Harry moves into the Great Hall, glancing around at all the tables of students. As he enters, walking alongside Flitwick up toward the staff table, he's aware of all the heads whipping around to stare at him – nobody had noticed him when he'd been standing with Snape at the platform, and besides, with his wand held above his head, they probably just assumed he was another student.

Now, he's aware of people glancing at him, taking him in.

A group of Ravenclaws giggle as he passes them by, and he feels his jaw set into place, remembering what it had been like in his Sixth Year, with all those girls… It had been nice, on some level – surprising, sure, that so many girls were actually interested in him, when he'd been so nervous about Cho, and then about Ginny, but now it gives him a sort of bad taste that sticks in his mouth, lingers gummy on his tongue.

Of course, none of these girls are seeing him as the Boy-Who-Lived, or anything else. He isn't that – he's just another teacher, one young enough to actually be worth looking at. It'd been the same with Lockhart, hadn't it? And with Remus…

Harry turns to look at the Gryffindor table on the far side of the room, where Remus is laughing, his head thrown back, his hair mousy but long around his head, brushed back from his face. God, he looks young. Tired, but not in the drawn over way he'd always seemed before: he looks tired like he's just had a rough night's sleep.

He doesn't look exhausted.

"Ah, Mr Evans," Dumbledore says, catching his shoulder before he can move for his seat, and Harry feels himself frown, but Flitwick shoots him as a grin as he moves back to his seat, and McGonagall is smirking from where she stands beside the lectern.

"Oh, no," he protests, glancing at the Hat. "We already—"

"Our First Years shall be another ten minutes, according to Mr Hagrid," Dumbledore declares to the room at large, and Harry sets his jaw and crosses his arms over his chest as a hush falls over the room, looking up at the candles instead of at the students, who aren't just glancing at him, now, but are all staring at him. "We shall introduce him properly in a minute, with the year's announcements, but this is Mr Evans, and he'll be a new addition to our staff this year."

At the Gryffindor table, somebody wolf-whistles, and Harry sees Sirius Black duck his head, laughing. He can't keep the grin from his own face as he runs his hand through his hair, shaking his head.

"Thought I was meant to be in the background," he mutters from the corner of his mouth, and Dumbledore pats his shoulder absently. Harry is aware of the burning blush on his cheeks, even as he runs his hand through his hair.

"Would you like to say a few words, Mr Evans?" Dumbledore asks, cheerfully.

"I don't think the words I want to say are appropriate for most of the children, Headmaster," Harry replies, and there's scattered laughter around the room, and applause from some of the tables.

"Mr Evans, you might realize," Dumbledore continues, his smile beatific, "is not a Hogwarts student, and was homeschooled in America."

"Condolences!" calls a voice he can't identify from the Ravenclaw table, and Harry laughs with everybody else.

"So, of course, he has never been Sorted. We thought you children might like to see him put to a House, although of course, this will make no real difference to Mr Evans' teaching, I'm sure. Professor McGonagall?" There are a lot of noises and chatter around the room – some people let out sounds of disbelief or quiet whoops, and Harry exhales slowly.

McGonagall gestures with one bony finger for Harry to come and sit down on the ridiculously small stool, which had never seemed all that small when he was eleven, and now seems more appropriate for a goblin than for a man.

"Do we have to do this?" he asks, already reluctantly stepping forward, and he sits down on the chair, sighing as the Hat is dropped onto his head. He doesn't think he'll ever stop blushing, not now. "This was your idea, I take it?" he asks the Hat.

Don't know what you mean… Besides, you know, the children will trust you more, like this. They'll see you almost as one of them.

"I don't want them to do that," Harry whispers.

Mmm… Don't you? the Hat replies, in a knowing voice, and Harry feels his brow furrow as the Hat leans back on his head. I don't make mistakes, you know. I shan't show you the other side of the penny once I've given it to you.

Harry shrugs his shoulders, and the Hat calls aloud to the room, brightly and with aplomb, "GRYFFINDOR!"

