A / N : Sorry for the update delay, I've had a hundred and one things going on and I've hardly had time to write this, except in fits and starts. It's another long chapter though, so hopefully that makes up for the delay in some way. Hopefully. :P

The chapter is Snape POV, partly because I wanted to try it and partly because it needed to be. There are things that happen here which would make much less sense from another POV. I needed a less biased, outside perspective on Narcissa's mealtime behaviour, for example, and there is a misunderstanding at the end of the chapter that would be almost impossible to understand from the perspective of innocent, preoccupied Narcissa, or Bella, who arrives too late to realize she's doing the misunderstanding. In that particular instance, anyway. It's a POV that may never come up again though, so enjoy it while it's here . . . . To my Snape-hating readers . . . . erm, suffer through it? Sorry. :D

Chapter title was a nightmare to pick. "Spotlight" by Mute Math is what it ended up as, mainly for the lyric "you know the one thing you're fighting to hold, will be the one thing you've got to let go." Seemed a Severus sentiment. ;)

Anyway, enjoy. Chapter nine, in which Cissy causes a lot of people a lot of trouble, Bella proves that leopards don't change their spots, Lucius plays mind games with Molly (for those of you who noticed he kept Fabian's wand, this is why) and Severus gets girl trouble in spades.

Spotlight

Severus Snape was beginning to feel that women were the bane of his life. Granted, it hadn't been a particularly long life so far. But already, at thirteen, he had begun to feel he could trace all his problems directly or indirectly back to the women in his life. His mother was the most obvious example of this, and he was fairly sure he would resent her until the day he died. She'd married a Muggle. Not even a Mudblood. A Muggle. And for what? Why? They didn't even love each other, as far as Severus could tell, unless love meant shouting and crying and hitting and hate. His whole life, trapped in that house, with his weak, pathetic mother and his father, and for that, he would never forgive her. He'd been a wizard, for crying out loud, and his mother was supposed to be a witch. Not that you'd know it most of the time, the way they lived. His most frequent interactions with magic had come from either stealing his mother's old school books or spying on Lily Evans. If he hadn't had Lily . . . . he firmly believed he would have gone mad. But she was another one. Why couldn't she have been a pureblood? Or even a half-blood, like him. It just wasn't fair. She had to be so sweet and selfless all the time, so contagiously happy, and she had wormed her way under his skin and somehow turned Hogwarts – the great escape, the thing he'd been dreaming about his whole life – into another type of hell. A place where he had to choose between Lily and the person he had wanted to be his whole life, someone strong, someone powerful . . . . Severus scowled. He didn't want an easy life. He didn't believe in those sorts of daydreams, but he didn't want to have to fight so hard for everything either. He was starting to get a bitter taste in his mouth, every time something good happened, because he knew it was only a matter of time before life dealt him another blow to make up for it.

Take Narcissa Black for instance, a new addition to the list of troublesome girls. What was she doing with him? What did she even see in him? It had been different with Mulciber and Avery - he'd had to fight tooth and nail to gain their friendship. But Narcissa he couldn't comprehend. Her motives for wanting to be friends were a mystery to him. After all – she was pretty, she was rich, she wasn't really that airheaded (not half as bad as the other girls in their year, anyway) and most importantly, she was pureblood. She should have had friends coming out of her ears but somehow, she didn't. It was as if she looked in the mirror every day and saw something completely different. What she might be seeing, Severus didn't know. But he did know that someone like her – someone who'd been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, with everything that had been an unattainable dream to him his whole life – ought to be happy. And she sure as hell wasn't.

These were the slightly resentful thoughts running through the mind of a thirteen year old Severus Snape as he sat at the Slytherin table, toying with a forkful of kippers and scowling at Molly Prewett and Arthur Weasley, a ridiculously sappy Gryffindor couple who'd been discussing marriage with stomach-churning solemnity not too long ago.

"Arthur!" Prewett chirped, picking up a brown paper-wrapped parcel that was lying next to her plate. "You shouldn't have!"

Weasley frowned at her. "I didn't, Molls."

