~Monday 14 December – Late evening Clouds obscure the moon

I watched them burry my father. I don't want to think upon the rest of it. I just want to teach my classes to take my mind from the matter. Tomorrow...

~Tuesday 15 December – Late evening Clouds obscure the moon

Perhaps I should have listened to Dumbledore's advice and allowed someone else to teach my classes today. Though to think on it - that is what happened, for it was not I who stood before the students and lectured today. In my place was an undead monster that walked lifelessly through the room and spoke with my voice to give the class their instructions. It was no different from any other day.

My thoughts began to stray early. I stared out to Lily's former place in the room. I kept picturing her as she was - how she would have sat there, brewing potions or taking notes -laughing, as she ran her hand through her fire red hair. I can still see the caldron's fire reflected in her emerald green eyes. No, I can't - that light is gone. She is dead and the firelight itself is diminished in her absence.

A boy stood beside her at times but that boy is not me, he is long dead too. Many years before him, another girl with dark hair and sallow skin also took her places at one of those desks. I wonder if she ever laughed. My mother always said that some of the happiest days of her life were once spent at Hogwarts, but then she would always add that the best days of her life began when she met my father and had me.

When I was younger I could have believed it, she was so different then. But as I grew older - I hated to hear her say it. The woman that I came home to after I began my studies at Hogwarts never seemed happy at all. Her face was almost as grim as mine. If that was the case then her days at Hogwarts must have been miserable. There was always such sadness behind her eyes. At home she would smile when she saw him, or me but I can tell a true smile from a forced one. I can only imagine her face when she sat for Potions Class - the only light coming from the caldron. Lily emanated a light that eclipsed the fires... It is so unfair. Even I found some peace in this school so why couldn't my mother?

I was thinking about her forced smiles, how she had fought to conceal her pain for my sake. She didn't want me to worry I knew... But how could I not worry? I swear I could see her sorrow before I could even speak. Nothing could hide the hurt in her eyes, as she would stoop to pick me up and hug me after he had screamed at her. Always she would smile at me, mopping the hair from my eyes then saying with a grin, "Don't worry Severus, Mummy and Daddy just had a little fight, it's Ok - that's what grown ups do."

I never believed that, just as I could not believe in her smiles. Perhaps that is why I never smile - why my face remains as still as stone. I know that it will not fool anyone. People always grin at you when they want you to believe some bullshit story. "I was working late..." or else, "I didn't mean to..." or better yet -

At that my thoughts were interrupted. The awful laughter of teenage girls erupted before me. I looked down as deep blue smoke rose in pillars from Joan Ogden's cauldron. It wasn't so much that she had blundered that made me so angry, it was the fact that she and all of her friends found it to be so funny. Someone could have gotten hurt - but then of course, she and her cohorts like to see the innocent burnt by botched potions, lest I forget the incident where upon they tampered with Swanhilde Eyton's potion and caused it to explode on the poor girl. .

I should have said something or scolded her for laughing about it, but all I did was ask, "What on Earth were you thinking adding the Salamander Blood before Powdered Griffin claw?"

They hadn't stopped laughing, "Right." she said in an insolent tone, "Sorry Snape, but I never learned how to brew a Strengthening Solution." The entire class found this funny, they were all laughing.

"The Strengthening Solution is a standard potion, you should have learned it last year." Still they all laughed. I hated it.

Joan herself was nearly in tears from laughing so hard. But she stopped suddenly, long before the others and began biting her lip. She looked up at me strangely for a moment - than she laughed again and said, "Everyone knows that I was absent for most of last year because I had Scrofungulus. I nearly died Snape, - the entire school knows about it."

I rolled my eyes, turned my back on her and stalked back up to my desk. I ignored them for the rest of the class. "Snape" they all call me. Some of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs will occasionally call me "Professor" - but now most of the students from those two houses have joined the rest of the school in calling me "Snape" as well. I hate that name for it is his. Now it is made all the worse when I am referred to as such by the students. They treat me as if I were one of them, or just an older student - a Prefect maybe, but not a professor.

They never call me "Sir," or "Professor Snape," and a few times the older Slytherins have even called me "Severus." I'd stop them but what good would it do? None of them ever listen to me. Not one of them takes me seriously - and I don't blame them. I am just an older student - staring into space because I cannot stop thinking about the girl that I love more than anything in the world. I can think only of the girl that I killed, and the mother I am about to lose. So what difference does it make how they refer to me. It doesn't matter

None of this matters.

~Wednesday 16 December – My Room. Dark

I am back. We are, Dumbledore and I. Professor O'Malley over took my classes again. Today I was forced to visit The Ministry of Magic to fill out papers and then on to Cokeworth and the courthouse there to deal with the legal issues of the Muggle world. My father left everything to my mother, but since she is... I had to.

