The open rebellion against Snape and the Carrows ended in the middle of the spring term when Michael Corner, a seventh-year Ravenclaw, was relentlessly tortured for sneaking out late one night and freeing a group of first-years from the Carrows' torture chamber. They made an example of him, forcing groups of students to watch as they made other seventh-years learn the Cruciatus Curse with him as a human test subject. The ones that succeeded were a mercy. A failed Cruciatus Curse could either be powerless or end up causing lasting physical damage, and the Carrows hardly cared one way or the other.

One by one students started to disappear and not return. A new wave of Muggleborns never came back from the Easter holidays. Many students - all Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, or Ravenclaws - suddenly stopped going to their classes, only to be spotted by Prefects as they made their patrols in the middle of the night. They thought they were seeing things, but Hazel soon began to suspect that members of Dumbledore's Army were living out of the Room of Requirement. It was an excellent place to hide out. The only thing they were lacking was food, and somehow, she found that they had figured that one out.

So she began fiddling with the coin they had left her, setting up a system to communicate with Neville, who had taken over managing the Room. She sent them the Carrows' schedules so they knew when to look out for Alecto and Amycus patrolling the corridors. She also arranged times to leave them work so they wouldn't fall too behind in their classes. Ultimately she would sneak out at night, telling Sev that she couldn't sleep and that she was going for a walk, only to show up and teach the D.A. the defensive spells that their Defense Against the Dark Arts class had failed to teach them. Sev knew where she was really going, so he wouldn't stop her. There wasn't much she could do to rebel against the Carrows and the regime that Voldemort was enforcing at the school, but it was something. And it made her feel like she was truly doing something to help, even if she was powerless to act outside of the Room of Requirement.

As time wore on, Sev's eating and sleeping habits only got marginally better. Hazel would bring him food from the kitchens, or they would attempt to cook, though for all of his potion-making ability, Severus Snape was a dreadful cook. "Severus 'I tricked the Dark Lord, one of the greatest wizards to ever live, AND became the best Potions Master in all of the UK and probably the world' Snape can't figure out spaghetti?" Hazel smiled, watching Sev try to throw a noodle at the wall to see if it was done. "Impossible."

"Why should I bother learning if I can do the exact same thing with one spell?" Sev asked, watching Hazel stir. "There's no need. Everything I learned from Mum, well, I've forgotten most of it."

"Because, much like potion making, it's an art. You've managed to figure out soup, but then again that's very similar to potion making... You've done very well with desserts, though," she thought aloud. "Though I still don't get how you can't figure out spaghetti." He came over to hover behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her cheek. "You're getting better, though. At least you didn't burn it all to the bottom of the pot this time."

"I'm going to need to get back to work soon," he told her, "though I do like our little cooking adventures. The school needs me."

"Alright, just make sure you come to bed on time. You've hardly slept, and all the Invigoration Draughts and Vitamix Potions you've been drinking can't be good for you. Not to mention the coffee." Sev had become a caffeine fiend, a pot of coffee seemingly always brewing in his office. The office smelled nice, but his five or six cups of coffee a day worried her.

He hardly ever slept. Part of it was all of the work. If he wasn't in a Death Eater meeting or consulting with Voldemort personally, he was answering to the Ministry of Magic, which had also been taken over by Death Eaters. Or he was answering letters from parents, from those who sent generous donations to Hogwarts, or from the occasional curious reporter. Or he was busy overseeing the school, meeting with professors, chasing down students for a stern lecture, or trying to reign in the Carrows and keep them from accidentally killing a student. They'd gotten close with Michael Corner, but he had managed to stop them before the boy wound up in St. Mungo's. Or he was staying up to watch over a potion, brewing some strange concoction in the fireplace of his office.

Part of it was the paranoia. He was constantly afraid the hexes and the protective charms on the door would fail and the professors or the students would mount a full-scale rebellion, coming to attack him while he and Hazel were asleep.

