The dungeons were quiet. Students were safely shut in their common rooms. Snape moved silently through the corridors, his long-perfected ability to appear noiselessly behind students when they least expected him put to a different purpose now.

The Boggart had appeared … here.

With a careful look around to make sure he was unobserved, Snape shucked the Invisibility Cloak and summoned light to the tip of his wand. Why here? And how? Boggarts did not, as a rule, leave their hiding places unless forced. One would never wander around in a well-trafficked area like this, not normally. Were they becoming more aggressive? That would not be a good thing. If Boggarts began to show themselves more openly, it would be inevitable that they would be drawn to populated areas. And they do not distinguish between wizards and Muggles.

And even if they did, not all witches and wizards were able to deal with them.

No surprise that Hermione Granger falls into that group. She was far too sensible to have ever indulged in irrational fears of spiders, or snakes, or any of the myriad other things most children found to frighten themselves with. A smile touched Snape's thin lips at the thought of Hermione running screaming from Boggart McGonagall's news of examination failure. Still unrealistic, but rooted in reality.

The smile died. As are her current fears.

He examined the walls of the corridor, looking for some crack or crevice the Boggart might have been nesting in, alert not only for any sound that might indicate that he was about to be discovered, but for the possibility that the Boggart had not been fully banished. It had been an … unsettling encounter, and not one Snape wished to repeat without warning.

A childish wail of terror, echoing off the stone walls of the dungeon corridor, loud enough to be heard in Snape's quarters even without the alarm wards that all teachers maintained had sent him hurtling through the door without a second thought. It hadn't been until he was twenty strides from his own door that he'd remembered he was no longer a teacher here, that he was supposed to be unseen, and that he was still half-dressed.

Any half-formed idea of retreating quietly to his rooms and letting someone else deal with the emergency had vanished with Hermione Granger's scream.

He'd known immediately that it was a Boggart, a simple logical conclusion. I am quite definitely alive, therefore that is definitely not my dead body, therefore …

His own corpse, while hardly a sight Snape relished, was far enough from what he feared to be easy to dismiss, but what had followed when he had drawn the Boggart's attention from the ashen-faced Hermione Granger …

A werewolf, he'd been prepared for. Every Boggart he'd ever faced in adulthood had chosen that form, and he'd grown to quite enjoy dressing Boggart Lupin in a frilly nightgown and a mobcap. My, what big eyes you have, Remus. This, though … only years of experience acting and speaking with utmost unconcern while his bowels churned with terror and Voldemort's eyes bored into his, had allowed Snape to retain the presence of mind to combat the Boggart.

He found an alcove, a slightly more likely hiding place for a Boggart than a corridor. Cautiously Snape stepped into it, sweeping his wand from side to side to illuminate the shadows. There, in the corner …

Not a Boggart, but a student's school trunk. He knelt beside it and read the tag.

Maisie Wilkins.

Brushing his fingers across the trunk's interior told him everything he needed to know. The Boggart was in here. Had it taken up residence in the Hufflepuff dormitory? He'd only been inside it once or twice, but the bright and cheerful Hufflepuff rooms were very unlikely to draw a Boggart, unless one of the students was having very bad nightmares. And why not tell Professor Sprout? Why haul the trunk out here — by levitation, unless I am very much mistaken — and leave it near the Potions classroom?

His nostrils flared. There was a clump of damp leaves stuck to the left lower corner of the trunk. He touched them to be sure, but the scent was unmistakable. The Forbidden Forest.

The trunk had been in the Forbidden Forest.

And if the trunk was there, the trunk's owner was there. And very likely, the Boggart was there.

Snape sat back on his heels. The little fool had not only ventured into the Forbidden Forest, doubtless doubling her idiocy by going at night, but she had done so for the purpose of luring a Dark creature, and, of all lunatic things, capturing it.

He rose to his feet in one movement and swept the Invisibility Cloak around himself with another. This cannot be allowed to go unaddressed.

If twenty years of teaching has taught me anything, it's that students who start their school careers capturing Boggarts will be raising pet Acromantulas before their O. .

Or worse.

And why conceal it here, of all places?

Maisie Wilkins, who shared a desk with Colin Aitkins in Potions … Colin Aitkins, who had taken advantage of Michael Rowland's oh-so-convenient uncharacteristic mistake to steal from the storeroom …

Snape pinched the bridge of his invisible nose with invisible fingers, an unpleasant suspicion strengthening towards an unfortunate conclusion.

His next stop was the storeroom off the Potions classroom. Pungeos Onion, Pus, Rat Spleens, Rat Tails … yes, definitely fewer in the container than there should be. Dittany, Doxy venom, Dragon Claw Ooze, Dragonfly Thorax. A substantial quantity of those missing, as well.

