It was the afternoon of the last Monday of December and Severus found himself in the waiting room of Torey's office. He'd sent her an owl when he knew she was back in town and she'd replied that she could fit him in after five for a short meeting. There was another parent in the waiting room, their face etched with concern, and Severus wondered if they were a wizard and were thus worried about the war, or if they were just a parent watching their child struggle. Or both simultaneously was possible, he supposed.

He'd had conversations with both Draco and Theo the past week, both to check on them, to offer guidance and reassurance, and to let them have an adult to speak to. Both of them were deeply worried about the war and what would come next, which was entirely understandable. He was worried about those things too. He instructed both of them to carry emergency bags with the things they needed in case it became necessary to flee quickly. Theo had the option of staying and fighting if he chose, but if Severus and Rachel needed to leave, so did Draco.

Both Draco and Theo told him that they were worried about Rachel. He shared that worry as well. He encouraged them to tell him if something specifically was worrying them about her and they agreed that they would. No one wanted for Rachel to become as ill as she'd been in the spring. Severus had seen himself that Rachel had resumed eating at an almost normal amount, but he was keeping a close eye on the situation.

A teen girl left Torey's office with a sulking expression and the other parent stood up. "Next Monday at four?" the parent asked.

"I'll see you then. Have a good new year," Torey said.

The girl only folded her arms and followed her father out of the waiting room. Severus supposed that he could at least be relieved that Rachel was not prone to sulking or scowling at him.

"Severus, come on in," Torey said.

Severus stood and entered her office, taking a quick glance around, but the only thing that had changed since he'd last been here was the children's art on the walls. He sat in the chair near the door and watched as Torey got settled in her chair.

"How was your Christmas?" Torey asked, once she was seated with her notebook and her pen.

"Mostly quiet. The only students who remained at the school over the holiday are about half of Rachel's study group, and they've made themselves scarce. And yourself?" he asked.

"Good. A took a portkey home and spent some time with my parents. Apparently I'm getting quite the British accent now," Torey said with a small smile.

"I'm afraid you sound distinctly American to me," he told her.

Torey laughed. "I think I'll always sound that way, no matter how long I live here. How did Rachel handle the holiday? She seemed a little calmer when I saw her on Saturday."

"She's struggling a great deal, which is why I'm here. These past few days have been a little better, but I'm very worried about her," he explained.

"Can you tell me more specifically about what is worrying you or about how you see her struggling?"

"Rachel has told you about her conversations with the Dark Lord?" he checked, since it was beyond time for Torey to know that if Rachel hadn't told her yet.

"She has, which is concerning in itself."

"It is," he agreed. "Rachel blames herself for her aunt and uncle's deaths. She believes that a conversation with the Dark Lord that she had at the beginning of the month was what prompted him to kill them."

"And Rachel and I did talk about that and we're working on the idea that she can't control what the Dark Lord does."

"She and I had a similar conversation. She seems convinced that the Dark Lord is now showing her these visions of people being tortured and killed to punish her for her reaction to him killing her relatives. I'm not certain that she's wrong."

"That seems like a reasonable assumption to me as well. I think he's trying to manipulate her and to do as much damage to her as he possibly can. The weaker she is, the better chance he has of killing her," Torey said.

"His tactics for a while seemed to be to entice her to go to him, under the guise of joining him. He may have realized that is simply not an option."

Torey nodded. "And since she won't go to him, now he's terrorizing her. How many visions has she had recently?"

"The latest ones have been Halloween, December tenth when her relatives were killed, and on Christmas. He has spoken with her once during December, but I think we can expect him to return to conversing with her soon. She is also greatly worried about that."

"She indicated that worry to me as well. Apart from her visions and her conversations with the Dark Lord, are there other things concerning you about Rachel right now?"

"Yes. Rachel has responded very poorly to the deaths of her aunt and uncle. Much more so than I expected. I've never seen her like this, not even directly after she was tortured or attacked. She spent about a week barely moving her body, and since then she's been alternatively very distant or distressed. After conversing with the Dark Lord, she attacked her manifestation," he explained.

"As for Rachel's response to her relatives' deaths, this is actually a fairly normal response to a traumatic death in the family. There are still a lot of issues surrounding Rachel's relatives for her and she witnessed them be tortured and murdered. Honestly, I think it is good that Rachel is responding to this and that she's not simply pushing it away. That is progress for her. That is a normal reaction. This is the start to her grieving and she needs to do that to heal," Torey said.

Severus nodded once. He hated to watch Rachel suffer, but if this was what she needed to go through in order to get better, then he'd be by her side.

"As for her attacking her manifestation, what happened there?" Torey asked.

"She wished to close the connection between her and the Dark Lord and went into her mind to do so. I asked to come with her because I was concerned about what she'd do while she was upset. She attempted to close her manifestation in with her connection, cutting it off from the rest of her mind, and was shouting at her and saying she hated her. I explained that her manifestation was part of her and that hating her manifestation was hating a part of herself. Rachel seemed somewhat unmoved."

"Rachel's manifestation is a younger version of herself, correct?"

"Yes."

"It's not uncommon for child abuse victims to blame themselves for the abuse, or to hate part of themselves for being abused. It's something that she'll need time to work on, but in the meantime, she needs to know that she can't cut her manifestation off from the rest of her mind."

"I did tell her that. I also told her that she's not to attempt to close her connection without talking to me about it first. After seeing her do that I'm a little worried what she might think to do in her mind," he admitted.

"Do you feel relatively certain she'll abide by that?"

"I do. In general Rachel is not disobedient, though she may not always make the wisest choices. I believe that if she makes a promise to me, she will keep it unless there is both an urgent and immediately threatening reason not to." He felt that he could trust her with at least that much.

"Good. It might be wise to talk with Rachel about some of the dangers associated with fully developed mind magic. Usually this sort of thing would be covered in years of training, but since she seems to have access to all of this right now, it would make sense for her to have a greater awareness of what is and isn't safe to do in her own mind," Torey suggested. "We already had a close call last year, and I'm not entirely sure what would have happened if she'd managed to close her manifestation away from her mind."

