Part Second: The Hart Rampant: Chapter 24, Part 2

Chapter 24, Part 2:

It was a very short inquest.

The Honourable Tibernius Solon reviewed the facts in evidence and heard the testimony of the two investigators Emily had spoken to that morning, the mediwitch who had sutured her shoulder and the young Indian waitress who aided her just after the attack.

The mediwitch, Mrs. Dayna V. Egurl, Lic. Hea., stated that Emily's wound could not possibly have been self-inflicted and that in her expert opinion, it appeared as though it had been caused by a stab from behind. Miss Daireen Dayananda said that Emily had appeared at her family's restaurant, bleeding and in a state of great shock, saying that someone had sneaked up on her with a knife – and tactfully leaving out the part about how she had forced the door. Their stories corroborated what Emily had said in her statement – by the time they were done giving testimony, she wanted to hug them both.

"The coroner said the method of death was some exceedingly neat work on your part, miss," one of the investigators said while he was being questioned. "The fellow probably still doesn't know he's dead. You've had some experience... at this sort of thing, perhaps?"

"The Fae have conferred the title of Master-At-Arms on my client – she holds the rank of platoon commander in the Arcadian military, Your Honour. Anyone who has engaged her in combat before had formally been declared an enemy of the people and of the Crown by Gwydion the Fifth, Sovereign of the Third Kingdom, or his allies, in a royal declaration of war, sir," Cratchit Thimblewick answered. Emily maintained an erect posture as best she could on a poor night's sleep, and with a badly lacerated shoulder.

The magistrate's eyes widened, and one eyebrow arched. "I... see. And your business here in Britain is... ?"

"My client is a Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She is teaching there by special request of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Your Honour. If you will contact the Department of International Magical Cooperation at the Ministry of Magic, you will find her work papers in order there, as evidenced by this exhibit." Lucius's solicitor had already taken copies of her work papers from his briefcase and was handing them to the judge.

"Yes, indeed, everything appears to be in order here." The magistrate riffled through Emily's papers. "Well, then. This fellow probably got the biggest surprise of his life when you turned out to be a Faery knight in civilian clothes, didn't he, Professor?"

"No doubt, sir," Emily replied.

"Not to mention the last surprise of his life," the judge quipped. The court tittered.

The magistrate then addressed the court – and told them that he readily concluded that Professor Emily Swain had had cause to believe that her own life had been in danger after an assailant made an unprovoked attack on her and injured her with a deadly weapon, and was justified in the use of deadly force to protect herself.

"Gentlemen, ladies, the Queen's Bench believes that it is obvious what happened here. Commander, I dearly hope never to startle you in a dark alley. Court is adjourned."

Cratchit Thimblewick turned to Emily and shook her hand, a satisfied smile on his face. Emily did everything in her power not to faint with relief.

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Lucius was waiting outside the courtroom when the inquest let out. "Emily, dear. You're not being led off in leg irons – should I take that as a good sign?"

"Self-defence as a complete justification for the use of deadly force – open and shut," Cratchit Thimblewick said, approaching Lucius with a triumphant smile.

"Fine work, as always, Cratchit," Lucius said, shaking the solicitor's hand.

The magistrate nodded to Lucius as he passed him in the hall. "See you on the green on Friday, Lucius?"

"As always, Tibernius," he replied, with a pleasant nod.

After the magistrate and Emily's solicitor had passed down the corridor, Emily turned back to Lucius – "You play golf with the judge at my inquest?" she asked.

"Oh yes, every Friday, weather permitting. I know most of the judicial magistrates in Wizarding London. They all belong to my club," Lucius said, with an engaging smile. "I even used to clerk for Tibernius's father, Theophilus Solon, when I was fresh out of Hogwarts and working at my first Ministry job. So you see, my dear, there was no need to worry about going to Azkaban, simply for defending yourself. Free as air, just like I told you." He surveyed her with an approving eye – "Oh good, the robes do fit nicely, don't they?"

"Yes, they're lovely. Thank you."

"I had to make a guess at your size, but it seems I did all right." The approving eye had turned to another of his slow, appreciative glances. "Have I ever told you how becoming black is to you? I don't care what anyone else says – with fair hair and dark eyes like yours, it's positively striking."

She flushed slightly under this praise, still hardly able to believe that she had just gone from a situation where her personal freedom was at stake to being complimented on her becoming new robes. Just like that, the looming threat of rough justice in a hostile foreign court, followed by prison, the horror of Dementors, was simply over. She was free – and the credit for that seemed to belong to the man before her. She had to admit, at that moment, life was indeed much more pleasant under Lucius Malfoy's expansive wing.

"Lucius, I... I'm really surprised that you went to all this trouble for me," she said softly.

"Why, dear?" he asked, looking mildly curious as to why she would even ask such a question.

Emily blushed. "Well, the last time we spoke to each other, back in May, you have to admit, we didn't part on very friendly terms," she replied.

"Like I said earlier, much of the fault there was mine." He reached for her hand, clasped it between both of his. "I do wish more than anything that you hadn't been attacked, my dear, but truthfully, I'm glad to have the opportunity to at least try to earn your trust again, after what happened in May," he said, in a private aside to her. "I've felt terrible since the moment you left that day, but I'd been afraid to try to contact you with an apology. After that horrid, presumptuous gaffe of mine, I really wouldn't have blamed you if you never wanted to see me again. I'm really honoured that you accepted my help."

He smiled at her, an invisible weight seeming to fall from his shoulders. Despite herself, Emily felt that little splash in her chest that only Lucius ever seemed to provoke in her.

"I'm... I'm very grateful," Emily said. "You know how the Fae feel about Dementors... Truthfully, I'd rather get the death penalty than a life sentence in Azkaban."

"You have nothing to worry about. I would never let that happen to you." He said it very softly, but with such a note of gallantry in his voice – as though he would fight off crowds of Dementors rather than let them take her. He also stroked his fingertips over the back of her hand as he let it go, making her breath quicken for a moment.

"Thank you," she said again, very softly.

"Do you know what I most like to do after a successful day in court?" he asked. "Why don't you let me take you out for a grand dinner and oceans of wine to celebrate – there's a marvellous little place quite near here with just about the best chef and wine cellar imaginable. Really, I insist."

