Chapter Ten: The Lonely and the Lost

The twenty-seventh had been and gone; simply another day to most. To the Potions Mistress, however, it was a day filled with pain, regret and loss, though there was precious little evidence of such feeling for the majority, other than that Professor Snape was exceptionally irritable that day — more so than usual.

It certainly hadn't gone unnoticed by her son, who, from two o'clock until twenty-past-three had been intermittently observing her.

She'd had a permanent scowl etched in her features and there was something rather unsettling about it for Rigel.

More snappy than usual, she hadn't wasted much time in giving the Weasley Twins a month's worth of detentions when she caught sight of them attempting to sprinkle bulbadox powder into Zoe Accrington's cauldron.

Neither had she spent a great deal of time tolerating students in general, in or out of the classroom. It perhaps didn't help too much that Quirinus Quirrell was behaving oddly; stranger than he had at school, or even two years previously when he taught Muggle Studies. She didn't trust him; that much was evident, and precisely why he was wearing that infernal turban she didn't know. He certainly hadn't done so before this year and, yet, he seemed to have the 'perfect' excuse — a reward for his trouble with a zombie, or some other nonsense. Personally, Dinah could hardly imagine the quivering man who seemed so scared of everything and everyone possessing any possible demonstration of courage decent enough to enter battle with a flobberworm, let alone a fully-fledged zombie.

As the third-year Gryffindor-Slytherin class filed out, one student remained behind — the curly-haired Gryffindor Rigel Black. He was still looking rather intently at his mother, who, for the past ten minutes, had been seated at her desk grading scrolls of parchment.

"What is it, Rigel?" she asked, head still focused on the essay before her, quill scratching and scraping against the parchment so erratically it were enough to give herself a headache.

"Something's on your mind," Rigel said. He couldn't quite place it, of course, for as much as he loved his mother there was so much history about herself she refused to spill.

"Is there?" she asked, bluntly.

"Will you look at me?" he asked, his voice soft and pleading.

"Rigel, I am very busy. If your only concern is my pattern of thought then it is not your concern at all. Kindly leave."

She really wanted him to go? She had no interest in anyone offering her any sort of support; not even her own son?

"Always changing the subject," he said, quietly. "I love you, Mum. I just wish you'd let me show it," he added after a pause, before throwing his bag over his shoulder and exiting the classroom, subtly rubbing a hand across his face.

The other third-year class that followed that afternoon hadn't fared too well either, and three female students, two in Hufflepuff and one in Ravenclaw, had been left in tears by the ill-tempered Potions Mistress.

Oh, there was no mistake Dinah didn't like herself, but she had a tendency to take her self-hatred out on others when pushed too far.

While the class, of course, had no idea of how their teacher's mind worked and knew even less of her true character, there was no mistaking the somewhat-noticeable change to her persona that day.

Not one student said a further word to her after the Ravenclaw dared to challenge her; merely continued their class in complete silence and left in complete silence.

The guilt Dinah felt for so many things came flooding out the moment she returned to her quarters. She had remained there from her final class until Monday morning, eating only a minimal amount left for her by a kind house-elf she had known since her teens.

"Missus Dinah is hurting," said the little house-elf, setting a tray on the coffee table in the living area.

"'Miss,'" Dinah corrected. "I am not married. Neither am I 'hurting.'"

"Missus Dinah misses Baby."

That was something Dinah hoped the student body didn't know. It was bad enough news had been circulating among the house-elves all those years ago, but she knew enough to know this little house-elf wasn't stupid. This little house-elf could hold her water and keep her promises.

"Jenny knows Baby is safe and well," the house-elf said, giving Dinah what she herself hoped was a comforting, if lop-sided, smile.

"You can't possibly know," Dinah almost spat, her efforts to remain composed becoming strained. "Seventeen years, Jenny. Seventeen years I've lived not knowing. Whether he's dead or alive doesn't matter. He isn't mine. He can never be mine. He's not Vega, he's not Little Sirius; he's not mine."

