Get ready for for another pivotal chapter, guys! Only one more week to go before Prisoner of Azkaban is finished!


The walk along the path from Hogwarts castle to Hogsmeade didn't seem as long as usual without snow on the ground and while Vesperra had something completely dictating her train of thought. With the weather only mildly cold and breezy, there was nothing distracting her from the deep thought she was in except for the fact that this would have been a nice day to spend with Severus in the clearing by the lake. But she pushed that thought away, since she knew that they wouldn't have been able to spend any time there even if there wasn't a Hogsmeade visit today—Severus would be too busy patrolling and making sure Lupin didn't get up to anything.

A drawling voice brought her briefly out of her thoughts of Damien—and, from just the moment before, Severus, and she was suddenly filled with dread until she realized that it wasn't addressing her. Vesperra lifted her head at angle and saw Malfoy walking nearby through her peripheral vision, talking to Crabbe and Goyle on either side of him, and using a lot of hand gestures.

"—father wrote to me about it a couple days ago…. There's no way that buffoon'll manage to appeal to them, HA! My father's got the committee in his pocket, they'll do whatever he says…."

Vesperra knew that Malfoy was talking about Hagrid and the man's case with the hippogriff that had attacked him several months ago. She found herself hoping that Buckbeak would end up getting out of the execution if only to see Malfoy extremely pissed off and frustrated. Otherwise, she didn't care much for the creature's life or Hagrid's happiness. But still, she loathed the fact that Malfoy got what he deserved for provoking Buckbeak and yet was still able to complain to his dad and have something done about it.

Her frustration didn't last very long, however, and was replaced with returning thoughts of what she would say to Damien when she met him in the Three Broomsticks later. She had already planned out and memorized several different scenarios in her head, but she continued to go over them while walking. It kept her mind off of the beginnings of ache in her legs, and she almost didn't notice the two dementors floating high above her when she was passing through the Hogwarts gates.

When she walked under them, the usual sense of a cold hand clutching her heart swept through her, but not nearly as powerfully as it used to, now that she had learned to cast a corporeal Patronus. Those weeks of practice had given her more intense concentration, and she was able to resist it much more easily. As she strolled further down the path and away from the horrible creatures, she briefly wondered whether she would be able to control her Patronus against an actual dementor, even though she had never done so before. She also wondered whether, if Malfoy or any of the others were to see her Patronus, they would understand what it meant. Surely they would never have thought of Severus as a jaguar, since he was only their teacher….

It wasn't too long before she made it to Hogsmeade, crossing over from the dirt path to the flat stone of High Street. Those around her were already excitedly talking to their friends and trying to decide which shops to visit first. Damien had not written back, so she would still be meeting him around two—unless he had never gotten her letter in the first place. But that wasn't really likely.

So, Vesperra had over three hours to kill before meeting Damien in the Three Broomsticks. As she set off up High Street, an odd sense of casualness settled in her. She hadn't expected to not feel anxious or desperately impatient, and part of her didn't want to. Having just found out that Damien was her cousin about a week ago, she figured she should still have had her mind reeling with the shock and confusion, and it felt strange to be calm like this. But Vesperra supposed that it wasn't an extremely difficult fact to accept, and now there was nothing left but slightly uncomfortable impatience and the three hours in which she would wait.

During those three hours, Vesperra heeded Severus's words and didn't stray outside of High Street and the few side streets of shops, though she really didn't think Sirius Black would be out in the open when the weather and visibility was clear. Her money bag had depleted quite a bit since her first visit, so the only things she bought were the usual sweets from Honeydukes—Chocolate Cauldrons and Blood Pops.

Honeydukes was one of the few shops that was just as full as usual, along with Zonko's; people were sparse in most of the other shops, as most were enjoying the nice day and spending a lot of their time outside. If Vesperra had actually taken interest in more than a few of the places in Hogsmeade, she would have taken advantage of the shops not being full.

At least an hour was spent in Tomes and Scrolls, where Vesperra flipped through books with no intention to purchase them—though she would have bought a few of them if she had the money. Several times she began wondering, again, who had sent her Verifying Veridian, Philosophy of Prince, and also whether or not it had actually come from the bookshop she was currently in. Severus had told her only a few days ago that he had finished reading it, and he had given it back to her in his insistence that he was only borrowing it.

This time, she saw Granger in there, alone and perusing the shelves. As little as Vesperra cared about the affairs of the damned famous trio, she couldn't help but wonder why the ginger wasn't with her.

The hours ticked by a bit too slowly, and Vesperra found herself reverting back to extreme impatience when the last half-hour was upon her and the clock in Tomes and Scrolls seemed to have stopped. She alternated between looking through a page of the book she was holding, glancing at the clock, and wondering how the hell the minute hand hardly seemed to have moved.

Vesperra left the bookshop in favor of the Three Broomsticks when it was ten minutes before two, though knowing that it definitely wouldn't take ten minutes to get there. Rather than entering immediately, she waited outside, leaning against the edge of the front of the building, where there wasn't glass. The last time she had met Damien, she had been waiting a minute or so before he had shown up, so she assumed that he would Apparate in front of the pub the exact time she had asked him to meet.

And, after about seven minutes, there was a pop, and Damien was suddenly standing where there had been nothing just before. He looked the same as he had during the summer—before their first meeting at the Three Broomsticks, now looking much less gruff than his father. She guessed that he had no longer been neglecting his personal hygiene since poisoning Jude Adler, as his hair was once again very smoothly brushed and parted. He hadn't lost the goatee, however—but it looked cleaner than it had before. The smug air about him was even stronger than she remembered, as though he was wearing liberal amounts of Eau de Arrogance. She guessed that it was because of the poisoning having been successful.

Damien straightened his coat and started toward the pub, but then glanced to the side and noticed Vesperra, stopping in his tracks. Unfolding her arms and lifting her head off the outside wall of the building, she stood up straight and approached him. Without saying anything, she raised her eyebrows quickly and briefly as though to say, "Well, come on," and pushed open the door.

"You could have been spending your time saving a seat for us instead of waiting outside," said Damien as he followed her.

"I could have, but it would have been harder for you to find me in there than just waiting outside." Vesperra hastened to find a place for them to sit, and Damien ended up pointed out an empty booth next to the wall on their right. Neither of them sat down, however.

"I'll get the drinks," said Vesperra before Damien could do more than open his mouth. Though she definitely had a lot less money than him, she had been the one to invite him, and she had enough pride to uphold certain acts of common courtesy—especially to her own cousin. "What do you want?"

He hesitated, but did sit down and slide further into the booth after a second. "Just butterbeer, thanks."

At that, she strode away to the bar, and waited for Madam Rosmerta to transfer her attention from two seventh year boys to her. Up close, Vesperra could see that the woman had a kind face—though her smile faltered slightly as most people's did when they saw Vesperra. She was just the kind of person that it was hard to be friendly to, even if being friendly to people was part of your job.

"What'll it be, dearie?" said Rosmerta, putting a hand with heavily polished nails on the bar.

"Two warm butterbeers, please," Vesperra replied dully, reaching in her pocket for a few sickles. After the landlady had given her the foaming tankards and taken her money, she returned to the booth. Damien smiled slightly when she sat down and slid his butterbeer over, taking a sip right away.

Before taking a sip of hers, Vesperra pulled her wand out from her sleeve and cast Muffliato around them, at the same time looking around for anyone she knew who would really like to get some incriminating evidence against her. There were no flashes of white-blond hair in her line of sight, which relieved her greatly, although she did recognize Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil from Gryffindor at a nearby table. She didn't think they would care about her, though.

"So, what is it that you wanted to talk about?" asked Damien, licking the foam off his upper lip. "Is it about the poison? Is something wrong?"

Setting down her butterbeer, Vesperra drummed her fingers on the table, purposely looking to her upper right to feign the look of trying to remember something. "Where to begin, where to begin… Hm… Well," she said, straightening herself and looking Damien straight in the eyes, "I'd like to know why you didn't tell me that we were cousins."

