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"You look tired, Severus."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "You made me do this. It seems hypocritical to be concerned for my welfare now, don't you think?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled with amusement, but he didn't smile. "Yes, I suppose it is."

They stood on the landing overlooking the Entrance Hall, watching the milling crowds of students down below. A lot of them were new, and had books clutched protectively to their chests. The older ones were shoving, yawning, or tripping each other up. Professor Flitwick was trying to land two Ravenclaw boys who were hanging, upside-down, beside the chandelier.

Snape's head was fizzing with fatigue, but he had found that insomnia, like hunger, sharpened his senses. And he took a bitter satisfaction in the fact that Levicorpus was just as popular with the moronic hordes as it had always been. He had known the little animals wouldn't disappoint him.

He turned to Dumbledore. "Heart-warming little things, aren't they?"

Dumbledore coughed, as though he was slightly embarrassed, and said: "Are you coming down to breakfast before your first class?"

"It wouldn't do to look at their flabby, pink faces on an empty stomach, would it?" said Snape.

Dumbledore looked as though he would have liked to answer that, but he didn't. Severus grudgingly appreciated the restraint. Dumbledore was used to striding around, all twinkly-eyed and benevolent, like some kind of perplexing fairy, granting wishes to the students he liked and genially ignoring the ones he didn't, as though it was their own fault.

Still, when he started granting wishes to the students he didn't like, it meant he wanted something from them. Severus felt instinctively that it would be unwise to get comfortable – not that he had been considering it anyway.

He was tired and frightened, but all these feelings fed into his anger, like tributaries into a swelling river that was already breaking its banks. It kept him on his feet. It cast everything else into shadow.

His anxiety for Lily was a constant cramp in his stomach, and it troubled his dreams – on the rare occasions that he could get to sleep – even more than Voldemort's face these days. And then there was the draining concentration he had to keep up in order to shield his thoughts from Voldemort. He was constantly on the verge of physical and mental collapse. But the only thing that showed on the surface – the tip of this miserable ice-berg – was his anger.

He had thought, a few weeks ago, that he couldn't take anymore, but he was wrong. Not only could he take more, he could take it without betraying a flicker of the pain on his face. Because pain didn't look like pain on Severus Snape's face. It just looked like sneering fury. The more pain he was in, the more terrifying he looked. He could have used this to his advantage, but it was difficult to think straight through the agony, so mostly, he just growled.

He squinted down into the crowd below. Alastor Moody, looking shabby and scarred, was standing next to the oak front doors, with his hand placed significantly in the pocket of his robes, as though ready to draw out his wand at any second.

"What is he doing here?" said Snape.

Dumbledore's voice sounded weary when it came back. "He arrived early this morning, and I have not – yet – been able to induce him to leave. He says he is simply here to enquire after my health. He has been enquiring after it for quite some time. Particularly my mental health."

"He's suspicious of me," said Snape, not taking his eyes off the scowling figure in the Entrance Hall.

Dumbledore paused. "I regret to inform you that he is not alone there."

"I'm not blind, Dumbledore."

"When Filius heard of your appointment, he was good enough to enquire whether I had taken leave of my senses," Dumbledore went on cheerfully.

"Naturally," Snape replied, thinking that Dumbledore could have refrained from saying that. It was obviously payback for his remark about the students' flabby, pink faces. "I am a Slytherin and a friend of Lucius Malfoy's. At a time like this, my appointment must have been difficult to explain."

"It shouldn't have been," Dumbledore protested. "You had the highest-scoring Potions exam in twenty years."

Snape snorted. "As if you've ever cared about that."

"But doubtless, their conviction of my growing senility helped things along," Dumbledore admitted, sighing. He paused, and then added, without looking at him: "It is in our interests that they remain suspicious of you."

"I know," said Snape curtly, his voice dripping with bitterness. "Don't get too close. Don't make friends. If it troubles your conscience to give these orders, let me assure you, they're quite unnecessary. If anyone is going to put the Potters in danger, it will not be me."

Dumbledore didn't pick up on this hint. He remained gravely silent, watching the writhing sea of students with an admirable lack of nausea.

Severus clutched the banister, glared down at Moody, and murmured: "So they know nothing whatsoever about me? I expected you to tell them."

