Chapter 13
First Impressions
Here there was nothing but the dark, the warm, humid, sickening dark. Like being in a blind cocoon, she could not have seen her hand in front of her face, but she couldn't lift her hand. But why couldn't she? She moved her hand a little and heard the clink of chains and the hard metal band of the manacle on her wrist. Manacles! And on her ankles, too, there were shackles and chains.
Funny, she had expected it to be cold. Cold she could handle, but this stifling, horrible heat was too much. Locked away here in this cell...where was she? Why was she here? She couldn't remember. She didn't know. That was worst of it, of course, even worse than the horrible smothering atmosphere.
She drew a deep breath and called out, "Hello?" Her voice rebounded off the walls at her sounding harsh and mocking. From the sound she could tell the room was tiny, and had no echo. It was like shouting into a hole in the ground. Was it a prison? Or a tomb? "Is anyone there? Can you hear me? Hello?" Her voice, now desperate and frayed with terror, grated on her panic-dry throat. "Where am I?" she breathed to herself.
She felt vaguely uncomfortable, and tried to shift her weight. Her body felt strange and detached from her mind. It seemed to take her a long time to coordinate her limbs, and she felt as thought she couldn't have told the difference between a broken leg and her foot falling asleep. The sound of the clinking chains also sounded otherworldly, like it was coming from another room.
Then, without warning, the door opened. A broad beam of light streamed in, bright and sterile like fluorescent hospital lamps. There was a dark figure blocking the door, and Bella's dazzled eyes couldn't clearly see them. She felt dizzy suddenly, and like she was fainting. She felt like the light had dealt some fatal blow, that now she was slipping away, checking out. The room wavered and dimmed, but then slowly grew solid again. She opened her eyes again, and now she could see the dark silhouette better, its broad shoulders and stubby hands...
The unpleasantly familiar face of the Azkaban warden came clear suddenly, and she realized he had come forward to undo her chains. He was pulling her to her feet, and then pushing her out the door.
She saw a hallway, like in a prison cellblock, the kind she'd seen on Muggle television years and years ago. She had never been here before! This was a Muggle prison. But no, it couldn't be, not with the warden working here, and, oh, then came the cold, great sick waves of it that made her long for the stifling, coffin-like warmth of her cell. She could see the dementors now, sliding in from both sides. She saw other prisoners looking out from the bars. They felt nothing, it seemed, but only shook their heads at her disapprovingly. The dementors took a stand on either side of her and each seized one of her arms. At their touch the fear broke over her like waves of icy water. She was so wrapped in the despairing terror that she was only dimly repelled by their filthy, decayed hands clamped around her arms, like vengeful dead things rotting in bogs, and she didn't notice her knees buckling as she sank to the ground.
"Go on, get up!" cried one of the prisoners harshly from behind the bars.
"Don't talk to her, whatever you do!" someone hissed at him, almost fearfully, as if she could do anything to him.
Bella was confused, bombarded with questions from her own mind and struggling to keep control over herself, but she couldn't wonder about it now. She didn't –she couldn't –care.
The hands on her held like clammy steel, all but dragging her because she couldn't seem to put one foot in front of the other. She didn't know where they were taking her, but she wanted to get there, anywhere, if they would only let go of her. The hallway dimmed, and like foul, loathsome sea creatures shooting to the surface, the memories came.
There were so many she couldn't keep them straight. They were disjointed, confusing, scattered images, leaving black footprints on her mind. She saw the dead buck, and the bullies. She saw a little boy with a bloody nose that he'd got from his mother, who was swallowed up by a fall off a broomstick fro a sickening height. Muggle mixed with wizard until she couldn't tell the difference anymore, deluged by an endless flood of other people's fear and guilt and sadness. Not hers, that hand full of little white pills, not hers, that blood dripping darkly on the white, ceramic tile. Not her screaming or maybe it was, if she had ever screamed like that. She couldn't think clearly, only remember and remember and remember.
"Attention, please," boomed a voice over a crackly speaker. "Bring out the prisoner."
