Disclaimer: Thank you to J.K. Rowling who created and shared the characters and universe of Harry Potter, of which I borrow.
1.5 Millimeters of Existence
Chapter 1: Of Thorns & Accusations
Severus Snape walked through the fresh snowfall, leaving a trail of deep footprints around the owlery and hothouse. Hogwarts was nearly devoid of students around the Christmas holiday, a fact that he took advantage of. The solitude was a balm after months of hunching his shoulders up to his pricked ears, anticipating the next Gryffindor attack or Slytherin honor-bound kick-up. Throughout the schoolyear, he was in a state of constant alertness. At least, here and now, when the cold began to set in and all the mindless chatter faded as students left to join their families, he could set his mind on worthier things than which Hogwarts house Quidditch team had stolen the lead or what humiliating trap Potter and his band of halfwits had laid for him next. The silence and, dare he call it, peace allowed him the time to recoup and weaponize his repertory of spells, potions, and intelligence.
From his first year, Severus perceived how his allegiance to a certain rarefied type of beauty set him apart. In his estimation, most of his classmates were dunderheads with little appreciation for the serenity of a half-unfurled nenuphar, the seduction of a well-brewed antivenin, or the subtleties of Occlumency and Cryptology. Alone, he labored in devotion to magic and the art of secrecy, while others dwelt in subservience to the mirage of friendship or the delusion of fame and fortune.
At last, in his seventh year at Hogwarts, his talents were receiving due recognition from a powerful benefactor. Severus wondered absently, as he often did, if his prowess and rise to a person of stature and influence, as this offer undoubtedly would make of him, might be enough to make Lily regret her unfortunate choice to grace Potter with her affection. Severus could not accept that she might lower herself so much as to actually love the imbecilic, vile, coarse, smarmy, ridiculously pompous arse.
Severus picked his way through the barren brambles at the boundary of the forest, seeking to replenish his dwindling stock of dittany whose ingredients grew, if sparsely, in the winter months, thus making the Essence so easily concocted without resorting to Diagon Alley's Owl Order Catalogue. Severus had already used over half his savings from his muggle summer job; the Gringott's exchange rate hadn't been favorable to him, but he made do as he was now by foraging rather than purchasing from the Apothecary.
Upon spotting the hardy plant in the thorniest thicket, Severus removed from his oversized winter cloak a pair of scissors, a glass vial, and a makeshift kit crafted from a tank that once held frogspawn but that now contained his diminishing supply of Essence of Dittany. Only after he first glanced one way and then the other to ensure no professor or delinquent straggler lurked nearby did he take his ebony wand out to cast a warming spell on his gloveless hands stiff from the relentless gusts of cold wind.
Dexterously, he pulled the brambles aside to reach for this weed. As he positioned himself knee-deep in thorns, being so careful to remain unscratched, an earsplitting wail suddenly pierced his seclusion and caused him to tumble into the needle-sharp thicket. The sound was cacophonous, as if a tribe of merfolk had surfaced to caterwaul something between a dirge and a battle hymn. Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended.
Severus swore inwardly as he pushed himself up to stand, drops of blood oozing out of his palm and he was sure at points along his limbs as well. He pulled out his wand and held it before him, prepared to hex whatever had caused that disturbance.
Severus wasn't ignorant of the events happening outside the parochial rivalries of Hogwarts. In fact, he felt he was involved in the worldly affairs, affairs that would shape the climate, policies, and very fabric of the wizarding world to be established anew. A few of his classmates had family members in the Ministry and the Daily Prophet, relatives who supported the rise of He Who Must Not Be Named under the conviction that he would lessen Ministry restrictions on wizardkind's natural right to domination by birth, thereby bringing about a golden age for wizards and witches who would no longer have to hide away, diminish their powers. Severus wished Tobias, the father he had disowned before his fourteenth birthday, could have seen the day Severus revealed the might of magic with a vengeance.
Underneath the bright blue dome that stretched over the sheltered valley, the wind howled. It whipped through his shoulder-length hair, black ribbons that recurrently obscured his vision. Taking precautions, he cast a disillusionment charm on himself and an obliteration charm to clear his most recent footprints as he proceeded towards the castle entrance, passing the lake just beginning to freeze over, a film of ice so thin it seemed the merest millimeter glazed the still dark water beneath.
He scanned the grounds for any sign of what could have caused the shriek when he saw near the frenzied tree limbs of the Whomping Willow something bright red in the snow. He crept closer, the warmth from his enchantment earlier dissipating to be replaced by the painful sensation of the icy wind whittling his long pale fingers down to bone.
As Severus approached, he entertained various hypotheses about the unearthly sound he had heard. A banshee? If so, he very urgently needed to take a protective potion to counteract the scream before fatal effects set in. The war cry of a centaur faction? Unlikely if they were at all knowledgeable of the 19th century Goblin Wars in which the first snow brought about a pyrrhic victory. A missile from beyond the Iron Curtain? Severus had experienced no shockwave or explosion, but he didn't discount the up-to-now impenetrable defenses around Hogwarts, particularly its unplottable nature that, in essence, rendered it an impossible target.
