—————S—————

For the first time since arriving at the age of eleven, Severus stared at Hogwarts and thought of just how wrong it felt to be there. So, so very wrong. He hadn't moved from where he Apparated for about fifteen minutes, scared to find out if the castle had accepted him as Headmaster, equally hoping it would and wouldn't.

There was no pomp or ceremony when becoming the headmaster of the largest, most famous wizarding school this side of the Atlantic. It consisted of a trip into the Ministry, easily done now that the search for him as a wanted man was called off. He had walked across the Atrium, gone to the Minister of Magic's office, and signed the papers handed to him by the Imperiused Pius Thickness. That was it, a simple scrawl across an ancient, magically-persevered document. His signature, placed beneath his predecessor's, had been all that was needed.

He'd felt his magic link to the parchment, he felt the tingle of the wards on his senses when he appeared at the gates, but there was still a niggle of both doubt and hope that this was a cruel trick.

Severus placed his hand on the gate and nearly fell to his knees with the warmth he felt in his soul. The school didn't just accept him, it welcomed him, embraced him, was pleased to have him. Had Albus felt the greeting so intensely? And if it had, had it waned over time, with every manipulative and deceitful act?

Bracing his other hand on the stone wall, Severus opened the gate, walking through to the place he had called home nearly all his life.

He closed his eyes, taking in the silence, allowing his magic and his mind to assimilate with the new large and ancient presence. He could feel the teachers that were already inside. He felt Filius setting new wards around his classroom, felt Pomona tending to her plants, Minerva in her office, pacing. He knew Poppy was in the medical wing, and that the house-elves were already preparing the next meal to be served to the professors. It was all so much, too much. But bloody hell if it didn't leave him feeling at least a little high.

"Headmaster," Hagrid's politely cold greeting made him open his eyes, looking at the half giant who showed him no signs of kindness.

"Hagrid." He bowed his head, refusing to allow his mask to settle in place just yet. "I am planning to make changes to the way we handle discipline this year. You will be called upon to supervise detentions," he stated, leaving no room for argument. He turned abruptly, his robes billowing behind him as he made his way to the front doors, back straight, head held high. He could feel Hagrid's eyes boring into the back of his head, and with a flick of his fingers, he placed a shield around himself. A moment later, he felt something bounce off of it, but didn't pause his stride. He didn't want to threaten, he didn't want to be the Death Eater when he didn't have to be.

He entered the castle, ignoring the mumbled greetings from the nearby portraits. He stopped, just a moment, to look up at the ceiling and the planets, their alignment mapped out above his head. He recalled not knowing they were there until he'd found his daughter and Miss Lovegood on the floor, staring up at it.

Severus continued, not slowing his stride until he stood before the gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office. It looked up at him, stared a moment, then bowed. "Headmaster."

"Guardian," he returned with a bowed head.

"State your password and I will allow no one entry but those who know it."

"The lion and the dawn," he said.

The gargoyle bowed once more and stepped aside.

He took the stairs two at a time, entirely ignoring the fact that they moved. When faced with the door to his office, his stomach churned. His life would change on the other side of that door; he'd been forced onto a path he'd never wanted. He forced the nausea away, knowing there was nothing he could do to change the past. He opened the door and stepped through.

It had remained untouched since Albus' death. Dusted, yes, but the eccentric little devices were still there. The parchments strewn on the desk haphazardly were probably the last things Albus had worked on, the bowl of blasted lemon drops still on the corner. Fawkes' perch was still near the entrance to the headmaster's quarters, though the bird itself was absent. Had he perished, once and for all, when Albus had? Or did he simply take off, no longer feeling burdened to stay?

"Severus."

That voice. Severus' jaw tightened and his heart hardened at the sound of his name. Slowly, he turned to the wall of headmasters' portraits and there, behind the desk, placed perfectly for the deceased fool to speak into his right ear, was Albus sodding Dumbledore.

He stalked toward the painting, stopping in front of it, pulling his robes around him as he crossed his arms. "Albus," he sneered.

"I want to thank you for the work you've done so far and remind you that we're far from through," the painting said in a lecturing tone. "You need to—"

"I don't need to listen to you. Not now, not ever again. You're dead, old man. I killed you with an Avada so powerful that your body was thrown from the Astronomy Tower. Your plans, your strategies, your manipulations are done."

Albus glared, and Severus nearly laughed at him.

"Well said," Dilys Dewert said with pride.

"Here, here," Phineas Black concurred. "And might I say, how wonderful it is to have a proper Slytherin Headmaster here once more? Not one who truly believes that Mudbl—"

"Do not say that word in my presence," Severus snarled.

Headmaster Black looked at him in confusion, then shook his head.

"I'm sorry about Hermione," Albus said, and Severus frowned. "I have a portrait at the Ministry as well. I was Chief Warlock for a time, you know. And I heard of her passing, at the hands of a man who loved her, no less."

"Yes, yes." Severus waved him off. "Lupin was dealt with, I assure you."

He felt the wards tingle twice, heralding the arrival of two more professors. Aurora Sinistra and his new Potions Mistress.

"There will be staff changes this year, more than the norm," Dilys said thoughtfully. "The Defense Against the Dark Arts position—"

"Just the Dark Arts, this year, I'm afraid. One does not need to learn to defend against them when the Ministry is so eager to use them whenever and wherever possible," Severus interrupted.

"Your former position," Dilys continued.

"And Muggle Studies, I'm afraid. Charity will not be returning."

"Oh, that's a shame. Where is she, I wonder? Do you know?" Armando Dippet asked conversationally.

"That depends on how long it takes for a snake to digest its food, and where it expels its waste," he replied casually, feeling that Aurora had gone to her tower, and that the Potions Mistress was coming right for the Headmaster's office.

"Who will be teaching, Severus?" Albus asked with a touch of panicked concern. He turned to look at the bastard and saw panic in the painting's eyes. Ah, so he remembered, then, Severus' parting words. "Severus, you swore you would not let this school come to harm. You swore you would protect the students."

"And I will," he said simply, feeling the gargoyle relay the message of a visitor's presence. He mentally signaled the guardian to let them pass.

"Then who is taking your position? Who is coming? Severus, you must—"

There was a knock on the door and Severus turned to the portraits. "Silence from all of you," he ordered before bellowing, "Enter" to his guest.

She entered. "Headmaster," she said in her Russian accent, bowing her head of black hair, braided and twisted into a severe knot. She met his gaze impassively, her dark eyes confident behind her glasses. She was not terribly tall, coming just to his chin, and she didn't appear all that large as she practically swam in her robes.

He stalked toward her. "Madam Nikola. Welcome." He moved around her, behind her, inspecting her. "How are your relatives?"

"My sisters do well, though we keep little contact since father's passing. They did not approve of his ... activities."

He smirked, leaning down, placing his mouth next to her ear. "And did you approve?"

He noticed the goosebumps on her flesh and reached up to grab hold of her bun.

"I believe we must do what is needed," she said, gasping as he gripped the knot of her hair and pulled her head back, much more gently than the action might make one believe, and kissed her.

She giggled against his mouth and pushed him back. "Severus," she chided, her accent making his name sound disjointed.

"Didn't take you long to move on, did it?" Albus spoke up.

"It would appear that way, wouldn't it? But I believe I demanded silence from you. You're here as a courtesy, go against my orders again and you'll find your frame nothing more than ash." He then turned back to the Potions Mistress, released her knot and moved to face her directly. "It's flawless save for one thing."

"Which is?" she asked with amusement.

"You react to me too easily," he said, reaching out and caressing the length of her neck. "I'm barely near you and you're electrified."

"I've missed my husband," she explained, and he removed his wand from his sleeve. Waving it over her, he freed his wife from her disguise.

"And I've missed my wife," he replied, grabbing the back of her head and kissing her fiercely. Much like their earlier reunions, he picked her up, forcing her to wrap her legs around his waist as he brought her to the nearest wall. As he pulled away to nip at her jaw, he said, "It'll help, of course, if I have a mistress within Hogwarts. I cannot play the grieving widower with the Dark Lord, and Alecto Carrow is already nipping at my heels, trying to get my attention."

"And were you having a torrid affair with your Master's daughter during your apprenticeship?" she asked, offering her neck to him.

"I was. She was a bloody know-it-all, much like the woman I left at home," he said as he took her offer. "It was strictly carnal, however."

"Don't tell me I pined after you all these years?" Hermione said, leaning away and staring at him, aghast.

Severus laughed. "Would you hate it so much if that was actually part of your history?"

"I'd like to think I'd have been a career-driven woman. I love you Severus, but you're hardly what one would call a heartbreaker. I think Helga would look back on your time together with fondness and perhaps a touch of wistfulness, but only because you could reach itches she simply couldn't scratch on her own."

"I suppose that's fair. It's not like I would have given her a second thought. Not with you around."

"Good," Hermione said with a nod, chin raised slightly. "You had better not have been thinking of another woman when you were with me."

"Bloody hell, witch, Helga's not even real! And Ivan would have used my body for potions if I had slept with one of his daughters. Might have teased me about trying to marry me into the family, but had I actually crossed that line...."

Hermione giggled. "Good thing you didn't then," she said, kissing him soundly on the lips before patting his shoulder. "Now let me down, someone might come in."

A slow smirk crept on his face, causing all good humor to vanish from Hermione's. "Oh. I don't think so. I can sense them in the wards. And besides, I've missed my wife terribly, her being dead and all. I need comfort."

"Well, I suppose I should offer you that much, at least," she said, kissing him again, more gently this time, losing herself in him as he did in her.

—————A—————

"Diary," Professor Lupin said.

"Locket. The real one."

"Harry," Draco said, his tone between defeated and pissed off.

"Severus suspects Nagini," Sirius said, "but we'll never get close enough to the snake ourselves."

Aurora chewed her lip, cradling the tea in her hands as they sat around the living room in Grimmauld Place, an old landscape photo transfigured into a chalkboard where they had three lists: 'Confirmed and Destroyed,' 'Possible,' and 'Highly Suspected or Known.'

Professor Lupin put Nagini under the 'Possible' column, turning back to the room.

"Severus said the ring," Sirius reminded, and Professor Lupin jotted down the ring under 'Confirmed and Destroyed.'

"Professor Dumbledore must have said something to you about the others," Aurora said, catching Harry's attention for a moment.

"Does feel a bit like we're harping on the same things," Ron confessed. "And if we're going to try and hunt these things down...."

"He suspected Hufflepuff's cup," Harry said. "He showed me a memory of Tom Riddle learning about it and the locket from a really rich witch who was later found poisoned. Problem is, no one knows where it is. And Dumbledore thought he tried to get an item from all four founders of Hogwarts, so it's likely that he has something of Ravenclaw's."

"Not Gryffindor?" Draco asked.

Harry shook his head. "Dumbledore said that the only Gryffindor heirloom is the sword, and that's been in possession of the headmaster."

"Does anyone know what the item from Ravenclaw might be?" Sirius asked.

"Mum would." Aurora smirked, earning a snicker from Ron and Harry.

"Luna might," Ginny said thoughtfully. "But she hasn't been allowed to leave home since the wedding. I doubt we'll hear much of her until we get on the train to school."

"We can ask her then. It's not like I'm not going to be meeting up with this lot eventually," Aurora said, gesturing to the cluster of young wizards to her right.

"Are you sure you don't want us to go with you?" Sirius asked them, mostly Harry. "Plans can change, I don't need to—"

"We'll be okay, Sirius," Harry insisted. "Remus needs to be with Tonks and you're going to be needed at Hogwarts."

"Yes, not particularly looking forward to being called Snuffles," he said thoughtfully. He then shook his head as if to clear it, then looked at the board. "So, Hufflepuff's cup and the girls will look into the Ravenclaw lead. That makes seven, doesn't it?"

"But wouldn't that be eight pieces of soul?" Draco asked, furrowing his brow.

"I don't think he realizes he created one in Harry," Professor Lupin said as he added the items to the board. "And we don't know how long Nagini has been a Horcrux. At the latest, it was just before Arthur's attack."

"You've all discussed this a great deal, haven't you?" Ginny asked.

Sirius shrugged. "From about the time he returned, yes. You all were so young when we started piecing all this together, we didn't want to ruin the small amount of innocence you had left. Especially you, Harry. We still need to figure out how to get the Horcrux out of you without you getting hurt."

"There's a spell to transfer part of the soul into a receptacle," Leo said from the other side of the room, nose in a book that he either was only half reading or pretending to. "Shouldn't there be a spell to remove one?"

"I think that might be dabbling in Dark magic, Leo. It's something we want to avoid," Sirius replied kindly.

"Do you know if Dad ever found any books on the subject?" Aurora asked her brother, who looked away from his book.

"No," he grumbled. "Or if he has, he didn't bring them to his rooms, his office, or anywhere in the cottage. I'd know, I know every book we own, including those sappy little romance things you like to stuff in the back of your bookshelf."

Ron laughed.

"I wouldn't laugh," Leo said as he went back to his book. "At least my sister is literate."

"Oi, I can read," Ron protested.

"Can you?" Leo asked without turning away from the book. "I'd never have guessed the way the Muggle juice box gave you difficulty in our kitchen last week. There were instructions, too, though those were meant for a child half my age."

Ron blushed, scowling at her brother, and Aurora reached over and patted him on the back.

"So where will you be heading first?" Sirius asked. "Hunting for the cup? The locket?"

"Clear of anywhere a Snatcher might think to look for us," Draco replied. "Probably figure it out from there."

"Has Kreacher said anything?" Harry asked his godfather, who shook his head sadly.

"He swears up and down that he doesn't have it anymore. That he did, that he tried to destroy it, but it was impossible. And that one day, when he was out at the market, the locket was gone." Sirius shrugged. "I'd put my money on Mundungus, but it's nearly impossible to say for sure. No one has seen or heard from him in some time."

"So he probably stole it," Draco sneered.

"Yes," Sirius agreed. "And if what Ginny says about the effects of a Horcrux are true, I don't want to know what it might do if it falls into the wrong hands."

They were silent for a moment, the heaviness hanging around them.

"Ya think You-Know-Who is still looking for Harry?" Ron asked thoughtfully.

"As far as we know, he is," Professor Lupin replied. "But not quite as intensely."

"One would argue that it's best for you to head out before September first, but if they're watching the train, it might work to your advantage to wait," Sirius said.

"Because of the law that requires all purebloods and half-bloods of school age to go to school." Draco nodded.

"Exactly. And if you're willing to wait, Severus came up with an idea on how to distract them."

Aurora sat on a bench just outside the barrier to platform nine and three-quarters, Leo beside her.

"You have everything?" she asked.

"Yes, mother," Draco mocked behind her in a voice not his own. He took on the form of a tall lean Muggle with a Scottish accent.

"Dad, Fred, and George helped us pack the bag," Ron said, sounding utterly annoyed in his extremely deep voice. He was broad, dark-skinned, and much more handsome in this Muggle form, Aurora thought, though she didn't say it. He was leaning forward, pretending to read the paper.

Harry, who was beside Draco, looking like a baby-faced blond, added, "We'll be fine, Rory."

As they sat, Harry Potter walked through the barrier, head held high. She noticed two men moving towards the barrier, trying to look casual. They inched closer, clearly confident that they would catch the Potter that passed through.

Ronald Weasley went through with Ginny, and the two men who perked up at Potter seemed more confident now.

"Bloody hell, that was weird," Ron said behind her.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, watching as Draco Malfoy went through the barrier. "We're off. Be safe, both of you. All of you."

"You as well. See you in a couple months," she said, standing, beckoning for Leo to do the same. He rose, neither having trunks to worry about. Their father had retrieved them the night before, dropping off the Polyjuice Potion at the same time. It was up to the boys to find Muggle hair to use to pretend to be waiting for a train.

As she and her brother headed for the barrier, she said in a low voice, "You're going to have to avoid me."

"I have ears, Aurora, I know full well it's in my best interest to not align myself with anyone." After a moment, he quietly said, "I'm going to be alone anyway."