NOTE

Warning for mentions of suicidal thoughts and self harm scars.


1. the oak tree

Miss Green's hands were shaking. Which Snape found odd, because he'd always considered her the most steady-handed student in her year.

The seventh year potions class was an hour into brewing Veritaserum. A taxing lesson for the first day of term, and one at which most of the students were sorely failing. It was… understandable. After the stresses of the war, and the sub-par instruction of one Horace Slughorn, they were bound to be a bit rusty.

Snape had scowled through the first half hour. Catastrophe, everywhere he looked. Laziness and lack of attention to detail. He had hoped Miss Green might rise above the others as she had always done before. Alas, she was barely able to properly mince the bluewater root.

The shaking of her hands was not the only strange thing about her this morning. Her hair was down. Not even swept over her back, but lying along both sides of her neck, like the long curls of a woman in a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

Hair, short or long, must absolutely not make contact with any potion during the brewing process. Everyone in this classroom knew that, and Miss Green certainly did. She'd always put her hair up before brewing. Like clockwork. If she had not entered the classroom with her hair already in a braid, her fingers would make quick work of her long hair while Snape delivered instructions, before he sent them off to their cauldrons. But she had not done so today.

Fair enough, if she'd forgotten. Given the circumstances.

He'd been at the meeting last night, along with Madam Pomfrey and Minerva. He'd been silent as Poppy explained the plan, the measures which would be taken to protect Miss Green from herself, and to protect the other students from Miss Green.

The passageway from the whomping willow to the shrieking shack.

The requisite time in the hospital wing the day after.

Once the talking was over, Snape had administered the first dose of Wolfsbane potion. September's full moon would occur in exactly seven days, on Monday of the following week. Which was, as Poppy optimistically put it, convenient.

The girl had been quite blank-faced throughout. The clearest emotion she'd expressed had been slight disgust, when her face had twitched in response to the potion's bitter taste.

Thus it was understandable why she had forgotten the rule against having one's hair down over a cauldron. Still, the hazard needed to be remedied.

"Miss Green," Snape said from the front of the classroom. His voice, though still deep, was not quite so languid since the snake. "Put your hair back."

Fay's eyes darted towards her black-robed professor, not quite landing on his face. "Yes, sir." Her voice was as shaky as her hands. She stepped away from the cutting board, and began to divide her tangled hair into three parts with trembling fingers.

It appeared to prove a struggle. Her hands shook even harder as she tried to coax a braid into existence. In the end she gave up, tying her hair back shoddily, revealing the black turtleneck she wore beneath her robes.

Severus. You complete imbecile.

The thought came to him the moment he saw that thin shield of black fabric, and he swiftly embarked upon his prowl around the room.

To distract himself from the regret piercing his chest.

To stop himself from telling her she could put her hair back down if she wanted. Because that would have attracted attention.

The bite mark.

Obviously she was keeping her hair down on purpose, to conceal it.

You fool.

As he inspected Lucy Malfoy's potion and declared it hopeless, Snape realised how strange it was that he'd noticed Miss Green's habit of braiding her hair before class. He hadn't realised before that he noticed such things about his students. But, evidently, he did. He'd always been observant, and his years as a spy had made this quality indispensable. Any observations he'd made about his students had been made out of habit, not consciously. And the observations themselves were hardly of dire significance.

But this matter with the braid, and Miss Green's shaking hands, made Snape's chest twinge with something akin to… concern.

A second inner voice washed over his own thoughts, as the sea erases footprints in the sand.

See? You're not so bad a teacher as you tell yourself, Sev.

Snape's stride did not waver, and nothing in his posture betrayed the fact that his heart had just skipped a beat.

His lip curled slightly. Bollocks.

It's true, answered the voice, forever caught between girlhood and womanhood. And she does look distressed, doesn't she?

Snape risked a glance at Miss Green from across the room. The Creevey boy had taken over the dicing of the bluewater root, and Miss Green was instructing him, her hands behind her back, twisted around one another.

Dennis Creevey had lost his twin brother Colin in the Battle of Hogwarts. Snape had not personally witnessed the boy's death, nor had news of it come to him by word of mouth.

But he knew the names.

He knew all of them.

He'd spent the summer reading the casualty lists over and over, expecting every time to finally see his own name, there, in the middle of the second column on the second page.

But Severus Snape had received no proof that he was a ghost. He was alive, Merlin be damned. He was still here, whatever that meant… and he was still at Hogwarts.

His obsession with reading the names had come back to bite him upon his return to the school. Knowing that this or that student had lost a brother, a sister, a parent, a friend…

Snape had no desire to feel pity (he spat the word, even in his thoughts). And yet… he did.