Bella was dragged forward and flung down. It took her a long moment to realize where she was. The air was fresh again, and the sky was blue! She gulped in air like she was drowning; realised that the light that stabbed at her eyes was really sunlight. But what was the shadow over her? And she was lying on wooden planks, why was that? There was something scratchy around her neck...And she looked up and saw the scaffold, and then she knew, dizzy again like fainting as she clawed at the prickly hempen rope round her neck, desperately pulling at the noose that wouldn't budge.
"No..." she moaned, her mouth perfectly dry. And then in a hoarse scream, "No! I've done nothing! Why am I here?"
She heard voices then, frightened mumbling from all around. The voice of Cornelius Fudge rang out, "Don't listen ladies and gentlemen, don't worry, just cover your ears."
And Bella looked around and saw that the scaffold was raised in the middle of a large city park, with gazeboes and bandstands and families on blankets with picnic lunches set out on the grass. So many people here, just to watch her execution.
"What did I do!" she shrieked at the hooded executioner.
"Nothing yet," he said in a shocked sounding voice very like Professor Carmichael's. "But you don't expect us to take a risk like that. You're just too dangerous!" And with that he pulled the lever and the trapdoor dropped. The noose jerked tight and the faint that had followed her all the way from the prison cell finally rose like dark water creeping up around her, to her chin...swamp water touching her lower lip, touching her upper lip, sliding up under her nose and smelling like carrion, and covering her eyes as Bella hung there drowning in the air, watching the last bubbles of her breath drift up to the surface. And she went under, as the dark water cooled her, chilled her, and killed her as everything went dark...
Bella jerked awake.
She rolled out of the chair, shaking, falling to her knees on the carpeted floor. She was drenched in cold sweat, gulping done air as she thought she had done moments ago in the face of death. Her relief was almost paralyzing, almost nauseatingly welcome as she clutched madly at her own body, feeling for her beautifully unfettered wrists and unbroken neck. IT had been a dream, an awful dream, but nothing more.
The dream's terror was still on her, her breathing still heavy and ragged. She moaned into the silence of the room. Hogwarts, safe at Hogwarts, not in some horrible dream prison, no dementors, no noose. There was a broad patch of moonlight coming through the window, silvery and calming somehow as she crept into it and tried to still her shaking limbs. She looked up at the sky and saw the clouds part for the round moon as they swept through the night. She stared up for a moment, transfixed, breathing more evenly and shaking less.
Bella got slowly to her feet and took a few steps. The dream was still fresh and horrible in her mind, and if she let herself she could feel all that terror again like she had never woken up. She gulped, rubbed her face with her hands, and pinched herself on the arm. I'm not there anymore, it wasn't real, she thought as she pressed her fingers to her eyelids, I haven't done anything wrong, I'm not dangerous...
She walked to the window, taking slow, measured steps and being careful to go easy on her unsteady knees. She sat on the window seat and looked out. The grounds were covered in moonlight like clear mercury, and slightly blue under the rolling sky. Taken by the view, Bella smiled in spite of herself. This was her world, this real and solid place. The dream had been nothing but smoke in the wind. She was whole and alive. Until that moment, she hadn't felt sane.
Just then, something caught her eye. There was something moving across the broad stretch of grass that was between her and the walls. A dark shape was coming towards the castle, and as she looked harder she could make out the cloak they were wearing, with a deep hood pulled up over their head. In a moment of terror, Bella thought it was a dementor, but then the figure stumbled.
Who could it be, slipping back into the school in the dead of night? They stumbled again, and this time she could make out a white hand against the black cloak, pressed to the chest of the dark stranger. They were sick, or hurt...for a moment it looked like they couldn't go on. Pity, or at least concern, was conquering Bella's fears. Even as the figure struggled to their feet, she wanted to lend them an arm. She was still worried about what the stranger might do, though. Who could it be? She doubted it was a teacher. Maybe a student...
She watched their slow and laboured progress to the castle. She saw them moving along the base of the castle, and then they disappeared.
