CitrusPeach, Ireland is not a part of Britain! I live in The Republic Of Ireland which is a totally separate independent country. I don't have a clue what Ramen is. All I can think of is a computer animated character who's limbs aren't attached to his body! I'm guessing he's not food though :) I had a slice of starfruit on Friday! It tasted interesting.

August 1st.

Hogwarts.

Here again.

'What's wrong with you? It's not like you've any reason to care about the mutt.'

So why did he keep finding himself here?

'It's not like I'm his friend.'

True, Sirus had never after their fifth year participated in the bullying.

'No. He just sat back and watched like the werewolf.'

It was half two in the morning. Any sane person would be asleep.

'What am I doing here?'

This was a waste of time. He was accomplishing nothing. There had to be something useful he could do. Perhaps revising his lesson plans for the next year.

'Yes,' he thought sarcastically, 'the students would be sure to appreciate that.'

He watched the translucent form of the bloody baron float down one of the many staircases and pass through a wall, disappearing from sight.

'This is stupidity.' He turned in the direction of the dungeons. He'd gone two meters when the screaming started.

Pain. Pain was everywhere, comprising everything in his world. It shot through his limbs and burned in his blood. The chains pulled at his wrists as he struggled uselessly to escape the agony. And all the time he could feel them moving through his memories, like cold dead fingers prodding his brain, tearing away all that was good and happy, so that only pain and darkness remained. His mother's grinning face as the pain flew from her wand. Deatheaters entering a cold room that smelt of fear. His friends, dead, the dark mark hovering over their destroyed home. Laughing when the aurors came to get him. Confusion. Terror. Guilt. Despair.

And above it all the pain. The unbearable, unimaginable pain that he'd first felt as a child. Second stretching to eternities.

"Black! Wake up!" Long boney fingers gripped his shoulders. "Stop screaming! It's just a memory!"

His eyes shot open, staring straight upwards with the intensity of two laser beams. He took several shuddering breaths. Slowly he seemed to become aware of where he was.

"Serverus?" Confused. "You look old."

"So do you Black." Suddenly he felt exhausted. He sat down on a nearby bed, practically folding in on himself.

"How long was I... there?"

"Fifteen years, nearly sixteen."

A stunned expression crossed his face. That was almost half his life.

"Thanks. Poppy wouldn't tell me." A long pause. "Harry?"

"The brat is fine."

A small smile of relief.

A long silence.

Snape didn't get up.