The girl understood Snape's intention, and her posture seemed to relax a fraction. She slowly stood up and began to walk toward the door, taking agonizingly slow steps. Just as Snape felt his fingers losing their grip on his Wand, the girl suddenly spun around and hurled a small stone, knocking the Wand from his hand.
The Petrificus Totalus was making it increasingly difficult for him to control the magic within his body, and now he had been disarmed. Snape instantly tried to push himself up, but the lower half of his body was completely petrified, sending him collapsing back to the floor. Yet the girl did not attack him as she had before; she simply stood there quietly.
*Is she waiting for me to be completely petrified and stripped of any ability to resist?* Snape watched the girl. Calm and rational when facing a superior enemy, she waited for the right moment with the patience of a viper lurking in the shadows, ready to deliver a fatal strike the instant her adversary lowered their guard.
As Snape felt the muscles in his neck lock up, the girl removed the bandage from her eyes and walked toward him. Her eyes were not the blood-red he had seen earlier; they were as clear and azure as the sea.
The girl's face was expressionless, devoid of the slightest flicker of emotion. Those eyes, as exquisitely crafted as glass, were utterly hollow. Were it not for the slight rise and fall of her chest caused by her injuries, she would have looked like a lifeless puppet. A chilling memory flashed through Snape's mind: had this girl humming so emotionlessly while taking the life of the man on the floor?
Seeing that the girl made no move, merely standing before him in silent observation, Snape sneered, "If you're going to do it, get on with it. You weren't this hesitant when you were killing people earlier."
The girl showed no irritation at Snape's provocation. She crouched down beside the man on the floor, appearing entirely unguarded.
"Do you want me to kill you?"
The girl's voice was childish and cold, delivered without emotion or pause. As if afraid Snape might not understand, she added, "I can kill you. If you want."
A brief silence followed. Having seemingly received her answer from Snape's expression, the girl tilted her head slightly. "So you don't want to die."
Then Snape saw the girl's eyes gradually turn red—that same blood-red.
The moment her eyes shifted, a somewhat blurred spell shot toward them. The girl did not dodge, and the curse left a gash across her forehead, slanting down from her eyebrow until it stopped at the tip of her nose.
Snape was unable to cast powerful magic, and with his entire body severely petrified, he could only channel the last remnants of his manageable magic into a blade-like edge, failing to aim precisely at the girl's eyes. Unfazed by the pain, the girl stared into Snape's pitch-black eyes. Her own eyes grew steadily crimson once more, and fresh blood spilled from the corners. Then, slowly, the girl's eyes faded back to their original azure, though now heavily bloodshot.
"I don't want to kill you either."
Watching the girl—who finally displayed a trace of emotion—turn and walk away after speaking those words, Snape dimly perceived that the petrification effect on his body was waning. She had lifted the spell. Sensing carefully, he realized he would be able to move in about an hour. At that moment, he glanced at the girl, who had reached the door and was about to open it. His mouth turned down at the corners in a look of supreme reluctance as he muttered,
"If you don't want to cough up blood and die, the cabinet by the wall... second row, fourth bottle. Drink it!"
After that, he watched as the girl at the doorway stared at him for a long time—a silence far more rigid than the atmosphere of the room. He turned his head away with a cold huff and refused to look again.
As a master of potion-making, it was easy for him to poison someone without a sound. Yet he had not expected this girl to retain her capacity for attack even after being poisoned. "Dangerous little monster!" Snape muttered under his breath. Then he heard the sound of a cabinet being rumpled and a vial being unstoppered, followed by the patter of raindrops against the eaves outside and a biting gust of wind carrying two words:
"Thank you."
Those two words drifted through the dim, cold room, causing his petrified body to twitch.
As soon as he regained basic mobility, he conjured a Patronus to contact Headmaster Dumbledore, then collapsed onto the sofa. Before long, a flash of flame appeared in the dim, damp room. An elderly man in a blue dressing gown materialized, a brilliantly colored Phoenix perched upon his shoulder.
The old man looked at him slumped on the sofa without a word, his azure eyes behind half-moon spectacles sweeping gravely over the surroundings. Neither spoke, and Snape's face was as dark as thunder. The old man reached out slightly, drew up a chair, and sat down.
"What happened, Severus?"
"Pensieve." Unwilling to waste a single superfluous word, Snape reached his Wand to his temple the moment the old man produced the stone basin. A silvery wisp of memory was pulled from his Wand and shaken into the basin. Watching the man finish without a word, the old man frowned and dipped his head into the Pensieve.
Ten minutes later, Headmaster Dumbledore reappeared in the room. "She was nowhere to be seen in the alleyway. I only found four corpses with their skulls smashed in. The bodies are still petrified, though releasing them won't make any difference now... It seems that child returned, leaving no survivors... and took the puppy named Angus."
"There are still magical fluctuations lingering in the area, but they cannot be tracked. It appears she used some kind of spell-shielding method, though that's unlikely. She must have entered a place that blocks perception."
Dumbledore's eyes behind his half-moon spectacles turned toward the window, his tone losing its usual levity. Snape massaged his still-numb arms, his voice heavy. "I hardly think a child under six years old could pull this off, yet there is no trace of Polyjuice Potion or Transfiguration on her! And those eyes..."
The two fell into a silent stalemate once more, neither seemingly wishing to recall the bearer of those girl-like crimson pupils. Dumbledore closed his eyes, his breathing growing slightly heavier. "Severus, do you remember our previous conversation?"
Struck in a vulnerable spot, Snape glared sharply at Headmaster Dumbledore. "I said I would do anything for her—*anything!* You don't need to keep reminding me over and over again!" Seeing the old man remain silent as if weighing something, Snape snapped, "What are we to do about that girl? Can even the greatest wizard in the world not find her?"
Dumbledore slipped back into his cheerful demeanor. "Severus, you cannot expect a centenarian to scour the entirety of Britain just to find a little girl. However, I will ask some of my old friends for assistance."
Dumbledore stepped closer to Snape and looked him over. Despising being scrutinized, Snape clicked his tongue in annoyance. "My petrification has mostly worn off; Headmaster Dumbledore need not concern himself so! As for this ability to petrify people and freely control and lift the curse... I imagine even you couldn't manage that, Dumbledore."
"It seems tonight has left us with many questions, hasn't it? I know no more than you do, Severus."
After Headmaster Dumbledore left, Snape searched the surrounding area himself, but just as Dumbledore had said, not a trace of the girl was to be found.
The next morning, the *Daily Prophet* ran the story: *Four Wizards Struck by Petrification Curse and Brutally Murdered! Perpetrators at Large.* The article offered no further details; neither Snape nor Dumbledore participated in the Aurors' investigation.
With a tacit understanding, they distanced themselves from the affair and conducted their own inquiries in secret. Naturally, there were no eyewitnesses and no further evidence. To outsiders, it appeared as though those four statues had simply materialized out of nowhere. Subsequent Auror investigations revealed that the four men were dark wizards, and the whole affair was concluded as a duel between dark elements. No one cared about the fate of dark wizards; they merely rejoiced that such danger had not come for them.
The investigation into the girl did not go smoothly. Snape could turn up no clues whatsoever. Spinner's End was hardly a safe neighborhood to begin with, and the presence of dark wizards was to be expected. Dumbledore remained entirely tight-lipped about the matter. As time passed, Snape returned to teaching at Hogwarts. He stopped sparing attention to track the girl's movements, and that melodious, clear hum in the rain that night gradually blurred in his mind and faded into oblivion.