Chapter 10 - Snape the Dreamer
Hi again! sorry about the lack of updates! Just block this time! But anyway, feel glad for the lack of notes, and please r and r on the way out!
*********
MacDuff had lain Snape on his bed in his private quarters while be brought his double in. Snape wasn't quiet sure what had happened. There had been blood, and a voice, a figure, and then he saw the hallway, the hallway to his dungeon classroom, and felt it as someone lifted him up. But now, tired, confused and thinking that he could face his death very quickly, he listened as the world seemed to turn grey black and he heard voice, although he didn't quiet understand what they were.
"MacDuff, you said there was poison here, do you know from what?"
"No idea, but he's in pain."
"That doesn't help very much. Hold down his arm, let me examine the wound. "
"No!" Snape cried out again, "Don't!"
As soon as MacDuff tried to get near him Snape sat up, his head feeling as if there was ten tones of concrete against it, and hugged his arm closely to the body. "No!" he shouted again, "No body can see the mark!"
His double seemed relatively unfazed by his behaviour. He simply went up to him and grabbed his arm. This surprised Snape so much that his arm went limp, and he felt back to his bed, another pang of pain almost paralysing his body. Sev simply grabbed the sleeve, and taking the blood sodden, shredded black material held it in his hand for just a second, and sighed. It pained him to lose this robe. It might not have been *his* robe in so many words, but this robe was particularly comfortable. But he ripped the sleeve off in one go, and dropped Snape's arm as if it had suddenly become a poisonous snake.
"What the hell!" he hissed, stepping back from himself, "The dark mark!"
Snape sighed, taking his painful arm and clenched his teeth as he felt it throb with pain. "The dark mark, " Snape repeated, his mind half conscious, "The dark mark, a mark forever...."
"How could you?" sked Sev, his voice suddenly so gentle, as if he had been shocked to his very core, "how could you....."
"They pay with blood, " Snape mused, feeling almost unable to move, "We all pay in blood.....at some point."
Sev gasped for breath, and then took the arm again. "The wounds gone black, " he said bluntly, "Whatever got him was very poisonous. I know I'm going to regret doing this, but I have no other choice if we want him to live. There's no time to test it." Sev, his face screwing up into an expression of self-disgust and repulsion squeezed the wound, and then, as a grey poison ran out of it, placed a little of the grey poison on his finger, and licked it. He instantly reached into his pocket, brought out a black handkerchief, and spat it out.
MacDuff still stood there, staring at him.
"What are you looking at!" exclaimed Sev, "we need to prepare a bezoer, with a component of angel's blood berry, maybe some carnelian stone if there's anything around, I don't know what it is, but I can tell you that it's a dark poison."
"There are other kinds of poison?" asked MacDuff, looking more than a little astounded.
"Go!" shouted Sev, "And where on earth is that nurse?"
It was as MacDuff left that Madam Pomfery entered. "Can I see the patients wound?" she asked.
"No...." moaned Snape, his mind spinning around like a minnow in a whirlpool, "please, no more...."
But it was to no avail. Sev, rather coldly, held out his arm for him as Madam Pomfery examined it. "He's suffering from blood loss, but it's this poison that's worrying me." She said, "I Say it's a dark poison." She said, "I haven't seen it in years, not since 'you-know-who' was around."
"I've never come across it before, " admitted Sev, " can you tell what it is from looking at it?"
"I don't know for sure, but it looks like something that might be used to stop blood clotting, maybe something to ....well, I mustn't think about it. All I can do is clean up the wound and try to get as much poison out of it as possible. And hope. Hope is all we can do."
"There must be more!" replied Sev, " I know a doctor, a doctor who could heal this, a very good doctor...."
"First of all, Mr Severus Snape, " snapped madam Pomfery, "I am certain that even your doctor wouldn't have seen this before, and secondly, does this man look in any fit state to travel to even St Mungo's, let alone to where I think you're speaking of."
"True, but I know a Bezoar that might work." Said Sev, flicking some hair from his face.
"Bezoar's don't work, not unless you know what type of poison it is!" Shouted Madam Pomfery, as if he had suggested giving him an aspirin, "the best it can do is not help, at worst it can kill him."