Part of it was the worry. The worry over the school, over his role in what people were calling the Second Wizarding War, the worry about what would happen to Hazel if anything happened to him, or if any of the teachers finally called her an accomplice to her face and started attacking her too. She was more than capable of handling it, but it still worried him. And he had to worry about Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who were out there somewhere, moving from hiding place to hiding place. He had to keep an eye on them, but it was difficult to track them down without being tracked down himself. Hazel helped, but there was only so much she could do. He also couldn't help but worry about what would happen if she woke up one morning and realized that if she left him, she could join the good side and none of the other professors would look at her like a traitor, or look at her with pity. She could do so much better and yet she chose to stay by his side. He had to keep reminding himself that she did it for a reason, and that he didn't need to worry about her leaving, though the thought plagued his mind constantly.

Part of it was the nightmares. The past - his father, the werewolf incident, the people he had killed as a young Death Eater, the people he had tortured, the times he had been tortured himself, the trials, the holding cells in Azkaban, devoid of all hope. The present - each new cruelty the students and staff threw at him, each new attempt to drive him out of the school, the delicate balance of every aspect of his life that being a spy demanded, the ruining of his reputation among his colleagues and people he had once gotten along with. The future - staring down death every time he met with the Dark Lord, having to constantly be prepared with healing potions, an array of healing spells, protective charms, anti-venom, anything and everything he could think of whenever he went to meet with Voldemort in person. Concealing his every thought, altering memories and leaving some behind whenever he went to a meeting, just in case the originals couldn't pass the Dark Lord's muster. The fear over what would happen if he forgot and Voldemort got into his head. The battles that lay ahead, putting everyone he knew in danger. There was a lot of nightmare fuel in every aspect of his life. Though she tried her best, Hazel couldn't stop them. He would just dream of the million possibilities of what could happen to her if he was found out, if the battles arrived on the school's doorstep, if, if, if…

Then there was the cloud that always hung over him, the thought that his days were numbered. They had been ever since he agreed to kill Dumbledore in Draco Malfoy's place. Hazel was using every spare moment she had to do research, to try to find something, anything, that could stop the inevitable. He helped, of course, but it was hard not to give into the hopelessness of it all.

He was up late one night, hunched over a book into which he was transcribing a couple of alterations to the Wiggenweld Potion, when the door behind his desk creaked open. Hazel had woken up alone, reaching out to find that the other side of the bed was still made. It was well after midnight, and both of them had to be up early in the morning. She was used to this, but enough was enough. Sev had been walking around in a daze lately, overtaken by caffeine and multiple potions to keep himself awake. "Sev?" Her voice was soft, Hazel gently putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you nearly done?"

Looking up at her in the dying firelight, he couldn't help but to smile a little. She was still half-asleep, standing there in her pajamas, the sweatshirt stolen from him ages ago. Her hair was a little frizzier than usual, messed up in sleep. She yawned, bending down to kiss his cheek. "I'll be there in a moment."

"That's what you always say," she grumbled, not taking it as an answer. "Sev, you're constantly exhausted. You need some sleep. I found this spell - we'll work on the Potion for Dreamless Sleep or a Sleeping Draught tomorrow okay? But I found this spell that does something similar. We can try it out. Worst comes to worst you'll accidentally sleep in. Goodness knows you need it."

"Just a moment." He reached for more ink, Hazel rubbing his shoulders.

"C'mon, Sev. You do this all the time, and then I go back to bed, and you don't end up there for hours," she complained sleepily. "I have to remind you to sleep. I know you're afraid to close your eyes, but you need to rest. Please." Her voice softened as she bent down to kiss his cheek. "I miss you."

Sev sighed, finishing his note and setting his quill aside. "Alright, let's go." He allowed Hazel to lead him back into their quarters, promising he'd be in bed as soon as he changed and brushed his teeth. True to his word, he dropped into bed next to her a few minutes later, winding his arms around her. "Thank you for reminding me to sleep. As much as I hate it, I have to, or I'm going to keel over one of these days."

She rolled over to give him a tired kiss, promising, "I won't let that happen. I'll always be here to remind you, and I'll be here to make sure nothing happens to you, bad dreams or whatever." Reaching for her wand, she cast a simple sleeping spell, telling him that he should be able to get some decent rest now. She yawned, falling asleep almost as soon as she set her wand down on the nightstand. It took him a little while longer to fall asleep, but for the first time in a while, he didn't dream of anything.