A/N: Now that One Step Closer is finished and Concrete Angel is up, I shall proceed with Apologize. Yay! Though, in all honesty, I wasn't even sure where to take this until now. XD Hm. Be warned, sometime in the near future, (coughnextchaptercough) there will be a character death. I've warned you, so don't get mad at me for it. Well, here's Chapter Eleven! (:

Drastic Battles

OoO

Potter had spent the night in my room, and as I awoke the next morning, I knew something was wrong. It hadn't happened yet, but I knew it would soon.

I stand and gently prod Potter until he awakes with a sigh. He grins up at me sleepily, and I feel myself smiling back. "Get dressed and go to your Common Room," I order him, leaving no room for questioning. He does as he's told, albeit half-asleep, and leaves my rooms.

I change as well and head to Dumbledore's office myself. Finally reaching his door, I enter without even a knock. He looks up at me, not surprised by my sudden intrusion.

"I have been informed there will be an attack at ten-fifteen," he tells me, worry filling his voice. I know the old man is paranoid about his precious fucking students, but the coming battle is a bit more important. At least, it is in my opinion anyway.

"There isn't time to ship the children home, and any mass movement would alert them to the leak, causing them to attack early," I tell him, a plan already formulating within my head. "Allow fifth years and older the option of fighting and send the rest to the Slytherin Common Room. They'll be safest there, as it is underground and less likely to be hit."

"Fifteen year olds? Severus, they won't even be able to form a proper shield charm," the old coot tells me, obviously frightened for the students. "We can't mindlessly risk students' lives."

"We aren't," I explain to him, feeling myself getting exasperated. "If they want to fight, we let them. If they don't, we don't force them. They'll just go hide out with the rest of the school. It's that simple."

He nods, though seemingly reluctantly and motions for me to leave. I take the hint and began my descent along the winding stairs, sighing outwardly, annoyance building quickly at the damned Dark Lord's continuous attempts at slaying Potter. It really was getting old. Maybe this time he'll finally fall over and die. Hm. That would be nice.

OoOoO

By ten o'clock, one hundred sixty-two fifth, sixth, and seventh years were assembled in the Great Hall with the rest of the staff while the rest of the school was in the dungeons, safely hidden from wandering Death Eaters.

"Listen, they could strike at any moment now," I tell everyone. "We took out the Elites in the first battle, and several Werewolves to boot. Fenrir still lives, however, and he likes killing children. Guard yourselves. If you are one-on-one with any werewolf, remember that they are very quick and extremely agile. Stunning them won't work. As hard as this is for many of you to understand, killing them is the only way to prevent them from killing another. Watch yourselves."

I step off the table and walk briskly toward Potter, grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the Hall.

"Are the Giants in formation?" I finally ask after we are out of earshot.

"Yeah," he nods, smiling at me.

"What?" I ask, suddenly self-conscious.

"You look so cute when you're worried," he laughs.

I roll my eyes. "Listen," I tell him softly, "After this is all over, I promise you another night like last night's. Okay? But you have to promise me that you'll stay focused today. And remember that you're more important than I am. If I go down, leave me down. Don't stop to help until everyone on their side is dead. I don't care what Dumbledore tells you. Kill them all or there'll never be peace."

He nods again and we walk back into the Great Hall together. He stands upon a table and puts his wand to his throat, causing his voice to boom all around the Hall.

"Alright, soldiers," he starts, solemnity overtaking his appearance. "Today we will have one of the most difficult battles we've ever faced. And be warned, tonight there will probably be hordes of vampires bombarding the Castle. So if you make it through today, prepare for tonight. Just kill them all. This is war, and there is no time for mercy. If you let them live, they'll kill you without hesitation. And never panic. Once you do, you're done for. Good luck and may God be with you."

He steps down and smiles at me. I smile back, not knowing what else to do. Within minutes, everyone is in position. There are seventy people guarding various areas inside the Castle, while the rest of us are outside, guarding the perimeter. There are several on broom to attack those flying in. I expect dragons while others do not, and I have armed myself with enough spells to take the beasts down with a flick of my wand.

Within seconds, they attack. As I suspected, dragons fly in first to clear the way. I take several of them down, but miss the last few. The shrieks I hear tell me that someone had died on our side already. I kill the rest of the dragons quickly, to avoid more of our men dying for no reason.

Next come the ground troops. There are only fifty or so Death Eaters, but there are hundreds of werewolves. Fenrir was leading them all. I throw a killing curse at him and smirk as he sprawls to the ground, lifeless. The other werewolves realize we're here to fight, and they attack. I watch as several students are taken down, helpless. I can't help but laugh a little. The stupidity of the youth to defend rather than attack. It would have been tragic, had Potter not told them to just kill everyone.