"I've seen this used before, it can help a bit." Added Sev, " it should help, even a little bit."
"Fine!" said Madam Pomfery, throwing her hands in the air, " if you think it will help, do it, but if you hurt him, I will be the first to make you pay."
"Understood." Replied Sev, and ran out into the classroom, mishandling a spare cauldron he could mix potions in, and quickly raiding Snape's private stores. He more or less threw everything he knew he needed in, and then dumped the now full cauldron on a table.
Sev could remember the instructions for this particular cure particularly well. First of all because it had been taught to him by one of the most talented Doctors in the new history of Wizardry, and it had been a very new potion at the time, and secondly because it was incredibly useful. It seemed to work on just about all poisons for reasons that he was not in the mood to remember.
"MacDuff, " he shouted, forgetting what was left of his manners, "pass me that bushel of angel's blood Berry!"
**********
While Sev was mixing up a potion, Snape's mind has simply given up trying to stay awake and slipped away into a dream state.
Snape looked around. The room had melted away long ago and had been replaced with a blue void. He couldn't tell if it were a room or a world, but it looked as if were about to stop in front of you, but it seemed to go on forever. He was on the floor, on his hands and knees, crawling like a beast. He moved slowly, as if submerged in water, but he could breathe. He looked up, and saw a woman lying on the ground, writhing in pain, breathing quickly as if she was dying. Her hair was as black as an unlit cave, and her eyes were like two dark tunnels, going on forever, ambiguous and dangerous.
He sat up on his legs, and watched as she let out one last scream, and as something burst straight from her belly in a shower of blood. Snape watched, mesmerised as he saw a snake and a jaguar appear from her stomach, the snake green and silver, and the jaguar silver and black. The two of them looked at him briefly, and then slithered away, leaving a trail of blood.
He found himself mesmerised, looking into the woman's eyes. On her face she wore a seductive smile, and all he could see was her eyes, smiling at him, becoming him. Finally, unknowing exactly what he was doing, he reached out to the woman, and then grabbing her by her long black hair, he kissed her. But it felt like he was devouring her, tasting her, like she were little more than a rare delicacy. He had his eyes closed, kissing her, all he could feel was warn soft skin and hair and the blood racing under her skin. But as he continued he noticed that the skin grew colder, the hair grew coarser and the blood that had lit up her skin before faded away.
He opened his eyes. In his arms he held nothing but a skeleton. He let out an involuntary yelp, and dropped it. But everything had changed. He was no longer in the blue yonder, but in a tunnel. It was a tunnel he had never seen before, but as he looked down he saw that the skeleton had shattered against some train tracks. It was at this moment he heard the long whine and short, sharp blow of a train whistle. Panicking he looked up into the approaching light like a scared rabbits, and then threw himself down on the tracks, hands over his head. There was a deafening noise, the clacking of metal wheels on metal tracks, the rhythmic sound of the wheels going around, and then, then he sat up.
He was sitting in the middle of the train. He saw the lights above his head flicker and dulls, lights that he hadn't seen before in his life. They weren't the gaslights he was used to, but like elongated light bulbs, fizzing and sounding as if they were about to die. There were men, sitting, reading newspapers, dressed like muggles who worked in the middle of London. But he couldn't see their faces, and suddenly he was overcome with panic. There was something biting his arm underneath his sleeve.
He promptly ripped off his sleeve, and Screamed. The snake had uncoiled itself from its skull, and was biting his arm, trying to eat it. Snape, his face twisted into the very face of pure fear, grabbed at his arm, but the snake wiggled away before his fingers could even catch it, bit into his arm and went *under the skin*. Snape yelped, trying to catch it, but it was too fast, and the snake slithered its way out of his grip and bit deeply into his flesh. Snape, unthinking, ran into the next carriage. He slammed the door behind him and breathed. It was black in here; no light shone though a single crack. Snape tried to get out, but door was now locked and it mealy rattled.
He saw a shadow in the darkness, a shadow moving along the walls that he couldn't quite make out, but was coming for him. He ran into the middle of the room, but the thing travelled under the floors, and finally tripped him up, making him fall to the floor. He lay on his back, trying to get back up, but he felt thousands of shadowy hands holding him down. He struggled, kicking against them, but it didn't work. He screamed, shout for them to let him go, but the just held him down harder. Then he heard a voice, a voice that boomed like a God's, but sounded a little like his own say, "C'mon, just take a bit of this....."
