One Day at a Time

Valentine's Day

The next afternoon I stood outside of Sev's quarters, knocking on the wall next to the painting. It swung open and with a mildly surprised look on his face he invited me in.

"How's Tarazet?" I asked. I hadn't gone with him to my mother and father's house today, because he hadn't wanted me to apparate the long distance again.

"He'll live," Sev replied curtly, before returning to his seat at his desk. I gave him a scrutinizing look and he added in a slightly more polite tone of voice, "He's going to regain full use of his left arm. There's going to be a scar, though."

I nodded, and stood around awkwardly for a bit before leaving. Having broken the ice of visiting his quarters once, I visited his a few more times in the next week; I told myself it was because I was still recovering, so I might as well make it easier for him to check on me. He didn't seem to mind my visits, and for that I told myself (or perhaps "wildly hoped" would be more accurate) that it was because we were becoming friends. My more pessimistic side phrased it as "Well, he seems to have stopped actively disliking your presence."

By the start of February I was fully recovered and, with that, my excuse for visiting him disappeared. Teaching started occupying most of my time again and it was rather heartening that my students seemed happy to see me again. From what the students said, the substitute professors had varied from Severus, who repeatedly spilled over the end of class time and assigned an essay and a dozen detentions a day to Sprout, who knew very little about the class's material and had had them read silently or chat for the duration of every class.

At the end of one of my days of teaching, Hermione cautiously peeked her head into my office. "Professor Colburn? Are you busy? I was wondering if I could ask you a question."

"Of course," I smiled warmly at the most dedicated student I had.

"I was reading ahead in the book," she started, before diving into her book bag and opening the textbook to the corresponding page. For someone like Hermione, her question was actually relatively simple and I quickly pointed out what she had missed. She had seemed rather frazzled, even as she walked into my office, and I wondered if she was making silly mistakes because of that. "Exams getting to you? You seem sort of stressed," I said in the lightest, least intrusive way I could.

"Oh, no, exams are fine," she waved her hand. It seemed as though she wanted to say something more, but was unsure if she should. Finally, she blurt out, "Professor Colburn, when do boys stop being so dense?"

I gave a small understanding laugh and said, "That depends on the boy. Some by the time they're adults. Others, never."

She let out a huff. "And I swear, every other word out of my dormmates' mouths is 'Valentine's Day this' and 'Valentine's Day that'." It's still a whole week away!"

"Don't worry, it becomes much less of a big deal once everybody grows up. It's just sort of like any other day," I tried to comfort the annoyed girl in front of me.

"That's good to hear. Boys are just…so dense," she shook her head and let out an annoyed sigh. "So what are those books?" she tried to sound cheerful as she changed the subject and gestured towards the few books on a shelf behind me.

"Oh, those are my Defense Against the Dark Arts books from when I was at Hogwarts," I said as I pulled one down. "This one is from my sixth year, but it's older than that. Hand-me-downs," I pulled a smile as I gestured to the crossed-out names of my brothers in the front cover of the book.

"Has a lot changed since it was published, do you think?" she asked in a curious voice.

"A bit, but I wouldn't think a lot. We can compare the chapters with our current book." She seemed interested in that, so I started flipping through the book. Something fluttered towards the ground, presumably a bookmark, and I leaned over to pick it up. It wasn't a bookmark, though, or at least it hadn't been designed as one. It was a photo.

On the far left stood a man, a boy, really, in green and silver Quidditch robes. He had short black hair with slightly longer bangs in front, and he was somewhat good-looking in a haughty sort of way. The boy on the far right was also relatively handsome and similarly dressed. His short hair was chestnut coloured, though, and his light blue eyes seemed to be positively sparkling. The girl in the middle looked short in comparison to the lean, long-legged boy on the right, but she was near in height to the black-haired boy. She was wearing the standard black Hogwarts uniform and was relatively plain looking. Her long chestnut hair stood out in the sunlight and you could see a green and silver scarf wrapped around her neck. All three of the teenagers had their arms around each other and were widely smiling, waving enthusiastically at the camera. It was a very idyllic picture.

