Lucius, Thor, and Rodolphus were in the hospital wing after dinner, sitting on the edges of a couple cots tucked away in the corner of the infirmary, waiting for Severus to wake up.

"I can't believe he fell off the log and knocked himself out." Rodolphus shook his head in disbelief.

"He's lost his whole family, Ra. Cut him a little slack." Thor kicked Rodolphus in the shin.

"Don't call me Ra!" Rodolphus scowled.

"Why not? Your ma does!"

"Stop it! Both of you!" Lucius hissed as Rodolphus pulled back a fist to punch Thor. "Pomfrey will throw us out if we're too loud. Severus is in shock, you know what that means, you idiot. You know, he's lucky all of them died. He'd probably be pulled from the school if he had any family left."

"What's the story on what happened?" Thor whispered.

"The official one?" Lucius snorted with a shake of his head. "His father hung himself in holding and his grandmother turned the gas on when she was notified."

"Do you think our das had anything to do with it?" Rodolphus whispered excitedly.

"I would suspect as much." Lucius sniffed. "They aren't likely to stand by when a witch and young wizard are held at the mercy of some filthy Muggles."

"I wonder what his mum saw in the bastard in the first place," Thor mused.

"My mother said he was good-looking, rode a motorbike, and her father nearly went mad when he found out his daughter was seeing a Muggle." Lucius scoffed. "Then she got herself knocked up to keep her Muggle, only to get disinherited from her old man."

"Why are girls so dumb?" Rodolphus shook his head. "Everyone knows you marry who your parents tell you to, and then do whatever you want."

"Not everyone does that." Thor scowled at the red-haired boy.

"Not all of us are betrothed to Carolyn Douglas," Rodolphus snorted.

"Even the prettiest girl can get tedious if you don't like each other when you've gotten old and fat," Lucius said, a bored look on his face.

"Who says I'm going to get fat?" Thor frowned.

"Boys!"

The three Slytherins turned to look at Madame Pomfrey sheepishly, but instead of chiding them, she motioned for them to come to her.

Severus was lying in a bed, curtained off from the rest of the ward: a boy with a broken arm from tripping down some steps, and a sprained ankle: the result of a failed dismount during a flying lesson.

"Now, I've given him a Dreamless Sleep Potion and put him on a levitating stretcher. Do you think you can get him to your common room without incident?" Madame Pomfrey peered at them suspiciously.

"Yes, Miss," Rodolphus said politely and bowed slightly.

"Well, then." She looked at them as if she certainly did inot/i think they were capable of such a simple chore without strict supervision. "I suppose it will be alright."

"I thought we'd be walking him back to the common room, not pushing him," Thor said with a snort that earned him an elbow from Lucius.

"In my opinion, it would be best for the boy if he sleep until tomorrow morning. He spent the afternoon crying his eyes out and he's been taking far too many potions lately, although the one he had this morning seems to have a few kinks to work out." She narrowed her eyes at Thor.

His pale face turned red and he nodded regretfully as she shook her head at him.

The boys thanked her and began the task of pushing the stretcher back to their common room.

It wasn't that hard to get around undisturbed after dinner. Most of the students had retired to their respective common rooms and the only person of note that they ran into was the caretaker, Pringle, and his cat, Muffin.

Thor paused to scratch the large, white cat behind the ears and had to jog to catch up to the other boys.

"I don't know why you like that cat so much." Rodolphus glared at Thor as his eyes started to puff up.

"You'd like her too, if you could stand to be around her." Thor chuckled. "I have an allergy potion in the case I brought up this afternoon. You can have it as soon as I get back."

"After this morning?" Rodolphus snorted. "Unlikely."

They turned a corner and stopped suddenly as they saw that Lily Evans was sitting on the bench in front of the stairs that led down to the dungeon.

"Determined, isn't she?" Lucius said under his breath.

Lily looked up and her face went pale at the sight of Severus on the floating stretcher.

"He's had a sleeping potion," Thor explained quickly. "Just to get him through until tomorrow."

Lily nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Miss Evans, Mr. Snape is not the first student to lose family while in Hogwarts and he won't be the last," Lucius said, sighing. "Slytherin is his family now. We shall look out for him."

Lily's eyes narrowed at this and she looked at him calculatedly. "He has more than that," she said, a challenging look in her eye.

"Of course he does," said Lucius silkily.

"We'd better get him back," Thor interrupted. "If we dawdle, Madame Pomfrey will have our heads."

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Lucius said airily. "Good day, Miss Evans. I'm sure Severus will call on you when he is feeling better."

"I'm sure he will."