Curses are flying by ears, though few are green. I roll my eyes at the stupidity of it all. One of the werewolves run up to me, growling incoherently. I laugh at it and kill it without a second thought.

"Oh, Severus," I turn around to see Yaxley, standing next to Goyle. They are holding Potter up by the arms. I can see the fear in his eyes, but I can sense the message he's sending. He wants me to let them capture him, to allow him to just be carried off so that others won't suffer. Of course I find that to be utterly stupid of him.

"Let him go," I tell them. They laugh at me, so I kill the both of them. Potter falls ungraciously to the ground and stands quickly. He brushes himself off and grabs his wand from Yaxley's pocket.

"Damn, Potter," I tell him. "Sex makes you useless. Move your arse, we're in a fucking war!"

He glares at me briefly before continuing the battle.

I smirk inwardly. Insulting them always works. Always.

I barely dodge a curse and it flies into the school, barricading the front entrance. We're damn lucky that's easy enough to fix.

I whip my head around and am almost paralyzed from shock to see who is standing before me. Voldemort. His snake-like eyes bear into me, and I feel me body clam up. I need to get Potter out of here. Now.

"Severus," he hisses, his voice spreading like venom through my veins. "Give me the boy."

I stay rooted to the spot and to my great horror, Potter turns around. He sends a killing curse flying at Voldemort immediately. Damn, I didn't know he had it in him.

Voldemort easily dodges it, and I cringe as I see Flitwick fall. He really was fun to drink with.

"At least you've grown some bollocks," Voldemort says to Potter. I look over at Potter and see him glaring at him. Two opponents ready to fight each other to the death. Unfortunately, I was not ready for Potter to die, and fate did not seem to be favoring him.

Potter throws another killing curse at Voldemort, just as Voldemort throws one at him. Their wands are trapped in a battle for dominance. I know that even if Potter kills Voldemort here, there are five other ways for him to return. The battle surrounding the two stops to marvel at the sight before them. I take this opportunity to silently kill off several of the werewolves. Nobody seems to take notice, so I continue until all are dead and the only remaining Dark Side Follower is currently in a duel with Potter.

I sigh, seeing as nothing has changed. There is still nobody winning. I wonder if anyone ever will, when I hear a bellowing voice from behind me.

"Tom," bellows Dumbledore. Voldemort takes his eyes off of Potter for less than a second. That's all it took for Potter's spell to win dominance and cause Voldemort to crumple lifelessly to the ground beneath him.

Everyone cheers. I of course, do not. Instead, I focus on the hatred in Potter's eyes. The burning fire that lurks there. Then, I shift my thoughts to how many people had to have been infected. It is inevitable. We were lucky once, but with all these children participating, someone had to have been infected. There is just no way around it. At all.

That is when I see her. Granger is stumbling toward the crowd, clutching the side of her throat, gasping for air. Oh lovely. Now we have a werewolf as a damn student. It is a full moon soon. I suppose that means I'll be brewing two batches of Wolfsbane? Joy.

I guess I should be a little more sympathetic to her injuries, but as it is, I am a very unsympathetic man. So I guess she's screwed. Oh well. I roll my eyes at the slow reflexes of everyone standing around. Obviously, they don't notice she's infected, or they don't care. Either way, it is up to me to save her life again, at the price of only my humanity. Yes, I do have humanity within me somewhere, so yes, it is at risk here.

Anyway, I rush forward and catch her just as she collapses. Finally, the idiots turn around and see me sprinting toward the Castle with the unconscious fifth year in my arms. I have to take the damn back way in. No, it is not a back door. Of course not, because that would make sense. And nonexistent Lord knows that our Headmaster hates making sense. No, instead, our 'back door' is a passageway that takes very precise wand tapping to open and several defensive spells to get through in one piece. After at least twenty minutes of lugging that unusually heavy child around, I finally make it to the inside of the Castle.

And, as luck would have it, I am located on the Seventh fucking floor. So now I get to run all the way down those numerous steps just to save her pathetic life. I should have just played dumb like every other moron out there. Maybe they were more intelligent than I had given them credit for. No. I doubt that.

It takes me ten minutes just to reach the bottom of the stairs. Even now, I still have to carry her through many a hallway before we reach that damned hospital. I can't risk levitating her and getting her blood everywhere. That could cause a whole mess of problems.

Finally, I reach the fucking room. I drop her ungracefully on the nearest bed, my arms aching. She was far from fat, but she certainly weighed a lot more than it seems.

I call for Poppy and she comes running. She gasps as soon as she sees her apprentice lying in the bed. Did I forget to mention that Granger was interested in becoming a healer? Well, she is, and she is studying under Poppy in order to do so. Though I cannot imagine why someone would want to waste their time trying to heal others, I will admit that Granger was rather good at it. It would be a shame to see her stop.