The stranger was inside.
Bella rose, and then hesitated. What was she thinking? They could be dangerous. But how had they gotten into the grounds? She had a vague idea that no one could get in without someone at Hogwarts knowing. But she didn't know for sure...Her mind battled for a moment. They couldn't have Apparated, not with the wards in place, and certainly they didn't seem in a state to do it anyway. Someone who meant harm to anyone in the school wouldn't come here injured. The hell with her conscience, her curiosity would never let her rest if she didn't investigate. If she was caught, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. She only wanted to help, after all.
Bella set out across the common room, and climbed out the portrait hole, ignoring the sleepy grumbles of its occupant. She made her way through the castle, down to ground level, not far from the door she'd seen them enter.
She stationed herself in a dark corridor, not daring to make a sound, let alone a light. For a long moment, she thought she was alone. Then, from the other end if the corridor, she heard footsteps. She darted into a niche behind a statue and waited there, scarcely breathing.
The footsteps drew nearer, and she squeezed back into the shadows as the cloaked figure walked by. She hadn't seen their face, but she could make out a tall man with dark hair that was matted with what might have been water but was probably blood.
His breath was halting and laboured. It sounded terrible, like someone with bad asthma. He was fumbling for the doorknob at the end of the hall. She heard the knob click and the door open. Bella waited until she heard the footsteps diminish in the distance, and then stuck the tiniest possible part of her head out of the niche and looked down the hall.
She nearly screamed.
She was staring right down the stranger's wand. He was leaning hard on the wall just beside the niche, wand pointing right into her face.
"Step out and show yourself. Quickly, now, who are you?"
Bella obeyed, stepping out into the middle of the passage and raising her hands. "I'm a student here," she said shakily.
Even in the half light, Bella could tell she was being glared at. His breath was coming hard. "That," he said softly, "is a very poor excuse in the middle of the holidays, in the middle of the night. Now, I will ask you one more time. Who are you?"
"I'm a student! My name is Bella Thorne. I just started here this year. The Malfoys..." she stopped. He had lowered his wand.
"Oh," he said unevenly, "You."
She nodded violently. She wasn't sure who she was talking to, but she could tell he was some kind of authority. Bella swallowed hard, hoping she hadn't horribly offended someone.
"Why are you down here?"
"I saw you coming in...you looked hurt."
"And told no one, I suppose?" he said acidly. "Why didn't you alert your head of..." he stopped. She wasn't sure if he had stopped because of whatever injuries he had, or for some other reason.
"The head of Slytherin House is away. Professor Snape has been gone for months."
He was silent for a moment. Then, he took a deep, slow, painful sounding breath and said, "Well, perhaps he will have to forgive you for spying on him. Lumos!"
The dark hallway was filled with wand-light, and Bella finally saw his pale face in sharp relief against his black hair and clothes. There was a trickle of blood running from just above his left temple, and there were beads of sweat on his face. He took her in at a glance that swept from head to toe without his face revealing the least what he was thinking.
After a long pause, he said, "Well?"
"Professor Snape, I'm very sorry I disturbed you, but are...are you..." she faltered. "Are you hurt?"
"I can manage myself, Miss Thorne. I suggest you return to your –ah!" he broke off, and she could hear the tight, pained rasping of the air in his chest.
"Sir, please! You are hurt, and in bad shape..."
His lips thinned in pain and exasperation too, she guessed. "Miss Thorne," he hissed, "There's nothing you can –do," he finished, gritting his teeth. She could see the pain he was in, and recognised the curse that would do that to a man, by making every breath an agony. She couldn't stand the sight of the tendons in his neck standing out and the deathly colour in his cheeks. She pulled out her wand.
"No!" he rasped, but she took no notice.
"Strictus relaxo!" she cried, aiming the countercurse directly at his chest.
