Three figures were standing beside a road at the edge of the village, highlighted under the orange glow of a nearby streetlamp. Snape supposed it was their arrogance that led them to show up without Disillusionment Charms, or perhaps it was that the village was dead quiet, no sound except the whir of a car on another road. He sauntered over like he was meeting them for brunch
"Snape," said Bellatrix, smiling slightly, but the Felix told him it wasn't a mocking smile, more of an inside-joke smile, because that's all this was to her, really.
"Bellatrix," said Snape. The Felix relaxed him; he returned her smile and stood beside them with a mildly interested expression. There was no reason to worry over Corlett at the moment.
Greyback stood at the edge of the group, staring out at the village with an avid look on his face, his head full of the victims Bellatrix had promised him once the poison wore off, those unlucky enough to survive.
"Would you like to see it?" said Bellatrix.
This was a stupid question; why else would he have dragged himself out of bed at midnight? But the Felix told him to stay on her good side. "Certainly."
Bellatrix snapped her fingers at Greyback, who reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out a blue-tinted glass sphere, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, swirling with white gas and glowing with its own light like some miniature model of a planet. Snape couldn't help but admire its elegance, its fragile beauty, so unliked those ugly metal weapons Muggles used. And as he ran his hands along the glass some small part of him, the part of him that hated the old man and his scheming, the part of him that loved magic, understood what they were doing.
"It's on a timer," said Bellatrix. "We set it on the outskirts of the village near their cottage, get the hell out of there, and wait."
Snape inclined his head to her. He understood "we" to mean Greyback, who'd inhale a mouthful of poison if the thing were to detonate too soon. "Ingenious," he said. "The wolf and his mate will watch each other choke."
"This is way bigger than them," said a tall, broad-shouldered man. Fucking Rowle, trying to claw his way back up into the Dark Lord's esteem. "This is a game-changer. The Muggles will be pissing themselves when they find out we have weapons like this. We'll be setting terms for their surrender by the end of the week."
"An exciting prospect," said Snape in a bored voice, checking his watch and not looking at him. Bellatrix caught his eye and smiled. They had one thing in common, at least. They both found Rowle to be a useful idiot.
The Felix told him not to worry about the possibility of Rowle finding out that Corlett had not, in fact, fled the country. His role was the vengeful villain and his performance was flawless. So far.
Bellatrix murmured some final instructions to Greyback and Snape checked his watch again; quarter past. Young Selwyn and his rag-tag band of werewolves should be showing up any time now.
Twenty past. Greyback started down the road with his hands in his pockets. Twenty-five past.
Something rustled in the trees. The Felix told him it was them, that they'd Apparated some distance away so they couldn't be heard, and were creeping up through the trees under cover of darkness, following Greyback. Snape struck up a conversation with Bellatrix to distract her.
This bought them maybe five minutes before Bellatrix jerked her head towards the road. "Do you hear something?"
Snape knew better than to pretend he hadn't. He nodded toward the trees where young Selwyn and his friends had first emerged, confident they'd all left. "Over there, I think."
Bellatrix made for the trees, wand raised. "I don't-wait." They stood still and listened. A few people were shouting, and Greyback's rasping yell carried all the way down the road.
Bellatrix and Rowle pelted towards the village, Snape a little ahead of them.
Had he not taken the Felix he might've lost his head. Greyback was clutching his arm and standing over someone slumped on the ground. A man was screaming and shooting curses, while someone else-he didn't know who-had the glass sphere in their hands. And standing in the middle of the road, frozen with fear, was Graihagh, her eyes livid with terror, hands half-raised and shaking, staring down Rowle's wand like the barrel of a gun.
"You!" bellowed Rowle.
The Felix spoke in Dumbledore's voice, cold, calculating, without pity.
Don't act.
"Hand over the glass," shouted Bellatrix. "Now! Or-" She glanced at Rowle, who still had his wand pointed to Graihagh's chest. "Or she dies."
Snape stole a glance at young Selwyn. His face was white with shock. Graihagh said nothing.
