After that first eventful class, relations with the surly Potions Master eased up a little, and Harry, for the first time, entertained the thought telling him the truth. He didn't, of course, but every time the wizard gave him a few points or paused to correct his potion-making technique, Harry couldn't help feeling warmed. Even if his father might never be a true father to him, the fact that he was at least trying to be fair went a long way towards making Harry's day.

All of that, however, was suddenly called into question by the first Halloween.

Harry had, on that day, been one of the only students to be subdued. Most of the others were excited by the prospect of the sweets which would be available at the Halloween feast that night, but Harry could not stop thinking of what that night had cost him, ten years ago, and he was one of the few who seemed even to remember his parents at all, remember that terrible night, nothing more than a scream and a flash of green light emblazoned on his memory, and a high, cold laugh that made the hairs rise on his neck and arms even now. But aside from a few of the older Slytherins grumbling about "the Dark Lord" being gone and some of the Hufflepuffs lighting candles, it was all about the celebration!

And the classes! After having had to intercept the third note about the feast, Professor Flitwick abandoned the lesson plan he had made and resigned himself to teaching all the first years how to make orange flashing lights on the ends of their wands and how to conjure black paper bats that really flied, and even Binns stopped droning about the goblin rebellions forty minutes in to class and gave an impromptu history lesson on Samhein traditions before going back to his mindless mumbling about Algork the Third and Lothbrok the Unwieldy. Even the Upper Years were talking about the mad Divination Professor, Sybill Trelawney, predicting "Halloween horrors" and the Ancient Runes Professor having her students translate passages from the Hallows Book.

Harry just wanted to sink into the floor. First the total obliviousness of all his classmates, followed by the pitying or apologetic looks of those who belatedly remembered was enough to drive anyone mad- he just wanted everyone to go about life as normal; well, as normal as was possible on this day, recognizing that it was a day of suffering for him but not pitying him, or worse, trying to sympathize. But at last, after an interminable day, it was at last time for the feast, which promised to be equally interminable. He might actually have stayed in the dorm, if that had been allowed, but unfortunately it was not if you were well enough to go, no matter who you were grieving, and Harry didn't want to have to ask for a special exception for himself. He might have claimed illness, though, but he didn't know any illness-causing spells, and the only other options to get himself into the infirmary would be to do something stupid like jump off the moving staircase, let Jewel bite him, or eat something moldy, so he decided just to put up with it and go.

The food was, he decided, almost worth it. They had all sorts of party snacks on levitating trays and far, far too many sweets to eat at one sitting, and someone had released actual, live bats- not the conjured paper ones- to fly around the hall. Pumpkins the size of Cinderella's carriage in the fairy tale had been carved with grinning or snarling faces, and the backs were cut out so that two or three children at a time could climb inside and sit down on the benches which had been affixed- somehow- to the walls of the enormous jack o' lanterns. Harry almost found himself enjoying it, that is, until a callous remark from another student reminded him that his parents had died on this day- well, his mother had. And she had died for him. Harry was just ruminating dismally on this topic, while a disillusioned Jewel, on his shoulder, tried to cheer him up:

~Your birthgiver would not want you sssubdued, Harry,~ she told him Grieve when you get back; ssssunbathe now~ when suddenly Professor Quirrel burst into the Great Hall at a run.

"Troll! Troll in the dungeons!" he screamed, and then toppled backwards in a dead faint in front of the head table. Wait, backwards? Harry frowned, even as the other students burst into a pandemonium of motion and screaming, and the teachers leapt to their feet. Why would he be falling backwards if he had been running, unless it was an act? If he had really fainted, the momentum of his running would have made him fall forwards, if anything. And why had Dumbledore just told everyone to go to their common rooms just now, when two of the common rooms were in the dungeons, where the troll was? Shouldn't they be staying in the Great Hall, with the doors bolted? Something was definitely not right.

~I sssmell your uneasse,~ Jewel hissed in his ear, shifting to make herself more comfortable against his bare neck. ~What isss the matter?~

~There isss a troll, a nassty, dangerous animal, and it issss loossse in the casstle,~ Harry told her out of the corner of his mouth as one of the prefects shouted for him to come along.

