Title: Astray
By: Melusina
Category: angst
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: Many thanks again to my beta Mairi. She checked this story for me. If you find any remaining blunders, blame me for them...
Summary The ultimate answer to the question whether Snape is straight or gay: he is both. But he's not bi. Must be magic - but it's not.
Part Three - The Dungeons
Michael's mind was reeling by the time he left Dumbledore's office. He knew that he was either in the middle of a weird dream, or that the world had turned over. Or he had just officially lost his mind. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't pay much attention to where he was going, thus encountering a group of students who had just left a classroom. The excited chattering fell immediately silent and the group parted to let him through. Michael blinked, but decided that students probably knew better where he was supposed to go than he, so he blindly went into the direction they unconsciously indicated. The expression on his face must have been very odd though, for they seemed to look at him with frightful confusion.
He went through the passage and when he came to a stairway, he descended it, being unable to find a reason not to. Thus he came to the lower regions of the castle, which seemed to form a labyrinth of their own. Just when he started to ask himself if he was ever hoping to find some way back again, he saw a very fair boy, leaning against a wooden door.
"There you are, professor, I hoped I would find you in your office, but you weren't there, so I decided to wait for you."
Michael walked up to the door with all the air of a man who knows his place in life. When he touched the door, it opened. The boy looked at him confused. "Did you spell it to your touch, professor?"
As Michael didn't know how to answer that, he only frowned upon the boy, which seemed to be enough of an answer. He walked past the door and entered the room. He had difficulty to keep his gasp to himself. He seemed to have entered an alchemist's laboratory. Jars were standing everywhere and in the middle a desk stood, covered with parchment in the best tradition of Nostradamus.
For a moment he stood very still. Then he remembered his audience and turned towards the boy. "What can I do for you?" he asked.
The boy looked at him, apparently puzzled.
"My father sent me, sir, asking whether you have some more of that potion."
"Which potion?" Michael asked, despite himself.
The boy threw him another glance. "I don't know the name, sir. The soul- compelling one."
Michael stomach clenched at these words. "No, I have not. Now leave."
The boy speedily left the room.
When he had left the room, Michael took a closer look at the room he was standing in. He blinked several times, but the image remained just the same. Cupboards lining the walls. Jars on the shelves, thousands of them. Filled with - Michael took a step in their direction. He stepped back almost immediately. Loathing stuff. Dead things. Nauseating. Remembered him of the anatomical museum at the University of Edinburgh, where he had studied.
Suddenly he noticed that that his legs were giving way under him. He made it to the nearest chair and fell on it. He needed some time to think.
What had happened to him? When the world hadn't turned over and when he wasn't dreaming - a pinch in his arm assured him of that - and when his mind wasn't reeling, then these people were serious. They were taking him for someone else. Professor Snape, apparently. And if he wasn't mistaken, he was sitting in his double's office right now.
For a while he just sat on the chair, doing nothing. Trying to get in what had happened to him. He knew that he hadn't got mad in the space of one afternoon. He couldn't believe he had walked in so elaborate a trap. It had to be real in some way. Memories of childhood stories came flooding into his mind. Of strange happenings around the lake. People appearing and disappearing. Smoke, the sound of a train sometimes in the middle of the night. Strange behaviour of animals. People who sometimes disappeared and then reappeared a few days later, confused, unable to tell what had happened to them. A strange smell, strange animals, unexplained movements in the lake. The locals had their own theories about what happened and wisely kept away from it. Michael now started to ask himself what of all of this was true.
He undoubtedly found himself in a large building of great antiquity. The people in it seemed to live some life outside the real world, but a complete life in itself. Apparently this was a school, and his double was a professor. What would he be teaching? Biology perhaps, judging from the jars on the shelves.