Snape looked up and saw something hanging from the ceiling. An invisible force lowered it. When Snape saw what it was he let out a gasp of despair. It was a body. A woman's body hanging above him, blood dripping down the rope that had cut into her white neck, her long black hair dyed red with her own blood. Blood dripped down her body, finally ending up at her toes where they clung to her body before forming droplets that fell like raindrops.
Snape sobbed. His mother, she was dead. She was dead, why did they hang her body like this? Wasn't her death punishment enough? Why did they have to torment him like this? He chocked out, "MOTHER!" his eyes filling with tears at the sight, "Mother!"
"No, " said the echoing voice, "drink this....."
Snape felt his mothers blood drip down onto his face. Oh no, they wanted him to drink her blood. His mother's blood! Snape shut his mouth and screwed his eyes shut. Then he felt the hands crawl over his face until they pinched his nose. Snape held his breath, only for a little while before he had to gasp for breath. The very second he opened his mouth there was a rush of red all around him. All he could see was the blood red and he felt it in his throat, burning his insides. He cried out again, but weakly.
The red turned pink and suddenly the world was filled with a white light. He felt the snake in his arm begin to weaken, for it's bite to wane and then he had an idea. He held his arm up to the bright light. The Snake began to hiss under his skin, hiss like it was in pain. He struggled and thrashed about, but finally it bite into his skin really hard and ripped it. Snape cried out in pain, but held his arm up to the light. The Snake took one look at the light and it disappeared.
Snape floated in midair for one second, feeling relieved that the snake was gone, out of his skin, out of his body before the white light turned a watery blue and Snape fell through the air, almost in slow motion, the sensation of wind agiast him slowly plummeting body until he finally landed on his back on the ground. Snape wasn't sure why he wasn't dead yet, but he knew the fall should have killed him. Snape, feeling more than a little shaky, sat up. A faint wind blew through the place, like on the moor in the Lake District. Snape's hair flew around his face as he looked around. He was back where he started. In the blue emptiness. He looked around, seeing if there was a way to escape.
He stood up, his cloak whipping around his body. Snape narrowed his eyes against the wind and walked forward for reasons that he didn't know. It was like an unfightable urge that he couldn't control. He stumbled forward, the blue emptiness growing larger and larger. But as he looked harder he saw something slumped on the floor. It was black, but on closer inspection an old black cloak had been draped around it. Snape walked forward, a little faster as the wind had begun to subside. Snape trudged along, hearing the sound of tears on the wind. As he came closer he saw that it was a person under the cloak, body quivering from crying.
Snape, not trusting the place he was in, walked carefully towards the person, his feet making no sound on the ground. When he was mere inches away from the figure, he pulled off the cloak. It hung in the air for just a second, but then felt off into the wind as if it were little more than a paper bag. Snape looked down. It was just a child under the cloak. Nothing bad, just a child. It was a little boy sitting cross-legged, wearing long, black robes that covered his whole body. He was leaning over something, something Snape couldn't see. He should have known better, but as if his body wasn't listening to his mind, he lent over, and tapped the child on the shoulder.
The boy turned around. His long, lank, greasy hair hung around his face in a ratty way, his hook nose shadowed his thin, pale lips and he looked up at Snape with bright blue eyes. The boy turned away again, and sat looking at something in front of him. Snape looked over him. The boy, picking something up and hiding it under his robes, stood up and held his hands out in front of him, as if Snape had asked to inspect them. The hands were covered in snakebites, some of them oozing with poison, but the boy didn't even seem to notice them. He nodded at Snape, and then turned back around, taking whatever was under his robes back out again. It was a little blue ball of glass that he played with, throwing it up in the air as if it were a ball. Snape ran to catch up with the child, his footsteps echoing like they were in a large hall. As Snape caught up with the boy, the boy faltered and let out a terrified gasp. He dropped to his knees, and suddenly two, large pulsating lumps formed in his back, like beasts trying to get out of him. The glass ball rolled and bounced onward as the boy, a terrified look in his eyes, let the things grow out of his back. Snape had to step back as a pair of black feather wings burst out of his back, shards of his torn tunic flying everywhere. Snape watched the ball in the horizon, and decided that instead of staying, he would chase it. He ran, following the path of the ball as it rolled and bounced.