"You're correct. I will have to think on it. I've been doing mind magic for so long that I simply know not to do things in a sort of instinctive way, rather than having a set list of things that I don't do," he said. He supposed that was partially because his training had been through the Dark Lord and not through a regimented course of study. "Would it make sense for me to offer to take Rachel to see her relatives' graves? Give her some kind of closure, perhaps? Or to help her get into contact with her cousin?"

"I think it might make sense to offer those things to Rachel, so that she can decide what she would like to do and so that she knows that the option is there. She might react emotionally to hearing you offer such things, but that's alright too. Like with all things, this will take time. Right now you can offer to let her talk, or to sit with her, or to help her prepare for future conversations with the Dark Lord. You can be a support to her, but she has to do the emotional work."

Severus nodded. He wished he could do more than that, but he couldn't think of anything else he could do.

"As for Rachel's connection, does closing it seem like a thing that can be done?" Torey asked. "Because if it can be done without cutting off her manifestation, I think we need to seriously consider that as an option."

"There is a cupboard outside of the connection, that is where Rachel's manifestation sits. The cupboard has a door. Theoretically, if we close that door or if we find a way to cover that hole, that may stop the connection. In practicality, we won't know if that's true unless we try. At the present time, Rachel's manifestation does not allow us to close the door or to get close enough to do anything about the hole. And we've had no success with moving her manifestation," he explained.

"It seems like her manifestation has taken the role of guardian over the connection. Maybe she won't move because she's preventing the connection from coming further into Rachel's mind?" Torey theorized.

"We think similarly. At one point, after a vision, her manifestation was distressed and was causing Rachel to be dizzy. We think that she was alerting Rachel to an attempt to access her mind through the connection."

"Maybe we need to help Rachel's manifestation not see her as a threat. Because if she's ejecting Rachel from her mind, she clearly sees her as a threat."

"If Rachel truly hates her manifestation, then she's right to think of her as a threat, unfortunately." Severus wasn't fully certain what to do about that either.

"Well, for the time being, let's handle getting Rachel through the grieving process and work on reinforcing that she's not responsible for what the Dark Lord is doing, no matter what this prophecy says. Then we'll work on seeing if we can do something about this connection and her relationship with her manifestation," Torey said.

"That seems reasonable to me," he agreed.

"Things at the school seem alright? Rachel has been seeming less worried about Hogwarts in general these past few months, which I think is a good thing."

"We're still taking precautions, but we believe the general threat to Rachel in the school itself has passed." That much was a relief. There were still a few people he was watching, and he knew Rachel stayed close to her friends, but thus far there had been no signs of threats or attacks within the school.

"Good. That's one less thing for all of us to worry about," she said.

"There is one more thing I want to tell you," he said.

"Of course."

"If you need assistance fleeing Britain when the time comes, we can help you," he said, meeting her eyes. "We anticipate the fall of the Wizengamot and the Ministry within the next six or seven months."

Torey looked somber, but she nodded. "I may have to take you up on that."

"The floo to the Hogwarts hospital wing is still keyed to accept you. You can come there if you need to take refuge. Don't send an owl, they can be intercepted. Do you have a corporeal Patronus?"

"I don't. I didn't study Defense after I started high school," she said.

"Work on that. A corporeal Patronus can be used to send messages that cannot be intercepted or faked. I will teach you the basics now," he said, automatically slipping into his professor voice.

Torey stood and got her wand from her desk drawer. "I'm ready."


"May we speak?" Severus asked once they were settled by the fireplace after dinner.

Rachel eyed him. That question with that tone of voice usually did not bode good things. "About the war?"

"Not specifically, but we can talk about the war or the Dark Lord if you wish," he offered.

"If not about the war, then what?" she asked. She couldn't think of anything else urgent that was currently happening.

"I'd like to discuss with you your options for your relatives, but we do not have to have that conversation now if you are not ready."

Rachel stared at him, trying to process that. Her relatives were dead; what options could there be? "Uh, is necromancy a thing? Because I definitely don't want to do that."

Severus frowned. "Depending how you define it, some aspects of necromancy are real, but based on our earliest magical writings it has always been considered taboo. Attempts at necromancy will end in a sentence to Azkaban. There is no such thing as raising the dead and allowing their soul or their personality to reinhabit them. The dead are dead, their souls have moved on. However there is what is called an Inferius, which are corpses that are bewitched to do the bidding of a witch or wizard. The Dark Lord will use those in combat situations where he is fighting a large group of people, or to guard locations."

"Do you think he'll turn my aunt and uncle into these Inferius things?" she asked, sincerely hoping the answer was no. She didn't think she could handle seeing that.

"No, he would have taken the bodies with him if he'd intended to do that."

Rachel grimaced and reminded herself that this was a good thing. "What do I do if I encounter an Inferius?"

"That is highly unlikely. You will mostly find them in shallow or unmoving water or beneath the top soil in an area that someone was prepared for the purpose. Inferius have great strength and they can kill easily, but they fear fire and will retreat from it. Direct a Fire-Making spell at them to force them to back away and then light the ground on fire as you retreat so they can't follow you. They don't move quickly but they are persistent."

"Everyone knows about these things and what to do?" she checked.

"The Order and the MLE are both briefed, they know what to do if they encounter them," he assured her.

Rachel nodded and decided this wasn't going to be a problem for her. "Is it okay that I'm not really planning on leaving the wards until we're ready to face the Dark Lord?"

"No, I'd prefer that myself. If we are forced to flee we will be traveling for a while, but we will set up wards wherever we go. I can teach you some of the basic ones so that you are prepared to cast them, if that's something that would help you feel more secure," he offered.

She nodded again, but she still wasn't certain that fleeing was the right thing to do. Getting the cup horcrux was going to be much more difficult if they were fleeing and they needed that horcrux. "You said there were options concerning my relatives?" she finally asked.

"If you would like to visit their graves, I can take you there, though I assume the funeral has already taken place."

Rachel stared at him for a moment. "I'm not grieving, Severus. This isn't- I'm not acting this way because I'm grieving, I'm struggling because I feel like I caused this to happen."

