Yeah, about the whole Snape not growing a beard while he was dead thing ...totally a charm that keeps you automatically clean-shaven. No 5 o'clock shadow for Snapie. Just ignore the whole fact that the spell lasted post-mortem and all ...
Ex Umbris
Chapter 9
Severus had been dead for three months, and then, mysteriously, he regained life. Necromancy was a dead art ...no pun intended. The Headmaster tapped his index finger against the foot-post of the bed he was sitting on. What in the world would bring a man back to life, if not the aid of a Necromancer? And what in the world would his motivation be? Did it have to do with Voldemort? Severus's position as a double agent? The fact that he spent four years to complete what would normally take fifteen at the University of Kunlun Plateau in China to attain his position as a Master of Potions? That he worked at Hogwarts, the place that housed The Boy Who Lived for the majority of the year?
Perhaps the voice Severus remembered hearing was, in fact, a Death Mage. If someone brought the dead back to life, the reanimated would be powerless to resist their master's wishes. Severus seemed to be working under his own free will. Except for the incident with the house elf …but then again, Severus was known for threatening them when he was concentrating on a potion.
Another question was the decided lack of rotting. Usually, a reanimated corpse wouldn't heal. He didn't think he could stand to see the man in the hospital wing for much longer.
Also was the question of silent magic done without a wand. He had lit several magelights in the past few nights; the small, illuminated orbs followed him around like globes bobbing in glassy water. Also, he had summoned several books from the library directly to his hand without a word or a flick of the wrist.
It ate away at Albus Dumbledore's brain. He himself knew a few forms of wandless magic, and performed proficiently at them, but Severus was more than a hundred years younger. There was no possible way that the man could learn working without a center for his magic so quickly, except if he was dead and in another realm for an undetermined amount of time.
Other worlds have different spans of time. The man could have spent three thousand years in another world... that would surely explain why he had a hard time remembering anything about his previous life...
Albus sat watching Severus, who was staring out a window with ancient eyes.
Severus Snape's replacement potions professor smiled at the chalkboard, where she was writing the ingredients to a simple sleeping draught for the third year Hufflepuff-Ravenclaw class she had next.
Professor Lobelia Lobdell was by no means a Master of her art, but she felt she had a mean knowledge of potions. She had studied for three years at the University of Danniemoria, in the United States, financially supported by her husband, who had later died from a misfired gun during Muggle Weapons Practice at his work. He had trained Aurors for seven years.
After his death, she dropped out of school and moved to Italy, working as a research assistant at the Beladon Laboratories for the controversial study of human spirits in potions. A year after she began working there, the lab was closed down by the Ministry.
Albus Dumbledore had hired her almost three months ago to teach at his famous school in Scotland, due to the mysterious death of his previous Master. Bella was keen to teach, but once she looked at the previous Master's curricula, she felt overwhelmed. She had learned some of these potions in her college years, but some of them were completely alien to her.
The old teacher's copy of Moste Potente Potions had become a bible to her, and she brewed every potion she didn't know before she taught it to her classes. So far, with the exception of a few cauldron meltings, Filibuster fireworks, and small explosions, the year was going along without a hitch.
Until her predecessor returned from the dead, that is.
Severus Snape sat cross-legged on the wide stone railing of the balcony that overlooked Hogwarts' lake in the quiet, red-tinted hours of predawn, knowing full well that someone was watching him.
He'd been brought back almost a full month ago. His hands had mostly healed, no thanks to healing spells or potions, and since he had expressed no interest in returning to his teaching duties, Lobelia Lobdell had remained as the potions professor. He had agreed to tutor her in the more advanced techniques of potion-making that she had yet to acquire, along with overseeing the more advanced seventh-year classes.
He unconsciously brushed a thick lock of waist-length hair over his shoulder and contemplated the universe as the first rays of sunlight appeared over the trees.
Draco Malfoy stood in the shadows of a corner, hidden away from his old potions teacher, holding a penknife in his hand. The seventh year took a quiet, steadying breath and pushed himself reluctantly away from the wall, tightening his grip on the thin handle of the knife.
With surgical precision, Draco slid the small blade across the ball of his thumb. Maximum blood, minimum damage, the Dark Lord had explained.
He looked up to see Professor Snape watching him with burning red eyes. He hadn't moved, but was visibly holding himself back. His tight-mouthed expression frightened Draco.
Voldemort had summoned the pale-haired Death Eater for a private conference, asking Draco about the Potions Master after his …resurrection. Draco had noted the most unusual of the changes was that the Professor never carried a wand. He hadn't seen him do magic since then; but it wasn't entirely unusual, because he rarely displayed "foolish wand waving" even before his death.
The Dark Lord bade him to test this, and had suggested a minor wound with ample bleeding; too minor to go to the Hospital Wing, but major enough to require some sort of simple healing spell.
"Professor," Draco held his hand toward the motionless man. He studied the face that so resembled a stone mask and saw his jaw muscles clench. Blood dripped warmly down Draco's thumb and pooled in his palm. A few drops fell silently to the floor.