“We begin at once,” I snapped, my voice harsher than intended, a pathetic attempt to regain control of the situation and myself. I gestured toward a low stone table that would serve as our brewing station. “The grimoire lists the ingredients. Find them.”

The command broke the spell of my bizarre overreaction. Granger, ever the pragmatist, seemed to dismiss my behavior as a symptom of the confinement. She gave a curt nod and began directing Potter through the alcoves, identifying the required jars of powders and dried herbs. They worked with an efficiency born of years of shared crisis, a silent communication that grated on my nerves.

I took the heaviest mortar and pestle for myself, the solid weight of the stone a small comfort in my hands. The first ingredient was powdered moonstone, which had to be ground to a consistency finer than dust. I set to work, the rhythmic scrape and crunch of the pestle against stone filling the silence. It was mindless, mechanical work, and I let it occupy the forefront of my mind, pushing the memory of her touch, her scent, into a locked corner.

Across the table, Granger was meticulously weighing dried belladonna on a small, tarnished silver scale. Potter was chopping Flobberworm mucus into precise segments. For a few minutes, there was only the sound of our work—my grinding, her soft counting under her breath, the wet slap of Potter’s knife. It was almost peaceful. A fragile, temporary truce forged by necessity.

And then it happened.

It wasn't a loud noise. It was a single, pure note that sliced through the air, high and piercingly clear. It came from the bone-white chimes hanging in one of the alcoves. They hadn't moved. There was no breeze. But they rang out as if struck by an invisible hand.

I froze, the pestle still in my hand. The air grew thick, heavy with a sudden charge. And then the whispers started.

They weren't just in my ears; they were inside my head, a cacophony of my own personal hell. Faint at first, then clearer, overlapping, undeniable.

“Not Harry, please not Harry!” Lily’s scream, thin and terrified, the way it had echoed in my mind for seventeen years.

“You ask too much, Dumbledore.” My own voice, desperate and young.

“For the greater good, Severus. It is the only way.” The Headmaster’s calm, manipulative tone, wrapping my soul in chains of his own design.

“Kill me…”

A shard of ice drove itself through my chest. The pestle fell from my numb fingers, clattering against the stone table with a sharp crack. I couldn't breathe. These were not memories. The artifact was pulling them from me, tearing them from the deepest, most guarded vaults of my mind and spewing them into the air. My Occlumency shields, my life’s work, felt like paper against this invasive, emotional magic. I braced myself, waiting for Potter’s shout of triumph, for Granger’s gasp of horror as my ultimate betrayals were laid bare.

But no accusation came. The whispers were personal, tailored to each of us. I forced my eyes open, my gaze darting across the table. Potter had dropped his knife. He was clutching his head, his knuckles white, his eyes screwed shut in a familiar picture of agony. He flinched, a violent jerk of his entire body, as if recoiling from a physical blow. A ghost of Voldemort’s rage, no doubt. Or perhaps the memory of his parents’ deaths, a horror we now shared.

My eyes found Granger. She stood rigid, her hands flat on the table as if to steady herself. Her face was pale, her expression stricken. Her own whispers were assailing her, a unique torment I couldn’t begin to guess at. Failure? The fear of not being good enough, smart enough? As I watched, a violent tremor ran through her hand. It started in her fingertips and traveled up her arm, a visible manifestation of her terror. She pressed her lips into a thin, white line, fighting it, but she couldn't stop the shaking.

In that moment, the suffocating animosity that defined our existence evaporated. The titles—Professor, Boy-Who-Lived, Insufferable-Know-It-All—were stripped away by the raw, intimate violence of the magic. All that was left was the three of us, exposed and trembling in a prison of our own anxieties. A shared, silent scream that echoed in the stone chamber, binding us together in a way that words never could.

The whispers receded as suddenly as they had begun, leaving a ringing silence in their wake. The air, scrubbed clean of the psychic assault, felt thin and cold. The fragile connection between us shattered, and the familiar walls of animosity slammed back into place.

Potter was the first to recover, his fear transmuting instantly into its baser, more familiar form: rage. He straightened up, shoving his glasses back up his nose, and his green eyes, still wild with remembered terror, fixed on me.

“This is your fault,” he spat, his voice shaking. “Somehow. You’re probably enjoying this, watching us squirm.”

The accusation was so predictable, so utterly Potter, that a sneer formed on my lips without conscious thought. The raw vulnerability of a moment ago was gone, buried under seventeen years of practiced contempt.

“Do not flatter yourself, Potter,” I said, my voice a low, dangerous drawl. “Watching you squirm is a tedious and daily affair. I have no need for magical artifacts to facilitate it. Your own incompetence is far more effective.”

“You bastard,” he breathed, taking a step forward. His hand twitched toward his wand. “You’ve wanted me dead since the day I arrived at Hogwarts. Maybe this is your chance.”

“If I wanted you dead,” I hissed, my own anger rising to meet his, a familiar, almost comforting burn, “you would have been dead a decade ago.”

“Enough!”

The word was a whip crack. It wasn’t shouted, but it cut through our vitriol with the clean precision of a silver knife. We both turned. Granger stood between us, her spine rigid, her face set like stone. The tremor in her hand was gone, replaced by a furious, focused energy. Her gaze was locked on Potter.