Dumbledore looked politely baffled. "You asked me not to."

"I also asked you not to take any risks with Lily's safety," Snape replied, keeping his deathly glare trained on Moody, "and yet I find you're going to let Sirius Black act as their Secret-Keeper." He was talking in a whisper now. He had never willingly said Lily's name out loud. But, in these last, desperate days, when he was constantly expecting both his mind and his body to give out, he felt an uncharacteristic desire to be reckless and direct. It would let Dumbledore know how much this meant to him, at least.

"They have chosen Sirius, yes."

"You know he won't keep them safe," Severus spat.

"I fail to see what I can do about it."

Snape rubbed his temples wearily. "Dumbledore, you're their leader," he hissed. "You can order them."

"I don't think I can order them not to trust their friends, Severus."

"You mean no order of yours could stop James Potter from confiding in Sirius Black," he replied aggressively.

Dumbledore's tone turned flinty. "I meant what I said. That is why I said it. If you are going to be a member of the Order of the Phoenix - ,"

"Oh, please. Let's not pretend I'm one of your precious Order members. We both know you'd never ask them to do the things you ask me to do."

Dumbledore was silent for a while. "If I treat them differently, perhaps it is because they made different choices. Whatever mistakes James and Sirius may have made – and I am not unaware of them, believe me – they never chose to kill for their own advancement, as you did."

"Wrong again, Dumbledore," said Snape, with savage brightness. "I didn't choose it. You chose it."

The Headmaster blinked politely. "I beg your pardon?"

"You can't pull children away from their friends at the age of eleven, pronounce them to be ambitious, make them sleep, eat and socialize with other children you've decided are ambitious, disapprove of everything they do, show preferential treatment to their enemies, and then pretend to be surprised when they turn out to be ambitious enough to kill. You decided, ten years ago, that I would kill for my own advancement." He leaned his chin on his upturned palm, and muttered sourly: "And everyone said you were the cleverest wizard in the world. I didn't realize I could argue with you, until now."

Dumbledore stared at him. All trace of the twinkly-eyed whimsy was gone from his expression now. But what usually replaced it – the weariness – wasn't there either. There was only shock.

"When I teach them," Snape went on, in barely more than a whisper, "I will teach them not to be ashamed that the Sorting Hat decided they were too subtle to declare what was right and what was wrong in a very loud voice without thinking about it. I will teach them not to be ashamed of the fact that they have to do unfair things in an unfair world. You created another hundred children just like me at the Sorting last night. And, if even one of them comes back to you, you will be obscenely lucky."

"I said you were not like my other Order members," said Dumbledore seriously. "I didn't say I was not lucky to have you."

They were silent once again, Dumbledore twinkling benignly down at his students, Severus clutching the banister so hard that his knuckles had turned white.

"Congratulations, by the way," the Headmaster went on. "You've just been promoted. I'm making you Head of Slytherin House."

Snape turned round, momentarily distracted from his fury. His furrowed brows furrowed even more. "I don't understand you."

"Doubtless, that is because you are a Slytherin."

That was the first time Severus had ever sworn at Dumbledore. It was strangely liberating. He supposed that, since nothing else could liberate him, the only way he could feel remotely free was to snarl and sneer, like a caged animal, pacing up and down his enclosure, and terrifying the spectators.

Dumbledore, with his mild-mannered curiosity and youthful blue eyes, reminded Severus of a child at the zoo, sucking on a sherbet lemon, watching the tigers prowling back and forth, and occasionally remarking on how fascinating it all was.

At any rate, he didn't seem to think the swearing was undeserved. In fact, he chuckled merrily, and led the way down the marble staircase, into the tumult.

Severus clenched his fists, and followed. This was the pattern for all his conversations with Dumbledore. Lightning flashes of understanding in an endless night of bafflement. That, perhaps, was the worst of it. The only man who understood his situation was a whimsical lunatic. And, the more it hurt, the fiercer Severus looked. Who was going to risk pulling the thorn out of his paw, when he looked ready to bite their heads off? Even if he was not in a hive of savage little morons, it would have been impossible.

