Mat felt like he was sinking in muddy water. His world was black and he couldn't feel anything, but he felt that his arms and legs were flailing. He became aware of a yellow-purple light which illuminated his world and he could now see his body. He wasn't dressed in his school uniform, he was in plain white t-shirt and joggers with white pumps. He felt like he was slowing down, like the muddy water was thickening, it was then when he also noticed shapes and a landscape appeared below him. He floated in mid air, then realised where he was. He was in his mindscape.
He was observing it in a way that he had never seen before. Around him he could see the landscape of the village and castle area. He looked up and saw that the entire area, including the forested outskirts, was covered by a dome. He could see shadows and shapes through the dome and they freaked him out a bit, he didn't know why, he felt like he was being watched. His mind then triggered a memory in which he was in potions class in Hogwarts and then he remembered that Snape was the last thing he saw before falling. He concentrated and tried to locate anything that didn't belong. It didn't take long for him to feel Snape's presence in the village.
He saw a black spec below him running around frantically. It seemed to be looking in houses, looking for something. Mat studied the spec and the world zoomed in around him and he could see the spec was Snape. His face didn't seem worried but his body language said otherwise. Mat decided to have some fun with his intruder and summoned some Myrddraal and Gentlemen to watch him and put him to freak him out.
Myrddraal were Shadowspawn from the Wheel of Time, they were eyeless beings they have a deadly grace to their walk and wear long black robes with black armour underneath which shines wetly in light. Complete with armoured boots and gloves they looked menacing. Their sickly pale skin and bald head was crisscrossed with angry red scars which never seem to heal, this gave them a terrifying appearance. They carried two black swords, one in each hand, wickedly barbed and deadly in appearance.
The Gentlemen are demons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They float in the air and their actions are jolty like they are being controlled by strings from an unseen puppeteer. They have sharp black suits and ties on a humanoid body. Their jet-black eyes and blue/white skin make them utterly unnatural, the constant grin they wear emphasises their unnaturalness.
He ordered them so they would disappear when he got too close and laugh and smile if Snape tried to attack them. At first Mat summoned some mist to cloak the area, he made the Myrddraal and Gentlemen walk slowly in the mist, so they appeared to be shadows to Snape. Snape saw the shadows out of the corner of his eye as he came out of a random cottage in the Village. He saw one standing still and stared it for a few seconds then walked toward it "hello? Who goes there? Show yourself!"
He continued walking until he saw the details of the Myrddraal and stopped in his tracks, mouth agape. It took him less than a second to recognise it as a threat and unleashed a vicious wordless cutting curse at it. The Myrddraal dissipated into the mist and let out an eerie laugh. Snape's serene face started looking more panicked. He continued on, he looked up at the outline of the castle and headed toward it. Shooting cutting curses at the shadows, followed by laughs. At the gates of the castle was a Gentleman with its back to him, it then turned its head toward Snape, its body followed, turning slowly, floating. Snape shivered and prepared to release another curse, a Myrddaal screeched and flew toward him from the side and swung a sword that barely missed him. Mat wasn't trying to hurt him, just attempting to get Snape to leave. He presumed that Snape knew that he was in Mat's mind. Mat summoned more Myrddaal and Gentlemen around Snape, who was on the floor, he was trying to point his wand at all of them, he was sweating, eyes wide in panic.
"What are you doing here, Snape?" Mat asked, he materialised himself in front of his teacher, arms folded.
"Lawson?! What is the meaning of this?" Snape retorted, his fear seemingly lessening now he saw a familiar face.
"You are in my mind Professor. Now answer the question." He demanded.
Snape's anger overcame his fear and he let loose a bombarda at Mat and a couple of Myrddraal that were stood near Mat. He just smiled as the shockwave blew past him. It felt warm, like a summer breeze. Mat raised an eyebrow "Really? Your magic won't work in here. My mind, my rules" Mat grinned at him and nodded to the Professors wand and it disappeared. "If you want to learn my secrets, then fight your way to them."
