Harry exited the pensieve and reeled backwards, his hand shooting out to steady himself. There was a fluted, chiming sound as his arm knocked into Dumbledore's silver instruments on the desk. The next instant he found himself hurtling through a vast blackness, along a trail filled with coloured, glittering stars.

Many hours seemed to pass before he saw a glass bubble beginning to appear in the distance, dim light filtering through it. As he zoomed closer the bauble appeared bigger and he could make out distorted shapes, bent on the inside of the globe. One of them seemed to be moving. He watched in horrified disbelief as he was sucked into the centre of the globe. There was a moment of fuzziness, then everything cleared.

***

Snape loomed menacingly over the students in his sixth year potions class, watching them ineptly chop and mix ingredients in ways that, should he have cared more for their lives, would have given him gray hairs and probably a chronic stress disorder long before now. However, as he did not, he merely shouted reprimands at those many unfortunate victims he caught as they were about to add an ingredient a little too precariously to their bubbling mixes.

Today his thoughts were less concerned with the students. Instead, images of the last meeting with the Dark Lord swirled ominously through his mind. The Dark Lord had definitely been less-than-pleased with his latest information, he thought with a wince. The fact that Potter's whereabouts was unknown was frustrating his Lord and the Death Eaters were receiving the blame. Snape flicked his fingers worriedly as he reflected that he too was in the dark as to Potter's location - Dumbledore was also wanting him to find Potter, though he wasn't entirely sure why. According to Dumbledore he had to give Potter a message - one of many, he thought sarcastically - when Nagini was no longer sent on missions. It was one he did not particularly wish to give and he felt a spark of indignation at being asked to do so by Dumbledore. Why couldn't he have given the - no doubt emotionally wrought - task to someone else?  In irritation he flicked his wand, vanishing some badly chopped roots.

At the moment he doubted Nagini was in any danger. Luckily.

As for himself he could not understand why Dumbledore would think Nagini needed saving. He, personally, doubted the Dark Lord's ability to care for anything. And he seriously doubted that his egotistic Lord would ever be worried about Potter having any impact on his pet’s health. Honestly, sometimes he thought Dumbledore overestimated Potter’s ability level. He frowned as he glanced at a student’s potion. On the one hand he needed to know Potter's hiding place to placate his master, but he could not help thinking that the longer it took Nigellus to find out, the safer the trio would be.

But in the meantime his Lord would use him as a magical punch bag if the last meeting was anything to go by. He winced slightly as the memory of the previous night pushed itself rudely into his consciousness. The crucio had been applied somewhat longer than normal. He had had to fight with all his willpower not to make a sound. Bellatrix had also been allowed to join in with a quick few curses before his Lord's jealous ego had reasserted itself. By the time he was released, his nerves were on fire and his muscles so taut he was unable even to stand. He was then allowed to leave. So graciously he thought, his lips twisting in a sadistic grimace as he remembered the Dark Lord's parting words as he lovingly rolled his wand between his fingers, looking down at Snape's twisted body.

“My little Snake - you have sso pleased me in the past. I do sso hate having to punish you. But I am sure I will not need to do so again, will I Severus? You are, after all, sso favoured by me.”

He had grovelled at the feet of the monster before crawling backwards, blind with pain, to the apparition boundary. Returning to the school, he could only be thankful that McGonagall spent so much of her energy now on ensuring that none of the children would be out of bed after dark... He would need to ensure he restocked his potions soon now. And unless he could come up with some reliable and interesting information his “favoured position” - his lips twisted in a sardonic smile - might be exchanged for one somewhat less attractive. And then he would be unlikely to please Dumbledore or fulfil his promise to himself to protect Lily's brat. And Dumbledore's murder… what he had done… his eyes closed with the pain of memory... would have been in vain.

Suddenly afraid he would reveal something of his desperate thoughts to his, albeit dim-witted, students, he forcefully pushed back his melancholy thoughts, securing them behind strong occlumency shields, and focused on the task at hand: namely, preventing anyone in the vicinity getting prematurely blown-up, including himself. The customary scowl graced his features once more as a potion, the entirely wrong shade of green, sharpened into focus before his eyes.