Snape pulled out the stopper, and a peculiar, delicate fragrance immediately wafted from the bottle's opening.
"Smell this," he said, extending the crystal vial directly under Sirius's nose.
Sirius instinctively frowned, stepping back two paces, a flicker of displeasure crossing his face, but he couldn't help but sniff.
"Amortentia?" he asked tentatively.
"Exactly," Snape nodded slightly. "What do you smell?"
"What's it to you?" Sirius replied gruffly, refusing to answer the question.
The scent from the bottle reminded him of the alluring aroma he'd smelled in old Slughorn's class at the beginning of the term. It brought to mind the Forbidden Forest shrouded in mist after a midnight rain, and the freshly mown grass of the Quidditch pitch.
Back then, James had asked him the same question, and he'd found an excuse to avoid it.
He believed he and James would always be the best of friends. As a friend, he should support James in his pursuit of happiness.
"Who are you planning to use this on?" Sirius asked warily.
"Lend me a strand of your hair," Snape said, quickly reaching out and taking a fallen hair from Sirius's shoulder, placing it in the crystal vial, and shaking it gently. "Now, it's uniquely yours."
The Amortentia turned transparent after Sirius's hair was added, and the captivating scent dissipated.
Sirius took a few more steps back, his eyes full of caution.
"I don't need it," he said. "I don't need this kind of thing with girls."
"You're always very popular with girls," Snape said, looking at Sirius with confusion. "But who said this was for girls?"
Snape believed the danger of Amortentia, a notorious Dark Lord creation, was significantly underestimated. Although in the original story it only showed girls giving the potion to boys, the potion's effects weren't limited by the drinker's gender.
Speaking of which, poor old Tom had been enjoying a lovely romance with his beautiful girlfriend, Cecilia, but simply by drinking a glass of water handed to him by a witch, he inexplicably ended up with a son sharing his name. After sobering up, he didn't find justice, but instead lost his home and family.
Even more absurdly, later on, Amortentia could even be openly sold at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and delivered directly to the school via owl order service.
Seeing that Sirius didn't take the crystal vial he offered, Snape continued, "James hasn't left the Gryffindor Tower for days, has he? He even missed today's Quidditch match. Do you think he can recover from this setback?"
"Don't look at me so fiercely," Snape said calmly. "What's done is done; it's too late for anything. Just like when you all hung me upside down here, you need to learn to accept the consequences, just like I did."
Sirius remained silent, his face darkening. He seemed to have guessed the unspoken meaning behind Snape's words.
"James must have told you he likes Lily," Snape said. "But think about it, if you were such an excellent girl, would you accept someone who embarrassed himself by showing his bare backside in front of the whole school?"
Sirius raised his wand again, his eyes blazing.
"Don't get agitated, relax," Snape shrugged. "Now we need to discuss how to solve the problem. If James continues to be so down, your best friend will be ruined."
"I believe you are his best friend. Sometimes, there's only a thin pane of glass between two people."
"I read in a Muggle book that in this situation, he'll need a little positive stimulation. That can help him recover from past wounds."
"Take it..." Snape pressed the crystal vial into Sirius's hand, his voice like a demonic whisper in Sirius's ear. "Whether you use it or not is up to you... Remember, doing this is to help him..."
A cold wind, damp with moisture, rustled through the branches of the beech trees.
With that, Snape turned and walked away from the lakeside. When he reached the stone steps in front of the castle, he looked back and vaguely saw Sirius still standing in the shade of the beech tree.
Snape wasn't sure if Sirius would use the potion, but he knew that Sirius only had eyes for James.
---
As he entered the Great Hall, Snape saw Filch and Madam Pince huddled together, whispering about something.
Curious, he sat on the outermost bench, craning his neck, straining to hear what they were discussing.
If only he had an Extendable Ear made by the twins right now.
"Yes... I found her in the village. I heard her mother abandoned her because she was too scrawny..." Madam Pince's voice drifted over intermittently.
"Can I see her...?" Filch mumbled. "Oh, the poor little thing... Give her to me, Irma, I'll take care of her..."
Snape was so engrossed that he almost leaned completely over to the doorway.
"Sit properly!" Filch suddenly appeared beside Snape and yelled loudly, startling him. "If you don't want to eat, you can go wait in my office!"
With that, Filch picked a few pieces of chicken breast and beef from a serving platter and hummed a tune as he left the Great Hall.
When he reappeared among the students, Filch had a kitten, inseparable from him, by his side. He called this small, dark grey-furred cat Mrs. Norris.
---
February quickly turned into March, with no significant improvement in the weather—it was just damp and windy. Occasionally, Snape and his companions would spend some time with a shy, straw-haired boy, usually when they could avoid others' attention.
The group, especially Abbott, never held back their praise for Barty Jr. Abbott even wished he could shove a quill directly into Barty Jr.'s hand; if it weren't for him, Professor Grubbly-Plank's essay on how to deal with Dementors would likely have been delayed for a long time.
---
During another meeting in the library, Barty Jr. hesitated for a long time before casually crumpling a small piece of parchment and inadvertently dropping it at Snape's feet.
Snape pretended to accidentally knock a book to the floor, and as he bent down to pick it up, he slipped the small paper ball into his sleeve.
When he looked up, he saw Madam Pince's vulture-like face in front of him.
"What have you done to that book? You wicked, bad boy!" she shrieked.
"Sacrilege!" Madam Pince's face turned beet red. "Defilement!"
She looked as if she was about to have a heart attack, so Snape quickly gathered his things and scurried out of the library.
He hurried to an empty corner, opened the crumpled paper, and found a disjointed sentence written in neat handwriting: "They want us to join now."