Half an hour later.
Severus came back through the tunnel and returned to the Whomping Willow.
"There you are."
He pointed his wand at a large branch. A blue flash. A rather large rat dropped from the tree.
He did not waste words. Obliviate, seven hours gone, done.
He picked up the chunk of wood he had transfigured into a coin earlier and headed back to the castle.
In his room, he dropped the coin on the floor. A few seconds later it expanded back into a large piece of wood.
"Right. Time to get to work."
He pointed his wand at it and used wind elemental magic to split it into several dozen small cubes.
He picked one up and turned it over.
"This will do."
He put his wand away, held the cube, and touched a fingertip to its surface. A small flame bloomed. Carefully, he began tracing a pattern.
A few minutes later he turned it over and started on the second face.
Half an hour after that, a finished cube was hovering in front of him. Every face covered in dark symbols.
"Aporrófisi: absorption. Aíorisi: levitation. Empódio: barrier. Therapeía: healing. Antanáklasi: reflection. Apókrypsi: concealment.
A simple toy. But in this world it will serve the locals well enough.
Magical cost minimal. Production cost minimal."
He was not worried about anyone recognising the runes. The concealment rune buried their presence entirely. What appeared on the surface was random noise. And if anyone tried to force the artefact open, it would destroy itself.
He had stumbled onto the design by accident, from an acquaintance who had looted an ancient tomb and made a comfortable living selling the finds. One of the blueprints had been for this item. The tomb raider had assumed it was something powerful. Once Severus had built one and studied it, the truth was more modest: a training toy for improving magical control, and a simple way to identify whether a young wizard had any talent for supportive magic.
For a mage it was nothing. For ordinary people, particularly those living far from any city, it was something else entirely. A protective artefact capable of reflecting spells cast by a Master, and of shielding its owner from common magical beasts.
To put that in context: his current power sat at roughly the level of a weak Master, and Severus had been a talented boy. From the memories he had inherited, he knew that most wizards left school after their OWLs, and the majority of those were journeymen at best. So an artefact like this had a clear place in this world.
It healed, too. Nothing dramatic: it would not regrow a severed arm. But press a severed finger to it quickly enough, and yes. It needed no magic to operate, only a drop of blood to bind it to its owner. The perfect protective artefact for this world, and one that promised him a considerable profit.
He had no intention of stopping there. He wanted to live without ever worrying about money. He had ideas, plenty of them, but ideas needed capital. The cubes would earn him a starting fund. After that, he would invest in research.
"Four more. Then I will see how the local wizards react to my little toy."
That evening he made two more and went to bed. In the morning he finished the last two, transfigured all four into black needles, and tucked them into an inner pocket.
The remaining wooden cubes he hid in the wardrobe and under the bed.
Then he left the room and went back to the library.
He left the Marauders' booklet alone for now. He had already checked it for Tracking Charms, transfigured it into a white needle, and stored it with the others. He would examine it properly over the holidays, well away from Hogwarts.
He sat in the library until nearly lunch, found nothing of interest, and was on his way to the Great Hall when a familiar voice stopped him.
"Mr. Snape."
Slughorn was coming toward him, smiling.
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine, Professor. Madam Pomfrey had me back on my feet quickly."
"Glad to hear it. I see you are heading to lunch. Care to join me?"
"I would be delighted. I actually have a few questions about Potions."
With a wave of his hand, Severus returned the books he had been carrying to their shelves and fell into step beside Slughorn.
"Questions are always welcome. I am listening."
"I am working on a potion that can temporarily double magical ability."
"Commendable."
"To finish it, I need a specific type of mushroom I came across in a book. Its properties were the closest match to what I need, but the name was not given." He pulled out a sheet of parchment and, under Slughorn's mildly interested gaze, quickly sketched a mushroom: thin red cap, black spots, completely grey stem. "The cap is red with black dots, the stem entirely grey, and the mycelium—"
"Hm. That is the Delusion Mushroom. If a wizard eats it, his magical power triples, but death follows without exception. I am surprised you found a description of it in a library book." Slughorn muttered, looking genuinely astonished. "I assume you plan to use it as a base and strip out the poison while weakening the effect. Sound thinking. But it will not work."
"Why not?"
"I tried the same thing once and eventually gave it up. There is a narrow path to neutralising the poison, but the moment you do, the potion becomes too weak to be worth anything." He looked at Severus's puzzled expression and smiled, though it did not quite reach his eyes. "I will not discourage you, though. Perhaps you will find what I missed."
"I will do my best!" Severus replied, lifting his chin with a slightly theatrical pride that made Slughorn laugh.
"Good. You know where to find me."
"Of course. May I ask a few more things?"
"I am listening."
"About white mandrake. When I—"
For the next hour, Severus kept him talking.
He stayed carefully within the school curriculum and the books available in the library. He also made a point of performing it properly: the right amount of childish enthusiasm, the right amount of nervous eagerness, exactly the way Severus behaved whenever Potions came up. After lunch they parted, Slughorn reassured, Severus already thinking ahead.
He went back to the library. Tomorrow was the end-of-year banquet and the awards ceremony, and he intended to spend every remaining hour searching for more on Salazar and his descendants.
By evening, when Madam Pince was practically steering him toward the door by sheer force of disapproval, a woman in a black pointed hat came into the library.
"Mr. Snape. The Headmaster wishes to see you. Come with me." Minerva McGonagall looked at him with the particular mild indifference she seemed to reserve for him.
"Is it urgent?" He looked up from the book.
He had finally found something worth having: words Salazar had left behind after his departure from Hogwarts, a dense anagram built across several scripts and languages. In two hours he had cracked exactly one word, and only then by luck, after stumbling across a reference in a historical chronicle packed with quotations from notable wizards. The word was "hidden." The next one began with "in."
"Yes."
He sighed, closed the book, and returned it to the shelf along with the others on the table.
"Could we bring Professor Slughorn? I feel considerably easier with him present."
McGonagall heard that, took in the distrust in his eyes, and pressed her lips together.
His gaze made her uncomfortable. So did the memory of the incident two days ago, which had not improved her opinion of herself. She was not angry at Severus. She was angry at herself, for the prejudice she had let run unchecked. Looking at him, she recognised something she did not especially enjoy recognising. She had once spent whole days in the library too. They had seriously considered sorting her into Ravenclaw.
"Very well. And I owe you an apology for that incident. My behaviour was inappropriate."
"There is no need. I understand. Let us go and collect Professor Slughorn. The Headmaster is probably waiting."
"That. yes."
Ten minutes later, the three of them were standing in front of the stone gargoyle on the second floor.
"Lemon drop," Minerva said, with rather more confidence than the slight colour in her cheeks suggested.
Severus kept his expression neutral.
What a cheerful old man.
The gargoyle's eyes glowed and it stepped aside, revealing a spiral wooden staircase. The moment they stepped onto it, it began to rise, smooth and unhurried, like a lift.
Seconds later they reached the Headmaster's office.
The old man behind the desk had Severus's full attention immediately.
A Magister. Weak, by the standards he knew, but the fact that such a mage existed here at all was a surprise. He had assumed the strongest wizard he would encounter in this world would be a peak Master. He had been wrong. In his own world, a man like this would certainly have reached Great Archmage.
He had ranked the Hogwarts founders as Magisters as well. The memories he had inherited made clear that wizards of this era were far weaker than those of the past, which was part of why he had set his expectations where he had. Clearly he needed to revise them.
Then he shifted his attention to the other person in the room: Lily, watching him with wary eyes.
In Alan's world, the mage ranks ran: apprentice, journeyman, master, magister, Archmage, Great Archmage, Creator.
//===================//