so this is the newest chapter. also i am really starting to appreciate what a slow burn fic this is, so if that's frustrating for any of you, rest assured that it is at least as frustrating for me. also also, i'm really glad you all read this at all, so thank you a million times over for stopping by.

Malfoy frowned.

"I see no reason why I should say anything at all, Severus. You would agree that those days are behind us now, there's no need for me to discuss what happened."

Severus resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"You misunderstand me. I am searching for clues as to what happened to a...former supervisor. Frankly, I am very close to finding him. But at this time, I lack a small but essential piece of the story. Which is why I have contacted you."

Malfoy's mouth curled slightly as he attempted a sage nod, attempting to sublimate any fear at the mention of said former supervisor. "Ah, I see. I've got something you want."

Damn it.

Eh, actually, let the man feel important. He is certainly the type to let more out if you butter him up. The sort with too much ego, not enough sense.

"Yes, it would appear so," Snape sounded as sour as he could manage without any smugness creeping into his voice.

"So," Malfoy continued, no trace of shaking in his voice as he ventured into the territory of his old boss, "what will you give me for my information?"

Snape resisted rolling his eyes for the second time in the conversation. What, indeed.

"Lucius, are you interested at all in the future of Hogwarts? I have some...connection to the Headmaster. There may be a space on the school board opening up soon."

The ice-grey eyes sparked with greedy interest. Severus clenched his jaw to keep from smirking, but it looked like reluctance to Malfoy, which only sparked the same grey eyes further.

The price was small for Severus. A single conversation with Albus Dumbledore was more than worth the time this network could buy for the son of Lily Potter. But the arrangement would have to be clear.

"I can speak with some school officials, of course, but you can imagine how much power the Potions Master has over the future of the witches and wizards of our nation. But a conversation, all the same…"

Severus attempted to trail off thoughtfully. Lucius appeared to bite.

"Well, of course, just a conversation, but all the same… School board, you say?"

Severus nodded as curtly as he could manage. "Control over who is headmaster, what professors are employed at the school, what classes are offered… You would shape generations of future witches and wizards throughout the nation."

Severus wanted to laugh at the rapt expression on Lucius' face. "Yes, well, the one who was involved that night was Lestrange. I overheard his specific orders from the… a former supervisor. He and his wife were to...execute...certain objectives."

Severus tried not to crow at the information. An eyewitness account! Not from anyone he wanted to interview, certainly, and likely individuals awaiting processing for Azkaban, but better than nothing. Persons privy to the night's plans.

Severus also tried not to hear the pay too much attention to the click behind him. The house elves of Hogwarts tried their best to avoid interfering with the contrary, mercurial Potions Master, but his schedule was highly irregular and difficult to predict.

Severus did not, therefore, turn around to survey his visitor until Lucius Malfoy, with a look of horror in the direction of said door, vanished from the fireplace.

And Severus did not turn to see the wine-dark head of hair until Malfoy had already been spotted.

As soon as he took in the hair, tossed from sleeping, tumbling artfully from the beautiful head, blazing eyes glaring forth with brilliant emerald green, dewy skin stretched over delicate cheekbones, lips swollen from deep sleep, the robes heavily wrinkled from clinging to the lithe, bedridden figure, beneath which she was very clearly naked-

Severus swore, very quietly to himself, but audibly to the only other person in the room.

xxx

Lily knocked, very softly, on the door of the Potions Master's dwelling.

She heard voices from within, but no one came to the door.

Who on Earth could he be talking to?

The curiosity threatened to consume her. She decided to enter as quietly as she could manage.

"...certain objectives."

The voice of Lucius Malfoy matched the disembodied head floating in the fireplace that Severus was addressing. Severus didn't turn to look at Lily as she entered, but Malfoy certainly did. He looked as though he was looking at a ghost-a real, honest, terrifying ghost, not a castle resident-as his head popped out of the fireplace in a roar of green fire, leaving only herself and Severus in the room.

He turned slowly to face her. Her hair was mussed from sleep, she noted quietly to herself, and the robes she had scrambled into were very wrinkled. All the same, Severus' eyes darkened-fear, probably-as he looked at her.

He swore, very quietly.

Her brow furrowed.

"Was that Lucius Malfoy?"

For one of many, many instances in his life, Severus wished he did not exist.

"It was. Have you a real emergency for bursting into my room dressed as you are, or have you simply decided that doors are a formality in wizard society?"

Lily reddened, opening her mouth for a snappy reply. Severus tried talking over her, to get away from both Lucius and her appearance.

"Because-really, who-who shows up like this? What time is it? Eight in the morning? Did you think I would be unoccupied? I assume you tried my office. Is this the standard protocol for someone not being available? At eight in the morning? Hunt them down to their personal chambers?"

Lily wanted to excuse her own behavior, but she was wary of letting Lucius Malfoy go without a fight. The instant of time she struggled with the direction of the conversation was all that Severus needed to keep going.

