Dabbling With The Dark

Chapter 10

"Out again after curfew, Potter?" Snape snorted walking into the library behind him. He looked up at the clock on the wall.

"Didn't even realize it was so late, sir," he replied evenly flipping to the next page in the book on his lap, his feet once again up on the chair next to the one he was sitting in. Snape walked over and looked at the spines on the other four large books on the table.

"Ancestral Abodes, Magical Dwellings Past and Present, Nexus: Places of Power, and United Kingdom Castles?" Snape asked reading the titles. "Is the home you own not grand enough for you, Potter?"

"No, it's a little too snobby for my blood. If nothing in these pans out I thought I'd look at a few other places. I hear there are plenty of houses in the area of Spinner's End," he retorted.

"I would burn every house in the area to the ground first," Snape snorted and he chuckled quietly looking around to make sure no one else was in the library.

"I'm trying to find any place Salazar Slytherin lived or visited," he said.

"Then you have begun hunting for them," Snape said almost in a whisper taking the seat on his other side.

"You already knew I was going to, sir," he replied in the same tone. "Hopefully by the time I take care of the others I'll have figured out how to take care of the last one."

"And your other studies? This is the first time I have caught you here in weeks."

"Just because you haven't caught me in here doesn't mean I haven't been."

"I know you have not, Potter. You have not been in the Restricted Section in nearly three weeks," Snape said firmly.

"How do you know that? Because that," he said pointing his wand at the statue just inside the Restricted Section and casting an advanced revealing charm so that it glowed from the monitoring charm placed on it, "said I haven't been in there?" Snape's jaw clenched in irritation and he chuckled. "I've gotten past that one and the other nine around the castle dozens of times without them recording me doing it, professor. Sometimes I countered the charm and sometimes I didn't just so everyone thought I didn't know about them."

"You think this is a joke, Potter? We are trying to save your miserable life," Snape seethed standing up again.

"How? By making me feel like I'm a criminal in Azkaban? I know why Sirius was so restless because I feel the same way now. Professor Dumbledore keeping Sirius locked up at Grimmauld Place, and you taunting him about it, are part of the reason that he's dead now. You can't expect someone to stay confined in four walls for months on end without them taking the first chance they get to break free whether them being there is for their own good or not," he replied. "You know me, professor, at least in one respect you do," he continued calmly seeing the anger slowly fade from Snape's face. "That bet Professor Dumbledore told me that the Order had going, the one about how long it would be before someone caught me breaking my punishment? How long did you bet? Four, maybe five days? A Week?"

"Three days because you are completely ignorant of the danger you are truly in," Snape snorted sitting down again.

"No, I'm really not," he replied and Snape looked at him raising an eyebrow. "I'm not, professor, I'm just not one to let someone else face a risk for me that I'm not willing to face myself."