"Your baby, Missus Dinah," Jenny said, looking to the forlorn witch, who was facing the wall, forehead and hands grazing the cold stone. "Always."

Dinah whirled around in frustration, tears meeting her eyes. "Do you know how that feels, Jenny? To have four children and lose every last one of them?"

"Not four, Missus Dinah," Jenny said, a faint glimmer of hope in her large round eyes. "Baby is alive, Missus. And Master Rigel. Missus Dinah has Master Rigel."

"Four," Dinah corrected. "Snatched. Stillborn. Drowned. Neglected."

Realisation hit her at the utterance of the last; pure, unadulterated loathing in her tone of voice — admittance of her own misdeeds. She had neglected Rigel the way she watched the Smiling Assassin take her baby. The way she felt such pain at spending so much time in labour for all her efforts to be so fruitless that she couldn't save her son. The way she allowed Rigel to take Vega to the riverside to play; for only one child, and one alone, to return.

She had neglected Rigel for so long now. It hurt to think she might even attempt to try and build a bridge across the deep ravine she herself created through grief.

All his attempts to come, and remain, close to his mother since the age of nine and she had rejected him at every turn; yet she continued to do it. She had done so earlier in the day. She realised he cared about her, but how could she possibly bare her soul to him? How could she allow herself to become wholly vulnerable? She hadn't even done that with Sirius. Just as she had never told Sirius of her abnormal relationship with her parents (though he, admittedly, hadn't had the best of upbringings himself; a fact he'd never hidden from anyone closest to him) she couldn't tell Rigel either, for it was easier to shut herself away from the pain than to have him stare her right in the face.

To think Dinah Snape was scared of her own son would be almost laughable to anyone at Hogwarts, but Rigel had a way of figuring certain people out. His mother may forever remain shrouded in a cloud of mystery but she knew he had some subconscious insight into her psyche and it scared her to death.

Whether it were possible for him to have inherited her skills with respect to the mind, the fact it was likely terrified Dinah. It was so much easier to push him away and avoid all contact, for her secrets could remain so. Suppressing her own secrets meant Rigel could never be hurt by the truth and it was so much more satisfying to Dinah that he may be able to remain ignorant and get on with his own life; no burdens resting upon his young shoulders.

Recognising her own feelings brought over a wave of undesired emotion and the broken woman crumbled; falling to her knees, heels of her hands attempting to flow the waterfalls streaming from her eyes.

She scarcely felt Jenny the House-Elf wrap her thin arms around her, offering her some source of comfort.

As September morphed into October, there was much excitement from the students of Hogwarts over Hallowe'en, or perhaps rather the Hallowe'en feast. Any excuse, Dinah knew, for a school full of adolescents to act like a bunch of idiots (though perhaps no more than usual) simply due to an incomprehensible amount of sugar in their systems.

The Headmaster didn't help much either. In fact, Dinah might almost have sworn he made Hogwarts worse on purpose; particularly on Hallowe'en. Students running riot around the school from too many sweets and several teachers slightly tipsy or wholly inebriated from alcohol-induced confectionery; a fact evident enough in Dinah's view from her witness of Sybill Trelawney at the far end of the teachers' table, who was contentedly inhaling firewhiskey-flavoured fudge, coupled with a glass of sherry that seemed never to empty.

Several times Dinah had complained to Dumbledore about her colleague's drinking problem and, as expected, her concerns had fallen on deaf ears. After all, Sybill was completely harmless as a general rule, drunk or sober, though was certainly more trouble than she was worth the moment she fell into a trance-like state. Dinah knew that all too well.

As the body of Hogwarts enjoyed themselves, save for the caretaker, Argus Filch, who, by his very nature, was deemed unpleasant, and Dinah herself, the woman in question surveyed the Great Hall. Normally, there'd not be anything to note of importance, but with the artefact from Gringotts' housed in a low-set chamber deep in the bowels of the castle Dinah had to increase her own vigilance.

Quirrell was late to the feast.

