"Or a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw," Severus said with amusement. "I heard enough from the other Heads of House on that score during the first week of school. I was always very smug at them." He cocked his head thoughtfully, pressing at the sense of the school in the back of his head but didn't get an answer. "Or possibly it needs magic. This may have been as much an act of desperation and survival as loneliness."
He wasn't surprised the lengths Narcissa would go to in order to protect Draco. He had first hand experience of that, though he would admit he hadn't worked very hard to weasel his way out of it. "Oh, Potter would have been dead. Though I'll admit I am curious as to how he managed to live yet again to enable Narcissa to lie about it." He didn't bother to really hide the relief he felt that the Dark Lord was dead. There was a sense of freedom to it that he didn't quite know how to handle right now.
Severus followed Regulus over to the Slytherin table and sat down. He hadn't sat here in a long time but there was a certain amount of nostalgia value to it. "The Dark Lord wanted them here," he said with a sneer. "I think He just wanted the useless lumps out of the way. I suspect I could have gotten them lost in the Forbidden Forest and the Dark Lord wouldn't have cared too much. I was tempted to do just that but they were useful for distracting the staff and some of the students from what I was doing. If they were busy keeping an eye on the Carrows, they weren't watching me."