Chapter 32: Nothing but Lies! Snape's Fury!
The curtains were tightly drawn across the windows.
Tattered oilcloth and scattered corpses covered the entire room. If Snape hadn't known for certain that this was an abandoned house he owned, he would have thought he'd wandered into some Dark Wizard's lair.
"So, you're saying you were walking down the street, accidentally bumped into a Dark Wizard, and a scrap of paper just happened to fall from his robes."
"And that scrap of paper just happened to contain a piece of Dark Magic. You didn't recognize it, but out of curiosity, you accidentally learned the Dark Magic written on it?"
Snape stared at Ian with his sinister gaze. His face was as grim as a crumpled sheet of paper, and his brows were knitted into a knot that seemed impossible to untangle.
"Yes, that's exactly what happened."
Ian nodded like a bobblehead.
"Professor, I'm innocent. I'm the victim here. My poor young heart was so frightened that I couldn't sleep at all last night!" Ian widened his green eyes as much as he could.
His story was, of course, half true and half false.
Even though he wasn't a wizard born and raised in the magical world, Ian knew that a book like Secrets of the Darkest Art was practically the equivalent of some kind of contraband.
Claim that Aurora had given it to him?
Never mind whether that would get him off the hook; they'd definitely confiscate his limited-edition textbook, and he might even be held responsible for having read Secrets of the Darkest Art!
After all,
Aurora had a grandfather named Grindelwald.
He didn't!
If Aurora's possession of Secrets of the Darkest Art could be called a family tradition, then his possession of the same book would probably get him branded as Voldemort the Second!
"I had no idea this place used to be a cemetery, Professor. You have no idea how terrified I was when those corpses crawled out from under the floorboards. I almost died of fright!"
Ian kept playing up his victimhood, exaggerating his story to make himself seem as innocent as possible.
However,
Snape clearly wasn't buying it.
"Do you think I'm as easy to fool as the little children at an orphanage, brat?" Snape's face was still grim, and his voice was laced with barely contained fury.
"Do you think Dark Wizards are everywhere?"
He clearly didn't believe a word Ian was saying.
"It definitely was a Dark Wizard. I ran into one in London, too. He followed me around, trying to capture me for some evil experiment. For all I know, the one who showed up in the village could've been the same person!"
Trying to make his story more believable, Ian brought up what had happened to him before.
But unexpectedly,
Snape's expression darkened even further.
"Shut up, you idiot!"
He snapped at Ian.
"Tell me what really happened!"
The pressure radiating from Snape increased considerably.
"That really is what happened..."
Ian was starting to lose confidence. He couldn't help it. Before he'd transmigrated, he'd just been an innocent college student—the sort who could get cheated with counterfeit bills while selling cold jelly at a summer market.
If Snape hadn't suddenly barged in and stirred up such intense emotions that Ian sensed them again, he probably wouldn't have dared to keep stubbornly insisting on his story.
"You think I'm going to believe that, without anyone teaching you, you—a Muggle orphan who didn't even know what magic was—could teach yourself a complicated piece of Dark Magic?"
"Hmph. The Corpse Control Curse is so difficult that even a fourth- or fifth-year student wouldn't claim they could learn it in a matter of days!"
Snape gave a derisive sneer.
"Perhaps you really were blessed by some higher power and born with the ability to use Legilimency..." Snape began pacing back and forth in the shabby living room.
His eyes never left Ian. "But there are plenty of people in this world with more talent than you. You don't actually think you're more powerful than You-Know-Who, do you?"
Classic Snape, dripping with sarcasm.
"I never said anything like that, Professor."
Ian quietly objected.
"So you have been looking through your A History of Magic textbook after all. You know who You-Know-Who is... That's good." Snape continued watching Ian's reactions.
Suddenly,
he changed tack and raised his voice.
"Then you shouldn't use that Troll-sized brain of yours to come up with such an idiotic lie, hoping to convince me that you can do something even You-Know-Who couldn't."
"I can tell you this outright: You-Know-Who couldn't use this kind of Dark Magic when he was your age." Snape glared at Ian as though he wanted to devour him alive.
"Wait, you know You-Know-Who's true identity?"
Ian tried to change the subject by feigning shock.
But Snape still didn't take the bait.
He continued glaring at Ian.
"I could send you to Azkaban right now and have the Aurors use the Legilimency you're so proud of to dig out your secrets. Then you'd spend the rest of your life there with the Dementors."
"The only reason I haven't done that is because I'm giving you a chance... Understand that it's your status as a Hogwarts student that earned you that chance!"
Snape threatened Ian sternly.
"Professor, I don't want to go to Azkaban."
Ian looked at Snape in alarm.
It was only partly an act.
He was certainly frightened,
but not so worried that he thought he'd really be sent to Azkaban. He wasn't stupid. He could tell there was some kind of connection between him and Snape.
Otherwise,
forget about giving him money or finding him a place to live—Snape would have had to be in an unusually good mood just to take him to Diagon Alley to buy some secondhand textbooks.
"If you don't want to go to prison, then tell me who taught you Dark Magic."
Snape stared hard at Ian.
"A Dark Wizard. He had a scrap of paper, and it fell right in front of me."
Ian stuck to his original story. He couldn't bear to part with Secrets of the Darkest Art, annotated in Grindelwald's own hand.
Knowledge is innocent!
"Smack!"
Snape was so furious that he slapped his palm down on the table.
"Fine! Very well! You think I can't find that Dark Wizard, so I can't disprove your ridiculous story, is that it?" Snape spoke as though he had something else in his mouth.
His teeth were clenched.
Every word seemed to have been forced through them.
"I'm telling the truth."
Ian once again put on an innocent expression, with just a hint of confusion.
Well.
It did count as the truth, just not the whole truth, and he'd added a little artistic embellishment... How could that not be called the truth?
"Clever little brat!"
Snape sneered.
Then,
he grabbed some paper and a quill from the table and rapidly scribbled a long string of words.
"What are you doing?"
Ian asked curiously.
"This is a scrap of paper dropped by a Dark Wizard. Go on, Mr. Prince. Prove that you have a talent even greater than You-Know-Who's, perhaps even greater than Dumbledore's... Oh, such a magnificent talent!"
Snape held out the paper to Ian.
His voice was dripping with sarcasm.
His gaze turned playful and mocking.
"Are you teaching me magic?"
Ian's eyes lit up.
He eagerly looked down at the paper in his hands.
Sure enough,
the scrap of paper contained a detailed explanation of a spell's principles.
(End of Chapter)