That night was quite probably the most amazing one I had ever had in my life. No, nothing inappropriate happened during those several hours, neither of us would ever allow that, and that was perhaps why I trusted Snape so much. Because I knew that he would never let any harm to be done to me; especially not by him. And I would never hurt him.

However, I still felt wonderful with him, whenever he let me cuddle up against his body, giving me that sweet sense of security. For if he stayed with me all the time, no-one else could even put a finger on me.

I suspected that it was exactly the night, even though I had already given him my answer, when I finally got really happy upon thinking that I would stay with him all my life. I wondered what our life together would look like; because I did not believe that it would only consist of the pleasant moments. Difficulties and pains had to come, too, and before everything else – prose of everyday life.

Although I woke up at dawn, I closed my eyes for a while more, sensing Severus's presence right next to me. His calm, rhythmical breath showed he was still fast asleep, therefore I did not want to wake him yet. There was no need for either of us to get up so early, so I let myself get lost in my dreams.

I wondered what my parents' reaction would be once they got to know that I planned to get married. I suspected that they did not expect it to happen so soon – besides, they probably did not think I would get involved with someone like me. It would only bond me more to the world I lived in now, therefore the chance for me returning to their world, the Muggle world, was smaller. Moreover, what would their reaction be once they knew that I would become the wife of my former teacher?

Snape sighed quietly in his sleep, and I gently put my hand on his. Even now, it was cool, even though his embrace gave me the feeling of pleasant warmth.

We would live there, in Cokeworth, in his family house. I could only hope that some life would return into the town... well, at least we would be able to give this house a new life. It was going to become a beautiful, warm house. A place where we were going to go back to for every holidays with pleasure, so we could take a break from the school noise.

Were we going to have children? I blushed softly when such a thought appeared in my mind. I knew that it was way too soon to think about that, but I could not help myself. At the same time I realised that the answer was: it was quite doubtful. Snape hated children. He definitely disliked his students, and I was not sure whether the fact that it would be his own children would change anything. Not to mention, we would not have a chance to bring them up, since we both spent almost all year at Hogwarts.

Finally, I gently slipped out of Severus's embrace, then began to get dressed. I let him sleep; he really needed that.

Yet I, as soon as I got dressed, walked to the kitchen, where I could prepare some breakfast. I had managed to realise that what Snape had tried to convince me to was in fact not so bad, even though I had been resisting it so stubbornly all that time.

I had not mastered the "kitchen magic", as I called it, yet, at least not to the point where I would risk preparing the whole meal like that (after all, I did not want to poison anyone), so I started in a simple, Muggle way. I hoped that even if Snape saw me like that, he would have nothing against it, because for some reason I got the impression that he wanted to cut himself off the Muggle world, but I did not know why.

I was just putting the kettle filled with water on the old-fashioned stove, when I suddenly heard some strange noise. I frowned a bit and looked around.

"Severus?" I asked, but got no answer.

After what we had heard from McGonagall the previous day, I was really beginning to get nervous. On the other hand, though, it might have been just my own imagination playing tricks on me – I could once again get into my paranoia. I took a deep breath and got back to what I had been doing, listening intently. I could not let myself forget about the weird nose I had just heard, even though it could be just a book falling on a shelf.

Just in case, I reached into my pocket and pulled my wand out, then put it on the kitchen top right in front of me, so I could always take it.

But I did not make it. As soon as I let go of my wand, I felt some strange pain in my back, as though someone had hit me with something, and my body got completely stiff. I fell onto the floor painfully, and over me appeared two faces: one which I did not know, and another one, which I wanted to scream at the sight of, but not a single sound came from my throat.

"Is it her?" asked the stranger.

"Her," the other one nodded, then aimed at me and muttered, "Obscuro!"

A black band immediately appeared over my eyes, so I had no idea what was happening around me. I could hear someone whispering, "Mobilicorpus!" and my body, now completely rigid, began floating in mid-air. I wanted to shout, to alarm Severus... because if it was him they wanted to hunt down, then he needed to be careful. However, I was simply unable to say a word – and to my terror, I realised I did not even have my wand with me, since I had left it on the kitchen top...

