Chapter 34: The Horrifying Office

"What on earth is wrong with him?" Harry muttered in disbelief, watching Snape walk away step by step.

Merlin above, he must still be half asleep—he actually heard Snape agree to buy things for Silven, and contraband at that.

"No idea." Ron rubbed his ears hard.

"It must be out of a sense of professional duty as a professor," Hermione said.

Harry couldn't hold it in and let out a laugh. "I really hope he remembers that sense of professional duty when he's deliberately making trouble for me."

Silven said nothing. He suddenly realized Snape hadn't really... well, he was still pretty unpleasant. But if you set aside his flaws—his favoritism, his sharp tongue, his abuse of authority, his vanity, his soft spot for Potter—Snape could actually pass for a competent professor.

At least, as far as Silven was concerned.

Because if he bought materials through Snape, he could save a hefty shipping fee. After all, a professor couldn't very well charge a student a running-around fee, could he?

And Snape was also a famous potions master, with a sharp eye for potions ingredients—anything that passed through his hands would absolutely never be defective or counterfeit.

The only troublesome part was the restrictions; there were a lot of things he simply couldn't buy.

But that wasn't much of a problem for Silven. He hadn't planned to use any banned materials in the first place. If he really needed to... well, he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. The Weasley twins should be able to help out by then.

Silven was still thinking when three heads suddenly appeared right in front of him.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had crept over at some point without him noticing, all staring at him as if trying to read something off his face.

"What are you doing!" Silven instinctively stepped back, putting some distance between them.

"You and Snape... are you two related or something?" Harry squeezed out after holding it in for ages.

Apart from that reason, he really couldn't figure out why Snape would help a Gryffindor. Snape hadn't even confiscated those things—he was holding them for inspection, and if there was no problem, he'd return them that evening.

Harry racked his brains and still couldn't understand why a few blood-soaked redcap hearts could be held for inspection, while a copy of Quidditch Through the Ages had to be confiscated outright.

Thinking it over carefully, the Ollivander family had a long history. As the head of Slytherin, a house that valued pure-blood lineage above all else, Snape might really have some connection to Silven.

"Don't talk nonsense." Silven shot him a glance. "Professor Snape is a good professor. He's not that snobbish."

"Snape, a good professor?" Ron's voice went shrill as he glared at Silven. "I really didn't expect it—you've actually defected?"

Harry's face had also gone stiff.

They were friends, weren't they? Shouldn't friends be on the same side?

"I'm warning you two—don't you dare say bad things about Professor Snape, or I'll report you." Silven raised an eyebrow.

Now Snape, like Hagrid, was one of his important material suppliers. Compared to that, people like Harry Potter and Ron Weasley—he really didn't know them well. Don't try to get all chummy.

Both Ron and Harry's faces turned red.

Although they could tell Silven's words just now had a joking element to them, it was still genuinely a bit infuriating.

"Hermione, you're not allowed to lend him homework from now on." Ron tried to pull Hermione to his side too, to teach Silven a lesson.

He knew perfectly well that Silven's homework, just like theirs, always ended up seeking Hermione's help when it came time to write it.

Hermione just found it childish and didn't even bother to look at him.

When the group returned to the Great Hall for lunch afterward, Ron was still going on and on, trying to wrench Silven's erroneous thinking back on track.

But no one paid him any attention. Silven pretended not to hear, Hermione couldn't be bothered to respond, and Harry was simply too nervous.

The Quidditch match was about to begin. Every time he thought about it, his heart would start pounding and he couldn't even eat.

That evening, the Gryffindor common room was in an uproar—everyone was looking forward to tomorrow's match.

When Silven came out of the dormitory, a shadow darted over to him at top speed.

"Silven, are you going to Snape's office now?" Harry asked.

"That's right." Silven nodded. "Do you want to come with me? I remember you had a book confiscated too."

"If it's not too much trouble, could you get it back for me?" Harry asked in a small voice.

He had originally planned to go himself, but these past few days Snape had been picking on him almost every day, and he really didn't want to see that face again.

It just so happened that Silven was heading to the Potions office, so he'd thought about asking the other boy to help out.

"I'll give it a try." Silven brushed him off casually.

If it had been anyone else asking, he wouldn't have minded putting in an extra word to try, but this was Harry...

Snape's feelings toward Potter were... special. Forget a book—even a scrap of parchment wouldn't be that easy to get back.

After leaving the common room, Silven went downstairs to Snape's office and knocked on the door.

"Come in." Snape's voice came from inside.

Silven pushed the door open and walked in.

The office was chilly, the lighting dim, and the walls were hung with all manner of bizarre potions ingredients.

Snape sat behind a desk whose original color was unidentifiable, waving his wand to set a glass jar—large enough to be called a bucket—down on the table.

What was inside the glass jar... was it blood?

Silven wasn't entirely sure, but he saw a section of bone, white and grim, poking out from behind the desk.

Night. A gloomy underground classroom. Collected unidentified liquid. Bones scattered across the floor. And a professor wiping his hands.

Silven suddenly didn't want his things quite so badly anymore. He wasn't sure if there was still time to make a run for it.

"Your things are on the desk." Snape lifted his eyelids. "Take them quickly. That kind of shoddy garbage—I would have thrown it straight out."

Silven paid no heed to Snape's sneers. He darted forward in one bound and snatched up the bag.

Shoddy or not, he'd paid for it. He couldn't afford to waste it.

"Well then, Professor, I'll be going." Silven said, preparing to leave.

"Wait a moment." Snape suddenly called out. "Go find Rubeus Hagrid for me and tell him to come here. You do know who Rubeus Hagrid is, don't you?"

"Of course, Professor, I know." Silven said, turning to walk toward the door.

But at that moment, he noticed something familiar placed behind the door—a wooden club nearly four feet long.

The reason he called it familiar was that he had seen it before, in the troll's hand.

The image of the troll charging over dragging that club had been so shocking that Silven still couldn't forget it, so he was quite certain—that was the troll's weapon.

But after the troll fell, this wooden club dropped onto the corridor floor—how could it possibly be here…

"What are you dawdling about!"

Before Silven could figure it out, Snape's impatient voice came from behind him.

"Sorry, Professor, I'm going right now." Silven didn't hesitate any longer, and strode out of the office.

(End of chapter)