Another chapter done! A huge thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. I love it! And of course, thank you to my betas, McGonagall's Bola and Emilia Wolfe

Oh and to Guest, who wrote about the rhyming thing with Seamus...hehe (rubs the back of my neck). Caught that did you? One of my friends pointed that out to me afterwards and I was like, 'oops.' So I'll definitely be changing it, but good catch :P

Hope you like it!

Chapter 27

Severus hovered outside of the Lestrange's dining room, his hand poised above the doorknob, when a loud cry made him pause. His entire body stilled, his ears straining to decipher the hysterical sounds coming from inside.

He could make out a man's voice—no make that two—shrieking out apologies. A woman joined them, her sobs incomprehensibly muddled by panic and confusion.

"You would DARE try to mislead ME!" The Dark Lord's voice rose above theirs', "DO YOU THINK ME A FOOL!"

A blinding green light flashed, peeking through the space at the bottom of the door, followed by a terrible scream, three loud thuds, and…silence.

He took a step back, inhaling deeply.

He had been right then. Tonight would be a night for punishment. He had felt it through the summons—the Dark Lord's anger. Fiery and wild as it lashed out through his Dark Mark with enough pain to bring the spy to his knees. It was all the warning Severus needed, to know that the night would be a long and excruciating one.

If someone was fool enough to blatantly lie to the Dark Lord, then he and the other Death Eaters would be the ones to suffer the consequences of the mad wizard's paranoia, in the form of loyalty "tests," which meant pain and thoroughly invasive searches.

There was no choice for it then, he would have to completely safeguard his mind, by burying his conscious so deep that the Dark Lord wouldn't even be able to tell what his favorite color was. Albus would likely lecture him for hours later about taking such huge risks. The old man never did like what the backlash from it did to him. But it was a risk he had to take. It was the only way to keep his mind safe from the worst of the Dark Lord's onslaught…He just hoped that he didn't lose himself completely in the process.

His eyes closed, and he slipped into his mind.

His method of loci, so different from other Occlumens who used the typical house or garden to organize their mind, was an open, snowy tundra. There were no trees, no plants, no large buildings with overly complex rooms, just a vast wintery landscape with a single cave, obscured by the constant assault of a fierce snow storm.

His conscious self, shimmering with the bright and dark colors of his emotions and thoughts, stood inside the cave. His hand ran over a long pod of ice that sat in the very center of the damp cavern. It was a perfect sphere of ice, unnaturally round and clear like an oversized glass bead. The door at the top of the pod was already open and waiting for him.

Stepping inside before he could change his mind, he settled down in the hollowed out space, and closed himself in. As the door sealed shut, the ice from the shell spread over him in a cold blanket. The world around him dimmed, color leeching out until he was seeing in only various shades of grey, definition was lost as everything became dull and flat. Eventually his world froze over.

When Severus opened his eyes again, he was back in the corridor of the Lestrange Manor, in front of the dinning room door. He looked around curiously, his mind perfectly silent, devoid of all tedious emotion and complex thoughts. With his mind safely encased in the quiet, there was no need to mentally prepare himself before going into the room. He knew that he would see dead bodies, and that he would have to endure a painful punishment, but the knowledge caused him no anxiety. The punishment would occur and the victims the Dark Lord had killed would remain dead, whether he was prepared to see them or not. Death was death, and pain was pain. Both were inevitable.

He calmly pushed the door open, his gaze quickly skirting around the room, absorbing as much information as possible, his face blank even as he caught sight of the three victims.

As he had expected they were all dead, lying off to the side of the room in a pile of thrown limbs and bodies. One man on the bottom was still reaching towards the door, his blue Auror robes fanning out over him like a death sheet. He had probably tried to run, an irrational reaction, considering the Dark Lord preferred to use magic to punish his followers, and that it was hard to outrun a curse. He would have fared better if he had tried to erect a shield first.

The other man was twisted up with the woman, his official robes tangling around her, and his shoulders hunched up behind her. Ah, he had used her as a shield. A logical move. One's own survival was always more important than another's. However, the man wasn't very smart. He should have followed it up with a diversion of some kind to lure the Dark Lord's attention away, then used the ruckus to make his escape. If he had the capacity to feel disappointment in the Auror department for their obvious lack of competency, he might have then. And the woman—

His eyes stopped, staring unblinking at the woman. She had curly brown hair.

A small jagged crack appeared in the icy tranquility of his mind.

Was it Granger? It was a possibility in view of the Dark Lord's obsession with the witch, but that made no sense. Albus would have told him of the Gryffindor's disappearance, and with the amount of eyes he had on the witch, he would have been the first to know if something had occurred. And the Dark Lord would be much happier if he had finally captured his much sought after prize.

Conclusion; it wasn't Granger.

He took a closer look, seeing the slight differences now in the mystery woman's appearance now. Although the woman's hair was curly and brown, it was noticeably darker than Granger's and much less curly. Her body, he noted, was also too tall and nearly half a stone heavier. The Dark Lord hadn't gotten a hold of Granger or the vital information she held.

The crack in his mind repaired, smoothing over again. He moved on.

The rest of the Inner circle was sitting meekly at the dining table, their heads bowed. The sharp scent of fear tinged the air around them. Lucius' head lifted only marginally, his eyes darted to Severus and then to something above the fireplace.

Severus covertly followed his gaze, where a body was hanging limply above the marble fireplace, by two large meat hooks, like a prized, stuffed dragon head. The wizard's body, which had been stripped from the waist up, was covered in whipping scars, the red lashes criss-crossing his skin in a macabre pattern. They glowed a sickly, muted yellow—A curse maybe?—probably to make the pain last indefinitely.

His face, which Severus only just recognized as Rabastan, faired only slightly better, unmarred except for the ghastly hole where his right eye had once been. Dried blood caked his cheek under the empty eye socket.

"Severusss…you. Are. LATE!"

Rage, uncontrollable and frenetic, simmered in the Dark Lord's crimson gaze and it was the only warning Severus was given before a red light engulfed his body, throwing him back into the door.

A burning feeling, like he was being attacked by a million fire ants overwhelmed him. His teeth clenched, fighting the urge to claw at his skin. It would only make the burn worse. He had learned that from experience.

He watched the Dark Lord approach him through bleary eyes and tensed for the next rush of curses.

"Yet another servant who needs to be reminded of his place," the Dark Lord commented to the room. He raised his wand with a blood thirsty smile.

"Snape isn't in class today."

Hermione looked up from her book, her head jerking towards the person responsible for the comment. "What are you talking about, Ron?"

The redhead shrugged, taking the empty seat next to Neville at their crowded table in the back of the library. He smiled, absurdly happy about the news he was about to impart.

Harry and Neville stopping quizzing each other, and Ginny and Luna looked up from their color coded notes that Hermione had made for them.

"Heard it from two Hufflepuffs this morning. They went to their potions exams and Dumbledore was there instead of Snape. Said the Headmaster told 'em, 'he was indisposed'."

"Huh. Seems weird that he wouldn't be around for the last week of school," Harry mused.

Ginny shrugged. "Everyone gets sick now and then."

"He looked perfectly healthy when I bumped into him the other day," Neville said, a slight tremor in his voice that suggested that the "bumping" had been anything but cordial.

"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it?" Ron reminded them. "The point is we don't have to worry about that great bat hovering over our shoulders when we go for our exam in an hour!"

"Ronald!" Hermione scolded, glaring at her friend. "There's no reason to be rude about it. What if he really is sick?"

Ron remained unaffected. "So? All the better for us then. If he really is sick then we might not see him for the rest of the week. Maybe he has Dragon Pox—could you imagine? We'll be Snape free until next September!"

Hermione bristled at his words, her grip tightening on her book. She looked to her friends, hoping to find some back up, but they were nearly all either indifferent to their teacher's plight or in agreement with Ron.

Only Luna was gracious enough to offer up, "I hope it's not the Wackspurts. I've been seeing an awful lot of them lately. I think they're attracted to the stress from the students."

Alright, so it wasn't really the kind of back up that Hermione had been looking for, but at least her blonde friend was showing some compassion unlike the rest of the sorry lot. "Right," she said, with an odd look at Luna. "In any case, it's not right to be speaking ill of a professor like that."

Especially since he's probably not sick at all, Hermione thought. Could her friends not connect the dots? Sure Neville and Luna didn't know that their Potions Professor was a spy, but Ginny and the boys knew. Didn't they wonder how someone who was perfectly healthy the day before, could suddenly become sick? Weren't they able to see that, most likely, Snape had gone to Voldemort last night and gotten injured again? And it must have been bad if he skipped out on proctoring the finals today.

All too clearly she remembered what his injuries could be like. The blood that had soaked through his clothes, the tired, red eyes, the delirium. If he was in any condition like he was then, then she couldn't blame him for wanting to take a day off.

"He could be in serious pain right now," she continued, her thoughts still on that night so long ago, "You don't know—"

"Alright! Alright! I'm sorry," Ron interrupted, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Forget I said anything about the Git."

