All disclaimers are in place. Refer to the Prologue section for details.

A/N: Again, sorry for the short chapter. I have big ideas for the next one, so this is just a transition of sorts.

PART TWELVE: SPY

Existence was tolerable. If any attempt at living was made, however, Halo reckoned she'd die then and there. Like it mattered. She'd be dead by summer anyway.

Oliver had made no attempt to recover their friendship. He avoided her to no end. A couple of times they caught each other's gaze, and for a fleeting moment it appeared he was about to say something to her, but then he'd look away and walk on. When Snape held him behind while the students gathered their belongings at the end of class one day, the boy was so visibly panicky that she thought he might be sick.

Her marks suffered over the following weeks, particularly in Transfiguration and Arithmancy. Professor McGonagall was met with snide remarks when she approached the girl about her studies, and would have given detention and removed countless House points from Slytherin had she not known the circumstances. The Headmaster had informed his Deputy Headmistress of the Potions Master's decision, and urged her not to make the House suffer for Halo's indifference. It was also suggested that she be civil to her verbally-abusive colleague, but there was no way in this lifetime Minerva McGonagall would be anywhere close to well-mannered to the overgrown bat who was destroying one of the most promising students she'd seen in many years.

Halo was vaguely aware that she was being treated more leniently, and she ran with it. Random acts of retaliation were turning up all over the castle, and Filch was on the warpath. One particular morning it was the broken remains of what had been the gargoyle outside the Headmaster's office.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

"Halo!" came the enraged voice. "Open the door this instant!"

Halo flicked her wand at the door to her room without looking away from the ceiling. Snape barged in and slammed the door behind him with a loud bang.

"If this is about the gargoyle, you're wasting your time. I admit it, I did it. But I'm not fixing it so you can just bite me." Halo's face was completely blank, her stare fixed somewhere on the ceiling.

Snape, whose mouth had opened to castigate her to no end for not showing up for her Siren lessons, for failing two of her classes and for being a general pain in everyone's arse, snapped his jaw shut. He considered her for a moment in disbelief.

"That was you?"

Halo shrugged against the pillows she was resting on. "I suppose had I not said anything, you never would have been the wiser." She sighed. When neither of them had spoken for several moments, she spoke again. "Oliver told me what you wanted him to do."

"I know."

At this declaration, Halo turned to look at him, breaking from her apathetic haze. "How?"

"He informed me that you had divulged some information to him, and that he'd told you about what I asked him to do. I held him after class, as you may have noticed, and he told me that he knew everything. I almost gave the boy Veritaserum to be sure he was telling me the truth." Snape came to rest on the edge of her bed.

"Then I almost Obliviated him… but he gave me his word that he wouldn't say anything."

"He won't say anything."

"Then why are you in here sulking like you've lost your best friend?" he asked in his trademark scathing tone.

Halo looked him in bare astonishment. "Because I have. And it's because of you."

Snape was silent for a long moment. "What do you want me to do…"

"Nothing."

"I'll get you whatever you want…"

"You can't buy my happiness."

"Anything, Halo."

"Stop trying to help the situation! You'll only make it worse! You want to do something for me? Give me back my life!" She flipped over onto her stomach and buried her face angrily into the pillows.

Snape went to lay a hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away from him.

"I'm trying, Halo. I truly am." With those words in the open, he retreated from her room, closing the door with a soft 'click.'

"I want to go home…" Halo's muffled voice cried into the pillows as she longed for the only people who still, she hoped, appreciated her.

Snape was in a truly bewildered and foul mood as he returned to the dungeons. "What has gotten into me?" he chided himself aloud. "That girl inflicts havoc on this school at every turn, and there I was, comforting her! Just look at what a soft old lady I've become! No… I can't get close to her. I won't. I won't!"

There was an audible tap at the window. A very familiar, darkly regal owl let itself in through the portal and dropped a scroll in the Potions Master's hands.

Severus,

How is the search progressing for that renegade Sirius Black? My son informs me that you've been keeping something locked away from us. I would like to formally invite you and your daughter, Halo, to a holiday feast at the manor on Friday, December the twenty-fourth. The usual crowd will be present. As you are welcome to assume, there is much to discuss.

-Lucius

Gods. The silver-haired man had been trying for as long as either of them could remember to scare his fellow Death Eater. The trembling that had commenced on Snape's long fingers indicated that he may have just succeeded. Now how in Hades had he found out about Halo?