Chapter Four: A Change of Pace

Author's Note: Since I cannot do italics on this silly piece of crap called a computer, //'s indicate a flashback. Now continue with your regularly scheduled fic.

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Ciera Sinistra sat quietly beside Severus as the Great Hall filled with students, just like it did each year. Right now, the first years- probably soaked to the bone due to the stormy weather- were waiting for McGonagall to lead them in for the Sorting Ceremony. Every year was horribly predictable. She could have told the students which house they would be in, without the help of the silly, bedraggled hat.

Perhaps she should amend that statement. Every year was horribly predictable... except for this one. The Triwizard Tournament would be taking place this year, according to Dumbledore's announcement earlier in the summer. He was to tell the students today, after the Sorting, presumably.

"Peeves, get down here NOW!" Ciera pursed her lips as the furious voice drifted in from outside. And he would tell them once Peeves stopped attempting to drown the already-soaked students.

Her dark eyes flashed over the room, noticing Harry Potter and his entourage entering the room. Her stomach twisted slightly at the sight of him, the way it always did. The guilt had gotten better over the years... the first year she had taught him, she could barely look at his face without cringing. But her body still betrayed her.

"Ciera, dear?"

The witch glanced over to see that Eolande Sprout, the frumpy Herbology professor, was trying to get her attention. She gave a mental sigh at the intrusion into her thoughts and forced a smile. "Yes?"

"Have you seen hide or hair of our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, dear?"

She shook her head. They had been on quite the bad streak of DADA professors, it seemed. Four years ago had been the Quirrell disaster, then that joke of a man Lockhart, then the werewolf... Merlin knew what they'd end up with this year. "Not yet. Not that I know what I'm looking for."

"Yes, old Albus has kept it quite a secret, hasn't he?" The short, plump woman smiled up at her cheerily.

"Quite," she responded tersely, turning away to lay her hand on Severus' arm. "Snape."

He frowned at her. "Did I not make it clear enough fifteen years ago that you were to call me Severus?"

"It appears you didn't... nor all the times you have told me since. Honestly, Snape, I'm not some animal you can condition a response from."

"Sadly not. And do not call me Snape."

"Sorry, Snape."

He growled low in his throat. "Did you want anything, besides yet another opportunity to grate my nerves?"

"Yes. I wanted to ask you about the new Dark Arts professor."

"Go on and ask, though I doubt I know any more than you do."

She frowned, her expression matching his. "Why hasn't he told anyone?"

He gave a careless shrug. "I am certain that he has his reasons, as per usual." He shook off her touch and shifted away from her, leering out towards the Gryffindor table. Snape had never quite recovered from the missed opportunity of seeing Sirius Black lose his soul to a Dementor, and his hatred of Harry had multiplied more than she would have dreamed possible.

With Kevin Witby being sorted into Hufflepuff, Dumbledore stood and gave his usual good-natured smile to those gathered. "I have only two words to say to you," he announced. "Tuck in." And with a cheer, the students did just that.

Rolling her eyes, Sinistra reached for a plate of rolls. It was the same every year. The students dived into the food as if they hadn't just stuffed themselves full of sweets on the trainride over. She carefully selected a roll and slowly buttered it, making sure to completely cover the top with butter. There was only one reason she did this. It annoyed the hell out of Snape.

As if on cue, he leaned over and sneered in her ear, "*Must* you take all night to devour a single roll?"

She took a small bite and chewed thoroughly before responding. "Mind your own bloody business, Snape." Amazing. She could *hear* his teeth grinding together in frustration. After taking a full three minutes to eat her roll, she cut a small sausage into ten equal pieces, then glanced at Snape and cut each of those in half. The muscles in his jaw clenched, and he savagely speared a cut of steak with his knife.

She smiled softly. After fifteen years, you would have thought she'd gotten tired of irritating Snape. But she had only perfected her methods. Anything to keep him away from her. Physically, they might sit next to each other at meals and share the same set of rooms, but emotionally they were continents apart. And that was precisely the way she wanted to keep it.

She couldn't stand the arrogant bastard, to put it quite simply. Ever since his first condescending words to her in Azkaban, she had hated him. She hated his greasy hair, his horridly large hooked nose, his sneering lips, his sallow skin, his starved gauntness, his affinity for the color black, his way of swooping around like some silent bat... everything. She loathed to look at him anymore because it tempted her toward inclinations of murder.

And to think that she was bound to him for all eternity... what a dismal prospect. Perhaps Azkaban had held more promise than a frigid marriage to a heartless son-of-a-bitch. But of course, she would never find out, though she often compared the personalities of the Dementors to that of Snape's. It was a very close call.

Shaking her head as Sprout offered her a bowl of pudding, she turned her attention to Dumbledore, who had stood. Instantly, the leftover food faded away, leaving the plates as clean as they had been before. Ah yes, time for the yearly speech.