So, as Snape looked at Dennis Creevey, a Gryffindor prefect, a lanky boy with pale red hair and dark brown eyes, he unavoidably remembered the name of his dead brother. And, for a moment, shared in a fraction of the pain and loss which had befallen the young man.

Then Snape snapped out of it, and returned to his examination of Miss Green.

She and Dennis were the only Slytherin-Gryffindor pair in the room, and it had often been so in double potions classes of the past. Snape found it odd, seeing as Miss Green's abilities were far superior to the Creevey boy's.

But today the boy managed to serve a purpose. His thin hands were careful as he diced the bluewater root, according to his partner's advice. To the casual observer it would have seemed that Miss Green was supervising his work carefully. But Snape could see the slight haze in her eyes. The absence.

A visible tremor went through her spine.

Snape looked away.

The second hour wore on, and three cauldrons began to distinguish themselves above the rest. The one shared by Miss Green and the Creevey boy was not among these. Their prospects had already been grim, after the rose oil had been measured incorrectly. Now Miss Green had taken over the stirring, but her hand was still shaking too much. After a second misstep–two stirs counterclockwise instead of one stir clockwise–the potion was officially ruined.

"Bring one vial to my desk for inspection," Snape said, taking his seat and surveying the room. "And don't bother stealing any. Although I can identify whether you've brewed it correctly, the potion will have no effect until it has matured for a full lunar cycle."

Miss Green hung her head and said something to the Creevey boy, who looked down at her with furrowed eyebrows. With his comparably steady hands, he dipped a vial into the cauldron and corked it, while Miss Green began to clean the table. Dennis lingered for a moment at her side, and touched his hand to her wrist. She flinched, and hunched her shoulders.

Did the boy know?

Snape watched him closely as he approached the desk, holding the vial which contained the travesty.

"Mr. Creevey," Snape drawled. "Veritaserum, as I've said many times during this lesson, is meant to appear perfectly clear. Your vial contains something decidedly muddy."

The student's face was still and blank as he set his vial on the professor's desk with the others. "Sir," he said, in a voice slightly hoarse with early manhood. "It was my fault. I added too much elderflower."

"I am well aware of which mistakes yield which results, Mr. Creevey. The potion was spoiled when Miss Green added too little rose oil in the third step, and ruined when she used an incorrect stirring pattern in the final step."

"She's had a hard summer, sir."

Ah. So he did know.

"Nevertheless," Snape went on. "Give blame where blame is due. It is not always valiant to take credit for another's mistakes. It makes it a challenge for them to improve."

A soft look entered the Creevey boy's face, and his eyes were desperate. "But Fay's brilliant at potions. It was just this one class. She doesn't deserve–"

"You may go."

Snape's patience had grown short, and Dennis understood that Fay's punishment for the day's mistakes was out of his control.

"Yes, sir," he said. And he walked slowly away from the desk.

Miss Green was gathering her things, and Snape could not help but notice how limp and strengthless her arm seemed as she lifted her bag. He was tempted to ask her to remain after class. But then the Creevey boy was at her side, and the opportunity was lost. Dennis offered to hold her bag, and when she denied his help he insisted, lifting it onto his shoulder. Yes, perhaps the boy served a purpose after all. They left the classroom together and Snape briefly glimpsed a weak ankle beneath the hem of Miss Green's robes.

The door closed behind the last student and Snape was left alone.

Lunch was being served in the great hall, but he would remain in the classroom a while longer. The eight vials which sat before him varied in acceptability. One was perfect. Two were good. The others were various shades of abysmal.

Had Fay Green ever before turned in a potion which was such a glaring failure? Snape tried to remember. Perhaps in her first year. Even so, this vial of swampy green Veritaserum was, by far, her worst.

Poor girl.

In the quiet of the classroom, Lily's voice was clearer, as though she were standing somewhere right behind him. But he knew better than to turn around.

He grunted softly as he set down the vial and wrote, in his book, the pitifully low mark it had earned.

An uncomfortable sensation entered him. His body tensed around it, refusing to recognise the intruder's identity.

Oh, Sev. When will you learn?

Now he was alone, he could speak to her aloud.

"What do you mean."

Lily's voice sighed tiredly. Maybe you… care?

"No."

Are you sure?

He scowled. "For going on eighteen years dead, your intuition can fail quite miserably."

Sometimes Snape forgot who he was talking to. Sometimes he took her for granted. This was one of those times.

There was a pause, and he glared at Lucy Malfoy's vial, which was a pale pink colour with strange flecks of orange floating in it.

I'm going away now, Lily said. Just for now. I'll come back. But I won't stay if you keep stinging me.

"I've done nothing else all summer."

Well. That's not quite true, is it?

She was right, of course.

