"Rowan!" Sirius exclaimed and practically lifted her off her feet.  

His arms, warm around her, couldn't find a way to let go. He was just so happy that she was alive. And he didn't care about how she got out of the hospital wing or anything like that; she was alive and in his arms and that was all that mattered.  

Slowly, he felt her hands take fistfuls of his shirt and her head shudder against his chest. It seemed as if she was feeling everything he was; only she was showing it.  

And then she pulled away and glimpsed around him, at the office. "How long was I out?"  

"Five hours," Sirius replied, "You weren't just out, though. I thought-most of us thought you were a goner. Lily didn't even want to come up and see you because she didn't want to look at your corpse."  

"That's a pleasant thought..." she muttered, then suddenly looked up at him again. "You just called her Lily."  

"Yeah."  

"Not Evans?"  

"Yeah."  

"Wow, I missed a lot while I was out."  

"Rowan," another voice said, and she stared around Sirius to see who it'd come from.  

Her entire body beside Sirius went rigid and her being cold with hatred so strong, Sirius put a hand on her shoulder and asked, "Rowan? You okay?"  

Her eyes were wide and crazy as she whispered, "You...you...you killed me."  

Sirius, utterly confused, stepped away from her.  

She took a step toward Snape and repeated, "You...killed...me. You killed me."  

"Rowan," he took a step toward her, ignoring Dumbledore's warning hand, and said, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-"  

Faster than they'd ever thought possible, she pulled her wand out, flicked it and yelled, "Crucio!"  

They all reacted at once. Dumbledore put up a hand and slowly made his way around the desk to Severus. Sirius started toward Rowan to get her to stop, a horrified expression on his face. And Severus, wide-eyed with pain, cringed and writhed and jerked every random way.  

Sirius was the first to actually do anything. He wrapped an arm around her waist and forced her wand hand down with the other, and attempted to pull her away. But the second she moved an inch, she started jumping and fighting, screaming, "You're a murderer, Snape! Look at me! You killed me!"  

Giving up on dragging her, Sirius lifted her off the ground with one arm and used the other to snatch her wand away from her. Then he took her through the open door, as she screeched and swore and clawed at Sirius's arms and kicked out at the air.  

And then he slammed the door shut, put her down, and pinned her to the wall beside it, the way he had in the alley almost a year ago.  

"Sirius..." she warned in a low voice, glaring up at him through her lashes and hair that had fallen into her face, covered in dried blood.  

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded, "Did you hit your head or something?"  

"Yes," she replied angrily, "After the monster sliced me nearly to bits."  

"Rowan, that's the issue; it nearly sliced you to bits."  

"So you agree with me."  

"No," he argued, frowning, "I think you need to sit down and let him lead his miserable life while somebody else kills him."  

"No. I want to do it myself."  

"You're being stupid. You could hurt the baby!"  

She stared up at him. "How did you find out about that?"  

"People talk," he replied, then, his voice choking a little bit, added, "But you didn't."  

"I was going to tell you-"  

"But you didn't, that's the problem."  

He pushed off of the wall and turned around, running his hands through his hair and taking a deep breath.  

She took the opportunity to reach for the door...  

...and he slammed his fist down on it. "Don't even think about it."  

"Why are you protecting him?" she demanded, "After what he did to me?"  

"I'm not protecting him. I'm protecting him from you. I don't want my girlfriend to become a murderer."  

"But you're perfectly willing to become one yourself," she reminded him, glaring.  

"I'd beat the crap out of that guy if I had the chance," Sirius agreed, "But I'm not letting you actually kill him."  

"Step aside," she warned.  

"I'm not letting you in there," he said, "I'll drag you out of the castle if I have to."  

"Get out of my way," she threatened, "Or I'm going to kill you too."  

He was so silent for a moment, that if Rowan had been herself, she would've been worried. But she wasn't herself, and Sirius realized that. He knew that something was severely wrong with her.  

She was practically insane!  

But he would do everything in his power to help her. He knew it was just the near-death thing getting to her, and once it was far behind them they could get through it.  

At least, he could.  

"What did you just say?" he asked quietly, his voice shaking.  

"Get out of my way," she repeated, "Or I'm going to kill you too."  