"Surely you wouldn't show up-dressed like this-to contact anyone else. Surely I have not earned such disrespect-"

"Shut up."

His huge, dark eyebrows twisted with incredulity. He eagerly chased the argument, desperate to avoid any substantive topic of conversation. "Excuse me?"

"You didn't answer your door, and I knew you would be awake. I'm not a moron. Come on, Severus. I know what kind of campaign you run. Tell me what's really going on."

His eyes narrowed. Time to lie some more.

"Fine."

Her face seemed to visibly relax. Severus wondered for an instant whether he could have pushed his luck and gotten a better deal from Evans.

"I'll tell you what you want," he admitted, still confident enough in the only Occlumens lesson the pair had shared to be certain he would reveal nothing he was not comfortable sharing.

Lily snorted. "Will you? So forthcoming, especially for a spy."

His eyes glittered dangerously. "If I am so untrustworthy, why ask me anything at all?"

"Then what I want to know is what Voldemort was doing during the war," Lily said, watching the Potions Master intently for any clues he would give away with his face or voice.

Severus deliberately kept his answer noncommittal. "As I understand it, the creature was hoping for persons who wanted to sign themselves away."

"As 'you understand it'? Surely you know for certain, don't you, Severus?"

Snape's face soured in a way Lily had never seen before. "Are you implying that I had any understanding of Lord Voldemort's movements?"

Lily's face twisted angrily, and her voice began to climb in pitch. "So you have no understanding of any of Voldemort's movements? Nothing at all? If I mentioned any motion on Voldemort's part before now, you'd be surprised? Just by that motion?"

Severus sighed deeply, clenching and unclenching his jaw. He looked at the stone floor, unadorned with any carpet, wishing he were anywhere in the world but that room.

"I think you know how I spent my time after we left Hogwarts, Lily," he murmured in almost a whisper, the words tearing away from him in a way that felt like a stuck bandage being slowly dragged off his skin. He heard the tone of his own voice as the words echoed in silence. He glanced up at Lily.

She was breathing hard through her nose, her mouth a thin snarl, her eyes bright with angry tears. The smell of burning woodsmoke seemed stronger, rolling off her in waves, and the reflection of Severus' fireplace danced in her red hair.

Severus felt his brows knit together in distress.

Lily swiped at her eyes, trying to ignore the despondent tone of the Potions Master's confession, the shame and desperation on his face. "Of course I know. I don't know what I was expecting. I shouldn't have even asked. What a fool I've been, hoping for helpful information from someone like you-"

"Lily," he snapped hoarsely. His tired eyes begged her to stop. Please, just stop.

She tried to slow down her breathing. This man is too old for his age. She supposed the same idea applied to herself.

"I'd just hoped…" she began. "I'd hoped the rumors weren't true. I'd hoped the… the things people said about you weren't true."

Severus just shook his head. A full minute of silence passed, him staring at the floor tensely, her waiting for him to crack. But it seemed that Severus had grown accustomed to resisting such pressure, and he said nothing. Lily took in the dark hair, the long lashes over the lowered eyes, before deciding to break the silence.

She nodded. "You will tell me, eventually. But before I leave, I will say that the real reason I came down here was to let you know, I think the Occlumency is working already. I...slept well. Last night. Without...any help."

Severus slumped like he'd just fought a duel, sinking into a chair. "Shall we move on from my sordid past to your substance abuse problems, then? Please, be seated."

"Severus, we are not close enough for you to joke like that."

Snape's eyebrows furrowed with incredulity, and a disbelieving smirk twitched one corner of his mouth up. The sleep deprivation made him bold.

"We were close enough once."

Lily wanted to slap the man. He'd turned from vulnerable and taciturn to cheeky on a dime. What on earth is wrong with him? "Are you drunk, Severus?"

"Sadly, no," Severus replied sardonically.

Lily huffed in laughter, then tried to cover it as a huff of irritation. "Do you even drink at all?"

Severus fixed his dark eyes on her green ones pointedly. "I do. I can show you later. But I would rather address your problems with drinking, not mine. Are you willing to supplant your liquid assistance with our Occlumency lessons?"

Lily felt her face loosen with a nonplussed expression. "I'm sorry… did you say you could show me later?"

"Answer the question, Lily. If you stop taking the Draught of Living Death from my stores-which, frankly, is plenty expensive to replace-I shall continue our Occlumency lessons. I will admit to you that I am likely one of the better Occlumens who could teach you. I can regale you with more tales of how that helped in my sordid past at a later time."

Lily's mouth curled in a grin that she fought fiercely to suppress. "Very well, Severus. Or, should I call you master now?"

Severus' eyes darkened again, she noted. He suddenly began coughing violently, managing to spit out, "Call me whatever you like. Now, if you will excuse me, I did not sleep as well as you did-I'm quite sleep deprived, and I still have much to do today. We shall meet again tonight, if that works for your schedule."

