Summon the Lambs to Slaughter

Chapter Twenty

Severus Snape strode into the Potions classroom on the Tuesday following the Quidditch match in a state of gleeful anticipation. Today was the day. The Potter brat was finally going to taste bitter poison. There was nothing to save him this time-no Tri-Wizard Tournament, no bumbling reporters, no Headmaster. Unless a white-hot meteor crashed through the roof and crushed him into a mass of quivering jelly, divine intervention would be wanting this afternoon.

Though, he mused, gliding to his lectern, I'd take the meteor if it came to it.

He turned and looked out over the sea of upturned white faces half-concealed in flickering shadows, resting his palms on the cruel, splintered edges of his lectern. They looked like half-buried pearls from his vantage point, their round eyes gleaming with curiosity and the dark thrill of spectacle. The Gryffindor side of the room was fidgeting nervously, fingers plucking compulsively at loose threads. Somewhere in the rear, a throat cleared.

The Slytherin side, on the other hand, was positively seething with excitement. Pansy Parkinson, who normally dribbled on herself during class, was awake and alert. For once, she was not riveted on young Draco Malfoy. She was staring at Snape. Occasionally her eyes would drift to the dull brown desert of his desk. She was looking, no doubt, for the potion, the evil elixir that would at long last bring down Harry Potter.

Draco, too, was watching with an eager gaze. He and his lackeys were perched in the highest corner, a king and his dull-witted sycophants observing the proceedings from gilded thrones. It did not surprise him that young Malfoy was so keen for the experiment to begin. He and Potter had loathed one another from the first, and more than once, they had come to wandpoint.

Finally met a creature more spoiled than himself. Bit of a surprise for him.

Either that, or it infuriates him that Potter is the only boy he could never bring beneath his heel.

Of course he couldn't. No product of James Potter's loins was ever going to be cowed. Not by Voldemort, and certainly not by spoiled, feckless Draco Malfoy. Draco would grow old and grey ere he ever slipped the leash around a Potter's neck. Better had tried. People had tried for centuries, generations, but the Potter bloodline had seemingly been wrapped in the blessings of the Fates. No taint had ever touched it. The whole smug lot of them had lived lives above reproach, lives almost holy in their serenity, and until the blood of Lily and James cooled beneath the silvery light of a weeping harvest moon, no tragedy had ever befallen them.

Unfortunately for Draco and Miss Parkinson, none would smite them here. The last of their line was not going to meet his end at the ivory hands of the Potions Master. He was not going to waste his career and his life on the scrawny, underfed progeny of his childhood enemy, even if said progeny did happened to bear the fabled moniker of The Boy Who Lived. That was why the potion he would be testing was not in plain view. It was still in the locked, warded Potions cabinet. He wanted no chance of contamination. As much as he often longed for Potter to do him the honor of dropping dead, he had no desire to be responsible for his demise

He looked at Potter, smirking at the ill-disguised hatred he saw festering in those clear green eyes. Who could imagine it? The glory-child beloved of every heart, capable of hate, of black and dangerous malice. No one would believe it. They saw only what they wished to see. It was there all the same, there and marked for him. He supposed he should be honored. He had managed the impossible. He had earned the enmity of a saint.

In that, we are equal, Potter. I hate you just as much as you despise me. You and your father. Your father, who never let me forget what he was and what I wasn't. Bastard saved my life and made it seem more damnation than salvation. I'll never forget that. He won't let me; he died before I could repay him.

He took in each and every face, surveying, marking, and finding them wanting. Then he assessed them collectively with his sharp eyes, eyes trained to detect the subtlest nuances of color or convection. Perhaps lesser men, more slothful, absent men, may have missed the things he saw, but he was not a lesser man, and he saw everything, including the invisible line of demarcation that split the room directly down the middle.

The contrast was startling. Night and day, the darkness and the light. On the right, where sat the Gryffindors, hope shone from every face; confidence kindled in their eyes like spirit light. Their backs were straight, free from the weight of low, poisonous expectation and the gazes of thousands waiting for the cataclysmic, inevitable fall. They were assured of bright, limitless futures.

On the left were the Slytherins, his children. Assurance did not live there; swagger gave way to furtive slink. They did not preen. They were sly. Their confidence was arrogance, self-reliance twisted by the prism of judgment. Their eyes were hooded, calculating, and cautious. The windows to their souls were closed, the shutters nailed permanently shut. The darkness was as nurturing to them as the light was to the sons of Godric Gryffindor.

Only one face distorted the flawlessness of the pattern, a pebble carelessly tossed into a limpid pool, sending shivering ripples in its wake. Miss Stanhope watched him from her place beside the first desk on the first row. She was not investigating now, prowling around the edges of his stronghold. She was merely observing in that unsettling, persipicacious way of hers. Her eyes never moved from his face, and there was an odd, lilting upturn to her thin mouth, as though she was pondering secret mirth.

She may have been on the Gryffindor side of the room, but he was almost certain that was not where she belonged. Her narrow face was too feral, too closed. It lacked the bright, honest earnestness of her Housemates. It was watchful and wary and aware. Her eyes were not windows; they were mirrors, refractive, unflattering, and terrifyingly frank. It was a face and a countenance that would be far more at home on the left side of the room.

