Transmigration: Into the Life of Severus Snape

The violins soared in a crystalline cascade of notes, but Severus barely heard them above the sudden intrusion slicing through his consciousness.
Eva’s voice cut through his mind like a blade forged from ice, low and urgent, the mental link crackling with barely restrained alarm. He froze mid-breath, his hand tightening around the delicate stem of his wine glass until his knuckles went white. The sensation followed a heartbeat later—a shimmer in the air like heat waves rising from summer stone, a vibration beneath the ancient wards he knew as intimately as his own pulse. Someone was pushing against the magical barriers with deliberate force. Testing their strength. Systematically breaking through.
Across the opulent hall, past the swirling dancers and glittering chandeliers, Arcturus had already risen from his ornate chair with fluid grace. Two wardkeepers, their faces drained of color and etched with worry, bent close to whisper urgently into his ear. The old lord’s steel-gray eyes found Severus instantly across the crowded room, cutting through the revelry like a hawk spotting prey. His silver-topped cane tapped once against the polished marble floor—a subtle signal—before he crossed the ballroom with deliberate, measured steps, masking deadly urgency beneath layers of practiced aristocratic poise.
"Walk with me," Arcturus commanded, his cultured voice pitched low enough that only Severus could hear. No explanation offered, no words wasted on pleasantries.
They slipped away from the glittering crowd and out onto the moonlit balcony. Cold night air rushed in to meet them, carrying with it the faint but unmistakable tang of ozone—the sharp scent of magical wards straining against overwhelming pressure, threatening to snap.
From the deep shadows pooling at the base of the marble stairwell, Lorenzo Zabini emerged like a wraith, his dark robes rustling softly. Matteo Ricci followed a respectful step behind, his hand resting casually near his wand. With them came the unmistakable ripple of the Shadow Squad’s presence: unseen figures melting through darkness, but Severus felt the weight of their lethal attention pressing against the very edges of his magical perception like a physical force.
"You felt it too," Lorenzo said grimly, his weathered face etched with concern as he turned from the window overlooking the estate grounds.
"North-east corner," Severus replied, his voice carrying the certainty of someone who had spent years analyzing magical disturbances. "Deliberate. Focused. Someone who knows exactly what they’re doing."
Matteo’s hand instinctively brushed against his wand, fingers finding comfort in the familiar wood. The casual gesture spoke of years of training, muscle memory honed by countless encounters. "Not drunk revelers stumbling into our defenses, then."
"Who breaches our wards?" Eileen demanded, stepping closer to the group. Her hands clenched repeatedly at her sides, the subtle rhythm betraying the carefully controlled anger simmering beneath her outwardly calm demeanor. "What’s their aim here? Are they after coin, seeking to damage our reputation, or do they want blood?"
"Blood," Severus said coldly, his storm-grey eyes remaining fixed on the invisible barrier of protective magic that surrounded their territory. His voice carried the weight of bitter experience. "With our enemies, it’s always blood they’re after."
They gathered just beyond the ballroom doors, where the warm golden glow of enchanted lanterns cast harsh, unforgiving shadows across faces etched with grim determination. The elegant music and laughter from within seemed a world away from the tension crackling in the corridor. Arcturus’s ornate cane struck the ancient flagstones with a sharp, decisive crack that echoed off the stone walls, instantly silencing the assembled group.
"You four," he said, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority as he stabbed the silver-topped cane toward Severus, Alessandro, Ben, and Evie in turn. "Stay here. My personal detail and the Zabinis’ Shadows will handle this matter."
Severus’s spine went rigid, his black eyes flashing with indignation. "No."
Arcturus’s steel-gray eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, his weathered face hardening into an expression that had intimidated Dark Lords and Ministry officials alike. "This isn’t some sanitized tournament bout or a civilized debate in an ICW chamber, boy. It’s blood, fire, and teeth—raw violence where mistakes cost lives. I won’t have you throwing yourselves into the maw simply to prove your courage."
"We were trained for this," Alessandro interjected hotly, stepping forward with barely contained fury, his refined Italian accent sharpening each word like a blade. "Not for earning ballroom applause with pretty spellwork, but for real combat—life and death. My father didn’t pay Sofia Mariani’s exorbitant fees to teach me how to waltz around hexes."
Ben’s grin was purely wolfish, predatory and fierce, but his tone carried an edge of hard-won conviction. "You need every wand you can get, Lord Prince, and you know it. I’ve spent months breaking bones and spilling blood in underground dueling pits, taking beatings just for the chance to be useful when it truly matters. This is that moment."