There are cheers from around the room, and Harry gently pushes the hat from his head, setting it down on the stool again and moving past McGonagall and Dumbledore both, dropping down into the seat between Professor Sylvester and Professor Griffin – unlike Professor Trelawney, who almost always ate up in her tower on her own, he's right here with them. Filch is sitting at the staff table tonight, too, talking with a very unenthused-looking Hagrid at the end of the table…

There's a sick sensation in Harry's stomach, one he can't quite put his finger on – he's never been one for pageantry, and right now he wonders if they're thinking of him the way that a lot of them had thought of Lockhart, when he'd first arrived. He must look a right ponce, getting Sorted at his age…

He takes his glasses off to spare him from having to look at all the students staring at him, even though Dumbledore has stepped down to make idle conversation with a Hufflepuff Alchemy student, and he glances at Griffin beside him.

"Did you expect Gryffindor?" Griffin asks, apparently cognizant of Harry's glance, although he doesn't know how, especially because Griffin is scarcely more than a blur beside him. Harry runs his finger over the metal arm of his new spectacles.

"Not really," he says. "I didn't expect anything."

"No?"

"I didn't think they'd Sort me," he says, and he hears Griffin laugh quietly: his hand reaches out, touching a little too low the first time, touching his upper arm before it shifts, and his palm touches Harry's shoulder for a second. How old is he? Thirty? Younger?

"It's alright," Griffin murmurs, before he retracts his hand. "He did it to give them something to talk about – if they talk about what House you're in, they have a basis for something to talk about, instead of merely spreading whatever rumour they invent."

"Seems to me," Harry replies, "that now it's just gonna add fuel to the fire."

"You're a handsome young man – very young – that's joined the staff," Griffin points out. "That fire was going to burn regardless."

"How did you know I was handsome?" Harry asks, and Griffin chuckles.

"I heard the giggles," he answers simply, and Harry feels himself smile. "Besides, Harry, at least half of them will moon over Jane instead of yourself."

Harry slides his glasses back on, and he glances up the table, to the very dour-faced Miss Pink. She doesn't seem to smile much, if at all, although once again she's dressed in a very colourful Muggle skirtsuit, and it suits her very well.

He hadn't been certain what to actually buy, when he'd gone around for robes, and he'd gone for a dark green in this set, and another set in a dark wine colour, as well as a black set for… Well, if he wants to be unobtrusive. He's never bought robes before, not for his own use outside of school, and it had been very strange in Madam Malkin's, standing in front of the rows and rows of colourful fabrics and having no idea what to say, what to point at. He'd felt like he had as a child again, but more intimidated by his ignorance than excited by it.

He looks across the room, to the Slytherin table.

Snape is sitting beside the big, burly Slytherin he'd walked toward the coaches with, and he's making quiet conversation with the big Slytherin and some of his friends. One of them he recognizes as Avery, another future Death Eater, and Mulciber, and MacNair. His mother had been right, then, when she'd talked about his Death Eater friends – he can only assume that the big Slytherin will be a Death Eater in the end too…

Somehow aware of Harry looking at him, Snape turns to glance at him, and they lock eyes across the room.

Harry almost expects his scar to hurt him, as it had all those years ago, but of course, nothing happens. Snape just stares at him for a second, and then his head tilts just slightly to the side, his eyes shifting a little: his expression remains neutral, frozen in a mask of familiar indifference, but that head tilt, those eyes, they say everything. He's confused, but he's curious.

It's weird, how expressive this young Snape is – he's so different, so young, but he's not set in stone yet, he's not… Harry doesn't know. He isn't Snape yet, not like Harry had known him.

"What?" he mouths, looking straight at him.

Snape actually recoils slightly, he's so confused, and seemingly frustrated, as if he's been caught looking at Harry first. "What?" his lips move, and Harry laughs as he glances away, turning to meet the rather severe and disapproving gaze of Professor Sylvester.

"Do you know that young man?" she asks, as if it would be the most disgusting thing in the world, if he said yes. She says it in such a way that implies knowing any children would be an affront to anyone's sensibility.

"Uh," Harry says. "Well, yeah, I've met him. That's Severus Snape, he's one of the Sixth Years. He'll be very good in Defence, I think. Right, Professor Slughorn?" Harry asks, leaning past Sylvester to glance at him.

Slughorn is looking rather dolefully at the empty table, but now he glances up, his wide eyes flitting between Harry and Sylvester, and then he smiles. "Ah, yes, Snape is rather good at almost everything, actually. Well, I say almost. His O.W.L.s were all Os."

"All of them?" Harry repeats, glancing back at Snape, who is frowning across the table at MacNair, and then looking back to Slughorn. "If his grades are that good, why isn't he a prefect?"

