A/N: This chapter is dedicated to new follower blakeho123! Welcome to the family, and long may you enjoy!

-C

Lydia and Severus had a rare couple of hours just to spend reading in each other's company. No assignments to grade, no meetings with staff or students, no research to do or writing to do or potions to brew. Lydia was availing herself of the opportunity to refresh her admittedly rudimentary knowledge of Calculus, and Severus was through his second academic journal of the week and about to begin a third. He'd just bent the cover back to reveal the table of contents when there was a firm knock at the door.

"Yes?" Severus said in his most bored voice. Lydia rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.

"Severus?" Poppy said through the door. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I need…well, I'm not sure, but something for poison and infection."

Lydia raised her eyebrows, and Severus let Poppy in. The matron didn't blink at Lydia's presence on Severus's sofa, but was straight down to business.

"I've a first year who came in with a massively swollen hand that had gone green," she explained. "He says a dog bit him, but…" She gave a look that said plainly that she wasn't born yesterday.

"Dog," Severus said with a snort. "Something in the forest or greenhouses more like."

"Well, that's the problem," Poppy said with a sigh. "Not greenhouses, not with what I know is in there."

"He wouldn't be the first to get into the forest," Lydia said.

"Certainly not," Poppy said. Her expression of disapproval was so like what Lydia recalled from school, that Lydia was almost certain she knew who Poppy was thinking about. "But it doesn't match a bite from anything I can think of in the forest, either. It's a bit silly, but if I didn't know better, I'd say it was a type of dragon bite."

She shook her head, weary. She probably saw the most interesting collection of ailments and injuries of anyone in Britain, but a dragon was a bit outside even her purview.

"Could it be something from the lake?" Lydia suggested as Severus retreated to the next room for his emergency kit.

Poppy agreed that she hadn't thought about the lake, and that she'd give it some consideration. Severus ground a bezoar for her to put in the wound, then made a general paste for infected bites useful for a variety of creatures.

"It should help the swelling, at the very least," he said.

Poppy thanked them both and left, and Severus settled back into his reading, perusing the table of contents in his journal as if none of it had happened. Lydia stared at him, annoyed. She made a frustrated sound.

"What?" he said, not looking up.

"Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"Curious?"

"About the injury."

"Why would I care what the dunderheads have themselves bit by this time? Poppy will figure it out, or Albus will help her, and the idiot child will be punished for being wherever he wasn't supposed to be. He's not one of mine, or she would have said. I have enough to worry about in life, Lydia, without concerning myself with every idiot child who ends up in the hospital wing."

She rolled her eyes and sat back on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. Quintessential Severus. She did wonder how a first year managed something so unusual, although she supposed the Marauders would have been capable of it. Although, they probably would have figured out how to cure whatever it was without going to Poppy, so they never would have risked getting in trouble.

"Dragons," Lydia said, frowning.

"What about them?"

He was still reading his journal, not bothering to look up. Lydia was increasingly vexed by his lack of curiosity.

"Severus, what if it really was a dragon?"

"If a dragon were on campus and a student didn't report their injury to headmaster," Severus said, "then they deserve to be bit for virtue of endangering everyone else."

"Oh, for Merlin's sake," she said, trying not to laugh. "Do you really think a grown dragon could go entirely unnoticed?"

"Certainly not. That's why the whole suggestion of it being a dragon bite is absurd."

"It isn't," Lydia whispered, "if it's a hatchling."

Now Severus looked up, puzzled and astonished. She sat forward, raising an eyebrow.

"Think about it," she said. "A very expensive and highly dangerous business. We've certainly got students cocky enough to think they could get away with it. And if they accidentally let one hatch, and a first year was caught up in the mess…. Well, who knows what they said to keep him quiet?"

Severus seemed torn between wanting to dismiss the whole idea as fantasy and knowing it was just the kind of thing that happened at Hogwarts a little too often. After a long pause, he said, "If it would make you feel better, I will enquire as to who the student is. It may not end your foolish tale-spinning, but it's possible that you will let go of the notion given the identity of whoever it is."

She doubted there was any student who would make her change her mind, but she agreed with his offer and she returned to her reading with a clearer mind. She only had a little bit of time before she had to meet with Albus, and she wanted to at least finish her chapter on the Shell Method of Integration before she had to leave. Severus closed his journal about ten minutes before she had to meet with Albus, and he stretched.

"I have a meeting with Minerva about a few Gryffindors I'm failing," he said. Lydia rolled her eyes, and he kissed her chin. "I will see you at the staff meeting."

"Of course," Lydia said, forcing a smile.

"Shall I have tea ready for you?"

"Please."

