A/N: Yes, I'm long-winded. I just wanted to mention that the hospital wing is on the third for this chapter. JKR has it on both the first and third floor, so I just picked the one that worked best for this chapter.

Snape opened his eyes to find the friendly, round face of Madam Pomfrey filling his vision. He licked his dry lips and made a face when he tasted soil on them.

"Welcome back, Mr. Snape." With a hand on his shoulder, Madam Pomfrey guided him into a sitting position. She used the other arm to hand him a glass of water from the bedside table. It felt good, cool and soothing to his dry throat. When he finished drinking, he asked, "What happened?"

"You tell me. What do you remember?"

The potions classroom, the boulder by the lake, the sudden, inexplicable sense that the world was falling in on him. Snape felt the air squeeze out of his chest. He looked around the room until his eyes caught sight of Potter standing several paces away.

What was going on? Shouldn't he be dead by now, or naked in a cage awaiting Potter's echoing footsteps in the dungeons of Potter Manor? If the incident during Potions hadn't proved him worthless, then whatever had happened to him before he'd passed out must have.

So why was he still here?

"Mr. Snape, can you hear me?"

"Yes. Sorry." He rubbed his eyes with the palm of his good hand. "I was down by the lake. I think I was...upset. Then something happened and it felt like I couldn't breathe." He shifted around. His robes were damp with sweat, making him feel clammy and uncomfortable.

"Was there anyone around who could have hexed you?"

"I don't think so, but it wouldn't be the first time I failed to notice someone sneaking up on me." His eyes darted of their own will over to Potter, who glanced away. Odd. He was becoming more and more certain that this wasn't a game. If Potter had intended to dispose of him, he would almost certainly be gone by now; he doubted his new master had the patience for this sort of psychological torture.

Potter clinched it when he stepped forward and asked, "Could someone have hexed him without him knowing?"

"It's possible," answered Madam Pomfrey, "but I don't think so. Those kinds of spells are far too advanced for most of the students here."

Snape jerked his head round to face Madam Pomfrey. That wasn't what he needed Potter to hear. That wasn't what he needed to hear himself. But he didn't dare interrupt.

"What does that mean? If it wasn't a spell, what was it? A potion?"

Madam Pomfrey glanced at Snape, before turning back to Potter. "This type of...seizure...is not entirely unusual in those who have suffered through...difficult circumstances. It seems more likely a malady of the mind."

"You mean he's crazy?" Potter backed up a step. Snape winced.

"No, of course not."

"Well, does that mean you can fix it?"

"James, you do realize that not everything can be fixed with Skele-Gro and Spellotape. She sighed, smoothing her white apron with both hands. "I'll examine him. It would be best if I could keep him overnight."

"Uh, okay. Really, do you think you can help him?" Potter looked convincingly concerned. Snape decided he would think about that later.

"That will be mostly up to him." Madam Pomfrey glanced back at him. Snape stared at her, wishing Potter was gone so that he could ask her what the hell that meant. She must have read the expression on his face, because the next thing she said was, "I'll need to do a more thorough examination, now. Why don't you look in on Mr. Black? He was looking a bit green a moment ago."

"All right." Potter cast one more long, curious look at Snape before walking back out.

Once the door was closed, he asked the first of the many questions floating around in his mind. "What was Black doing here?"

"Escorting you up. Can you stand?" She held his shoulders steady as he put his shoes on the tiles. Shoes? Normally those were the first thing to come off in the hospital wing. He must not have been here long.

"How long was I out? And what do you mean, escorting me?" Black would as soon spit on him as walk with him anywhere, he was sure.

"You were unconscious only a few minutes, according to Mr. Potter." She helped him slide his robe off his shoulders, though he knew he could do it himself. It was a secret pleasure of his, letting her coddle him. He could stand her touch because it wasn't personal; touch was part of her job and required nothing from him. But she was so careful when doing it, and she didn't have to be.

