Author's Note: In the immortal words of the BSB: oh my God, we're back again! (Everybody rock your body?)

There will be one more chapter after this one, and finally, poor long-suffering Auriga shall know some peace!

Quick recap: Last time on Lamentations in the year 2007 (oof), Auriga and Snape knew that someone was on a mission to steal the Philosopher's Stone from Hogwarts. Snape was steadfastly convinced of Quirrell's guilt, but Auriga thought the poor fellow was innocent and realized that there might indeed be another suspicious faculty member right under their noses: Kettleburn, the mysteriously grumpy Care of Magical Creatures professor who freaked out at her about wanting her to keep her nose out of other peoples' business!

Also, they have a pesky habit of snogging under random circumstances. (Auriga and Snape. Not Kettleburn and Quirrell. That's probably a different fanfic. Also, wouldn't poor Head Voldemort get kind of jealous? I bet he would! I blame A Very Potter Musical for this stance.)

-Part 27-

Saturday, June 6, 1992

5:30 PM

The Hospital Wing

Oh, Notebook! Sweet, beauteous notebook! Can it really be you? I can hardly believe it. I had forgotten the feeling of my hand against your smooth, lovely pages! The tender whisper of my quill against your paper-skin!

… Ahem. Best stop wandering down that particular descriptive path.

After all, as I've recently learned, I never can know when you're next going to get stolen and read by somebody else.

All right; I probably should've learned my lesson about that already, since both Snape and Victoria had peeked into you in the past. But that was just them being utter pains in my arse. It had nothing to do with sinister plots afoot at Hogwarts, nor someone thinking I'm a formidable enough threat to their diabolical schemes that my journal is worth stealing.

(Can you believe it? Me! He must have realized pretty swiftly that he'd bitten off more than he could chew. I wonder if he made it to the bit where the house elves dyed me purple. Maybe that's what inspired him to lock you away. Thank goodness the other professors searched his quarters and recovered you for me after, well, everything that happened.)

Oh, I can't believe we're together again! I imagine you must have been quite worried about me, seeing as I left off on such a suspenseful note.

Er, not that you're capable of worry, of course, since you're inanimate.

But I know you worried a little, and believe me, I appreciate it. To think you were trapped in that awful man's quarters for all those months! Disrespectfully stuffed in that drawer! The sheer nerve!

I can't believe it was only January when I wrote last. Granted, that was six months ago, but it feels like so much longer has gone by. A decade at least! Plus a few additional years! Thirteen years feels about right, to be specific. Thirteen's got a certain sinister energy, and these have been sinister times.

You see, when I last left off, I was quite convinced that I'd just solved the mystery of who was trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone. Snape's fixation on Quirrell as the culprit seemed more obsessive than sensible, and I didn't want to let the real villain get away with it just because a certain potions master was being a bull-headed fool. And to my credit, Professor Kettleburn was acting seriously suspicious! It turns out it's just because he was dating someone down in Hogsmeade and didn't want the news to make it to Hogwarts, since apparently the faculty of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is, and I quote, "relentlessly gossipy."

Really! As if we haven't got better things to do than talk about that old grump's love life.

(Though when she visited me earlier, Victoria and I did do quite a bit of lively speculation on who, exactly, Kettleburn doesn't want us to know about. We're determined to chaperone all the Hogsmeade weekends next year so we can really begin to investigate. Besides, I can never get enough of Madam Puddifoot's, even if I do have that pesky cherub allergy.)

It turns out that Snape was right. It was Quirrell. The man had me fooled with his stuttering and his tremulousness and his iguana ownership.

If I had a bit more energy, I'd be seriously full of dread at how insufferable Snape's going to be now. As is, I'm content just to relax in my Hospital Wing bed, let Poppy pamper me (and Wimmy; he's been popping in multiple times a day with absolute delicacies from the kitchen!), feel relieved that Harry Potter will wake up just fine one of these days in the bed a few down from mine, and stare out the window at the gorgeous summer days that I came so close to missing. And, of course, wait for the lingering stiffness to leave my formerly broken bones.

