"Someone else was murdered on Halloween," Shi said, setting a newspaper down in front of her later that morning, as they were eating breakfast. "The Bulgarian Minister of Magic. He was at the Ball."

Chandre grabbed the paper and read it, heart sinking. "Oh shit," she muttered. "Maybe Fudge was only a distraction."

He nodded grimly. "Looks like it. Minister Ahard was just leaving when someone in black popped out of the shadows and slew him. Look down at the bottom paragraph. With a dagger." His voice lowered at the last sentence, and she looked up at him sharply. He smiled bitterly. "It seems someone wants us framed."

"But we have an alibi. We were here the entire time," she said, and looked down. "Huh. Doesn't say who they are looking for. Just, pursuing leads."

"They have nothing," Shi said.

"Does the name Lucius Malfoy mean anything to you?" Chandre asked. "He's saying it might be clever assassins hired by some other sinister force."

"Isn't he that Draco kid's dad?" Shi asked, leaning over her shoulder to stare down at the text. He sat down in the chair beside her and reached across the table, grabbing a piece of toast and smearing it heavily with jam. "He certainly has motive."

McGonagell sat down beside them, nodding easily. "Your hair has brown streaks in it," she said by way of greeting, and Chandre hurriedly grabbed her braid.

"Oh damn."

Fortunately McGonagell was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, so she probably knew what the dye was for, and didn't mention a thing.

The assassination of Minister Ahard was news across the school all that day and the next when they were teaching class, the students so disturbed that they were hard to teach. Several were distracted and watched both of them with wide eyes, jumping every time they moved sharply, and more than one student wasn't in the class that day.

Finally Shi grew exasperated after the fifth student fell flat on his face after he walked behind him, and asked loudly, "All right, what is going on that warrants less than full attention?" The room fell silent, and Chandre crossed her arms. None of the students looked in their eyes.

"Sarah, what's wrong?" Chandre asked. The girl dropped her gaze and looked terrified. "Please tell me."

"Are you really assassins?" Semus asked, his eyes wide with alarm.

"Who suggested that to you?" she asked, trying to keep her voice pleasant and neutral, as if it was highly entertaining. It was, in a way. At her ease at the question, the students in the room relaxed. Best to treat it as a joke.

"N-no one," Semus said. "It's just a rumor going around."

"Any other sort of rumors?" Shi asked with a grin. "Like, oh, me and Professor Zividia offing Minister Ahard?" Most of their faces paled, and his smiled broadened. "My, my. I wouldn't have thought you to believe every stupid thing you heard, but I guess I was wrong."

The students relaxed again, slightly. "Good. Now that's out in the open, let's get to work," Chandre said. "Find a partner close to your height and practice hip-throwing."

Class resumed, and went much smoother. Over the dim of the struggling students and shouts, Chandre caught Shi's eye, and they shared a look. Someone really wanted them gone.

It didn't get any better over the next couple of days, or even the next week, with students acting strange and nervous around them. At least five quit both of their classes, but they pretended to take it lightly, not seeming to care, although Chandre was hit hard. Didn't anyone believe them? She had thought that maybe they would be liked as professors, but she supposed not. Having a strong suspicion that your teachers killed people for a living probably was not a reassuring thought to students who had lived in relative peace all their lives, with only minor scares racing through it.

Chandre was thankful that none of the students who took extra lessons quit or dropped their classes, in fact, they seemed to take the rumors better than most. Neville, of course, already knew that they were assassins, and so wasn't affected in the least. She only had to tell him that no, she didn't kill Minister Ahard and he believed her.

Owls began sending them messages, all of it hate mail, each morning, which they read and carefully discarded, slowly growing angrier and angrier, but keeping a smile of amusement on their faces. The other teachers supported them with small nods and smiles when they passed in the halls, but it was only going to get worse as the minor attacks grew.

