A Shadow of a Doubt

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After my confrontation with Neville, I slowly make my way back to the Potions classroom to grab my things, feeling drained. I get there and Severus immediately questions me, "(Y/n)! What happened? What did he say? Did he see-" I interrupt him, "Everything's fine Severus. Don't worry about it." I assure him, "Are you sure?" He continues. "Yes. It's all taken care of." I say, almost looking away.

"Is something wrong?" I keep my gaze only slightly off from his. "(Y/n)?" I speak quietly, "It's just...I realized I don't know all that much about you. I've only ever seen you as The Potions Master. I have to wonder what you're like when you're just Severus Snape." He puts his hands on my shoulders. I resist the urge to look into his eyes. "I will tell you everything, in due time. I promise." He says, also kind of quietly. I finally give in and look up at him. We just stare and smile.

After a moment, I come to my senses and say "I should really get going now, Severus." He releases my shoulders, and stands firm, "Of course. Off you go." I go to my desk to grab all my things, then hurriedly head out the door.

I almost completely zone out and let my muscle memory take over as I walk toward the Gryffindor common room. When I get there, I almost walk into the Fat Lady's portrait. "Oh, darling. Are you alright?" She says. "Yes, sorry. I've got a lot on my mind right now. Mimbulus Mimbletonia." She nods and opens up.

I put my things away and lay in bed. Pretty soon I'm drifting off to sleep. In my sleep, I have a most peculiar dream, or maybe nightmare. I dream I'm trapped in a huge spherical, glass object, filled with red smoke. I see a silhouette in the distance. A tall, brooding silhouette. It appears to just stand there, doing absolutely nothing, as I bang on the glass, yelling for help. Suddenly, I hit the glass and it cracks. The crack grows larger and larger, until the entire sphere is covered. I can barely see the silhouette, but I see movement. It looks like it's pulling out it's wand, and points it towards me. It slowly comes closer and closer, bringing the wand closer to the sphere, until it stops only centimeters away. It then taps it's wand on the glass, and it shatters. I jolt awake.

"Woah." I think. I realize my face is covered in tears. I sit up and wipe my face. I don't want to wake anyone, so I just lie back down and try to sleep the rest of the night. I can't sleep though. I lay awake all night just thinking about that weird dream. It really freaked me out. Could it mean something?

As the sunlight finally touches my face, after what felt like forever, I decide to get up. I go down to the common room and see Hermione is already up as well, sitting by the window, studying. "Morning." I sleepily say. "Morning (Y/n)." She replies, "You're up early. Everything alright?"

"Yea- well actually no. No everything is not alright." I say, sitting on the maroon couch. Hermione closes her book and rolls up her parchment. She sits next to me, "What is it? What's happened?" I look at her with a hint of fear, "I had a strange dream, and couldn't sleep the rest of the night." She looks unconvinced that that's all I'm worrying about, "I also got caught with Professor Snape." Hermione gasps, "What? You mean...?" "Only by Neville. Don't worry, he promised he wouldn't say anything." She relaxes. "He told me I should be careful...he doesn't really like Snape. He asked me...he asked me if I knew who he is, Severus, if I knew who he was when I'm not there."

"What did you tell him?" Hermione asks, troubled. "Nothing. I just smiled and waved and went back to Potions. I couldn't look at Snape. I felt bad." I told her. "I'm sure he understands. Relationships take a lot of work." She said matter-of-factly, "So, about this dream?"

I tell her all about my nightmare.

"Wow. That's just...wow." She says, astounded. "Do you think it means something?" I ask. "I don't know, maybe. Although the glass sphere you were trapped in, to me, sounds like a-" She stops as a few more students come down. Neither of us realized how long we'd been talking.

"We'll talk more later (Y/n). We should get properly dressed and head to the Great Hall for breakfast." Hermione says, getting up. I follow and go get my robes on. We head to the Great Hall.

As more and more students pile in, I notice Dumbledore walking up to the podium in front of the head table. I then skim through the seats behind him, and see Severus. Before I could smile at him, I noticed a seat is missing an occupant.

After it's clear the whole school is in the room, Dumbledore puts his wand on his neck, and clears his throat. "Could I get everyone's attention please? Thank you."

The Great Hall fills with murmurs and whispers. The Headmaster continues, "As you can see, Professor R.J. Lupin is not sitting in his respective place. The reason being, the Ministry of Magic decided it was best, that he no longer teach at Hogwarts."

Everyone in the room either gasped or groaned, except the Slytherins, who clearly didn't care about any of this. "I cannot tell you everything, but I can tell you that, due to an incident in one of his classes, an assumption was made. That assumption was soon proven correct."

"An incident?" I think, "Was this...because of me?" I glance at Severus, who was already looking at me. He nods and moves his hands in a downward motion discreetly, telling me to relax. I faintly nod back, and take a breath.

"The Ministry has sent someone to take his place. I hope you treat her with respect, and she will treat you the same." Dumbledore reaches his hand out towards the door next to the head table, motioning for us all to look at it. Just then, the door opens, and a sprightly woman dressed solely in pink struts out.

"Let me introduce you to, Dolores Umbridge."



A/N: DING-DONG THE BITCH IS BACK HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE (for real tho im sry but i had to bring her into this. trust me. MUCH LOVE!)

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