(A/N: And presto! Another chapter just like that! Alright, alright, it's not a loooong chapter. But the Department can only go on so long. Read and enjoy! WonderWhiteRabbit Hopping Off!)

In the Head of the Snake

Chapter 23: The Department of Mysteries: Part 2

"I never thought I'd see a place like this..." whispered Rookwood. His fear was tangible but there was another look in Rookwood's eyes that made Severus want to gag. What was it? He couldn't place it, but either way he didn't like it.

His own heart was beating as fast as the flaps of a hummingbird's wings. It wanted him to flee from this place. But he could not bring himself to move away from the doorway and back the way he had come. Instead, his legs willed him forwards. He dropped from his step to the lower one and then again to the one after that. His steps echoed in the large chamber. The Death Chamber. And he could hear the dead whispering to him from behind that veil. That arch held secrets long forgotten.

"Where are you going? Snape? What are you doing?"

Snape realised he was standing on the edge of the dais, the arch rising upwards with grand splendour. He didn't know how he had gotten so close so quickly. But now he could hear the whispers a lot louder. Almost clearly, but there were too many! So many dead! He couldn't make out the one from the next. They filled his head with a whisper that turned into the hiss of an ocean, like listening to the inside of a shell. But this shell was cracked because every now and then he heard the real thing; a real word.

"Killed"; "Murdered"; "Sacrificed"; "Innocent"; "Watched"; "Nothing". The words filtered out. Were these the words of those he had killed? That he had murdered? That he had sacrificed? The innocent that he had not been able to save? Those that he merely watched as they died because he could not do anything to save them? Where he did nothing...

And then he heard other words...words that he never thought he would hear from the dead.

"Sorry"; "Understand"; "Please"; "Help"; "Revenge"; "Protect"; "Trust" and too many more. They overran the negative. They consumed him with their purpose. The dead held him in their embrace and he gathered their meaning. They are sorry that he must bear the brunt of their anger. They understand he is good. Please continue. Do not give up. Help those that he can. Get revenge for those that have died. Protect those who are left over. Trust. In others. In him. In them.

The dead, long unable to fulfil their dearest wishes and dreams, were asking him their last request; he must do anything in his power to put an end to this struggle.

"Easy for you to say!" he shouted, no longer aware of Rookwood's presence. "You're already dead!"

"For us..." the words whispered. It was in unison. All of them. They all wanted to rest in peace. But never would knowing that the living world was not at peace.

Severus' head dropped down onto his chest as he felt his eyes burn with tears. He was the damned. He would continue to work for the dark just to bring a further end to the very presence that consumed him. He understood now better than ever; he would bring about his own demise. When the dark ended, so would he. But it was ok. The dead waited for him. They would not take him until the time was right.

Something hit him across the face.

"As much as I like hitting you, I don't appreciate all of these blank-out phases of yours! Next time I'm just gonna leave you be and hope that that veil sucks you up!" Rookwood panted before him, his outstretched hand ready for another slap in case the one was not enough.

Severus shook his head, anger flowing through his veins at the man before him. How many of the voices coming from the veil were from the lives that this man had taken? They wanted revenge. He and Rookwood were alone. Surely he could start his journey of vengeance right now? For the dead to see and appreciate? He could make this man hurt. He could make him cry for his past sins. Beg for mercy. Cry until he was sorry for his guilt and had to go through the pain of remorse. For there was no pain like that of remorse.

The veil flickered and folded over itself in a non-existent breeze. He understood. This was not the right time or the right place. The dead would see and know when Rookwood died, as well as the others. As well as him.

"If you are just going to leave me, then why bother taking me out of my reverie in the first place?" snarled Snape, his anger suppressed as he let it flow through his venomous words.

"For one, I don't know how we're getting out of this place. For another, the Dark Lord would not be happy with the half-image I can give him of this place."

"Ah yes," sneered Snape, "always looking out for yourself aren't you, Rookwood?"

"Tch!" but he didn't make eye-contact with Snape.

Snape used one of his own methods of Occlumensy. He started with his toes and slowly clenched his muscles, moving slowly upwards through his calves, his thighs, his stomach, his chest, his arms, and then he clenched his hands into balls of solid fists. Then, at the same time, he let everything go. His anger dissipated with it slightly. His head was now cleared of the emotions he felt for Rookwood as well as those from the veil. He would not forget their pleas. But at the moment he could not do anything with anger bubbling at his surface. Wasn't that always what he was telling Mr Potter? Control your emotions!

