I awoke again. A man rested upon a chair by my side, white hairs diving beneath each other in an intricate, spontaneous pattern that made a beard and a silk hat that designated him as a man of wealth and influence. It was only by chance that he was also wise and carried inside him some goal of good.
"Good afternoon," he rolled off, more as a habit. Difficult subjects weighed on his shoulders.
"What happened?" I wasn't curious, but I said in anyway. I wanted to close that chapter and, in a way, the sleep already had, leaving it an intangible set of feelings: horror, pain, sadness. In another way, I sought to understand them and why they had come to me and forced their bitter pomegranate seeds to my mouth, a threat to consume my future.
"He came for Severus." Interest flowed back into my body, warming parts of my mind chilled by indifference. Once Severus had played with the black fires of evil, a dark beacon in his past, and they had burnt him with a light mark on his upper arm. Could it be…
"An unloyal servant of the Dark Lord, he found himself trapped. He had begun to question Voldemort's ideas, but knew certain death awaited him if he did not prove himself. Most humans," he said, turning soft, inquisitive eyes to look into mine, "are afraid of death."
I remained stoic, clenching my jaw and staring back into his eyes. I did not deny it. He nodded.
"An infidel, he thought, would save him, especially one whose capture would be particularly hard. Severus, the Death Eater, taken under the wings of Dumbledoor would be perfect, he must have thought.
"But, somehow, Severus knew what was coming. He was prepared and the man ran away. Terrified. He took a back hall, the portraits in which had assembled for a meeting about proper conduct due to the fact that Peeves had had a little chat with them early. A girl laid there, pretty, but sick and vulnerable. The only advantage she had was that she knew about him. He had to think quick and grabbed her.
"He took her about 100 miles away, hiding in its closeness to Hogwarts. It was a moor, but an enchanted one, and he used a spell to create a box underground, and there he held the girl…
"You." He released his breath heavily. "We followed his trail and there is a special spell for finding areas containing a particularly large amount of magic. His box created that, but we had to break through numerous enchantments. I would imagine that, as we did that, our voices grew louder and louder."
"Where's Professor Snape?" Why had I asked? I could only dream that he wanted to see me again. It was my nightmare that he had seen what had happened to me and assumed he carried the same privileges. A smile decorated the old man's face and he backed his chair away from the cot, giving me enough room to get out of it.
"You'll find him in his dungeons."
