When I woke up next morning, there was no-one in the room anymore. I sighed deeply, then stood up, stretching my muscles. Although I did not want to admit that, I had probably never slept as well as I had that night. I smiled softly to myself, but right after that, I scolded myself silently. Such a situation, after all, should have never taken place.

Quickly, I got dressed and prepared for a day full of work. Actually, I was glad I was about to get back to my normal activities, because thanks to that I could occupy my thoughts with something different and simply return to the life I had known.

I was slightly afraid, when I left the room, that I would meet Snape in the Great Hall. I was not quite ready for that meeting, so on my way I kept coming up with different scenarios of acting around him, but as soon as I entered the room, I realised he was not in his usual seat. Just like Neville, who was nowhere to be seen. It surprised me a bit, but I hoped it was not to be seen upon my face when I approached the High Table.

Smiling, I greeted everyone sitting at the table. I heard Flitwick squeal something that "he was glad to see me again", and Hagrid leant in a bit to pat my shoulder (I groaned quietly). However, I could not help but glance to my right, where I should have seen Snape, then to my left, where usually was Neville. Both chairs, though, remained empty.

Trying not to think of it, I began eating my breakfast, at the same time thinking about the day ahead. For the past several days, when I had been sitting in Snape's room all alone, I had been preparing lessons for the next lectures, so I no longer felt nervous as I thought about the classes awaiting me.

I could not help but feel glad when I realised that there was fire crackling joyfully in the fireplace in my class as I entered. It was really cold in the corridors, because the frost that had started in December, had not got any lighter now, and recently even the most robust ones had resigned from leaving the castle during breaks, even though until now I had been seeing some students who had been still trying to throw their snowballs. However, the snow did not stick, and the cold quickly became a bother.

However, all of the students had come to the lesson that day, even though some of them definitely had a cold. I sent them to Madam Pomfrey, who – as always prepared for such a situation – had already brewed a great cauldron of Pepperup Potion.

For the next days, I slowly returned to what I called normality. Even despite that, though, I found myself once again hardly ever seeing Neville and Snape; moreover, McGonagall had begun to disappear for days again. It kept bothering me, but now I could not get myself distracted, knowing that the exams were closer than they seemed.

Some students complained about it from time to time, but the truth was, there was not much time left until their exams, and those who wanted to pass their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s decently, needed to get to work properly.

About a week after the classes had started, when I entered the Great Hall in the morning, I feltquite surprised. On the chair next to mine, exactly the same where Neville usually sat, I saw no-one else but Professor Sprout herself, even more grey-haired and even more smiling than when I had seen her for the last time.

"Merlin's beard, look who's here!" she cooed, smiling, reaching her hands out to me in greeting. I shook them happily; Professor Spout had always been one of my favourite teachers, even though I had never a green thumb. "Darcie Shirley, I swear it was yesterday that I saw you putting the Sorting Hat on!"

"And I'm happy to see you, Professor Sprout," I replied, taking my seat. However, despite the joy her sight brought to me, I could not help but feel a prickle of fear. If she was there...

"Don't worry, dearie, I'm here only for a couple of days. Your friend was stopped by some business and I was asked to substitute for him for a while... ah, Longbottom! Awfully talented a student, just constantly frightened. Poor child," she shook her head, then moved a plate full of sausages closer to me. "Eat, eat, my dear, don't worry about me. I haven't had anyone to talk with in a while."

I smiled, then sipped some tea, which I had just poured for myself, from my cup. Truth be told, I had been missing Professor Sprout's good-natured smile and the joy she brought with herself wherever she went.

Since that day we had many occasions to talk, because we saw each other during meals and breaks, because whenever she could, Professor Sprout got back into the castle to escape the cold.

"All our Mandrakes are going to freeze! I needed to move them to an empty classroom," she said during one of the breaks when she caught me in a corridor. "And those new varieties of Tentacula, which Longbottom brought from Asia last summer... I have no idea how they are going to react to this cold, I truly hope they won't just die out!"

One day after my classes, when I sat in my office, reading through the essays I had been given by my students, I felt a soft slap on my hand; actually, it was something very close to a kind of flicking, but I was so lost in thoughts that I almost jumped in my chair when it happened.

When I raised my eyes, I noticed it was a minuscule paper plane, which had just landed on the top of my desk and now kept tipping me using just one of its wings to draw my attention. In surprise, I reached for it, and no sooner had I put my hand on it than it unfolded, creating a letter.

I immediately recognised this narrow, slanted, a bit feminine handwriting.

Shirley,

I am awaiting you tonight at precisely 8:00 p.m., so we can start our lessons, according to what we planned. You do not have to bring anything with you, I will prepare everything by myself.

SS.

I blushed softly when I had read that letter. Several times more I scanned those familiar letters, then I closed my eyes.

Actually, I had not given him a clear answer, since after our first conversation about it we had never mentioned potions again. It seemed, then, that Snape had made the decision for me, as I had not been able to make it.

If one thought about it, I could actually write some words of refusal on the back of his note, and simply ignore the fact he had made that choice for me. However, for some reason I found myself unable to force myself to do that, and honestly, I did not think I regretted that his choice was to give me those lessons. Even though I tried to pretend that it was not so, I felt some kind of excitation as I thought of them.

So I did everything to finish whatever I had to do until half past seven. Having made sure that there was nothing else that still needed to be done, I slipped out of my room to avoid listening to my mirror complaining, then headed downstairs.

However, once I reached the corridor in the dungeon, the very one which could lead me to Snape's chamber, I heard stifled voices, amplified though by the echo.

