"What exactly... happened?"
The Potion Master's eyes snapped open, but the world didn't stop spinning. Severus Snape lay on his back, staring at the familiar damp ceiling of his private quarters. His head felt as though a mountain troll had used his skull for a percussion solo. The air in the room was cold, stagnant, and smelled faintly of... damp earth?
He sat up, his movements stiff and uncoordinated. He tried to piece together the previous night. There were fragmented images: the flickering of a candle, the scratch of his quill on parchment, and then a sound. It wasn't a loud sound, but it was visceral—a high-pitched, vibrating wail that had seemed to bypass his ears and strike directly at his brain stem.
"A nightmare?" Snape muttered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.
He searched his memory for a face, a shadow, a spell—anything. But there was nothing. Just that haunting, ghostly cry. It was like a void in time. One moment he was grading essays, and the next, he was waking up in his bed with his clothes still on and a migraine that could kill a horse.
His gaze drifted to the clock in the corner. 9:45 AM.
Snape froze. The blood seemed to drain from his face, leaving his sallow skin looking like gray parchment. He was a man of ritual, a man who prided himself on a discipline so rigid it bordered on the pathological. He had never, in his entire tenure at Hogwarts, been late for a single lesson.
He scrambled out of bed, his cloak billowing like a dying crow as he threw it over his shoulders. He didn't have time to wash or even check his stores. He practically sprinted through the dungeons toward the Potions Classroom, his mind racing. Was he poisoned? Had a prank gone wrong? Or was it something more sinister?
When he finally kicked open the heavy oak doors of the classroom, the sight that met him was one of utter chaos. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were standing on chairs, tossing paper birds and loudly debating the rumors that had already begun to circulate.
The silence that followed Snape's entry was deafening.
"Books out," Snape hissed, his voice trembling not with fear, but with a cold, vibrating rage. "Now."
By lunchtime, the Great Hall was buzzing with a fervor usually reserved for Quidditch finals. The news that the "Bat of the Dungeons" had overslept and missed the first half of his morning classes was a sensation of tectonic proportions.
"I heard he was cursed by a secret admirer," one Gryffindor girl whispered excitedly.
"Nonsense," another replied. "Filch said the basement was haunted last night. I bet the Bloody Baron finally lost his temper and gave Snape a piece of his mind."
Albert sat at the Gryffindor table, calmly spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. He listened to the theories with the detached interest of a scientist watching a colony of ants. Moaning Myrtle, Peeves, ancient curses—the student body was doing a magnificent job of creating a smokescreen for him.
"You're remarkably calm for someone who just committed a high-profile felony," Fred muttered, leaning in so close that his red hair nearly touched Albert's plate.
"I'm just enjoying the breakfast, Fred. The sausages are particularly good today," Albert replied with a wink.
George was vibrating with suppressed energy. "Slytherin is down fifty points already. Higgs is in the hospital wing with 'nervous exhaustion' after Filch spent the morning screaming at him. It's a masterpiece, Albert. Truly."
"Don't get ahead of yourselves," Albert cautioned, his voice dropping to a low, serious register. "The fun part is over. Now comes the discipline."
After their morning classes, the four of them slipped away to the Room of Requirement. Once the door materialized and they were safely inside, the twins finally let out the laughs they had been choking on for hours.
"Did you see his face?" George howled, clutching his stomach. "He looked like he'd been dragged through a hedge backward! He didn't even notice his tie was crooked!"
"He'll notice more than that soon enough," Lee Jordan said, gesturing toward the corner where the Mandrake was hidden under a heavy tarp. "Are you really not going to put that back, Albert? If Sprout finds out..."
"She won't," Albert said, walking over to the plant. He pulled back the tarp, looking at the sleeping Mandrake with a calculated intensity. "The greenhouses contain hundreds of plants. Sprout is a brilliant herbologist, but she's also human. She doesn't count the pots every morning like she's counting Galleons. By the time she realizes one is missing, weeks will have passed, and the 'haunting' of the dungeons will be old news."
"But Snape isn't 'most people,'" Fred pointed out, his smile fading slightly. "He's a Legilimens. He's suspicious. What if he starts connecting the dots between the crying sound and the Mandrake?"
"Let him," Albert said coolly. "Suspicion isn't evidence. Think about the logistics from his perspective. To pull this off, a student would have to bypass the greenhouse wards, transport a screaming plant through the castle without being seen, break through the Potion Master's personal office enchantments—which are designed to stop veteran Dark Wizards, not second-years—and then escape without leaving a single footprint or a witness."
Albert looked at them, his eyes sharp. "The Fat Lady was gone last night. There is no record of us leaving the tower. The rain washed away any mud from the grounds. Even if Snape suspects a Gryffindor, he has no way to narrow it down from two hundred students."
"Unless he uses Veritaserum," George whispered.
"The Ministry treats Veritaserum like dragon blood," Albert countered. "It's heavily regulated. Dumbledore would never allow a mass interrogation of students over a missed class and a missing plant. Snape's pride is his own worst enemy here. He won't admit he was vulnerable enough to be knocked out by a student."
He stepped closer to his three friends, his expression turning grave.
"You three are the only weak link in this entire chain. If you giggle in the corridors, if you whisper about 'screams' when Snape is nearby, or if you look too smug during Potions, he will smell it. He is a predator, and he looks for guilt like a shark looks for blood."
The twins and Lee straightened up, the gravity of the situation finally sinking in.
"We can play it cool," Fred promised, his voice steady. "We've had plenty of practice with Filch."
"Good. Because we have a busy week ahead," Albert said, shifting gears effortlessly. "The Mandrake is just the beginning. I need it for... special projects. Darker projects. But for the Babbling Beverage, we still need Flutterby Bushes."
"The book said they're near the Forbidden Forest, right?" Lee asked.
"Specifically in the damp hollows near the stream," Albert corrected. "But the entry in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi is dangerously brief. It doesn't mention that the spores can cause temporary euphoria and loss of motor control if you harvest them during the wrong wind conditions."
"Euphoria?" George grinned. "Sounds like a fun Saturday."
"Not when you're ten feet away from a colony of Acromantulas," Albert said dryly. "We're going to the library after class. We need A Comprehensive Guide to Fungi. We harvest when it rains—the moisture keeps the spores heavy and on the ground."
"You've thought of everything, haven't you?" Fred shook his head in admiration.
"I've thought of everything I can," Albert replied, his gaze flickering toward the door. "But in this castle, it's the things you can't predict that kill you. Now, let's go. We have Potions in ten minutes. I want to see Snape's 'grim' expression for myself. Just remember: we're just innocent students, confused by the rumors, and slightly worried about our Professor's health."
The four of them shared one last, wicked grin before adopting masks of perfect, wide-eyed innocence and heading down to the dungeons.