Yet he was not entirely sure of that, either. Yes, she was standoffish and silent, preferring the solitude of her own thoughts to the inane jabber of her schoolmates. She was slow and careful in expressing herself, and he sensed roiling bitterness swirling just below the surface of her skin. In spite of these things, he could not quite accept her as Slytherin. There was a dry, dusty honor about her that precluded such placement. As cunning and thoughtful as she was, he doubted she possessed the vindictive ruthlessness to trample her enemies and sink the dagger into exposed throats, two things a tried and true Slytherin would do without hesitation.

A shriveled little riddle. Do you even know where you belong?

She looked at him, and the mysterious Mona Lisa smile grew wider. She knew what he was thinking, it seemed. Par for the course. She, like the rest of the class now seated expectantly before him, was a dichotomy. She was not a child of the light-her deformity had robbed her of that lofty distinction-but neither was she wholly bound to the darkness. She was a shadow-dweller, caught betwixt the two and wary of both.

The incident on the stairs Saturday past was a perfect example. When he had come across the foyer of the Grand Staircase and seen four wheels and a twisted doll racing toward the earth, he had been so stunned that his teacup had slipped from bewildered fingers. For one crazy moment, he had thought it was Longbottom plummeting downward like a felled pigeon, that he had somehow gotten Stanhope's chair and driven off the edge; he would do something so foolish. Then, he had realized that it was her. He had stared incredulously at her for the briefest flickering instant, and then instinct had taken over.

He still couldn't understand it. Never would he have suspected such unthinking stupidity from her. She was always so careful, so deliberate in her actions. Yet, for reasons known only to herself, the same eloquent mind that challenged and unnerved him on an emotional, gut level had conceived of the notion to navigate backwards through a door on the fourth floor of a castle whose staircases were known to shift.

He had seen countless acts of craven lunacy perpetrated with these walls by the unsettled victims of teenage pubescence, and he was keenly aware of the vagaries of the adolescent psyche. The smallest slight was worthy of the most savage reprisal. Six years ago, two sixth-year girls had come to blows over a runty, obnoxious seventh-year boy. Three broken ribs, a broken arm, eight dislodged teeth, and a dislocated hip had been the final tally, and in the end, the object of desire had ended up with an unnoticed third party who had been watching from the sidelines. Temporary insanity was the order of the day for the young.

But Miss Stanhope was not young, not at heart. The spirit that lurked behind those eyes was old, sullen with the accumulated knowledge of years one hundred times the span of her life. There was no naivete in them, no shining, hopeful exuberance, only awful cognizance of how things were. Life had been a harsh teacher, and its counsel had been cruel. She should have known better; she did know better, but she had done it anyway.

It was a mystery he was not likely to solve, and at any rate, he was much more interested in poisoning Harry Potter. The prospect of doing just such a thing had dangled before him, as tantalizing as forbidden flesh, for five years, and it was finally here. There was nothing to snatch it from him now.

"Today," he murmured silkily, drawing his finger seductively over the ragged edge of his lectern, "we will be testing poison antidote. As I recall, it was Mr. Potter who volunteered to assist us in this endeavor." He cocked his head and arched an eyebrow, silently daring Potter to contradict him, to vehemently point out that he had been handpicked and most certainly had not offered himself up. When the only response was a surly, sunken-shouldered, defiant scowl, he smiled thinly. "Let us hope that his Potions-making is adequate. The consequences for failure can be quite nasty indeed." He swept to his Potions cabinet.

To the immediate left of where all the non-lethal ingredients were stored squatted a short, narrow armoire. It, like everything else in the room, was a dull, unremarkable brown. There was one distinguishing feature, however, that set this particular piece of furniture apart from the rest. An enormous iron padlock, blackened with age, dangled heavily from the door handles.

He reached into his robes and pulled out his wand. He pointed it at the center of the armoire. "Finite aegis!"

The air around the armoire shimmered and swelled, and then it thumped him in the chest, breaking around him in a gentle buffet. The ward was down, and he stepped to the cabinet, pulling a thick iron key from his robes. He fitted it into the lock and turned it with a deliberate flick of his wrist. The sound of the tumbler falling back was very loud in the breathlessly silent room. He smirked, enjoying the tension. Then he quietly drew open the doors.

Inside were the most toxic poisons known to the wizarding world. They were arranged alphabetically, standing like well-ordered soldiers in clean, perfect phials and jars. He ran a finger along the stoppers and jar tops, making certain that everything was where it should be. He absently turned a jar of pure belladonna extract toward him, frowning. It looked a bit foggy. He held it up and reviewed the jar seal, trailing a fingertip along the outside edge. It paused on a hairline crack, and he snorted in disappointment. Contaminated. He would have to throw it out and distill another batch. He set it atop the armoire and went back to his spot inspection.

He was meticulous in his care and storage of these ingredients. Any one of them could cause rapid death if they were ingested. The students in his charge were bullish and stupid; they seldom watched where they were going, and even more seldom did they bother to wash their grubby hands before swiping absently at their mouths and eyes. Thus, the ward, which he had set up upon taking the position. It was a ward that drew its magic from his own lifeforce. Anyone who tried to breach the ward would be tapping directly into his physiological system, and he would be alerted immediately. That way the little bastards could not poison themselves or each other by mucking about with deadly poisons. It was a system that had worked flawlessly through the years.