It was easy to see what had happened. The Boggart, smuggled into the school, hidden near the Potions classroom … an enterprise beyond a single first year student, even a prodigiously talented one. Two of them at least had been involved, probably all three. And then Maisie Wilkins 'discovers' the Boggart, and Granger goes running to her aid, and in the tumult and confusion her accomplice or accomplices sneak into the storeroom and pilfer their ingredients for broom-handle polish.

Something must be done.

He strode through the empty corridors, missing the sweep and swing of his teaching robe. The filmy lightness of the Invisibility Cloak was no substitute. As he reached the ground floor, two giggling seventh year students dashed across the entrance hall and through the front door. Snape followed them and, as he fully expected, saw them disappear hand-in-hand into the hollow behind the rose bushes that generations of students fondly believed to be unknown to staff.

He was tempted to drop a sepulchral Ten points from Ravenclaw for the pleasure of seeing them bolt in fright, but they were old enough to remember him as Headmaster and even to have been in his Defence Against the Dark Arts classes, and they might recognise his voice. Better not.

Snape left the two boys murmuring sweet nothings to each other behind, and stalked towards the greenhouses.

As he'd anticipated, the lure of adolescent mandrakes had proved irresistible to the two Hogwarts herbologists. Neville Longbottom and Pomona Sprout were sitting side-by-side outside the second greenhouse, peering through the window. Despite the considerable differences between the tall and muscular young wizard and the rotund elderly witch, there was a distinct resemblance between them as they rested their chins on folded arms and watched the mandrakes with rapt attention.

Snape silently summoned a pebble from the ground and sent it floating through the air to nudge Longbottom's shoe. It took several nudges of increasing force before Longbottom could be distracted from the mandrakes, and several more before he had the sense to look around.

Letting a hand show from beneath the cloak, Snape crooked a finger, and then turned and moved silently toward the fringes of the Forbidden Forest.

He had time to find a convenient fallen tree on which to sit, arrange himself as comfortably as possible, and begin to wonder if Longbottom had gotten lost on the way down the hill, before the man himself appeared.

"Sir?" Longbottom said quietly.

Snape shrugged off Potter's cloak. "Longbottom."

The younger man's face split into a broad grin. "Professor! It's so good to see you! I mean, it was brilliant to find out you were, you know …"

"Not dead," Snape supplied acidly.

"Yeah, that. But it was hard to really believe it, you know? And now …"

He took a step closer, and Snape held up one hand. "If you attempt to embrace me, Longbottom, I won't be answerable for my actions."

His words did not have the desired quelling effect. Neville only guffawed, and sat down next to Snape. "You haven't changed."

Snape eyed him. "You have."

"Grew into my ears, Gran says."

"A difficult task, given what I remember of you at eleven. Almost impossible, I would have thought."

Even that failed to intimidate Longbottom. He only grinned happily, and said, "That's what Gran says, too."

Never one to admit defeat, Snape considered his next remark. "And how is your —" He raised his eyebrows and gave the next word a delicate emphasis. "Toad?"

"Trevor? Happy in the Black Lake. I see him occasionally, when I'm down there. He always comes to say hello."

Hopeless. A temporary tactical withdrawal was clearly called for. "I came to speak to you about two of your students. Maisie Wilkins and Colin Aitkins."

"What have they done now?" Longbottom asked instantly.

"Released a Boggart in the dungeon," Snape said succinctly. "Why? What have they done before?"

Longbottom gaped at him. "A Boggart? Where would they get a Boggart?"

"I suspect the Forbidden Forest."

"Blimey." Longbottom stood up abruptly. "Bloody hell. They could have come across anything in there."

"Quite."

"Hermione caught them out after hours on their first night, them and Michael Rowland," Longbottom said. "But a Boggart! The Forbidden Forest!"

"On the up-side, it does demonstrate both enterprise and a certain grasp of magical principles unusual in first year students."

Longbottom snorted. "You wouldn't say that if you were still teaching."

"No," Snape agreed. "I might think it, but what I would say would involve the words detention, every Saturday, and the rest of your life." He crossed his legs and folded his hands on his knee. "Something must be done about those three, Longbottom, particularly as this escapade with the Boggart was merely their attempt at creating a diversion. If that is their idea of a mild distraction, I shudder to think what they might come up with in what they considered a real emergency."

"I'll talk to them," Longbottom promised. "I'll explain that —"

Snape sighed. "Professor Longbottom. Cast your mind back to your own school days. No doubt an explanation would have worked wonders on you. But on some of your classmates? Can you really imagine Potter and Weasley meekly deciding to give up midnight exploits because someone had explained the danger?"