At this point Hermione was also looking at the photo, and she timidly said, "The boy on the left looks like Sirius."

I nodded. "Regulus and Sirius looked pretty similar." Half-reminiscing I added, "This must've been after our first victory against Gryffindor in six years. You can see their red and gold," I pointed towards the background. "We didn't win a single match against them while James Potter was seeker."

She nodded. "Your hair looks nice down," she pointed towards the girl in the photo.

I touched the braid I had my hair up in. "It's simpler this way," I shrugged my shoulders.

"My hair's so bushy I can't do much of anything with it," she gave a sad smile. After a brief pause she pointed to the chestnut-haired boy and asked in an interested tone, "What position did he play?"

"Tarazet was a chaser. He wanted to be a seeker, but Regulus was too good," I explained.

"Tarazet?" she said, and it looked as though she was searching her memory to see where she had heard the name before. "He's your brother who stopped by, isn't he?" she asked in a very surprised tone. I nodded and she added "I didn't recognize him at all. He looks so…different."

It was very surreal to look at those young smiling faces, knowing that within a few years one would be dead and one would be in Azkaban. And the girl in the middle…I don't know about her. It certainly didn't feel like that could be me smiling so innocently and carefree.

It felt as though Valentine's Day approached painfully slowly. I say "painfully" because I noticed that Hermione was right: it seemed to be all the female students talked about and, being the youngest woman on the staff, quite a few approached me for advice on what to wear, or who to ask to Hogsmeade and how to ask. I would say I was happy when it was finally Valentine's Day, except seeing all of the doe-eyed couples holding hands caused a jealous pang in my heart.

"You wouldn't believe all of the requests I received to ignore my lesson plan and teach love potions today, instead," Severus drawled at dinnertime in the Great Hall.

"Oh? Is that why all of my students were sighing dreamily instead of paying attention?" I said with an ironic smile; I knew that Sev would never deviate from his lesson plan.

"Under that logic all of my students had love potions before they so much as set foot in the dungeons," he responded distractedly, trying to choose some food to eat that wasn't pink. That was rather difficult, though, as it seemed the House Elves had specifically tried to make everything pink for Valentine's Day.

"The House Elves seemed to have fun preparing tonight's meal," I said rather amused.

"Surely more fun than we're having eating it," Sev replied, eyeing the little amount of food I had on my plate.

I paused and wondered if I would have the guts to say the next sentence I had in my mind. "Hey, do you want to go to the kitchens and just order some different food?" I said in a forced casual tone, not looking him directly in the eyes.

" 'Different' seems to imply that this qualifies as food," he said sarcastically.

"So is that a yes? I'm going to go either way," I tried to make it sound as though I could really care less whether he came or not.

He gave one last look at all of the pink food on the table and replied, "I suppose."

Yes! He's coming! my mind enthusiastically thought as my heart increased a hundred fold. No, Liseli, this isn't a date, just because it's on Valentine's Day, I tried to force myself to calm down. It's not even a 'just friends' thing. It's a 'he's hungry and wants edible food' thing.

We walked to the kitchens where the enthusiastic House Elves didn't show the least offense that we weren't eating their pre-prepared food. Instead, they eagerly asked what we wanted and started bustling around to make it. I had just started eating when I felt a sudden pain in my left forearm.

"I didn't know something was up tonight," I said coolly to Sev.

He frowned slightly. "What do you mean?" I started casually fingering my left forearm and saw the look of comprehension dawn on his face. "Oh, yes. The regiments are taking turns; it's supposed to be like a chain reaction."

I nodded. "Well, I should probably get going," and with that I left my unfinished meal and started toward the Forbidden Forest.

