Another World

“What’s the matter?” asked Remus, the light of a pale torch falling upon his face as he smiled at the two of them. “I heard footsteps and ... my word, but the two of you look scared! Is anything wrong?”

“Professor ...” sniffled Ginny.

“Go on,” he said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You can tell me anything,” he assured her, looking at Hermione as well.

“The tower is empty. Even Professor McGonagall is gone. Where is everyone, professor?” asked Ginny.

Remus, who had walked straight to his office from where he had parted ways with the girls earlier, had only just begun to realize that something was amiss, though he had yet to put a name to it. All of his books had been missing from his shelves, for instance. This he had attributed to some sort of elaborate prank as the books had been replaced by antiquated volumes on various topics.

“I will contact the headmaster. Don’t worry, girls. We’ll soon have this mystery solved,” he said with an encouraging smile, ushering them into his rooms.

He gestured for them to have a seat on the couch as he stepped up to the hearth. Remus took a small pot from the mantel, handling it gingerly as he did not recognize the item as being his container.

Tossing some powder into the fire, he said, “Albus Dumbledore.”

Then he waited for the headmaster to appear. Hermione and Ginny watched with great interest. Nothing happened. No head appeared in the flames. Remus scratched his head and tossed another handful of powder into the flames.

“Rubeus Hagrid,” he said.

Again, nothing. Remus glanced nervously at the girls on the couch and hoped silently and fervently that the powder was defective somehow.

“I hate to say this, but I think we should find our way down to the dungeons and see if Severus is still down there,” he told them.

The sound of someone pounding on the door to his rooms awakened Severus from sleep. He had just barely dozed off after tossing fitfully on a mattress that didn’t feel like his own. House elves! Storming from his bedroom and through his little parlor where the fire was beginning to burn lower than normal, obviously due to the inattention of the cleaning-happy elves, he growled in frustration. It had been too good to be true. He couldn’t have one night of peace. It would never happen. He could tell by the knock that it was a staff member. His money was on either Professor McGonagall or possibly Mister Filch. No one else would knock so insistently after hours.

“Yes?” he questioned, opening the door.

He had never even considered the possibility of Lupin, Granger, and Weasley standing outside the door to his chambers. Severus glanced down at his attire, shiny silver pajamas that were definitely not his, the night shirt of which was hanging open to reveal his rather trim figure. He wrestled awkwardly with the shirt for an instant. A pale blush touched his features as he buttoned the garment and tried to sneer and failed to manage the feat.

Hermione hid a grin and a bit of a blush behind her hand as she watched the potions’ master in a state of disarray. Then she squinted as she noticed his hair wasn’t greasy, which was almost as peculiar as the empty dormitory above them. All cleaned up and dressed in something other than his copious, billowing black robes, he was rather fetching, especially when he blushed just a little bit. Rather fetching indeed.

Even Remus, whose sense of smell was particularly keen so close to the full moon, sniffed appreciatively.

“Sorry to wake you, Severus, but we have a problem,” Remus informed him, shouldering his way into the room and beckoning Hermione, who was somewhat distracted, and pale Ginny to follow.

“The potion can’t possibly have hurt them, though I expected them to get washed up at least before they troubled me again,” said Severus.

“It isn’t that. I know this will sound mad, but the castle seems to be empty except for the four of us,” Remus told him.

“You are mad! I have a dormitory full of students just a few doors down the hall,” said Snape, drawing himself up to his full height, fully expecting this to be part of some incredibly elaborate trick involving the house elves, his belongings, and possibly even the earlier explosion.

“Oh, I don’t know about that. You may want to check,” said Remus.

“I think I will, and if I find nothing amiss, Lupin, you can expect that I will tell the headmaster all about this. He won’t be pleased,” said Snape, striding out the door and into the hall. The state of his clothes no longer mattered. There was a shadow of a doubt in his mind and a quiet, worried voice that said, “Check on your children.”

Severus Snape glided through the dungeon corridors with quick, but measured paced until he reached the entry to the Slytherin common room. A shiver ran up his spine when he saw the open entrance and empty portrait. The den of his precious snakes was unguarded, unprotected. There was a coldness in the very pit of his stomach as he strode into the common room and turned this way and that, trying to locate just one of his young charges. The room was empty and silent as a tomb.

“Malfoy!” he bellowed. “Parkinson!” Severus called for his deputies, for the prefects of his house, but received no answer to his loud summons.