~Then why are you leaving the sssanctuary?~ Jewel asked, and Harry had to resist the urge to laugh. Even a snake knew better to leave the Great Hall with a troll loose in the castle. Granted, Jewel was an unusually intelligent snake, but still!

~I honessstly have no idea~ he told her in return as he began to follow the other Slytherins back to the common room. ~Either Dumbledore isss sstupid, or he hassss an alterior motive.~

~The sssecond one; I could ssmell the desssseit on him~ Jewel hissed, and Harry resisted the urge to repeat something for which Aunt Petunia had washed Dudley's mouth out with soap for. How could Dumbledore do something like that in a school full of children and not get caught? In muggle primary school a teacher who pulled something like that would have been sacked, and Dumbledore was the headmaster.

~Leaf-mold covered sson of a impotent ssslug!~ Harry hissed, unable to stop himself.

Jewel gave him a mild ~Language, Harry~ and one of the other Slytherins shot Harry an odd look, but the boy didn't care at all, not with how angry he was. At last, when they were almost to the common room, they heard a sudden, irate roar.

~Ssso there iss actually a troll!~ Harry said in shock, not even realizing that he was still speaking parselmouth, and he ran along with the rest of the students. And then, just as Harry was going to enter the common room, one of the older students shoved him aside with such force that his head cracked into the wall on the opposite side of the corridor.

When he was able to focus again, the door had already shut behind the rest of the panicked first years. And he could hear the troll lumbering down the corridor behind him, mingled with the clatter of armor that the creature was probably striking on the way. He ran to the stone where the entrance should be.

"Pureblood! Asphodel! Hippogriff! Torjurs pur!" he tried, listing all the passwords he could remember in his panicked state. The door did not open. ~Jewel, do you remember the passssword?~ Harry asked the snake hurriedly. He could almost feel the creature's fetid breath- and he could certainly smell it.

~No,~ Jewel responded after a moment, and Harry could have cried. Instead, he took off running again, hoping his speed could counterbalance the lesser mountain troll's habit of trying to chase anything that moved. Damn it, why couldn't his imbecilic housemates so much as bothered to tell him the password?!

Severus Snape was not in the best of moods. It seemed as if he was the only one who remembered what had happened on this night, the only one who remembered that their peace had come at the cost of so many lives, his Lily among them. His Lily. Merlin, he missed her. He always missed her, with every beat of his pulse. Some days, like now, every breath he drew did nothing but remind him that she was no longer breathing. It was not as if that mattered, though. He didn't not have the luxury of maudlin sentiment, and should he show the slightest grief, the slightest hint of something other than gladness or possibly anger (as a "loyal" Death Eater, it would not do to pretend too much joy on the day on which the Dark Lord, however temporarily, vanished off the face of the earth) he knew that it could- and would- be reported.

It was so hard, though, to have to pretend that it was just another day. Not even Albus knew what Halloween truly meant to him, and Severus would never tell him, either; better to let the meddling old man assume some story of tragic and unrequited love than to know the truth, that she had come to him for comfort from her abuser and that he had taken advantage of that. Besides, those memories were too private, too personal. He had never quite trusted Albus in general, but the one time he had let himself slip, the old man had crushed him. Severus never made that mistake again. He was no saint and certainly never had been, but he knew he would not be able to stand the grim disapproval in the old man's eyes. He was already remorseful enough, himself.

His classes were, as always on this day, much more unmanageable than usual, and Severus was nearly ready to throw a jar of pickled fire salamanders at the next student who thought it would be amusing to pass notes. Instead, since he did still have a bit of self-control, he made said student (a very terrified Hufflepuff) read it out loud to the class. It was about the feast, of course; they were always about the feast: "Are you looking forward to it?" "Do you think they will serve fuarag?" "What are you going to dress up as?" All they cared about was the feast! Not that this day marked the day of the elder Potters' deaths, not even that this day was the day that the war ended. Not even that today was Samhain, the night upon which the veil was thinnest, a night known to be associated with spirits walking the earth, necromantic and animantic rituals, and the summoning of demons and sprites; a night where ancient magic, blood magic, and death magic was strongest. A night where, if you were not careful, the darkness would sweep you away.