Her eyes narrowed at the insult, but she said nothing otherwise, choosing to just let Ron's thoughtless words go. She had learned a while ago, that some conversations were just pointless with the youngest Weasley. If he didn't want to hear it, he wouldn't listen, even if she talked until she was blue in the face. Harry could be the same way too sometimes

"Boys," Hermione muttered under her breath, as the others moved on to another conversation. Her thoughts remained on Snape.

She toyed with her necklace, rubbing the smooth pearl between her fingers, and wondering about the Headmaster's choice of words. 'He was indisposed.' That could mean a million things! It was so vague. For all she knew it could mean he was on death's door holed up in his rooms.

She could also be overreacting, as Ron no doubt thought she was, but what if she wasn't? What if Snape was really hurt somewhere in the castle? For some reason, she just couldn't shake the feeling that the spy was dealing with more than just your average Scrofungulus bug.

But—she sighed, dropping her book to her lap—it wasn't like she could do anything for him. She was probably the last person he wanted to see, considering their abrupt departure last time. He had been ignoring her ever since then, even after she had returned his robe and coat to him last week. He had grunted at her, snatched the clothes from her and turned back into his office, slamming the door in her face in a very rude manner. Not that she had expected him to gush with gratitude, but still.

"Hey Hermione, how many Everlasting Elixirs are there?" Harry asked her, interrupting her thoughts.

"Oh, there are over fifty different potions that can be made into Everlasting Elixirs. The number's unknown really, as potioneers tend to innovate and experiment, but you'll only have to remember the twelve that Professor Snape told us about in class," she answered him.

"Twelve?!" Ron groaned, leaning back into his chair, "I only remember three."

"I only wrote down six of them," Neville mumbled helplessly.

Hermione rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You can look at my notes," she said handing over her color coded Potions binder. "Honestly, your exam is in an hour. How do you not already know this?"

Neville sheepishly took the binder, muttering out a, "Sorry Hermione."

"We can't all have your memory, Mione. Just cuz you can remember all twelve and their functions the minute you read about 'em, doesn't mean everyone else can," Ron grumbled morosely, looking over the list with Neville.

"Actually, I've memorized about fifty-six of them," she replied nonchalantly, chuckling when Ron sputtered in disbelief. The others laughed with her and for the moment, thoughts of the Potions Professor were forgotten.

Albus went down to the infirmary, nodding at Poppy as he passed her office to get to the quarantine room in the back. His wand passed over the doorknob, and there was an audible 'click' as the door opened for him. Stepping inside quickly, he raised the wards again, one of which was a Silencing Ward, before he could disturb the sleeping wizard inside.

It was completely dark inside the room. The Night Owl charm he was using though, helped him to easily navigate his way to the empty chair by the bed, where Severus was sleeping, without using a light. The first time he had come down here he had found that even the dimmest source of light upset the Potions Master, sending him into a fit and working him up to a point that Poppy had strictly forbade having light in the room after that. In her own words, he was 'the bloody Headmaster, he could figure something else out.'

Albus had wisely chosen not to fight with the witch on that point. She was frazzled enough as it was with Severus' condition. Physically, the boy had come back to the school in a terrible condition. He had had dark bruising and swelling on the side of his face, a gash on his chest and lower left thigh, and a checkerboard of welts on his back. Thankfully, Poppy was a miracle worker and she had been able to heal him up within the night.

What really had concerned them was Severus' mental health. The moment he had limped through the front gates, that eery calmness on his face, Albus had known something had gone wrong. Enough so that Severus had to resort to that Occlumency technique. Extreme emergencies were the only reason the younger wizard used it otherwise.

Albus had understood after Severus had looked up at him and told him in a flat voice, "The Dark Lord has confirmed Hermione Granger's identity." If Tom had indeed been able to finally catch onto his plans, than it would explain the sudden summons and Severus' current state.

Poppy had been beside herself as she rushed to put Severus to rights, fretting over him and urging the Headmaster to 'snap him out of it.' (She was even less of a fan of Severus' heavy Occluding than he was).

The 'snapping out' turned out to be harder than Albus had anticipated. He had done it before, Severus already filling him in on how to bypass his mental defenses to get to his cave and release him from his cocoon. But this time, Severus' mind had put up more of a resistance to him. The latch on the cocoon that had always been there for emergencies wasn't there this time. It had disappeared completely, leaving the resting wizard inside the cocoon trapped.

Albus had been left with two options; to leave Severus trapped in his mind, where he would slowly be driven insane, or to break him out by destroying his shields, which would cause him an unknown amount of pain, albeit pain that he could eventually heal from. He had chosen the lesser of the two evils.

Albus shifted uncomfortably in his chair watching the Potions Master as he slept. This was the third day Severus had been unconscious, the shock from his mental shields completely obliterating proving to be too much for even him to deal with.