Snape's mind was strong, disappearing his wand was harder than Mat thought it would be, it must be because of the mastery of his Occlumency and Legilimency. Mat then went back to his observation post in the sky. He smiled to himself as the Myrddraal and Gentlemen moved in for the kill. Two Myrddraal were about to stab him in the torso and one of the Gentlemen was about to grab him by the neck from behind. Snape rolled out of the way and then faster than Mat thought possible, ran through the Myrddraal and Gentlemen, through the castle gates. "The chase is on" Mat broadcasted over his mindscape. At that announcement, screeches, roars and other sounds erupted from everywhere. Snape had run up the hill and was outside of the castle doors when he turned behind to take in his surroundings. He saw a look of horror on the man's face as he saw swarms of chitinous horrors spewing forth from the outlying forest in a tidal wave of gnashing teeth and razor-sharp claws. His face turned fully white when he saw a lumbering Tyranid Hive Tyrant move through the tall trees. The Hive Tyrant saw him and roared. The ground shook.
A Tyranid Hive Tyrant is a massive 20 metre plus monster from the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Colours change from each hive fleet but this one was a pale off colour purple chitin shell on its upper parts with a creamy sickly white on the underneath. Its head had two beady, glowing green eyes and had vicious teeth in an almost grinning, lipless face, saliva dripping down its chin at all times. It had thick armour plating that ran down its back into a long whip-like tale. Its four arms were each different, one was a sword arm, another a sickle, the other a vicious clawed hand and the final one was a pincer. Its bi pedal legs ended with huge talons on its clawed feet. Running around its legs were smaller versions of the thing, thousands of them, in a huge wave, in different shapes and sizes, no two looked alike. They were built to kill. And Mat controlled them, and he told them to charge at Snape.
Snape quickly turned to open the huge wooden doors to the castle. Mat didn't let them open immediately and forced them to open slowly so Snape struggled to open them. Snape kept looking back and saw the Hive Tyrant charging at him, all the other creatures slowly making their way toward him, smaller creatures weaving in and out of its legs. As the lumbering beast and swarms of nasties edged closer, the door opened just a bit more. Snape was panicked now and was putting all his might into opening the door into the safe haven of the castle. They inched closer and were only a couple of meters away when Snape managed to squeeze through a gap in the door. He slammed it shut and leaned on it, panting. He looked back at it, expecting the creatures outside it to slam or scream or try to break through. Nothing came.
Silence was what greeted him. He looked around the entrance hall. It was nothing like the exterior, the stone was black, with black iron torches in sconces along the walls giving an ethereal green lighting. The hall was tall and long, there was hardly any decoration apart from pillars that held the ceiling up and had sharp spikes coming from all the corners. The room was completely bare, apart from a door on the far end, it had spikes coming through it, long sharp things made from an unknown black, shiny material. Snape cautiously made his way toward them, intent in knowing his students' secrets. As he got closer, they seemed to retract, but not all the way. He stood there for a few seconds, breathing heavily, worry clear on his face. He inched a bit closer and they all slowly pointed to him, as if they were looking at him. He realised that they were allowing him to enter. He ducked and shuffled his way inside. The spikes came down on him, not hard enough to pierce his flesh, but when he moved, they scratched him, like thousands of needles poking into his body and scratched mercilessly across his skin. His clothes were no hinderance to the spikes, but when his clothes from the right shoulder of his cloak caught on them and he pulled away, he jolted and got stuck with 10 spikes in the same shoulder. He screamed and wreathed and made the other spikes to stab him. They were only a centimetre deep, but they were painful none the less. They could impale him, but Mat wasn't allowing them too.