Severus was so tired, the exhaustion bone-deep within him. He finished his classes, retreating into his chambers with a pile of quizzes and papers to grade, thinking that even if he was miserable, he might as well get something done and then have an early bedtime. He had just picked up his red pen, in fact, when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he snapped, swearing privately to himself that if this was some student only out for extra credit, he would hex him or her. As it turned out, it was Albus.

"My boy, haven't you forgotten the feast?"

'Oh, no, here it comes,' Severus thought, too dismal even to snap at his employer. Albus always found something for him to do on Halloween, allegedly to keep him busy, to keep him from remembering. Severus personally thought that it was to keep an eye on him, considering that it was never enough to dispel his memories while still managing to make sure he couldn't have a moment to himself. Perhaps Albus thought that he would give in to his alleged addiction to the dark arts and try to contact Lily's soul or bring her back. Or perhaps Albus really was trying to help. Severus personally thought that the latter was unlikely, but then, it would be easier to reach the far-away stars than to predict what passed for thought in the old man's mind. "Of course not, sir," he replied, carefully keeping his tone neutral.

"It is in one hour, you know."

"Yes."

"You're chaperoning, my boy, have you forgotten?"

"I fail to see how I could have forgotten something which was never communicated to me," Severus responded, making a concerted effort not to let his frustration show on his face. Evidently it had worked, because Dumbledore did not bat an eye. Either that, or the old coot just didn't care.

"Well, I suppose you know now," Dumbledore told him, that infernal twinkle kindling in his eyes again. "Am I to assume that you will be ready in time?"

Severus didn't bother with a response, at least until the headmaster raised an inquiring eyebrow. Then he sighed and nodded tersely.

"Excellent! Be at the Great Hall at eight, then."

Severus nodded again and, knowing he would likely not get another chance to work on his grading, picked up his red pen and poised it over the stack of quizzes.

"One more thing."

Severus suppressed the urge to ward the headmaster out of his chambers and instead said in his calmest, most dangerous tone: "Yes sir?"

"Keep an eye on Harry, will you?"

Albus had interrupted him to say that? Why in Merlin's name would he care to keep an eye on Potter? Severus struggled to make an appropriate response. "Yes sir. Now may I please grade my papers? I doubt that I will have any time once I have to transition to baby sitting sugar-hyped students."

Albus had the nerve to laugh as he left Severus's chambers.

Severus did, indeed, keep an eye on Potter, mostly just out of curiosity. The boy was surprisingly subdued, and though he ate and talked with the other students, the usual light in his eyes was quite gone. Severus felt a momentary flicker of sympathy. The boy's parents, after all, had died this day, ten years ago, and it was clear that the other students, like the senseless creatures they were, hadn't even considered that he might be grieving. Then Longbottom said something to Potter, who smiled and picked up a cupcake, replying to whatever he had said with a laugh, and the moment passed. Severus went back to watching his Slytherins to make sure that they weren't up to something and wishing that he was permitted to leave. It would be a long night.

It proved to be quite longer than he'd thought, as, an hour or so in to the feast (it's not like he had had the time or inclination to cast a tempus) Quirinus Quirrell crashed in through the great double doors and ran up to the staff table, blurted some nonsense about a troll in the castle, and pantomimed a faint, throwing the entire hall into chaos. Severus knew instantly that it was a distraction. First of all, the faint was clearly faked (Severus was a good enough actor himself not to see that) and second of all, even had Quirinus been sincere (which was not something that Severus believed he could do) there was no earthly reason a troll would be let into a castle full of school children unless someone was planning to distract Dumbledore in an attempt on the stone (or if Hagrid was particularly drunk, but he seemed sober enough. Besides, not even Hagrid could appreciate a troll.)

Dumbledore appeared to have taken the bait though, as he immediately ordered all the students back to their common rooms. Severus bristled. His Slytherins slept in the dungeons, allegedly where the troll was! He had been about to go check on the stone, but on hearing this, he hissed to McGonagall to make sure it was safe and slipped out of the hall like a wraith, in search of the supposed troll. It would be easy enough just to bind it or knock it out, right?