Snape's eyes hadn't left it for a second, so it seemed odd that it stopped. Snape looked up. It was in someone's hands. Snape looked up. It was Harry Potter. Or was it. His eyes did the customary flick towards his forehead, and found that, although it looked like Harry Potter, one thing was missing. The scar. The boy held the ball in his hands, smiling faintly, resignedly. Snape suddenly found himself holding out his hand out to the boy, only to suddenly be flung back by a surge of energy and a flash of green. When Snape looked again, Harry Potter was in an hourglass, his hands up against the glass, trying to get out.
Snape found himself getting up, running over to the hourglass. Harry's Scar was back, but he struggled and banged against the glass. Snape grabbed onto the hourglass, and there was another blinding flash of light. Within seconds Snape could see again, and Harry had turned into sand, trickling through the glass. Snape banged on the glass, but it trickled onwards, to the bottom, Harry slowly disintegrating.
But behind the hourglass came a huge clock, like an alarm clock, but without arms and instead of the usual numbers, the words, "Elevens years, twelve years, Thirteen years." and so on until Seventeen. Then, suddenly, on the clock the dark lord appeared, and holding two flags in his hands he started to move his hands like they were the hands of the clock. Harry Slipped away as the years moved on the clock, but something strange happened. On the clock, The Dark Lord stopped at sixteen. He desperately tried to move his hand, but he couldn't. Harry stopped slipping away. Snape, for a second, though he might be safe, but then something odd happened. A silver haired youth, like the boy he had met on the field, but older looking, as if he were nineteen, came up to the dark Lord, and moved his arm for him, and kissed the hideous snake-like face.
Harry started to slip away again, but he changed. Instead of Harry slipping away, it was the boy, the boy he had seen earlier, crying over his wings. On his forehead, in bold type, was the name Michael.
********** Thank you for reading.
TCB!
Hi again! sorry about the lack of updates! Just block this time! But anyway, feel glad for the lack of notes, and please r and r on the way out!
*********
MacDuff had lain Snape on his bed in his private quarters while be brought his double in. Snape wasn't quiet sure what had happened. There had been blood, and a voice, a figure, and then he saw the hallway, the hallway to his dungeon classroom, and felt it as someone lifted him up. But now, tired, confused and thinking that he could face his death very quickly, he listened as the world seemed to turn grey black and he heard voice, although he didn't quiet understand what they were.
"MacDuff, you said there was poison here, do you know from what?"
"No idea, but he's in pain."
"That doesn't help very much. Hold down his arm, let me examine the wound. "
"No!" Snape cried out again, "Don't!"
As soon as MacDuff tried to get near him Snape sat up, his head feeling as if there was ten tones of concrete against it, and hugged his arm closely to the body. "No!" he shouted again, "No body can see the mark!"
His double seemed relatively unfazed by his behaviour. He simply went up to him and grabbed his arm. This surprised Snape so much that his arm went limp, and he felt back to his bed, another pang of pain almost paralysing his body. Sev simply grabbed the sleeve, and taking the blood sodden, shredded black material held it in his hand for just a second, and sighed. It pained him to lose this robe. It might not have been *his* robe in so many words, but this robe was particularly comfortable. But he ripped the sleeve off in one go, and dropped Snape's arm as if it had suddenly become a poisonous snake.
"What the hell!" he hissed, stepping back from himself, "The dark mark!"
Snape sighed, taking his painful arm and clenched his teeth as he felt it throb with pain. "The dark mark, " Snape repeated, his mind half conscious, "The dark mark, a mark forever...."
"How could you?" sked Sev, his voice suddenly so gentle, as if he had been shocked to his very core, "how could you....."
"They pay with blood, " Snape mused, feeling almost unable to move, "We all pay in blood.....at some point."
