He knew he'd think about her, in the space between dreaming and waking.

They were in her bed and she was propped up on one elbow, laughing about something. She reached down and stroked his hair, pressing her lips to his, and before he could stop himself she was slipping off her robes, her shoulders bare, her long legs. She pinned him to the bed, her hands over his wrists.

He forced his eyes open, breathing hard, confused by the places his mind had gone. She'd been his friend, they weren't like that, he didn't think of her that way. The kiss had been a spur of the moment thing, a stress reliever. Nothing more than that.

He sat up and pulled off his nightshirt, the cold air shocking his skin, taking the edge off his ache. His chest was so scrawny, pale skin stretched over bone. She'd never want him-not that he was even considering it, but say that they did, that they started something...but no, he wouldn't let himself. He wouldn't do that to her. He'd stay too far away for her to touch him.

He rushed through his morning routine and summoned an elf for a bowl of porridge. When he'd eaten he draped a cloak over his shoulders and wandered the corridors.

Two wars, two stints as a spy, sixteen years as head of Slytherin house, and Snape's sixth sense was as finely tuned as a pressure sensor. He knew when someone was lying, he could spot a bully from ten metres away, he'd known what what Potter was up to before he'd even done it. And he knew, without knowing how he knew, that Amycus and Alecto were about to pull something.

He didn't mind the excuse to walk the corridors, marking the time in footsteps, each one carrying him further away from what had happened, the thing he refused put in words, as though this could make him forget the details, make him forget the way she'd touched him. He didn't want to, and he did.

Two days passed, with no incidents except the usual round of slaps and beatings and Cruciatus. Word had gotten round about the elves popping up with salves and potions and sometimes he'd see the students hanging back and waiting for them. So far the Carrows hadn't got wind of it. Maybe the students weren't as stupid as they looked.

He was in the middle of rejecting a stack of requisition forms when Alecto's smug face appeared in his fireplace.

"I need to see you in my office straight away, Headmaster."

Something in her voice told Snape he'd better get the hell down there. He stamped a form and set it on the pile.

"I'll be there in a moment," he said in a bored voice, but as soon as she'd left he took the corridors at a run, stopping just once in the Entrance Hall to catch his breath.

Something was wrong. Minerva was shouting as loudly as she had once shouted at Fudge, her wand pointed straight at Alecto.

"You let her go at once! I am giving you ten seconds, or I will use this!"

"That's how long you'll last before my brother gets you," Alecto sneered. "They'll be scraping what's left of you off the corridor floor."

"Yes, I'm quaking with terror," said Minerva, with breathtaking sarcasm, and under all his numb indifference Snape couldn't stifle his affection for her. "Not get out of my way."

Alecto's eyes darkened with something he thought was fear, but she held her wand steady and glanced at Snape as he strode down the corridor, mouth curling into a smile.

"What is going on here?" he said, looking from one to the other.

"They've got one of my students tied up in that office, Severus," shouted Minerva, her voice breaking. "And if you don't let her go this instant I'll-"

Snape didn't know how he faked his disdain. Only the thought that he couldn't fail.

"Or you'll what, Minerva?"

Minerva's eyes flashed, but her hands betrayed her. They were shaking.

Alecto let out a sharp laugh and Snape fought the urge to grap her by the throat. Violence was for the weak. Time was his weapon, time and stealth.

"I've got my orders from Bellatrix," she said. "She says you're to hand over the poison or the girl dies."

Snape's heart pounded. He'd promised himeself when the term began that he wouldn't lose a single student, and he could save this one, if it came to that, but he'd be risking more lives in the process.

He shot her a skeptical look. "From Bellatrix? Since when does she give orders?"

"Since the Dark Lord left her in charge."

This was bollocks; Bellatrix may have been his favourite lieutenant but he'd no more leave her in charge than he would Wormtail. He simply relayed his commands to her, and Snape doubted he knew anything about this. He thought it best not to argue, however.

"All of this was quite unnecessary," he said in faintly annoyed way, like a doctor who'd been summoned to the emergency room for indigestion. "I was just about to give it to her myself."

Alecto lowered her wand, but her face was clouded with some lingering uncertainty. "She told me you're to hand it over-"

"I'll bring it to her immediately. Now untie the student, you're using up all the rope and I might need it to hang myself later if I have to suffer any more interruptions."

Alecto shot him a strange, piercing look, then nodded to Amycus, who'd stepped into the corridor to see what was going on. He shuffled back to the classroom and untied the student, Miss Dobbs, he thought it was, a fourth-year.

The girl was shaking so hard she couldn't walk, and Minerva, dignified, restrained, staid Minerva, did something he'd never seen her do in all the years he'd known her. She pulled the girl close and clutched her to her chest, burying her face in her hair and whispering the same words over and over, words meant only for them. She let go quickly and led the girl down the corridor, but the image was burned into his memory.


The Malfoy's servant answered the door, his face so blank and expressionless Snape wondered if he'd been Imperiused. He followed him to the family room, a place generally off-limits to everyone else save the Dark Lord, where Narcissa was stretched across the sofa with her head on Lucius' chest as he read to her from a thick book, and Bellatrix was sitting in a chair opposite, staring into the fire. Her back was straight, fingers tapping the armrest, and she gave the faint impression of being an intruder in this private space.

Narcissa shot up when Snape cleared his throat and Lucius nearly lost his grip on the book he was holding. He marked the page and set it on the end table. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look upset.

"Severus. We weren't expecting you."

"I can't stay long. I wish to speak with Bellatrix."

Bellatrix stood up, and he knew from the look on her face that she'd been expecting him.

"Follow me," she said, making her way to the door.

Narcissa whispered something to Lucius, who held up a hand to stop him. "Surely whatever you have to say can be said here?"

Bellatrix glanced at Snape. "No. I need to speak with him in private."

Snape didn't look at them as he left the room, but he knew they weren't happy about it. He met Narcissa's eyes a moment. They were hard to read.

Bellatrix led him to the drawing room and closed the door behind them.

"You have it?"

Snape reached into the inner pocket of his robes and pulled out the poison. Bellatrix pinched it between her fingers and held it up to the light from the crystal chandelier.

"You've used some."

Her voice was conversational rather than accusatory, but this didn't put him at ease.

"I covered for you and your sister. I'd say this makes us quits."

Bellatrix tucked the vial into the inside pocket of her black silk dress robes and sauntered over to a drink cart, inspecting a bottle of brandy, holding it up to the light, taking her time. She had the upper hand, and she was in her element.

"Drink?"

Snape was rather miffed that she'd underestimated his intelligence like this. How very dull this was.

"Certainly," he said, smiling slightly. Whether Bellatrix was expecting him to protest or not he didn't know, but she smiled back at him as she poured him a glass.

Snape took it and watched as she poured another from the same bottle. So she hadn't underestimated him that much. She gestured towards two tall armchairs beside the fireplace, and when they'd sat down she raised her glass.

"To the Dark Lord."

Snape slipped the pill from behind his teeth with his tongue and bit down, his glass raised in front of his face to hide the movement of his jaw. Whether there was any Veritaserum in the brandy, he couldn't tell; nothing happened when antidote mixed with the liquid in his mouth, but then, she may have only used a small amount. He'd have to make a snap judgment, and he'd have to do it soon. The potion, if there was any, took minute or two to start working, no more than that. He was strong enough to resist it, but she was clever enough know that. She would've combined it with a sedative, to dull the senses, not knowing his antidote worked on both.

"So, how are things at the school?" she asked. Her tone was somewhat bored and conversational, not the tone someone used when fishing for information. He didn't trust it. But he still had about half a minute.

"The staff is insufferable as always. But not bad otherwise."

"That bitch McGonagall giving you trouble then?"

Snape peered at her over his glass. She was studying him, waiting for something, maybe. He relaxed his posture, sinking down in the seat and slowing his voice. He might've been eighteen again, and letting himself be plied with drinks and potions the way he'd done sometimes. He wouldn't say he'd been attracted to Bellatrix, exactly, but he'd found her fascinating.

"Yes," he said.

"You care for her, don't you? You miss her company."

So his instinct had been correct.

Snape loosened his tongue to slur his speech a bit. "Why would I miss that old berk?"

Bellatrix leaned back in her chair, a hand to her head, the other swirling the liquid around in her glass. "What did you take the poison for?"

Snape sank into the warmth of the drink and the fire, stared at the tapestry behind her as though it were the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen.

"To use on the staff. If they get in my way."

Whether Bellatrix believed this or not, he couldn't say. He didn't dare look too closely at her, or think to much. He could only trust his plan, ride it like a wave.

"I hear you've been spending a lot of time at the Hog's Head."

She knew. He should've known she'd find out-but he couldn't worry about that now.

"Yes, well, it's a good place to buy and sell illicit potions, have a good time. It's a stressful job, you know."

"Alecto said you were wearing Muggle trousers the other night."

He could've told her it was reconnaisance-scoping out good sites for raids, and all that. Plausible, but not as much fun.

"Easier to take off."

Bellatrix made a face and he knew it'd be the end of that particular line of questioning.

"Have you been going behind Alecto's back to help the students?"

Snape let out a huff of air. "Not to help the students, no. But she isn't exactly easy to work with. She's been after my job from day one. She's not terribly fond of you either. Say it's only a matter of time before you get your comeuppance."

Bellatrix traced the top of her glass with a long finger and scowled, just the reaction he'd hoped for. The Death Eaters were an ever-shifting mass of cliques and alliances and Snape knew where all the fault lines were.

She gazed into the fire and Snape sensed an opening.

"I want in on it."

Bellatrix jerked her head towards him. "On what?"

"On whatever it is you're doing with that poison. It fascinates me. I want to study its effects."

Bellatrix smiled and ran her finger around the rim of the glass. "I'm going after Nymphadora and her filthy half-breed, did you know?"

"I didn't. But I'd love nothing more than to see him poisoned."

Bellatrix took a long drink. "There are still a few kinks to work out. But I'll keep you informed, yeah?"

Snape raised his glass. "I'll drink to that," he drawled. He finished his drink and stretched, his movements relaxed and unhurried, holding his breath a moment so he could let out a convincing yawn.

Bellatrix smirked. "Better get yourself to bed, Snape. Or perhaps there's a whore waiting for you in a back room of the Hog's Head?"

Snape's gripped his glass and let go, hoping Bellatrix hadn't noticed. All sorts of things went on in back rooms of the Hog's Head, she couldn't have meant Corlett. She couldn't have known.

She laughed. "Get going, then."

Snape left the room, purposefully stumbling on the threshold. He knew Bellatrix was following behind, watching him.


Snape stood in the corridor outside and tapped his wand to his head, waving his arms in front of his face to make sure he couldn't be seen. If Amycus knew what he was up too...he didn't want to think about it. He wasn't afraid of him or his sister, not in the slightest, but he couldn't risk anyone finding out, they thought he was soft as it was.

The classroom was much as he'd left it, the same black curtains, the same pictures hanging on the walls, the same glass paperweight on the desk, filled with tiny galaxies, a gift from Minerva for his thirty-seventh birthday. He'd been marking a stack of exams that last day and he looked for them as though they might still be sitting there, as though he'd just gone out for the evening and come back.

But the exams were gone and dozens of footfalls sounded on the flagstones. He flattened himself against the back wall and waited while the students filed in, most of them sombre, none of them smiling. No one spoke except Longbottom, Patil and Finnigan, who were whispering together at the back, and Nott and Zabini who were talking loudly about Quidditch. Malfoy was scribbling on a piece of parchment. His expression was hard to read-bored perhaps, but Snape sensed there was something else underneath it.

Amycus wasn't an imposing figure, he had no charisma, no presence. He was just a squat, unremarkable-looking man with bad teeth, but the room shuddered as he walked in. Everyone went quiet, even Longbottom. A few people bent over their desks, wringing their hands, or rocked in their seats.

"You can put your books away," he said. "We'll have a practical lesson today."

Ah, so he liked hands-on learning. Perhaps he'd been reading up on contemporary educational philosophy. Although he rather doubted any of those educational reformers would approve of lessons in applied torture.

"But first, there's a little something I want to show you all." He picked up a booklet that had been lying on his desk. "I found this-" he held it up for them to see. "On one of the first years." He stared around the room, which was so tense Snape felt it too.

"Lies, all of it. Propaganda. It's not just curses you need to watch out for. They want to brainwash you. They want your magic weak. That's how they get you. Before you know it they'll be locking you up and forcing you to use your magic to win their wars, to run their factories, to make them hordes of money. Is that what you want? To watch helplessly as they destroy the world?"

Alecto must've been pouring her poison into his ear. But dammit, it made a certain amount of sense.

"So, the question is, who is responsible for passing this around?"

Snape scanned the room. Twenty faces stared back at Amycus, some serious, some bored, others defiant, except for one, staring determindley out the window.

"Miss Bones. Up here."

Miss Bones started and turned to face Amycus but she didn't get up.

"Don't make me drag you up here, girl," hissed Amycus.

Miss Abbott squeezed her hand and whispered something in her ear and Miss Bones stood up and walked to the front of the room, her legs jerky and stiff.

"Miss Parkinson. You too."

Miss Parkinson adjusted her robes and tucked a strand of hair behind her head, and with a jolt Snape remembered Corlett, and the way she played with her hair when she got close to him. He stifled it as best he could, keeping his eyes on the girl. Her head was high and her expression serious but Snape knew to watch the wand hand, rather than the face. Hers was trembling slightly.

"Now. You know the incantation. Show us how it's done."

Miss Bones started for the door and Amycus raised his wand. "One more movement from you and you'll get the full body-bind."

Miss Bones stopped, swallowing hard, and Amycus nodded to Miss Parkinson. That sick bastard.

Miss Parkinson raised her wand and took a deep breath. "Crucio."

Miss Bones gasped as though she'd been pinched, but recovered herself quickly. The pain must've stopped.

"You need to feel it, Miss Parkinson," said Amycus in a voice that was half-bored, half-impatient, the kind he might use when reminding a loudmouth student to raise their hand.

"Crucio."

This time she'd done it. Snape's hands shot up to his ears, but he didn't cover them. He needed to know.

"That's it," said Amycus. "Now hold it. Thirty seconds should do it. Any more than that and you risk 'em losing their minds. Which may be what you're going for, but it makes 'em useless if you want information. This is just a light punishment, so easy does it."

Miss Abbot stood up, clutching her face. "Stop it! Please! Please."

"Keep holding it. Twenty more seconds..."

Miss Abbot shrieked and pulled at her hair. "Please!"

Miss Parkinson let go and Miss Bones collapsed to the floor, twitching and shuddering.

"I reckon that'll do for now," said Amycus. "Nicely done, Miss Parkinson."

Miss Parkinson didn't acknowledge him as she stowed her wand in her pocket and walked back to her desk. She slumped in her chair, rubbing her eyes with one had. Nott and Zabini pretended not to notice.

"Well, Miss Abbott. Nice of you to volunteer to go next."

A chair scraped against the floor as Longbottom stood up. "You leave her alone. I'll do it."

Miss Abbott stood up with him. "Neville, no-"

Amycus clicked his tongue. "Very gentlemanly of you, Mr. Longbottom, but I think you'll stand and watch."

"No."

Alecto flicked his wand and Longbottom stood frozen in place, his eyes livid.

"Mr. Malfoy," said Amycus. "Up here with her."

Snape wasn't sure whether Draco heard him. He scribbled something on his parchment and tapped his quill it a few times as he stretched out his legs and pushed his seat back. His expression was resigned, numb, and Snape understood, because the same thing had happened to him. There was a point-some took a year or so, others only a few months, but everyone reached it-where you became so used to violence that it was normal, boring, almost irritating in its monotony. The boy didn't like it, but he'd do it, because he had to. There wasn't any way out that he could see.

Snape simply shut himself down, as though he were already in the distant memory that this would someday be.

When the class ended Amycus loosened the bindings on Abbott and Bones and left them lying on the classroom floor.

"Nobody is to help them," he warned, staring round at them all, wand raised. The class filed out, some of them staring at the two girls, others looking away. Miss Parkinson stared straight ahead, but her face was strained. She wasn't numb. She hadn't reached that point yet.

Snape lifted the charm off himself and knelt down beside them, pulling Corlett's potion from the pocket of his robes.

Miss Bones had been lying there the longest, so he lifted the back of her head and tipped a capful of potion into her throat, watching as her body slackened and stopped twitching. She opened her eyes and let out a sharp gasp.

"Quiet," hissed Snape, but she wouldn't stop. He fumbled for a bottle of calming draught, a strong one, and tipped it down her throat. Her breathing slowed and she rested against the front desk, smiling slightly. He did the same for Miss Abbot, who sat next to her, tracing patterns on the floor.

"You!" said a shaking voice. Longbottom was standing in the doorway, with Macmillan, staring at him as though he were an unwanted hallucination. His eyes darted down to the bottle in Snape's hands. "What-what did you-is that poison?"

"Do they look dead to you, Longbottom?"

"I-" Longbottom stared at them. "But-what...?"

Longbottom locked eyes with Macmillan, their faces screwed up in confusion, struggling to understand what they'd seen.

"But-did you-what's going on?"

Snape gripped his wand, but images flitted into his mind, of the four of them whispering to the students, telling the staff, Minerva and Flitwick and Sprout. Bringing their rebellion into the open, overthrowing the Carrows. He could face the war head on, kill the Dark Lord himself and spare Potter's life.

Oh, but Dumbledore had his reasons, didn't he. Always ten steps ahead, while Snape was left to fumble in the dark.

He raised his wand, Confunding the four of them and pointing his wand to their heads in turn.

"Obliviate."

Abbott and Bones would't remember being tortured. That was something.

He summoned a bottle of potion from his office and went straight to the kitchens.

"You is needing something, sir?" said Dobby, when Snape called his name.

He reached into his robes and pulled out a bottle of laxative potion. "See to it that this ends up in the Carrows' soup, and don't tell a soul."

Dobby's mouth curled up in a smile and several of the elves snickered. "With pleasure, sir."

Snape left the kitchens and went straight to his office. He'd have to arrange substitutes for their classes. They'd be spending a few days in the hospital wing.


Snape wasn't sure why he'd never used it, maybe he was afraid of what he'd see. Maybe he was afraid he'd never come out. No matter. He was ready for it now.

He plunged headfirst into the Pensieve and when he'd righted himself he was standing beside the sea on the coast of Cumbria, one of those clear breezy days when the sea was bright blue and foamy with whitecaps. The waves crashed against the rocks and could feel that water hitting his face, the wind in his relief was so overwhelming his eyes watered.

No one could touch him. No one knew he was here.

His seventeen-year-old self was around somewhere, his trouser legs rolled up, combing the beach for sea anenomes, one of the few times he'd been happy that summer between his sixth and seventh years. Snape didn't look for him. He sat against the cliff face, his legs stretched out in front of him, and listened to the waves.

Minutes past, maybe hours, it didn't matter. His seventeen-year-old self would be here all day collecting specimens. He didn't think, just listened to the waves and the wind off the sea.

The Isle of Man was just across, some fifty miles west, and he wondered what it'd been like for Corlett, growing up. Had she known what she was? He'd never asked her. He could picture her ankle-deep in pond water and chasing down frogs, the way he had. He wished she were sitting beside him.

But that was dangerous and stupid. He cleared his mind and watched the waves until the sun sank low over the water. He didn't want to stay in his memory long enough to return to Spinner's End. He'd choose a different one. He was ready now.

He left the Pensieve and dropped another swirling thought into the basin. He fell onto the asphalt in a Cokeworth playground, nearly empty except for two girls sitting atop the monkey bars.

He'd daydreamed the scene through a filter, pale blue sky and soft green trees, smooth asphalt and a brightly painted roundabout, a picture from a children's book. The reality was so startling he wondered if he'd gotten the wrong memory. The sun blazed hot, bleaching the sky white, and the jagged asphalt was littered with sweet wrappers and baggies and cigarette butts from all the young mums smoking on the playground-de rigueur at that time, not taboo. The painted metal poles were chipped and the mill chimney dominated the sky like some brick-and-mortar Dark Mark, but there was a beauty to this place, a timelessness, like it would just go on and on without stopping.

They were dressed in shorts and blouses, almost identical except that Lily's was green and Petunia's blue. Snape's scrawny nine-year-old self was hiding in a clump of bushes, watching them. Snape didn't want to look, but he couldn't stop himself.

He was so small. Somehow he'd never really thought of himself as being small, he just was. His hair was stringy and unwashed. His ankles stuck out under too-short jeans but he was drowning in that faded black coat.

He'd known this wasn't normal, sort of; the other kids had clean hair and jeans that fit and they didn't go round in their father's coats, but it was only when he was older, surrounded by hundreds of children, did he realise how very not normal it was. Snape couldn't hate this boy.

Lily's voice rang out from the monkey bars. "D'you know how to do a flip?"

"No."

She wedged her legs under the bars. "You start like this." Petunia copied her. "And then you grab on to the big bar and flip backward."

Petunia shouted something, but Lily was too quick for her. She flipped to the ground in a tangle of red hair.

"Try it!"

Petunia hesitated, and Snape's nine year-old-self gripped a branch in anticipation. Even now, he wondered what would happen.

"You're not chicken, are you?"

Petunia made a face. "Of course not."

Lily's taunt must've put fresh heart into her. She grabbed the bar and fell to the ground in one fluid motion, and when she'd stood up straight they shrieked and high-fived and raced each other to the swings. Petunia won, narrowly.

Almost time. Snape gripped his sleeves and watched his nine-year-old self. This was only a memory, he couldn't change history, but what if it he'd never popped out from behind that bush? What if he'd just watched them and gone home and Lily only ever knew him as another Slytherin boy, no one important? Would he have still joined the Death Eaters? Would she still be alive, and would he even care, or would he be the Dark Lord's right-hand man, indifferent to everything? He didn't know.

Lily flew off the swings, and Snape left her there in mid-arc.

He went straight to his room and pulled off his boots, and as he was lying back against the headboard he caught sight of the coin.

He picked it up and read the glowing words in Corlett's voice.

I'm still here.

He stroked the coin face with his thumb and kept it close to him as he slept.


A/N Thanks for reading!

And thanks so much PearlM21 for the review and for the idea of having Snape poison the Carrows, I loved it! And thank you so much also to midnightquaffles for the lovely review, it made me smile so much! So glad you're enjoying this story!