"I have the scope of this place," Snape said once scanning the room carefully. Four doors from the Psycho-Magical Corridor. One in the corner that must lead to the entrance room. There were eight more doors, four along the two other walls. He wondered for a moment whether he should go for the doors right away or make his way back to the entrance and see to the doors that he had not yet gone through. No, he would see to this room first, just as he had done the others.

He walked up the stone steps, only realising now how high each step actually was. How many more rooms did he have to go? They hadn't even made it to the Hall of Prophecies yet. How much time did they have left? Oh, shit! How much time did they have left?

Three hours. That was all they had been guaranteed. They had wasted so much time! Surely Dumbledore could give him a bit more? The older Wizard had obviously left the Department of Mysteries unguarded; perhaps it would remain so for a little while longer. What had he been doing this whole time? Gawking and acting like a first-year in every room, that's what he'd been doing!

No time. No time to finish! No time to complain! No time!

But he had to finish. He would not come back here again next weekend! This was the only Friday night that he would give up for this stupid task! And no Saturday or Sunday was going to follow! He would see the whole department. He would map it out on that damned paper that the Dark Lord had made. And then he would be back at Hogwarts in his comfortable castle, surrounded by blithering dunderheads that could do little more than blow up a cauldron or two.

He was at the door and yanked it open, barely aware of Rookwood chasing after him. Snape stepped into the room, blinking in the glittering lights. What room was this?

"Ha!" exclaimed Rookwood, panting for breath but smiling with recognition. "The Time Room! My old workplace!"

Snape saw a large shelf along the side wall covered in glistening gold sand in small glass bulbs of different shapes. Time turners, he realised quickly. There was a strange ticking noise throughout the room as well and he saw an old grandfather clock, ancient in make, leading the other clocks in the room by half a tick. Even though there were so many clocks in the room, however, he could not have told anyone the time; each clock was set to a different time and as such let off chimes and booms and coo-coos at random intervals. His eyes were drawn to a large sand-turner, a bird slowly aging, dying and then being reborn within it. He carefully drew closer to it and realised with a shock that there was no glass holding the time in place; anything could fall through into the never-ending circle of time within it. He looked quickly around the room again. He was surrounded by time and it only reminded him of how little he had left. Rookwood was opening the doors along the side of the wall, checking all four of them.

"They all lead back to the Death Chamber," he announced and then turned to the next wall. The Time Room was a long and slender room with doors lining either side, however it didn't look as if the doors went anywhere: the first three doors that Rookwood opened led into small offices.

"These are like my old one used to be, just smaller," he grumbled as he moved to the next door.

Snape merely watched the man snoop around, edging himself closer to the end of the room. It was a moment before he realised he was standing right next to the case with the time turners. His fingers itched. You had to go through a lot of paperwork to get a timeturner. Even more so if you were a suspected Death Eater in the past. He'd probably have to get Dumbledore's written permission to apply for one. And then there was no guarantee that he would get it... who would know?

Snape blinked, not even realising that he had done it already. A small pocket-timeturner was securely sitting in his robes, no one any the wiser to his deed. He was surprised that his past in Spinner's End came back to him so quickly. It had been years since he had last pick-pocketed someone. He was probably rusty, but right now that made no difference.

"Oi!" called Rookwood, his arm holding open one of the doors in the middle of the room. "This one here has another door at the other side of it."

Snape strode up to the small office and saw that it did indeed have a door on the other side of it. The office made a small corridor between two different rooms.

"Well, make it quick! We don't have much time left!" Snape snapped.

"Says the one who's been in a stupor half the time," muttered Rookwood. Snape ignored him; he had better things to do.

They pushed through the door to the next room and Snape had to try very hard not to gawp again. He forcibly closed his mouth and instead allowed his dark eyes to scan the room.

But to be honest, he couldn't make out much at all. It was much too busy! He could tell they were in a library. He could also tell that the library's laws of physics did not apply. Stacks upon stacks of rolled up parchment were settled easily on shelves that lined the roof, walls and floor. Stairs started from the ground and made their way upside down so as to address the records suspended along the just-as-upside-down ledges. To add to the chaos of the Library of Records, there was a horrible crunching sound coming from a large printing machine that was spewing out newer and newer records by the second, the noise joined by self-propelled trolleys that were wheeling the new records to various parts of the library.