Professor Snape staggered back against the wall. He was staring hard at her with sharp, glittering black eyes. He took several deep breaths with perfect ease. "Miss Thorne, I thought I told you to return to your dormitory and leave me in peace." His voice was no longer strangled and thin, but quiet and deep, and full of irony. His words reverberated through the passage, just threatening enough to put her on edge and completely off guard.
"I –I'm sorry, sir, I just..." But she found she couldn't quite find the words.
"Yes, Miss Thorne. Believe me, you just made life a good deal easier for me. I'm not ungrateful. I feel rather inclined to forget this meeting and your, well, insubordination. In fact, you would be wise to do the same."
"Yes, sir, but...if you don't mind my asking...what happened to you?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. I'm afraid it is none of your concern."
She nodded, and turned to leave.
"One more thing, Miss Thorne. How did you know it was the Constrictus Curse?"
"Umm," said Bella, quite taken aback, "It was your breathing, sir. I knew it wasn't the Cruciatus, and...It's the only one I've heard of that constricts the lungs without touching the rest of the body. You can't use the Finite Incantatem charm on it, because it can make the pain in the lungs worse, or damage them permanently."
He nodded, and she saw his lips curve into a small, wry smile. "Very astute. I can see you have spent time with the Malfoys." He took a step closer. "You were their ward, if I'm not mistaken? You might like to give the Prophet a glance tomorrow, and Mr. Malfoy would do well to do the same. I believe you'll find it interesting."
With that he stepped back. Bella had been meaning to say something, but the words died on her lips. Instead, she just said, "Goodnight Professor," and turned to leave. She could feel his eyes on her retreating back all the way back to the portrait hole.
When she was back in her dormitory, Bella lay awake thinking in the dark for a long time.
Well, Professor Snape was back. And what a strange man he was...where had he managed to cross paths with the Constrictus Curse? Nowhere innocent, she was sure.
It was one of many others, called Auror Curses because they were meant to stop or slow down an enemy without killing him. They weren't common curses, and not cast lightly by any wizard, usually because they were hard to remove and needed difficult countercurses.
Professor Snape had not been vacationing.
But what did he mean, read the paper?
First Impressions
Here there was nothing but the dark, the warm, humid, sickening dark. Like being in a blind cocoon, she could not have seen her hand in front of her face, but she couldn't lift her hand. But why couldn't she? She moved her hand a little and heard the clink of chains and the hard metal band of the manacle on her wrist. Manacles! And on her ankles, too, there were shackles and chains.
Funny, she had expected it to be cold. Cold she could handle, but this stifling, horrible heat was too much. Locked away here in this cell...where was she? Why was she here? She couldn't remember. She didn't know. That was worst of it, of course, even worse than the horrible smothering atmosphere.
She drew a deep breath and called out, "Hello?" Her voice rebounded off the walls at her sounding harsh and mocking. From the sound she could tell the room was tiny, and had no echo. It was like shouting into a hole in the ground. Was it a prison? Or a tomb? "Is anyone there? Can you hear me? Hello?" Her voice, now desperate and frayed with terror, grated on her panic-dry throat. "Where am I?" she breathed to herself.
She felt vaguely uncomfortable, and tried to shift her weight. Her body felt strange and detached from her mind. It seemed to take her a long time to coordinate her limbs, and she felt as thought she couldn't have told the difference between a broken leg and her foot falling asleep. The sound of the clinking chains also sounded otherworldly, like it was coming from another room.
Then, without warning, the door opened. A broad beam of light streamed in, bright and sterile like fluorescent hospital lamps. There was a dark figure blocking the door, and Bella's dazzled eyes couldn't clearly see them. She felt dizzy suddenly, and like she was fainting. She felt like the light had dealt some fatal blow, that now she was slipping away, checking out. The room wavered and dimmed, but then slowly grew solid again. She opened her eyes again, and now she could see the dark silhouette better, its broad shoulders and stubby hands...
The unpleasantly familiar face of the Azkaban warden came clear suddenly, and she realized he had come forward to undo her chains. He was pulling her to her feet, and then pushing her out the door.
