It started out like any day, I suppose. I strode out of the dungeons, my feet travelling to the Great Hall but my mind elsewhere; that was how it always was. That day my mind was on what questions to ask on the first big exam of the new year (for my N.E.W.T students, of course). However absorbed I was, I could not shake the fatigue that I felt. It had been growing for some time, really, but at the time I had thought that the ache in my bones had little to do with anything but the fact that I had two teenage boys under my care. While technically during the school year they resided in their house common room and dormitories, they did tend to get themselves into trouble, and therefore had me running after them at least fifty percent of the time. It was tiring, though Molly Weasley had informed me over the summer that it was rewarding in the end. Right then of course, all ever saw was another detention, another lecture and another shake of my head at the very nearly insurmountable damage the two hellions had caused in their mischief. How does one even get a cow up the marble staircase (ignoring the fundamental question of where the hell did they get it from anyway) without being seen by a student or teacher? They probably wouldn't have been caught either if it weren't for the fact that McGonagall transfigured the cow to a cat, and upon shifting into her feline animagus form asked her to describe the people that led her there. McGonagall impressed me from time to time with her brilliance. Anyway, stunts like those were precisely what I thought had led to this ever growing fatigue. I was wrong, but it would take me a very long time to realize just how wrong I was.

      All things aside, that day I went about my usual business, still in my happy bubble of set beliefs. It was a Saturday, and I was fairly content for that fact. The only thing I was not happy about, however, was that I actually had something to do after breakfast. But it was Saturday after all, and my days of bliss free weekends (we'll ignore those days in the past when the Dark Lord called me) were over due to two reasons. The first of course, was essentially my own doing, and that reason was Harry and Draco. Hellions, but nonetheless I had to admit they were my hellions. The second reason had an unfortunate reputation in my books of being just as hellish, though I much preferred to think that it was not by my own doing that I had been thrown into them, but the Dark Lord's. Minerva was teaching me (or trying to at least) how to become an animagus, as it had been discovered over the summer that I had been spying on the Dark Lord by Dumbledore's orders. Therefore of course, my Saturday morning meetings with Minerva were necessary to keep me from perishing in a most certainly humiliating way. Not that I particularly enjoyed them.

          ***

     "You have to concentrate Severus," said Minerva as she paced back and forth and I stood around making funny faces and crossing my fingers.

    "I am but as I don't know what I'm concentrating on ..." I said grouchily.

    "You won't know until you achieve it once," she said patiently, ignoring the fact that I was now muttering profanities under my breath. "Imagine yourself dissolving into nothing, and then reforming into something new."

     "My imagination is as dead as my father," I growled, having grown quite weary with practice. "And trust me, Minerva, he is very dead."

      Minerva pretended to ignore my lack of grief or remorse over the mention of such a thing, and the sheer crassness I possessed to use such an analogy.

    "I know you have an imagination somewhere in there, even if deep, deep down," she said, a smile playing at her lips. "Or do I need to get you a red cape to help you get in touch with it?"

    I told her to do something that was not nice in the least that I would probably wash Harry or Draco's mouths out for if they were to say the same ("Severus!" she said, shocked). I swear that has to be the fiftieth time she has brought that up. I had been trying to forget the fact that I had been de-aged for a little while over the summer, therefore giving Minerva plenty of ammunition to irritate me. Unfortunately (and here's a surprise) she wasn't going to let me forget it.

    "Alright then," she said. "I suppose I went too far that time, but you were so funny as a child."

    I believe I mumbled incoherently with rage at this point.

    "Alright, alright, try again then. Just once more, and then you can go. You're so close, I can feel it ..."

   I took a deep breath and tried to imagine just what she had told me earlier, and surprisingly I could see myself in my mind's eye, turning to dust and then reforming. I felt a slight shiver run down my spine.

    "Did it work?" I asked once I had opened my eyes. I knew of course that it had not as soon as I opened my eyes and heard my voice.

   "No Severus," sighed Minerva, stating what did not need to be said. "But you were close. We'll try again next week then, I suppose. It takes time, you know. You'll get there."

