Disclaimer: I know nothink! (Translation: Please don't sue, J.K.R. or guy who wrote Hogan's Heroes.)

Ginny Weasley was not a worrier. Still, there was something alarming about the blue blackness of the castle. Prefects walked the rounds in pairs, but the Head Girl and Boy tended to go alone. Thomas Marinack and a few pairs of prefects took the shift right after curfew, the teachers wandered throughout the night, and Ginny alone got the morning shift. From four to five for the last week she had roamed in the muted, ghostly patches of colour from the stained-glass windows.

It was deathly quiet, and Ginny tried not to breathe too loudly. She hated this shift, blatantly unnecessary as it was. Nothing stirred. No one tried to tiptoe away from her. Nothing wanted to be up at this hour of the morning.

The silence shifted. Accustomed as she was to the castle's nocturnal sighs-every old building had them-Ginny couldn't stop herself from whipping around. A tapestry of a rabbit in an old castle garden stared back at her like a vacant green eye.

The shift came again. Ginny thought it was like the echo of a pebble dropping into the lake. The Head Girl shivered a little and drew her cloak tighter about her. It was getting colder. Winter was coming early. Through the soles of her shoes, the flagstones were like ice.

Someone touched her left shoulder. Very slowly, barely breathing for fear she would panic if she made any sudden moves, Ginny Weasley turned her head. There was no one there. Then something brushed past her on her other side, heading from in front of her to behind her. Ginny started running.

She only slowed when she reached the entrance to the Gryffindor tower. She almost missed it because she was expecting not the discreet stone door she saw, but the Fat Lady. Ginny muttered to the door, and it swung open without a sound. She stepped into the empty common room and almost jumped out of her skin. There was something moving by the hearth!

It was a house elf lighting the fire. He(?) flip-flopped his ears a few times and said, "Pulley is sorry, Miss. Pulley was not thinking Miss was awake. Pulley will go now."

Ginny shook her head and was about to say that she was just going to go upstairs, but the elf disappeared with a crack. It was actually surprising that the sound didn't wake people every morning, but the house elves knew their business. The hearth blazed up suddenly with golden flame, and Ginny settled herself in an armchair. Wrapping her arms about her knees, she closed her eyes and basked in the warmth of the fire.

Snape waited in the shadows, tapping his foot. He was good at lurking. Contrary to public opinion, though, he didn't actually like it, and he had been in this niche for a while. It had held a sculpture once, but even with their limited range of motion, magical sculptures were dangerous to have in a castle going rogue. Snape leaned against the pedestal (Hettius Fugle, 1614-78) and tapped his foot a little faster.

After a while, the sound was starting to grate on his nerves. "Tempus," he whispered. 4:29. In six minutes, Dumbledore would pass by on his way from his chambers to his office to get in some work before the students began to stir. For someone who dealt with spies on a regular basis, the headmaster was surprisingly ignorant of or apathetic to the perils of routine. Snape was glad of it; it made his job easier.

Ginny Weasley passed by at a run. Snape almost called after her, but she didn't have her wand out and she wasn't screaming for help. All the Potions master did was snap his fingers. A gossamer cord snaked itself across the corridor and blended exactly into the stone. Snape pulled his fingers back, and the string tensed about a foot above ground level. If Miss Weasley was being pursued by a student or even a ghost, her follower would be hard-pressed to avoid tripping.

No one came. Snape was about to retract the cord when he heard the mildest of coughs. "Really, Severus."

"Oh, it's you." Snape stepped into the weak light of the hall and snapped his fingers irritably. The strand faded away completely.

Dumbledore raised his bushy white eyebrows. "May I ask for whom you were setting a trap at this ungodly hour of the morning? Not a student, I hope."

"I don't know. Weasley was running away from something. I wanted to find out what."

"Not me, surely." Dumbledore frowned a little, but his eyes were twinkling.

"No. Not you." Snape looked back in the direction of the fleeting girl and abandoned the subject. It was worthy of future study, but only much later, when he was assured of being alone. "I had something else I wanted to discuss with you."

Dumbledore assented readily enough. "Walk with me to my office, if you would."

Falling into step, Severus lost no time in getting to the point. "You lied to us. Oh, she wouldn't realize. Neither she nor Minerva has ever undertaken anything like this. Is it to be just her, then? Tradition would say no."

While Snape was speaking, the headmaster hadn't broken his stride. When his professor had finished, he stopped and replied without answering Snape's question. "I thought you'd figure it out, though I confess I'd rather expected to have more time before you caught on. What made you realize?"

"Your charming speech about hope and scholarship and symbolism."

"Nothing I said then was a lie. She does have great significance to everyone she meets."

"That she does," Snape responded bitterly. Why was it that he seemed to be the only person to whom she symbolized great irritation to come? Musing on her hand, constantly in the air begging for attention, he walked for a minute in silence, and then added, "She might not accept." But he knew she would. She'd hate the idea and she'd love the idea at once, and after all, she'd see it as a duty. She'd accept out of habit, if nothing else.

