Disclaimer: I have no ownership of the Harry Potter franchise.
"Today's the day…" Severus thought to himself as he woke up to the familiar feeling of soft, green blankets against his body. It had been a long day and a half off from regular school studies since the end of O.W.L.s, but it was time for his last exam by virtue of his injury the week before.
After Severus and Lily had parted ways once their meeting with Slughorn concluded, the young Slytherin felt a hint of concern at seeing his best friend leave. That feeling was quickly swept away by the realization that she would be surrounded by the Gryffindors once she returned to the party, and at the very least, he knew the Marauders would be on their guard after what happened at the Astronomy Tower.
Friday was completely uneventful as classes had concluded. All that Severus had to distract him from his growing anticipation for the Ancient Runes make-up was Lily's incessant giggling and recounting what had actually happened at the party.
James Potter had apparently spiked one of the butterbeers on the table with a love potion, and invited any girl interested in the prospect to drink up and "see what fate brought them." The mere notion of Potter's flirtatious grandstanding would have sent Severus into a frenzy, but Lily managed to calm him when she mentioned that he had actually drank the love potion himself and promptly spent the rest of the night flirting in a mirror.
There was another fit of giggling when Lily confided in him that Alice and Frank, Gryffindor's Head Girl and Boy, had apparently snuck off to the Room of Requirement about an hour after Sirius had introduced some Firewhisky to the party.
"Just like Black to throw caution to the wind and give alcohol to students. I suppose they're all lucky that you and Lupin decided to take the night off from enforcing any rules." Severus sighed with disdain that the Marauders were just as childish as he remembered.
"Oh come on, Sev, lighten up!" Lily teased with a blush. "You seriously can't tell me that you've never wanted to just unwind after a year of hard work, especially with O.W.L.s being over with. Great talent like yours deserves to be rewarded now and then, don't you think?"
"Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility. I still have my Ancient Runes make-up to take care of tomorrow. Besides, these are dangerous times, Lily, or have you forgotten that your attacker is laying low somewhere in my beloved House?"
Lily's eyes grew downcast as she nodded. "I remember. And don't think that I've forgotten. I carry my wand wherever I go now. But Sev, school's out in a few days. Life's not worth living if you waste so much of it being cautious. I'd rather live a short and fulfilling life than a long one filled with misery and fear…"
Those words came dangerously close to triggering another attack on the part of Severus as he imagined those green eyes dead once more at the age of 21. Even worse when he imagined his own, older self shambling day by day waiting for an excuse to die. There was a great deal of truth in Lily's words, and he made himself scarce shortly after they ate dinner in the Great Hall.
Which led Severus to Saturday morning. Professor Babbling had sent him a note that she would be there to oversee his exam herself, but he would need to come to her office immediately after eating breakfast.
"Hardly an inconvenience...I never did get much sleep in my later years anyway…" he thought to himself as he left his dorm to shower and get dressed for the day ahead…
"Welcome, Mr. Snape!" came the chipper, young voice of Professor Bathsheda Babbling as he entered her office. Of all of the staff members that Severus had seen so far since his rebirth, Professor Babbling was the least overwhelming considering that she was quite young when she took the post of Ancient Runes Professor. It was something of a friendly feud between Severus and Professor Babbling in his previous life. Prior to him, she held the record for youngest staff member in Hogwarts history at the age of 24, though Severus later beat that record at age 21.
Unlike many of the professors who had an extensive, magical skillset beyond the subject they taught, Babbling was a Ravenclaw that was fully and completely devoted to the Study of Ancient Runes. As such, Severus was certain if anyone knew anything about the meaning of that mark, besides Dumbledore of course, it would be her.
"All ready to begin then, Mr. Snape?" she asked in that irritating, singsong-like voice as she handed him his exam.
"Professor, there's actually something I wanted to ask you, about a certain rune. I was wondering if-"
The young professor interrupted Severus' inquiry. "I'm afraid the time to discuss the curriculum was before exam time, Mr. Snape. If it's anything regarding the test, it will have to wait until you've handed it to me."