She watched him go and closed her book as he closed the door behind him. She wondered what he would say when she finally did have to tell him about these sessions with Albus. She knew he'd be very hurt that she didn't trust him with it, but she'd made it too much his problem already.

Albus was seated, reviewing his notes, when Lydia arrived. She watched him rapidly scrawl across the page in his flowing, loopy writing, and she let the repetitive motion lull her to calm while drinking the tea he'd left out for her. He didn't stop writing and he didn't look up when he said, "I've had a thought, my dear."

"Have you."

"While it is true that there was not a trial," he said, "I do believe there are some archives I could access in London, and if all else fails, I could try to talk to him in person about his accomplices."

"Sirius?" Lydia said.

Her stomach dropped at the thought. There was a kind of anxious exhilaration that swept through her stomach, and she squeezed the handle of her cup so tightly, she could feel her sweaty fingers slip against the porcelain. Files were one thing, but to go and speak to him for this…

"What on earth would you tell people?" she whispered.

Albus was certainly looking at her with pity, and she didn't dare look at him. Part of her wanted to tell him not to mess with it, not to tickle the sleeping dragon, as it were. Part of her wanted to beg him to take her with him. She wondered, not for the first or last time, what it would feel like to stand on the other side of those bars and look him in the eye. Could she say whatever she planned to tell him? Would he give her that same magnetic, small feeling? Was he even a man she would recognize anymore?

"The files are simple enough," Albus whispered. "As Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, I can access files from trials older than ten years at any time I wish. No one would question curiosity about a case I was not allowed to try. As for Azkaban…it would also not be the first time I sought access to a prisoner there to ascertain details only they could give about a project. Your name would never need to be mentioned."

She nodded. She set the tea down and hugged her arms to her chest. She wanted to ask, she wanted to go with him. But how could she deny it was for her if she went along?

"If you think it's important," Lydia said, "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I trust your judgment. And if you think it would help…I—"

"You will not go with me," Albus said. She wasn't accustomed to the brusque, sharp way he said those words, not from him. Lydia jerked back as if she'd been struck, and Albus immediately backtracked on his tone. With a much softer voice, he said, "Even if I thought it would be a good idea for you to see Sirius, Lydia, the dementors alone would be a poor thing to subject you to. You have enough nightmares in your past that the journey to Azkaban would be daunting and debilitating, and even if you were willing, I would not subject you to that. Especially when part of this is to help abate those nightmares." He shook his head. "And I do not believe it would be healthy for you to see Sirius. Things were always…complicated for you where he was concerned, and he may not even have his sanity anymore."

Lydia hummed, and she picked her to tea to sip it again. She wanted to argue, but she knew Albus was right. Instead, she let him change the subject. He asked harmless things about his notes, and for a few details about early nightmares they'd seen the week before, ones from the war, and even a few from when she was in school. He had the decency to look abashed when it came to nightmares about her parents, especially ones where her father was being especially brutish.

The nightmares were variations on ones they'd already seen, and Lydia barely felt anything while walking through them. When she sat at his desk again, Albus scribbling a few notes, Lydia said, "Does Hogwarts have a system for dealing with children in abusive homes?"

Albus paused, then sighed and put down his quill.

"It is something I have been working on for some time," he admitted. "The Governors are not very receptive. When you have a closed culture, Lydia, hiding is second nature, and we tend to over-value the privacy that happens in a wizarding home. Well, you know how it is. We've never bothered refining the Trace so that it can be equally useful for underage children of wizards as it is for those living in Muggle households. It isn't about keeping children safe, or abiding by the rules, it's about hiding and remaining hidden. I'm afraid that leads to a great deal of over-protection of parents in abusive situations."

He frowned down at his notes and said, "I do regret not doing more for you and Severus. If I hadn't had my hands full with the war by then, perhaps I would have seen sooner, done more. This may surprise you, but it is the pureblood and half-blood families where we tend to see the worst abuses."

"Do you think Harry's being abused?" Lydia whispered.

Albus pursed his lips, considering the question.

"I don't really know," he admitted. "He clearly does not enjoy living with his aunt and uncle, but it cannot be easy, considering they have a son of their own, and they were never…amenable to magic. But Petunia did promise to raise him, and he is a healthy, well-adjusted boy, if a bit on the thin side. It is something I am aware of, Lydia, and I am monitoring the situation. I have not forgotten what happened when I didn't pay enough attention to such a matter."

He gave her an apologetic nod.

"We should go to the staff meeting," Lydia said, checking her watch. "I imagine they're all gathered by now."

"Well, they can't start without me," Albus said with a wink.

But once Lydia finished her tea, they went to the staff room together, and the room was already fully. Severus had her seat strategically saved, and he also was staring at Quirinus, who seemed perhaps more nervous than usual. Lydia took her seat, and Albus strolled, nonchalant, to his own spot at the head of the table.