Except for the time Potter or one of his cronies managed to snick some boomslang skin.

The thought punctured the momentary pride he had been feeling, and he scowled. That little incident still grated on him. He knew it was one of them. He had suspected them from the first, especially after Miss Granger turned up in the Hospital Wing with symptoms which suspiciously mirrored someone suffering from botched Polyjuice Potion, but there had been no absolute proof, thanks to the havoc created by a Dung Bomb, and the matter had gone unsolved.

Well, Potter will get a measure of his comeuppance today, he thought with vicious satisfaction.

The phial he was looking for was on the bottommost shelf, a small glass tube situated well apart from the jar of wolfsbane that also inhabited the shelf. He scooped it up, careful not to touch the cork. Though the chance of cross-contamination was infinitesimal, he didn't want to risk getting belladonna from the corrupted jar in the potion Potter would be testing.

He closed the cabinet, picked up the jar of belladonna with the hand not holding Potter's decoction, and moved to his desk. He placed the jar of belladonna on the center of his desk, bent down, opened the middle drawer, grabbed the jar, and placed it carefully inside. He would dispose of it after the lesson.

He straightened and went to the large, gargoyle-tapped sinks in the near corner, Potter's potion still held in the clean hand. He set it carefully on the sink beside the leering tap and turned on the water. He watched it while he scrubbed his hands with coarse mica soap, the astringent, medicinal smell making his nose hairs tingle. He dried his hands carefully, rubbing the towel between all his fingers. He turned off the tap with his wrists.

He was being overcautious, and a part of him was disgusted with such obvious overkill. He, Severus Snape, the professor that demanded all students be treated equally, even if it were only the equality of ruthless totalitarianism, was mincing around Harry Potter. Here he was, scrubbing his hands like a nervous apprentice, simply because the test subject was the apple of Hogwarts' collective eye. He hissed in self-reproach.

The teacher in him knew better, though. Such precautions were necessary. Should something happen to Potter under his vigilance, it wouldn't take long for the fires of accusation and suspicion to smolder, and much of the blame for that could be properly lain at his doorstep. He had been less than discreet with regards to his blazing antipathy toward the boy. In fact, it become his trademark, his battlecry. One need not ask him his views on Potter's vaunted status to know them.

So he would err on the side of caution. He retrieved the phial and once more returned to his lectern, setting it in plain view. He rubbed his hands together thoughtfully and favored the class with a malevolent sneer.

"The time has come," he said, eyeing Potter with black merriment. When Potter made no move to come forward, he snapped, "Well, what are you waiting for? Up here. Now. And fifteen points for making me tell you twice."

Mr. Weasley opened his mouth to protest, a crimson flush rising in his cheeks, but a warning look from Miss Granger silenced him. No doubt she was worried that an outburst would provoke further deduction of points, and that was something Gryffindor could ill-afford. His campaign against Miss Stanhope had nearly been too successful. As of yesterday, Gryffindor was dead last in the point totals, boasting a mere one hundred and forty points, far behind third-place Hufflepuff, which held two hundred and thirty-six.

Potter rose from his seat and slouched his way toward the front, hands balled in the pockets of his robes. He was glaring at him with stony contempt, a fact Snape found highly amusing. Did Potter really think so well of himself that he thought a look of curdling contempt would send him into a teeth-gnashing paroxysm of regret? The idea was ludicrous. The boy could stare at him in baleful reproach all he pleased, and all he would do was make him a very contented man. He wanted nothing more from him, least of all his respect.

The rest of the class was watching Potter's progress with dreadful, wide-eyed interest. Many of those on the Gryffindor side were wearing expressions usually reserved for the most heinous of magical accidents, a fatal splinching or perhaps a drunken duel gone horribly awry. Longbottom was trembling from head to toe; his desk rattled with the ferocity of his shivering.

"Get a hold of yourself, Longbottom," he snarled. "Five points from Gryffindor."

The shivering stopped-for about thirty seconds. Then it began again, worse than before, the desk legs chittering with frantic, staccato worry. Snape rolled his eyes. Longbottom was absolutely worthless. How the bumbling fool had ever been admitted to Hogwarts was a complete mystery. How he'd been Sorted into Gryffindor, the House which prized bravery above all things, was an even bigger one. He'd never clapped an eye on a bigger coward. The boy swooned at his own shadow; before detentions had become solely Miss Stanhope's domain, the sound of knocking knees had resounded through the Potions like the beat of defeated war drums.

He briefly contemplated reprimanding Longbottom again, then dismissed the idea. It would only make things worse, and if the boy shivered any harder, he would fall right out of the desk and bounce across the floor like a child's toy run amuck, quite probably running into Potter and breaking his leg along the way. Potter plus a broken leg equaled no chance for humiliation, so he let the matter drop and turned his attention to the remaining rapt faces.

Miss Granger's hands were folded on the desk in front of her, twisting and wrenching like uneasy white serpents. She was chewing compulsively on her lower lip, and if she didn't stop soon, she was going to draw blood. Her eyes were round and huge in her wan face, and her normally small adam's apple was engorged with nerves, bobbing erratically as she swallowed. Beside her, Mr. Weasley was shuddering with suppressed rage, his short fingers curled into crescent fists.