Prewett giggled. Clearly she didn't believe him. She ripped open the package with a huge smile, and then her face fell. Severus moved the milk jug to the left, squinting to see what had upset her so much. He frowned. Someone had sent her a wand.

"But . . but this is Fabian's," Prewett said after a moment. "I don't understand . . . why would someone send me Fabian's wand? What . . why . . . . what's happened to him?" She had begun to shake.

Weasley's gaze, meanwhile, had fallen upon a discarded copy of the morning's paper. His eyes widened in horror and he pushed it into his girlfriend's hands. Prewett read the article he was pointing at, burst into tears, and fled, Weasley hot on her heels. Spying a copy of the Daily Prophet lying near him on his own table, Severus reached for it, suddenly curious.

"Can I borrow this?" he asked.

The owner of the paper - Lucius Malfoy – yawned, looking him up and down. He seemed to be in an unusally good humour. "Why not? Charity begins at home," he drawled sarcastically. "Be my guest." He tossed the paper across the table and got to his feet, a malicious glint in his cold grey eyes. "I think it's served its purpose anyway."

He left the hall, laughing at a joke the younger boy couldn't comprehend. Severus was still reading through an article about the torturing of two aspiring young Aurors - "currently in a grave condition in St Mungos - and trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, when Narcissa Black dropped unexpectedly into the seat opposite him.

"Hey," he muttered.

"Hey," she replied unenthuasiastically, tossing a slice of toast onto her plate and slicing it in half rather viciously, as though it had personally offended her. She glared at her goblet full of pumpkin juice in much the same way, and then she raised a piece of toast to her lips. Severus watched, utterly mysified, as she suddenly lowered it, frowning intently, and began to cut it again - more slowly this time - into triangles. She frowned at the triangles too, with the air of an artist about to throw a fit, and then pushed them to one side, picking up another slice of toast. This one she cut into soldiers, which she aligned and all but measured when she was done, before drizzling honey artfully on top of each piece.

"Er . . . have you seen my Herbology book?" Severus asked, hoping the question might snap her out of this strange behaviour. "I can't find it."

Narcissa simply shook her head, lifting the top off a nearby teapot and scrutenizing its contents, as though considering adding it to her breakfast. Then again, she might have been searching for poison, for all Severus could tell. He watched her a few minutes longer, and then he cracked.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked.

Narcissa jumped. "Nothing," she said defensively. "What's that supposed to mean? I don't have a problem, if that's what you're saying!" She reddened, quickly picking up a slice of toast. She had taken no more than a bite, however, before she threw it back onto her plate, apparently repulsed by it. Severus stared.

"You seem a bit . . . I don't know. Annoyed," he said at last. Demented.

Narcissa scowled. "Bella thinks I have some kind of problem," she blurted out. Two pink spots had appeared high up on her cheeks, something that usually only occurred when Lucius Malfoy entered the room.

"What kind of problem?" Severus asked warily.

The blush spread right across Narcissa's face and down her neck. "She thinks – she thinks," she stammered, "that I don't eat. That I have some kind of problem with food. I mean, it's ridiculous, isn't it? I bet you never heard of anything more ridiculous in your life, because I mean, I don't have a problem. Well, I mean, obviously I don't have a problem." She laughed, a brittle, unnatural-sounding laugh. "You don't think I have a problem, do you?" she demanded, suddenly rounding on him.

"Er . ." he hesitated. What was he supposed to say to that? He settled instead for staring at Narcissa's plate. She hadn't touched any of her breakfast. Following his gaze, she frowned.

"That's different," she said automatically. "I'm angry. I can't eat when I'm angry. No-one can."

Severus opened his mouth, but whatever response he might have given her was swallowed as a shadow fell across his face.

"Move."

The icy voice belonged to a girl, and her voice was known to everyone in Slytherin House. Narcissa swallowed, turning an even more vivid shade of pink, and began to eat very quickly. Severus moved up automatically, clearing a space for her sister.

Bellatrix, however, did not sit down. "I said move," she said dangerously.