When he was standing in nothing but frayed pants, Madam Pomfrey used her wand to weave diagnostic spells while she talked. "Mr. Potter found you after Quidditch practice. He said you seemed to be convulsing, and then you passed out. He got Mr. Black to watch you while he got on his broom and flew up to my office window. When he knocked, I dropped about half my supply of Stomach Settling Solution."

Snape shook his head. "He did what?"

"He flew right up to my window and knocked. Put that eyebrow back down, young man."

"I—he wouldn't do that." But Madam Pomfrey didn't seem to be lying. And Potter had seemed concerned. But this didn't make any sense; one just didn't do that for slaves.

"He was scared half to death. I believe he thought you were dying."

It still didn't make any sense, but at least now he could be mostly certain that Potter didn't want him dead. The rest he could puzzle out later.

Madam Pomfrey frowned as the thin blue mist she had conjured with her wand curled around his burned hand. She tugged on his forearm to get him to raise it up. "What happened here?"

"I burned it."

"Yes, I can see that." She studied the burn a moment longer, and then let his hand fall back to his side. She helped him pull his robes on, taking care with his injured hand. "Go ahead and button up your robe. I'll be back in a moment."

Snape did up the buttons with one hand—a task made easier by the several buttons that were missing. The burn, which until now he had nearly forgotten about, had started to ache and sting once Pomfrey had brought his attention to it.

She came back with a jar of mint colored paste, with the label Burn Better affixed to its side, and a glass bottle of deep purple liquid. She spread the salve over the raw skin, avoiding the blisters. For that, she swabbed a few drops of the purple liquid onto the boiled flesh. A cool, mild tingling feeling made its way up his arm.

"There. Does that feel better?"

"I think so." It did. Of course it did, he recognized both potions were Succurri-based, with certain properties emphasized. The batch Evans had Evenesco'd would have healed him twice as quickly with half the amount. And it would have been his.

Inexplicably, his eyes began to prickle and the hand in Madam Pomfrey's began to shake. He tried to pull it back, but the nurse held on, tugging him forward. She cupped the back of his head in her hand and guided it down to her shoulder, using her other hand to try to pull him into a hug.

It was too much, her body too close to his. He felt panic rising, choking him. He shoved her back with both hands, smearing green paste on her white apron. She stumbled back, looking surprised.

Her image blurred and Snape shut his eyes to keep in the moisture. He fell back onto the bed, curling in on himself.

"Severus?" The voice faltered.

Snape kept his eyes shut tight. "I'm sorry." His voice was hoarse and choked. "I'm sorry."

"Hush." Madam Pomfrey's voice had regained its usually even, firm quality. "May I touch you at all?"

Snape couldn't trust his voice, but he shook his head. The thought of any hands on him made him want to vomit. He didn't understand, but was grateful when she only backed up a pace and didn't leave him completely.

Maybe Potter was right. Maybe he was going mad.

He felt his body convulse with dry sobs until his stomach was sore and his chest ached, but he didn't want to stop because the action somehow eased a less physical pain that he had carried with him for all the life he could remember.

---

James paused outside the greenhouse door, listening. He heard a yelp, a series of thumps and a string of words that guaranteed Professor Sprout was nowhere in the vicinity or Sirius would have had his detention doubled.

Wand out, body turned sideways to minimize the target, James inched his way in.

Sirius was hanging half upside down, one leg hoisted up by what looked like an adolescent stalk of Devil's Snare that was wrapped around his ankle. A vine from a baby snare had captured his left wrist and pinned it to the table leg. Sirius's wand was sticking up in a mound of potting soil that had spilled from its sack.

Sirius's free arm reached out to snatch it, but a Fanged Geranium, apparently displeased at having had half a sack of compost dumped on top of it, snapped at his hand and nearly took off a piece of Sirius's thumb. Another string of impolite words flew from his mouth.

"Pads. Need a hand?"