Sev gasped for breath, and then took the arm again. "The wounds gone black, " he said bluntly, "Whatever got him was very poisonous. I know I'm going to regret doing this, but I have no other choice if we want him to live. There's no time to test it." Sev, his face screwing up into an expression of self-disgust and repulsion squeezed the wound, and then, as a grey poison ran out of it, placed a little of the grey poison on his finger, and licked it. He instantly reached into his pocket, brought out a black handkerchief, and spat it out.
MacDuff still stood there, staring at him.
"What are you looking at!" exclaimed Sev, "we need to prepare a bezoer, with a component of angel's blood berry, maybe some carnelian stone if there's anything around, I don't know what it is, but I can tell you that it's a dark poison."
"There are other kinds of poison?" asked MacDuff, looking more than a little astounded.
"Go!" shouted Sev, "And where on earth is that nurse?"
It was as MacDuff left that Madam Pomfery entered. "Can I see the patients wound?" she asked.
"No...." moaned Snape, his mind spinning around like a minnow in a whirlpool, "please, no more...."
But it was to no avail. Sev, rather coldly, held out his arm for him as Madam Pomfery examined it. "He's suffering from blood loss, but it's this poison that's worrying me." She said, "I Say it's a dark poison." She said, "I haven't seen it in years, not since 'you-know-who' was around."
"I've never come across it before, " admitted Sev, " can you tell what it is from looking at it?"
"I don't know for sure, but it looks like something that might be used to stop blood clotting, maybe something to ....well, I mustn't think about it. All I can do is clean up the wound and try to get as much poison out of it as possible. And hope. Hope is all we can do."
"There must be more!" replied Sev, " I know a doctor, a doctor who could heal this, a very good doctor...."
"First of all, Mr Severus Snape, " snapped madam Pomfery, "I am certain that even your doctor wouldn't have seen this before, and secondly, does this man look in any fit state to travel to even St Mungo's, let alone to where I think you're speaking of."
"True, but I know a Bezoar that might work." Said Sev, flicking some hair from his face.
"Bezoar's don't work, not unless you know what type of poison it is!" Shouted Madam Pomfery, as if he had suggested giving him an aspirin, "the best it can do is not help, at worst it can kill him."
"I've seen this used before, it can help a bit." Added Sev, " it should help, even a little bit."
"Fine!" said Madam Pomfery, throwing her hands in the air, " if you think it will help, do it, but if you hurt him, I will be the first to make you pay."
"Understood." Replied Sev, and ran out into the classroom, mishandling a spare cauldron he could mix potions in, and quickly raiding Snape's private stores. He more or less threw everything he knew he needed in, and then dumped the now full cauldron on a table.
Sev could remember the instructions for this particular cure particularly well. First of all because it had been taught to him by one of the most talented Doctors in the new history of Wizardry, and it had been a very new potion at the time, and secondly because it was incredibly useful. It seemed to work on just about all poisons for reasons that he was not in the mood to remember.
"MacDuff, " he shouted, forgetting what was left of his manners, "pass me that bushel of angel's blood Berry!"
**********
While Sev was mixing up a potion, Snape's mind has simply given up trying to stay awake and slipped away into a dream state.
Snape looked around. The room had melted away long ago and had been replaced with a blue void. He couldn't tell if it were a room or a world, but it looked as if were about to stop in front of you, but it seemed to go on forever. He was on the floor, on his hands and knees, crawling like a beast. He moved slowly, as if submerged in water, but he could breathe. He looked up, and saw a woman lying on the ground, writhing in pain, breathing quickly as if she was dying. Her hair was as black as an unlit cave, and her eyes were like two dark tunnels, going on forever, ambiguous and dangerous.
He sat up on his legs, and watched as she let out one last scream, and as something burst straight from her belly in a shower of blood. Snape watched, mesmerised as he saw a snake and a jaguar appear from her stomach, the snake green and silver, and the jaguar silver and black. The two of them looked at him briefly, and then slithered away, leaving a trail of blood.
He found himself mesmerised, looking into the woman's eyes. On her face she wore a seductive smile, and all he could see was her eyes, smiling at him, becoming him. Finally, unknowing exactly what he was doing, he reached out to the woman, and then grabbing her by her long black hair, he kissed her. But it felt like he was devouring her, tasting her, like she were little more than a rare delicacy. He had his eyes closed, kissing her, all he could feel was warn soft skin and hair and the blood racing under her skin. But as he continued he noticed that the skin grew colder, the hair grew coarser and the blood that had lit up her skin before faded away.