"Well... I suppose I should be getting back to school... " Back to school, to where a huge, noisy crowd would be gathering to watch a lot of hair-raising exploits, which was exactly what she didn't need in this fatigued, achy, emotionally-wrung-out state. Back to a callous and disappointing onetime lover, an insanely paranoid colleague who gave her the willies, and the service of a Headmaster who had let her deal with a critical legal inquest all on her own. Truthfully, the idea of spending some time lingering over one of Lucius's favourite decadent suppers and lots of wine in some quiet restaurant sounded much better at that moment than going back to school, and she had eaten nothing all day but a meagre hospital breakfast. "Oh... why not. I really don't think I could deal with a lot of crowds and excitement right now."

"Splendid," he whispered. Again, he regarded her with such gratitude, such tenderness. Oh, those eyes, that smile of his... it was as if the sun had risen.

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The Hogwarts cooking staff had outdone themselves yet again for the supper preceding the Third Task. A plethora of varied and delectable dishes were sent up, including French frogs' legs, Romanian pork tochitura with polenta, Bulgarian moussaka, and a tender, perfectly done roast of venison with sauerkraut and cranberry sauce in the Russian style. Usually Professor Snape would have enjoyed sampling some of these new dishes, but today food had ceased to interest him. The sight of the roasted flesh of a deer sitting on the table in front of him now seemed to bode very ill.

He found himself continually checking his watch and felt the hairs on the back of his neck pricking up with worry. Professor Swain had been attacked, was now at this moment in an inquest, and the final Task was about to begin. Her freedom was at stake, and the greatest prophesied adversary of the Dark Lord – Lily's son – was about to be sent into a maze full of obstacles to daunt many grown wizards.

And it appeared, there was nothing he could do to help either of them.

If there was one thing Severus Snape loathed, it was the feeling of helplessness.

As the sky above darkened into dusk and the sun sank beneath the horizon, the Headmaster stood up and addressed the assemblage – "Ladies and gentlemen, in five minutes' time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch field for the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr. Bagman down to the stadium now."

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Spectators began to fill the Quidditch field's stands, and Snape took the seat beside Dumbledore in the staff box. He had not been asked to contribute any of his own sort of expertise to this Task, unlike Hagrid, Flitwick, and McGonagall, and thus had thought himself excused from any sort of extra work in connection with it. Dumbledore had needed a fourth referee earlier that week, however, and Snape knew he had been the most likely candidate for such until Moody had rather unexpectedly volunteered for the job.

Moody had been remarkably helpful regarding this event, really, now that he thought of it. Snape's black eyes flicked toward the Auror, who was stationed on the east side of the maze. As he watched, Moody took his ubiquitous hip flask from his pocket and took a long drink from it.

The usual townsfolk and nearby pensioners were filling the stands and overflowing a ways around the maze, but Snape immediately noticed the conspicuous absence of his usual social circle – Lucius and Narcissa, Mrs. Rosier, the Crabbes, the Goyles, the Bulstrodes, Mr. Nott, the Parkinsons, the Flints – from this event. None of them had turned out to set up a fussy little picnic and offer their usual blasé sort of applause and wry arch-snob's opinions on the goings-on. This struck Snape as very odd, as the chance to watch Harry Potter being painfully killed, while sipping a Napoleon brandy and with a stunning woman on his arm, was probably Lucius's idea of a very good time indeed. Something very important must have come up to make his cousin deprive himself of such an opportunity.

Snape turned back to Dumbledore. Although the Headmaster always gave the impression of perfect calm and unflappable Zen-like serenity, Snape had known Albus for over twenty years, and he knew better than probably anyone how very anxious Albus had been over Harry Potter's safety this year. Dumbledore was worried now, extremely worried – Snape could feel it.

"Harry ought to be all right, don't you think?" Dumbledore asked, turning toward Snape. "He's done so well in the other Tasks, even if he is only fourteen."

"If at any point he isn't all right, there is no doubt in my mind that Minerva would reduce the entire field to smoking ash before she would let him come to harm," Snape said dryly, by means of reassurance.

It had the intended effect of making Dumbledore smile. "That she would, and Hagrid would waste no time in helping her." His shoulders relaxed slightly. "Such a resourceful lad, Harry is. Rather reminds me of you, in that respect." He turned toward Snape with a faint, fond smile.

Snape made no answer, but his look betrayed what he thought of being compared to James Potter's messianic little whelp. To his credit, though, his respect for Albus Dumbledore was such that his look was not as withering as it could have been.

Ludo Bagman gave the first blast on his whistle, and the Third Task began.

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There is not a child in Britain's Wizarding world now who does not know the story of the last Task of the 1994-1995 Triwizard Tournament. There are now any number of published accounts of what happened – how Potter and Diggory entered the maze first, then quickly separated at the first fork in the maze; how Viktor Krum and then Fleur Delacour followed. The obstacles within the maze have been described in heart stopping detail – fully mature Blast-Ended Skrewts, acromantulas, a particularly wily boggart. All Harry Potter's feats of bravery, cunning, and sheer nerve are well known – how he sent the boggart packing, overcame a Downside-Up Barrier, did battle with the Skrewts and a giant acromantula, solved the Sphynx's riddle, and subdued Viktor Krum after Krum Stunned Fleur Delacour and used a Cruciatus Curse on Cedric Diggory. (The tale of how the nefarious, dark-eyed Bulgarian athlete knocked the lovely part-veela unconscious took on menacing erotic overtones in the Quibbler's account, with the girl depicted as swooning in graceful helplessness to the ground, at the mercy of her attacker – although most of the spectators agree that Fleur tumbled down with all the grace of a pile of washing, and Krum paid her about as much mind once she was out of the running.)

But the scene that is always chronicled in the most breathless detail and the most dramatic prose, whether by the serious staff journalists at the Daily Prophet or the sensationalists of the Quibbler, is the moment when Potter and Diggory paused just as they arrived at the centre of the maze, and saw the Triwizard Cup before them. How they talked for some time, how they both seemed to be offering each other the victory. Then, how they seemed to come to an agreement, and finally approached the Cup together. As all the spectators watched, they both reached for a handle of the Cup at the same time –

– and then, just as abruptly, both students and the Cup vanished entirely. The crowd gave a collective gasp of pure shock.

"What the – " Dumbledore leaned forward, gripping the rail before him.

Snape stood up. "Potter and Diggory have disappeared," he said. He knew instantly – this has something to do with Voldemort. His left forearm twinged slightly, as though a bit of ice had trickled down his arm.

