Very sorry for the long delay! I've been busy with school. There's been a title change also. Eep.

By the Monday following, Severus felt as though he had finally managed to fall back into the routine of regular classes. He stumbled down to breakfast well before eight o'clock, in time to snag a piece of bacon before it was all gone. He picked up the Prophet, rubbing his face blearily.

Werewolf Pack Threatens Village, he read. He flipped the page. Ministry considers harsher restrictions. Severus's eyes flicked downwards. Minister for Magic, Milicent Bagnold (73), spoke yesterday with reporters about the importance of staying calm in the face of new evidence that...

The cramped print swam before his eyes, and he yawned so widely that his jaw cracked. He had neglected to complete his practical Charms homework for the lesson that afternoon. Flitwick would notice, he was sure. Severus had never had an aptitude for Charms. In previous years, he had had Lily to help him. Now, Severus sat with Mulciber during Charms, as Avery had flunked his OWL and Wilkes wasn't interested in the subject. It was not an ideal arrangement.

He hunched his shoulders as he walked to class, and kept his eyes down. He would have to see Makepeace this evening, he thought gloomily. On top of everything else!

He arrived to class before Mulciber, and tried desperately not to catch anyone's eye as the other students filed in. He slumped into his chair, dropping his wand and books onto the desk in front of him, and closed his eyes.

"Morning," said a sly voice by his ear, and Severus instantly went for his wand.

It wasn't there.

Potter came from around the desk. Severus's wand was in his hand, and he twirled it absently. Snape could feel Black's presence behind him. He knew that there was no point diving at Potter. They'd done this to him before. They had magic, and he didn't. It wouldn't even be a fight. He cursed himself for leaving his wand unattended – he couldn't ever let his guard down, not even for a moment.

Severus couldn't think of a way out of his predicament, so he stared stonily ahead. Pettigrew darted forwards and grabbed his charms textbook. As he did, the cover slipped from the binding, which caused Potter, Black and Pettigrew to roar with laugh. Severus felt a muscle in his jaw began to twitch. His heart was beating very fast.

"Sad, really," said Black, from behind him. "As well as being ugly and stupid, you're also poor, Snape. It doesn't seem fair."

Severus heard someone laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lily looking in the opposite direction in a determined sort of way. He stood up. Potter laughed, and he felt Black tense behind him.

"Morning, Snape."

Relief that Severus would never acknowledge flooded through him. Mulciber had entered the classroom, and was eying them all with a look of disdain. Potter and Black shared a quick glance. Potter let go of Snape's wand, and it clattered noisily onto the desk. Severus grabbed it at once. Pettigrew was slow on the uptake, but after Potter nudged him, he too let go of the torn remains of Snape's text-book. Almost casually, the three drifted back to their seats.

Snape collapsed into his chair. His heart was racing. Mulciber gave him a patronising look. "Keep your wand on you next time, Snape," was all he said.

After the confrontation, Flitwick's lecture went mostly over his head. Severus knew that he would have to revise it later, on top of all his other homework, but he couldn't bring himself to focus. Most of his attention was on stopping himself from shaking. Severus watched a spider daintily make its way across the desk. It had long legs and a small, dark body. Like me, thought Severus, except that he never managed to walk with as much dignity.

"Therefore," said Flitwick, loudly, "today's lesson will focus on the more theoretical aspects of-"

Mulciber was doing something to the spider. Severus thought he knew what it was. The spider pranced along the end of the desk, its walk suddenly changed. The trick of it was that Mulciber wasn't moving a muscle. His hand rested lightly on his wand, and his eyes followed the movement of the spider, but aside from that, he gave no outward indication that he had any relation to it. It made Severus uncomfortable, but he didn't feel able to do anything.

The spider ran across the floor. It crawled across Mary McDonald's shoe and then raced up her leg.

The class was suddenly split by a shriek as she leapt from her seat, brushing her legs and screaming. Flitwick – who had been in the middle of explaining certain aspects of wandless magic – tumbled over backwards in alarm.

