"Professor Snape!"
The name burst from Fred Weasley in a shout of pure, ecstatic relief. Hanging by his collar, drenched in vile, sticky fertilizer, and trembling from head to toe, Fred felt a wave of utterly illogical, fierce loyalty wash over him. His entire worldview, which for years had been built upon the foundation of mocking and detesting the Potions Master, fractured instantly.
He hated everything about Snape: the greasy hair, the perpetual sneer, the favoritism toward Slytherin, the cold black robes, the emotionless, sibilant voice. But at this moment, suspended in the dark clearing before a madman and a pulsating, golden doorway, Fred thought Severus Snape was the most breathtakingly heroic figure he had ever encountered.
He's incredibly cool, Fred thought with frantic intensity. The black robes, usually so dour, look like the uniform of a dark avenger right now! His sneer is actually a look of stern, calculated focus! And his voice, usually so menacing, sounds like the voice of inescapable fate! Even the rigid, purposeful way he held his wand—pointing with a casual lethality—was undeniably, magnificently cool.
Yet, despite the golden aura of heroism that Fred's desperate mind projected onto the scene, his keen eye for detail—a critical trait for a future prankster mastermind—caught the alarming flaws in the presentation.
Professor Snape looked… terrible.
He was breathing hard, the shallow, rapid rise and fall of his chest visible even beneath the heavy black material of his robes. A wide tear ran across the shoulder, and further down, his trousers were ripped, exposing a scrape on his pale calf.
Worst of all, his robes were mottled with a disconcerting, spiderweb-like residue, catching the faint light from the magical gateway and giving him the appearance of having fought his way through a giant, dusty attic.
Fred knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that Snape hadn't simply walked through the Forest. He had fought. He had run a marathon, perhaps one involving venomous obstacles and territorial mythological beasts.
Snape, however, remained a fortress of composure, his face a chilling mask of contempt that belied the internal storm raging beneath his skin.
Dishevelled. I am utterly dishevelled, Snape's mind hissed, a low, murderous drone. He was furious, not just at Robert, but at the entire miserable journey.
He had entered the Forbidden Forest expecting a minor skirmish—a quick Stupefy, a lecture, and an unpleasant escort back to the castle. Instead, Robert's insidious necklace—a repulsive piece of high-end dark artifactry, Snape immediately deduced—had effectively cleared the path for the villain, leaving Snape to deal with the aftermath.
The creatures, their sleep and territory violently disturbed by the necklace's pervasive 'dragon aura' and then left abandoned in its wake, were volatile and aggressive. Snape hadn't encountered the targets of his ire, but rather the displaced, agitated residents seeking retribution for a bad night's sleep.
He had been forced to expend energy dodging the hysterical charge of an enraged Unicorn (a magnificent, embarrassing waste of time!), navigating the confusing, multi-layered silk traps of an entire Acromantula cohort (hence the accursed webbing on his clothes), and, most humiliatingly, spending three precious minutes casting advanced shielding charms against the persistent, spitting fireballs of a Hag-headed Winged Monster that simply refused to retreat.
His slow, arduous progress was not due to Robert's skill, but to the collective bad temper of the entire forest ecosystem. When he finally caught sight of the figures in the clearing, Robert was already hoisting the wretched Weasley brat skyward, wand poised for some final, despicable act.
I had the chance, the perfect opening! Snape inwardly raged, recalling the hesitation that cost him the advantage. He had been so focused on ensuring a non-lethal, efficient disabling curse that he had momentarily stalled.
This fractional delay meant the spell he fired had been a warning—a miss—rather than a decisive strike. Amateur. The word was applied, damningly, to himself. His impatience at the delay had made him reckless, and now he was locked in a humiliating stalemate.
Seeing Snape standing there, a figure of uncompromising, lethal certainty, Robert instinctually recoiled. His immediate, clumsy action was to drag Fred, the now-soiled human shield, tighter against him. He pointed his wand, slick with fertilizer, at Snape and began shouting spells in a desperate flurry.
"Disarm you! Collapse him in a faint! A thunderous explosion! Now fall!"
