Severus Snape was in hell; there was no other way to accurately describe his current situation. Once, he had been a man of substance, a master of potions, so skilled that he'd been hired as a professor at one of the most prestigious magical institutions in Europe.

Now? Now, Snape was a prisoner condemned to spend the rest of his life in what most agreed was the most horrific prison the magical world had ever created, guarded by demons who loved nothing more than to feast on the sanity of the prisoners kept under their watch. The Dementors were thankfully absent, for the moment anyway, but Snape knew that they would soon return, and bring back the visions and nightmares that were slowly driving him mad. Madness and freezing cold, these two things were as ubiquitous in Azkaban as the salt in the air that came from the nearby sea; each night, Snape would pull his straw pillow tightly over his head as he tried to drown out the insane laughter and nightmarish screams that echoed throughout the prison from the other 'guests' of his new home.

As he wrapped the pitifully thin blanket that had been given to him around himself in a futile attempt to gain some semblance of warmth, Snape's mind went back to the ones responsible for his downfall: The Potters.

How Snape hated that name; it was like acid on his tongue, and the sheer memory of its owner sent waves of hatred and bitterness coursing through him, so great that at times Snape began to think the hatred would drive him mad, long before the Dementors did. All his life, it seemed, Snape had been pursued by one Potter after another with only one goal: to make Snape's life as miserable as the owner possibly could.

First, it had been James Potter and his band of immature sycophants who would constantly bully Snape and humiliate him every chance they got; then, James Potter had gone further by stealing the only woman that Snape had ever loved and defiling her with James Potter's disgusting spawn. When Snape learned that Voldemort had chosen the Potters as his newest victims, Snape was more afraid than he'd ever been in his life and immediately agreed to turn spy for Dumbledore in exchange for the old man's promise to protect the family.

Truthfully, Snape had actually hoped that his former master WOULD kill James Potter and his brat; Snape couldn't care less what happened to the two men who had stolen Lily Evans from him. Lily was Snape's only concern, and if her husband and son were slaughtered, well, then Snape could swoop in and offer her comfort and companionship as he had in days past, and finally, best James Potter in the only thing that Snape cared about: winning the heart of Lily Evans.

The day that James Potter had died was, perhaps, the best day of Snape's life, and he had joyfully opened his finest bottle of elvish wine in celebration; already, plans were being formed in Snape's head to win back his first true friend and make her quickly forget about James Potter and the brat he'd created with her.

Only for all his dreams of finally winning back his beautiful Lily to turn to ash as Snape learned that Lily had died as well, defending James Potter's filthy brat; Snape's night of celebration had quickly turned into one of mourning, and the man had drunk himself insensible.

Never again would Snape see Lily's beautiful smile that seemed to bring a radiance of calm and warmth wherever it could be seen; never again would Snape hear her laughter that was more beautiful, to him at least, than a thousand fairies singing; never again would Snape get to watch that amazing look that would come across Lily's face as she worked through some new potion or bit of magic that she just couldn't crack, only to finally figure it out. And it was all James Potter's fault!

Truthfully, Snape had been incredibly tempted to murder the child of James Potter as recompense for what the bastard had taken from Snape; it had been surprisingly easy for the former Potions master to discover the boy's whereabouts. Dumbledore, thinking that he was cleverer than he actually was, had assumed that no one would think to look for the 'savior of the magical world' in the home of a family of muggles; no doubt, Dumbledore also assumed that no one even knew that Lily had any living family.

Unfortunately, the old man had seemingly forgotten that Snape had grown up alongside Lily and knew the girl better than anyone; Snape knew all about Petunia, and how much the woman had hated her younger sister for Lily's 'supposed slights' against Petunia.

A single afternoon was all it had taken Snape to track down Petunia and her family, and Snape had gone there immediately with the sole intention of killing Harry Potter and ending James Potter's bloodline forever as payment for the bastard stealing Lily from Snape.

But after disillusioning himself and sneaking into the Dursley home, Snape had watched as the boy was treated less like a loving household member and more like an unwelcome visitor. A small part of Snape, a very small part, had been disgusted and outraged as he watched Petunia scream at the babe, ordering it to shut up as it wailed for its mother and father; a moment later, Snape watched as Petunia had put Harry Potter's crib into the cupboard under the stairs and slammed the door shut, cutting off his unending cries.

Seeing how little love the child was receiving and would no doubt continue to receive in the future at the hands of Petunia put a cruel and bitter smile on Snape's face, and he immediately changed his plans in regard to the boy. Death would be too good for James Potter's spawn; no, instead, Snape would leave the child here to be raised in despair and isolation. That was a far more fitting punishment for the spawn of the man who had made Snape's life a living hell and then proceeded to take the only thing that Snape ever truly wanted from him.

With a new spring in his step, Snape had left Privet Drive, whistling merrily as he made his way back to his home to celebrate the destruction of James Potter's precious brat.

The knowledge that Harry Potter was being abused and would never know love or kindness had been a salve to Snape's wounded soul for nearly a decade, and whenever Snape's world would grow dark with depression over what he had lost or the fact that he was forced to teach incompetent children, the thought of how James Potter's brat was being punished would bring new life and light to Snape's cold dark world.

That was until another Potter had swooped in and saved the brat from the abuse that Petunia was, no doubt, putting him through; Raven Potter, a filthy mongrel brat that James Potter had found on the street and then taken into his home, accepting the girl as though she was his own, had discovered that her adopted brother was still alive after having been lied to by Dumbledore for a decade, and had quickly 'saved' the boy from his life of suffering.

And just like that, the balm for Snape's bitter hatred for the world had been taken from him, leaving him even angrier than before at the thought that James Potter's brat had been saved from his life of hell, living happy and safe in America alongside his adopted sister.

But Snape had been content to wait patiently, knowing that Dumbledore would never allow Harry Potter to attend any other school of magic but Hogwarts and that when the brat finally came back to England, Snape would be waiting to extract every minute of punishment that James Potter's spawn owed him for the sins of his father.

When the day finally came, Snape saw that his hatred for the Potter brats had been justified; Harry Potter had been just as arrogant and ignorant as his father had been, seeming to bask in the fame that the other students of Hogwarts had poured on the boy. But at least James Potter, bastard though he was, could claim that he was a normal wizard; that was something that his children could never do. Harry Potter was a freak, Snape had known it from the moment he'd seen those black tentacles exit the boy's body, and Raven Potter was no better; the pair of them had abilities that no upstanding witch or wizard would ever willingly claim! Throughout the boy's first year, Snape had delighted in taking his hatred out on the boy, reveling in the power he had over the Potter brat.

But Snape had overestimated how far Dumbledore would go to protect him, thinking that Dumbledore's need to protect his spy for when Voldemort would inevitably return would ensure that Snape would remain untouchable. That mistaken belief had now come back to haunt Snape as he shivered beneath his too-thin blanket, the rough cloth of his prison robes rubbing angrily across his skin and leaving a red flush behind that would soon turn into sores. Feeling a line of snot descend from his nose, Snape withdrew one arm from under the blanket and angrily wiped at it, feeling the dirt and grime on his face as his greasy and disheveled hair hung around it.

How long had he been here, alone in this cell? Days? Weeks? Snape could no longer tell; between the cold, the Dementors, and the mental torture that James Potter's bastard of a best friend enjoyed putting him through day after day, Snape's grip on sanity was loosening, and he could no longer tell one day from the next. That had been the worst of it, at least in Snape's opinion; of all the cells he could have been tossed into, they had thrown him into one which lay directly across from Sirius Black, another of Snape's former bullies, and an even bigger bastard than James Potter ever was. At least James Potter never actively tried to murder Snape, which was something that Snape, begrudgingly, could admit made him a better man than Sirius Black.

A moment later, as though he knew that Snape was thinking about him, Sirius' voice rang out from the cell door across from Snape's.

"Oh~ Snivellus~"

"Be silent," Snape hissed back at once,

"What's wrong, Snivellus…? Don't you wanna talk to your old schoolmate?"

"I SAID BE SILENT!" Snape roared back, growling angrily as he heard Sirius laugh at the outburst.

"Why so angry, Snivellus? I know! How about a song? Oh, this is the song that doesn't end! It just goes on and on, my friend! Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever because this is the song that doesn't end…..!"

As Sirius' voice repeated the song repeatedly, Snape couldn't help but whimper as he threw the blanket off his body and clamped his hands over his ears in a desperate attempt to drown out the man's words.

"SHUT UP!" Snape shrieked insanely, "SHHHHHHUUUUUTTTT UUUUUUPPPP!"

Sirius' only response was to cackle back madly for a moment before beginning to sing again louder than before.

XXXX

Raven Potter glared hatefully down at the parchment that was clutched in her hands as she fought an inner battle with herself to not lose her temper over what her Aunt Andromeda and Uncle Ted had discovered. For weeks now, Raven had been meeting with various officials and lawyers as she slowly began to build Potter Enterprises from the ground up, and the tedium of it all was finally getting to her. Realizing that she could not use her real name, as it had become her heroine identity, Raven had called in a favor to Batman and had the hero create an entirely new life for her that she could use as CEO of Potter Enterprises. To his credit, Batman had seemingly taken the request with gusto, creating an entire life for her from scratch; including school transcripts, passport, credit history, you name it! Now, to the rest of the world anyway, Raven was known as Rachel Roth Potter, the first-born child of the late Duke James Potter of England, and was well on her way to becoming a new rising star in the world of business.

