Similar

At dusk, the black-clad visitor once again opened the door to the Headmaster's office. At that moment, the master of the office was standing behind the Pensieve, looking down at its slightly rippling surface.

"Oh, Severus, you're here." Dumbledore did not look up. He merely waved at Snape, who had just entered.

Snape pressed his lips together, suppressing his impatience and the refusal that had nearly escaped him, then walked to the other side of the Pensieve, facing Dumbledore.

"I have something to show you." Dumbledore smiled faintly at Snape and raised a hand to point at the Pensieve.

Snape hesitated for a second before bending down and lowering his face into the water, sending silver ripples across its surface.

After a stretch of black mist, what entered Snape's eyes was a half-open door. He saw the red-haired young wizard carrying several books toward it. Just as he was about to open the door, a Hufflepuff student who had come with him grabbed him—thus, the two young wizards stopped outside the Magical Theory Teacher's office.

Through the half-open door, Snape saw the man he had seen not long ago in a Muggle photograph. He was sitting with his head lowered on a sofa facing partly away from the gap in the door, his neatly combed hair falling slightly because of the way he held his head.

"Omi, my Omi, don't worry." The black-haired, curly-haired woman stood with her back to the door beside the sofa, raising a hand to straighten the man's hair. "Sebastian already regretted what he did back then, and several years have passed now. He definitely won't blame us."

As she spoke, the woman's hand moved from the man's hair to his cheek. Together with her other hand, she cupped his face.

"Omi, it's all right. I'll apologize to him first when the time comes. I'm sure he'll take into account all your years of affection and treat me kindly."

"Sebas, don't take everything upon yourself." The man sighed softly, raising a hand to cover hers and gently stroking it. "Reporting him was my suggestion. Besides... your relationship with him was quite good back then. You hid everything from me. I'm afraid the opposite of what you just said is the truth."

His final words carried a trace of reproach.

The woman gave a light laugh and leaned forward slightly. Her long hair fell down, conveniently blocking the view of their faces through the gap in the door.

"Thank you, Sebas." The man's voice was gentle. "Fortunately, I have you."

"Likewise, Omi."

The scene in the Pensieve ended there. Snape raised his head woodenly and sneered, "Who would have thought that the great Professor Dumbledore would have a hobby of spying on another couple's intimacy—and even wish to impose it on someone else?"

"I did it unintentionally." Dumbledore remained expressionless as he calmly returned to his Headmaster's seat.

"So?" Snape looked at Dumbledore in confusion. "What use is it for me to see this?"

"Hmm... I merely wanted to tell you a little more about Professor Sekri." Dumbledore gestured for him to sit down.

To be honest, Snape was not interested in this. However, Dumbledore's serious expression aroused his curiosity, so he sat down on the sofa without much thought—the very spot where Cyberlina had sat that morning.

"I believe that when you visited Professor Sekri's former home, you had already learned about her husband, Mr. Ominis Gaunt."

Snape frowned. "Does the great Dumbledore also have a habit of monitoring professors and students?"

Dumbledore smiled. "There was no need to monitor anything. I simply knew she would definitely reveal this to you."

"...Why?"

"Because it is far too easy for her to see through you, Severus."

Snape let out a quiet scoff and was about to retort. But when he recalled the Occlumency he had instinctively activated that afternoon, he suddenly understood what Dumbledore meant. The retort in his mouth changed direction and took on a different tone. "Perhaps I should say she truly is worthy of being your professor."

Several hours earlier, because of the emotions Cyberlina had displayed, he had thought of Lily, and his feelings had fluctuated. Thus, when Cyberlina turned her head, he had instinctively used Occlumency to suppress his emotions.

He had not thought much of Cyberlina's lapse. After all, no one could remain calm upon seeing a lover who had been dead for many years. But now that Dumbledore had explicitly reminded him, he understood that although those displays of emotion might have been genuine, they had also served a purpose.

She is a Slytherin, after all!

She had actually taken the initiative to invite someone into her territory, share her secrets, and reveal her lapse.

Cyberlina had been probing him.

Probing Snape's reaction.

And his smoothly functioning Occlumency had been the response—the response that confirmed Cyberlina's suspicion.

Once he understood this, Snape's expression turned very ugly. Seeing this, Dumbledore responded to Snape's strange remark with a kindly smile.

But... how had Cyberlina known how to deal with him after only a few hours of acquaintance?

As Snape thought about it, he voiced the question.

