Serpent's Breath Ch. 3
Disclaimer: JK owns all HP related things. I own the plot, I'm proud to say.
That night- 1:02 am
Snape awoke in the middle of the night with an extremely dry throat and a pounding, light sensitive headache. But when he opened his eyes, he found himself on the 7th floor landing. He rubbed his greasy temples with his fingertips; thoroughly confused. He wondered what had awoken him but he couldn't remember anything. He quickly scanned his surroundings; there was no one in sight. Not knowing what else to do, he got up and slowly made his way back to the dungeons.
He made careful not to run into Mrs. Norris; but luckily she was no where in sight and he made it back safe and sound. His throat was still dry so he got a drink of water. When the water touched his dry lips and moistened them, it made the water taste kind of salty. He made a face and set the water down without finishing it. He got into bed and went back to sleep, deciding to ponder about his sleep walking adventure tomorrow.
That night- 11:56 pm
Hermione was having trouble sleeping again; just as she was the previous night after Harry came back from Occlumency lessons. She was in the kitchens chatting with the house-elves (mainly Dobby) drinking tea, eating crumpets and whatever else they brought her. Lately she found she could come and talk to Dobby when she couldn't sleep.
He could kind of relate to her crush on Harry - in a different, weird kind of way….. Tonight she was having several mixed feelings towards Harry. She felt overwhelmed and when she started talking it all came out. Dobby listened intently while she poured her heart out to him. It was 12:45 am when she decided it was time to go back to bed. She thanked Dobby and all the house-elves, and headed back to Gryffindor Tower.
She was on the landing of the third floor when she heard the sound no student wants to hear when sneaking around the Hogwarts castle in the middle of the night: the meow of Mrs. Norris. Her eyes widened, she stopped, stood stock still, held her breath, and suddenly thought, horrified, that her obnoxiously loud heart beat would surely give her away. (Later she realized how absurd this thought truly was).
Then, slowly, she backed against the wall and flattened herself against it, wishing and hoping against hope that she could be like a chameleon and simply turn the colors of the wall. Mrs. Norris' meows turned into hisses. Hermione could see barely two feet ahead of her in this pressing darkness. She could judge that the sound was coming from her right, but she could see nothing, no movement. Then, an even worse sound came to her ears; the ever so light tap of shoes on the floor.
Filch.
The footsteps stopped where she supposed the cat was located, but they did not come any further. In fact they were quiet for quite some time (It was really only about 2 minutes, but to Hermione it seemed an eternity). She heard very strange noises that she couldn't exactly describe. Maybe Mrs. Norris was sniffing her out for Filch. Then the footsteps continued in the exact direction to where Hermione was trying as hard as she could to fall right through the wall to the other side.
She stared with her eyes as wide as she could make them in order to see when and if she needed to start running. She could make out the shape of a man with shoulder length hair. When he was about ten feet away, she saw very clearly, the glowing, red eyes of a man.
It wasn't Filch.
When he was obviously heading straight towards her, Hermione saw who it was and what he was. Severus Snape was striding towards her, with red eyes glowing, and fangs dripping with blood. Hermione opened her mouth to scream, but absolutely nothing came out. She finally realized that she had legs, she wasn't part of the wall after all, and that she should've started running ten minutes ago.
Looking back, Hermione didn't know why she ran that way. The only conclusion she came up with is that she wasn't thinking rationally and her mind knew that Gryffindor Tower was in that direction.
She ran right at Snape. The reason why Snape didn't catch her then was probably because of two reasons: One – It took him totally by surprise when she ran straight at him because he expected her to run the other way. Two – She was running so bloody fast, all he saw was a blur with bushy, brown hair.
As she ran past him, in one split second she saw an object on the floor from the corner of her eye. Looking back, Mrs. Norris was lying on her side on the floor, horribly, undoubtedly dead. That image never left Hermione's mind.
In looking back she also saw that Snape was chasing her. A terror like she had never felt before rose up inside her. Something happened in her body and she suddenly felt like Superman. She ran faster than she thought possible. Later she realized that it was obviously an adrenaline rush that enabled her to run so fast. Her heart was pumping loudly in her ears and tears began to stream from her eyes.
As she ran up the stairs to the seventh floor, she came up with a plan to get rid of him. With bravery that she never knew she possessed, she slowed down on purpose. Just as she had hoped, Snape saw her slowness and sped up. He ran at remarkable speed. Just as he was about to run into her, she jumped to the side and stuck out her foot. It happened so fast he didn't even know what hit him.
He tripped over her foot and his face slammed into the marble stairs with a sickening smack. He was out cold. She poked him with her foot to make sure, and then ran back down the stairs just as fast as before. Her adrenaline was still rushing when she arrived at the door to Albus Dumbledore's office maybe ten minutes later. Very shortly after Hermione banged her fist on the door, Dumbledore answered it in his nightgown. He was also sporting a night cap, and thick, vividly colorful, wool socks.