She'd hoped the man had an impeccable excuse for his tardiness when, and if, he finally showed up to take his seat beside her. She didn't trust him; that was for sure. All things considered, could she really trust men in general? They'd never brought a great deal of positivity to her life (except, perhaps, Sirius) and whether she were in an intimate relationship with them or a business-like one, she didn't fully trust them. Quirrell was no exception.

All things considered, she did remember a comment during a third-year class earlier in the week in which her own son whispered to one Alicia Spinnet that he thought Professor Quirrell had shifty eyes. (Dinah had almost snorted with laughter at the time.)

"TROLL!" came a distressed cry, following the loud rumble of the heavy golden doors at the opposite end of the Great Hall. "IN THE DUNGEON! Troll in the dungeon!"

It were Quirrell himself, the very man Dinah had been thinking about not three seconds before.

The Hall fell so quiet at this exclamation that anyone could have heard a pin drop.

But it wasn't a pin that dropped; it was Quirrell himself. "Thought you ought to know."

Splayed haphazardly on the stone floor in the centre of the Hall, the man fainted; the students around him entering full-blown panic mode and clambering over each other, screaming to get out and return to the safety of their Common Rooms.

"SILENCE!" Dumbledore bellowed, his usually-serene voice echoing off the walls. "Everyone will, please, not panic."

The students were silenced; that much was plain.

Dinah surveyed the Hall once more, her eyes falling finally on the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who was so still he couldn't possibly be feigning a fainting attack… at least not until she noticed a single finger twitch.

Dinah felt a scowl overcome her features at the very sight.

"Prefects," Dumbledore continued, "will lead their Houses back to their dormitories. Teachers will follow me to the dungeons."

Apparently Dinah was the only one who seemed concerned by this. "Headmaster, the Slytherin and Hufflepuff Common Rooms are down there," she informed him, though her concerns were ignored. Dumbledore was already on his way toward the dungeons, the other House Heads in tow. Would that man never listen to her? "Slytherins! Hufflepuffs!" she called out. "Stay put. Do not move from here until I tell you. Colloportus!" she cried, wand aiming at the golden doors.

True enough that half the student body was now imprisoned in the Great Hall, at least they were less likely to get their heads bashed in by a troll.

Sparing a glance to the 'Turbanator' as a seventh-year Ravenclaw had referred to Professor Quirrell, Dinah made her way through the door behind her when the students had busied themselves with mindless chatter.

"Who decided you could live here anyway?" Dinah seethed, glaring at the door behind which a monstrous three-headed dog resided, growling, barking and slobbering.

Hobbling off to lean against the wall, she lifted the hem of her skirt to knee-level.

That was all she needed; a gleaming red bite mark running all the way down her leg, blood staining her white underwear. Still, at least, she wore black as a general rule, so it hopefully wouldn't be too noticeable, as she staggered (making her best attempt to appear unaffected by her recent injury) down to dungeon-level.

Her sinuses were assaulted tremendously the closer she got to her destination.

Eventually she found her way to a very dusty girls' bathroom, wherein stood three first-year Gryffindors and a collapsed mountain troll.

"Oh my goodness!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed, hand over her heart, and Dinah wondered precisely what had taken them all so long to arrive when not one of them had attempted to check the artefact's location, save for herself. "Explain yourselves, both of you!" This she said to the two boys, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley.

Both boys made a move to explain the circumstances of their decision to tackle the beast lying on the floor, though it were the bushy-haired girl who spoke with confidence.

"It's my fault, Professor McGonagall," Hermione Granger stated, bluntly.

Dinah shot the girl a look. She knew she was lying. Her colleague, however, seemed to believe her, and Dinah was peeved that Dumbledore was choosing to remain silent.

"Miss Granger?" Minerva was shocked.

"I went looking for the troll." The girl sounded so confident, despite issuing such a blatant lie. "I read about them and thought I could handle it, but I was wrong. If Harry and Ron hadn't come and found me, I'd probably be dead."

'Don't lie,' Dinah thought. 'It doesn't become you. You wouldn't be stupid enough to battle a troll by choice.'