"This is what I wanted to tell you." Dumbledore leaned forward, bracing both arms on the desk, his hands steepled before him. "She is an extraordinary person, exceptionally skilled at seeing into people's hearts and making use of what she finds. I stopped the memory I showed you just now because... I heard the name Sebastian Sallow. In his fifth year, he used an Unforgivable Curse to kill his uncle. After his friend and sister testified against him, he was sent to Azkaban.

"The incident had caused an uproar before I even entered school. After I enrolled, I discovered that because he was a Slytherin student, the students discussed it even more fiercely in private."

The current Head of Slytherin let out a cold snort.

Dumbledore continued, "At the time, all I knew was that the people who reported him were Professor Sekerei and her husband, and I believed they were good people who had reported a friend for the sake of justice. But later, after I gained access to the Ministry of Magic's records, I learned that Professor Sekerei had also been present when Sallow killed his uncle—or rather, that for a long time before this, the two of them had been carrying out mysterious activities together."

Recalling the memory he had just seen in the Pensieve, Snape understood what Dumbledore wanted to say and picked up the thread for him. "She was suspected of inciting someone else, but no one suspected her, and no one investigated her." Then he voiced his own question. "Why?"

"Because of her friendliness, Severus. You were able to suspect her so quickly because you are not yet familiar with her." Dumbledore adjusted his spectacles, his bright blue eyes staring straight into Snape's calm black ones. "Once you have interacted with her, you won't suspect her. You will only think she is a good student who failed to stop her friend and is filled with remorse."

"That includes you."

"Yes, it includes me as well." Dumbledore sighed. "I am not familiar with her experiences as a student, but I have continually heard other professors recount her achievements during those years—all of them evaluated her as perfect. After she became my professor, I also came to admire and respect her because of her extensive knowledge and wit.

"I must say, she is the professor with whom I have the best relationship. Even after I graduated, I continued to contact her often.

"She helps everyone who comes to her for assistance. She is always gentle and courteous... just as you saw today."

Dumbledore stopped praising Cyberlina. He lowered his head slightly and looked at his hands, folded together on the desk.

"She sounds... perfect." Snape drew out the strange intonation as he offered his comment.

"She truly is perfect. In everyone's eyes, she is the perfect student, classmate, friend, professor, and—leader." Dumbledore rubbed his thumbs together. "I believe you have heard similar praise, Severus. It was merely used to describe someone else."

Snape's right hand unconsciously climbed onto his left arm, and his lips pressed tightly together.

He had not initially thought of anyone in particular. But after Dumbledore deliberately uttered the word "leader," the preceding string of praise immediately connected in his mind with the description his friend Malfoy had once given him—the description Old Malfoy Head of House had once given of The Dark Lord.

It seemed Old Malfoy Head of House had mentioned it while speaking with Malfoy before retiring. He had said that, during his school years, that person had been elegant and powerful, kind to others and widely loved. He possessed the charisma and ability to make everyone willingly follow him.

But Old Malfoy's praise had stopped at The Dark Lord's student days. As for The Dark Lord whom Snape knew, Old Malfoy seemed to have held a different opinion. Malfoy, who had been drunk but still retained a fair amount of lucidity, had abruptly ended the topic after the praise, merely patting his friend's shoulder.

Snape now understood the unfinished words of his friend from years ago—that the friendliness and easygoing nature had merely been a disguise—just as Dumbledore was trying to tell him now.

Occlumency began to operate again, pressing down the trembling emotions. Snape released his hand, and his expression eased somewhat. He raised his eyes, only to find Dumbledore staring at his own clasped hands without moving. From his expression, it was impossible to tell whether he was lost in thought or reminiscing.

How strange.

Snape guessed that Dumbledore was comparing The Dark Lord and Sekerei. Then he heard Dumbledore say softly, as though speaking to him and yet as though muttering to himself, "He... they, people like them, have many similarities."

Snape had no desire to investigate what Voldemort had truly been like decades ago, nor was he interested. He merely asked, "Then why is Sekerei, who is so powerful and so similar to The Dark Lord..."

He paused without finishing the question, but Dumbledore understood what he meant.

Dumbledore looked up and met Snape's eyes. In his bright blue gaze was the familiar smile Snape knew, along with a complexity he did not.

"Love. Because of love, Severus." Dumbledore took his hands off the desk and looked at Snape with a beaming smile. "Mr. Ominis—Ominis Gaunt—was the exception in the Gaunt Family. He hated dark magic more than anything. As long as he was there, Cyberlina Sekerei would always be that kind and elegant Professor Sekri."