I suppose I should explain exactly how it was that I almost died the night before last.

But just now, I've got an absolutely gorgeous shepherd's pie to tuck into.

More later, sweet Notebook!

Sunday, June 7, 1992

9:46 AM

The Hospital Wing

Good morning, dear Notebook! You're looking positively pagey and exquisite today, and it's a joy to look upon thee!

(I promise I'll dial down my affection to a reasonable level one day. But not yet! Reunited and it feels so good, as Wimmy might sing!)

Just in case you needed proof that the world has entirely upended itself ever since the incident with Quirrell and the Stone: I woke up this morning to a hand setting a mug of coffee beside my bed.

I knew at once it wasn't Poppy's hand. Poppy is ardently against coffee for her patients. She says the caffeine in chocolate is one thing, since chocolate's got legitimate medicinal properties, but coffee has no place in a hospital wing-gets one all jittery when they should be resting, and all. The joke's on her, really: I am the most naturally jittery person to ever enter Hogwarts. If anything, the coffee slows me down.

Anyway, I looked up to discover that the hand was attached to an arm that belonged to Severus Snape. A Severus Snape who was clearly trying to be as quiet as possible, no less. Once he put the mug down, he paused to eye the card in the bouquet of flowers on the table, which Algernon had graciously sent over when he heard about me getting injured. (Nothing for him to get petulant over; we've lost touch, and are strictly corresponding on a 'Glad you didn't die!' basis.)

Once upon a time, I might have worried at Snape seeing me right when I'd first woken up. Fretted that he would mock my hair, or my breath (though really; what would he be doing getting close enough to find something to mock?), or the way I squint helplessly until I find my glasses, or my choice in pyjamas.

But now, I simply said, with all the irritating sweetness I could summon, "Thank you, Severus!"

He twitched.

"It's nice to know how much you really care, underneath it all."

Shudder.

"I always suspected it, but this piping-hot, personally-delivered coffee, this really proves it-"

Sneer, right on time, and then: "Evanesco!"

My hot coffee immediately vanished, leaving me to take an appreciative sip of room temperature nothing.

Before I could protest, Snape had disappeared in a whoosh of black cloak out of the Hospital Wing.

Now I suppose I'll just sit here alone and coffeeless.

It's not a big deal, really. Wimmy will smuggle me some coffee later, along with whatever magnificent pudding the house elves have whipped up today. (We really should start paying them. Why don't we pay them?) Even if there was no Wimmy, which is a horrifying thought, then Christopher Goldstein could probably be persuaded to bring me a cup; he dropped in yesterday to apologize for his impertinence earlier this year, and to assure me that he's found a nice Hufflepuff his own age who he's wild about. (I'll believe it when I see it. Not that I don't want to believe it, of course. I just don't want to let my guard down too soon.)

But there was something about the thought of Snape knowing how much I'd miss coffee, and actually bothering to bring me some.

I wish I'd been less obnoxious to him.

… No, actually, I take it back. It was totally worth it. There's something very fortifying, I've found, about witnessing a classic Severus Snape twitch-shudder-sneer.

Now, why am I writing again?

Oh, right! I'd promised to explain what happened to cause my six month vanishment and sudden return to your handsome pages.

It's funny: once upon a time, I'd thought nothing could get me out of the habit of obsessively journaling my every thought and experience, but it was quite easy to fall out of it once I didn't have a means to anymore. The day after I last wrote, I came back to my quarters and you were gone! I searched everywhere, and did a fair bit of interrogating the most likely culprits - Victoria, Snape, Wimmy, Professor Sprout (well, all right, maybe I was a bit irrational by then) - but I got nowhere. Not even "Accio Notebook!" produced any results. Finally, after a week, I was forced to give up the hope of finding you. I tried scribbling on random parchment, and even in a replacement journal that Victoria very kindly picked up for me from Hogsmeade, but it just wasn't the same.

