Chapter Text
Prologue
BOOM!!! BLAM!!! BANG!!!
Several hexes and curses were cast, but they bounced off at the wall behind the black blur which dove into an alcove on his right. They flashed bright red, green and white as they hit the stone wall.
Two boys, one with messy black hair and glasses, the other one with dark brown curls reaching his shoulders, ran towards the t-junction, followed on the heels by two other boys. They both had sand-coloured hair, one of them a few inches taller than the other, a few inches thinner, too.
“Quick, he couldn’t have gotten that far!” The one with the glasses encouraged his mates, as they turned into the corridor on their left.
The Marauders were out hunting.
In the narrow alcove, Severus stood with his back against the wall, holding his breath, his chest heaving. His shoulder hurt from when he collapsed against the wall after his dive, and his ankle felt like someone had stabbed it with a knife, a result of his poor landing. Severus wasn’t athletic, never had been, and diving and jumping like he had, didn’t do him any good. His body was obviously protesting.
As he listened how the sounds of the steps of his chasers quickly disappeared in the distance, he finally let out some air. They had been damn close to hitting him with one of their hexes, but at last he got away relatively safe. His robes were in tatters, but they were hand-me-down rags anyway. He’d repair them later when he got back to his dormitory.
This was the third time this week Severus had to run and hide from James Potter and his cronies, and it was only wednesday. They had targeted him ever since their first day at Hogwarts, but never were they this vindictive and motivated to see him actually hurt. Yes, they tried to humiliate him at every single chance they got, but they had never sought him out. Well, they did, but not like this. Not in between classes when they needed to get to class themselves and the corridors were filled with other students.
They had never shied away from an opportunity to humiliate Severus in front of an audience, but most of the time they saved those moments for the weekends, knowing everybody would be out of their dorms and free to watch whatever they had planned for the Slytherin loner. Apart from tripping him in the corridors, using magic or not, they mostly left him alone during the weekdays.
But ever since this week had started, Severus found himself hiding in niches and corners when he actually needed to get to class. He’d arrived late two times this week, barging into the classroom, panting heavily, his robes clinging to him with sweat.
Luckily one of those times had been History of Magic, there had been snickers from his classmates, but Professor Binns hadn’t even noticed him when he’d entered the room like he did.
The other time Severus wasn’t that lucky.
Black had hit him with a Pus-Squirting Hex, leaving his face and the front of his robes covered in yellow goo, while Potter had managed to squeeze in a Babbling curse. The class he had to get to had been Transfiguration, and McGonagall wasn’t impressed. At all. Of course the Gryffindors he shared this class with had laughed at him for his mad-looking appearance and they had laughed ever harder when he hadn’t been able to explain himself, babbling like a drunk baby. McGonagall had sent him on his way to the infirmary, taking twenty points from Slytherin House for his late arrival and unkemptness, telling him he needn’t bother to come back. At least Black had been absent as well. Severus had hexed him with a non-verbal Densaugeo! after the puss had started streaming from his nose. There was a good chance Black had to pay a visit to the Hospital Wing, trying to explain his situation to Madam Pomfrey while his teeth reached his knees. The medi-witch was an excellent nurse, but very stern and refused to treat the results of hexes and curses unless the victim explained what had happened to them. She believed if the victim was innocent enough, they wouldn’t hesitate to tell her. If not, she would tell them to find their Head of House and let them deal with the student in question. She was there to help and heal victims of misuses of magic or spells gone wrong, not to heal delinquents only to help them back to their feet in order to continue their bullying.
The Head of Houses weren’t particularly happy to have to heal their students. It was the medi-witch’s job after all, but they agreed with her that staff shouldn’t encourage bullies. They just weren’t sure healing them was the same as encouraging them.
Willing his breathing back to normal, Severus cast a time charm. It was seventeen minutes past three. Bugger, he was late yet again and not even a little bit, too. McGonagall was going to be thoroughly pissed. In his head, he scheduled at least a week's detention into his study plan. Well, he was late now anyway, maybe he should just skip the class altogether and work on those Conjuring charms by himself, or perhaps even another subject.
He had been experimenting with creating his own hexes after all. They’d come in handy when James and Sirius would start to chase him down again, which most likely would be very soon.
Yes, he would keep himself occupied, rather than risking the thorn of the Transfigurations’ professor, Severus decided. He peered around the corner of the alcove and when he saw it was deserted, all students were in class, he left in the direction of the dungeons.