"So!" he said cheerily, "Now that we are all fed and watered, I must once more ask for you attention, while I give out a few notices." Promptly, Ciera tuned him out, focusing once more on the ring that clung to her finger like a lifering. She hated thinking of it as such, but that was precisely what it was.

She had not taken it off since the day Snape had presented it to her in Azkaban, and with good reason. That ring, simple as it was, held unvalid and forged proof of her innocence. Though she hadn't realized it until that day in court, the ring was bewitched with a powerful magic... laced with a spell that could only have been performed by a great wizard. She had always suspected Dumbledore, though he had never admitted to the fact, not even when he had first explained the incredible properties of the ring fifteen years previously.

// "Headmaster..."

He held up a hand to stop her. "Albus, dear, please."

"Albus..." she corrected, rather uncomfortably. "I need to ask..."

"Why he couldn't see your Mark?"

Was she that transparent? She had hoped to have more mystery to her after all her years as a Death Eater. But perhaps Azkaban had stripped away her layers, leaving her at her barest. Or maybe Dumbledore knew more than he let on. Either way, he was correct. "Yes... but..." she rolled up her sleeve again, as she had been doing for the past ten minutes, just to be certain, and showed her unblemished arm to him. "... it's not there. He couldn't just not see it... it's... gone." She kept running her hand over the place where the brand should be, expecting it to suddenly appear again, for the black skull to mocking laugh at her for her foolishness, to burn with all of Voldemort's anger.

But it didn't, a feat that continued to amaze her.

He continued his brisk pace, and she had to hurry to keep up with him, as her own legs were shorter than those of the two men. "That is where you are wrong. It isn't gone at all."

"Then...?"

"It is hidden." He smiled at her and held out a bag. "Licorice twist?" She shook her head and he shrugged, biting off the end of one and chewing thoughtfully. "You see, my dear... the ring you now wear is no ordinary ring. So long as you keep it securely on your finger- which I highly suggest that you do- your Mark will be invisible to all around you, and no magic, Dark or otherwise, will force it to reveal itself. It is, in essence, the alibi you didn't have."

"The alibi that none of us have," growled Snape viciously, but neither took notice of him. //

It was true. From the moment she had put on the ring, her Dark Mark had vanished... or at least been concealed. It was the reason Crouch had not seen Voldemort's mark on her arm in the courtroom. That evidence alone had sealed her release. No Mark, no Death Eater, right?

She smiled behind her goblet of spiced cider. They had no idea how wrong they were. Few teachers were any the wiser as well. In fact, no one besides Albus and Snape knew about her past, though some had indeed speculated as to her shady history. She didn't mind the vague guesses as to her past- they were child's play to her. What she did mind was that they had the knowledge that she was married to the smarmy git known as Severus Snape.

Dumbledore had insisted that the information was necessary for their ploy to be entirely successful. It had been amusing for the first few weeks after her installment at Hogwarts... several of the teachers had given her pitying looks, ones that she had been forced not to return with self-pity of her own.

Thankfully, their lack of romantic contact was overlooked and attributed to Severus' usual coldness. The haughty exterior she herself gave off helped along the idea that theirs was a marriage of convenience, not passion. Though... it was more fact than idea to tell the truth.

"It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year." Amidst the exclamations and protests of the students, he went on. "This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers' time and energy - but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts -"

His speech was cut off abruptly as the door of the Great Hall flew open with a resounding bang that caused the entire room to turn in the direction of the sound. A hunched figure stood outlined in the door, cloaked and leaning on a gnarled staff. As they watched in silence, the stranger lowered his hood, revealing a mass of tangled gray hair.

A sudden flash of lightening lit up the room, highlighting the man's features... or lack thereof. The face was scarred and battered, barely recognizable as human. A large portion of the nose was missing, and what must have once resembled a mouth was now a mere slit for an opening, grotesque and lipless. And the eyes...

One was normal and seemed rather out of place on the horrid visage. But the other was large and bright blue. It was restless, roving about seemingly of its own free will in the socket. It turned around completely to look at the back of the room, then scanned over the rows of students and finally the teachers, all as he made his slow, limping pace to the front of the room, a dull 'clunk' resounding with every other step. Sinistra shuddered as it paused on her and her stomach twisted violently. Her face, however, remained neutral as she stared back at him, back at that horrible, all-seeing eye. She knew that face... or what it had been before the attack.

Alastor Moody... more commonly known now as Mad-Eye Moody... for rather obvious reasons. She knew more of his reputation than of the man himself. He obsessively hunted Death Eaters, out of revenge for the horror done to his physiology. Without thinking about it, she reached for her left arm, touching the spot where the Mark lurked, unseen.

She wondered... could his eye see past spells? Oh Merlin, please no...

