Severus Snape was a professor at Hogwarts, where he taught Potions. He was also the head of Slytherin House and an exceptionally capable wizard.
But as a professor, there was one stretch of every year that made him especially irritable and miserable: July and August, when he had to contact young wizards from Muggle families and persuade their parents to let their children leave home.
It was a bit like something a great villain would do. Combined with his gloomy face and his dead-sounding voice, he did come across as a bit of a major antagonist.
Today was July 14, a damned bright and sunny day. As everyone knew, bats hated being active during the day, especially on a clear day with a blazing sun.
The letters from Hogwarts arrived at around eight. Once the professors received magical confirmation that they'd been accepted, they set out at nine to visit the students' homes. It was now exactly nine, and Snape arrived right on time.
Apparition made a sharp crack like a pistol being fired, both when a wizard vanished and when they reappeared. The more skilled a wizard was at Apparition, the quieter it became. Snape was no slouch at it, but he still couldn't move without a sound. The noise he made when he appeared was nothing most ordinary people would pay much attention to.
But just as he walked beneath the sun toward the home he was supposed to visit, a loud eagle's cry rang out overhead. He looked up instinctively and saw a falcon with a few drops of blood still at the corner of its beak, having just finished a hearty meal.
Suddenly, a fist-sized black object flew out of a second-floor window. The instant it emerged—
An intensely dazzling flash and a high-pitched noise beyond the limits of human endurance blinded and deafened him in a heartbeat. He was a wizard, not Superman!
He had no way to defend against such a sudden attack. Besides, he hadn't come prepared to be attacked. He was visiting a Muggle student's home to invite them to Hogwarts, not carrying out some deadly mission.
A faint rustle of wind stirred. A lithe figure in a hooded cloak that concealed his body leapt down from above. The throwing knives held between his fingers flew out in an instant, aimed at the joints of the man's limbs, hidden beneath his robes.
Ezio had no intention of killing him. He needed information.
The attacker was an experienced master of aerial assassination, moving with practiced ease and precision. He leapt from several meters up without a moment's hesitation—but just as he was about to pounce on the figure below, something unexpected happened.
The black-robed figure vanished, and a familiar sharp crack rang out from a short distance away.
At the critical moment, Snape Apparated away in a thoroughly undignified fashion. Still blind and deaf, he hastily drew his wand. With his other hand, he fumbled inside his robes, found a potion, and gulped it down.
The pain in his eyes and the ringing in his ears vanished. But before he could even begin to relax, his instinct for danger screamed at him to do something!
"Protego!"
His wand hand jerked, and an invisible shield enveloped his body. But at that very moment, a sharp pain shot through the arm holding his wand. Something extremely sharp pierced it, and then a blade pressed against his throat.
A warm, damp liquid trickled down. The smell of blood in his nostrils told him it was his own.
The weapon that had pierced his arm had been pulled free and now rested against his neck. Blood stained the broken spear.
"I'll give you one sentence to tell me why you're here." After subduing the man, Ezio sensed something was off. Aside from his ability to teleport, the man was weak, with no signs of physical training.
"I'm a professor at Hogwarts. I mean you no harm!"
Snape's voice remained calm, even though he was on the verge of death. He wasn't afraid of having his throat cut: the potions he carried could heal his injuries in an instant. But first, he needed a chance to use one.
Losing his wand wouldn't matter either. Unlike other useless wizards, he could cast spells without one—but he had to speak the incantation. Snape couldn't cast a spell wandlessly and without speaking.
"Hogwarts...?"
The moment the word reached Ezio's ears, a memory he'd long since buried resurfaced. Of course he'd heard of that strange name, but not in this life—in his previous one. He knew what those four syllables meant.
This isn't the modern world of Assassin's Creed? It's a damn magical world?
Ezio lost focus for a brief moment. Snape noticed it immediately. He didn't understand why, but he wasn't about to let the opportunity pass.
"Expelliarmus!"
A red spell shot from the fingertips of his left hand. The broken spear in Ezio's grasp flew out of his hand, and Snape felt the weight on his back disappear.
Snape vanished from the spot. When he reappeared, he gulped down another potion. The burning pain in his right arm disappeared as the wound began to heal rapidly.
"Stupefy!"
Another beam of red light shot from his fingertips toward the figure in the distance.
But just as it was about to hit, Ezio caught the broken spear and swung it forward, shattering the red light.
"It seems there's been a misunderstanding between us."
Once Ezio confirmed that the man wasn't an assassin from the Templar Order, he had no intention of letting their misunderstanding escalate.
If this wasn't a world secretly controlled by the Templars, then he had no reason to attack the man. He knew about Hogwarts and Snape, and he needed a way into the magical world. That opportunity was now right in front of him.
"Is that so?"
Snape's face darkened as he looked suspiciously at the figure ahead, who was clearly a child and not an adult.
But when he met those cold, chilling eyes, he chose to suppress his anger.
Those eyes sent a chill through him, as if the Shinigami had fixed its gaze on him.
Perhaps it was an illusion. Perhaps it was real.
Because when he looked at Ezio again, the boy's eyes had returned to "normal," no longer filled with a murderous chill.
"I'm sorry for what I did just now. Because of some things, I mistook you for someone who'd come to kill me. I overreacted."
Ezio picked up the wand lying on the ground and tossed it over from a distance.
When the wand was back in his hand, Snape relaxed slightly.
"I need an explanation," he said coldly to Ezio.
"My father died not long ago. The message he left behind hinted that his death might have had something to do with some strange things. Twelve Moons—do you know what that is?"
After a moment of silence, Snape slowly shook his head. "I don't know what Twelve Moons is, but I think we can talk."
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