Aurellia raised an eyebrow as Snape started to say something scathing, then changed his mind.

Instead, Snape walked back to his desk, picked up his book and started reading again in an obvious attempt to ignore her. Aurellia kept making pointed glances at the hourglass -- even with his little jaunt, they still had 10 minutes left, and she was going to hold the troll-headed wizard to every second! It appeared, however, that Snape was determined to continue the silent treatment until the agreed upon half hour had expired.

Aurellia watched two minutes slip by and wondered what was going on with Snape, when, surprisingly, the object of her contemplation finally broke the silence.

"I suppose you will be Watching again tonight as you were the night Lucius paid me a visit?"

"Yes, of course. I abide by my promises, even though I may end up regretting them."

"So, as far as you are concerned, this is only a matter of duty, of obligation, nothing more?"

Aurellia thought for a moment. "I hadn't really given my motivations that much thought," she decided. "Duty is important to me, as it has always been to my father. It was he who taught me to always try to do the right thing, to keep my word when I have given it. But I suppose, yes, perhaps there is more to it than duty."

"Oh?" Snape lifted an eyebrow and gave the Defense teacher a piercing black-eyed gaze. "And that would be...?”

"Curiosity, perhaps," Aurellia mused. "Watchers are supposed to get to know the people they are assigned to protect, in order to do their job more effectively. But it is not a requirement, apparently. I can't seem to figure you out no matter how hard I try, and yet I've sensed it whenever you were in danger." She shrugged. "I'm new to Watching, but apparently I have a knack for it."

"You are persistent, and thoroughly impossible to discourage as it is," Snape observed. "I would hate to see you if you were passionately committed to your profession."

"Oh, but you have, Snape," Aurellia responded firmly. "Or weren't you paying attention all those times you stood there and spied on my classes?" She paused for a moment, then remarked, "It's a pity, really, that you don't appreciate teaching more..."

“Perhaps after you have taught for a decade or two, you will have a little less appreciation for the job and a little more appreciation of my lack of enthusiasm for it,” Snape retorted caustically as he turned his attention back to his book.

“You’re always so cynical!” Aurellia remarked. “How can you think that I’ll ever lose my enthusiasm for teaching? Granted I’ve only taught here for a few months, but I also taught undergrads in the States three years ago, and I’m sure that I’ll never tire of teaching! I love it! In fact, before I came to Hogwarts, I deeply regretted following my original career plan to become a barrister. I began to realize that I should have stuck with teaching.”

"Thus you agreed readily when Dumbledore asked you to come here and stick your nose in my business—without the least bit of consideration for how I might feel about the intrusion!” Snape mused testily. “Why on earth would you want to live among the Muggles instead of holding down a good wizarding job, anyway? I would have thought that an elf would be more comfortable around other magic users."

Aurellia stared in surprise, too stunned to respond at first. But when she did answer, her expression was sad. "You have noticed by now, I'm sure, that while I'm an elf ... I don't exactly look like one."

Snape looked up and nodded. "I had noticed that. But I don't need to ask the reason why because you're going to tell me all about it anyway..."

Aurellia glared at Snape before explaining. "When Voldemort and his Death Eaters attacked our village, Luk and I fled to the woods. I was 7, he was 14. We wandered in the woods for three days before being found by a county sheriff. During our time there, Luk had our elven features magically altered." She brushed her curly, golden hair from the sides of her face, and Snape noticed small white scars on the top of her ears. "Luk decided that it was necessary for our protection, in case the Death Eaters came back and found us. Our elven features would have instantly doomed us," she explained.

"But neither one of you were very old," Snape said, looking unsettled. He pushed the book aside and stared at Aurellia in shock. "How did he manage such tricky, delicate work? Even Madam Pomfrey...."

"He was training to be a healer then. Most elves from my village do ... did ... since that was our area of natural talent. Being the equivalent of a 5th year student at Hogwarts, he had learned quite a bit of medical magic by then. We started history and basic education when we were 4, and formal magic schooling when we turned 9 or 10, depending on when we were deemed ready by the village elders. So Luk knew exactly what he had to do, but he wasn't very experienced. It was a very painful process for us both ... we lost a lot of blood." She gazed at the cold, unlit fireplace and the jar of Floo powder on the mantle, anywhere but at Snape. She did not want him to see her sorrow.