"I'm sorry for not telling you, Severus. I thought-"

"I know what you thought. Besides, you were perfectly correct. I will leave as soon the construction is completed."

Snape started to stalk away, but Dumbledore called softly after him.

"She'll need you. To deal with this, she'll need you."

Snape stopped in his tracks, but didn't turn to face his old professor. "Like you needed me all these years?"

"My dear boy-"

"I'm tired. If you don't mind, we'll discuss this later." Still with his face averted, Snape added, "Just her?"

"Just her."

Shaking his head, Snape took off at a brisk walk and rounded a corner. Just her. Of course it would be just her. Never mind tradition, never mind that she was a controversy on legs, never mind that she would be terrified and isolated. Snape knew all about Dumbledore-imposed isolation, and it wasn't the most delightful experience he;d ever had.

All of a sudden, something made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, so he pulled his magic into his hands. It prickled in his fingertips and tickled at his palms, itching to be used, but the professor saw no one, and he let the magic disperse through the rest of his limbs. Checking a hunch, he let a little of the power remain in one crooked index finger, which he ran over the wall. "Revideam," he murmured.

Ginny Weasley came down the passage toward him, carrying her wand in one hand. It surprised him that she hadn't stowed it in a pocket, but she was clinging to it so tightly her fingers had gone white. She looked first over one shoulder, then the other. All at once, without any provocation as far as Snape could see, she broke into a long-legged canter, and then disappeared around the next corner. Even as she rounded the bend, her professor could see the vision's flying feet begin to fade. Dumbledore would see only her outline, if he saw her at all.

There was something about the space around her shoulders of which he didn't like the look at all. Snape stroked the wall. "Revideam."

The image ran past again and again disappeared. Snape put his finger to the wall and let it fall. "Revideam."

It had only been a week, Hermione reflected mournfully, and she was already swamped with work. Assigning her a foot-long essay on animal transformations, McGonagall had shot her a sympathetic look. Sprout had almost refused to accept her assignment for Monday. Snape, naturally, threatened to ban her from his classroom if she didn't do the work. Then he made her stay after class, ostensibly to discuss her poor performance on an in-class assignment. Hermione's peers knew full well how ridiculous that was, but they just thought Snape was being nasty for nastiness' sake.

Hermione almost wished that were the case. The reality was that he was commissioning her services for Saturday. He and McGonagall were going to go out to the two sites proposed for the erection of the new castle, and Hermione was required to accompany them. She nodded acknowledgment and was about to leave, but she had to ask. "Professor Snape?" He didn't answer, but neither did he decapitate her on the spot, which was a good sign. "Why do I have to go? I mean, I can't possibly have any influence on the decision." Can I?

"Of course you can't, you stupid girl." Snape took an exaggeratedly deep breath and Hermione counted to ten in her mind. "I thought you wanted to learn something for once. If that's going to happen, you're going to need to be there for every step of the process. If your attention span can't handle that, we'll need to rethink our arrangement." He paused, pretending to wait for a response. Hermione wisely stayed silent. "Good. I'll see you in the Great Hall after breakfast tomorrow. Bring parchment and a cloak."

"Thank you, sir. I will, sir." She tipped her head in polite acknowledgement, and he kneaded his temples with two callused fingers.

"Granger."

She nodded again. "Yes, sir?"

"Granger..."

Hermione waited expectantly, but nothing more was forthcoming. After a minute, Snape's eyes narrowed. Hermione was beginning to get the sense that she should have left long ago. She turned on her heel, braced for the sharp bark of Snape's displeasure, but it didn't come.

Ginny ambushed her in the corridor outside the Potions room. "What did he want? Neville told me he made you stay after."

Hermione tried to laugh it off. "Just to offer some of his helpful pointers." She knew Snape could still hear her, and she ordinarily wouldn't have dreamed of being so disrespectful, but she was annoyed. What could he say, anyway? "She accused me of being helpful"? Irony was a wonderful thing.

Ginny wasn't deterred by the novelty of having Hermione willing to participate in disparaging a teacher. Hermione would have thought less of her if she had been. The redhead pursued the subject. "About what?"

"Apparently I still can't chop mandrake root properly."

"Hm."

"Or stir. Who'd have thought it was possible to be bad at stirring?" Hermione's past experiences made her performance more convincing. Snape really had chastised her once in fifth year for failing to stir properly. It had reduced her to tears. She had been decades younger then, though that had been just three years ago.

"Hm."

"I have to go to Herbology."

"Hm."

Hermione hastily parted from her friend, ignoring her newly emergent dislike of walking in the castle alone. Every wall shimmered before her tired eyes. For a moment, it was as though the walls were covered in Lucius Malfoy's blood. But she couldn't worry about that right now. She had to get away before Ginny asked questions she wasn't allowed to answer.

She made a mental note to talk to Dumbledore. She was beginning to wonder how long she could keep this secret from Ginny.