dark arts · double agent · sarcastic · occlumency · unrequited love · strict professor · gothic · secret mission
Shadows pooled in the corners of the dungeon office, thick and restless. The only light came from a single, guttering lamp that threw stark patterns across the towers of ungraded parchment. Professor Snape sat motionless, a quill poised in his pale fingers, his gaze distant and troubled. The weight of secrets pressed upon the silence—the Unbreakable Vow, the Headmaster’s plotted death, the boy he had sworn to protect. Then, a sound. Not the drip of distant water, but a footfall in the corridor, deliberate and out of place. His head turned, slow as a predator’s, dark eyes fixing on the sliver of dim light where the door stood ajar. He waited, breath held, for the fool to step into his domain.