A/N- here's the disclaimer.

He didn't remember going to sleep last night, but when he opened his eyes, Severus was watching Lucius get dressed. He shivered in the dank chill of the dungeon dormitories, sliding his feet off one side of the bed. The silken sheets rustled softly, but Lucius paid him no mind. They didn't speak to one another. Severus struggled to run a brush through his long, dark hair, while simultaneously tightening his tie. Lucius turned to him, his silvery eyes glittering, oddly unrealistic. They seemed to glow in the stale, chill air of the darkened room.

"We'll teach that blood traitor not to mess with things she doesn't understand." He breathed softly, his voice as venomous as the snake that haunted Severus' nightmares. The same as the one branded on his left shoulder. He turned away, gripping the tie in a white knuckled hold. "We'll show her what happens to scum like her, and her muggle pet." Severus swallowed hard. He turned back to Lucius.

"Yeah." He agreed, disguising the tremor in his voice as a yawn. Lucius smiled, satisfied with the concession. He flipped his white gold hair over one shoulder, absently reaching for a ribbon to tie it back. Severus took the opportunity to leave, dashing from the cold room and out of the common room portrait, a flamboyantly life-size cameo of Salazar Slytherin. Everyone in the school had guessed where the common room hiding the Slytherin room was. He hitched his bag up higher on his slight shoulders, keeping his eyes downcast. Memories of the blood and screaming from the previous nights haunted him. He closed his eyes, not concentrating on where he was going. He looked up as he came to a door. The library. He spared a quick glance around him before stepping inside. And there she was. Like a bad dream. A ghost. He stopped dead in his tracks, and she slowly looked up as his eyes bored into her. Her black hair hung in a sheet down her back, and her eyes were red rimmed from crying. Her lower lip had been nervously chewed on; he could see open wounds. She stared hard at him, and he could see what she was thinking. It was as if she had shouted in his ear.

Come to finish the job?

He started to back away, trembling. Her yellow eyes never left his face. They watched, unblinking, as he turned and ran. He didn't stop running until he ran into, quite literally, Lucius. The taller boy steadied him, a smirk in its usual place.

"What's the matter, Snape? Looks like you've seen a ghost." He sneered at his trembling associate. One could hardly call them friends. Lucius despised the lower class filth, whom he wouldn't even be talking to had he known Severus was not even a pureblood. Severus was consistently annoyed by the egotistical, condescending Malfoy heir. He didn't like his fiancé either, the haughty, beautiful blond Narcissa Black. The pair couldn't even stand to be in the same room. Lucius was constantly criticizing her, and she was usually responding with a harsh, disguised insult. Whenever they began speaking in the common room, most of the other Slytherins, save for the ignorant first years, cleared out. "Where did Micky go? You've seen her?"

"No." Severus responded, tossing his hair back with a overconfident gesture. Lucius watched him with narrowed eyes, his thin nostrils flaring. "I- I'm going to eat." Severus changed the subject abruptly, trying to avoid thinking about the darkness of the Forbidden Forest, or the murderous gleam in her eyes. Lucius followed his hurried pace with a more leisurely swiftness.

"You never eat." Lucius reminded him. As if in agreement, Severus' stomach gave a nasty lurch at the voracious breakfast spread before the four house tables. He sat down hesitantly. "What's the matter with you?" Lucius commanded impatiently. "You've been acting so incredibly strange ever since- ever since-" Lucius frowned. Suddenly, a sly smile crept into his dead eyes, and he smirked at Severus. "Ever since we-" He stopped again, his gaze locked on the entrance to the Great Hall. Severus followed his sight, concentrating on the figure entering the Hall.

Oh no.