A/N: As I have no other way to reply to reviews from non-members, I'd like to take a moment to thank James Birdsong for his two reviews - I'm glad you like the story so far! And also Guest - what a lovely review, thank you so much! You understand exactly what the story is about and as I have already finished it, you don't have to worry about me not continuing to update :)
As Dumbledore had predicted, and as his Dark Mark had been telling him all year, at the end of the Triwizard Tournament the Dark Lord did, indeed, come back. That meant returning to his spying duties and, as a result, not being available every evening to assist Miss Lovegood should she seek him out. She took the news in her stride, however, not even asking him about the reason for his expected absences and therefore not forcing him to feed her a false story, for which he was extremely grateful. He did hate having to lie to her, and as such avoided it as much as he was able. He really could not afford to risk doing anything to lose her, as now that he had taken on the taxing task of pretending to work for the Dark Lord while doing his best to bring him down through the Order of the Phoenix, he found himself craving her company more than ever. They were his moments of respite, moments when he could pretend there was no Dark Lord and all that he represented. To focus his energy on the mundane task of searching for a lost piece of clothing or a book, as if nothing else in the world mattered, was a luxury indeed. It did, however, bring a dilemma as well. While he still wanted to catch the thief, he also knew that once he did, he would no longer have an excuse to meet Miss Lovegood. He could not quite imagine inviting her to his office for tea; what if someone saw her? With Potter and his Occlumency lessons it was easy; his Potions results were so bad that claiming he was taking remedial Potions looked like an utterly valid pretext, but Miss Lovegood was several leagues above him, to say the least. Worse still, what if she refused his invitation? How would he feel then? He did not even try to picture the humiliation. It was true she had called him a friend, but he had also noticed that this new school year, for the first time, she seemed to be spending time with other students as well. She never mentioned it, however, and he never asked; after all, he had his secrets too, so who was he to pry? Still, it was more than likely that a day would come when she chose to remove him from her life in favour of her new friends, and could he blame her? It was only natural for a girl her age to want to enjoy the company of her peers instead of wasting time with a man twice as old as she was.
With all this plaguing his mind, he could see only one solution. It was shameful and selfish, and he felt disgusted with himself for even considering it, but if he wanted to postpone the moment of Miss Lovegood casting him aside, it had to be done. From now on, whenever she asked him for help, he would only pretend to search for clues; that way, he would never find out who the thief was, but it was something he was willing to sacrifice if it bought him more precious time with the girl. It would not even look suspicious, either, for if he had not been able to make any progress until now, there was no reason why this year should be any different.
What he did not count on, however, was that the coward hiding Miss Lovegood's things would choose this very year to become more daring and cunning than ever before. Not only did they start taking many more things at the same time, instead of just one or two as had been their custom, but they also ceased using their old hiding places in favour of new, deviously devised ones, thus making it nigh impossible for him and Miss Lovegood to find all the objects that had been stolen before new ones disappeared. And so it happened that towards the end of the school year Miss Lovegood was already missing almost half of her books and even more of her clothes, causing her to sleep in her school robes (they had failed to locate any of her lost pyjamas) and her grades to plummet (she stubbornly refused to confide in the other teachers, claiming that surely the last thing they wanted was to be bothered with something so insignificant).
That was when he knew his little game had to end. He could no longer stand by and watch Miss Lovegood being punished because of his selfishness. He cared for her too much for that; more, it seemed, than even for his own well-being.
Thus, he came up with a plan. It cost him endless self-persuasion and an immense amount of willpower, and his heart was heavy with dread and grief when he thought of the possible consequences, but if it helped to recover Miss Lovegood's belongings, he would try to find solace in her happiness, even if it caused him to lose his.
The plan was so simple it amazed him he had not thought of it before. Perhaps his subconscious had known, long before his mind had registered it, that he had never really wanted to catch the thief, and therefore had not bothered to invest his full intelligence into the matter. Or, perhaps, he had simply not been under enough pressure, which was when his brain worked best. Whatever the reason, now the plan was finally hatched, and he was only waiting for Miss Lovegood to contact him again so he could let her in on it.
Unfortunately, the current school year seemed to be rather unlucky as far as his plans were concerned. Out of the blue, Draco Malfoy appeared at his door with a message from Umbridge, who was asking him to come up and see her, and the events that followed pushed all thoughts of any schemes he might have devised right out of his mind. He did not know what to expect as he entered Umbridge's office, but what he saw made his blood freeze. First of all he noticed Potter, nose to nose with Umbridge who seemed to be interrogating him, which did not surprise him in the least as he assumed the boy had been up to mischief again. When he looked around, however, he also found the office crammed with several Slytherins, each pinning down a gagged student: there were two Weasleys, Longbottom, the Granger girl, and, to his horror, also Miss Lovegood, who caught his eye for a moment before turning to continue gazing out of the window, as if nothing that was happening in the room concerned her. He felt like hexing her captor to eternity, for he could see him twisting Miss Lovegood's wrist in a way that was undoubtedly painful, but as he would hardly get away with that, he settled for at least a wordless Confundus Charm that made the brute loosen his grip a little. Only then did he turn his attention to Umbridge, who had, meanwhile, stood up to face him. It turned out the old hag merely wanted another bottle of Veritaserum to question Potter, and although he still had several bottles left, he told her he had run out just to spite her. Not to mention that he had been instructed by Dumbledore that the less she knew anything concerning Potter, the better. Finding perverse satisfaction in her helplessness, he finally gave her an ironic bow, asked Crabbe to stop strangling Longbottom, as he did not like the colour the boy was turning (having invested so much energy in improving his Potions results, he naturally did not want to see it go to waste), and then left her office to contact Black, as the Dark Lord seemed to have deluded Potter into thinking he had him trapped in the Department of Mysteries. As he had expected, however, he found Black safe and sound at Grimmauld Place, which left him free to rush back to the corridor leading to Umbridge's office; he had to make sure Miss Lovegood was all right. He could not imagine how she had found herself in such a mess, and he intended to ask her at the first opportunity that presented itself.
Lurking behind the door, he heard Miss Granger promising to lead Umbridge to a weapon of some kind (being a skilled liar himself, he could not help but appreciate the obvious improvisation), while the Headmistress ordered the rest of the students, minus Potter, who was to accompany her and Miss Granger, to stay in her office until she returned. Relatively certain Miss Lovegood was in no immediate danger for the time being (the Confundus Charm should hold for a while), he hid out of sight, waiting for the trio headed by Miss Granger to leave the office, then set off after them. Dumbledore would want to be informed about where they had gone.
Following the group down to the Entrance Hall, he wondered what the Granger girl was up to, whether she really had a plan or was merely making it up as she went. When she and the other two disappeared into the Forbidden Forest, however, it suddenly dawned on him how she hoped to get rid of Umbridge. The Senior Undersecretary's views on half-breeds were well known, so unless Miss Granger wanted to bring her to the Acromantulas' lair, which would be downright suicidal, the only other creatures living in the Forest that could possibly help her were centaurs.
Seeing no point in interfering, for even he was not cocky enough to believe he could take on a herd of enraged centaurs single-handed, he preferred to move to one of the upstairs windows to have a clear view of the Forest from above, thus ensuring he did not miss anyone leaving it. When almost an hour had passed, however, and nobody had appeared, he started to grow worried. Obviously, something had not gone according to plan, otherwise Potter and Granger, if not Umbridge, would have been back by now. Or had they succeeded in shaking the Headmistress off and were now already on their way to the Ministry to save Black from non-existent danger? But how? Neither of them knew how to Apparate, and the last time he looked, Potter's broomstick was still securely chained to a wall in Umbridge's office. As far as he could see, that left them with no other options, but he would alert the Order all the same. He was sure Dumbledore would know what to do.
He did as he had said, and was just on his way to the Forest to search it in case the missing students were still there when he spotted the captives from Umbridge's office apparently heading in the same direction. Chattering animatedly amongst themselves, they did not notice him, and so he quickly hid behind a boulder to wait for them to pass. Thrilled as he was to see Miss Lovegood safe and unscathed (though it was completely beyond him how she had managed to get away), he did not like where she was going at all. Nor the company she was keeping, for that matter. In Umbridge's office he still believed she may have been brought there for a different reason than the others, as the Headmistress was in the habit of punishing anyone for anything these days, but now it was clear she was in league with the lot of them, which inevitably meant she had got herself involved with Potter as well. And that, from his experience, could lead to nothing but trouble.
Therefore, he quietly trailed behind them as they disappeared into the Forest, and, sure enough, it was not long before the group ran into Potter and Granger, who were returning, Umbridgeless, from the opposite direction. If nothing else, he had just saved himself a long search. Then, however, Weasley launched into an excited description of how he and the others had got away from Umbridge's office, and he could only listen in silent amazement to the spells they had been able to produce. That the Weasley girl was becoming quite a formidable opponent was no news to him, having put her in detention himself several times for hexing his Slytherins in the corridors, but that Longbottom had been able to bring off an Impediment Jinx was a surprise indeed. And Stunning Spells? He guessed Potter had really managed to teach his schoolmates something worthwhile in the secret organisation Dumbledore had mentioned after he had been forced to leave the school, but as he had been very vague on the details, it had never occurred to him Miss Lovegood had been a member, too. Well, at least now he knew what she had been up to with the new friends he had seen her with. Nevertheless, while he could not deny that in these dark times learning how to take care of oneself was undoubtedly useful, the fact that she was now offering to accompany Potter to the Ministry to search for Black made him want to rush out there and drag her back to the castle, to safety. What on earth was she thinking? That it was all just a game? Mere practice of what she had learned in Potter's little club? Did she not understand that if the Death Eaters turned up at the Ministry, as they were bound to do, they would not be using Bat Bogey Hexes and the like, that they would be aiming to kill?
Unfortunately, as he could do none of the things his irrational side was urging him to do, he only watched in frustration as all six students, including Miss Lovegood, eventually mounted Thestrals and then soared up into the sky. Not knowing how else to make himself useful, he left the Forest to inform the Order again about the latest development, before heading off to his office to wait it out, hoping against hope that Moody and his team would manage to protect the reckless students, and Miss Lovegood especially, from all harm. He felt like he had gone back in time and it was Lily all over again; there, too, he could only wait helplessly until somebody else acted on the information he had given them, going sick with worry until that fateful night when Dumbledore broke it to him that the Dark Lord had, despite all precautions, gained entry into the Potters' house and killed the whole family but the baby, not sparing Lily as he, Snape, had requested him to, simply because the girl had refused to step aside. The grief he had felt then was indescribable, it was as if somebody was tearing his heart out, and he had welcomed the pain, knowing he deserved it, as it was no one's fault but his that Lily was dead. And at first all he wanted was to join her, for he had nothing more to live for, but if he had been hoping the pain would take care of that, he was sorely mistaken; he simply continued to hurt, to the point of insanity, yet he was still alive. Consequently, if he was not meant to die, he took Dumbledore's advice and dedicated his life to protecting Lily's son and fighting to bring down the monster that had murdered her, but it was a life of misery, with little to bring him joy. True, the pain had dulled over time, so that sometimes he barely felt it, but there were moments when it hurt almost as much as if Lily had died on that very night. It was only when Miss Lovegood turned up and, so inconspicuously he had not noticed until it was too late, broke through the defences he had so painstakingly put up, that he finally felt some of the pain ebbing away for good. Now, however, it looked as though it had all happened only for the old pain to be replaced by a new, fresh one. Would there be no end to his suffering? Had he not been punished enough? Would every single thing that made his life at least a little more bearable eventually be taken away from him?
Oscillating between depression and terror at what news the night would bring, his heart almost stopped when, a few hours later, there finally came a knock on his door and, upon his faint 'Enter', Lupin walked into the room. His expression was so sombre Snape fought down the urge to be sick as his fear intensified tenfold.
"What happened?" he choked out, rising from his desk to help Lupin sit; the man looked like his legs were about to give way under him.
Lupin threw him a tortured look, taking several deep breaths before he answered. "Sirius is ... is dead," he managed at last, his eyes filling with tears.
"Oh. I am sorry to hear that." He could not say he was, not with the history he and Black shared, but it would have been unkind to say so, even to Lupin. Black had, after all, been his best friend. Shocking as the news was, however, what he really cared about were the students. "And the others? Potter? Weasley?" he demanded. He deliberately left out Miss Lovegood's name.
"They will be all right," said Lupin thickly. "Some are in the hospital wing, but nobody's seriously hurt."
The relief that washed over him at Lupin's words made him almost giddy. He had half a heart to run to the hospital wing straight away, to make absolutely sure that what Lupin was saying was true, but he managed to restrain himself. Instead, he gave Lupin a concoction to calm down so that he would not Splinch himself while Apparating back to Headquarters, and only visited the hospital wing later that night on the pretext of delivering a fresh stock of potions to Madam Pomfrey. To his dismay, however, Miss Lovegood was nowhere to be seen. He knew he should have been happy, for it obviously meant she had not been injured at all, but he would still have preferred to see her with his own eyes. As it was, he had to wait until breakfast the next day to finally glimpse her blonde head among the other Ravenclaws sitting at her house table, and it was only then that he truly allowed himself to relax.
Nevertheless, that did not mean he let the matter rest. He needed to give Miss Lovegood a serious talking-to about her irresponsible behaviour, as there was no way he would let her become exposed to such danger again. He could not bear the thought of spending another night going mad with anxiety.
He seized his opportunity a few days later after Potions, asking her to stay behind as she was packing her things. As soon as the last student was gone, he did not waste time beating around the bush.
