The dungeons were just as familiar as ever.
The storage cupboards were packed with ingredients Sean had already sorted and labeled.
Come to think of it, Hogwarts' underground spaces—the dungeons—were enormous. In the original story, when Harry and Ron tried to sneak into the Slytherin common room, they wandered around for a full half hour before they finally ran into Malfoy.
Down here wasn't just the Slytherin common room. It was also Professor Snape's three-piece "territory set":
the Potions classroom, the Fifth Underground Classroom, and Snape's office.
The Potions classroom was where lessons were held. The Fifth Underground Classroom was one of the rarely used spare Potions rooms—kept tidy by Filch.
From that alone, Sean was reminded again: Hogwarts must once have had far more students, or there wouldn't be multiple identical classrooms.
As for Snape's office, that was where Sean went most often. He'd learned nearly every kind of potion there, along with countless rare ingredients.
For a long time now, Sean had been the one responsible for organizing and storing those ingredients—he even handled the deliveries from the greenhouses.
If Hermione had ever tried to steal from Snape's private stores again, Sean would have been the first to notice.
So now, returning to the dungeons felt like coming home.
In a brisk minute, Sean gathered what he needed and began preparing today's potion—Polyjuice.
"Look me in the eyes," Snape asked abruptly. "Have you forgotten to tell me something?"
"You already know Lockhart was arrested?" Sean asked, mildly curious.
"Idiot… When?" Snape's face gave nothing away; his hooked nose looked even sharper in the dim dungeon light.
"Three days ago. Three days and five hours," Sean added.
"You—what did you do this time?" Snape's mouth twitched up for an instant, then dropped. His gaze sharpened as it locked on Sean.
"It wasn't me, Professor. His lies were exposed," Sean said honestly.
"Heh." Snape gave a scornful laugh.
If there was anything at Hogwarts that wasn't connected to him, it was only the simple fact that Hogwarts didn't belong to him.
Everything else that happened here—one way or another—had something to do with him. Claiming otherwise was nonsense.
"You watched him get exposed, you called Dumbledore—heh. Technically, yes, that has nothing to do with you," Snape said, curling a cold smile.
Yet inside, something in him eased.
Sean froze for a beat and immediately checked his Occlumency. There'd been no intrusion at all.
Which meant Snape had simply… made a reasonable guess.
"I know more than you do," Snape paused, as if something were stuck in his throat. Then his eyes flickered and, abruptly, he relented. "Next time, you'd better commit your stupidity to that standard."
Sean nodded quickly.
The cauldron began to bubble—thick liquid swelling into a blister, popping, and clinging to the inner sides.
Snape stirred without even lowering his head.
Dense black smoke billowed up. The brew hissed and roared like a kettle at a full boil, frothing furiously—then, a second later, it turned an ugly yellow.
"Now, add part of the person you want to become," Snape said.
He tossed a hair into the cauldron. The liquid turned a translucent, cloudy white.
Snape paused, staring at it for a long moment without moving.
"Different subjects cause different appearances in the potion," he instructed.
Sean knew what he was seeing: Polyjuice in the rare, near-finished state.
He watched the potion carefully and wrote down only the necessary, concise observations.
Time slipped past. In the weak candlelight, Snape's expression was almost impossible to read.
"Have you forgotten to tell me something else?" His voice—cold as ever—rose with the draft that slipped through the wooden door's lattice.
"You… already know Hagrid is going to become the Care of Magical Creatures professor?" Sean guessed.
"Of course," Snape said.
Did he know?
He didn't.
But no one knew he didn't.
And the boy in front of him was an idiot who trusted people far too easily.
"Hagrid invited me to be his assistant—" Sean started, truthfully.
"Heh—assistant?" Snape cut him off, face dark.
"And?" he pressed.
Sean fell silent.
Snape sounded like he knew something else.
The destroyed diadem of Ravenclaw? Or Slytherin's locket?
"How disappointing—" Snape ground the words out like resignation. "You should understand this: in the wizarding world, the gap between wizards is vast. Learn to use everything around you, Green—"
He flicked something toward Sean. Sean caught it on instinct.
Torchlight splashed over the object in his hand, and he saw what it was:
a small, gleaming golden hourglass on a long, delicate gold chain.
Sean lifted his head. Snape's face was calm—utterly unreadable.
"When you use it, you'd better put away that greedy little mind of yours.
"Listen carefully: every turn of the hourglass reverses time by one hour. You can go back at most five hours—
"What are you waiting for? Repeat every word I've said, exactly!"
Snape glared at Sean, his irritation rising.
Since when had he started doing things like this?
He blamed it all on a thin sheet of paper—one that spelled out, in plain ink, obligations he was required to fulfill.
"Remember this: magic involving time is extremely unstable. Violating the laws of time can cause catastrophic consequences.
"Heh—such as—killing your past or future self by mistake; completely changing the course of a life; creating temporal anomalies so that people who should exist are never born…"
Snape's low, hoarse voice echoed through the dungeon, and none of what he described was remotely pleasant.
"The Ministry conducts strict vetting and guarantees before approving a Time-Turner.
"There are hundreds of laws governing Time-Turner possession, and the harshest punishments for misuse.
"Only when you can recite every single rule will you be allowed to use it. Do you understand?"
It sounded like a threat.
"I understand, Professor," Sean said, putting the Time-Turner away. He already knew where to find those regulations.
Hogwarts Library.
What he hadn't expected was that Snape would care about any of it.
"What subjects did you pick?" Snape asked suddenly.
There was a reckless, broken-pot attitude behind it: if he was interfering anyway, he might as well interfere all the way.
~~~
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