Please review! How else will I know if it's being read? I hope you like it… Also, I wrote this before HBP came out. There's a sequel that's post-HBP, so I might put that up later. Anyway, yeah, this is before Harry's sixth year.

Chapter One: In Which a Painful Bruise is Acquired

Celaene Sinistra was not what could be considered "social". She was more likely to be found alone than with her friends, on top of her tower rather than in the Great Hall, and in her rooms rather than at meals. At least, that was how it was during the school year. She didn't like her students. They were loud, gregarious, and disrespectful and she'd much rather sit with her telescope and a cup of tea, marking Venus's progress across the sky.

But during the summer, when it stayed warm so late at night and there was time for more careful study, she was more like her coworkers. She'd spend an hour or two in the staffroom with Minerva McGonagall and Eleanor Gimple, the Muggle Studies professor, and simply talk to them—something, she had to admit, she didn't do often enough.

The other teachers were not of much interest to her. Dumbledore was a good employer and an interesting fellow, but she didn't know him well—she doubted anyone did, really. Filius Flitwick was good for a joke occasionally, and Severus Snape… perhaps he was a bit too interesting for her. When he had first come to the school, newly freed from his lifetime imprisonment in Azkaban, well… he had been enough to give her strange dreams for two weeks—and not unpleasant ones. But no one was to know that but her cat, Sylvia (who was sworn to secrecy).

It was on such an unusual night that she was awoken by a persistent growl in her stomach and couldn't get rid of it. Admitting defeat, she pulled a thin black robe over her dark blue nightdress and snuck off to see if the house elves had any left-over dinner that they could spare. Her wand—a pretty Italian work of ivory and phoenix feather—lit and held in front of her, she slipped down the hallway and down two uneventful flights of stairs. It had been a miracle she hadn't tripped over Sylvia. That cat was smarter than she looked, and smarter than she generally acted. She made soft kissing noises to the silvery grey animal. "Come on, Sylvia, let's go to the kitchens," Celaene whispered. Sylvia followed her silently, like a pale shadow in the dark.

Hogwarts was intimidating in the dark. She'd found that out when she'd been in her third year and snuck off to the very tower in which she now resided. She'd gotten lost quickly and had had to spend the night behind a suit of armor, hoping Filch wouldn't find her. It had been the oldest of her six sisters, Asterope, who had finally found her and led her back to her Ravenclaw dormitory, all the while telling her that if she kept wandering off like that, she'd write to their parents, Atlas and Pleione, and tell them. The threat had only kept her in her dormitory for a few days, though, before the temptation of a nighttime eclipse drew her back to places she really shouldn't be.

Celaene was thinking along such lines when she was suddenly knocked off her feet and sent flying down the flight of stairs she'd just climbed. "Shit," she hissed up the stairs. "Why don't you watch where you're going?"

"I could ask the same of you," replied the deep, silky baritone. "What are you doing out this late, Sinistra?"

"It's none of your business, Snape," she muttered, rubbing her forehead. She was glad it was dark and he couldn't see the pinkish blush that had spread across her cheeks. Why him? Celaene asked desperately. It's got to be the one I dream about, doesn't it?

"No, I suppose it's not," he said, walking smoothly down the stairs, like a shadow. "Although I'd be more careful, if I were you. You wouldn't want to bump into anything. You might hurt yourself," he added, with the slightest trace of a laugh in his voice.

"Fuck you, Snape," she said bluntly.

"No, I'd rather not," he replied quietly, and stalked off into the night. She waited until she was quite sure he was gone, then murmured to her cat, "Sylvia, you'll have to help me kill him one day."

"That accursed cat? I doubt it," came the reply from the uncomfortably familiar silky drawl.

"Aren't you gone yet?" Celaene snapped angrily.

"Apparently not."

She bit her lip to stop herself from shouting at him and lit her wand again. She was in the Entrance Hall and he was just about to enter the dungeons. The conjured light drew attention to his clear snow-white skin that contrasted sharply with the raven-black hair that hung loosely to his shoulders. The tall, thin man smiled sardonically at her and waved. Celaene whipped around and stalked back up the stairs, wondering which curse she should have used. She rubbed her head again, feeling the tender spot that was almost certainly a heavy bruise.