This story is NOT to be archived anywhere besides Potter and the affiliated trademarks are property of JK Rowling. I am not making money with this so call off the bloodhounds.
The Holiday Spirits
by Heidi Ahlmen (siirma6surfeu.fi)
Chapter 3
The ghost saw fit to interrupt him. Noone ever interrupted Snape. He wasn't the type to be interrupted lest the culprit was foolhardy enough to suffer the consequences. Which usually were dire. "No, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the Dark Lord."
"Well," Snape muttered indignantly, "As you did say 'the past', I imagined the likely."
The ghost eyed him from below frost-covered, thick eyebrows – Dumbledore's eyebrows. "That you would be brought face to face with the atrocities you committed under the Imperius curse? Or under no curse but due order? You hardly need be reminded of those. No, this part of the past has more to do with the future. Or present, more like it."
Sensing a headache was on its way, Snape entered the Western Halls with the ghost. They silently climbed up to the rooms Snape had learned to regard as Dumbledore's office. At the door he was about to articulate the password, but the ghost simply raised its hand and the doors clattered open.
Inside it was warm; the fire was burning. Everything was as usual, except for the fact that the elderly wizard sitting behind the large desk was not Dumbledore but his predecessor, Professor Dippet. To Snape this struck as peculiar indeed, but on the other hand it was nothing compared to Artemisia Dollop paying him a visit.
They walked to the shadowy corner near the window and stood there, waiting. Snape would have wished to ask what it was that they were expecting, but the ghost stood in such stupor Snape doubted it would've replied.
Dippet looked worried – deep shadows lined his face. They deepened as the doors began to clank open. Enter McGonagall with a young man – obviously a student.
He had an ashen, narrow face with a sad expression. He was probably a seventh-grader. It was notable that he wore Slytherin colours in his uniform.
The ghost turned to Snape. "Remember him?" the spirit asked, and Snape glanced around, worried that his loud voice might've alerted the others to their presence, but they seemed as oblivious as they had been before.
"I cannot say that I do," Snape replied dryly.
McGonagall urged the boy to take a seat. Her face was gravely as well.
"Matthew –" Dippet began, addressing the boy who swallowed, "You know what it is that I must do. I will not hand you in to the Dementors, but we will have to expel you." He sounded apologetic. Your parents are on their way. You may wait for them in the common room after you have packed."
The boy stared at his hand. He seemed shy. He did not utter a single word. McGonagall gave Dippett a sad glance and escorted the boy out.
The ghost tugged at Snape's robe sleeve, urging him to follow. McGonagall walked the boy to the Slytherin corridor, patted his shoulder, and left.
He still did not say a word. On closer look, he looked horrified. Expectant. As though a terrifying innuendo was playing in his mind. He whispered the password and walked into the common room. The ghost and Snape followed – the ghost simply pulled him through the wall.
The common room was empty save for another boy with black hair with his nose buried in an old, mouldy, black-covered book. He sat by the fire, his back facing Snape and the ghost, so his face could not be seen, but to Snape there was something very familiar with him.
The ashen-faced, now slightly trembling boy stood in the middle of the room, clutching his left arm with his right one, unsure where to go. Then his fists clenched and he walked to the chairs next to the fireplace and faced the other boy. The black-haired youth must've noticed him arriving, but he acted as though he was merely a wisp of thin air.
"I know it was you," the ashen-faced boy whispered bravely, but retreated into the bedrooms the minute the other boy looked up. He put his book down and watched the other student running upstairs. As he stared behind the expelled student, Snape could finally discern his face. It was his own.
"Alright. So Gatsby was expelled. What's it to us?" Snape crossed his arms when they had returned to the gardens.
"Might you recall the reason?"
Snape dug out a handkerchief and blew his nose. It was so cold. "He'd duelled with another student. The usual."
The ghost stood under a black, frozen cherry tree. "This is not a Ministry inquiry that could land you in bureaucratic trouble. This is about you. Why was he expelled? Not by any chance due to something you had done?"
Snape shrugged; he did remember the occasion but was not interested in pushing the subject.
The ghost sat down onto the snow. Snape did not do the same – ghosts were obviously less bothered by the cold than humans. "Someone had been practicing spells – curses, more accurately - on two thestral mares who died. You arranged him to be on location when the second one was found. You did this, knowing he was already on the list, that his parents had been attacked; that he himself was in grave danger."
Snape stole a glance at the lake. "And why would I have done such a thing?" he mused silently.
The ghost raised its voice. "Because you wished to be recruited by the Dark Lord and hoped such mischief would gain his attention. Matthew Gatsby, along with his family died the following Spring."
"I will not accept blame for that."
"Very well," the ghost replied. Snape was suprised that he would not push the matter further.
"What about the time when you taught Draco Malfoy the Transcendens Vocalis spell even though you must've known he was up to no good?"
"What about it?"
"You must've guessed he would use it to torment Potter or some of the other students."
Snape scowled. "Students learn that sort of things all the time. Why do you think some of the books have been placed in the 'restricted section'? Anyhow, I can't see the relevance of bringing this up."
So stubborn, this one, the spirit thought, and sighed audibly. "I was merely giving an example as to the usual nature of your actions, even the most insignificant ones."
The ghost then sighed, snapped its thin, papery fingers, and suddenly the landscape changed again.
It was Autumn now. Snape's robes were no longer battered by heavy snowfall. Instead they now swayed in a crisp wind, and leaves of all colours were falling and twirling as though in unison. The path they trod was the same – they had not left Hogwarts' grounds.
A thin pillow of greyish, spectral smoke rose from Hagrid the gamekeeper's chimney, and Hagrid himself could be seen at the hem of the Forbidden Forest, carrying a handful of logs so heavy Snape himself could not have carried more than one at a time.
There was nothing unusual about the scene apart from one thing, Snape noticed as he unconsciously – old habit – glanced up to his own office window in the lowest floors visible from under the level into which the water had reached when there still had been water in the moat. Snape still could not comprehend why a window had been built below the waterline. On the other hand, the Hogwarts castle was full of enigmas.