The cauldron simmered, thick and brown, a bubble rising to the surface only to break and be replaced by another.

Snape stood poised, a pinch of powdered bloodroot held between waiting fingers over the surface of the potion.

Familiar, this potion, but difficult. It had taken him months to perfect. There were still advances that could be made, but he had been restricted in Ireland.

As he watched, the bubbles began to thicken. The steam went a shade darker.

Snape stood absolutely still. There wasn't a shift of foot nor hand, not a rustle of sleeve. His breathing was steady and even. A good deal of it was simply concentration; a lot of it was paranoia. The air around him was as still as he was - the thick slurp of the potion was the only sound, and he would have detected even the lightest footstep.

Then, there, right on time, a bubble sank back into the surface without popping.

A glimmer of satisfaction went through him as he watched his fingers open and the bloodroot powder fall to the surface. Where it hit the potion immediately turned slate gray.

He lifted his ladle and stirred clockwise through the potion, slow and evenly paced. Almost done, and right on schedule.

Once, twice, again and again he stirred. Methodical, like everything he did. Predictable, as so little in his life was.

And useful. Valuable. Most of his potions were, of course. That was one advantage to not teaching. He no longer had to put up with making a dozen headache draughts or acne remedies for Pomfrey, or teach some dunderheaded room full of students how to properly stir a cauldron.

This was an art, not a school subject. It was an act of creation, of making something wholly extraordinary out of the most ordinary ingredients. None of those brats had ever understood. They were so excited about charms and transfigurations, not understanding that everything that could be done with a wand and a clumsy hand gesture or word could be done with a drop of draught. Levitations, transfigurations, everything children found so amazing, all could be performed with a cauldron and some ingredients, if the correct science was applied and the proper technique was followed.

Those damned irritating Weasley twins had come closer to understanding than most. They had formulated temporary transfiguration potions and found ways to insert them into candies for their absurd joke shoppe. Canary cremes. Ingenius, actually. Snape would never admit it but he had confiscated more than one and studied it to formulate which route the twins had stumbled across to make it possible.

Had they applied themselves they could have been brilliant. But they were happier left to their jokes and their pranks. Potential unrealized.

The potion burbled under his watchful gaze. He sighed and sat back, letting his dipper rest against the side of the cauldron. It would need to be left now, twenty minutes on the dot, and then it would be ready.

He dragged his eyes from the brew and gazed around his laboratory with speculative eyes. Things were back to how he had left them - it hadn't taken him long. He had an exact memory for how the room had been laid out, and had been motivated to correct it quickly.

His arm gave a twinge. He rubbed absently and ignored it. A common complaint now, and one that was dulled under such a strong draught that it was nothing but numbness.

Seamus was right when he said that Snape wouldn't be happy until he was done with it. The only way to free himself was to see the Dark Lord destroyed, and so he was in a sense glad to have remained. They would need him in the end, though none of them realized it yet.

Potter had already gone to the Ministry, so the revelation would come soon enough.

He wondered how much Albus knew. There was no way of knowing, but surely he was smart enough to realize that i avada kedavra /i would be completely useless. From the wand of Potter it would simply hurt them both, and from anyone else it would backfire entirely.

He rose from his stool as his arm gave a deeper twinge,and only had time to grimace before that twinge became a roar, a fire the likes he hadn't felt before, not even before he found the potion that would cancel the pain. His knees buckled, his mouth opened in a scream, and the world went green before going black.

Harry was aware of a few random flashes.

Pomfrey, effecient as always, staring down at him. Albus now and then, grave but not fearful.

Ron and Hermione came and went. Remus sat there most of the time, hovering over shoulders and sitting in the distance.

He wasn't sure what happened. He remembered green, and he remembered some man lecturing him about doing something with his life.

He didn't try too hard to remember, though. He was more than satisfied to float in blackness and look up now and then at familiar faces.

Percy Weasley came at one point, then left. Seamus.

But the fuzziness he was content to float in faded in time.

Albus's voice, calm and low, was the first thing he was truly conscious of. "But I think we should wait to discuss it so that everyone might hear, Harry included."

"Then Severus was right." That was Remus.

"Yes, though I had hoped not."

"'s everybody okay?" Harry frowned at the slurred sound of his voice and cleared his throat.

The faces that had popped into his vision one at a time swarmed around him now in a great hulk.

"How're you feeling, Harry?"

Harry grimaced at Remus. "Heavy."

Remus frowned.

Harry tried to raise an arm, but it felt like it weighed ten times more than usual, and his muscles just weren't up for the challenge.

Remus's eyes went to Albus.

