"Hagrid, the unicorn's body must not be given to Snape," Harry insisted, his voice tight with panic. "He's Voldemort's accomplice."
"Harry, Professor Snape can be trusted," Hagrid said, though even he sounded as if he was repeating the words more for comfort than persuasion. "He is definitely not You-Know-Who's accomplice."
Harry stared at him, stubborn and pale. Hagrid could only deny it again and again, because no matter how fiercely Harry questioned him, he had no proof to offer and no explanation Harry was willing to accept.
Hermione stood beside them, hesitant and troubled. She wanted to speak, but when she saw the fierce certainty in Harry's eyes, she pressed her lips together and stayed silent.
.....
"Roger, are we really going to hand the unicorn over to the Head of House?" Draco Malfoy followed close behind Roger Williams, chattering nonstop as they made their way back toward the castle. His eyes kept darting toward Roger's enchanted pouch as if he could already see Galleons spilling out of it.
"What are you trying to say?" Roger glanced at the rising sun, then looked back at Draco with suspicion. Nothing good ever came from Draco using that tone.
"We should sell the body," Draco whispered excitedly. "My family has connections, and unicorns are worth—"
"Stop." Roger cut him off at once, staring at him as if he were worried for Lucius Malfoy's future bloodline. "Draco, if you want to die, do it alone. Don't drag me down with you."
Draco blinked, clearly failing to understand the problem. In his world, rare magical materials meant opportunity, and opportunity meant money.
"Can you not say things like that out loud?" Roger asked, lowering his voice. "If I let you keep talking, you'll start reciting smuggling routes next."
He would swear on Draco's head that Dumbledore was watching them right now. The old Headmaster would certainly keep watching until the unicorn's body was safely handed over to Snape.
As for why Roger was swearing on Draco's head, that was simple. He felt it showed the utmost sincerity.
"Roger, believe me, unicorns are incredibly valuable," Draco said, unwilling to give up. "Plenty of old families collect rare creatures, and even if we only dismantled it for materials—"
"Langlock," Roger said, flicking his wand without mercy.
Draco's tongue glued itself to the roof of his mouth. His eyes widened in betrayal, and though he tried to speak, all that came out was a muffled, furious noise.
Roger strode toward the castle without slowing down. Draco followed behind him with a resentful expression, glaring at the back of Roger's head the entire way.
"Professor Snape's spell really is effective," Roger said with a faint smile. The Half-Blood Prince's little inventions were always practical, especially when dealing with people who did not know when to shut up.
They passed the Great Hall and descended toward the dungeons. When they reached Snape's office, Roger pushed the door open out of habit and greeted him as though nothing unusual had happened.
"Good morning, Professor," Roger said.
Snape paused over his desk, then slowly stood and looked toward the corridor outside. "Is detention over?"
Draco opened his mouth wide and made a hoarse, desperate sound. He stared at Snape with such expectation that even a stranger could have guessed he was begging for rescue.
Snape's gaze slid to Roger. There was no need to ask who had cast it.
"His tongue remains as sharp as ever," Snape said coldly.
He did not even bother drawing his wand. With a lazy motion of his fingers, he lifted the spell on Draco.
Draco swallowed hard, finally free, and immediately took a breath to complain. Snape's eyes cut toward him before he could start.
"Where is the Herbology text?" Snape asked Roger.
"Oh, I'll return it next time," Roger said quickly, deciding that "next time" was a perfectly acceptable deadline. Before Snape could pursue the matter, he opened his pouch and took out the unicorn preserved beneath a layer of white frost.
The creature lay across the floor in silence, embodying both death and purity. Even frozen and still, it possessed a strange, heartbreaking beauty.
"Wow," Draco breathed despite himself. "That's a unicorn. It's beautiful."
He reached out, unable to resist touching it. Roger let him have exactly one second of awe before speaking.
"If we had arrived any later, Voldemort would have finished with it," Roger said. "According to Hagrid, this was already the second unicorn to die."
Draco trembled every time he heard that name. "Vol—Roger, you said the Dark Lord's name again."
"Malfoy," Snape said, his voice dropping into something dark and bottomless. "You have class."
Draco froze. Faced with that abyss-like stare, he decided that escape was the wisest course of action and fled the dungeon almost immediately.
Halfway up the corridor, he suddenly remembered that he had Potions that morning. By then, it was far too late to go back.
"You saw the Dark Lord?" Snape closed the office door behind Draco. His eyes flicked briefly over the unicorn, and a faint trace of appreciation passed through them when he saw Roger's self-developed frost preservation charm.
Maintaining the freshness of active magical materials was not a simple skill. One had to preserve the material's vitality while preventing low temperature from damaging its properties, and Roger's spell had clearly been handled with care.
"I don't know whether it was him," Roger said. "I only smelled strong garlic under the black robes. It was familiar."
Snape's expression did not change, but his eyes grew colder. Roger casually picked up his cup and took a sip before adding his evaluation.
"His skills are terrible."
"Terrible?" Snape paused.