Severus had started hearing Lily's voice a few months after her death. In the grave silence of his life, which had followed Voldemort's disappearance. It had been a quiet sound then, often floating away and coming back for a short time, unexpectedly.

After the second war, after the snake, the voice's visits had become more vivid and frequent. He'd found himself ensnared in an intense relationship with it over the summer. A cripple's relationship to his crutch.

The stinging had been part of it. Little barbs. Little shards of bitterness. But, mostly, he'd prayed to her. Sought out her advice. Relied upon her gentleness when he was close to… ending things.

Lily sighed. All the same. Bye, for now.

And then she was gone.

Snape spoke to himself, his words a low murmur. "Miserable, self-deluding bastard."

He finished marking the samples, and then with a deep sigh stood from his desk to inspect the workspace.

As he crossed the room, something caught his eye.

The dungeon windows looked out over the hill which sloped towards the forbidden forest. Miss Green was walking down it alone, not carrying her bag. Her robes whipped around her small frame in the wind, and her hair, which she'd let down again, danced wildly around her head.

At the edge of the trees she stopped and turned for a moment, seeming to consider something. Then she disappeared into the forest.

Snape felt his eyebrows pinch together in confusion. Why wasn't she in the great hall? Why was she going into the forest alone?

It wasn't his business…

But it was. He was her head of house, after all.

Snape vanished the remaining Veritaserum–and attempts–from the cauldrons, and walked up from the dungeon into the entryway of the school. The great hall's doors were open, and most of the students were already seated within. Snape saw the Creevey boy at the Gryffindor table, Miss Green's bag on the bench beside him.

Minerva caught his attention from the staff table, her hand half-raised, invitingly. Perhaps she thought he was hesitant to enter the hall because of the responses his presence might inspire among the students.

That was not the reason.

Snape lowered his chin to acknowledge the headmistress. I'll return shortly. She lowered her hand and nodded at him, her mouth drawn in a thin smile. Oh, how he loathed pity.

Snape turned on his heel, and went out the doors of Hogwarts into the windy courtyard, taking the stairs to the top of the hill which sloped to the forest.


As more distance grew between Fay and the castle, the chaos of scents cleared and gave way to the cool blue taste of wind, the beckoning density of the pines, the pure, earthy forest.

She felt her shoulders relax as she walked down the grassy hill. Smelling people's scents was still new to her, like many things, and she'd not been in the presence of so many since the attack three months ago.

She'd found sleep impossible, drowned by the smells and heartbeats of four other Slytherin girls–and the faint scent of Blaise Zabini, which clung to Lucy Malfoy like a nasty perfume.

The one truly pleasant scent she'd encountered was Dennis's, solely because it was familiar.

Professor Snape didn't smell awful, either.

Strange.

Her stomach made a feeble growling sound.

She really should have stayed inside for lunch. She hadn't been able to eat breakfast that morning, and hadn't eaten as much as she needed at last night's feast.

In years past, her returns to Hogwarts had been fittingly magical. Given the summer she'd had, the school should have felt like a true refuge. But being reunited with friends and professors had so far induced more anxiety than security.

The scents, for starters, were extremely overwhelming. Her nose had been overstimulated nonstop since yesterday. Badly on the train, and terribly during the sorting ceremony.

Last night she'd been unable to join the other Slytherins in their traditional first-night swim in the lake. Had she taken off her robes, they'd have seen the scars. She'd always loved swimming before, and Lucy Malfoy had pointed out how strange it was that Fay wasn't interested in getting wet. Luckily Lucy's choice of words had been warped into a joke by the boys, which caused enough of a distraction for Fay to slip upstairs to her dormitory.

Even the joke had echoed one of her many problems.

She had only experienced three full moons as a werewolf; those of June, July, and August. Each time, in the week leading up to her transformation, she'd become chained to an unusually high sex drive. It had been especially disturbing in the final seventy-two hours, when her nights were full of aching hot dreams, and her days were interrupted by flashes of feral need.

Johnny had noticed these, of course.

He had taken full advantage of them.

At least, at home, she hadn't been severely inconvenienced by her excessive urge to masturbate. But now that she was in school… she could only dread the upcoming days.

The morning had been turbulent. Fay had woken feeling nauseous, probably an effect of the wolfsbane potion on an insufficiently fed body. Her nausea had kept her from eating anything at breakfast, leaving her hands extremely unsteady. She'd utterly failed at the review of the locomotion spell in charms (Flitwick had looked at her with no small amount of curiosity and worry), and then she'd ruined a cauldron of Veritaserum.

All in all, she'd been left feeling worse about herself than she had all summer.

Which was saying something.