Snape was still for a moment and the spikes retracted. Pulling slowly out of his flesh. He was mainly stabbed in the back, legs, the back of the head and arms. He was whimpering and hissing in pain. He looked forward and saw that he was only a couple of metres through. In a bout of willpower that impressed Mat. He started moving forwards, slowly. If the person coming through here moved fast, they attacked. Snape figured this out clearly. A few more scratches later due to his clothes getting caught, he made it through and laid on the floor exhausted and in a lot of pain. He was covered in blood. His black bat-like robes were shiny with blood, and the blood appeared to make them blacker, if that was possible.
Mat was getting tired of this. He found it amusing with what Snape was going through, but he didn't really like seeing people in pain, even if they deserved it. He needed Snape out of his mind fast. So he sent a Xenomorph after him.
A Xenomorph is the alien from well… Alien. This specific one he sent was about 3 metres in height, had silver teeth, no eyes, a bulbous head that was elongated. Its body was made from pure black chitin and had a deadly elegance, its two arms ended in humanlike claw hands with viciously sharp talons, its feet were humanlike too but that's where the human similarities ended. The knees were reversed, and it had a tail as long as it was which ended in a curved spike, almost like a scorpion, dripping with venom.
The Xenomorph was on the ceiling looking down at the exhausted Snape. It let out a small hiss in warning, but Snape didn't take notice. So it moved slowly, acidic spit fell from its mouth and landed on the mans shoulder, straight into an open wound made from the spikes. He screamed in pain and covered the wound with his hand, causing the skin of his hand to sizzle. He gasped and looked up from where the drip came from. All he could see was silver teeth grinning at him from the darkness. He stared in horror as the Xenomorph slowly climbed down, its feet and claws barely making a sound on the floor, it raised its arms wide, stretching its talons, its face got close to Snape's, it hissed again and slowly opened its mouth, another mouth came out of that one slowly. It then retracted and shot out. If it wasn't for Snape's reflexes, it would have gone straight through his cheekbone, instead it left a large gash across his face.
The Xenomorph flinched back and screeched/screamed at him and shot the second mouth out again. Snape had started moving back by this point and was out of its range. He turned, crawled first and then got on his feet to run away. The Alien gave chase. He ran down a corridor then turned a corner, pushing off the wall in front of him, just in time as it crunched into the wall where Snape used to be. It stayed attached and ran after the man, still on the wall. Snape screamed in fear as he looked back to see the alien horror catching up to him. He saw a door in front of him and tried to open it. It wouldn't budge. He heard the alien screech/scream again as it lept upwards, arms splayed wide, ready to slice at him. A panicked Snape then decided enough was enough and poofed out of existence. Mat smiled, appeared next to the alien, stroked it like a pet and then disappeared from his mindscape into the real world.
VVVVVV
Mat's vision was blurry as he was coming back into full consciousness from his mindscape. He hadn't come out of it in public before. The class was loud, and Mat could hear voices but not the words. His vision slowly and painfully came back into focus. He could feel someone shaking him. He turned his head to see a concerned Cho Chang asking him something. He couldn't comprehend a word. He turned his head to where some kids were looking on the floor where Snape was. He shook his head and hissed in pain. His hands came up to his temples to try and relieve it. Luckily the pain put everything into focus again. "What?" Mat said, confused.
"What's wrong with you?" she asked, with concern clear on her face.
"errr" was his intelligent reply.
"We need to get a teacher, you don't look too well" it was true, he had a bitch of a headache.
Mat didn't know what to say, he was really out of it. He closed his eyes and laid his head on the table. The darkness helped.
He must have fallen asleep or something as he again felt someone nudging him and telling him to wake up, he grunted and looked up to see a Madam Pomfrey looking down at him. He assumed it was her, who else would wear a nurse's uniform from the 1920's? She even had one of those hat thingies with a green cross on it. He just stared at her numbly. She told him to get up, and he did, she asked Cho to take him to hospital wing which they did. Mat couldn't remember the trip. The attack by Snape must have knocked him for six.