That made the herbologist guffaw again. "No, I can't really see that."

Snape unlaced his fingers and then laced them again. "Professor Granger has, and I hesitate to dignifying it with the term, an idea. She is of the opinion that the three miscreants can be steered to productive, and harmless, activities."

"Like extension classes?" Longbottom asked.

"Like a quest." Snape put all the acid contempt he could summon into the word. "One they will believe they are undertaking secretly, involving a series of tasks that will require them to research, and study, and apply themselves in class to complete." He paused. "And one that will keep them far too busy to embark on any frolics of their own."

Longbottom frowned. "And you want me to stop her? I mean, when Hermione gets an idea in her head …"

Snape shook his head. "I mention it to you because, as unlikely as I find it, I seek your opinion. Minerva tells me you are closely involved in the management of Hufflepuff House — it's clear Pomona intends you to take her position as Head of House as well as Professor of Herbology when she eventually retires. And you are, according to both Minerva and Poppy, eminently …" He paused, and then spat the word out. "Sensible."

Longbottom had the nerve to smile at him. "Was that a compliment?"

"Don't get used to it," Snape sneered.

"I'm not that silly," Longbottom said cheerfully.

First Potter, now Longbottom. I'm losing my touch. Although, thinking about it, his contact with students after they graduated had always been extremely limited, by both their choice and his. Professor Snape, the terror of the Potions classroom, was not the sort of teacher former students sent Christmas cards to, thank Merlin, and for his part, seven years exposure to any single spotty adolescent had never engendered any fonder feeling than a profound desire to never look on them again.

Perhaps all his former students, if he met them again, would have developed the ability to let his barbs slide harmlessly past them. Or perhaps it's unique to those who've defied Voldemort. "Am I still your Boggart, Longbottom?"

Longbottom snorted. "Not likely. Once you've seen Harry Potter apparently dead and told Voldemort to fuck right off, a teacher doesn't really cut it when it comes to bowel-churning terror."

"No, I daresay not." Snape paused. "A shame. It was flattering to know I outranked Bellatrix Lestrange as your personal nightmare. So, Granger's idea. Your opinion?"

"It could work, I suppose. Give them something to do." Longbottom shot him a sideways look. "I suppose you don't approve."

"On the contrary." Snape gave him a thin smile. "In the six years Granger, Potter and Weasley attended this school, I was savaged by a three-headed dog, set on fire, forced to referee a Quidditch match, concussed, and, oh yes, obliged to remain on good terms with Dolores Umbridge. I am very much looking forward to watching Professor Granger experience similar … inconveniences."

Longbottom found that hilarious, just exactly the way —

Snape forced himself to speak past the sudden ache in his left arm. "Do you have any ideas as to the abilities and interests of Wilkins and Aitkins?"

"Wilkins, she wants to get on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team."

"That explains the broom handle polish," Snape said, and shook his head at Longbottom's enquiring look. "Doesn't matter. Seeker, I suppose?"

"Beater."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Ambitious, for an eleven-year-old."

"She's solid, and Ginny says she's got a good eye and a strong arm."

A lever, then, or some similar mechanical device — something out of reach that can only be triggered with an object struck at it. "And Aitkins?"

"He's asked me about killing Nagini five times," Longbottom said. "I think he wishes he'd been Sorted into Gryffindor."

"Yes, I don't believe I've thanked you for avenging me," Snape said dryly.

Neville grinned. "Preemptively, as it turned out. I'm glad."

"Preemptive revenge is infinitely preferable," Snape said. "And, if not me, at least you avenged Charity Burbage."

"Worth doing," Neville said, with an adult grimness that was completely at odds with every recollection Snape had of him. "She — you were friends, people say."

Please, Severus …

Snape swallowed bile. "Nonsense. I don't have friends, Longbottom, it's a well known fact. So Aitkins wants glory."

His voice sounded odd in his ears but he must have achieved the dismissive tone he'd been striving for, because Longbottom took the change of subject. "I think he wants to be brave, rather. Wishes he was braver. He's small for his age."

"A test of courage, then."

"And Rowland?" Longbottom asked.

"He shows potential in Potions. I'll turn my mind to an appropriate task."

"And what's the point of the quest?"

"Granger has already resolved that it is to be 'the Quidditch Key'."

"You'll need a monster," Neville said. "All good quests have a monster. Borrow one from Hagrid?"

"No," Snape said, inspiration striking. "No. An appropriate guardian of the Quidditch Key, terrifying to eleven-year-old students, yet one that will not put them in actual physical peril …" He smiled in satisfaction. "It can only be Argus Filch."

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Author's Notes: I've adjusted the canonical mandrake's growing seasons for the purpose of this story