Quirrell was useless by Snape's standards, certainly, but he was still an adult wizard. He should have been more than capable of dealing with first-year students.
"Yes," Roger said. "I didn't even take out my wand, and he was already terrified."
Snape inhaled sharply, then froze. His nose twitched once, and he stared at Roger with a look of growing horror.
"That smell," Snape said. "Gunpowder?"
Roger's hand tightened around the cup. Wizards using Muggle weapons in a duel would be considered a disgrace, and unfortunately, Snape's nose seemed more sensitive than a bloodhound's.
"Hand it over," Snape said.
"Professor, you're mistaken," Roger replied with impressive calm.
"Oh?" Snape's voice became dangerously soft. "You are questioning me?"
Roger sighed inwardly. He really should have showered first.
Faced with Snape's disappointed stare, he had no choice but to hand over the bag enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm. Snape opened it, removed the pistol, and slammed it onto the table.
"You are a wizard, Roger!" Snape snapped.
His voice cracked through the office like a whip. He glared at the pistol as though it had personally insulted every duelling tradition in wizarding history.
"It worked very well," Roger muttered.
"It worked?" Snape shot to his feet so fast his chair scraped violently against the floor. His black hair seemed to bristle with fury, giving Roger a vivid demonstration of what true rage looked like.
"Roger Williams, I believe you have been corrupted by those idiotic Muggles," Snape sneered. "After receiving a magical education at Hogwarts, you actually believe you still need to rely on crude weapons made by Muggle hands."
Roger shrank back slightly. He wanted to argue that the weapon was not crude at all, but one look at Snape's murderous glare convinced him to follow his survival instincts.
"Does that pathetic little brain of yours contain no concept of wizarding honor beyond winning as easily as possible?" Snape demanded. "If our traditions can be trampled and defiled whenever it is convenient, then what is the point of all this tedious magical training?"
.....
That morning's Potions class was effectively canceled. The Slytherins and Gryffindors sat in the classroom with their textbooks open, listening to Snape's furious voice thunder through the office wall.
The students who disliked Roger wore delighted expressions. Ron Weasley, in particular, looked as if Christmas had arrived early.
Harry, however, looked worried. More than once, he glanced toward the door as if considering whether he should leave the classroom and find Dumbledore.
"Ah, I forgot," Snape's voice hissed from the office. "Slytherins are always eager to take shortcuts, never troubling themselves with means or morality. But I foolishly believed you had at least retained a shred of cunning and wisdom."
Roger stood in front of the desk, enduring the storm with rare silence. Snape's fury had long since gone beyond ordinary scolding, and arguing now would only extend the execution.
"Now it seems our Shadow Prefect, Mr. Roger Williams, is even more suited to the Slytherin style than I imagined," Snape continued, every word soaked in contempt. "Utterly devoid of wizarding honor, and apparently willing to abandon even the most basic principles."
The Slytherins in the classroom exchanged uneasy looks. They had never heard Snape attack one of their own like this, much less Roger.
"Or perhaps," Snape said icily, "you are not worthy of entering our esteemed house at all. Perhaps you belong with those good-for-nothing Gryffindors."
The Gryffindors' expressions changed at once. Why were they being scolded too?
They had done nothing to Snape. They had certainly not led his Shadow Prefect astray, and not even Fred and George would have thought to duel with Muggle weapons in the Forbidden Forest.
Listen to that, their faces seemed to say. Duelling with a pistol? A disgrace to wizards.
Even Gryffindor, reckless as it was, would never produce that sort of disgraceful fellow. At least, that was what they preferred to believe.
"Listen carefully," Snape barked. "If you dare tarnish Slytherin's honor again, I will personally carry out your magical punishment, and I will show no mercy."
Roger lowered his eyes. Across the desk, the pistol lay like incriminating evidence, and Snape looked as though he wanted to melt it into slag.
"You will regret using inferior Muggle methods without permission," Snape said. "And you will pay the price for your stupidity."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping into a vicious hiss. "Do not be so reluctant to part with that pitiful amount of magical knowledge trapped inside your foolish head."
The office fell into a brief and terrible silence. Then Snape spoke again, colder than before.
"I am giving you one last chance to reflect on your actions," he said. "You may get out of my sight, or you may get out of Slytherin."
Snape roared for the entire morning before finally throwing Roger out. Even then, he showed no mercy.
"And five points from Slytherin," Snape snapped. "Consider it part of the lesson."
For Roger to make Snape deduct points from his own house was undoubtedly a remarkable feat. If his life came with an achievement panel, that one would have shone like a dazzling mythical reward.
Everyone could tell Snape was furious. For the rest of term, no one dared provoke him, and some students would rather take a longer route than share the same staircase with him.
In the Potions classes that followed, every young wizard behaved as meekly as a quail. That, at least, pleased Snape.
"Severus, you truly did not need to be so harsh," Dumbledore said, revealing himself from where he had been quietly hidden off to the side. He let out a long sigh of relief, realizing that if Snape had continued scolding much longer, even an old man like him might not have survived it.
.....
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