“He is right,” she said, her voice devoid of any warmth. “This is a waste of time we do not have. And your accusations are baseless and idiotic.”

Potter stared at her, his mouth falling open. I was equally stunned, my retort dying in my throat.

“Hermione, he’s—”

“He is a Potions Master,” she interrupted, taking a step closer to Potter, forcing him to meet her glare. “He is one of the most accomplished Legilimens in the world and has more knowledge of the Dark Arts than anyone else in this castle. Whether you like him or not is utterly irrelevant. Without his expertise, we will die in this room. Do you understand? Every second you waste on this pointless bickering is a second you are killing us all. So stop it.”

Her logic was brutal, irrefutable. She hadn't defended my character. She had defended my function, my necessity. She had assessed the situation and seen me not as the hated professor, but as the key to their survival. The vindication was a sharp, unexpected pleasure. To be seen, for once, for my skill rather than my perceived sins. By her.

I was still reeling from the shock of it when she reached out and placed her hand on Potter’s forearm. It was a gesture meant to soothe, to ground him. His shoulders lost some of their tension, his gaze dropping from mine to look at her. But my eyes were fixed on her fingers, the pale skin against the dark fabric of his sleeve.

A feeling, sharp and ugly, twisted in my gut. It was a hot, possessive pang that had no right to exist. She was calming him. Her touch, which I had recoiled from, was now being given freely to Potter. The logic of the situation—that she was merely de-escalating her volatile friend—did nothing to quell the irrational spike of jealousy. I stood there, mute and paralyzed, watching her hand on his arm, the silent tableau a more potent torment than any whisper the room could conjure.

Her words hung in the air long after Potter had sullenly retreated to his task, chastened into silence. He worked with a grim set to his jaw, refusing to look at either of us. Granger, having spent her fury, returned to the grimoire, her shoulders still rigid with indignation. The truce held, fragile and sharp-edged.

For hours, the only sounds were the methodical chop of a knife, the soft bubble of the potion, and the rustle of ancient parchment. The first stage of the counter-charm was a delicate, slow process. It required constant attention, a steady hand to stir, a precise eye to monitor the changing colours. The responsibility fell to me, as Granger had decreed. She and Potter prepared the ingredients for the subsequent stages, a mountain of herbs, powders, and viscous liquids that covered the stone table.

The work was draining. The initial adrenaline of our confinement had long since worn off, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion. I saw it in the slump of Potter’s shoulders as he sat on a low stool, methodically crushing dried scarab beetles. I saw it in the way Granger’s movements became less precise, her focus beginning to fray at the edges.

Finally, she straightened up, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “That’s everything for the second phase,” she announced, her voice thick with weariness. “The potion needs to simmer for another hour before we can add them.”

She surveyed the room, her gaze landing on a single, high-backed armchair in a shadowy alcove. It was upholstered in faded, wine-coloured velvet, looking slightly less hostile than the cold stone surrounding it. Without another word, she walked over to it and sank down, pulling her knees up to her chest. She intended only to rest her eyes, I assumed. But the emotional and physical toll of the day was too great. Within minutes, her breathing deepened, her head lolling to the side against the worn velvet.

Potter glanced over, his expression unreadable, before returning his attention to the mortar in his lap. He was pointedly ignoring her, ignoring me. The room fell into a deeper quiet, broken only by the soft, rhythmic burble of the cauldron.

I should have been watching the potion. It was a critical stage; a momentary lapse in temperature could ruin hours of work. But my eyes were not on the shimmering liquid. They were fixed on her.

In sleep, the fierce intelligence and perpetual anxiety were erased from her face. She looked younger, softer. Defenseless. A thick, brown curl had escaped the tight knot of her hair and fallen across her cheek, resting near the corner of her mouth. Her lips were parted slightly, full and dark in the dim light.

My gaze traveled lower, down the long, elegant column of her throat. I could see it, even from across the room. The faint, steady flutter of her pulse just beneath the skin. A rhythmic, living beat that seemed to pull at something deep inside my chest. I imagined pressing my fingers there, feeling the warmth of her blood, the steady thrum of her life against my fingertips. I imagined replacing my fingers with my mouth, tasting the salt of her skin.

The thought was a physical jolt. A completely alien impulse, so powerful it made the air thicken in my lungs. My hand, the one not holding the stirring rod, lifted slightly from my side. I wanted to cross the room. I wanted to kneel before her chair and gently, so gently, brush that stray curl from her face. I wanted to feel the silk of her hair against my rough skin.

My knuckles cracked as I forced my hand into a fist, my nails digging into my palm. The pain was sharp, a welcome anchor in the sudden, violent current of desire. I was a fool. A depraved, old fool, staring at a sleeping girl who was my student. A girl who had just defended my utility, not my person. The disgust that rolled through me was familiar, a bitter companion. But it was no match for the raw, undeniable wanting that had taken root in the ruins of this forgotten chamber. I turned back to the cauldron, my jaw clenched so tight it ached, the potion’s heat a pale imitation of the fire she had ignited in my blood.