𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

4. OF DUNGEONS & DEMONS

She reached the stairs down the dungeons of the castle and pushed open the heavy wooden door to the potions master office, slipping inside and returning her hands to herself as swiftly as she could. Snape was seated at his desk, marking parchments and papers of students, without raising his gaze as she entered.

A frozen shiver ran down Alice's spine. She wondered, for a moment, how could these cold walls remain so much colder than the weathered, drafty corridors and the rooms of the towers that fought the northern winds constantly.

"It-It's cold in here..." she mumbled into the silence of Snape's office, clutching onto herself. Her eyes wandered at the gloomy and dimly lit room found in the school's deepest dungeons, with shadowy walls that were lined with shelves of large glass jars filled with slimy, revolting things, bits of animals and plants, floating in potions of varying colours.

"Indeed" his voice sounded with its familiar depth, as he remained focused on a parchment.

A fireplace, arched and large enough to warm the coldest of rooms, stood lonesome and dark; unused, for what Alice guessed to be far too long.

"A slight chill might help the message sink in", he added without lifting his gaze from the parchment.

"It...it's more than slight", she voiced her thought without realizing it.

"Careful" he warned her with a low and dangerous growl. The velvet of his voice stripped the rock lying beneath.

"Yes, sir..." she said softly defeated before the battle had even begun. She walked a little further from the door and deeper in the dungeon.

"What...must I do?" she asked him softly. Snape lifted his gaze from the parchment and looked at the girl. His onyx eyes glimmering in the candlelight. He remained silent for a moment and then pointed towards the corner of the room, where lied a stack of vials, parchments and dusty bottles that seemed to have had been there for years – decades even. Alice turned back to Snape who told her to dust them, fix their old, tattered labels, and place them onto the shelves.

"No silly incantations may be used" he added turning his gaze back to his work. Alice breathed in quietly and slowly, looking at the stacks waiting for her. A glance at the empty shelves and back at the stacks, made her wonder for a moment, if he had purposefully placed the stacks at the furthest possible distance from the empty shelves.

She pulled her sleeves up and leaned towards the stack.

"Do not...break...anything" he warned softly over his parchment. Alice remained silent and carefully started picking up bottles filled with ingredients for potions of all sorts, cleaning them with a piece of cloth that was left nearby, and placing them onto the shelves. Some of the ingredients made her flinch as they floated in their containers and nearly looked back at her. Or so she thought when she put a large bottle of Eye of Newt on the shelf.

Nearly an hour passed, and the stacks seemed endless. As if new bottles, new vials, were popping up where the previous ones were placed. But Alice was nearly sure Snape hadn't played such a trick on her, as she had been glancing at him every few moments, watching him working silently on his desk, as if he was an inseparable part of the dimly lit dungeon. She felt a little impulse to do something to assist herself with all these bottles and vials and parchments that were still waiting for her. Particularly the larger ones that she doubted she'd manage to lift without risking them falling off her frail hands.

A thought crossed her mind and she ventured to attempt it. Glancing at the potions master who was focused on his work, Alice pulled out her wand and silently casted a levitating spell that lifted the large bottle just above her hands, making sure thus that if he were to glance at her, she would seem as if no silly incantation is taking place.