Severus frowned. "We were talking," he said uncertainly, glancing at Narcissa for support. But she had her eyes trained on her plate, her hair hiding her face.

Bellatrix narrowed her eyes at him. "And now," she said, "you're not. So move."

He stood up. Bellatrix smirked. "Scram," she said lazily, as though she were dismissing a dog. "Unless, of course, you have something to say?"

Severus swallowed, trying to decide if he was suicidal enough to answer back to Bellatrix Black. She was smirking again, delighting in his discomfort. He scowled, but that only made her smirk widen even more.

"Nothing?" she asked sweetly.

Severus opened his mouth. Then he noticed what Bellatrix couldn't see. Behind her back, Narcissa had raised her wand and vanished half the contents of her plate. The little girl then pushed her wand back up her sleeve and began to eat perfectly calmly, wearing a strangely triumphant smile. Something about it made Severus uneasy.

Bellatrix was still staring at him, waiting expectantly. So he shook his head. "No," he muttered. "Nothing."

The next day, Severus realized that he'd been right to feel uneasy about Narcissa.

They were sitting in Herbology. Usually, he felt sure Narcissa would have been teasing him for the scowl on his face. In fact, she would probably have accused him of "sulking" or something childish like that, because he still hadn't found his Herbology book. But not today. No. Today, she had simply dropped into her seat and wordlessly pushed her book across the table to him. They had scarcely spoken at all, since Monday's incident at the breakfast table. He had no idea what she'd been doing since then, but he had noticed that Bellatrix had taken to sitting beside her at every meal, watching her eat and wearing an expression that was downright terrifying. And Narcissa looked progressively more miserable at every meal. At the moment she was pale and drawn looking, hunched over and biting her lip. She looked as if she were in pain.

"Are you okay?" He had to ask.

Narcissa nodded tightly. "Fine," she said with a little gasp, folding her arms more tightly around her waist.

"You don't look fine," Severus said sceptically.

Narcissa groaned. "My stomach hurts," she murmered at last.

Severus raised an eyebrow. "A stomach ache? That's it? Well there's no need to be such a – are you crying?"

"N – no." Narcissa gasped again, biting her lip. "It hurts," she whimpered.

Severus frowned. "Then go to the hospital wing," he said. The obvious suggestion.

Narcissa shook her head vehemently. "I'm fine," she insisted, though her pained tone made this statement a little reduntant.

Severus' frown deepened. "The last time you said that," he reminded her, "you fell down a flight of stairs and broke your leg." It was something that still bothered him, though Narcissa had ordered him to forget about it, claiming she couldn't even remember him telling her to go to the hospital wing, and had no idea how she had come to fall down the stairs. "I think you should go to the hospital wing," he said. "Really. Don't be such a martyr about it. Just go and get a healing potion."

"No! You don't understand! I can't go there!" Narcissa began to breathe very quickly, her eyes wide and panicked. "Just talk to me," she pleaded. "Distract me. Please, Snape!"

He sighed. Girls. They were almost more trouble than they were worth. Almost.

"Does it really hurt that much?" he asked incredulously.

In reply, Narcissa reached out and seized his wrist, digging her fingernails into his arm. She had a surprisingly firm grip, for such a small person. "It's like knives ripping at my insides," she whispered fiercely. "If you don't say something to distract me I'm going to fall on these pruning shears and die!"

"Er . . ." He frowned at her. She seemed to be serious. Slowly, he prised the shears out of her other hand. "How about I do the pruning," he suggested, "and you do the repotting."

Narcissa let go of his arm and buried her face in her hands, groaning in despair. "If you don't do something to distract me," she warned, "I'll fall on – on-" - she cast her gaze about the table, looking for something suitably lethal to use in her hypothetical suicide attempt.

Severus smirked. "On what?" he challenged. "That watering-can? Death by watering-can." He sniggered. "Well, it might go down in history as the tackiest way to die, but-" He froze as she doubled over again, whimpering. "Alright, alright!" he said quickly. "Don't start crying, whatever you do. Tell me about . . . I don't know. Your sister."