He raced to the stairs leading downward into the sleeping chambers of his first year students and burst through the door. The room was silent and dusty. Everything was not as it should have been. It was all wrong. The curtains of the beds were all drawn. He dashed from one bed to another throwing back the thick drapes, perspiration running down his brow and into his eyes as he found the beds empty. His heart was beating madly in his chest. Where were his Slytherins? Had someone taken them?

He strode purposefully from the dormitory. There was no need to check the other rooms. If the first years were gone, then the rest would be too. There was solidarity in that house, though it was oneness without trust or what most would consider loyalty. No, only Lupin could tell him what was going on. And if the werewolf would not, then the headmaster ... unless he too was gone. Snape’s throat went dry. What manner of hell was this?

Remus had suggested that Hermione and Ginny go wash up a bit while they waited for Snape to return. A little cool water on their faces would do them a world of good. It would also occupy their minds and give him time to think, to work out what had happened to everyone. He had no serious ideas, no working hypothesis, but he knew that the situation was very grave and would require all of them working together to set right. His instincts told him that much. Three Gryffindors and one Slytherin set against an enigma.

“What ... has happened ..., Lupin? Where are they?” asked Severus breathlessly as he stepped back into the room.

“I don’t know, Severus, but we will need to put our heads together,” said Remus, rising from his seat on the couch to face Snape, whose eyes were as wild as he had ever seen them.

“I demand that you tell me everything you know!”

“I only know that Hogwarts is deserted. The only exceptions are you, me, and the two girls you had for detention tonight. We appear to be all that’s left of the entire faculty and student body. I haven’t even seen Filch’s cat since the accident,” said Remus. Realization flickered through his eyes.

“Lupin?”

“Could the accident have ... done something either to us or everyone else?” Remus questioned.

“Don’t be stupid, Lupin. An accident like that couldn’t have affected the entire school! If everyone had turned invisible or something, we would have bumped into one of them or something by now.”

“But what about us? What if we’re the ones who have been changed somehow?” questioned Remus.

“Mixtures like that produced in the lab this evening are unstable, unpredictable things, but ... I don’t see how ...” said Snape. Making an unpleasant face, he continued, “I don’t see what has been done to us. My expertise in potion making is substantial, but still I must confess that this situation seems to be beyond me. If that potion did indeed do something to the four of us to separate us from the other inhabitants of this castle, I would have no idea as to how to reverse it. It would require very old magic ...”

“Professor, does that mean that we will never see our friends again?” asked Ginny from the door to the bath. Her robes had been magically cleaned and her face was freshly scrubbed, but she was pale nonetheless.

“Of course not, Ginny. We just need to make further study of the situation,” said Remus before Snape could answer.

“The library then,” said Hermione, who was standing behind Ginny, crossing her arms and trying to look calm and collected. She was managing it quite well.

“Sensible,” grunted Snape, who was still too shaken by the empty Slytherin dormitory to glare at her properly.



Snape and Lupin led the way as they marched from the dungeons to the library. The halls were eerily quiet and darker than usual. Hermione glanced out a window and could see only inky blackness, no moon nor stars to light the night. She shivered and hoped that it was merely the black reflection of the interior wall upon the glass that made it seem so unnaturally dark outside.

The expressions on the faces of their professors were inscrutable. Snape’s eyes looked more haunted than they had appeared in nearly a year, since the first battle with Voldemort, since the rumors that many of his students had taken the Mark and were only biding their time before the true battle between good and evil, where they would side with the latter. To Hermione he gave the appearance of being heavily burdened, under intense strain, the source of which came from within and without, but centered around his overwhelming concern for his students, and now that concern also had to extend beyond house boundaries.

Remus looked troubled, but was struggling to retain the appearance of confidence and calm. His smile seemed more than a bit forced to Hermione, but Ginny drew strength from the fact that he could still smile in so bizarre and desperate of a situation. They were not lost in some terrible nightmare so long as they had Remus Lupin to guide and protect them. Ginny had every confidence that he knew just what to do, even if Snape looked as though he might lose it at any minute.

They had to light candles to see by in the dark and cavernous library. Snape immediately began pulling potions’ books from the shelves one volume after another while Lupin wandered from shelf to shelf with a curious expression on his face. Ginny tried to stay near the candles and safety of the light, but Hermione walked into the stacks with her wand emitting a gentle light to guide her way. She was the first one who realized that something was wrong.

