Snape ruined the last cauldron of potion.
Purple smoke churned in the cauldron, much like his fury.
He walked out of the dungeons, his expression dark, the hem of his black robes brushing the floor without a sound.
His mind was frantically replaying the scene in Dumbledore's office.
That damned, flawless smile on Douglas Holmes's face.
Those eyes of Dumbledore's, like an old fox's, that saw through everything.
A farce billed as laying their cards on the table, when they were really just informing him.
They knew something was wrong with Moody, knew this was a setup, and he alone had been kept in the dark.
Anger, humiliation, the frustration of being treated as a pawn.
Emotions burned in his chest.
But what rankled most was not being used as bait.
It was that damned "Half-Blood Prince" special issue.
That was not fiction.
It was Legilimency, precise and cruel, slicing through his deepest disguises and digging out the most secret pride and insecurities of his youth to expose them to the sun.
The matter was a poisoned thorn lodged in his dignity.
He felt that the boy who wrote stories had seen straight through him, inside and out.
Before, he had never connected the two things.
He had merely assumed some idiot had happened to invent that name.
But after tonight, a suspicion had taken root in his heart.
There was more to Douglas than met the eye.
That insight, so out of place in someone his age, was unsettling.
Who besides that lunatic could write something like that?
He was the prime suspect.
Snape's steps faltered, and he stopped at a corner. A suit of armor cast a heavy shadow.
Just then, he heard footsteps.
And tuneless whistling.
Snape's gaze pierced the shadows and locked onto that figure.
Douglas