"Those three days in those woods were a living nightmare. We were the only survivors of the attack. We were constantly afraid of being found, either by Death Eaters or the Dementors and other monsters that moved in when the Death Eaters left, and we could not call on the help of the nymphs or dryads that used to protect us, because they were all destroyed, too. We foraged the woods for food ... roots, berries and the like, and we drank from the streams we found. But what we didn't know was that everything we touched, everything we ate and drank, was somehow contaminated by the evil that had infiltrated those forests. The guardians of those woods were no longer there. We had unwittingly poisoned ourselves with every mouthful we consumed. When we were found, we were barely alive. Luk was in the hospital for about 2 weeks before being sent to a Muggle orphanage. I was in the hospital nearly a month, and then I was sent to the same orphanage. When I got there, Luk told me it would not be a good idea for us to use magic or to divulge who we really were.

"So we kept quiet, living like ordinary Muggles in that orphanage. And that was almost as bad as the time in the woods because the food was strange to us, and the other children were very cruel and we had to learn to live without magic, lest the Death Eaters find out and come after us again. We even had to learn a completely different language. We only knew a few words of English, and no one there understood Druidish. We lived in grief and hardship, and fear for about a year there, and then we got very lucky. We were both adopted by the Deverouxs.

"Although, looking back, I wonder if it was luck, or if my cousin had been practicing his magic in secret. He knew quite a few charms and enchantments, you see."

"So your cousin worked for the Ministry, but you chose a Muggle profession. Why?" Snape asked.

"Because I was younger when I found myself plunged into the strange, magic-less world of Muggles. I hadn't even begun formal magic training with our village school. I adjusted in time, and I finally decided that after what had happened to my village, I wanted nothing more to do with that way of life. But two years after we were adopted, my cousin was invited to Hogwarts--on a special scholarship of course. My cousin refused to go because he wanted to stay and watch over me. We were very close, like the Weasley siblings, and Luk was always afraid that the Death Eaters would come back for me while he was away, even though Voldemort was brought down two years after the attack on our village."

The sand in the top half of the hourglass continued its steady downward migration even as the much-disputed half hour expired, but by this point neither teacher was paying the least bit of attention to it.

"So instead of leaving, he hired a few tutors with the wizard money Dumbledore graciously loaned him. He also borrowed and studied any magic-related textbook he could get his hands on. My parents thought he was preparing for medical school at Oxford, and they didn't inquire too closely. They were very distant and little involved with our lives after they'd adopted us -- another reason I suspect Luk may have influenced them when they took us in.

"Luk's tutors played along with the deception, of course, and the Deverouxs never suspected a thing. I didn't even know, until he had been working with the Ministry for more than three years. Eventually my cousin wound up getting a ground-level position with the Ministry of Magic. He quickly moved on to reconnaissance, and scouting, and guarding VIPs, and always, wherever he went, he used his amazing healing skills. He even saved the lives of a couple of near-fatally poisoned Aurors once! Odd and varied jobs he was very good at, and he seemed to get bored quickly if he did the same kind of work for more a few months at a time. He was a powerful wizard, but he didn't like to flaunt his power, and he was always learning new things. He was, quite simply ...amazing. He was a far stronger than I was, or ever will be."

"Thank heavens I didn't duel your cousin," Snape remarked sarcastically, belatedly remembering that Aurellia didn't particularly tolerate insults when they were directed at her family, as in the case of the wand and the locket.

Aurellia shot him a look that could have flattened a dragon.

Snape reached for his book and pretended that he had found a particularly interesting page.

Deveroux continued. "As I mentioned earlier, I was not the first person Dumbledore had in mind when the Defense Against the Dark Arts post was --once again -- opened. Luk was."

"Of course," Snape spat. "It would never have been me. Heavens no, I might kill someone."

"Oh give it a rest, Snape. If you were meant to be teaching that class you would be. But since you aren't then it must not have been meant to be. Why don't you just accept that and get over it?"

"And since your cousin isn't here, and you are Watching in his place, and Dumbledore will not listen to reason, then am I 'meant' to be forever plagued by your presence?"

"Luk is dead now, remember?"

"Oh," Snape fumbled lamely, and he flipped through the pages of his book as he fished for a less dunderheaded response. He finally settled on a lukewarm, "My condolences. Now that you mention it, I do remember you saying something about that at the Quidditch game, and later when you had the gall to project my personal and private correspondence all over the wall of my office."

There was a heavy silence. Aurellia turned away, her hand in front of her face, trying to prevent the flood of tears that wanted to come whenever she thought of Luk. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw Snape close the book, then reach a hand out to touch her shoulder ... but his hand stopped and hovered a few inches away. Deveroux looked over just in time to see the Potions master quickly draw his hand back to his side.

"I'm ... sorry," Snape muttered, unable to look at Aurellia.