He opened his eyes. In his arms he held nothing but a skeleton. He let out an involuntary yelp, and dropped it. But everything had changed. He was no longer in the blue yonder, but in a tunnel. It was a tunnel he had never seen before, but as he looked down he saw that the skeleton had shattered against some train tracks. It was at this moment he heard the long whine and short, sharp blow of a train whistle. Panicking he looked up into the approaching light like a scared rabbits, and then threw himself down on the tracks, hands over his head. There was a deafening noise, the clacking of metal wheels on metal tracks, the rhythmic sound of the wheels going around, and then, then he sat up.
He was sitting in the middle of the train. He saw the lights above his head flicker and dulls, lights that he hadn't seen before in his life. They weren't the gaslights he was used to, but like elongated light bulbs, fizzing and sounding as if they were about to die. There were men, sitting, reading newspapers, dressed like muggles who worked in the middle of London. But he couldn't see their faces, and suddenly he was overcome with panic. There was something biting his arm underneath his sleeve.
He promptly ripped off his sleeve, and Screamed. The snake had uncoiled itself from its skull, and was biting his arm, trying to eat it. Snape, his face twisted into the very face of pure fear, grabbed at his arm, but the snake wiggled away before his fingers could even catch it, bit into his arm and went *under the skin*. Snape yelped, trying to catch it, but it was too fast, and the snake slithered its way out of his grip and bit deeply into his flesh. Snape, unthinking, ran into the next carriage. He slammed the door behind him and breathed. It was black in here; no light shone though a single crack. Snape tried to get out, but door was now locked and it mealy rattled.
He saw a shadow in the darkness, a shadow moving along the walls that he couldn't quite make out, but was coming for him. He ran into the middle of the room, but the thing travelled under the floors, and finally tripped him up, making him fall to the floor. He lay on his back, trying to get back up, but he felt thousands of shadowy hands holding him down. He struggled, kicking against them, but it didn't work. He screamed, shout for them to let him go, but the just held him down harder. Then he heard a voice, a voice that boomed like a God's, but sounded a little like his own say, "C'mon, just take a bit of this....."
Snape looked up and saw something hanging from the ceiling. An invisible force lowered it. When Snape saw what it was he let out a gasp of despair. It was a body. A woman's body hanging above him, blood dripping down the rope that had cut into her white neck, her long black hair dyed red with her own blood. Blood dripped down her body, finally ending up at her toes where they clung to her body before forming droplets that fell like raindrops.
Snape sobbed. His mother, she was dead. She was dead, why did they hang her body like this? Wasn't her death punishment enough? Why did they have to torment him like this? He chocked out, "MOTHER!" his eyes filling with tears at the sight, "Mother!"
"No, " said the echoing voice, "drink this....."
Snape felt his mothers blood drip down onto his face. Oh no, they wanted him to drink her blood. His mother's blood! Snape shut his mouth and screwed his eyes shut. Then he felt the hands crawl over his face until they pinched his nose. Snape held his breath, only for a little while before he had to gasp for breath. The very second he opened his mouth there was a rush of red all around him. All he could see was the blood red and he felt it in his throat, burning his insides. He cried out again, but weakly.
The red turned pink and suddenly the world was filled with a white light. He felt the snake in his arm begin to weaken, for it's bite to wane and then he had an idea. He held his arm up to the bright light. The Snake began to hiss under his skin, hiss like it was in pain. He struggled and thrashed about, but finally it bite into his skin really hard and ripped it. Snape cried out in pain, but held his arm up to the light. The Snake took one look at the light and it disappeared.
Snape floated in midair for one second, feeling relieved that the snake was gone, out of his skin, out of his body before the white light turned a watery blue and Snape fell through the air, almost in slow motion, the sensation of wind agiast him slowly plummeting body until he finally landed on his back on the ground. Snape wasn't sure why he wasn't dead yet, but he knew the fall should have killed him. Snape, feeling more than a little shaky, sat up. A faint wind blew through the place, like on the moor in the Lake District. Snape's hair flew around his face as he looked around. He was back where he started. In the blue emptiness. He looked around, seeing if there was a way to escape.