Dumbledore was utterly convinced of this, because he would never forget that night—the night that made him begin stripping away the filter through which he viewed Cyberlina, and made him shocked by the madness and sickness of her love for him.

Because he remembered that night forever, he believed that even a snake would voluntarily sheath its fangs. It was just that—

"But that Gaunt has long since ceased to exist."

"Yes, Severus." Dumbledore released his hands and leaned back against the chair. "That is why I have to remind you. Cyberlina already had many secrets, and now the person who restrained her is gone... Nothing she does will be surprising.

"—So remember this: never underestimate her.

"—Never lower your guard around her.

"—Never."

Dumbledore's words continued to echo in Snape's mind, accompanied by the sound of his hands rifling through documents, disrupting the silence of the dungeon.

Snape had not visited the bookshelf before him in a long time. It held notes and materials left behind by previous Potions professors. He had only gone through them frequently during the year he first became a professor.

The reason he had discovered those notes on Cyberlina's bookshelf was not only because they had been placed on the top shelf. There was another reason—he felt that the handwriting in the book was familiar.

Cyberlina had said it came from her Potions professor, Professor Sharp.

[Isolt Sharp]

Snape's fingers stopped on the name. He took down the thick volume of materials left behind by Headmistress Sharp.

The materials contained page after page of teaching records and summaries. Mixed among them were quite a few of Professor Sharp's insights into Potions and daily jottings, along with the occasional piece of excellent student work... One could only say that magic truly was useful. It was genuinely delightful that so many paper records had survived in good condition for over a century.

After identifying the correct year, Snape quickly flipped through the teaching records and summaries, page after page.

Unfortunately, Cyberlina's name did not appear often, and when it did, it was in ordinary records no different from those of the other students. There was nothing special. Snape was somewhat disappointed, but he felt that this was only normal.

He closed the volume and returned it to its original place. Then, as he walked toward his desk, he took out the notes he had brought from Cyberlina's former home. No Potions Master would pass up the research process for a rare potion.

Yet he stopped after opening the first page. The notes seemed to have been torn from somewhere and then assembled again, and the paper... he seemed to have just touched it.

After carefully feeling the paper in his hand, he abruptly turned around and took down the volume again. He opened the section of personal jottings he had not examined closely and began flipping through it with a frown.

In the end, twenty minutes later, he took out a page written in a different hand—a letter tucked among the jottings, signed "Cyberlina Sekerei"—as well as Cyberlina's OWL results.

The letter was filled with dissatisfaction toward her own grades, greetings for Professor Sharp, and a request asking whether she had time to give her some extra lessons. It also stated that the rare materials she had found were enclosed with the letter.

Snape shifted his expressionless gaze from the letter to the results sheet, then froze.

Seven compulsory subjects. Six O's and one A.

The dungeon fell silent again.

After a while.

The master of the dungeon let out a short, amused snort.

In Hogwarts' dim underground levels, the still-young Head of House was considering how to use coursework to obtain the materials mentioned in the letter that had tempted him. Meanwhile, on Hogwarts' brightly candlelit Seventh Floor, the elderly Headmaster sat behind his desk in his pajamas, lost in thought. The sleeping portraits shifted into various positions to block the candlelight.

"Oh, are you having trouble sleeping, Albus?" the Sorting Hat's voice was hoarse with drowsiness.

"No." Dumbledore chuckled. He raised a hand and patted Fawkes, who had sensed his emotions and was lying on his shoulder to comfort him. "I'm merely thinking about a few things."

The Sorting Hat smacked its wrinkled folds. "I know she should be treated with caution, but surely you needn't spend so much effort on it, should you?"

"Oh no, I am not thinking about Cyberlina... or rather, not about her personally." Dumbledore picked up Fawkes and stroked him again and again. "I merely suddenly realized that my earlier feeling had been right—the snake really would voluntarily put away its fangs. But... I still haven't fully understood it. Hmm... I am not even sure whether I truly understand what that means, but I certainly haven't kept the lesson in mind all this time."

"..." The Sorting Hat glanced at several portraits that had secretly opened their eyes before closing them again and turning over. It rather wanted to turn over too. "Perhaps you really are suffering from insomnia because of your age, Albus. Don't think too much. You should go to bed."

"Perhaps you're right." Dumbledore gave a soft laugh, then stood up with Fawkes in his arms. "Good night, old friend."

The lights on the Seventh Floor went out.