"You did not cause this to happen. Unless you said to the Dark Lord 'Please kill my aunt and uncle', you did not cause this to happen."

"I definitely didn't say that."

"I know you didn't. And I think you are grieving, even if you don't realize it. Grief isn't just sadness and loss. Grief can be guilt and anger and confusion. When my father died, I would not have said that I was grieving, but I was. I was deeply confused. I felt guilty, though nothing I had done had caused his death. I felt angry. I was angry at him, at my mother, and at a lot of people. I was angry with myself. And I wished that things could have been different between us. I spent a lot of time thinking about what my life might have looked like and who I might have become if my relationship with my father had been different. All of that is grief," he explained.

"Why did he die?" she asked. She knew Severus' mother had been seriously ill, but she didn't know a lot about his father.

"I was about a year older than you are now. He died from heart and liver failure. He was an alcoholic. I didn't find out until I was sent a letter as his next of kin. I hadn't spoken with him for two years at that point, since I ran away from my home when I was sixteen."

Rachel remembered him being very worried about her heart in the spring and wondered if this was why he'd been so concerned.

"I think guilt is a natural emotion for you to feel right now and that it's part of the process. You did not cause your aunt and uncle to die. It is not your fault. But your time with them was very complicated. I think you're going to wind up feeling a lot of contradictory things over the next few months and that's alright. You may find yourself feeling relieved that they're dead, and that's alright too. I felt that relief with my father's death, though I felt guilty about that as well. And then anger at feeling guilty," he said, nodding once and his mouth briefly going into a thin line.

As far as Rachel was concerned, the only good thing about her relatives' deaths was that she really would never have to see them again. She didn't think she was ready to feel relieved, but she could understand why Severus had been relieved. It meant someone who had been hurting him could never hurt him again. "I don't want to go to my aunt and uncle's graves. Is that okay?"

"That's fine. Just know that the option is there should you change your mind. Another option is that I can help you get into contact with your cousin, if you would like to speak with him."

"I don't think that would be a good idea," she said. "Do you think he knows that they were killed by magic?"

"That's doubtful. The MLE should have passed that case onto the muggle police and arranged for it to look like they were murdered when someone went to rob them," Severus explained.

That was good. She thought it would upset Dudley further to know that his parents had been killed by magic. She didn't want him to know it was her fault, but maybe he deserved to know. Or maybe that would just make things worse for him. "Do you think the Dark Lord will kill my cousin?"

"I don't think so. If the Dark Lord wanted to kill your cousin he would have waited until he was home for the Christmas holiday. Do you have any ideas where your cousin may have ended up?" Severus asked.

"Most likely with Aunt Marge. My uncle's sister," she clarified.

"Will he be safe there? From her?" Severus checked.

"Should be. She liked him, though she didn't like me at all. I've still got scars on my ankle from her dog. She had it chase me up a tree. I was up there well into the night." They had thought that was hilarious. Rachel frowned. She hadn't thought about that in years.

"Your relatives are deplorable. Do you want me to make arrangements to help get your cousin away from this Marge person?"

"No. He'll be fine with her. It's just like my aunt and uncle. She won't hurt Dudley because she cares about him. I think it's a bad idea for me to contact my cousin right now." She didn't want to draw attention to him.

Severus nodded. "That's fine. It's your decision. You can always make a different decision later. Is there anything you want to talk about? Anything you're worried about?"

She was pretty sure that the answer to what she was worried about was 'everything'. "No. I'm just kind of done for the day."

"That's fine. Things are alright with your friends?"

"Yes, just fine. We're sort of just taking it easy here and we check in with everyone in our books every day. So far, everyone is alright, and they'll be back within the wards on Sunday."

"Good, please let me know if that changes."

"I will." She dug in her bag for a book. She wanted to immerse herself in someone else's life for a while. She'd finished the fourth Dark Tower book, the next Winifred Adams book, and was now on the last Horath Bogtrotter book. She was looking forward to Horath catching his uncle, though she didn't expect that he would kill him. It was a children's book after all.


Rachel looked around her connection to the Dark Lord as he approached. "Why is this like this?" she asked before he could speak.

"Try to use more clarity when you speak, it shows your poor upbringing when you say nonsensical things."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "You grew up in a muggle orphanage, your upbringing was just as much low class as mine was."

"But I bettered myself. You should do the same." He frowned down at her. "Now, what were you trying to ask?"

"This space." She waved her arms to encompass everything around them. "What is it? Why does it exist like this? Why can you access it? How am I accessing it?" How did she get rid of it? Or at least stop both of them from accessing it.

The Dark Lord looked around. "The rest of your mind is through that window, is it not?"

She always thought of it as a hole, probably because that was the terminology they'd first used, but window could work too. "Yes."

"Then that suggests this is part of your mind that is outside of your occlumency shields. Thus my ability to access it."

"From a great distance. You aren't even in the same building as I'm in. And I haven't been able to access my mind while I'm sleeping. Can you do that?" Not that she'd ever tried.

The Dark Lord looked at her for a long moment. "As far as I'm aware it is not possible to access your mental architecture when you are asleep. Given that I am a master of mind magic, I think we can say that it is impossible."

"But I'm asleep right now. When you leave, I wake up," she pointed out, and then had an odd sinking feeling. What if they weren't in her mind? What if the Dark Lord was just making her think they were in her mind? But then how did he know about her manifestation to make this place?

"That is somewhat of a conundrum. You seem better tempered this week."

She frowned at him. She was still angry at him. She was furious. But she also had decided not to antagonize him into attacking her manifestation again. She felt she was skilled enough now at this sort of conversation to handle things without causing another murder. Hopefully.

"I have been able to access this space for a little over a year now, though there was little point to it until you started showing up," The Dark Lord offered when she didn't respond.

Rachel nodded. She knew he'd been responsible for the whispering she'd been hearing when she hadn't been able to dream. She wished she could go back to that. "We are the only two people in the world with this sort of connection. Maybe we should try to figure it out." She thought she was also good enough at lying to the Dark Lord that she felt she could manage this as well.