After apparating, I reappeared in a narrow, dark street. It was a city, but it didn't appear to be as dense or urban as London. The commander of our regiment was counting heads, to see if we were all in attendance, and with a satisfied nod he launched into his speech. "Alright, here's our orders, straight from the Dark Lord himself." I had to stifle a laugh. If the Death Eaters were anything, it was a bureaucracy. The only people who received orders directly from the Dark Lord were the Inner Circle and maybe the leaders of the regiment directly below them. My regiment, though, was far below that, at the level second from bottom. The only people below us were the new recruits who were in a temporary training regiment before being automatically promoted after a few months. After that, promotions came on the basis of dedication, strength and usefulness. As I was none of the above, I had yet to be promoted. If I had to guess, Tarazet was probably one level above me. Seginus and Matar were both higher ranking, I was sure; they were insanely dedicated, much more so than Tarazet. I wouldn't have been surprised if Deneb was a Death Eater, if his desire for connections was any clue, but I didn't know what level he might be.

The head of my regiment looked around at us, having finished his speech. Technically he was supposed to know all of our names, so we could be punished if we deserted. Somehow I doubted he actually did, though. Our mission this time was to cause mayhem until Aurors started appearing, at which point we would apparate to a new location and continue. Without an announcement or a word of warning to the unsuspecting Muggles, the members of my regiment started casting spells. Yells of surprise, fear and pain started to go up. Some Muggles started running away, while others foolishly gathered to see what was happening.

"Levicorpus," I said lazily, and the man in front of me grabbed frantically for the ground as he was lifted into the air.

Behind me, I could hear screams that clearly came from a Cruciatus curse.

I transfigured the floating man's neck tie into a garter snake. He let out a startled yelp and threw it to the ground. I let out a laugh at the man's fear; the snake had been neither poisonous nor a constrictor.

To my left I saw two children with their mother, who had just been put under the Imperius curse. I looked away; I didn't want to know what she was going to be forced to do to them.

I cast a charm to make the man dangling in front of me deaf in one ear. He started vigorously shaking his head as though there was water in his left ear.

To my right a Muggle man hit the ground, spread eagle with a glazed look in his eyes.

"Stop spending so much time on one Muggle!" I heard an order barked in my ears. When I turned I saw the head of the regiment facing me. "Kill him and move on to another one."

I replied with a falsely enthusiastic "Yes, sir!", glad that my annoyed expression was hidden behind my mask. With an "Avada Kedavra" the formerly levitating Muggle fell to the ground, looking as though he had simply fallen asleep.

We apparated to about half a dozen more places, always following the same pattern. Whenever we were about to apparate to a new place, the head would bellow "Finish them off!" and with a chorus of "Avada Kedavra"'s and a sweep of green light one portion of the street would become suddenly still. Those two words had become practically meaningless to me. I didn't like using them on people, but if I refused, what good would that do? I would be executed for being a traitor, and another Death Eater would immediately take my place and continue killing. I told myself that at least if I was alive, I could be as merciful as possible to the people I was dealing with.

I apparated back to the Forbidden Forest late at night, exhausted. I was trudging back to the castle when a voice said "I wouldn't apparate to the Forbidden Forest, if I were you."

I was so startled that someone was out this late at night, and had seen me returning, that I must have leapt about a meter in the air. "Oh, Merlin, it's just you, Sev. You scared me."

"It looks a bit suspicious if you're coming back from the Forbidden Forest," he drawled, falling into step with me. "Nobody decides to go for an evening stroll there," he inclined his head toward the dark, foreboding forest.

"And where are you coming from?" I said, knowingly eyeing the cloak he had put on over his Death Eater robes.

"Hogsmeade," he said smoothly. "Plenty of people go to Hogsmeade in the evening."

"I don't know if people go for a walk in Hogsmeade at this time of night, either," I said, a weak smile starting to form on my lips.

"More people at Hogsmeade than the Forbidden Forest," he said neutrally.

We walked together in silence. Just as we were departing for our separate quarters I casually threw out with a sarcastic voice, "Hell of a way to spend Valentine's Day."

"Oh, absolutely," he replied with the same hint of sarcasm in his voice.

…

A/N: A big thank you to Mywaychan, SomeOtherPerson, PollyWantCookie, and Leslie for reviewing!!