A jet of light missed Bellatrix by inches and she reacted instictively, bellowing a killing curse so powerful the light illuminated every face.
Jets of coloured light rushed past hot as electricity and Snape danced around them, dodging and shooting and parrying, his vision razor-sharp from the Felix and adrenalin, Rowle and Bellatrix shouting next to him. He could knock them out to stop them being killed, but no more than that; they'd have to muddle through on their own. Bellatrix's shouts were wild, panicked and Snape knew they had minutes, if that, before the thing detonated, and not even the Felix would save them then.
There was a crack like a firework and everything stopped. Whoever was holding the weapon had vanished.
"Where is he?" shouted Bellatrix. "Where did he go?"
Rowle pointed his wand to Graihagh and shouted an incantation. The Felix was loud in his head, or was it the old man?
You must not lose your cover. Don't act.
Snape's hand was sweating and shaking on his wand. He pointed it to Rowle.
Don't do it.
He'd waited too long. A jet of purple flame hit her square in the chest. She crumpled to the ground.
She couldn't have...she was just knocked out...she'd wake any second...
He bellowed a curse that sent a ring of fire around him and as they scattered like birds he Disillusioned himself and rushed to her side.
Don't do it.
The hell he wouldn't. He clutched her to his chest and Disapparated.
Spinner's End was deserted but the empty windows were watching him, cold and unconcerned. He undid his enchantments one-handed and in his haste to open the door his fingers slipped on the knob. Graihagh was dead weight and even with the Felix and his adrenalin he had to half drag her, half carry her through the door.
He laid her down on the sofa, folding up her legs so they wouldn't dangle off the armrest and pressing her wrist with his thumb. There was something there, faint but he swore he felt it. He had to feel it.
He knew the curse that had struck her; it was old magic, a favourite of Dolohov. Snape had used it himself a time or two. Never to kill, but he may as well have. Those who survived were left with a pain that was nearly as bad. He should've been the one on that sofa. Not her.
He ripped open the front of her robes and traced a figure-eight on her chest as he murmured a long incantation, willing her to live, willing his intentions to turn magic and heal her.
She gasped for air but he had only a split second's relief before her eyes opened without seeing anything and she cried out in pain, a desperate primal sound that tore him open. He lost his head, running down to the cellar for potions he could've Summoned in a few seconds, nearly tumbling down the stairs. When he'd come back up he knelt down beside her and twisted the caps off, hands shaking so badly he was afraid he'd spill them.
She screamed through the spoon, gasping and choking. She needed something for the pain. He poured a capful of pain relieving potion and forced it down her thoat and none too soon; she screamed so hard the metal vibrated. Seconds passed and then-the lines in her face smoothed and she lay her head on the armrest, her breathing ragged. Snape slumped against the sofa and rubbed his eyes.
When he'd steadied himself he knelt down beside her, pouring capfuls of potions and bringing them to her mouth, one after the other. She must've understood what they were for. She raised her head as he tipped them down her throat.
He squuezed her hand. "You're safe here. Get some rest. I'll be back as soon as I can."
The Felix had been nagging him ever since he got there. Go back to Thaxted. Pretend you were chasing them down.
Bellatrix and Rowle were standing amid a pile of bodies, three or four in all. From what Snape could see of their faces under the streetlamps they were no more than forty, a few much younger.
Bellatrix rounded on him. "Where the hell were you?"
"I recognised a few of our attackers," said Snape. "Old acquaintances of Greyback. I know where they're staying. I thought I might be able to head them off."
"And?"
"I couldn't get through their protective enchantments."
"What do you mean you couldn't get through their protective enchantments, they're bloody half-breeds, they're not capable of such magic."
"Savage though they may be, it would be unwise to underestimate them."
Bellatrix made a derisive noise and Snape searched the road for any sign of Greyback. "What happened to him? The wolf?"
Bellatrix scowled. "The cowardly shithouse turned tail and ran for it. Too afraid to face me."
"So they have it?"
The fire in Bellatrix's eyes darkened to something like fear. The Dark Lord hadn't authorised this, and while this wouldn't have been a problem had she suceeded-he'd practically ordered her to murder her sister's family, after all-she had not. And she'd spent a fortune not doing it.
"They must. I knew it. I knew he couldn't be trusted. Why I let the others talk me into it..."
Snape spared a thought for Narcissa and her spell-casting ability before pretending to be shocked.
"Fuck," he spat, gazing out at the village. Lupin was out there somewhere, sleeping beside Nymphadora and blissfully unaware of how narrowly he'd missed death. He'd never understand what Snape had gone through for him. He'd wake up and go on badmouthing Snape to the Order, his expression smug. I knew all along what he was. Knew it from the time we were in school. But then, maybe he hadn't thought so ill of him then after all. He'd stood up for him once, maybe more...
But no matter. This wasn't the time to dwell on it.
Rowle walked among the bodies, prodding them with his foot. "Where is she? That bitch Graih-that woman who was standing here."
"Didn't you get her?" said Bellatrix, staring at the spot where Rowle stood.
"I watched her fall."
Snape knelt beside Rowle and tapped his wand to the ground as though trying to detect some sort of trickery.
"Strange," he muttered, in the same expression he might've used when examining a curious stone. "One of her friends must've taken her."
Bellatrix's eyes were burning holes through the back of his head.
"Well," said Snape, standing up and frowning around at the scene, not bothering to hide his anger. "As enjoyable as it was to get ambushed by werewolves in the middle of the night, I should get back to the school. Perhaps in future you'll come up with a less convuluted way of killing the half-breed."
Rowle and Bellatrix said nothing, and he didn't need to the Felix to tell him what they were thinking. They suspected something.
Graihagh was asleep when he got back to his house. He Summoned the blanket off his bed and draped it over her, tucking the ends underneath. Her breathing was slower now, but her eyes were red and her forehead creased as though she were reliving it all in her dreams. He should've given her a sleeping draught. He smoothed the loose strands of hair from her face and tucked them behind her ear.
The clock showed half-past one, but he wasn't ready to sleep just yet. He draped his traveling cloak on the back of the armchair opposite the sofa and sat down in case she woke up and needed him. The minutes ticked on and his eyes grew heavy. He put the lamp out and rested his head on the back of the chair, his legs drawn up to his chest. He couldn't remember falling asleep, but he must have; when he opened his eyes there was faint light around the edges of his curtains.
He sat up in his chair, afraid something might've happened, that Rowle might've snuck into the house somehow and got her. But she was still there, curled up in a ball on the sofa.
He knelt down next to her and she gasped and sat up, eyes wide, staring around the unfamiliar room. She must've sensed him watching her.
"What-what's going on? What-"
Snape put a hand to her shoulder. "Graihagh-"
She started and sucked in her breath like he'd woken her from a deep sleep.
"Graihagh, listen to me. They're gone. You're perfectly safe here."
"But where-?"
"This is my house."
Graihagh stared around the room like a sleepwalker who'd come to and didn't know where they were.
"Milo and Fynn. Are they here too? Did you bring them here...?"
"I don't know where they are."
"Did it happen? The attack, did we...?"
"Your friends got the weapon." He didn't mention that it had been a minute or two from detonating. No need to worry her any further. If they had any sense in their heads they would have donned some protective gear and neutralised it first thing.
Graihagh stared at the books along the wall and screwed up her face like she might cry. Snape sat down beside her. He wasn't really sure whether he should put his arm around her, but when she rested her head on his shoulder he pulled her close and pressed his lips to her hair, over and over again.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he murmured. "Did you have any idea how dangerous..."
Graihagh wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his skin. "I couldn't. I couldn't make them do it for me..."
He kissed the edge of her eye and tasted salt. "You and your stupid loyalty. You could have been killed."
"Well, I wasn't," whispered Graihagh as she nuzzled his neck.
Snape kissed her jaw and ran his hands through her hair. "That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard."
He found her lips and they kissed hard, fast, not even trying for a rhythm, her hands in his hair, his arms around her back, pulling her so close she gasped in pain.
Snape let go. "Are you alright?"
Graihagh swore under her breath and clutched her chest. "I need to lie down..."
Snape got off the sofa and tucked the blanket around her. "I've got more pain-relieving potion here if you need it," he said, gesturing to the end table. "I should get back to the school, but I'll be back as soon as I can. You have the coin?"
"Yeah."
"Just say my name and I'll come straightaway, or I'll send one of the elves."
"Is it safe? This house?"
"It's well-protected," said Snape. "No one will get in." He hoped this was true. He wished Narcissa had managed to give Bellatrix the slip before she'd found out where he lived.
He stood up and gestured to his bookcases. "Go ahead and look through the books if you'd like."
"Thanks," she murmured. "Where's the, you know...?"
"In back of the kitchen," said Snape, praying she wouldn't look too closely at the greasy countertops or the crumbs on the linoleum. He liked to be tidy when he was up to it, which wasn't all that often anymore.
"Thanks Severus." She stuck her hand out and fumbled for the pain relieving potion.
Snape left out the front door and added a few extra protective enchantments, just in case.
Snape did all his usual things, eating meals in the Great Hall, patrolling the corridors, keeping watch on the students. His routine was joyless, automatic, but he never counted down the minutes until evening, the way some people did when they hated their jobs. He had no evening, only more work, and when he fell into bed he'd watch Dumbledore and Lily and Charity slip away from him in his sleep.
But this time was different. This time he'd be with her.
He retired to his office after dinner like he usually did, but as soon as he was inside he Disillusioned himself and walked right back out again. He'd ordered the elves to Apparate to him in Spinner's End in the event of an emergency-Alecto tying up a student say, or Miss Parkinson lurking in a dimly lit corridor waiting for Weasley or Longbottom.
The sky was still light outside but Graihagh must've lit the lamp in the sitting room; he could see a thin strip of yellow at the edge of the curtains.
She was curled up in a ball on the sofa, asleep. Snape settled into his armchair and read, and when she woke he helped her pour out the healing potions and gave her some soup he'd brought back from the school kitchen.
She slept for two days, waking only to have a bit of food or some potions—pain reliever, sleeping draughts, healing potions to reverse her injuries. He brought her food every evening, and stayed with her until she fell asleep, returning to the castle a few hours to get some work done and coming back to sleep in his armchair.
The third evening he got home to find her sitting on the sofa with the blanket wrapped around her and her wand pointed at his chest.
"It's just me," he said, palms up to show her he was unarmed. Graihagh kept her wand raised.
Snape kept his hands up and sat down beside her. She lowered her wand, but her face was strained and pale.
"I brought you something to eat," he said. He set a thermos of soup on the end table, along with some bread from the school kitchen.
Graihagh set her wand down and leaned forward with her arms crossed over her chest, eyes closed as though counting. She let out a little huff of air and reached for the thermos, twisting the cap off and holding it to her nose. "French onion soup," she said, in a voice of forced calm. "Haven't had this in awhile."
Snape sat down beside her as she ate, not quite on the other end of the sofa, but not right next to her either. He'd given her a set of clean robes but after two days on the sofa they were sweaty and wrinkled and her hair stuck out every which way. She was a mess, but not in a bad way. Not at all.
"So this is where you live when you're not at school?" she said between spoonfuls of soup.
He knew she'd ask. "Yes," he said, his voice neutral, not inviting more questions, but not warning against them either.
"Where are we, exactly?"
"Spinner's End."
Graihagh slurped her soup so fast she burned her tongue and swore. "You grew up here?"
The shock in her voice made him defensive, and he didn't know why. He hadn't liked it either, but the way people looked at him when they found out...like he was defective or something...
She seemed to know she'd said the wrong thing.
"I mean, it's not like it's bad or anything it's just..."
The words rushed out of her in earnest, leaving him half-amused, half-annoyed. "You didn't expect such a dashing bon vivant to come from a slum?" he said with a slight smirk.
"I like what you've done with the place," she said, returning his almost-smile. "I've never seen a wall made entirely of books before."
Whether she understood that he didn't want her feeling sorry for him he couldn't say, but he suspected she did.
"Did you read any?"
Graihagh tapped the red leather-bound book beside her. "Better hide all those books on healing potions, people will think you're soft."
"I'd just show them my collection on curses."
"I wonder what they'd make of your large volume on erotic art?"
If Snape had been eating soup with her he would've spat it out. He kept that one tucked away in his encyclopedias, between N and O. She must've looked through every single book on his shelves.
Graihagh lifted the thermos to her mouth with a smirk and slurped down the rest of her soup.
"That was good Severus, thank you."
"Not at all."
She set the thermos down and stared at the bookcase along the wall. Snape wasn't sure whether or not he should move closer. He decided to stay where he was.
"I suppose you saw the way I froze up the other night," she said after awhile.
"None of that was your fault."
"But I could've had him. He was right in front of me..." Her voice was thin and strained and Snape knew she was determined to keep it inside. He pretended not to notice.
She stared at the bookshelves on the wall. "Sometimes I think about killing him." She shot him a furtive glance, as though he might be shocked, maybe. He nodded slightly to show he understood.
"But then I think, maybe that would make me just as bad as him, you know? But then maybe I am. Sometimes I scare myself-"
"You're talking nonsense. You're nothing like him."
Graihagh played the blanket between her fingers, looking utterly unconvinced. "Yeah. Maybe." She stared at the bookcase awhile longer and turned to face him. "Thank you, by the way. You've saved my life how many times now?"
"I've lost count."
Graihagh smiled and pulled the blanket off herself, shifting her position until she was sitting right next to him. She smoothed back his hair.
There was no uncertainty this time, no hesitation. He slipped an arm around her and kissed her, nearly as hard as he'd done that morning, opening his mouth to her when she ran her tongue along his lips. They had nowhere to be, nothing to distract them; the only thing stopping them was his word. He was thrilled and terrified both.
He pulled her closer and she lifted herself up, sliding her leg between his so that she was almost-but-not-quite straddling him. He pulled his face away, both of them breathing hard, half her buttons undone. Her bare skin was flushed and pink in his peripheral vision and she must've been thinking about it too, the way she was breathing, the way her eyes searched his. She kissed his jaw. "Do you want to keep going?"
"Hold on," he murmured, reaching into his pocket for his wand. He flicked it towards the the ceiling and the room got so dark she was a silhouette, black on darkest grey. She wouldn't see him, and there was something in that. But she'd still feel how scrawny he was, all skin and bone, hardly any muscle at all.
Graihagh slipped out of her robes. "Do you have any candles we could light?" she whispered. "I can't see you."
Which was the point, of course, but he couldn't look her in the face and lie. He turned his head so that he could just make out the back of the sofa, frayed from all the times Paracelcus had sat up there and scratched.
"No."
"That's okay." She eased herself on his lap, wrapping her long legs around his waist. The little he could see of her bare chest made him wish he'd gotten that candle.
She kissed his mouth, playfully at first, biting down on his lip a little.
"I've been thinking about this," she whispered.
"So have I."
She laughed a little against his skin. "Have you really?" She kissed him again. "Is this okay? D'you want to go to your room or try a different position or...?"
Snape had no idea what to say to this. Was she telling him she wanted him to take the lead? Maybe she'd prefer his room, but thought taking her up there, with the unmade bed and water-stained walls and rotting floorboards was too much.
"This is fine," he said, because he didn't know what else to say.
She bent to kiss his neck and he pulled her closer, unable to hold back all the things he couldn't tell her. He ran his hands down her back and traced the curve of her hips, slid his hand across her stomach, stroked her breasts. Her body was so new to him it shocked his senses like freezing water, and she responded like she'd jumped in with him, sucking in her breath whenever his hands touched some unexplored part of her. She was all he could feel and smell and taste, but something was off about it, like she wasn't real. Like none of this was happening.