Deveroux regarded him thoughtfully. "Dumbledore told me that at the Quidditch match three months ago, you did the same thing. You went to touch me, then withdrew. I didn't see it, but I remember noticing when you got all distant and withdrawn all of a sudden. Why?"

Snape muttered something about having had a very bad experience in the past that involved bodily harm, but Deveroux ignored it and pushed on.

"Were you afraid of my reaction? Is that it?"

"I ... yes. Yes, that's it exactly." Snape got up suddenly and walked towards his cabinet, away from her. He started flexing his fingers nervously, then he crossed his arms and gripped his elbows.

Something certainly had upset him, Aurellia noted. But she didn't think she'd said or done anything to elicit that kind of reaction.

"Come on, I'm not Jaspine Greggs. It's not like I would have broken your wand over your head or anything like that. Okay, I might have jumped about six feet off the bleachers and told you very curtly not to do it again, but I don't think I would have caused you bodily harm." Deveroux rose from her chair and moved to where he stood. He faced the cold, stone granite walls, not looking at her. "And since I've found out that you're not always the troll-in-goblin-mail you pretend to be, I certainly wouldn't have minded just now...."

Snape remained silent and still. Only the movement of his hands clenching and unclenching revealed he wasn't a statue.

"Look at me," she said firmly, "And read my lips. It's okay, Snape. I don't mind."

She reached out a hand to touch the Potions master, but Snape stubbornly turned away and fled across the room. "You don't understand," he said quietly, head down, looking haunted and withdrawn. He was like that a lot lately when he wasn't being sarcastic or arguing with her, she had noticed. In fact, he'd been acting rather odd ever since the day he had grudgingly accepted the owl.

"What don't I understand? Why are you so afraid of me all of a sudden? I'm supposed to be your Watcher, work with me here."

She crossed the room and confronted the obviously uncomfortable Potions master.

"I wouldn't have bitten you if you would have just placed a hand on my shoulder ... its a natural response, to ... reach out to someone once in a while. Why do you bottle everything up and keep everyone at such a distance? Don't you worry that someday the bottle will explode when the pressure inside gets too great?"

"Every night..." Snape responded, looking very much torn between the impulse to run and the longing to give in.

"Then touch me ... you're allowed," Snape still didn't move. She sighed. "Look you have my permission, but if you're going to be a stubborn troll-headed fool and not listen to me, then fine. Suffer in your own self-imposed isolation. I give up. You're impossible!"

There was a whirl of embattled emotions in his eyes, an internal struggle of some sort that she could not begin to read, and then it seemed as if some sort of a decision had been reached. Slowly, the Potions master again lifted his hand, and laid it on Aurellia's shoulder. She was surprised to note that he had a gentle touch, and that his eyes were suddenly not so cold or tormented as they had been a few moments ago.

Finally, Aurellia thought, now I am getting somewhere--uh oh! The thought was interrupted as the Potions master put a hand on her other shoulder and looked almost hungrily into her eyes. His grip tightened perceptibly and there was a flicker of something dangerous in his eyes. And suddenly the elf began to get the distinct impression that she had just unknowingly waltzed into a werewolf's den during a full moon.

"O...okay, good, that's a good start," Aurellia announced quickly and took a small, hasty step backwards. She tried not to show her sudden unease, and knew that she was failing miserably when Snape's hands slipped off her shoulders and balled into fists. Instinctively she took another step back and began formulating a spell of protection in her head. It occurred to her that Dumbledore had said that he would trust Snape with his own life, but he had not mentioned trusting him with anyone else's life.

The Potions master whirled furiously and struck his fists against the nearest wall, then proceeded to do the same with his forehead.

The elf stared in astonishment, and it was one of the very rare occasions in her life when she found herself completely at a loss for words.

"I told you half an hour ago to leave! Now get out you foolish girl before it is too late!" Snape commanded furiously, anguish plain in his voice. "Go back to Dumbledore and tell him what a fool he is for bringing you here! It was always me I was afraid of, not you!"

"How do you...how could you possibly know what we said that night after the duel?" Aurellia stammered in amazement.

"Because I know what Albus would say, because I know how foolishly optimistic he is, and because...he has done this to me once before!" Snape replied bitterly, grinding his forehead into the cold stone of the dungeon wall. He was actually shaking. This was a side of Snape the elf had never seen before, and it was rather frightening, and a little sad.

"I...I don't understand," Aurellia said, trying desperately to regain her composure. She suddenly felt as though the world had just shifted off its axis, as if everything she thought she'd known had been turned upside-down.

Snape leaned against the wall for support, one hand over his face and the other pressed flat against the wall at shoulder level. "I know you've been talking to my old colleague Lupin..." he said quietly.

