The sixth-year had no real choice. He threw one last look at the staff table, where McGonagall was still watching him, ground his teeth, and sat.
Damn snake. Just wait till later. I'll knock some sense into you.
With each passing minute, more students came in and found their seats.
A bell rang. Then Dumbledore's voice carried clearly through the hall.
"Please take your seats."
The noise settled. When everyone was seated, he went on, the same kind smile in place.
"Another year has come to its end. As Headmaster, I congratulate each of you. Never give up, and always reach for what you want.
Now, I will not keep you in suspense. This year's results.
Fourth place: Gryffindor, with two hundred and seventy-five points."
Polite applause. The Gryffindors stared at the table.
The four Marauders looked especially wrecked. This was their fault and they knew it. None of them could bring themselves to look at their housemates.
James found Severus across the hall and burned him with a look. Severus smiled back at him.
"Third place: Hufflepuff, with three hundred and ten points."
More applause. Unlike Gryffindor, Hufflepuff took it in stride. Third was familiar territory.
"Second place: Ravenclaw, with three hundred and thirty points.
And first place, and this year's champions: Slytherin. Three hundred and eighty points. Congratulations."
Dumbledore nodded, smiling.
The Slytherin table erupted. Cheers, applause, hats thrown into the air.
From the other houses, scattered clapping.
Over the Gryffindor table: silence.
"The House Cup this year goes to Slytherin."
The banners behind the staff table blazed green. The ones along the walls followed.
Slytherins were on their feet, and Severus was among them.
When the noise settled, everyone found their seats and the feast began.
"They feed you well enough here." Severus narrowed his eyes with satisfaction, tearing a piece from a chicken leg.
Not dragon meat. But very good. He washed it down with juice.
Though I would not say no to wine.
Half an hour before curfew, the food vanished from the tables.
Dumbledore rose.
"Today's celebration is at an end. Do not forget to pack your things. The train leaves tomorrow at eleven."
Some grumbling. Then the benches scraped back and students began moving toward the exits.
Severus said his goodbyes to Myrtle, who had by now acquired a small audience of Ravenclaws, and left the hall.
He went back to his room, packed his few belongings without any fuss, and slept.
The next morning he stood on the platform with a small battered suitcase over his shoulder, looking at the red train with mild curiosity.
This world has come further than I gave it credit for, in small things at least. But simple teleportation is still superior to all of this. Stupid rules. Not until sixth year do I get permission to Apparate, even though I know a form of teleportation far safer than anything they teach here. I have no wish to attract the attention of the local law enforcers. Two months is easy enough to endure. Then the application, and I can use it freely.
He handed his suitcase to a man in a red uniform with a round cap and boarded the train.
In the Slytherin carriage he found an empty seat and pulled out the book on the Patronus.
"Is this seat taken?"
"Of course not. Sit down." The person opposite was John Macmillan, the former Slytherin prefect. "I assumed you would leave by Apparition."
"Decided to ride one last time. It is my last visit to this place, after all." Severus settled by the window with a nostalgic smile and let himself look at the castle.
"Seven years went by quickly."
"You sound like an old man."
Macmillan looked at him for a moment, puzzled, then shook his head. "You have changed."
"Circumstances have a way of doing that. By the way, what are your plans?" Severus glanced up from the book, though he already knew the answer. He had gathered considerable information about the Macmillan family: their neutrality, their reputation, the artefact shop Macmillan's father ran.
"Follow in my father's footsteps. Though I suspect you are not asking without a reason. And you have been asking questions about us."
"I was not trying to hide it." Severus waved lazily and called one of the black needles to his finger.
"I want to sell an artefact."
The moment the needle landed in Macmillan's hand, he felt the Transfiguration on it. He slid it into his jacket pocket and infused it with a touch of his own magic.
"I will show it to my father."
"I am sure he will not be disappointed. And if the price suits me, I am willing to sell more. Fair warning, though: if he tries to take it apart, he will lose his hands. Not a threat. A simple fact. I built a security measure into it."
Macmillan's smile faltered, but he nodded.