An awkward expression passes over Slughorn's face, his mouth forming an O of careful thought, and he leans away, back into his seat: his hands protectively form a loose cage over his protruding belly. "Er," he says, "well, ah, several things are taken into account, when it comes to the selection of prefects. Not merely school performance, you see, but, ah, behaviour."

"Behaviour?" Harry repeats innocently, thinking of all the spells scrawled across Snape's potions text book – spells that are maybe yet to be written, now that he comes to think of it.

"Well," Slughorn murmurs. "You know, some children, they do very well in class, but, ah, outside of it…"

"He's a bully?" Harry asks.

"Young Snape?" Slughorn repeats. "Oh, no, heavens no. I'm sure he'd like to be."

"Horace," snaps Hayden, the Herbology professor, and Slughorn seems to realize what he's said, awkwardly clearing his throat. Hayden leans over Slughorn, and Harry meets his gaze.

"Mr Snape," Hayden says very seriously, his bushy eyebrows all but wriggling on his face, "is a boy with something of a temper on him. Has a bit of an ongoing rivalry with the four Gryffindor boys. Usually loses, you see."

"Well, I'm not surprised," Harry says, "if the four of them gang up on him."

"He usually holds his own, actually," Slughorn says, almost ruefully. "He's a little terror, when he wants to be. Capital potionsmaster, though, he, ah, he wants to work at St Mungo's after Hogwarts, I think… Helps Poppy brew all the potions for the infirmary."

"Shouldn't you do that, being as you're the Potions Professor?" Harry asks.

"Hmm, what?" Slughorn asks, feigning incognizance, and Harry almost laughs at the sheer innocence he packs into his face.

Before Harry can needle him any further, the doors open up and McGonagall brings the First Years into the room. One of them, an extremely pale, thin little girl with her hair in pig tails, is soaked to the skin.

"Ah, she fell in the lake," Slughorn says knowingly, with a fond little smile on his face. "There's always one."

ϟ ~ CHASING GHOSTS ~ ϟ

"Mr Snape, Mr Avery, and Mr Wilkes, isn't it?" Evans asks, stopping in the corridor, and Severus watches him, taking in the red robes he's wearing, like he'd been prepared for his silly little game at Sorting. They're a little odd – the robes are new, but they're very tight compared to most modern robes, coming right against his breast and only letting out a little bit in the skirt and the sleeves, whilst not being made of an especially stiff fabric.

"Yes, Professor Evans," Wilkes says, and Evans smiles up at him.

"No, no, Mr Evans is just fine," he corrects mildly.

It's a little bit past seven o'clock, and they're standing in the Entrance Hall, waiting for Mulciber to come back from the bathroom before they move into the Great Hall to sit down for breakfast. Evans has just come down, and it's… He's odd. He'd come right up to them, wished them a cheery good morning…

"We don't normally call members of staff that," Wilkes explains, his voice smooth and low. "Even when they are very young."

"So good of you to say, Mr Wilkes," Evans says. "But I'm not a full professor. Just think of it like this: most Muggles call their teachers Mr or Miss, in their schools." Abruptly, the nature of the conversation changes, and Severus watches as Wilkes and Avery both stiffen slightly: Evans retains a breezy smile, as if he doesn't notice, but Severus thinks he does. He must do.

"Do they," Wilkes says flatly, disgust heavy in his voice. "Are you saying we should be more like Muggles, Mr Evans?"

"Oh, I don't know," Evans says casually. "There's a lot of pointers we can take from Muggles, us wizards. Muggles, for example, don't usually take up with their cousins – they know that inbreeding is bad for them. That it leads to weakness, instability, illness… Madness, in the case of some. Funny, that, isn't it?" He says it so… There's a tone of, "We're all friends, here," and yet Evans' green eyes are quite cold where they rest on Wilkes' face.

Wilkes' parents, of course, are cousins.

Severus doesn't let his lips move, doesn't let himself laugh, but there's a burgeoning amusement in his chest – this Evans man is plainly an idiot, on some level, but it is funny to see Wilkes' face redden so entirely, his handsome jaw clenching.

"You a Muggleborn, then?" Avery asks sharply.

"Why, yes, Mr Avery," Evans says brightly. "However did you guess?"

