i passed my tests, so i'm quite happy, so here's another chapter!

SEVERUS' PROTECTION

Evan Rosier never knew how to deal with anger and his mother never blamed him for it, after all he was just like his father.

The first time Evan Rosier remembered being angry was when he was five and his younger brother accidently broke one of his toys. He wasn't sure how it happened, but he remembered his brother against the wall, crying, blood dripping from his forehead from where the broken toy had hit him in the face. His mother said it had been accidental magic, but by the way his father looked at him with hesitance made sure to let him know that the small flash of a memory where he got the toy from the ground and threw it with all his strength.

After that moment on, he wasn't allowed to stay alone with the children of his family and his cousins Narcisa and Andromeda seemed to run away from him, but his oldest cousin, Bellatrix, laughed it off and said that she would've done a lot worse if her sisters had gone through her things and broken something she liked. He saw himself being embraced and understood by Bella and he did everything in his power to make her look at him and like him – sure, once she was married, things were a bit different and she didn't stay with him as she usually did, but one thing joined them again: the Dark Lord. The rising to power of that wonderful, smart man changed everything again. His hatred and his anger were useful and Bellatrix smiled at him more than his mother ever did to him as she was always too busy keeping sweet Connor Rosier, his younger brother, alive, well-fed and well-dressed as if he was a baby.

Now, at seventeen, his anger was bigger, meaner and greater. It made him fear himself sometimes as he stared at his target, unable to make him grin from getting to his thin, dry lips.

"Anne Sage is a bitch," he commented.

Elizabeth hesitated and stopped talking about their potions' assignment.

"Evan, we really need to get this done," she said, scared of the reaction that came whenever anyone went against him.

"Look at her!" he said, ignoring her. "Sitting there, reading her stupid little book under the shade as if she was some type of princess, always having someone nearby to attend to her. Honestly, those boys that surround her must fuck her every night; there's no way any of them are friends with her."

"James Potter is her cousin," Elizabeth said, blinking and looking around.

"Must part her legs either way," he scoffed, still watching.

The red hair was pulled up in a bun, a dark wand holding it in place a few metres away from her, the back turned to the two. She had been sitting there before the two had gotten there, reading a book distracted, distant from everything around her. Too distant. Too distracted. And it made Evan hopeful.

"Evan, I really think –"

"She's alone at the moment," he said, grin stretching.

"What?" Elizabeth asked.

She looked at the red-headed girl, looking around for someone from her group to come over and sit beside her as they usually did as she read under the shade to warm up a bit, but there was no one at all. The courtyard had a few students walking by, but no one seemed interested in staying for long. Summer was coming through and not all British people could deal with the heat it usually brought, mostly running away from it.

And before she could think of anything else to do, Evan had his wand in his right hand.

The high-pitched scream made Elizabeth wince as she looked at Anne.

Her whole body froze.

The girl lying on the ground, ears bleeding as she screamed and wailed in pain wasn't Anne Sage, that was Lily Evans, face red and neck filled with vein as the blood-pressure peaked with the spell.

"Shit," Rosier said.

"Oh, Merlin, Evan what did you do?" Elizabeth exclaimed, jumping to her feet.

"SHIT!" Rosier said.

Usually, he wouldn't care much about attacking someone with as much filth in the blood as Lily Evans, but he knew something that made a great difference between Lily and Anne. If Lily was hurt, she would protect herself and call a teacher to deal with him, maybe throw detention his way and take some house points away; Lily Evans would get him in trouble, which would go to his father, which would get him in even more trouble since he was told to stay under the radar. Anne Sage wasn't one to go to teachers to complain, she was one to turn and attack back straight away, making him pay under her own hands; everything that happened between them would stay in between them.

"You silly boy!" Elizabeth screamed, running to Lily. She gasped at the amount of blood now coming from her nose as well. "Call someone! Go! Call them!"

"What? Have you gone mad?!" he squeaked. "It'll get me in trouble!"

"YOU ALREADY ARE!" screamed someone.

This time it was truly Anne Sage.

Anne was stomping towards him, James Potter and Sirius Black right behind her as Remus Lupin ran past them to go call a teacher, Peter Pettigrew running the other way to get another teacher as he noticed there was a duel about to start.

As Rosier turned, he was stupefied right on the chest, making him fly back and hit his back against the tree so strongly that he coughed, gasping for air as he fell to the ground.

"You little insolent boy, how dare you?!" Anne said, raising her wand again. A Stinging Hex hit the fallen body as she controlled her best not to use something stronger, though she really wanted to. "If you as much ever dare to look at Lily again, I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

"Anne!" James screamed, kneeling down beside Lily. "Do you know the counter-curse?"

