The girl sat in the corner on a torn sheet that offered no protection against the cold. Fortunately, it was the sweltering heat of summer, so the nights were not bone-chilling.
Angus lay down beside her feet, warming the girl's legs with his own body heat. She took down the hunting rifle slurred across her back and carefully wiped and maintained it. Mud and dried blood covered her face and body. To her, the only thing that mattered was a weapon that could save her life at a critical moment.
Then, gripping the long gun, she pointed it toward the doorway. Pressing slightly against the wall, she raised her head toward the drafty ceiling. A somewhat hoarse voice issued from her dry lips as the girl quietly hummed a tune, her other hand gently stroking Angus's back to groom his fur.
Suddenly, a crisp knock sounded at the door. Without a moment's hesitation, the girl raised the muzzle and fired a bullet straight into the center of the wooden door. Following a loud bang, she immediately prepared to fire another shot, but from behind the door came a slightly aggrieved and unfamiliar aged voice:
"Oh my, you should be a bit gentler with an old man..."
With that, the door was slowly pushed open, and an old man with a full head of white hair and a long white beard, possessing a kindly appearance, blinked at the girl and smiled. Not a single trace of a bullet mark remained on the old man; only the thick smell of gunpowder inside the cabin reminded the girl that she had indeed just fired a shot through the door.
Tense from head to toe, the girl held the hunting rifle in one hand while drawing a dagger from her lower back with the other, guarding Angus fiercely. The old man stood and slowly raised both hands to show he meant no harm. Then, beneath the barrel of the gun she held, he slowly stepped inside, conjured a chair at a neither-too-near-nor-too-far distance, and sat down.
He looked around, raised a hand, and made glowing orbs radiating warm light appear one by one between the two of them.
"Please forgive the rashness of a centenarian, and I apologize for my rather impolite knock. Hello, young lady, my name is Headmaster Dumbledore. It is a pleasure to meet you."
The girl did not speak; her dagger and hunting rifle remained trained on the exceedingly genial old man before her.
Dumbledore looked at the young girl who was fiercely protecting her pet and said, "Is this your friend? A very handsome German Shepherd. A big friend of mine also keeps a large dog, and he loves small animals too. You two must have plenty to talk about."
Dumbledore was met only with the crisp sound of a round being chambered, causing him to smile with a trace of awkwardness. Watching everything unfold from the shadows, Severus could not help but find it somewhat amusing.
After Dumbledore tried various ways to break the ice, the girl remained completely unresponsive. Dumbledore felt as though he had finally encountered a child today who was even harder to crack than Severus. Then, his expression turning more serious, he pronounced three words with great solemnity:
"Circus."
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Three consecutive gunshots echoed through the cabin, and Severus was also startled by the girl's reaction. He looked at the girl, whose arms trembled slightly from absorbing the recoil of three consecutive gunshots. A circus? Why did she react so strongly? Dumbledore had previously instructed him not to reveal himself yet—what was this old man probing for?
Three bullets trailing wisps of white smoke were embedded in a barrier of white air ten centimeters from the old man's face. The old man remained calm, quietly watching the girl before him. At that moment, the girl tore off the bandages on her face, revealing a pair of crimson eyes. But what brought Severus and Dumbledore to a complete halt was that not a single patch of skin covered by the bandages was intact.
Scars of all shapes and sizes crawled like centipedes around her eyes and across her forehead, ferocious and terrifying. Severus vaguely recognized the scar he had left on the girl's forehead when he had attacked her earlier. No one could have imagined a little girl's face would look like this, and Severus clearly remembered that when he first met her, there had only been one or two marks on her face, whereas now her entire face was nearly covered in scars. Yet the girl's eyes were still unharmed; it seemed the assailant had deliberately avoided them. She stared fixedly at Dumbledore.
"...My sincerest apologies, young lady. I meant no harm. I am sorry."
Dumbledore was entirely unaffected by the red pupils, though he was momentarily stunned the instant he saw the girl's eyes; quickly, however, he averted his gaze so as not to look at her face. At that moment, a cold laugh escaped the girl's lips. She finally spoke:
"Could this Mr. Dumbledore please stop maintaining that hypocritical benevolence? What is the purpose of you two?" The girl's voice was childish yet still icy cold, devoid of inflection.
Dumbledore and Severus heard the girl clearly refer to "two" people, but neither moved. Suddenly, the girl flung the dagger in her hand, only for it to be deflected by a wand just as it was about to reach the wall.
Severus's figure materialized, and the girl instantly drew a small handgun from beneath the table, aiming it at the direction from which the dagger had been thrown, though her eyes remained fixed on Dumbledore.
Dumbledore looked at the young girl before him. She was eleven years old this year; a blank space had appeared in the Book of Acceptance, and the name on the admission letter was also blank. The owl had flown to the general location based on the address above, finally locating this young girl after a round of searching. Yet the girl's aura caused every owl to refuse to approach her, as if instinctively terrified of her.
Seeing the girl's plight, Dumbledore felt helpless. But Severus's supplied memories left him deeply uneasy about this mysterious little girl. Red pupils, black hair, devoid of emotion... could she be of his bloodline? Moreover, this young girl possessed an ability far more terrifying than that of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Dumbledore felt utterly powerless; in three years, Harry would enroll. The appearance of this girl had become the greatest hidden danger to his plan. He needed to eliminate this massive uncertainty, yet he hesitated when he looked into the girl's crimson, hollow eyes.
Seeing the somewhat absent-minded old man, the girl turned her head slightly to look at the other person. A black wizard's robe swept the floor, entirely devoid of any other color. The moment their eyes met, the girl froze. Severus looked into those crimson eyes, yet felt none of the previous sense of threat and magic. Could she really have become a Squib? Catching a fleeting flash of brilliance in the girl's eyes, he looked away again when he saw the overlapping scars covering her face.