Robert's incoherent string of defensive and offensive charms—half of which were non-verbal and poorly executed—did little more than sizzle weakly in the air between them. Snape, barely breaking his stride, executed a flawless counter-spell with an almost lazy flick of his wand, incinerating Robert's pathetic volley.
"I have already stated my intention, Robert," Snape said, his voice flat and devastating, echoing slightly in the clearing. "The amateur dramatics conclude here. Set the student free. You are catastrophically overmatched. Attempting resistance will only result in greater pain, or worse, greater humiliation."
Robert managed a weak, choked laugh, wiping a stream of yellow muck from his eyes. "Hehehehe… Severus Snape! The wretched Death Eater arrives! I knew you would not be able to resist my masterpiece!"
Robert's voice was rising, losing any pretense of control. "I always wanted to curse you! To flay the skin from your arrogance, piece by piece!" He shook Fred violently.
"Stop! Do not approach any further!" Robert screamed, pressing his wand savagely against the weeping fertilizer on Fred's cheek. "Professor Snape, you would not desire this little, filthy brat to be subjected to the Cruciatus Curse right before your heroic, perfect eyes, would you?"
Snape's obsidian eyes narrowed, but his composure held firm. "Torture me? You speak of desire, Robert, yet you use a child as a human shield? A pathetic maneuver, even for an academic of your predictable mediocrity."
Snape took a single, deliberate step closer, stopping exactly two meters from Robert, creating a tension so thick it felt like physical ice.
"Release the boy. I will offer you that single, small concession of a fair surrender."
"Hahahaha! Concession? A chance for what?" Robert laughed wildly, the sound high-pitched and hysterical, tears mixing with the sludge on his face. "I admit it! I am no duelist! I cannot defeat the master Death Eater! But you forget something crucial, Severus!"
Robert squeezed Fred's throat brutally with his left hand, eliciting a choked cry of pain from the young student.
"Drop your wand now! Or I will cast the Cruciatus Curse on him! Do you understand? Your life, for his immediate, agonizing misery!"
Snape remained still, his face utterly unreadable. "I am the evil Death Eater you speak of. Do you truly believe I would jeopardize my own life and mission to appease a common, desperate threat against a student? Especially a Gryffindor?"
Snape's cold gaze shifted, moving from Robert's crazed face to the shimmering, yellow doorway behind him—the coveted prize.
"You came here for that grotesque piece of rock, did you not? The so-called Legacy's Gateway?" Snape's voice dropped, becoming a low, poisonous whisper. "Can you confidently predict, Robert, whether that stone could withstand a sustained, full-powered assault from me? A barrage aimed not at you, but at the Gateway itself?"
Robert's face went instantly pale beneath the yellow muck. "How dare you?! You cannot care so little for a student's safety!" he shrieked, the fear in his voice now absolute.
"You may gamble on whether I possess the necessary indifference," Snape replied, his calm voice a terrifying counterpoint to Robert's hysteria.
Robert hesitated, his wand tip trembling slightly. According to the ancient records he had obsessively studied—records that had consumed his career and his family's fortune—the rock, associated with the legendary secrets of Gryffindor's line, should not be destroyed easily.
But he could not risk it. He had invested everything. The thought of Snape reducing his life's work to rubble was a far greater fear than any punishment the Ministry could levy.
The stalemate was complete. Robert was terrified to strike Fred for fear of incurring Snape's destructive wrath on the Gateway. Snape did not dare strike Robert for fear of a reflex hex striking Fred.
Seeing the two men locked in a psychological impasse, Fred realized that inaction would only lead to both his death and the humiliation of his unexpected, black-robed savior. It's up to me.
He managed to catch Snape's eye—the professor's gaze was locked onto the wand tip, but he was acutely aware of every movement. Fred gave Snape a quick, frantic wink. Just a distraction, Professor. Be ready.
Then, with an agonizing effort to seem casual, Fred carefully repositioned his right hand, slowly dipping it back into his deep pocket. He grasped his last remaining Fertilizer Bomb.
He drew a shallow breath, silently begging his overtaxed muscles for one final act of defiance. Suddenly, he pulled the sphere out and, twisting his body while still suspended by the throat, he threw it with a desperate, practiced flick of his wrist.