So I let it go, and leaned into my life of keeping an eye on Professor Kettleburn.

It was easy to become quite obsessed with it during my many daytime non-teaching hours; when you suspect one of your colleagues wants to betray the whole school, it's hard to shake it off and feel at ease. I enlisted Wimmy to keep an eye on him, and he reported to me that Kettleburn snuck around at odd hours, took a lot of trips to Hogsmeade that he clearly wanted to keep secret, and received mysterious correspondence that he was very cagey about. I spent a lot of time pondering what was going on in his head, and spun some elaborate theories about him being bitter at Hogwarts for taking so many years of his life (not to mention appendages), and bitter at Dumbledore for listening to Hagrid - the groundskeeper, not even a Hogwarts graduate (I've always suspected Hogwarts must be at fault there; can sweet Hagrid ever really be at fault for anything, besides his rock cakes?) - for advice on how to protect the Stone over him , the Care of Magical Creatures professor. At our staff meetings on the subject, he wasn't shy about voicing his umbrage; he thought that Fluffy seriously lacked nuance. Now that I've faced Fluffy firsthand, I cannot disagree.

But that's neither here nor there.

The point is: wouldn't immortality look pretty appealing to somebody who was forever losing bits of his body? In short, I had made a case for Kettleburn's guilt before too long, and it had me thoroughly convinced. I still maintain that it was a pretty good one, apart from the whole not-being-true aspect.

Then there was a whole exhausting two weeks where Victoria was convinced I'd given up on subconsciously wanting to shag Snape (ew) and fallen in love with Kettleburn (double ew); thank Merlin you weren't around to have to bear witness to that saga. But I was so grim about the whole thing that even my perverted best friend gave up on trying to invent me a tawdry love life.

Meanwhile, Snape kept up his obsessive monitoring of Quirrell, convinced that he was right. (Well, he was. But we aren't at the point in our recap yet where he gets to be smug about that!) We were in a bit of a standoff, since both of us were so sure that we were on the right track with our suspicions and so totally unwilling to listen to the other. It became easier to just avoid talking altogether. These past many months, we've mostly communicated through glares and trodding on each other's feet "by accident" when we're briefly in close proximity.

It was somehow - and don't you read into this, Notebook - more miserable than our old form of interaction.

There was one night where I thought he might have crept up to the Astronomy Tower to apologize to me (well, either that, or it was Kettleburn on his way to silence me for being a too-brilliant investigator), but then Filch found out that it was Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, up to some uncharacteristic shenanigans. Ordinarily, I would have been more intrigued to find out what on earth they were doing - I'm quite protective of the Astronomy Tower! - but between not talking to Snape and losing my mind over Kettleburn, I didn't have the energy.

I was trying to figure out how to approach Dumbledore and make a convincing case against Kettleburn, even though the man's taught here since I was a student and I know Dumbledore holds him in the highest regard. When I told Wimmy to roleplay as Dumbledore (ugh, not like that) so I could practice my pitches, and not to hold back in his authentic headmaster-y reactions, he always wound up banishing me from Hogwarts forevermore for my insolence.

I was in a real gloomy funk, Notebook. Even Harry scoring the Gryffindors a spectacular win at Quidditch and making Snape so angry he spat on the ground couldn't do much for me.

Then a few nights ago, Snape approached me, and things got very frightening very fast, and, well, the truth all came out.

Notebook, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disclose some pretty disturbing information to you.

Are you ready?

Are you sure?

Well, all right, then.

Here goes.

Actually, I might take a little break to prepare myself. My hand hurts - Merlin's beard, I'm out of practice!

10:27 AM

All right. I'm back. (And I've had coffee, so I'm fortified. Thank you, Wimmy!)

Ahem:

The reason

Quirrell wore that turban all the time

Was because

He was using the back of his head

To host

YOU-KNOW-WHO'S FACE!

