DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off of this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Snape, etc. J.K.R. does. I don't own Erik the Opera Ghost either—Gaston Leroux created him (or simply wrote about him, I don't know…)

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He was in a dark kitchen. An OLD dark kitchen, at that. Not that it wasn't well maintained, or that it had a lot of spiderwebs or dust or the like. It was, actually, very clean, practically spotless. But it was old in the sense that it looked like something from the past century. Snape stood, mouth open in awe. How had he suddenly come to be here? He looked at the dishtowel still on his hand, then looked to his hand itself. There was now a dark violet birthmark where the odd liquid had splattered a single dot on him. Snape was slightly surprised, but diagnosed that either he had passed out from the fumes of the potions, or else this was all real, and the 'adders fork' or so the label had misleadingly read, had transported him here. He fervently hoped it was the former alternative. To see, he pinched himself—hard.

"Ow!" he exclaimed aloud. "I certainly didn't dream that." He looked at the red welt left on his arm, only barely visible in the dim light of a single lit candle on a shelf high above, but reddening with the seconds' passing. Suddenly, he realized that he was not alone.

A shadowy figure donned in all black was hunched over in a chair at the round wood kitchen table.

"Hullo?" asked Snape warily, stepping forward. The man looked up.

Snape knew that Muggles have a habit, on Halloween, of dressing up in ridiculous costumes and going about their neighbourhoods demanding candy from every residence they came across. The costumes were everything from timid and cute to adult and sluttish to ultimately gory. At first, he thought the man was in a very good Halloween mask of the latter kind. Snape had never seen a more hideous countenance. But, after a moment, he realized that it couldn't possibly be a mask—it was the man's actual face.

"Hullo," Snape said again, somewhat nervous.

"I heard you the first time, thanks," replied the man. Snape had never been so shocked in his life—their voices sounded almost exactly the same, their low dulcet tones bouncing off the cold stone floors. Slowly, carefully, Severus drew his wand from his pocket and lit a large candelabra sitting on the unlit cast-iron stove. The light did wonders for the room. Snape looked hopefully to the other man again, half hoping the visage he had made out before would improve a bit with a bit of illumination. However, the other man scowled back in the same manner as before. Nevertheless, Snape was surprised at the fact that the man had many of his own features.

The man's skin was sallow, wan, and taught, and his shaggy sheath of long oily black hair draped him around the face, framing it with an eerie shadow. He had been deprived of a nose, and it didn't seem to be the result of a battle. His head rested on his hand in a ponderous fashion, and his luminous, catlike eyes penetrated Snape's own in a cold, observing glare. In its entirety, the scene was very odd.

Snape saw other candlesticks with the newly found light, and busied himself temporarily with putting the darkness to shame. Neither he nor the other figure said a word to each other. Finally, Snape seemed satisfied with the amount of light, and sat down primly at the other side of the table from the other figure. The other man continued to stare openly at him. Snape responded by simply gazing back calculatingly. There was a long silence.

"Why, exactly," Snape finally put forth, "Am I here?"

The other man looked somewhat amused. "I brought you here, I think," he replied dully. Snape raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"And…why would you do that?"

The man grinned suddenly, leaned back in his chair, and changed the subject entirely. "What's the year you're from?"

"When I last bothered to look, I was in December 2001. The day was the twenty-second. Why, am I no longer there?"

"No." The man scanned Snape up and down. "You're dressed rather oddly," he commented slowly.

"Where am I now, then?" Snape was convinced that he was in the hands of a madman. However, he realized that resisting wouldn't get him anything, and to play along would probably be to his benefit. This man seemed a lunatic, but a dangerous one. So Severus decided to play his cards carefully.

"1889," responded the man with a start. "At least, it was the last time I bothered to look." He stood up and proffered his hand to Snape. "You may call me Erik," he said by way of introduction.

Snape stood too. "Snape. Severus Snape," he nodded back. They cordially shook hands, not with the frigidity of the two strangers they were, but as though they were two colleagues, meeting for lunch under less bizarre circumstances. They sat again.

"All right then," Erik said. "Now we know where we are."

"Actually, I am far less enlightened than I could wish," Snape replied placidly. He wondered why 'Erik' had given no surname. Possibly even Erik was an alias…but this Snape could respect. If the man wished to be anonymous, then by Merlin, Snape would address him as but no more than Erik, and be content doing so!