Lost in thoughts about what kind of hexes he would like to use on the Marauders, however, he found himself not in the dungeons but somewhere on the seventh floor of the castle. Stopping, Severus frowned to himself. It was not like him to daydream like this. He was always quite focused; he had to be, in order to keep himself out of sight. He thought about how he would give anything to get away from his tormentors as he started walking again.
He took a left, knowing the corridor would lead him to the Great Staircase, but yet again Severus found himself somewhere else. Merlin’s bloody gonads. Even after almost seven years at the castle one would assume he knew his way around, but evidently he didn’t. He sighed and cursed under his breath, starting to turn on his heels to go in the opposite direction when his eyes fell on a door. He was sure it hadn’t been there when he’d entered the corridor.
Beside wanting to get back to his dorm to study in peace, Severus knew better than to open unknown doors; Hogwarts had plenty of fake doors, which opened to solid walls as the person who’d opened them crashed into the stone, but it also had some dark spots, luring innocent, unexpecting, young students into their darkness. Salazar Slytherin had built part of the castle after all.
But Severus was not innocent or unexpecting. And above all, he knew a thing or two about Dark Magic. He was sure he could handle whatever would be behind that door. So curiosity got the better of him and he walked towards it. With his left hand he reached for the doorknob, but he caught himself before touching it.
With his right hand he drew out his wand and cast several spells at the door. It didn’t show any signs of Dark Magic. That meant either the door was safe or the magic hiding behind was so Dark, these basic diagnostic charms wouldn’t detect it.
Deciding it couldn’t be much worse than facing the Marauders again, Severus turned the handle and stepped over the threshold. Nothing happened. No Dark Magic then.
Looking around the room, Severus saw a comfortable-looking wingback chair of the left and a wooden desk on the right. Dropping his bag by the door, the seventh-year walked to the desk, thinking it would be a good study spot. With three long strides he was across the room and stood by the desk. He frowned.
The tabletop wasn’t empty. A gold pocket-watch lay precisely in the middle, a long golden cord swirled around it. It was beautiful, not shiny, but not dull either.
Severus picked it up and turned it in his hand. The back had some kind of inscription, but he had dropped Ancient Runes after one year, so he couldn’t make out what it said. Besides, there was a good chance these characters weren’t even Runes, he didn’t recognise even one of them. He turned it back to its front to try to open it to look at its face, but the button on top didn’t seem to work. Maybe it had to be put around one’s neck in order for it to work, Severus thought. He lifted the delicate chain and put it around his neck. This time when he pressed the button, the watch opened. It didn’t look like a regular watch, though. The Roman numerals were all messed up, not in order and there weren’t any pointers. It had to be some kind of special, magical watch, then, Severus concluded.
He wondered who’d left it there or if he could keep the beautiful golden object. If only Potter and Black could see him now. They always laughed at his shabby clothes, while they wore immaculate robes, bought by their caring, and most importantly, loaded parents. But no, Severus was sure even those two had never seen such a stunning watch. It looked very expensive too. Maybe he would keep it. No one would know he had it after all. But he wouldn’t keep it. No, he would sell it, taking the money. He sure could use some Galleons.
In a few months he would graduate and there would be no more Hogwarts to flee to. He was sure Slughorn would accept him as an apprentice, but Severus wasn’t sure he would accept Slughorn as his mentor. The man was a magpie. He had only eyes for things and people who could deliver him lots of gold or fame. No, decided Severus, being Slughorn’s apprentice wouldn’t do. The money from the watch would go to his own experimenting. Severus was sure he could create some potions to earn some more gold to rent himself an apartment away from his Muggle father. It would take some effort to convince his mum to leave her abusive husband, but he would take her somewhere safe.
Wanting to focus on his studies again, Severus pressed the button again to close the lid. It didn’t close. Instead the numerals began to sort themselves, but never setting. Severus watched the characters spin and turn, and had to look away to keep from getting nauseous.
Suddenly he felt a strange feeling behind his belly button, almost like when using a port key, but his feet were still steady on the ground, so that couldn’t be it.
As the feeling ebbed away, the numbers stopped moving and Severus arched an eyebrow at the watch. A special watch, indeed, he thought. Turning to retrieve his books from his bag by the door, he saw the clock on the wall. Half past six?! He had been here for almost three hours??!! That couldn’t be. The clock had to be wrong, right? Or maybe it really was a special magical watch...
Tempus! Severus thought, flicking his wand with his free hand. In his mind’s eye, he felt the time. It really was half past six. What the hell? Then he realised the time meant dinner had already started half an hour ago.
Forgetting about the watch, he stuffed it into his pocket, picked up his bag from the floor and bolted out the door to the Great Hall.