“These books ... even the newest ones are from fifty years ago!” Hermione murmured, shaking her head. She found a copy of Hogwarts: A History and found that it had been published in 1943. “Professor Lupin, have you seen any new books?” she called through the shelves.

“No,” he replied in a worried tone.

“We don’t need new books, Miss Granger. The solution to this problem won’t be outlined in the November issue of Potions Monthly,” snapped Snape from a few aisles away.

“I just thought it was odd,” Hermione mumbled, gritting her teeth and pocketing the history. There was no librarian at the desk, after all, and she fully intended to return it after the crisis was over.

After about an hour of gathering books into a large pile on one of the central desks in the library, Professor Snape, who was heading the research expedition, selected about fifteen sizable tomes to take back to his rooms, insisting that it would be easier to research there in the presence of his own collection of books and his laboratory. The leading hypothesis was that the potion accident had indeed done something to all of them, though they were all noticing more and more subtle alterations in the castle around them. They each gathered an armload of books and prepared to leave the library.

But suddenly Ginny paused, feeling an abrupt and inexplicable sense of dread and horror, and turned. Her eyes drifted toward the shrouded ceiling of the library high above them. There was something up there in the far corner. She could see bat-like wings protruding from the shadows. And long legs tucked beneath them. It moved, rattling its wings slightly.

“Professor,” she whispered, shifting the books in her arms and tugging at Remus’s robes. Her throat was dry with fear as she watched the creature stretch its sinewy legs.

“Yes, Ginny?” he questioned, looking over his shoulder at her.

“Up there,” she said, pointing with a trembling hand.

His eyes drifted up to the darkened corner. His eyes widened involuntarily. The thing shifted slightly, revealing two brightly shining yellow eyes, the eyes of a hunter. Black wings, blood red skin, and yellow eyes.

Severus and Hermione, arms full of books as well, looked to see what Ginny and Remus were staring at with such intense and fearful expressions. Severus bit back a gasp and began pulling Hermione toward the door.

“We must run!” he hissed.

The thing on the ceiling twitched in response to his voice, or rather to the desperation in it. Lupin nodded and began ushering Ginny toward the exit too.

The creature gave a high, keening cry and flapped its wings once before taking to the air in a smooth glide. That sound chilled their very blood as they dashed through the library doors and out into the corridors. Severus and Remus were very pale as they closed the doors to block the creature’s path. Severus sealed it hastily.

“Run! Now!” he yelled at the two girls.

The four of them set off down the hall with Severus and Remus, wands drawn and books forgotten by the doors, bringing up the rear. They could hear the preternatural scream of the creature behind them. The sound of the library doors shattering, splintering into thousands of pieces followed too. Books slipped from Ginny’s grasp as they ran, but Hermione clutched hers for dear life as they raced through the corridors and into the dungeon, half expecting to be overtaken by the bat creature at any time.

When they reached Snape’s rooms again, the two professors shoved Ginny and Hermione into the parlor and away from the door, which Snape slammed and bolted. Then at once, as though with a single mind, they began chanting incantations at the door and walls. Hermione placed her books near the couch and watched them with great interest.

“What are they doing?” asked Ginny in a whisper.

“They’re putting up wards,” she answered.

The screeching of the bat-like thing grew closer and closer. Hermione put an arm around Ginny and drew her wand, fearing that the wards would not be in place in time or would not hold. Then the cries ended. Hermione could see the strain on Severus and Remus’s faces as their wards were tested.

“It’s retreating,” grunted Snape, slipping to one knee.

“For now,” agreed Remus.

He grasped Severus under the shoulder and pulled him to his feet. The potions’ master had neither the strength nor the desire to refuse the assistance nor sneer at the other professor. The wards he had put in place were extremely strong. Remus helped him to the couch where he sat down and put two trembling hands over his face.

“What was that thing?” asked Ginny as Remus ushered them away from Snape. He could recuperate just as well without their worried, frightened stares.

“A demon,” said Lupin.

“Wait a minute, professor,” said Hermione skeptically, “those aren’t real magical creatures! Demons and devils are just muggle inventions used to frighten children into obedience.”

“Are they now?” asked Remus.

“They aren’t in any of our books. I’ve checked,” said Hermione.

“Be that as it may, I have heard Albus Dumbledore mention the creatures on more than one occasion, and that’s good enough for me. That thing fits his description of them perfectly,” said Remus.

Hermione faltered and said, “Well, if the headmaster says they exist ...”