She saw a hallway, like in a prison cellblock, the kind she'd seen on Muggle television years and years ago. She had never been here before! This was a Muggle prison. But no, it couldn't be, not with the warden working here, and, oh, then came the cold, great sick waves of it that made her long for the stifling, coffin-like warmth of her cell. She could see the dementors now, sliding in from both sides. She saw other prisoners looking out from the bars. They felt nothing, it seemed, but only shook their heads at her disapprovingly. The dementors took a stand on either side of her and each seized one of her arms. At their touch the fear broke over her like waves of icy water. She was so wrapped in the despairing terror that she was only dimly repelled by their filthy, decayed hands clamped around her arms, like vengeful dead things rotting in bogs, and she didn't notice her knees buckling as she sank to the ground.
"Go on, get up!" cried one of the prisoners harshly from behind the bars.
"Don't talk to her, whatever you do!" someone hissed at him, almost fearfully, as if she could do anything to him.
Bella was confused, bombarded with questions from her own mind and struggling to keep control over herself, but she couldn't wonder about it now. She didn't –she couldn't –care.
The hands on her held like clammy steel, all but dragging her because she couldn't seem to put one foot in front of the other. She didn't know where they were taking her, but she wanted to get there, anywhere, if they would only let go of her. The hallway dimmed, and like foul, loathsome sea creatures shooting to the surface, the memories came.
There were so many she couldn't keep them straight. They were disjointed, confusing, scattered images, leaving black footprints on her mind. She saw the dead buck, and the bullies. She saw a little boy with a bloody nose that he'd got from his mother, who was swallowed up by a fall off a broomstick fro a sickening height. Muggle mixed with wizard until she couldn't tell the difference anymore, deluged by an endless flood of other people's fear and guilt and sadness. Not hers, that hand full of little white pills, not hers, that blood dripping darkly on the white, ceramic tile. Not her screaming or maybe it was, if she had ever screamed like that. She couldn't think clearly, only remember and remember and remember.
"Attention, please," boomed a voice over a crackly speaker. "Bring out the prisoner."
Bella was dragged forward and flung down. It took her a long moment to realize where she was. The air was fresh again, and the sky was blue! She gulped in air like she was drowning; realised that the light that stabbed at her eyes was really sunlight. But what was the shadow over her? And she was lying on wooden planks, why was that? There was something scratchy around her neck...And she looked up and saw the scaffold, and then she knew, dizzy again like fainting as she clawed at the prickly hempen rope round her neck, desperately pulling at the noose that wouldn't budge.
"No..." she moaned, her mouth perfectly dry. And then in a hoarse scream, "No! I've done nothing! Why am I here?"
She heard voices then, frightened mumbling from all around. The voice of Cornelius Fudge rang out, "Don't listen ladies and gentlemen, don't worry, just cover your ears."
And Bella looked around and saw that the scaffold was raised in the middle of a large city park, with gazeboes and bandstands and families on blankets with picnic lunches set out on the grass. So many people here, just to watch her execution.
"What did I do!" she shrieked at the hooded executioner.
"Nothing yet," he said in a shocked sounding voice very like Professor Carmichael's. "But you don't expect us to take a risk like that. You're just too dangerous!" And with that he pulled the lever and the trapdoor dropped. The noose jerked tight and the faint that had followed her all the way from the prison cell finally rose like dark water creeping up around her, to her chin...swamp water touching her lower lip, touching her upper lip, sliding up under her nose and smelling like carrion, and covering her eyes as Bella hung there drowning in the air, watching the last bubbles of her breath drift up to the surface. And she went under, as the dark water cooled her, chilled her, and killed her as everything went dark...
Bella jerked awake.
She rolled out of the chair, shaking, falling to her knees on the carpeted floor. She was drenched in cold sweat, gulping done air as she thought she had done moments ago in the face of death. Her relief was almost paralyzing, almost nauseatingly welcome as she clutched madly at her own body, feeling for her beautifully unfettered wrists and unbroken neck. IT had been a dream, an awful dream, but nothing more.