"That could be to our advantage," he agreed after a moment. "I will offer you a trade. A piece of information for a piece of information."

That sounded reasonable. Though, if she was lying to him, chances were pretty good he was lying to her too. At least she would know what he wanted her to think was true. "As long as the information is equal in value. I'm not just going to trade you a question for a question."

"I will even let you start," he offered.

That wasn't as much of an advantage as it seemed. If he had asked first, she would be able to know what his concerns were. She bit back the urge to ask him why he had killed her aunt and uncle. She already knew the answer to that. She also didn't want to ask him if he could sense where she was. There was no way he'd answer that honestly and she didn't want to give him the idea that she could tell where he was.

"When did you start being able to purposefully send me true visions and how do you make them happen when you're doing it purposefully?" she finally asked, both because she wanted to know and because she wasn't giving him any information from the question.

"I did not realize I was sending visions, if you want to call them that, at all until I noticed the sensation of being watched at times I was certain I was not being watched. I purposefully send the visions the same way I come here, by projecting myself toward what you term as our connection. I learned to do this shortly after I learned to come here. There are still times when I feel that you are watching without purposefully initiating that connection," he explained.

Rachel considered that. She thought the timeline seemed to fit. As for how he described doing it, she had no idea if that made sense.

"Does that answer the question to your satisfaction?"

"Yes, thank you," she said. She had follow up questions, but she didn't need clarification on what he'd already said.

"My turn, then. What happens on your end when you receive a vision from me? How does that differ to these conversations?"

"It depends. Usually the visions happen while I'm asleep. I've had times during the day when I knew I'd be having a vision if I was asleep. I get a bad headache after them, but I don't get a headache after these conversations. And I get cold. Are you cold? Is that why I'm cold?"

"No, I generally don't notice the temperature much. I have a follow-up question as well. What happens to you when you have these visions?"

Rachel shook her head. "I don't understand what you're looking for."

"When you have these visions, are they simply a burst of knowledge? Are they dreamlike or is it like standing there yourself? Can you hear or only see?"

She decided to be somewhat less truthful here. "It's like standing there myself. I can both see and hear. Anything else?"

"After these conversations, you are only cold? There is nothing else?"

"I wake up when you leave and I'm cold and a bit disoriented. That's pretty much it." She didn't see a reason to lie about that.

"I don't understand why that would be different from the visions. They are going by the same conduit."

"No idea. Are you having visions of me?" she said, deciding that was a safe question too.

"Yes. Your life is utterly banal and you study too much."

Rachel worked as hard as she could not to react to that. That was very worrying. "I think we can assume that it's the same for you as it is for me, that we're sending visions when we feel like we're being watched? Does it happen for you when you're awake and you can feel you would be having a vision if you were asleep?"

"I think that's a reasonable assumption, that it would work the same for you as it does for me. I receive glimpses of your life, though I see them whether I am awake or asleep. They do not cause me pain, however, nor do I notice a temperature change. My turn. What other abilities have come with your connection?"

"That's too broad of a question," she told him.

"Very well, in the interest of our fledgling partnership and in future collaboration, I will narrow it down and then we will be done for the night. Why were you not able to come to this space until this summer? What changed?"

"Severus has a theory about that, actually. I asked him after you asked me a while ago, because we were trying to figure out how this works," she said, not wanting him to think she'd lied last time.

"What is Severus' theory?"

"Last year I was still having after-effects of the Cruciatus curse and the potions that I was taking. I wasn't dreaming at all. I think I have to be able to dream in order to come here, but I didn't have to in order to have the visions." Also mostly a lie, but she wasn't going to tell him about the accident she'd had with mind magic.

"You had long term effects?" he asked, looking interested.

"Still do. I have permanent hand tremors. I still have some stamina problems. I can't fly on my usual broom. I have a lot of scars." She stared at him. He was responsible for all that. His Death Eaters may have done it, but it was at his command.

"If I'd known then what I know now, that would not have happened."

She was managing not to glare at him, but only just barely. She didn't want an apology from him. It wouldn't mean anything.

"Until next time." He walked away and then disappeared.

A moment later Rachel woke up. She took a few slow breaths and carefully thought through what had just happened. If the Dark Lord was actually having visions of her, that was a big problem. But she was almost certain he was lying about that. Just something about the way he'd given his response felt really suspect. On the other hand, she did have moments where it felt like someone was watching her. But that didn't happen in her dorm. Or in Severus' quarters. Or at Torey's office. Or in Professor Dumbledore's office.

Could it really be that the being watched feeling was just her anxiety?

She turned on her light, cast a warming charm on her blankets, and then grabbed her glasses, her two-way book, and her quill. Maybe Severus or Professor Dumbledore would have some more insight and she needed to write this down while she still remembered what words the Dark Lord had used.


Their group gathered in the entrance hall after dinner, though Draco had remained behind to talk with Pansy.

"We have enough time before curfew to have a little while in our study room," Hermione said as she checked her watch.

"Works for me," Theo said. "How was your holiday?"

"Alright. It was good to see my parents and I spent a fair bit of time in the libraries at Sirius' house. Sirius has some very interesting books in his family library, it's almost like the restricted section," Hermione said. "My parents are still able to go to and from work, though they took some time away from the practice while I was home. They're asking how long the war is going to last, but no one really has any good answers for them."

"Do you think you can convince them to leave the country when the time comes?" Rachel asked, knowing that time was growing closer and closer every day.

"I hope so. I hope if they see that the Order is leaving that they'll leave as well. At the very least I'll be finished with Hogwarts at that point, so I can see them to somewhere safe myself," Hermione said, looking worried.

"Is your family talking about leaving, Millie?" Theo asked.

"Not yet."

"How was your holiday with them?" Luna asked.

"Pretty much the same as usual," Millie said as they reached their study room. "They're still not really getting that I'm an adult now. Mom was talking to me about writing letters and I told her I wasn't going into the Healers program and that I didn't want to work as a Healer, and that I was going to do a Charms Mastery after Hogwarts."

"How did she take it?" Rachel asked, knowing that Millie had been worrying about this for a long time.