The man across from her reacted much like she thought he would; he froze, his eyes widening slightly in shock, and his jaw and shoulders seized up. Damien had been taking a gulp of butterbeer at that exact second and slopped a little down his front, choking on all that had already been inside his mouth. Vesperra was surprised he hadn't dropped the tankard altogether, and admittedly found it a bit amusing when Damien quickly set his tankard down and coughed a few times to get the butterbeer out of his lungs.

Massaging his throat, Damien took deep breaths and small coughs, clearly trying to think of what to say. Vesperra waited patiently, though with raised eyebrows and a cold look in her eyes, for him to even his breathing and speak. He furrowed his brow, the edges of his lips twitching downward and his hazel eyes locking with hers.

He opened his mouth, but it was a few seconds before any sound came out. "How did you find out?" he nearly whispered.

Instead of answering immediately, Vesperra reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. It was a cut-out from the Daily Prophet—from the article that had led her to wanting to meet with Damien in the first place. As she unfolded it and slid it over to him, she was reminded yet again of the day that she had discovered what it meant to be a Lestrange and gotten angry at Severus for never having told her; watching Damien pick it up and read it, she saw his initially confused expression turn to grim understanding and, to a point, dread.

"Did you really think I wasn't going to read anything in the Daily Prophet about it?" said Vesperra with a bit of a sneer as Damien looked up at her. "All I had to do was look for the report about someone being mysteriously poisoned. You told me the entire story without elaborating on names, and it was enough that I could deduce from that bit of an article exactly what you were trying to keep from me…. You would have been better off not telling me anything at all."

"You would never have agreed if I didn't tell you anything!" argued Damien.

"You're right, I wouldn't have. But that and the fact that it was pretty stupid to overlook the possibility that I would find out isn't what I wanted to talk about. You knew the entire time that we were cousins, and yet you never thought it important to mention. Why?"

Cold anger was evident in her voice, though not near as much as there had been when she had interrogated Severus about the Lestranges a year ago. Absentmindedly, she reached for her tankard and sipped her butterbeer, narrowing her eyes at Damien over the rim of it.

Sighing, Damien cracked under her glare and shifted in his seat like a guilty child. "Well, I didn't know the entire time," he said, first looking down at the table and then gaining some courage and returning his gaze to her. "When I met you, I saw your ring and automatically knew that you were a Lestrange…. And then, after you left, I asked my father whether or not my mother ever had that ring, and—well, he got a little upset after being asked to remember it, but he told me that my mum had had the family ring stolen from her by her sister before she and my father met. That's how I knew that you were my cousin and not my sister."

He paused and looked away for a moment, looking guiltily out the window. Frowning at him, as she didn't find his being technical amusing, Vesperra took a drink of her butterbeer. She was also struck with the thought that Damien was the rightful owner of her ring, but decided not to mention that and hoped that he wouldn't bring it up.

"But my father refused to tell me anything else, so I had no way of knowing your mother's name, or whether or not you even knew the details of the relationship between your mother and mine—I didn't even know all the details," he continued, now in a firmer voice as he tried to explain. "I knew there was no way of you knowing I was your cousin, since I doubt my mother told anyone that she had a son with another man before marrying, and because I look nothing like you. But I didn't know if you would side with your mother and hate mine—and thus hate me. You're the only family I have—besides my father—that I've actually been able to talk to…. I wanted nothing less than for you to hate me, so was afraid to tell you," he finished, sighing and leaning against the back of his seat.

Vesperra was silent for a moment, taking in his explanation and trying to decide whether or not she should forgive him. Of course, she had asked him to come here merely so she could hear his reason for not having told her, not to hear a reason about why she should forgive him. It didn't take much thinking to realize that Damien's worries that had kept him from telling her earlier were perfectly rational, and that she would have done the same thing if in his place.

And she supposed that the reason she was nowhere close to the level of anger she had felt with Severus so long ago was that she was extremely close to Severus, and therefore had felt betrayed back then. But Vesperra had only spoken to Damien three times before, not including the letters over owl-post, and she already hadn't trusted him completely.

Finally, she said, "Well, you're lucky that I don't hate your mum, and that I only found out that my mother even had a sister two years ago, when I got the ring. But considering the fact that I never knew her or her late husband, I can't say that I like her, either, and I don't really care that I brewed a poison for my own uncle. You were probably worried about that as well, weren't you?"

Damien, who had evidently expected a worse reaction, raised his eyebrows and had not a single trace of guilt on his face anymore. "I was… but I suppose I don't need to be anymore," he said slowly. "So… you're not angry at me, then?"

"I'm still a little annoyed at you, but I'm generally annoyed at everybody. We're… good, I guess. I'm still trying to get over the fact that I have a cousin. How is it even possible? Your mother couldn't have been that much older than mine, but I'm at least seven years younger than you."

Apparently relieved at Vesperra's lack of anger, Damien took a swig of his butterbeer, and smacked his lips, thinking. "Well, I was born when my mother was just out of Hogwarts, so I'm guessing that yours waited several years before having a child."

"Makes sense… So, how far have you gotten as far as the rest of your plan goes? Does your father know that Jude's dead?"

At that, Damien smirked into his butterbeer, which he had been sipping as she had asked the question. "Yes, he does—he saw it in the Daily Prophet, and he was extremely happy about it. He obviously doesn't know that I had anything to do with it, so I'm not in any trouble. As for somehow reuniting my mother and father… Well, I'm still working on that. And I suppose I haven't properly thanked you for helping me yet, so… thank you."

After all the stress Vesperra had gone through to brew that poison and antidote, she really didn't think that a simple "thank you" was enough, but she didn't mention that.

"No problem," she said in a would-be casual tone. "Just don't ask me to do it again."

Damien chuckled, and then said, "I won't. We're even now, anyway. And I really didn't want to ask something like that of my own cousin in the first place, but you were my only option."

"I know, don't worry about it…. What's done is done." Those words reminded her almost instantly of another situation in which she had said them, and she remembered something else she wanted to ask him: "Hey—a book was sent to me on Christmas, but there was no note or card with it…. Was that from you?"

He arched an eyebrow. "No, it wasn't. I wouldn't have sent you something anonymously…. Did you check to see if it was cursed?"

"I've had it since Christmas and nothing's happened, so what does that tell you?"

"It sounds like you have an admirer, then."

Vesperra snorted at the idea, but didn't elaborate on her doubts that anyone could ever have a crush on her. Damien gave her an odd look, but thankfully didn't argue with what she felt like saying.

For another ten minutes or so, they continued to talk, catching up on things and soon draining their tankards of butterbeer.

"I hope you know that this really doesn't change our relationship at all," said Vesperra when they had both decided that they should leave. "It's not as though I'm going to start telling you any of my secrets or even go so far as hugging you now that I know you're my cousin."

Damien gave her an amused smirk. "I wouldn't have expected you to."


The feelings of failure, anger, and unbearable frustration had continued to eat him away as he sat at his desk, trembling with bottled fury and the desire to throw something else. Severus simply could not come to terms with the fact that Lupin had bested him, made sure that he was unable to prove anything, gotten Potter and himself off the hook…

But Lupin was certainly not off the hook, and Severus planned to make sure of that. The werewolf had only made himself appear innocent in Potter's eyes, while he and Severus both knew the truth.

Dinner was to start not very long after Lupin had left his office, so the Potions Master soon forced himself to stand up and restore the jar he had broken—there was no returning the vulture eyes to their perfectly preserved state, though. He took a Calming Draught to lower his still rising blood pressure and relieve his headache, and paced around his office, stone-faced, for half an hour until it was only a short time from dinner.

Thoughts of Vesperra only reached him vaguely on the way to the staffroom, as his mind was still clouded with hatred. As he walked, his robes billowed out behind him, perfectly illustrating how he felt. Severus could consciously feel every whip of the hem of his robes as an individual movement, and had the sense of literally being able to explode if he was provoked enough. And, considering how furious he truly was, it wouldn't take much to provoke him.