But there was far more, and he knew it, although it took some time before he could acknowledge it to himself. The way the sculpture came alive. All the movements in this castle. The ceiling of the hall, the way Dumbledore replaced his clothes. Michael knew that there was no way he could be mistaken. The man had used some kind of magic. Did that mean that he was in a magical place? Was his double a magician? The longer he thought about it, the longer this thought chilled him. Where exactly was he? What exactly were these people? On the other hand, everybody he had met so far seemed to be a good sort of people. People he didn't mistrust.
For the first time he took a look at the clothes that Dumbledore had given him. They were pitch-black, and strangely old-fashioned. Michael felt like a priest, but at least they kept him comfortably warm.
Michael now felt slightly guilty that he was intruding in someone else's rooms, fascinating though it was. He knew that he hadn't really tried to convince the people that they were mistaken about him. He must go back to Professor Dumbledore and confess. And then leave. He sighed, slightly sorry that he would have to go. This place really was fascinating. Perhaps he would be allowed to stay for a while, to look around.
He came up again and took a last look around him. That was when he saw the envelope on the desk of his double. Curiously he took it and turned it around. Slowly, letters in a beautiful and dignified hand, not unlike his own, appeared on the front of the envelope. To Albus Dumbledore.
Strange, he thought. Why wouldn't his double have given it to Dumbledore himself, when they lived in the same place? As he turned the letter around in hid hands, he saw that the seal didn't close the letter completely, as if they writer had not taken care in sealing it. A burning curiosity got the better of Michael. He couldn't wait to discover what would be in the letter of a man who lived in such a place. He opened it.
Albus,
(The letter read, shortly and abruptly,)
Upon the instance of my demise, please take care that all documents left in the lower part of my closed drawer be destroyed. The codeword to the secret vault at Gringott's is misdemeanour. It contains the potions we have agreed upon. Please dispose of Snape manor and all possessions left in this room in any manner that you see fit.
S.S.
Michael's mind reeled. Upon the instance of my demise. What was the man talking about? What was going on? Codeword? Potions? The coldness of the note chilled him to the bone. The faces of Dumbledore, the woman called Minerva and the giant flittered in front of his eyes. They had had friendly faces. Not smiling perhaps, but good and friendly. How was it possible that such an awful, ice-cold note could be addressed to Dumbledore? What kind of a man was his double? What was going on in this place? Was his double in danger? In complete confusion he looked around him, vaguely trying to find more clues.
For the first time he noted that the room seemed in to be extreme order. Nothing lying out of place. Everything ordered carefully and at the right place. Had the inhabitant had taken the trouble to clean his rooms before he left?
Not caring any longer he reached for the drawer and opened it. Everything seemed to be in order here as well. A small notebook was lying on top of a stack of various papers. He opened it. It contained lists of names, numbers, and times. He couldn't make much of it at first sight and randomly leafed through it.
Suddenly a name jumped to his eye. Lestrange. Bellatrix Lestrange. Again that name, he thought. How is it possible? He carefully read everything on the page, but it didn't make sense. Apparition directions? Numbers? Arithmetic's? Dates? Thirteen minutes of Cruciatus? He leafed on. More names, apparently. Malfoy, Doolittle, Rosier. It didn't make sense. But he thought the book might be of importance.
It would probably be best if he brought the notebook and the letter to Dumbledore. For some reason, though, he hesitated.
The castle was far more than it appeared to be at first sight. There were some heavy undercurrents around here. For the first time, Michael remembered the boy that had been waiting outside. What had he been asking for? Soul-compelling potions? What invention of hell might that be?
Would he be justified in not going to Dumbledore? It was very well possible that his double was in serious trouble. It could be a mistake not to warn everybody that he hadn't returned. On the other hand some if these things definitely had to do with his dreams. The answers to all riddles were clearly hidden in this castle. What a chance to find out more!
A shudder went through Michael as he realised that he wanted to pull this through. He couldn't imagine that the people in the castle wouldn't find him out very quickly. But in the meantime he would have the chance the find out some more. And if it was going to be a problem, he could always confess, couldn't he? As if he felt what was going on, Jack, who until then had been very quiet, padded up to him and licked his hand again. Resolutely putting all kinds of lingering doubt out of his mind, Michael sat down and went through the office systematically.