Millie sighed and sat down at her usual spot. "About as I expected. She asked me if I didn't want to spend my life helping people. She pointed out that I'm taking all these classes and I did so well on my OWLs and now I'm just ignoring that to play with spells all day. Dad asked me if I wasn't joining the MLE after all. And I told him that I wasn't. Then he asked me what was the point of all the extra Defense training that I'd been doing and why I was taking classes that would put me in a position for the Healers Training program and the Auror Training Program if I wasn't planning to pursue either of those."

"What did you tell them?" Ginny asked, looking worried as she fiddled with her hair.

"I told them that I was doing Defense training because I was worried about the war. Right then was not the right time to tell them about the Order. I'm not sure there is going to be a right time for that. My dad hugged me and said I didn't need to worry about the war and that we had good wards and that pretty much no one knows he's a muggleborn. He said that if I was joining the aurors he'd rather I wait until after the war was over anyway."

"They don't know you were in the attack in the first floor corridor last year, do they?" Neville asked.

"No, and I'm not planning to tell them that. It would just make them worry for no reason. I also had to show them all of our DA curriculum because they were worried about what we were teaching Isobelle. We kind of left things there, but I know I'll hear more about what they think I should do when it comes time to send letters," Millie said. "How was everyone else's holiday? Better than mine, I hope."

"Not really. Pretty much the only person in my family I'm getting along with right now is Ron, and that's only because he's in the same situation I am. Mom is beside herself with worry, she carries the family clock with her everywhere. Dad is just…he seems alright on the surface, I'm not fighting with him or anything, but he just seems really absent. He's there at home, but it's like his mind is somewhere else. Bill is kind of in and out, but he's also super over protective and he's super busy. He sat down with me and talked to me about what joining the Order would involve and that I should only do it if I was absolutely sure that's what I wanted to do and that there was no shame in taking an out of the country apprenticeship like Charlie did. I told him I was sure I was joining the Order. And the twins are the twins," Ginny summarized, looking unhappy.

"I had a quiet holiday with my father. He's making plans for a trip in the summer. He's not overly aware of the war, I'm afraid. He distrusts the Daily Prophet," Luna said.

"I think it's reasonable to distrust the Daily Prophet. We know what they print is suspect and we know they're leaving information out," Rachel said.

"Well, my father believes that Minister Fudge was a vampire and that he's still hiding with his vampire clan in Knockturn Alley, so I think his distrust of the Daily Prophet is slightly different than our distrust of the Daily Prophet. I used to believe that Minister Fudge was a vampire, because my father told me he was, but now I don't think that's likely," Luna said.

"Well," Hermione said, before pausing for a long moment. "Well, I mean, it's not hurting your father to believe Minister Fudge is a vampire, is it? He's not planning on doing something about it, is he?"

"Oh no, he'd never take that sort of action into his own hands. He believes it is his duty to report on what he observes without interfering," Luna said. "I worry about him, a little. I don't think the Death Eaters will be interested in him, but sometimes I worry that what he's seeing or hearing is very different from what I see and hear."

"That is concerning. I wish I knew what to tell you. We're always here for you though," Theo said.

Luna nodded. "I know. I'm glad I have all of you and I know you'll help me check on things if I'm seeing something different."

"We will," Rachel promised, wishing that she knew of something that would help.

"How were things here at Hogwarts?" Hermione asked.

"Quiet, thankfully. It was good to take a break," Neville said. "I was mostly in the Slytherin common room with Rachel, Theo, and Draco. It was pretty nice."

"It was nice to take a break," Rachel agreed. "And we found something fun to do with the Room of Requirement. It can make places from books if you picture them carefully enough in your mind. I made Horath's manor and Winifred's library."

Hermione's face lit up. "I've got to try that. There are so many places I want to go!"

"We can do it during one of our break times, it is kind of fun," Theo said. "Also, we tried a few muggle places, but Hogwarts doesn't know what to do with muggle technology. It makes an approximation, but we looked inside a television and it was empty inside."

"I wonder if it would do something different for me because I know what's inside a television," Hermione said, clearly excited.

"We'll have to try and find out," Rachel said, also curious if that would make a difference.

"Also, I have revised study schedules for our NEWTs for the next five and a half months, I'll pass them out tomorrow. But I think we are doing well," Hermione said. "Don't worry, I have scheduled break times."

Rachel found that she wasn't all that concerned about studying for her NEWTs. She'd do the studying, but she had lost the ability to consider them as being all that important to her life. She had much bigger things to worry about.


She woke on Wednesday morning feeling kind of groggy and cold. She yawned and scrunched herself further beneath her blankets. There was a part of her that knew she should check her watch and see how soon she needed to get up, but that could wait for at least another minute or two. She was tired enough that she felt like she hadn't slept at all, but she didn't recall waking in the night either.

After taking a moment to assess her body, she found that she wasn't really in pain anywhere, but she didn't feel right either. Maybe she was coming down with a cold or flu. It was fairly common for there to be a cold going around the school after the Christmas holiday. If she kept feeling this way she'd go to Severus after classes were done for the day and get a Pepper-Up potion. She didn't want to wander around the school with smoking ears.

"Rachel. Millie. You're going to miss breakfast if you don't get up," Pansy called.

It must be later than she'd realized. Rachel forced herself to sit up and then pulled back her bed curtains. Pansy was on her bed, putting on eyeliner and Daphne was just pulling on her robes over her uniform.

"Sweet Merlin, Rachel!" Pansy exclaimed when she looked up.

"What?" Rachel asked.

Daphne turned and looked. "Oh no! I've got to get Astoria out of here." She hurried away and then the door shut with a bang.

"Look at your arms," Pansy said.

Rachel looked down at her arms and recoiled from them. She had big green pustules on her arms. "What are they?" she asked, trying to think of a curse or a potion that could have caused this.

"Dragon pox, you have dragon pox. Which means all of us are going to get dragon pox, it's incredibly contagious. That's why Daphne ran off. She's got to send Astoria home before she's exposed, it could kill her," Pansy explained.

