Suspicious.
By nature, Severus considered himself a paranoid and distrusting man. Suspicious was a word that often rang in his thoughts, a word that almost continually plucked at the myriad of webs stretched taut about his consciousness, every discrepancy caught and cataloged by Hogwarts' stern Potions professor. His high-strung and calculating mien allowed him to catch even the most enterprising of rule-breakers and to survive his tenor as a spy beneath the Dark Lord's cruel thumb.
He kept his pockets filled with antidotes and his head full of questions.
The foremost question in his mind was, of course, who had cursed the boy's broomstick. He had his suspects, the foremost being Quirinus sodding Quirrell, but there were others too, conspicuous and inconspicuous, a line of faces and masks behind which the culprit was carefully hidden. He couldn't imagine the stuttering ignoramus of a Defense teacher could manage that particular curse, but it had been someone in the staffing section. The fire that threw off his own concentration had interrupted the attacker as well. The timing was too succinct to be a coincidence.
Dullahan. The woman triggered every alarm possible in Severus' subconscious, and yet he didn't think her the perpetrator of this particular crime. No, if she was guilty of anything, it was a rather absurd fear of heights, if he had to guess. The bruises on his covered wrist indicated the true strength behind her terror. She'd been utterly bewildered by Quidditch, and though Severus had to wonder if the woman had been living under a damn rock to not know what Quidditch was, the anomaly wasn't high on his list of priorities.
Somebody had made an attempt on the boy's life right under his nose. Had Quirrell roped one of the village residents into helping him, either by choice or by Imperius? The staffing section of the stands had reeked of Dark magic after the match, though nothing conclusive could be found. Yes, a Dark curse had been preformed, and yet there must have been twenty trained witches and wizards sitting there when it had been cast, all capable of doing the spell had they the inclination to do so.
Albus said they needed to wait. They could not spook the traitor in their midst until he or she had shown their hand.
The whole issue infuriated Severus.
He stepped from the castle into one of the outer courtyards, the bite of November air brisk against the exposed skin of his face. A pair of sixth year Ravenclaws jostled him as the passed through the archway, eager for warmth, and the more observant of the pair let out a small yip of fear when she realized they'd brushed their Potions professor. They scuttled away as Severus sneered.
Visions of the Dark Lord's heretofore unknown servant getting hold of the Stone flickered in his thoughts and phantom pangs went through his left arm, prompting Severus to clasp the offending spot, drawing in a sharp, clearing breath. It won't happen. He Occluded the offending suppositions into the mire of his shields. I won't let it happen.
He walked through the courtyard's open terrace, footsteps silent on the flagstones, leaves skittering about the edges. Distantly, the sound of prepubescent voices echoed, first years spending Saturday afternoon on the grounds, chasing each other over the sloping lawns despite the inclement chill. Music followed the cheering and shouts, growing louder as Severus made for the steps.
His lip curled when Dullahan came into view. She lounged in one of the stone archways, legs sprawled and bent, a lute of all things held loose in her grasp, her face turned toward the wind, toward the distant children playing on the grounds. Her foul-tempered Augurey sat perched on her raised knee and bobbed in time with the idle plucking of her fingers.
She made for an odd picture, her countenance lax, contemplative. His suspicions coiled in his middle.
"Dullahan."
She glanced about, startled, the bird hissing at Severus as he stepped nearer the woman. The music cut off with a sudden thwap of her fingers against the lute's strings. "Oh. Hello."
"What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean?" Her brow quirked. "I'm sitting here. Thinking. What else could I be doing?"
Severus dropped a pointed look toward the lute and, spotting his attention, Dullahan gave the strings an idle strum. "Do you play?"
"No."
"A shame."
He scoffed. "Unlike some, I have duties to fulfill. I don't have time for such...pleasantries."