Narcissa blinked. "Bella?" she said uncertainly. "What about her?"

Severus shrugged. "What's wrong with her?"

"What do you mean?" Narcissa asked, apparently confused.

Severus rolled his eyes. "She tried to kill you a few nights ago," he pointed out.

Narcissa turned, if possible, even paler. "Who told you that?"

"Avery. He said she nearly broke your neck. And the story is all over the common room." His lip curled. "You can't move without hearing someone give their version of events or speculate on why she did it."

"Why do they think she did it?" Narcissa asked, wild panic in her voice.

Severus shrugged. "I don't know," he muttered. "It's not like I listen. I don't know why Avery was even talking about it."

"Oh." Narcissa hesitated. "Is Avery the dark-haired one who always looks like he wants to hit something? I always get them confused . . . "

Severus gave a contemptuous snort. It was a naive but fairly accurate description. "No, that's Mulciber. Avery is the other one."

"Oh." Narcissa was silent for a beat. Then she swallowed. "I feel a bit better now," she said tentatively. She pulled the book they were sharing towards her and squinted at the margins.

"Did you write in my book?" she asked, shocked.

Severus shrugged. "They're only notes," he replied. "It's not as if I drew a unicorn in it," he added disgustedly.

Narcisssa blushed. "I like unicorns," she protested. "And you didn't have to write all over its face, you know." She sighed, staring wistfully at the page. "It took me ages to do the head. I was going to charm the ink too, to make it gold, like a real baby unicorn . . ."

Severus stared at her.

"And you wonder," he said, recovering at last, "why you're no good at Herbology . . . ."

"Can we talk?"

Lily stopped walking and turned around. "I'm talking to someone already," she said uncertainly. Mary McDonald scowled at him.

Severus scowled right back at her. There was no love lost between Lily's two closest friends, and Severus never wanted there to be. He couldn't stand Mary McDonald. "So send her away," he said to Lily.

"Sev!" his friend cried, appalled. "You can't just tell me to send someone away! That's . . . that's . ." She trailed off, apparently too shocked to speak.

"It's important," Severus told her.

Mary McDonald scowled at him, and then at Lily, when she realized her friend was wearing a trapped and unhappy expression. "Fine!" she snapped. "Talk to him. I don't care. I'll see you in the common room."

Severus couldn't quite resist sending a smirk her way as she flounced off. It was sheer bad luck that Lily caught him doing it. Her expression froze, just a little, and she folded her arms.

"What did you do that for?" she asked. "Mary didn't do anything to you."

Severus shrugged. "What does it matter?"

"It matters, because she's my friend." Lily was using her icy tone again. "And you don't even pretend to like her for my sake. She's nice really, you know," she offered next, in a more conciliatory tone. "She's just got . . . problems, at home and things. She's not very good at trusting people. But she's a good person, underneath it all. If you just made the effort, you'd see-"

Severus felt his face heat up. "Is that what you tell her?" he demanded. "About me? "Oh he's a good person really, Mary, he's just got problems" . . . . well thanks a lot!"

Lily stared at him for a moment. "I don't tell her anything about you," she said at last.

"Yeah, right."

"It's true."

"I'm sure it is." Severus had no idea what they might all be telling each other up in Gryffindor Tower, but he tended to picture them all laughing uproariously around a cosy fire. Potter and Black probably provided impressions as entertainment . . . .

He jumped as Lily nudged him back into the present. "You said you wanted to talk," she reminded him.

Severus nodded. He didn't quite trust himself to look her in the eye just yet. He'd always had the disturbing feeling that Lily could see straight through him, and his Gryffindor Tower fantasy was proving hard to shake. He felt his face burn again at the idea.

"Not here," he muttered.

Lily groaned. "Then where?" she asked, exasperated. He sometimes had the feeling Lily's patience might not be infinite, sometimes wondered if one day, she would get sick of him.

So he turned on his heel and began to head towards the forest. As usual, Lily followed him, though she hung back nervously as they stepped into the shade, apparently unwilling to venture any deeper into the Forest. Severus turned back to face her, an involuntary smirk on his face.

"Don't tell me you're scared," he said incredulously. "You're supposed to be the Gryffindor!" Normally, he hated mentioning her house. But he couldn't deny that this was funny.

Lily shook her head. "I'm not scared!" she said fiercely, though her apprehensive expression seemed to refute this. She took a dubious step forward, and then another, and another, until she was level with him. "There!" she said triumphantly, touching the nearest tree trunk as if for luck. She hooked her arms around a branch and began to swing back and forth, laughing and stirring the leaves of the tree so that sunlight spilled through, sporadically striking her face. Sunlight had always suited Lily – it made her hair shine and turned her skin a healthy, glowing pink. Sunlight had never suited Snape. It made him feel hot and irritable and uncomfortable, it made him squint and made it hard to see properly, so that he never noticed someone was creeping up on him. Not until it was too late.

"It's quite nice in here, really," Lily said cheerfully. "As long as you don't go too far in."

"Yeah . ." Severus kicked the moss beneath his feet, watching as an upturned stone sent an earthworm flying. He squashed it beneath his shoe. A nearby bird took flight in fright and Severus scowled. Nature. That was another thing he had always hated. Nature, and sunlight, and Quidditch and . . . .

"You said you wanted to talk," Lily reminded him again, studying him carefully. "You said it was important," she prompted.

Severus shrugged. It was important, or he had the feeling it was, anyway. But he didn't have the faintest idea of how he ought to go about asking the questions he wanted to ask. Lily watched him for a long moment with a patient, pitying expression. Then she swung gracefully onto a higher branch and began to walk along it, musing out loud while he tried to work out what to say.

"You know," she said dreamily, "sometimes I really wish I could fly. Without a broomstick or anything . . . . if I could just . . . fly."

Severus scowled again. "Is that why you're so obsessed with Quidditch these days?" he asked irritably.

Lily turned a shade of pink he was almost sure wasn't sun-related. "I'm not obsessed," she said feebly.

Severus rolled his eyes. "No, of course not," he said acerbically. "Oh wow, Sev, did you see the Quidditch match yesterday?" he mimicked in a high-pitched, girly voice. " I mean, wow, I don't even like Potter, but he's so good for the team, I thought we were out of the running for the Cup for sure, and then he just swooped in and grabbed the Snitch and WOW -"

"Shut up!" Lily threw a fistful of leaves at him, laughing as they scattered across his shoulders and lodged themselves in his hair. "You're horrible sometimes," she said, as he shook his head to dislodge the leaves.

He raised an eyebrow. "Only sometimes?" he queried.

Lily blushed. "Sometimes you can be nice," she admitted. "When you're not so worried about what everyone else thinks, and you can just be you. The way you used to be."

When it was just the two of us. The unspoken implication made them both uncomfortable. After a moment, Lily began to walk along the branch again, twirling her wand in her hand.

"I just think it would be nice," she said distantly, continuing her earlier train of thought, "if I could fly up and up and up, you know? To see the whole world spread out below me and to see how tiny it all is . . ." She waved her wand, conjuring ribbons that flew from its tip and draped themselves elegantly across the branches, like party streamers.

"Tiny fields . . ."

Green ribbons.

"Tiny houses . . ."

Gold ribbons.

"Tiny people . . ."

Red ribbons.

"Lily!"

Severus' cry of warning came too late. Lily's foot slipped and she tumbled off the branch with a shriek. Severus was at her side in an instant. Disregarding all the careful rules he usually set himself – don't look at Lily for too long, don't touch her unless she touches you first, don't let her see how much you really care about her, about life, about everything – he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to her feet, holding on tight.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt? Lily? Lily!"

Lily stared at him for a long moment, her eyes wide and her mouth open, and he felt seized by a sudden desire to kiss her. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, and Lily stared at him, until he realized that he was still holding onto her, much too tightly.

"I'm fine," she murmered. "Honestly Sev. I'm fine. See?" She pulled a leaf from her hair and smiled as he released her.

"Yeah. Right. Sorry." His face was hot again. He had made a fool of himself. Again.

Lily watched him for a moment, her head cocked to one side, as though waiting for him to say something. Maybe . . . maybe he really hadn't been imagining things. Maybe she really had wanted him to -

"You said you wanted to ask me something," Lily reminded him, interrupting this unlikely fantasy.

"Oh, yeah . . ." Severus frowned, trying to recall his original purpose. He liked Narcissa, even if he wasn't sure why, but it was almost impossible to think about her around Lily. Narcissa was like a lamp in the dark, she could make him smile, sometimes, and she could be funny. But Lily was like the sun and no-one notices the light of a lamp at noon. Dragging his mind back to Narcissa with an effort, he decided to just come out and ask.

"You're a girl, right?" he asked.

Lily rolled her eyes. "No, Sev," she said jokingly. "I'm a boy taking Polyjuice Potion. What do you think?"

He had made a fool of himself, again. It was happening more and more lately. Especially this year, when for the first time he had become acutely aware of the fact that, yes, Lily was a girl.

"Sorry," he muttered. "What I meant was, you know how girls' minds work. Why they go on diets and stuff . . . "

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Diets?" she asked, confused. "Well, usually they just want to lose weight. Petunia is always going on diets, though, and she doesn't even need to. Really ridiculous diets too, like only eating cabbage soup or grapefruit quarters or artichoke heads for a week . . . it's just a phase though, and she usually gives up after a few days."

Severus stared. "Er . . okay." Yet more reasons to question the sanity of the oppostite sex. "So she hates food?" he clarified. "And that's normal?" Insane. Completely insane.

Lily frowned. "No," she said, confused. "Not exactly . . . . Why? Who's on a diet?"

Severus reddened. "No-one," he said quickly.

"Narcissa Black," his friend said shrewdly. "I'm right, aren't I?"

Lily didn't look pleased. In fact, she looked upset. "Sev," she contiued uneasily, "that's not good. She's twelve. And she's tiny. The last thing she needs is not to eat."

Severus frowned. "I think she's thirteen now. And I thought you didn't like her. "

Lily waved this aside. "Oh I didn't mean that. It was nothing," she said quickly. "I was just being silly." She bit her lip. "I'm being serious though, Sev. That's not good. Do you-" she hesitated. "Do you want me to try and talk to her?"

Honestly. Girls. What was wrong with them? One minute they hated each other and the next, they were chumming up to lend support. Baffled, Severus shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea," he said carefully.

"Why not? Because you don't trust me to help her?"

"No! Because . . . I just don't think it's a good idea, that's all. She wouldn't like it. It's . . . she's not like me. She wouldn't . . .. I mean, I'm lucky she even talks to me."

"Oh. Right. I see." There was a pause. "I think I should go," Lily said suddenly, avoiding his eye. "I'm late for Charms. See you later, Severus." She turned and hurried away, her cheeks flaming.

"Lily, wait! Come on, you know I didn't mean .. ." But it was too late. The words, shouted at her retreating back, weren't enough to make her stop. Severus scowled. She'd probably calm down after a bit and come back, once she realized she couldn't possibly blame him for Narcissa's views. He turned over a stone with his shoe, scowling again.

Probably.

It was another hot, sunny day. Typical.

Severus was sitting by the lake, trying to cram an extra three paragraphs of his Defence Against The Dark Arts essay into an inch of parchment. Narcissa lay on the grass beside him. Having abandoned her own essay on the grounds that it was "too hard", she was now drawing heart shapes on her fingertips in purple ink and stamping a pattern along her opposite arm. Severus rolled his eyes. He had always thought of Lily – a girl too soft-hearted to kill so much as a spider, who spent most her time getting offended about feelings and reading love stories – as a girly girl. Then he met Narcissa, and realized he hadn't even known the meaning of the phrase. Sometimes he found himself thinking she ought to sprinkle pink glitter over her shoulder with every step she took, as a warning. When she wasn't squirming over Potions ingredients or Herbology assignments, she could usually be found dwelling on the scintillating subject of Lucius Malfoy, who she seemed to find immensely interesting. Long, one-sided conversations about him were her favourite way to pass the time. Even worse, she somehow managed to take Severus' stoic silences and non-committal head movements as agreement, a delusion that did absolutely nothing to cure her of this habit. Severus knew, of course, that he could make her stop if he really wanted to. But he didn't want to upset Narcissa. It wouldn't be any fun, and besides . . . . he had to admit, it didn't feel terrible to be trusted with a secret not even her sister knew. He just wished it was a more interesting secret. Lucius Malfoy? What was so special about him? He was rich, of course, and pureblood, but then again – so was Mulciber. So was Avery. So was she.

