Chapter Text
The crackling of the fire echoed through the gloomy dark stone room deep in the dungeons of Hogwarts. The fire’s light made the glass bottles, flasks and vials sparkle no matter their contents, especially the glass with ice and an amber liquid in the hand of one Severus Snape. The pale skin glowed in the light, but neither the fire’s playful light or comforting warmth did nothing to brighten up the scowl that was firmly set on the professor’s lips.
The glass was tipped slightly disturbing the ice inside and pouring the last of the Amber liquid passed the professor’s lips. With only the ice left in the glass it was set on the side table next to a half empty bottle of more amber liquid, which was labeled Fire Whiskey. Long pale fingers wrapped around the bottle’s neck and poured its contents into the glass. As the bottle was set back into its place Severus’s dark eyes spotted the desk covered in papers. The sight simply made his scowl deepen and his focus shifted back to the fire as the long fingers recaptured the now full glass.
As the amber liquid in the glass reached its end again and those long fingers reached for the bottle again something made Severus stop. It was faint, but there was definitely a sound coming from the other side of his door. Not close to his quarters by any means, but still it was easy to tell something metallic fell down the stone steps leading to his door. Thoroughly annoyed by this noise he released the bottle and with a dramatic flourish of his robes he left to investigate.
Severus showed no sign of having consumed over half a bottle of whisky. In fact, he seemed a little more relaxed as he opened the door of his living quarters to peer into the dark hall. The sound of creaking metal prompted him to pull out his wand and drench the hall in light.
The professor’s dark eyes instantly zeroed in on what was making the irritating sound. His long legs quickly carried him over to the small metal object and the pale fingers wrapped around the feather jutting out of the top of the culprit. The wiggling object was raised up for closer inspection and without a doubt it was the helmet of one of the charmed suits of armor from the upper floors. Really there was only one reason for the helmet to have traveled all the way down here and the poor student who knocked the suit over had better run for Severus was briskly climbing the stairs to find them.
Of course, irritation was high both for the professor and the charmed helmet which seemed quite upset to be away from its body. Each step seemed to increase the tension making the danger for the student dumb enough to be out after curfew much worse. With the last step traversed Severus let the light from his wand light up the area. The black eyes narrowed as he saw motion behind a bench.
“Come out.” Severus said harshly and he made sure the foolish student knew they were caught. With one graceful flick of and the entire bench floated upwards exposing the foolish student. “Mr. Potter. Why am I not surprised?” He said harshly. Despite the fact that Harry’s back was facing him he knew who it was. After all, the messy hair and glasses perched on the head were a dead give away.
“I can’t see, Professor Snape.” Harry murmured.
An annoyed scowl made its way to Severus’ lips, “Perhaps putting your glasses on might help.” His irritation increased sharply when the boy just seemed to tilt his head as if looking at the floor in some half assed attempt to search for the glasses. “They’re on your head.” The potion master growled, his patience was wearing thin fast and it was only made infinitely worse by it being the last night at school before summer. There was no time left to properly discipline the arrogant boy.
Harry, who still hasn’t faced the potion master, slowly touched his head and moved the glasses down to where they’d be the most useful, “I still can’t see, professor.”
A furious Severus stepped over to the boy and grabbed his shoulder, “I’ve had enough of your arroga-“ The words died in his throat when he forced Harry to turn and face him.
“Do you see what’s wrong, professor?” Harry asked in a bland, dead tone as if he was in a daze.
The problem was horrifyingly obvious ...
Harry’s eyes were gone!
The spots where those green eyes sat were empty bloody sockets with the optic nerves hanging out. Blood trickled out of the sockets and down the boy’s deathly pale cheeks like gruesome tears. A truly horrifying sight for sure. It was enough to even leave Snape speechless. However, a creak from above was the only warning they had before the bench came crashing down.
Even Snape had no time to move or react in any way. All he could do was watch the bench land squarely on Harry and only barely graze the potion master’s hand. The pain in the hand that touched Harry’s shoulder snapped Snape out of his daze and he noticed something.
Harry Potter wasn’t under the bench. In fact, he vanished completely. The only evidence that Snape saw anything at all was the pain in his hand and the enchanted helmet whimpering in his hand.
The dark eyes skimmed over the scene several times, but there was no satisfactory answer for what he saw. Without any sign of the boy there was no reason to stay so the professor returned the scared helmet back to its suit. With one last glance at the heavy bench Severus slowly walked back down to the dungeon.
The path he took many times a day seemed very different. It was eerie and he stopped every few steps to listen. He felt like something was following him, but nothing could be seen or heard beyond the sounds of his own footsteps echoing off the stone walls.
By the time he reached the door he almost thought it was safe enough to let his body relax, but once his sore hand moved up so the dark eyes could examine the scrape he saw a pale dead hand moving up with it from behind him. Severus immediately jolted to the side and aimed his wand where the owner of the dead hand should have been. Yet again, there was nothing there. Nothing but a whisper …
‘Do you see what’s wrong, professor?’
