Harry Potter and the Puppetmaster of Hogwarts, Chapter 9
Severus Snape woke feeling better than he had in years. He never got a chance for deep sleep- in fact, he rarely slept at all between his duties for the Dark Lord and for the Order, and his brewing for the Hospital wing, and his grading, and when he did sleep it was usually because he had been rendered unconscious by torture, firewhiskey or sheer exhaustion.
His first thought was that he had been drugged. To a Potions Master, the taste of lotus blossoms and quince can mean only one thing, and that and the persistent haziness in his mind filled him with fear before he could mask it- who had the capability of drugging him, and what did they want with him?
He did not know where he was. It was obviously not the Dark Lord's mansion, or he would have woken up in pain, and the room he was in looked as though it was in Hogwarts, judging by the quality of the stonework. Severus rose rather unsteadily to inspect the room further, hardly daring to hope that the door would be unlocked. It wasn't, and Severus realized with a hiss of unease that he didn't have his wand. Now thoroughly worried and not a little curious, he began to explore the room for anything that might be used as a weapon or might serve as a clue to where he was and who held him captive.
The chamber was rather plain, but not at all unpleasant, with beautiful Slytherin green tapestries hanging on the walls and an elegant black varnished desk. On this desk, among alchemical and astrological instruments that Severus didn't pretend to understand, was an unsealed letter with his name scrawled on it in emerald ink. Severus hesitated, a wave of unease washing over him at the sight of the handwriting, although he was still too out of it to recognize whose script it was. But his curiosity and the natural instincts of a spy overcame his unease and after checking the letter with what little wandless magic he was able to perform, he opened the envelope and removed the carefully folded parchment. And this is what he read:
Dear Professor,
I admit that I don't know how to start. To begin with, you are in the Chamber of Secrets (Severus started violently, black eyes widening. How-? Who-?) and your wand is on the desk; I didn't want you attacking us before we were able to explain if we were there when you woke up. (Severus grabbed his wand at once, checking it for damage before sliding it quickly into it's holster, now no longer feeling vulnerable. So clearly his captors didn't mean to harm him- if they had, it would have been done when he was drugged, or while he was without his wand. But if they didn't want to harm him, what was he here for?) Your room is locked, as you have no doubt discovered; the password is Salazar at the moment, (Severus frowned. Why lock him in if they were giving him the password? Had they just done that so that he would have to have read the note before he could leave?) and the main Chamber is safe enough, although you might be startled by the carcass of the basilisk outside. There's a makeshift potions lab in the next room over if you want to experiment with basilisk parts- I don't know what condition it is in, though. (Wait- what?! Severus stopped dead and reread the sentence. Basilisk parts? A potions lab? Someone who had access to basilisk parts was letting him experiment? Why? What was his/her motive? Did he actually mean it? Even if it were a small specimen, the parts were likely going to be invaluable.) I will warn you not to leave, however- I will explain later in person when you are a little recovered. Sirius Black would also be able to- he is in the next room- but he's sleeping off magical exhaustion right now. If you need anything, call a house elf named Dobby; he will be discreet. I give you my wizard's oath that we don't mean you any harm here. Just rest right now.
Severus simply stared at the note for a long time, reading it over and over as the fog of the sleeping potion finally cleared, until at last he set it down and walked to the door. Even with the still lingering tiredness, and the possibility of clashing with Black, he might as well look around. He admittedly did want to see if it was truly the Chamber of Secrets- it was every Slytherin's dream to find this place- it was nearly considered sacred. And what was this about a basilisk? "Salazar," he told the door, hoping the writer of the letter- why couldn't he remember whose handwriting it was!- had told the truth. He had. The door creaked open, and Severus walked into the main chamber. And his mouth fell open.
The Chamber of Secrets was sinisterly beautiful. The walls were greyish-green serpentinite, with snakes carved into the walls, and the face of Salazar Slytherin carved upon the opposite wall. Vast serpentine columns held up a very high roof, while the floor, except where covered with debris and large, shallow puddles, was of black, silver-flecked marble. And that was when he saw the basilisk.
Severus Snape rarely, if ever, lost his composure. But at the sight of the sixty foot beast, he very nearly broke down. Basilisk parts were invaluable, restricted, and horribly expensive; on a teacher's budget, he had never been able to afford more than scraps of skin, (which were closer to cobbler's grade than to Potioneer's grade). He had actually never even seen anything other than scales, skin, and venom for sale, although he had read, in the older potions books in his library, that the eyes were a very potent ingredient and that the tongue could be used in many kinds of healing and restorative draught.
And then he stared, unable to believe his eyes. It had limblets. It was known, in certain circles only, that when a basilisk surpassed it's two hundredth year, it grew vestigial legs known as limblets, although that had not been documented for many years. It was hypothetical only (because no one had seen a basilisk old enough to grow limblets since the Founders age) but there was a possible recipe for a cure for lycanthropy which contained them, restored from a partial copy written by Herpo the Foul by the Potions Guild through years of painstaking theoretical work.
He faintly staggered back into the wall, leaning heavily against it, hyperventilating and barely able to breathe. A basilisk. A sixty-foot basilisk, with limblets and fangs as long as his arm. It was probably worth more than 200,700,000,000 G, and he was allowed to experiment with it?
And that was when the wall he was leaning against swung inward, and he fell backwards into a vast room. Severus staggered to his feet, shaking ever so slightly, and stared around him, wondering where he was. It was a laboratory. It was very old fashioned, with alembics, silver cauldrons and other tools of the craft, and floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, instruments, and bottles of ingredients, surrounded by the faint shimmer of a preservation charm.
Severus approached to look at some of the spines of the books and grew even more light-headed. They were mostly hand-bound, written mostly in Latin or English- some even seeming to be in Japanese and parselscript. And the authors! Rowena Ravenclaw. Salazar Slytherin. Ignotius Peverall. Sapphira Gaunt. Mezi Hamaki. Herpo the Foul. Lina the Mistake. Merlin. Dr. Dee. Dr. Faustus. Arsenius Caesar. Ju'Ju Hashar. Prudentia Comnenus. Severus hastily gripped the edge of one of the tables.
When he had somewhat recovered himself, he hesitantly approached to read some of the ingredient labels, hardly daring to breathe.
Phoenix eggshell. Kelpie eyes. Unicorn tears, willingly given. Extinct Alexandrian Amberside blood. Kitsune whiskers. Literal stardust. Thestral hair. Vampire saliva. Crushed lamia fangs. Shed naga skin. Kappa liquid. Boomslang venom. Goblin earwax. High elf fingernails. Hippocampus liver. Lightening goat hair. Chupacabra fur. Bonaccon dung.
No one ever had, or would again, see Severus Snape crying and laughing hysterically at the same time.
AN: Sev is so cute when he's drooling over rare ingredients, isn't he?