"Why do you like him so much?" he asked suddenly.

Narcissa closed her eyes, reclining on the grass and turning her wrists up, so that the ink would dry faster. "Who?" she asked distantly.

"Lucius Malfoy."

The little girl opened her eyes, and frowned at him. "I don't know," she admitted. "I mean, it's not as if he even notices me most of the time." She sighed. "I could probably drop down dead in front of him and he wouldn't notice," she said sadly, and Severus wondered, briefly, if this was why he liked Narcissa. Because they were both helplessly fixated on people hopelessly beyond their reach. It was a disconcerting thought.

As usual, his discomfort passed under Narcissa's radar, unnoticed. She was staring at the sky, contemplating. "No," she said at last. "I really don't know why I like him. I think," she said slowly, "I think it started when Bella started spending all this time with him, and he was sort of . . . . sort of like something else to focus on, when I was worried about Bella and she wasn't telling me anything and I was beginning to think I might go mad. And then I started to feel . . . happy, whenever I saw him. He didn't even have to do anything. He just made me feel better for some reason. I still feel like that. The day just feels better if he's in it." She paused. "Haven't you ever had anyone you felt like that about?"

Severus thought for a moment. He thought of Lily, of vivid green eyes and vibrant red hair and infectious laughter that seemed to get under his skin somehow.

Me or you.

Truth or lies.

Fly or fall.

"No," he said at last. "I haven't."

Narcissa blinked. "Oh. Well, maybe I really am mad . . ."

"Mad? Now that's a strong word, Cissy. Tell me, why would you say a thing like that?"

Narcissa gasped, turning bright pink, and Severus inadvertently knocked his own inkpot over, jumping a little himself at the unexpected third voice. How long had Bellatrix been standing there? He hadn't even heard her approach, and that was unusual in itself. Bellatrix Black usually preferred to arrive with a bang, and he found himself wondering, dimly, who'd been giving her lessons in stealth.

"I . . . I . . . we were just talking, Bella! Not about anything important, I swear!" Cissy stammered, still a guilty-looking shade of pink. "I mean, not about anything interesting . . . . " She dropped her gaze, looking as if she wanted to sink into the ground and disappear.

Severus groaned internally. Clearly, Narcissa didn't have a clue how to stonewall. Did she realize she was making it look as if she was guilty of something? Bellatrix's suspicions had apparently been raised already, whether she had heard the beginnings of the conversation or not. Her gaze travelled from Cissy's pink cheeks to the lovehearts drawn on her arm and then to Severus, sitting not two feet away. Her expression darkened.

"Slughorn's looking for you, Cissy," she said coldly. "Actually, I think he said something about how you haven't been present in your last two Potions classes as well . . he's been trying to find you for days, apparently."

Narcissa's face now looked as though it had caught fire. It quite possibly couldn't get much redder. "I didn't miss them deliberately," she protested. "I -"

Bellatrix interrupted her. "Cissy? I really don't care."

"Oh. Right." Narcissa leapt to her feet, stuffing her school things back into her satchel. "Bye," she muttered, glancing at Snape. "Thanks," she said quickly, as Bellatrix's gaze fell upon her again.

She turned and hurried away, but as Severus got up and made to follow her back into the castle, Bellatrix stopped him, holding up a hand.

"What's your hurry?" she asked languidly. "Stay. Let's talk, hmm?" Her voice was very calm, but she was watching him intently, and something about it made him uneasy.

