The man walking through the Ministry's atrium turned heads.
Not because he was famous—not in the right way.
But because he was unfamiliar.
Gone was the greasy-haired, hollow-eyed man with a perpetual sneer.
This man stood tall, hair neatly pulled back into a queue, dark cloak embroidered subtly with protective sigils and the faint shimmer of silk thread. His black shirt and slacks fit cleanly, tailored to his lean frame. His boots didn't click—they struck.
His face was still pale, yes, and his expression unreadable.
But he looked like someone who had a reason to be here.
"Name?" the Auror at the front desk asked, barely glancing up.
"Severus Snape."
That got attention.
The quill faltered slightly before scratching his name down on the visitor log.
"Business?"
"I require a meeting with the Auror responsible for the initial arrest of Sirius Black."
Brows rose.
The desk witch gave him a long look but said nothing, sending off a note with a flick of her wand.
Snape sat without fidgeting.
Ten minutes later, a junior Auror approached him cautiously. "You're… uh, being seen by Auror Moody. If you'll come this way…"
Snape followed in silence.
The office was cluttered but not disorganized—everything had a place. Dark detectors lined the shelves, and a constant low hum vibrated the air. The moment Snape stepped inside, a spinning orb on the desk flared orange, then quickly dulled.
"Snape," growled a voice like gravel and whiskey. "Didn't expect to see you sober, dressed, and on the right side of the door."
"Moody," Snape said coolly, inclining his head. "Believe me, I'm just as surprised."
They didn't shake hands.
Snape didn't sit.
"I've just come from the Hall of Records," he began without preamble. "I requested a copy of the official trial transcript of Sirius Black."
Moody's eye twitched. "And?"
"There were none."
Moody leaned back, arms crossed over his scarred chest. "Classified?"
"I asked."
He fixed the old Auror with a hard stare.
"They weren't classified. There simply aren't any."
The silence between them thickened.
Snape's voice dropped.
"I'm asking you, Moody. Where is the trial record? If he was tried at all."
For the first time, Moody didn't meet his gaze.
He reached up and scratched at his jaw.
"There wasn't a trial," he said at last, gruffly. "Black was found with a wand linked to blood magic. Twenty Muggles dead in the street… He was laughing. Screaming about You-Know-Who. We didn't need a trial."
Snape's breath caught.
No trial.
No defense.
Just… condemnation.
"You locked a man up for life without due process," he said, voice low and cold. "Even I had a hearing."
"He confessed," Moody snapped. "He didn't deny it. He just laughed."
"Maybe he was in shock," Snape hissed. "Maybe he was trying to protect someone. Maybe—just maybe—you saw what you expected to see."
Moody slammed his prosthetic hand on the desk.
"We had bodies, Snape!"
"And you had no truth." Snape stepped forward, voice sharp. "Where is the wand? Where is the evidence?"
Moody didn't answer.
Snape turned to leave, cloak flaring behind him.
"I'll find it," he said. "Whether your office cooperates or not."
Moody was silent for a long beat.
Then he sighed, deep and rough.
"I'll handle it. I'll dig into the evidence trail—what's left of it. If there's anything to be found, I'll find it."
Snape gave him a tight nod and reached into his inner pocket.
He pulled out a card—thick parchment, edges gilded in silver ink. No frills. No flair.
Just a name:
Master Severus Snape
Potions and Elixirs – Consultations by Appointment
An address was listed beneath it—Diagon Alley.
He laid it gently on Moody's desk.
"I expect contact," he said. "Soon."
With that, he turned and swept out of the office, his cloak whispering behind him.
--
Diagon Alley was just beginning to stir.
The lamplights still flickered. Shops were unlocking doors, sweeping stoops, preparing signs and morning specials.
Most didn't notice him as he walked—hood up, face shadowed—but a few glanced over, double-taking as they registered something familiar and different.
Snape walked past the Apothecary.
Past Flourish Blotts.
Past the alley's louder, flashier shops.
And stopped at a small storefront nestled between a parchment shop and an old clock repair stall.
The sign above the door was freshly hung, carved into dark wood with careful strokes and burnished lettering:
Master Snape's Potions Elixirs
Opening Soon
The windows were still dark. A simple white curtain hung inside.
Snape took out a narrow iron key, unlocked the door, and stepped in.
The interior was clean, simple, and smelled faintly of dried herbs and bitterroot. Shelves were already lined with labeled jars—his own work. A brewing station stood to the right. Behind the counter, two locked cabinets awaited volatile ingredients.
There was no bell.
No flashy signage.
Just a quiet purpose.
He pulled off his cloak and hung it neatly by the door, then rolled up his sleeves. He placed his wand on the counter. Not out of reach. But not in hand.
There was work to be done.
--
The soft chime of stabilizing wards echoed through the apothecary as Severus Snape adjusted the flame beneath a cauldron.
The potion within shimmered—mercury and sage, slow and patient.
His hands moved with unshakable precision. But his mind… drifted.
His gaze flicked to the tall mirror by the back counter—a narrow thing, charmed to reveal the aura of magical tampering. It reflected more than just skin and shadow.
