It was forty-five in the morning and the snow was still limp. Severus Snape put down her quill and habitually reached for her teacup, only to discover that the potion was empty.
He put down the cup and used his magic wand to open the rightmost drawer on the third floor of the cabinet. There was nothing in it.
Snape clicked, annoyed, and felt the faint onset of the headache that had been drawn by the familiar languor.
He got up to look for a temporary replacement for the tranquilizer. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the letter with the ministry's seal on it lying in the corner of his desk. He took it out and threw it in the trash can.
The letter arrived early this morning, with allegations of Severus Snape's capture by the Auror at the Ministry of Magic of a fugitive Death Eater. In exchange for a reduced sentence, he gave up the names of many Death Eaters he knew.
That includes Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy.
The two met briefly before the trial, when Lucius was in the middle of a discussion with the judge, and so did not greet each other directly after seeing each other, only briefly.
After the hearing, the court heard the charges against Lucius. The Man in the central cage was disheveled, his voice hoarse as if he had just swallowed a hot piece of charcoal, and there was nothing decent about him that could be called decent.
Lucius, on the other hand, had been calm and aloof from the moment he entered the courtroom to the moment he sat down in a chair not far from the judge's face. He was dressed formally in a retro-designed black suit, a white button-down shirt, gold buttons down to his throat, and dark-gray dragon-skin gloves on his hands, as smooth as his neat blonde hair, there was not a wrinkle, and a man's walking stick with a metal snakehead lay across his waist.
Lucius's explanation of the charges is exactly the same as every previous one. He didn't look at all like he was on trial, but rather like he was invited to a party. No matter what the court asked him, he would answer them one by one, with restrained politeness in his speech, his chin habitually raised slightly.
On his pale face, his cold gray-blue eyes were sharp and shrewd as a snake. The light fell on Lucius, and he had no soft lines to speak of. He looked impersonal and arrogant.
The judge brought his trial to a speedy conclusion. Severus Snape speculated that, in addition to the "Amicable meeting" between the two men, who had just met outside the courtroom, the charges were too broad and there was no clear-cut charge.
Next thing I know, Severus Snape is sitting in that chair. When two people pass by, the line of sight does not have a point of convergence, as if unfamiliar.
He had just sat down when he saw the judge turn over the white page in front of him, then press his lips together and hang down.
Severus Snape waited for his opponent to look up. Then the judge looked at him and asked, "Do you know Emond John Field?"
"A few times," Severus Snape replied without emotion.
"He let Emond John Field die," said the man in the cage, looking up, his tousled, greasy blond hair spread across his face and his teeth grinning. "He was an accomplice, and he was right there!"
Severus Snape cocked her head at him, frowning slightly. The other party's voice was completely destroyed, and his entire face could not be seen as it was. It was really difficult to remember his name for a while.
But he was sure he had seen the man.
"Perhaps Severus was there." The door opened, and Dumbledore, dressed in a silver wizard's costume, walked in unhurriedly from the outside, his tone calm and dignified, "But that doesn't mean he has the will to kill Emond. In fact, it is more likely that he is not there at all, because so far there is no clear and direct evidence to support the veracity of the allegations."
"Headmaster Dumbledore." The judge looked even worse.
"The defender of the Severus Snape," corrected Dumbledore.
"Are You Alone?" Someone in the jury box asked. "We remember that Emond John Field had a daughter at Hogwarts who had the right to come here and find out the truth."
"The truth, however, is that the court now has no evidence of what is the truth," Dumbledore continued, taking up the words, "Based solely on the baseless allegations of a prisoner? I'm sorry, but I don't see the need to open up her old wounds without knowing anything, adding to her confusion and sadness in vain. Besides, it was her professor who was vilified. She's only twelve this year. Oh, she'll be thirteen in two months."
"He was there! He watched John Field die, and he was the one who read Field's memory and said he was worthless!" The man in the cell pounced on the iron railing, the shackles of the hands clattered against the cage with a piercing noise.
"Then prove it!" Exclaimed Dumbledore, his sea-blue eyes as bright as the flickering of a flame, "Severus has my guarantee, the trust of the other professors in the school, and the long-term examination by the Ministry of Magic. This is the truth. This is the truth from the evidence and the investigation by the Ministry of Magic."