   I nodded, and swept out of the empty classroom. I set off down the hallway at a blistering pace, frustrated after another session. The truth was that I couldn't stand being cooped up like this. Since the Dark Lord found out the truth I had not been able to go out in public, not even for a visit to Hogsmeade unless there were a large number of aurors on my tail, that is, and it was difficult to find so many. I finally understood how Black felt, being a hunted man. Once I succeeded in becoming an animagus, I believed that maybe I wouldn't feel so hunted because I would be able to leave the castle grounds sometimes. I didn't let myself dwell on what I would do if my animagus form was something that would not work so well for disguise. A whale, for instance. I slowed slightly, my chest suddenly feeling tight. I still felt a little shivery, like I had when I was practicing. Now that I thought of it, I had felt that shiver at other times too. I kept walking, even though I was starting to feel a little dizzy. I told myself I would be fine, that I was closer to my quarters than I really was. I had actually only gone one corridor, but I lied to myself that I had gone further than that in order to believe I could keep going. I heard quick footsteps behind me. They sounded distant, and yet they were quite near.

    "Severus, I forgot to give you this." Minerva's voice said. It echoed strangely and I turned around to see her coming towards me with a heavy book under her arm. Even though I knew she was really getting closer, she seemed to be getting further away as the light in the corridor dimmed. Or was that just my eyes? In groggy surprise I felt my knees buckle, and saw her face for a second before I collapsed on the floor, blackness becoming reality.

       ***

    A fuzzy image drifted above me; my eyes blurred and barely opened. I felt a gentle hand on my forehead, and saw a braid of dark brown hair, and honey brown eyes.

     "- say he just collapsed?" asked the strange voice, soft and gentle. The hand was taken off my forehead, and I saw a wand waved.

    "Yes, I've never known Severus to just ... faint like that," said a familiar voice. Minerva, yes, it was Minerva's voice.

    "Oh, look, I do believe he's coming around," said the first voice, sounding pleased.

    I blinked, having trouble focusing my eyes. The brown hair and eyes belonged to a woman that at first I thought I had never seen before, though I couldn't be sure as she looked vaguely familiar. She was wearing the same type of uniform Madam Pomfrey wore, though Poppy was nowhere in sight. I must be in the hospital wing, I thought to myself rather dazedly.

   "Sorry, what ... happened?" I asked, everything I had heard having seemed to have flown from my mind. Though as brown eyes stared down at me I didn't think my lapse of memory had much to do with why I was here in the first place.

    "You fainted," Minerva said, walking over and standing next to the woman.

    "Oh, no, couldn't possibly have," I denied weakly as they both stared down at me.

    "Whatever you say then," said the woman, her eyes laughing.

    "Have you met Laura, Severus?" Minerva said.

   "Oh, what?" I said, slightly far away.

    "Laura, have you met Laura."

    "Er, Hello," I muttered up to her, still too weak to really move much. "Hell of the way to meet, I suppose?"

     "Yes, I should say so," she said with a laugh that made me want to join in. "Here, drink this."

    I eyed the goblet she gave me before gulping it down, recognizing it immediately as Pepper-Up potion.

    "Much better," I said with a slight cough, smoke now pouring out of my ears as I wiggled my fingers and toes, wondering in the back of my mind what had caused my collapse. I pushed that thought away for the moment. "So, what brings you here then, Laura?"

    "I'm here as an assistant to Poppy," she said. "She's doing a study right now and is going to need someone to fill in for her a few days a week for the duration of the school year. I only started the other day."

    "I recommended her, actually," Minerva added.

     "Minerva's my aunt, in case you didn't know," Laura told me.

    "Hang on ..." I said, sitting up and rubbing my neck. "Was this the niece you were talking about over the summer?"

   "The one that had the baby?" Minerva said. I nodded. "No, that was Sarah."

