read my new story : American Fast & Furious NSFW
Late afternoon bleeding into evening.
Dungeon classroom.
Twenty cauldrons stood in neat rows between the wooden desks, copper scales and jars of ingredients lined up like soldiers. Professor Snape's face was half-hidden in the swirling potion fumes.
Harry was quietly milking hairy caterpillars for their slime. Officially they were called Flobber caterpillars, and the thick green goo was used in everything from weed-killing potions to scabies cures and sleeping draughts. Super useful stuff.
Harry's reason for detention was pretty straightforward: Draco Malfoy had spent the whole class flicking porcupine quills at him and Ron while rolling his eyes so hard they nearly fell out of his head. Harry flicked one back—once—and Snape slapped him with detention before he could even open his mouth. Classic.
As for Sean…
Harry stole another glance at the kid who looked… off. Sean was just standing there staring into space, which was weird. Harry had seen him stare down Voldemort and a basilisk without blinking. He'd started to think nothing could rattle Sean.
So Harry slowed down his caterpillar-squeezing on purpose. Normally he tried to grow eight extra hands to get out of detention faster; today he could barely coordinate the two he had.
"Planning to move in for the night, Potter?" Snape's voice hissed like a snake.
Harry flinched, finished the last caterpillar in record time, risked one final look around the dungeon, and bolted.
One second slower and he'd be looking at a week of detentions.
Down in the dungeon, Snape watched Harry flee with a cold glare, firelight carving sharp shadows across his hooked nose.
Next to him, Sean had already finished his potion. The flames under his cauldron were out, his face unreadable in the sudden dimness.
Snape's own brew, which should've needed at least an hour of gentle simmering, was somehow done in thirty minutes flat.
Sean sighed quietly. Funny how time always speeds up when you're desperately wishing it would slow down.
Snow lashed against the tiny dungeon windows with loud bangs. Sean's voice blended into the noise.
"Professor, you know—"
Snape whipped around so fast the still-lit cauldron hissed. "Well, well. Mr. Green finally remembers he has a tongue in his head?"
Sean met his eyes for a few long seconds. Same blank expression Snape always wore, same blank expression Sean always wore.
"Tell. Me. Everything," Snape snarled.
"About the Chamber—"
"You went inside?" Snape's voice cracked like a whip. "No—more than that—what did you DO? Speak!"
He flung an empty crystal phial aside. The potion in his cauldron turned black and started smoking; he didn't even notice. His face got darker with every word.
Sean laid it out—calm, clinical, terrifying: the disembodied voice in the walls, realizing it was a basilisk slithering through the pipes, figuring out Moaning Myrtle had been the victim fifty years ago and that the entrance was probably in her bathroom. Then going down there for the dumbest possible reasons…
"You should be thanking whatever gods you believe in that you're still breathing!" Snape roared. "Stay. Right. Here."
Fury flashed in his eyes—the kind that wouldn't be satisfied until something very large and very dead was lying at his feet.
"Professor."
"What!" Snape snapped, wand half-raised.
"The basilisk's already dead."
Sean said it like he was confessing to breaking a window. He suddenly wished he could transfigure himself into a crystal vial and hide in the corner forever.
"Dumbledore?" Snape barked.
Sean shook his head.
"McGonagall—"
Another shake.
"SEAN GREEN!"
Snape looked ready to hex him into next week. Sean mentally started scheduling six straight years of detention.
A long, long silence later, the dungeon door creaked open with an ominous groan. Sean had, once again, survived.
Snape stood in the doorway, memories burning fresh holes in his mind. "Since when did you grow a mouth?"
After the anger drained away, he finally noticed the tiny changes.
"You told me last time," Sean said softly, "that I should tell you."
He remembered. Of course he remembered.
Icy wind howled through the open doorway. On the wall, the portrait of Sir Cadogan—who'd been relocated down here for some reason—was yelling his head off.
"Severus, my boy, did you see that little spark in the grate? Just a tiny ember sneaking back into the fire—doesn't it remind you of something? A heart coming back to life—"
"Sir Cadogan, shut up!"
Too late.
Winter came early to Hogwarts.
Even with a portrait getting roasted over an open flame couldn't stop Cadogan. "You think there's no summer here, Severus? In winter you'll find it—always burning in someone's heart, and unbeatable!"
Farther down the corridor, Harry vaguely heard a roar that rattled the torches. He hunched his shoulders, suddenly very worried.
What's gotten into Snape?
Sean's still in there…
The hallway was dead quiet at night. Harry camped out by the dungeon door anyway.
Whatever happened, he at least wanted to tell Sean that most of Snape's insults were total garbage. He'd always known that.
That's when he noticed about twenty spiders slowly marching back across the windowpane, slipping in through a crack on long silver threads.
Spiders… climbing back inside on their own silk.
Harry's stomach dropped. He suddenly remembered hearing the hissing voice in these walls, and Dumbledore's calm explanation:
"You're a Parselmouth, Harry… because Voldemort is a Parselmouth. He's the last descendant of Salazar Slytherin. When he gave you that scar, he accidentally transferred some of his own powers to you…"
Harry had only wanted to know why he could talk to snakes. The answer just made everything worse.
He and Voldemort… were alike.
Sean came around the corner and found Harry staring blankly at the spiders.
"Oh—Sean."
Harry snapped out of it and hurried over. "Look, whatever Snape said in there, just ignore it, he's always—"
Sean paused, flicked his wand in a tiny silent spell. Down at the dungeon door, a pair of pitch-black eyes was watching them both.