"It will pass. Poppy has given you something to relax you. Now that you're awake it will diminish quickly."

"What happened?" That was Ron, eyes narrow in concern.

Harry shook his head. His memory was returning as slowly as his ability to move. "Everyone alright?" he asked again.

Remus and Ron exchanged looks.

"What?"

"Severus is hurt," Remus responded.

Ron snorted.

"What?" Snape hadn't even been there, and his health was pretty low on Harry's list of current concerns.

He sat up slowly and with help from Remus. His memory had filtered back, and he turned dark eyes to Albus. "I suppose I failed, then."

"No, my boy. It was us who failed you. I knew better than to think that achieving Lord Voldemort's death would be so easy, but I was as hopeful as the rest of the wizarding world."

Harry sagged. "So what now?Are they done with me?"

"No. I'm afraid you've got a ways to go yet."

"But it didn't work. I can't kill him." Harry's protest was token, and it came out as half-hearted as it felt. He knew before he said it that it wasn't good enough to save him.

"Not the way you attempted to today."

Harry's lips thinned and he looked around at his visitors. Ron and Hermione, Remus and Albus. His family.

On a bed on the other side of the wing, a few rows down, lay a person. Harry could guess who it was even without Seamus sitting there. "What's wrong with him, then?"

"A situation we didn't expect," Remus said. "The Ministry and guards at Azkaban confirmed it: every Death Eater we have in custody collapsed at the exact moment you cursed Voldemort."

Harry frowned. "Why?"

Albus answered. "A symptom of the Dark Mark, it can be assumed. There is a great deal we don't understand about the Mark and how it connects Voldemort to his foot soldiers, but this hints at a deeper connection than we believed. "

"We'll sort it out, Harry." Hermione touched his arm in some sort of comfort. "Just rest."

Snape opened fuzzy eyes and immediately groped for his wand. He wasn't in his bed, which was all the confirmation he needed that something was wrong. His limbs felt heavy but he could tell his wand wasn't there.

He forced his eyes open further and commanded his vision to clear.

"Severus."

A voice, light and flavored with an Irish accent.

He relaxed, squinting to find Seamus.

"It's alright. You're safe enough."

"Happened?"

"We don't know yet. I found you in your lab." There was a slight waver. A gentle grip appeared on Snape's forearm. "Your potion scalded."

He could pick Seamus from the drapes now, and swallowed when he saw how pale the boy was. He moved to sit up, ignoring the screaming protest of his aching body. "Pomfrey doesn't mean to keep me here, surely."

Seamus relaxed, but his brow stayed furrowed. "It's something to do with Harry and You Know Who," he said, leaning in and glancing beyond Snape. "They brought Harry back hours ago. They tried to summon you, and when I went to see why you hadn't come..."

Snape couldn't detect anyone else nearby. Surely Potter and the others were there somewhere, if his guess about today was right. But they weren't interested in Snape, which was enough to make him relax.

"It's nothing serious. I imagine I simply passed out." He had no idea, of course. Worse, he had a guess that was more serious than he let on.

But it was worth the lie to see Seamus smile again. "Do you remember anything?"

"No," he replied, sitting himself up further. He ached as if he had overworked every last muscle in his body for hours longer than he could tolerate. His chest screamed as he straightened.

He glanced over to where Seamus had looked before. Potter sat in a bed, surrounded by his adoring fans.

Seamus took his hand, lacing fingers in with his. Snape could feel a tremble in his hand. "I'll thank you not to do that again. Ever."

No one was paying them the slightest bit of attention, so Snape reached out and touched a pale cheek. "Relax. That was your potion I scalded. You need to take it easy until I can make another."

Seamus smiled, and spots of color reappeared in his cheeks. "I'd feel better if I could crawl into this bed with you." He sighed. "Do you feel alright, at least?"

"Tired," Snape admitted, and that was as close to the truth as he would come. "I need to talk to Albus. Now that they've failed they'll be plotting again. As incorrectly as they did this time."

"He's busy with Harry. Just rest for a while." Seamus shifted to stand. "I'll let them know you're awake."

"No. Sod them. I can talk to him later." Snape's hand came down to grip Seamus's arm.

Seamus settled back down. "Right then. I'll just keep you company here until you've got the strength to tell me to take my silly stories elsewhere." He grinned. "Do you know, today when I was walking around the castle I found some initials Dean and I had carved into the stone in a corridor our first year here.We were hopelessly lost and telling ourselves the search parties needed a way to find us. Our little initials and an arrow pointing left."

Snape sat back against the wall, shoulders slumping as the boy jabbered on. Something like a smile crossed his face.