A/N: First Harry Potter fanfiction. I don't want to say too much. It'll give it away. But it does involve the post generation. Again, I'm stingy on chapters, but I like them short.
Severus Snape drew his cloak tighter around his shiver shoulders. Never in his years had he felt the weather this achingly cold. It made his bones twinge as it did when he was a child in the snow, joints stiff from the cold. A dim light shone from the windows of the tavern, illuminating the dark street of Hogsmeade. A drink, Snape thought, would be just the thing to warm me up. As he entered the building, a flourish of warm air greeted him, causing him to unbind from his bundle of cloak. The smell of firewhiskey and butterbeer filled his nostrils as he edged through the slightly-crowded room towards a table. The old chair he chose creaked under his weight as he lowered himself onto the seat. His black eyes meandered over the room for anyone he may knew, which he hoped he didn't encounter. He'd managed to keep his back to a wall, able to watch the drunken slobs who would pass by and slosh firewhiskey down his back. He refused to be that person again.
Snape began on his liquor, shivering slightly at the warmth that crept from within as he drank. A familiar voice carried over the low hum of the crowd. Low, wise. Where had he heard it before?
"Sybill?" Panicked now.
"Sybill? What is it?" Suddenly, Snape knew. He spun around and saw over the half-wall, Albus Dumbledore. He was completely white-haired, with both wisdom and age, his beard long enough to rest over his thigh. Snape could only see his back, but he knew that Dumbledore was interviewing this woman across the table from him for a position at Hogwarts. Dumbledore extended a bony hand towards the one named Sybill, shaking her gently. Her frizzy red mess of hair jostled, but she just stared. Two brown eyes blankly glaring straight ahead, magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses. A chorus of untrained metallic voices filled the air as her shawl was gently shaken, the golden jewelry of her wrists and hands chiming in as well.
The noise of the pub rose conveniently when Snape saw the woman's mouth move, her eyes still locked on some useless point ahead of her. Severus strained himself to hear, cursing the loudness of the room, but his jaw fell slack at the words he heard.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…" Her voice was flat, emotionless. Empty to match her eyes. It was if she was a puppet. Actually, that's exactly what it was. "Born to those who thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…"
"Hey!" Snape felt the nape of his collar get yanked, pulling him away from the half-wall. "You stop your spyin', eh?" He looked into the eyes of the thick-bodied bartender, black and beady, glinting in the lamplights. Snape was unable to speak, frozen with shock of what he'd just heard and surprise of being jerked. "Get outta here, ya greasy git!" the tender spat, shoving his customer towards the doorway, back into the cold. Without even thinking, Snape made himself a ghostly black orb in the air, trailing smoke as he flew. The bartender, shocked, stared at his bare palm before hurrying back into the tavern towards Dumbledore in the corner, for he had seen a majority of the scene and knew it was serious.
"Dumbledore," he wheezed, trying to keep his voice quiet. "A deatheater heard your conversation." The old man turned, looking from the frazzled woman in front of him.
"Don't worry. Tom has to find out somehow," Dumbledore said rather solemnly, eyes briefly empty before looking up to the beefy barman. "It's the Prophecy."