The house. That house. I'm going to be sick. No. It is not my house - it never was and it never will be. I wrote a name that is half his on countless pieces of paper today. I may write it again and again but it will never mean anything. I will not set foot anywhere near that place as long as I live. Seal me in my cell in Hogwarts forever, I will never return to the house on Spinner's End in Cokeworth.

It was bad enough that I had to walk there - through those streets and those places. All I could see was Lily. As a boy, I would walk to see her - she would walk with me - by my side. I took it all for granted and then she was gone. The days after I'd said it - severed us by the horrid thing that I had so named her - I was walking alone. At the time I thought it the worst thing possible. How foolish I was. I took that for granted too - for even though she was far from my side, she was still there - only a few streets away... Now she has left this world forever. So what difference did it make where I walked today?

I am...home now. This room is the closest thing I shall ever have to a home. This bleak, black room, my cell in Slytherin. Slytherin - home. I am home.

God, I want to wrap myself in the black blankets of my bed and never move from them again. But I won't sleep - not tonight. How can I sleep when she is... I have to do something. I failed to save Lily. I will not fail my mother. I have to help her.

~Thursday 17 December - A gale gray sunrise

I stayed up through most of the night researching potions. I know far more than most people who passed through these halls and yet it is still not enough - healing draughts were never my specialty. Basic, even advanced skills I know will not do, still there must be something.

I kept telling myself this to fight off my exhaustion. I could not keep my eyes open, still I pressed on. There are a few things I mean to try. One draught will take several weeks to prepare, that one being the most promising. Another will only take a few hours, I will start both today the moment that classes have ended. A third draught I have little faith in but I still mean to give it a chance. That will take several days. I will start that one on Monday when I have returned from visiting her...and the dreaded gathering at Malfoy Manor - but I mustn't think upon that now. I must think only of the potions to heal my mother.

~Thursday 17 December - Very late

I have done all I can do for tonight. I wait upon the one potion - the other is nearly complete. Now must try to sleep - I will need my wits about me if I am to survive Saturday. It is so hard to focus. My guilt gets the better of me, for how can I sleep when she lies dying? All I can think to do is to stay up and research more healing draughts... I have to - but I know I mustn't. Damn you Dumbledore - fuck you, fuck the war. It is over. The Dark Lord is dead. Does he not see how foolish this all is? There is nothing left to fear from them.

The only thing that matters now is my mother. The only thing to do is to spend all of my time and energy trying to heal her. I have lost everyone. The universe cannot take her from me as well - not now. Not now, not yet Mum no...

If she dies... I will be the last, won't I? I am. All of her family members have l passed on. I will be the last Prince 0 and I am not even a true Prince, only a Half-blood. Please don't take her away - please.

~Friday 18 December - Morning in my room

Plagued by dreams... and when I awoke from them I was still in my clothes. I think I must have passed out upon my bed from exhaustion. I had the book with as I lay across the coverlet, but I'd only managed to read a few lines. I will lose her if I do not try harder.

I am good - I know I am better than most of the Healers when it comes to potions. I am. I can do this. I have to. I know how to complete potions when the books do not. I can improve upon recipes, I know the subtleties that these ingredients require, and with enough time - but there is no time. I do not want to devote tomorrow to them - to their war. Just let me be - I want no part of this.

And now I must give up even more time - to teach? Why must I teach on top of all this!? This isn't real - my mother is dying. That is the only thing that is real.

~Friday 18 December - Potions Classroom

Five minutes remain of my final class for the day. I must go to see him. He will spend hours coaching me on what I am to do and say.

I know what he will say, but that won't stop me. I will ask him to permit me to not go, and to attend to my mother instead. Lucius would let me go to her.

~Friday 18 December - My room

I was only half awake, to exhausted from my nightly reading as I made my way to Dumbledore's Office from the Potions Classroom. Unfamiliar voices echoed throughout the hall, each more terrible than the last as they blurred together, creating one menacing sound. Then suddenly through the din, I heard her laughter. She ran past me - a mere memory of Lily, but I swear I felt her soft red hair brush against my fingers - the only bare part of skin where my sleeve ends far below my wrist. Lily. I stopped and spun on the spot, trying to see her. All I saw were the wretched faces of the current students staring back at me. She was gone, but I could still hear her laughter in my head.

Lily.

The blow hit me as if a wall of stone had fallen upon me - crushing me so that I could not breathe. I promised to protect him!

Dear God forgive me Lily. I will look after your son, no matter what the sacrifice, even it if means my own mother. Forgive me Mum. Forgive me Lily. I wanted to sob. I felt so helpless and trapped by fate. I felt ears forming in my eyes but I fought them back. I have no earned no such right to cry. I held my head up and walked dutifully to Dumbledore's office then. That was my only obligation - to be coached.

