Chapter 30

[September 4, 1976 Saturday. 6 a.m.]

In a dimly lit room, a young man was lying on a bed, his gaze fixed on the small window beyond which dawn was beginning, while his hand was stroking the top of a greenish-brown snake. He made no further movements, as if waiting for something. And now, after a few minutes, his eyes lit up, because he finally heard what he had been waiting for a long time:

"Sir, the Headmaster has left the castle…"

But Snape didn't immediately leave the room, instead, to be on the safe side, he decided to wait another hour. 

Therefore, rising from the bed, he summoned a small purse to him, and a second later a pair of high boots, tight dark trousers, a sweater of the same color, a cloak with a hood and a sword appeared on the floor. 

"Nagina, well, will you come with me?" he looked at the snake with a smile, putting on his pants.

"Isn't there a better time to ask?"  Squinting, she crawled up to him and began to poke him in the side with her tail.

"Why ask such a stupid question? You are the only person in my long life who accepted me for who I am, cared for me and endured all my whims, the only one who sees in me not a monster, but a person and you are the second ... no, the first person that I can consider a real friend, even though we have only known each other for three months. And even the fact that you picked me up only because of boredom already means a lot to me ... you even want to help me become a human again, and if I don't go with you now, I'll stop respecting myself."

"Mm, good."

"Hey! Don't act like that."

"Okay, okay, I'm joking, let's keep going," Severus nodded with a smile as he put on a sweater.

"You knocked me out of my mind! Well, anyway, I'm coming with you, you need someone to save your ass, in case the plan goes awry!"

"Don't jinx it, but it was still nice to hear." Finally, throwing on his cloak, he held out his hand to her, and Nagaina rather quickly climbed into her sleeve, and then, wrapping herself around his waist, stuck her head out at the Archmage's neck.

"Let's go?"

"In an hour, and now I have to finish something," he sat on the bed and put the sword on his knees, and a flame lit up on his index finger.

"You're still strange, what was the point of getting up and getting dressed then? I could have rested down on the bed a little more…" Nagini complained.

"Preparing the body and spirit for the upcoming battle, as well as checking equipment."

"You checked it five times already…" but, seeing the concentrated face of the Archmage, who had already completely surrendered to the work, she only sighed wearily and laid her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes. "He's still too weird..."

---

For the next hour, all Severus did was keep drawing runes on the sword until, in an instant, they flared up and the color of the sword changed from silver to black. "Wake up, let's go."

"I didn't even sleep." Nagini replied

Putting on the hood, and then throwing on the spell of averting the eyes and using the de-illumination spell, the wizard seemed to merge with the environment and then left the room.

Through the corridors of the castle, Severus moved quietly without making a sound at all, and thanks to the Marauder's Map, he avoided both Filch with the cat and other teachers. And in a couple of minutes the young man got to the toilet.

Finally, once inside, the Archmage removed all the spells and, pointing his palm up, snapped his fingers, and at the same moment a radiant barrier covered the room.

"Who is there?!"

 "Calm down, it's me," Severus glanced toward Myrtle, who was peeking out from behind the wall of the booth, and took off his hood. 

"Severus, why did you come here, and that too in such clothes…?" Finally calming down a little, she flew up to him. 

"Treasure hunt."

"Treasures...?"

 "Indeed"

"Open up!" Nagini hissed, and then, under the shocked look of the girl, the room trembled, and as soon as the huge slab rose up and the shells moved to the sides, a vertical passage opened, the depth of which could not be seen.

"I hope you're not going to jump in there!?" the ghost said worriedly, quickly standing in front of him.

"That's what I'm going to do."

"Are you crazy?! It's very deep in there - you'll crash! And even if you can go down, it is not known what is hiding there! You should tell the teachers about this!" Myrtle tried convincing him.

"Calm down, I'll be back in two hours," the Archmage's body was picked up by a gust of wind, and he jumped into the hole. "And if you tell anyone about this place and the fact that I came here, then I will stop being friends with you…" his voice became quieter and quieter with every second…

"SEVERUS!" the ghost girl screamed with horror on her face, darting towards the aisle to see Severus's grinning face staring straight at her. "Well, tell no one about it and I'll be back in two hours," and he continued his descent.