Snape rolled up his sleeve with clinical calm.
Pale. Scarred, like all potioneers eventually were. The fine lattice of burns, knife slips, and acid splatter told their own story.
But no Mark.
No black serpent coiled in eternal loyalty. No brand of shame or fealty.
He flexed his hand once, the fingers long and stark against the silence. The memory rose unbidden.
--
The trial had been swift—but not simple.
Dumbledore's testimony had been expected.
"He passed information to me during the war," the old man said, voice heavy with the weight of too many decisions. "He infiltrated Voldemort's inner circle at great personal risk. Lives were saved because of his work."
But the Wizengamot was not in the mood for faith alone. War had made them hungry for blood and proof.
"Remove your sleeve," demanded the lead inquisitor—Cassaline Morrin, a hawk-eyed witch with a voice like frost cracking glass.
Snape compiled without flinch.
No Mark.
No brand.
The gasp that followed was theatrical, but the silence after was real.
"Your Honor," Snape had said evenly, "if I had been loyal to the Dark Lord, you'd see it."
"And you expect us to believe you pretended to join him?" Morrin sneered. "That you infiltrated a nest of murderers on your own initiative?"
"I was a half-blood raised in poverty," Snape replied. "Offered a place among the powerful because I had something they wanted. My skills."
"And you turned against them for the love of Lily Evans?" Her tone was mocking now.
He didn't react.
"No," Snape said. "I turned against them when I realized no one else would. I sent names. Locations. Schedules. Dumbledore acted on some of them. Others… he did not."
Whispers broke out like a storm across the gallery.
"Why didn't you come forward after the fall?" Morrin pressed.
Snape's voice was cold as a cell wall. "Because your Aurors were rounding up suspects like cattle. Because Death Eaters were still killing in alleys and across borders. Because I was not safe."
"And the missing Mark?" she asked again, voice laced with suspicion.
He met her gaze without blinking.
"I am a potions master," he said. "You'd be surprised what a skilled alchemist can alter."
The court had cleared him. Barely. The vote had gone nine to seven.
But it wasn't Dumbledore who came to him afterward.
It was Alastor Moody.
The old Auror waited until nightfall, then appeared uninvited in the doorway of the cramped basement flat Snape had been hiding in—a space more cauldron than kitchen, more potion shelf than home.
Moody didn't knock. Just limped in and set a battered hip flask on the cluttered table.
"Drink," he said. "Tastes like piss, burns like justice."
Snape shook his head at the offer, but said nothing. Just watched.
Moody leaned forward, that magical eye ticking and twitching like a cursed clock.
"You know who the real monsters were. Not the Death Eaters who screamed the loudest—the ones who hunted in silence. The ones who liked it."
Snape didn't argue.
"You've got names," Moody went on. "Give them to me. The Ministry's too busy polishing its shoes and pretending they're clean. But we'll do what they can't."
Snape stared at him for a long time. Then gave the smallest nod.
And so it began.
One by one, they burned the rot out from under the stones.
No trials. No fanfare. Just names, silence, and work.
They never called it justice.
They didn't call it anything.
They never kept records of the names they crossed off.
But Snape remembered Greyback.
Not just because of the stench—blood, sweat, musk, and meat—but because of the way the man smiled when he hunted. As if it was a game.
Moody had tracked him to the outskirts of Knockturn, deep underground in the remains of a collapsed wine cellar that reeked of damp rot and dried screams.
They'd found three sets of chains, a blood-stained child's boot, and bones so small Snape could hold one between two fingers.
"I thought he'd fled the country," Moody muttered, wand drawn.
"He always comes home to feed," Snape said.
Greyback wasn't like other werewolves. He didn't wait for the full moon. He didn't need to. He liked biting people when he was still human.
He chose the infection as a gift.
A curse with teeth.
He came out of the shadows grinning, teeth yellow and wet.
"Well, well," Greyback rasped. "The cripple and the traitor. What's the world coming to?"
"Final notice, Greyback," Moody growled.
Snape said nothing. His wand was already casting silent wards behind them. No witnesses. No escape.
Greyback bared his teeth wider. "You're wasting your time. There'll always be more of me. More packs. More pups raised right. You kill one monster, ten more take its place."
He took a step forward, voice low and vicious. "You know the trick to a proper scream? Wait 'til the little ones still think you're playing. That moment—right before they understand—they taste best then."
That was his mistake.
He thought they'd come to posture. To scare.
He didn't expect Snape to strike first.
The spell hit him mid-sentence, snapping his legs backward like broken twigs. He howled—then gagged as a second hex collapsed his windpipe before the scream could rise.
Moody moved in fast, savage and silent, like a man who had done this before and stopped keeping count.
They didn't give him a trial.
They gave him an end.
Afterward, neither of them spoke for a long time. The cellar was quiet again.
Moody lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
"Ugly way to die," he muttered.
Snape, still crouched over the corpse, didn't look up.
"No," he said softly. "An easy way to die. He deserved much worse."