DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters, except for Lysia Moonwanderer (she's mine). I don't own any of the trademarks either. They belong to Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling. This story is written purely for the enjoyment of myself and other HP fans and I have no intention of making any money from it.

***AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story takes place in Harry's 6th year. Please review!! This is my first 'published' fanfic, and I'd like to know if it sounds any good to this point. THANX!!

CHAPTER 1 : The First Week

Lysia awoke in good spirits the next morning. She'd had a very good night's sleep, and that had become a rarity since the business with Voldemort had begun. It was still dark outside, but that didn't matter to her. By her calculations, it would be another three hours before sunup - just enough time to get in some decent training before the students and other staff members start to wake up. She dressed quickly and made her way down to the entrance hall. Upon reaching the doors, she heard a noise behind her and whipped around to find herself facing none other than Severus Snape.

'You're up early,' he said, raising his eyebrows slightly.

'Keeping in shape,' she replied lightly. 'But it's obvious that I'm not the only one up at this hour. Couldn't sleep?'

Snape shook his head and sighed softly. 'Sleep isn't something I come by easily.' Lysia inclined her head and raised her eyebrows as an indication for him to continue, but he didn't. The silence stretched over a span of several minutes as they simply looked at each other, each second amplified in the as yet undisturbed air of the castle.

'I'd better be going now...' 'I should let you go...'

They both spoke at the same time, causing a slight, awkward pause before they both nodded curtly, turned their backs to each other and walked away.

Lysia's head was swimming as she headed out to the lawn between the castle and the Forbidden Forest, the sound of Snape's receding footsteps echoing around her brain. Coming to a stop, she started to stretch, hoping that three hours of intensive training could take her mind off its quarry.

***

Five hours later, Lysia was showered and sitting down at her place at the High Table finishing her breakfast and going through her lesson plans in her head. To the background babble of the excited students in front of her, she turned to address Professor McGonagall.

'Is Severus feeling alright? Only I saw him earlier this morning - I thought he'd be here...'

'Oh, yes, he's fine. The Headmaster has just asked him to run some errands this morning before his first classes,' she replied. When she saw that this puzzled Lysia, she continued, 'Don't worry, he should be back by lunch.' Minerva smiled briefly and turned away to speak with Dumbledore, leaving Lysia feeling a little confused and slightly worried.

Soon enough, though, all thoughts of Snape were chased from her mind as students began to drift off to their first classes. As she herself had one fairly soon, she excused herself from the table and made her way to her classroom on the fourth floor. There were already some students waiting outside the door, so, as Lysia passed, she smiled, asked them to wait outside until the rest of the class arrived and quickly went into the room to gather a few things she'd left there before breakfast in preparation for the class.

By the time she'd finished in the room and made her way outside, the whole class was there, talking rather loudly amongst themselves.

Projecting her voice so that she could be heard above the talk, she called 'Right!!' The class fell silent and she spoke normally. 'Before I check to see who is here and who is not, third-years, I'd like you all to head down to the lake as quickly as you can. Remember - be quiet so that you do not disturb any of the other classes.'

They arrived at the lake with no major dramas, and Lysia began the class. 'Alright. As you may notice, today, all of the third years are here together. This will not happen every day. In fact, I doubt that it will happen again for a while. You are all here now to witness an astrological event that can affect the functionality of some spells - some involving Dark Magic, others which defend against it and some which have little or no relevance to this subject what-so-ever. Many magical people do not count this event as significant. Most who know about it disregard it completely and out the faults in the spells down to inaccurate pronunciation, incorrect wand movements and other such things.

'You will most probably be the only group to actually see this, as it is can be quite rare or hard to see.' Lysia glanced down at her watch and continued. 'In about two minutes, you will be able to it. Then we will head back to the classroom to discuss it further. Now, what you are looking for is...'

***

Lysia's classes that day went so well that she didn't even notice that Snape had been missing from lunch and that some students in her classes were talking under their breaths about his absences from his own classes. By dinnertime, however, he still hadn't shown up, and even Dumbledore was looking preoccupied. She put her queasy feelings down to nerves and ate her dinner in silence, deciding that if he wasn't at breakfast the next morning that she would look for him, as she had no classes until mid- afternoon.

After dinner, Lysia made her way back to her rooms, bumping into several students on the way. She had barely been so preoccupied, and it was beginning to annoy her. So, to keep herself busy, she fine-tuned her lesson plans for the whole month. It wasn't until one o'clock in the morning that she decided she was prepared enough for any disaster in her classes and went to bed. Lysia finally slipped into a fitful, restless sleep two hours later, only to wake at sunrise and pace around her rooms until breakfast.

When seven o'clock finally came around, Lysia hurried down to the Great Hall. Snape was not there. Fighting down a wave of panic, she reasoned that it was still early, and that he would definitely turn up later. Her lack of sleep must have shown on her face, because as soon as Minerva McGonagall sat down, she barraged Lysia with a myriad of questions, mainly about her well being, during which Minerva must have guessed the reason behind her state of mind and finished by saying that she was sure that Severus was fine and would probably turn up for dinner in perfect health.

But Lysia wasn't going to wait that long. As soon as the other teachers started to leave, she got up from her setting and exited quickly in a fashion that was, she hoped, not too obviously rushed. After about two dozen steps, however, Lysia stopped dead in her tracks. Where was she going to go? If she had any hope of finding him in the castle, she'd have to go about her search logically.

'If I go from the North Tower down, covering each floor as I go,' she said quietly to herself, 'if he's in the castle, I'll find him. If any of the paintings have seen him,' she continued as she began to walk towards the North Tower, 'they can tell me, I'll be able to ask them all. If he's not here, it's off to Hogsmeade. If I have time,' she added as an after- thought.