"You… you… you… IDIOT! And I'm worried about you! I won't be friends with you anymore! So that you are there ... there ... there ... to hell with you!" if she could touch physical objects, she would definitely stomp a few times and just run away. 

"If you don't come back in two hours, I will call the teachers here immediately!"

"Of course…" Severus replied.

—--------------------

The descent itself turned out to be not just a pit, but a real slide covered with an unpleasantly smelling mucus, which the archmage did not dare to touch, but simply slipped on it, and after a few tens of seconds he finally escaped from the wide pipes into a pit filled with the same mucus, at the same time, he was surrounded by pitch darkness, but this did not last long, because after a few seconds a bright light appeared next to the wizard, illuminating a small room, and finally he was able to see what was crunching under his feet: these were the bones of various small living creatures.

"It's simply impossible to relax here…" looking up, he thoughtfully began to inspect the many tunnels leading in completely different directions, but still one managed to attract his attention due to unnaturally smooth chips, as well as a pair of bones leading in his direction. 

Dampness and pitch darkness, although they were loved by snakes, but for the reason that Nagini was once a human, she experienced a completely opposite feeling. 

"Already scared?" the Archmage asked with a smile, noticing how she disappeared under his sweater.

"I'm not afraid ... just …"

"It's okay, just stay inside."

"I…why aren't you afraid?"she asked, sticking her head out, looking into his eyes.

"Hmm… Well, I got used to it, I guess. I've seen scarier monsters, and what's to be afraid of, if I just wanted to kill him, then I wouldn't have to spend even a minute on it, I can't damage his organs, because they are very important for two potions …" putting on a pair of black gloves, Severus put his palm on the hilt of the sword and headed towards that same tunnel.

Gradually, moving along the remnants of bones and traces on the stone walls, with each new turn, Nagini's anxiety only intensified, she felt something terrible ahead, pressing on her. 

It was a fear of a creature an order of magnitude higher. After all, the Basilisk was not a simple snake – this is the real King of Snakes, and fear of him is a natural reaction of any snake, and the fact that she did not run away, flashing her tail, already aroused Severus's respect.

And finally, passing another turn, in the distance he saw a smooth wall, from which protruded a huge rounded steel door, the hinges of which replaced the intertwined tails of seven snakes of the same material, welded to it.

The snakes themselves were not a simple decoration, but replaced the latch with their fangs, they were located at an equal distance from each other, forming a circle.

Approaching the thick door, he thoughtfully looked at the wall on the right, and then, sighing sadly, shook his head. "I never understood such people, to hang so many charms on the door, and leave the walls empty ... apparently, in vain I praised the descendant of Salazar: he, like his ancestor, is still an idiot. Nagini, try to open it using the same method." he touched the place where the snake was, and after a few seconds, a head popped out from under the clothes, perplexedly examining its surroundings,

"All this… could you block that terrible aura!?" she hissed, squinting menacingly, to which the wizard, smiling calmly, nodded, and after that he felt a rather pleasant tingling in the area of ​the belt.

"You fucking sadist! Do you have any idea what I've been through all this time?! I almost lost my mind! It was… it was… ~sobbing! b-was… ~sob! terrible!"

"You yourself wanted to go with me, and if I had maintained this barrier from the very beginning, then at the moment of the battle, if you had lost concentration, then you would have lost consciousness at that very moment, or even worse, you could have gone crazy, so calm down…" he stretched out his hand and began to stroke her head, although she tried to dodge.

" Couldn't you have given me a warning at least? ~sniff!"

'I forgot" and the pleasant tingling in the area of ​​​​the belt only intensified. "So open up. The sooner we're done here, the sooner we're out of here. Don't you want to be on the surface again, in a warm bed, on a soft pillow...?"

"Serpent Tempter." She scowled at him.

"Hmmph!" Turning away from him, she looked at the door and hissed. "Open up!"

Another snake crawled out of the loop along the edge of the frame and slowly crawled around the door, removing the "latches" until it made a full turn and returned back to the loop, and at the same moment the door slowly began to open ...