Hermione immediately began shouting to Dumbledore what happened. She was so out of breath, it was nearly impossible to understand what she was saying. Dumbledore held up a hand and she stopped mid-sentence. "Have a seat, Miss Granger. Take deep breaths, drink some tea," he motioned with his wand and tea for two appeared on his desk as he made his way to sit down across from Hermione "and then tell me what this is all about." She immediately plopped into the chair in front of Dumbledore's desk, grabbed a tea cup, downed the whole thing, took a deep breath, and began explaining again; this time in an understandable manner.
She told him about everything that happened (leaving out the part about her talking to the house-elves about her secret crush). When he asked her why she was out and about at this time of night she blushed crimson. Before she could make up an excuse, Argus Filch came bursting into the office holding the dead cat, Mrs. Norris. His face was tear-stained and looked as if he was about to die right along with Mrs. Norris.
He opened his mouth, about to screech out words of outrage and death threats to the "blood-sucking, cat-killing, son of a banshee" that did this when Dumbledore said in a scarily fierce voice, "Mr. Filch before you say anything, by God put that cat down." Filch's eyes widened in fear, he dropped the cat suddenly to the floor at his feet, and raised his arms up as if the police were surrounding him.
Dumbledore pointed his wand at Mrs. Norris who, in turn, floated into the air, landed on the floor on the opposite side of the room, and was encircled in what most resembled ashes. Filch did not question this, but instead rounded on Dumbledore once more. And, once again, was stopped before he could say anything. Dumbledore said to him, "I know exactly what's going on, I know exactly what I am going to do, so there is no need to say anything."
He looked at Hermione and then back at Filch. Then they heard a strange growling noise. Dumbledore got up from his desk to stand by Filch. Hermione had a sudden thought that Snape had come back to get her and he was waiting by the door, growling. But the noise was coming from Mrs. Norris. All three looked over there and saw plain as day that Mrs. Norris was alive. Filch made a strange squeaking noise in his throat and shouted, "My Precious!" He tried to run to her, but Dumbledore restrained him.
It was a good thing too because as soon as she opened her now glowing, red eyes, she bared her teeth and sprang towards Filch who was the closest thing to her. She didn't get very far though. The circle of "ashes" surrounding her served as some sort of invisible force field and she ran smack into it. She hissed and ran around the circle, clawed at the air and made all sorts of horrible noises that Hermione never thought a cat could make.
Filch looked to Dumbledore for an answer. "Mrs. Norris has become a vampire because she was bitten by one." Filch looked worse than he did after he found her dead on the third floor. "It is a very good thing that you brought Mrs. Norris straight to me, Argus, or we may have had a vampire cat on the loose." He looked into Filch's eyes and said, "Yes, we will have to terminate her." "NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Filch screamed in agony. He cried pitifully like a little girl. "She's all I have!" He dropped to his knees and sobbed at Dumbledore's feet.
Dumbledore grasped his shoulder and said, "I'm sorry but we will have to deal with this later. There are more important things to deal with at the moment." Filch realized what he meant and jumped to his feet. "Where is he! Where is the heartless murderer that did this! I'LL KILL 'EM!" Dumbledore said to Filch in a scarily calm voice, "If you don't listen to me and go back to your office, you are going to force me to do something I will surely regret." Filch took a few deep, wheezy breaths before turning on his heel and marching out the door in defeat.
As soon as the door snapped shut, Dumbledore turned to one of the "sleeping" headmistresses on the wall and said, "Follow him please, and make sure he goes where he's supposed to." She nodded and disappeared beyond the frame. Dumbledore nodded for Hermione to follow him. They left his office and quickly paced towards the seventh floor. On the way Hermione asked what she had been dreading. "Professor Dumbledore, is Professor Snape really a…..well….a vampire?" Dumbledore glanced at her then kept his eyes focused straight ahead, "Yes, I'm afraid so." Hermione fell silent.
Dumbledore continued, "I cannot express to you how much I need you to keep quiet about this. If need be, I could put a memory charm on you if you think it best." Hermione stuttered, "N-No. I can handle it, you can trust me." She looked over at him and met his eyes with all sincerity.
When they reached the seventh floor landing, Snape was nowhere to be found. "Hopefully he has returned to the dungeons. I'll look further into it. Miss Granger I suggest you go to bed and get some rest. I'm sorry you had to go through with this." Hermione gave him one last reassuring look, and then turned to retire to the girl's dormitories. Dumbledore said one last thing, "I'll leave you with this Miss Granger; use your knowledge wisely." And he turned and left.
As Hermione lay in bed, she wondered how she could keep such a secret. Professor Snape, the Potions Master, a teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was a vampire.