Another few shelves down, the thestrals stopped abruptly as a short, round man with a bald head and a silver handlebar mustache ran straight into them and fell flat on his back. Albus looked up and saw that the man had come out of an aisle labeled FRAUDULENT COUNSELORS.
“No! I was so close that time! Well, that certainly was a jolly sight less horrible than the last time I ran into something,” the man remarked to himself. Albus noticed that the man was bruised, and that his head was slightly cone-shaped, with one flat side. The wizard was covered in blood, and his body had small, hole-shaped scars all over it.
The man looked up. “Well, if it isn’t Severus Snape, and--” he squinted, “another Potter! You look just like your father, of course.”
“Potter, this is Horace Slughorn, former Potions master at Hogwarts,” Snape introduced. “Horace, Albus has come on this journey with me to help him understand how to further the peace of the wizarding world. Please tell him why you are here.”
Slughorn’s face grew serious as he studied Albus. “It was I who gave Lord Voldemort the information he needed to make the Horcruxes, without which he would never have been able to return at all. Instead of teaching him valuable and wholesome lessons, I unwittingly led him down a path of evil, advised him in committing the worst possible crimes against the world. For my poor guidance, I am now led by tantalizing visions in my own head, which I cannot get out. The visions are so real, so tangible--if I could only attain them! Then when they lead me face-first into a spiked wall, or directly into a toffee stretcher or a butter churner--only then does the vision become true reality. Of course,” he added hopefully, “there’s always next time.” Albus shook his head as they continued on.
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