She moaned against his mouth and groped for the buttons on the front of his robes. He couldn't go through with this, but he couldn't stop her either, she'd never touch him again if he did. His comrades wouldn't be caught dead stopping. They fucked like it was target practice, one after the other, and their partners seemed to like it even-Rosier used to brag that he had women screaming his name. No one would want this, not even her.
But then, maybe if he was rough with her, if he pushed her off like it was her fault they were doing this, maybe then he could save face. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not when he'd just stood there and watched her get hit.
Graihagh pulled away. "Something wrong?"
Well. There was no backing out of this now, not without looking weak. "No."
"Are you sure-"
"Just keep going," he snapped.
Graihagh paused with her hand on his top button. "I'm sort of tired, to tell you the truth. Is it okay if we stop?"
Snape rather doubted this, given how enthusiastic she'd been. She just didn't want to touch him, that was all. She didn't have to be so bloody polite about it. Anger, humiliation, that he could understand, it was something familiar he could cling to. This understanding, this affection-if that's what it was—left him lost.
She eased herself off his lap and leaned over to find the robes she'd tossed to the floor. There was a rustle of fabric and the sofa creaked as she sat down at the corner nearest the end table, where she'd been sitting before.
"Come here, you," she whispered.
He eased his way over to her and she shook out his blanket and wrapped it around them, resting her face against his. She kissed the top of his head. "I really like being here with you."
Snape wasn't sure whether to believe this.
"Stay with me?" she whispered. "Until I fall asleep?"
He put his arm around her and she nestled into his shoulder, still breathing heavily, still aroused maybe, like he was. The clock ticked the seconds, then faded from his conscious mind, but he supposed an hour must have passed before her breathing slowed and she fell asleep. He meant to go upstairs to his bed, but he fell asleep with his face in her hair.
She left the next morning, dressed in a set of robes he'd lent her and anxious to get back and find out what happened to her friends.
The room was blue-grey in the light from the heavy curtains. His house was a place where he could be alone without being lonely, but with her gone it just wasn't the same. Not empty, exactly. But something.
He bunched up his blanket and brought it upstairs to his bed. Dried sweat was all over it and it smelled like her, that earthy sweet musk he liked so much. He wrapped it around himself, imagined the hand that stroked him was hers, until he came to the memory of her skin under his hands.
There was a surprise in the fat stack of paperwork that greeted him on his return. A letter from A Very Angry Parent, one Eugenia Stebbins, who'd been writing him at least one angry letter a week since the start of term. This time her son had been bitten by some venomous creature of Hagrid's and she was shocked, shocked, that nothing had been done.
Some small part of him couldn't help admiring her nerve; not many people would write an angry letter to a headmaster who'd murdered his predecessor. But still, he was in no mood for it, and he didn't see what all the fuss was about anyway. Madam Pomfrey had managed to get his fingers back on and find an antidote to the poison, it wasn't like there was any permanent damage. This was a school of magic, what did she expect? He wasn't about to sack any of his old colleagues, not even Hagrid, a man whom he had long tried, and failed, to hate.
He pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill.
Dear Madam Stebbins,
He leaned back and tapped his quill against the parchment.
We have received your complaint regarding injuries sustained by your son on the 9 th March. The safety of our students is our top priority; however, we feel that your safety is of greater concern at this time. Please arrange for transport to St. Mungo's at the earliest opportunity, for surgical removal of the stick that's lodged up your posterior.
Best wishes on your recovery,
Headmaster S. Snape
Snape stared down at the parchment and sighed. He was itching to stuff it into an envelope and send it, but the dignity of his office blah blah blah. He set it aside and pulled out a bag of jelly snakes.
"Hard at work again, I see?" said Phineas. "I say, this school does not deserve such a paragon of virtue, of dedication to duty-"
"Phineas?" said Snape, not looking up from his paperwork.
"Yes, Headmaster?"
"Shut up."
Somewhere to his left Dilys Derwent chortled.
"Don't encourage him Dilys," Armando Dippet chided her. "This man's uncouth behaviour is unbecoming to the dignity of his office."
"Hark, who's talking? You tell Phineas to shut up ten times a week."
"Yes, well. You don't see me screaming at my predecessor's portrait and throwing things at the wall now, do you?"
