InsaneJournal

Who: Snape and OPEN
Where: Corridors here and there
When: Tonight, just after curfew
What: Wandering/moping
Warnings/Rating: TBA/Low

Severus didn't bother to scrape the mud off his shoes as he climbed the broad steps to the castle, leaving behind the Forest and the newly populated grounds. He didn't particularly care who knew he'd been spending his post-dinner hours wandering around out of doors, and in any case the students who knew what was good for them were all stowed away for the night. He stopped only for a moment to listen to the doors slamming to behind him after he stepped into the main corridor, and then started slowly for the great staircase, more inclined to head for the dungeons than his new accommodations. His mind was elsewhere.

The uneasy feeling to which he'd recently grown very accustomed was settling in more heavily than ever. He was not at all sure how much longer he'd be able to keep his promise to ensure everyone's safety without compromising his ultimate objective (and he knew which one he valued more highly, if it came to that). His first thought had been to make the new constructions uninhabitable, but it was easy to see how that might backfire. He had considered simply making them inaccessible, but that carried too much risk of conveniently misdirected backlash, and would be only a very short-term solution. Now he was left to think of some other way to keep his brainless, hot-headed little charges under one roof, and nothing brilliant was presenting itself. It was times like these that had worn a long, glossy stripe along the floor of his old office. Unfortunately, nights of pacing and working off useless energy weren't the same upstairs where all those infernal portraits were only pretending to be sleeping.

He kept on along the hall, tending slowly for the library, absorbed in his own thoughts. There was little he hated more than a night he knew he'd spend awake, one way or another.