In the Entrance Hall, they passed pink-faced, gaping first-years, swamped by their robes, always lost but never daring to ask for directions. Dumbledore gave each one an encouraging smile as they passed, which rooted them to the spot with terror. Severus thought it was rather cruel. But gone were the days when he would have been shocked by cruelty from Dumbledore. He had probably lost faith in the Headmasters' spirit of fairness on his own first day at this school.

The ominous rumble of children was emanating from the open door of the Great Hall. It sounded like Dante's seventh circle of hell. The squeals and squawks of young girls finding fault with each others' dress-sense, the fashionably slurred boasts of boys talking Quidditch, the guttural taunts of both sexes as they singled out those who were different from them. It assaulted his ears as soon as he entered the room, and pulled his lips back into an unconscious snarl.

He and Dumbledore entered by a side door that was level with the staff table, and Severus paused for a moment, sweeping the students with a look of distaste. Whatever advantages evolution had given them were lost in the crowd. They looked like a sea of uniformed monkeys.

Their magic was going hay-wire, probably because of nerves or start-of-term high-spirits. It would be difficult enough to get them to pay attention, even before you took their peanut-sized brains into account. Sparks and jinxes were shooting up from the tables, and fizzling out rather sadly before they reached the high, sky-coloured ceiling of the Great Hall.

He had never understood why Dumbledore – who could have done anything – who could have been Minister for Magic, or Chief Healer at St. Mungo's, willingly came back to this zoo every September. Was he just insecure about his intellect, and needed to have it accentuated by contrast? Did he hang around with morons in order to seem astronomically clever, instead of just above average?

It all reminded him of feeling different, of being squirmingly uncomfortable, of being laughed at – or, worse still, ignored – while his guts boiled over with resentment.

But it also reminded him of quiet moments spent brewing potions in the dungeons. It reminded him of that lurch in his stomach – like he'd just put his foot through the floor – that he got whenever he saw Lily coming down the corridor.

A lot of it had been loneliness and studying, and seething on the sidelines. But, once or twice, he had been happy here. You could never get as happy, or as miserable, as Hogwarts made you.

It would have been alright if the place only had bad associations. He wouldn't have minded if the castle was just a monkey-filled torture chamber. But Lily's finger-prints were over everything.

He missed her. He remembered everything, and he couldn't push the memories aside. They would burst in on his attention and insist on being played out from start to finish. It was like having a poltergeist in your brain – unexplainable and violent feelings lurched through him whenever he was feeling tired or vulnerable.

That was the consequence of suppressing his memories around Voldemort, he supposed; they would burst in on him and hold him hostage the instant he allowed his concentration to waver. And he couldn't concentrate all the time. He felt as though fault-lines were opening up along his skull as it was.

But, to his everlasting surprise, he wasn't dying. He was thriving. He didn't seem to need sleep, or food, or peace of mind. He could metabolize anger, and soothe himself by seething. It would be enough. For Lily's sake, it would have to be.

Severus skulked at the end of the table, out of the criss-crossing beams of sunlight that filtered in through the high windows. Dumbledore seemed to understand that he wanted to be alone, and didn't drag him into the centre. He had been introduced (or re-introduced, in every case but one) to all the teachers yesterday at the Feast, and they seemed absorbed in their own concerns anyway – or pretending to be. McGonagall gave him a stern, business-like nod, which was her way of showing Dumbledore that she was loyal to him. Severus didn't see the point in returning it, since it hadn't really been meant for his eyes.

Out of habit, he scanned his coffee for signs of poison, but found only signs of bad coffee. There wasn't a lot he could eat. His mouth was dry, his head was pounding, and his stomach was tight with its perpetual anxiety. He had to think very hard in order to relax his muscles these days. But the tension gave him a kind of grace, like a stalking cat. It was release that made him clumsy. Giving into the weariness brought back the jerky, uncoordinated movements of his adolescence. And so – mainly because he couldn't stand to be reminded of that time in his life – he gave in as little as possible.

As long as he kept his feelings tightly-coiled, and his movements scrupulously controlled, he was graceful and forbidding. As long as he did that, he felt in control of his life, despite the fact that Dumbledore manipulated him, and his reason for living was only separated from death by a handful of incompetent Gryffindors.