The next thing he remembered was him waking up in a nice comfy bed with the typical hospital smell hitting his nostrils. Why did they always smell the same? Mat took in his surrounding as he was wont to do and realised, he was in fact in a hospital. There was a white partition, presumably separating his bed from the next one. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall were talking animatedly with Madam Pomfrey over a prone form in a bed on the other side of the room to Mat. They must have seen a movement out of the corner of their eye as they all turned as one to Mat as he sat up. Mat flinched back at that, it was a bit odd.
They came over and Pomfrey cast a diagnostic spell over him. McGonagall asked him what happened.
"I, erm, I don't know, Professor Snape looked at me and I got a massive headache. Everything else is hazy." He answered, not entirely lying but not telling the whole truth. They all turned to Madam Pomfrey when she hummed.
"There seems to be nothing wrong with him, but it does say that he was in a lot of pain a while ago, it doesn't say how though" she said. Looking at something only she could see. The diagnostic spell must be cast in such as way that the caster is the only one to see it, patient doctor confidentiality must be a thing here.
Mat looked at all three of them, when he got to Dumbledore, he felt a little nudge on his mind, but it felt gentle, he saw his eye twinkle. Mat immediately closed his mind off and Dumbledore withdrew whatever it was from him and nodded to Mat in acknowledgement. Must be Legilimency, he thought. Mat smiled in thanks. "Well, whatever it was only seems to have affected you and Severus. I have no idea when he will wake up. Looks like I will be taking over his classes for the time being." Dumbledore said, he sounded sad but Mat saw through the façade, he obviously enjoyed teaching.
Mat's classes were cancelled for the rest of the day and he had to stay in the hospital for observation which he was fine with. He delved back into his mindscape to fix any damage. He appeared like he did when Snape was there and floated near the top of the dome. There were cracks in it and a strange multicoloured miasma coming through. There were more of the swirls and weird faces near the cracks. Mat panicked and instantly went about to fix them. At first he couldn't think of how to do it. But it turns out that concentrating on fixing them did the trick. He stared intently and willed the cracks to heal and they did. He visibly saw the cracks closing up from top to bottom. He moved around to each one that he could see individually. He then moved down to the Village. It was trampled. He seemed to be gaining more strength with each thing he fixed and was feeling better the more whole the Village was. He didn't know how long he was, but he got it all finished.
When he came out of his mindscape, it was still dark, according to the windows he could see out of. No matter wherever they were, hospitals were creepy. It didn't help that there were actual ghosts floating around this one. There was a nurse ghost here, she didn't seem to do much, apart from float to each bed and check on the occupant. Even when there wasn't one, she checked anyway. When she came to Mat, she saw that he was awake and gave him a reassuring smile, which did reassure him somehow, and she moved on. He closed his eyed and tried to get some sleep.
He was woken up by Madam Pomfrey in the morning, a good hour before breakfast was served. She cast a diagnostic spell and declared him fit to leave. Which he did. The first port of call was to his dorms where he wanted to get a shower to freshen up, get changed and ask someone about what the rumour mill said about him from the day before. No one was awake when he entered, but as he was leaving the shower he bumped into Rand.
"Hey mate! You ok?" Rand asked, concern on his face. He was in his pyjamas, carrying a towel and a toothbrush.
"Yeah thanks man, I don't know what happened, glad it's over though" Mat replied, Rand agreed and said he was pleased he was ok. "Rand erm… what's the school saying about yesterday?"
Rand shuffled his feet, "erm, the Slytherins think you somehow attacked Snape, they're on the warpath for you. Dumbledore told everyone at the evening meal that you both came down with a magical illness. Everyone believes Dumbledore apart from, you know, the Slytherins." He replied, he gave a nervous grin and scratched the back of his head, making his messy red hair messier.