Evie placed a steady, calming hand on Ben’s tensed forearm and spoke with the quiet certainty of someone who had already made peace with her decision. "You’ve seen us fight, sir. You’ve watched us train, tested our skills yourself. We’re not sheltered children anymore, and we won’t stand safely behind walls while others bleed and die for us."
Arcturus’s jaw clenched like a steel trap, the muscles working beneath weathered skin. He looked from one determined face to the next—each set with the kind of resolve that had built their houses and buried their enemies—then finally settled his gaze on Severus.
Severus met his uncle’s steely eyes without flinching, his own dark gaze steady as obsidian. "They came for me, Uncle. For my blood, for your house, for everything our name represents. If I hide in the shadows while others defend what I brought to this door... then I am already dead in every way that matters."
The old lord’s ornate cane struck the ancient stone again, the sound sharp and final as a judge’s gavel echoing through the chamber. "Damn you for inheriting your mother’s stubborn streak. It’ll be the death of us all." His voice carried the weight of decades spent making impossible choices. "Fine. But you stay at the rear of our formation, and if the line falters even for a moment, you run. No heroics, no last stands. Is that crystal clear?"
"Yes, sir," they said in perfect unison, their voices a chorus of grim acceptance.
"Run if things turn south," Arcturus repeated, his weathered gaze sharp as a freshly honed blade. "I’ll kill you myself if you don’t—assuming we survive this madness."
At the edge of the gathering, Lorenzo Zabini was having his own battle of wills, giving his niece the same protective order. "You’re not coming, Isadora. That’s final."
Isadora tilted her chin defiantly, storm-grey eyes flashing with dangerous light. "I’ve not had a proper chance to play with my magic in months, Uncle. Do you honestly think I’ll sit by like some helpless ornament while others fight for my grandfather’s name and honor too?"
"Isadora—" Lorenzo began, his voice thick with exasperation and barely contained worry.
Matteo Ricci, observing the familiar family dynamic, muttered under his breath with dark amusement, "She’s as bad as you were at her age, Lorenzo. Worse, perhaps."
Isadora’s smile was razor-thin and cold as winter moonlight. "Worse, Uncle Matteo. Much worse. Because unlike my dear uncle, I don’t intend to be leashed by anyone’s fears."
Lorenzo sighed, the fight leaving him in a breath. He knew her well enough not to waste words on empty threats or hollow promises. "Stay close to me or Ricci. You overreach, you die. And I’ll drag you back to Nonno’s study in chains if I must."
"I won’t overreach," she said simply, her fingers already closing around her wand with practiced ease. "I’ll kill."
They moved swiftly through the ornate iron gates and into the manicured hedges and enchanted lanterns of the manor gardens. The crystalline laughter and orchestral music behind them dulled to a distant hum, as though another world had closed its doors against the violence about to unfold.
Shadows flickered between the ancient oak trees, moving with unnatural purpose. Then the first spell streaked across the moonlit lawn, a sickly green bolt that shattered against Arcturus’s shimmering wards in a shower of sparks.
"Contact," Matteo barked, his voice cutting through the night air.
Mercenaries poured from the darkness—masked faces beneath steel helms, bodies encased in dragon-hide armor, moving with lethal precision born of countless battles. At least twenty emerged from their concealment. Behind them surged a second wave: fifteen hulking figures with yellow eyes gleaming like feral stars, lips pulled back to reveal elongated canine teeth. Werewolves—disciplined despite their bestial nature, silver collars glinting at their throats, unleashed in coordinated packs. This was Voldemort’s pragmatism at its most brutal, stripped of all subtlety and political maneuvering.
"Positions!" Arcturus roared, his ornate cane stabbing into the soft earth. A dome of defensive wards rippled outward from the point of contact, casting a faint azure shimmer across the grass and bathing their faces in ethereal light.
Matteo moved first, his wand flashing in a precise arc. His cutting curse ripped through a hastily conjured shield and buried itself deep in a mercenary’s chest, the man collapsing mid-stride with a strangled cry. Lorenzo’s voice rose like a whip crack, crisp incantations rolling off his tongue as twin bolts of silver light felled two wolves before they could cross the wardline.
Severus stepped forward, dark eyes like polished knives in the lamplight. No hesitation. No mercy.