Rachel remembered that her dad's parents had died of dragon pox. "How deadly is dragon pox?"

"Not very, unless you're very old, very young, or already seriously sick. You'll be fine in ten to fourteen days. Uncomfortable, but fine. You should probably go up to the hospital wing. You can't go around the school like that. Daphne and I will probably be joining you in a few days. Millie, are you sick too?"

"I definitely don't feel good," came Millie's voice.

"Check your skin for green lumps," Pansy called back.

"Urgh. Why did this have to happen now?" Millie asked.

Rachel finished pulling all of her bed curtains back, put on her glasses, and found Millie sitting on the edge of her bed. She had large green pustules on her arms, legs, and face.

"Someone probably traveled over the holiday and brought it back with them. Do you two need help getting to the hospital wing?" Pansy asked.

"I think we can do it," Rachel said, willing herself out of bed. She went to her wardrobe, packed her school bag with her study guides so that she could at least be doing something while she was in the hospital wing, though she really wanted to just go back to sleep. She left her nightgown on but pulled her school robes over it. "You coming, Millie?"

"Yeah, give me a second," Millie said.

She sat down again, pulled on a pair of socks and then put on her shoes. Even her feet felt tender and she had green pustules down her legs too. She pressed on one experimentally, it was about the size of her fingertip, and while that was a little painful, at least it didn't itch or hurt too much.

"Alright," Millie said as she stood. "I just need a few things, then I'll be ready. Hermione is going to freak out when she realizes what this is going to do to our study schedule."

"You think she will get it too?" Rachel asked.

"The entire school is going to get it, no one here is old enough to have gotten it the last time there was an outbreak, though the teachers should be alright. They should have already had it. Professor Dumbledore should probably avoid the students though, he's old enough that it's a concern for him," Millie said, digging in her wardrobe. "Given that we're both sick this morning, we were probably infected about the same time, and I bet we've already given it to the study group. Okay, I'm ready."

Rachel forced herself to stand up again. "We'll probably see you in a few days," she told Pansy.

"Seems likely," Pansy said.

Rachel and Millie left the dorm together and found Theo waiting for them in the common room.

"Oh no," he said, taking a step back.

"Oh yes, it's probably too late for you anyway," Millie told him.

"That's probably true," he said, frowning at them. "Well this should be a fun couple of weeks while the whole school gets sick."

"It doesn't feel that bad," Rachel said.

"That's because you don't have a high fever yet. Come on, let's get you two to the hospital wing."

They trudged up the corridor together, Theo walking slower than usual to stay at the same pace as them. Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the hospital wing to find Felicity, Penelope, Heather, and Niles all in beds.

"That's what I thought," Madam Pomfrey said as she came out. "Come take beds and get comfortable and I'll bring you each a Fever Reducer."

"Well, I'll see you in a little over two weeks," Theo said. "I'll see if I can get a bed near you when I wind up in here."

"See you then," Rachel said. She went to a bed that was further away from the doorway and set her bag down on the bedside table and took off her shoes. "I guess we'll be here for a while then." She didn't particularly like staying in the hospital wing. Nobody did, she was sure, but it reminded her of those two weeks that she'd stayed here right after being tortured. She supposed she'd have to get used to it or figure it out somehow.

Millie sat down on the bed next to her. "Yep. Fortunately we should sleep through most of this. Which is good, because I'm ready to go back to sleep already."

Rachel nodded. She was pretty sure if she laid down and closed her eyes, she'd go back to sleep too.

"Here we are, let me do a quick check and you can get settled in and rest," Madam Pomfrey said.

She cringed slightly at the diagnostic charm. Of all the spells, that one was one of her least favorite to feel cast on her.

"Low fever, but it will start to rise over the next twenty four hours. Drink this and then get settled in your blankets," Madam Pomfrey instructed, handing her a potion vial before turning to Millie.

Rachel drank the potion, which tasted strongly of sage and willow bark, and then set her glasses and wand next to her bag, set her robes on top of that and slid beneath the blankets. She was sure she'd see Severus soon enough because Daphne would have told him where she was.

She decided to lay back down while she waited for the potion to work. Laying down became closing her eyes, and closing her eyes became falling asleep in short order.


A knock on his office door drew Severus from his quarters with a sigh. Someone coming to his office before breakfast usually meant something had gone wrong in his House. He opened the door to find Daphne looking somewhat panicked and Astoria carrying a bag.

"We need to send my sister home right away. Rachel has dragon pox!" Daphne said.

"Come inside," he told them, hoping that they'd caught this quickly enough that Astoria hadn't yet been exposed. If Rachel had visible pustules, that meant she must have been exposed on Sunday or Monday and incubated for two or three days before having visible symptoms. That probably meant it was all through the House already and probably all through the school.

"Do you have everything you need for a three or four week stay at home?" he asked Astoria.

"Yes, sir," Astoria said, looking nervous. "If only a few people have it, I might not have been exposed yet, right?"

"Possibly not," Severus told her, though he was very concerned that she had been exposed. Dragon pox could be transmitted by saliva, which generally wasn't a concern, or being in small, unventilated areas with other people who had been exposed and breathing the same air. "I will collect your homework assignments and send them to you by owl, but I expect classes will be canceled for a week or two once most of the school is sick. We'll send for you once everyone is symptom free. One of your parents should be home this time of day?"

"Mother should be home," Daphne said. "I'm not going to hug you because if Rachel has it, I'm already exposed from our dorm."

"Okay," Astoria said, her mouth quivering slightly.

"Come over to the floo then," he said, moving to the fireplace, taking a handful of floo powder, and throwing it into the flames. "Greengrass House. Mrs. Greengrass? This is Severus Snape. May I speak with you regarding an urgent matter?"

"Yes, I'm here," a voice called back. "Are the girls alright?"

"Right now they're both fine, but we have an outbreak of dragon pox at the school. I believe it would be in Astoria's best interests to come home until everyone here is symptom free," Severus explained.

"Merlin," came the muttered reply. "Yes, I think you'd better send Astoria home right away. Is she there with you?"