Sirius turned to him. He was a sight; face streaked with dirt, hair tangled up with twigs and rotten leaves. Sweat left pale streaks across his face, through the grime. James shrugged off his outer robe. This was the hottest and most humid of the greenhouses. No wonder the Devil's Snare wasn't happy.

Sirius continued to stare at him. James stared back.

"Well get off your arse and get me down from here!" Sirius finally shouted. He thrashed harder, causing the Devil's Snare to coil more tightly around his wrist and ankle.

After putting up with Sirius's childish behavior the last few weeks, this opportunity was just too good to let it pass buy, as a better man might have. "Well now, that was rather rude. What do you say, Sirius? Help me down, what?"

"Help me down, wanker!"

"Tsk, tsk. What would your mother say?" James affected a stern look. "She was much more inventive the last time we met."

James was expecting anger, but something shifted in Sirius's expression, and suddenly James was reminded of the playful, prank-ready best friend he'd had last year. Crossing his free ankle over his captured leg and pillowing his free arm under his head, Sirius managed to create the impression that being held mostly upside down by vindictive shrubbery was something only brilliant and attractive Quidditch heroes were privileged to experience. "She called you the same thing she calls everyone that comes into her house she doesn't approve of. She came up with 'blood-blind, foul-breed bottom-feeder' decades ago and never sat down to think of something more original."

"Ah. And I was so impressed."

"You turned redder than a blood melon."

"I was young, and my ears delicate and virginal."

Sirius scoffed and rolled his eyes. "So? Are you going to get me down?"

"Er." James eyed a row of Devil's Snare cuttings scattered like Muggle land mines about the floor between Sirius and himself. "Remember last year when we were following Mooney through the forest on some mad Snidget hunt and my antlers got caught in some branches so Peter stayed behind to help me?"

"It wasn't branches, it was Devil's Snare. You dangled from your antlers until Peter got you down."

"That rat! He swore not to tell. And anyway, all he did was cast a severing charm on my hair, once I realized that I didn't have antlers as a human."

Sirius moaned theatrically and banged his head against the earth-covered floor. "I'm an idiot."

In a blink, Sirius had turned into Padfoot and, taking advantage of Padfoot's smaller ratio between ankle and foot, twisted out of the trap and landed inelegantly on his side on the dirty floor. Springing to his feet, he turned and growled at the vines, which were lashing back and forth, looking for their escaped victim.

Sirius was too busy barking and James too busy laughing to hear the greenhouse door opening again. "James Potter! What on earth are you doing with a dog in the greenhouse? And where is your miscreant friend?"

---

After a few long minutes, Snape tried to force his breath and body to relax. At first, his body shuddered, chest hiccupping with gasps, as if fighting to continue this painful fit, but he refused to let it. He managed to take a few deep breaths and forced his drawn lips to mouth all the ingredients for a calming draught, in order. It worked, and in a few minutes he was able to sit up and wipe his face with his good hand. His nose was running, but at least his eyes were mostly dry.

Madam Pomfrey sat down in the chair by his bed and handed him a cool, damp towel. It felt good against the hot skin of his face. He must be as red as one of those giant tomatoes Sprout grew in greenhouse two.

"Feel better?" Pomfrey asked, again.

"A little," Snape lied, and tried to smile. He still felt as if he was balancing on the knife edge of hysteria, but he wouldn't let himself cry again.

Pomfrey shook her head. "I know it might not feel like it right now, but, I promise you, things can get better."

Snape suddenly felt the bubbling hysteria shift to boiling anger. "No, they can't."

"Yes, they can. Severus—"

"Don't call me that. That isn't my name. Calligulus just needed a first name for the school paperwork. I don't even have a bloody name."

Madam Pomfrey was silent for a blessed few seconds. Then she spoke again. "I'm so sorry, child. But you have to understand, you are not the only person to feel like this. There are others—"

Snape growled through his teeth. "No person feels like this. I am not a person. I am a slave. And I'm going mad. And you have absolutely no idea."

"My brother was a prisoner of Grindelwald for eight years. Do you think that he was treated to caviar and silk sheets?"