Lily nodded her head, unable to contain her gales of laughter.

"Seven, then? Or eight?" she asked as he ushered her out of his chambers.

"Eight. I look forward to seeing you."

The heavy dungeon door slammed behind her before she could reply.

xxx

Lily wandered slowly back up the stairs of the castle, wondering at the absence of students. The Great Hall would be open at 8 in the morning. There should be children on their way there.

'I can show you later.' What a strange…

She refused to finish the thought, taking the rest of the stairs at a run until she got to her chambers. Her breath coming in gasps, she entered her own room to find a large tawny barn owl clicking irritably at the glass of her east-facing window. There was a letter grasped in the creature's talons.

Lily hurried over and threw open the sash to let the creature in. It crackled in an annoyed sort of way, swooping in and depositing its cargo on her desk. She lifted the envelope, looking hungrily at the sender line.

S. Black, R. Lupin

Second Floor

Culo House

62 Shepherd's Hill

London

She eagerly tore the envelope open, almost dropping the letter in her eagerness.

Dear Lily,

Remus and I are staying together in London at the moment-I found a little place in Crouch End and he's staying here while he gets on his feet. Please write to us and tell us you're well-we've neither seen nor heard from you for ages now.

We're going to Paris for Christmas. Please come with us, we're desperate for company and you've got to be going mad. Staying at the school for so long! You should be drinking, and away from children, and away from everything. Come with us.

Love,

Pads and Moony

Lily sighed deeply. Paris for Christmas. How sweet.

Of course, she had no intention of going. She and James had briefly honeymooned in Paris. Just an instant of normalcy before plunging, head-first, into the war that afflicted every aspect of her life. The war that would tear her to pieces, leaving her body whole and her spirit broken.

Besides, a vacation simply meant spare time. Spare time meant thinking, dwelling on that very war. Even to contemplate such a situation was painful.

But Lily could write a letter, at least. Write and tell what she was doing, how she was spending her time, and with whom-

That is a bad idea, Lily Potter. She spared an instant to imagine the reaction of Sirius Black to the very thought of her spending more time than absolutely necessary with Severus Snape-

Nope. A very bad idea.

She whipped out a quill and a sheet of parchment, intent on sending a letter that simply omitted the part where she was spending her days with a man Sirius despised.

He probably wakes up every morning and thinks mean thoughts toward this very castle, just in case-

Snorting, she began writing to tell her friends how she was doing.

Dear Sirius and Remus,

I am well. Enough. I have picked up work with Madame Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing, and Sev-

She tore the segment from the sheet of parchment and crumpled it, throwing it into the fire roaring in her fireplace.

Dear Sirius and Remus,

I am quite well. I am working at Hogwarts as a nurse in the Hospital Wing now. Madame Pomfrey and I work closely. I see her every day. I also have begun manufacturing potions with

-she scribbled for a second-

with but I've just started, so I cannot say whether I am successful in that regard yet. I am so privileged as to work with Pomona Sprout and and things are coming along nicely. The weather must be milder in London than it is here, which is a relief-it's bloody cold in this dratted castle, especially in the dungeons courtyards and the greenhouses. I've begun Oc I'm staying in the eastern tower that looks over the greenhouses, and it's a gorgeous view, of course. The house elves are keeping me fed and warm, and I speak with Se students all the time. I also speak with Sev Dumbledore about what is happening outside the castle, and of course I'm keeping up with the Prophet. However, I miss the both of you and you must come visit me soon. I would so love to see your new place, you know how I love the city. But I'm afraid I am not able to travel at this time, so you'll have to come to Hogwarts. You understand-security and all. I hope the two of you enjoy your time in Paris, it's beautiful in the winter.

All my love,

Lily

P.S. - expect Christmas presents from me. They are coming.

She smiled warmly at the letter, rolled it into a scroll, and carefully fastened it to the leg of the tawny barn owl. She lifted the creature to the still-open window, letting it press gently on her hand as it lifted into the crisp morning air and climbed into the sky. She watched the brown fleck disappear into the grey, drifting slowly southward.

Lily slowly, thoughtfully closed the window.

"What on earth can I get them for Christmas?" she murmured thoughtfully.

When is Christmas, anyway?

She flitted over to her delicate, gilded mechanical calendar as it moved around the edge of the face of an equally delicate clock. The hour hand, suspended by magic, moved imperceptibly through the 8, and the minute hand rested gently between the 10 and 11. A magically suspended sun floated over the number 19 and an intricately designed moon hovered over Dec.

Which explained the absence of students. They had already left for the holidays, gone from the castle. The decorations in the Great Hall, the enchanted snow falling from the ceiling-how had she not noticed?

More panicked, the thought arose again. "What on earth can I get them for Christmas," she muttered, not so much a query as a desperate grasping. "Oh, God, what do I get them for Christmas?!"