But Anne didn't hear him, blinded by her anger as she kicked Evan Rosier in the stomach as he tried to get up, crawling towards her. He fell face-first to the grass once more, making Elizabeth squeak.

"Anne! ANNE!" screamed Sirius.

His yell woke her from her trance, making her turn her back to Evan Rosier and run towards the small group of people trying to calm the shrieking Lily Evans down – she was confused, in pain and seeing a lot of blood that she wasn't sure where was coming from, but more than anything she couldn't see or hear anything, not even her own screams.

Anne threw a spell at Lily, making her eyes roll back and close at once, her body relaxing against James'.

"Anne, what did you do? Have you gone out of mind?!" Sirius exclaimed.

"What did you use? What did you use?" James was asking.

He moved quickly, throwing Lily slightly to the right to get up and carry her in his arms. She wasn't heavy enough for him to be worried about dropping her, but the amount of blood made his hands a bit slippery.

"Take her to the Hospital Wi—" started Anne, her hands were shaking in anger and worry for her mother.

"YOU WILL NOT!" roared Severus Snape.

He boys turned, ready to scream a him for getting in the way of getting Lily Evans to medical attention, but they soon realised that he had barely paid attention to that, all he was looking for was Evan Rosier with his wand arm up, mouth open as he tried to say anything, but Severus soon took him out of the ground with a wordless spell and turned him upside down, making the boy drop the wand to the grass underneath him.

Anne was quick to get the wand from the ground, holding it tight and ignoring the dark magic coming from it.

"What's happening?" Anne asked.

"You will not create more trouble than what you're already doing, Rosier, or else I'll have to share a message that I do not want with your sponsor," warned Severus. "Take Evans to the Hospital Wing," he told the boys. "Sage? You alright?"

"Bastard tried to attack me from behind!" she said, quite offended.

James ran with Lily, Sirius opening the way as more and more people came to watch the fight. Amongst the heads, Anne saw a familiar bun low in the back of an adult woman's head and she held her breath.

She knew what came next as she saw Remus Lupin palely ignoring the fight and making his way through the crowd to keep running to the Hospital Wing. He knew she would be fine at the moment, so he ran as fast as he could once the corridor was less crowded.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING OVER HERE?" shrieked Minerva McGonagall.

Although Anne didn't hate Minerva, she did have to complain that she was loud in her anger, making all her sensible persona disappear and give way to an elderly woman who had her order wrong in a restaurant.

"The son of a bitch attacked me from behind!" Anne announced.

"Language, Miss Sage!" said Minerva.

"He did try to attack her when her back was turned, but I silenced him before," Severus said. He looked like the Prefect people said he could be when he was in a good mood. "He, however, did attack Miss Evans in the back."

"Something is wrong. I've never seen the spell, there was blood everywhere! Her eyes, her ears, her nose! It was horrible!" Anne complained.

But Minerva wasn't hearing her.

"MISTER SNAPE PUT MISTER ROSIER ON THE GROUD STRAIGHT AWAY!" she shrieked again. "That's not the way a Prefect should deal with a fellow student, even if their actions were as despicable as these ones."

And without hesitation, the spell was cut off and Evan fell head first on the grass without anything to cushion his fall. Minerva glared at Snape as he made his best blank face to stare back a her – for a moment, he thought that adult Severus certainly felt slightly intimidated by Minerva as well, because she was a powerful witch and, once she was no longer his professor, but his equal, then things were a lot scarier. He could glare at her now, but her glare made him look away after a while.

"She attacked me, too!" Evan said, voice hoarse, glaring at Severus and Anne.

"Miss Evans?" Minerva asked.

"Sage!" corrected Evan as he forced himself to stand up, petting his clothes down to get rid of grass and dirt. "She went all muggle on me and even fucking kicked me in the guts when I was down."

"You deserved it and I would do it again," Anne spat in his direction, the saliva landing a centimetre from his shoes.

"Miss Sage!" scolded Minerva.

"I would!" she insisted.

"ENOUGH! Detention tonight with Professor Slughorn!" Minerva said.

"What?! I defended myself!" Anne said.

"A defence is a shield, not another attack, Anne, not in a school," she said. It was almost as if she said that in a war, then things were different, but wanted to remind her that she was just a child once more. Everybody loved to remind her that she's just a child in their eyes. "Therefore, you get detention as well. Prefect Severus Snape crossed the line of punishments allowed on students by other students. And Mister Rosier will have the rest of the week and a half until graduation to repent for his actions by a detention during the evening every day, including weekends."

