Chapter Text
It was a long, painful walk back up to the main building of Hogwarts castle for the dreary professor. Knowing that a powerful dark entity is following him and watching his every move, Severus Snape couldn’t help but think whether or not meeting Jin-Woo instead of death eaters was a good thing or not; he could incapacitate a death eater, but he’s unsure if he could hurt the mysterious intruder before he meets his untimely death. But compared to that he knows that every death eater that comes to Hogwarts has a malicious agenda, the fact that Jin-Woo gave him nothing to work with is really annoying, if not worrying, for the dark haired man.
When Snape climbed up the ladder and out the trapdoor, he let out another sigh as another line of thought ran through his head. He has to report to Dumbledore about his findings from his patrol. Just how is he going to explain what he found without putting himself or the school in danger?
“Just as a warning, I am required to report to the headmaster once I get back.”
As Snape whispered to himself just before opening the door into the third floor corridor, a wisp of air hovered behind his head before disappearing.
“Do what you have to. I trust you know what to say?”
Another sigh. It seems like Snape has been sighing a lot lately, as if there’s a lot of things worrying his mind.
After going down many corridors and stairs, each area having debris and various wall ornaments strewn and shattered across the ground, and an occasional frightened specter phasing through one room to another, Snape finally reached the doors of the headmaster’s office. Knocking on the sturdy oak door before opening it, Snape stepped into the circular room to find that various books were knocked from the shelves and scattered the floors. Many of the curious silver objects he once saw on the tables now saw their fate scattered and some shattered in their place, and many of the portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses hung askew from their original positions and empty. It’s a surprise. Snape would have thought that the mess would have been cleaned up by the time he returned from his patrol, but looking around, it seems the old headmaster is preoccupied by something more important.
“Ah, Professor Snape! Have you found anything that may explain the tremors in the lower floors?”
Once Snape took a few steps into the room and closed the doors behind him, he looked up to see Dumbledore fidgeting around with the telescope that sat above the room, occasionally adjusting its settings as if the old wizard was looking for something.
Snape let out a sigh through his nose and straightened his posture before answering the grand wizard.
“Fortunately or not, I was not able to find any evidence that could lead me to believe it’s the work of you-know-who or the death eaters.” Though, I may have found something that could be much more worrying than the dark lord.
“Hmm…”
As Snape watched the headmaster get up from the telescope and turn to him, he could sense that there was something else the old man was more concerned about.
“Severus, if you could, would you take a look at the astral model just in front of you?”
On his cue, Snape stepped towards the astral model and peered through the contraption. To his shock, the spheres that represented the planets and moons are spinning at varying uncontrollable speeds, whereas the sphere that represented the earth stood deathly still.
“...What does this mean, Dumbledore.”
“Severus…” the graying sorcerer gestured towards the telescope, “take a look at the sky.”
Snape hurriedly walked up to the loft where Dumbledore and the telescope stood and looked through the lenses. He saw nothing.
That’s the problem. There was nothing in the night sky; a pure black was all the dark haired professor could see, even when he looked outside the window to observe above the horizon; the moon and the stars had simply vanished from view.
“I’m afraid the quake was something more than just an earthly tremor. Something wrong has happened here.”
The headmaster stepped to Snape’s side and watched out the window with him, snapping the younger man out of his stupor. Upon hearing the older man’s words, all Snape could think of was whether or not the intruder he met just moments earlier could have been the cause for this phenomena. And he very well may be, since he knows there is absolutely no one or no thing he knows in the wizarding world that could cause an astral shift as big as this .
With this thought, he remembered that he’s still being watched by the eerie entity.
“...and you’re sure this isn’t an illusion? You’re sure that this isn’t a trick of the eye, or a possibility that a veil was cast upon us?”
“I’m sure that isn’t the case, Severus. As soon as I saw the model go awry, I witnessed the stars and the moon disappear one by one. Professor McGonagall was also with me when it happened, and she left a while ago to investigate with Professor Sinistra from the astronomy tower.”
Albus Dumbledore turned to look at Snape, Snape also turning to reciprocate his gaze.
“The thing we need to do now is to figure out whether or not this phenomenon is a natural occurrence, or if it’s a shift due to mankind’s actions. Either way, it would be good for us to know if this occurrence is a temporary event, and that it’s not caused by something beyond us.”
As Dumbledore finished his thoughts, he turned away from Snape and continued observing the darkened sky. With his gaze turned away, Snape fidgeted with his sleeves. His intuition is sometimes scarily accurate… This Jin-Woo person may as well be a being beyond our realm.
After a short, prolonged silence, Snape turned his head away from the scene and started towards the door.
“If there’s nothing else, I will be heading back to my office to clean up.”
“You may go.”