Snape opened his mouth to reply, but couldn't. Instead, he glared.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. "You aren't ready to hear this, are you? Just know this, child. You're not going mad. I took care of Frederick for a year after we got him back. He had the same fits, the same feeling that something was gone from him that he could never get back. But it didn't last forever."

"It ended for him," Snape ground out. "It will never end for me. I will always be a slave. And I doubt Potter or his father will be so understanding about my 'fits' as you were for your dear brother."

Madam Pomfrey quirked a tiny, ironic smile. "You'd be surprised. Half of those years, Benjamin Potter was in the cell next to my brother's."

Snape twisted his lips into a sneer. "Is that supposed to be some great comfort? All that means to me is that Potter's father will be that much better at hurting. Empathy is not a word that applies to slaves. Neither is compassion"

Pomfrey was silent for a moment. Then she stood up. "I'm sorry. I should never have let you get so upset."

Snape swallowed. He should probably tell her it was all right, that he understood. But, bloody hell, it wasn't, and he didn't. He hated having to say those awful truths, hated having to think about what he was and what had been done to him. And he hated arguing with Madam Pomfrey because she was the only person who could touch him and bring comfort with her touch. She was the only person who treated him like a real child, like a freeborn. Hell, she was the only person who would ever tolerate the way he had been speaking to her, slave or no slave. He didn't want to lose that.

"It's all right," he choked, "I understand."

Madam Pomfrey gave him a sad smile. "It's not all right, but I do understand. More than you know.

Snape bit his tongue, knowing that anything he said would only make the situation worse. He just wanted this conversation to end.

"You should rest. Will you be able to sleep?"

Snape winced. "I need dreamless sleep." He desperately wanted the sanctuary of sleep, but there would be no sanctuary if he was allowed to dream, not after this conversation.

Pomfrey pursed her lips. "A half dose. You need to dream, child, or you'll feel just as awful in the morning."

"I'll feel awful in the morning, anyway."

"I'll stay with you. If you have a nightmare, I'll wake you up."

"What?" He didn't think it would work, but the offer itself surprised him. "Don't you need to sleep?"

Pomfrey gave him another small smile. "Not half as much as you, dear. I'll put some monitoring spells on you and work in my office, if that's all right."

Against his better judgment, Snape nodded. It was probably the best offer he would get, even if Pomfrey didn't stay the whole night.

Pomfrey left and came back with clear phial half filled with a thick, blue fluid and a glass of pumpkin juice. Snape got comfortable under the white sheets and lifted the phial to his lips. He drained it in one swallow, and even managed a few sips of pumpkin juice before his eyes drifted shut and the world faded out around him.

---

"Well?" Madam Sprout glared at him, hands on her hips and plump arms akimbo. The normally cheerful professor was giving him a look that said he had better thing of a good explanation soon, if he ever wanted to leave the greenhouses for something other than classes or meals this term.

"Er." James glanced at Sirius, who was lying on his belly, head on his paws and endeavoring to look as cute as caninely possible. "He's one of Hagrid's, I think."

"Yes, well, what is he doing here?" She turned her glare on Sirius, who rolled onto his back, exposing the white streak on his belly, and kicked his legs in the air like a puppy.

"He, uh, must have sneaked in. He's clever...for a dog."

Sirius let out a sharp bark, hearing that.

"I see. Are you sure he's pure dog? He's larger than normal, I think."

Sirius yipped at that, then sneezed so hard he convulsed. Madam Sprout settled back on her heels, hackles almost visibly settling down. Not surprising--even James was tempted to go over and scratch his best friend's belly.

"Well, I did have to ask, particularly with Hagrid and his...mongrel." Madam Sprout looked back at James and tapped her foot on the soil-covered stone. "So, did this mongrel of Hagrid's sneak in while Mr. Black was, perhaps, sneaking out?"

"Um, no, of course not. He went to go get a...treat. To, you know, lure him out. He asked me to stay and make sure he didn't get hu—didn't hurt anything."