She chanced a glance at Severus as she felt the eye move on. His expression was unreadable, unperturbed, as usual. But she noticed- how could she not, after fifteen years of 'marriage'- the tightening of his jaw that betrayed him to her scrutiny. He was nervous as well. He did not look at her.

Her mind raced through countless reasons why the ex-Auror was here, some plausible, some bizarre, but she settled quickly on the worst-case scenario. He knew. Her nails dug into her sleeve. He knew about her... about the lie... had come to drag her by her hair back to Azkaban. It was over.

Her mouth went dry, and she could see as clearly as day how the way in which she would spend the remainder of her days... locked in a cell, haunted by memories and long-dead phantoms, never to see day again. She looked up and cursed the weather. The bewitched ceiling still reflected the misery going on outside. Why couldn't she at least have had the pleasure of seeing the sun once again?

It took her several panicked moments to realize that Moody had not stopped in front of her place, had not trained his wand on her and revealed her identity to all those gathered. Instead, he had seated himself beside Dumbledore and was eating sausage.

"May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" exclaimed Dumbledore. His tone was sickeningly bright. Did he not realize the hazards of bringing a renowned Auror to teach at Hogwarts, at a school inhabited by two ex-Death Eaters? Especially considering that one of those two was using Hogwarts as a sanctuary.

Sinistra pointedly refused to applaud Dumbledore's statement. In fact, the great oaf Hagrid was the only one to join in the applause. McGonagall looked skeptical and pinched... but that could just be her customary appearance, Snape continued to stare steadily in front of him, and the rest of the teachers seemed to suddenly find great interest in the design in the wood grain of the table.

She finally forced herself to release her left arm and instead her right hand clenched her upper thigh, for lack of else to do. She hardly heard as Dumbledore announced the Triwizard Tournament, nor did she notice the uproar the event caused. She was lost to the world in a whirl of thoughts, and as soon as a proper amount of time had passed, she dismissed herself from the table, claiming she had to work on the next day's Astrology class outline.

Snape had also left abruptly a minute earlier, but he was nowhere in sight as she exited the Great Hall. However, the 'clunk' that echoed through the hall a few moments later was unmistakable. She willed herself not to quicken her pace, prayed that he wouldn't speak to her.

"Professor," rasped a gravely voice behind her, and she paused mid-step before reluctantly turning to acknowledge him.

Her dark eyes took him in quickly, each scar, each reminder of old fights and grudges, and she nodded. "Professor."

He smiled, an expression to unseat one's dinner. "Alastor, please. And you are...?"

"Ciera," she offered after a second's hesitation. "Ciera..." here she faltered a split-second, before recovering, "... Sinistra." Why, oh why had she felt the sudden urge to say Lanen? The name hadn't been spoken in years, had never reached her tongue... until now.

A flash of... something... sparked in his normal eye, dark and beady. "Ah yes... I have heard of you. Albus speaks highly of his Astrology professor."

She bowed her head. "Undeserved praise, I am certain."

"No, no," he protested, taking another limping step forward. She willed her own feet to remain rooted to the ground, so that she would not succumb to the urge to back away. Another step gave her a closer-than-she-might-have-liked view of his lipless sneer-smile. "I would myself give highest praise for a woman who has willingly married such a creature as Severus Snape." Was it just her, or had he overly stressed the word 'willingly?' She forced a coy smile onto her pale face and opened her mouth to dismiss herself again. But he beat her to it. "It would be a shame to be forced into anything such as marriage, would it not?"

It was nearly a full minute before she found her voice. "Indeed, it would be."

His magical eye was brought to bear fully on her. "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Why have you retained your maiden name?"

Ah. An easy question... one that the pair had already answered upon the announcement of their marriage to the staff. "Severus felt that it would be better that the students be unaware of our union, so as not to taint his formidable reputation as a bastard."

He stared at her for a long time. "I see."

She gave him another smile. "Forgive me, but I must be going."

"Yes... your class preparations."

"Yes."

He gestured down the hall. "I won't keep you... wouldn't want to make you feel trapped, of course." She nodded again and turned away to walk down the hall, struggling all the way to keep her pace even and feeling that blasted magical eye following her every step.

Once she was safely around the corner, she turned not towards the Astrology tower, but towards Dumbledore's office. Her steps varied back and forth between her usual calm glide and a brisker, jerking pace. Finally, she gave in and hurried down the corridors until she reached the stone gargoyle. "Ice Mice," she said, and the statue came to life and leapt away, revealing the staircase that led upwards.

There was something not right about that man, that ex-Auror. With a glance behind her, she hurried up the stairs, hoping that Dumbledore would be able to assuage her fears. But she couldn't shake the feeling of doubt, no matter how she tried. It was as inseparable from her as the Dark Mark that still burned, unseen, on her arm. She shook her head in an attempt to clear her mind and continued up the stairs.

END CHAPTER FOUR