𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

38. ROGUE

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

By the time Harry, Hermione and Ron were hunting for Voldemort's hocruxes, Alice was slithering from the secret passage from The Hog's Head Inn to the castle, undetected by the Dementors, and unseen by the Dark Lord's followers. The students carried information of all sorts and found refuge from the new regime of the school inside the Room of Requirement.

Alice was marking everything down, and like the spider weaving her web, Alice was pulling the silky threads that formed the Trojan Horse of her plan. With the help of Neville, she had a full list of all the poisons and readied potions the Carrow siblings were trying to smuggle into the castle and use against students. She now knew where they were keeping them, and when all students where in classes with their alibis solid as the walls of this castle, a raven was flapping its wings, making its way to their stores undetected, and switching their concoctions with bogus ones, curtesy of her memory with Severus' own trick to Umbridge.

Winky kept a watch as the students poured into the Room of Requirement, and the raven-haired witch trained them, taught them what Severus had taught her, and showed them how to withstand the pressure of the Death Eaters in Hogwarts.

There will be time for fury, she reined the beast within her that howled at the state of the students. It was hungry for blood. Hungry for revenge. But attacking the Death Eaters that strolled Hogwarts grounds now would only compromise the safety of the students, either because they'd be blamed, or because they'd be used to reveal Alice's whereabouts. She needed to ready the students first. Arm and shield them. This web of spies and the brewing cauldron of the upheaval she was about to cause needed care, wits, cunning, and strength. The care of the Hufflepuffs, the wits of the Ravenclaws, the cunning of the Slytherins, and the brute strength of the Gryffindors.

She wouldn't touch the Carrow siblings. Not now. Not yet.

The Death Eaters outside Hogwarts, however, didn't fall into the same category of risk against students. And the beast within her shivered at the idea, licking its ivory sabers.

And as the wheel of time turned slowly, the news of more Muggle killings and prosecutions flooded the columns of the Daily Prophet, but what Rita Skeeter carefully wrote in the last newpaper that landed on the Headmaster's desk a few days later, was that there were some disappearances of Voldemort's followers, too. Their fate, however, remained unknown.

Severus's eyes narrowed at the thin letters on the paper. It couldn't be...

But it was. For the hound had gone out to hunt. The yeanling he nurtured had turned into a wolf. And when she wouldn't find herself within the walls of the castle, training students for battle in the Room of Requirement with the help of a watchful Winky, and gathering information for the Order, Alice was playing a game of the cat and mouse.

Tracking Death Eaters' movements, she wanted to lure the henchmen of Voldemort to come after her. Besides, it wasn't too hard to do so; they still met at Hog's Head Inn, and they still followed the same paths once they were out of the Inn. Alice needed only watch them. And when they'd step far enough from the Inn and closer to the woods, that's when the witch would strike.

And the predator would become the prey. The killer would run, and the hunted would become the hunter.

But never at the same place twice. Never letting them know of exactly where she was lurking for them.

The first Death Eater she brought down had skewed away from his pack of cloaked jackals, his mask still covering his features, fresh from what Alice guessed was the demise of a muggleblood. Strolling down the path from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, flicking his wand in the air, ruling the world in his own mind. He didn't notice the obsidian plumage and deep, hoarse croak of a raven above him. Didn't heed the omen when it landed behind him.