One thing that was good about Professor Slughorn was that he was terrible in being an adult, even though he was a surprisingly good teacher in his time. Still, he left the three fighting teenagers alone once Pomona Sprout came to talk to him, ask for a few favours of him in her green house, not thinking that perhaps they could fight again and the detention would mean nothing to any of them... even though if already didn't mean anything to any of them, but they pretended well enough.

"You know, if anyone any less smart than me saw the scene of today from the start, they'd call you traitor, Severus," said Evan as soon as the door locked behind Slughorn.

"He locked us in here?" Anne asked, ignoring Evan completely and stopping her rigorous rubbing of the stained caldron to walk to the door and rattle the doorhandle. "What if any of us have to go to the bathroom? How inconsiderate of him, I swear!"

"I don't think he plans on taking long," Severus said, also ignoring Evan and stopping his work to turn to look at Anne, getting her intention by moving away from Evan. "He wouldn't lock two Slytherins with a Gryffindor, especially his favourite one."

"Oh, you're too nice!" laughed Anne. "Me? Slughorn's favourite? I'm a half-blood. I can' be his token muggle-born this way, even if my grades are high enough to get his attention. That's why he has Lily for, Severus, you are aware of that."

Evan sighed, hating the feeling of being ignored. He stopped working and crossed his arms, turning to pay attention to Anne as well as she leaned against the door as if the Potions classroom was all too familiar to her.

It was odd to watch the serious and taciturn Severus Snape interacting with Anne. Though his demeanour wasn't what Evan would call friendly, it was certainly a lot more open than it usually was with anyone else besides Regulus Black and Narcissa Malfoy (not even Lucius Malfoy could get anything other than a smirk from him without the help of his wife or cousin-in-law). And there was Snape's lips twitching as Anne walked across the room to sit on top of the professor's desk and cross her arms, watching his reaction to her little joke.

"Is Evans alright?" Evan asked.

Anne's eyes turned colder before she even looked at him.

"Temporarily deaf, but fine, no thanks to you," she said, voice firm. "You're a coward, you know that, right?"

"I thought it was you," he said.

"But we both know you'd still do the same thing if you knew there would be no consequences to you, and by the same thing I don't mean hexing a muggleborn, I mean attacking someone from behind," she said. She shrugged, her head tilting to the side. "You know, I don't blame you too much. If I was as weak as you and as dumb, I would also attack the terrifying Lily Evans by the back so she wouldn't get to me with all her strength," she smiled just a bit, just enough to get him angrier than he already was. "I suppose I could take your attack as a compliment. It truly means that you weren't sure you were going to get out walking from our little meeting if you didn't attack me first and without my defence, of course."

"You think too highly of yourself," he warned.

"No, you think too highly of me and you're making me cocky," she said. "That's why I'm confident. Let me tell you something about me, the more people are scared of me, the more powerful I get. That's how I work, and that's how a lot of people work."

Severus looked down at the caldron. She was talking of Voldemort, but not only him. He knew very well her opinions about people in the Ministry and how they got their seats and jobs without really deserving them.

"That's how smart people work, by respect," Evan said.

"Respect is different from fear, believe me I saw the difference before," she said. "I've been under the control of both of them and I know the difference. You think someone under fear will no attack back, fearful of the consequences, but you're wrong, they do attack and the people on top never expect it... that's what makes it so fun. I had a teacher once, a horrible one, insisted on saying that she was respected, but when in truth she was feared and hated, and when I bit her, I didn't let go until she begged – and I'm being literal," she smiled a bit more, teeth showing. "I have very sharp teeth."

"Let's hope it doesn't cut your very sharp tongue well," Severus said in warning.

She rolled her eyes.

"It's Evan Rosier, what power does he have," she scoffed. "I fear my shadow a lot more than I would ever fear him."

She glared at him to find him glaring back.

Neither of them had their wands, but Anne was standing closer to where they were locked away in Slughorn's desk. Neither of them seemed to want to start another duel, but his eyes were certainly burning a lot more than they were before.

Anne didn't fear him, that much was clear. She didn't meet him in her own time, he was dead already, killed by a just integrated auror in his first mission. He wasn't something for her to fear; he was a coward and dumb, he was a little boy in a body of a man filled with hatred of something he did not understand. Fearing him was the same thing as fearing Vernon Dursley, something she promised to herself she wouldn't do ever again in her life.