"Mr Evans," Severus says, in what he hopes is a silky voice, and Evans' gaze flits toward him. Last night, Severus had caught him looking at him, and it had been so odd: Evans had acted as if it had been Severus who'd been staring, and even now, Severus doesn't know what to make of him. He's gone from provoking Potter and his friends last night to messing around with Wilkes – maybe he just doesn't like Purebloods. "I hardly mean to police that which you say, but the subject of blood politics is a somewhat impolite for…" He pauses for just a second, and then allows the slightest of smiles, which is honed as the politest of insults. "Mixed company."

Wilkes and Avery each snigger, but Evans' expression doesn't change, his focus right on Severus' face, like he's studying him, analysing him somehow. What is it, Severus wonders, that he's looking for?

"Really, Mr Snape?" Evans asks in a low voice. "I had no idea." And then, like he's experimenting with something, he leans in just a little closer. "Of course, there's no mixing with me: I'm Muggleborn, through and through. Mixed would be a Half-blood, right?"

Severus' hands clench into fists at his sides, but he doesn't let anything show in his face: it doesn't matter, because Evans seems to know that his blow has landed, and he gives Severus and the other boys a wink before he turns his back on them ("Never turn your back on someone after you've insulted them, not right away. That's a duelling offence," echoes Lucius' voice in his head, and Severus' blood feels hot under his skin), moving into the Great Hall.

"He'll be dead before the year's out," Wilkes mutters, a slow smile of satisfaction curving his lips as he watches Evans walk away. The tightness of his strangely tailored robes lets out a little just below his waist, and Severus can see the curve of his arse and his thighs when the skirt shifts – he isn't a big man, nor a muscular one, but he's certainly built like the Quidditch player he'd claimed to be. "Uppity little so-and-so, that one. You think these Mudbloods would learn to hold their tongues."

He knows I'm a Half-blood, Severus thinks, and he thinks of his own private little appellation, the source of some vague fantasy when he dreams of being as the Dark Lord is, being an object of fear and awe in his own right, but—

It is one thing, to know his name, to know any of their names.

It's another to know their blood status.

ϟ ~ CHASING GHOSTS ~ ϟ

"Mr Evans," a female voice says, and Harry turns his head, looking his mother in the eyes. She seems to realize what she hadn't realized the night before, leaning in slightly to stare up at his face, her lips pursing into a tight frown of concentration that reminds Harry, eerily, of Aunt Petunia. He's never seen that expression on another person's face before.

"Ms Evans?" Harry replies, raising his eyebrows, and Lily leans back on her heels slightly. They're the same height, he realizes, with a kind of chilly comprehension. James is taller, maybe 5'9" or 5'10", but he and Lily both are a few inches shorter, and they're the same height. No one told him that, before. No one ever…

"Uh, I just wanted to ask about the syllabus this year," Lily says, with a little anxiety, and her fingers, which are slim and with shiny nails, tap against the back of the book in her arms. "Defence has non-verbal magic on the sixth year syllabus, but Defence really isn't my strongest suit, and I'm very worried about—"

"Ms Evan," Harry breaks in, "what did you get on your Defence O.W.L.?"

Lily falters. "Well, an O, but I—"

"I think you're gonna be fine," Harry says gently, trying not to laugh. "You're best at Charms, right? That's what Sl— Professor Slughorn says."

Lily bites her lip, looking genuinely anxious, and he feels himself smile.

"Look," he says, "maybe try some basic charms as practice, okay? Listen, I'm terrible at non-verbal magic, and it was never the end of the world, but I don't think you'll be as bad as I am with it. It's just willpower and focus – it's easier with the magic you know best, though, so stick with charms at first." That's not exactly true anymore, though, is it? You were terrible at non-verbal magic, but not anymore.

Lily exhales, reaching up and running her hand through her hair – it isn't the way he'd seen James do it in Snape's memories, but it's more like the way Harry does it himself, anxious and automatic. He feels weirdly emotional, and he doesn't know how to deal with it, so he focuses on keeping his expression as neutral as he can.

"You get anxious about all your classes?" Harry asks, wondering if Hermione's class-related anxiety is something shared in a lot of the Muggleborn students, and Lily glances at him, her brows furrowing, her lips pursing tightly again.

"No," she says, like it's obvious. "No, I need…" She shakes her head, taking a step back, and when she smiles again, it's all white teeth and vivacity. "No, it's fine. Thank you, Mr Evans – I'll practice with some charms first."