The potion master stiffened, but used his wand to flood the dungeon with light. Yet again, nothing was revealed, but despite that he stayed on high alert. With his eyes carefully watching the hallway he said the password and let the door to his living quarters swing open while he stepped backwards into his room. His dark eyes never lost sight of the hallway as the door slowly swung closed.
Once the door was shut he relaxed a little until a sound from inside his living quarters made him whirl around and aim the wand at the noise. However threatening he might’ve looked to anyone else, the ice in his glass, which made the startling clinking noise, was not frightened.
As the wand slowly lowered the dark eyes narrowed in on the glass. The graceful pale fingers reached out and wrapped around the innocent sparkling glass. After a few moments of glaring at the noisy ice floating in the amber liquid Severus took revenge by tossing the contents of the glass into the fire. As the ice cubes that dared to startle Severus melted away he set the glass down. With one last glance at the door he finally decided he needed sleep.
Perhaps he just needed this school year to finally end and to get away from the brats. That’s what he thought and he didn’t see or hear anything else for the rest of the night. It was looking like everything went back to normal until he got ready to go to the last breakfast of the school year.
This time, after waking, getting dressed and packing everything away into his pocket, Severus armed himself with his wand and slowly approached the door that would lead him to the hallway just outside his living quarters. The very hallway where something definitely happened just a few hours earlier. Whatever it was that horror that really happened Severus didn’t know, but he wasn’t letting his guard down now.
Slowly and cautiously Severus reached out towards the door. As the slender pale fingers touched the surface of the door with one hand he held his wand up at the ready with the other. A bit of pressure made the door slowly swing outward and he carefully looked for any sign of motion. After a moment of nothing happening Severus cautiously stepped out of his living quarters.
Once his door closed behind him Severus started traveling up the stone steps. Just like the night before he made a point of stopping at random moments just to listen for the sounds of footsteps other than his own. Thankfully, there was nothing disturbing about the sounds echoing off the walls. Still the potion master did not let his guard down.
After what seemed like a much longer than usual trek he finally exited the stairwell and his legs carried him down the next hall. Of course, that took him straight past the very bench where he saw whatever he saw. No force could’ve stopped him from striding right past the bench. Even the sound of the whimpering enchanted suit of armor that also witnessed what happened last night didn’t slow Severus down. In fact, he sped up and just wanted to get away from the area as fast as possible.
Only a few more minutes left and he can leave. Soon he can get away from whatever presence he encountered last night and get some peace. He just needed to get through breakfast and, despite having no appetite, he did make an effort to look like his usual self, which he had to do. If Minerva or Poppy thought something was wrong with him he’d be told to stay in the castle until they thought he was ok and he couldn’t stay here any longer. Unfortunately, trying to act normal wasn’t as easy as Severus expected.
As those dark eyes flickered up from his barely touched food they locked onto Harry Potter. Nothing about the 12 year old boy seemed off. Green eyes were where they should be and the flesh didn’t look like that of a corpse. There was nothing even remotely like the disturbing thing from before. However, he realized he wasn’t looking in the right spot.
Once his eye slowly lowered to return to his plate he noticed something. Ten pale dead fingers were clinging to the edge of the staff table right across from where he was seated. With his heart pounding in his chest he stared at the fingers half expecting the hands to pull something up. He even readied his wand under the table in order to attack. However, Dumbledore stood up and Severus broke eye contact for a second. By the time Severus looked back the fingers were gone and the students were heading out to the train.
“I’m glad to see Ms. Granger and Ms. Weasley are doing so well after everything that happened this year.” Minerva commented fondly as the students piled in the train.
Dumbledore smiled, “Yes. Harry was truly brave helping Ginny. He will be a great hero one day with the right guidance.”
Minerva scoffed, “Maybe. He still needs to learn to behave for once.” She frowned as she saw Severus staring at the departing train. “No need to worry, Severus. The brats are gone.” She said with an amused smirk.
“Indeed.” Severus said, still on high alert despite feeling better with Harry Potter being gone. “Lockhart was arrested and the basilisk was removed, right?”
“Yes. Everything was handled.” Dumbledore said cheerfully, but rather dismissively. “Have a good summer everyone!”
Severus only nodded as a sign that he heard everyone else’s goodbyes. Finally, he turned to leave too. With everything he needed shrunken to fit in his pocket he didn’t have to return to the dungeon. Instead he went up to the headmaster’s office and used that floo to return to his current residence.
The muggle house was creepy in its own way, but Severus reinforced it with a wide number of protection spells. Unlike Hogwarts, this house would not allow ghosts or any dangerous creatures to come in. Now he has time to figure out what that thing was and he really believed that as he put his things away.
At least, he thought he was safe until he heard a door slam shut and the floorboards above his head creak with the sound of footsteps that didn’t belong to him ...