"Yes, we've been good friends for some time, actually," Aurellia answered guardedly, wondering where on earth this was leading.

"And did he tell you what happens to him whenever there's a full moon?" Snape continued, running a hand through his stringy hair and deliberately looking away from the elf.

"Yes," Aurellia replied again. "In fact I've even seen him in his wolf form many times, when Remus came to live with Luk and I four years ago. He was Luk's best friend. But my cousin's sleeping charms on the room where he stays put him completely out for about 24 hours, and he's fine when he wakes up."

"Didn't you ever stop to consider what might happen to you if he didn't sleep through the transformation?"

"Yes ... well, not exactly, but I think I can handle a werewolf if the need arises. I know some pretty powerful instant knock-out spells as you may have observed..." Aurellia said, deliberately needling Snape in an attempt to lighten up the tone of the conversation.

But the Potions master was deadly serious, and he ignored the jibe. "Tell me something, Aurellia," he said quietly, looking at her for the first time since he'd bruised his knuckles on the wall, "did Remus ever tell you how hard it is to be human when you have a monster living inside you?"

"You're a werewolf too?" Aurellia asked in skeptical disbelief.

"Guess again," Snape retorted caustically. "You're Dumbledore's hand-picked Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, aren't you? Why do you think I so rarely go to the Quidditch matches? Why do you suppose I teach in this dungeon of a classroom? Haven't you noticed that there are no reflective surfaces in this classroom or in any of the places I frequent? Haven't you ever noticed that I seldom touch a single bite of their traditional yearly feasts? Why do you think they don't trust me to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts?"

It suddenly dawned on her. "Of course!" Aurellia exclaimed, "It all makes sense now. You don't go to the games unless Slytherin is playing because you don't like the sunlight, but you have an obligation as the head of your House. Ditto for the lack of windows in your classroom. You don't like mirrors because you're afraid of what you'll see in them, and the feasts are pretty self-explanatory. They don't exactly cater to the dietary necessities of vampires, I've noticed."

"Dhampires," Snape amended flatly.

"Half-vampire?" Aurellia remarked, amazed. Dhampires were extremely rare according to the chapter on vampires in Magical Creatures and Mage Races of the British Isles "Then your mother was a vampire and...."

"My father was a vampire," Snape corrected waspishly. "And my mother went to St. Mungos because she couldn't handle the eventual transition, fought it every step of the way until she finally went completely mad. And I inherited the worst of both worlds. I have all the disadvantages of vampires and none of the benefits. I dislike the taste of blood, and by now I am sure you have noticed that I did not exactly inherit the traditional vampire charm and charisma."

"I thought that it was just a myth that when someone is bitten...." Aurellia trailed off nervously. This whole conversation was starting to give her the creeps.

"It's not just a myth! But I do not know if I have enough vampire blood in me to ... why am I telling you all of this, nosy little girl? This is the part where you run away crying and I never see you again. So go on, run along now. You're already several minutes overdue, and Dumbledore is probably getting worried. And when you get there, tell him that I said he's a fool! And tell him that I hate him!"

"Please, spare me the melodrama," Aurellia snapped tartly in spite of the fact that there were icy shivers running down her back. "I'm not some lovesick teenager, and I'm not Dumbledore's pet project. In my former profession, I dealt with rapists, murderers, and other hardened criminals. One of my clients even tried to attack me, but as you have already observed I don't need a wand to cast some rather effective defense spells.

"I'm also not bothered by the fact that Remus transforms into a man-eating wolf from time to time, and I think I can get used to the fact that you have a few not-quite-human quirks. I'd still like to be friends if you'll give me a chance."

There are times when my mouth's a lot quicker than my backbone, Aurellia thought.

"But you don't understand! I don't just turn into a wolf whenever there is a full moon. I am always a dhampire, and it is not something I can control or charm away!" the Potions master shouted hotly. "Throughout all the ages of history, no one has ever invented a potion that can take the place of what I have to do when I can't stand the craving any longer!"

There was an uncomfortable silence, during which both professors took a sudden interest in the dust on the dungeon floor.

"I see...." Aurellia said at last, breaking the excruciating silence. "No wonder Dumbledore doesn't really understand. How could he? You've never really talked to him about this, have you?"

Snape snorted and looked away. "It is not something I like to talk about...and it most certainly is not something others want to hear about."

"And that's why you teach Potions, isn't it?" Aurellia deduced. "When you're not working with the kids, you're searching for a cure, or at least a way to cope..."