"Right, I'll keep an eye open for them, cheers mate". With that, Rand and Mat went their separate ways and didn't see each other until breakfast in the main hall. When Mat did enter the main hall, he had a feeling that someone was looking at him. He turned around to see that most of the Slytherin table were staring at him, most of them with anger and disgust. "This is gonna be a right ball ache" he said to himself as he made his way down to join Cho and the rest of the Ravenclaws. He slumped down on the pew and looked at all the food. He was starving! He didn't realise how hungry he was. He piled a full English on the plate, piled high with bacon, sausage, hash browns, mushrooms, tomato, toast, beans and black pudding. He ate it like a savage. Cho was just staring at him in both amusement and disgust. It wasn't until he was partially full when he realised he was eating like a pig. "Sorry" he told Cho and the few others around them, "not had anything to eat since yesterday's dinner". He got a few nod's and ok's from everyone and then everyone went back to eating. He did but far slower and more civilised.
After breakfast, they had double potions. Dumbledore was there bright and early. They were with Slytherin this time. Mat kept an eye out for idiot dick heads who were going to cause some shit. He was getting really pissed off at this school. It's not even been a week yet and he has a whole house against him. He took his seat, the same as the day before with Cho. The class settled down and it started. Nothing happened during the class, no one would dare with the headmaster in the room. But he could always feel and sense eyes on him. Every time he turned, he could see Carrow staring at him. He had two black eyes, that took away the menace he was trying to project. He was easily ignored.
Luckily nothing happened after class either, but he knew they would try something. They had flying with Gryffindor after lunch. That was fun, the feeling had gone during that class. Immediately after, when they were indoors, he could sense it again. It had him on edge.
Rand, Mat and Eddie were on their way back from tea in the great hall, on their way to chill out in the dorms before Astrology that night. They had just walked around a corner of the courtyard area of the main intersection of the school when 8 Slytherins were there, waiting for them. He immediately recognised Carrow, and his little crew, there were older years with them too. They all had their wands out. Mat saw them immediately and pulled both Rand and Eddie round the corner. He saw bits of stonework fly off as a couple of spells splashed on them.
"Fucking hell! What was that?" Eddie exclaimed. He was staring at Mat wide eyed Mat closed his eyes and placed his hand on the floor he extended I his magic so he could feel where they were. He could feel them getting closer, running at full speed.
"Have any of you been in a fight before?" they both shook their heads "fuck. 8 Slytherins are coming for us, either run or fight, just don't get in my way" Mat had his wand out, his fingers white with rage and nerves. He held the tip of the wand from behind the corner and shouted "Lomos Maxima!" He overcharged the spell so it was more of a flash than a light, much like his flashbang, he couldn't show anyone that he could do that yet.
There were a few screams and Mat ran at them form around the corner, shoulder-barged the first one and took in the state of them. Two of them were fine as they were behind the five who were affected, the blinded ones were lashing their arms around comically. He acted by first punching Carrow's nose and with a sickening crunch, broke it… again. He then headbutted another one who was readying to cast a spell who wasn't blinded. He threw the headbutted kid over his back and into the other non-blinded lad and kicked that one in the stomach when they were both on the floor. He walked casually up behind an another one, kneed behind his knee to unbalance him and punched him in the jaw, knocking him out. The one he shoulder-barged to the floor was trying to get up so Mat uppercutted him and knocked him out. He heard a faint "Petrificus totalus" from behind him and saw Rand cast one on a boy who was pointing a wand a Mat, he nodded to him in thanks. It was the body-binding curse. He did the same on the rest of them. Carrow was moaning and holding his nose on the floor pathetically. The others were in a similar state. Professor McGonagall ran round the corner as Mat finished casting his last body-binding curse.
She waded through the lot of them with a look of pure fury, her eyes locked on Mat "explain" she demanded. Mat was actually quite frightened. Luckily he didn't have to say anything as Eddie came from behind the corner and did it for him.
"They were waiting for us Miss! If it wasn't for Mat, we would have been hurt!" Rand, who was looking at Eddie nodded in agreement as he turned to McGonagall. His eyes wide with fear.
