Harry Potter: I became Snape

Severus Snape sat on the ground, frowning as he tore into a piece of charred fish.

"If only magic could conjure up a butterbeer and a steak," he muttered under his breath, poking distastefully at the half-eaten fish with the tip of his wand.

"Nagini," he said suddenly, turning to the giant snake dozing with her eyes closed, "how long have you been in Albania?"

The serpent's vertical pupils flared open in the darkness.

Nagini slowly raised her head, her forked tongue flickering, but all that escaped her was a series of hoarse, fragmented syllables.

Snape set the fish aside, cleaning his dust-covered fingers with a flick of his wand. He shifted his position to face her directly, preparing to communicate.

"Do you... still remember how to speak?" he asked slowly and deliberately, stretching each syllable while watching her reaction closely.

But she only hissed out a few meaningless sounds.

Snape tried gesturing to communicate with Nagini, but aside from a few simple syllables, she mostly just stared at him, silent.

Yet, encouragingly, though Nagini couldn't form complex sentences, her reactions suggested she could partially understand his words.

Perhaps it's been too long since she last spoke with anyone, Snape thought. Perhaps Nagini is on the verge of losing her ability to speak entirely.

"I am Severus Snape," he said with a nod, continuing to guide her patiently. "Do you know how we ended up here?"

Nagini's tail twitched uneasily, sweeping a small pile of pebbles into the darkness.

Snape sighed, locking eyes with her. "Take me out of here, will you?"

The serpent fell silent for a moment, her tail irritably slapping the ground with a dull thud.

After a pause, she glided slowly toward a narrow passage deep within the cave.

Snape scrambled to his feet, the tip of his wand glowing faintly as he hurried after her.

The passage grew narrower, forcing him to sidle through at times. After navigating three forks in the path, the sound of rushing water reached his ears.

When the passage finally ended, they stood before a roaring underground river, its black waters crashing against the rocks with a thunderous boom.

Nagini paused on a protruding rock by the riverbank, turning to look at Snape.

From her gaze, Snape strangely understood her meaning.

"Hmm..." Snape frowned as cold water droplets splashed onto his face. He raised his voice to be heard over the roar of the river. "Are you saying... we have to swim through this?"

Nagini didn't respond, only flicked her tongue as her serpentine body slipped into the water.

"Alright, alright," Snape said, hastening to her side as she prepared to dive.

He quickly cast a Bubble-Head Charm, encasing his head in a transparent air bubble.

Snape hesitated, then tentatively placed a hand on Nagini's cold scales.

To his surprise, she didn't recoil. She merely turned her head slightly, her vertical pupils studying him for a moment. Her tongue brushed lightly against his wrist, as if urging him to hurry.

Snape tucked his wand carefully into an inner pocket to keep it secure in the rapids, then wrapped his arms and legs around Nagini's slippery body, pressing himself close. "I hope you don't shake me off halfway."

In the next instant, the world spun—Nagini plunged into the raging river, and the icy underground current swallowed them whole.

Beyond the bubble, there was only endless darkness. Snape could only feel Nagini's muscles contracting and stretching in his arms, her body weaving deftly through the currents.

The water battered his body, and rocks scraped against his robes.

At times, Nagini was nearly swept away by sudden whirlpools, and Snape had to cling to her even tighter.

The darkness overhead seemed eternal. The air inside the bubble grew stale, condensation beading on its inner surface. Snape's lungs began to burn.

Just as he neared the edge of suffocation, a faint glimmer of light appeared above.

Nagini surged forward, and they were hurled out of the cave mouth by the current, crashing heavily into a tranquil pool.

"Puah!"

Snape struggled to the surface, ripping off the now-deformed bubble and gasping greedily for air thick with the scent of moss.

He collapsed onto the rocky shore, casting a Drying Charm with a trembling hand.

"Nagini?" he called, coughing as he scanned the pool's surface.

The serpent was nearby, stretching her body, water droplets rolling off her scales.

Snape noticed several scratches on her underbelly, dark red blood trickling down with the water, spreading faintly in the clear pool.

"Come here," he called. Nagini swam toward him. "You're hurt."

He drew his wand, and Nagini recoiled half a yard, her neck scales bristling slightly—a sign of a snake's tension.

Snape froze, slowly altering his movement to raise both hands instead.

"Just healing," he said softly. "Episkey!"

Under the spell's effect, Nagini's wounds closed at a visible rate, leaving only faint scars.

After a brief rest, the stifling heat of the Albanian forest enveloped them, sweat soaking through Snape's robes.

Looking up, he saw the sky fractured by dense treetops, sunlight filtering through the leaves to cast dappled shadows on the ground.

"Thank you," Snape said, panting, as he looked at Nagini shaking off water droplets. "But now, how do we get out of this forest and find civilization?"

At the word "people," Nagini twitched uneasily, even hissing a warning.

After a futile attempt to communicate through intense eye contact, Snape gave up and resorted to the wizarding world's most rudimentary divination—Point Me.

"Alright, looks like it's up to me," he said, placing his wand flat on his palm. "Show me the way."

The wand spun a few times before pointing behind him.

Snape pocketed his wand and spoke slowly to Nagini, who lurked in the shadows of the underbrush. "Stay near me, but not too close. Keep alert, alright?"

The forest was even harder to navigate than the cave. Snape held his wand in one hand and a magically sharpened stick in the other, hacking through obstructing thorns and vines.

He didn't see Nagini again, but the familiar rustling sounds and sudden silences in the birdsong told him she was still nearby.

After what felt like an eternity, he stumbled upon a faint, ancient path—its tracks so old, it might have been centuries since anyone last walked it.

As he pushed aside a curtain of vines, the glow of the setting sun filtered through the trees. In the interplay of light and shadow, a strange sight caught his eye:

A hunched old woman was wiping sweat from the face of a girl wearing a red velvet cap.

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