Severus swooped through the halls of Hogwarts like the bat that the more impolite of his students always compared him to, wand half out of its holster so that he could draw it within seconds. After far too many minutes of fruitless searching, he drew his wand with a muffled curse and hissed "Point me, troll." The wand spun in his hand immediately, and then pointed in the general direction of the Slytherin common room. And Severus ran, faster than he ever had in his life.

It was then, at last, that he saw the troll. It was trying with all the force and ingenuity it could muster (the former considerable and the latter quite negligible) to ram its way through the barred door of an empty classroom. Severus came at it from behind, casting a binding spell (the troll was too stupid for a stunner to have much effect) and repeating said binding spell until it toppled over, bound. Then he cast alohomora on the door and through it open, in an effort to discover why the troll had been attacking him. What he found was certainly not what he had expected, considering that the moment he opened the door, a bottle full of moldy potion (he wasn't even sure what kind it had been, though it was probably a cheese potion; they did tend to be the likeliest to mold) flew straight at his head. It was only his considerable combat experience that kept him from being hit.

He entered the classroom, this time with a full-body shield up, to see Potter, with his wand clutched anxiously in his fist, his snake arching defiantly over his head.

"Potter!"

Luminous green eyes caught his, and the tense little body relaxed ever so slightly. "Professor Snape," he replied, lowering his wand. "Thank God!"

That was probably the first time anyone had thanked God for his arrival, but it wasn't as if there was time to dwell on the unique sensation. "For Merlin's sake, why are you out here! You were ordered to your common room!"

Potter ducked his head. "I'm sorry sir. I didn't remember the password."

"You didn't remember the password?! For Merlin's sake, boy!"

He did not understand Potter's flinch, but it made a very odd feeling rise inside him. He was about to mollify his statement slightly when the boy replied: "They don't always tell me, sir, and I didn't get to the door before it had closed." Then he lowered his eyes as though he expected to be struck.

There was something very wrong about all of this. "They don't tell you the password?" Severus asked, incredulous.

Potter mutely shook his head. At Severus's raised eyebrow, however, he elaborated: "I don't get along well with them, you know. At least Blaise talks to me..."

Severus felt an uncomfortable flashback to his own youth, where the only ones in his house who would talk to him were those who would later "convince" him to join the Dark Lord, but shoved it away. "If you can't make any friends, sleep in Hufflepuff. It's not my problem!"

Sea green eyes blazed with rage, and the snake- Jewel, was it?- spat threateningly. Potter tilted his head. "Ssss, shhh, stesssas smass," he said to the snake. He frowned. "Sssss. SppsSsss."

The snake must have made some reply, because Potter seemed to grow angry at its hissing. "Jewel, sssSssssrrs! No, I am not shssshs spsss snisss smssms! He's sssststsss-ssisi!"

"You will not what?"

Potter blanched, then shot "Jewel" a look. "N-nothing sir. Can I go?"

"Evidently it's not nothing. What is the animal trying to tell you?" Severus had to admit that he was curious.

"That, sir," said Potter, beginning to turn his wand over and over in his hands, as though itching to use it, "is private. Can you please just tell me the password and let me go back to the commons?"

Severus had honestly decided to do so; it was nearly after curfew, the feast was over, and he and Potter didn't seem to be getting anywhere. "The password is nepenthe; see that you don't forget it. And five points from Slytherin for not seeking out a teacher."

Potter shot him a poisonous glance at this, as if to say "when would I have done that, in between leaving the Great Hall or almost being clobbered by a troll?" and Severus almost, for the first time in his teaching career, gave back the points. There was just something about those beautiful green eyes that bewitched him, and always had. He might even have done it, too. But at that moment, Peeves crashed through the wall. "Ickle Potty's in a classroom with Sevvie!" he shouted, cackling maniacally. Oh, splendid. He would have spread a completely falsified version of events all over the castle by ten 'O'clock that evening.

Severus huffed and turned back to Potter. "I suppose I should walk you back to the commons. Are you coming?"

Potter paused to have a hissing conference with his pet, and then finally nodded, and Severus walked him back to the Slytherin common room, both of them having to step over the troll on the way, while Peeves pelted them with chalk all the way to the common room entrance. And yet somehow, Severus had the odd feeling that Potter was happy that he was there. Wasn't that an odd thing to contemplate!