Dullahan plucked the strings again, unperturbed by his tone or the derisive cut of his words. "Like I said, a shame. Don't you know, professor, music is the oldest form of magic?" The corner of her mouth hitched upward, eyes sparking. "Well, that and—." She coughed. "I think I'll spare your delicate sensibilities, though."
Severus scoffed again, louder and with more force, then turned on his heels and continued toward the exit. To his dismay, Dullahan scrambled to her feet and made to follow, lute and chattering bird in tow.
"Out for a stroll, Snape? Mind if I join you?"
"Yes, I do mind."
She chuckled, strumming a tune as she kept pace, though Severus didn't make it easy for her. He set off across the grounds, taking the steps down the grassy incline two at a time, his legs long enough to cover the distance. Dullahan tripped once and, despite his irritation, Snape slowed. Marginally.
"So did you—." She slid on the frosted grass and the bird shrieked in her ear. "Ouch, ruddy bird! Can you slow down, for Merlin's sake? I wanted to ask if you'd found out who'd cursed Harry yet—."
Severus froze and rounded on her. Though Dullahan only came up to his chin in height, she met his unnerving stare without hesitation, the blankness of her mind pressing against his own, daring Severus to peer inside that skull of hers and slam his consciousness against the iron walls of her Occlusion. He knew it was petulant of him to be annoyed by her mental fortitude; like a child, it irked him that he could not simply look and see what he wished to know. The Headmaster's old warnings about Legilimency being addictive came back to haunt Severus.
He shook himself. "Harry is it?" he sneered. "Have you joined Potter's bandwagon of sycophants? I would have expected more circumspection from a Slytherin."
"Hard to know what to expect from a Slytherin, really. Filius once mentioned you'd be pleased to have another House of Serpents about. Are we really the only two on staff?"
Severus' jaw ticked as he replied, her abrupt redirection of the conversation not going unnoticed. He found it odd how she identified easily with Salazar's House and displayed no outward solidarity toward Ilvermony. "No. Sinistra is as well, though I doubt you've seen the woman. She never leaves the Astronomy Tower."
"Oh? We've met. We compared star charts." Small fingers tapped the lute's side, resulting in several thumps. "So...do you know who cursed Mr. Potter?"
Eyes narrowing, Severus drew himself to his full height and shrugged his dismissal. Some aspect of the witch was...disturbing. He'd known it from their first encounter, of course, and time had done little to assuage the suspicious ruminations of his mind. Violence clung to Dullahan, an unrefined bite of something other Severus could not define, eyes too old in a face too young, hands too quick, tongue too irreverent. Her smile whispered of secrets she made no true effort to conceal.
She reminds me of Dumbledore, he realized, pausing. Like she knows something the rest of us don't.
Irritated, Severus didn't respond to Dullahan and continued toward the Forest's edge. The witch followed.
"Tell me; when did they decide to start calling the forest Forbidden?" she asked once they came under the fringe of the trees' shadow. Dullahan struck up a quiet, distant melody on her lute.
"I don't know what you mean."
"Well, you don't think it was always called the Forbidden Forest, do you?" Dullahan snorted.
"It is also called the Dark Forest."
"And the Black Forest, yes." The song paused, then repeated. "...it was once known as the Forest of Tirn."
Severus had never heard of such a thing before, and he cast a dubious glance in the witch's direction.
"This was long before you or I were born, of course."
"And how do you know this?" he drawled. "As I have been teaching here for twelve years and have never come across this information before."
"My mother," Dullahan answered offhand—then sputtered. "Wait, twelve years? Bloody hell, you must have been little more than a boy when you received your mastery."
Unpleasant memories prickled Severus' recollection. "My apprenticeship was...rushed." Sleepless nights stretching on without end, the smell of mixed fumes inducing nosebleeds, a high, cold voice whispering instruction, the gleam of guttering candlelight on a pale wand, the hard impact of flagstones on his knees as he fell to the floor and screamed until he spat blood between his teeth. Severus swallowed. "Your mother sounds quite...informed. Perhaps Hogwarts should employ her instead of her daughter."