An hour and a half later, his mind reeled. What had he got himself into? More than once he had been on the point of stopping, ashamed that he was going through somebody else's private things. But a feeling of restlessness, of unease and a burning curiosity drove him on.
He had been right that his double was a teacher. Lesson plans, lists of the marks of the students, notes on the progress of classes and a detailed oversight of ingredients used in the classes made this abundantly plain. The man taught potions and seemed to be in need of the most exotic ingredients. He must have a full-time job, if Michael could judge the number of students correctly. From what he could gather, the students seemed to be divided in four groups, each with a different, strange name. Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor? Well, he thought, he would figure it out soon enough. Apart from that, they seemed to be divided in seven years. After a while, Michael found the logbook his double seemed to keep on the various classes and looked into them. He thoroughly enjoyed the sarcastic comment the teacher had on them, although he would have been shocked if his teachers had used such language on him.
The man seemed to be an optimist by nature, judging from the comment on individual students, and the number of times the word 'moron' was used to describe incidents and students.
Professor Snape hadn't expected to return, Michael thought, when he found the letter that was addressed to his successor. Although - a letter - it was just a practical and very detailed account on the progress of the classes and remarks on various individual students. The best and the weakest. Michael studied these notes carefully and with a pounding heart. Was he really going to take his double's place? What made him do such a thing? But in his heart he knew that he was far too much involved not to do it. He couldn't stop just now. He wanted to know what was coming.
He walked around in the rooms, but there wasn't much more that helped him on. No personal possessions. He also found the door to what seemed to be the man's private rooms. These were painfully orderly as well. There were no pictures on the walls, apparently no personal possessions, nothing that said anything about their owner's personality. Michael went on and found another door, this one leading from the office into a classroom. The potions classroom, obviously. This room was in a perfect state as well. Clean. Nothing out of order. Everything at the right place.
By: Melusina
Category: angst
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: Many thanks again to my beta Mairi. She checked this story for me. If you find any remaining blunders, blame me for them...
Summary The ultimate answer to the question whether Snape is straight or gay: he is both. But he's not bi. Must be magic - but it's not.
Part Three - The Dungeons
Michael's mind was reeling by the time he left Dumbledore's office. He knew that he was either in the middle of a weird dream, or that the world had turned over. Or he had just officially lost his mind. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't pay much attention to where he was going, thus encountering a group of students who had just left a classroom. The excited chattering fell immediately silent and the group parted to let him through. Michael blinked, but decided that students probably knew better where he was supposed to go than he, so he blindly went into the direction they unconsciously indicated. The expression on his face must have been very odd though, for they seemed to look at him with frightful confusion.
He went through the passage and when he came to a stairway, he descended it, being unable to find a reason not to. Thus he came to the lower regions of the castle, which seemed to form a labyrinth of their own. Just when he started to ask himself if he was ever hoping to find some way back again, he saw a very fair boy, leaning against a wooden door.
"There you are, professor, I hoped I would find you in your office, but you weren't there, so I decided to wait for you."
Michael walked up to the door with all the air of a man who knows his place in life. When he touched the door, it opened. The boy looked at him confused. "Did you spell it to your touch, professor?"
As Michael didn't know how to answer that, he only frowned upon the boy, which seemed to be enough of an answer. He walked past the door and entered the room. He had difficulty to keep his gasp to himself. He seemed to have entered an alchemist's laboratory. Jars were standing everywhere and in the middle a desk stood, covered with parchment in the best tradition of Nostradamus.
For a moment he stood very still. Then he remembered his audience and turned towards the boy. "What can I do for you?" he asked.
The boy looked at him, apparently puzzled.
"My father sent me, sir, asking whether you have some more of that potion."
"Which potion?" Michael asked, despite himself.
The boy threw him another glance. "I don't know the name, sir. The soul- compelling one."