Erik nodded, however, in understanding. "Of course," he replied, "Naturally, you are curious to know. Never fear, I shall inform you of all." He rose again and began to, probably unconsciously, pace. "You are, undoubtedly, a man of magical qualities?"

Snape was startled. He began to think that perhaps this man was not as mad as he said…or, at least, that he had some sort of method with his restless brand of madness.

"I am a wizard, yes," Snape answered slowly, not sure of anything else to say.

"Ah," replied the other quietly. "So that is what we're called?"

"Yes," replied Snape, a faint note of exasperation in his always-acid tone. He was eager to learn, however, more about this man, as oblivious as a Muggle, yet who claimed to be a wizard.

Erik began to speak again. "Doubtless you are familiar with port-keys then?"

Snape nodded. "Of course. Objects enchanted to transport whoever touches it to another place."

"Exactly. Well, to understand the rest, you would need to understand my history." He left off mysteriously here, seemingly debating with himself whether or not to say any more. Snape urged him on.

"And that would consist of…?"

Erik smiled thinly. "A lot." He abruptly sank down into his chair once more.

"I'm listening," noted Snape. He was genuinely interested now about this man. And besides, he didn't know what else to do with himself. Erik took a deep breath and plunged into the cold, still waters.

"Have you ever, by any sort of chance, read that book, Le Fantôme de le Opéra by Gaston Leroux?"

Snape felt a bit sheepish. It wasn't every day, to any random person, that he would admit that he sometimes frequented Muggle bookshops. However, he felt that the two of them, him and this man, had some strange something in common. Blast him if he could tell what it was.

"Well…actually, I own the book."

He hadn't meant to say THAT much.

Erik smiled slightly. His teeth, Snape could see, were immaculate, yes, but hardly straight. His incisors especially were horribly contorted; the way they appeared made him look like a vampire. Snape couldn't tell if it was a smile of amusement or of modest elation. Possibly both.

"Is this book, by any chance, popular?" Erik asked wonderingly.

"I wouldn't know, I'm no Muggle," Snape said hotly.

"Oh. I see." Erik paused. He did not appear to be very much offended. "What are Muggles, then?"

Snape paused. He had forgotten; this man didn't know what Muggles were. "Nonmagical people," he said mildly.

"Ah," Erik nodded. He seemed to be lost in thought for a minute or so.

"I do know this, however," volunteered Snape, feeling as though his remark had been perhaps a tad too brash. This was his attempt at atonement. "A man named Andrew Lloyd Webber made your book into quite a fantastic musical. It's been one of Broadway's longest-playing musicals."

"Really?" Erik seemed delighted, in a quiet way.

"Yes," assured Snape gently. He went on, "The music for that is quite stupendous and haunting, I'll never forget that stanza as long as I live…"

"So you've seen this musical too, then?"

(Oh damn, he hadn't meant to admit as much as that!) "Yes…"

There was a short pause.

"What is a musical?"

Snape almost smiled to himself. Dear, dear, this man was so ignorant! "It's basically a play, but with singing and music."

"Like an opera, then?"

"Somewhat like an opera," agreed Snape.

Erik was eager now. Here he was in familiar territory. "Do tell me about the music. What was it like?"

Snape, although he had never been an ardent student of music, knew how to play the piano passably, and knew, thus, the basic terms and phraseology of the musical language. "Well," he began, "The overture in the beginning was probably the most notable piece of the entire drama. Enwrapped in it was all the strength, passion, and angst that the characters surely felt. It made one imagine that they were in the actual story, as though they were a part of it."

Here Snape looked to Erik for a queue to stop. Receiving none, he continued. "All of the pieces, actually, were very heartfelt and profound. Even the more delicate, seemingly frivolous ones had deeper meaning behind it. And all of them were productive in that they further advanced the plot of the musical very nicely."

Erik nodded. Suddenly, without a word of warning, he was on his feet, and had grasped Snape's arm and was dragging him down a long, winding hallway.

"Where are we going," Snape asked once he caught his breath, "Or dare I ask?"

"Just a moment and you shall know," the other man said, and, at that very second, they burst into a dark room.

Odd place to end a Chapter, isn't it? Haha. I get to hold this cliffhanger over you NAH NAH NAH-NAH NAH!

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To Be Continued!

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