The staffroom wasn't yet full of teachers, and Lupin was absent. Severus had expected it, and chose a spot next to the wall to wait at, folding his arms, for the man. No one attempted to speak to him, as usual, but the rest of the staff that was in there or whoever entered during that time seemed even more wary of him.

About five minutes later, Lupin entered in his shabby robes, smiling vaguely as he always was. His eyes met Severus's for the briefest of seconds, and, as though he knew what was coming, the man avoided his gaze and began talking to Professor McGonagall. Scowling inwardly, Severus tightened his grip on his arms and continued to wait.

As the Great Hall on the other side of the wall gradually became louder and fuller with people, those in the staffroom exited to enjoy dinner with everyone else. Thinking that Lupin would try to escape with the rest of the staff, Severus was ready to step forward and stop the werewolf, forcibly turning him around, but Lupin did nothing of the sort.

Of course, sneered Severus in a thought. No Gryffindor would back out from a confrontation, would he? Except Lupin had never been the one in school to confront people about anything, despite the fact that he had been a prefect. He had always sat and watched while his friends bullied countless other students, including the boy that was now the furious man across the room from him.

When there was no one else left in the room, Severus stepped away from the wall, and Lupin, who had been pretending to skim an issue of the Daily Prophet that had been left on the arm of a chair, stood straighter and cocked his head, raising a curious eyebrow.

"Don't even try to lie, Lupin," he growled, stepping closer to him and forcing him to back up against the wall. "You and I both know what that map is, and I know you gave it to Potter. Trying to get him into Hogsmeade, are you? Trying to get him out in the open, closer to Sirius Black?"

Lupin gave a small huff, but returned Severus's glare with an expression of complete patience, as though he was trying to explain something complicated to a small child.

"I did not give the map to Harry, Severus, and I'm most certainly not trying to kill him. Really, being a former spy, you'd have found something already if I was after Harry's life. I want Sirius Black to be caught just as—"

A horrible, mad smile twisted Severus's face. "How did he get it, then? Oh, surely you didn't give it to him, but it was lying around in your office, and he happened to find it, or—"

"I didn't even have it, Severus," interrupted Lupin, his voice only raised an octave or two above normal. "The last time I had it was during our sixth year, when Filch confiscated it. As far as I knew, it had been in his office ever since."

Severus could only see two options in front of him as to how to finish this confrontation now: it was either walk away, fuming, and choose not to believe the werewolf, or use Legilimency and save himself a lot of trouble. If Lupin was covering up a lie, it was a very serious lie, and knowing the truth for sure would make a huge difference. So he chose the second option.

In a matter of no longer than three seconds, Severus had locked eyes with Lupin, allowed himself to be swallowed by the man's pupils, and delved straight into his mind. Those few seconds granted him access to any memories pertaining to the map, and, to his surprise and frustration, he found that he had not, actually, given Potter the map. When he released Lupin's mind and was standing in reality once more, the man in front of him did not appear to have realized what had happened, and most likely believed that Severus was merely scrutinizing him.

Sure that probing Lupin's mind for much longer would give himself away, Severus scowled and turned towards the door to the Great Hall with nothing more to say. He did not feel like eating at all at this point, but not showing up to dinner would be suspicious, and Vesperra would likely notice and be worried.

It was largely by coincidence that Lupin was not at fault, he was sure. As angry as he still was at the werewolf for covering up for the boy, he now knew Potter was entirely the one to blame. Potter must have stolen the map from Filch's office, and Potter was the one that had risked his life without goading from anyone else.

Severus was so fraught with rage that he couldn't imagine ever feeling anything else ever again, and he almost forgot everything but the reason for his anger. But there was also the pure frustration from the fact that the Marauder's Map had been yet another red herring—this time completely unintentional. What were the bloody chances that Potter would get a hold of the map that his father and his damn friends had created and used in their years at Hogwarts, a map that would lead him out of the castle? Of course, countless things had been happening against their probability lately… but at this sort of coincidence, Severus couldn't help but be angry at the forces of the Universe themselves. They were purposely making things more difficult for him just to piss him off, he knew it.

He didn't think it necessary to tell Dumbledore about this, though. With the map now out of Potter's hands, he had no proof against Lupin to explain to the Headmaster. And even if Severus simply told him about the situation, all he would be likely to get as a reply would be a stern, "I happen to trust Remus, Severus, and I will not stand for it if you continue to blame him for everything and even go to the lengths to spy on him." The old man had never been very helpful in the past, so why would he start now?

During dinner, Severus didn't glance up from his plate at all, and merely ate with a contempt scowl etched upon his face. And yet, he was aware of the fact that Vesperra had noticed the umbrage radiating off of him and that she was bound to open her journal and ask questions before he had the chance to write to her.


After dinner that evening, Severus relayed the entire story to Vesperra over the journals, and it was, once again, enough to drive Damien from her mind. Since they could always hear the other's voice when a message appeared as though being written by an invisible hand, she could tell just how angry he was by the tone in his voice when she read them.

But of course, he left out everything about his duty to protect Potter. He simply told her the facts of what happened, both in his office in the afternoon and the confrontation with Lupin in the staffroom—and it was enough that she became comparably angry as well, so much that there almost wasn't any room left in her to feel sorry for him.

They did spend much of Sunday together, but it was another day of mutual frustration at what was going on around them. Stiff and in rather cold moods, Vesperra and Severus just couldn't help but mentally separating themselves from reality when they were so angry; but they did find a sort of solace in knowing that they weren't really feeling all this alone.

"None of this makes any sense," said Vesperra bitterly after they'd gone over their theories uselessly for the umpteenth time. "All this stuff about the Marauder's Map is completely extraneous, but for some reason we keep coming back to it…. We're just going in circles, and it feels like we aren't going to make it to any conclusion until Sirius Black's broken into the castle a third time."

Severus wanted to say that he'd be prepared when and if the third time came, but that would have been a lie. There was no telling when or how it would happen, or what the outcome would be. Instead, he intertwined his fingers tighter with hers, and let out a small noise of frustration from the back of his throat. He could feel Vesperra become slightly less stiff at that.

"It's your first year all over again, I know," he muttered, just loud enough that Vesperra could hear. "But it's still only February, and something significant may very well happen between now and exams."

Leaning closer against him in an attempt to sink further into the absence of feeling altogether, Vesperra exhaled deeply. "And of course, we'll just be waiting, slowly losing our minds until something does happen…. I suppose I didn't really expect this year to be easy, anyway."


The end of the weekend, as always, marked the end of the ability to relax, which was both a good and bad thing. For Vesperra, schoolwork added to her stress, but it also kept her focused on things other than Potter, Lupin and Sirius Black.

Sometimes, however, they overlapped. Whenever she saw Potter in the corridors or had to be around him for forty-five minutes at a time in Potions or Care of Magical Creatures, she felt a rush of hatred towards him to match what she felt towards Malfoy on a daily basis. It was mainly for the fact that he had snuck into Hogsmeade and not been caught for it. Severus had told her to keep that to herself (as if she even had anyone to talk to), because then other teachers would get involved, which would turn things into a mess for him—and though she understood and respected his reasons, it incensed her even more that no one would know, and Potter had completely gotten away with it.

There was now an even tenser air between her and Lupin that Vesperra was so sure even others could feel during Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. She loathed Lupin worse than ever now, and she was sure that he knew that. The man knew that she and Severus were close, so he must have known that Severus would have told her everything.

For the next several weeks, as they progressed through larger, more dangerous creatures like ghouls and hellhounds in Defense lessons, Vesperra paid no less attention to the information being taught, but she spent much of her time glaring at Lupin, who seemed to be avoiding her eye. Occasionally, he gave her what she thought might have been a sad look as she passed him on her way out of the classroom. She almost expected him to pull her aside and try to talk to her about Severus, but even he didn't have such audacity.