He shrugged, watching her warily, trying to guess her game. Bellatrix Black stopping by for a casual chat with a younger student, after all, was as frequent an occurrence as scarlet rain. She wanted something. Or she was planning something . . . she had to be.

"So," she said, snapping Severus out of his reverie and tapping her wand against her palm as she thought aloud, "you like my sister. Don't you?"

"Er . . . ." Was that a trick question? What was he supposed to say? Bellatrix's face betrayed no hint of what the correct answer might be. "Well . . . . she's nice, I suppose," Severus muttered. "She's . . . ." Clever? Not really. Funny? Not intentionally .. . "Pretty," he decided at last, thoughtlessly uttering the first thing that popped into his head. "She's sweet." He cringed. That was an embarrassing thing to admit to liking about a girl. "She likes me more than I like her," he said defensively.

For a moment, he thought Bellatrix's eyes might fall out of her head. She collected herself with obvious difficulty, and Severus suddenly realized he might have done more than just humiliate himself this time. But before he could try to rectify the situation, she had stepped fowards, her eyes blazing.

"Oh good," she said in an unconvincingly friendly tone. "This should be simple then."

Before Severus could ask what should be simple, she had taken another step forward and seized him by the collar, pulling it tight and lifting him half off his feet.

"You don't touch my sister," she ordered, as he gasped and choked, scarcely able to breathe. "Do you understand that? You don't ever touch my sister. Or I swear I'll make you regret it."

"You . . . you wouldn't," Severus choked out at last. "I'm not stupid, everyone knows you were nearly expelled for what you did to Narcissa . . . they'd kick you out. You wouldn't . . ."

"Oh no?" Her wand moved to his throat almost inhumanly quickly. Her hand shook as she gouged the wood into his neck. "Wouldn't I? Don't -" - she pulled the fabric of his collar even tighter - "don't ever tell me what I would or wouldn't do for my sister, you filthy little half-blood!" She swallowed, breathing hard. She no longer looked completely sane. "Cissy's a good girl," she continued. "And I will not let her turn out a blood traitor. Do you understand what I'm telling you?" She gave a contemptuous snort. "Expelled? You honestly think I'd care about that? Let me make this very clear, then. If you turn my sister into a blood traitor – any kind of blood traitor – I kill you myself." She didn't seem to be joking. "You can talk to her, until she gets bored of you, but you don't touch her. Ever. Understand?"

Unable to nod without inadvertently garrotting himself, Severus waved his arms frantically at his neck. As soon as Bellatrix had loosened her grip a little, he gasped out an answer.

"Alright, alright! I'm not allowed to touch her. I understand." He allowed himself an extra lungful of air, in case she began strangling him again, and continued. "I won't touch her. I promise."

"Really?" Bellatrix said cynically. "You promise? Funny, I somehow doubt your word counts for much, half-blood. You can't even decide if you're one or the other. How can anyone trust you? Maybe I should make you take the Unbreakable Vow," she mused. "Just to be safe . . ."

"You can if you want," Severus snapped impatiently, riled by the insult. "Or you could just believe me. I like your sister, but she's not worth dying for. She's not that special. Ow!"

Fast as a whip, Bellatrix had slapped him across the face. Then she paused, thinking about what he'd just said. Suddenly, she smiled.

"Good! Then we don't have a problem, do we?" She dropped him and pushed him away from her, laughing as he fell to the ground. Her smile widened as he set his mouth in an angry slash and curled his fists into a ball, resentment seething in his stomach. She was still watching him, and he didn't have to be a mind-reader to know that she could see his anger. Or to realize that she was thoroughly enjoying it.

"Good," she said softly. "Very good."

A / N : The part of the conversation Bellatrix heard, if anyone's wondering, went from the middle of Narcissa's sentence, from "felt like that about". She doesn't know her sister was talking about Lucius and has absolutely no idea the long pause before Severus' answer was related to Lily. So she jumped to a conclusion based on who was there, and misconstrued the whole thing.