"Disappeared?" Professor Sinistra repeated in disbelief.

"How could they have disappeared?" Professor Sprout cried, rising to her feet. "Where's Cedric? What's going on?"

Snape and Dumbledore turned and looked at each other for perhaps an instant – then hurried down toward the maze.

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Snape, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Flitwick, McGonagall and Moody wasted no time in getting to the centre of the maze, from which Potter and Diggory had just vanished. Before long, most of the Hogwarts staff, Ludo Bagman, Cornelius Fudge, and Madame Maxime had gotten to the centre and were trying to figure out what happened. Or rather, the Hogwarts staff and Madame Maxime were trying to figure out what had happened, and Lugo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge blundered around getting in their way.

Dumbledore took out his wand and outlined a rectangle of pale blue light around the area where the two boys had lately vanished, and was going through an exhaustive array of spells and charms intended to force any magic cast on the area to reveal itself.

Snape was close by the Headmaster's side, ready to offer his counsel or his aid, as per his habit – but suddenly, he stopped dead. He seized his left forearm in a painful grip as a burning sensation engulfed it from wrist to elbow, a pain as clean and vivid as the touch of a branding iron. He knew without looking what would be seared ink-black into his skin when he did.

"Severus? What is it?" came Dumbledore's voice from just behind him.

"It is as we feared, Albus," Snape whispered. "He has returned."

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The restaurant Lucius had chosen was exquisite, a tiny jewel of a place tucked between Theatric and Sartor Alleys. The two of them were handed through to a small private room, separated from the main dining room by a wall of exquisitely coloured stained glass. They then both sank into two deep armchairs of sepia-coloured velvet on either side of a white draped table. It felt wonderful to let all her weight fall on her right shoulder and sink into all that cushioned luxury. No menus had appeared – instead, a chef in a white coat had appeared and asked the two of them what they would like for supper. Salad, soup, soufflé, game, poultry, lamb? "Something in the Arcadian style," Lucius had said. "Surprise us. And bring out a bottle of your best champagne immediately."

The champagne appeared in an eye blink, was poured into two tall crystal flutes. Emily raised her glass to her nose, breathing the scent of a fine, dry vintage champagne, a scent like vanilla cake and tart green apples.

Lucius raised his glass to her. "To good fortune, good friends, and a sympathetic judge," he said, smirking.

"I'll drink to that," Emily said, clinking her glass against his. "Seriously, I thought Bartemious Crouch would be waiting outside that courtroom when I came out, with a deportation order in his hand. I'd hardly imagined I'd finish the evening at dinner with you."

"Don't worry about old Bartemious Crouch, Senior, my dear. I can assure you he'll never antagonise you again," Lucius drawled.

Emily laughed. "Oh, good. Thank you."

Waiters brought covered plates of fragrant delicacies: a salad of beefsteak tomatoes, savoury cheese, and fresh fennel, then California asparagus brushed with truffled butter, and wood ear mushrooms in a sauce of red wine, coriander, and rue. Then came a ragoût of lamb and oranges, and an entree of roast suckling pig, and finally a flourless torte of bitter chocolate with raspberry sauce. With each course came another exquisitely chosen wine. Emily found the cosiness of the room, the delicious repast, and the free-flowing wine wonderfully comforting and relaxing; by the end of that meal, she had drunk enough to make even an Arcadian tipsy. She reclined back in her chair, swirling a dessert glass of cognac in her hand.

Lucius looked at her and smiled. "That's what I like to see – satiety is so becoming to you. You look so much happier now, love."

"Oh, I am," she said, smiling back. "You've made an art out of making me feel spoiled, my dear."

"It's the least I can do," he purred.

"The least you can do is pretty bloody amazing," she said, gazing at him with soft, shining eyes. "I'll be candid, Luce – you saved my arse today, and I know it."

"Then perhaps you'll make some more time to see me after the school year is over, if you don't have to rush home immediately?" he asked.

"Well, I... I suppose I could," she said, with another breath of the scent of the cognac. "I don't need to rush home immediately, now."

"Lovely," he said. "I shall look forward to – "

But then he paused, broke off mid-sentence, and gazed off into the middle distance. His usually pale complexion paled even further, and his left hand, which had been resting on his left knee, flexed slowly. Suddenly his personal scent was filled with agitation and excitement, and just a touch of acrid fear.

"Lucius? Are you all right?" Emily asked, watching him curiously.

But then he smiled at her again. "Yes, just fine, love."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. But... I have to admit I've been distracted by work matters these days." He picked up his own cognac snifter and took a deep swallow. "Confidentially... there's a late meeting going on tonight, with some of the fellows from the Ministry."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realise I was taking you away from work," Emily said. Her gratitude sharpened only all the more.

"Well, it's just that there are some rather sensitive issues being decided, and I'm perhaps a bit preoccupied, truthfully. Though I never would have let anything keep me from coming to help you out of any difficulty," he said, turning back to her reassuringly.

"It's all right. Do you have to go?" Emily asked politely.

"Well... " He considered, then turned back to her with an apologetic little smile – "Yes, actually, I do. I don't mean to cut this short – "

"No, really, I understand." The least she could do now was to let him make a gracious exit, after all he had done for her that day.

"I should have known you'd be a good sport – one of your most endearing qualities." Lucius downed his cognac, got up, and readied himself to leave. "We'll be in touch, very soon. But now, I really must be off."

With that, he feelingly kissed her hand, and was gone.

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The Mark burned on Snape's arm for what seemed an endless amount of time. As he stood among his colleagues in the centre of the maze with the Dark Mark alive, it felt as though he must go about his usual business, all while pretending there was not a red-hot poker lying against his skin. If he could only leave this place, could only go back to his quarters, open a box shoved very far back into his wardrobe, which contained a black robe and a mask... if only he could return to his Master, it would stop. He had learned much this year, was gifted in a new, wild magic even the Dark Lord didn't know, surely he could impress him with his newfound power – so much he could offer now that he knew he was a natural adept –

He glanced across the clearing to where Moody was standing, a bit apart from the others. There was sweat standing out on Moody's brow, and he seemed to be breathing shallowly, seemed to be concentrating on keeping his composure –

– exactly the same way Snape himself was at that moment.