Michael stomach clenched at these words. "No, I have not. Now leave."
The boy speedily left the room.
When he had left the room, Michael took a closer look at the room he was standing in. He blinked several times, but the image remained just the same. Cupboards lining the walls. Jars on the shelves, thousands of them. Filled with - Michael took a step in their direction. He stepped back almost immediately. Loathing stuff. Dead things. Nauseating. Remembered him of the anatomical museum at the University of Edinburgh, where he had studied.
Suddenly he noticed that that his legs were giving way under him. He made it to the nearest chair and fell on it. He needed some time to think.
What had happened to him? When the world hadn't turned over and when he wasn't dreaming - a pinch in his arm assured him of that - and when his mind wasn't reeling, then these people were serious. They were taking him for someone else. Professor Snape, apparently. And if he wasn't mistaken, he was sitting in his double's office right now.
For a while he just sat on the chair, doing nothing. Trying to get in what had happened to him. He knew that he hadn't got mad in the space of one afternoon. He couldn't believe he had walked in so elaborate a trap. It had to be real in some way. Memories of childhood stories came flooding into his mind. Of strange happenings around the lake. People appearing and disappearing. Smoke, the sound of a train sometimes in the middle of the night. Strange behaviour of animals. People who sometimes disappeared and then reappeared a few days later, confused, unable to tell what had happened to them. A strange smell, strange animals, unexplained movements in the lake. The locals had their own theories about what happened and wisely kept away from it. Michael now started to ask himself what of all of this was true.
He undoubtedly found himself in a large building of great antiquity. The people in it seemed to live some life outside the real world, but a complete life in itself. Apparently this was a school, and his double was a professor. What would he be teaching? Biology perhaps, judging from the jars on the shelves.
But there was far more, and he knew it, although it took some time before he could acknowledge it to himself. The way the sculpture came alive. All the movements in this castle. The ceiling of the hall, the way Dumbledore replaced his clothes. Michael knew that there was no way he could be mistaken. The man had used some kind of magic. Did that mean that he was in a magical place? Was his double a magician? The longer he thought about it, the longer this thought chilled him. Where exactly was he? What exactly were these people? On the other hand, everybody he had met so far seemed to be a good sort of people. People he didn't mistrust.
For the first time he took a look at the clothes that Dumbledore had given him. They were pitch-black, and strangely old-fashioned. Michael felt like a priest, but at least they kept him comfortably warm.
Michael now felt slightly guilty that he was intruding in someone else's rooms, fascinating though it was. He knew that he hadn't really tried to convince the people that they were mistaken about him. He must go back to Professor Dumbledore and confess. And then leave. He sighed, slightly sorry that he would have to go. This place really was fascinating. Perhaps he would be allowed to stay for a while, to look around.
He came up again and took a last look around him. That was when he saw the envelope on the desk of his double. Curiously he took it and turned it around. Slowly, letters in a beautiful and dignified hand, not unlike his own, appeared on the front of the envelope. To Albus Dumbledore.
Strange, he thought. Why wouldn't his double have given it to Dumbledore himself, when they lived in the same place? As he turned the letter around in hid hands, he saw that the seal didn't close the letter completely, as if they writer had not taken care in sealing it. A burning curiosity got the better of Michael. He couldn't wait to discover what would be in the letter of a man who lived in such a place. He opened it.
Albus,
(The letter read, shortly and abruptly,)
Upon the instance of my demise, please take care that all documents left in the lower part of my closed drawer be destroyed. The codeword to the secret vault at Gringott's is misdemeanour. It contains the potions we have agreed upon. Please dispose of Snape manor and all possessions left in this room in any manner that you see fit.
S.S.
