Snape woke from a deep, groggy sleep and immediately felt aching pain all over his body.
It jolted his muddled mind awake.
Pulling aside his robes, he found himself covered in bruises, and even discovered bite marks.
Yes, bite marks from a three-headed dog.
He could no longer remember exactly what had happened before. It seemed that a troll had invaded during the Halloween feast, and he had gone to guard the Sorcerer's Stone.
But what happened afterward was something he could not recall.
Panic immediately rose in Snape's heart. What exactly had happened? Why had he ended up like this? And what was the Sorcerer's Stone's current condition?
Clearly, his memories had been tampered with. He was an expert in Occlumency—who could have accomplished something like this?
The image of a kindly old man flashed through Snape's mind unbidden, making him shudder for no apparent reason...
"Interesting."
A hoarse, low voice came from Professor Quirrell's office, making Professor Quirrell tremble uncontrollably.
"Master, you..."
"It is nothing. In my current state, I truly do not have much power. Many people could accomplish this, but whoever did so neither harmed me nor even left your body anywhere else, instead sending it back to the office. That is rather difficult to fathom."
As Voldemort chuckled softly, the image of a black-robed figure resembling a great bat flashed through his mind...
"Have you heard? The troll invasion even wrecked the toilets."
"Yeah, a lot of them still can't be used."
"But luckily, it was dealt with. Otherwise, we wouldn't even get to watch the Quidditch match."
"With the professors around, a mere troll is nothing..."
"..."
The troll invasion on Halloween had, after everyone was safe, instead given the students another topic of conversation. They seemed to think it was rather