Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Standing Stones" (11/?)
by Christine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

Severus was fast asleep, slumped over in the chair beside the bed, and despite the fact that he looked a bit uncomfortable, I hated to wake him. I did, though, shaking his shoulder gently. "Severus."

He stirred, wincing as he unfolded himself slowly from the chair. I chuckled softly to myself as I watched him, and he turned his head, giving me one of his lovely dark looks.

"What are you laughing at?"

"You," I said fondly. "It's your own fault, you know."

"Is it?" he asked, amused.

"Yes. You chose to sleep there. If you'd joined me..."

Severus nodded. He winced, and rubbed at his neck. "I didn't want to disturb you."

"Hey. When have you ever disturbed me, hmm?" I asked, brushing a hand across his face.

He smiled, took my hand and brought it to his lips. "You seem in a good mood this morning."

"Do I? Good." I was in a good mood, but I was also worried. Here, I was alright; here I had always been safe. But I wasn't going to be able to stay here; I'd have to go out there soon, face the world, the others... "What time is it?"

"Half past seven."

I nodded and reached for my glasses, in their usual place on the bedside table. "Lovely."

"You have plenty of time. How is the pain?"

I focused upon the Slytherin Mark for a moment. It felt a bit raw, like a bad scrape, but otherwise alright. I said as much, and Severus nodded.

"May I see?"

I bared the mark, and couldn't help looking down at it myself. It was red, and so inflamed that the silver and green ink could hardly be seen. "Merlin's ghost... Is that normal?"

Severus laughed. "I have no idea," he said. "I have never seen a...normal tattoo."

"I doubt either of us would recognize one anyway," I said. "When do we see anything that's normal?"

"The pain may flare up again later today. In fact, I would count upon it. If you can get word to me when it does..."

I shook my head. "I don't know that I can. I'm starting the sixth years on human Transfiguration today, and something is sure to go wrong."

"Hmm. And your first class of sixth years is- for Merlin's sake, it's not the Hufflepuffs, is it?"

"It's the Hufflepuffs."

"Poor dear. They're nearly as bad as your Gryffindors."

"Severus!"

"Charlie Weasley insists upon causing explosions every Potions lesson, as well as switching ingredients 'just to see what will happen'." I glared at him. "Oh, alright- perhaps the Hufflepuffs are worse than the Gryffindors... After all, they can't blow things up on purpose, which the Weasley boy can." Severus shook his head. "No, they simply do it by accident- nearly killed everyone within fifty feet last lesson. They can't do anything right."

"Severus, they're afraid of you."

"Are they? They should be."

I sighed. "Severus..."

"Are you certain you wouldn't like to owl in sick today?" he asked.

"It's tempting, but they've got to begin human Transfiguration today whether I'm with them or not. And can you imagine the trouble they'd cause if I wasn't there?"

He shuddered. "No, I suppose you're right. Well. I'll stop by around ten- I have the Gryffindor seventh years at nine, and I'll certainly have had to punish someone for something. I'll bring a dose of the painkillers with me. It will keep for a few hours if you don't need it by then."

"Alright." I rose, wrapping my thin inner robes closer about me; the morning was chill. I started hunting about for the outer robes, hoping I might find them before I froze to death. "But- You know, you do have a fireplace in here, and I can't imagine you would burn the castle down if you were to light it once in a great while..." I lifted my robes off the back of a chair and pulled them on quickly. "What was I saying? Oh, yes. Promise me that no matter what they do, you will not try to get Charlie Weasley tossed off the Quidditch team again."

"You know very well I do not believe in rewarding delinquency, Minerva."

I twisted my hair into a knot and glared at him over the rims of my glasses. "Severus. I want your word, and I want it right now."

He moved towards me, caught hold of my hands as I lowered them from my hair. "I will do what I think is necessary. On that, you may have my word."

"Do you really want to fight me, Severus? Do you?"

"No," he whispered. "But if you begin it, then by all of the old gods, I will end it." He kissed me then, fierce and quick. "Go. I'll see you later."

I nodded, trying to catch my breath. "You-"

"Don't start. Oh, and you may want to go to your rooms and change."

"What-?" I glanced at my robes then. Over my usual green I wore the black cloak I had been given last night. "Thank you."

Severus didn't answer, having gone to the door to check the hall. Not for the first time, I wished one of the school's secret passageways ran through the area, but if it did, we had never found it.

He turned back then, looking quite amused. "It's alright. Go on."