Meanwhile, the rest of her classes were fairly normal, as was her time spent outside of class, whether it be in the library, in Severus's office, in the Great Hall, or in her dorm. Malfoy continued to be a horrible little berk, especially about Hagrid and his hippogriff; it irked Vesperra quite a bit that Buckbeak was, indeed, scheduled to be executed.

During Potions lessons, Vesperra noticed that Severus was bullying Potter even worse than usual, and it was obviously an indirect punishment for having snuck out of the castle to go to Hogsmeade. She was glad that Potter was at least getting somewhat of a punishment, and got a sadistic satisfaction from seeing him thoroughly pissed off because of Severus but not being able to do anything about it without landing himself straight into an actual detention.

Vesperra's time alone with Severus was limited, but in the time that she spent with him on weekends and spoke to him during the evenings or after class, she could tell by the dark circles under his eyes and the way he spoke that he was much more stressed than her. It almost made her wish that she was under more stress so she wouldn't feel bad for having an easier time than him. His eyes were colder and emptier than they normally were, even when he was looking at her—but Vesperra could also tell that he was trying his best to not appear so angry when he had the chance to spend time with her.

For a decent portion of the time that she spent sitting on the couch in his office with him or talking to him through the journals, she continued to think about telling him about Damien. Severus was the person closest to her, and for him not to know that she had a cousin seemed just… a bit weird. The problem was, she couldn't think of a way to tell him without mentioning having first met Damien in Knockturn Alley or having brewed a poison for him. And so, like all of the rest of her secrets, she buried it deep within herself and resentfully resigned to the fact that the day she revealed it to Severus would either be never or very, very long from now.

The weeks of February and March dragged by, returning the grounds to warmth and only the light slosh of damp grass in the mornings. While the lack of anything suspicious happening seemed to put the rest of the school in a sense of security, it deeply worried Severus and Vesperra. It was the waiting that was driving them insane—not that they hadn't already felt like they were going mad.

The warm weather was ideal for some time with Severus out in the clearing, but Vesperra pushed away such childish desires whenever they appeared in her mind, and had already accepted that they would most likely not be spending any time there this year.

Soon, the Easter holidays were approaching, which made a lot of people relieved to be able to look forward to a break. Vesperra hardly found this a reason to relax, though.

In the middle of the week just before the Easter holidays, the Slytherin third years had a Charms lesson directly after lunch, and Vesperra didn't have any particular feelings towards it until she heard what that day's lesson would be.

The class was arranged with two or three to each table, which were large and spread out—except for Vesperra, who sat alone, as she did in every class save for Ancient Runes, hunched slightly over the table and holding the side of her face in her hand. Professor Flitwick stepped up onto his stack of books so that he could appear taller than the rest of the class and therefore as more of an authority, and cleared his throat squeakily.

"As it's your last Charms lesson before the end of term, I thought we shouldn't stray too far from the sort of things we've been doing. So we're experimenting with Cheering Charms today! It'll definitely be an enjoyable lesson just after the start of spring…."

Vesperra's head snapped up and her jaw stiffened at the words "Cheering Charms." She had only skimmed over that part of the eighth chapter of her Charms textbook, and hadn't bothered to even try to learn them beforehand. This was about the least enjoyable thing Flitwick could have had them learn, and everyone else seemed to know it as well—most of the other heads in the classroom had turned to her after a second or so.

Simply using the words 'Vesperra' and 'cheer' in the same sentence would cause the Universe to implode, so it was obvious that her fellow Slytherins, as non-cheerful as a lot of them were for much of the time, were both nervous and anxious to see her use a Cheering Charm.

"Now, before I explain, I want you all to divide into pairs… go on, now!"

For a moment, most of the other Slytherins seemed torn between choosing Vesperra as their partner simply so they could humiliate her and choosing their best friend. However, that moment's hesitation was quickly lost.

Knowing her only chances to avoid humiliation were to have Nott, Crabbe, or Goyle (since they were so inept at magic that they would fail) as her partner, Vesperra glanced automatically at Nott, who she was sure would spare her. But he hadn't moved from his seat at all, and it was clear that he was already paired up with Blaise. Almost everyone else had found a partner within five seconds, leaving only her and Millicent.

The heavy-jawed girl looked reluctant as she approached her table and took the empty seat; Vesperra frowned. It was only for the fact that she was lucky enough not to be stuck with Malfoy or Pansy that she didn't scowl instead.

"Now," squeaked Flitwick, "as it states directly in The Standard Book of Charms, Grade 3, Cheering Charms are designed to make the target happy and content. They ease the worries and the stress of the target's mind, and bring forth happier memories. However, if one uses them too strongly, their target can be left too happy, and with extended bouts of uncontrollable laughter. Now, I want everybody up and ready—yes, that's good—The incantation is 'Laetius Contente,' everybody repeat after me—"

The following group-repeat was dull and not everyone even said it, but Flitwick didn't seem disappointed; he really couldn't expect anything different from the Slytherins. He then showed them the wand movement, which was a sort of wave-flick hybrid, and told them to begin practicing them on each other.

"It is possible to use on oneself," said Flitwick loudly as he hopped down from his stack of books and the students prepared to practice, "but I think it would be safer to try on others first."

Vesperra raised her wand, but hesitated to do anything. She did not want to do this at all, and wasn't even sure if she could…. To her, it seemed that Cheering Charms could be a jinx if used with ill intentions. And it would be a jinx purely for one's entertainment rather than to hinder or mildly harm the target. From across the room, several of the other Slytherins looked her way and smirked wickedly, as they could easily tell how much she'd prefer to leave the classroom or even get detention than to participate in this lesson despite the fact that she wasn't letting it show on her face.

It wasn't that she didn't want to be happy or feel any contentment instead of being so filled with dread and stress that it was eating her, but she didn't want to be happy in front of the others, especially not Malfoy. That would just be too uncharacteristic for her, and too humiliating. She did not want to smile in front of anyone but Severus; it just didn't feel right. And she was admittedly afraid of Millicent going too far and making the charm too strong.

"I'm going first," said Vesperra in almost a growl of a voice as she took a firm stance across from Millicent. The other girl muttered a low "Fine," and lowered her arms.

Waving her wand in an accurate imitation of Flitwick's, she pointed it at Millicent and said, in a semi-confident voice, "Laetius Contente." However, being the completely unhappy person she was, she had felt unsure as to whether or not she would even be able to perform the spell, and so it didn't seem to have any effect on Millicent.

"Nothing," grunted Bulstrode after a couple seconds. She then raised her own wand, and did the same….

For the rest of the hour, they took turns practicing the spell on each other just as all the other pairs did. Professor Flitwick scuttled through the classroom and in between pairs to correct people on the way they were moving their wand, giving advice on how to do it better. Vesperra had continued to have trouble with it (mostly because she wanted so much to not have to do this), and it was not until Flitwick had told her that these would likely come up in their exams that she truly became determined to master it and started to use it just as well as anyone else in the room.

Unfortunately, Millicent was not very incompetent, and was successfully able to cast effective Cheering Charms on Vesperra. The first time, it had only been a small lifting of her heart out of its shroud of dread—and that had been well into the hour. Vesperra supposed that she had a sort of resistance to the spell up to a point, and was glad for it. As Millicent continued, however, the uplifts of her mood grew exponentially stronger, and Vesperra was soon finding it more and more difficult not to let her contentment show on her face. By the end of the class, her lips had twitched into a brief smile several times. The worst part was that she couldn't even be angry at the fact that she couldn't force herself to be angry.

When it finally came time for them to leave for Double Herbology, Vesperra was extremely relieved. Had the end of class come just a few minutes later, she wasn't sure whether she'd have been able to stop herself from giggling like mad. The Slytherin third years walked out of the classroom and downstairs all with wide grins—all but Vesperra, who was using all of her self-control not to do so. Though she had felt nothing but stress and dread lately and should have been glad to feel great contentment, she now wished very badly that she could just feel bitter again.

