Lily Evans rolled over, sighed, and sat up very slowly.

Dizzy, she blinked a few times, and then looked around the infirmary to see if any of her classmates were still there.

She had a vague recollection of seeing five of her Gryffindor classmates here in the Hospital Wing, they – like she – having had wood splinters removed via Nurse Pomfrey's tedious, painful, yet thorough process. She seemed to remember Sirius Black whining about it, particularly because the wooden shrapnel had mostly affected his rear end.

Was that Nurse Pomfrey over there?

"Where is everyone?" Lily said in a slightly hoarse voice. Yes, she now remembered. She had been screaming at one point.

"Discharged, Miss Evans," Pomfrey returned smartly. "Discharged. As you will be in a few moments."

"Why am I the only one here?"

Nurse Pomfrey paused for a moment in her whirl of task-accomplishment. "Because you – unlike the others who sat around you – were particularly distraught about what happened to your friend. Am I correct in assuming Severus Snape is still your friend?"

Lily felt slightly offended by this question, but knew the efficient and occasionally tactless healer well enough to let it go. "Of course he's still my friend. What happened wasn't his fault."

"I gave you a sleeping potion to help settle you down."

"Severus. What happened to him?" Tears started to cloud Lily's vision.

Pomfrey lay her tray down with a sudden clang. "The Minister of Magic and his Aurors came and fetched the boy a few hours ago. He was shrieking and crying for the Headmaster, calling him 'father' instead of that monster who truly holds the title. The whole scene sent chills down my spine, I can tell you. Why they couldn't have let that child stay here for interrogation is beyond my comprehension."

"Interrogation? Help me up!"

"Wait a moment for your head to stop swimming, girl. I know what the aftereffects of my potions are!"

"Oh – all right, then. Sev didn't mean to do that," Lily sighed, turning so that her legs dangled over the side of the bed. "He just got – scared."

"I agree, Miss Evans. The question remains, however – where did he learn to summon demons the way he did? It's certainly not in Hogwarts' curriculum. That rotter of a father is behind it all, unless I'm sorely mistaken. Now, let me help you sit up. There's a girl." Pomfrey gave an odd half-smile as she offered Lily her arm. "I don't suppose you're going to figure out a way to help your friend."

"If you suppose that, you'd have supposed wrong. Now, where can I get out of these ridiculous cowboy pajamas?"

----------------

Cornelius Fudge and his Aurors had transported young Severus Snape to Ministry Headquarters first by horseless carriage, and then by floo. The boy had been allowed to use the facilities and then had been taken and left alone in a rather bare room that some – with more macabre and less trusting views of the world – might have called an interrogation chamber.

He sat very still in his seat; he wasn't really there, after all. Disassociating was easy when you grew up as a battered child. In the midst of the worst of his father's tortures, Severus could will his spirit away for a little vacation – to a place where he could go swimming, perhaps, or read, or do anything other than endure more abuse. This little mental trick had saved his precious sanity. His father had been unable to crack his head open and stop him from it, at any rate.

Right now, an onlooker would see a motionless and absolutely silent fifteen- year-old boy sitting in a ladderbacked chair, wearing a dirty and crumpled school gown and a pair of broken-down black shoes. Someone with more imagination – and with kindness in his or her heart, perhaps – would sense that this particular child was off climbing a tree on his parents' property, eating one apple after another.

Too many apples had always upset Severus' delicate digestion, but you didn't have to trouble your head with such things when the apples were only imaginary.

The door slammed open and Severus nearly jumped out of his skin, as he always did when anyone made a sudden move or a loud noise. Looking up, his worst fears were realized.

"I daresay I'll be able to speak with my son in private?" commanded Maledictis Snape, shoving his travel cloak into the arms of the Ministry employee who had shown him up.

"Absolutely, sir," the woman replied. "I'm sure that the Minister will be happy to sit down and speak with the two of you soon. I expect him shortly."

Snape Senior growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, then waited until the door closed – softly, this time – behind him. He then pinned his only child with his merciless gaze.

"What in the hell did you mean by it, Severus?" he said in his most intimidating tone.

"It just – happened, Father. I'm sorry."

"Sorry is what you are, boy. Sorry indeed. Just look what you've put us through! First, I find out that someone shucked you out of your underwear and put you on damned public display – how they could have separated you from your wand, I'm sure I can't understand – and then I'm told that you ran off into the Forbidden Forest. You know what's in those woods, boy! How dare you imply to anyone that you'd want to meet your end at your age!"

"I see, Father. 'There's nothing wrong here, but don't tell anyone' –," Severus replied, knowing it was a mistake but being unable to help himself.

His father's response to that little remark was a slap across the face. This knocked him off the chair and onto the floor.

"Get up, you," Maledictis Snape snarled, scruffing the boy and sitting him back in the chair like a spiteful little girl replacing a doll in its chair at a tea party. "Do you have another smart remark for me?"

Without looking up, Severus shook his head.

"The Headmaster – the HEADMASTER, Severus – had to rescue you! I've never been so hideously embarrassed in my life. What did you mean by it, boy?"

"I don't know, Father," Severus sighed. He refused to look at the man, and he refused to cry for him. His father enjoyed his tears, after all.

"Well, we'll take care of that. Indeed we will, boy. You're transferring to Durmstrang for the fall term. I'll see to it personally."

This was too much for Severus. As unhappy as he was at Hogwarts, he instinctively knew he would be even more so at Durmstrang. He wouldn't see Lily there. He wouldn't see Albus Dumbledore, either.

"No, Father. Please!"

"You've given me no choice, boy, after this last embarrassment. Conjuring up Belial? In the Great Hall? You have lost your mind after all!" The man suddenly darted across the room, seizing his son by the throat. "Dammit all, you listen to me. You listen to me well. I am not about to sit by and let you accuse us of teaching you the Dark arts. I want no Ministry inquiries, and neither does the Dark Lord. You are jeopardizing everything I've built for the last ten years, and I won't have it. I simply won't have it."

Severus desperately tried to unpry his father's fingers from his neck. He heard a buzzing in his ears, and the room was starting to go black around the edges of his vision. "Fa – ther – stop – "the child gasped.

"Keep your damned mouth shut about it, is all I'm telling you. I don't care where you tell them you learned how to do it. Tell them you broke into the Restricted Section of the school library and read up on it. If you say one word that in any way implicates our family, then I swear that I will kill you, Severus."

The boy moaned, and looked about wildly.

"I will cut your throat myself. Do you understand?"

Finally crying, Severus nodded weakly.

"ANSWER ME!" Snape growled, cuffing him across the face once again. This time, Severus was ready. He had held onto the chair hard enough so that he wasn't knocked to the floor.

"I understand, Father."

"Swear on your mother's life, boy!"

He looked up, his dark eyes huge with pain and swimming with tears. "Mother?"

"SWEAR ON IT."

Dropping his head, Severus nodded. "I swear on Mother's life," he whispered through his hurt throat. He desperately fought the panic that would have allowed him just to start screaming and never, ever stop. That such an oath was also an implied threat on his mother's life was crystal clear.

"Wipe your damned nose. You make me sick. Here," Maledictis Snape chided, throwing a pocket handkerchief at his son. He turned suddenly, hearing someone outside the door.

"Good day to you, Mr. Snape and Severus," said Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic.