"Ah!" Not sure if the syllable had been a short sigh of relief or a protracted squawk of disgust, Sev sank into his seat on the Hogwarts Express. Frank was helping Alice look for some of her friends, and no one else would join him in a compartment. He savored the moment alone, a bittersweet relish.

The last few weeks of summer had been wonderful, far more than he deserved. The Longbottoms filled the gap his family had never occupied very well. Frank had forced him back to life, kicking him onto the quidditch field or into the library during his sullen fits. Alice had, simultaneously, without undoing her boyfriend's work, helped him accept the deaths as part of himself and as reality. He didn't know how they did it. He didn't deserve it. But the wounds were beginning to heal.

"Five knuts says that won't last."

"I never bet against the house."

"You don't have any money, either."

"Neither do you." Asclepius' way of answering when Sev was talking to himself was rather particularly annoying. As he considered what do do about it, the snake crawled onto his shoulders. "Your friends are on the way."

"Is your use of the word 'friends' literal, sarcastic, or ironic?"

"Little of each."

"So…" Although Asclepius was theoretically a bog-standard giant cobra (and school rules about keeping any sort of "dark creature" as a pet dictated he had to be), he generally knew who and what was in the vicinity long before even the most acute reptilian senses could possibly tell him. Minor, contraband clairvoyance was very useful, properly utilized.

"Malfoy and his little friends, Potter and company, and Vicky."

"I feel so wanted." Scratching Asclepius's nose (he was shedding and claimed it itched), Sev waited for the storm to break. A nice healthy row with Potter might be invigorating, and Vicky didn't necessarily portend anything really unpleasant, but anything to do with his blond, perfect, officiously pureblooded cousin sent chills down his spine.

Then again, did it? True, Sev had been perfectly capable of cursing or slugging anyone who bothered him for years (except Potter—it wasn't fair to be that fast), and he'd allowed Lucius Malfoy to order him around anyway. He'd always put it down to an inferiority complex he couldn't do much about. But if he thought about it, he'd just watched most of his family killed. How scary could that little pest really be?

"Well, now abject, pointless, bleak misery has a upside."

"Write a song about it."

"Maybe I will." Sev leaned over to dig through his pockets for a scrap of paper and a pen. This was quite an operation, as his robe at the moment was Julia's old one, tailored very inexpertly by his mother to look a little less like it belonged to a girl, and the pockets were somewhat inaccessible as a result. Before he'd extracted writing materials, the door slid open.

Prepared for any variety of violent encounter (after all, most of the passengers probably qualified as enemies one way or another—it was his cuddly personality), Sev was almost disappointed when he saw who it was. "Wormfodder? What the hell do you want?"

Peter Pettigrew looked exceedingly miffed, and as exceedingly unable to do much about it. "That's 'Wormtail'."

"And ever so much more dignified?"

"Padfoot wants to know—" Pettigrew cut himself off and winced as though a warning stunner had clipped his ear on the way past, probably originating just out of sight to the left. "I mean… Is Sparrowhawk here?"

"Yes. Invisibly." Actually, that wasn't completely impossible, given it was Phoebe they were talking about. Wondering whether he had a death wish or was just bored, Sev cupped his hands over his mouth and called, "Hey! Phebes! Black sent his lapdog to scout you out again! Phoebe? Oh, yeah, that's right, you don't like him." It was somewhat satisfying to have vaguely protected the honor of the woman he loved, but, damn, that hadn't been nearly amusing enough to be worth getting himself cursed.

Steeling himself for any variety of violence, Sev was not disappointed. Black stepped on his little minion in his haste to get into the compartment, his eyes blazing. Potter was probably somewhere behind him, if still out of sight. "I've been wiser, haven't I?"

Deadpan understatement aside, he was fighting down panic. Pettigrew was no threat, and Lupin generally didn't take part in the random abuse, but Potter and Black scared the snot out of him. With Frank around, or, preferably, Phoebe, he wouldn't worry, but two against one, both of the two the equals or betters of the one (depending on the field of play), was odds even his father wouldn't take. He fumbled for his wand, then remembered that, shoul he be caught causing trouble on the train again, he was facing expulsion. Potter wasn't, interestingly enough, despite having instigated most of the trouble.

Black looked too incensed to remember they were both wizards. No causing trouble, and Black had an easy fifty pounds on him. Damn, damn, damn.

"I don't suppose you'd wait while I get a blunt object from my trunk?" Well, it might work. His beater bat was on top of his robes. It would only take a second. Maybe if he didn't fight magically…

"Where's Phoebe?"

Sev had only one option left. Luckily he was good at it. Driving people crazy until help arrived (or, really, just driving people crazy could do it). "You know, Phoebe explained it to me once. You don't actually like her. You just can't stand that there's a girl who couldn't care less if you live or die, when you've spent your life surrounded by fawning ninnies impressed by your face and total, if faked, nonchalance. So, if you think about it, the second Phebes displayed any interest in you, you'd completely lose interest. Therefore, uh, therefore… FRANK! Curse him before he kills me!"

Frank either wasn't fast enough or had the prudence not to mess with a much nastier spellcaster. Sev had just enough time to curse all prudence before Black punched him in he eye. Where were his quidditch reflexes? WHERE?

