The Ghost Maker

It was hot, stifling really for September. The kind of heat that could be sensed, smelled even, so that Severus Snape, Potion’s Master of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was quite certain that his classroom was the only bearable place on the grounds. Reinforcing this notion was the fact that there were far more people –voluntarily- around him than usual.

Professor Flitwick poked his undersized head into the dungeon’s entrance under the pretense of seeking Lava- Loving Lizard skins to protect his furniture when he taught seventh years a fire summoning charm. The tiny professor was in the dungeon making his request for perhaps a quarter of an hour which gave him plenty of time to witness a fantastically failed potion courtesy of Neville Longbottom. The boy’s toad had leapt into his cauldron and began shape- shifting into every item it had ever managed to swallow, many of which seemed to be impossibly large for a toad’s mouth.

When the amphibian became a handful of galleons, Longbottom looked at Snape, torn between fear of the Potion’s Master and fear for his pet. Granger chose that moment to interfere and began swirling the contents of the boy’s cauldron, looking utterly confounded. “Please Professor… I don’t… I can’t….”

“Finish a sentence?” He suggested. The Gryffindor’s face fell. That girl’s skin was not nearly thick enough for someone who would be hearing the term “mudblood” whispered behind her back for the rest of her life. “Have no fear Ms. Granger Madame Pomfrey has syrup that will clear up even the most severe inarticulation.” Hermione’s mouth snapped shut and he saw her temper begin to smolder. There was nothing this girl couldn’t handle if she could only learn to keep her anger cold. “As for you Mr. Longbottom, it may be beneficial to wait out your mistake on the change that Trevor swallowed something important. The remaining portion of your brain perhaps?” It was a cruel statement but the opportunity was too ripe to pass up and in this case, justified. Besides, Flitwick’s expression suggested he thought Longbottom’s ineptitude might be based in Snape’s teaching.

This annoyed Snape enough that after Flitwick left he was feeling so vindictive as to deduct points from the houses of every idle sixth year milling around outside his door where cool air drifted out. They were all very put of and none were sharp enough to realize that as a member of every house had been present, all were equally set back in the standings for the House Cup. Some would probably even be thick enough to go and complain to another professor about it. Snape hoped so, he really did.

No sooner had he thought this than Hagrid came in about some lop-eared tortoises he was raising- they had ear infections. Snape politely- if hastily- checked his stores. His eyes roamed over the students in their seats, the woman leaning on a desk, and the students reconvening in the hallway to the large windows in the corridor. There appeared to be sufficient sunlight to cure the Formentia resin Hagrid would need. Snape looked at the occupants of his classroom again and then a third time. Something- someone wasn’t right.

On the fourth pass, he paused to scrutinize every student. The fumes in the dungeon could cause bizarre things and something was definitely going on. His eyes locked on to gray ones (Malfoy), stopped on a few blues, slid over another pair of gray, felt the despise of green (Potter), and connected with a dozen shades of brown. Everything seemed normal- but it wasn’t

Concentrating on the feeling, Snape tried to pin it down. His mind skirted right around the subject, refusing to return all bit a vague impression of gray and much preferring to think of Formentia resin. Still, the Potion’s Master’s gaze snapped to Malfoy but the boy wore his ever present sneer and seemed no more malevolent than usual. Again his eyes slid over the second pair of gray. He almost had himself convinced he was being foolish when he realized with a start that he couldn’t look at those gray eyes. His attention careened over them like a sheet of ice.

The feeling of wrongness doubled. Looking one last time, Snape saw the woman leaning against a desk. “Hagrid,” Snape said coolly, “please escort my students to the Great Hall.”

“Of course Professor.” Hagrid seemed reluctant to goon so little explanation but led the class out. All of them cast puzzled glances at Snape but otherwise acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

That was quite distressing because something was out of the ordinary; Snape just couldn’t think of what it was. All was right in the dungeon, it was empty but for the woman by the desk. The woman by the desk. The source of the wrongness totally eluded him. But as he concentrated his feet carried him to a desk at the back of the classroom. The woman by the desk.

Snape nearly leapt of his skin when cold fingers grip his jaw. It felt just like waking up in the middle of the night and thinking a dead hand is on your cheek when it’s just your own hand, fallen asleep. The hand turned his head and he looked into gray eyes that kept shifting in and out of focus. “Look at me.” The voice was flat, maybe female.

“I am looking madam.” He found it easier to concentrate on the voice.

“But you are not seeing.” There was a shade of emotion. Sadness.

Then, just like that, he came back to his senses. There was a strange woman leaning against one of his desks! Strange, because she did not belong at Hogwarts and because of her appearance. Her facial features still shifty and hard to focus on. He got the impression of a fairly dark complexion and slightly aquiline nose. Her lips were parted as if she had been running and they were dry, cracked to the point of bleeding. She could be anywhere from twenty to fifty but the deep lines around her eyes were certainly premature.

If she wasn’t slumped over she would have been almost of a height with Snape. Her dark hair was almost ridiculously long and as neglected and tattered as the robes that hung from her frame. The sleeves were loose enough that Snape was fairly certain that her forearms were free of the Dark Mark but the things had a habit of concealing themselves.

It was the eyes that alarmed him, he knew. There was something about flat gray eyes. They weren’t the typical blue gray that shift with the color of the sky of the green grays, so pale they seem colorless. These were slate gray. The color was so typical in the males of House Malfoy but in this woman it was somehow significant.

She held up a long- fingered hand reveling an stain on the skin, “This is blood Severus,” There was a definite pause before his name, “and it isn’t mine. I need to see the Headmaster, take me to him.”

At the sight of the half congealed blood, grossly pungent in the heat, it hit him who she was. Or rather, what she was. “Morg Portan.” He hissed.

Morg Portan, death- bringer, assassin, dark creature. Ghost Maker.

She did not acknowledge his statement, nor did she refute it. “I need to see the Headmaster,” she repeated, “about the impending death of one of his students.”