The Eyes
Chapter Eleven
Severus Snape knew of cursed artifacts. He had been at the very thick of the Dark Lord's rise. Curses had flown into seemingly normal objects with ease, and used to sow a war of terror that made wizards terrified even to touch a Galleon on the street for fear of death.
A death that would have been a mercy to what truly the curses did. There was a reason Voldemort's name became feared so quickly. Speaking it when cursed could make a wizard explode from the inside out; it could gouge the innards out of the man's eyes, and they would flail around trying to choke their victims' closest friends, or families.
The Dark Lord knew the darkest of curses to exist, and it was because of that charming intelligence that he had followed him at first.
Of course, as the book lay bare in front of him, closed but thrumming with the desire of being opened, he couldn't contain his conflicting emotions. On one side, opening it would be so easy. There was no lock and there didn't seem to be a charm to prevent someone from flipping the pages.
At the same time, just because there wasn't something didn't mean it wasn't there, waiting eagerly to strike with the deadliest of curses the moment the unfortunate soul opened it.
Had it been for anyone else, Severus wouldn't have even risked it.
It wasn't anyone else however. It was Lily's son.
He owed her. He would never admit 'Bloody-Bastard-Die-Thrice-In-Hell' Potter's life-debt forced him to aid Harry Potter. If he helped the boy, it was because of Lily.
This didn't mean he was going to risk his life by opening a potentially cursed artifact.
No, if he did this, he would need a scapegoat. He would need someone else, someone stupid enough to open the book.
He didn't need to think much to come to a conclusion.
Albus would have had words —strong words— against him for doing this, but now that he was gone, the scapegoat was nothing more than a risk. If she fell into the hands of Voldemort, she might actually babble another prophecy that someone might overhear.
He was doing this for the Greater Good.
Albus would have had a fit if he heard him think that aloud.
Amusingly, no one crossed paths with him as he made his way to the top of the Divination tower, where his sacrificial lamb would be without a doubt sipping sherry, while trying her hardest not to appear a drunken hoax of a woman.
She wasn't one, even though everyone did believe her incapable of the simplest of prophecies, and yet as Severus opened the trap door and reached inside for her lair, he couldn't help but sweat.
He wasn't required to do more than offer her to open the book, and if it wasn't cursed, then he'd just Obliviate her.
He wouldn't stoop so low as to use an Unforgivable —although he was able to, that didn't mean he would.
"Hello Severus, I was waiting for you to come by," Sybill said, her voice mellifluous as two cups of tea stood on her tea table. They were still hot.
Severus would have been impressed, if he didn't know the witch always had a few dozen steaming cups of tea held hot by magic in order to 'charm' her visitors into believing she had foreseen their arrival.
"I'm sure, Sybill," Severus replied. He politely sat down in front of the witch, his hands bringing the book down on the table's surface.
"Oh my child, my dear child," Sybill said, shaking her head. "My inner eye speaks to me of many perils in your future. And this book will be the cause of them all," her hands gently traced the leather cover of it. "I remember I was barely an ignorant child, when this book came to me. I opened it," she smiled, and Severus' expression darkened. "I shouldn't have."
"You are familiar with the book's contents already?" Severus asked.
"No," Sybill shook her head. "You will never be familiar with its contents, Severus," Sybill said. "They will refuse familiarity. They will harbor hatred, and disgust, and you will bash your head against the wall at night pleading for death and merciful oblivion. You will try to obliviate yourself of the knowledge within each day, and each day the knowledge will return, harder, and stronger, and uncaring," her voice grew heated as she spoke; her hands firmly grasped the books' sides.
"This terrible, terrible book…oh how I wish I had let it be. It whispered, it called to me, a pathetic no one, it offered me to open my eyes to the sight of my ancestors…why did I take the book, Severus? Why did I open it? I know now that you should never breach the veil of ignorance. Once broken…once the veil is broken, Severus…there's no return," she murmured in a meek and whiny voice, and the hair at the back of Severus' head rose.
"So you know what is happening?"
"Of course I know, Severus," Sybil laughed, her laughter bitter and tipsy. "Why do I drink myself to oblivion, if it isn't because I know? I know and I know it is futile to fight something that mortals can't fight. This can only end in tears and despair, Severus." Her fingers delicately traced the book's cover. "Tears…and despair," she whispered.
"If you read the book," Severus said. "Then tell me…what did it speak of?"
Sybill laughed. This time, the laugher was madness and pure loathing, loathing not at Severus, but at herself. Tears fell from Sybill's eyes as she shook her head, grabbing her hair with her hands and screaming loudly a chorus of 'no' in a thousand different voices and shrieks.
Severus stood, wand poised to strike at Sybill, as the voice that came through wasn't hers any longer.
It belonged to something else.
Something darker, that stood in Severus' mind for a split second as a black, fanged, Cyclops demon with arms like swaying serpents. It was just for that pathetic second that the voice spoke darker than the pitch-black darkness itself, and with a thunder that left no sound, a putrid knowledge that he could not refuse to remember, the voice told him what he looked for.
"Scramble the Stars or Murder the Child.
If neither you wish, then Seek the One who stands where Time and Space are no more.
Seek he who is Time and Space.
Seek Yog-Sothoth and tremble, mortal.
For your task, now, you cannot complete.
Seek the Guardian of the Gate, The Gate, and the Gate's Key itself.
And fear, mortal.
Fear will keep you alive."
And Snape ran.
The trapdoor exploded outwards as Severus Snape rushed down, dislocating his ankle during the fall but not caring in the slightest for the bright pain that flared through his body. He ran, and he ran faster than he had ever run before, followed always by the cackling and mad laughter of Sybill, who seemed hot on his tail and unwilling to stop pursuing him.
The knowledge he had asked, he had received, and as he stood on the verge of precipice into a pitch-black staircase that seemed to fall down forever, within the deepest pits of the castle's dungeons, he fell on his twisted ankle, inches away from the border.
Trelawney, her fingers bony and white as skeletal claws, overstepped and tumbled over him, and she turned as she fell, and as Severus looked into the abyss that spread open to engulf and devour the woman, he watched as snakes lifted themselves from the darkness and bit down hard on Sybill's flesh.
Sybill did not scream.
She laughed.
She laughed happily as the snakes devoured her alive, as giant maws crushed her bones and ripped her flesh.
"It's over! It's over for me Severus! Finally! Everything is over for me!"
Her screams were not of despair.
They were of delight.
Then the darkness receded, disappeared through the cracks, the corners, the stairs…and the castle looked back at Severus, its stairways moving as always, its form no longer scary and its walls sturdy and rocky.
His arms trembled.
The staircase finished its movement.
On the top stair, mocking Severus with its presence was a pair of glasses.
They were Sybill's glasses.
She no longer needed them, after all.
Author's notes
…Dum-De-Dum…
-Plot Advancing-
…Dum-De-Dum…
Cthulhu Fthgahn!