There was commensurate interest in the Slytherin side, though it was of an entirely different species. Many were smiling openly, and those that weren't harbored mutinously twitching lips. Goyle was sitting beside Mr. Malfoy, his mouth hanging open in what Snape supposed was a gleeful gape.

Don't dribble, he thought. Gregory Goyle was one of the stupidest pupils he'd ever had the misfortune to teach, perhaps the stupidest, and only his father's association with the Death Eaters and, by extension, much of the upper echelon of wizarding society, kept him from being expelled and consigned to a life of menial labor and flophouse vagrancy.

Draco Malfoy, possibly the sole reason for young Mr. Goyle's continued acceptance among the Pureblood standard bearers that were his contemporaries, was positively radiant with expectation. His platinum blond hair threw off white crystal sparks in the uneven torchlight. His smooth, aristocratic hands lay on the desktop, closed loosely, thumbs kneading gently over his forefingers. His small silver eyes glinted with malignant happiness. He obviously hoped for a calamitous retribution from his cunning Potions Master and Head of House. In his tumorous glee, he reminded him of a fallen seraphim.

Snape gave a barely audible huff of dour amusement. If only he could mete out as much vengeance as the class seemed to expect. Unfortunately, the "poison" in the phial was really nothing more than the Advanced Sleeping Draught they had been brewing last Thursday. If prepared correctly, all it would do was send Potter speedily and thoroughly to the land of Nod. He'd drop like a sack of bricks and be snoring before he hit the floor.

At least, that was the way it was supposed to go, all things being well and equal. The Advanced Sleeping Draught on his lectern was neither well nor equal. Indeed, it was abysmal. Potter had spent far too much time muttering clandestinely with Granger and Weasley, and his decoction was a mess. Too thick, too pale, too shoddy, and utterly impotent for its intended purpose. It would, however, make an excellent emetic.

James Potter would be spinning like a top in his grave if he knew his only son were about to spend the next five minutes vomiting out the contents of his stomach.

The image of smug, swaggering Potter retching uncontrollably before a class of his peers sent a shiver of cold delight into the pit of his stomach. Too bad there wouldn't be a camera here to capture the moment. If only that bothersome Creevey boy, the one who followed Potter about like a gnat in search of the sweet nectar of sweat, were a year older. He could finally be put to good use.

"Hurry along, Potter," he snapped, impatient for the entertainment to begin.

Potter, shambling forward most unenthusiastically, quickened his pace, but not by much. His green eyes were boring into the lectern, flashing with insolence and disdain.

If you hate me so much, boy, then why don't you rush to the duel? Is it because you know you can't win, that this time, there will be no saving grace? Or is it because you don't consider me a worthy opponent? He felt the unfamiliar tug of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

While he waited for Potter to complete his reticent trudge to the front of the room, he examined the potion one last time. He tilted it this way and that, holding it up to the wan torchlight. He winced as he watched the milky, curdled liquid crawl truculently from one end of the phial to the other. This was going to taste horrendous. His mood brightened even further.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Miss Stanhope, and her demeanor was so disconcerting that he slowly lowered the phial and stared at her. She was absolutely still. She didn't even seem to be breathing. An image came to his mind of a white hare, petrified and quivering beneath the predatory, silver-eyed gaze of a fox. It was right, and yet it wasn't.

Which is she, the hare or the killing fox?

He couldn't tell. She exuded no fear, but she did not give off the air of a stalking hunter, either. She was both, and she was neither. As he watched, she blinked, the only movement she had made since he had first noticed her behavior. He found himself quite disconcerted by such unnatural stillness. She was frozen, an eerily life-like puppet whose puppeteer had gone off in mid-performance. Even her eyes were odd, blue buttons pushed inside her skull. He had never seen her look that way before, not even in her fiercest concentration.

Then Potter arrived at the front of the room, and her head swiveled to mark him. As soon as she saw Snape, her eyes cleared, life seeping into them again, the ocean tide returning to long-abandoned shoals. The secretive Mona Lisa smile returned, and she inclined her head imperceptibly, as if to say, scrutiny duly noted, sir.

Smug little strip, he fumed silently, irritated at the sheer presumptuousness of the gesture. He would set that to rights as soon as he dealt with Potter.

He watched her for a moment longer and noted with interest that her eyes had shifted to Exhibit Potter again. This time, though, they lost none of their shine; rather, it intensified, becoming a rapt glow, not unlike the expression borne by Malfoy at the moment. He could tell by the taut set of her body that she was as eager as the rest of them to see the commencement of the spectacle. She was also studying, pondering, gathering information that perhaps only she could interpret. Whatever she saw must have pleased her, because her upper lip curled in a sardonic, mirthless smile. Her canines were long and glistening in the dim light, a bizarre optical illusion that made him blink once to clear it.

"You finally decided to join me, Potter. How kind of you," he snarled, taking out his unease on the best possible target. He uncorked the phial of Advanced Sleeping Draught and placed it carefully on the edge of the desk nearest the door, right beside the fidgeting boy wonder. "Ready, Mr. Potter?" he sneered quietly, his disquiet ebbing at the prospect of finally taking a peg or two from beneath the legendary Boy Who Lived.

"Yes, sir," he muttered, his voice barely audible in the heavy gloom.

"What was that? I'm afraid I didn't hear you."

Potter's mouth worked, and he could see the gears of the boy's self-absorbed mind clicking, grinding, and clacking as he dug through the rubbish heap of his mind in search of witty rejoinder. Snape settled in for a very long wait.

At some point, Potter reached the inevitable conclusion that there was no scathing reply on hand. He heaved a monstrous sigh and said through gritted teeth, "Yes, sir."

He thought he detected rather more asperity than was necessary, and the irascible tyrant in him smiled. "Mind your cheek, Potter," he purred almost pleasantly. "Twenty points for insolence. "One would think you would keep a civil tongue in your head when addressing the man who could be handing you lethal poison."

Potter sputtered in inarticulate, impotent fury, and Snape permitted himself a small smile. This was turning into one of the best days he could remember. He supposed he was enjoying this a trifle too much, but who cared? He had spent the last five years watching over the ungrateful little sod, making sure that he wasn't done in by his own rock-headed bravado, and another ten years before that swearing before Voldemort that he truly hadn't the slightest idea where the Potter spawn was hiding, repeating the boldfaced lie even as his body writhed and convulsed beneath the agonies of the Cruciatus Curse. Why shouldn't he enjoy a moment of brightness in his otherwise drab life? That said brightness should come from draining the joy from the life of Harry Potter made no difference.

When, after several minutes, Potter had not picked up the phial, Snape grunted in exasperation. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he hissed.

Just as he was reaching a tentative hand for the potion, the door to the classroom crashed open, making everyone jump. Rebecca punted the air in front of her, huffing in consternation. A small, white and black blur that he barely had time to register as Colin Creevey burst in.

"Merlin in a topcoat! What are you-," He stopped, frozen in the mortified awareness that all his carefully planned merriment was going to be for naught. Divine intervention was going to rob him again.

Creevey, upon making his grand entrance, crashed into the near corner of the desk, causing the full phial to teeter and wobble wildly. Potter, staggering from the frantic nudge, made no attempt to catch it, and Snape knew he was simply too far out of reach.

Of all the wishes I have ever idly flung to the heavens, why did the Fates see fit to grant that one? he lamented morosely, recalling his rash wish for Colin Creevey and his blasted camera. Well, here was Creevey, and he had brought, not his moment-preserving camera, but his trademark penchant for improbable disasters.

Then, miracle of miracles, Creevey, who heretofore had demonstrated the physical dexterity of a Flobberworm, darted out one spindly hand and caught it, pressing the flat of his hand over the open top and keeping the potion inside. The gelatinous glop bubbled inside its crystal prison, but it did not, as Snape had feared, splatter all over the dungeon floor.

Sharp, labored breathing was the only sound in the room, and through the red haze of his fury, Snape realized that it was coming from Miss Stanhope. He tore his gaze from Colin Creevey, who stood rooted in from of him in mute terror, comprehension of the miserable fate that awaited him dawning in bulging hazel eyes, and looked at her.

She was sitting as she had been a moment before, but her pale face was contorted in pain, and she was clutching her leg in one stiff, shaking hand. She was swallowing hard and clearly forcing herself to take deep, even breaths. Her eyes met his, but she said nothing. She gritted her teeth, and he saw a muscle behind her hand jump.

Bloody hell. A spasm. Now, of all times, he thought furiously. "Miss Stanhope," he snapped. He made no move to go to her.

"Yes, sir?" she said calmly, though he could hear the cost of such control in the strained timbre of her voice.

"Are you all right?"

A swallow. Two breaths. "Yes, sir. Just a cramp." She belied her composure with a low grunt.

"If you are going to fall down in shrieking, frothing convulsion, proceed at once to the Hospital Wing," he murmured dismissively. One disaster at a time.

"That won't be necessary, sir," she managed, biting back another grunt.

It occurred to him that she was not at all fond of the Hospital Wing. At the mention of it, her eyes, which had been misty and dark with pain, had flashed with contempt, and mixed with that contempt had been fear, a fear as healthy and potent as a rose blossom planted at midnight in the soil from a murderer's grave. The contempt he understood; it was an attitude in which he and Stanhope were in perfect accord; lying in a medicinal-smelling bed while silent, pointy-headed Mediwizards prodded you and ordered you about as though you were a drooling imbecile was a reprehensible existence, and he would avoid it whenever he could. But the fear was something altogether different. He filed it away for future reference and rounded on Colin Creevey.

"Mr. Creevey." He said nothing more for the moment, just stood there, quiet and unflinching as impending death, and let him soak up the singsong menace in those words.

Eyes wide as pie-plates, Colin Creevey's left hand, the one holding the ruined Advanced Sleeping Draught, came up in a dreamy, automatic swing. His lower lip was quivering, and he was watching him as though he expected Snape's lily hands to fall around his throat.

Snape plucked the unwittingly proffered phial from sweaty fingers and replaced it on the center of the desk without taking his eyes off the petrified Colin. "Mr. Creevey," he said again, voice low and silky with dangerous interest, "what madness seized you to come blundering into my Potions classroom like a stampeding water buffalo? Diptheria? Plague? Delirium tremens? A brain fever, perhaps?" With each listed ailment, his voice went softer and lower, until Creevey was actually rocking forward on his toes to hear him.

