Chapter 3
//Severus’ POV
When Severus woke up he was extremely confused… first of all he was ALIVE and in his bed. Second… he was shirtless, bandaged up and painfree.
A sudden surge of panic took him and he checked his left forearm. The Dark Mark was there in plain sight for everyone to see. He had been discovered!
He quickly sat up, wincing at the still present (albeit subtle) pain and inspected the room. His bedside table was littered with multiple empty potion flasks. His wand laid there, sitting on top of a folded note. Nothing else looked out of order, but he quickly casted a couple of spells to make sure.
Gaining no further information from that, he took the note. A simple “rest” was scribbled on it, in a handwriting he was familiar with but couldn’t recognize. But that wasn’t the interesting part. There was a black scale inside, one that could be easily seen in a fish or a snake, but the size was way too big.
He obviously could think of other creatures but most didn’t match the scale color, size and texture… or where extinct.
This was a true mistery. He could probably try to match the handwriting… but that would take an exceeding amount of time, especially with the risk of this stranger to blow his carefully crafted cover. And that was assuming it belonged to someone in Hogwarts.
The scale? That was just as big of a problem…
His musing was interrupted by the clock informing him he had to get ready for his potion class with the 1st years. He quickly showered, inspecting the newly acquired faint scars on his right side.
Once dressed he walked towards the classroom, taking 20 points from Gryffindor in the meantime.
Class was (unsurprisingly) a disaster. Some Hufflepuff almost made her cauldron explode after dicing Foxglove. “Miss Derro, your instructions clearly states you need to slice your Foxglove. 50 points from Hufflepuff and I will expect 3 rows of parchment of cutting methods on my desk by Thursday morning. Class is dismissed.”
The 5th years we only somewhat better. The 2nd years exasperating but at least managed not to destroy the room (which was improvement from the previous lesson).
Lunch in the Great Hall proved to be somewhat interesting. Mr Potter was extremely quiet today and wasn’t looking at him, not even when Dumbledore gave a speech (about what he had no idea). A sudden and drastic change he couldn’t explain.
Granger nudged him and he abruptly straightened and turned his attention towards the Headmaster. It looked like he didn’t sleep. Nothing out of character for the boy… always strolling around the Castle after curfew just as he pleased.
It didn’t matter. He was finally free of accident-prone noisy children and he could go back to his rooms. He could study the scale some more.
3 hours and a glass of Whiskey after, Severus hadn’t made any progress. It was way too big and thick for an Ashwinder. Dragons were rare (if not extinct) and he didn’t know any with scales just like that one. Basilisks (because now he was really out of ideas) were dead… the last one miraculously slayed by Potter in his 2nd year.
Concentrating on the handwriting seemed too tedious… the single brief word was not nearly enough to compare to thousands different handwritings. Not to mention the fact that there was always some level of intrapersonal variations.
A slight burning sensation coming from his Dark Mark put a stop to his research and he got up quickly… he couldn’t risk angering his Master again.