I know you must be experiencing some extreme nausea right now, Notebook. God knows I did, when I was confronted with that knowledge for the first time. I was near enough to Quirrell that I noticed the funky smell (essence of concentrated evil, it turns out) wafting from his turban loads of times!

But really, it's worse than that. Back when I was trying to get Snape off my mind last fall, I tried to seduce a man with You Know Who living on the back of his head.

Now You Know Who knows firsthand what a crappy seductress I am.

On the plus side, I suppose I did my own part to fight against him, in my way, because that can't have been pleasant for him, now, could it? He was probably terrified that Quirrell would take me up on the offer, and where would that leave ol' You Know Who? His face smooshed against the pillows, his ears (did he have separate ears? Did Quirrell have four ears? AUGH!) overhearing some very personal noises.

Oh, blech. I hate that I just thought that.

But he probably would have hated living it even more.

I am basically a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

I suppose I should explain the logistics further, Notebook, instead of just leaving you with the disturbing fact that Quirrell's had a head full of Dark Lord all year. (Then again, of course you already must have known that, or at least suspected it, since you had to live in his quarters and overhear all their creepy conversations! Not that you've got any ears. Lucky you.) It turns out that it was just like I suspected when Snape and I talked in the broom cupboard all those months ago: a fragment of You Know Who did survive his encounter with baby Harry, and he was finally able to get a physical host again when Quirrell came across him in the forests of Albania and happily invited him into his body.

Ugh. Ugh!

I can't believe anyone would do anything so ghastly. Yes, I remember what it was like back during the war; like anybody, I bore witness to all the different ways he ensnared people you would've thought better than that. But now, after we've started to move past all that? The idea that anyone would do such a thing is too foul for words. I can't believe a Hogwarts professor would sink so low. I can't believe he was the single parent to a (mostly) innocent iguana! You can't bring up a reptile in an environment like that! What chance does the creature stand but to become a rogue humper of innocent Astronomy professors?

Oh, poor Herman. I wonder what's happened to him. I'll definitely have to ask Victoria when she visits next.

10:40 AM

The Weasley twins just tried to drop off a toilet seat to an unconscious Harry (Poppy loved that), which made me think:

What about when Quirrell went to the toilet?

I need to stop thinking about this.

1:40 PM

Took a lovely lunch break! It doesn't matter how old I get, I suspect; I'll never tire of a classic Hogwarts tray of endless sandwiches.

Now that I've had a bit of time away, and banished the thought of toilets out of my mind, I guess I ought to explain properly how it all happened.

You see, a few days ago, Dumbledore was called away for urgent Ministry business, so I made sure to linger outside and keep an eye on Kettleburn while he did his Care of Magical Creatures prep. The Ministry clambers for Dumbledore's advice constantly, of course, but the thought of him being away from the castle at this particular time made me nervous. Any sign that Kettleburn was plotting anything, and I would go straight to McGonagall. And possibly get Wimmy to summon the army of house elves to rise to my aid, but only if absolutely necessary. A vengeful house elf army is no joke.

I stayed outside, watching, until it grew dark outside, glancing occasionally at the book in my hands as a cover. (Hex Him Where It Hurts The Witch's Guide To Self Defense. I didn't want Kettleburn to think he could take me down too easily.)

My stakeout was interrupted when Snape found me on the grounds, grabbed my arm, and whirled me around to face him. "I need you."

I probably don't need to detail any particular mental … wanderings I might have experienced at that particular declaration.

I pushed past them - we were basically estranged enemies at that point, after all - and said, "What?"

"Believe me, Sinistra. It pains me more than it possibly can you. But time is of the essence. Quirrell has gone after the Stone in Dumbledore's absence-"

"I'm pretty sure you mean Kettleburn-"

"No, Auriga, I do not mean the man that we can both see wrestling a Niffler in the distance right now. I mean Quirrell. I thought I had a satisfactory eye on him, but he had some defensive spells in place that I, foolishly, didn't detect in time. And a quick investigation of the Gryffindor Common Room proved that Potter, Weasley, and Granger have gone after him, leaving Longbottom in a full body-bind so he couldn't stop them."

