the mound was made of soil Hagrid had dug out.
"Thank you, Hagrid. I'll have to trouble you to pour this barrel of Floo Powder into the pit." Kettleburn pointed at the shallow pit with his only remaining hand.
Following his instructions, Hagrid easily lifted the wooden barrel.
With a whoosh, emerald magical flames sprang up, rising nearly as high as Hagrid.
After the flames had burned quietly for several minutes, Kettleburn asked, "Does anyone know which magical creature we'll be observing today?"
Lily raised her hand.
"You tell us, Miss Evans." Kettleburn smiled at her.
"Ashwinders," Lily said. "When a magical fire burns unchecked for too long, Ashwinders are created out of thin air."
"Precisely right. Five points to Gryffindor." Kettleburn added, "An Ashwinder is a snake with red-glowing eyes. It emerges from the ashes of an unattended fire and slithers into the shadows of a house to lay its eggs."
"What I especially need to warn you about," he said gravely, "is that you must never cast an Engorgement Charm on an Ashwinder. The consequences would be far beyond what you could accept."
"What would happen if someone did?" Snape asked.
"Under the spell's effects, the Ashwinder would swell until it was thicker than your thigh. Then, without warning, it and its enormous fire eggs would explode with a bang, setting everything around them ablaze."
Kettleburn made an exaggerated gesture with one hand.
By then, the Floo Powder flames had gone out.
Several slender, ash-white Ashwinders emerged from the ashes and slithered toward the shack, leaving winding trails of ash behind them.
"An Ashwinder lives for only one short hour. During that hour, it finds a dark, concealed place to lay its eggs, then its body breaks apart and turns to dust."
Kettleburn's chair took small steps toward the shack, and the students followed him inside.
He pointed to where the ash trail disappeared. "Aber, help me move that pile of hay."
Behind the haystack, three brilliantly red snake eggs lay quietly amid the fine ashes.
"If you fail to discover and properly deal with these fire eggs in time, they will set the house ablaze very quickly."
Kettleburn took out his Wand from his robes.
"Glacius."
A stream of frigid air shot from the tip of his Wand, and the blazing red glow of two eggs swiftly transformed into blue-white ice crystals.
"Come on, get out quickly." Kettleburn used magic to put away the frozen eggs and urged the students out of the shack.
Not long after they reached the open ground, the shack burst into roaring flames before them with a piercing boom.
"Aguamenti." Kettleburn doused the shack with water until the last spark had been extinguished.
"See? If you find signs of Ashwinders in a house, you must immediately locate and freeze their eggs with a Freezing Charm. Otherwise, I advise you to leave as quickly as possible."
Then he used a Levitation Charm to display the two frozen eggs to the students.
"Of course, once these eggs have been frozen, they become extremely valuable. They can be used to make Love Potions, or swallowed whole to treat fevers."
After class, Snape voluntarily stayed behind to help Hagrid clean up the lesson site.
"Hagrid," he tried to strike up a conversation after filling in the shallow pit, "those Ashwinders are adorable, aren't they?"
But Hagrid looked at Snape with an expression of mingled shock and pity, as though he considered him both mad and pathetic.
Why are you looking at me like that too? Snape thought irritably.
He could only pretend nothing had happened. "My mother said you were already the Gamekeeper when she was at school. When did you come to Hogwarts?"
"Oh, I came here in 1940," Hagrid said in his rough voice. "I knew your mother."
"That early? There's something I wonder if I could ask you about."
Seeing that Hagrid did not object, Snape continued, "I saw a medal for the 'Special Award for Services to the School' in the Hogwarts Trophy Room. Do you know how Tom Riddle earned it?"
Before you continue