"I am never standing up for you again!"

"Well, that's the first time you have_"

"I am NEVER sticking up for you again!"

Severus was, understandably, fuming. His one bloody act of kindness and he'd ended up in detention. 

"She was bang out of order, mate," George commented. "She shouldn't have been harping on about pure-blood ideals anyway."

"God forbid if she'd begun to attack everyone for their blood type," Nicholas whistled. "There would be a riot on her hands."

"Wait up, what happened?" Lily said, running up to them.

"We just had Professor Bulstrode," Remus explained, shaking his head. "She's an absolute witch."

"She spent about twenty minutes talking about the Prewett and Shafiq families and all the amazing pure-blood dinner parties she's ever been to," Edgar continued.

"So, obviously," said Severus, still annoyed, "Remus here decided to laugh and, being the absolute gentleman that I am, I pretended he was laughing at a drawing on the board. Unfortunately, that toad saw through my ruse and has given me detention for the entire month. Now I can spend every evening with she-who-must-not-be-named instead of just four lessons a week."

"I'm really sorry, Severus," Remus stated earnestly. "I didn't think_"

"She would give me detention for a month?" Severus asked. "Well, think again. This is just the start."

He strode off, infuriated. Remus looked anguished.

"He's absolutely doomed," Edgar commented, staring after Severus' retreating figure.

"Yes, he is," Nicholas said quietly.

Personally, Remus thought Severus could give Bulstrode as good as he got but he chose not to comment.

"I'll catch up with you guys later," Lily said hurriedly. "I need to speak to Severus."

Remus sighed.

"I'd better go and watch the Quidditch try-outs. Bradley's going to be furious with Severus; he'll miss every practice this month."

George agreed to go with him and Edgar and Nicholas left to go back to the common room and complete some homework before dinner.

*

"Severus?" Lily called, having managed to catch up with her friend as he entered an unused classroom.

"Hey, Lils," he muttered, jumping onto a dusty window sill. He gave her a hand up.

"I'm sorry about Bulstrode - I thought they might have hired a decent professor for this year."

"They'll never get a decent teacher. They're all in hiding."

"Why?" Lily questioned, confused.

Severus sighed.

"Voldemort does two things: he recruits and he kills. Most DADA professors teach the subject because they oppose dark magic and, of course, Voldemort is all for it. That means he's out for the blood of most viable DADA professors. Few are brave enough to directly oppose him by being seen on Dumbledore's staff, which is why we've ended up with Bulstrode who is clearly a pure-blood supremacist."

Lily frowned at him.

"Who told you all this? You know an awful lot about him."

"My mother told me a bit when she was lucid enough," Severus replied darkly, which wasn't strictly true but neither was it a lie.

Eileen had told her son enough about Voldemort for Severus to know that no child of Tobias Snape would ever be welcomed into the Death Eater army. However, Eileen was wrong. Voldemort had in fact sympathised with Severus over his abusive father and welcomed him with open arms. At that time, Severus hadn't known that Voldemort was a half-blood but Voldemort had chosen to tell him about his own experiences with Muggle children and how he'd sought revenge for their bullying. All of that, funnily enough, had been enough to lure one particularly sensitive, suggestible teenager into Voldemort's midst.

Lily leant her head on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Severus," she whispered, but Severus didn't know what she was sorry for.

"It's fine," he replied regardless.

He made to move but she held onto his arm.

"Stay," she pleaded. "We haven't talked in ages."

By ages, Lily meant a few days, but Severus still seriously considered staying.

"I'm sorry," he spoke bitterly, "but I've really got to work. My detentions are from six to eight o'clock."

"That's during dinner!"

He shrugged.

"Bulstrode clearly doesn't care about that."

"Sev! You can't let her treat you this way."

He looked at her simply.

"I can."

"Tell Professor Flitwick, Professor McGonagall, even Professor Dumbledore!"

Dumbledore, Severus knew, would be the first person to make Bulstrode stop but Severus wasn't sure that even his input would prevent Bulstrode from doing it again, to him or to other people. She was very similar to Dolores Umbridge in where she held half-bloods and muggle-borns in her esteem.

"I'll talk to you later," he said in a resigned tone, sliding off the window sill. "Enjoy dinner."

*

Bulstrode's office was in the same place as Severus' had been twenty-three years later but the furnishings were markedly different. Like Umbridge, Bulstrode seemed to be trying to keep up a pretence of normality. There was a photograph of a large, ugly man on her desk, presumably her husband and a few books on the 'Sacred Twenty-Eight' and the injustice in allowing pure bloodlines to die out. The curtains seemed to be blackout curtains, which sucked any light or warmth from the room and there was a cabinet with various prohibited dark artefacts inside.

"Good evening, Mr Snape," Bulstrode greeted, wrinkling her nose at his surname. "Take a seat."

He duly did so and she leant forwards.

"Now, Snape, tell me about yourself. Your home life, your parents..."

"I think I'd prefer not to talk about it, Professor," he stated evenly.

"But I would so like to know," she said sweetly, her putrid breath making him feel sick.

"Well, it's a hard topic for me," he spoke at long last, fidgeting with his hands and staring at the table.

If anything, his discomfort fuelled her eagerness.

"You see, my mother, Eileen Prince, is dead," he stated blandly. "She hung herself a year ago at home in her bedroom. She was thirty-three years old. And she left a note. You know what it said?"

Bulstrode's dimly-lit face registered alarm and uneasiness but Severus pushed on.

"It just said 'I'm sorry'. No reason, no explanation, no message. Two people attended her funeral and one of them had never even met her. That's my home life, Professor Bulstrode. Sad, empty and pointless. Do you have anything else to ask?"

A murmured 'no' was good enough for Severus. He didn't know what energy enabled him to leave that room but somehow he was out and away. There'd been no reason why he'd said that. He didn't have to tell her that important detail in his life. She hadn't needed to know. He didn't have to cave in.

But he had. He'd told someone, a complete stranger, what his mother had written on her last day of living, and now he was totally vulnerable. Vulnerable and oh, so alone.

*****

A.N. This took a dark turn very quickly! It really wasn't meant to. :(

However, I shall be publishing at least one other chapter today so I'll try and cheer Severus up in that time. 

For now, this chapter is dedicated to @Skarly_Cyan for finally returning to Wattpad! Welcome back! :)

Thank you for reading and PLEASE COMMENT!