When All is Lost, One is Found
Author: Rinoaebastel
Chapter 17: Threat
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and gain no profit from this fanfiction other than writing practice. Harry Potter is owned by JK Rowling.
AN: This story may contain scenes taken from the Harry Potter movies and books, but it's not exact dialogue, just rewording of dialogue or omission. It is not marked.
January 1995
The shadowed ceiling with a floating dim light bored him. He was tired yet unable to fall asleep. He'd tried the muggle method of counting sheep to keep his mind off this year's events, but it failed to send him into slumber. Just when he thought Potter couldn't get into anything more dangerous, he got stuck in a blasted contest of death that was magically impossible for him. This time he knew it wasn't Potter's fault he was in the situation.
But the unknown behind that wasn't the only thing making him tense. He found himself hoping for Potter's death. As the year progressed he felt himself become crueler and colder.
And it scared him.
His dark mark was getting clearer, so he suspected that the Dark Lord was behind this fate thrust upon Potter. The Dark Lord was recovering his strength and with it, his memories of past mistakes tried to take the most dominant position in his mind.
To add to his own worries he had found that his boomslang skin was missing from his stores. Only Potter had the nerve to steal from him.
Anger sparked and he put no effort into restraining it since he was alone. It was a challenge when he was among people to never let the full force of his rage out. It was especially difficult when the cause of the anger was the irritable Potter, his useless sidekick Weasley, and Granger. That miserable know-it-all was falling to the boy's clutches. If she continued on this path she'd soon put no effort into anything and her knowledge would suffer.
When he was cruel to her when Malfoy hexed her teeth, he knew that was going a bit too far. It was just that she was young and naive and he hated she could fall into Potter's dangerous life. He hoped his indifference woke some of the logical sense he knew she had.
He sighed. It reminded him of the situation with Lily, except of course he had no close attachment to Granger the way he had Lily. In that circumstance, he had to be cruel to her. She was a muggleborn, cursed by Draco. As someone under the awakening Dark Lord's service, he couldn't show any kindness to someone like her.
A scream tore him from his musings, and he launched from his bed. He stumbled a bit before limping lightly to his office door. He opened it and looked toward his cabinet of potions. It'd been opened and the contents spilled as if someone had been caught rummaging inside it.
He tore open the door that led to the corridor to find Filch and Moody there. They had a golden egg as well. A champion's one.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"I have proof, sir!" The man lifted the egg with both hands. "The poltergeist stole this."
Why would Peeves do that? That spirit was mischievous but not in that way. It was not a thief.
A rough noise came from the stairs, making him turn his head in that direction. After a few seconds, he looked back at the egg.
A connection.
"Potter," he growled. "He is here. It's his egg. He is with his invisibility cloak. Always breaking the rules aren't you, Potter? I caught you now stealing from me boy." His smirk grew and he started to walk around the cold stones, ignoring the fact that he was sans slippers and was only wearing a grey nightshirt. He extended his arm and tried to catch him.
If he could catch him he'd be able to prove that it was Potter meddling with his stores so he could prepare polyjuice
"Snape, you are behaving oddly tonight," Moody said. He turned his attention to the auror. The disturbing eye fixed on him.
"I'm not."
"What if I checked in your office? A pet doesn't change when his owner is away. Not as significantly as you supposedly have anyway."
He swallowed at the accusation. Though Moody was an auror that had put almost all the Death eaters in Azkaban, he had no reason to incarcerate him. He'd been cleared by Dumbledore.
He took a step to the side. "You're free to do so. You won't find anything because I am not the same man I was."
While it was true that he wouldn't find anything, the latter part of his statement was partly a lie. This past year proved that the darkness would remain in him as long as he lived.
"Oh, I'm not so sure of that." Moody answered with arrogance. "Go away, Snape, before I am tempted to find something to jail you for. You know I am capable of it."
He wanted to bite back, but instead the threat left his body numb. Did he have something that would incriminate him? He took a step back when he realized his Dark Mark would be enough for that man. He'd probably make up lies as well, and they would believe him.
He feared Azkaban as much as any wizard, so he turned and left before Moody carried out his threat.
AN: These month chapters are short so I will post double on the same day with a week break in between (this is for give me time to translate and for not sink you with notifications each week). The motive which they are short? Dates, story flow, scene coherence and cliffhangers. So that's why I don't' have equal length in all chapters but I want to be fair because I'm a reader too. In a couple of hours I will post the other chapter to not overwhelm with notifications. Hope you liked it and let me know what you think ;)