"Oh. Then well done, I suppose." Sprout checked out the rest of the greenhouse, examining the young Devil's Snare with a snort. She hummed until one of the vines drooped into her palm and she could stroke it. "Tell your friend that they're quite fond of The Slade. And do please clean up before you leave." Giving the vines one last stroke, she left.

Sirius kicked his legs in the air and wriggled. James rolled his eyes. "You might as well turn back now. I'm not scratching your belly."

With a huff Sirius rolled to his feet and flowed into his human form, showing off, as usual. He did smile when Sirius clapped him on the shoulder. "Quick talking."

He shrugged, but not enough to displace the hand. "Sprout is easy. Speaking of whom—what did you do to her that she's making you repot Devil's Snare?"

"I broke a Mandrake."

"You bro—you killed a Mandrake?"

"A baby mandrake, actually." Sirius had the sense to look sheepish.

James gave a low whistle. "Impressive. I would have thought that was a death sentence."

Sirius pointed towards the sinewy green vines, now draped limply around the table legs, dozing. "Yeah, I think that was the point."

James took a moment to reflect on the fact that not taking Herbology with Sirius had probably saved him many near-fatal detentions in the future. Then he reflected on the fact that he had not been assigned detention but was none the less standing in a cold, musty greenhouse with his best friend, trying to work up the courage to wrestle with the foliage that had several times tried to kill him.

Well, he had nothing better to do tonight. Except his homework. Or researching slavery. Or chewing the fat with Remus. Or playing chess in the clean, dry common room with Peter, instead of rolling in the dirt with Sirius.

"So," he began, turning to Sirius. "How well can you sing?"

---

As it turned out, Sirius could sing very well. And if the only songs he knew were not from the Odd Uncles and Loud Ladies, they would have been finished within the hour.

Instead, Sirius stood safely behind a bulwark of potting soil sacks, singing, while James tried to subtly unwrap the baby vines from the table leg as they twisted and bobbed to the melody of Sirius's voice and the rhythm of his hands slapping the top of the sacks. He'd had to become Prongs twice, and was worried that the vines were catching on.

He finally got the first vine untwisted, and immediately yanked it back from the table and seized it with both hands while Sirius dived on the pot, scooped most of the plant's roots out with his hands and plunged it into a new, larger pot.

Sirius counted, "One, two, THREE!" They both stumbled backwards. James slapped away the tip of the vine that reached out to seize his wrist. They waited until the plant gave up on finding something to strangle in the near future and straightened up in a passable imitation of a mundane plant.

James turned and stared at the remaining Devil's Snare. He collapsed on the pile of potting soil. Sirius fell beside him.

"I'm taking a break."

"I noticed. Me too." James let his head fall back onto the earth. He was going to have to shower tonight anyway.

They gasped in silence for a while. Sirius finally spoke. "So. How is he?"

James lifted his head long enough to give his best friend a good stare. "Do you mean Snape?"

Sirius folded his hands behind his head. "Yeah. Who do you think? Do we know anyone else that passed out on school grounds today?"

James let his head drop back onto the dirt. "I think Rosier might have wet himself when Snape's cauldron exploded. But, yeah, Snape's all right. Madam Pomfrey is keeping him tonight."

"Did he say who hexed him?"

"He doesn't think anyone did. Madam Pomfrey called it a 'malady of the mind'."

"You mean he's crazy?"

James turned to his side and started drawing patterns in the soil. "She doesn't think so. And he doesn't act crazy...most of the time."

"I don't know. Slaves...they're a strange lot, anyway. You should be careful around him."

"Well, I was going to cuddle up to him and spill all my deepest secrets in the dark of night, but I suppose I'll have to do it to Remus instead. At least he has nice hair."

Sirius gave a grunt. "So you're not going to...?"

James sat up straight. "Oh, Merlin choking on a snitch! Where did you even get that idea from? I don't like guys and, even if I did, there's Lily."