Whoever was doing this to them went so far as to publish nasty, libelous articles of them in The Daily Prophet, the wizarding community's source of information. Chandre took those easily, because they were all lies, and she and Shi laughed over them during breakfast, turning it into a great joke. The only way to beat it, even if it was slowly dragging them down into the well of anger. And anger was not a good thing.

What topped it off, though, were the nightmares. Shi was putting up with it, but it was slowly irritating him every night to have her a ball of nerves, preventing them both from much needed sleep. He never mentioned his annoyance, but she could sensed it seeping through his perfect mental wall, and went so far as to suggest that maybe they sleep elsewhere so he could sleep, but he just shook his head and lay back down, muttering that then she wouldn't be sleeping at all, and when she did sleep, she'd be with him.

Two weeks before winter break commenced, Chandre sent her last student out the door, and leaned back against the wall next to the armory, slowly sliding down until she was sitting, head on her knees as she finally dropped her everything's-just-fine façade. Shi had gone off somewhere after his last student of the day, off to have some time alone, and tears slowly slid down her face. Her legs sprawled out on the floor, and she leaned her head back, letting the tears course down.

She cursed. She could handle this. She could. She'd dealt with people attacking her, being captured, tortured, raped, the works, but that had all been while she'd been someone else. Someone stronger than her, a persona she could slip into like a new glove. Here she was herself, and it was wearing her down, how the people were attacking her, not the person she was pretending to be.

She just wanted to leave, get away and go out and do what she was good at. What she was trained to do. Footsteps sounded outside the door, and she wiped her face. The door eased open, and she watched Snape walk in, robes swirling. She stared at him blankly, hiding her surprise, and he looked surprised to see her still there, then paused, frowning darkly.

"Are you drunk?" he asked, peering at her. It was the first thing he had spoken to her in a long time.

"Huh?" She looked at the way her limbs were sprawled about and rearranged them. "No. Just sitting. What do you want?"

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and opened it again, snapping, "Nothing. I was walking and the door was open." It hadn't been, but he turned around and left, his heels clicking on the stone floor of the hall.

Chandre rose and decided to go for a run, hoping that it would clear her head. Running usually did.

Coming into her room later that night she saw that Shi hadn't come back yet, and frowned. Normally he was back before she went to sleep, or at least he told her where he was going. With her dreams getting closer and closer paced together and worse than ever, he usually didn't go to Hogsmeade without taking her with him, but she didn't drink beer unless she absolutely had to, and it just wasn't her scene. On the bed was a note, and she picked it up. "Be back later, Shi," it read, and she set it on the nightstand. It was codephrased to mean that he was with a lady and would be back in the morning, and she frowned. That was unusual. Lately he had been forfeiting his nightly encounters to stay with her.

Yawning, she undressed and sprawled across the bed, hugging a pillow tightly to her chest. Why did he have all the luck? she thought, and hoped that the nightmare wouldn't come.

It did, and she woke gasping as someone pounded on the door. She shuddered and stood up to answer it, then realized she was naked and pulled the top blanket around herself, answering the door. It was Snape.

"What do you want?" she asked, shaking from fear. She knew that her face was pale and her eyes wide, and he stepped back a little.

"There's a troll in the school," he said, looking slightly agitated. His gaze settled onto her chest where the sheet had slipped down in her haste to get to the door, and she pulled it back up, shifting her shoulders.

"Where?" Her thoughts were still muzzy and terror-filled with sleep. Everything just didn't seem quite real yet.

"On the second floor, last time we knew. Hurry up and get dressed." He peered past her and asked, "Where's Shindle? Doesn't he sleep here too?"

"He's out," she replied with a yawn. "He'll be back in the morning." It was the weekend, so he wasn't exactly obliged to be at the school.

"Hurry then." She closed the door on his face and threw on the first things she saw, and buckled Shi's sword baldric across her chest, giving up on her boots and going barefoot. Snape looked her up and down, and she realized that he was wearing only a nightrobe, which only looked like his normal robes because it was black.