Severus Snape did not move. He could see the judge's face turning almost blue.
The rebuttal and the trial went on, and Dumbledore took the upper hand in the end. He had always been very good at controlling the situation. When the Ministry of Magic was tough, he would not budge. But when the Ministry of Magic started to relax, Dumbledore was happy to help them.
"Then, Severus Snape, did you direct and cause the death of Emond John Field?" The judge's face was contorted, his voice so subdued that he wanted to tear the words apart, and spit it out with the blood and put it in front of Severus Snape.
"No, your honor."
Severus Snape answered calmly, without expression, without a ray of light in his dark eyes, as sure and powerful as a stone under a winter river that could crush a man's bones.
As the clock ticked past one o'clock in the morning, Severus Snape stopped thinking about the ministry's experiences during the day. He still couldn't find a potion to replace it, but he did see the tea bag that the owl had brought with the Freesia.
Severus Snape looked at the box of tea bags, which were obviously handmade, and, after a while, picked out a packet that smelled faintly of soothing tea.
...
Today is Saturday. The sun is shining after the snow.
Aurora returned from the dining room to find the Badgers huddled in the common room, chattering and passing around copies of the daily prophet.
The wind and snow came flying in, brushing the magic rose balls on the windows, and Hufflepuff's lounge was filled with soft singing.
"Good morning," Aurora said to them as usual, ready to go back to her dormitory.
Surprisingly, she didn't get a response this time, because everyone was looking at her.
"What's the matter?" Aurora asked, strangely alert.
Cecilia looked at her hesitantly, her tone uncertain, her blue eyes concerned, "Are you all right?"
She blinked. "What's wrong with me?"
Caroline and Cecilia looked at each other but didn't speak.
"What's going on?" Aurora asked, realizing something.
"There you go." Caroline finally handed out the daily prophet.
Aurora took it, opened it, and was stunned by the bold black headline that appeared above her-"What else is going on with the death of Emond John Field, a former freelance advisor to the Ministry of Magic?"
Subtitle -- arrest of Death Eaters, at the behest of the new Dean Slytherin?
The newspaper put together a picture of Emond still in his Ravenclaw uniform, along with a photograph of Dumbledore and Severus Snape that had been snapped outside the courthouse.
"Oh, this... this..." Aurora glanced at him for a moment, then paused for a moment before saying anything else. Her eyes were filled with sharp, dark words that seemed to cut across the room. Cecilia put her hand on her wrist. "Aurora?"
After a while, Avrora looked up and shook the daily prophet in his hand. "Can I borrow it for a while?"
"Sure," said another Hufflepuff. "It's yours."
"Thank you."
With that, she turned and walked out of Hufflepuff's lounge. She walked fast, thin and ghostly as she walked down the underground corridor, and when she passed a corner she bumped into some Slytherin, prompting a moan and a curse.
"Hey! Don't you have eyes?" The other side grabbed her scarf and yanked, almost suffocating aurora, "Hit and run? !"
Aurora took off her scarf, held it in her hand, and froze with the Slytherin in front of her, the soft yellow and black scarf was stretched by two forces into a thin net: "Sorry, I just walked too fast, did not see you, really sorry."
At that moment, the man's companion snorted contemptuously, patted the girl on the shoulder and said sarcastically, "Why bother with a loser from the Academy? We're still busy."
"You're right. We can't communicate on different levels," she said, throwing the scarf at Aurora's face. She turned and started walking down the aisle with her partner.
Aurora GO Station stood there, slowly putting her scarf back on, her eyes fixed on the girls who looked back at her in disgust, her pale yellow wand of Kashiwagi in her hand.
Don't turn your back on a Slytherin right after upsetting her, as is the unspoken custom of Hufflepuff, who also live in the basement.
It was not until the girls were no longer in sight that Avrora stepped back to the top of the stairs and quickly ran up to the first level of the plain snow-covered castle. The fresh, cold wind was blowing through the thick clothes.
She came to an empty corridor and squatted on a stone bench between the pillars. She took out the daily prophet, which was almost crumpled by her, and took a breath of the cold air to study it carefully.