Severus... if you can hear me... I beg you, run!

I had no idea where they had taken me. I only knew that when they had finally put me on some flat surface, someone shouted, "Incarcerous!" and thick cords were suddenly wrapped from my ankles up to my neck, so as soon as the Full Body-Bind was broken, I was still incapable of moving.

After a moment, I heard a swish of a wand, and I was certain that someone cast some nonverbal spell, but it only caused the band from over my eyes to disappear. I blinked, not accustomed to the light.

"Bring Nott," muttered one of the men standing over me.

"I'm not going to tell you anything," I snapped at once, though I knew that it could have been the most foolish reaction from me. However, I had no intention of cooperating with them, even though it could mean my death.

The man who had just made such a command laughed quietly, then knelt down next to me, touching my face. Quickly, I turned my head to make it impossible for him, but it only made him giggle again.

"So young, yet so cheeky," he said quietly. "We'll see what you'll tell us and what not... Because, you see, we have our ways of getting information we need."

"You'll be sent to Azkaban for this," I hissed. "And there's no coming back from there, until you're dead."

The man clicked his tongue.

"Oi, oi, oi... I think I know a bit more about Azkaban than you do, little girl," he muttered. "Sometimes I regret that Fenrir's no longer with us... if he were, believe me, he'd be so fond of your skin."

I shivered. I knew perfectly who he was talking about. For almost everyone knew Fenrir Grayback, one of those werewolves who tasted human flesh even when they did not turn into a wolf. This one, in turn, found it honorable to attack as many people as possible.

"Ah, you see... you know who I'm talking about," he sung, apparently quite amused by my reaction. I took a deep breath, but did not answer. It must have irritated him, because he stood up and looked around. "Where's Nott?"

"I'm here," replied a calm voice, and I noticed a pale face of a young man. He was not much older than me; I was almost sure I still remembered him from Hogwarts. He must have been in the same year as Harry Potter."

"Have you brought it?"

"Do you mean this, Avery?" Nott lifted his hand, and in it, I noticed something I did not want to see at all: a little phial filled with a water-like liquid. Who would have thought that after what I had experienced the previous day, such a thing would happen now...

The man called Avery looked like he was losing his patience. On his temple I saw a pulsing vein, and the corner of his mouth twitched nervously.

"Don't tease me, Nott," he growled, then beckoned at the men who had brought me there, and they immediately got closer to me and pushed me onto a chair. Until now, I had never seen anything like that: as soon as I sat down, the chains rang and bound me, so I could not move.

Once more, I looked at the Death Eater I knew. No... I could not believe that he was a Death Eater. On the other hand... would his presence at Hogwarts not make everything match, forming a whole? Now, I finally understood how it had happened that the potion had been poured into my drink during the Christmas feast...

"You don't have to do it..." I whispered, but it only caused the man to laugh.

"You're even more naive than I thought, Shirley," he replied. "Of course, I do have to, and I will do it. I'm only surprised that until now you haven't thought of... that you're so shocked..."

I closed my eyes, not believing it could be the truth. But there was no other explanation. I tried to free myself once more, but the binds and the chains turned out to be too tight for me to be able to move at all.

"We don't have the whole day, Nott, make her drink!" screamed Avery, and Nott at once appeared right next to me.

"Open your filthy mouth, Mudblood," he snarled, but I gritted my teeth, looking him in the eye. I did not intend to follow anyone's commands. The Death Eater slapped me hard across the face, but I only gritted my teeth more.

If I only had a wand... but would it change anything at all? I still would not be able to move. I would not be able to make any motion, cast any spell... but I would feel safer somehow.

"Open up, Mudblood!" cried Nott, this time being quite agitated as well. When I still did not do what he wanted, he aimed his wand at me. "Crucio!"