He settled on a piece of dry toast, which he was barely able to chew, and which was still scratching his throat when he swallowed. Every second, he was having to suppress an impulse to curse someone, and not just because he found them all so relentlessly irritating. It was because his years as a Death Eater had conditioned him to watch out for sudden movements, - and these children were flailing around so randomly – pointing with their wands, using them to scratch their backs or stir their tea. How was it that they weren't always cursing themselves into oblivion? Why wasn't the death toll at Hogwarts as high as it had been at the Somme?

He caught his fingers in pursuit of his wand, and forced them to wrap themselves around his coffee mug instead. If Moody saw him reaching for his wand, he would probably be carted off to Azkaban without trial. They weren't so keen on trials at the moment. Or the human rights of prisoners.

He sipped his black coffee with a grimace and tried to tune out the noise. If the students turned to look at him, it was with apprehension. He wondered what kind of stories were going round about him. If the brats loved something more than ridiculing people, it was terrifying each other.

He hadn't been away from the school very long, although it seemed like a lifetime. He could still recognize some of the faces at the Slytherin table; younger students who'd been at school with him, and who had probably mentioned his reputation for dabbling in the Dark Arts. The addition of an Auror turning up to guard the school on his first day would be sure to make them talk.

Well, they could talk all they wanted. He'd lived through worse than this, although it was difficult to imagine at the moment.

He crept down to the dungeons after breakfast, sinking into the cool shadows of his classroom with a relief that would remain unexpressed, because he was wound up so tight that even a sigh could open the floodgates.

After all that lacerating sunlight, the dungeons were soothing to his eyes. The only light in here – because he hadn't lit the torches yet – was the dull, dying glow of powdered glow-worms and bottled memories. He lingered for a moment in the half-light, as though he was trying to soak it up. Then, with reluctance, he flicked his wand, and the torches spluttered into life. He began checking the store-cupboard methodically, noting down any ingredients that were running out, until the air seemed breathable again – until his churning insides had become sulky and still.

The firelight down in the dungeons did wildly unpredictable things to Snape's appearance. Down here, with no sunlight or breeze, it was possible to transfigure yourself into a monster. The darkness pooled in his premature wrinkles, and the bags under his eyes. His features were chalky-white islands in an ocean of shadow. And the firelight smouldered in his eyes and glinted hungrily off his teeth.

Down here, all the marks of pain turned him into a monstrous collection of light and shadows. What in the sunlight would seem human, and even vaguely sad, down here seemed demonic. And that was exactly the way he wanted it. People would fear him down here, like some kind of primordial beast lurking in the bowels of the castle.

He liked the silence down in the dungeons. It was a textured, sacred silence, and he resented the fact that it was about to be rent asunder by clamouring, cracking teenage voices.

But it was rent asunder sooner than he expected.  A cheerful knock on the classroom door sent the tension jolting through his bones again. Snape's fists clenched, and his back became ram-rod straight. The newcomer didn't even wait for him to say 'come in'. She just poked a head round the door – a head that was mostly jeweled spectacles, although there was a weak chin and a lipstick-drawn pout under there somewhere – and then slithered into the room.

Severus Snape raised his eyebrows. It was the most cordial greeting he could muster, and Rita Skeeter didn't seem to need any other invitation.

She actually – unbelievably – said: "Coo-eee!" And Snape fought hard to suppress a shudder.

"Could I ask you a few quick questions, Professor Snape?" she asked, taking out a piece of parchment and a quill, as though his agreement was a mere formality.

"How did you get in?" he asked.

"Dumbledore invited me," she protested, placing an innocent hand on her chest. "I'm here to write a piece about a muggle-born boy who won a scholarship."

"Indeed? And where is he?"

Rita Skeeter looked behind her, blinking beneath the glasses. He could hear her mascara-thickened eye-lashes scraping against the glass. "He's around here somewhere," she muttered, shrugging. "You know how easily-distracted children are." She sucked the end of her acid-green quill with relish and then, with the thing still in her mouth, she mumbled: "Anyway, I thought this would be a tremendous opportunity to get the inside scoop on the dashing new Potions master at Hogwarts. Youngest staff appointment in a century, they say."