Harry's lips twist into a frown as he watches her walk away, her book clasped across her chest like a shield. He can see her speaking quietly with Remus Lupin, who is listening very concentratedly, and then glances at Harry. Shaking his head slightly, he moves to the staff table for breakfast, eating something quickly.

He heads up to the Defence classroom once he's eaten, moving the desks and chairs to the edges of the room, and he flicks his wand to the side, setting the desks into neat stacks and the chairs in parallel. They're left with a broad space in the centre of the Defence classroom, and Harry remembers the excited wonder he'd felt when Remus had brought them into the staff room to deal with that Boggart, pushing the furniture aside to do so – Remus, who's seventeen at most right now.

Merlin, it makes his head hurt, and he doesn't know if he's supposed to be doing something differently when he talks to the students, doesn't know if he's supposed to conduct himself as if he's older than he is, or as if he's meant to just act his own age, but when has he ever done that?

Moving toward the board, he begins to neatly print out the lesson plan on the syllabus, trying to make his handwriting neater than it usually is, trying to make sure that it's perfectly legible even from the very back of the room.

Professor Sylvester had said she might be a there five minutes before the lesson began instead of ten minutes, because she was speaking with Professor Dumbledore about some last minute timetabling issues this morning, but she'll still be here on time when the lesson starts, and there's still a good twenty minutes before—

The knock at the door is crisp and clear, but quiet.

"Come in, Mr Snape," Harry calls, and the door opens very slowly. Snape frowns at him.

"Why, pray," he says in what Harry supposes is meant to be a silky voice, but without his years of practice sounds contrived and a little over-theatrical, "are you assisting in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Mr Evans? Your skillset seems more appropriate to Divination."

Harry chuckles, and he looks back to the syllabus, writing it out neatly on the board before glancing back to Snape, who has taken a seat on one of the desks. It's strange, to look at him like this: he does it like any sixteen-year-old would, leaned back and drawn himself up onto the desk surface, his legs hanging down. Harry notices that unlike most of the students, whose ankles would show, Snape is wearing calf-length boots, and Harry would bet he has something like trousers on, too.

Severus Snape, hanging upsidedown from one ankle, screaming…

Harry swallows the disgust he feels and adjusts his hold on the chalk. It's weird, in any case, to see Snape as a student, someone his age, someone young…

"It's not really Divination," Harry murmurs. "I used to do that at primary school."

There's a moment's pause. He doesn't let himself look back at Snape, because he knows whatever shows on his expression, it'll probably make him feel upset – that, or Snape looks angry.

"What do you mean?" he asks, finally, the theatricality dropped. Harry can hear it, now, that the accent is put on – sometimes, he clips words a little too much, like he hasn't yet nailed down the way that he wants to say them.

"My cousin went to school with me," Harry says, shrugging his shoulders. That seems so long ago, now, so long ago that it almost feels dream-like: the young Dudley that had chased him around, done awful things to him, cornered him, is a spectre compared to the image of Dudley he has now, the big lad with his shoulders down, his hands clasped in front of his belly, saying, "I wanted to say sorry." Harry inhales, smelling the chalk dust, before he says, "He and his friends used to do awful things to me – beat me up, knock me around a little. I was a lot smaller than they were, and I didn't know how to defend myself. Or they'd embarrass me, you know. I used to go in from break or lunch time early, so that they couldn't get me alone, and even if they came into the classroom early, it'd be too risky for them to try anything."

There's a long silence.

"I don't like bullies, Mr Snape," Harry says. He thinks of Snape in his classroom, leaning down over Neville's cauldron and staring him down as he shivered and stammered through whatever it was Snape was trying to ask him, and he adds, "I won't suffer them."

"Why did you leave America?" Snape asks quietly.

"My family are dead," Harry replies.

There's a long pause, and then Snape says, finally, as if he has never said the words before, "My condolences."

"That's alright," Harry says, and he sets the chalk down, turning back to look at Snape, who is studiously regarding his own knees. "Did you have a good summer?"

Snape glances up, his eyes narrowing by just a fraction: is he really suspicious of a question like that? He has friends – Avery, Wilkes, Mulciber. Hasn't anyone asked him that already? Going off the look on his face alone, you wouldn't think anyone had. "Yes, thank you," he says slowly: he has the air of someone carefully measuring their words, speaking slowly to give them time to come up with the next thing they need to say. "I had a summer position at an apothecary."

