"Excuse me." Snape stopped the departing team captain.
Montague halted and looked at Snape.
He was broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, his hair coarse and stiff, his massive forearms like hairy hams.
In his hands, the broom looked like a mere twig, making one seriously doubt how it could possibly lift him into the air.
"What do you want?" Montague asked in a gruff, muffled voice.
"Hello. I wanted to ask if non-Quidditch players are allowed to use your training room."
"Of course," Montague said, eyeing Snape up and down. "A bean sprout like you definitely needs more exercise. Today's tryout results were pathetic. Not a single candidate as solid as me."
Snape fought back the urge to retort aloud, thinking instead: a blockhead like you really ought to wedge your head in a toilet.
"Wait here." Montague stepped into the captain's office.
When he came back out, he had already changed out of his uniform and was holding a black package.
"Ever had a Chocolate Frog?" Montague asked mysteriously, though his expression was more like constipation.
"What are you talking about, Montague?"
"You know, that candy that jumps like a real frog."
Montague made an exaggerated sweeping gesture with his arms, startling Snape so much that he nearly thought a gorilla was about to leap at him.
"I know what that is!" Snape took two steps back.
"Oh, good," Montague beckoned Snape closer. "Take a look at this."
Inside the package were several glass bottles filled with dark red liquid.
"What is this?"
"Poly-Dragon Blood Tonic."
"Does it turn people into fire dragons?" Snape was even more baffled. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Haven't you seen the picture cards?" Montague asked impatiently. "Dumbledore's card,'Twelve Uses of Dragon's Blood.'"
"You mean-"
"Yes, to strengthen the body." Montague nodded. "If you want proper training, you should try some.
"It contains blood from nine breeds of dragons: Norwegian Ridgeback, Hungarian Horntail, Chinese Fireball, Welsh Green, Swedish Short-Snout, Ukrainian Ironbelly, Australian Opaleye, Peruvian Vipertooth, and Romanian Longhorn.
"One bottle is only ten Galleons. If you buy five or more at once, I'll even give you a ten percent discount..."
"No, I don't need it," Snape leapt back even further. "I don't touch... technology."
"What technology? This is magic!" Montague said indignantly. "If you weren't in my House and actually interested in building yourself up, I wouldn't even be telling you this."
Snape instinctively glanced at the top of Montague's head. Merlin's beard, it was only 1976, and Quidditch circles were already this advanced?
"Mondo,oh no, Montague, thank you very much. But I've got no money! Just let me use your training room, that's all. My friend's still waiting for me..."
Snape bolted.
...
After dinner in the Great Hall, Snape unwillingly made his way toward Professor McGonagall's office.
Tonight, once again, he would be serving detention there with James.
So far, he and James had sorted Filch's old records, washed the bed sheets and covers in Madam Pomfrey's hospital wing, polished Tom Riddle's trophies, and done a number of other tedious chores.
That the two of them had not yet come to blows was, in Snape's mind at least, something of a miracle.
He knocked lightly on the door.
"Enter," came Professor McGonagall's stern voice from inside.
The room matched her personality. In contrast to Dumbledore's office full of marvels, hers had no frills at all,one could almost call it bare.
Apart from a Gryffindor banner and a few House Cups, her shelves and desk bore only books and rolls of parchment.
"Good evening, Professor," Snape said. "It seems Mr. Potter isn't here yet. What is our task tonight?"
"Good evening, Severus." Professor McGonagall handed him a stack of parchment. "Tonight is your last night. You will write lines,'I will live in harmony with students of other Houses, united as one.'
"Fill these sheets, and that will suffice. You may begin."
Snape took the parchment and sat at a small desk, beginning to copy the sentence over and over with his quill.
This was far easier than he had expected. At least it wasn't that toadlike lunatic Umbridge making them write lines,there was nothing to fear.
Before long, James arrived as well. He sat at the farthest end from Snape and joined in writing the lines.
Meanwhile, Professor McGonagall sat nearby, reading the latest issue of Transfiguration Today by lamplight.
Nearly two hours later, Snape finally finished.
He inspected his work with satisfaction, only to notice that his handwriting grew sloppier and larger toward the end.
Nervously, Snape handed the parchment to Professor McGonagall, hoping she would not be too exacting.
Fortunately, she did not make things difficult for him, only frowned and said, "That will do."
Before leaving, Snape suddenly remembered something and said to James, "Mr. Potter, the parchment to replace yours will arrive in a few days."
"Screech-"
James's chair scraped loudly against the floor. He barely restrained himself from standing, but his quill stabbed hard against the parchment, leaving an ugly blot of ink spreading across the page.
"Potter, what are you doing? You'll have to rewrite that page," McGonagall's voice came at once.
Satisfied, Snape pulled the door shut behind him.
Standing in the corridor, he drew out the Marauder's Map.
With a tap of his wand, fine ink lines spread from the tip like a spider's web, branching, connecting, and sprawling until they filled every corner of the parchment.
Snape idly scanned the many moving dots, his gaze sweeping along familiar corridors.
Suddenly, he spotted a familiar name,Mulciber.
Mulciber's dot was moving near the library on the fifth floor of the castle.
Then, the dot representing him vanished completely from the map.
Snape's heart rang with alarm.
Unless Mulciber had swapped bodies like him, there was no way he would ever enter the library.
And right at the spot where he disappeared, the Marauder's Map showed a secret passage leading to Hogsmeade.
After confirming that Filch was sitting quietly in his office behind the marble staircase, Snape raced upstairs.
Casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself, he became like a humanoid chameleon, hiding carefully among a cluster of suits of armor, watching as the departing students trickled away.
Only when Madam Pince drew the library doors closed did Snape step out from the wall.
He approached a tall mirror not far from the library. Following the instructions on the Marauder's Map, he traced a strange pattern across it with his wand and whispered:
"Soar on wings."
At once, the mirror split apart down the middle and slid into the wall.
A broad passage opened up before him.