"You know, Grease-perra," sniggered Malfoy, who had let himself fall to the back of the group with her, "you should have a daily dose of Cheering Charms. It would be good for you."

The rest of them sniggered in agreement—all but for Theodore Nott, whose grin had faltered; and a pang of annoyance and resentment broke through her artificial contentment.


For the weeks following the Marauder's Map incident, Severus remained angry and suspicious at Lupin. The next two full moons had him worrying, waiting and drowning in his own paranoia that something was going to happen, and then relieved when nothing did.

It was extremely tense and not to mention awkward whenever Lupin had to make visits to his office to take his dose of the Wolfsbane Potion; Severus refrained from speaking to the man at all, though he'd have liked to interrogate him more.

But the up-side, he supposed, was that Potter would never see the Marauder's Map again. Lupin wouldn't be stupid enough to let him keep it, as you were never supposed to use the same plan twice—even if the first time hadn't even been intentional.

His spying on the werewolf decreased, however, because the teachers of Hogwarts, especially him, were becoming busier and busier with the amount of homework they had to assign and grade. The fifth and seventh years had by far the most, and O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. level homework took very long to grade.

And yet, through all of his duties as a teacher and as Potter's protector, he still set aside time for Vesperra nearly every day. He hadn't gotten around to mentioning it, and he didn't even want to admit such a childish thought to himself, but he wished just as much as she must have that he could put all of this on hold and spend a day at the clearing by the lake with her. A day of relaxing in the shade and fresh air with Vesperra, as well as being able to be spiritually closer to Lily, was what he really needed.

As impractical it would have been to do so, Severus seriously considered taking a break from Lupin and bringing Vesperra to the clearing again when it neared the anniversary of the first time he had brought her there.


It was the Friday just before the start of Easter holidays, and only two days after Flitwick's lesson on Cheering Charms. Vesperra had just come from an Ancient Runes lesson, and was headed downstairs to the Great Hall for dinner. Taking large and quick strides, she walked to the end of the corridor, at which was an archway that led into the heart of the castle, where all the moving staircases were. It was closer than the spiral staircase that would lead her straight down to the ground floor, and less crowded only in the sense that it was much bigger, and therefore less dense with people.

The stairs from the fourth floor swiveled to attach its top to the previously empty stretch of stone in front of where Vesperra was standing, and she went down them immediately.

Around her, the stentorian groups of students seemed to be evenly split between those who were celebrating the end of term, fist-pumping and talking excitedly with their friends, and those who looked miffed and were complaining about their massive amounts of homework. Often rather quick at finishing her homework, Vesperra wasn't worried or feeling particularly stressed about it; it would even give her something to do when Severus was busy spying on Lupin and doing whatever else….

Rather than waiting at the edge of the fourth floor corridor for another staircase to lead her downward, Vesperra, along with a handful of the other people around her, headed down the corridor to the spiral staircase instead. If anyone were to ask—and if she were the sort of person that responded every time someone talked to her, she wouldn't have been able to explain it, but she felt like that would be the more efficient way down. Perhaps it was an obsessive-compulsive thing, or perhaps it was instinct after having been walking around Hogwarts for three years, but she just did.

And suddenly, as she walked and adjusted the strap on her shoulder so that it wasn't practically cutting into her collarbone, Vesperra felt a very small jolt in her stomach. It wasn't too unlike the random spasms that she sometimes had while it was cold—and sometimes when it wasn't, as well, so she supposed it was a random muscle contraction from her being starving. However, a strange sensation remained in her lower chest that she might have associated with Severus, had he been around. Ignoring it, she continued walking and looking only straight ahead.

But it happened again, seconds later, no less subtly than the last time. Though now suspicious, her shoulders relaxed from their stiff state, as did her seemingly permanent scowl. Before she could react, she felt it again, and was now feeling what she could recognize as bliss, bliss that had come from nowhere—bliss that shouldn't be there at all. And then, the moment she realized what was going on, her heart was lightened again—but too much, and she smiled uncontrollably for a moment before she was able to right herself and force it down.

Her anger at whoever was doing this was enough to override the increasing giddiness, and she pulled her wand out of her sleeve at once, swiveling around on her heel at the same time. But that was a mistake—

"Expelliarmus!" said a voice with a thick Irish accent, which belonged to a freckled boy with sandy hair off to her right on the other side of the corridor. Vesperra had only a second's furious glance at Finnigan before her head whipped to her left, in which direction her wand had flown out of her hand. To her horror, it very nearly soared straight through the open window, but luckily hit one of the stone columns in between the arch-shaped windows and was now sitting on the ledge, dangerously close to being at enough of an angle that it could have become suddenly unbalanced and fallen four stories to the grass below.

Panicking and straining herself to be angry, Vesperra instinctively took a defensive stance and turned to face Finnigan, who was grinning and laughing along with everyone else in the corridor. He didn't raise his wand again, but Vesperra felt another jolt—this time almost like a jab, and causing her to actually let out a laugh. Another whip of her head to the left, with which she felt her neck crack, she saw Dean Thomas, Finnigan's best friend, not too far down the corridor.

Of course, she managed to think through all the contentment and happiness that was fighting to take over, they won't do this unless it's two against one, and the one they're against is wandless. Now, as her eyes quickly swept her surroundings in hopes of seeing a prefect or a teacher, she saw that there were none—there weren't any other Slytherins, either.

Vesperra almost instantly lost hope of a teacher showing up and stopping this, for over half the school had to be down in the Great Hall by now, and this was a generally unused corridor. It was a turn off of a fourth floor corridor that hardly held any used classrooms… which was most likely why Thomas and Finnigan had chosen to do this here.

"You—!" She had been about to call Thomas a curse word that even Severus would have been angry at her for using, but he pointed his wand at her yet again, saying the incantation under his breath, and caused her to feel such a jolt into happiness that it was unrealistic. At this, she realized that Thomas was extremely over-doing it, whether purposely or not, and in a way that he wasn't even concentrating hard enough to make Vesperra feel nothing but contentment. All the anger and indignation she felt was subconscious, but she could still feel it easily and clearly.

"I thought you could do with a bit of cheering up, Grease-perra!" laughed Thomas.

Inhaling sharply, Vesperra was now hunched over slightly and visibly struggling not to smile like a maniac; although, ironically, the way she was hunched over made her look like a maniac anyway.

Sniggering and even outright giggling echoed in her ears through her mad storm of half-murderousness, half-giddiness. The literal internal conflict had her shaking, and the subconscious fury and hatred for Thomas and Finnigan flashed behind her eyes for a split second as she suddenly wished with every fiber of her being that she had the Malignant Cards again. Her promise to Severus was irrelevant at the moment—she wanted the worst for those boys, who had done as she feared and used the Cheering Charm as a jinx, meant to humiliate rather than actually harm.

Vesperra's shock overwhelmed everything else a half-second later when something small appeared in her right hand as though it had squeezed itself into the grip of her clenched fist. She simply couldn't believe it, and she couldn't help looking to her right hand and almost gaping before regaining control over herself; the Twenty-Six (twenty-four, now) Malignant Cards had appeared in her hand at her desire to have them. They had traveled instantaneously all the way from her bedroom in Stoneyard to her hand, as she stood here in Hogwarts….

Her hand had been covered, to a point, by her robe sleeve, so Vesperra didn't think anyone had seen, and even if they had, it would have been such a subtle change that they would likely have figured the thin deck of cards had been in her hand all along. The Cards had come rather uselessly, she thought—there was no way for her to use them, unless she dropped them…. But she was still so confused as to how they had appeared merely because of her immense anger and shocked at their unexpected arrival that she did not think about it. In fact, she now wished that they were gone… but they didn't leave her hand and return to their box when she thought it.

