Severus's summer hadn't gone according to plan at all. Severus had spent most of the summer being furious with how things had turned out. He'd made the unbreakable vow with Narcissa Malfoy and Draco could never know. He was dancing around so many secrets and he was so very tired he wasn't even sure why he kept going. There was nothing left in it for him. The only thing that was really there for him was his vow to Lily Evans. She was his world and when she had died so had a part of him. There are worst things than death, he didn't fear death. Death would be a relief at this time. A part of him almost relish the end. Though he was far too strong and cunning to end it all himself. He owed so many loyalties to so many different people that it seemed almost impossible some days. Yet, here he was keeping on going on. Navigating the dangers without so much as a single care for his own skin. Truly death didn't' shake him, only the loss of the one person who held his heart truly mattered to him at this point. He owed Lucius a dept of loyalty almost as deep as Lily's debt of failure he held. It was Lucius who'd seen him through his first years at Hogwarts.<br/><br/>He regarded the small image he held in his hand. The single image was of a red hair girl in her early teens. Maybe eleven or twelve years old. Radiant and smiling she danced around the frame with childish glee. He regarded her with a single tear sliding down his cheek. He was alone at last in his home. Wormtail no doubt gone to tell Voldemort that he had made the vow with Narcissa. He didn't care. It was what the Dark Lord expected of him anyways. He sighed truly annoyed that he had the vermin in his home. Only the fact that that filth was protected by the Dark Lord kept him alive. And only then because Severus had to uphold his oaths to the Dark Lord to keep pretense of his allegiance.<br/><br/>He felt his hand tremble as it held the picture. Thinking of her was always the hardest thing to do and yet the easiest. His mind wandered to her so often. He threw the image down atop the pile of books and rose angrily to his feet. He left the room. Left the image, left the memories. Those were always harder to leave behind. He knew that if Wormtail picked it up he'd see only a picture of Severus's parents with him nothing more. It was such and easy spell he didn't even have to think about it.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>Severus had been at school for a full week preparing his classroom. He would still have the same rooms in the dungeon as he had demanded them kept as his, but his classroom would be up on the upper floors. He paced down the length of the corridor having just finished his last preparations for the start of term. He made his way to the great hall for the feast. Silent and surely as always he slid into his seat at the head table with silent hatred for all those whom where not of Slytherin house.<br/><br/><div><hr style="height:2px; width:100%; border:0; color: white;background:white;"/></div><br/><br/>Ed was pacing the platform he had had the same summer he always did, pretending he wasn't alive in his aunt's attic as he tried not to think of Isabella or remember what he was. So it was with relief that the time came for his aunt to take him to the platform and he quickly hurried to his seat on the train. He sat down and waited for Joce to join him so he could see his girlfriend again. The only person that made this life livable.