Although there was a hint of frustration in Severus' eyes as he turned over the exam, he made no fuss as he reached for his quill and inkwell.
"What's one more test and an hour or so of questions?"
Much of the exam had proven to be rudimentary to Severus as his eyes glided expertly on the parchment. He hadn't had much practice in Ancient Runes since originally graduating Hogwarts, but a lot of context clues could be found in many of the runes being associated with numbers. Many of the pictures depicted on the runes dealt with some form of an animal and how it associated with a certain number. Unicorns represented one, an Acromantula represented eight, and so on. There was also a great deal of translation work done on certain runes of different languages and civilizations.
There were questions regarding the similarities and differences of Runes recovered from the Roman Empire, Byzantium, Ancient Greece, and numerous other extinct peoples. It always fascinated Severus how Ancient Runes was not a section of curriculum in the History of Magic course. If it were, the subject would likely have been more engaging for students with such mysterious and practical applications being covered in such a notoriously boring class.
After giving his written answers one final inspection to make sure he hadn't accidentally mistaken very similar runes for each other, Severus turned the pages over to indicate to the Professor that he was finished, a look of satisfaction on his face that his final O.W.L. was complete, easy as they all had been.
"Very good, very good, Mr. Snape!" Professor Babbling cheerfully grinned as she accepted the exam and placed it on her desk. "Now, I believe you had something you wanted to ask me?"
"Yes, Professor, I did." Severus nodded, eagerly sitting back down to get to work on precisely drawing the mark that had been on his chest for over a week now. "I had a question regarding a Rune that I had seen. I hadn't come across it during my studies, but thankfully it wasn't on the exam. Still, I was wondering if you could shed some light on what it is?" He said, handing her the parchment after he made sure he had drawn it correctly.
Professor Babbling's eyes lit up even more, something Severus hadn't thought possible with how cheerful the woman always was. "Why, I certainly can, Mr. Snape. But I'm sorry to say, there's really no short explanation when it comes to this mark."
"I have plenty of time, Professor." Severus assured her, his eagerness surrounding the mystery was almost unbearable at this point. The sooner he could solve the meaning of the mark, the sooner he could find out why it was interfering with his magic and get rid of it.
"Well, what you've drawn for me is the Mark of Apeiron."
"Apeiron..?" Severus repeated, uncharacteristically having no idea what he just heard.
The Professor nodded. "Yes, Apeiron. I'm not surprised you haven't heard of him, considering the rather...suspect list of subjects covered in History of Magic. Apeiron was a sorcerer from Ancient Greece, and one of the founding wizards who made great advancements on magical theory and application. You might be familiar with one of his creations: The Patronus Charm."
"The Patronus Charm dates that far back?!" the Slytherin asked, astounded that such a complicated spell had an origin ancestry that far back in Magical History.
"Indeed. The Patronus Charm was to be Apeiron's first step in development towards a new school of magic. Most of the books detailing his studies are marked with two runes placed strategically next to each other."
The young Professor eagerly began scribbling on the parchment next to the mark that Severus had made, and after a few moments, she returned it to him. "Translate these for me if you would, Mr. Snape."
Severus rolled his eyes at the idea of continuing to be tested on his knowledge after the exam was over, but obliged her nonetheless. The first marking was that of a dragon. This one was easy. "Potentia." Next to the dragon was a woman. With runes depicting people, one needed to look more closely at the subject's face to correctly understand the meaning of the rune. "This woman's eyes….they're almost unreadable, but they're not empty...Animus then?"
"Correct, Mr. Snape. Now put those two runes together and translate them for me."
"Potentia Animus...Strength of emotion?"
"Exactly! Apeiron was a wizard who came from a time when logic and reason was paramount, and that the importance of our souls, our core of who we are, should be undermined in the pursuit of power. One of the goals during that point in history was to completely rework a witch or wizard's magical core.