"I think that you are too strict, Severus," said a woman's voice, and I was quite surprised to recognise McGonagall's voice in it. "The fact that it was Longbottom's hand does not mean that he is behind the whole plan..."

"However, you are too lenient. I know he used to be one of your pets when he was still at school, but it doesn't mean you should defend him now. If he was the one to brew that potion and give it to Shirley, he is guilty, and we must not..."

"For God's sake, Severus, you forget that Lonbottom did not act on his own free will!" McGonagall was getting angry.

My heart began to hammer so hard that I was afraid it would alarm both of the talking. Trying to calm down my breath, I pressed my back against the wall. My eyes, though, were wide open in amazement and horror.

They spoke about Neville. Regardless of everything, he was the one who had tried to poison me. On the other hand... if he was not the one behind all of that...

"Have you got to know about anything else?" asked McGonagall after a while, lowering her voice a bit. "Do you know who's behind that?"

"Minerva, out of all the people in this world, I thought that you would be the one that needs no explaining how Veritaserum works," replied Snape, clearly annoyed. "Of course, I can reveal every secret of Lonbottom's, but that won't make him suddenly remember things he simply does not remember or know."

The Headmistress sighed deeply, then, judging from quiet tapping of her heels, she changed the weight on her feet.

"All right... all right. If you get to know... anything... let me know," she said quietly, as though disappointed.

Only after a while did I realise that the woman had turned back to leave, and that meant that she could notice me at any moment now, because although dark, the corridor was not completely deprived of lightl. McGonagall, though, was so agitated that she just quickly passed me by, paying no attention to me.

"Shirley!" roared Snape as soon as McGonagall's steps subsided. "Come here."

That was when I realised how tense I was. I took a deep breath, then forced myself to walk over to Snape. All of my body still trembled, and thoughts kept racing in my head.

"I'm sorry... I... I really didn't want to eavesdrop," I mumbled, feeling awfully awkward. "It was an accident."

Snape waved his hand, then led me to his room. All this time he remained silent, and I was not sure if he really did not care at all, or I was simply in trouble.

"I didn't want you to get to know about it like this," he said quietly as soon as the door had closed behind us. His voice sounded strange; he really had to be worried and nervous. "But you know already and there's no way I could hide it from you. It was Longbottom who tried to poison you... or just put ineptly brewed potion into your drink. But we found out that he did not act alone. Or actually..."

He stopped. Only then did I notice that his hands trembled slightly. I felt extremely tempted to take them into my own, but I did not allow myself to do that.

"I have known about it for some time now, but I've still hoped that this could be prevented. However... it turns out that the enemy is growing stronger, and we can do hardly anything. That's why it's so important for you to be able to cope with everything."

He looked at me seriously.

"The enemy?" I repeated hesitantly. "But... but You-Know-Who has been defeated!"

Snape rolled his eyes irritably.

"Don't pretend to be more naive than you really are," he almost growled. "The fact that the Dark Lord has been defeated hasn't changed much. There are still people true to his ideas. Some of them have really been hunted down, and now they rot in Azkaban... and may it stay that way... but some of them avoided their punishment, and now they want to continue their master's work."

I felt a wave of cold that filled me up from inside, but it had nothing to do with the January frost.

"So... a couple of Death Eaters have been at large, and now... they want to..."

"I would like it to be just a couple of them, very much," answered Snape, glancing at me, then delicately touched my cheek. "There are quite a lot of them, but we still don't know exactly how many... and who it actually is." He sighed quietly. "It doesn't change the fact they want to achieve the same. Apparently one of them cast the Imperius Curse on your friend, forcing him to brew the potion. Seems, though, that he didn't realise what a moron Longbottom is."

I bit my tongue, forcing myself to stay quiet. No matter how much Snape tried not to cause any quarrels between us, he was not able to say even one nice word about Neville; moreover, he could not stop himself from uttering nasty comments about him, whenever his name was said.

"Why though... why did they want me to drink this potion so much?" I asked after a while, hoping that my voice did not make me seem to be too terrified.

"That's something I don't know yet. But I know that now you really must be always on your guard." He looked at me like he never had. I did not have the strength to oppose to him when he looked at me like that. Besides, I knew it was pointless.

"I promise, I will be careful," I muttered.

"This is not enough. From now on you are absolutely forbidden to hang around anywhere without my company," he said emphatically.

That was not what I had expected. Snape surprised me with his order so much that for a longer while I was simply not able to say a word. I knew, though, one thing: that I could not agree to that. I did not want to be tied to him all the time. Lately, spending my free time with him had become more pleasant, but it did not mean that I wanted to stay with him all day and all night long, sacrificing all of my private life to him.

"I cannot agree," I replied finally as soon as I had at last recovered a bit.

"Don't make my task more difficult," he said warningly. "You're not going to change my mind, and I'm going to get my way anyway. From now on, you're staying with me all the time, unless you have your classes. And when you have your classes, you are one hundred times more careful than ever. Understood?"

I frowned, wanting to keep fighting, but Snape's look successfully stopped me. I closed my eyes.

"Yes, sir," I replied.

What happened then shocked me even more than anything else. Snape wrapped his arms around me and gently pressed my head to his chest. I could hear his heartbeat.

"I asked you so many times to call me by my name," he whispered. "And believe me, I am not doing that to keep you by my side all the time. I just want you to be safe. I have already let you get hurt."

I smiled involuntarily, but exactly at the same moment Snape moved away from me.

"Let me start our lessons, then." The tone of voice once again became businesslike, as though the last several seconds had never occured. "I've already prepared everything for you. You have your instructions in this book."