Harry Potter’s Book of Sin

Moody's gaze stayed on the side of the stairs for only a few seconds before moving back to Snape.

"Filch is patrolling in the middle of the night, what about you? Snape..." he hesitated, "how did you hear it?"

"It doesn't matter," Snape said coldly.

"On the contrary," Moody yelled, "This is very important!"

"Huh—I'm just going to my office, is there any problem?" Snape snorted coldly, turned and left.

"Wait!" Moody yelled. "Let me see your shoes!"

Snape paused, without turning his head, continuing on.

"stop!"

Moody "punk" stepped forward a few steps, stretched out his crutches, and unceremoniously stopped Snape.

"What the hell do you want to do?" Snape suffocated his anger, turned around abruptly, lifting his trouser legs to reveal his shoes, "Want to see my shoes? What's so nice? Could my shoes be black? Magic props?"

A pair of clean boots came out under the trouser tube that Snape had mentioned, but the slight dirt just now disappeared.

"I just didn't find my slippers when I got off the bed. Is that also a problem?" Snape asked.

Moody stared at his boots for a long time, then raised his head and said, "Is there nothing else hidden in your office?"

At this time, Snape's earthy gray face had turned into an ugly brick red, and the blood vessel in his temple jumped faster.

"Are you endless? You know I didn't hide anything, Moody," he said in a low voice. "Didn't you search my office by yourself?"

Moody's face twisted, and a smile was forced.

"This is the prerogative of the Auror, Snape. Dumbledore asked me to watch closely—"

"Dumbledore just happened to trust me," Snape gritted his teeth. "I don't believe he told you to search my office!"

"Of course Dumbledore believes in you," Moody yelled. "He is a very gullible man, isn't he? He always thinks he should give people a second chance. But I—I think some stains can’t be washed away, S. Nep. Some stains will never be washed off, do you know what I mean?"

Snape did something very strange suddenly.He grabbed his left arm with his right hand abruptly, as if the arm was suddenly in pain.

Moody laughed.

"Go back to sleep, Snape."

"You have no right to make me go anywhere!" Snape hissed, letting go of his arms, seeming to be annoyed with himself, "I have the same right to visit this school at night like you!"

"Then you can just patrol," Moody said, but his voice was full of threats, "I knew that one day I would meet you in the dark corridor...By the way, your things were lost... "

Both Snape and Filch looked down subconsciously, only to find a piece of parchment.

Snape reached out to pick it up, and a terrible, enlightened expression slowly appeared on his face--

"Parchment is flying!"

The map whizzed into the air, slipped through Snape's spread fingers, flew down the stairs, and landed in Moody's hand.

"I made a mistake," Moody said quietly, "this is mine—I think I must have lost it earlier—"

But Snape's dark eyes looked at the box in Filch's arms, and then at the parchment in Moody's hand—he connected the two things.

"Potter." He said softly.

He still remembers clearly-no way, it's hard to remember it!Because the time he found out that this parchment belonged to Harry, it was the night when he ran into Maca and Hermione face to face "sentimentally."

"What do you mean?" Moody asked calmly, folding the map in his pocket.

"Potter!" Snape said angrily. He turned his head abruptly and looked straight at the spot where Moody's eyes had stopped. "That box is Potter's, and the parchment is Potter's. Yes, I've seen it before, and I recognize it! Potter is here! Potter, wearing his invisibility cloak!"

Snape spread his hands like a blind man and walked up the stairs.

"There's nothing there, Snape!" Moody yelled, "but I'm happy to tell the principal how you suspect Harry Potter at every turn!"

"What do you mean?" Snape turned his head to look at Moody again, his hands still open, but his movements slowed down.

"I mean, Dumbledore is very interested in knowing who is unkind to that boy!" Moody limped a few steps toward the front of the stairs. "And, Snape, I too... interested……"

The light of the torch swept across his distorted and broken face, making the scars and the big holes in the nose look deeper and more horrible than ever.

Snape looked down at Moody, frowning tightly.