Snape snorted again. "I used to...a long time ago," he grumbled. "Not anymore. Because there isn't one. I am what I am. I cannot change that."

"Is that why you've been trying to get Dumbledore to let you teach Defense Against the Dark Arts? Because you've given up the search?"

"Do you think that I like teaching little brats how to make shrinking Potions and love charms? That I take some masochistic pleasure in cleaning up their endless catastrophes or in putting up with their sloppy work and horseplay when they deliberately disrupt my classes?"

Aurellia thought for a moment, and then crossed her arms in a very Snape-like stance. "I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper in death--if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach!" she said, imitating Snape's teaching voice.

"Spare me the pathetic impression," Snape snapped. "Potter is much better at it."

"Very well, to answer your question then, yes," she said at last, "I think in a way you do. And I wonder if you've ever admitted that to yourself."

"Don't tell me what I like and don't like," the Potions master retorted bitterly. "I wanted to be an Auror, did you know that?"

"An Auror?" Aurellia repeated in horror. "But that's the most dangerous job a wizard can do. Most Aurors eventually go mad and end up like poor Moody, if they live that long!"

"Or they get out. Did you know that Dumbledore used to be an Auror for a while?"

"No!" Aurellia exclaimed. "I had no idea ... but it makes sense now that I think about it. He was the one who defeated Grindelwald."

"That was before my time, though," Snape reminisced, "and all he told me about it was that he would rather forget that those years had ever happened. That was at the time he was trying to discourage me from taking an apprenticeship with Alastor Moody. Yes, that Moody, but you must understand that Moody was different then, less paranoid. Now that I look back, though, I suppose that the job was wearing on him even then, but Dumbledore was the only one who noticed because he was close to Moody, and because he does not miss much.

"Anyway, I would not listen to Dumbledore. I was headstrong, of course, and when I insisted on having my way no matter what he said, Dumbledore brought the Ministry into it, and I was forbidden to learn any useful magic. Well, as you can imagine, I was quite furious, and I said some things to him that I later regretted. But I have never been one to apologize, and so we stopped speaking to each other for a while. Once when I was about to graduate, he tried one more time to talk to me. He called me into his office and offered me a position at Hogwarts, but I turned him down rather harshly. For you see, Lucius Malfoy had already introduced me to another very powerful adult wizard who did not like rules and restrictions, and who promised to teach me any spell I wished to learn in return for my loyalty."

"Voldemort!" Aurellia whispered.

"Yes," Snape continued reluctantly. "It was the biggest mistake of my life ... and yet, it may have been the very thing that saved Dumbledore's life."

"How so?" asked the elf.

"Well...it is a very long story. Voldemort did not count on having a traitor he couldn't spot amongst his inner circle. I had proven myself a loyal Death Eater in ways I would rather not mention, and so his suspicion never fell on me when I finally patched things up with Dumbledore and began passing information to him."

"So you weren't really a Death Eater; you were a spy. Yes, Dumbledore told me that."

"Yes, and that is why I had intended to go to Durmstrang. I was planning to attempt to get back into Voldemort's new inner circle. I figured that it might as well be me and not some other naive fool who would only be walking blindly into almost certain death. I already have so much blood on my hands..."

"But Voldemort's people have been threatening you. You're not trusted by them anymore. I don't buy it, Snape. There was some other reason..."

Snape shrugged and cut her off quickly. "I guess it took the dolt all these years to finally figure out who the traitor was. And now I think that you had better leave, or else you will find out very shortly why I prefer to be left alone at night."

Unperturbed, Aurellia brandished her wand and said, "I'll pull your teeth out if you try to bite me, Dracula."

"Argh!" Snape exploded, his eyes wild, "Why can't you take a hint? Get. Out. NOW!"

And for once in her life, Aurellia decided to shut up and comply without another word of protest. Snape had a very scary set of dentures.

****

In the hallway Aurellia mulled over what she'd just learned and remembered what Dumbledore had said about not judging people too harshly when you don't know the whole story. No wonder Snape was always so aloof and reclusive and grim ... and lonely. She thought about what it would be like to be half-vampire, belonging neither to the darkness nor the light, and decided that it would be even worse than being the last survivor of her race. At least she had friends here at Hogwarts, even if they weren't her people.

She also remembered Fedhamohsi's words: You may think that you know him, yet you do not know the dark places he has traveled. Be wary of him.

Well, this revelation certainly explains that little remark, she thought ruefully.

Then she wondered about what Snape had meant when he said that Dumbledore had "done this to him once before." What was he talking about? What had Dumbledore done?

Well, no time like the present to find out.

End of Chapter 26