i am snape

"Ready?" Pandora couldn't help but ask, seeing Snape pull out a piece of parchment and squint at it for a long while. "I'm ready," she said, patting the small bag on the table. "Everything's in there."

"Just a moment," Snape replied, without looking up, his eyes still fixed on the Marauder's Map. "Let me check again." He had been tracking the movement of the small black dot representing Mulciber, planning to take action once it disappeared from the map.

By now, the setting sun, slanting through the high windows of the Room of Requirement, cast a somewhat dim light inside. They had just had a quick bite of bread there and weren't planning on going to the Great Hall for dinner.

Time ticked by. Suddenly, Snape's eyes lit up: Mulciber had finally re-entered the secret passage, and the little black dot had vanished from the map.

"Come here, I'll cast a Disillusionment Charm on you." He quickly motioned to Pandora. With that, Snape raised his wand and, with a practiced, gentle motion, tapped it on her head. "There."

"Well done, Severus," Pandora said admiringly, looking down at her body before it blended with the background. Her body now looked as if it didn't belong to her at all. It wasn't complete invisibility, but its colour and texture had become identical to the surrounding walls and instruments, like a human chameleon, cleverly hidden within its environment.

"Let's go." Snape was about to tap himself with his wand when he suddenly saw a translucent wand floating in the air descend onto his head. A cold sensation flowed into his body from where he was tapped.

"Thanks, Pandora." Snape grabbed the small bag and said, "This bag is quite heavy; I'll carry it."

The room's door opened silently, then closed just as quietly, vanishing perfectly into the stone wall. They cautiously descended the stairs to the fifth floor. Waiting until no one was around, Snape opened the mirror leading to the secret passage.

"Go, quickly, get in," he whispered to the surrounding air, afraid of being overheard. Not entirely sure if his companion had entered, he waited a few more seconds before retracting his foot from the entrance.

A faint glow appeared in the air, drifting around like fireflies flickering in the night sky, illuminating the uneven stone walls.

"This place is rather nice," Pandora's voice echoed in the secret passage. "It would be good for experiments. Why do you want to destroy it?"

"Uh..." Snape was momentarily at a loss for how to answer. "Well, this place could potentially be used by bad people. Don't you already have a laboratory? So this place isn't important anymore?"

"That's true. Alright, I'll begin then." Pandora didn't dwell on it. "Put the bag on the ground; I can't see it."

"Oh, right, okay." Snape placed the small bag on the ground. "Let's lift the Disillusionment Charm." As the spell took effect, they reappeared.

Upon reappearing, he watched Pandora take out various small jars from the bag, containing different powders and liquids. To the tune of Pandora's singing spell, the magical ingredients rose into the air, slowly merging together and covering the walls and stone steps of the secret passage layer by layer.

As she chanted, glowing runic letters appeared on the walls. These letters shimmered with a mysterious light, as if they were about to leap from the wall. A moment later, they truly broke free from the stone wall, glimmering faintly in mid-air before slowly fading away.

"Rare ancient magic, indeed," Pandora said, her voice filled with satisfaction. "I tried so many types of de-magic agents and spells to clear them away. They even gave me some new ideas. That 'ᛇᚷᛚᚠᛟᛋᛇᛟᚾ' runic symbol, I always thought it meant explosion, but it turns out it was used as a protection charm."

"What?"

"ᛇᚷᛚᚠᛟᛋᛇᛟᚾ."

"Never mind," hearing Pandora say that, Snape even began to doubt whether his excellent grades in Ancient Runes were genuine. "What do we do next?"

"Let's use *Bombarda Maxima*," Pandora suggested, her eyes gleaming with eagerness.

As she uttered the first syllable, Snape quickly stopped her. "Wait! Let me do it. Stand aside." He was a little uneasy; what if something happened to her? He certainly didn't want Pandora to have an accident after he'd just arrived.

Just then, Snape caught a whiff of a pungent, fishy scent wafting from the staircase. He suddenly felt a chill on his arm. Before he could react to the smell, a slimy, pallid hand had already gripped a stone step and began to pull itself up. He looked up and gasped: a vast horde of dead bodies were jostling and crawling up from below ground. From the darkness emerged countless pale heads and hands, of men, women, and children, all with sunken, sightless eyes, pressing closer towards them.

"Inferi!" Snape shouted. "Bombarda Maxima!" A powerful magical force surged towards the stone wall, causing a few cracks to appear, but it was far from enough. They didn't have time to destroy the secret passage.

"Petrificus Totalus!" The first Inferius that appeared tumbled down with a thud. "Impedimenta! Incarcerous!" Snape retreated, frantically waving his wand in the air, but more Inferi kept crawling up. Their withered hands clutched the cold rock, their empty, misty eyes staring blankly at them, their faded, rotting clothes, stained with mould and dirt, trailing behind them, and expressions of disdain on their sunken faces.

"Pandora, run!" Snape dragged her to the entrance, his hand trembling as he sketched a tiny owl with his wand. "Soar on wings!"

The Inferi, oblivious, continued to press forward step by step, extending their shrivelled hands towards them. He longed for the exit to open quickly, so he and Pandora could escape safely.

"Wait, Severus." Pandora stumbled, pulled by his grip. "I have a way." She tried hard to break free from Snape's hand, but he held on tightly, refusing to let go.

"Never mind all that, just go, find the professors!" Snape cried frantically, his voice distorted.

The entrance finally opened. Before Snape could pull Pandora out, a flash of light appeared, he felt his ankle grabbed, and then he was lifted upside down into the air.

"Got you! Snivellus, give me back my stuff!" James's contorted face was inverted before Snape's, his eyes filled with fury and hatred.