His mind at the moment was in a very vulnerable state. As the Headmaster told Poppy, the sudden exposure after years of protection had been too much for his brain to process. He was undergoing a sensory overload that made every sound, every touch, everything visual stimulation too much.

It had happened to Albus once—having his shields completely destroyed. It was back when he was a younger, impulsive, and fool-hardy wizard. Luckily, he had been able to rebuild his shields in a matter of days. However, those first few days had been torture, as his mind tried to put itself back together again, his headaches terrible, his body too sensitive to even the lightest of touches. It was not a situation he ever wanted to experience again.

So Albus could sympathize with the level of discomfort Severus was in right now. The next few days would be hard for the Potions Professor. Aside from the sensitivity he would also deal with uncontrollable mood swings, momentary gaps in his memory, and a shorter attention span. Perhaps he would watch over all of Severus' finals for him and just let the spy rest for the week.

The door to the room opened up, and Poppy slipped inside. She took a seat beside him, erecting a Privacy Charm so Severus wouldn't be disturbed by their talking.

"How is he today, Poppy?" Albus asked.

"Much better. His brain activity has returned to normal and I'm happy to report that there were no brain lesions," she said giving him a severe look. She still partially blamed him for the boy's current state.

Albus looked ahead. "Good, good."

"He was lucky, Albus. He was very lucky."

He hummed in agreement knowing where she was going.

"Next time he might not be so lucky. No wizard can keep up with this abuse without permanent consequences. And what he's doing with his mind—it's not natural! One day you won't be able to get him out and then what?" She huffed, her fingers twisting into her skirts.

"I know," Albus responded on a whisper. That was the worst part of it all. He was well aware that Severus couldn't keep up with this forever. He mind was already starting to resist their failsafes. But what could he say? He couldn't order Severus to stop doing it. The boy only did it in extreme circumstances. To ask him to stop would expose him to Tom and guarantee a very slow and painful death.

The only real solution was to get Severus out, but then how would they get the vital information on Tom's movements that they needed to end the war? They may have Lady Malfoy now as a possible replacement, but what if she couldn't do the job, or worse, betrayed them?

Too many decisions to make…

He rubbed at his tired eyes. He was getting too old for this. He had been through two wars already, and this one seemed to be stretching out too far for him to see a possible end. There were so many questions that needed answers. How many good men and women would they lose before it was over? When would it end? Would they even win?

There was a possibility, a glimmer of hope for them, in the form of three young Gryffindors. Harry had always been at the center of it, tied to Tom and this war since the day the fallen wizard had singled him out, but now there was Miss Granger, her involvement growing with each day. If she could indeed get Miss Rosier's Reservoir Stone fixed…And the young Master Weasley; he wasn't sure what role he was to play in all of this, but he had a feeling that it would soon reveal itself.

The strands of fate had woven themselves around those three irrevocably. Destiny had plans for them, of that he was sure.

Ah, but his mind was rambling now. Slowly he stood up, his knees creaking from stiffness. There was much he still needed to do, many decisions to make and what not. Severus' warning for Miss Granger would be the first thing on his list. He would have to come up with some plans for keeping her safe now that Tom had verified her identity.

He sighed, knowing that he was in for a long night. Perhaps he would stop by the kitchens first and see if he could snag a Cauldron Cake…

"Are you leaving," Poppy asked, quietly.

"Hmmm," he murmured, making his way to the door. "Inform me when Severus wakes up, if you will."

"Of course, Headmaster," Poppy said. She paused, eyeing him narrowly, even as he smiled at her innocently. "Albus, you're not heading to the kitchens, are you?"

"Oh, I'm much too tired for that tonight," he said, avoiding the question.

"That wasn't an answer," she stated, and wagged her finger at him. "You've already had three Lemon tarts today. I'm cutting you off. You need to watch your health!"

Albus nodded respectfully. "Of course, Poppy, of course. You have my word that I won't touch another Lemon Tart today."

Poppy watched him suspiciously, before nodding in satisfaction and turning back to her patient, effectively dismissing him. Grinning mischievously, Albus tip-toed out of the room and the infirmary. He took a left turn down the hall in the opposite direction of his office and towards the kitchens, where he knew the Elves had a new batch of Cauldron Cakes waiting for him, whistling the entire way.

What Poppy didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

A/N: ok definitely wanted to end that on a happier note than the beginning. Poor Severus, I've put him through a lot—so sorry! (TT_TT) Oh and I just want to clarify that Severus does not actually condone using random women as shields, that was just a byproduct of the Occlumency.

so Severus will be a little out of control...wonder who he'll run into in the next chapter...hmmm...

Remember to review!~