As naturally as he can, Snape exited the headmaster’s office with careful steps. Once the dark robed man deemed that he’s far away enough from any prying eyes, his hands that hung beside his body started trembling uncontrollably. If his suspicions are correct, the stranger that called himself Jin-Woo could cause something much more terrifying than what Voldemort could ever do, and just the presence of Jin-Woo himself is enough to shake his very soul just by looking into his eyes. Thinking back, the long haired man hasn’t even done anything. He was unarmed and showed no signs of hiding any weapons on his body. Yet, Snape wasn’t able to leave a scratch on the other, even with his signature curse. Just the thought of not knowing what the intruder is capable of when he shows so much power standing still makes him think that if the disappearance of the astral sky was his doing, then the extinction of humankind- no, the entire world, could be wiped out by Jin-Woo if he wished.
Thankfully, the young professor was glad that he let go of his stubborn pride and answered Jin-Woo’s… single question. A miracle, it was, that the entity was benevolent enough to not have struck him down on the spot for his insolence.
Funnily enough, Snape is unaware that he was a breath away from death at the hands of not Jin-Woo, but his shadows instead.
–
“Shall we get back to the matter at hand?”
When Snape finally reached his office and closed the door behind him, Jin-Woo undid his ‘Stealth’ and materialized onto one of the leathered chairs next to the professor’s desk. The dark haired professor stepped back onto the many shattered cabinets in shock, cutting his palm onto the broken glass sticking out. At this sight, Jin-Woo inwardly giggled to himself in amusement. That’s what he gets for taking so long.
With as much patience as he Jin-Woo could muster, he watched as the educator steadied himself and sat in the other chair across the desk, taking hold of his long sleeves to nurse his wounded hand. Despite the fleeting hilarity Jin-Woo found in startling the potion master, the young monarch grew slightly impatient following the professor throughout Hogwarts. The whole trip Snape took from finding Jin-Woo in the secret chamber on the third floor, to the trek towards the headmaster’s office, the conversation with said headmaster, and then back to his office was around 2 hours, in which Jin-Woo was following behind Snape the entire time.
Though, that isn’t to say the immortal found the entire walk boring. While the greasy haired professor was absentmindedly sorting out his thoughts, Jin-Woo took in the full architecture of the castle. Prior to his comparison about Hogwarts to Cartenon temple, he realizes the two places actually differ much more than he initially thought. On one hand, the ruins that held the Architect’s statue puppets were more decrepit, and it was created on the image of worship and sacrifice centered around the Absolute being. Although Hogwarts castle held the same fantastical feeling, the architecture was more archaic and medieval. And dusty, even though the interior suggests the building is made for school children. Who the hell cleans this place, anyway?
Despite that, what intrigued Jin-Woo the most was how the structure of the place is constantly changing and shifting. Other than the obvious displacement of the stairs, the shadow soldiers now and then report to their majesty of the areas Jin-Woo is about to step into and what changed about it. Especially the headmaster’s office. There was just something… odd about that room that Jin-Woo is itching to investigate later, when that weird old man is not in it. There was something strange about the way Dumbledore speaks, and that nagging feeling makes Jin-Woo annoyed the more he dwelled on it.
Snape took a breath, took in the figure of the young asian man in front of him, and started.
“What is it that you wish to know?”
Jin-Woo reciprocated the young professor’s gaze and let out a small smile.
“Tell me everything about this world.”
—
Back in the headmaster’s office…
At the sound of the oak doors closing and footsteps fading into the distance, the wizened man let out a heavy sigh. It’s been years since he has known the young potions master, and a decade since the fated promise of loyalty. (Though, it was anything but a promise.) And tonight, the behavior of Snape held the same frantic habits he held when he was under duress. The fidgeting of the man’s sleeves was all it took for Dumbledore to sense there was something amiss about him, and the fact that Snape, who usually wanted to get to the point of conversations immediately, gave roundabout answers to his questions instead of direct ones.
“Nothing to do with the death eaters, huh…”
Albus Dumbledore muttered to himself, seemingly to nobody, but,
“Then it just means there’s something else to worry about than your obsession with Riddle.”
Upon hearing the voice, Dumbledore turned his head to face, what was previously an empty frame among the walls, an elderly man that looked to be around his 70’s smiling at him from among the crooked portraits.
“Although I’m glad we share the same sentiments for once, Phineas, but just what is it that you find so amusing?”
The portrait chuckled, “that’s for me to know, and for you to find out.”
With this, Phineas Nigellus Black turned his body and moved out of frame, his laughter slowly fading the farther he traveled.
Dumbledore scoffs. Great, now he has more questions to dwell on than answers.
Everything about this situation has been puzzling for the grand sorcerer. If it had something to do with the dark arts, then he would at least have some idea of who may be behind it. But, there is nothing here that could suggest that idea. If his theory is correct, there’s been a change in the astral planes, and at worse, a shift in the dimensional space. Regardless though, these hypotheticals are terrifying, as both ideas lead to one thing: a powerful entity is either breaking into this world, or it has already broken in. And if this foreign entity were to enter into this plane of dimension, then possibly everything Dumbledore knows about magic could be changed and altered completely.