He hurled a vial into the air—glass shattering with a crystalline crack as alchemical fire burst forth, unfurling into a thick, choking black smoke that billowed across the courtyard. Wolves stumbled blindly through the haze, snarling and snapping at shadows, their amber eyes streaming with tears. With a sharp flick of his wand, Severus whispered an incantation that caused the smoke to solidify and twist, hardening into jagged spears of obsidian darkness that whistled through the air and impaled two charging mercenaries, their momentum carrying them forward even as they fell.
"Keep the line!" Alessandro shouted over the chaos, spinning in place with practiced grace as his purple curse crackled through the air, sending one massive wolf tumbling backward into the ornamental hedges with a bone-jarring thud.
Another enemy tried to circle around and flank Severus from the left. Without missing a beat, he slashed his wand downward in a vicious arc, silver fire erupting in a crescent that carved through the air like a blade. The mercenary’s wand arm went suddenly limp at his side, fingers releasing his weapon as an agonized scream tore from his throat—only to be cut brutally short as Alessandro’s follow-up hex struck him square in the chest, dropping him to the cobblestones.
"Subtle," Ben muttered through gritted teeth, grinning wolfishly as he locked spells with two attackers simultaneously, red sparks flying where their magic clashed. Evie pressed close at his shoulder, her own wand weaving defensive patterns.
"I’m not here to be subtle," Severus snarled, his voice cold as winter steel while the acrid smoke curled around them like grasping fingers. "I’m here to remind them why Shafiq blood should never be spilled."
A massive grey wolf lunged from the shadows, powerful jaws snapping toward Severus’s throat—only for a chain of white-hot fire to catch it mid-leap, the searing links wrapping around its torso and severing its spine with surgical precision. Isadora stood firm at Severus’s left flank, her storm-grey eyes blazing with fierce determination, dark hair whipping around her face. Her wand movements were fluid and merciless, each spell cast with deadly intent.
"Fall back!" Lorenzo snapped from behind them, his voice harsh with worry and command authority. "Isadora—get behind the defensive line!"
"I’m not leaving the line," she bit back without turning, already pivoting to cut down another advancing mercenary with a slicing curse so precise and controlled that it split his leather mask cleanly in two, revealing the shocked face beneath.
Lorenzo hissed in frustration, his protective instincts warring with tactical necessity, but he didn’t physically pull her back. He couldn’t—not when she moved with such lethal certainty, her magic flowing like water turned to steel.
"On your right!" Matteo barked, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. Two Shadows immediately shifted formation, their midnight cloaks billowing as steel sang from sheaths. Blades flashed silver in the firelight as they intercepted a massive wolf breaking through their defensive line. The beast’s yellow eyes gleamed with feral hunger as it launched itself forward, claws extended and fangs bared.
One Shadow fell almost instantly, torn down in a crimson spray as razor-sharp claws raked across his chest, his strangled cry lost in the din of battle. But his sacrifice bought precious seconds. The second Shadow, moving with lethal precision, drove his curved dagger deep into the beast’s exposed throat. The wolf’s triumphant howl was cut short, dissolving into a wet gurgle as dark blood poured from the wound.
Arcturus’s protective wards flared brilliant blue-white as another volley of curses slammed into the shimmering barriers, each impact sending ripples of light cascading across the magical shield. The old lord stood unmoved at the center of the storm, his weathered face carved from granite, silver hair whipping in the wind generated by conflicting magics. When he spoke, his voice was a thunderclap that seemed to shake the very foundations of the manor. "Hold the line! Make them pay dearly for every step they take!"
For ten brutal minutes that felt like hours, the once-peaceful garden transformed into a hellish battlefield. Spells streaked through the air like multicolored lightning, illuminating the carnage in stark flashes. Wolves tore through carefully tended hedges as if they were paper, their massive forms leaving destruction in their wake. Conjured fire danced across the grounds, casting writhing shadows that made the scene even more nightmarish.
Severus moved at the center of it all like a dark angel of death, his black robes billowing as he wove between attackers with fluid grace. Alchemy and magic fused seamlessly in his hands, creating a deadly symphony of destruction that left enemies scattered in his wake. His obsidian eyes burned with cold fury as each spell found its mark, each gesture deliberate and merciless. Every incantation, every perfectly brewed potion unleashed, announced a clear message to every man who had dared to test the defenses of Prince Manor.
Not prey. Not neutral. Not weak.
The Shafiq name would be written in blood and fire tonight, carved into legend by spell and blade alike.
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