I slipped out the door, and made my way along the hall. As I came around the corner, I came upon Albus Dumbledore, calmly sitting in the middle of the hall, reading a book. By merest chance, he was blocking the corridor I had just come from.

"Good morning, Minerva," Dumbledore said without looking up from his book.

"Headmaster. This is an odd spot to be reading in."

He looked up then, and winked at me. "Is it? I simply found my interest in this book so deep that I could not wait a moment more to continue reading it."

I peered at the cover. "Is that a Muggle novel?"

"Yes. Did you know that the Muggles have written hundreds of books about Merlin?"

"Fascinating," I said, a little dryly. "Well- I will see you at breakfast, Headmaster. Mind you don't get caught up in your book and miss it."

"Thank you," he said, sounding quite distracted. Dumbledore went back to his book, and I continued on to my room.

I stuffed the black cloak into the back of my wardrobe, hoping I wouldn't need it for a while, but knowing that I would. After changing out of my robes, which were fairly wrinkled, having been slept in, and into a different set, also green, I headed out again.

There was no sign of Dumbledore, but on my way downstairs I ran into Sirius Black. It was the first time I'd seen him without Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew in tow.

"Good morning," I said. I peered around, wondering if Remus and Peter were simply hiding.

Sirius laughed. "Looking for my shadows, huh? Remus is off in the library, reading something very boring, and I have no idea where Peter's gotten off to. Probably shadowing somebody else."

I nodded. "And what are you up to?"

Sirius shrugged. "Just trying to be helpful where I can. I haven't seen you for a couple days. Keep this up and I'm going to start thinking you're avoiding me!" Sirius laughed, but in fact I had been avoiding him. We seemed lately to not have much to say to one another, when we weren't arguing about Severus Snape, a subject which Sirius simply refused to drop.

"If you begin complaining about Severus Snape again, I'm going to start avoiding you," I said. "Really, Sirius, I've heard it all before. You don't like him. Fine. I do. Can't we just-?"

"You know," he interrupted me, "it still amazes me, Minerva. That's all. How can you be such a loyal friend to someone who doesn't deserve it?"

"It is far too early in the morning to be getting into this," I snarled at him. "Why can't you let this go?"

Sirius sighed. "Because Severus Snape is nobody's friend but his own. Trust me on that one. Look- you've got whoever it was that gave you that ring. What the hell do you need some stinking Slytherin for, hmm?"

I had never wanted so much to tell the simple truth. Sirius' expression alone when I revealed that the 'stinking Slytherin' had been the one to give me the ring, would have made it worth it. But I didn't dare, and I knew it. We had achieved a sort of balance when I went to Voldemort and the Death Eaters; they didn't care if we were lovers, so long as we were both theirs. But Sirius... Sirius would upset that balance and never know that he had done it. I couldn't risk it.

"You will never understand," I told him. "Accept it. And if you can't, then go away and leave me in peace."

For a moment Sirius looked as if he were going to voice the angry retort that was surely on his mind. But he didn't say it. Instead he looked at me with something like great sadness. "So that's it, then, is it? You'd rather forget your other old friends, I guess." Sirius continued to look at me for a moment while the silence seemed to ring in the air. Then he spoke again. "What's happened to you, Minerva?"

"Life," I snapped, and swept off down the staircase.

Furious, I pounded a fist on the stair railing. How dare he? Always judging where he shouldn't, that was Sirius Black. And if he kept poking his nose into things like this...

"If I could just hit them all," I muttered. "I'm sure it would make a difference..."

Realizing that I couldn't go into the Great Hall like this, I slipped into the library. It was only after I stepped inside and it was too late to turn around, that I remembered it wouldn't be empty; Remus was around there somewhere, and with his gift of empathy, he would be-

"Minerva? You look very pale. Are you alright?"

Did I? Damn. Maybe it was the blood loss, although I hadn't thought I had lost so much. Either way I certainly couldn't tell him that... "Sirius," I said shortly.

"Ah." Remus nodded. "Dare I ask what he said to you?"

I wanted to open up to Remus; he inspired that trust in people, never more so than in those he had known for years. I couldn't do it, but he would expect it, and he was among the smartest people I had ever met. If I didn't react normally to his sympathy, he would know something had changed. And if I were truly unlucky, he would find out what it was.

"Only the usual. I'm just so bloody tired of it, Remus! We've been having the same argument for years, and he still won't shut up about it. I know he hates Severus Snape- Sirius has made very certain that the whole damn world knows that. But he simply doesn't understand..." It was the outburst Remus was expecting, but most of it was rather true, anyway, and screaming it out loud made me feel a bit better.