She'd declined to attend lunch with Dennis out of necessity. She just needed to breathe clean air for a moment. She just needed to be alone… and she knew the perfect place for it.

A sharp gust of wind cut against her body, and she allowed it to sweep away her frenzied thoughts. At least for now.

Before entering the woods, she turned around and searched the sky for the symbol of her misfortune. The noontime ghost of the moon was hanging over the castle. It wasn't her imagination; she could feel its pull on her. Its control.

The moon had bound and harnessed her, and she would never get away from it again. She could fly across the earth each day chasing the sun, and still never escape the moon. Why was it in the sky now anyway, showing its face in broad daylight? It wasn't the first time she'd noticed the occurrence of the moon in the day. But now it seemed to be there for the sole purpose of taunting her.

The moon itself was not the cause of her sickness. But it was her master now. And all of the beauty and romance it had once signified had been drowned by the pain she was cursed to bear each time it grew full.

Fay released her breath in a heartbroken sigh, and continued into the woods.

The oak tree was not far from the edge of the forest. She'd discovered it in her fourth year, a necessary refuge from the scourge that was Dolores Umbridge. By some miracle she was never caught. Although the punishments she received for other infractions–either minor or nonexistent–more than made up for it.

The war had changed much. But the oak tree was eternally the same. Broad and tall with wide branches, knots and whorls in the trunk, sunlight making the leaves glow.

Birds were singing in the uppermost branches of the trees. The wind stole through and filled the forest with a beautiful rustling sound, which caressed her ears.

It had been the right decision, coming to the oak tree.

Here, she could forget.

Pressing her hands into the trunk, she stepped out of her shoes and began to climb. A knot at knee-level was her first foothold, and she pushed herself up to the first massive branch. Her limbs were already shaking. It took more effort than usual, because her body was weaker than ever before. She bit back her frustration and continued.

On the third branch she paused for a moment, hugging herself flat against the trunk. Her heart was racing, and she could feel her bones under her skin. The ground looked awfully far away, and her palms burned from the friction of the tree bark.

But she refused to accept defeat. Holding on to the branch above her head, she leaned back and looked up. Her favourite spot was five branches away. A smooth saddle nestled comfortably against the strong trunk.

Go slowly. You can make it.

But what about coming down?

Worry about that later.

Relying on the protective arms of the old oak, she climbed upwards until she reached the place. She leaned against the tree, panting, her mouth dry and her head vibrating.

Her lower back was aching, and her shoulders were on fire. Her head was light, and a crowd of black spots surrounded her vision.

She really should have eaten breakfast.

"Miss Green."

Fay gasped, and her head darted around–too quickly–at the sound of Snape's voice.

The dark pulsing overtook her, and she fainted.

Then she fell.

Snape stopped her from crashing into the ground, but not before her limp arm hit a branch, hard enough that he was sure it had broken.

She landed softly on the black soil between the exposed roots of the tree, her hair over her face, her feet pale against the dark forest floor. Snape went to her and knelt at her side, his fingers working through her hair until they pressed against her thin neck and found her pulse. It was there. Slow and light, but there. He should have been more concerned about her shaking hands earlier.

Miss Green's face possessed a tender vulnerability. Which, given the strength she had shown in last night's meeting, she would have undoubtedly hated for anyone to see. Her lips were parted, and there was a meagre flush in her cheeks.

Snape held her arm and winced when he felt that it had indeed suffered a break. He pushed up the dark sleeve of her robe, and then rolled up the sleeve of the black shirt underneath, in order to mend the break. His fingers worked quickly. She might wake at any moment, and he didn't want her to feel any unnecessary pain.

When her forearm was exposed, Snape was at once distracted from the small bump of the broken bone.

He stared at her skin for a long moment.

Then he quickly tugged up her other sleeve.

There were the scars. On both arms. Perfectly placed. Small white slashes.

A haunted look filled Snape's eyes, and his heart thudded unpleasantly in his chest as he recognised the effects of a curse he himself had invented.

His shoulders tensed, and a singular expression claimed his face. Teeth half-bared in a grimace of anger and pain. A grimace that recognised fate.

Holding the girl's frail, scarred wrists, he looked up at the green trees surrounding him. The wind came through again, and the birds tweeted under the rushing sound of the leaves.

"Say something," he pleaded.

There was no answer.


NOTE

Haven't got a clue when I'll continue this, but I plan to. My other work, EQUAL TO HIS STORMY HEART, is my top priority at present. But I had this idea and it refused to stay bottled up.

I know Dennis Creevey should be in his fifth year at this point. I'm pretending that he and Colin were twins. So, his situation mirrors that of George Weasley.

Lucy Malfoy is Draco's younger sister, with the same brand of war trauma.

Thanks for reading, and I always love reviews. :)