Snape raised his eyebrows again. It was a mistake to flatter him anyway, but to do so with a quill in your mouth, half-garbling your words, was a move that ought to have landed her in detention.

"Do you mind if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill?" she asked, taking the quill out of her mouth at last.

"I think you'll find those won't work in my classroom," said Snape, without looking at her.

The acid-green quill rose into the air over her head, and then started spinning and smoking like a Catherine Wheel. When it eventually caught fire, it dropped onto the parchment, and Rita Skeeter had to stamp on them both with her high-heels

"This is a school," he said patiently. "If something writes the answers for you, it isn't allowed."

Rita Skeeter recovered magnificently. "How interesting," she said, reaching into her hand-bag and drawing out a regular, eagle-feather quill. "Is that the case for all the classrooms in the school, may I ask?"

Snape shrugged. "The dungeons are the limit of my jurisdiction."

"You're a natural teacher, aren't you?"

He gave her another unpleasant smile. "When you're surrounded by idiots, you have to be. It's either teach or go mad."

And that was, indeed, the choice he had been presented with. Teach or go mad. Spend every day staring at dunderheads, feeling sick to his stomach, or spend every night worrying about Lily, feeling sick to his heart.

"Why is Alastor Moody here, Professor Snape?"

"You'll have to ask him," said Snape mildly.

"Why do you think Dumbledore gave you this job, bearing in mind how young and comparatively inexperienced you are?"

Severus didn't manage to stifle all of his irritation this time. "Another question that could best be answered by somebody else, don't you think?"

"But nobody else is here," said Rita Skeeter, with an innocent shrug.

"I don't know why he gave me the job," said Snape wearily. "Perhaps it was because of the six 'Outstandings' I received for my NEWTs, or the papers I contributed to the National Potions Research Institute's journal."

"A lot of Aurors are questioning the appointment."

"Are they really, or are you just assuming that they will?"

Skeeter skated over that question with barely a pause. "Alastor Moody is here."

"Inarticulate as Moody is, his mere presence doesn't constitute a protest," Snape pointed out. "And you've just told me that you don't know why he's here."

"No, I asked you if you knew why he was here. That's not the same thing."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Do you know why he's here?"

"It seems obvious that he's here to express his disapproval at your appointment."

"But do you know why he's here, or does it just 'seem obvious'?"

"I'm afraid these distinctions are a little technical for me," said Rita Skeeter, with a high-pitched laugh. "I didn't get six 'Outstandings' in my NEWTs"

"You astonish me," said Snape expressionlessly.

"Why don't we move on to a different question?" she asked, patting her frizzy hair nervously. "You were at school with the Potters, weren't you?"

Snape froze and unthawed in the space of a second. "Yes."

"Were you friends with them at all?"

"No."

"You know I have a special interest in them," she explained. "Nothing makes the front-page like a Quidditch player and an attractive woman."

The temperature in the dungeons dropped perceptibly. But Snape had kept his composure through interrogations that were, technically, a lot more painful. It was difficult to imagine right now, but he clung to the idea nevertheless.

Although pain didn't distress him as much as stupidity, so perhaps Rita Skeeter was worse than Voldemort.

"I wrote about their wedding," she went on. "I don't know if you saw it. There was a lot of concern in the community that this highly-seductive muggle-born would infiltrate our pure-blood families and sell our secrets to the muggles."

"Yes, I read it," said Snape. "'The scarlet-haired Jezebel'. Very amusing."

"You disagreed with it?"

"I was not under the impression that Potter could debase himself any further than he already had."

"Oh, I agree," she whispered, licking the feathered end of her quill. Severus wondered if she knew she was doing it. And then he wondered – with another jolt of nausea – whether she was flirting with him. "A disgusting little show-off, wasn't he?"

It was hard to resist such a flagrant invitation to abuse Potter, but Severus managed it. He swallowed all the insults that had been welling up behind his lips, and shrugged again.

"The past tense is unnecessary, Miss Skeeter" he said. "You have no proof that he has either died or stopped showing off."

Rita Skeeter held his thunderous gaze for a long time, with every indication of enjoyment, but Snape had out-stared the most powerful Dark Wizard in history, and this woman was a picnic by comparison.