For a while, no one moved, no one spoke... Then, Snape slowly dropped his hands.

"I just think," Snape seemed to be trying to calm his tone, "If Potter is hanging out in the middle of the night...this is one of his regrettable bad habits...should stop him. For—for his own safety."

"Ah, I see," Moody said softly. "You take Potter's interests to your heart, don't you?"

A moment of silence.

Snape and Moody were still staring at each other, and Mrs. Loris gave a meow, still poking her head by Filch's leg, seeming to be sniffing something.

"I should go to my office...there are still potions waiting for me to prepare." Snape said suddenly.

"You only have the most reasonable idea tonight." Moody said, "Well, Filch, can you give me that box--"

"No!" Filch said, holding the golden egg firmly as if he was holding his own son. "Professor Moody, this is evidence of Pepi Ghost stealing something!"

"He stole it from a warrior, it's something from that warrior." Moody said, "take it."

Without a word, Snape walked downstairs quickly, past Moody, to the basement.Filch made a smacking sound to Mrs. Lorice, and the cat stared blankly at somewhere for a few seconds before turning around and following the owner.

Filch handed the box to Moody, and while leaving, he whispered to Mrs. Loris, "It's okay, dear... we went to Dumbledore early in the morning... and told him Pippi did it. Good thing..."

Not long after, a door banged and it seemed to be closed.

Only then did Moody put his crutches on the bottom of the stairs and climbed up the stairs laboriously, toward the edge of the seemingly empty stairs.Every time he took a step, he made a hollow voice: Huh...huh...huh.

"It's dangerous enough, Potter," he whispered.

...

On the other side, Snape's office.

"boom!"

The door of the office was violently pushed open and closed again, and the oil lamp in the room was lit.

"Is anyone here today?" Snape was not surprised at Maca who was sitting behind the desk, he just asked with an annoyed look.

"Come on, it's tonight." Maca straightened his back on the chair and said calmly.

"That's fine—" Snape didn't ask for the details about Little Barty, he just said impatiently, and sat down on the one-person sofa next to him. "You can go back to sleep."

"I'm afraid it won't happen," Maca shrugged. "There is still potion in it. I'm afraid I can't leave until it stabilizes..."

"I'm almost becoming your private refining room here..." Although Snape said in his mouth, he obviously didn't mean to drive Maca away.

Since Maca came back from Voldemort's circle, his relationship with Snape has become much closer.Now if Maca wanted to prepare some potions or do some research, he would often come to Snape to interrupt him.

But Maca vaguely understood that the biggest reason for Snape's acceptance of him was probably not this relationship.

As for why... To be honest, he still hasn't figured it out yet!

"McLean..."

"what?"

Snape yelled Maca abruptly, but before the topic was out, he shook his head slightly.

"...No, it's nothing."

Although Maca was a little inexplicable, he didn't continue to ask--if Snape didn't want to say it, he would ask for nothing.It would be better to save some energy, and when the other person feels it is time to say it, then he will naturally say it.

At least, Snape didn't have any conflict of interest with him, and he didn't have to worry about the other side thinking about him.

Afterwards, Maca and Snape chatted about some potions at random, and it was not until the sky was bright that he closed the lid of the cauldron and went out of Snape's office.

For Maca, staying up late is almost a routine thing.He usually makes up the next morning, and then goes on to do other things.

But today, he did not do so.

As the start date of the second project approached day by day, he had to seize all the time to deal with various things.

The plan has slowly unfolded, and progress in all aspects is stable.At such a critical moment, he didn't want to lose the chain because he didn't pay attention to some places.

"When things are resolved, we must take a good rest for a while..."

While talking, he took out a bottle of potion, raised his head and poured it down.

"Ooo!" He shook his head, his sleepy face glowed again, and his eyes brightened again.

"The effect of the formula this time is really good. You can try to push it to the market..." Maca pinched the empty bottle and nodded, "Since the formula contains the gallbladder of a double-horned beast, call it it. 'Rainbow potion'...Anyway, the two-horned beast looks like a bull..."