Chapter 11

The Slytherin Sixth Year awoke to find his girlfriend sitting in the common room of his House, nestled in the corner of a couch, her eyes had dark circles underneath them. She was still wearing her nightgown, her arms wrapped around her legs, and her chin resting on her kneecaps. When Barty Crouch Junior had come back into the dorm to wake up Severus with numerous breakfast pastries in his arms, he thought for sure the Third Year had been trying to pull a prank on him, but he wasn't and there was his Badger looking completely miserable.

He plopped himself down on the couch where she was, still wearing his own nightclothes, a worn t-shirt and a pair of holey pajama bottoms, and pulled her gently into his lap. Her only response was to bury her face into the crook of his neck.

"I'm guessing Barty let you in?" he asked.

She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck, before lifting her head away from where it was. "In exchange for food, he is obsessed with cinnamon-date buns and pumpkin scones."

"Not that I am unhappy to see you, Annette. But it's barely five o'clock in the morning." Severus said, even he was not fully awake yet.

"Sorry, I know. I couldn't sleep, I keep having nightmares." the Hufflepuff Sixth Year replied, her voice dragged down with exhaustion and guilt.

"About Remus and Jenna?"

Annette shook her head. "About Quinn. He never should have gone undercover in the first place…"

Severus raised an eyebrow wanting to ask more, but he knew that Annette could not tell him anything more than that, because the simple fact that Quinn had gone undercover for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was all that she knew. He cradled her for her a little longer until she brought up one suggestion that made him happy to comply.

"Can we go cuddle for a bit?" she asked untangling herself from the comfort of Severus' lap and gathering her messenger bag from where it was propped up against a leg of the coffee table on the floor.

"Of course." he lead her upstairs to the dorm room that he shared and they buried themselves under the covers of the bed. The Slytherin Potions and Dark Arts protégé quickly cast the Muffliato Charm and Quietus just as a precautionary measure.

The pair fell back to sleep until the bells tolled throughout the castle, signaling that breakfast would be set out shortly by the House Elves that receded in the kitchen. Annette dug out her uniform and school robes, using her tie as a fastener to keep her hair tied back in a fishtail braid. Once Severus had finished getting dressed and packing up the supplies that he would need for the day, they left Slytherin House holding hands and made their way to the Great Hall.

Annette joined her fellow Badgers, while Severus joined his House table. He quickly gave her a kiss on the cheek before he found himself in between Barty and Regulus, while Annette was at the end of table beside Jenna and across from Belinda and Patricia. They piled their plates with food, Annette ignoring the look of disgusts from her peers made herself a peanut butter and bacon toast sandwich.

Annette was nearly done with a goblet of milk when Isadora Haugen, the Head Girl for the Hufflepuff House came to drop off their timetables for the week. She looked down at schedule and could not help smiling, she had double Herbology for the start of term and double Care of Magical Creatures. She glanced over at Jenna's timetable she would be having double Alchemy and double Divination.

"I'll see you in Muggle Studies." Annette hugged Jenna and grabbed her messenger bag to follow after Severus and Pandora to their first morning class, Herbology.

The heat of the greenhouse was glorious compared to the icy drizzle that started outside during breakfast. Greenhouse number six was filled with Mandrakes wriggling in their pots, Fanged Geraniums, and Self-fertilizing shrubs. The one plant that Annette was most excited to work with this year was the Venomous Tentacula. Her fellow Hogwarts students did not seem all that excited as everyone dug out there dragonhide gloves and began to pull them on just as Professor Sprout entered the greenhouse.

"You're all getting ahead of yourselves. Eager to get started, I understand." The Head of Hufflepuff House said as she withdrew her wand and a stack of parchment that nearly went up to the older Witch's elbow appeared from out of her office and she let them flutter out individually to a spot at each of one of the work tables. "But first a quiz to see what you can remember from last year."

There was a collective groan of disappointment as everyone took a seat and removed their gloves to dig out quills and bottles of ink.

After the quiz, Annette stood in front of what looked like a dead gnarled stump, but she knew better and watched with fear in her eyes as Severus gingerly took a step forward and the dead gnarled stump came to life like an animal drawing breath into its lungs for the first time, fierce and without caution. Long and prickle-filled vines sprang to life lashing out at the Slytherin, a hole could be seen among the tentacle like vines that lashed at them like whips. Pandora tried to distract the plant with the Bird Summoning Charm, Avis, but instead found herself being dragged toward the cavity that was hidden among the prickly vines, while the adorable bright yellow canaries disappeared in puffs of feathers. Annette sent the vines whimpering back as she used bombarda to cast small explosions around the tentacle-like appendages of the plant. Pandora scrambled back to her feet, the bottoms of her robes now in tatters along with her socks, small deep cuts welled and sent trails of blood down the Ravenclaw's pale skin.

The Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff all retreated far enough for the Snargaluff to feel less threatened and to return back to its camouflage of being what looked like a harmless and lifeless stump. They plopped down on one of the benches by the work tables, Annette pulled Pandora's injured legs onto her lap and used Episkey to heal the deep cuts. Pandora sighed in relief as the skin around her ankles felt hot and then cold, and the stinging pain from the thorns of the Snargaluff's tentacle-like vines dissipated.

"Thank you, darling." Pandora glanced over the foliage. The team of threes were supposed to be extracting a pod from the Snargaluff as their assignment for the day, and then later on they would be taking care of said pod in the same teams until it grew into a fully mature Snargaluff.

"We need a better plan." Severus said, he pulled out a sheet of parchment and one of his many quills from its case and unbottled the ink.

