Bring a fairy tale to Hogwarts!

In the dimly lit Potions office, Snape's face was so grim it looked like he wanted to devour someone. Surrounded by a pile of bottles and jars containing animal entrails, he looked even more oppressive and sinister, his cheeks taut.

The sheer volume of information in the prophecy completely changed his expression.

"What on earth is this thing?!"

He suppressed his emotions and asked again, his voice like a volcano about to erupt.

Unfortunately, Victor, whom he was questioning, showed no change in expression. He simply waved his hand slowly to clear the smoke before speaking leisurely across the burning candle on Snape's table:

"Naturally, it is the prophecy you sought."

"Nonsense!"

"Do you even know what you're talking about? Bellatrix is ​​not coming out; she's imprisoned in Azkaban! And that assassination attempt was even more..."

Victor continued to shake his head.

"That's the prophecy, Severus. I've simply shown you the scene I foresaw; I haven't altered anything. Believe it or not, it's up to you."

"If you think I can conjure up a whole bunch of voices, characters, and events out of thin air, then go ahead and think that way."

"Anyway, you're going to make a prediction, and I've already done one."

Snape's face alternated between pale and flushed, lost in thought. He stood up from the stool, then sat down again after a while.

After a while, he asked again in a hoarse voice, "You haven't been to Malfoy Manor? Nor have you stolen anyone's Pensieve?"

"What are those?"

"...The place indicated by the black mist is the dining room at Malfoy Manor. If your prophecy is true, then it implies... damn it."

Snape's expression didn't improve; in fact, it worsened. He couldn't help touching his arm again, then lowering it.

If anyone were to lift up his left sleeve at this moment, they would find a strange tattoo on the spot where Snape had just covered, resembling a skull spitting out a snake.

Its edges are turning reddish right now, but the red has begun to fade.

Its intense heat was fleeting.

But that feeling is real!

The Dark Mark was branded on the Death Eaters by Voldemort, including Snape. When it burns, it means the Dark Lord is calling his servants, and it only turns charred black and becomes visible when the Dark Lord is nearby.

But it truly manifested itself in the face of prophecy.

This either proves that the Dark Lord has returned, or that what Victor showed is indeed extremely related to the Dark Lord.

But whichever it is, Snape can now begin preparing to surrender...

This is actually why Snape couldn't accept the prophecy—if the voice speaking in the black mist really was the Dark Lord, it meant he would be resurrected sooner or later, it was just a matter of time. All the Death Eaters would return, and even Bellatrix would be rescued from Azkaban.

This undoubtedly means that everything he is doing now, and everything he has persisted in doing over the past ten years, has been in vain.

What's absurd yet somewhat reasonable is that the Dark Lord even asks Draco Malfoy to assassinate Dumbledore.

The absurd part is that Draco clearly had no chance of succeeding.

But the point is also reasonable—it is precisely because Draco cannot succeed that the Dark Lord has to make this arrangement, so as to find an excuse to completely eliminate the Malfoy family, who have already separated from the Death Eaters.

Such a complex and peculiar relationship was hard for Snape to believe that Victor had made it up to deceive him—no matter how much he wished it were.

...So what should he do?

If the Malfoy family and Dumbledore were to meet such an end, things would have reached a point of no return.

In the dim candlelight, Snape's expression was inscrutable.

"This is impossible," he couldn't help but repeat to himself.

"A prophecy can't possibly be this...this accurate..."

Beside him, Draco Malfoy's face was also deathly pale. He seemed to have also discerned something from the images within the black mist, such as his mother and his own home in the background.

But after a while, he stubbornly said, "My dad told me that the fortune telling at school is all a lie."

Victor shrugged at them both:

"Say what you will. But think about it, Severus, my prophecies have never been wrong."

"As for you, Draco—" Victor looked over, casually patted Malfoy on the shoulder, making the student shudder, "Why do you have that expression?"

"……what?"

"Shouldn't you be very happy?" Victor looked at him with some doubt. "Oh, the glory of purebloods, you're being valued, you've gained the trust of powerful wizards... Isn't this your dream?"

Malfoy slowly raised his head, his face pale, looking at Victor with disbelief, as if he couldn't believe he could say such a thing.

Victor looked back naturally, and the question on his face was genuine.

He was genuinely confused.

Just sitting in the Great Hall for meals every day, he saw Malfoy picking on others several times. Each time, he would either look down on others for not having money or say things like "pure-blood glory." As a result, even someone who didn't know much about the British magical world could now casually name several students' family backgrounds.

Shouldn't Malfoy be happy that his wish has been fulfilled?

Shouldn't this be a storyline like, "My mom doesn't trust me, but I'm sure I can do something great for our rally"?

But Snape stood up, his face grim, and brushed away Victor's hand from Malfoy's shoulder, freeing the trembling Malfoy from Victor's grasp.

"Alright. You've made the prophecy; the rest is up to us. Stop scaring my students."

"I'll give it to you quietly in a while."

"Within next week."

"That's difficult—" Snape's expression changed. "Don't you have any idea how rare it is? I dare say, you probably can't find three Obscurials in the whole world."

"I don't care about that," Victor's expression softened as he looked at him with a brooding gaze. "If you don't give it to me, I'll take something else from you."

Snape clicked his tongue in annoyance, turned around, picked up the quill pen on the table, scribbled a line, and handed it to Victor:

"Here's the contact information for that person, Obscurus. His name is Monton, and he's a bit of a sly one. I don't know how he got his hands on Obscurus. I'll try my best to get him to Knockturn Alley this week, but if he doesn't, you can ask him yourself why, so you don't feel like I'm just giving you the runaround."

"Alright, if you don't have anything else... please leave."

Snape would never have minded chatting with Victor, the "herb supplier," but now he couldn't wait to get rid of him.

Victor left the office indifferently.

……

As the door to the potions office closed, Draco stood there, stunned, still reeling. His mother's anxious, desperate voice still echoed in his ears.

His mother never showed that kind of attitude.

She was always calm, composed, and in accordance with all the etiquette of a pure-blooded noble—until he saw the smoke just now, he suddenly realized that even his mother could be driven to desperation.

And that was the reason he was at his wit's end.

Someone gave him an impossible mission; he might die...

Recalling his past education and then the identity of Dumbledore's mortal enemy, Malfoy naturally knew who that person was, and trembled all over again.

In a daze, he finally realized something—to that person, he was perhaps no different from other wizards, or even worse…

It wasn't until then that Snape, who had closed the door, noticed him. He was silent for a moment, then turned and took a small vial of green potion from the top of a high cabinet in the office, handing it to Draco.

He said coldly, "Drink it."

"What...what is this?"

"A tranquilizer," Snape said impatiently. "Drink it, leave, and write to your father about it. The rest we'll handle."

Mentioning his father softened Malfoy's bewildered and helpless expression somewhat. After hesitating for a moment, he accepted the ominous-looking green potion from Snape's hand.

He tilted his head back and drank it all in one gulp.