Creevey's eyes rolled in their sockets, and his teeth clicked together, and when he finally managed an answer, he sounded like a man in the final stages of hypothermic shock. "No, sir," he squeaked eyes darting to the open door of the classroom as though it were the last bastion of sanity left in the world. "I h-h-have a m-m-m-m-message from P-Professor M-M-M-McGonagall." His other arm shot out, and from his shuddering fingers dangled a mightily squashed parchment which the boy had all but throttled in his anguish.

He deftly moved to block the door, wrenching the outthrust paper from the boy's grasp. This was the last thing he wanted. If it was a note prying Potter from his clutches, he was going to fold it up, put it away, and hex Creevey into an irreversible coma. The old bag was constantly meddling in his plans, and it would be just like her make a last-minute rescue of her precious brat. He gingerly unfolded the parchment, ignoring Potter's hopeful gaze.

Severus,

Please join me in Headmaster Dumbledore's office as soon as possible to discuss your relationship with Rebecca Stanhope.

Professor Minerva McGonagall

He stared incredulously at the parchment, suddenly unable to breathe or feel his fingers. His head was filled with a strident, unpleasant buzzing, and his eyes could only focus on a single phrase. Your relationship with Rebecca Stanhope. It was incredible. It was appalling. The grouping of those particular words in that order sent an iron mallet into his gut. She couldn't possibly think... He looked at the words again, hoping he had misread them the first half-dozen times.

Your relationship with Rebecca Stanhope.

She did. She truly did. His hands, gripping the edges of the parchment so tightly that his nails bit into the paper, shook. His eyes no longer worked properly. Everything had faded into the shadows except for the flowing script of that single line. That stood out in brilliant, glowing relief, leaping from the page in a band of blazing red. For one hellish instant, he was reminded of the way the Dark Mark had shone just after it had been seared into his left forearm.

He felt sick and furious. How dare she! How dare she! He would never... Never. The parchment rattled drunkenly in his fingertips. His heart was a thudding ball of savage hatred inside his chest. His mouth was frozen shut; his teeth ground against one another, scraping back and forth like the shifting of tectonic plates. His pulse hammered at his temple so hard he thought it might split his skull.

Self-righteous, presumptuous prig. Of all the things... His thoughts trailed off. Coherence was no longer possible.

He looked up, the tendons in his neck creaking audibly. The first person he saw was the unfortunate Colin Creevey. Never averse to flaying the messenger in the best of times, he now unsheathed his poisoned rapier and plunged it into the boy with unseeing fury.

"You. You interrupted my class for this?" he hissed, waving the parchment in front of Creevey, who, behind the glaze of congealing terror in his eyes, was composing his last will and testament.

"P-P-Professor McGonagall said it was important, sir."

"Oh, I'm certain she did. And being the good Gryffindor you are, you hurried right along to deliver it," he hissed, eyes blazing.

"I just thought-,"

"Thinking, were you? Stop. It doesn't become you. While you were thinking, did you ever stop to consider that you might be interrupting something far more important than what was scribbled on this parchment?" He snapped the paper in question in front of Creevey's bulging eyes.

The capacity for speech appeared to have abandoned Creevey. All he could muster were inarticulate, fearful gibberings. Snape saw his eyes flick to Potter, who was watching in slack-jawed astonishment.

"Think Potter is going to save you, do you? Your hero, Potter, who shuns you at every turn." He whirled around to face Potter, who took an involuntary step backwards. "Go on, Potter, save him," he commanded, jabbing a finger at a quaking Creevey.

Potter made no reply, merely shifted his feet and stared at him in silent outrage.

"Well, go on. Be the hero, Mr. Potter."

"I'm sorry, sir," Creevey nearly wailed. "I was just-,"

"Not another word, Mr. Creevey. Not a single one." It was nearly a whisper.

He forced himself to relax. It would only bolster McGonagall's suspicions if he lost himself now. He would handle this as he always had, with cold dignity and measured thought. Emotions would only complicate matters. He pried his jaws apart and made his fingers uncurl. He did not speak again until his heartbeat had returned to normal.

"Mr. Creevey," he said without turning around, "please tell Professor McGonagall that I will be along as soon as class has ended."

"Y-yes, sir," breathed Creevey, pathetic in his relief.

"Oh, and Mr. Creevey?" He spun around to address the boy's fleeing back. It froze, tensed and waiting and filled with a dreadful knowing. "When you leave this room, the Gryffindor point glass will be empty. Send Professor McGonagall my warmest regards."

Creevey disappeared, and there was a murmur of outrage from the right side of the room. Miss Stanhope was watching him thoughtfully, and he turned away from her, sure that she could see the churning abyss of his emotions. He picked up the phial on the desk.

"Now, Mr. Potter, where were we?" He held out the phial.

With misgiving written all over his face, Harry Potter reached for it.

"Bottoms up," Snape purred, folding his arms across his chest.

For a moment, it looked as though Potter was going to refuse. He had that maddening steely glint in his eye that he knew all too well, the one that said he was giving serious thought to letting the phial slip through his fingers and crash to the floor, letting it shatter in a spray of glimmering shards. Oops, so sorry, Professor, he could almost see that insolent mouth saying, what an unfortunate accident. He would be most contrite, but, he, Snape, would know the truth. He would see it crouching in those vivid green eyes and greeting him with a mocking twinkle.