Then, as he watched, the Auror reached into his pocket for that bloody hip flask and drank from it – and at that moment, Snape found it almost irrationally annoying that even in the midst of this sort of panic and consternation, Moody remembered to take his tonic or whatever Professor Swain had smelled in the damned thing.

Then, his black brows creased in thought. Moody remembered to take his herbal tonic. There was a regularity to it. Why?

An instant later, Snape began scanning his encyclopaedic knowledge of Potions for an herbal tonic that had to be taken at regular intervals... medicines, soporifics, antidotes, psychiatric pharmacologicals... goddamn you, what are you hiding?... He focused, his teeth gritting with the effort of thinking hard while in pain. Cutting his arm off at the elbow seemed a viable option at that moment –

But then he was distracted as the Triwizard Cup reappeared in their midst, bringing with it a bespectacled fourteen-year-old boy, nearly fainting with shock and fear. Harry Potter held the Cup's handle in one bloodstained hand – and in the other arm, he held Cedric Diggory's lifeless body.

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If Potter's and Diggory's disappearance had shocked the entire crowd, their reappearance, with one injured and one dead, almost started a panicked riot. People screamed and wailed in the stands all around them. Pomona Sprout started forward, screaming Cedric's name, then fell into Madam Pince's arms, sobbing. Potter seemed half-conscious, but refused to relinquish his hold on Diggory's body. Dumbledore, Hagrid, and McGonagall eventually had to pry him away from Cedric.

Madam Pomfrey had her ear to Cedric's chest. "He's not breathing, his heart isn't beating... Stand clear!" She put her wand to Cedric's chest – "Electricus!" Cedric's chest jumped, but did not quicken with breath.

"They'll have used a Killing Curse, Poppy," Snape said, moving to the mediwitch's shoulder. "He's beyond help."

Madam Pomfrey turned away from him with a snarl, but continued with resuscitation efforts anyway. No one seemed about to tell her to stop.

Moody had taken charge of looking after Potter, Snape noticed – he had the boy's arm over his shoulders and his own arm around the boy's waist and was helping him off the green, up toward the castle. Taking him off alone, it seemed – everyone else was watching the distraught Madam Pomfrey trying to breathe life back into Cedric, somehow.

Snape hurried to Dumbledore's side. "You saw the means of their return – the Cup was a Portkey," he whispered. "Whomsoever enchanted it, must have been the person who touched it last, or its magic would have been triggered. Tell me, Albus, who was it who last had the Triwizard Cup in his possession?"

"Professor Moody volunteered to get it to the centre of the maze," Dumbledore said, turning toward Snape. "And it seems to me that the Alastor Moody I know would not have taken the boy off like that, just after his return."

"It's also just come to me that I would very much like to know exactly what herbal tonic is in that hip flask," Snape replied.

Snape and Dumbledore turned toward each other – springtime blue eyes stared into black with deadly purpose. Then by some familiar telepathy, they both started after Professor Moody.

"Minerva? If you would come with us, please," Dumbledore said as he passed Professor McGonagall. The Head of Gryffindor immediately hurried to his side, one capable hand checking for her wand in a pocket of her robes.

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Later that evening, a very subdued Emily Swain finally returned, alone, to Hogwarts – and from the moment she crossed the great front foyer, she realised something was wrong. Despite the balmy June evening and the dull, hot throbbing in her wounded shoulder, Hogwarts seemed steeped in foreboding cold, like icy fingers on her spine.

Perhaps she felt uneasy because she knew the two Hogwarts champions, Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory, had been the favourites to win the Tournament, and had expected to return to the sounds of celebration. But the front foyer and the Great Hall were deserted, and silent. Perhaps she had grown used to the usual constant hum of a school full of hundreds of students and dozens of staff members, and found the dead quiet now surrounding her on all sides unnerving.

Perhaps some more otherworldly reason existed for her disquiet – the Fae have been known to very occasionally experience moments of uncanny insight and prescience, which they consider revelations, or warnings, from their Mother Goddess. On the morning of the Baalorites' surprise attack on Ardensea, Emily had briefly seen a long blue shadow seem to cover the town in dark portent. Now, the deep gloom and mutedness around her seemed as though all the castle had been muffled in mourning crape. I weep for Adonais – he is dead.

But regardless of the reason why, when Emily returned to Hogwarts after the Third Task, she knew that she entered a house upon which tragedy had fallen. Whatever that tragedy was, somehow she knew that it made her own misfortune of the last twenty-four hours seem insignificant by comparison.

She shivered and hurried to where she thought other people may have gathered, suddenly afraid to be alone.

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Emily immediately headed up to the teachers' lounge, hoping that some of her colleagues would be lingering there discussing the outcome of the Tournament. Sure enough, Professors Sprout, Sinistra, Vector, and Madam Pince were sitting in a tight little clump around a table. Pomona Sprout had what looked and smelled like a healthy-sized glass of Ogden's Firewhiskey in front of her, which was highly unusual for the Herbology professor. "Hello," Emily called to them.

"Ah, Emily, you're back." Irma got up and squeezed her hand with a concerned and rather motherly air. "How are you, dear?" she asked.

"Some bastard with an iron knife took a swipe at me, but I'll be all right," Emily said, as casually and matter-of-factly as she could; but Irma's kind greeting made her throat tighten with gratitude. "What's happened while I was away?"

"All right, Emily?" Professor Vector called cheerlessly, from the clump at the table.

She smiled wryly – "I've been better. Yourselves?"

Professor Sprout suddenly turned a bitter look into her whiskey glass. "I think we've all been better," she muttered, in a miserable voice.

"So, I've been dying to know what happened with the Tournament all evening," Emily said, as she and Irma approached the group of their colleagues at the table. "If someone could let me know what happened, and who won? My, er, mishap kept me from attending."

"Potter and Diggory got through the maze first, and took the Cup together," Professor Sinistra said slowly. "Though I think they've ruled that Harry was the official winner... at this time."

"They took the Cup together, but Harry Potter won?" Emily asked. "Weren't they tied at the end of the Second Task? What happened to Diggory? Did the judges penalise him for something?"

She knew something horrible had happened to Cedric before anyone told her, by the dead silence and the miserable looks that greeted her question, and wished that she had not opened her mouth in the first place. Professor Sprout pressed a hand over her own lips, and the lamplight glinted off tearwater in her eyes.