The dream's terror was still on her, her breathing still heavy and ragged. She moaned into the silence of the room. Hogwarts, safe at Hogwarts, not in some horrible dream prison, no dementors, no noose. There was a broad patch of moonlight coming through the window, silvery and calming somehow as she crept into it and tried to still her shaking limbs. She looked up at the sky and saw the clouds part for the round moon as they swept through the night. She stared up for a moment, transfixed, breathing more evenly and shaking less.
Bella got slowly to her feet and took a few steps. The dream was still fresh and horrible in her mind, and if she let herself she could feel all that terror again like she had never woken up. She gulped, rubbed her face with her hands, and pinched herself on the arm. I'm not there anymore, it wasn't real, she thought as she pressed her fingers to her eyelids, I haven't done anything wrong, I'm not dangerous...
She walked to the window, taking slow, measured steps and being careful to go easy on her unsteady knees. She sat on the window seat and looked out. The grounds were covered in moonlight like clear mercury, and slightly blue under the rolling sky. Taken by the view, Bella smiled in spite of herself. This was her world, this real and solid place. The dream had been nothing but smoke in the wind. She was whole and alive. Until that moment, she hadn't felt sane.
Just then, something caught her eye. There was something moving across the broad stretch of grass that was between her and the walls. A dark shape was coming towards the castle, and as she looked harder she could make out the cloak they were wearing, with a deep hood pulled up over their head. In a moment of terror, Bella thought it was a dementor, but then the figure stumbled.
Who could it be, slipping back into the school in the dead of night? They stumbled again, and this time she could make out a white hand against the black cloak, pressed to the chest of the dark stranger. They were sick, or hurt...for a moment it looked like they couldn't go on. Pity, or at least concern, was conquering Bella's fears. Even as the figure struggled to their feet, she wanted to lend them an arm. She was still worried about what the stranger might do, though. Who could it be? She doubted it was a teacher. Maybe a student...
She watched their slow and laboured progress to the castle. She saw them moving along the base of the castle, and then they disappeared.
The stranger was inside.
Bella rose, and then hesitated. What was she thinking? They could be dangerous. But how had they gotten into the grounds? She had a vague idea that no one could get in without someone at Hogwarts knowing. But she didn't know for sure...Her mind battled for a moment. They couldn't have Apparated, not with the wards in place, and certainly they didn't seem in a state to do it anyway. Someone who meant harm to anyone in the school wouldn't come here injured. The hell with her conscience, her curiosity would never let her rest if she didn't investigate. If she was caught, she'd cross that bridge when she came to it. She only wanted to help, after all.
Bella set out across the common room, and climbed out the portrait hole, ignoring the sleepy grumbles of its occupant. She made her way through the castle, down to ground level, not far from the door she'd seen them enter.
She stationed herself in a dark corridor, not daring to make a sound, let alone a light. For a long moment, she thought she was alone. Then, from the other end if the corridor, she heard footsteps. She darted into a niche behind a statue and waited there, scarcely breathing.
The footsteps drew nearer, and she squeezed back into the shadows as the cloaked figure walked by. She hadn't seen their face, but she could make out a tall man with dark hair that was matted with what might have been water but was probably blood.
His breath was halting and laboured. It sounded terrible, like someone with bad asthma. He was fumbling for the doorknob at the end of the hall. She heard the knob click and the door open. Bella waited until she heard the footsteps diminish in the distance, and then stuck the tiniest possible part of her head out of the niche and looked down the hall.
She nearly screamed.
She was staring right down the stranger's wand. He was leaning hard on the wall just beside the niche, wand pointing right into her face.
"Step out and show yourself. Quickly, now, who are you?"
Bella obeyed, stepping out into the middle of the passage and raising her hands. "I'm a student here," she said shakily.
Even in the half light, Bella could tell she was being glared at. His breath was coming hard. "That," he said softly, "is a very poor excuse in the middle of the holidays, in the middle of the night. Now, I will ask you one more time. Who are you?"