Do it, boy, and you will never see another happy hour. I will extinguish every spark of hope you ever entertain, and if the gods should choose to punish me by inflicting your spawn upon the world, then I will strip them of joy and zest as well. I will never let it rest.

Some of his thoughts must have reflected in his face, because Potter, after sparing him a last desultory glance, tipped the contents of the phial into his open mouth. He grimaced and gagged as the foul mixture struck his tongue, his body reflexively rejecting the corrupted liquid. His hand convulsed around the empty phial, and he dropped it, fingers flying up to cover his twitching mouth. It shattered with a sharp, agonized tinkling. He doubled over, stomach heaving.

Snape watched dispassionately, fingers drumming softly against his forearms. He made a mental note to deduct House points the next time Gryffindor had any to deduct. Forty points for the lost phial. The boy was now retching violently, hands gripping his knees, shaking knuckles bone-white. They made a startling contrast to his face, which had gone a deep, hot red from the force of his exertion.

"You've soiled my floor, Potter. You will remain behind and clean it up."

Potter gave him a watery, miserable gaze, spittle dribbling down his chin. He opened his mouth to reply, but all that emerged was a stream of green bile. Snape calmly stepped back from the mess, smirking. He was thoroughly enjoying himself. Potter hardly resembled the aloof, cocksure boy that irritated and troubled him without end. Of course, one would be pressed to exude confidence while drooling vomit. As he watched, a clot of it splashed onto the front of Potter's robes.

Not so invincible now, eh, Potter? James? It may be petty revenge, but it is all I can well afford. Killing him would give me great pleasure, but unfortunately, the little ass may be our only hope. So I'll just cherish this moment. I doubt I'll have another like it.

The retching had gained an urgent, almost desperate quality, as though Potter's stomach lining was wrenching loose from its moorings. Very little was coming up now, just the barest flecks of thick yellow bile. The sounds coming from him were guttural, glottal groans that reverberated throughout the classroom, sputtering out each time his throat closed.

They reminded Snape of the noises a dying cur had made after the administration of acutely lethal Trisomos Draught, a brew designed to strip away the flesh of vital organs, culminating in a hole appearing in the victim's stomach as the poison worked its way out. It had taken ninety-four minutes for the animal to die, howling, thrashing, and spraying rich, red, lathered foam from its muzzle. Ninety-four minutes to the second. It was a number he remembered clearly because he had written it in his flowing, cultured hand as he sat on the pavement a few feet away, an hourglass at his feet.

Watching Potter struggle suddenly lost its novelty; it was resurrecting memories he would much prefer to leave buried. There was another wrenching gag, and he saw thick bile drop from the boy's mouth. He stepped forward and looked down to see bright flecks of blood mixed with the saliva. He frowned. That shouldn't be. True, Potter was retching violently, but it took much longer than three minutes to produce the damage necessary to bring up blood.

He reached into the pocket of his robes and brought out the antidote he had prepared that morning. That was enough. He held it out to the boy. "Here. Drink it quickly."

Potter reached for it, but his movement was wavering and unsteady. His fingers closed weakly upon the air two inches in front out the outstretched phial. They slowly opened again and hung there, trembling spasmodically. His eyes were glazed and dull.

"Take it," he ordered, thrusting it violently into his palm and holding it there, but Potter's boneless fingers did not close around it.

Something has gone wrong, he thought, the unfamiliar feeling of panic rising in his stomach like indigestion. He felt his chest tighten. Don't panic. You're in control here. You always have been.

But as he stepped around the ominously tottering Potter, he knew he had never been in less control. A simple exercise in humiliation had spiraled into a waking nightmare. Time had slowed to an interminable crawl, and everything stood out in hideous detail. The drunken way Potter lurched and swayed on his feet, his puffy, swollen eyes. The way his hands dangled nervelessly on the ends of his arms. The smell of vomit was heavy and pungent in the stale air, and the smell of his own tangy sweat struck him like a blow.

He uncorked the phial of antidote, flinging the cork aside and grabbing the boy by the nape of the neck.

"Drink it, damn you," he hissed, yanking Potter's head back and forcing the liquid down his throat.

Some of the deep blue liquid dribbled from the corner of Potter's slack mouth, but most of it disappeared at the back of his throat. He let the phial slip from his frozen hands. It struck the toe of his boot and clattered across the floor. He did not hear it.

Come on Potter, come on. Wake up. This is not happening. You were only supposed to be sick. Look at me.

The class was looking at him in silent horror. Some let their mouths dangle bonelessly open. Others were gripping the edges of their desks, fingernails digging into the wood. Many were weeping, tears coursing down papery cheeks. Granger was rocking back and forth in her seat, making strangled whimpers of terror. Beside her, Weasley was staring at him with huge, disbelieving eyes, and the first wisps of suspicion were kindling there. He saw it in the shadowing darkness that blotted out reason and coronaed his irises like rapidly forming cataracts.

He thinks I did it. Merlin help me, he thinks I tried to kill Harry Potter.

Nor was he the only one. The same expression of dazed accusation was blooming on other faces, spreading with the languid efficiency of a forest fire. It leapt from one face to the next in terrifying succession. The Slytherins drew away from him en masse, a black-haired girl in the front bursting into tears.