Finally, Irma began to speak – and Emily noticed how red-rimmed the librarian's eyes were, and how pinched and strained was her expression. "I suppose someone has to tell you, dear. Cedric was killed, just after the end of the Third Task."

Emily stared at her friend's mournful face. "Cedric died?" she said, in a voice that denied her own words. "But he was fine only yesterday – I still haven't graded his final exams – how could he have died?"

"It was... " came Professor Sprout's strangled voice. "He was murdered. The Third Task was sabotaged by... someone."

Emily gasped. "No... that dear, kind, decent young man... "

Professor Sprout let out an audible sob. Professor Sinistra put a comforting arm around her colleague's shoulders.

Emily turned back to Irma. "Who killed him?" she whispered.

Irma paled. "It's... too early to say. Albus, Severus, Minerva, Moody and Harry Potter have been gone a long time now. The Minister of Magic is waiting to speak to them when they return."

"I had to tell Cedric's parents what happened," Pomona Sprout said, with another soft, rasping sob. Her wild grey head inclined miserably into her hands.

The small group of professors kept a long, weary vigil in the teacher's lounge that night, but as the evening grew late and no further information was forthcoming, they all straggled upstairs to their respective apartments and to bed. Emily applied more Healing Potion to her wounded shoulder, then drank a large dose of willow bark pain reliever potion. She then fell into a bone-weary sleep a moment after her head touched her pillow.

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The time just after the Third Task passed in a white haze of uncertainty and apprehension.

Emily kept to her own rooms, unwilling to venture outside. For the first day after her return, she barely got out of bed, preferring to huddle behind the blue velvet draperies of her bed, silent and alone. Sometime around noon, and then again at about five p.m., there was a soft knock on the door, and she discovered a meal tray left for her, probably by one or another of the school house-elves.

Then at approximately eight p.m. that evening, there was a gentle puff of green fire from her fireplace, and a letter on Hogwarts crest stationery skittered out onto the hearth rug:

Emily ~

Please come to see me in my office at your earliest convenience tomorrow.

Thank you,

Albus Dumbledore

Late the next afternoon, Emily finally got herself out of bed and showered, then applied Healing Potion to her shoulder and awkwardly re-bandaged her wound, glancing over her shoulder at her naked back in the mirror. The blade had entered perhaps a half-inch from her spine and continued on to nearly the back of her collarbone. Sonuvabitch tried to skin me like a shot rabbit, she thought. Now that she had gotten a chance to look at it, the slash seemed less serious than it had on the night she had received it, when she had thought her entire back had been hacked open, but it still hurt enough to give her a perpetual low-level headache throughout the day.

Her inability to use her left arm without pain made bathing and combing out her wet hair a more awkward proposition than before, but she managed eventually. She then paused, regarding her own face in the mirror, and silently spoke a word. A moment later, the face looking back at her in the glass appeared entirely human, round-eared, with human-sized pupils, the fine, stylised lines of her features softened, and the almond shape of her eyes and high arch of her brows rounded into human normalcy. She took a long moment to anxiously examine her handiwork, as if to reassure herself that all was in place, and all was in order.

Only then did she get dressed and head for the Headmaster's office, after locking and warding her door behind her.

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Upon Emily's arrival, Dumbledore asked her to take a seat in one of the big armchairs and then took the seat opposite her.

The Headmaster cocked his white head to one side and took a few seconds to examine her face when she arrived, but if he noticed the human Glamour, he never mentioned it. He immediately inquired as to the state of her health, and she assured him that she would be back to normal in a few weeks. He then apologised for being unable to attend her inquest, and she told him in a much cooler tone that it was no matter, it had gone all right anyway.

"I'd wanted to ask you, sir – will there be a funeral service for Cedric? Would it be appropriate if I was to attend?"

"Cedric's remains are to be interred in his family's crypt tomorrow," Dumbledore said softly. "But his parents wish for it to be kept a private, family service... "

Emily nodded. "I understand, sir."

Dumbledore took a long pause, stroking his long white beard, and then asked if she would please repeat for him what she had said to Professor Snape regarding her worries about Professor Moody on the day of her class demonstration. Emily did so, as simply and clearly as she could.

Then he told her all that had happened at Hogwarts while she had been away. He told her that it had been revealed after the Third Task that the man everyone had believed to be Alastor Moody had in truth been one Bartemious Crouch, Jr., a convicted Death Eater who had escaped from Azkaban with the help of his late parents. The younger Crouch had escaped from the custody of his father, and then had abducted the real Moody from his home and taken his place at Hogwarts. The Death Eaters had placed Crouch at Hogwarts in order to kill or capture Harry Potter, so that his blood could be used as the final component in a potion meant to restore Lord Voldemort to his full physical form and full power. This plot had come to fruition at the end of the Third Task, when Harry and Cedric Diggory were both kidnapped via a cunningly placed Portkey, which then transported them directly into the hands of the enemy. Cedric had been killed upon arrival, but Harry had narrowly managed to escape with his life. Harry was now in hospital wing, being treated for shock and injuries.

"So... you're telling me that... You-Know-Who has been resurrected, restored, somehow," Emily said quietly. "He, and his faction, have returned."

"Yes, I'm afraid they have," Dumbledore said. Emily sat silent for a long moment, simply trying to internalise that, accept it as fact. Although she knew it was true, had just heard it from Albus Dumbledore himself, somehow she was having a difficult time making herself believe it.

Dumbledore then told her that Crouch had been able to assume Moody's form by continually drinking Polyjuice Potion made with Moody's hair, out of Moody's well-known hip flask – "Which would explain the herbal tonic smell you noticed," Dumbledore said.

"I am... not really familiar with Polyjuice Potion, sir, I was never taught to make it, I didn't recognise its scent... I'm so very sorry." And of course we realise all of this now that it's too late to save Cedric, Emily thought, her throat tightening.

"The comment Severus related to me, in which you told the class to imagine he was not in fact Alastor Moody but a Dark Wizard come to kill you... must have been rather a shock to him, Emily," Dumbledore said.

"No doubt it was, sir," she replied. After another long moment, Emily haltingly apologised for not having been able to discern the real threat to the school in time to offer any real aid in the situation. "There were clues... that I should have noticed," she said. "I regret that I didn't act upon them in a timely manner."

"You are the latest in a long line of your colleagues who have offered me their apologies for not coming forward with their suspicions sooner," Dumbledore said quietly. "The first of whom was Severus Snape."