"Come now, Professor Snape's been charged with protecting the school in the middle of a war, it's not anyone who could do it."
"Just the same-"
They bickered back and forth and Snape rolled his eyes and pretended to be annoyed but really they were a comfort, those portraits. Their bicker made a rather pleasant background noise, not unlike the chatter of a coffee shop.
He ate lunch in his office and worked through the afternoon, intending to eat dinner in the Great Hall and patrol the corridors after. He'd just reached the seventh-floor corridor when Alecto rounded on him.
"One of my students found this," she said, holding up a square sheet of parchment covered in a familiar untidy scrawl.
"The nerve of that oaf," she hissed. "A support Harry Potter party. Here, on school grounds."
Snape scowled. "Well, I can't say I'm surprised. The half-breed's loyalty always eclipsed his sense."
"You're not going to take this lying down, are you?"
So that's why she'd told him. This was a test. A trap, even. If nothing was done, or Hagrid was mysteriously absent when the Death Eaters came to call, everyone would think him soft. At best.
He had seconds to act. "Very well. He is terminated, effective immediately."
Alecto opened up her mouth to protest but Snape got there first. Whatever he thought of Hagrid, he could not afford to show weakness.
"Perhaps a term in Azkaban might cool his head a little," he said, and to his relief Alecto kept her trap shut and nodded.
"Right you are, Professor. I'll alert Yaxley straightaway."
All the time he'd been talking to her his mind had been going frantically, shuffling through possible solutions. Warning Hagrid himself was out of the question; he'd give himself away, and Hagrid needed to be there when Yaxley showed up. That was essential. What was it Dumbledore had said once? Some cryptic remark about that beastly half-brother of his-that he could prove useful one day? He'd only been half-listening.
Snape raised his wand and remembered falling asleep next to Graihagh.
"Expecto Patronum."
He stroked her head, though she was nothing but light, and whispered his message. "Go," he said, and he watched the silver doe soar through solid wall, on her way to the mountains to find the giant.
He watched through his office window as Yaxley and three others showed up at Hagrid's door. As Hagrid deflected their Stunning spells and they shot him with a curse that knocked him flat. As Grawp came charging through the grounds and they scattered like ants. He'd just make it.
He sank down in his office chair and rubbed his head.
And that was how the rest of March went for Severus Snape. More graffiti was found, more students were tortured. Draco became sullen and withdrawn and his marks began to slip so badly it looked like he might not pass his N.E. . Miss Greengrass tried to comfort him a few times, but he usually just pushed her away. Miss Parkinson seemed determined to take his place.
A week after Hagrid's near arrest the Carrows chained up a first-year in an empty classroom, and one Michael Corner was caught trying to free him. Snape had already on thin ice with the Carrows, and Alecto had taken to following him everywhere he went. He did not interfere. This was the kind of moral calculus the old man could perform with no more emotion than a student solving for x, but it left him drained.
He knelt behind a tapesty and stayed beside Corner as he lay half-dead in the corridor. The elves doted on him like mother hens, administering potions and pouring salve on his wounds, and when his eyes fluttered open they half-carried him to the hospital wing. Snape emerged from his hiding place and watched them.
Only too late did he realise he wasn't alone. He hadn't heard the click of her flats against the stone, but Minerva McGonagall was standing there in the corridor, watching as the elves and the boy disappear round a corner.
She said nothing, but she fixed her eyes on him, shrewd and slightly widened, as though on the verge of some realisation. She opened her mouth slightly like she wanted to say something, but then closed it again, and turned away from him without saying anything. Snape didn't know what it meant.
He was still thinking about it the next morning, as he searched the grounds for some bluebells to give to Graihagh for her birthday, to brighten up her room. He'd just found some when his Mark burned.
The Dark Lord had been summoned back to Britain.
A/N: Thanks so much for all the views, favs, follows, and reviews, I appreciate them so much! Things will get a bit dark for the next chapter or two, but there is light at the end of the tunnel (eventually!). I'm excited to work on these last six or seven chapters.