Minerva had plenty to say on the matter, though Dinah had tuned it out somewhat, for her focus had fallen on the suspicious gaze of Lily's son; green eyes looking to Dinah's own feet at the small puddle of blood which had already begun seeping through her clothes and staining the dusty floor.

Dinah took a small step forward, obscuring the ruby-coloured pool from view and daring Harry to say something. Instead, Lily's vivid green eyes met her own dark ones, giving her that same 'I-don't-believe-you-Dinah' look whenever she had confronted the Slytherin on her ignorance for her own child so many years earlier.

"As for you two gentlemen," Minerva said, exasperated, turning her attention to Potter and Weasley, "well I just hope you realise the seriousness of this situation. Not many first-years could take on a fully-grown mountain troll and live to tell the tale. Five points will be awarded to each of you." The Transfiguration Professor remained blissfully ignorant to the expression on her female colleague's face. "For sheer dumb luck," she added as an aside.

Dinah couldn't believe her colleague. First, Potter had been rewarded for disobedience by being given a place on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team and now he put himself, and others, in danger with his foolish impulse and had been rewarded for that too. Weasley had also been rewarded for the latter. The pair of them, and Granger, might have been killed, and the girl's blatant lie did nothing to sway Professor Snape from her stance. Dumbledore was no help either. He had neither said nor done anything, merely witnessed the scene unfold and then abandoned the now-damaged bathroom, other teachers, bar herself and Quirrell, in tow.

"P-P-Perhaps you ought to go," Quirrell stammered to the Gryffindor trio who hadn't moved since the troll fell. "M-M-Might w-wake up," he added, with a nervous laugh.

Dinah turned her head to face her purple-turbaned colleague, the expression on her face a mixture of pure mistrust and wonder at how the man even worked at the school in the first place. Still, she supposed, that was Dumbledore's attempt at being clever, having denied a sensible teacher filling the post since Dinah even started Hogwarts as a student twenty years earlier.

Though she said nothing, it was clear enough to Dinah that the man knew she could see right through him. His act of flinching as she moved forward to exit the bathroom more than gave away the truth. She didn't trust him and he knew it.

Dinah was followed out by the three young students, leaving Quirrell to clean up the mess she definitely had her suspicions about. She smirked in amusement as the troll roared from its belly-down position on the floor; almost certain it felt inherently displeased at being left with Quirrell of all people.

"I shall escort you to your Common Room," she said, whirling around, looking at the three young faces. Miss Granger looked rather uncomfortable, as though she felt guilty for her lie. In Dinah's mind, rightly so, but she knew children would lie about anything to get out of trouble, or, indeed, to get other people out of trouble.

"She's limping," Potter whispered, though Dinah gave no indication she had heard him at all. They could say what they wanted about her; she honestly didn't care. "She left blood on the bathroom floor."

"Maybe she's—" Granger whispered back, trailing off, guiltily. There were some things that shouldn't have been spoken about and the girl was probably crossing the line there. Still, Dinah gave no indication she could hear them.

"What took her so long to get to the bathroom?" Weasley asked.

"Maybe she got bitten," Potter replied. "Remember that dog on the Third Floor? Whatever that dog's guarding, she's trying to get it."

The very idea was preposterous to Dinah, and she had to stifle her amusement at the children's idea of detective work regarding the mother of one of their friends. Clearly they weren't very good listeners of the aforementioned friend; neither were they all that observant, regarding the lack of one member of teaching staff in the Great Hall. Still, they were only eleven and eleven-year-olds weren't, by nature, particularly observant.

A cackle of laughter sounded, and Dinah paused on the stairs, shut her eyes and gritted her teeth. Surely this wasn't happening now.

The resident poltergeist had taken it upon himself to fly through the wall, knocking the four of them to the ground. Dinah, most unfortunately, was now crushing three first-year Gryffindors at the bottom of a flight of stairs and drenching them in her own blood.

"Whiner Dinah! Whiner Dinah! Greasy Dungeon Bat!" he chanted. Did he have nothing better to do? No one else to annoy? He could have tried the Headmaster. At that moment in time he seemed like a good target. "Ooh, gonna cry are we, Whiner Dinah?"