"I have Astoria right here, she's ready to come home. I have Daphne here as well, but she's already been exposed in her dorm," he called back.

"I think just Astoria should come home then. Daphne, sweetie, will you be alright at school?"

"I'll be fine. Just take care of Astoria," Daphne said.

"Good girl. Get some rest. Astoria, come on home, baby," Mrs. Greengrass said.

"I will send word once it's safe for her to return to the school, and I'll send her homework along as well," Severus said, motioning Astoria towards the fireplace.

"Thank you, we appreciate that."

"I'm coming," Astoria said before stepping into the green flames.

"I've got her," Mrs. Greengrass said a moment later. "Daphne, take good care of yourself. Lots of fluid and rest, okay?"

"Yes, mother," Daphne said, shaking her head slightly.

"We'll take care of her," Severus promised.

"Thank you," Mrs. Greengrass said.

Severus turned to Daphne once the flames had turned back to normal. "Given that you share a dorm with Rachel, I suspect you will start showing symptoms in the next three days. Please come to the hospital wing when that happens."

"I will," Daphne said, looking worried. "Do you think I got to my sister in time?"

"I hope so. I know she has Healers at St. Mungo's who will help care for her if need be as well. Your parents will make certain she has the best possible care," he told her, both wanting to reassure her and to not dismiss how serious the situation was. Dragon pox could be deadly to someone in Astoria's condition.

"Alright. I guess I'm going to classes then, at least until I get sick. How is the hospital wing going to handle everyone being sick?"

"There are additional rooms near the hospital wing that can be converted into temporary sick rooms. We'll have some Healers from St. Mungo's join us as well so we can take care of everyone." Dragon pox outbreaks happened around every twenty years or so. Severus had not been a student during the last outbreak in '79, but he'd gotten dragon pox along with a number of the other younger Death Eaters and he presumed the younger members of the Order had been similarly afflicted. The number of deaths caused by the war dropped dramatically for three weeks while everyone recovered and took care of the people they were responsible for. He expected something similar would happen this time as well.

"Thank you for sending Astoria home so quickly, sir," Daphne said.

"I was glad to, I want her to be safe and well, as I do for all of my students," he assured her.

Daphne nodded and left his office.

He wrote a quick note, indicating that his classes were canceled for the next three weeks, and the homework assignments for this week for all of his years. He went through his classroom, put the note on the front of his classroom door with a Sticking charm, and then locked up his classroom. He was going to be occupied brewing for the next few weeks and most of the students wouldn't be in class anyway.

Severus went back into his quarters, went into his private lab, and pulled out four cauldrons and got the first stages of the Fever Reducer started. After he prepared the initial stages, he left them bubbling as they'd need to sit for an hour, and then left and made his way to the hospital wing. Seven beds were occupied, all with sleeping students with green spots on their skin. Pretty soon the green would spread from the spots and give all of them a greenish tinge. Almost all of the students were from Slytherin House, but none were from Astoria's year at least.

He paused by Rachel's bed, noting Millie in the bed next to her, and did a quick diagnostic charm. Mild fever, which would get worse within the next twenty four hours.

Poppy appeared from her office and Severus moved away from the beds and cast a privacy ward around them so they could converse without waking anyone. "I'll brew as much Fever Reducer as I can, along with the Pain Relieving Potion, and the Rehydrating Potion, but we're going to need more brewers. We're probably not going to be able to use Order brewers because they're all young enough that they'll likely be infected. When more Healers arrive, I'd like for Rachel to stay in the ward you are taking care of. As for Draco, Theo, and Malcolm, is there someone you trust implicitly that you can request from St. Mungo's that can watch their ward?"

"I'm planning to divide them into six wards as we get more patients, with upper year boys and girls, mid year boys and girls, and lower year boys and girls. I'll take the upper year girls ward because all of the girls we're worried about will be in that ward. I'll have Malcolm join the upper years boys and ask Healer Nathaniel Markham to take that ward. I'll need someone to help me prepare the wards, but since you're brewing, I'll ask Filius and Minerva. As for more brewers, we'll see what St. Mungo's can supply," Poppy said.

Severus nodded. If Poppy was willing to trust Healer Markham, then he trusted her judgment. "I'm going to go out to the apothecaries and buy what I need before we're reduced to ordering from out of the country. I've got four cauldrons of Fever Reducer brewing already and I'll try to get twenty batches a day, along with the Pain Reliever Potions and the Rehydrating Potions." That left him brewing eighteen hours a day, but he could do that for a few weeks.

"We need to send Astoria Greengrass home immediately," Poppy said.

"Already have, Daphne brought her to my office just about an hour ago, as soon as she realized Rachel was sick."

"Good. I don't think we have anyone else who is a concern in that regard. I'm going to ask Albus to quarantine himself, he shouldn't be exposed in his condition. I think Minerva should be alright for this time around," Poppy said.

"Most of our teachers should be fine, but I expect Gemma will need a private room. She would have been too young to have caught it in '79," Severus said, combing his mind for what else they needed to be concerned about. "Please summon me by floo or Patronus if Rachel should start screaming in her sleep."

"I will. And Gemma can have the private room in my ward," Poppy said.

"I think that's everything for the time being. I'm going to go check on my cauldrons and then I'll be away for a few hours collecting supplies. I'll bring the first doses by this afternoon. Please let me know if Rachel asks for me."

"I will, I'll take good care of Rachel," Poppy promised.

He knew that she would, but that didn't stop him from worrying. "Thank you."

"Of course," she said.

Severus dismissed the privacy ward and hurried from the hospital wing. He had a large number of things to do today and every moment counted.


"Good morning. Or not a very good morning, I suppose, depending on how you look at it."

"Hermione?" Rachel asked as she sat up and reached for her glasses. It took a moment for her fumbling fingers to settle them on her face and she peered at Hermione. "You too?"

"Woke up this way. Can I have the bed next to you?" Hermione asked.

"Sure," Rachel turned to her other side and saw that Millie was still sleeping. "It's freezing in here."

"It's not. You have a fever," Hermione said as she set her bag down with a thunk.

"If I have a fever, shouldn't I feel hot?" Rachel asked, turning back to Hermione.