Another string of muttered words and a jolt in her stomach, and the confusion was temporarily gone. Immense happiness had taken over conscious thought, and Thomas had over-done the spell so much that it was now impossible for her to resist for more than a second; Vesperra first giggled shakily, and then burst out laughing. She was very surprised at first, because she had no idea that such a noise could even come out of her mouth.

Her entire body was convulsing with the laughter—or was it internal confusion? There was still a small part of her that retained her fury at the entire situation, because Dean Thomas hadn't done the spell correctly. It was like her consciousness was split in two, and the smaller half was trapped deep inside the large one, unable to make any effect or do anything but just be there and rage inside of her, conflicting enormously with the artificial happiness Thomas's warped use of the spell was causing.

Vesperra unconsciously clenched her fists so hard that she bent the Malignant Cards back on both sides, and they shot straight out of her hand to the ground. At the same time, she doubled over, but was laughing too hard to react to the pain of colliding with the stone floor. Besides, there was enough pain from the laughter, anyway; she could hardly breathe for it, and tears squeezed themselves out of her tightly closed eyes. As she clutched at a stitch in her side, the laughter of everyone else in the corridor as she was on the ground, humiliated so horribly in a circle of onlookers, rang through her ears.

Soon enough, she was sure, this would become so unbearable that she'd explode…. But before Thomas could strengthen it, Vesperra heard another cry of "Expelliarmus!" It was a familiar voice, deeper than Finnigan's and Thomas's. She then heard the clatter of a wand on the floor, and then a loud shout from Finnigan before he was apparently disarmed as well.

At this, Vesperra regained some of her control—enough of it that, throughout her continued uncontrollable laughter, it fully registered to her that the Malignant Cards were all over the floor around her. She immediately made to try and pick them all up before any of the surrounding students became too curious, and her laughter even started to lose its mirth, her fury resurfacing to her conscious self.

Judging by the sounds of running footsteps (though they sounded oddly distant and muffled), it seemed that Thomas and Finnigan had grabbed their wands and run off, and the other students had gone as well. Vesperra wasn't sure of what had happened in her ten to twenty seconds of complete separation from reality as she had started panicking, but she really didn't care at the moment. The mutilated remains of what Thomas had intended to be cheer and contentment were still within her, causing her to tremble and grin manically despite the fact that she felt she was the absolute antithesis of cheer right now.

And then, while she scrambled to gather up all the cards, yet to decide what to do with them later, she heard footsteps again—which she ignored. In a few seconds, Nott was bent down next to her with her wand in his outstretched hand, his expression full of sympathy.

"Here's your wand back—" He started to say before Vesperra jerked it angrily out of his hand, not even looking at him or thanking him. She hastened even more to pick up any of the Malignant Cards that were still on the ground, and only vaguely registered that Nott was helping.

Apparently having noticed that Vesperra was shaking so hard that it was difficult for her to stand up, he wordlessly got to his feet and held out a hand to help her up. In her fury, however, she smacked his hand away and forced herself to get up as well, and then looked at him, her usual wall of coldness fractured and unskillfully repaired with rage.

Humiliated and angry, she lashed out at him, aware that tears were staining her face and that there was still a sort of laugh in her voice. "I didn't need you to rescue me from those idiots, and I don't need you to help me up!"

Nott looked taken aback and even a little hurt, but Vesperra didn't care. She immediately turned to walk away as quickly as possible, but before she had even swiveled all the way around, Nott's eyes widened, and he moved his left hand forward, which was clearly holding a card.

"Hey—wait!"

But Vesperra didn't stop, though she had realized what had just happened. It didn't matter, anyway; the card's curse, whatever it was, would have an effect on Nott whether or not she took it back from him. Her legs carried her downstairs through the empty corridors, and straight into the dungeons instead of the Great Hall—she wasn't the least bit hungry anymore.

And after she returned to her dorm and collapsed, feeling just awful, onto her bed, she looked through the Malignant Cards and realized that the Heartbroken card was missing.


Had Severus been aware of Vesperra's… incident, he'd have been filled with grief for how humiliated she must have felt (he knew the feeling, and wouldn't have been able to help but recall the memory that he associated with humiliation like that), and would have likely murdered Thomas and Finnigan. However, she didn't tell him about it later that night, both because she didn't think she could handle admitting it, even to him, and because she wanted to get her own revenge on those boys.

Instead, she told him that she had been given so much homework that she wanted to finish it as soon as possible before the Easter holidays so that she could have more time to spend with him. Knowing her habit to put too much stress on herself, he easily believed it and told her that she really didn't need to work so hard when she had all the time she needed to finish her homework.

Vesperra dreaded what Malfoy and the others would do when they found out—which had been inevitable, and also wondered what they would say to Nott for coming to her aide. Even after the Easter holidays had officially begun, she hadn't gotten over the humiliation of it and was still angry at him, not sorry at all that he'd been cursed. She didn't think very much about the card that he'd accidentally picked up, but instead had her head absolutely swimming with more questions about the cards' properties.

The fact that they appear in your hand if you're angry enough would have been pretty damn useful to know, she thought while stuffing the remaining cards into a sock and then deep into her school trunk, which she slammed shut. Her anger was temporarily directed at Mr. Borgin for not having told her, but Vesperra soon realized that they would have come whether she had known about that or not.

The one thing that particularly perplexed her was how the Malignant Cards had transported from their box under a floorboard in her house, into the castle on their own. Hogwarts was supposed to be protected by the most powerful enchantments; Vesperra didn't think it was possible for anything to force itself magically within that barrier. Apparently, she had been wrong.

If there were exceptions to the rule of Hogwarts's protective enchantments, then what if Sirius Black had been getting in essentially the same way? That would mean that he hadn't necessarily broken through the barriers, but rather, had found an exception to them.

A smirk had come to her at this realization, for she realized that this was a theory she could tell Severus without telling him anything about the cards or the Cheering Charm incident.


"That is… actually, extremely possible," said Severus after she had explained it to him on the Sunday after term ended. He gave her a rare smile, amazed at her brilliant mind—but in all honesty he shouldn't have been. Vesperra had repeatedly shown in the past just how intelligent she was. "The only problem is that we don't know what exactly that exception is…. Still, we're one step closer."

"Have you ever heard of any other exceptions to Hogwarts's protections?" asked Vesperra, her expression lifting slightly in pride at his smile. "Has anything remotely similar ever happened before—like when you were a student? And You-Know-Who doesn't count, since he was and still is only a mutilated soul…. Black's alive, so he wouldn't be able to possess anyone or preserve his memory in a book."

"As far as I know, this is the first time that someone has broken into Hogwarts at all…." Although, Severus did vaguely remember something that registered with the word "exception"—but he couldn't figure out what it was. He didn't feel it important to tell Vesperra, since it was no information to go on, on its own.

"Well, what about other students smuggling in Dark objects? We both know that has happened before…."

"Yes, but that's not really against Hogwarts's barriers—Dark objects have almost always been confiscated if found, but nothing's ever been done to make sure they aren't brought into the castle at all—"

"I know," Vesperra said, "and that's exactly my point. Since Dark objects can easily get within the castle walls, it wouldn't be difficult for Lupin to use one to somehow get Black inside, using whatever exception he's found."

Severus let himself fall back and lean firmly on the back of his couch, huffing slightly. "And once again, we're brought to a stalemate," he said with slight disappointment. "There's a good chance that you're correct, and it is some sort of object that he's using, but I've already searched his office. If he has anything, he keeps it where I can't get to it."

"Hm." Vesperra slumped back into the couch with him, absentmindedly swinging her hand back and forth with his like an upside-down pendulum as she continued to think. "And there's also a good chance that I'm wrong and that it's some other exception he's discovered," she sighed. "But like you said, it's one step closer."


Throughout the beginning of the Easter holidays, Vesperra as well as the rest of the school was up to her knees in homework. Of course, she never put off her homework until the last few days, so she didn't have any of the essays that had been assigned by her classes earlier during the last week of term. Almost no one ever went home for Easter, so the Common Room was often still full.