When the trio approached the Snargaluff the second time, Annette quickly cast Immobulus just as the plant sprang out of its timid dead stump state and back to its I'm-going-to-kill-you state with its thorny tentacle vines. It froze in mid-attack, if a plant could look confused it probably would have. When Annette's part was done, Pandora casted a spell to force the hidden hole to appear, allowing Severus to reach inside and grab the grapefruit sized pod from within. Annette released the freezing charm and Pandora stopped her spell too, both girls watched with satisfaction as the Snargaluff went back to its dormant state. Severus sat down on the bench and stared the pulsating pod in his hands, Professor Sprout gingerly took it from them, just as she had the rest of the students and everyone filed out of Greenhouse number six dirty and worn out.

Severus left with Pandora, after the girls had cleaned themselves up in the girls' lavatory and he in the boys', to head to Study of Ancient Runes with the Ravenclaw and their other peers while Annette made her way to Muggle Studies after a quick embrace and a kiss to her beloved Snake.

Annette sat down at one of tables in the back and took out one of her journal-style notebooks and her Ring-necked Pheasant tail feather quill, dipping into the ink so she was prepared to take notes once Professor Weber had finished taking attendance and start her lecture on the Muggle invention known as the compact disk.

Her best friend and one of the Prefects of Hufflepuff House slid into a seat beside her just as the bell tolled to let any other students not at their appointed classes that they were now tardy. Professor Weber's face was taut with annoyance when she saw that the Irish Witch had finally arrived, she marked Jenna Baum as present and then tapped the blackboard with her wand, so the notes that needed to be copied could be seen by all.

Annette glanced down at the notes, she had copied from the blackboard:

The inventor of the compact disk was James Russell.

It was invented in 1965.

Compact Disc is often shortened to CD.

The CD is a popular storage system for Muggles, it can hold of the digital information that they need such as: computer files, music, and pictures.

It can come in several different types such as CD-ROM, CD-R, and CD-RW.

Annette sighed, she was getting a headache. She decided that would ask Severus about what kind of machine a computer was. Even though Professor Weber was doing her best to explain it, it still left the Hufflepuff feeling confused. Once the bells in the towers rung, stating that it was the end of their second class, they needed to head off to their third, they had ten minutes to navigate their way through the castle to get there.

The Badger dug out her timetable from her binder and glanced at her next class before slipping it back into her messenger bag and moving out into the hallway to join the crowd. She smiled when she felt Severus' fingers intertwined with her own. "Heading off to D.A?" he asked with a small smile.

She nodded and allowed him to lead her to the classroom where Defense Against the Dark Arts was being held for the year. The Professor this year was Lada Utkin, who had been introduced at the Start of Term feast. A thin but stern Witch, she wore dark black robes with gold thread that had been crafted into what look like Doxies decorated the outfit. her eyes were such a deep blue, they were nearly black. Her hair was nearly all silver with a few strands of ink black and skin that was as pale as milk.

Lada smiled thinly but slightly warmly as her class of Sixth Years and made sure that everyone had taken their seats before she turned to the blackboard behind her.

"Today we will be learning about the Unforgivable Curses and how to protect yourselves from them. But first off let's test your knowledge. Who can give me a name of one?" When Professor Utkin spoke, it was a thick Russian accent.

Alice Pond, a Gryffindor, who was dating Frank Longbottom, quickly shot up her hand.

"Yes, go ahead and answer, Miss…" Professor Utkin glanced down at her seating chart. "Pond."

Alice blushed, the new Professor was definitely intimidating. "The Cruciatus Curse."

"Ten points to Gryffindor." She said and nodded her approval, as she turned to face the blackboard, she tapped it with her curved Birchwood wand, and the three forbidden curses appeared on the board in swirly hand writing with the spell pronunciations beside them in parentheses.

The Killing Curse (Avada Kedavra)

The Cruciatus Curse (Crucio)

The Imperius Curse (Imperio)

The Lions and Lionesses cheered quietly, Lily Evans high-fived her best friend, Alice Pond. They spent the rest of their time learning about the horridness that was the Cruciatus Curse. It left some of the students feeling numb inside, but next class they would be learning how to defend themselves against it. There was not a defense against the Killing Curse which left fear knotting Annette's stomach. Her notebook for Defense Against the Dark Arts now three pages filled about The Cruciatus Curse and its history of invention. The only one that had answered questions regarding The Cruciatus Curse besides Alice Pond giving out its name was Severus.

Annette had never seen his eyes gleam in such away as when he spoke about the Dark Arts. He earned a whopping forty points for Slytherin. The Hufflepuff was not sure if she should be proud of him or to be afraid of the Wizard she was in love with.

For next class, they had to do an essay on spells and techniques that could be used against The Cruciatus Curse, with two out of textbook sources.

Now they sat in the Great Hall to eat lunch, but Severus could tell that Annette was merely poking at her pork and mashed potatoes. He waited until she had forced down half of it, even though the copper haired Pureblood Witch did not have an appetite. When she approached him with forty-five minutes left with their lunch hour, he abandoned his honey-cured ham with gravy and roasted red potatoes, or at least the scraps that were left and followed his girlfriend out into the entry hallway.

"Can we go to the Owlery instead of to our section in the library?" she asked, he could see that Annette was visibly shaking.

Severus nodded and they made their way outside after they had grabbed their coats, scarves, and gloves. He helped her get up the creaking winding stairs and watched her open up her mailbox, after he had checked his own.

He had one letter already from his mother and Aunt. He heard the tearing of an envelope against a seal of wax, he glanced at Annette and rushed over to her when she fell to knees in the scattered hay and owl feathers. He grabbed her by the shoulders and helped her to her feet and to sit into one of the cushioned chairs that was within in the Owlery.

The Badger looked up at the Snake, smiling with tears in her olive-green eyes. The letter that she held only had three words, three words that Annette had been waiting to read.

I am alive.