He stared at her, shocked and unable to believe what he'd just heard.  

"Fine," she muttered, crossing her arms. "You leave me no choice."  

Before he could say anything she pulled out her wand and exclaimed, "Expulso!"  

At first, with a feeling of horror, he thought she'd aimed at him, but the spell zoomed right past him, and Sirius was blasted backwards with such force that he smacked into the opposing wall. But he managed to pull out his wand.  

It was only in his hand for seconds before she screamed, "Expelliarmus!"  

For once, Sirius was thankful he'd taken Wandless Magic that year.  

"Accio Wand!" he cried, holding out his hand. It flew at top speed to him and he caught it in his palm.  

She smiled. "So you really did learn something new this year."  

"I'm not going to fight you," he said, holding his shoulder where he guessed it had dislocated itself when he hit the wall.  

"Good," she said, reaching for the door, "I won't have to do anything irrational."  

Seeing her hand inches from the polished oak set something off in him; he couldn't let her in that room. Taking his wand in his other hand, he raised it, pointed it at the door and yelled, "Colloportus!" The polished oak made an odd, squelching noise as it locked itself.  

"I take that back," she muttered.  

"I'm not letting you in there," he said, "And if anybody besides you finds out that I'm protecting that creep, my life is over."  

"It's over anyway," she said, stepping closer to him and crouching down to look at him in his crumpled position on the floor.  

"Not if I can help it," he muttered, then raised his wand and yelled, "Incarcerous!"  

Thick ropes shot out of his wand and wrapped themselves around her. They forced her onto the ground and she hit the opposing wall, and her head cracked against the polished oak door.  

A hit like that should've knocked anyone completely unconscious.  

Instead she glared at him and bared her teeth insanely as he started to get up.  

Then he eyed the wand still in her hand.  

Suddenly the ropes burst into flames and she giggled absurdly as they turned into ashes at her feet. She stood up, completely untouched by the fire, and said, "I have a few tricks up my sleeve as well."  

Abruptly, the wall beside his bad arm exploded and sent a rush of pain through him, but his immediate reaction came faster than he could stop himself; he started to run.  

The small area in front of Dumbledore's office wasn't...well, to be perfectly adequate, safe. Enough of those explosions and she'd kill them both! And it was only a matter of time before Snivellus recovered from her curse and both he and Dumbledore went outside to get her. Her state of mind was just as explosive as the spells she was casting.  

He was running for two reasons; he could warn anyone still in the hallways to take cover and he could escape her wrath. She knew things he hadn't even known she'd known. And she wasn't thinking clearly; she was blinded by her anger and hatred. She was driven mad by it, and Sirius refused to admit that it was quite possibly permanent damage.  

She was behind him. She wasn't even moving. She just stood there at the end of the corridor, her silhouette against the dark window violently picturesque; standing in a sort of power stance, her arms at her sides, her long wand pointed out, her hair a crazy mass on her head. And slowly, her non-wand hand came up to her chin and the fingers curved.  

And then her shadow did something so disturbing that he had to stop and get a good look at it to make sure he was actually seeing it, not just out of the corner of his eye.  

Dust seemed to arise from the ground at her feet, enveloping her in a cloud of it, rising higher and higher, and she laughed hysterically as it completely covered her.  

She was Apparating in a way Sirius had never seen before.  

He turned on his heel and started sprinting, still grasping his bad arm, down the corridors to the Grand Staircase, hoping that she wouldn't just suddenly appear at any random spot.  

And then he heard the pop that meant she'd landed somewhere.  

He looked up and saw her standing about five yards away from him. She always was good at Arithmancy...  

She smiled and lifted her small hand up to wave at him mockingly.  

He ducked through the doorway to the Grand Staircase and raced as fast as he could to the first floor, trying to ignore the black cloud of smoke almost directly behind him, moving slow deliberately.

If he could get her out of the castle, he would be protecting a lot of people she could definitely harm.

The huge front doors were growing ever larger as he closed in on them, and just as he was ready to make one final leap to push it open when the black smoke cloud suddenly covered him and he felt his feet leave the ground.  