Harriet and Viola – Slytherin girls Severus had little to do with - shrieked in delighted mirth.

McDonald was so upset that she was unable to continue in the class, so Lily escorted her to the hospital wing. She gave Severus a filthy look on her way out, although it hadn't been his doing. He would have tried to explain that to her, if she hadn't looked so angry. That was the problem with Lily, these days. She never had time to listen to his side of the story.

The whole affair left him greatly rankled, and he spent the rest of the day in a dark temper. He trudged up to Makepeace's lesson with brooding resentment in his heart. When he opened the door, he came face to face with Dumbledore.

"Good evening, Mr. Snape," said Dumbledore. "I was just leaving." He smiled. Severus blinked, and nodded at him. His mouth felt very dry, as the headmaster's presence always put him on edge. He waited until the old man had disappeared down the corridor, and shut the door firmly behind him.

"Hi," called Makepeace. He was on the mezzanine floor above the classroom, but made to descend as Severus entered.

"What was he doing here?"

"The headmaster and I were discussing current affairs."

Snape knew he should pursue the matter further. This was exactly the sort of information Mulciber had asked him to uncover! He'd had a long day, however, and didn't remotely feel like it. "So," he said, resentfully. "Sir. What am I supposed to do this evening?"

"Well, I thought we'd work on your footwork. It's... not good. And you don't need to call me Sir."

"Right," he said. "Professor. Where shall we start?"

In the end, the lesson turned out to be something of a wash. Severus had expected something more exciting after the duel last week – would have relished in the opportunity to let off steam. However, there was no spell-casting at all. He didn't even have a wand. Makepeace had given him a wooden stick to 'practice' with. They spent the hour circling on another.

"Think with your feet," the professor kept repeating. "And stand up straight."

He'd never done anything so stupid in his life, and he felt even more irritable and snappish at the end of the hour than he had at the beginning.

"You seem distracted," said Makepeace, as Severus was leaving. Snape glowered at him. "Goodnight!" the professor called loudly after him.

Severus was distracted, it was true, but it wasn't Makepeace's business to comment on it. His mind was on Lily when he left the room. They'd caught each other's gaze briefly during dinner. She'd looked away at once... but why had she been looking at him in the first place? He wondered if he should have acted differently during Charms... but he'd been so angry about Potter and Black that...

Severus rounded the corner, and nearly ran into her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. She was clutching a textbook to her chest. Of course, he thought, this passage was near to the Gryffindor common room. Evidently, the room had decided against depositing him on a lower floor this evening.

"Free country, isn't it?" he spat back at her. He had no interest in explaining his lessons with Makepeace to anyone. Ignoring the shocked and irritated look on her face, he pushed past her, wanting to return quickly to the dungeons.

Severus's life seemed to be falling into some sort of routine, albeit a strange one. School-work and extra study kept him comfortably busy. Makepeace's lessons - though they often seemed boring and irrelevant - provided some small point of interest for his otherwise dull schedule. On Fridays, he passed on any skerricks of information he'd managed to glean about his professor - a meeting with Dumbledore, or thea mention of a ministry colleague - to Mulciber.

Perhaps it was because of these new activities, but the semester felt different to all his previous ones at Hogwarts. There was a change in the air. The atmosphere inside the castle seemed different this year; darker, and more oppressive, somehow. It was as though the forces that worked outside of Hogwarts - the Ministry, the Dark Lord and the Order of the Phoenix – were physically pressing up against the ancient stone walls that surrounded them.

Severus couldn't afford to take the Daily Prophet every day, but there was usually a copy lying around. Severus couldn't really believe that these things –exciting, dangerous things – were going on outside Hogwarts.

Potter and Black were different too. Severus had gathered from Regulus that there had been some sort of confrontation over the summer, the result of which was that his elder brother had been expelled from their house, and asked not to return. Black had been living with Potter over the summer, and a result they seemed more synchronised than ever. Their harassment of him had also seemed more frequent, but maybe he was imagining that.

