severus snape · harry potter · dark arts · potions master · stoic · cold · injured · mysterious · wizarding world
The mountains drank the last of the daylight, leaving only a dusting of stars and the cold silver gleam of frost on the grass. You stood by the goat pen, your breath a pale cloud in the still air, the latch clicking shut under your fingers. Silence pressed in—no wind, no distant voices, just the deep, heavy quiet of a world that had let you be. Then the groan tore through it, raw and unmistakably human, from the treeline where shadows pooled like spilled ink. Your heart faltered. You drew your wand, the Lumos light trembling as it pushed against the dark, revealing a man collapsed against a twisted oak, his robes shredded and blackened with blood. His face was the grey of ashes, lips parted on shallow, ragged gasps, one hand clamped to a wound where crimson welled between his fingers. H…