"Cyrus," the girl stated emotionlessly, her tone matching the English word *silence*. She put away the guns in both hands and retied her bandages. Dumbledore glanced at the frowning Severus.
"Hello, Miss Sean. Thank you very much for your trust in us. I am the headmaster of a school of magic called Hogwarts. This is the school's Potions professor, Professor Severus Snape, and he is also the Head of Slytherin House."
Dumbledore withdrew his previously solemn expression, introducing himself and Severus to Cyrus as if nothing had happened at all. Severus glanced at the old man who could shift topics so swiftly and act so carefree, let out a cold snort, and gave a slight nod to the girl in front of him. The girl returned the nod in kind. Seeing the previously hostile girl soften her attitude, Dumbledore smiled and said:
"Well, Miss Sean, a very personalized name. Did your parents give it to you?"
"No. Someone once saved me, and I happened to lack a name at that time." Cyrus looked neither of them in the eyes, speaking with extreme conciseness. She stroked Angus's head as she spoke, her tone instantly growing softer. "This is Angus."
"Ah, well, Miss... Sean. Considering your previous guardian was Mr. Burt Sean, the local hunter, how does that name sound to you?" Seeing that the girl did not object, the old man waved his hand, and the blank name on the admission letter filled in with the words *Cyrus Sean*.
"Your savior—what do you plan to do when you see him?" Dumbledore glanced at Severus, earning a fierce glare from the latter in return.
"...An eye for an eye, but not yet. I cannot die yet..." Cyrus's eyes lowered as she secretly observed Severus from the corner of her eye.
*"Hmph! Foolish and arrogant thought!"* Severus, sitting nearby, suddenly flashed this thought in his mind, but outwardly he kept his obsidian eyes as calm as stagnant water, staring at the wall as if studying the material of the brick.
Dumbledore once again inquired about more information concerning Cyrus, but afterward, Cyrus simply faced him in silence, not uttering a single word. Back to square one. Seeing that she was unwilling to communicate with him, Dumbledore cast his gaze toward Severus. Severus acted as though he felt no gaze upon him, continuing to study the wall. Just like Cyrus, he said nothing and offered no response.
Dumbledore reached out to rub his brow and sighed.
"Miss Sean, it seems both your eyes and your magic have something rather special about them. For the sake of your health, would you mind letting me examine you?"
"No need."
"Cyrus, if you encounter any difficulties, as your headmaster I will do my utmost to help you. Besides... your friend gives me a very special feeling, doesn't he?"
Dumbledore's azure gaze shifted to Angus behind the girl. Just as he prepared to probe further with magic, he felt his vision blur, and the surrounding space seemed to distort.
For a single instant, magic fluctuations appeared faintly around Dumbledore. When he shifted his gaze back to the young girl, he met those crimson eyes once more. Bloodshot and brimming with fresh blood at the corners, they looked as if they were about to spill over. He felt those eyes were even more hollow and drained than before.
"You are powerful, but I am not afraid of death."
Dumbledore leaned forward, his profound gaze meeting the girl's without flinching. Then a trace of surprise flashed in Dumbledore's eyes, though it quickly returned to normal.
"No matter what, Miss Sean, this is your acceptance letter. Over the next seven years, you will go to Hogwarts to study magic. Since you have no guardian, a professor will escort you to Diagon Alley to purchase your school supplies later, and there are grants you can apply for. It is late now, and I apologize for disturbing your rest. If there are no other issues, let's stop here for today."
As Dumbledore and Severus prepared to rise, Cyrus looked at Severus. "If I enter Hogwarts, will you be my teacher?"
Severus was momentarily at a loss for how to reply, and subconsciously gave a slight nod. Dumbledore, standing to one side, seemed to witness a highly entertaining scene and chuckled, "Of course, Professor Snape will be your Potions professor. If you are sorted into Slytherin, he will also be your Head of House. Heh, though I personally recommend Gryffindor."
"Severus Snape... Slytherin... Headmaster Dumbledore, I do not need to apply for a grant."
"......Without applying for a grant, things might be quite difficult for you. Books and wands are all necessities, and the cost for a year could easily exceed thirty Galleons... Hm? Why are you holding out your hand?"
"Mr. Dumbledore, I am not yet a student of this school. Allow me to use such an address: you broke into my house without any advance notice. You did not stop your discourtesy even after I fired a shot as a warning. Your embarrassing style of questioning, and your use of a centenarian playing dumb as an excuse to further probe my personal information— I was forced to use my last three bullets for self-defense. Those are essential tools for me to earn a living in my life, and this has disrupted my hunting schedule and income for next week. Furthermore, you have delayed the treatment of my injuries; for the next week, I may not be able to maintain a clear mind. I do not know since when you began prying into my life, yet a dignified headmaster harbors such a hobby. The repair fee for the wooden door, the repair fee for the firearm, my medical expenses, and the mental anguish compensation for both myself and Angus— since you will be my headmaster in the future, just give me three hundred gold Galleons."
"Please forgive—a youngster's ignorant display of clever words."
Never had he expected such startling words from this reticent little girl. The corners of Severus's mouth curved upward slightly. From some point onward, he had firmly believed this girl must be a standard Slytherin.
"Ahem... Professor Snape will take you to purchase your necessities when the time comes, and he will bring the amount along—"
Turning back just as he prepared to refuse, Severus saw Dumbledore's somewhat lost-for-words face, and his mood suddenly felt not quite so bad. He did not look at the girl again, but merely flicked his black robes and dropped a single sentence:
"Three days from now, in the afternoon. I hope you will not waste my time, Miss Sean."
"Very well, sir. See you then."