Unexpectedly, the other Slytherin third years—or any of the Slytherins, for that matter—didn't seem to have heard about what had happened on Friday. Vesperra had noticed something was out of the ordinary when the weekend had passed and, still, no one was saying anything to her, not even Theodore Nott. She assumed that, like Valentine's Day the year previous, when she had cursed Malfoy, only the small group of people that witnessed it as well as some others knew about it. Nott wouldn't have told anyone, and perhaps Thomas and Finnigan refrained from telling anyone out of fear of getting found out by a teacher—namely Severus.

During the holidays, Vesperra spent enough time either with Severus, doing homework, or studying that she didn't carry out any sort of revenge for Thomas and Finnigan—though she did think up several plans for them when she had had nothing better to do. Severus hadn't been any less busy (not counting the fact that he didn't have any classes to teach), so he hadn't even mentioned the clearing by the lake; however, part of her suspected that this was only because he didn't want to get her hopes up.

The week didn't last long, however, and the new term started like a slap in the face after a very brief nap. As the main hustle and bustle of students walking to classes, hunched over slightly because of their now rather heavy schoolbags hanging from their shoulder, resumed, so did the high energy and spirits whose cause would have been obvious even if Vesperra had not been aware of it beforehand: Quidditch.

On the first Saturday of term was the final Quidditch match of the season, whose outcome determined the overall victorious House—either Gryffindor or Slytherin. Both teams had been practicing incessantly, it seemed (Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team was often gone during breakfast and dinner to get to his practices), and tension that had been building since the beginning of the Easter holidays was ready to break.

Though Vesperra had only been attending Hogwarts for three years, she felt sure that it must have been several since the entire school had been in such a highly charged atmosphere prior to a Quidditch match. Minor duels and scuffles in the corridors were happening quite often—mainly between Gryffindors and Slytherins. Both Houses were trying to sabotage the other, and it occasionally included supporters of either House from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

Seeing her chance for revenge almost at once, Vesperra took advantage of this and joined in the supposed support for her House. On Thursday, she managed to shoot a well-aimed hex at Thomas and Finnigan from behind (since they had been so cowardly as to do that, she was going to do this just as underhandedly), who had been walking together in the corridors; the two of them broke out in angry, red, unbearably itchy rashes. She'd have liked to have done worse, but even with no teacher around, something like the Vacubilus curse would have risked major detention. They went immediately to the Hospital Wing, though, so she was somewhat satisfied. No one but them would think that it had been for any reason but the House rivalry, so she was safe from any questions from students—or teachers.

Saturday arrived with a flurry of excitement from the rest of the school, but with disappointment for Vesperra. The night before, Severus had told her that it wouldn't be very smart—well, especially less this time—for her to sit with him at the match. In his words: "It isn't mandatory, but it is tradition will be expected of me to be seated in the very front row of all the Slytherins, who generally all sit together to support our House if our team makes it to the Finals. Teachers and older students would think it was odd if I wasn't…. I'm very sorry—I'd very much prefer to sit with you, you know that, but I simply can't."

Vesperra understood, and wouldn't ask him to risk the secrecy of their relationship just to sit with her, but couldn't help but feel rather disappointed as she went out to the Quidditch field and found a seat at the very back of the Slytherin section, behind a tidal wave of green and silver, a serpent glittering on each flag and banner that protruded from it. She tried not to sit anywhere near Malfoy, but she found, after her bottom was already touching the bench, that Theodore Nott was only a row in front of and ten or so people down from her. He glanced at her and hastily looked away, just as she had caught him doing a few times before during the week. He had hardly spoken to her even during that week's Ancient Runes lessons, so Vesperra supposed he was still confused or hurt about what had happened. And she was only slightly less angry at him.

When the surrounding cheers, comprised mostly of the voices of Gryffindor supporters (pretty much everyone that wasn't in Slytherin), reached its peak, the players began to come out onto the pitch. Vesperra groaned inwardly at the discomfort from her eardrums caving in, but watched with suspense nevertheless.


"And here are the Gryffindors!" The voice of Lee Jordan, who had been the commentator for Quidditch matches for the past four years, rang out excitedly over the stands. "Potter, Bell, Johnson, Spinnet, Weasley, Weasley, and Wood. Widely acknowledged as the best team Hogwarts has seen in a good few years—"

His voice was then drowned out by boos from the Slytherin crowd. Severus sat in the very front row, wearing green to show his support and smiling rather grimly—though he was now a bit annoyed by the unnecessarily loud noise behind him. He was just as hopeful to see Slytherin beat Gryffindor in this match, but the bitter reality of how unlikely that was overwhelmed the anxiety. He was sure that he'd have felt better with Vesperra right beside him and with her hand to squeeze, but as he had told her, that wouldn't have been prudent.

"And here's the Slytherin team, led by Captain Flint," continued Lee Jordan over the noise. "He's made some changes in the lineup and seems to be going for size rather than skill—"

Finally, someone else addresses it…, thought Severus and Vesperra at the same time, sure that, however far apart they were, that the other was thinking the same. The rest of the Slytherin end drowned him out again with a tide of boos, but Severus didn't understand why no one else agreed; bulk didn't determine victory, not most of the time, at least. That was a Slytherin ideal, wasn't it? And they wanted their House to win, didn't they?

Down on the pitch, Flint and Wood were shaking hands. Once Madam Hooch had blown her whistle, fourteen brooms were up in the air, and the crowd on both ends was roaring again. Severus's grim smile faded into a serious look as the Quaffle was thrown up into the air by Madam Hooch, and the Quidditch Final officially began.

"And it's Gryffindor in possession, Alicia Spinnet of Gryffindor with the Quaffle, heading straight for the Slytherin goal posts, looking good, Alicia! Argh, no—Quaffle intercepted by Warrington, Warrington of Slytherin tearing up the field—WHAM!—nice Bludger work there by George Weasley, Warrington drops the Quaffle, it's caught by—Johnson, Gryffindor back into possession, come on, Angelina—nice swerve around Montague—duck, Angelina, that's a Bludger!—SHE SCORES! TEN-ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR!"

Angelina Johnson gave the air a celebratory punch as three-fourths of the crowd cheered and the rest of them groaned—Severus groaning only inwardly—but then Marcus Flint soared straight at her, and he smashed into her so hard that she nearly flew off her broom.

The Gryffindor supporters all booed, while the Slytherins laughed with approval. Severus's lip curled, however, as he knew that such revenge had been pointless and would only cost the Slytherin team. Sometimes, he was ashamed to have such idiots in his House….

Just afterwards, one of the Weasley twins chucked his Beater's club at the back of Flint's head. It was high above, but Severus could still see the blood on his face; annoyed as he had been at Flint, he was now angry at Weasley for harming him.

Madam Hooch zoomed in between them at once, shrieking so loudly that it was very audible from the stands, "That will do! Penalty shot to Gryffindor for unprovoked attack on their Chaser! Penalty shot to Slytherin for deliberate damage to their Chaser!"

Severus, now somewhat satisfied that the penalties were evened out, only heard a Weasley twin shout, "Come off it, Miss!" before the whistle was blown again. Spinnet flew forward to take the penalty and after the encouragement of Lee Jordan—to the general dismay of the two hundred Slytherins—made the Quaffle past Bletchley.

"YES! SHE'S BEATEN THE KEEPER! TWENTY-ZERO TO GRYFFINDOR!"

Flint then flew forward, blood still dripping from his nose to the ground so many feet below. Jordan continued to commentate during the wait for Madam Hooch to blow her whistle again:

"'Course, Wood's a superb Keeper!—Superb! Very difficult to pass—very difficult indeed—YES! I DON'T BELIEVE IT! HE'S SAVED IT!"

Flint soared away, frustration just as obvious on his face as it was on Severus's. Scowling and idly wondering when the last time was that they'd had a Slytherin commentator, he stiffened and watched. The players resumed play, and Severus's eyes were darting back and forth between them, occasionally moving to Potter and Malfoy. Surely the Slytherin team would pull back soon….

