Severus Snape POPs! Open RP.

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

The Unpopcorning of Severus Snape
approved by the mods, etc.

He was coiled small, his knees pressed to his forehead, his forearms pressed close to the outsides of his calves. It must be so. How else could he be so compact, so dense? It was dark. It was silent, and the only difference was an occasional disorienting tumbling when some small earthquake rolled him over and over down a very rocky hill. He didn't understand why he couldn't put out a hand or foot to stop himself on these occasions. And sometimes he detected from the force of gravity that he was upside-down and he wondered why the blood did not rush to his head.

It was always as if he had just curled up, but time must have passed because he noted events - the variations of sudden rolling, the occasional temperature changes. Could it be a petrification spell? But that would not have rendered him blind, or deaf. What was it? Sometimes he tried to puzzle it out, to count occasions of movement, but he lost track, conciousness, concentration. That was not like him at all, and he wondered at himself. It must be a curse, but there was no pain.

The temperature rose. Higher this time. He was surprised he wasn't sweating, his robe clinging to him, but he was able to detect no robe. Was he naked? No.... Merlin, it was hot. And he felt so... tight. Why couldn't he move? He expected his breath to arrest with the heat, his lungs to seize with the pressure. But he did not seem to be breathing. Pressure? He seemed to be... Was it infection, a swelling within him? No pain. No pain. He was confused.

Merlin. He felt... Why didn't he ache? Why didn't it hurt? Dark curses he could understand. He had invented enough, felt enough, but...

Then suddenly he was aware. It smelled like a fair... He had once been to a fair. He unclenched his arms from his legs, straightened his spine, curled around himself, lifted his head and...

BANG! There was an explosion beneath him, no through him, no... It was too sudden to analyse. Severus was launched into the air, his arms and legs thrown splayed, his hair flung up and spread wide, his mouth open in a wide O of almost shock, though it was not unpleasant, more startling. He crashed down into a pile of hard yellow kernals, bruising his skin , so tight over his bones. And now his black robes stuck wet to him, no, not wet...

He passed his hand through the hair soaking over his face, sticking and obscuring his vision, dripping into his eyes. Rich shining yellow drops flew behind him, almost beautiful. A door. There was a door. He waded over to it and was surprised to find it unlocked. It was the old stone corridor of Hogwarts. He wandered out disoriented, hoping to find the dungeons.

Comments

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"I do not assume things lightly. You probably will be in Slytherin, within the bounds of ninety seven percent, unless there are circumstances I am not aware of."

He takes a turn that will most definitely lead them in the direction of the dungeons.

"If it does, I am not sure of their locations, except within Ravenclaw."

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

Mystified, Severus follows him. He does not remember the castle and the thought saddens him. Perhaps when he has become more accustomed to being alive, perhaps when his ears are free of running butter. It is distracting.

"I used to know. How is it that one's sorting might change?"

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"It is not that I think it would. It is that I am not sure that it is impossible for it to occur. We shall proceed to Slytherin."

Since that is the most likely choice.

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

"Have others been resorted?" Severus remembers that long ago day, and the smile that had spread at his sorting, eleven years old. He cannot imagine sitting in front of the children now, those who had been his - the children of his Slytherin children - watching him enter another house. And how Minerva would have laughed. Severus frowns.

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"I arrived less than three weeks ago. I could not say."

He shrugs, lightly.

"I do not think there is such thing as magic, on my world. People here are from different worlds, you see."

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

This is strange to Severus. "Is there magic for you here, at Hogwarts?"

He is mystified yet again. "Your world... is it... where is it? Hidden from muggles, in the midst of them like the wizarding world?"

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"Yes, I am perfectly capable of doing magic. Well, as capable as someone can be, with three weeks of exposure."

But better than the average student with as much time, by virtue of a photographic memory for spells.

"It is faintly complicated, but I am fairly sure it is a seperate reality entirely. I am a detective, by trade, on an international level, and I can find little indication of my existence. This would not be entirely impossible; I always cover my tracks, and in the future I might have decided to eliminate record of my existence completely. Or it might mean that there is simply no such thing as L in the here and now."

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

Severus is immediately intrigued, as he is a spy himself. "So... you can do magic, though you never have before. Extraordinary!"

He considers how to approach the other topic. "I have always thought the best way to hide was in the open, in plain sight." An old idea, but perhaps it will say something.

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"I prefer to solve my puzzles by stepping back from the board and looking down upon them. It also affords me more safety."

He will die, fairly soon, he knows, but he's lasted twelve years so far, and that isn't that bad. (Especially since he's only twenty.)

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

Puzzles, he thinks, frowning. Does he mean magic or spying? "I myself," He speaks of either one. "Prefer to work puzzles closely, expanding their secrets by manipulating them."

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"That can be dangerous."

He shrugs.

"And I have too much I need to accomplish to risk it. My successors are not trained yet."

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

"I have... had no successors. And it is how I have always worked. Trying, testing, observing as closely inside the procedure as I can get." He is still trying to speak of puzzles, or maybe even potions, and spying at the same time.

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"I operate on a global scale. I doubt it would be logistically possible to pursue each problem with such intimacy, tempting as it might seem."

Also, frightening. He's used to his ivory tower.

"It is exceptionally... it is taking adjustment, working with and meeting strangers, for the first time, really, since I was a child."

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

Working with and meeting strangers always takes adjustment. "You had more opportunity to meet others as a child than when you were older?"

He think about global scales. "Even a large problem has key pieces that are flesh and blood. Perhaps they could be said to be comets, and their ephemeral and less important tails the mass of humanity, even their intimates and hangers-on."

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"My work takes my time these days, and has since I took up the position, which I did when I was quite young." Even by his standards, which makes twelve a perfectly reasonable to have that responsibility thrust on you.

"Crime... is not really like comets. Crime is the intersection of a suitable target with a motivated offender in the absence of capable guardianship. But there are ways to understand it, and there are ways to solve it."

[methleigh.livejournal.com]

"You are speaking of crimes of individuals, then. How, then, can they be global in scope? In my experience crime is only global in the case of extensive organisation, an there is nearly always a key criminal at the head, inspired and inspiring those who work to fulfil his schemes and plans, each perhaps in their own way, but simply in the wake of their master."

[ijk-mno.livejournal.com]

"A common misconception. Organized crime is more interdependant than that. Certainly, specific individuals rise to the heads of crime rings in their own domains, but it is the discourse between them that is truly dangerous. Anyways, that is not really the kind of international crime I meant."

He shakes his head.

"I am a freelance detective, really, employed by governments, who do not meet or know me, to look at specific situations. I do not work with local law enforcement, except by electronic communications. I do not conduct interviews, except by looking at the records already gathered. I employ some psychology, but do not rely on it."