"Well, anyway," she said, turning back to her parchment, "they've disappeared. Potter and his wife, I mean. Rumour has it they've either been killed by You-Know-Who or gone to join him."

"Oh, yes. Two renowned supporters of Dumbledore – one of them muggle-born – would be welcomed by him with open arms."

"Stranger things have happened."

"Only between the pages of your ridiculous newspaper."

Rita Skeeter finally cottoned-on to the fact that she was being insulted. He had a sudden urge to award twenty points to whatever House she'd spent her school years disgracing.

But, now he had her attention, he couldn't help going on. He had been fuming for days – months – years – he'd been fuming for as long as he could remember – and now there was a shrill, stupid woman in his classroom, glittering at him, and asking impudent questions. He wasn't allowed to curse her, but talking was free. Sentences were assaults you couldn't be arrested for.

"Did you know that your handbag is made of Gharial skin?" he asked conversationally. "The Gharial, as well as being a critically endangered species, has a pelt that can deflect two of the three Unforgivable Curses. When fresh, the creature's skin is worth hundreds of thousands of Galleons. If it hadn't been dried-out, treated with chemicals, and fashioned into a hideous handbag, that pelt would have been worth more gold than you could fit into the vaults of Gringotts. Whatever you paid for it, both you and the Gharial were robbed."

All trace of friendliness was gone from Rita Skeeter's face. She took off her bejeweled spectacles, the better to squint at him. "You've heard the expression, of course," she said, with brittle friendliness. "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

Snape smiled broadly. "Oh, believe me, I can. And I will, unless you get out of my classroom right now."

He could see that she was tempted to stay. She was a journalist. What a story it would make if he attacked her. Intrepid Young Reporter Cursed by Disgruntled Teacher.

But she would never get to write it. Unless she was dictating from beyond the grave. She could see that the fury in his eyes was bottomless. So she stalked off, swinging her priceless and ruined hand-bag as she went.

He sat down in the seat behind his desk and exhaled, but there was barely time to shudder before the dunderheads trooped in. Their prattle was subdued and their scrubbed, pink faces were apprehensive, as they filed into seats behind the workbenches.

Severus realized, with a prickle, that they were afraid of him. His age was no longer a handicap. In the years he had spent away from Hogwarts, he had lost all appearance of youth. And, dense as they were, the students picked up on the undercurrents of feeling within the castle. They knew the teachers were worried. They knew Moody was so worried that he'd left the Auror Office to watch the new Potions Master on his first day. And this new teacher, who had unsettled everybody, was glaring at them as though they were a green, slimy residue at the bottom of his cauldron.

The brats were almost as scared as he was. He wondered idly if he could make them any more scared.

And, ignoring the feeling of every tired muscle in his body screaming in protest, Severus Snape stood up to address the class.

The next day's Daily Prophet, once you skipped past the endless litany of Death Eater killings – which Severus did by instinct now – contained an article about him, entitled:

Dumbledore Appoints Youngest Head of House Ever – Has he Finally Lost It?

He was happy to see that she hadn't been able to find a picture. He knew all those hours spent skulking in the shadows would pay off someday. He wondered if Lily would see the article, and realize what it meant. She would know from this that Dumbledore trusted him, but that didn't mean anything. She might just assume he was a trusting old fool.

He had never asked whether Dumbledore had told them just who informed Voldemort of the prophecy about their child.

They knew about the prophecy, of course – Dumbledore would have had to tell them why they needed to go into hiding. But did they – did she – know it was because of him? He had never dared to ask Dumbledore. He was too afraid of hearing that she did, to gamble on the relief of hearing that she didn't.

It was odd that his only way of communicating with her now was via the malicious scribblings of Rita Skeeter. He almost found himself wishing that there had been a picture. If Lily could see what this was doing to him…

But that was stupid. He didn't want her to know. He didn't want anyone to know. That was why he turned every sensation into anger. Anger was the acceptable face of feeling, for Severus Snape.

He folded up the paper with a crisp motion, letting his eyes skip over the Dark Mark on the front page, just as they skipped over the Dark Mark on his forearm. It would be time for lessons soon. If the dunderheads were good for nothing else, they kept him busy. Merlin knew what would happen if he relaxed.