In the Midst of Life...

"Oh, shit," Severus thought. "Oh, bloody fucking hell."

Tobias Snape had had a rich vocabulary of Muggle invective, and while Severus generally despised swearing as the last resort of an uneducated man, there were some things that could overcome his resolve and cause him to employ his father's choicest phrases.

Such as realizing he had made a monumental error of judgement and was now trapped. Why hadn't he foreseen that they'd have to make a run for it? He could only suppose he'd thought, in a moment of supreme overconfidence, that his speech at the funeral would have convinced everyone they were acting out of the best motives. Instead, and this was his second huge mistake, he'd allowed Potter to undermine all his good work and turn the whole school against him. Malfoy had warned him Potter was not to be trusted, and Severus had ignored him.

Which meant that he was now trapped in the Forbidden Forest with Malfoy, Goyle, Zabini and a dozen underage kids. Even if they made it to the edge of the grounds they had no chance of Apparating to safety. Side-Along-Apparition was taxing enough at the best of times; with three kids each to take along it would be impossible. And the seventh years were of no use either. What with Voldemort running the Ministry last year and Alecto Carrow at Hogwarts, ostensibly teaching Muggle Studies but in reality making everyone's life hell, Apparition lessons had been the last thing on anyone's mind. The seventh years were due to take their tests in April, and a lot of good that was to him now.

And he had a strong suspicion someone had put an Anti-Apparition Jinx around the Forest anyway.

They were well and truly trapped.

********

Up in Gryffindor Tower, Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Seventh and Eighth years were composing a plan of action. Ron, showing a bit of the old Fred-and-George spirit, had sneaked into Snape's office and stolen the Slytherin house-register. Admittedly, with Snape now in hiding, not a lot of actual sneaking around had been required, but Ron, not wanting to risk being caught by Filch or Peeves, had borrowed Harry's Invisibility Cloak.

'Fred would've been proud of me, anyway,' Ron said with a catch in his voice as he emerged from under the Cloak and handed over the list. 'He wouldn't have taken this lying down, would he?'

'Definitely not,' Harry told him quietly, taking the list. 'Thanks, Ron.' He began marking off those who had been implicated in Professor Dumbledore's murder. It wasn't difficult; they had been conspicuous by their absence at the funeral.

And he was pretty sure he knew where they were. Snape had fled the castle with his students immediately after Dumbledore's funeral, and Harry had gone straight to Professor Flitwick and got him to put an Anti-Apparition Jinx around the Forbidden Forest. Flitwick had said it would keep Snape there until the Ministry could get to Hogwarts.

Harry, however, did not trust the Ministry further than he could throw them. He was determined to keep the promise he had made to Dumbledore's portrait and, first thing tomorrow morning, the Gryffindors were going into the Forest to hunt down all those involved.

'Malfoy, Goyle, Zabini,' Harry recited, ticking off their names. 'Malcolm Baddock, Graham Pritchard, Patrick Connor...'

Seamus Finnigan looked aghast. 'Harry, no; he's my cousin!'

Harry considered. Part of him, a very small part, knew he was being unreasonable. None of Seamus' family was a Death Eater; Seamus had apparently been horrified when Connor had been sorted into Slytherin in their third year. The boy had probably just got dragged into this mess by Goyle or Zabini.

But most of Harry wanted to kill Snape and Malfoy and all those connected to them. Since Dumbledore's death it felt like a fire had been lit inside him, and he was possessed by a manic desire for revenge.

'No,' said Harry to Seamus. 'He was in it with Snape. He has to die.'

********

'What the hell are we going to do now?'

'This was your grand plan, Malfoy. You tell me the next step.'

Tensions were running high in the Forbidden Forest, and grievances were coming to light. Draco and Severus were facing each other in the twilight, a little way away from the others, and speaking in strained whispers. Draco's pale face was flushed with anger; Severus had gone very white.

'You're acting as if this is all my fault, Sir,' Draco said, putting as much emphasis on the last word as he thought he could get away with. 'I told you we should have got rid of Potter too! If we'd killed Potter as I suggested, we wouldn't be in this situation now.'