Other teachers were dashing all over the halls, searching for the troll, and Chandre joined a group to search. They never caught sight of the troll as another group caught it and killed it, but she didn't mind, after seeing the mess that it had left, and the others covered in a stinking green slime. Wrinkling her nose, she turned around and headed back up the stairs to her room. The others were already walking back up to their beds, or in some case, baths. Professor Babcock was one of the ones who had been in the fight with the troll, and she grinned as he walked up the stairs to the teacher's baths stiff-legged, his robes drenched.

Feeling a little better, with the dream slightly abated, she climbed the stairs, yawning. As she passed a dark section, she was caught by the arm and someone's cold lips pressed against hers. Flipping out a dagger, she pressed it to her attacker's throat, and stepped back, eyes wide and face very pale when she saw it was Snape. His eyes burned as he looked at her.

"What was that?" she asked, alarmed but lowering her dagger.

He stepped forwards and she stepped back, hitting the wall. Slowly he came closer until they were almost touching, and he leaned his head towards her as she froze in fear, flashbacks of Voldemort coming towards her. Snape closed his eyes and breathed in, inhaling her scent. She shuddered.

"You're beautiful," he murmured in her ear. "I've wanted to touch you since I first saw you, lying almost dead in the clearing. A fallen angel." One of his pale hands brushed a strand of her mussed hair, and she edged away from him. His other hand reached out and tightly gripped her left wrist.

"There, you've touched me," she said uneasily. "Now please let me go. I don't want to hurt you."

"You've hurt me all this time," he breathed, his greasy hair touching her cheek. "Taunting me, playing with me. I've waited every single night for you to come, but you didn't."

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"Your lost wager. I've been waiting each night in eager anticipation for you--"

"Really, I haven't give you a seconds thou--" she started, embarrassed that he had overheard that part of their conversation, but he interrupted her.

"I envy Shindle," he continued. "He has you under some spell, doesn't he? I've seen how he keeps you to himself, away from everyone else. He doesn't even let other men look at you. You're a prisoner--"

"What?" she exclaimed.

"I'll free you from his clutches," Snape said madly, a strange glint in his eyes as he stared at her. "I'll take you away from him, keep you from his grasp--"

"I'm not trapped by anyone!" Chandre snapped, starting to grow angry and then just feeling tired. "Get your head out of your ass and listening to me, Severus!" He paused, and stared at her, fingers tightening about her wrist. "Shi and I are partners. Nothing more. If we keep close, it's because we don't know anyone here."

"I want you," he said, and she pulled away from him.

"I don't want you," she said, feeling even more tired than ever. "I work with you, Severus. Get that through your head and act more professional, will you? Dump a bucket of cold water over your head if it helps, but stay away."

Faster than she imagined, he pressed against her, mouth against hers. Not wanting to fight back, she dropped her dagger to her side and turned her head away. "Please. I don't want to hurt you."

"He controls you, doesn't he?" Snape asked. She froze, feeling someone watching them, but seeing no one. "What is it, a spell, a curse?" Chandre shook her head, regaining her composure. Shi didn't control her, but he was the one who was going to kill her. Snape wouldn't understand that, so she just shook her head.

"I'm not under any sort of spell," she said. "You are. Go away, Snape, before you do something you regret and I have to hurt you."

He looked like she had just slapped him, and his features darkened with anger. She slipped under his arm and dashed up the stairs, flipping her dagger into her armsheath and hoping that he wouldn't send a spell up after her to freeze her or something. She reached the door without anything happening, and closed with silently, locking it and pressing her back against it, breathing heavily.

That had been most diplomatic of her, she thought. Shi would be proud. Usually she would have grievously injured any man or woman who had pulled something like that on her.

She wiped her lips on her sleeves, and undressed, crawling back under the covers. Of all of the professors, she thought, lying in the bed, it would have to be the grossest.