CRACK!
The bomb shattered instantly on impact, exactly where Fred aimed: the back of Robert's head.
The resulting stench was immediate and overwhelming, a vile combination of rotten eggs, swamp water, and pure, concentrated farmyard filth. The yellow liquid streamed down the back of Robert's neck, mingling with the muck already on his face.
Robert's attention momentarily fractured, a flicker of pure disgust and panic crossing his features as the foul liquid blinded his peripheral vision and saturated his senses.
"Ugh! That smell! You disgusting—!"
That split-second distraction was all Snape needed. Snape's eyes flared with lethal golden light, his wand snapped up, and a devastating curse—a killing-blow, not a stunner—was already forming on his lips, aimed at Robert's heart.
But Robert, in his blind, panicked rage, was quicker in his defensive reaction than in his offense. Instead of fighting back effectively, he let out a guttural shriek, violently shoving Fred with one hand towards Snape, while simultaneously casting a truly vile spell wildly with his wand:
"Ostea Frange! (Breaking bones and tearing flesh!)"
The curse, a dark-red, sickly looking beam of pure malice, was not aimed at Snape—it was aimed at Fred.
Snape saw the flash, he saw the student hurtling toward him, and he saw the ominous, dark magical light. The decision took less than a thousandth of a second. The killing curse intended for Robert died silently on Snape's lips.
He thrust his wand forward, not to strike, but to cast an immediate, brute-force protective charm while simultaneously putting a strong magical push on the already flying Fred.
The dark curse meant for the boy bypassed Fred entirely, slamming into Snape's chest with the force of a battering ram. The protective charm, cast on the fly, failed to stop the full impact but managed to divert the curse's initial focus.
A blinding, agonizing bolt of white-hot pain tore through Snape's ribs, exploding in his chest like shrapnel. His mind went instantly white, the world tipping sideways as he collapsed hard onto the filthy ground, a soundless, broken heap.
"Professor Snape!"
Fred, slammed into the dirt just beside the fallen Potions Master, stared in paralyzed horror. The man who had despised him, who had just been inches from victory, was now utterly still, silent, and sprawled on the ground.
Did he take that curse for me?
Fred crawled forward, stumbling on his hands and knees. He managed to lift Snape's limp, unexpectedly heavy body, leaning him against his own shaking frame. His hands came away slick and dark.
"Professor, you're bleeding! Badly!" Fred's voice was a desperate, cracking whisper, his tears finally breaking through the terror.
Robert, wiping the last of the foul-smelling liquid from his eyes, looked down at the scene, a grotesque smile of absolute, deranged triumph spreading across his face.
"Hahaha! I win again! I always win!" he shrieked, pointing his wand at the immobilized, bleeding figure of Snape. "Snape, your pathetic, sentimentally-softened heart has cost you everything! I told you I would torture you! I told you I would make you regret this day!"
He drew a deep, ragged breath, preparing to cast the curse again—this time, fully intended to make the Bone-shattering and flesh-tearing spell do its maximum, agonizing damage.
"Ostea Frange!" Robert howled.
"Sufficient!"
This time, the word was a magical detonation, a voice thick with raw, incandescent fury, coming from the treeline behind Robert.
Before Robert could complete his incantation, a massive, deafening Wall of Glacial Ice erupted from the ground between Robert and the fallen figures of Fred and Snape. It rose impossibly fast, a shimmering, opaque shield that threw splinters of white light across the clearing. Robert's curse slammed into the thick, magical barrier, disintegrating harmlessly into a cloud of sparkling ice crystals.
The temperature in the clearing plummeted instantly. The sudden, violent displacement of air was accompanied by a voice that was no longer calm and scholarly, but deep, resonating, and utterly enraged, echoing like thunder from the depths of the forest.
"I apologize, Professor Robert, but your current plan to torture my colleague is now permanently revoked," Sebastian Swann's voice rang out, heavy with magical power and menace.
From the shadows, striding forward with terrifying speed, emerged the Alchemist, his robes immaculate despite his breakneck flight, his wand held like a rapier of justice.
"Because your immediate, final, and only opponent is me."