"What on earth were you thinking, flying off to the Ministry the other night?" he went off on her, leaving his desk to tower over her. "Did you not stop to consider the danger you were putting yourself in? What did you hope to achieve, a bunch of underage wizards against the Dark Lord's deadliest servants? I dare not even imagine what would have happened had the Order not found you in time!"
"We just wanted to help Mr. Black," shrugged Miss Lovegood, obviously unphased by his tirade.
"Who, incidentally, did not need helping," said Snape bitingly. "He would never have left the house had he not heard of your imbecilic adventure. Had Potter not wanted to play hero, as is his habit, Black would still be alive."
"Yes, it's a sad thing the Death Eaters killed him. I feel sorry for Harry. I heard Mr. Black was his godfather."
"Well, it is no one's fault but his that his godfather is dead," said Snape stubbornly. Being able to see through people like she did, how come she could not see through Potter, of all people? Why did everyone always treat the boy as if he were a victim, instead of admitting he was the one to blame?
Infuriatingly, Miss Lovegood was looking at him as if he was talking nonsense. "How can it be?" she asked. "Harry even used Professor Umbridge's fireplace to check Mr. Black wasn't at home, and when the elf told him he'd gone to the Department of Mysteries, we all went to London to help him."
"The elf was obviously lying."
"He was, but how could we have known?"
Grudgingly, Snape gave up. He wished he could tell her that if Potter had not been lazy to learn Occlumency, the Dark Lord would not have been able to plant the vision of Black at the Ministry into his mind in the first place, but as the lessons he had had with Potter were to be kept secret, he had, sadly, run out of arguments. Frustrating as it was, he had to concede that, lacking the knowledge he possessed, Miss Lovegood was probably entitled to believing Potter had exhausted all possibilities before leaving for London. He could have argued further that he should have told a teacher instead of rushing off on his own, but he could very well imagine her answer without having to hear it: "Yes, but he told you, didn't he? But you looked like you didn't know what he was talking about so…" The last thing he wanted was for Miss Lovegood to start holding him accountable for Black's death. Idolising Potter the way she did, he could not count on her to admit that Potter was simply too dumb to realise that he, Snape, had to play ignorant in front of Umbridge in order not to give himself away. Sighing, he decided for a change of tactics instead.
"Very well, Miss Lovegood, you have made your point," he growled. "However, I ask you to promise me you will not undertake a similarly mindless mission again unless you inform me first. Potter has a tendency to act without thinking; following him blindly can easily get you killed."
"You fuss about me almost as much as Dad," smiled Miss Lovegood. "I think it's sweet."
There it was again; she read him like an open book. She was right, he was behaving like an overprotective father, and it disconcerted him that she could sense it. It was one thing to admit it to himself that he cared about her (even now he sometimes regretted he had let it happen), but quite another for her to know. He had never meant to tell her, just as he had never told anyone else he had ever cared about, for he knew only too well the cruelty of people, and how easy it was for them to use his feelings against him, to hurt him. To be fair, Miss Lovegood was the last person on earth he believed capable of such vileness, but, if nothing else, confessing what she meant to him would make it all the more humiliating if she ever walked out on him. Now that she knew, however, all he could do was downplay how he really felt.
"I was merely ... worried," he said noncommittally. "About all of you."
"Of course," said Miss Lovegood matter-of-factly. "I would be worried too if I knew you were in danger."
Snape felt a sudden warmth spreading in his chest that had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. As far as he knew, nobody except perhaps Dumbledore cared whether he lived or died, and he had never realised how much he craved for someone to care until Miss Lovegood voiced it.
"Thank you, Miss Lovegood," he said, fighting hard not to show how touched he was. "Now, that promise, if you please."
"Oh, yes. Sorry, Professor." Suddenly looking solemn, she raised one hand while placing the other over her heart. By now he was so used to her mannerisms that he no longer even considered the possibility that she might be mocking him, as he surely would have with anyone else. "I swear I won't go on another silly adventure without telling you. It was bad of us to give you more worry when you already have to work for the Order and spy on He Who Must Not Be Named. I sometimes wonder how you still find the time to mark our essays and everything. Maybe if you asked Professor Dumbledore nicely, he would find somebody to teach some of your classes?"
"How do you know about my work for the Order?" asked Snape, filtering out everything else she had said in favour of this one thing, which had inevitably piqued his curiosity. Since they had never spoken about it, he had always lived under the impression that Miss Lovegood had remained utterly oblivious as to the reason of his occasional evening absences. Now, however, it seemed she had never asked simply because she had known all along.