Dullahan let out a forced laugh. "Oh, I think you'd find my mother's presence a tad more disagreeable than my own, professor."
"I don't see how," he grated in response.
The witch hummed, dismissing his scathing comment, and returned her attention to the instrument in her hands. Nevertheless, she kept her pace in line with Severus, even when he stepped from the path into the dense press of undergrowth, setting off along a winding trail carved by the forest's larger creatures. The cold deepened in the forest's recesses, cutting through the Warming Charms on his cloak and robes, sinking into his joints with all the eagerness of wolf's teeth.
Severus rubbed his hands together, lost in idle thought. Perhaps this is why the last generation of pure-bloods aged and died early. The Dark Lord's tender mercies are not kind upon the body. He stopped, shuddering. Were not. Were.
He came upon his destination; a clearing set in a natural depression nestled between crowded pines and birches. "Mind your step," he snapped at Dullahan when he remembered the woman walking behind him.
"Fine."
Severus withdrew his wand and muttered the spell to dismiss the invisible buffer meant to keep various forms of fauna from trampling through the area. A paddock surrounded the space, but it had long fallen into decay, much of it collapsed and rotting into the damp, moss-covered earth. Dullahan found a perch on one of the last remaining struts and he thanked Merlin she wasn't going to insist on following him around and asking inane questions about the more...dubious plants in the clearing. Plants he wouldn't—couldn't—entrust to Pomona's care.
His wand returned to the hostler on his wrist as Severus knelt, retrieving a silver knife and a glass jar from his robes, setting the latter on the dirt as the dark bush before him began to rattle and hiss. Vivid yellow flowers, petals curled like serpentine fangs, peeked from the dense foliage and snapped at his encroaching hand, the whipping stamen much the same as a snake's lashing tongue.
He managed to cut a few blooms well enough, though the Laurus Viperidae eventually nipped his fingers. At that point Dullahan's voice joined in with the simple melody she'd been strumming.
Summer sun a listless burn
Of green leaves alight in oak and in fern
White mountain watch
The children dance in the Forest of Tirn
The children dance in the Forest of Tirn
"Must you?" Severus growled as he retrieved the proper salve from his pocket and wiped it over the stinging skin of his forefinger.
"Yes," came Dullahan's surprisingly indignant reply. He raised a brow, but the witch returned to her song, attention on the Augurey swaying on her shoulder.
Hear the wind unfurled
With song winsome and becoming twirled
The vigil will watch
Coming from the ring of the other world
Coming from the ring of the other world
All good lasses come to learn
For not those fair ones a girl should yearn
Turn 'way, turn 'way
Silver children from the Forest of Tirn
Silver children from the Forest of Tirn
He wanted to snarl at her to stop, to leave, to be silent—but as he watched, the snapping yellow blooms swiveled on their stalks to stare at Dullahan, if it were possible for flora without ocular capabilities to stare. The plant responded to the steady, practiced rhythm of her voice, and Severus wasted no time in snipping the now docile flowers, peeling the petals to extract the valuable bulb of venom.
When Dullahan stopped singing, the plant once more persisted in its attempts to eat him alive, and Severus jerked back.
"What was...that?" he asked, reluctant, once he had the glass jar sealed and his knife cleaned. Dullahan stood and tucked the lute under her arm.
"'That?' Whatever do you mean?"
"Don't insult my intelligence. The Viper Laurel isn't placated by music or by singing. I have attempted both before."
"Oh? You actually sang? Mind a repeat performance?"
"What. Was. That?"
Dullahan lifted one small shoulder, and again Severus was struck by how much of Dumbledore he saw in her chiding grin. "As I said, Professor Snape; music is the oldest form of magic."
She left then, twigs snapping underfoot, her Augurey leveling a final demeaning leer, leaving Severus to his illicit potions garden and unsettled introspection. Suspicious.