"What happened?" Poppy squeaks, obviously hiding tears. Nobody dared cry in front of me out of fear of being hexed, though that is a story for another time. As it is, there are more important things that need to be done and dealt with before I can go off ranting about the useless past.

"She was infected, most likely through being bitten," I explain tonelessly, glancing at Granger's barely live body again. She is rapidly losing blood, and in a few minutes she will be dead. Unfortunately, Poppy hurries to treat the wound, probably saving Granger's life. Pity. We could use with less useless students. Though I will admit she was bright, but she is rash. She always acts before thinking, probably the only thing that kept her out of Ravenclaw.

After a few minutes, I decide I am no longer needed, so I leave. I take a deep breath and stroll toward my quarters. I may as well crack open that new bottle of Vodka now. I will probably have to battle hordes of fucking vampires in a few hours anyway. I may as well be drunk off my arse while doing so. Hell, it couldn't hurt.

I remember the children locked away in the Slytherin Common Room and smirk. Leave them there. At least then we won't have to deal with moving them back when the second battalion of troops arrive. Granted, it was now an iffy thing, what with Voldemort's human form defeated. However, my gut tells me there will be vampires, and they will strike without warning.

Joy.

I finally reach my quarters and turn the knob on the door, only to find it locked. Damn those kids. I swear they will be the fucking death of me one of these days. Sighing, I mutter a quick spell and am relieved to hear the lock click open. I carefully push on the door, not knowing what to expect once I get inside. What I see is pretty shocking, even after everything I've been through recently.

On my couch, MY DAMN COUCH, are two students, engaging in, certain distasteful activities. From what I can see, it is one of my own house, the boy, and a Ravenclaw, the girl. I decide to embarrass the shit out of them. Use my couch for their own fuck place, will they? Damn kids.

"So Mr. Zabini, enjoying the ride?" I drawl, crossing my arms in front of my chest and leaning against the doorframe.

I hear I gasp (I am guessing from the girl, but I am not ruling Zabini out) and I see the two scramble to cover up with something. I roll my eyes at their immaturity. As if I am looking at them. Please. I have a damn boyfriend already. Besides, Zabini's too small for my liking, and I am not particularly attracted to vaginas.

"Uh, sir, we, um, we were just," he tries to explain quickly. Certainly they were prepared for this. I mean, what kind of a Slytherin would you be if you were having sex in a teacher's private quarters, ON HIS FAVORITE FUCKING COUCH, and DIDN'T expect to get caught? Was I raising children of that amount of stupidity? Oh nonexistent deities, please save me.

"It was quite obvious what you were just doing, Mr. Zabini. Now would you care to explain why exactly you thought it appropriate to use my couch as your fuck place?" I am honestly pretty pissed off. If I had caught them on the floor, or hell, in my BED, it wouldn't have been as bad as them fucking on my couch.

Zabini looked astounded at my vulgarity. I am not sure as to how the girl looked, seeing as I could not really see her. She had taken to hiding her face behind her hands, as if too embarrassed to look at me. I guess she's never had a threesome.

"Sir, we just thought, that since you weren't here and everything, and our Common Room was so crowded, that here would be the closest alternative. But sir, I implore you to leave her out of this. It's my fault, not hers. She didn't even want to be here, really." He is drabbling now.

I roll my eyes in annoyance. "Am I being led to believe I have just stopped an act of rape, Mr. Zabini?" I ask, actually hoping he would blush. I loved embarrassing students. They are so easy to fuck with as it is, and it is even easier when you catch them doing something they know they should not be doing.

"No, sir!" Zabini exclaims, turning bright red. "What I meant to say sir, is that I talked her into it. It was my idea to do it here, not hers. So please, don't punish her."

I know I know who that girl is. Those blonde curls cascading down her pale back. That creamy skin. Oh wow. There is no way. There is absolutely no possible way a Slytherin would ever fuck her. She's so, so, weird. The two ideas just don't mix.

I decide not to confront Ms. Lovegood about this obviously humiliating experience, and instead return my gaze to Zabini. "Fine, Mr. Zabini. But I expect you to buy me an exact replica of that couch, without magic, and I expect you here every night for the next two weeks starting tomorrow for detention. In the event that I am somehow made deceased, you still have to replace the couch. And you will serve your detentions with Professor McGonagall instead. Have I made myself clear?"

He nods furiously.

"Then get the hell out of my Living Room," I tell them, motioning for them to leave. He grabs her by the arm and they leave quickly, shutting the door behind them.

If there is a damn God of some sort, I have only one question for you:

Why the couch?