Michael's mind reeled. Upon the instance of my demise. What was the man talking about? What was going on? Codeword? Potions? The coldness of the note chilled him to the bone. The faces of Dumbledore, the woman called Minerva and the giant flittered in front of his eyes. They had had friendly faces. Not smiling perhaps, but good and friendly. How was it possible that such an awful, ice-cold note could be addressed to Dumbledore? What kind of a man was his double? What was going on in this place? Was his double in danger? In complete confusion he looked around him, vaguely trying to find more clues.
For the first time he noted that the room seemed in to be extreme order. Nothing lying out of place. Everything ordered carefully and at the right place. Had the inhabitant had taken the trouble to clean his rooms before he left?
Not caring any longer he reached for the drawer and opened it. Everything seemed to be in order here as well. A small notebook was lying on top of a stack of various papers. He opened it. It contained lists of names, numbers, and times. He couldn't make much of it at first sight and randomly leafed through it.
Suddenly a name jumped to his eye. Lestrange. Bellatrix Lestrange. Again that name, he thought. How is it possible? He carefully read everything on the page, but it didn't make sense. Apparition directions? Numbers? Arithmetic's? Dates? Thirteen minutes of Cruciatus? He leafed on. More names, apparently. Malfoy, Doolittle, Rosier. It didn't make sense. But he thought the book might be of importance.
It would probably be best if he brought the notebook and the letter to Dumbledore. For some reason, though, he hesitated.
The castle was far more than it appeared to be at first sight. There were some heavy undercurrents around here. For the first time, Michael remembered the boy that had been waiting outside. What had he been asking for? Soul-compelling potions? What invention of hell might that be?
Would he be justified in not going to Dumbledore? It was very well possible that his double was in serious trouble. It could be a mistake not to warn everybody that he hadn't returned. On the other hand some if these things definitely had to do with his dreams. The answers to all riddles were clearly hidden in this castle. What a chance to find out more!
A shudder went through Michael as he realised that he wanted to pull this through. He couldn't imagine that the people in the castle wouldn't find him out very quickly. But in the meantime he would have the chance the find out some more. And if it was going to be a problem, he could always confess, couldn't he? As if he felt what was going on, Jack, who until then had been very quiet, padded up to him and licked his hand again. Resolutely putting all kinds of lingering doubt out of his mind, Michael sat down and went through the office systematically.
An hour and a half later, his mind reeled. What had he got himself into? More than once he had been on the point of stopping, ashamed that he was going through somebody else's private things. But a feeling of restlessness, of unease and a burning curiosity drove him on.
He had been right that his double was a teacher. Lesson plans, lists of the marks of the students, notes on the progress of classes and a detailed oversight of ingredients used in the classes made this abundantly plain. The man taught potions and seemed to be in need of the most exotic ingredients. He must have a full-time job, if Michael could judge the number of students correctly. From what he could gather, the students seemed to be divided in four groups, each with a different, strange name. Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor? Well, he thought, he would figure it out soon enough. Apart from that, they seemed to be divided in seven years. After a while, Michael found the logbook his double seemed to keep on the various classes and looked into them. He thoroughly enjoyed the sarcastic comment the teacher had on them, although he would have been shocked if his teachers had used such language on him.
The man seemed to be an optimist by nature, judging from the comment on individual students, and the number of times the word 'moron' was used to describe incidents and students.
Professor Snape hadn't expected to return, Michael thought, when he found the letter that was addressed to his successor. Although - a letter - it was just a practical and very detailed account on the progress of the classes and remarks on various individual students. The best and the weakest. Michael studied these notes carefully and with a pounding heart. Was he really going to take his double's place? What made him do such a thing? But in his heart he knew that he was far too much involved not to do it. He couldn't stop just now. He wanted to know what was coming.
He walked around in the rooms, but there wasn't much more that helped him on. No personal possessions. He also found the door to what seemed to be the man's private rooms. These were painfully orderly as well. There were no pictures on the walls, apparently no personal possessions, nothing that said anything about their owner's personality. Michael went on and found another door, this one leading from the office into a classroom. The potions classroom, obviously. This room was in a perfect state as well. Clean. Nothing out of order. Everything at the right place.