“Anyhow, the wards should hold it off. We can concentrate on finding a solution to our problem, unless of course that thing is part of the problem ...” said Remus. “I need time to think all of this through,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

Hermione glanced over at Snape and suggested, “Perhaps I could try to find some tea things.”

“Yes, wonderful idea,” said Remus absently. “Ginny, help me with the books we managed to escape with,” he said, grabbing two volumes from the floor where Hermione had hastily deposited them.

Things with which to prepare tea could not be found immediately on hand. There was not so much as a tea cup or a kettle in Snape’s apartment, though she suspected that it wasn’t his fault, but rather part of the subtle alteration of the castle. She could not account for this phenomenon yet. She had earlier considered time travel, but the books and things were not only from fifty years earlier, but also they were fifty years old. Time had passed, but nothing had changed. Try accounting for that!

She had managed to locate a bottle of spirits stashed away in a cabinet. Watching Ginny and Remus as they flipped through the research materials together, she knew that they didn’t need the stuff yet, but Snape, who was still sitting on the couch trying to recoup his strength and collect himself, seemed in need of a little something. He had thrown everything he had into the wards around the apartment and was paying for it. She poured him a small glass and joined him on the couch.

“Professor Snape?” she questioned quietly.

“What could you possibly want?” he asked, not opening his eyes.

Behind the irritation she could hear the exhaustion and diminishing fear in his voice. Otherwise she might have simply set the drink on the nearest end table and joined Ginny and Remus.

“I thought you could use this,” she said, forcing the glass into one of his hands.

He opened his eyes and blinked rather stupidly at the glass. He sniffed the contents and took a sip of it.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

“You are quite welcome.”

“Placing wards is a dangerous business. Tiring too,” he commented, nursing the drink.

“I know.”

“I have no doubt that you do,” he said a bit sourly.

“I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I only meant ...”

“I know, I know,” sighed Snape, pressing the cool glass to his forehead. “You don’t mean to sound like a know-it-all. It just comes out that way. I’ve had seven years to come to that realization.”

“Thank you, professor.”

“Severus. You may as well call me that. We’re all in this together, for what it’s worth,” he said.

“I think this might be going to your head,” Hermione laughed nervously, taking the empty glass from his hand.

“Very amusing, I’m sure,” he said.

The sudden sound of animalistic screeching in the hall startled them both, not to mention Remus, who leapt up from the writing desk where he was reading, and Ginny, who turned pale again almost instantly. It seemed close. Then they heard an even more fear-inspiring sound: an answering cry from the halls above them. And then another. And another. And another ...



Hermione shuddered involuntarily as the demonic cries subsided. It was almost painfully quiet in their wake. She looked over at Remus and Ginny. Remus had his wand drawn, almost as though expecting an attack, and a protective arm around Ginny, who was shaking hard. Snape on the other hand was sitting passively on the couch next to her, resting his chin in his hands. He could almost certainly feel anything that was testing his wards. Judging by the sounds, Hermione estimated that there were at least a dozen, probably more, of those things outside their sanctuary. She wondered how long it would take them to get in. In any event they were neatly trapped inside.

“Where have they all come from?” asked Remus aloud.

“I heard a legend once from Lucius Malfoy’s father,” said Severus.

Hermione and Ginny looked at him a bit strangely.

“What? The Malfoy family has longed communed with dark and dangerous creatures,” he shrugged. “Does that surprise you?”

“Not at all. Quite to the contrary. Go on, Severus,” said Remus, pocketing his wand and giving Ginny’s shoulder a squeeze.

“He said that a host of demons had been imprisoned somehow by the Founders on Hogwarts’ grounds during a great war. The four of them had sealed the demons into a separate sort of mirror realm. I was young when Mister Malfoy told the story. I don’t know where or how they did it exactly,” said Snape.

Remus pondered those words and asked, “Could they have been released somehow?”

“I have no other explanation,” said Severus.

“But what happened to the castle then?” asked Hermione.

“The answer to that is not going to be easy to find,” said Remus, taking a deep breath. “It is getting late. I recommend that you two girls try to get some sleep while we continue reading and debating in a scholarly fashion.”

“But we should help you!” protested Hermione.

“You will be helping us. You will be keeping up your strength and keeping your wits sharp,” said Remus.