Then there was the club that Makepeace had founded...

The club's official name was the Defence Association. That was what Professor Makepeace called it, anyway. Sometimes, however, when Severus was in the corridors or in the library, he overheard those select students who had been chosen to attend – Black and Potter prominent amongst them – calling it something different. It was a stupid nickname, made up by children who didn't understand the severity of their actions, but still, the name persisted, whispered behind hands, written on notes passed between them in class.

Dumbledore's Army.

It made him fume. As if they knew anything about the real world outside of Hogwarts. He scratched at his arm, absent-mindedly. The brand itched oddly at times, though he was sure it wasn't an official summons.

Perhaps the atmosphere came from within him. His sixth-year was also dominated by a profounder sense of loneliness than he had ever felt before in his life. He'd been alone as a child, of course, but it had been different back then. He'd been too young to consider his own position. He was alone, but he didn't know what it was to have friends and so did not miss them. That'd changed after he'd met Lily. No matter how bad anything had been since then, he'd had her. She'd been there for him, always, but not anymore.

A change to his routine came in the first week of October, in the form of a note. It wasn't delivered by owl, but arrived via paper-aeroplane on Sunday morning.

Severus.

Meet me at the greenhouses at 2pm. We're going for a walk

HJM

He groaned. He had other work to do, of course, but he wasn't sure if he was allowed to ignore the note or not. At 2pm, he trooped down to the greenhouses, where, sure enough, Makepeace was waiting, the bright sunlight glinting off his monocle.

"Does this replace my Monday lesson?" Severus asked, before saying hello.

"Yes, I suppose. I thought it'd be fun."

"Fun," said Severus, voice dripping with sarcasm. Makepeace gave him an awful smile, and set off at a brisk trot.

His legs were so long that Severus almost had to run to keep up. He was slightly out of breath by the time they reached the shadow of the forest. Severus stared at Makepeace in consternation.

"I'm not going in there," he said. Makepeace pulled a face.

"Come on," he said. "It'll be fun."

Severus thought the two of them had a very different idea of 'fun'. He relented though. He was intrigued, and his curiosity overrode his fear. They set off. It was pleasant at first. The sun-dappled path was cool, and the forest was alive with sounds. He could hear the birds singing, and the flittering of insects and small animals in the undergrowth. If Severus stuck a little close to Makepeace's shadow than was necessary, well... no-one could blame him.

The path became narrower, and stopped entirely when they came to a burbling stream.

"What now?" asked Severus in a whisper, although he wasn't sure why he was whispering. In answer, Makepeace sat down and began unlacing his boots. Severus followed his lead, as Makepeace stepped barefoot into the stream. Severus could feel winter coming in the water. He'd tied his laces together and hung his boots around his neck, and they knocked against his chest as he walked. He had to stoop low in places to make it through the thick undergrowth.

The rocks were very slippery. He'd cut his foot, grazed his knee after falling and been hit in the face by two separate branches by the time they finally arrived in a dappled clearing. Severus wiggled his toes in the wet mud, delighting at the feeling. He climbed out, straightening up fully for the first time in ages.

"It's peaceful," he said. It was. He wondered if he would have the courage to come here alone. Makepeace beckoned, silently, and Severus followed him. The clearing widened out to reveal a crumbling stone circle. Severus was about to open his mouth, to ask if this was the end of their journey, when he felt the magic.

It came up through his feet, still bare on the soft moss. It reverberated in his bones, up his spine, out through the tips of his fingers. A moment later, the sensation had passed.

"What is it?" he asked, in a whisper.

"Old," said Makpeace, simply.

He went to examine one of the stones. There were runes upon them, but none that he recognised. He began to copy them into his notebook anyway. Perhaps he'd be able to translate them later. Curious, he followed the circle. It led to a low, crumbling retaining wall.

"It's the foundations of Hogwarts," Makepeace said.

"What?"

"The school itself is a living thing, of sorts. It grows, and moves. It has a mind of its own, and evolves following its own whims."