Emily fell silent, staring down at her hands. "I trust that this Bartemious Crouch, Jr. is now in the custody of the appropriate authorities?" she asked finally.

Dumbledore's jaw clenched, and his blue eyes gleamed with the first display of anger she could recall ever having seen from him. "He has been... dealt with," he answered. "Not in the way that I would have wanted, but he has been punished. No one will ever have to worry about being threatened by him, ever again."

Emily nodded. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

The Headmaster had some other, housekeeping sort of issues to speak to her about as well, reminding her that she would need to complete her grading by this time next week and handing her a final pay cheque. She then brought up the subject of her obligation to him, and reminded him that it lasted for the duration of a year and a day unless he altered its terms. Dumbledore then told her that he did not expect her to remain his employee or in any way in his service following the completion of her usual academic duties for that year.

Then, lastly – he offered her the Defence Against the Dark Arts position for the following school year at Hogwarts, if she was at liberty to take it.

Emily thanked him for the offer, and very politely declined.

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The 1995 Leaving Feast was one of the least festive such occasions ever hosted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Professor Snape disliked social gatherings on general principle, and only rarely ever came across a party or feast that he actually enjoyed, but Leaving Feasts had traditionally been his favourite sort of Hogwarts function. Just knowing that his year's labours were soon to be over, and that all the students would be out of his hair for another blissful three months, was enough to leave him more relaxed than usual. That first breakfast on the day after the Leaving Feast was usually his favourite meal of the entire year.

Today, however, the end-of-year celebration seemed more like a reception following a funeral than the last party before summer holidays began. Everyone, from Dumbledore to the youngest student, seemed quiet and cheerless; the usual dull roar of chattering and squealing was deeply muted. Even Harry Potter, who had won the Triwizard Tournament and who probably had more reason to be happy than anyone else in the Great Hall that day, looked glum and depressed – but then the boy never looked as glad to leave school as the other students did, come to think of it.

Potter always looked happy to arrive at school and unhappy to leave, really – but Snape didn't dwell on the little ingrate Gryffindor's moods for long. He still felt exhausted and sick from the ordeals he had endured while away from Hogwarts that week, and what he had learned during that week left him deeply preoccupied with his own mounting concerns. The Lupine and... (Snape had a difficult time even thinking the man's name without wanting to spit) Black were now on campus somewhere, and he was dreading the moment when he had to deal with the two of them. There were the usual shifts of Privet Drive watch duty to be organised now, responsibilities to delegate, sources of information to be contacted; and now that Black was involved, these tasks would of course take twice as long to accomplish while everyone dealt with his tremendous Gryffindor ego.

Never mind the fact that the colossal ass couldn't so much as go out in public due to the warrants out for his capture – already they all had to devote as much time to pacifying that murderous bastard as they would have to delegating tasks to any ten useful members of the Order. Yes, still just as much of a narcissist as he had always been, evidently. Snape still chafed when he thought about being made to shake hands with him. Just the touch of Black's hand on his had made him want to go scrub his hands with lye soap and scalding water.

(Really, sometimes Snape thought Lucius Malfoy had more of a moral compass than Sirius Black did – Lucius at least realised that he was a selfish, amoral, murderous parasite, and made no apologies for it. Sirius Black was a selfish, amoral, murderous parasite who thought he was Richard the Fecking Lionhearted all because he had the gumption to run away and live with the Potters once, and Snape was more willing to believe that had had more to do with the fact that the Potters had a Quidditch pitch out back than any conscientious objections to his family's Death Eater involvement. As if Sirius Black had a leg to stand on regarding moral outrage over senseless violence and murderous backstabbing – just because no one had the stomach to mete out the proper punishment on him in their seventh year didn't make what he did any less wrong. Really, if Black had been anyone other than a Gryffindor under a famously indulgent Gryffindor headmaster when he'd pulled his little prank, Snape was certain the bastard would have been expelled and had his wand snapped in half. Good old Phineas Nigellus probably would have handed him his head on a platter.)

The real Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody had joined them for supper, out of hospital wing after being treated for the months of captivity he had suffered at the hands of Bartemious Crouch, Jr. The retired Auror now looked so twitchy that Snape had barely dared look at him, lest he provoke a barrage of defensive spells flying in his direction. The rest of the staff, predictably, looked about as smiling and happy as a row of Azkaban inmates. Poor Pomona really looked as though she had been through the wringer – her eyes had been red and her voice hoarse ever since last Thursday night. Diggory had been a very decent and fair-minded young man, even in Professor Snape's opinion – despite Diggory's popularity and his status as a Quidditch player, there had never been even a breath of the bully in him, which Snape appreciated. He knew that Pomona had been fond of the boy, and proud to have him in her House.

And Professor Swain was in her usual seat beside Madam Pince when he arrived.

Thank Merlin, she looked all right, though he instantly noticed that she was very much favouring her left shoulder. Upon his return to Hogwarts, Dumbledore had not been long in telling him that she was back at school, that her injury had not been life threatening, and that her condition was improving, but he had not actually set eyes on her since she had left the castle on the night before the Third Task.

She was leaning toward the librarian, who was muttering something in a low voice near her ear. She kept her eyes on her plate as he passed and did not turn to look at him or acknowledge his arrival in any way. Well, welcome back, Professor Swain, how lovely to see the averted side of your face again. So glad you're all right.

But as he passed her place at the High Table, he thought he noticed something different about her face. Something familiar, yet different. It was still unmistakably her face, but altered subtly – it took him a long moment to realise what it was. The ears, the eyes... she now looked like a human woman with elfin features, rather than a Faerie. He had seen this face once before, in King's Cross station, but had not seen it since.

He wondered for a moment as to why she was now using a human Glamour, after spending the entire school year going about in what he was quite sure must be her real face, unenhanced by magic of any kind. But then it occurred to him – if looking like a Faerie gets one an iron knife in the back, why wouldn't one's confidence in presenting one's real face to this world be shattered? If one could use Faery Glamour – a foolproof magical means of disguising oneself, available at all times – why bother with the difficulties of integrating into a hostile society?

Why not just hide in plain sight among the majority population, without friction, without persecution, and without fearing for one's life... ?

She also looked rather pale and pinched, downcast and dejected – but so did most people in the Great Hall that day.