Nauseating. The one word to describe what it felt like to Apparate was nauseating. It felt like his stomach flipped inside out. He'd imagined it feeling like flying, but he'd decided to wait to learn how to do it. After that, if he lived, he never wanted to Apparate again.  

If he lived.  

And then he felt the ground again.  

He could tell he was in the Great Hall, in front of the High Table. The feeling of his feet under him caused him to stumble a bit, and as he straightened himself back up, the black cloud went over the headmaster's chair, and suddenly Rowan appeared with a pop, lounging in the chair with her legs crossed over the arm.  

"You," she said, smiling, shaking her index finger at him, "You thought you could get away from me. But you can't."  

"How are you Apparating?" he demanded, "It's supposed to be impossible to Apparate in the castle."  

"That's where you're wrong," she corrected, swinging her legs around and standing up. "It's supposed to be impossible to Apparate in and out of the castle. There is not law of magic that says I can't Apparate from one part of the castle to another, as long as I stay in the castle."  

Sirius grinned and shook his head. "You always could find your way around things. Just like me."  

"Yes, I am very good at that," she agreed, pacing behind the High Table, running her finger along its surface. "You're stalling again."  

"I figure if I get you talking, you'll snap out of it," he explained, "Is it working yet?"  

"Snap out of what?" she asked, "This isn't a little reverie, Sirius. This is me. Did it ever occur to you that, maybe, I wasn't actually recovering from all of those disasters that happened to me? My parents getting divorced, my mom and brother dying, us breaking up, Kyle...need I say more?"  

"What's your point?"  

"My point is that all the stress and depression I'd been hiding from all those things...well, they finally caught up with me," she concluded, "And now, I'm just a little loony."  

"That's an understatement," he said emotionlessly.  

She gasped mockingly. "That's a horrible thing to say to the mother of your child."  

"The one you don't seem to care about?" he asked, "I'm just on to Plan B: Insult her until she gets really angry and become normal again. Is it working?"  

"Not at all," she replied, "You should consider taking lessons from me. But enough about me, I want to talk about you, Siri."  

"Why on Earth would you want to talk about me?"  

"You don't talk to me like that, Mister," she said, pointing her wand at him, "Show me some respect."

He crossed his arms.  

"Fine," she shrugged, "You leave me no choice. Imperio."  

His eyes would've widened if he had any control over himself. He couldn't even muster, "You evil little...!"  

And then he was forced onto his knees.  

She stepped in front of him, crouched in front of him, took his chin and forced him to look at her. "I really do like you, Siri," she said.  

He wanted to speak, but couldn't get anything to work.  

She frowned as if she didn't know he couldn't respond, even though she did, and stood up. As she walked around him, she ran her hand through his hair, and then used her knee to smack him hard on the chest, and lifted her wand to take the curse off of him.  

His breath was knocked out of him and he fell over, gasping for air.  

"Why...are...you...doing...this...to me?" he demanded, glaring up at her.  

She looked at him through her eyelashes. "I have to have a reason?"  

His jaw tightened.  

She shrugged and started walking down the Great Hall, to the huge doors. "Just think of what I could do out there, like this. There'd be utter chaos...I'm tingling just thinking about it."  

He stood up and pulled out his wand. He had one shot left to stop her. He'd given up on any chance of getting her back to the Magical Land of Sanity, but he could still get some help for her, if he could get her to stop.  

One shot, that was all, before she'd fight back.  

"Petrificus Totalus," he muttered as he raised his wand. He thought he'd said it quiet enough so she wouldn't hear.  

But she swung around and put out her hand, not even muttering Protego under her breath. The spell didn't seem to hit her, it just bounced off of her outstretched palm. And then she pointed her wand at him, swung her arm gracefully in a complete circle and screamed, "Avada Kedavra!"  

A jet of green light shot out of her wand and went straight at him, faster than any spell had ever come at him.  

He had a split-second to decide what to do. He jumped out of the line of fire, over a table and landed on his hands on the other side of it, did a quick somersault, and landed again on his feet. Then he stood up straight and stared at her, complete shock in his expression.  

Her eyes were wide with surprise, as if she hadn't expected that to happen, as if it had just slipped out, as if she had no control over herself.  

No control...  

And suddenly, she dropped her wand and said, "I'm sorry."  

Then she turned on her heel and ran.