"Ginny told me," said Miss Lovegood apologetically. "But don't worry, I never repeated it to anyone else. It didn't seem like something you would like people to know."
"A wise decision, Miss Lovegood. Unlike Miss Weasley, I know you to possess a liberal amount of common sense."
"You don't like Ginny very much, do you?" observed Miss Lovegood, eyeing him thoughtfully and, it seemed to him, a little sadly. He found it endearing how much she valued his opinion.
"I have nothing against Miss Weasley," he said, hoping to placate her. "She is a skilled witch. She merely talks a little more than she should."
Clearly, though, Miss Lovegood was not done questioning him about her new friends. "And Harry?" she asked. "You haven't spoken very nicely of him today."
"I..." For an instant he considered lying, or at least twisting the truth to absurd lengths, then decided against it. Miss Lovegood would not be so easily fooled. "No, Miss Lovegood, I cannot say I consider myself a part of Mr. Potter's fan club."
"Why?" frowned Miss Lovegood, as if she found the idea of someone not liking Harry Potter beyond comprehension. "He has always been very kind to me. Rather like you."
"Apart from the fact that during his five years at school he has already broken every rule in the book? Leaving us, lesser mortals, to bend over backwards to save his neck?" said Snape acidly, unable to stomach the preposterous comparison to his least favourite student. Gone was his urge to ingratiate himself with the girl; all he wanted now was for her to see Potter as he did. "Let me think – the boy is lazy, cheeky, reckless, attention-seeking, a mediocre wizard ... in short, an exact copy of his father."
"You knew Harry's Dad?" inquired Miss Lovegood with interest, happily ignoring Snape's enumeration of Potter's shortcomings. "Did you go to school with him?"
"I was unfortunate enough to, yes."
"He doesn't sound like a very nice man from how you described him. But I don't think Harry is like that at all. Maybe you're just confusing him with his Dad?"
"I am most certainly not," objected Snape, feeling slightly offended by the accusation. "Surely even you cannot deny that he breaks the rules at every possible opportunity."
"Maybe, but not because he likes it. He just wants to help. He founded a secret organisation this year to teach us to fight when Professor Umbridge wouldn't let us practise in class. And he broke into her office to see if Mr. Black was at home."
"In his second year, he stole ingredients from my private stores to make Polyjuice Potion," countered Snape. "How did that help anyone, I wonder?"
However, his words did not have the desired effect; instead of feeling outraged as she should have, Miss Lovegood merely looked awed. Snape felt like kicking himself; he should have realised he was speaking to a member of Ravenclaw House, known for valuing academic success above everything else. "He made Polyjuice Potion in his second year?" she repeated, as if hardly daring to believe it. "But that's a really advanced potion! NEWT level, I think."
"I doubt Potter himself actually made it," he clarified quickly. "I think I can safely assume he entrusted the task to Miss Granger."
"I sometimes wonder why she wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw," said Miss Lovegood dreamily. "She would do well in our House."
Snape was slowly starting to lose all hope of ever making her see reason. His arguments were obviously falling on deaf ears, as Miss Lovegood's attention was constantly drifting to things unrelated to the discussed issue, whether intentionally or not, he did not dare guess.
"In his third year, Potter used a secret passage to join his friends in Hogsmeade, despite being explicitly told not to leave the castle," he tried one last time, refusing to give up without a fight.
"Why wasn't he allowed outside?" asked Miss Lovegood.
"His guardians did not sign his permission form. Which was just as well, since at that time we believed Potter to be Black's main target. It was therefore better for him to stay at Hogwarts, where the teachers could protect him."
"Harry probably knew Mr. Black was nice and wouldn't hurt him," shrugged Miss Lovegood. "I knew he was nice, because he gave me back my bra."
Snape resigned. If Miss Lovegood wanted to believe Potter was a saint, so be it. If she wanted to keep associating with him, he was in no position to stop her, despite wishing she had chosen to befriend pretty much anyone else. And if she got into trouble because of him ... well, he could only hope that thanks to her promise he would always be quick enough to step in. If nothing else, having her as an informant would make his job of keeping an eye on Potter that much easier.
And so, rather than arguing with her further, he told her about his plan how to finally catch the thief that had been plaguing her for an unbelievable four years. He tried not to think about the consequences it might have for him, tried not to imagine how desolate his life would become once he and Miss Lovegood no longer had a reason to meet. Instead, he found pleasure in her delight and eagerness to give his plan a go, and greedily fuelled his addiction to being appreciated as she praised his ingenuity. After all, if it was to be the last bit of praise he ever received from her, he would have to make do with it for the rest of his life.