The obligatory filler chapter! Enjoy:)

Severus Snape was miserable. Depressed. Wretched. It was scarcely worth the effort to draw breath… As a reader you might find yourself out of step with this turn of events, surely Snape is always miserable I hear you cry. Well, yes, this is true. However this latest bout of depression was proving so black as to be all encompassing for our favourite hero.

"Sev, you gonna eat that?"

Severus looked up from the dinner he was currently pushing around his plate. Since his rather unsympathetic ditching by the love of his life (so he was being slightly over dramatic, he was having a bad day) he'd found himself spending more and more time in the company of his room mate. Life sucked. With that thought in mind he pushed the plate away and told Damien what he wanted to hear,

"You can have it if you want."

Slouching back Severus surveyed the hall; Potter was busy making googly eyes at Evans over at the Gryffindor table, whilst Lupin and Pettigrew listened raptly to some disgusting tale of Black's. Git. Closer to home (opposite and 4 seats to the left to be exact) Regulus was playing centre of attention to Spinnet and some God awful giggly girls he vaguely recognised from the common room. That was the problem with girls, he thought absently, they all looked the same.

It was one thing for Regulus to not be his mate anymore, it was quite another for him to so blasted happy about it. Whilst he had been spending his time sinking into the downward spiral of despair (as put by the self help book he'd recently procured from the library), Regulus had suddenly become Mr. Popular throughout Slytherin. He was always surrounded by fawning girls, or else that idiot Spinnet and a group of equally stupid looking boys. It made him sick.

He would have happily continued with that train of thought had it not been for the forkful of spaghetti that kept passing across his vision.

"Sev, Sev, Severuuus."

"What?"

"Thought you were lost in La-La Land," Severus glared; Damien could be annoying at times, to the point of making him want to get violent. Or at least, you know, say something, Damien was a well built lad after all. "Either that or you're plotting up some way to murder Regulus Black…" Damien motioned in Regulus' general direction with the spaghetti laden fork, "What is it with you and him anyway?"

Evade the question his mind screamed, his mouth ever uncooperative came up with,

"Nothing." Great, like that would satisfy he who must know everything about everyone.

"Come off it, it was like you were giving him calf eyes just now," Severus started a tad more violently than he would have liked, "calm down, I know you're not like that. I'm just saying that's what it looked like." At that, Damien leaned in closer and all sorts of unpleasant thoughts flashed across Severus' mind, like Damien in the nip with a rose between his teeth. Ugh. Thankfully Damien had other sorts of intimacies in mind as he spoke in lowered tones.

"Saying that, do you know what I heard?" Severus refrained from giving that the reply it deserved, how in Merlin's name was he supposed to know what Damien had heard? Did he live in the boy's pocket? Lately, quite frankly, he'd have to say yes. But still, he wasn't some kind of living, breathing ear trumpet.

Interpreting the silence as a no Damien continued, "You know Johnny Spinnet?" Severus spared a glare for the gangly idiot and nodded, "well, I heard that he and Regulus have been getting a bit friendly, if you know what I mean."

It was at this revelation that a sound escaped Severus that wiped the satisfied smirk of Damien's face. Severus would later swear blind that it had been a manly gasp, although Marianne Tülks would happily confirm that it had been more of an undignified squeak.

"Sev, you alright mate? You've gone all pale. I was joking! Merlin's balls, what's wrong with you lately?"

As the nasty sick feeling that had pooled in his gut began to disperse, Severus reasoned that it couldn't be true, why would Regulus want Spinnet? He liked girls. Besides, Spinnet was all legs and arms and knobbly knees…