By the time I had reached the door to his office I was as numb and as hard as stone. I knocked on the door. He bid me enter and I marched in, soldier that I was - prepared to be trained all night with out complaint.

He sat confidently behind his desk. "Good evening Severus, how have you been this week?" As usual his words could have meant many things, but I did not permit my thoughts to wander by wondering what exactly it was that he meant. His sincerity or lack there of was irrelevant. I had been asked a question.

"I am well." I answered dutifully. I stood before his desk with my hands clasped behind my back. I was ready for anything.

He did not stand, but he looked up at me and said, "I am sure that you will be wanting to visit your mother this evening after we have finished speaking. I am afraid that I myself can not take you to Saint Mungo's as I am to have dinner tonight with Minister Millicent Bagnold and her family. However, I can arrange for Madame Pomfrey to take you if you would like. She would not be told of our secret arrangement of course. I will tell her that I felt it best that you not be alone at such a time. She will be most understanding, of that I am certain. What do you say?"

I was to respond to that? I knew I had to, but his words were not registering. What was this talk of my mother and his having dinner with the Minster of Magic? My orders... and Madame Pomfrey, "Sir, I would prefer to remain in the castle tonight. I must prepare for tomorrow. As to Madame Pomfrey, I would prefer it that neither she or any other members of the staff know about my mother." No one can know. No one can know that I have - or rather, that I once had a life outside of this castle. I was suddenly so terrified that they might already knew. "Professor O'Malley was not told the reason that she had been asked to cover my classes has she?"

"Of course not Severus," he said calmly, but not with out giving me a strange look. "I have not told anyone about either of your parents, only that you had to leave on a private matter. The staff is quite used to such things, as many members of staff prefer to keep such personal matters themselves. I would remind you however of what it was that I told you a few nights ago."

He waited a moment to see if I understood his meaning. I vaguely remembered.

"I told you that if you ever found yourself to be deeply upset about something that you should talk to me or someone else in this castle in whom you can confide. You do recall this, don't you?" He was giving me that look again, that piercing stare from above his half moon spectacles. I was trapped, found guilty and sentenced with out any words at all.

What was I to do? There was no one in the castle that I felt safe speaking with. It wouldn't be right to trouble Minerva McGonagall or Madame Pomfrey with such a thing. We had only just begun speaking on friendly terms. I was not about to approach either of those women and weep upon their shoulders over my dying mother. And why was he concerned over this? I had not come to his office to be comforted as if I were some wounded child. I was a soldier. I needed to be given my orders.

"Sir, I understand," I told him firmly. I didn't mean it, but I knew it was the answer that I was supposed to give to him. "I will do as you ask but I feel I must first focus on the Malfoy Gathering."

"Certainly. If you feel ready to do so we can speak about tomorrow night," he said this so casually.

"Yes Headmaster, I am ready to discuss the Malfoy Gathering." Were we honestly going to continue on like this? Did he mean to drag out or conversation until tomorrow night?

"Of course," he said, and then he stopped talking and began rummaging in his desk. Dear God, Dumbledore was going to drag this out all night! Finally he seemed to find what it was that he had been searching for. He removed an item from the drawer and placed an envelope upon his desk. "I would advise you tomorrow night, to speak with as many people as possible. They will undoubtedly want to speak about Bellatrix, her husband, her brother in law and the Crouch boy. You will offer your sympathies to the Malfoys and to anyone else, but do not inquire after them. In fact you should do your best to not speak on the matter at all."

"If that is your wish then I will avoid the topic all together," I told him. "If they, or the trial is mentioned, I will change the subject as quickly as possible.

"Good," he told me, "Secondly, It is very important to impress upon them that you are still acting in accordance with Voldemort's wishes." At that I nearly broke the vow I had made to not grow angry with him. Impress upon them that I am still acting on The Dark Lords orders!? Did he honestly think I would do otherwise!? "Let them know that you mean to continue acting as an informant for them. If you must, tell them that you hope to soon gain my trust and with it, any plans that I might have for the school as well as any involvement I have with The Ministry of Magic."

Obviously I meant to convey such things... still I showed no signs of discontent, "Yes." I told him.

He glanced down at the envelope on his desk for a moment, and then to me, "Then that is settled. Now, you will recall the night when I asked you to take up the post of Potions Master?"

Again? How could he think I that I would forget such a terrible conversation? "Yes. You asked me to do so just after we returned from my trial."

"And you will recall our discussion concerning Voldemort's request that you take up the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. You expressed your desire to take up the post on that evening," he paused then gave me that look again, "Do you recall this?"

"Yes. I told you that I would be better off teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. I told you that I did not want to teach at all, but that at least in The Defense against The Dark arts position I would be able teach the students something useful. I, unlike a great number of the other professors actually understand what the students might eventually be forced to face. I could teach them the best way to combat unfriendly spells." I'd done it. I had spoken my mind and thus broken my vow to be a good and obedient soldier.

