Chapter 431: A Shift in Perspective
The dungeons were as familiar to Sean as his own common room.
The storage cabinets were lined with rows of jars and phials, filled with ingredients Sean had meticulously organized himself. In truth, the subterranean levels of Hogwarts were vast. In the original chronicles, Harry and Ron had once spent a full half-hour lost in these lightless corridors before stumbling upon Malfoy.
This floor housed not only the Slytherin common room but also Severus Snape's personal fiefdom: the Potions classroom, the "Fifth Dungeon," and the Professor's private office. The Potions classroom was where the standard lessons occurred, while the Fifth Dungeon was a secondary, seldom-used lab maintained primarily by Mr. Filch.
From the sheer number of redundant classrooms, Sean had deduced that Hogwarts must have once boasted a much larger student body. As for Snape's office, it was the place Sean frequented most. There, he had studied nearly every known classification of potion and various rare ingredients. For a long time, he had been the one responsible for the inventory and the delivery of supplies from the greenhouses.
If Hermione still harbored any ideas about pilfering ingredients from Snape's private stores, Sean would undoubtedly be the first to catch her.
Now, back in the gloom of the dungeon, Sean moved with the practiced ease of a man in his own home. He spent exactly one minute gathering his materials before beginning work on the day's assignment: the Polyjuice Potion.
"Look at me, boy," Snape said, his voice cutting through the silence. "Have you forgotten to inform me of something?"
"You know of Lockhart's arrest, then, Professor?" Sean asked, his tone curious.
"Dunderhead... when did it happen?" Snape remained inscrutable, his hooked nose casting a sharp shadow against the stone wall in the flickering candlelight.
"Three days ago. Three days and five hours, precisely," Sean added.
"And what—" Snape's lip began to curl into a smirk, but he quickly suppressed it, fixing Sean with a predatory glare. "—was your involvement this time?"
"It wasn't my doing, Professor. His own lies simply caught up with him," Sean answered truthfully.
"Hmph."
Snape let out a short, derisive snort. If there was anything happening in this castle that was truly beyond his notice, it was only because he hadn't yet deigned to look. As for the claim that Sean was a mere bystander to a scandal of this magnitude? Absolute rubbish.
"You watched him fall, and you summoned Dumbledore to witness it. Hah... 'nothing to do with you' indeed."
The corner of Snape's mouth twitched. Internally, he felt a rare surge of vindication and comfort.
Sean paused. He quickly checked his Occlumency barriers, finding them perfectly intact. Snape hadn't invaded his mind; the man had simply made an exceptionally accurate deduction.
"I know more than you think, Green," Snape noted. He seemed to have a retort stuck in his throat, his eyes flickering with an uncharacteristic hesitation. Finally, he yielded to the impulse. "Next time, ensure your 'accidents' meet this standard of efficiency."
Sean nodded immediately.
The cauldron began to emit a series of thick, glubbing bubbles. The viscous liquid swelled into a large blister before popping, the residue clinging to the dark interior of the pot. Snape didn't even look down as he began to stir with rhythmic, surgical precision.
Plumes of thick black smoke billowed upward. The potion hissed and churned like a kettle on full boil, frothing with a violent energy. A second later, it shifted into a most unappetizing shade of muddy yellow.
"Now," Snape commanded. "Add the sample from the intended subject."
He dropped a single hair into the mixture. The yellow liquid instantly transformed into a clear, luminescent white. Snape went still, staring at the potion for a long moment.
"Different subjects produce different aesthetic results in the solution," he lectured.
Sean knew this was Polyjuice Potion in its final, most potent state. He observed the reaction closely, scribbling a few concise, vital notes into his journal.
Time slipped past in the quiet of the dungeon. Snape's face was almost invisible in the shadows.
"Is there anything else you've neglected to mention?"
His cold voice arrived on a draft of winter air that whistled through the gaps in the heavy oak door.
"You... know that Hagrid is to be the new Care of Magical Creatures professor?" Sean guessed.
"Naturally," Snape said.
Did he know?
He did not.
But no one would ever know he didn't.
To Snape, the boy before him was a dunderhead who placed a foolish, blind amount of trust in others.
"Hagrid has asked me to serve as his Student Assistant..." Sean continued.
"Hmph. Assistant?" Snape interrupted, his face darkening. "And?"
Sean went silent. Snape looked as though he were expecting another revelation. Was it the destruction of the Diadem? The retrieval of the Locket?
"Disappointing—"
Snape forced the words out as if they were physically painful. "You must understand, Green, that in our world, there is a vast gulf between one wizard and the next. Learn to utilize every resource at your disposal."
He reached into his robes and threw something across the desk. Sean caught it instinctively.
The torchlight reflected off the object in his hand. It was cold to the touch. He saw a tiny, sparkling gold hourglass hanging from a long, delicate gold chain.
Sean looked up into Professor Snape's blank, unreadable face.
"When using that, you would be wise to tuck away your greedy little curiosity," Snape hissed. "Remember: each turn of the glass represents one hour backwards in time. You are restricted to a maximum limit of five hours. Do not just stand there—commit every word I say to your memory!"
Snape stared at Sean, his tone growing increasingly irritable. Since when had he become the type of man to facilitate such things? He blamed the thin, official document currently sitting in his desk drawer—the one that detailed his "obligations" to the boy.
"Time-related magic is notoriously unstable. A serious breach of the temporal laws results in catastrophic consequences. Hah—imagine, if you can, a wizard accidentally murdering his past or future self. Imagine completely erasing a person's life-path, or causing an anomaly so severe that individuals who were meant to exist are never born..."
Snape's raspy voice echoed through the dungeon. The details he shared were far from pleasant.
"The Ministry performs an exhaustive background check before authorizing a Time-Turner. There are hundreds of laws governing their possession, and the penalties for abuse are the most severe in the legal code. Only once you have memorized every rule are you permitted to use it. Do I make myself clear?"
Snape's tone was a thin veil for a threat.
"Perfectly clear, Professor," Sean replied. He tucked the Time-Turner into his pouch. He knew where to find the official regulations: the Hogwarts library.
But it surprised him that Snape was the one to hand it over.
"What electives have you chosen?" Snape asked abruptly.
He had adopted a "burn the boats" mentality. Since he had already interfered this much in the boy's life, he might as well see it through to the end.
[End of Chapter 431]
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