'Do you think I do not know that?'

'Instead of which we're stuck here, with no plan of action and no hope of getting out. How am I ever going to get into the Ministry now? All my prospects are ruined. This whole idea was pointless, just because you went soft on destroying The Chosen One!'

'Ye gods!' Severus exploded. 'You mean to tell me you did this for your own advancement? I thought we were acting for the greater good!' He began striding around the forest floor, his voice rising in incredulity as he struggled to take in the implications of Draco's admission. 'How could I have been so blind as not to realise you were thinking of your own contemptible future?'

'You are my Head of House. You're supposed to be concerned with my future. This is the way you treat the Gryffindors!'

'Perhaps if you had shown a little more Gryffindor philanthropy and a little less Slytherin selfishness, we would not be in this situation now.'

Severus didn't know what had made him insult his own house. Except that Dumbledore had once told him he had been sorted too soon, implying that a boy who could grow up to risk his own life for the good of others should have been in Gryffindor. And the portrait of Phineas Nigellus always said that, given the choice, Slytherins would always choose to save their own necks. Severus certainly didn't regret calling Malfoy selfish.

'Well, you're not my teacher any more,' Draco shouted, ignoring the slight on his house and changing tack at the speed of light. 'It's not like we're ever going to be allowed back in there.' He waved an impatient hand towards the castle. 'For us term has finished, so don't treat me like a child.'

'You are behaving like a child. We may not be in the classroom, but I still have a duty towards you. I am still in loco parentis seeing as your own father is hardly in a position to protect you.'

'Don't you have a go at my father! At least he stood up to Potter. At least he's not hiding from a bunch of kids like a coward!'

'How dare you call me coward?' Severus roared, his face contorted in fury.

'I'll tell you how I dare. I dare because I've had enough. I'm not going to put up with your sarcastic sniping anymore.'

Severus snorted. 'Go and find Goyle and the rest of your sycophantic little friends and vent your spleen on them. You think you have heard sarcasm from me thus far? Push me further, Mr Malfoy, and you will regret it, I assure you.'

Two pink spots appeared in Draco's pale cheeks. 'Don't you push me, Professor, or I'll do something I regret.'

Severus regarded him coldly. 'You have already done something you regret. If it had not been for me you would have lost your head completely and turned us all in to the Dementors. You are the coward here, Mr. Malfoy.'

'Me, a coward? I am of age; I've fought against the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's own Army. I am just as good at duelling as you.'

'If you think you can take on the Famous Potter single-handedly, I will be interested to leave you to it and see how you fare. Do you know what the Dark Lord did to anyone who displeased him? Used them for duelling practice. Do you realise how many times I have had to fight for my life? And you think you are better at duelling than I?'

Draco was nearly in tears. 'I didn't say that! I said "as good". I can't believe you're being like this with me! I thought I was your favourite student! Our families are supposed to be friends!'

Severus sank down onto the forest floor, his head in his hands. 'Forgive me, Draco. I am not myself.'

Draco stared, open-mouthed. Professor Snape was saying sorry?

Wordlessly, Severus handed him a piece of parchment. It had obviously been read before and clumsily resealed, and was wrinkled in spots as if one of the previous readers had been crying. The original addressee's name had been scribbled out and, written in a hand that had obviously shaken so badly it could hardly form the letters, were the words: MASTER PROFESSOR SNAPE.

Draco unrolled it and read:

Dearest Winky,

Alina Snape.

Draco felt nausea well up in his stomach. Bloodroot and dragonroot? Two of the strongest available poisons. Alina had been right; they were lethal. But they should never be mixed. Mixed together they would burn the skin. And drinking the mixture would be like swallowing fire. Draco couldn't imagine the agony Alina must have been in.

'Where did she get them?' he whispered, unable to look at his teacher.

Severus stared straight ahead, his eyes blank. 'From my private stores. She is... was... my wife. I saw no reason to deny her access.'