"My address in the Muggle world." Severus passed him a small card. "I will be there for a while."
"I thought you were simply a brilliant Potions student." Macmillan started to say more, but Severus's expression shifted and he caught himself. "All right. Not another word."
Cokeworth.
Even with Severus's memories sitting in his head, the town caught him off guard. The buildings, the cars rushing in both directions, the way people dressed: small details that still surprised him at odd moments.
But the town itself was depressing in a way that went beyond the physical. Dark, monotonous houses. Clouds sitting low and grey over everything. Air that tasted of the textile factory nearby, whose chimneys had been steadily killing the surrounding forests and rivers for decades.
The faces of the people he passed were blank or openly grim. It worked on the spirit the way Dementors did, draining something out of you the longer you stayed.
Now I understand why he loved her. Cheerful, pretty, always talking: in a place like this, Lily would have been like opening a window.
As he neared the house he felt her gaze on his back. They were almost neighbours.
I need to sell this house and move somewhere with clean air.
A few blocks later: Spinner's End. An unremarkable street. An unremarkable house: two storeys, brick, tiled roof.
"What a palace." He stood looking at it for a moment, feeling the urge to simply keep walking.
He opened the door and the smell hit him immediately, damp and stale and closed-in. He snapped his fingers, raised a barrier around his head to filter the air, and stepped inside.
"W-who is. h-here?!" A furious, hoarse voice from one of the rooms.
Then the man came around the corner.
Bloated face. Bags under his eyes. Rough skin the colour of turned earth. A starved frame in dirty, torn clothing. A smell that arrived before he did.
"You."
"I am surprised they have not thrown you in prison yet."
"Heh-heh-heh. So you dare. hic. talk to your father like that, you little monster." Tobias grinned and swayed forward.
"Time to show who is boss here."
"As you did with your wife?"
"Do not call that creature my wife!" Tobias roared and swung at him.
"A Muggle wants to hit a wizard. If I told my classmates, not one of them would believe it." A lazy wave of his hand, and the drunk hit the wall with a dull thud and slid down it.
"Sleep for now. I will wake you later."
He activated the perception-enhancing spell and went downstairs.
The basement was exactly as expected: junk, dim light, nothing remarkable. In the corner, two shelves. One held ordinary books alongside worn, decades-old magical ones.
He barely looked at them. What caught his eye was a small box in the corner, giving off a faint but distinct trace of magic.
"Easier than I expected." He lifted it and opened it.
Inside was what appeared to be a simple mirror. On closer inspection: a cursed mirror.
The Curse of Discord. Weakened to the point of near-harmlessness, easy to miss. But with prolonged exposure, even wizards eventually broke under it. Muggles would not have stood a chance. If it had not touched Severus directly, it had been given to him two or three years before Hogwarts. Finding the sender was the next problem. The most direct method was a ritual tracing everyone who had ever handled the mirror or the box, but that needed materials, and materials needed Galleons. He set it aside with a tired exhale and looked toward a dark cloth hanging on the wall.
He pulled it aside.
A portrait looked back at him. A woman of about twenty-five: long dark hair, pale clean skin of the kind that came from generations of indoor aristocratic life, a gaze that was strict and gentle at the same time, a slightly elongated face that did nothing to reduce her beauty. She must have understood, at some point, that something might happen. She had tried to make a living portrait. She had been a little too late. He could feel the magic still radiating from the canvas.
A witch who died from beatings. There was something almost absurd about it. It did not add up. An ordinary woman might have endured it, might have been too frightened or too broken to leave. But a witch? An aristocrat? She could have Stunned him at any moment, Obliviated him, walked out the door, and built an entirely different life. The explanation had to be a love potion. Something binding and sustained. A potion explained the initial choice, it explained the endurance, and it explained why a woman with every tool to escape had not used any of them.
He would find who had done it. And when he found them, he would take his time.
That would settle the debt.
He covered the portrait again, turned to the shelf, and looked at the collar sitting there. Something quiet and cold settled in his expression.
//===================//