"I don't understand either, Minerva. You know that."

"I think that you understand more than you believe," I said.

"Maybe you're right. I don't agree with your choices, but I do understand them. Probably better than Sirius does. Though I know he doesn't see the parallels, they do exist. His best friend is a werewolf; yours is a Slytherin outcast whom Sirius has hated for over half of his life." I raised an eyebrow- Remus's insight was always surprising. "He was your best friend when I met you, remember? And nobody liked him, really, except you... I don't like him, either, but I've been shunned for far too long not to sympathize with him."

I nodded slowly. "Do you remember who else I ran with when you met me, Remus?"

He sighed. "Lucius Malfoy. Stuck up little bastard, but the three of you were inseparable..." He saw it then, or thought he did. "Ah. You're the last of your old gang, aren't you? You and Severus. You've been through things together..."

I nodded again. "We had already gone through so much, and then... Voldemort came. And we lost them, Remus, we lost them all- Lucius and Narcissa, Dora and Tobias and all the rest... and even if I wanted to, I couldn't turn away now. He hasn't got anybody else." And neither, I added silently, do I.

"I'm sorry. I never realized... I'd forgotten how close you were to the others."

"I wish I could forget it myself," I whispered.

Remus patted my shoulder. "I can try to speak with Sirius about this if you'd like. Maybe he will listen to me. In the meantime, try to be patient with him. This business with Voldemort, I think sometimes it's driving us all a little mad."

I laughed. "Probably. Thanks, old friend." I glanced at the library's hourglass. "Breakfast should be starting soon. I think I'll head over."

Remus nodded. "I just want to finish reading this section..."

I laughed again and left him happily with his books.

It was funny, though, I mused to myself as I descended the stairs into the entrance hall. How right Remus was. And how little his insight was going to help.

When I got to the Great Hall and made my way up to the staff table, I saw that the only people who had beaten me there were Severus, Sirius, Filch, and Dumbledore. I think that the Headmaster's presence was the only thing keeping the two of them from going at each other.

"Good morning, all," I said as I slid into my usual seat beside Severus. Sirius glared down the table at us; I ignored him.

Argus Filch, who was sitting dead center between Sirius and us- surrounded on either side by several empty chairs, as no one particularly wanted to sit with him- looked as if he suddenly wished very much to be someplace else. He kept glaring out over the table at the assembling students.

I laughed quietly; Filch and Sirius looked at me as if I were quite mad, but neither seemed to want to ask what was so funny.

Severus, however, wasn't going to let anything stand in the way of his curiosity. "What?" he asked quietly.

"I've just realized," I whispered back, "that Filch is one of the few people at this table who isn't furious with me right now...but he would be if he could remember what happened last night."

Sirius glared along the table at us again. I suppose he thought we were whispering about him.

Which of course inspired Severus to ask, under cover of Dumbledore's, "Argus, would you please pass the butter?", "What the devil is eating Black?" The only trouble was, he didn't say it very quietly.

"The usual," I said, figuring there was no point to keeping my voice down. "You."

Sirius's glares suddenly grew more fierce, and though he seemed to be trying to speak, he must have been beyond words, because we heard nothing.

Dumbledore's eyes widened. He alone of the others at the table knew what we had been though the previous night, and just how short our tempers were. He was the only one who knew how close the situation was to going over the edge.

"Children," he whispered, clearly a chastisement, and I sighed. Yes, he was right, but...

Severus rolled his eyes, but asked me a question about the classes I would teach today, which I answered. We spoke of these things without really having to think of them, the words playing out, distracting the others, drawing their attention away...and leaving us sitting there, in the middle of a little conspiracy only we could see. Another little game, like the old days.

Remus, sitting beside Sirius, seemed not have noticed any of the tension to which we had contributed; Probably he had noticed and decided to ignore it, and he began discussing Quidditch, of which he was a huge fan, with Sirius, and anyone else who would listen. Sirius said little, but gradually his attention seemed to be drawn away, and though he sat brooding at the other end of the table for the rest of the meal, he didn't look at either of us again.

Severus kept shooting glares at them both, but as I'd endured meals with the lot of them screaming insults at one another across the Great Hall, I thought I would leave well enough alone.

After breakfast I faced my Hufflepuffs, and set things to rights much more quickly than I'd thought I would be able to. Really they were picking up the theories as well as any of the other sixth years, and all of them were having trouble, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Slytherins too.