"You don't know me. You don't know my family!" Evan said in warning.

"Believe me, I know enough things about your family to make your pubs uncurl, you little bastard," she said back with a sneer and disgust that made Severus proud.

"Enough of that, Anne!" said Severus, starting to get worried. Did she forget things could change? Didn't she change so much already? "Enough of your tongue and enough of your jokes. Your cheek might kill you one day."

Severus needed her to be silent. If she knew nothing of the Rosiers, then she was getting herself in more danger than she would expect. She was already not liked by the Black women, she shouldn't dare to go to Rosiers and not be liked as well, but it was already too late; Anne had teased too much in her anger, much like the Gryffindor she pretended to be.

He needed to protect her, like he had failed to do before.

Carefully, Severus walked to where she was on the table and gently took her arm and led her back to sit beside him, while he sat between her and Evan.

"You better control your friend, Severus," Evan said.

"She's not my friend," he said. Anne turned to look at him in clear shock. "My romantic relationships make no difference in our business with the Dark Lord; therefore, you're not entitled to know, nor is anyone that I don't want to, but I warn you out of respect for your family and position, Rosier, you dare to as much as look at her wrongly once more, I will kill you without hesitation and shall be the consequences without fear. I'm sure the Dark Lord would understand my protective streak with my own woman."

The shock was clear in both other people in the room.

Anne concealed her emotions quickly, hiding them away and looking at Severus with an exaggerated admiration that she usually held back to look only at Regulus with. Though Severus was clearly uncomfortable under her curious, but attentive gaze, he pretended to look at her with something other than indifference for once.

Evan, however, wasn't half as good as Anne at pretending and certainly didn't think she could do anything about it as well, so all he did was allow his jaw to slack as he watched the interaction with great surprise. Severus stared back at him without fear of his retaliation since the boy seemed to be barely able to speak at all.

In any other situation, Anne would've showed her distaste for being called, indirectly, Snape's property, or anyone's property at all. But with the odd company she was in at the moment and the way Severus seemed slightly more tensed up than he usually was, she saw no option but to accept the lies and go with them to make sure both and Severus would get out of the situation with some resemblance of win, even if it would lead to an awkward talk between them and their friends, where her real boyfriend was very included.

"Liar," Evan said.

"Why would I lie about it?" Severus asked.

"Why would you date... her?" Evan asked, lip curling in distaste. Anne smiled in anger to him. "Snape, really –"

"Why wouldn't I?" Severus asked. His own mind completed with 'because she's annoying when she wants to be', but he kept his mouth closed. "She's a half-blood like me, she's a powerful witch with great pedigree, if ignoring her father's mistake of a woman, much like ignoring my mother's even worst taste for a man."

It was hard to say that Potter had a terrible tase in women like he was doing when he knew very well that her mother, the temporarily deaf woman in the Hospital Wing, was Lily Evans, the girl he had been in love with when a child.

"She's –"

"Careful with your words," Anne warned. "Severus can be scary with his words, but I do complete my promises fully and, usually, without warnings first."

Evan glared at her as she raised her eyebrows.

"Anne, please," Severus said, turning to look at her.

She went quiet, looking away as if she didn't want to be involved in the conversation anymore.

"Severus, this is a bad decision," Evan said. "I heard the rumours, of course, but I thought you –"

"Rumours?" Severus asked.

Anne turned to look at him as well.

"Everybody talked about you two at some point, but I never believed them, of course. I mean, she walks with Potter and his people, I thought you had a bit more of pride and – oh! She walks with them. This is revenge!" Evan said, sounding as if he had just found the most interesting thing about the world. "You dog!"

"Don't call me that," Severus said, lip curling in disgust.

"You're a lot smarter than I thought. Fucking his cousin –"

"Hey!" Anne said, uncomfortable.

"—what a way to get –"

"Enough," Severus warned.

"—revenge, amazing, really!"

"ENOUGH!" Severus screamed. "Everything with you is about sex. I can't deal with it anymore."

"Is this not about sex? Does not the world revolve around sex and greed? Why would it be any different for you?" Evan asked. "You were the one to taught me to see through people's reasons, and yet there you are refusing to say anything about this very out of character moment."

The thing was that it wasn't that out of character. He was always one to protect Anne and Harry Potter, and not for one moment she thought that he would do anything other than that for her.

"I... like... Anne Sage and she's under my protection from now on," Severus said.

And there was no other moment for discussion for the door unlocked and Slughorn walked in as if nothing had ever happened to make him leave three teenagers alone in the very dangerous potion's room.