Sirius wriggled a bit. "Peter said that slaves can...do things through the geas. Make you want things you wouldn't normally. And this summer I saw something that bears it out."

James felt his eyebrows raise of their own accord, even though he could feel a shiver of unease down his back. "What exactly did you see?"

Sirius drew a circle in the dirt. Then drew a square around it. "It's family stuff."

"So? Your family stuff is always good for a laugh."

"Yeah, well, not this time." Sirius stood abruptly, raining potting soil down into James's lap.

After that, they worked in silence.

---

Four in the morning found Snape with his head buried in a pillow, hoping it would smother him. He'd slept half the night through, then spent the next four hours haunted by memories of the last few months in Lucius' care as well as the vague terror dreams that left him fast-breathed and shaky, but with no memory of why. Madam Pomfrey had kept her word and woken him every time his sleep became disturbed, but that didn't do anything to stop the nightmares, only to keep them from getting worse.

He was never more glad than when a house elf climbed up onto his bed with a breakfast tray. The sun wasn't even up yet, but he supposed Madam Pomfrey had finally given up on her fantasy of giving him a peaceful and undrugged sleep. Breakfast was good, at least.

Madam Pomfrey came in after he had finished and suggested a shower while she saw to his robes. Some of her hair had escaped its tight bun and her eyes had purple smudges under them. She smiled at him and patted his shoulder but Snape doubted that she would offer to stay up with him again.

They were both up early, so when Snape had finished with his shower, he offered to help her arrange her potions stores. Given his mental state he would probably just muck up his homework, but he didn't need to be awake to handle potions.

Madam Pomfrey accepted and he spent a quiet early morning cleaning, categorizing her potions stores. Just handling potions calmed him—numbed him, more like. That, and the limited amount of sleep he'd got and the rather embarrassing, but cathartic, outburst he'd experienced last night. He had the rather pleasant feeling that he was drifting along in his head, disconnected from the consequences of reality. This state of pleasant numbness must have caught up with him while he was dusting off a jar of pimple salve, because he remarked, "It's odd, isn't it? This is the most time I've spent in the hospital wing and the healthiest I've ever been."

He'd meant it as an offhand comment, but Madam Pomfrey gave him a horrified look before her features relaxed, probably by sheer force of will. "I'm so sorry, Sever—child."

Snape shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't mean to say it like that. I can heal myself well enough. But you were right; Potter isn't like Lucius, is he? I don't know if he's better or worse yet, but he is different." He was either thicker and kinder than Snape had expected, or much cleverer and crueler than he had given him credit for. Given the trend his life had been following so far, he wasn't eager to find out which.

"I'm not sure whether to be worried or impressed by your attitude."

Snape opened an unlabeled jar and sniffed at the contents. "I don't have much of a choice, do I? I can't afford what happened last night; mad slaves are a liability." Belladonna extract. He recapped the jar and placed it on the high shelf. He took another from the bottom shelf and again opened it to examine the contents. "And you can call me by my name. Snape is the name of the estate my sire was from. Severus is the name Calligulus chose to put on the Hogwarts parchments, but that does make it my name, doesn't it? Unless Potter wants to change it—but masters don't name slaves once, let alone twice. So that's my name, isn't it? That's what was given to me; that's what I have to take." He wrenched the cap back on the jar and pressed his forehead into the middle shelf, forcing his mouth to stop running.

What was happening to him? He glanced at Madam Pomfrey from the corner of his eye. She was staring at him, deep grooves of concern lining her face. He needed to get control of himself. If this happened anywhere else, even outside the presence of his master's little club, he would be torn apart. Slaves didn't have allies or friends.

He took a gasping breath and shook his head, clearing it. Only half-joking, he asked, "Still think I'm not insane?"

Madam Pomfrey nodded. "You're as sane as anyone at this school."

"And a great comfort that is."