Raven had been against using her father's name in such a way, but after a careful background investigation, Batman had discovered that James Potter was indeed a Duke, as nearly all members of the Wizengamot held some form of noble title in the muggle world as well. As snobbish as many of the wealthy families who operated in the business world were, Batman assured Raven that this noble ancestry would go a long way to making her objective far more easily attainable than it would have been if she were some no-name newcomer. Raven had already been invited to a dozen parties and meetings with various men and women interested in discovering everything they could about this new arrival to their world, and what she planned to do with her wealth and the company she was building. Andromeda had accompanied her to several of these and was told Raven several times how proud she was of her niece's self-control in not strangling some of the women with their own scarf or tossing some of the men out of the nearest window.

These people were insufferable; Raven had learned very quickly, totally self-absorbed to the point where they thought Raven was the odd one for her sincere wish to use her company to help people rather than just make a profit. Having already bought several newspaper companies across the country to silence the reporters who were denigrating her little brother, Raven had taken her aunt's advice to allow them to continue to operate, rather than just shut them down as she had originally intended. This piece of advice proved very wise as Raven now had a base to begin building her new empire; owning two dozen newspaper companies across the country, she had learned quickly, was an excellent way to get your name in people's mouths.

Using the near limitless amount of gold that her family had at its disposal, the next thing that Raven had done was to buy several city blocks in the heart of San Francisco; it had disgusted her how easily it was to make things happen quickly when you greased the right palms, and Raven had said so to her aunt when they'd last spoken. Andromeda had shared her loathing for the way some things needed to be handled with gold rather than with the genuine need to do something good but assured her niece that it would all pay off in the end when the innovations of Raven's company were released to the public.

While it would still be many more months before the Potter Enterprises headquarters were finished being built, and even longer before it was fully staffed, Raven was satisfied with the knowledge that by the following year, she would be able to begin production on some of the ideas that Jinx had come up with that would allow science and sorcery to operate side-by-side.

Raven had taken the day off to enjoy some well-deserved rest when her aunt suddenly stepped out of the nearby fireplace. With a look of wrath on her face, she dusted the ash from her suit and approached her niece.

The reason for Andromeda's rage was apparent moments later when Raven looked at the parchment that she had just been given; Raven's Uncle Ted had finally finished his audit of House Potter, and what he'd discovered was shocking, to say the least.

Apparently, Dumbledore, over the course of the eight years that he'd had control of Harry, and thereby control of the riches of House Potter, had used his authority to withdraw huge amounts of gold from the Potter family vault. Hundreds of thousands of galleons had been withdrawn by the aged headmaster, with no reason as to why or to whom the gold had gone to. By Uncle Ted's reckoning, Dumbledore had pilfered almost a million galleons from Raven's family over the course of eight years, and it took Raven physical effort to maintain her composure, even as she swallowed the apoplectic rage that was coursing through her very soul.

"Could Uncle Ted have made a mistake?" Raven asked in a cold voice as she turned from the paper to her aunt, who suddenly looked affronted at the question, "I'm not calling his conduct or experience into question, Aunt Andromeda. I'm just asking in the hope that this is a possibility."

"It's not." Andromeda stated, "Ted checked it twice, just to verify, and it came back the same each time."

"How is this possible?" Raven demanded, her eyes returning to the paper. "Surely the Goblins would have investigated such withdrawals!"

"I don't know. That's one of the first things we're going to have to ask before we can bring this to the Wizengamot and have Dumbledore formally charged!"

"Why wait?" Raven growled, "He's already lost his seat as Chief Warlock, and judging from what you've told me, the ICW will also be removing him from his post within the year. He's not nearly as powerful as he once was, so why not just have him charged now?"

"He may have lost much of his power, Raven," Andromeda nodded, "But he still holds decades of favors from members of the Wizengamot. Favors that he could, and most likely will, call in if we move too quickly. No, what we need to do is make absolutely sure that our case is as airtight as we can make it before we strike, and once we do, Dumbledore won't have a leg to stand on. He'll be lucky if all the Wizengamot decides to do is send him to Azkaban, take his family's vault, and give it to you as reparation. This much stolen wealth could very easily result in a sentence of death!"

Raven continued to stare at the paper for a moment longer before slowly placing it on the table before her. Taking a deep breath to settle her rage, Raven turned to her aunt, who looked as though she wanted nothing more than to storm Hogwarts at that very moment and rip Dumbledore to pieces.

"I'll get my things, and we can return to England together to request a meeting with Gringotts. We can decide what to do after that."

"Agreed," Andromeda nodded as Raven turned to get her robe and change out of the black pantsuit she'd been wearing.