Severus digested this. It contradicted with a lot of what he'd read. Then again, so did a lot of what Makepeace said to him.

"What about the Chamber of Secrets?" he asked.

"You believe in that story, then?"

"Yes," Severus said, somewhat defiantly.

"Good. The Chamber too has moved and evolved since its creation. For one thing, they didn't have indoor plumbing in Salazar Slytherin's day."

This was such an odd comment to make that Severus looked up. He came face-to-face with centaur's drawn arrow-point.

While they'd been talking, the centaurs had surrounded them. There must have been twenty in total. All had bows, and all looked angry. Their hooves hadn't made a sound upon the moss.

"Ah," said Makepeace. He took a step towards Severus. There was an undercurrent to his voice that Severus had never heard before. Was it fear?

"You shouldn't have come here," said a huge, raven-haired centaur. "You are unnatural. An abomination. This is a sacred place."

The circle hissed.

"I am sorry," said Makepeace. He looked up, as though he were trying to see the sun through the thick branches of the trees. He took a hold of Severus's arm with extreme firmness. Severus tried to shrug him off, but Makepeace's grip was implacable. "I will be going. We will be going. Sorry."

Severus wasn't entirely sure what happened next. He had a sudden feeling of weightlessness, which coincided with the sensation that he'd left his stomach behind. A branch whipped across his face, slicing his cheek open. And then...

They were in the open air above the forest, and rising fast. Makepeace's wand was pointed downwards, and Severus realised he must have propelled them from the earth with some kind of charm.

If he had not been too busy feeling queasy, and gripping Makepeace's arm for dear life, he would have enjoyed the view as the world unrolled beneath them. Hogwarts sat on the hill, like a little toy castle. The trees they'd left behind were no larger than twigs. And still, they climbed.

Severus shut his eyes, and, at that moment, they reached the apex of the great arc, and began to fall.

"What now?" screamed Severus, as the wind tried to rip his words away. The ground was approaching with alarming speed. In answer, Makepeace flicked his wand. Severus felt suddenly weightless. He looked for Makepeace, but the man had completely disappeared. Dazed, Snape drifted back to earth like a crow's feather. His descent took several minutes.

He landed on the grass near the lake, so lightly that it hardly bent beneath him. There was an outbreak of giggling. A group of Hufflepuff girls were laughing at him. Furious, he turned his back on them. The wind buffeted him on the way back to school, and he felt that with every step he would blow away.

The weightlessness charm Makepeace had cast upon him had not been lifted upon his return to the ground. No counter-curse he tried would end its effects. It took all his strength to push open a door, and the slightest gust of wind would push him flat on his face. Fuming, Severus went to the seventh floor, but Makepeace wasn't in his office. The door to his classroom had disappeared entirely. Severus slumped, defeated.

He spent an excruciating hour searching for his professor. He couldn't bear to think what would happen if Black or Potter came across him in this state. Giggles and stares followed him wherever he went.

He found Makepeace in the Owlery, in the end. The man looked slightly windswept. "Severus," he said, with his usual tone. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Take it off," he growled. "Take it off, now."

Makepeace looked completely confused, and then, to Severus's extreme annoyance, started laughing.

"It's not funny!" he yelled. Makepeace flicked his wand, and Severus collapsed under the sudden force of gravity, restored at last. It was this final indignity that burst the damn inside him. He could feel his face twitching.

"Who the hell do you think you are!"

Makepeace stopped laughing. He blinked, lopsidedly. "Severus, I-"

"No," he said. "I'm done. You can forget about it." He turned to go, but Makepeace caught him buy the arm. "Let go!"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put you in danger, I-"

The fact that Makepeace thought that it had been about the danger made Severus even angrier. He wanted to scream at the man, but he couldn't think what to say first.

"I'm sick of this. I hate your stupid lessons. I don't want anything to do with you."

With an almighty tug, he wrenched his arm free of Makepeace's grip. He took off down the Owlery steps, leaving his professor standing alone.