Madam Pomfrey ignored him. "You are resilient and determined. But you are upset and the things you have avoided thinking about are catching up with you. I think you'll eventually sort things out, if only because you are too intelligent to be killed, too stubborn to die and too proud to truly go mad."

Snape rubbed his dry eyes with the hand still holding the jar of foxweed paste. He wanted to shout at Madam Pomfrey that he had already gone mad once, and begged for death more times than he could count over the last few months. But what she had said was probably the most complimentary thing anyone had ever said about him, so instead he said nothing. For the moment, he was better off keeping his mouth shut given that it had got in the habit of running off on its own, lately.

By the time he finished cleaning and checking through the first shelf, he was nearly late for class. He gave a nod to Madam Pomfrey before he left, and then hurried towards the staircase.

By the middle landing, he was already gripping the rail and breathing hard. He paused, trying to shake off the feeling that the ancient stairwell was tilting sideways.

He had started to take a step down when his ankles snapped together as if he'd stepped into a snare-trap. He tumbled forwards, but his grip on the banister swung him into the railing. The invisible snare snapped up and jerked his legs into the air, over his head, over the railing. He flailed and managed to grab the banister with his other hand and look up into Rosier's smirking face. He held an enormous tome in his hand—an unprecedented sight—and his smirk grew to a grin as he brought the book down on Snape's hands, one at a time.

The impact on his knuckles forced his hands to open. Rosier swung the book at his face, but Snape was already spinning away, and the blow struck his shoulder, numbing his arm momentarily.

He flailed his arms out, desperate to catch onto something. Searching for a way to break his fall, he looked down, but to his dismay, the ground wasn't getting any closer. His arms pinwheeled, trying to find the thing that was keeping him from falling. But the air felt like air; there was nothing holding him up. His body was telling him that he should be falling, and also that he wasn't. Dizzy and sick, he managed only a half-strength glare for Rosier.

Rosier held up the heavy book, a few red smudges from Snape's blood staining the title, Hogwarts, a History. "Interesting spell, isn't it? Apparently, Headmaster Dippet cast it when a student took a header off the fifth floor. Any living thing just floats out there. I always thought it would make for an interesting place to hone my wand-aim." He stretched his wand arm out, supporting his wrist with his free hand in an exaggerated targeting stance.

Snape let out a long, hissing breath. He didn't care. Nothing Rosier could do to him was worse than he had already experienced. The worst-case scenario was that he would be sent back to Madam Pomfrey and given a chance to rest and catch up on his homework.

Feeling nothing more than a dull, contemptuous rage, Snape swung his legs forward. The momentum threw his lower body forwards, leaving him floating at an upright, if oddly tilted angle. He felt a smirk tugging at his lips; years of having been dangled in mid-air by both his new master and his old were finally working to his advantage; he remembered how to control his body, even without anything to push off from. Crossing his arms over his chest, he rolled his eyes and let his smirk grow. "Only you would need an over five-foot target to be held stationary two yards away. I suppose that's an improvement—Lucius told me last summer that the only thing you could hit was the long side of his stables."

Rosier stared at him, eyes and mouth wide open, giving him a distinctly cow-like expression. This was clearly not how he had been expecting this encounter to go.

"What, surprised? You're obviously too stupid to realize that I only played mouse to your cat over the years because you were Lucius's footman. Or are you planning to go to Potter whining that his slave didn't cower properly again?"

Rosier sneered. "Potter may have bought you, but he obviously hasn't offered you any protection." He looked inordinately pleased with that brilliant observation.

"He doesn't need to offer me protection; he only has to refuse it to you."

"I'm the one with the wand, slave."

"True, but I'd be surprised if you were holding the right end of it."

Unsurprisingly, Rosier dipped his eyes to check his wand, before he realized that there was no right end of wand. Snape barked out a laugh. There appeared to be one benefit from being Potter's slave: Lucius's lackeys were even thicker than his new master's.

Rosier emitted a sound between a grunt and a growl—obviously having found human languages too complex. He pointed his wand at Snape's face and barked, "Amburo!"

