Chapter 4 Clues?

AN I don't own Harry Potter, OUAT nor Downton Abbey. Rights go to their respective owners. English still isn't my first language and mistakes are all mine.

„Well, what are we going to do now?" O'Brien asked. „We are not going to do anything. I am not going anywhere you are." Mary answered. Snape just shook his head. „We are staying together. We are already one down, two if you consider the gourmand. We could barely survive with three people, so let's stay together." The girls groaned simultaneously. "But we need to search the compartments." Mary whined. "So? We can look together. I don't see the problem." Severus said. "The scarecrow and I only finished one compartment. How many have you guys done?" O'Brien commented. "I am not a scarecrow!" "We haven't actually had the time to search a compartment yet. We were attacked directly after we came in." Severus answered. "You can't be serious. Even with a person less and this inferior, we actually did something worthwhile." Mary stared at Snape. "We killed a bunch of Zombies!" He defended himself. "Well, I killed a lot of Zombies. You were standing there, frozen." Zelena injected. "You made noise and drew every one of those things toward us! How did that help, exactly? You are the reason, Hermione got killed!" Snape sneered. Zelena rolled her eyes whereas O'Brien asked, "Who is Hermione?" Snape looked at her disbelievingly and threw his hands up in the air as he was lost for words. The redhead though sniggered and corrected the other girl" The question should have been: Who was Hermione? And that is a great question. She was no more than a mud blood munchkin, so she doesn't matter." The former servant finally understood who they all meant. She could never remember names. "Stop! We need to calm down. We need a plan. Apparently, we have a few hours left until we can be rescued. We should use that time to find the notes. That has to be the priority." Mary gathered herself. "No. The priority has to be our lives! One death is surely enough." Snape reasoned. "We will all die if we don't find the clues in time." Mary shot back. "Besides, I can't promise I won't kill O'Brien. I am still mad at her!" "The same goes for me. If she or the wicked witch attack, I will strike back, without a care." O'Brien agreed. "Can't you bury the hatchet for now? After this thing is over you can go back to killing each other. I just want everyone intact during this spell. It seems we need all hands and wands we can get." Snape said. "Who made you responsible?" Mary intervened. "Well I was made prefect last year." "So what! Even Mary was made prefect." Zelena answered. "What is that supposed to mean?" Mary angrily shouted. "Who cares or listens to a prefect? It doesn't make you ruler of the goddamn world." The redhead answered. "Well this isn't the 'goddamn' world, it's an alternate universe." O'Brien muttered. "Which I created, so I am the ruler and you all have to listen to me!" Zelena declared gleefully. O'Brien and Severus looked at each other and both drew their wands. "Stupefy" "Avada Kedavra!". Zelena was caught off guard and just fell limp to the floor.

Mary started screaming while Severus watched the scene in horror. "Did you just kill her? You moron! You will regret this!" O'Brien only smiled. "It is called a coup. I only wanted to overthrow our ruler. Like he did." She pointed to Severus. He instantly snapped back to reality: "Slow down both of you. First, what the hell O'Brien? I only wanted to silent her, not kill her! And you used an unforgivable curse! Whenever we get out of this mess, you will certainly be excommunicated!" "Alternate Universe, Snape! The rules here are different!" O'Brien shot back. "You still can't just kill people you hate! What is wrong with you?" "You attacked her too, you know." "Yes, to silent her, so she would finally stop bragging!" "Well, she won't brag anymore, that's for sure." Mary injected. "And neither will you, you bitch! Avada" She was interrupted by a "Expelliarmus!" by Snape. Mary's wand flew out of her hand towards Snape who tried to catch the wand but failed miserably. It landed on the floor, so the teenager bent over to pick it up. Mary was furious. How did he dare to disarm her! She charged at him and threw her full body against the boy. He fell to the floor and started shouting "Seriously?! That's not ladylike at all!" "You just figured out that Lady Mary is not as good as she ought to be?" O'Brien wondered. Snape pushed Mary to the side, picked up her wand and stood up. "Okay, we need to calm down and stop attacking each other. Maybe we should start looking for clues before we all die. I mean we have been very loud, so the zombies will basically barge in here any second." Suddenly they heard a groan coming from the next waggon. "You are definitely jinxed, Snape. And I won't look for clues with either of you, you both annoy me to death. Let's go alone and just meet in an hour somewhere to see what we have." O'Brien said. "That's probably the first useful thing that girl ever said. I will go back to the other waggon and search there." Mary agreed and turned the other way. "I actually thought we had to stay together in order to survive but maybe we have to stay apart in order not to die. O'Brien, you search the two compartments to the left and I take the ones to the right. We will meet here in one hour. Maybe try not to die." Snape stated. O'Brien nodded though Mary already walked back into the first waggon. "Don't you still have her wand?" The girl asked Snape. He shrugged "She didn't seem to deem her wand any importance anymore. That is not my problem." O'Brien barked a laugh and turned to her assigned compartments.