"There's a reason why our wands are considered an extension of who we are, because the cores are fashioned much in the same way as we are. Two points connected by a line. Handle to tip in the case of our wands, connected by a piece of a magical animal. In our own case, our core connects our heart with our mind. Giving form to what's in our hearts. There were a great many who sought to do away with the heart, and thought that reworking their cores to only encompass the mind would lead to a superior wizard, with greater control over their magic, and thus, a greater ability to perform more advanced magic. This gave rise to the practice of Occlumency, in an attempt to block out the heart completely."
The Professor seemed quite content in continuing her explanation, making sure that Severus was still paying attention before she took a sip of her tea. "This led to a particularly dark time in the history of Ancient Greece that I won't bore you with. Suffice it to say, many of those dark wizards, with their newfound skills in Occlumency, lost touch with reality and perpetrated a great many crimes on their fellow witches and wizards as a means of experimenting their new abilities. None of them had actually managed to completely change their cores to exist entirely in their minds, but it was as close as any wizard had come to making such a change. Until Apeiron came along…
"Aperion went on a crusade against these dark wizards, and had done what they had failed to do...or at least the opposite of it. He perfected a spell to completely focus a wizard's magical core into one point; their hearts. Since so many of them lost touch with their human emotions in their pursuit of power, once he cast that spell on them, their occlumency only served to completely strip them of their magic as long as they relied on it. If any of those wizards had any hope of being able to cast magic again, they would have to give in to their humanity once more. Many of them succumbed to madness due to the guilt of the things they had done. Everyone touched by that spell was left with a mark on their chest, right over their hearts. The very mark that you've drawn for me today..."
Severus' eyes shot open with shock, the long-winded explanation of Babbling indeed ringing true with everything that he had experienced so far during his second life. This 'Mark of Apeiron', was somehow the key to what had been happening to him since his resurrection.
"The spell was two-fold. It served as a weapon against wizards who falsely believed that magic was giving form to what was in our minds. And it also served as a tool for the wizard who realized that the truly inexhaustible well of magical power came from our hearts. Apeiron, as it's known now, is a word meant to describe the concept of infinite, without limit. The wizard it is named after believed that the heart was the key to making true advances in magic. The Patronus Charm was but the first step he wanted to make towards establishing this school of 'Heart Magic', but alas, he succumbed to illness shortly after creating the Patronus, and was unable to continue that concept of spellcasting any further.
"Why didn't anyone ever try to follow in his work?" Severus asked curiously, unsure of how he had never heard anything of this piece of history in his studies.
"Because the knowledge of how to cast that spell died with Apeiron himself. Nobody since that ancient era has any idea of how leave the mark which grants access to that kind of magical focus."
"I can think of one wizard who probably knows…" Severus thought to himself with great disdain.
"Thank you, Professor. It's been quite...enlightening."
Author's Note: Well, it's finally time for the chapter I'd been leading up to for awhile. I apologize if it comes across as an "info-dump", but I hope it adequately explains what Severus has been going through during his second life thus far. History fascinates me, especially when it comes to things dating further back, so I decided to create a story depicting another dark time in wizarding history in Ancient Greece, the time of the great thinkers and philosophers. I'm sure now that he knows the nature of what he's dealing with, Sev can't be too happy; he's essentially been strapped with a boat-anchor for reasons unknown, and has a pretty strong suspicion of who's to blame.
How does this relate to the future events in the story? I'll leave that up to speculation. As always, please leave thoughts and suggestions in reviews! It's so helpful and thought-provoking for me to read them!
One final thing: There's a quote in this chapter. "Talent is an accident of genes - and a responsibility." This quote is from a very special man who unfortunately passed away this week, Alan Rickman. The man who breathed life into arguably the most important character of the whole Harry Potter franchise, the catalyst for everything that happens in the story. I can't emphasize how heartbroken I was when I heard the news of Rickman's passing, as he was easily my favorite part of the film franchise, and once I saw him portraying Severus, he was the one I saw in my mind's eye as I flipped through each page from that point on.
His portrayal of Severus Snape is just as important in my mind as Rowling's quotes and character development. You can't have one without the other. Thank you and farewell to this wonderful actor for everything you contributed to the world of theater and entertainment. You will be sorely missed.