HP: It's a snake, not a badger.

Chapter 9 No one can go hungry in front of me.

The office was dimly lit, with the overhead chandelier providing a little light to the figure reading the parchment scroll. The entire space was filled with the soft scratching of a quill pen across the parchment.

"Enter"

"Professor, we've come to put you in solitary confinement. All five of you are here." Hearing this, Snape, who was furious about grading first-year troll papers, felt a little better. "Except for Mr. Thaddeus, your task tonight is to completely extract the digestive glands of the slugs." He paused, quite pleased to see the four of them turn green. "Thardus, grade the first-year papers."

Seeing Emeric's face turn green, Snape's mood improved even more. With the mess gone, the house was clean. He picked up the small sandwich Emeric had just placed on the table and began to eat it naturally. Since nearly fainting after three days of barely eating, Emeric had been bringing some easily digestible food with him every night.

"Severus, come to the principal's office. The password is 'cockroach pile.'" His good mood, which lasted only a few seconds, was completely ruined by the old bee. He walked to the cabinet, picked up the specially made teeth-strengthening potion (bitter melon and orange peel flavor), and turned back to the five little giants before leaving, saying, "I hope you can complete the task on time and in the required quantity. I doubt anyone wants to know how long the longest solitary confinement lasts, huh?"

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"Severus, want to try the new cockroach pile? It tastes really good."

Seeing Dumbledore stuffing a still-wriggling cockroach antenna into his mouth, he said, "Old Bee, should I call Minerva? If I remember correctly, you've already finished your candy ration for this month, haven't you? Aren't you afraid there might be a real cockroach in there? I've heard cockroaches are sweet too."

Dumbledore silently put down the candy in his hand, waved his wand to pile the cockroaches into the drawer, and then served two cups of black tea.

"What do you want from me? I still have five years' worth of papers to grade. You're so bored you've been processing documents. I hope you're still thinking straight and not completely brainwashed by sugar. Damn it, how much sweets do you want to eat, you old bee?" Snape took a sip of his black tea and couldn't help but curse out loud. It was so sweet it was cloying. He couldn't resist taking out a preserved plum and putting it in his mouth. The sour and salty taste immediately relieved the sweetness in his mouth.

Seeing Snape's displeased expression, Dumbledore twitched his mustache with amusement and quickly changed the subject before Snape could get angry. "Severus, don't you think Thaddeus and Harry are getting too close? The Sorting Hat told me Thaddeus is a natural Slytherin, and I think you understand what that means."

"He's been going to the cellar every day since school started, and he probably trusts you the most at school. Severus, I need you to watch over him; the child is still young and needs adult supervision, doesn't he?"

"Old Bee, can't you even tolerate a child? Voldemort was like that, and so am I. Now you want to spy on a 13-year-old? You can't drag another child into this." Snape stared into Dumbledore's eyes, slammed his hand on the table, the parchment on the table shook, and all the portraits on the wall were covered up.

He was willing to serve Dumbledore to atone for his sins, but he could not involve anyone else, especially a child.

"Your golden boy, Weasley, Granger, even Malfoy are involved. Do you really want to drag in someone completely unrelated as well?"

"Severus, calm down. I'm not asking you to monitor him, but this child has some special powers that require guidance from an adult wizard. The Sorting Hat senses that this power is close to nature, but even more so to conflict. I'm worried that this child might get into fights with his classmates. This was also requested by his two fathers; this child previously defeated the seventh-year head of Durmstrang." Dumbledore ate a lemon-orange drink with a headache. He hadn't expected to transfer in someone who loved to fight. Luckily, he didn't like to resort to underhanded tactics, otherwise Hogwarts might have been torn apart.

Snape was stunned upon hearing this. He had spent a month with Americh and hadn't noticed anything unusual about him, neither a penchant for fighting nor any special abilities. He frowned. "Are you sure it's Thaddeus? I haven't noticed any of these problems in the two months I've spent with him."

She pursed her lips and continued, "Aside from needing to eat on time and getting angry if he doesn't get to eat, I haven't noticed any special problems or powers in him."

Ever since he discovered that Emeric hadn't been eating on time, he'd been stuffing him with snacks and treats, his thinking being: he couldn't let his partner get thinner next to him!

They also gave him a gold-plated button, which his father supposedly made on a whim, stuffed full of things, as a perk for his employees.

Dumbledore watched Snape pull out dried fruit from somewhere and start eating it again. He looked at him curiously and asked, "Severus, I remember you don't like snacks. Has something happened lately?" He couldn't resist his curiosity, even though he was being scolded.

"Of course, Headmaster Dumbledore is so busy, how could he possibly care about his poor Potions professor, who almost fainted from hunger in the cellar because of work? If it weren't for Mr. Thaddeus coming to the cellar every day to give extra lessons, and you need to find someone else to teach Potions, I wouldn't have to deal with those trolls whose brains are full of reeds."

Even faster than the melon arrived was Snape's Venom, which made Dumbledore feel a rare pang of guilt upon hearing this. There were Potions for the seventh year, papers, potion orders from the infirmary, special orders from teachers, and his Tooth-Strengthening Potion.

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When Snape returned to the cellar with a grim face, it was already late; the students in solitary confinement had already gone to their dormitories.

He couldn't help but feel irritated when he thought about what the old bee had said before he left: "That child trusts you, so only you can handle it."

Finding himself experiencing excessive emotional fluctuations, he automatically used his brain-locking technique to control his emotions—a subconscious reaction he'd had for years. After calming down, he decided to do nothing. Since the person was in his hands and would be confined to the cellar soon, there was no need to do anything further.