"Nope. Your brain thinks your body is cold, that's why it's trying to raise your temperature. I don't suppose Madam Pomfrey is giving us Pain Relieving Potions? Or at least a Headache Easing Draught?"

"You can probably ask her for one." Rachel didn't think she was to the point of needing a Pain Relieving Potion. She was mostly cold and a little confused. And tired. Definitely tired. "What day is it?"

"Friday. Fortunately, with the way people are getting sick, they'll probably cancel classes these next two weeks, so we won't be missing homework. I'm going to have to completely redo our study schedule though," she said, sitting down and taking off her shoes before setting them neatly by her bed. "Neville went into the upper year boys ward yesterday. I haven't seen Theo and Draco yet today, but I think it's a good assumption that they'll be in there soon too, if not today. Ginny and Luna are on the other side of Millie. Did you know your skin looks kind of green?"

Rachel held out her arms and realized that she did look like she had a bit of a green tint. "Huh."

"I did some research on Wednesday. Did you know they don't have vaccines in the magical world?" Hermione asked, rubbing at her left temple.

"I didn't know that, but I suppose we would have been vaccinated when we first started Hogwarts if we needed to be," Rachel said.

"Apparently injections aren't a thing in Healing at all. Almost everything is done through potions or wandwork. But anyway, dragon pox seems to be something of a viral infection that has outbreaks, the way there used to be polio and smallpox outbreaks and there are still chicken pox outbreaks in the muggle world. Did you ever get chicken pox?"

"No, my cousin did though," Rachel said. "I don't get sick very often."

"My parents thought of me as a miracle child because I didn't get sick very often. More than half of my class one year in primary school was out with chicken pox, but I never got it. Apparently magical children don't get many muggle illnesses. It's like magical blood - well not just blood, our magic is throughout all of our bodies - somehow protects us from a lot of illnesses," Hermione explained.

"I suppose that's a good thing," Rachel said, laying back down. She thought she could stay awake to have a conversation with Hermione, but she wanted to lie down while she did it.

"Also, I don't think the magical world has molecular biology at all. Nothing I found in the Healing section of the library seems to suggest that they have more than a basic understanding of how humans work. Let alone research on illnesses. There seems to be an outbreak of dragon pox about once every twenty years, though it generally takes a year or two to spread around the world, and there are some breakthrough cases in other years. Every time it happens Healers and potioneers try to cure dragon pox, but this has been going on for centuries. And it can kill people! Imagine what could happen if magical research Healers and potioneers could examine diseases the way that muggle scientists can! I need to find Madam Pomfrey, this headache is awful."

Rachel smiled, mostly because she liked hearing Hermione's somewhat rambling conclusions. "What if magical diseases don't work the way muggle diseases though? What if they're magical? Maybe dragon pox isn't caused by a virus or a…a whatever else causes diseases. Germs, I guess." She couldn't quite remember the right word for it now. "Madam Pomfrey might be in her office."

"Maybe we need different instruments for looking at magic then. Or they could check our blood and other fluids to see what's in there that shouldn't be. I'll be right back," Hermione stood, still rubbing her head, and went towards Madam Pomfrey's office.

"What's happening?" Millie asked.

"Hermione, Luna, and Ginny are here. Neville's in the boys ward. We don't know about Theo or Draco," Rachel summarized, turning over to see Millie.

"My spots hurt. I think I have spots on my butt," Millie said, wiggling in her bed before sitting up.

"I think I do too," Rachel admitted, though she hadn't done much to check on the problem.

"Pansy and Daphne are across from us. I see Lavender and either Padma or Parvati too. Can't tell anyone else further down," Millie said. "It's freezing in here."

"That's what I said." Rachel pulled her blankets closer and then reached for her wand and cast a warming charm on her blankets. That was better.

Hermione returned with a potion and Madam Pomfrey.

"How is everyone feeling today?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

"Cold," Rachel said, though she also felt sticky, like she'd been sweating.

"Me too," Millie said.

"Let's take a quick look," she said, pulling out her wand.

Rachel endured the diagnostic charm, even though that made her feel even colder.

"Looks like it is time for another Fever Reducer. I'll be back with your potions in a moment. Do either of you feel like you can stomach breakfast?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

Rachel shook her head. "No, thank you. I'll try at lunch."

"Me too," Millie said. "Wow. I must be sick. I'm not even hungry. I can't remember the last time I didn't want to eat at a meal."

"Madam Pomfrey, the books I read in the library suggest that people are sick for ten to fourteen days, usually with a high fever that can sometimes cause people to be delirious. Is that right?"

"That's about right, though with Fever Reducers twice a day we can usually prevent people from reaching the point where they are delirious. Some people will experience pain, usually headaches like the one you're having, or pain in their spots, or just general body aches. Itching is also common, though you should not scratch at your spots," Madam Pomfrey told them.

"Can I have a Pain Reliever Potion with a Fever Reducer? I hurt," Millie said.

"Certainly. Rachel, did you need one as well?" Madam Pomfrey checked.

"No, thank you. I'm mostly just tired," Rachel said.

"I want to make sure you're eating at least twice a day, you still don't have weight to lose. I'll be back in a few minutes with your potions," Madam Pomfrey said before hurrying away.

Rachel yawned. She thought she was at a pretty good weight right now, but Madam Pomfrey was right that she didn't want to lose weight and get sick again.

"Well, I guess we'll all be roommates for a week or two then," Hermione said as she sat down. "I've always been a little jealous that you two got to share a dorm."

"I wish you could have shared a dorm with us too. But this could be like our dorm," Rachel said.

"Yeah, this will be our fake dorm, even if we're sleeping most of the time," Millie agreed.

Rachel shivered and grabbed her wand to cast another warming charm on her blankets. "I think I might go back to sleep. Maybe we'll all be awake for lunch." She took off her glasses again and set them with her wand.

"Have a good nap, we'll try not to keep you up," Hermione said.

"Don't worry about. Right now, I think I could sleep through almost anything," Rachel said, pulling her legs up so that she could try to keep herself warm.