    "She's my youngest sibling and much more ahead in the family department," laughed Laura. "There are four of us, I'm eldest. Anyway, I need to go finish filing away a few things. I'll be back in a while to check on you, and then I'll let you leave. I've done a few simple charms and I can't detect anything other than exhaustion, but if you experience any similar or new symptoms come see me or Poppy."

    "I will," I replied "Thank you."

    "You're welcome," said Laura with a smile. "Nice meeting you by the way."

      What's her surname?" I asked once she was gone. "I think I recognize her."

    "Baldwin," Minerva replied.

   "Ah yes, she was a few years below me," I said, and now I remembered seeing her sorting, though I wasn't entirely sure what year. Some boys had been pulling her pigtails while they were waiting to be called up.

    "Now, tell me Severus," Minerva said sternly, "why are you fainting all of a sudden?"

    "I don't know," I said quickly, taken aback by her fierce expression. "Well ... I have been chasing Draco and Harry around since term began, and that lesson was probably the last straw."

     "Those two certainly are a handful," she muttered. "Perhaps you are right."

    "Dad!" said a very worried voice as the hospital wing doors flung open. Speaking of those two ...

    "Hello Harry, no, I am not dying, I have not been cursed, I have not gone back to spy on the Dark Lord and I most certainly am not going anywhere," I said in one breath. Harry had a tendency to worry. It was in his nature due to the fact that people who cared for him had a nasty habit of disappearing.

          "See," said Draco as they reached the bed. "I told you he was fine." He turned to look at Minerva and I before continuing. "We ran into Professor Flitwick and he told us what happened. How did you end up in here anyway?"

      "I ate one of Albus' lemon drops and it was so sugary that I nearly melted," I drawled, thinking quickly. The boys looked at Minerva expectantly.

     "He fainted, actually," she supplied.

    "Why?" Harry asked curiously.

     "I don't know," I said, rolling my eyes. "Probably from chasing after you two every other day."

     "Well, you don't need to try so hard to catch us, you know," said Draco slyly.

    "Now that is a Slytherin comment if I have ever heard one," I said. "Why don't you try to do fewer things that require me to catch you in the act?"

     "If I had known that dragging a cow up the marble staircase would cause you to fall ill," Draco said tremulously, pretending to wipe his eyes, "I would have done all I could to spare you."

    "Including not drag a cow up a staircase?" I said dryly.

    "Maybe ... even .... that," he said dramatically hand upon his heart as he looked skyward.

    "Draco, you know what Albus has to say about drama productions," I said lightly.

    "Hey, it's not my fault Professor Kettleburn set the stage on fire, I wasn't even born when that happened," Draco said. "Besides, it's fun to be dramatic sometimes." He drew himself up and bowed to an invisible audience. The longer that boy had been away from the Malfoy influence the weirder he got. He did baffle me sometimes.

    "Wait, what happened? What stage?" Harry asked, confused.

    "Next time you see Albus, Harry, ask him what he thinks about the stage adaptation of The Fountain of Fair Fortune," Minerva said with a smile. "It's quite the story, and is the reason why Hogwarts does not have a drama program."

       "Well, Severus," said Laura as she walked over, still shuffling papers, "I think you have been here long enough. How do you feel?"

      "Much better," I replied as Draco and Harry stared at the newcomer.

     She gave her wand a wave, and then nodded. "In that case, I suppose you may leave, as long as you promise to take it easy for the rest of the day." She pulled from her pocket a chocolate frog and gave it to me. "I would suggest you eat that, it will give you a bit more energy."

     I nodded, secretly looking forward to the chocolate frog. They were one of the few sweets I enjoyed, probably because every Christmas my mother would put a precious little frog in my stocking. It was the only time as a child that I got candy because we could very seldom afford it. Naturally I had grown fond of them. 

    As Harry, Draco, and I were walking down to the dungeons they were full of questions about the new matron. I answered as many as I could. I was just glad that they were thinking of something besides my fainting spell, because quite simply it worried me. I was never one to faint, and had been much more tired in the past than I was today. I hoped it wouldn't happen again soon, and I hoped that it was not the sign of something worse.