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Emily usually enjoyed meals in the Great Hall, and looked forward to the forays into fine cuisine the house-elves sent up on special occasions. Today, however, she had had to force herself to dress and leave her rooms. Even a week after the attack, she was still feeling as sensitive and vulnerable as some sea creature whose protective shell has been crushed. The presence of so many other people and the sound of their voices felt like a continued assault on her frayed nerves.

She glanced at Harry Potter, the winner of the Triwizard Tournament – and was struck by how miserable the young man looked. His face wore a look of brooding, stoic resignation that Emily would have more expected to see on a veteran of a thousand combats, rather than a fourteen-year-old boy who had just won a thousand gold Galleons at the start of summer holidays. Irma had told Emily that Madam Pomfrey kept Harry in hospital wing for some time, and when he emerged, he looked pale and haunted, and seemed to avoid contact with everyone other than Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Hagrid, and Dumbledore. Emily could easily understand how he felt at that moment.

Her homesickness had only gotten sharper in the last week, and with it had come a new and profound sense of alienation. Her colleagues were being very kind – Irma especially was compassionate and lovely – but the attack had only underlined to her how different she was from all the people around her. There is little in this world or any other that a Faerie is more afraid of than being hunted with cold iron, and the humans around her simply could not have known the pure, visceral terror the murder attempt had conjured in her. It was as if the man had tried to obliterate her entirely, crush every molecule of her and her kind until there was nothing left. He had diminished her, denied her very existence. She had killed the man, had ended his life very decisively; but somehow she was still frightened to death of him.

She was even more frightened that there might be more of him.

As she looked around at her colleagues, all the students before her, it now seemed to her that humans had something grotesque about them, a nagging edge of something monstrous and not quite right. What with the red veins in their eyes, the red flush of their skin, they looked hot, feverish; burning from the inside. Even the kindest human she knew here now seemed very other, just a touch malevolent.

Yes, of course they meant to be kind, but they couldn't possibly have understood her, these Second World wizard folk, with their fire and their iron.

Peripherally, she saw Professor Snape's black silhouette pass behind the High Table and kept her eyes averted, studiously ignoring him. In her current emotional state, she simply didn't have the strength to deal with him any further.

Just get through supper, she told herself. If I can just get through the next few hours, it will all be over.

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But then the Headmaster rose to his feet, his goblet in hand, his benign blue gaze taking in everyone in the Hall; staff members, foreign visitors, and students alike. His expression was grave, but kind, and he looked as though he had something very important to say.

"The end of another year," he mused. He then turned toward the Hufflepuff table, offering a look of compassion to the cheerless young faces there. Cedric had had many friends, it seemed – there were red-rimmed eyes and handkerchiefs in hands all down the Hufflepuff table. "There is much I would like to say to you all tonight, but first I must acknowledge the loss of a very fine person, who should be sitting here enjoying our feast with us. I would like you all, please, to stand, and raise your glasses to Cedric Diggory."

Everyone in the hall got to their feet, and solemnly toasted Diggory. Professor Sprout's face crumpled tremendously as everyone murmured Cedric's name, and Minerva McGonagall patted her comfortingly as she sat down again.

"Cedric was a person who exemplified many of the qualities that distinguish Hufflepuff House. He was a good and loyal friend, a hard worker, he valued fair play. His death has affected you all, whether you knew him well or not. I think that you have the right, therefore, to know how it came about."

There was a long moment of silence, as though the entire Hall collectively held its breath – "Cedric Diggory was murdered by Lord Voldemort," Dumbledore said.

The Hall was suddenly alive with frightened murmuring, and someone who sounded very much like Neville Longbottom whimpered; the air filled with the smell of panic and fear. Emily was almost amazed that the simple utterance of this man's name could provoke so much fear in the people around her.

"The Ministry of Magic does not wish me to tell you this. It is possible that some of your parents will be horrified that I have done so, either because they will not believe Lord Voldemort has returned, or because they think I should not tell you, young as you are."

What? Emily silently asked her plate. There was a major conflict going on, and there were parents in this world who would keep this knowledge from their children? Were these people mad? She knew from bitter personal experience that even children too young to comprehend what death is are in no way immune to the ravages of wartime. Did these parents think keeping their children ignorant was somehow going to keep them safe? If a child has never seen a sword, will that somehow keep that child from being slaughtered by one? The illogic was painful to even contemplate.

She glanced down at Harry Potter, who had lost both parents to Voldemort's Killing Curses in a single night – the boy was silent, watching the Headmaster with cold righteous indignation lighting his green eyes. Emily herself had no real experience of life under Voldemort's menace; she had lived on the Continent and in the Muggle world during his first reign of terror. Her painful associations with his name had more to do with seeing her father devastated after his theories were exploded and his friends and family turned on him. But now a Death Eater spy had tried to have her killed. And she realised that there had to be more people in this Hall, young and old, who had feared, suffered, and lost everything to this menace. They were survivors of wartime, and she understood them well.

But Dumbledore was continuing to speak. "It is my belief, however, that the truth is generally preferable to lies, and that any attempt to pretend that Cedric died as the result of an accident, or some blunder of his own, is an insult to his memory." He then turned toward the Gryffindors' table – "There is somebody else who must be mentioned in connection with Cedric's death. I am talking, of course, about Harry Potter. Harry Potter managed to escape Lord Voldemort. He risked his own life to return Cedric's body to Hogwarts. He showed, in every respect, the kind of bravery that few wizards have ever shown in facing Lord Voldemort, and for this, I honour him." And led them all in a solemn toast to Harry.

After everyone had taken their seats again, the Headmaster spoke again. "The Triwizard Tournament's aim was to further and promote magical understanding. In the light of what has happened, of Voldemort's return, such ties are more important than ever before. Every guest in this Hall will be welcomed back here at any time, should they wish to come."

Dumbledore's gaze lingered on Madame Maxime and her students, and then the students from Durmstrang as he extended this invitation. But for just one moment, he turned and looked directly at Emily herself. She returned this affirmation with a wan smile of gratitude – but her mask of protective Glamour remained firmly in place.

Dumbledore addressed them all again – "I say to you all, once again – in the light of Lord Voldemort's return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort's gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit – " and again, he glanced back at Emily – "and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open."

Again, she smiled at him, but was truthfully, with the wound throbbing in her shoulder, and with a man's dark silhouette lurking in the corner of her eye, she could not have said she was feeling too openhearted at that moment.