Some blankets were found and the couch was made up for the two girls to sleep upon while Remus and Severus retreated to the potion's classroom, which was well within the wards, thanks to the quick thinking of Snape. The potions’ professor was pleased to find that the classroom was exactly how he remembered it, except for the dried gray slime that coated much of the room. Even the bottles of Wolfsbane potion were intact and where he had left them. Both Severus and the werewolf were relieved to see them.

“At least we won’t have to worry about being eaten tomorrow night should we still be in this predicament,” Severus commented as Remus cleared a spot on a table for the books.

“You couldn’t handle one werewolf? Whatever are you going to do about those demons then?” asked Remus.

“Oh, they are most certainly your department. I do believe that demons fall under your purview as Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. And I could handle a werewolf. I just don’t believe you would be pleased by my methods,” said Snape, flashing an unpleasant sort of smile. There was a spark of humor in his eyes however.

“Touché, Severus.” chuckled Remus.

“Now, down to business, Lupin,” he said, taking a seat near the stack of books.

In the other room Ginny had managed to fall asleep curled up at one end of the soft, overstuffed green couch, but Hermione still felt restless. And something kept poking her in the side. She couldn’t seem to find a comfortable position on her end of the couch. Would it have really killed Snape or upset the precarious balance of teacher-student relationships for all time if he had let them sleep in his room? She didn’t think so.

It was sometime before Hermione realized what she had in her pocket. It was the old copy of Hogwarts: A History that she had borrowed from the library. Hermione smiled. The current version of the book had always made wonderful bedtime reading. It was better than warm milk.

Hermione started looking through the table of contents in the front of the book. The subjects covered in the book had not changed very much over the course of fifty years. Then she stopped as a chapter title caught her eye: The Demon Realm of Hogwarts. She quickly turned to the page where that chapter began and started reading with extraordinary interest. The edition to which she was accustomed contained nothing like this.

During the early days of the school when the Founders, including Salazar Slytherin, were taking in their first pupils, the school came under attack by a vicious host of demonic creatures intent upon stopping the completion of Hogwarts and destroying what the Founders were attempting to create. Trained wizards were formidable foes while untrained ones were easy prey.

The Founders with great unity of purpose fought the hoard, aided by their young students, and sealed the creatures in a mirror realm, another dimension where the demons could not escape or harm anyone in the outside world. The mirror realm was said to resemble the school in perfect detail, which assisted the Founders as they were able to trick some of the weaker demons into entering willingly, though it required a great effort to seal the more powerful ones inside, including the use of Slytherin’s skill in the area of potions.

That answered many questions, but it also caused Hermione to pose a few additional ones.

“If this is the demon realm that we’re in, then why is everything here from the Hogwarts of the mid-nineteen-forties?” she wondered, tossing aside her blanket.

Professors Snape and Lupin were reading in silence when Hermione stepped into the classroom, book in hand. Remus glanced up and frowned.

“You should be fast asleep by now,” he admonished gently.

“Sorry, but I couldn’t sleep. So I tried reading part of Hogwarts: A History.”

“That’ll do it,” snorted Snape.

“And I found something very interesting that might help us understand what’s going on here,” she said, setting the open book on the table between them.

Severus and Remus leaned over the tome and peered at the chapter title with great interest.

“Malfoy was right!” said Snape with some astonishment, as though he had been skeptical of the tale himself.

“So it seems,” said Remus, skimming. “This means that we have somehow been brought into the realm of the demons’ imprisonment.”

“Well, there has to be a way back out again, especially since it was so easy for us to stumble in here,” said Hermione.

“I think getting out will prove far more difficult than getting in. There are things in here that the Founders intended to imprison for all eternity,” said Snape.

“I didn’t say it would be easy,” said Hermione. “But I’m certainly not content to live out the rest of my life in a warded room in the dungeons of a facsimile of Hogwarts!” she said, raising her voice.

“Of course not,” said Remus, looking up from the book and shooting not so friendly glance in Snape’s direction that said quite clearly, “Don’t upset her, Severus!” “We are all getting out of here. I know we will find a way. And you’ve given us a good start by identifying the problem,” Remus told her.

“I want to help.”

“And help you shall,” said Severus. “But not until morning. Leave this to us for now.”

Hermione looked at him blankly for a moment, realizing that he was managing to keep a civil tone, and did the only thing anyone could in that situation. She turned and walked back into the chambers next door to get a few hours of sleep.

“You do realize that we are most likely trapped here permanently, don’t you?” he asked Lupin as soon as she was gone.

“I’m a bit more optimistic,” said Remus.

Snape merely sneered silently and started going through more books.

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