"Gryffindor in possession, no, Slytherins in possession—no!—Gryffindor back in possession and it's Katie Bell, Katie Bell for Gryffindor with the Quaffle, she's streaking up the field—THAT WAS DELIBERATE!"

Once again, the Slytherin team had shown their learned underhandedness; Montague had swerved in front of Bell and grabbed her head rather than the Quaffle under her arm. The momentum caused the girl to cartwheel in the air and nearly fall off her broom—and she dropped the Quaffle. A whistle sounded and Severus waited in fuming silence for Madam Hooch to finish yelling at Montague. He was already angry that his House's team was resorting to such tactics already, and even angrier when Bell made another penalty shot past Bletchley.

"THIRTY-ZERO! TAKE THAT, YOU DIRTY, CHEATING—"

"Jordan," shouted Professor McGonagall, "if you can't commentate in an unbiased way—!"

"I'm telling it like it is, Professor!"

Severus wished that McGonagall would hold actually hold up to her threats and find a new commentator, but before he could even complete the thought in his head, he saw that Potter was speeding towards the Slytherin end of the pitch with Malfoy haring after him. The Slytherin Beaters tried to take care of that, though; Derrick hit the first Bludger right past Potter's ear, and then another shot grazed his elbow. Bole closed in, raising his club as Derrick was, and with the Bludgers at quite a distance from them Severus was sure what they were about to do—

Potter turned his Firebolt up at the last second, however, and Derrick and Bole collided with a sickening crunch. Part of Severus was frustrated yet again, and yet another part was glad that the Slytherin Beaters' plan had failed, because they'd otherwise have likely given Gryffindor another penalty shot or had the game postponed and another fifty points taken from Slytherin.

"Ha haaa!" yelled Lee Jordan, further incensing the Slytherin crowd. Derrick and Boyle lurched away from each other, both clutching their heads. "Too bad, boys! You'll have to get up earlier than that to beat a Firebolt! And it's Gryffindor in possession again, as Johnson takes the Quaffle—Flint alongside her—poke him in the eye, Angelina!—it was a joke, Professor, it was a joke—oh no—Flint in possession, Flint flying toward the Gryffindor goal posts, come on now, Wood, save—!"

But Flint had finally scored, making the current score thirty to ten. The Slytherin end erupted in cheers, Severus smirked in spite of his eardrums threatening to pop, and Jordan swore. As McGonagall tried to tug the magical megaphone from him, he said hastily, "Sorry, Professor, sorry! Won't happen again! So, Gryffindor in the lead, Gryffindor in possession—Spinnet has it, passes to Johnson, and it's caught by Pucey instead—damn—I mean darn, sorry, Professor!—YES, back to Spinnet, c'mon Alicia—HEY, YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING—"

"Jordan!" McGonagall warned him. Bole had hit Alicia Spinnet with his club, and she had just barely clung to her broom; one of the Weasley twins had flown past him immediately after and elbowed him in the face in retaliation.

After another few minutes of shouting, Madam Hooch awarded both teams penalties. Spinnet made it and Wood saved Flint's, moving Gryffindor up another ten points. At this point, Severus was calling both teams all kinds of swear words in his mind. He was angry at the Gryffindors for winning, and at the Slytherins for being so talentless that they had so quickly resorted to any measures to take the Quaffle.

It was hardly two minutes before Bell scored, but Severus's eyes were on Derrick and Boyle on the other side of the pitch, who had raised their bats and shot both Bludgers straight at Wood. They caught him consecutively in the stomach, and Severus couldn't help but cringe very slightly as Wood, looking completely winded, rolled over in the air—he was reminded of something quite similar from his first year that had involved Black, Potter, and him.

"YOU DO NOT ATTACK THE KEEPER UNLESS THE QUAFFLE IS WITHIN THE SCORING AREA!" shrieked Madam Hooch as she flied up there, absolutely beside herself. "Gryffindor penalty!"

And it continued; as Gryffindor's head-start lead grew, so did Severus's dread. Johnson made the penalty, and Spinnet made another goal only moments later. The screaming all around was deafening, but Severus was beginning to become numb to it—especially when there was greater shock and dread to take the place of his headache: Potter zoomed across the field again, already starting to stretch out his hand.

However, Malfoy caught up with him and had thrown himself forward, off of his own broom, to grab the tail of Potter's Firebolt. This time, Severus's jaw started to clench, but he then realized that Malfoy, no matter how much damage he might have done, had just prevented an immediate Gryffindor victory.

"YOU CHEATING SCUM!" howled Jordan, dancing out of McGonagall's reach so she couldn't take the megaphone away. "YOU FILTHY, CHEATING, BASTARD!"

Professor McGonagall didn't berate him, but was instead shaking her finger reprovingly at Malfoy, who had gotten back on his broom, and shouting furiously. The penalty was taken by Spinnet, who, to the Slytherins' delight, missed. Montague scored soon after, and, though he'd never have told Vesperra, Severus was very grateful for Malfoy at the moment.

Potter was now flying extremely close to Malfoy, apparently in an attempt to block him from making any turns, but once again everyone's attention was drawn away, for now Angelina Johnson had the Quaffle and every single Slytherin player but for the Seeker was streaking through the air towards her to block her—

And then, proving intelligence Severus had never seen in him, Potter bent low against his broom and shot towards them all like a bullet. They scattered, yelling, and—

"SHE SCORES!" whooped Jordan. "SHE SCORES! Gryffindor leads by eighty to twenty!"

Miles behind Potter, Malfoy was diving, a look of triumph unmistakable on his face even from this distance; it caused a hopeful gasp from much of the Slytherin crowd. Even Severus's heart stopped, and something about this moment told him that these were the final seconds, that everything would end here….

Potter turned around moments later, seeing Malfoy, and pelted after him. His Firebolt was quickly catching up—Severus began to lose hope—and he dodged the Bludger that Bole sent at him, then made it directly behind Malfoy—then at his side, stretching his arm out… And in the next second, he had thrown himself forward, knocked Malfoy out of the way, and grabbed the tiny, golden, fluttering Snitch.

"YES!" Potter's yell echoed throughout the entire stadium as he pulled out of the dive, and the stadium exploded with cheers.

But Severus, along with the rest of the Slytherins, had grief beyond hisses or boos, and fell silent in horror. He had been correct… it had all ended there. Only, Gryffindor had pulled through and won… they had won… the Quidditch Cup. While hundreds of scarlet-clad students, as well as Hagrid, McGonagall, and Dumbledore were spilling onto the pitch to jump up and down in celebration and lift Potter onto their shoulders, Severus and his House felt as though they were in the lone, dark corner of it all.

The gears working furiously in his mind to fully comprehend what had just happened, he fumed silently, hating Potter and every single person in Gryffindor House. Severus couldn't say he hadn't expected this at all, but that didn't make it any less aggravating—to say the least.

And several rows behind him, Vesperra sharply flailed her arms in place of throwing something on the ground, which she'd have definitely done if she had anything to throw, and had actually let out a noise of pure, unadulterated frustration.


I know this is at least the second time I've ended with a Quidditch match, but I didn't want this chapter to drag on too long. Also, I know that more of you must be mad at me... But I know you know what I'm talking about, so I'm not going to directly state it. That way you guys can actually REVIEW and tell me what you thought about all of this.

Seriously, I'm getting so little reviews now! Please, PLEASE review... I mean, there's so much for you to tell me about! I know it's extra effort for you guys, but it's nothing compared to the effort I'm putting forth in order to rewrite the entire Harry Potter series from Snape's point of view-AND to complete a chapter a week. The least you could do is give me feedback. Reading reviews actually makes it easier for me to write, and when I only get a single review for a new chapter, it's difficult for me to get into a writing mood. So PLEASE review.

Also, there's only one chapter left for Book 3! ^_^ Although, it might end up getting so long that I split it into two.