Even as the rage coursed through her, Raven couldn't help but smile; finally, Dumbledore had messed up. He'd given her a way to finally free Harry from his clutches forever, and Raven was planning to exploit Dumbledore's mistake to the fullest.

XXXX

Nightwing slowly opened his eyes, the pain of his injuries coming back to him almost at once and causing him to wince for a moment; after being saved by Harry and the rest of his team, Nightwing had been taken to a nearby hospital that catered to heroes, and had a strict 'no questions asked' policy in regards to their care. Created by the Justice League, each and every doctor and nurse was carefully and thoroughly investigated before being hired, and the salary they received was almost disgustingly high.

Slowly raising his bed up, Nightwing saw that his uniform had been stripped from him, leaving just his mask to hide his identity, standard practice for this place; while the Justice League might trust the doctors to heal them, that didn't mean they trusted them enough to share the heroes secret identities. His stomach and lower chest were tightly wrapped with gauze, and three monitors were stuck to the center of his upper chest, monitoring his vitals; his left arm lay at his side, wrapped in a cast, and judging by the way he could only see out of one eye, Nightwing guessed that his other one was swollen shut from the beating he'd received at Joker's hand.

Seeing Starfire sleeping in the chair next to his bed, Nightwing couldn't help but smile softly; the two of them had dated on and off for years now, ever since the Titans had gone to Tokyo and Nightwing, then called Robin, had finally managed to find his courage and tell her how he felt. But, for one reason or another, the two never seemed to last longer than a few weeks before breaking up; the majority of their breakups had been because of Nightwing, not wanting Starfire to end up hurt because of her relationship with him.

From a young age, Nightwing had been told by Batman that relationships as a hero never ended well and that only the mission matters; for a time, Nightwing had taken his mentor's words to heart and tried to focus on just the mission of being a crime stopper and hero. But as the years passed, and Nightwing began to see how alone Batman was and how he'd likely be that way for the remainder of his life, Nightwing began to fear he would end up the same way, something that he desperately wanted to avoid.

As though she could feel his eyes on her, Starfire slowly opened her eyes and yawned for several seconds before focusing on him.

"Good morning, sleep well?" Nightwing joked,

"You're awake!" Starfire cried happily, pouncing on him and making him groan in misery, "Oh, sorry! Sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm great…" Nightwing groaned, "You catch the name of that truck that hit me, though?"

Starfire hugged Nightwing tighter at that and chuckled at him for a moment before finally pulling away as he fell back onto his pillow,

"How's Harry? What happened?"

"Harry is fine," Starfire said at once, "He actually managed to defeat the Joker and then was thoroughly yelled at for his stupidity in challenging the clown in the first place!"

"The kid won? Heh… Never would have thought him capable of that…" Nightwing said in surprise before a look of pride came across his face, "He's still a dumb kid, though… Can't believe he came for me, he could have been killed…"

"I'm glad he did it, though…" Starfire said softly, her arms crossed behind her back as she looked down at Nightwing's injuries, "I almost lost you…"

"Yeah…" Nightwing agreed softly, staring at Starfire for a moment in thought before a look of determination came across his face, "Hey, is my uniform around here somewhere?"

"It's in the closet, why?"

"Can you bring me my belt?" Nightwing asked softly, making Starfire look at him in confusion for a moment before she complied with his request, pulling his utility belt off of the badly damaged uniform.

"The Joker had me, Star…" Nightwing said softly as he reached out and took the belt from her, "I couldn't think of a single way of escaping, and I thought… I thought he was going to kill me… Like Jason… Being nearly beaten to death by the Joker made me realize some things…" Nightwing said softly as he began to check the individual compartments of the belt, "Like what's most important to me, WHO'S most important to me… And now I realize that it's you, Star…"

"What are you saying, Dick…?" Starfire asked, her eyes widening at the man's words as she watched him pull something from his belt.

"I'm saying what I should have said a long time ago… I love you, Starfire. And I don't want to waste any more time worrying about the future when I could be building it with you. I'm saying… Starfire, will you marry me?"

Starfire's eyes widened in shock at the words as Nightwing extended his hand towards her before opening it to show a gold band with a sizeable diamond gem resting in the palm of his hand. For a moment, Starfire seemed to not be able to respond; she seemed frozen in a state of shock as she gazed down at the ring that lay so innocuous in Nightwing's open hand. Finally, after several moments of silence, the girl squealed so loud that Nightwing was sure the doctors would come running, before jumping on top of him and showering him in kisses.

"Yes! Yes! A thousand glorious times, yes!" Starfire cried happily as she took the ring from his hand and placed it on her finger before pulling his mouth to hers; neither one of them saw the door open, nor the nurses who were silently cheering the kissing pair. But by the day's end, the whole hospital would know that Nightwing and Starfire were engaged to one another, at long last.

XXXX