Mary exhaled. Finally, O'Brien was out of sight. How could she just kill Zelena? Sure, the redhead could be a little exorbitant but that didn't give anyone the right to just dispose of her. She still had a little hope that no one who died in the alternate universe would actually die in reality. But she had to find the clues to break the spell at least. If not to actually save Zelena then to escape the weird smell. The teenager side stepped one zombie whose had was bashed in and walked into one compartment she hasn't searched yet. Luckily, it was empty, so she started looking for something that could resemble anything helpful. She searched the racks, underneath the seats and between the cushions but there was nothing remotely interesting. Her gaze fell to the window. The train didn't move and had stranded them in the middle of nowhere. There was only grass to be seen but no animal or human in sight. Probably one of the side effects of the apocalypse, Mary thought to herself. A groan coming from the corridor let the girl snap back to her current predicament. She heard something come closer and closer. The steps sounded heavy and the teenage girl rolled her eyes. She wasn't in a mood to deal with a zombie right now. She wanted to draw her wand, realising it wasn't there. Mary was confused. Where did she leave her wand? And then, it hit her. "Severus Snape, be aware, I will get you!" She screamed out. But without her wand she really didn't stand a chance against zombies without a wand. She saw a shadow standing in front of the door and slowly opening it.

O'Brien cautiously opened the door to her assigned compartment. There was a zombie underneath the window but that seemed to be the only one here. That seemed like a manageable task as the zombie had yet to notice the girl slipping into the compartment. She drew out her wand and shouted "Stupefy!" The zombie fell backwards and crashed into the wall. On the floor, the body laid limp. O'Brien smirked, satisfied with her actions. Then, she started looking for clues. Under the cushions, there was a piece of paper. She retrieved it and read:

Oh, when I look at you,

I see eyes, that are blue.

You are the epitome of beauty,

Your acts are heroic, truly.

I wish you would know me for a start,

You are the one and only Gilderoy Lockhart!

Suppressing the urge to vomit, she rolled her eyes. Sighing, she moved to the other seats, but there was nothing important. She turned around and headed for the door. She heard a shuffle behind her. Whirling around, the girl saw the zombie standing up and launching toward her. O'Brien panicked but somehow couldn't move. The zombie hit her square in the chest causing O'Brien to fall to the ground. The monster hoovered above her and bit her in the shoulder. Finally, the girl at least found her voice back and let out an agonizing scream before blacking out completely.

Snape let out a sigh. That wasn't how he imagined his Hogwarts ride going. Stuck in an alternate universe with zombies and already two dead students, this turned out way worse than the prefect thought. For the future, he knew better than to engage in so much as a conversation with Mary, Zelena or O'Brien ever again. At least, he was alone for now, looking for anything helpful in this compartment. Fortunately, there was none of the zombies in here, so he locked the door behind him hoping the zombies would be held off by it. He looked in the trash bin first which turned out to be useless. The teenager looked around. Something caught his eye in the luggage rack. It was a small vial filled with a green liquid. Curiously, he turned it between his fingers and twirled it around. There were quite a few possibilities to which potion this vial contained, the Slytherin mused. As he tried to figure out the potion in his grip, he heard a shout containing his name and a threat. That had to be Mary, he smirked. She finally must have realised he still possessed her wand. But why would anyone leave in a crisis like this without checking if they have any weapons upon them. He felt she deserved the trouble she was in and truth be told she annoyed the hell out of them. How did she deserve a longer live than Hermione who sacrificed herself without a thought? Naturally, that wasn't particularly smart either, but she did it for him without batting an eye and she was considerably nicer than Mary. On top of that, she didn't know any of them. How was she supposed to know how mentally unstable Zelena was or what a nasty bitch Mary was? The girl just had bad timing. He actually hoped for quite the first time in his life really that a first year was okay. He was erupted out of his thought of a second scream. This one though was closer than the first one and sounded much more desperate and less murderous. This meant O'Brien was in trouble. Snape sighed. He probably should at least look to whatever the girl is doing. If a zombie got her, said monster would come for him next. He decided that offence would be his best defence in this case, so he put the small vial in one of his coat pockets. After opening the door, Snape stepped back into the hall and drew his wand. There was one Zombie at the end of the hall. Snape cast a "Impedimenta!" towards it and he saw the creature falling limp to the floor. Then he cautiously moved towards the low groan he heard. For him it seemed that it took hours to find the source and place of the noise, although it took him mere seconds. With baited breath he slowly came to the compartments he assigned to O'Brien. That's when he saw the monster. It cowered over a body and moved its face to her shoulder. Finally, Snape's mind connected everything. The zombie ate O'Brien and by the looks of it, he had at least some portion of her face and brain. It seemed to be a messy eater for there were tiny fractions of already chewed brain and skin beside the probably dead girl. The smell was nauseating, and Snape didn't really like the sight of all the blood, skin, brain and half of a face. He shouted "Immobulus" pointing to the zombie. As a result, the creature laid across O'Brien's bitten shoulder and half-eaten face. Snape cringed but his gaze fell quickly on a note besides his fellow Slytherin. Maybe she found a clue, then her death won't be in vain, the teenager mused. He picked the paper up from the floor and read the short poem about Lockhart. He shook his head in disbelief. Why on earth would someone write something about this self-centred egoistical coward?

AN: There is probably only one more chapter to go, maybe two. To anyone wondering who made that literal and poetic masterpiece of a poem, it was me. I enjoy writing "meaningful" and "beautiful" poems and that short piece was in my mind. Thanks for reading, that makes my day.