"What?" I said in horror.

"They don't know what awaits them, of course. They probably think that they will find me there, gaping into the Mirror of Erised. If only they could have such good luck."

"Well, we have to go!" I cried. "We have to help them!"

"Exactly. Ordinarily, I would do it on my own, but with three students' lives at stake-no matter how insufferable the students-there's no room for error."

"You're the only professor who could possibly find anything wrong with Hermione Granger, you absolute buffoon," I muttered darkly as I hurried after him.

We quickly prepared ourselves to make our way through the tasks; Snape had little vials of the required potions to get through the flames from his riddle. The obstacles weren't a surprise to us - we'd both sat through innumerable staff meetings on the subject, even if some instructors (Snape) had been cagier than others (not Snape) on how to escape their trials - but all the same, it felt quite spooky to actually come face-to-face with Hagrid's three-headed dog.

Fluffy might have been quite cute under other circumstances, but not these ones. I know that Kettleburn probably would've set up something even more complex and difficult to defeat, but I longed for whatever his attempt would've been as I stared into three slobbery mouths of giant white teeth. There's a lot to be said for nuance.

"Music subdues him," I said, mostly for the comfort of reminding myself that our predicament had a simple solution.

"I'm aware," Snape said. "Go ahead, then."

"I'm not musical!"

"If you expect me to believe that your brain isn't saturated with the lyrics of at least a dozen inane popular songs at any given moment-"

"Why me? You're the one with the piano!"

"A family heirloom to which my mother held a strong attachment. This may shock you, Sinistra, but I haven't had the time nor the interest to become a virtuoso."

"Oh, of course not. Not when there's so many slimy things in jars to look at."

"'Slimy things in jars' - typical, from a woman who hasn't brewed a successful potion in her life-"

"Do you even like Shakespeare?"

"What?"

"Never mind," I said. Bringing up the time I broke into his chambers probably wasn't great for team morale. Plus, Fluffy was really starting to snarl then, so I felt like it was best to put a pin in the bickering match. We didn't have an instrument with us, so singing was our only option.

I stared at Snape, and I began warbling out the first song I could think of.

"You put a spell on my heart!
Leading me through the dark!
I can't-can't-shan't-plant-"

The words left me. I've learned that while I can handle some things in a crisis, remembering Celestina Warbeck lyrics isn't one of them.

Fortunately, I wasn't alone.

Snape gave me a look of such profound darkness that it will haunt me for the rest of my days.

Then, he sang (!), right from the song's very beginning:

"I can't believe how you've bewitched me
Never been so charmed before
Amortentia couldn't stand a chance against me
For you're the one that I adore."

By now, Fluffy had a rather drowsy, pleased look on his three faces. To be fair, Snape isn't a terrible singer. He's on key and everything. He just exudes a real air of wanting to die or perhaps kill with every note. (But I can certainly see how that would appeal to certain Knockturn Alley crowds.)

"I've stirred so many cauldrons in my life
But you're far and away my favorite potion
Waved me a wand or three or five
But I couldn't conjure this fine emotion

You put a spell on my heart
Leading me through the dark
I can't bear us apart
Your love's left its mark
Oh, you put a spell on my heart, baby!"

While he flawlessly recalled the lyrics of what I can only believe is his favorite song ever written, I snuck past him and Fluffy to the trapdoor. He did a few more rounds of the chorus as he crept after me.

I would like to state for the record that I did not mercilessly tease him about his expansive knowledge of Celestina Warbeck. It didn't seem like the time.

I won't be as kind in retrospect, because really, Notebook, I have a lot of thoughts.

Does Snape love this song so much because it talks about his favorite subject (apart from torturing me and various Gryffindors): potions?

Is Celestina Warbeck a horrible songwriter, but her voice is so dazzling that none of us have noticed?

By 'wand', does she mean … ?

Ahem. Anyway.