With a plan now firmly formed in her mind, Lysia began her search. It wasn't until she'd reached the third floor, having found nothing, that it occurred to her that the place he was most likely to be would be in the dungeons, not the upper levels of the castle.

iSo much for logical/i, she thought. iWell, I may as well finish going down, otherwise I'll have to go all the way back up again/i. By the time Lysia got near the dungeons, lunch was drawing closer, there had been no sign of Snape and she was thoroughly annoyed with herself. Apart from all of this, she was beginning to get hungry (she hadn't eaten since dinner last night, and even then she hadn't eaten much).

Nevertheless, Lysia continued with her search and began to head down to the dungeons. First she came to Filch's office. After knocking on the door, she stuck her head inside and saw Filch and Mrs Norris near the old desk in the middle of the room.

'Seen Severus at all today?' she asked in a would-be casual voice.

'No.'

'Okay then. If you do though, tell him I've been looking for him, will you?'

'I'll do that.'

'Thanks.'

The next few rooms were empty, followed by rooms with a Muggle Studies study group, a third-year Arithmancy class and a few students reading quietly, away from the hustle and bustle of the castle. Just ahead was Snape's main potions classroom. iHe shouldn't have a class in there at the moment/i, she thought as she pushed the door open with a soft knock. She was quite right - there was no class in the room. But Snape wasn't in there either. With a quiet sigh, Lysia closed the door and continued down the dark, slightly damp corridor to the entrance of the Slytherin Dormitories. Luckily, a student was just coming out of entrance, so Lysia called out to them.

'Hey! You there! Yes, you,' she said as the student turned in surprise. 'Is Professor Snape in there?' she asked pointing to the doorway.

'No, Professor.'

'Okay, thank-you, you can go.' iOne place left to look/i, she thought. Her pulse quickened considerably as she approached the door to Snape's office. The door was slightly ajar, so Lysia pushed it open and walked in. Ignoring the collection of things in jars around the office, she looked quickly around office, saw that it was completely devoid of Snape and headed towards the door to the back of the room. She paused for the smallest time before knocking on the door. There was no reply, but she knocked again anyway.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Lysia opened the door (with some surprise, as this door was normally locked with powerful spells when Severus wasn't in) and walked into Snape's living quarters.

There was no-one in the lounge, but a black robe had been flung over the back of a chair and another chair had been knocked over nearer to the door which should lead to the bedroom. She was considering checking in the bedroom when she heard a coughing coming from it. In three strides, she'd reached the door and was knocking on it.

'Severus?' she said tentatively as she opened the door. There, on the bed in the middle of the room, was Severus Snape. Lysia, very much relieved to find him alive, walked over to the bedside and sat down. Now she was close to, he didn't look well at all.

'Is there anything I can get you?'

'What are you doing here?' he said, quite sharply.

'I was worried, so I came to look for you,' she said with a smile. Snape just frowned at her.

'I can take care of myself, thank you,' was the curt response she got.

'Oh, I don't doubt that, not at all,' she said. 'I just...never mind.'

'Well, now you've found me, you can leave.'

'You sure I can't get you anything?' she asked, but at the look he gave her she said, 'Okay, okay, just asking!' She lingered a moment before turning her back to him and walking back to her own rooms.

When she arrived at her office, it was lunch time, but she'd forgotten about her hunger. Lysia went straight to her desk, sat down, put her arms on the desk, lowered her head into them and cried.

When Lysia finally sat up, with a very stiff back and neck, it was quite dark. Igniting the candles and the logs in the fireplace with a careless wave of her hand, she stood up and stretched. 'Note to self - don't fall asleep at the desk again,' she commented quietly to herself.

She blinked as she made her way to her bathroom to straighten herself up before heading to the Great Hall to see if dinner had been served yet. Lysia looked into the mirror and was shocked to find that her hair was everywhere and her eyes made it obvious that she'd been doing some serious crying. So, with a few well chosen spells, she got to work making herself presentable.

All of a sudden, she realised that she'd missed all of her afternoon classes and cursed loudly.

'Are you already in there, Lysia?' cane a voice from her lounge. She cursed again, under her breath. The voice belonged to Dumbledore.

'Yes, I'm fine, thank-you,' she called in reply. 'I'll be out in a minute, if you want to have a seat or something?' Finally, moderately happy with how she looked, Lysia went out to meet Dumbledore. 'What can I do for you Headmaster?' she asked, though she already knew what was coming.

'You were not present at any of your classes today, yet many people saw you this morning - all over the castle,' he said. Lysia opened her mouth to say something, but Dumbledore was speaking again. 'You cannot continue to neglect your teaching commitments, Lysia.'

'Yes sir,' she replied, looking at the floor. She was feeling very much like a small child who'd been told off for not doing her homework.

'I do not wish to make you feel bad - I just want to remind you of responsibilities here.'

'Yes sir. It won't happen again.'

'Let us hope not,' he said, not unkindly. 'I don't enjoy giving these talks at all.' He paused a second be fore asking 'For curiosities sake, why were you absent?'

'Fell asleep,' Lysia remarked in a small voice.

'Ahh.' Thankfully, he declined to comment further, though she could only guess what he was thinking. 'I suggest you have something to eat - you missed dinner.'

'I will. Thank you.'

'I shall see you at breakfast tomorrow?'

'Yes Headmaster.'

'Until the morning then,' he said, and with a nod in her direction, he left Lysia in the silent solitude of her quarters.