It includes the Death Eaters' charges against Severus Snape, Dumbledore's defense of Severus Snape, and the repeated references to Severus Snape's former status as a Death Eater, as well as the use of the word "High and mighty.".
Aurora was baffled and surprised. Not just by Severus Snape's identity, but by Dumbledore's extraordinary defense. It wasn't that she didn't know who Severus Snape had been. After all, it was impossible to be in the wizarding world and not know the name of the mystery man, much less the rumors about Slytherin.
Only, she had not thought of Severus Snape as such a figure, even in the Death Eaters' camp, and now successful in becoming Dumbledore's own Slytherin, and get his full defense under the circumstances.
This guy is...
Aurora remembered what Remus had told her to leave Severus Snape alone.
It was clear that Remus was right.
Tiny Snowflakes, picked up by the winter wind, fell on the paper and were wiped away by Aurora's outstretched hand. Transparent crystals shattered on the paper. Emond smiled and waved silently at Aurora.
"Dad?" She called softly, then felt awkward, a word so foreign to her. She's not really Aurora John Field, she's just a lost soul who came into this world out of nowhere, with no past, no memories, and no... ... To Mr. John Field, who was forced to leave his wife and children because of his mission.
But she still felt sad, and there was something wavy in her eyes that was accumulating, blurring every word in the newspaper, twisting them into a jumble of wool balls.
Part of it was more like a residual consciousness from the body, out of Aurora's control. She remembered Marianne More, the poor woman who had ended up so sick that she could only call out Emond and Aurora's names. And Emond's bloody, tearful letters.
They love each other very much.
Aurora was sure of it.
The tea roll came out of the cotton bonnet, sat on the girl's shoulder, leaned over, and rubbed the little foliage on top of her head against the tears in Aurora's cheek. After squatting in the same position for an unknown length of time, Aurora began to feel the tingling in her legs, the sharp, heavy pain creeping up her nerves in long, clear bursts.
Dumbledore's voice rang out abruptly, as gentle as ever: "Are you here alone in the cold? I just saw your friends looking for you."
Startled, Aurora wiped her eyes with her sleeve, let the tea roll slip into her sleeve, and jumped off the stone bench. Her legs went limp and she nearly gave the old headmaster a kowtow, but he pulled her up just in time.
"Professor Dumbledore," she said.
Dumbledore nodded, glancing at the newspaper the little girl was clutching, say, "Did you see that? You must be very sad. I'm Sorry I didn't ask you to attend yesterday. Since the ministry hasn't figured out what's going on yet, you'll be even sadder to go. But now it looks like I may have made the wrong decision."
"No, I haven't. I haven't seen my father since I was a little girl." Aurora looked up at the amiable headmaster, again, "Mom Misses Him all the time, a lot. In fact, I can hardly remember my father's face. You're right. I don't want to go until I get a thorough and clear result. I am too young to be influenced by the opinions of others. I just want to know who the end result is, and the middle doesn't really matter."
After a while, Avrora added softly, "But that doesn't mean I'm not sad."
Dumbledore patted her on the shoulder. "You look like your father. To be honest, when he was your age, he was very mature. He didn't talk or act like a child at all."
Aurora hesitated for a moment, then pointed to the first line. "Is it true what they say in the papers? I mean, professor Severus Snape, over there..."
She couldn't think of a better word to describe him as a good death eater? She didn't really think it was true, but it was incredible. Whether the allegations were true or not, she did not think.
A strange kind of selective neglect, as if she had acquiesced in not believing it, passively and without knowing it.
Aurora was a little confused by this realization.
"I was surprised because I thought you'd be more concerned about the veracity of the accusation. But if you want to know what you're referring to... Yes, it's true," Dumbledore replied bluntly, then the conversation changed, and his bright blue eyes looked at her intently from behind the lenses, "But that was a long time ago. People change, some for the better, some for the worse. At least, I trust him very much, Aurora."
Aurora looked at Dumbledore for a moment, then folded the newspaper back and nodded. "I see."
"Go to your friends. They must be worried sick about today's paper. If I remember correctly, they're on their way to see Hagrid."
"Thank you, Professor."