"Exams," he said, once he was seated. "Let's start with the basics, shall we? Does anyone have any concerns about the schedule as it presently stands?" All the teachers shook their heads or sat in passive silence. "Very good. Filius, let's start with you. What do you need this year?"

Lydia sank into her chair, not bothering to follow the predictable needs of the other teachers. She half-listened when Albus got to Minerva, because it meant he was getting close to Lydia, and she felt Severus's hand on her leg the moment he was asked to speak.

"I am concerned about the stores of nettles for the first year exam," Severus said. "It may be enough, but given the remaining demands on the stores, it may be best not to leave it to chance."

"Dried or fresh?" Pomona said.

"It matters little for the exams."

"If it isn't enough, I should have a crop ready to harvest within a week of exams. It may not be time to effectively dry them, but if that's not at issue…"

Severus inclined his head in acknowledgement of the offer, and Albus asked if he had any more to add. He did not. Albus turned to Lydia, smiling.

"Are you opening your office as extensively this year?" he asked.

"As ever," Lydia said, smiling weakly. "Some of my students most prone to anxiety are in their formalized exam years, as well, so I expect to have many students avail themselves of my availability."

"Very good. Do you need anything particular during your exams this season?"

"It's a bit of an odd request," Lydia said, giving Poppy a stiff smile, "but you might want to make sure you're well-stocked on remedies for stress and over-work this year. Not just for the fifth and seventh years, but I've got a few high-strung fourth years on the bubble of failing out, and that's always a…precarious recipe."

Poppy said she'd increase her stores by a further ten percent to accommodate the probable needs.

"We certainly will go through it all," she said, her mouth pinched with concern or disapproval or both as she made the note.

Albus turned his attention to Sibyll, and Lydia relaxed in her chair again, no longer listening, simply enjoying the weight of Severus's hand on her thigh. There were a few matters of procedure they reviewed for consistency in exam structure and delivery, and Filius wanted a couple of points clarified based on something he was trying with the second year students, and then everyone was free to go. Lydia sipped her tea and watched the other teachers file out, with only her and Severus lingering.

"I asked which idiot was bitten by whatever he was bitten by," Severus said, impassive. "It was the youngest Weasley."

"Well," she said, forcing a weak smile, "I suppose that means he's probably more like the twins than like Percy."

"I expect that should have be obvious," Severus drawled lazily.

Lydia hummed, taking a few sips of her tea. She wanted to point out that she didn't have him as a student, so his propensities weren't obvious, but then she realized what Severus meant. She recalled the mountain troll, unconscious on the floor of the girls' toilet, and the three first year students in its midst. That had been the youngest Weasley, Harry's friend.

"Oh, Severus," she sighed, "you don't think Harry—"

"I think that boy could be involved in whatever mess he sets his mind to," Severus said darkly, "much like his father. If there really is a mess or something not allowed, I fully expect him to be involved in how Mr. Weasley ended up with an infected, poisoned wound. Now, would you like to finish that tea and go to bed, or would you like to finish that tea and have another cup in private?"

Lydia was not ready to drop the topic. She was worried about Harry, about his friends, about whatever was happening with this mystery bite. She had a horrible feeling, one she hadn't had since she was young and James told Sirius and Remus they should try climbing from the tower to the bottom of the castle. Whatever Severus said, Harry didn't seem the type to come up with those kinds of dangerous stunts, though. So what was really happening?

"I am quite tired," Lydia said, frowning at the last dregs of her tea. She didn't want to go straight to bed, but perhaps sit up and read for a bit. Her mind was racing through all kinds of things she didn't want to think about, and she worried that if she took her potion now, she might still wake from nightmares, like she did so very rarely.

Still, she finished her tea and let Severus lead the way down to their quarters. He pulled out a vial of her potion and she watched him check the seal as she dressed for bed. He examined the seal carefully, then broke it and checked the smell, color, and viscosity of the fluid. When he was satisfied it had not been tampered, he gave it to her, and Lydia's hopes of a little more time to just be awake were dashed. She hesitated.

"You're going to be working longer hours very shortly," he reminded her. "I want to make sure your strength stays up. You need your rest."

As ever, he was imminently logical, so Lydia conceded, took her potion, and fell into the eeriness of dreamless sleep.

A/N: So, Ron has been bitten, Lydia knows about it, and Albus is thinking about digging into Sirius's case to find answers about who might be hurting Lydia. I have to say, I'm pretty stoked with some of the answers you guys gave to the last review prompt, mostly because you were soooo sweet about what you wouldn't change.

Review Prompt: What should Lydia do about Ron's bite?

-C