Speaking of which...

In seventh year Transfigurations with the Slytherins, I took a round one hundred points from Barty Crouch for talking back to me and being an insufferable know- it-all. He protested the point loss, of course, so I gave him detention.

Crouch stayed after class to learn when and where he would be serving his detention, and as soon as the other students departed the classroom, he stopped sulking and complaining about his cruel fate, and simply looked annoyed.

"You didn't have to do all that," Crouch said. "You could have just asked me to stay after-"

I seemed to feel the Slytherin Mark then, its presence in my skin, and the role I had played on the night I received it returned to me then, settling over my shoulders like a heavy cloak. I spoke without looking up, bent as I was over rolls of homework parchment.

"I took the points," I hissed, "because you deserved to lose them. I told you already, Crouch- nothing changes. Nothing. Perhaps if you could be so kind as to tell me which part of 'nothing' remains unclear to you...?" I let the sentence hang, and had the satisfaction of seeing him taken aback.

"I- May I speak?"

"Better," I said. "Yes. Be brief."

"I had thought you would be more actively supporting Slytherin now, that's all."

"You thought. Well. That is a good start, now isn't it?" I marked a grade upon a paper, rolled it back up, and reached for the next. "As long as you are thinking, boy, think on this- If Albus Dumbledore were to notice that I were...favoring Slytherin as does Severus Snape, mightn't he realize things are not as they were?"

Crouch did seem to be thinking this over, though what conclusions he might have drawn it was difficult to say. "Yes, ma'am." A pause. "I have a message for you, Professor."

"And what is your message?" I asked, as if I didn't care.

"Lady Malfoy sends this," he said, and produced a green envelope.

"Lady Malfoy?" I asked, as if inquiring what he would have to do with such an august personage. Narcissa, I thought, what are you up to, you canny little bitch?

"Yes. She came to the Slytherin common room this morning by Floo powder. I think that she is fascinating."

Ah yes. My life's ambition- to hear the secret crushes of junior Death Eaters. And why am I certain that Severus wouldn't have had to deal with this one? "If you so much as look at her wrongly, Crouch, Lucius will kill you. Go too close to her, she will gut you." I set aside another paper. "You have been warned. What you do now is entirely up to you." I reached for the next paper. "Was that all?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Your detention will be served tomorrow night in the hospital wing. You will scrub out the bedpans, without use of magic." He remained standing before my desk; I forced back a sigh. "You may go now, Crouch. Best hurry, or you'll be late for your next class."

Crouch departed, and left me alone with Narcissa's envleope. I turned that envelope over in my hands, really not wanting to open it. Not wanting to open it, but knowing it represented an opportunity I could not afford to turn away from. Voldemort's chosen, the Death Eaters, were reaching out, and I had to reach back. Much as it revolted me, I had to reach back.

If the letter had been from Dora, I would have opened it already. Nothing she said could shock me anymore, and I probably could have predicted most of it anyway. But Narcissa, now... Narcissa was a dfiferent story altogether, and she always had been. I had known her too, at Hogwarts, a devious, pretty Slytherin girl, part of our gang as nearly all the Slytherins of our year had been, and I would have sworn a friend true as any other, but for the cold look that sometimes entered her eyes, distant, worlds beyond feeling. Like a glaciar. That was how I remembered Narcissa Malfoy, even before she had become Narcissa Malfoy.

In many ways I think that she was always Lucius's girl. The two of them paired off so easily, and fit so well, it seemed that they belonged together. That they did. Oh, and how! Since the first time I'd thought Narcissa's eyes akin to a glacier, I had known that she had it in her.

And now...now we had to be chums again, she and I. I had to dance along the wire just a little longer...until I could repay Narcissa's betrayal with one of my own.

Around noon I rescued Peter Pettigrew from one of the trick steps on the staircase to the third floor. But I didn't open Narcissa's letter until after darkness had fallen.

I opened it in the mirror room, a place I hadn't ventured to in what seemed a very long time. Inside the envelope I found a single sheet of parchment, and a photograph. Narcissa smiled out at me from that picture, waving the tiny hand of the boy with Lucius Malfoy's eyes, whom she in her arms. I turned over the photograph, and read, in what seemed to be the same hand as the letter I was ignoring, 'Narcissa and baby Draco, 1981'.

The damned letter wasn't going to keep, however much I wanted it to, and so I glanced at it with great reluctance.

Dear Minerva,