"'Whiner Dinah?'" Weasley reiterated in such a manner that suggested it was a pretty pathetic nickname.

"Need a cleaning charm, Greaseball?" Peeves laughed, circling in the air.

Seeing a stone urn conveniently situated to her left, Dinah levitated the object high into the air and hurled it in the poltergeist's general direction, landing on his head. Her aim was so true she might just as well have been the fifth Marauder if they accepted females from Houses other than Gryffindor… and if they weren't bullies, of course…

"Good shot," Weasley praised, surprised. Dinah said nothing, though did feel slightly satisfied with herself.

"Ouch!" Peeves exclaimed. "That's not fair! Peeves wasn't ready! You're a slimy little Greaseball!"

"And you're bloody pathetic," she grumbled, before raising her voice. "Is that the Baron I hear, Ghostie?" (She knew Peeves hated that nickname.) "I dare say I hear the distant rattle of metal chains."

That was enough to encourage his departure, as he fled back through the wall, hurling the urn at Dinah, who was successful in halting the object in mid-air and returning it to its pedestal.

Having returned the three Gryffindors to their Common Room, and having something of an unwarranted verbal battle with the Fat Lady, the hand-painted guardian of the aforementioned location, Dinah made her way to the Fifth Floor.

She couldn't pay too much attention to her leg at the moment, for she had to be present for patrolling duties. Of course, she rather hoped Dumbledore might at least have the decency to check the Great Hall and release the yellow and green prisoners she had locked in there earlier. (Though she was injured by a Grecian hound, at least there were no dead bodies lying in corridors, so that was something of a blessing.)

As darkness drew in, Dinah uttered an almost-silent "Lumos," the tip of her wand creating a pulsating, almost-therapeutic white orb of light.

Ever vigilant, she held her wand aloft and strolled down the corridors, more than prepared to catch students out of bed after hours. She knew from a decade of experience that Gryffindors (especially) had a tendency on Hallowe'en to try and sneak down to the kitchens for a midnight feast.

A clanging soon caught her attention, and she strode, still limping, to a door at the end of the corridor.

Throwing the door open, she was met once more by Peeves who appeared to be playing Quidditch by himself with a rubbish bin.

"I wish I knew a taxidermist," Dinah drawled, her northern dialect making itself more than apparent in her ire. "I'd 'ave ya stuffed. Gerrout of 'ere. Clear off!"

Strangely, the mischievous spirit appeared to listen to her for once, though not before blowing a raspberry and waving his hands in a gesture of mockery.

When all was silent, Dinah surveyed the disused classroom.

If she were honest with herself, she couldn't recall any moment in time when she'd actually entered it. She would surely have remembered if she'd attended or taught any classes there.

Despite its expectedly-bare state, there was something at the far end of the classroom she had overlooked at first glance; a tall, wide, suspended piece of cloth if she wasn't much mistaken. Was this another of Albus Dumbledore's brilliant ideas?

Slowly, and with growing curiosity, she approached the fabric and reached out her free hand pulling it away from the surface it was covering with an almighty yank.

Anticlimactically, Dinah frustratedly dropped the black curtain on the floor. It was a mirror and she hated mirrors.

Sighing wearily, she returned her wand to her robes and seized the cloth with both hands.

Before she could even attempt to cover the mirror, her eyes caught sight of Sirius standing beside her, and the cloth fell from her tightly-clenched fists once more.

In shock, she took a step back and frantically searched the area around her, but she remained the solitary inhabitant of the room. Sirius wasn't there.

As she returned her gaze to the mirror, she noticed he was still standing there, his cheeky smile plastered across his face. He slowly moved forwards, standing behind her, and snaking his hands around her waist, crossing over her swollen belly.

One look at that area of her body and she knew in an instant this was little more than a dream. She wasn't pregnant. She had been when he'd been sent to Azkaban, but the face staring back at her now had aged somewhat. There was nothing undesirable about the expression on his face; nothing to suggest he'd been invaded by dementors for a decade. This was a Sirius that never went to Azkaban. This was a Sirius who had received justice; a Sirius she had spent the last ten years with — longer even. It was the same Sirius she learned to love fourteen years previously.