Severus could make out now the outline of a female body, and while he didn't shy away from blood, often patching himself up after run-ins with Potter and Black, he felt his gut clench at the terrible sight that was gradually revealing itself. He broke into a run. His panting and the snow crunching beneath his feet made his efforts at concealment meaningless. Absurd though it was, Severus thought of Mulciber's gruesome fantasies of self-inflicted torture that Mulciber related breathlessly between bursts of laughter. Severus would laugh along, too, though he had a keener taste for vengeance and power than brutality, not that Mulciber could grasp the distinction.
Severus skidded to a stop and knelt down beside the body. He could see she was dressed in a white T-shirt and denims, both spattered with fresh blood. Shards of crystal or glass gleamed in her bushy hair. Everywhere skin was visible was bloody with deep and shallow cuts. She was still breathing but seemed unconscious. Severus quickly took out the little Dittany he had left in his kit and applied it to what appeared the ugliest cut on her sternum. He didn't see her squint her eyes open to fix them upon him until she whispered.
"Traitor."
The word condensed in the cold.
Severus furrowed his brow. Uncertain if she was completely aware of her surroundings but without any other recourse plain to him, he continued to apply the Dittany as he asked, "Do you know where you are?" He thought she might be a confunded muggle caught in the crosshairs, possibly a victim of muggle baiting.
Still in a strained whisper as if it were difficult for her to speak, the nameless girl paused before replying, "Yes."
Severus asked, "Where?"
She said, "Outside Hogwarts."
Severus quirked an eyebrow in surprise. Apparently, this nameless girl was familiar with the school grounds. He asked, "Can you walk? Or should I levitate you?"
In a barely audible voice, she answered, "If I could move without collapsing, I would have cursed you by now."
"Had you so much as twiddled your wand in my direction, you would be in even greater peril than you are now. Levicorpus, then, if I must." He was hardly taken aback by yet another girl, even one in such an apparent state of distress, who despised him on sight and likely loathed his touch if her flinches were anything to go by. Severus continued to apply the last of his Dittany, evenly spreading the essence. In exasperation, he wondered what idiotic impulse compelled him to stay and not leave her to bleed out a lonely death.
In addition to her fresh cuts, the glass in her hair, and the dirt-stained muggle clothing, he noted that tremors wracked her body at regular intervals. He asked, "Where did you come from?"
When she didn't respond, Severus looked up to make sure she hadn't lost consciousness only to find himself on the receiving end of a face resolutely set in stone, though she practically radiated fear and an oddly excessive brand of defiance. Severus deduced she had had enough of his questions, which suited him as he had had enough of tending to the wounds of an unreasonable, ungrateful quasi-paralytic in this bitter weather. He abruptly finished, and without further ado, levitated her to the castle.
As he came through the swinging doors of the Hospital Wing with the silent bloody bundle in tow, Madam Pomfrey rushed over and led him and his cargo to an empty bed. Severus deposited the nameless girl on the white linen. Yet again, red blood against white filled his vision. It was almost poetic. She reminded him of a rose in winter, displaced in time.
Madam Pomfrey took him aside, questioned him briefly before directing him to go to the headmaster's office. Severus complied with the mediwitch's orders, quite curious to find out where the witch had come from and what had happened to her. This information might prove to be useful to his benefactor who had expressed an interest in the activities at Hogwarts. Severus could only suspect that it was in the hopes of political advancement that his benefactor asked him to pass along news of student body opinions and developments.
Dumbledore happened to be present in his office. Though the headmaster didn't quite express alarm upon hearing the news from Severus, Dumbledore moved briskly through the corridors with Severus at his side. Severus matched Dumbledore stride for stride, their heights now matched. Dumbledore's questions to Severus as they walked through the corridors confirmed in Severus's mind the headmaster's suspicions that he had been involved in the girl's injury. As Dumbledore posed question after question, Severus grew more and more terse. Finally, they had arrived in the Hospital Wing where Madam Pomfrey had already administered a draught of Dreamless Sleep.
Madam Pomfrey cast Severus an eye of ire. She explained, "The girl was quite beside herself after Mr. Snape left, groaning from the pain and urging me to call a house elf, stating that she had to get away before Mr. Snape returned." Madam Pomfrey's glower strengthened. "She almost wouldn't accept the potion until I reassured her that she would be fine, no one would touch her or move her without my permission. The girl is in a dreadful state. A quick bedside examination revealed that she recently was at the end of the Cruciatus curse."
Dumbledore turned a penetrating gaze upon Severus. Severus was sure he looked as wronged and befuddled as he felt. Without a twinkle, Dumbledore said, "Mr. Snape, do you have any knowledge of this girl or how she came to be in the state?"
Severus felt as if braced in a vise as his breathing got shallower. Severus denied any knowledge of her and said in a voice that crept up to an uncomfortably high register that he had just tried to help her by using Essence of Dittany.
Dumbledore nodded, closed his eyes briefly, and told him, "Go to your dormitory. You will be fetched when she wakes up."
In shock, Severus gaped at the headmaster before he spun about and strode in a rage to the dungeons to await the summons. Severus paced the empty dormitory, angry that Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey were so quick to believe the mad ravings of a stranger who had obviously just undergone a traumatic incident that left her disturbed. Severus's hand twitched over the bag of floo powder in his desk before he grabbed it, went to the fireplace in the empty common room, set the logs ablaze, and threw the powder into the flames as he announced, "Malfoy Manor."
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