The dungeons were quieter than usual. Even the stone seemed to breathe slower at night, the corridors asleep beneath the weight of magic and memory.
Severus Snape sat hunched at his desk, a harsh pool of candlelight outlining his form as he scratched ruthless red ink across parchment. He had already gone through half a stack of third-year essays and was quickly losing patience. The students' grasp of potion theory was mediocre at best, and Crabbe's most recent attempt was enough to make his eyelid twitch.
Snape slashed a violent line through a careless sentence about dragon bile and flobberworm mucus, then paused. His hand hovered midair.
Something wasn't right.
Not the work. Not the dungeon. Not even the flickering lantern overhead that always sputtered on the hour. It was the memory.
He'd written this exact correction before. This same sentence. That same wording.
Snape's brow furrowed. Slowly, deliberately, he set the quill down.
This wasn't simple déjà vu. It was the echo of a world long gone.
A world where he had bled for a cause already lost. A world where a boy with green eyes had died alone. Where Draco had stood with hollow eyes before a man demanding the unthinkable. Where he, Severus Snape, had been both executioner and protector, traitor and savior—too late to be anything else.
And now… now it was all happening again.
But this time, the threads were tangled differently.
Harry Potter—still the boy with Lily's eyes—carried something else now. A tension in his shoulders, a stillness behind his defiance. As if he too was walking through the world with memories stitched too tightly beneath his skin.
And Draco…
Draco was unravelling. Not publicly, not in the way others might notice—but Snape saw it. He always saw.
The Past Behind His Eyes
He rose from his chair and crossed the room to a locked drawer. With a twist of his wand and a whispered incantation, it clicked open. Inside, nestled in velvet, was a small glass vial.
The contents shimmered—a silver memory strand floating within.
A memory from before.
The first timeline.
Snape stared at it, expression unreadable. He hadn't looked at it in weeks. There had been no need. Every detail was etched into him. Every betrayal. Every flash of green light. Every moment spent pretending not to care while his soul shriveled in silence.
He had watched the children—children, not soldiers—march into horror.
Harry had borne it all, alone, even when surrounded by friends. Snape remembered the way the boy had clenched his jaw to keep from trembling, how he had cried in silence behind the Invisibility Cloak in the Astronomy Tower, how he had begged—pleaded—for someone to believe him during the Triwizard Tournament, and no one had listened.
And Draco… he had not merely followed orders. He had been crushed beneath them. Pawned, branded, used. A child molded into a weapon.
Snape had failed them both.
The Silent Vow
He turned to the window, placing a hand flat against the cold glass. Outside, the courtyard was steeped in shadow, rain just beginning to mist the panes. In the distance, the towers of Hogwarts stood like silent sentinels.
"Not this time," he murmured.
He wasn't here to play savior. That role belonged to fools and legends.
But if fate had placed him here again, then it had given him a task. A chance to be more than a pawn. To protect—not the war, not the prophecy—but the lives swept up in its wake.
Snape clenched his fingers against the glass.
Draco and Potter.
That was what concerned him now. They circled each other like storms on a shared horizon. Not enemies anymore. Not exactly friends either. There was tension there—of course. But also something more subtle. Vulnerability. Recognition. The kind of understanding that only those shaped by trauma could truly see in one another.
And that scared Snape more than Voldemort ever had.
If they were heading toward something—something delicate, something fragile—he would not let it end in disaster. Not this time. If the world would judge them, misunderstand them, he would not.
He could not stop what might grow between them. He wouldn't dare.
But he could protect it.
Quietly. Silently. Without ever letting them know.
Back at his desk, Snape took up his quill again, but the parchment lay untouched. Instead, his gaze flicked to the single candle burning beside him.
A small light in the dark.
Just enough to keep the shadows at bay.