Severus and Lila were seated next to each other at dinner that evening, as they always were.

"I'd like to speak with you after dinner if that's alright, Severus," Lila requested.

"Shall we speak in my room?" he obliged.

"Sure."

In his room, the two were standing. Lila was looking around at all his bookshelves and studied his books along with other items placed on the shelves, like his potions. "It's like you've got your own potion library in here, Severus," she marveled.

He was standing near the middle of the room, focused on her. "Indeed. What did you want to speak to me about?"

Lila faced him. "I trust you know Harry Potter was selected as a fourth contestant for the Triwizard Tournament…"

He nodded in agreement.

"…but he's not old enough to enter himself, so someone must have done it for him."

He kept nodding. This wasn't news to him.

"I noticed your absence at Dumbledore's meeting the night the contestants were selected, but he says that Harry did not wish for his name to be put into the goblet. He didn't pay someone off."

"Dumbledore has educated me about the information shared at the meeting."

"Oh…sorry. I didn't know the two of you had spoken. Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is, have you any idea how his name ended up in that cup?"

He raised his eyebrows and looked down at the floor in front of Lermernia. "No, I don't," he lied.

"Well Harry seems to think that you, and more surprisingly that I, had something to do with it." She put her hand on her chest as she referred to herself.

Snape furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and looked back up at Lermernia.

"He suspects you because he says you hate him," she said putting her arm back down at her side.

"I do not hate the boy."

She didn't believe him but decided to go with it anyway, "well then perhaps you could be a bit friendlier to him? You don't want people suspecting you of conspiracy and treating him meanly is not going to help your case. Not only that, but people are suspecting me of being in on it!"

"Dumbledore knows I did not put his name into the goblet," he paused, "and that is all that matters."

"You're lucky to have his trust, Severus."

"I'm lucky to have yours too," he said guilting her into believing him.

She thought about bringing up where he had gone off to that night but reminded herself that she was going to let him tell her when he was ready. She was looking at him as she contemplated talking to him about the subject anyway.

"Can I get you anything? Tea?"

"No," she said as she made her way to the door. She wasn't upset with Severus, she didn't have any reason to be, "I think I'm going to call it quits for the night," she just wanted some space to think.

Severus closed the door behind her as she left. He could tell she was overthinking everything that had happened during the week.

Writer's note: Okay so I didn't upload a second chapter yesterday but I will hopefully be uploading chapter 11 tonight! Chapter 10 marks the halfway point in my story for Harry's 4th year. What do you guys think so far? Good? Bad? Slow? Write me a review, any criticism is helpful criticism :)