The Man Returns (SS/HG)

We All Have Our Secrets

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It's a well known fact that the dungeons of Hogwarts are not primarily under the great lake; they are in fact buried deep within the rock that Hogwarts Castle sits on. However, the lesser known fact is that some of Salazar Slytherin's domain does indeed venture below the great chasms of rock that hold up Hogwarts. No student has ventured down there in hundreds of years, of course that is not for lack of trying... The secrets that Hogwarts has are twisted into its very foundations. The mystery of what lay below the dungeons just happens to be one of them....

Out of all the houses of Hogwarts, Slytherin has always been the one with the most secrets. A Gryffindor would say that is a bad thing as they can not be trusted, but a Hufflepuff would wisely point out that secrets are best left to their owners and a Ravenclaw would state: that to hold a secrets is knowledge, and remind the others that knowledge is power...

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Severus Snape awoke with the knowledge that not only was it cold, but it was bloody cold. His breath spiralled up into the air above him to prove his point to be fact. He could vaguely tell that is was some ungodly hour in the morning by the lack of natural light in his chambers, although truth be told he very rarely got natural light in his chambers anyway. With a sigh of resignation he got up, his bare feet complaining as they touched the icy stone floor. His sleeping quarters were relatively small compared to some of the lavish rooms within the castle itself, but lavish had never been Severus's style so plain and simple it was. The time was somewhere between 5:20 and 5:50; these early hours of the morning were often just light enough to be able to see vague outlines of the forest from Severus's living room window which was carved in to the face of the rock. His routine was the same as it had been for the last ten years: get up, get changed into muggle running gear, go to the far bookcase in his living room come library and pull out the slim volume labelled "The Road to Everywhere" this then would activate the mechanism behind the bookcase causing it to move aside revealing a gloomy spiral staircase that led up to the ground floor of the castle (the opening of which could be found behind a painting of Viscount Quentin De La Faire and his faithful familiar Rodney the porcupine). Snape used this very portrait to make his exit from the spiral case that morning; he stood in a silent corridor with the morning gloom barely seeping in. He would have loved to have said that it was deadly quite, but it was Hogwarts so chance would be a fine thing. No, there was the slow dull sounds of hundreds of paintings fast asleep to keep Snape alert. Snape, who was dressed in the appropriate clothes for running, fumbled up his sleeve trying desperately to grab his wand and illuminate the dim corridor. At times like this Severus really wished that the wizarding world had a more sensible dress sense as although cloaks were good for looking ominous and keeping your wand in they weren't exactly designed for running in... By the light of his recently found wand Severus walked quickly down the corridor.

Multiple lefts, rights and stairs later Severus was standing by the edge of the Great Lake. He took a breath of fresh morning air in, looked out towards the lake and started to jog. Jogging was one of the things during the war the kept him sane. Working as a double agent came with its fair share of stress; he had found that going for a run relieved that stress a little. Severus found that he could become hypnotised by the sound of his methodical footfalls and the fresh burning sensation in his lungs. Truth be told Severus was not a morning person and if anyone encountered him before his morning ritual of a jog around the Great Lake then there would be hell to pay.  He melted into the run, letting all his thoughts slide to the back of his mind. The only thing he needed to concentrate on now was the sound of his footfalls and his heart beating in time with them.