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𝚇𝚇𝙸𝙸𝙸 >> 𝙴𝙻𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙷 𝙹𝙰𝙽𝚄𝙰𝚁𝚈 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙸𝚃𝚂 𝙰𝙳𝙴𝚀𝚄𝙰𝚃𝙴 𝙳𝙸𝙵𝙵𝙴𝚁𝙴𝙽𝙲𝙴

< 2 MONTHS, 1 WEEK, 4 DAYS >

Classes wax dim as the students begin to catch on to the quiddity of their own danger. The rampageous ones turn silent, the silent ones unstirring. They listen fully because there's not much else they can do, and Severus finds himself giving out daily updates after sempiternally being asked about the status of everyone's safety.

Most are overstrung regarding this, and for that he does not blame them. Many have not experienced much worse. Many do not have a mark beneath their sleeve that deems every other nodus mundane. So he allows them to fear, because his own gauge of precariousness is rather corrupted. He only makes sure to feed no antipathy where none is hungry.

"If, through all this time, you have just so happened to remain uninformed," he announces to them slowly near the end of every lesson on this day, weaving snakelike between their desks, "more spiritous antiserums are currently being tested and tried for the event of any potential suspicion. You are in no immediate danger as far as we understand and are under most infallible protection. The understanding that failure to drink this potion when administered will lead to complete suspicion of your own wrongdoings is absolutely essential if you wish to remain innocent in the face of this situation. Additionally, I have been told by your headmaster to pass on the order to not use polyjuice for any reason even if innocent; anyone caught with it will be found easily guilty in any court of law if it ever comes to that, and I can only assume. That. It. Will."

Winchester Biobi is the only one to raise his hand out of every dispatch for every one of his classes, inquiring how it is they will know when everyone is caught and how many are involved. "And also," he adds, "how do we know everyone here is their true self, in this room, at this moment?"

Severus doesn't know how to answer this. "I... am unsure," he replies after a moment of reverie. "Do not fear one another. But if you find anyone suspicious, inform a professor as privately and efficiently as possible; dawdling only gives a perpetrator supplemental time to operate."

The day is over seemingly as expeditiously as it begun. He finds himself cleaning his classroom with less travail than usual, stepping out and locking the door behind him before opening the one next to it and recrudescing to his office.

"Hello, Remus," he greets Lupin, who is now feeling well enough to sit in a chair for a while — not to walk or stand for more than a few minutes, but sitting is an improvement nonetheless — as he tosses his outer robes over his free chair and puts all his equipment away. "Improving?"

Remus is silent for a bit before replying. "Better than last month."

"A decent amelioration," Snape replies. "Are you well enough to switch back to your home? If you require care, I can stay. And this is not to banish you from my quarters; I mean to say that, while suspicions are raising steadily, it may be a fair idea to stay out of its line of sight until everything is dealt with; this means being here when it is only entirely necessary and no less."

Remus looks up at him with a fondness. "You seem so guilty about making me move."

Snape raises a brow. "It is your perception, perhaps, making you assume that I am at all sentimentally involved with where you happen to sleep when indisposed."

Lupin smirks. "And it is the way your eyes dart away when you make excuses that only confirms the validity of my perception. It looks like somebody has perhaps begun to care."

"Tread carefully, Remus," Severus warns, although warmth is interlocked with the sentence more solidly than it was in the last. "If I become any more exhausted than I already happen to be, I will be a corpse on the floor before we can get you home, and where would that leave you? At a crime scene with no means of leaving it? You, the only person in the room, over my insensate frame?"