The Forbidden Forest was still.
Not eerily, not unnaturally—as it had been during the ritual—but with a heaviness that lingered like smoke after a fire. The trees stood watchful, the earth disturbed. Somewhere beneath root and rock, the shattered remnants of the ritual circle cooled in silence, its magic dispersed like ash on the wind.
High above, in the Gryffindor common room, James Potter sat upright in an armchair, unmoving.
He hadn't spoken since returning from the forest.
The others had tried. Remus had placed a hand on his shoulder. Sirius had paced the room twice over, hissing curses under his breath, glaring out of the window as though expecting Snape to reappear in the courtyard.
But James said nothing.
He simply stared at the empty fireplace, his hand pressed absentmindedly over the base of his throat—where a faint, silvery scar pulsed faintly beneath his collar.
It was Lillian who finally broke the silence.
"I felt it too," he said quietly.
Three sets of eyes turned to him.
The fire crackled. A few embers shifted, casting his face in a flickering orange light. His hair was tousled, his school robes creased. But his green eyes were clear. Too clear.
Lillian raised his gaze to James, and said, "You've had it longer than I have, haven't you? That mark."
James flinched. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You do," said Lillian.
There was no accusation in his voice—only certainty. Quiet, steady certainty that felt heavier than any spell.
Sirius stood abruptly. "Oh, for Merlin's sake, will one of you explain what's going on? Snape nearly opened a bloody vein of time or fate or—whatever that was—and now you're both standing around acting like you're in some secret club!"
"Sirius," Remus said warningly.
But James was already rising from his chair, mouth tight, shoulders tense. "Don't start."
"Start what?" Sirius demanded. "Wondering why Snape vanished in a puff of smoke while the rest of us are picking leaves out of our hair and trying not to scream?"
"He didn't vanish," said Lillian, his voice low. "He withdrew."
"What's the difference?" Sirius snapped.
Lillian's eyes glinted. "He wanted us to see."
Elsewhere, in the quietest wing of the castle, beyond a passageway long since removed from maps, a door appeared.
It was plain. Oak. No handle. Just a whisper of a hinge and the faint shimmer of ancient magic.
It opened for him.
Severus stepped through.
The chamber within was circular. Dark. Lit only by runes along the wall, glowing faintly blue. A single chair stood in the centre, facing a wide mirror framed in serpentine metal.
The surface rippled.
And reflected not him—but Lucius Malfoy.
The older boy stood in a lavish room, shadows pooling behind him, a wand in one hand, a cracked ritual stone in the other. Their eyes met—across miles, across magic—and neither spoke.
Then the image dissolved.
Severus sat.
He exhaled.
The mark on his wrist—hidden beneath layers of glamours—throbbed once. A dull echo of something ancient stirring.
He reached into his robes and withdrew a folded letter. It bore no name. Just an inked sigil—a simple, crooked snake.
He did not open it.
He only whispered, "Checkmate."
The next morning, Hogwarts woke to frost.
Thin sheets of it across the windows, the stair rails, even the edge of the Great Hall's silver cutlery. No weather spell had forecast it. No professor could explain it.
No one saw Severus at breakfast.
But one owl swooped low, dropping a bundle of letters at the Gryffindor table—straight into Lillian's lap.
He opened them slowly.
And tucked one into his robes without a word.
Later, when he passed James by the Arithmancy corridor, he paused.
"I think," said Lillian, "we've been looking at this the wrong way."
James frowned. "How do you mean?"
"It wasn't about blood," Lillian said softly.
James stared at him.
And for a moment, something behind Lillian's calm eyes flickered. Not fear. Not anger.
Something deeper.
Regret.
Then he turned and walked on, the torchlight catching in his dark red hair.
In the dungeons, where the air always tasted faintly of iron, the mirror chamber stood quiet once more.
The only sign of life—a whisper, so soft it was barely sound:
"He watched."