We made it through the Devil's Snare and Flitwick's charmed flying keys no problem (well, almost no problem; Snape laughed at my shoddy flying technique, which I think was extremely rude considering the circumstances), and then we got to Minerva's chess set.

At once, I knew that we had finally reached the obstacle that would give even us trouble. Ron Weasley was lying sprawled across the floor on the far side of the giant chessboard, unconscious. Hermione Granger was kneeling at his side, shaking his shoulder and weeping as she tried to wake him.

Then she looked up and spotted us. Shock filled her face. "Professor Snape! You're-you're here!"

"Astute as ever, Miss Granger," Snape deadpanned sneeringly.

Honestly. Who has time for deadpanning sneeringly under such circumstances? Severus Snape, that's who.

We tried to run to the children, but the chess pieces were on their guard and wouldn't allow it. Once they'd detected us, they stood at formidable attention, creating an impassable barrier between us on one side of the chamber and Hermione and Ron on the other.

"Now's probably not the best time to tell you I've never learned Wizard's Chess," I said to Snape.

"You? Show no interest in a game that requires patience and strategic thinking? I'm shocked," Snape answered dryly.

But as it turned out, knowing how to play chess didn't matter in this particular situation.

That became immediately apparent when a bishop zoomed forward of its own accord (and not paying any attention to the fancy way you're supposed to move across the squares! Even I know that's a thing!), grabbed a rival pawn, and bit its head off.

"They aren't supposed to do that!" Hermione cried.

"An insufferable know-it-all, as ever," Snape said, though at least he had the decency to mutter it out of the girl's earshot.

"What is wrong with you?!" I roared, probably in the girl's earshot.

Snape being a big bully quickly became the least of our problems. The giant chess pieces were all angry and unhinged, out for blood. (Or whatever giant chess pieces have got instead.) Minerva had intended them to only be used once, if at all, and instead they were on their third game of the night. And they weren't going to take it anymore.

A king piece began hurtling over to us, hungry for pawns or maybe us, like some kind of stony giant.

"Enough of this," Snape snarled. He raised his wand and thundered, "Stupefy!"

The chess pieces retaliated by not freezing at all, and instead all going absolutely mental.

(Props to Minerva. If it had been a Stone-stealing villain facing their wrath instead of a few innocent professors and students, it would have been an extremely effective form of security.)

The black and white pieces started tearing each other to bits and throwing those bits around with great smashing sounds like the roars of giants, all the polite rules of chess abandoned. It was like a corridor brawl between Gryffindors and Slytherins on a Brobdingnalian scale.

(Now, there's some Ravenclaw word choice for you! I've been doing some reading now that I haven't got much else to do in the Hospital Wing. I've always meant to read Swift; he was one of Hogwarts' most accomplished former pupils, after all, and a Ravenclaw too! Full disclosure: I've also devoured multiple Moira K. Mockridges.)

I ran to Ron and Hermione, flinging out shielding spells as best I could to keep them from being harmed. Snape followed my lead. For once, we were in perfect harmony.

"Thank goodness you're here," Hermione gasped at us, her arms around Ron as if she was ready to drag him out of danger, physical logistics be damned. "You have to help Harry, he's gone past the potion room, he's gone to meet-well, I don't know who now-"

Snape glanced over at the door.

"Go," I told him.

He hesitated. It was sensible to hesitate, considering the chess pieces were slaughtering each other with reckless abandon and didn't care at all about the poor humans caught in the crossfire.

"Go, you slimy prat!" I yelled. "I'll be fi-"

A giant stone horse head came hurtling through the air toward us. Which really didn't lend much credence to my "I'll be fine" proclamation.

"PROTEGO!" I screamed, flinging the spell in Ron and Hermione's direction to make sure they wouldn't be crushed by the incoming knight piece.

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as vigilant about making sure I wouldn't be.

Everything went black after that.

…

I think I need a bit of a break.

More later, once I've rested.

And maybe had another tray of sandwiches.