Chapter 1: Sugar Rush

The Bloody Baron turned his silvery-opaque head to look at her, though he saw nothing. She'd just bled into transparency not one second before he looked to her direction. He knew she was there. Of course he knew. But it was still a comforting thought that he couldn't actually see her.

Sigh.

Big sigh.

It had been over three centuries since her last breath, two centuries and fifty years since she realized he loved him, zero years, zero hours, and zero seconds since she'd stopped loving him.

Oh god.

She was always taken aback by the force of the love that he had instilled in her when they were alive. And she could only appreciate it after she was dead. Typical, really.

She sighed again. The love of her death floated towards the castle, no doubt to go search for the love of his death, Sir Nicholas, the foggy bastard. Well, she supposed this was Death's little joke. The worst part was that Life was in on it too. I loathe the both of you, she cursed in her mind. When they were alive, she could barely stand to be in the same room as him. Now they were dead, and she couldn't seem to stay away.

"Serves you right, Grey Lady," Life whispered in her ear.

Death sighed dreamily, "It was my brilliant idea…"


Harry was tired of rolling his eyes, but there was no other way to indicate or convey his skepticism. It may be true that he was in love with Ron, but that did not necessarily mean he was impervious or indifferent to the boy's idiocy.

"Ron," Hermione said slowly, rubbing her temples with closed eyes, "I highly doubt that Dumbledore has a secret infatuation with Harry."

"But," he began saying.

"No."

"But-"

"No, Ron."

"But you don't get it!"

"What on earth do you mean?"

"Don't you see the way he touches Harry?!"

"WHAT?" Hermione was disturbed, her calculating mind whirring through memories.

"I mean, it's always on the shoulder, but it always seems...deeper."

"This is getting a bit odd for me," Harry interrupted, pointedly looking at Hermione, the Logical and Pensive One, only to be shushed.

"Keep going. What do you mean, Ron?"

Oh god. Hermione was being sucked in now. Really! They didn't have the time to spend to deal with fighting Voldemort as well as protecting Harry's virtue from the likes of Dumbledore. So, you can see why Harry was tired of rolling his eyes.


Harry was tired of rolling his eyes, eh? He was complaining and yet, halfway across the world, someone was struggling to live.

Alright, so it was more like halfway across the country, but Draco didn't want it to be. He was, however, struggling to live. No one actually noticed how depressed the fairly young Malfoy heir was. His friend, Blaise Zabini, had taken notice of a few signs, such as the lack of enthusiasm when praised by the elder Malfoy, but brushed it off as a combination of lack of coffee and an overabundance of family disputes (the most common and well-known being that Lucius wanted his son to get married to Pansy Parkinson so that they could, essentially, triple their holdings and Draco could have his own pureblood heir, but Draco stoutly refused). Other than that, no one paid any mind, not that Draco thought that anyone would care.

But someone did.

He just didn't know it.

And why should he? Why would anyone notice the Gryffindor Lioness Official Bookworm (aka GLOB) acting like anything less than the GLOB?

She hid it well, all right.

Hermione was actually a very sly woman (what woman isn't) and had noticed Slytherin's Incarnate Prince Salazar (aka SIPS) losing his sparkle and shine- not that he was that good-looking before she noticed him becoming depressed. His skin was almost translucent, like a barely off-white sheet of sheer cloth (which made her want to touch- er- not touch it, she mentally corrected herself, his cheekbones high (it really wasn't that attractive), his jaw sharply defined, and...oh! Hermione gave herself a mental slap and huffed (which Harry and Ron took as a "Would the both of you shut up about Dumbledore and his so-called 'infatuation' with Harry?!"). Okay, fine, so he was handsome and dashing and whatnot. That didn't mean much in the eyes of the GLOB anyway.

And no, she didn't like him.

Hermione was becoming very well acquainted with her dishonest self.

And so was Severus Snape.

Denial. He hated the word, loathed it, and yet somehow it was still present in his mental list of recent vocabulary. He initially took to believing that it was there in order to taunt his fellow coworkers with (honestly, who couldn't see that there was something going on between Poppy and Albus?). He was wrong, of course (and he knew it, though, if you hadn't realized, he is in denial). One random moment on one random day, the word suddenly, astoundingly referred to him. It was the day that he realized a certain bushy-haired Know-It-All was no longer a bushy-haired Know-It-All at all, but was in fact a lovely young woman with a delicate neck, dainty ankles, and curls that screamed at him to touch them.

Severus placed his head in his hands. Dear Merlin. He was acting like a hormonally-challenged, smitten, foolish, fawning, beef-witted, dizzy-eyed, loggerheaded, imbecilic lout.

And Severus may have thought these terrible things about himself, but a certain full moon-phobic man would strongly disagree with him- even after all these years.

Remus Lupin tried many a time to rid his thoughts of romantic aspirations. He simply could not handle it if he created a cursed half-monster or anything remotely like him, nor could he handle the idea that he might hurt the object of said affections. But sometimes, forcibly weeding out thoughts just doesn't cut it, something Remus knew better than anyone.

Desperate as he was, he learned the hard way that trying to suppress his thoughts would only make them stronger; trying to rid himself of these feelings would only make his heart ache even more whenever he saw the bastard. *Side note: Said object of full moon-phobic man's affections was a bastard because he was painfully indifferent to the sight of this poor, smitten Lupin. Not that it was his fault at all, really. It's not as if Snape knew that his former coworker and enemy had the hots for him. And surely he would like to keep it that way.

But the question is, can such a thing be kept in such a way?