"It is my belief – and never have I so hoped that I am mistaken – that we are all facing dark and dangerous times. Some of you in this Hall have already suffered directly at the hands of Lord Voldemort. Many of your families have been torn asunder. A week ago, a student was taken from our midst."

There was a soft but audible sob from someone near the front of the Ravenclaw table – Emily turned to see a young girl cover her face with a handkerchief. It was Cho Chang, one of Emily's fifth-years. Now that she thought of it, she had often seen Miss Chang with Diggory – they had gone to the Yule Ball together. Some of the other girls were patting her quivering shoulders sympathetically. Oh, to be so young, and to have already seen a man one cared for killed without cause. There truly was no justice in this world, or any other.

"Remember Cedric," Dumbledore was saying. "Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."

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After the Leaving Feast was over, some students and faculty alike remained in the Great Hall, huddled together talking in serious little knots. Cho Chang was surrounded by a concerned group of her Ravenclaw friends. Madame Maxime, Hagrid, Dumbledore, and the real Alastor Moody were off to one side having what looked like a very serious conversation indeed. Most of the Durmstrang students were having some kind of debate in what Emily thought must be Bulgarian, huddled together in a red-robed bunch at one end of the Slytherin table. Professors Swain, Sprout, Flitwick, McGonagall, Sinistra, Vector, and Madam Pince and Madam Hooch were assembled in a downcast little cluster of commiseration at the High Table, as the staff mourned for Cedric, and offered Emily their sympathy after the attack.

Emily kept looking at Alastor Moody and trying to make herself recall that this was a different person than the one who in all likelihood had commissioned an assassin to put an end to her. She kept reminding herself that the danger was past, and it hadn't been Moody himself who had been a threat to her, but the man pretending to be Moody – but nonetheless, the man's presence still gave her the willies.

She had withdrawn from everyone else a short ways, without really noticing, and by some happenstance Emily found herself standing a few feet from Professor Snape in the crowd. He looked up and saw her at the same moment she noticed him, and he greeted her with the usual cool inclination of his head.

"Professor."

"Professor."

She acknowledged his presence with a meaningless little smile and nod and began to move away, intending to leave him well alone. Then, much to her surprise, he spoke to her as she was turning away from him, addressing her back. "I heard about what happened while you were in Diagon Alley, madam. I'm glad to see that you seem to have pulled through all right," he said, very politely and formally. "I do hope you're feeling better."

Someone who knew Snape extraordinarily well might have heard the emotion vibrating under the formality of his tone, might have noticed how closely he was examining his colleague's averted face, as though to reassure himself that she was all right. But Emily would not have imagined that she knew Snape's heart at all, nor would she have imagined he was doing anything other than going through the proper and expected motions following a colleague's misfortune.

"Back to normal in a month or so, the mediwitch said. I'm not setting a very good example for the people I've been teaching, am I – ideally, when you're in a fight, you aren't supposed to parry with your back," she said, with laboured casualness, half-turning back to him. "So really, you should do as I said, and not do as I do. All right?"

"Of course," Snape said softly.

Peripherally, Emily could see those eyes all but burning into the side of her face, and the effect that gaze now had on her had gone from the merely unsettling to the profoundly unnerving. She may have been decorated for valour some years earlier, but in that moment she could not have turned to face him if her life depended on it.

"It was a magnificent address that Albus gave – he's quite an orator." Her face, if not her eyes, turned in his direction. "I do hope that whatever conflict lies ahead for your people, sir, that you may always have such fine leaders to guide you."

She meant every word she said, quite sincerely, but the differences established were clear. The Voldemort question concerned Wizardkind, his people – and she did not consider herself among their number. And it was also established equally clearly that she would not be staying to see the outcome of whatever conflict lay ahead.

Snape's jaw tensed. "Thank you, madam," he said, with bitter politeness.

With that, Emily wordlessly took her leave of him with a subdued nod, and made her way back to Ravenclaw Tower, both to finish her grading duties for the year and to begin packing her things for departure. She never saw the look on Snape's face as he watched her leave the Great Hall after what she thought was her final great feast at Hogwarts and the last time she would ever see him, or speak to him.

But perhaps someone else did.

Albus Dumbledore's spring-blue eyes lit on Professor Snape as Emily walked away from him, and for just a moment, surveyed the Head of Slytherin with keen, curious eyes. Then he turned back to his staff and his students and the crisis at hand.

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And so, she was gone, Severus Snape thought after that excruciating Leaving Feast was finally over and he was alone in his apartments. Anything that had been, or that could have been, was now over.

The last time he would ever speak to her, and all he had managed to say was, I hope you're feeling better. Merlin's teeth, what scintillating words of comfort and commiseration those had been. She hadn't even looked at him.

If you are prepared, Albus said, and he had replied, I am.

At the time, he had meant it absolutely, but now (some hours of desperate prevarication before the Dark Lord on bended knee, and several Crucios later) it all felt like pure bravado. As if anyone could possibly have been prepared for what he had to face now, and all that had been revealed to him during his audience with Voldemort. The situation was even worse than he could have possibly imagined, and the ranks of the Order of the Phoenix had dwindled to a pathetic few. Who wouldn't feel mighty indeed with the likes of Sirius "Because He Exists" Black, a sodding werewolf, the even more paranoid post-kidnapping Mad-Eye Moody, and one Mundungus "Dung" Fletcher standing between him and an oppressive, dictatorial regime bent on taking over the only world he has ever known.

And now, after all that he had done and failed to do since the Dark Lord's re-emergence in 1991... of course that oppressive and dictatorial regime would now be turning its inquisitorial eye toward him. He dampened another bit of cotton wool with Healing Potion and wiped it over the faint tracery of bruising that remained around his nostrils, trying to stave off yet another of the spontaneous nosebleeds that had been plaguing him all that week. It had been all he could do to stagger back to Hogwarts after his interview with the Dark Lord; and it had been another two days before he could sit up again afterwards. One thing was certain, he wasn't twenty years old anymore.

Now, his enemies were powerful and organised, and his allies were a ragtag lot of bullies, loose cannons, and fools.

The Dark Lord had returned, and he would never see her again.

Snape lay sleepless in his bed that night, wondering what sort of deal he would have to make with what sort of dark infernal powers to get that situation reversed.