Snape yanked his legs up, causing him to spin backwards quickly. Unfortunately, Rosier's aim was not as poor as Lucius had implied, as he felt the spell strike his shin, sinking through his robes and making him feel as if his flesh was boiling off the bone. He caught his scream between his teeth and refused to let anything more than a hiss of pain to slide past them.

Rosier cursed, probably frustrated at having missed what should have been an easy mark. Snape wished he could trust his voice well enough to taunt him further.

"Expelliarmus!" Both Snape and Rosier jerked their heads around towards the newcomer. Rosier only briefly, as his wand was knocked out of his hand and over the staircase railing. He leapt forward to catch it, but, unlike Snape, the wand dropped like a stone. Snape watched it fall and felt a small bit of glee at the crack with which it met the stone floor below.

"Now who has the wand?" Black asked, sounding almost cheerful.

Rosier turned a blotchy red, caught between fury and humiliation. Snape knew he had looked exactly the same way many times, but this was the first time he'd seen it on someone else. It was a satisfying and pleasant sight.

Rosier, never the master of prudence, challenged, "And what do you think you can do with it? I'm a student, not a slave."

Black inclined his head towards Snape, looking cool and casual, but his eyes and his wand were trained steadily on Rosier. "He's a student, too, last I heard. As to what I can do with my wand...Ranuncule!"

Rosier's eyes went wide as his arms were drawn into his body and his legs fused together beneath his robe. He flopped onto his side, the slimy tip of a flat gray tail twitching from the bottom of his robe. His top half bulged out and his neck shrunk down, joining with his shiny gray body. He flopped helplessly around the landing, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. He was, for all intents and purposes, a giant, malformed tadpole.

Black squinted at the flopping, gasping creature. "Hmm. I don't think I put enough power into it; he was supposed to transform all the way. He's still got his eyes and his hair. What do you think, Snape?"

The tone was light and casual and a perfect copy of Lucius at his most dangerous. Instantly wary, Snape answered, "You are correct, sir." He hesitated, and then decided to take the risk. "Also, you should have aimed a bit higher; the spell is supposed to hit the middle of the body so that it can spread evenly." And if Sirius one day used this spell against him, he would feel like a fool...but it would still be worth the look of frightened, gasping horror on Rosier's mutated face.

"I think you're right. Thank you." He took his eyes of Rosier for the first time. His lips twitched upward and Snape wondered if he was going to do some target practice of his own. "You seem to have, ahem, fallen into a difficult situation."

Snape couldn't help it. He rolled his eyes at the feeble pun. Black pointed his wand at him and he flinched back, causing his entire body to spin backwards. Very impressive.

But Black only cast a gentle Teneo, drawing him back over the railing. Outside of the spell's reaches, he began to fall as soon as he was partway over the landing, and crashed ungracefully onto his side at Black's feet, bruising a hip.

Black stepped quickly away from him, as if it were Snape who was the slimy, limbless creature writhing on the ground. Gruffly, Black asked, "You need to go back to the hospital wing?"

Snape quickly checked his leg. The skin was pink and a little tender—and what hair he had there seemed to have been singed off—but Rosier's spell hadn't been strong enough to do real damage. "No, sir." He stayed on the ground, not sure if this strange moratorium on violence would end if he stood up.

Black stepped over him and started walking down the stairs. He paused after a few steps and called over his shoulder, "Are you coming or not? Rosier will turn back in a minute are so. Do you want to be walking to class alone and wandless while he's lurking about?"

Snape bristled at the implication that he couldn't defend himself. But the truth was that he had been helpless to stop Rosier, and a sharp tongue without a fast wand to back it up was more a liability than a defense.

Even so, Rosier still might be the better option—he was stupid, weak and no longer had a carte blanche to torture Snape at his pleasure—but it was obvious that Black wasn't offering him a choice. He struggled to his feet and followed Black down the staircase with the sinking feeling that this was going to be the best part of his day.