Mirror-Sirius bent down to plant a sweet kiss on her right cheek, and Dinah could have sworn she felt his moustache tickle her. For the first time in four years, she laughed. Only slightly, but it were a genuine laugh nonetheless, and she raised her left hand to brush his affection away, but, of course, that wasn't Sirius' kiss at all. Her hand was cold and wet.

'Will I never stop crying?' she asked herself, as she hastily removed evidence of her distress, though still witnessing her beloved's tenderness through the falsity of the looking glass.

Figures began to appear alongside her mirror-image. Rigel stood to her left-hand side, looking no different than he had done at the feast.

To her right stood a girl, perhaps eleven years old, with long, thick locks of ebony hair and the sweetest smile on her face.

A sob erupted from her person, as Mirror-Sirius kissed the top of her head and took her hands in his own.

"Vega," she wept, and the girl in the mirror leaned into her, linking her arm.

A boy of about nine years appeared in front of her, every bit the same as his father. That was Sirius Junior — her lost boy; the boy who was never got to live a life.

One by one, different-sized shadows appeared on the scene, remaining far off in the distance. For all Dinah knew they were in the back of the classroom, but the reality was that she was all alone and she knew that. She could only speculate that these shadows should have been her children.

A man-sized shadow appeared to the side of Mirror-Sirius, but she didn't know who that could possibly be, unless Baby had discovered a way to torment her with his own presence.

The figures of James, Remus, Lily and even Peter appeared on the scene.

While it was true she didn't think too highly of James or Peter (and perhaps she wasn't particularly fond of Remus either) she still saw them all together; the way they were before everything went pear-shaped.

James and Lily stood with Harry and various other, smaller shadows; Harry's brothers and sisters.

"Why do you torture me?" Dinah cried, collapsing before the mirror. "Why?"

One more year in the same wretched cell and the dishevelled man, covered in dirt, with matted, straggly hair and his beard coarse and itchy, Sirius Black looked to the only source of light; the moon casting a barred shadow on the cold, damp floor.

Ten years he had lost in here.

Why he had followed the rat, he no longer knew. His fiancée told him not to. Just once he probably should have listened. He could be lying on a nice bouncy mattress with fluffy feathered pillows now; his now-wife by his side. She could be giving him the best birthday present of all if he'd listened to her to start with, but he hadn't.

Of course, she hadn't put in enough effort. She hadn't fought hard enough to stop him from doing anything stupid, but would he have listened to her even if she had? Probably not. After all, he was a man. A very foolish man. A 'dunderhead,' she would have said, but he was hers and Sirius knew she'd not have it any other way.

So long he had lived without her, and so long without his children. They could have three happy, healthy children now; maybe more, but no. While she was stuck in a job she held no particular fondness for, he was imprisoned in middle of the North Sea.

It would be no easy task to abandon this place. Hell on Earth, Sirius might have called it, but he'd be damned if he didn't escape for his family, his godson and his friends. James and Lily were dead, a fact that so often depressed him, as though Azkaban itself wasn't enough to ruin a man's mental state, but he couldn't let Wormtail get off Scot-free. It was Peter that betrayed them; sold them to Voldemort. He should be brought to justice; it's what James and Lily deserved.

But what of her role? Had she not informed Voldemort of the Prophecy? After all, she was not so innocent herself in all this mess. While she may never have willingly taken the Dark Mark as a token of her servitude to the mass murderer, it was her fault he went after James, Lily and Harry in the first place.

The pain he felt for the loss of his friends, and even revenge he'd willingly take against Wormtail, the man lifted his head from his knees.

Furiously, he wiped the flowing tears from his reddened, anguish-ridden face on his ragged prisoner's robe, got to his feet and threw himself against the small barred hole in the wall, which was intended to be a window, and cried out into the night.

"Damn you, Dinah!"