Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets (V)

The corner of Severus Snape's mouth twitched slightly, forming an expression that was almost a smile but not quite—one filled with mockery, contempt, and an indescribable trace of reflection.

"Filch?" He repeated the name, his voice carrying a harsh chill. "A Squib. Filch, who had been Hogwarts' caretaker for over fifty years, mocked by every student and looked down upon by every professor—including me. His original family? Nothing more than an obscure mixed-blood wizarding family. There had not been a single figure worth mentioning within three generations. They could not even brush the edges of the pure-blood families."

He paused, his tone turning even sharper. "With that background, that status, that... pitiful sense of existence, what gave him the right to possess power of this level?"

Without waiting for Dumbledore's response, he supplied the answer himself. "His despair. The hunger born from crouching in the darkness for over fifty years, watching others possess magic while he himself had nothing. Hunger so deep that he would sell everything for even the smallest scrap of power."

After saying that, he lifted the cup from the table and took a sip of water, as though rinsing some bitter taste from his mouth.

Dumbledore looked at him, his gaze unfathomable.

"Your assessment of Filch... has never been particularly favorable." The old headmaster's voice was soft, but every word seemed carefully weighed.

"My assessment of no one is particularly favorable," Snape said expressionlessly.

Dumbledore did not pursue the point. He stood and walked to the window, turning his back to Snape as he looked out into the pitch-black night sky.

The moon peeked halfway from behind the clouds, casting the shadows of the castle's towers across the treetops of the Forbidden Forest like a giant hand groping through the darkness.

"A Squib from a mixed-blood