Snape knew he would get lost in the maze of parchment. Really, there was only one thing that he could do in this room. He quickly accosted a trolley, "Excuse me," he said to it, his foot stuck out so that it would not roll past him, "do you perhaps have a map of this wondrous library? So that I may find some records easier?"

He was pulling at straws, he knew, but he had to try!

The trolley just tried to move past him with renewed vigour. Snape tried a different tact then, "Alright, alright! But could you lead me to any other exits in this room?"

That stopped the trolley for a moment. He saw it shift a wheel forward and backward, as a person would from foot to foot. What was it with wizards and making inanimate objects into thinking beings?

The trolley appeared to come to a conclusion and turned around. Snape immediately knew it was going to oblige to his request. Rookwood glared at it uneasily, but Snape merely nodded his head for the trolley to lead the way. He took as much of the Library of Records in as he could, but honestly there was too much to see. He knew he would remember it all, but if he saw it all was a different story completely. The followed a pretty straight-forward path, only straying from their diagonal course once to make way for a stream of trolleys all laden with rolled up blank parchment making their way to the printing machine.

They came to a black door. Snape had seen others like it; one in the Time Room at the far end of the room, and four in the Death Chamber. He guessed they all lead to the same place, however considering how far apart all of the rooms were, it would mean this next place was very long, if not big as well. Snape was tired of immense rooms now. This last Library of Records did not appear big because it was so full of movement and noise, but he knew if he had not asked the trolley's help they would have struggled to make their way through it, if not getting horribly lost along the way. But, if his calculations were correct, then he had a pretty good idea of what lay behind this black door.

He first asked the trolley if there were any other doors, and the trolley, actually annoyed at him, quickly wheeled off and returned carrying a small rolled up parchment. He unrolled it and scanned its contents, a smile tugging at the side of his mouth. He handed the parchment back and thanked the trolley, which gratefully wheeled away from him for the last time.

"What was that about?" asked Rookwood, not at all impressed at being left out of the joke.

"I was just informed that there are three doors in and out of this room. One to the Entrance Chamber, one to the Office Corridor which leads to the Time Room and this one here which leads, surprise surprise," he drawled, "to the Hall of Prophecies."

"But why were you smiling?" demanded Rookwood, now annoyed.

Severus gave an exaggerated sigh. He wondered for a split-moment if he were really the drama-queen Dumbledore sometimes claimed he was, but flicked the thought away with an irritated sneer. The sneer, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately,) make Rookwood very angry.

"Answer me you prick!"

Snape growled. He didn't have time for this, but it would be quicker to answer than to argue.

"That parchment was a recent development in Records. It stated that Severus Septimus Snape discovered that there were three rooms that lead into the Library of Records and proceeded through the third. I was laughing, you idiot, because this room was Recording our movements too! This room records everything! The whole of History is probably in this room if people were only willing enough to place it together!" Snape had a quick thought of someone who might just want to do that, but he pushed Hermione Granger quickly out of his mind; thinking of one student only lead him to think of others, and Ginny Weasley in his head right now was not a good combination when he needed his wits about him.

Snape was dimly aware that Rookwood was spluttering.

"But then we should destroy everything in this room!" he shouted, pulling out his stolen wand. Snape quickly drew his own, ready to stop the idiot from doing anything more stupid than he had already.

"By Salazar Slytherin, you are an imbecile!" stated Snape, although his hand did not relax around his wand. "You honestly think that anyone is going to find anything in this room about us? I bet you would not be able to find that last record unless you asked for it specifically! And how is anyone going to know what to ask for if they do not know about it?"

He saw the doubt wiggle its way into Rookwood's eyes. He had a point, but then again, Snape always did.

Before Rookwood could change his mind, Snape turned to the black door, twisted the round knob, and walked into the Hall of Prophecies.

Row upon row (upon row upon row) of shelves stood before them, each one stacked from floor to ceiling with dusty round orbs. Some glittered dimly, obviously still relatively recent, whereas others were merely gray balls underneath a life-time's worth of dirt. The very hall smelt mouldy from lack of upkeep. Obviously no one cared for this Hall, nor for its contents. It was a surprise anyone took notice of this place, never mind the Dark Lord himself. But now Snape had another issue; how to find the Prophecy that referred to the Dark Lord and Harry Potter?