"I'm a student! My name is Bella Thorne. I just started here this year. The Malfoys..." she stopped. He had lowered his wand.
"Oh," he said unevenly, "You."
She nodded violently. She wasn't sure who she was talking to, but she could tell he was some kind of authority. Bella swallowed hard, hoping she hadn't horribly offended someone.
"Why are you down here?"
"I saw you coming in...you looked hurt."
"And told no one, I suppose?" he said acidly. "Why didn't you alert your head of..." he stopped. She wasn't sure if he had stopped because of whatever injuries he had, or for some other reason.
"The head of Slytherin House is away. Professor Snape has been gone for months."
He was silent for a moment. Then, he took a deep, slow, painful sounding breath and said, "Well, perhaps he will have to forgive you for spying on him. Lumos!"
The dark hallway was filled with wand-light, and Bella finally saw his pale face in sharp relief against his black hair and clothes. There was a trickle of blood running from just above his left temple, and there were beads of sweat on his face. He took her in at a glance that swept from head to toe without his face revealing the least what he was thinking.
After a long pause, he said, "Well?"
"Professor Snape, I'm very sorry I disturbed you, but are...are you..." she faltered. "Are you hurt?"
"I can manage myself, Miss Thorne. I suggest you return to your –ah!" he broke off, and she could hear the tight, pained rasping of the air in his chest.
"Sir, please! You are hurt, and in bad shape..."
His lips thinned in pain and exasperation too, she guessed. "Miss Thorne," he hissed, "There's nothing you can –do," he finished, gritting his teeth. She could see the pain he was in, and recognised the curse that would do that to a man, by making every breath an agony. She couldn't stand the sight of the tendons in his neck standing out and the deathly colour in his cheeks. She pulled out her wand.
"No!" he rasped, but she took no notice.
"Strictus relaxo!" she cried, aiming the countercurse directly at his chest.
Professor Snape staggered back against the wall. He was staring hard at her with sharp, glittering black eyes. He took several deep breaths with perfect ease. "Miss Thorne, I thought I told you to return to your dormitory and leave me in peace." His voice was no longer strangled and thin, but quiet and deep, and full of irony. His words reverberated through the passage, just threatening enough to put her on edge and completely off guard.
"I –I'm sorry, sir, I just..." But she found she couldn't quite find the words.
"Yes, Miss Thorne. Believe me, you just made life a good deal easier for me. I'm not ungrateful. I feel rather inclined to forget this meeting and your, well, insubordination. In fact, you would be wise to do the same."
"Yes, sir, but...if you don't mind my asking...what happened to you?"
"As a matter of fact, I do. I'm afraid it is none of your concern."
She nodded, and turned to leave.
"One more thing, Miss Thorne. How did you know it was the Constrictus Curse?"
"Umm," said Bella, quite taken aback, "It was your breathing, sir. I knew it wasn't the Cruciatus, and...It's the only one I've heard of that constricts the lungs without touching the rest of the body. You can't use the Finite Incantatem charm on it, because it can make the pain in the lungs worse, or damage them permanently."
He nodded, and she saw his lips curve into a small, wry smile. "Very astute. I can see you have spent time with the Malfoys." He took a step closer. "You were their ward, if I'm not mistaken? You might like to give the Prophet a glance tomorrow, and Mr. Malfoy would do well to do the same. I believe you'll find it interesting."
With that he stepped back. Bella had been meaning to say something, but the words died on her lips. Instead, she just said, "Goodnight Professor," and turned to leave. She could feel his eyes on her retreating back all the way back to the portrait hole.
When she was back in her dormitory, Bella lay awake thinking in the dark for a long time.
Well, Professor Snape was back. And what a strange man he was...where had he managed to cross paths with the Constrictus Curse? Nowhere innocent, she was sure.
It was one of many others, called Auror Curses because they were meant to stop or slow down an enemy without killing him. They weren't common curses, and not cast lightly by any wizard, usually because they were hard to remove and needed difficult countercurses.
Professor Snape had not been vacationing.
But what did he mean, read the paper?