I screamed. Never had I felt a pain as terrible as that one. As though every single nerve in my body was burnt with a white-hot poker. It was horrible – but the worst was the fact that I had a feeling that this pain was never going to end. I wanted to stop crying, because this way I gave them the opportunity to pour the potion into my throat, but I could not. Tears burnt my eyes, and I could not even squirm in agony; I only curled my hands into fists, feeling my nails digging into my palms.

That was when I felt that drops of something completely tasteless landing on my tongue. Without a second thought, I spit everything out, which resulted in me getting slapped across the face once more. I tasted blood, and the man's hand grabbed my face quite brutally. Yet the pain I had felt before a moment disappeared just as quickly as it had started.

"I'm not going to waste all my Veritaserum on you, idiot," he hissed, almost pushing the bottle into my mouth. It was my only chance

Not thinking much, I bit him hard on the fingers. I heard Nott's piercing scream, but it in no way improved my situation. I was not sure whether I had or had not taken a dose of Veritaserum, and the fact that I had attacked one of them made the others go berserk. I saw Nott squeezing his hand, it bleeding profusely.

"You think you're so smart?" Avery sneered, immediately pulling his wand out. "Let's see if you'll still be so willing to play... Crucio!"

I had no idea how long it had lasted. I had a feeling that it had been hours... maybe days, years... eternity. I was tired of constant pain, and at that moment, I could only wish for death. The fact that the chains kept me up on the chair were the only reason why I was not lying limp on the floor. I breathed heavily, my face wet from sweat.

Nott had gone away, as well as two other Death Eaters. In front of me was only Avery, smirking triumphantly.

"What now, Mudblood?" he asked quietly. "There's no-one to help you... no-one. There's just the two of us."

I wanted him to kill me. To see the flash of green light as everything stopped. But at the same time, I knew that Severus was still in danger. As long as the Death Eaters' attention was drawn to me, he was safe. Or at least a bit safer... I had no idea how many of them there were.

"I am... not going to tell you anything," I breathed, lifting my heavy eyelids.

"We'll see about that," he muttered, leaning over me. Only inches parted my eyes from his. Not thinking much, I spat right into his face.

"You bitch," he growled, once again casting the Torture Curse on me. I howled like a wounded dog.

Please... may it end... may it pass...

And it did, indeed, pass. Once again, when I already thought that I would die, that there was no hope for me, the pain stopped and the madman's laughter reached my ears.

"Did it hurt?" sneered Avery. "Good... now, let's see how much you'll tell me... Legilimens!"

There was no other spell I would be as scared of as that one. I did not know how to protect myself against it, and this way one could get into the deepest secrets of my mind. To everything... my stomach turned a weird somersault. To the moments spent with Severus.

Right in front of my eyes scenes from my life began to appear, like in some grotesque film. I got the impression that Avery had not yet mastered the spell perfectly, because he could not find what he was looking for.

I was sitting on a stool in the Great Hall, my knuckles white from my constant clenching my fists. I was trembling when Professor McGonagall put the Sorting Hat onto my head.

"The redhead's going to faint!" laughed a voice on the right, and I could not even get angry, because that was exactly what I felt.

I'm quite convinced you're not going to become a Gryffindor, I heard a high-pitched voice in my head.

I don't want to be a Gryffindor, I want it to end already, I thought, strangely irked with the quiet voice.

Well, students usually really want to become Gryffindors... you know, many wonderful wizards came from that House.

Just like from any other, I answered at once. Everyone thinks that it's the courage that could let you reach for anything, and yet the courage is so often confused with stupidity."

The quiet voice laughed, but did not answer; instead, I heard the Hat cry, "RAVENCLAW!"

"Enough, enough, enough!"

The other voice certainly did not belong to the Sorting Hat, but it brought me back to reality. The dark hall once again materialised in front of me, but my eyelids fell almost immediately.

"I'm not interested in your childhood memories!" yelled Avery. "Talk, Mudblood...!"

But he did not finish. His face stilled, turned greenish-white, and he, himself, soon fell limp onto the floor.

"It seems, Avery," I heard Snape's quiet, full of disgust voice, "that you have something that belongs to me."