Mat slumped against the wall, adrenaline catching up with him. He sat on the floor, wand in hand. McGonagall turned to him and all he could do was shrug. She huffed. "The headmaster will have to look into this. How did you do all this?" she asked.
Mat showed her his swollen knuckle where he hit the boys. His hands were shaking. "I read the spells before I came."
"Impressive yet unnerving. Violence of any kind will not be tolerated at this school Mr Lawson." She sent a corporeal Patronus to some other teachers to get them to come to the scene. Pomfrey was the first to come and she immediately went to the loudest moaning boy who were keeled over after a quick glance at Mat.
Professor Flitwick took him to see the headmaster. Mat stayed silent as there was no point in digging a hole. They walked toward a doorway that was guarded by two stone gargoyles. Flitwick said the password, "humbug", to the gargoyles, and they animated and moved aside, a spiral staircase also animated and made its way up to Dumbledore's office. Flitwick made his way to the stairs and asked Mat to follow, he did. They reached a nondescript door, knocked and the muffled voice of Dumbledore bid them enter. "Aahh Professor Flitwick, how may I help you?"
"Hello Professor Dumbledore, looks like Mat's been getting into trouble again" Flitwick told him.
Mat took in the contents of the room he was in and was astounded. The floor was a soft red carpet. There were two columns which rose high into a pointed arch that separated two sides of the room. At the entrance side were shelves upon shelves of devices, Mat could scarcely begin to guess their meaning. There were things that spun, things that floated, things that appeared to be balancing on nothing and things that just defied gravity. There must have been hundreds of them on the walls. There was a perch in this part, but was empty, it had a pile of ash on bowl like area which must be there to catch the birds mess. Through the arch was Dumbledore, today he was in a bright pink robe and matching hat. He was sat at a very grand table, expertly carved, it was neatly organised and had papers in piles. It appeared to have animals intertwined with each other on the legs, they looked suspiciously like the House creatures. The chair was thronelike, almost like the one in the great hall. Behind him were numerous previous headmasters and headmistresses in paintings. They filled the walls, it was half circle and they went well up toward the ceiling. They were all staring down at Mat. That felt weird.
"What's happened this time Matthew my boy?" Dumbledore asked. So Mat told him that there were 8 Slytherin kids waiting for him and his mates and what Mat did. He raised an eyebrow as Mat described what he did to them. "Is that so, I am used to fights happening in this school, but no one has ever done so like you Mr Lawson. In their first week as well." He gave Mat his disappointed grandfatherly look.
"I know sir, but what am I supposed to do? Let them hurt me?" Mat asked.
"Of course not, you have every right to defend yourself. You must understand that you are also at fault here for hurting them like you did. I must have to place you in detention for this, you understand?" Dumbledore preached. Mat did understand and took full responsibility.
"I can't promise not to do this again, if I get attacked or see anyone else getting attacked, I will take action, I can promise you that sir. But I won't go looking for a fight, you have my word." Mat gave Dumbledore a look which he tried to make him look as sincere as he felt.
"I can work with that Matthew, you will have to have detention for 2 weeks with Hagrid I'm afraid" Mat accepted that and that was the end of that meeting. He didn't have detention that night due to it being Astrology and so he went back to the dorm with Flitwick.
His head of house pulled him to the side before they entered. "Matthew, I see that you have a protective instinct about you, a fighter. I was most impressed with how you fought those boys, you remind me of when I was young. I was on the duelling circuit you know? Was the champion in fact. Once you get your head on your shoulders and prove to me you won't have outbursts and control your temper, I could offer to tutor you to duel if you like?"
Mat stared at the diminutive professor in shock. He didn't expect this, at all. But he couldn't pass up this opportunity. "Of course Professor, I'd be honoured too!" and he was.
"Excellent. Now be on your way, Astrology is in 5 hours." Wit that he turned and left. Mat went to his dorms to chill.