He stood up, his cloak whipping around his body. Snape narrowed his eyes against the wind and walked forward for reasons that he didn't know. It was like an unfightable urge that he couldn't control. He stumbled forward, the blue emptiness growing larger and larger. But as he looked harder he saw something slumped on the floor. It was black, but on closer inspection an old black cloak had been draped around it. Snape walked forward, a little faster as the wind had begun to subside. Snape trudged along, hearing the sound of tears on the wind. As he came closer he saw that it was a person under the cloak, body quivering from crying.
Snape, not trusting the place he was in, walked carefully towards the person, his feet making no sound on the ground. When he was mere inches away from the figure, he pulled off the cloak. It hung in the air for just a second, but then felt off into the wind as if it were little more than a paper bag. Snape looked down. It was just a child under the cloak. Nothing bad, just a child. It was a little boy sitting cross-legged, wearing long, black robes that covered his whole body. He was leaning over something, something Snape couldn't see. He should have known better, but as if his body wasn't listening to his mind, he lent over, and tapped the child on the shoulder.
The boy turned around. His long, lank, greasy hair hung around his face in a ratty way, his hook nose shadowed his thin, pale lips and he looked up at Snape with bright blue eyes. The boy turned away again, and sat looking at something in front of him. Snape looked over him. The boy, picking something up and hiding it under his robes, stood up and held his hands out in front of him, as if Snape had asked to inspect them. The hands were covered in snakebites, some of them oozing with poison, but the boy didn't even seem to notice them. He nodded at Snape, and then turned back around, taking whatever was under his robes back out again. It was a little blue ball of glass that he played with, throwing it up in the air as if it were a ball. Snape ran to catch up with the child, his footsteps echoing like they were in a large hall. As Snape caught up with the boy, the boy faltered and let out a terrified gasp. He dropped to his knees, and suddenly two, large pulsating lumps formed in his back, like beasts trying to get out of him. The glass ball rolled and bounced onward as the boy, a terrified look in his eyes, let the things grow out of his back. Snape had to step back as a pair of black feather wings burst out of his back, shards of his torn tunic flying everywhere. Snape watched the ball in the horizon, and decided that instead of staying, he would chase it. He ran, following the path of the ball as it rolled and bounced.
Snape's eyes hadn't left it for a second, so it seemed odd that it stopped. Snape looked up. It was in someone's hands. Snape looked up. It was Harry Potter. Or was it. His eyes did the customary flick towards his forehead, and found that, although it looked like Harry Potter, one thing was missing. The scar. The boy held the ball in his hands, smiling faintly, resignedly. Snape suddenly found himself holding out his hand out to the boy, only to suddenly be flung back by a surge of energy and a flash of green. When Snape looked again, Harry Potter was in an hourglass, his hands up against the glass, trying to get out.
Snape found himself getting up, running over to the hourglass. Harry's Scar was back, but he struggled and banged against the glass. Snape grabbed onto the hourglass, and there was another blinding flash of light. Within seconds Snape could see again, and Harry had turned into sand, trickling through the glass. Snape banged on the glass, but it trickled onwards, to the bottom, Harry slowly disintegrating.
But behind the hourglass came a huge clock, like an alarm clock, but without arms and instead of the usual numbers, the words, "Elevens years, twelve years, Thirteen years." and so on until Seventeen. Then, suddenly, on the clock the dark lord appeared, and holding two flags in his hands he started to move his hands like they were the hands of the clock. Harry Slipped away as the years moved on the clock, but something strange happened. On the clock, The Dark Lord stopped at sixteen. He desperately tried to move his hand, but he couldn't. Harry stopped slipping away. Snape, for a second, though he might be safe, but then something odd happened. A silver haired youth, like the boy he had met on the field, but older looking, as if he were nineteen, came up to the dark Lord, and moved his arm for him, and kissed the hideous snake-like face.
Harry started to slip away again, but he changed. Instead of Harry slipping away, it was the boy, the boy he had seen earlier, crying over his wings. On his forehead, in bold type, was the name Michael.
********** Thank you for reading.
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