'It wasn't your fault, sir. You couldn't have known she would...' Draco stared at the letter again and his voice cracked. 'I still can't believe she's...'

'Enough,' Severus said in a hollow voice. He sounded as if every word was causing him pain. 'ENOUGH.'

Severus wished he hadn't had to tell Malfoy. Confiding the news made it true, somehow. When he'd first received the letter, Severus hadn't been able to take it in, now, Malfoy's grief made his own real.

He felt as if he had been winded. The pain hit him like a physical blow and, as if he had fallen into the Pensieve, an image of his twenty-one-year-old self, slumped in a chair in Dumbledore's office, flashed before his eyes. Half of him felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest, and half was filled with the sense of bleak desolation he associated with Dementors. The same desperate, inhuman howl rose up inside him. He quelled it with difficulty and forced himself to concentrate on their current predicament.

'We need to sleep. We will be better able to plan a strategy tomorrow if we are rested.'

'Why don't we just sneak back into the castle under cover of darkness and finish off Potter and the others?'

Severus regarded Draco with contempt. 'How do you propose we overcome the extra security they will undoubtedly have put on the doors, get up to Gryffindor Tower, kill half the house and then get back here undetected? We will do better to stay here and let him come looking for us. His love of playing the hero will bring him to the forest sooner rather than later. If we are rested, we can meet them on our own terms.' His lip curled. 'If we are lucky, Potter might even meet the centaurs before he meets us.'

Draco looked suddenly terrified. 'What if the centaurs come across us in the night?'

'I will keep watch. Now for Merlin's sake go to sleep and leave me to think.'

A flick of Severus' wand produced a number of the squashy purple sleeping bags Dumbledore had conjured five years ago when the students had been sheltering from Sirius Black in the Great Hall. Draco dragged them over to the others and they settled down, leaving Snape on guard.

********

After a couple of hours on lookout, Severus wished he hadn't insisted the students leave him in peace. Even Goyle might have provided some measure of conversation irritating enough to distract him from thoughts of Alina.

He pressed his knuckles into his eye sockets, trying to ward off sleep. When he took his hands away, he saw something guaranteed to shake the composure of even a man who wasn't expecting a run in with a herd of angry centaurs. A silvery-white shape was drifting towards him through the trees – literally though the trees.

With a leap of his heart, Severus wondered if it was a Patronus – Alina's Patronus, coming to tell him the letter was a cruel joke designed, perhaps, by the Gryffindors to lower his morale.

As the figure drew nearer, however, it became clear that this was no Patronus, but a ghost.

Dumbledore's blue eyes, the only colour in an otherwise colourless face, burnt like ice.

Severus stared, drawn against his will to those eyes. This was wrong, very wrong. He couldn't believe Dumbledore would choose the strange non-existence of a ghost, an eternity in limbo. Not unless he had a very good reason. Severus tried to swallow. His mouth had gone very dry. 'What are you?' he managed.

Dumbledore smiled. It made Severus' blood run cold. 'Well, that is the question isn't it? I rather think I am your guilty conscience.'

'What do you want with me?'

'To tell you that you will see me again, Severus. We have unfinished business.'

And he vanished, leaving Severus wide-awake and very shaken.

********

A/N Botanical.com says of Bloodroot (Sanguinaria Candensis) 'in toxic doses it causes burning in the stomach', and of Dragonroot (Arum Triphyllum): 'a violent irritant to the mucous membrane, when chewed burning the mouth and throat'. In the original play, Alina's character commits suicide by swallowing hot coals.

Phineas Nigellus' opinion of Slytherins comes from OotP Ch 23, and Dumbledore's opinion of Snape's Sorting from DH Ch 33

Malcolm Baddock and Graham Pritchard are canon characters, sorted into Slytherin in GoF.

When I wrote, 'Severus generally despised swearing as the last resort of an uneducated man', I think I was channelling Oscar Wilde, who said, 'The expletive is a refuge of the semi-literate.'