"Professor Slughorn mentioned you were a very skilled potioneer," Harry says.

"I can follow a recipe," Snape says guardedly.

Harry feels his mouth curve up on the one side, and he looks at Snape for a second, taking this in. I can follow a recipe.

"Don't like to blow your own horn, do you?" Harry asks mildly.

"I wouldn't see the point."

"And you don't like small talk."

Snape frowns, his brows furrowing slightly. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't need to."

"Who told you I was a Half-blood?" Snape asks. The question comes out almost impulsively, a thrown-out, almost desperate demand – he's so… Unpolished. It's like he isn't finished yet, exactly, like he's been carved into the rough shape he's supposed to be, but not sanded down yet. It would be endearing, maybe, if it was anyone else – with Snape, Harry just feels sad.

"Nobody," Harry answers. "Snape's a Muggle name, that's all, and I guessed based on your friends that you weren't a Muggleborn."

"They aren't my friends," Snape says, very plainly. There's not a thing showing in his face right now, just a neutrality in his features, his eyes black and staring. "I don't have any friends," he adds, his tone almost defiant.

"Must make Christmas and birthdays easier," Harry says.

"What?" Snape demands, seemingly baffled.

The way he says it isn't especially nasty, but is like indignation with the air let out halfway through – he expected Harry to say something crueller than he had, or not to crack a joke at all, and Harry smiles at him.

For a second, he thinks Snape is gonna snap at him, but then something shifts, and Snape relaxes, and laughs. Harry stares at him as his face shifts, his cheeks slackening, his thin lips drawing back and showing his crooked, yellow teeth (but not as yellow as they used to be, or will be), and he looks away as he laughs. "Oh," he says, finally. "Yes."

You never saw him relax, laugh, Flitwick had said to him. He looked so much—

And what was he going to say? Younger? Better? Less ugly, more human, happier?

The door opens, and a pair of Gryffindors hesitate for a second before Harry waves them in, and they come in together, gathering at the edges of the rooms. As people come into the room, filtering in bit by bit and joined by Professor Sylvester, Harry steps aside and gets ready for the class to begin.

James and the others come in just before the hour, laughing together over something or other, and Harry watches the way Sirius shoves Peter just a little too hard: he sees the way Peter turns to snarl at him, and only calms down again when Remus pats his shoulder, relaxing slightly. Sirius leans down over him, offering Peter a smile, and Peter shoves him hard in the chest, but Sirius only laughs, and apparently, that makes Peter laugh too.

James isn't watching his friends mess around. His gaze is fixed on Snape, who remains quietly in his place, his hands neatly folded in his lap, speaking quietly with Avery. He has his right hand palm up, the fingers spread, and he is pointing to different parts of his hand as he talks: Avery, for his part, is listening intently, his expression a mask of concentration.

They're not my friends, he'd said. Well, what are they, then? If Harry asked Avery, or any of the others, would they say Snape was their friend?

The idea of somebody claiming Snape as a friend is odd, but…

Maybe it's a political thing, he supposes, something he can't wrap his head around – a bit like how Draco Malfoy seemed to spend all his time with Crabbe and Goyle, but never because he actually liked them, or especially trusted them. They were just there, with him…

And James… There's something in his expression that Harry doesn't like, his lips quirked into the smallest of smiles, a kind of calculation going on behind his eyes, which are a light hazel flecked with darker shades. He sees his mouth move as he says something to Sirius, and Sirius' eyes move too, focusing on Snape.

His grin is savage in its enthusiasm.

"Now, now," Sylvester calls, her papery voice barely breaking the noise of the students around her, and none of them pay her any attention: Harry can see the confused irritation pass over her face.

"Shut up!" Harry snaps from behind her, projecting it as best as he can. It has an effect somewhat like a whip crack, and all of the students stop gossiping as one, turning to stare at them.

Sylvester, very slowly, turns her head, and gives him a look.

With the students quiet, however, the lesson begins.

AN: Hey, hope you're enjoying the fic. I'd love to hear your thoughts on where you think the story's going - I've laid a fair amount of foreshadowing thus far, so I'd love to see if people's predictions or thoughts match up with the stuff I have planned. Thanks so much for reading!