"Sherbet lemon."
The stone gargoyle swung aside, and the Potions master immediately ran up the rising steps as if he was impatient they would not get him there in time.
When he reached the top of the steps, the double doors leading to the headmaster's office swung open.
Dumbledore was seated behind his broad desk, reading what looked like the day's issue of the Daily Prophet.
He pushed back his moon glasses as the Potions master entered.
"Severus," he said casually, "I thought I was the only soul awake in the school at this hour. What brings you up? Please, do sit."
Snape took the seat immediately to the headmaster's left.
"There something wrong with that boy?" he said as soon as he was seated.
Dumbledore spread his hands questioningly.
"I have quite a few in the school, as you might have noticed."
"You know exactly who I'm talking about. There is no way a kid his age would know all that he claims to know."
"Ah, Magnus, then," Dumbledore sighed. "What is wrong this time? I thought we all agreed that the Ministry brought the matter to a successful conclusion."
Snape's dark face looked up.
"The Ministry did not know everything."
"Everything?" the headmaster queried, as if asking the man to be direct.
The Potions master was quiet for a while.
"There is more to the boy than we have been able to find out."
Dumbledore laid down the newspaper and sat up straight.
"Please," he said.
Snape, seeing the headmaster's attention on him, straightened up.
"Think of it, Dumbledore. Nobody has questioned this boy's story. First, he conveniently passes out in Diagon Alley, and they find him unharmed. They declare underage accidental magic and take him to St Mungo. I am told the doctors said that he would be lucky if he woke up, and even if he did, there was no way of telling if he could lead a normal life. But he does. He wakes up and escapes from a magical hospital. My sources tell me all this is on the Ministry record."
Dumbledore smiled. "You seem to have done a lot of digging, Severus."
Snape went on anyway.
"Nobody has moved to probe the matter further."
"No doubt the Ministry department responsible did. Hence the conclusion. It was accidental magic," Dumbledore pointed out.
Snape did not seem to care.
"That be as it may, there is no actual next of kin in his emergency information. Surely you..."
Again the headmaster interrupted.
"As a matter of fact, there is. If I recall right, Magnus named Mr. Tom of the Leaky Cauldron as his emergency contact."
"Exactly. That is not... Tom is not the boy's relative. Nor, his guardian," Snape said.
"True enough," Dumbledore agreed.
"My point exactly. His origin story is surrounded with mystery, then he conveniently joins Hogwarts."
"I think you are forgetting the part where he receives a letter. All wizards aged eleven and above who show magic receive the letter."
"I am aware of that," the Potions master said, looking insulted.
"But he shows up a first year who knows more about Pokémon than the Ministry itself, and that still does not ring a warning?"
Again the headmaster smiled casually.
"I am not certain you have noticed, but he did ring quite a warning. There was an entire Ministry hearing, which you attended just yesterday. My point, Severus, is that I am not getting your line of thought. Is there something wrong with the boy that you have noticed, or is it just a hunch?"
Snape looked uncomfortable for a while, then he seemed to resolve to go on.
"The boy had detention with me several days ago. During that detention, there was an incident with his Pokémon. It performed a strange trick, and the boy stole a vial which he used to treat Miss Granger's Pokémon."
Dumbledore did not interrupt, and so Snape went on.
"I found out about the missing vial and called him for another detention, hoping for clarification today. There was another matter that night. The boy asked me whether it was true that I was a Death Eater."
It was clear Snape had expected the headmaster to react to that, but still, Dumbledore did not interrupt.
"That was the first reason I began suspecting him."
"What reason, exactly?" Dumbledore asked.
"why would he ask whether I was a Death Eater?, for all I knew, he might have been trying to elicit my help or compliance."
"In which case, I assume you played him long enough to find out," the headmaster asked, peering at his colleague.
"Of course I did not. I sent him out of my office."
"Severus, you do realize that all this information is available to the public from the Ministry's records and even older issues of the newspapers, if somebody is patient enough to dig there?"
But Snape did not answer that.
"Today, when I called him into my office, he tried to play smart again. But I knew there was something there, so I tried to access his mind through Legilimency."
"You did what?" Dumbledore sat upright.
"You will be happy I did. I found out that indeed the boy is not from this world, at least not from the recollection in his own mind."
"Severus," Dumbledore called.
"Wait. That is not all. He has already established accomplices, and one of them is Hagrid."
"Severus," Dumbledore repeated.
"I know I may have gone too far, and it somehow affected the boy. He began to nosebleed."
"He what?" Dumbledore stood, and so did Snape.
"That is not... it does not matter. I tried to help the boy by giving him a remedy, but he would not have it. I tried to force it on him, and that is when it happened. I swear it on my sanity. His Pokémon became the Dark Lord's serpent and tried to attack me."
For a moment, the two of them stared at each other.
Snape clearly had expected the revelation to elicit quite a reaction from Dumbledore. The absence of it was shocking.
"Do you not see what I have been saying? My guess was confirmed. Surely the boy has some connection with the Dark Lord. Maybe the Dark Lord has even possessed him. That would explain all this knowledge, and the fact that he himself considered himself not to belong to this world."
Dumbledore sat down. He let out a deep breath and pushed back his glasses. Reaching out for a kettle and a cup that materialized on his table, he poured two cups of tea and pushed one towards Snape.
"It is chamomile tea," he said. He took a deep sip from his cup.
"I did not come for a tea reunion," Snape hissed.
"Drink."
The Potions master realized it was not a request, so he sat down, reached for the cup, and took a sip.
The headmaster did not speak until a calm settled upon his face.
"And all this, you did without informing me, nor with my consent."
"I was looking for solid proof before coming to you," Snape answered.
"And in so doing, you broke the rules, even rules that govern the use of magic. Severus, do you realize you have admitted to me that you broke into the boy's thoughts without his consent and that your actions caused him significant harm? Do you know how vicious your violation of his mind would have been, to trigger nosebleeding? Did you at least establish how serious the bleeding was?"
"I tried to help him," Snape began, "but the Poké... I mean the serpent would not let me."
Dumbledore reached for a piece of parchment on his desk and scribbled something down.
The headmaster's phoenix flew down from where it was perched and grabbed the folded parchment in its claws.
"You know what to do," Dumbledore said.
The bird gave him a peck before flying out of the doors that had just opened.