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Web of Lies: Revelations.
As soon as the students and teachers had been mobilized, Minerva and Severus rushed out of the castle, and without a word, they apparated to St. Mungo's, where the auror had said the governors and Headmaster had been brought. Both professors were able to rush through the crowd and got ahold of one of the doctors who kindly led them to Dumbledore's room. Once there, they were forced to wait outside since the mediwizards were still treating the headmaster. Nearly three hours later, and with their nerves on edge, the head mediwizard finally came out and approached them.
Both Hogwarts' professors stood up and watched the grave face. "Professors, I'm afraid there's not much we can do right now. We've stabilized him for the moment, but he has taken a lot of curses, we don't know if he'll make it."
Both teachers became even paler, and Minerva sank back into her seat, trembling lightly at the earth shattering news. The doctor, noticing their distress, spoke again softly, unwilling to bother them in their grief but needing to say this.
"I need you to contact any relatives of his that might want to see him in case he doesn't make it."
Those words had not the expected reaction. The mediwizard had been expecting a nod of consent or something like that, but not the nearly violent reaction that he got. Minerva jumped on her feet and Snape started to curse.
"How could we have forgotten about Alec!?"
Sharing a look, Snape turned around and tore down the hall, knowing he needed to get back to the castle as soon as possible and make sure Alec was alright.
Minerva sighed and shook her head. Turning to the doctor, she asked if there was any way to get messages across knowing she would need to warn not only Dumbledore's relatives, but also the Order.
When Severus returned to the castle, it was completely silent; the students were obviously still in their common rooms, and the professors were probably in the staff room waiting for news. The Slytherin head of house quickly made his way to the Ravenclaw's common room. Instead of the usually studious atmosphere, the students were just sitting around, some of them crying silently while most were just staring ahead, trying to deal with what had happened. Everyone stood up when he entered; fear clearly in their eyes when they saw the Potions Professor instead of their head of house.
The dark haired man looked around with a frown. "Where's Alexander?"
Anthony frowned. "We thought he had gone with one of the professors; we haven't seen him here."
Snape cursed softly. He somehow doubted the teen had gone with the professors, but nevertheless, he left the common room and headed down to the staffroom. As he expected, all teachers were there, speaking softly among themselves. As in the Ravenclaw common room, everyone looked up as he entered. Before anyone could question him, he spoke. "Has anyone seen Alexander?"
Flitwick frowned. "I saw him leave the Hall with the other students; he's probably in the common room."
Snape scowled at him. "Don't you think I didn't think of that? He's not there."
Most teachers stood up, ready to search the castle for the missing student. Madam Pomfrey was warned in case she was needed, and the teachers spread out. Snape quickly made his way to the Headmaster's quarters, knowing that Alec knew the password and might have gone up there.
After looking into all the rooms and making sure Alec was not in any of them, Severus stopped for a moment, thinking on where the young teen could have gone. He was aware that Alec had probably been distressed, so he might want to look for a comforting place. There were only two places he could think of, one was Minerva's rooms, and the other his own chambers. Quickly walking down the stairs, he met with Professor Sinistra, that was about to go up the Astronomy tower and stopped her.
"Go check Minerva's quarters, he might have gone there; I think he had the password."
He saw the woman nod and change directions before he went down to the dungeons. Looking through his rooms, he felt disappointed when he didn't see the young teen anywhere. He was about to leave his chambers and look through the dungeons when he came face to face with a ghost. While used to the other ghosts roaming the castle, Snape couldn't help but step back at the sight of the unknown ghost. Both ghost and teacher looked at each other carefully, and finally, the transparent being broke the uncomfortable silence.
"It's a pleasure to finally be able to meet you, Severus Snape."
The potions master narrowed his eyes. The face was strangely familiar even if he was sure he had never met the ghost. "Who are you? And what are you doing in my quarters?"
The ghost smirked and floated until he was hovering over the couch. "My name is Salazar Slytherin." The ghost ignored the sharp intake of breath coming from the head of his house. "And I'm here to talk to you about Alec Dumbledore."
If the first part hadn't gotten Snape's attention, the second part most certainly did. The dark Potions Master moved to seat in the couch opposite of the one Salazar was hovering over.
"Do you know where he is? Is he alright?"
The ghost nodded. "He's alright, he's sleeping right now. He spent a lot of his magical power breaking the curse that rested upon me, but don't worry, he's a very strong lad, and he'll be fine in no time. At least, physically."
Snape frowned. "What do you mean? I know the news of Dumbledore's injuries will upset him, they are very close, but he still doesn't know how bad it is."
The ghost sighed and considered the man very carefully, he knew he needed to speak with him, to tell him the truth, but knowing the man as he did know him, he knew he would over-react. Well, better having him freak out right now than in front of Harry.
"He doesn't need to know how bad it is; Alec tends to think the worst of everything that happens."
The younger man nodded slowly, he had never acknowledged it, but he knew the ghost was right. "I need to get to him."
The ghost shook his head, looking him seriously. "Not yet, we need to talk first. You could harm Alec very much, and I would prefer to avoid it."
"I would never harm Alec!"
The founder didn't respond to his outraged cry; instead he continued, calmly floating over a couch. "As you said, Alec is very close to Albus, but it's not for the reasons you might think. You see, the two of them have been keeping a lot of secrets from everyone."
Rubbing his face, Snape sat down on his armchair. "Albus always keeps secrets, there's nothing new in that."
The ghost looked amused. "I'm aware of that, but if you found out about this one in front of Alec, you would hurt him, and I won't stand for that. So, even if it's against the Headmaster's and Alec's wishes, I'm going to tell you now to avoid a disaster later on."
Severus looked warily up at the founder of his house. "You're starting to scare me. What is so horrible about Alec that you think it would cause me to harm him?"
Taking a deep breath, well, as much as was possible for a ghost to do so, Salazar started to speak, carefully choosing his words. "Albus and Alec aren't related, in fact, until early this summer, Alexander Dumbledore didn't even exist."
The frown on the Potions Master face started to deepen, trying to put the clues the ghost was giving him together. "Why would they tell everyone that they are related if they aren't?"
The ghost answered promptly. "So Alec was protected; you see, many people want him dead, and after his former protection became unusable, the headmaster had to think of something else. Alec was the result."
Slowly the words started to piece together in the young man's mind. Someone who needed protection badly enough to go along with one of the Headmaster's crazy plans. A child that was in danger to be killed.
Salazar saw the man's expression begin to darken, and he knew that he only needed a small push to realise the truth. He wasn't sure if it would be a good thing, but he had already said too much to back away now. "One of the curses that laid on me was that I could only speak in Parseltongue, so it was just normal for a parselmouth to be able to break it."
Suddenly the man's head snapped up, black eyes shinning in rage. "Potter!"
To be continued...
A/N: Thanks for all reviews and thanks to Vinnie for beta reading this.