He thought back to what he knew about the Hall of Prophecies; Bode knew the placement of the Prophecy. He had been ordered, under the power of Lucius Malfoy's feeble Imperio, to remove the Prophecy. But that had not worked. The Prophecy could not be removed by anyone who it did not concern. So this prophecy could only be removed by the Dark Lord. Wait. Not just the Dark Lord. Potter too. He too could remove it. But how would Potter, of all people, make his way to the Ministry, down into the Department of Mysteries, through the Department of Mysteries, all the way to the correct aisle in the Hall of Prophecies to finally, after all that, remove the gray flickering orb? It could not happen...no...it could happen, but it would not! He would not allow it!

A number flickered into his head, the memory distorted by the method that was used to retrieve it. Ninety-seven. Row ninety-seven held the Prophecy. Directly in front of him, clearly labelled underneath the grime, was row eighty-one. It continued to the right to row eighty-two. He followed the aisles to the right. Eighty-three, four, five, ninety, ninety-six. Ah. Ninety-seven. Now, where along this aisle was that stupid prophecy? He looked carefully along the shelves and saw that they were labelled by date. If he remembered right, he had to go further down the aisle. He followed his memory, coming to an abrupt halt as he stared at the item of his search. The Prophecy lay before him, covered in a thin layer of dust. A mystical face swirled around inside the ball, only her extremely large glasses giving any indication as to who she may be. Did Professor Trelawney know of her true Seer powers? Probably...why else would she have such high regard for herself? Or maybe there were other reasons that he was not taking into consideration? He did not know, nor, really, did he care to find out. Right now, what he did have to find out was what other doors there were in this Hall. He ran to the end of the aisle and then the length of the Hall. The numbering along the rows went as far back as minus thirty eight. He spared no thought to the odd number; these things often had a reason if one really wanted to find out. It continued past ninety-seven to one-hundred-and-twelve. Snape knew if there were more prophecies that more shelves would appear. The larger numbered shelves held much cleaner orbs, therefore much more recent prophecies.

He checked the doors as he went now. There was the door to the Library of Records. There were also four doors nearer to the smaller numbered rows that lead into the Death Chamber. One door lead into an office which Snape pictured in his head as next-door to the other offices in the Time Room as a door directly next to the Office lead into the said Room.

Snape breathed a sigh of relief. He knew it all. He knew the Hall of Prophecies. In fact, he knew all of the rooms on the lower floor of the Department. He was not too sure of the Roof level. If indeed it was any different to the floor level, he did not have time right now to find out. If the Dark Lord needed that information – or any other Lord of his – then he would have to come back some other time. But not any time soon. He honestly did not like this place.

He turned, grim in his success, and faced a twitchy Rookwood.

"We're done, right?" he asked as his eyes shifted from side to side.

"Yes," drawled Snape, not about to show his own nervousness. How were they going to leave here now?

But then Snape felt his arm grow warm; his Dark Mark was reacting. His eyes, wide with sudden knowledge, slowly closed. He placed two fingers to the mark, and, with a surge of power running through him, he felt the Dark Lord's summon. He was sucked through the vortex, the tube of Disapparation squeezing him tighter than he had ever felt before. Something was trying to stop his disappearance, but the power of the Dark Lord was too strong. He could have sworn his body was being ripped in two, torn between where he was going and where he was leaving. But his mind was set. He needed to get out of the Department. He was being called. He followed that call, pulled ever onwards by the black skull now searing on his arm. Through all the pain, through all of the suffocation, he could still feel the heat radiating from his arm, twisting pain through the limb. The pain let him keep his mind and he landed with a pop, in a pile of robes on the ground, before the Dark Lord. He did not care for the cry that left his lips on the landing.

In fact, with half of one's calf missing, one does not care for much at all.

(A/N: Out of the frying pan...into the fire! Poor Sev! But he can't leave the Department without a parting gift of course! Let me know what you think! Reviews make my day! Oh, speaking of Reviews: please please PLEASE allow for PMs! I cannot reply to some reviews because the PM option has been turned off. But I do think I should mention a few things here quickly: Yes, there is a history between our dearest Lily and Sev, No Sev is not Harry's Father, No Ginny is not removing Snape's past memories, Yes Occlumency lessons will commence soon enough, and Yes you will hear more from Ginny's side of the story! Once more, let me know what you think! Sorry for the short chapter, but it had to get out there! WonderWhiteRabbit hopping off!)