But Albus Dumbledore only flashed a satisfied grin at my stubborn behavior. "I am glad to see that you recall the conversation and that you also remain passionate on the matter. You would do well to express this to those who ask about your teaching position tomorrow. In addition, you should know that I have this," he stopped for another dramatic pause as he reached for the envelope upon his desk and took his time to open it. Finally he handed the parchment across the desk for me to see.

I took it from his hand and began to read. "This is an application for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. You did this. You filled it in and forged my named." He had. The entire page had been written out in my exact handwriting.

"No Severus," he said with a wicked grin, "You did."

"What?" I had never even seen the document.

He continued speaking in his cunning tone, "You filled it out and signed it yourself earlier that very day."

That bastard. That evil fucking git had forced me to fill out that fucking application when I was half mad with grief - sitting near dead in his office. Of course he made me do it then! He must have fed me every word any forced me to write while I sat staring into the void. My anger at the betrayal was too great and I could only glare at him.

He stood up then and reached for the parchment. I was clutching it so tightly I was likely to destroy it. Still I stared unmoving as he gently folded it, placed it back into the envelope and returned the whole wretched thing to it's hiding place inside the desk drawer. "You see Severus, that application is now permanently on record both here and at The Ministry. That will be our proof. I do hope you will forgive the manner in which I made you write it, but I believe that in time you will find it to be of great use to you."

Fine. Fine so this is another one of his schemes in which I am merely a marionette. So be it, I thought. I am a player upon your stage Dumbledore, I thought, now give me the exact lines you wish me to speak tomorrow - just as you did on the days leading up to my trial when my mind was nothing more than a blank slate for you to twist and bend to your schemes.

He smiled then and said, "Do you have any other questions about tomorrow night?"

What? "Sir? What do you mean?"

He gave me a strange look, "I am asking you if there is anything else you would like to discuss in regards to tomorrow of course."

That is it then!? That is all he means to tell me? There is no script, no hours of coaching!? The numbness dissolved - feeling, inside of me - it was fear. No, I cannot be afraid still, "That is all you mean to tell me?"

"Yes, I trust you Severus," the look he gave me then was one of genuine sincerity, but I took no comfort in it. How could I when I did not trust myself to know what to do? Dear God, why had I been so arrogant just moments earlier!? It was Hubris to think that I would know what to do with out his guidance. Fuck it - I hate it when he is right.

"Sir, if that is all that you wish to discuss with me, then I shall take my leave," I told him. He nodded and wished me a good night. And that was it.

I am to let him know tomorrow when I leave, and report to him the instant I return to the castle.

And now I am alone in my room. Alone, with nothing to go on. No - not nothing. He did tell me things.

Bellatrix. Offer my sympathy, but ask no further questions. Of course he means for me to remain ignorant on the matter. Anything that I learn cannot be used in her trial for if such testimony was to be used, then they would surely know me for a traitor.

That fucking forged application - we will never truly need it, will we? Still I should let on how irritated I am with Dumbledore, and how insolent he can be. That will not be difficult. I will let them know that I mean to continue to request the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, I do mean to in truth... at least then I might not feel so useless as a professor.

He asked me to speak with as many people as possible. I am dreadful when it comes to such things. I am terrible in conversation and at making friends, but how else will I act as an informant if I do not converse with as many people as possible?

That is all tomorrow is truly about. He does not mean for me to return with information. My primary objective tomorrow is to firmly establish myself as one of them. They must come to trust me in time. The application, my having named only those who disappointed The Dark Lord in my trial - everything. Dumbledore is playing at some game that will go on for years, and only he knows where it is all going.

Unless... I never let my guard down. I must always keep up with him. In fact, I would do well to always think three steps ahead of him. I am not so easily fooled, as are all of the others. I may be his marionette and God knows I deserve far worse - but I mean to know why he pulls my strings and forces me to speak.

I am not a mindless pawn, nor can I be. I alone must act tomorrow. I must speak my own words and respond to all that they might say to me. That is to be my true training. I must learn to act alone. That is how I must overcome my fear, for I will be too consumed by the act itself to fear it. Most importantly, I must never forget why it is that I do this. Lily. I do this for you. I need only to think upon that.

God help me. I have less than twenty hours left to prepare myself.

~Saturday 19 December - Nearly Evening.

I stayed up for most of the night trying to imagine every possible situation in which I might find myself tonight. I have prepared my own list of lines to recite when asked any number of questions. I will employ Occlumens, I will look people in the eye and lie, and no one will ever know who I truly am.

All this I am certain that I can I can do. So why do my hands shake?

What does it matter? My feelings are nothing - all that matters is that I mask my fear. I have a mission to fulfill. All that remains now is to accomplish the act. So now I must leave for Malfoy Manor. God help me.