"…Ow." The wounded eye swelled faster than he normally would have considered possible, and the other saw only painful sunbursts. Nope, couldn't see, definitely a liability. Hoping no authority figures were around, Sev snatched at his wand, hoping Frank would get out of the way quietly. He had nothing to aim at but sound.

Black spat something incoherent, and Sev felt a cut open along his nose. Very close to his other eye, in fact. Either his adversary had picked up something about strategy, or he just thought blind Sev would be funnier than near-sighted. "You are a despicable human being."

Black muttered another curse, and before Sev could try to aim at the voice, his feet went out from under him. Upside down? Again? No imagination. "Did this last year. Frank, where the crap are you?"

"Keeping Potter from helping him. And it bites!"

Sev wanted to thank him, but the blood was rushing to his head something awful. His tongue felt all weird. His tongue also happened to be the least of his worries from the moment Black's fist met his solar plexus.

He was halfway through pitiful gasping when he heard a squawk and hurried footsteps in the hall. His left eye had finally cleared up, so he could immensely enjoy watching James Potter hurtle past the door, looking panicked.

"Detention for you!" In his wake, followed by Frank, strode an extremely short girl with a prefect badge pinned to her headband. She gave Black an excessively dangerous look. "Extensive pain for you."

"Hey, Phoebe." Black proved precisely how delusional he was by accompanying the greeting with a nonchalant toss of his obnoxiously elegant hair and a casual half wave.

Rolling her eyes, Phoebe tossed her hair as well, and hit Black hard across the cheek with the end of her three-foot braid. With a vague twitch of her wand, she dispelled the levitation curse, (probably) inadvertently dropping Sev on his head.

Looking completely bored, she hit Sev with four successive curses too quickly for Sev to catch, and hurled him out into the corridor. "Detention, too, when I get around to it!"

"Isn't that a little harsh?" Asked Alice, closing the door behind her as she entered.

"Frank, was I being harsh?"

"Corrupted by power, definitely. Harsh? Nah."

"Good. Wouldn't want to be harsh." Phoebe stretched luxuriously. "I had to get up so early… Dad doesn't trust Luke and Lowell to get ready. So who has to help him rouse them? Well, Patsy does, actually, but she woke me up out of spite."

Sev had a feeling that hearing Phoebe talk about her family, almost as large as his and with more than a few eerie similarities (her pair of braindead older brothers and annoying little sister were really dead ringers for Mark, Tully, and Diana) should have brought them to mind and forced him back into protracted mourning, but instead he was quite happy watching twinkling of the myriad of little silver bangles tucked in the Gryffindor scarf around her waist. She was describing something about her summer trip to India, which was probably quite fascinating, but he wasn't quite up to listening.

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me. I got presents!" Sev turned his attention to the sparkling black paint on her fingernails as she passed a gilded statuette of something very Indian to Alice and a shirt she'd somehow made George Harrison sign to Frank. Although he certainly appreciated the little details of Phoebe's very odd taste in fashion, he really paid them attention to keep from staring at less innocent features.

"And something really special for you." She rounded on him, grinning broadly. "This took some smuggling, and, uh… Lucky for Dad's diplomatic immunity, huh? Not exactly for you… I got a friend for Asclepius!" Her hand plunged into her robes, and drew out a small, paper orb of white. Her grin widened further at the look on his face. "I'd tuck that in your robes pretty quick. An English summer isn't much like an Indian one."

"Phoebe…" Frank reddened slightly and elbowed Alice meaningfully.

Alice punched him in the shoulder. "Were you keeping that where you all think you were?"

"In my bra? Well, yeah. It was a good fit. I even wore Hibiscus perfume to make it feel at home. Mind you, ninety eight point six degrees is a little cool, but shouldn't have done much damage."

Sev tore his mind forcibly from where it had been heading and managed to be worried instead. "You do realize you might have had a baby… Is that a cobra?" She nodded. "Born with more than enough poison to kill you, scared, disoriented, and perfectly poised to bite you in several places?"

Alice snorted. "Yeah, mostly places that would be hard to explain to a doctor."

"She'd be dead long before a doctor got there."

"Way ahead of all of you." She held up a tiny bottle. "The guy who sold it to me threw in the antivenom free. I tested it, and it's genuine. Besides, by my calculations, our new little friend will be born shortly after the feast tonight, in a fine position to be quietly greeted by Asclepius and Sevvy."

"And if your calculations are wrong?"

"Be interesting, won't it?" Phoebe stretched again. "Well, like I said, I'm underslept. If someone could just kick me when we get there." With another yawn, she turned into a huge black coyote, climbed into the seat next to Sev, put her head in his lap, and immediately fell asleep.

"So, you keeping that eggshell?"

"Shut up, Frank."

"That's a little disturbing, do you know that?"

"Shut up, you."

"I mean, do we tell the poor kid where she spent the first couple weeks of her life, or just not bring it up?"

"Not another comment from you until you give me a good reason for hiding under the seat while I was defying gravity there."

"Last time I bit him I almost ended up executed."

"Oh, yeah, forgot about that." He'd gotten Asclepius off on the technicality that, strictly speaking, the snake wasn't a magical creature, and therefore out of the Ministry's jurisdiction.

Alice kicked him. "Stop talking to the snake, Sev. It's creepy."

"I'm creepy."

"He's got you there."