I swear I didn't, he wanted to shout at them. I've spent fifteen years protecting the ungrateful miscreant. Why would I throw it all away by poisoning him in front of forty witnesses?

"Granger, go for Madam Pomfrey," he said hoarsely.

Granger remained in her seat, rocking dreamily.

"Granger," he snapped, and this time she jumped, coming to herself with a small shriek. "Go get Madam Pomfrey. Now."

She jumped jerkily from her seat and headed for the door, scissoring on shaking legs. Snape thought crazily about a stilt walker he had once seen at a carnival as a child. The man hadn't been very good; his gait had been clumsy, wobbling precariously with every step. Granger looked that way now-disconnected and vague. He prayed she remembered where she was going.

Potter went limp in his arms, and he cursed silently, lowering him to the floor and kneeling beside him. The boy's lips were blue, and his breathing was little more than a wheeze.

He's had an allergic reaction. Merlin, he's suffocating. What in the hell happened? He's worked with these ingredients a thousand times before. Never so much as a rash.

He mentally urged Potter to keep breathing. If he stopped, he wasn't sure how to resuscitate him. His medical knowledge was limited to the realm of bubbling antidotes. The shallow, ragged breathing continued, and just below it on the range of his hearing was the sound of muffled weeping.

He tore his gaze away from the feebly rising chest beside him, and looked up at the class. They were still staring at him, transfixed with numb horror. Draco was gazing at him in rapt admiration, and he quashed the need to bury his face in his hands. He recognized that look. It was an expression of unadulterated hero worship. Clearly, Mr. Malfoy thought he had brass tacks, indeed. Probably be writing to his father about it this very day.

If he does, it may buy you more time. Voldemort might stay his hand. It doesn't take a genius to see you're on his short list.

He hissed through his teeth. He was well aware that his time was running out. Voldemort had been watching him ever since Potter's first year. He knew. Like his archnemesis, Dumbledore, Voldemort was apprised of everything, omniscient. He saw his treachery as clearly as he saw the mark he had once branded there. He was only toying with him now, keeping him about as a form of entertainment, a pet to torture when he was bored. The hours of his life were short. It was only a matter of time.

Even if your perceived poisoning of Potter curries his favor for a time, the suspicions will grow again. The torture will return, and when you no longer scream loudly enough to suit him, he will kill you.

The Ministry may get you first. If Potter dies, it's Azkaban for you.

"You bloody bastard! You killed him!" Mr. Weasley had found his voice at last.

"Mr. Weasley, go get the Headmaster at once," he barked. If he let him get going, the panic would infect them all.

Weasley made no move to do as he was told. He glowered, hands balled into tight fists. His eyes were huge and manic. "You've been trying to kill him for years, and now you've finally done it, haven't you!" he spat.

"Your beloved Potter isn't dead, Mr. Weasley, but he very well may be if you don't go for the Headmaster," he snapped, trying to maintain his composure amid a tidal wave of confusion and anger.

Circe, where is Madam Pomfrey?

The fact that Potter was still alive finally clicked in Weasley's brain, and he bolted from the room, his footsteps thundering in the corridor. Left alone with a dying Harry Potter and a room full of terrified faces, he looked helplessly around, counting the rasping breaths coming from the boy at his side. After a while, they seemed to match his heartbeat.

One. Two. Three. Perfect synchronicity.

A sharp inhalation caught his attention, and he turned his head. Stanhope had retreated from her desk and was pressing herself against the wall. Like the others, her eyes were bright with terror, but she was not looking at him, the saint killer with blood on his hands. She was looking at the rest of her classmates. She slowly brought her hands to her mouth and let out a muffled whimper. She was drawing in on herself, pulling her knees and shoulders close. Parvati Patil shifted in her desk, and Stanhope recoiled so violently that she nearly cracked her skull upon the wall. Her chest was heaving with silent sobs.

She's terrified. But of what? They're not even looking at her. They don't even know she's alive. Right now, the prone body of Harry Potter is all they can see. What is it? What does she see?

Then she looked at him, her blue eyes brimming with tears. Her hands convulsively kneaded her mouth. A noise sounded to her right-the shuffle of feet-and her head snapped in that direction, her body jumping in surprise. She was close to hyperventilating, her breath coming in great, whooping gasps.

She's coming apart. The last thing I need is for her to keel over.

"Stanhope, get a hold on yourself," he snapped.

He gaze returned to him, and he saw her make a desperate effort to regain control. She swallowed. Then her mouth began to move. She was talking, but there was no sound. It was as though her vocal cords had been severed. Just the barest whisper of air across her lips.

They're coming for you, sir.

The words jolted something inside of him, a nearly forgotten dream. An image of himself standing before an open door and hearing an awful clittering floated through his mind. Someone had said something to him then, but he could no longer remember it.

No, but I think she does, he thought suddenly, watching Stanhope flinch away from Seamus Finnegan as though he were approaching her with hot tongs.

"What are you talking about, Miss Stanhope?" he asked softly.

Get away. Get away, was her only answer. Her eyes darted incessantly between him and the class, and she shook with terror. Get away.

Whether warning or plea, he could not tell, and before he could answer, footsteps heralded the arrival of Madam Pomfrey, the Headmaster, and the end of the world as he knew it.