But that’s only the worse case scenario. (Even though the actual worst case scenario is that the earth’s core suddenly gets an injection of magical energy and explodes. But to Dumbledore, a foreign entity from another dimension is more plausible and preventable.)
The more realistic idea could just very well be that the earth’s fault lines are overdue for a collision, and that collision was just unfortunately so powerful that it may have tilted the earth’s axis, causing the planet to go out of balance and the stars to vanish temporarily from view. Or whatever. What do wizards know about geology? He’ll read about it tomorrow in the muggle newspapers.
But, that wouldn’t explain the initial shockwave, which was filled with an oppressive magical energy.
The old wizard might as well be right about the outer-dimensional entity part. He just needs to find the evidence to support this theory.
Which was why he was hoping for his loyal potions master to find the evidence for him by sending the man into the lower parts of the castle, since that’s where he assumes the quakes originated from. Although Snape came back with little to no information, his evasive answer is enough to let Dumbledore know that Snape has encountered something in the lower chambers, and that something has scared the stoic-faced man into silence. He just now needs to trust in the young professor to tell him when he’s ready, but for now, there are things the grand sorcerer can do on his own to investigate this situation
He can only hope that whatever is happening is something he can control, or else the fate of the wizarding world will be in peril.
—
There are a few things that Jin-Woo learned from the greasy haired man in front of him.
For one, he is now 100% confident that he’s not in the same dimension as his home, nor was he somehow sent back decades in the past either. (Not that he didn’t trust Bellion, but it doesn’t hurt to confirm things twice.)
Second, the use of magic isn’t a common practice to normal people, or muggles, according to the black clothed professor.
“What are muggles?”
“Pardon?” Snape stopped in his sentence at the sudden interruption. He had been talking for about 20 minutes without rest in practical silence, so the sudden question from the mysterious man surprised him a little. (Also throughout his explanation, he inadvertently switched to lecture mode, and during his lectures, it was expected of his students to stay quiet unless he was to call on them to answer.)
“You keep using the term ‘muggles’. What is a muggle?” Jin-Woo inquired. Jin-Woo had a rough idea on what a muggle could be, but if anything, he was more curious about the word itself than the meaning behind it.
Steadying himself, Snape continued, “it’s a word we wizards use to refer to non magical people.”
“Why ‘muggle’, though? Is there any significance?”
“…not that I know of, no.”
“Hmm…” Jin-Woo rested his chin on his palm, leaning forward a bit, “why are non magical people forbidden to learn about the magic world? It seems counterintuitive.”
If it wasn’t obvious before, the fists under the long sleeves of the dark haired professor clenched tighter, no longer from the discomfort of being in the presence of the man in front of him, but from a rising anger.
Snape took a breath, “For hundreds of years, since the beginning of wizard history, those muggles ,” the lecturer mustered with a venomous tone, “thought to slaughter all those who showed any sign of having magical abilities, whether they actually had them or not. And since then, the world of magic and the non magical have since separated.” At the end of the statement, the professor straightened his posture and fixed his robes. “It’s also forbidden to expose the wizarding world to muggle society, and doing so would, at best, get the wizard persecuted under Magical Law and the muggle’s memory obliviated, or at worst, a war could break out between wizards and muggles again just as it did hundreds of years ago.”
“I see.”
Jin-Woo replied in a neutral tone, sending Snape into more discomfort than he was previously. Obviously, Jin-Woo wasn’t new to the idea of war between different races as he was in the middle of one with the Monarch of Destruction just before. But, this situation could be more comparable to the relationship between hunters and non-hunters back in his world. Although not all hunters are capable of wielding magic, they all carry some mana in order to use their skills. And even back then, when Jin-Woo used to be an E rank, he was still capable of overpowering non-hunters even with his abysmal stats (though he doesn’t need to worry about that anymore, being an omnipotent god and all).
Then again, hunters and non-hunters were practically forced to work together to stop the dungeon breaks, otherwise the world they lived in would be destroyed. Though, that’s a story of a far gone past.
Still, the whole secrecy and separation is ridiculous to Jin-Woo. If his knowledge of world history still applies to the current dimension he’s in, there will come a day where the wizarding world will be exposed, and they will be slaughtered once again seeing how historic everything in the castle seems to him so far. If his time going into dungeons taught him anything, then modern technology will always prevail over weapons of the old. Plus, Jin-Woo is pretty sure shooting a gun is faster than spellcasting.
Shaking away these thoughts, Jin-Woo straightened up and focused his gaze at the professor in front of him once more.
“Well, that’s all I want to know right now.” If I ask any more questions, this man is going to lose it. “I believe it’s your turn to inquire about me?”
At these words, Snape hardened his gaze. Finally, a chance to figure out who this person in front of him is.
“Then,” the stiff professor started, “just what exactly are you?”
The lights that lit the room flickered, and the shadows that the Monarch casted bristled.
Jin-Woo smiled.
“Obviously, I’m a human.”