700Chapter 47: Ch III,41: Of Shifts and Moves
Chapter 41: Of Shifts and Moves
Charms class was the first class on Monday morning, and like the whole previous evening, it was a tense one among the boy contingent of the Gryffindor sixth-years, so much so that Lily had stuck close to her girlfriends throughout. Remus was very tight-lipped, refusing to divulge what it was that had made him so angry with the others, though when he'd asked how Severus might have known of their nicknames, Lily had admitted to showing him the Map, taking the chance to inform him of the derogatory messages that had appeared on it when the Slytherin had tried to activate it. That had made Remus pinch his lips even further, but he apologised for forgetting the spell was there and promising to get rid of it as soon as he had a bit of time.
Once class let out, Flitwick gave James a pointed look before departing. The bespectacled boy, for his part, loitered in the back of the classroom until he saw the Slytherins leaving. Then he jumped up and hurried towards them.
"Snape."
Unlike so many previous occasions in the last five years, this time all of the sixth-year Slytherins attending the class stopped along with Severus at the door.
"Can I speak with you a moment? In private."
Alarmed, Lily came up to the Marauders and studied them all in turn – James looked nothing but focused and determined, Sirius looked put out but kept quiet, Peter looked nervous, while Remus looked grimly satisfied.
"Doesn't look private to me," Severus replied, eyes roaming over the lot of them.
"Could you indulge us?" Remus asked, locking eyes with the Slytherin for a long moment.
Huffing, Severus spoke without looking back to his backup: "I'll be joining you in a minute."
"Are you certain?" Thistletwaithe asked.
"Yes."
With more or less hesitation, the Slytherins shuffled out, though Lily had no doubt they'd be waiting just beyond the doors. The only one that stayed was Michael Stone, who leaned against the wall with his arms crossed in a nonthreatening, relaxed pose and said: "Don't mind me."
James apparently decided to do just that. He took a step towards Severus, pulling himself out of the half-circle of other Gryffindors, and said: "I wanted to apologise for what I said yesterday. That was way out of line, and was not an appropriate response no matter how offensive your words to us were."
Severus looked for a moment genuinely shocked, before his expression morphed into one of unimpressed disbelief. "Am I to believe this supposed apology is actually genuine?"
"Whether or not you believe me is your prerogative," James replied, keeping calm and collected.
"And what about all the rest of it? What about years of hounding me in the hallways, ambushing me, attacking me? No, I didn't think that might rate an apology, only what involves your pet wolf."
This got a response from James; he paled slightly and clenched his jaw tightly shut before nodding.
"That stops now. You have my word that we will leave you alone so long as you return the favour."
"Your word," Severus replied mockingly, cheeks splotching an ugly red in anger. "How chivalrous of you. I should be honoured to have that, should I? Should fall to my knees from gratitude? We'll see how long you last before you're back to showing your true colours, Potter." He didn't even look at Lily, just turned on his heel and marched out, Michael giving them all inscrutable looks before he trailed after the greasy-haired boy. Lily's heart clenched painfully as the word echoed in her mind, reminding her of everything that had been said between them not two days ago.
"You're barking," Sirius concluded once it was only the five Gryffindors in the room, sounding almost thoughtful.
"Don't make a liar of me, Padfoot," James said, taking a moment to meet Remus' eyes and then glancing over at Lily, before leaving the room. Huffing in annoyance, Sirius walked out after him, Peter trailing in their wake.
Then it was only Lily and Remus and the heavy silence the other boys had left behind.
"What happened yesterday?"
"I put my foot down," Remus answered grimly. "This is his last chance, and he knows it."
"And the apology? What did he say to Severus that was so bad he actually apologised?"
Remus shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It's in the past, he's apologised to everyone involved, and he won't be doing it again."
"He apologised for what he said. He didn't actually apologise for all that they've done," she noted, disappointment tasting bitter on her tongue.
In answer, Remus sighed. "He apologised for something; it's more than he's ever done before. And if we're being facetious, then Snape didn't apologise either, and at the very least, I can tell you that over the years, he's broken Peter's leg, caused at least six painful transfigurations on Sirius' various body parts including his genitals, and left James practically blind, deaf and mute for almost ten days once. And that's not even scratching the surface, really."
"You wanna be facetious about this, really? They deserved it!"
"Just like they no doubt think he deserved what we've done to him, too," Remus said with a shrug, unaffected by her anger. "It's on us more than on him, of course, since it was four-on-one, but Snape's been an active participant in this war of ours since the beginning."
"That's unfair to him; was he supposed to take the abuse lying down?!"
Remus huffed tiredly. "If you think he only ever reacted to us, and didn't go after us in revenge – sometimes very creatively, and with the help of other Slytherins too in later years – then you need to have a talk with him about the meaning of the word 'self-defence'. But I'll give you that he has the right not to accept James' apology, especially since it was just for the words, and not for the deeds, even when Snape called him out on it. Just don't forget that you have to start somewhere, if you're to bury the hatchet; James has a lot of crow to eat, and his ego is quite large. I'm reserving judgment until I see how things progress."
Sighing, Lily let it go. Remus had been in a very strange mood since yesterday, and she knew there was truth to his words, much as it felt unfair and disloyal to even think it; Severus was both vindictive and violent in his retribution when he felt attacked, she knew that as well as anyone, even if he'd only ever used words on her, not spells. But after two days ago, she didn't feel able any longer to judge properly how to apportion the blame between them all.
She looked back towards the door, heart aching for Severus, for the fact that his tormentor had at least acknowledged his wrongdoing and apologised for some part of it and how little that no doubt meant to him. And it also ached for James some too, that he'd taken ownership of his despicable actions at least in some small way, that he felt some remorse over them, even if not nearly as much as he should. As Remus had said, at least he'd started somewhere in trying to fix his past actions.
Smiling, Lily moved to give Remus a one-armed hug, leaning her head to rest against his shoulder. His arm, when it wrapped around her shoulders, was a warm and steadying anchor.
"Whatever you did, thank you. It means a lot to me that I got to see that, even if it's not what it should have been."
"Just don't lose your vigilance," Remus warned. "Because I'd like to think that this is it, this is the new James, but after three months of disappointments..."
"Hope for the best, prepare for worst." Lily snorted, shaking her head. "Story of our lives, isn't it."
Pulling away from her, Remus nodded. "Unfortunately, that it is."
"That's it, then?" Sirius asked once they'd exited the classroom after James' latest stunt. "We're gonna be acting like we're the ones at fault, tail between our legs, letting him win?"
"Padfoot," James replied, voice thrumming with barely contained exasperation, "haven't we been over this a dozen times already?"
"We might as well do it once more," the dog Animagus replied with a shrug. "Seeing how you just apologised to Snivellus over some smack talk."
In truth, a part of him was furious with Remus for giving James an ultimatum on it, and James for giving into it, too. A somewhat larger part had gone all the way through and come out the other way, and wasn't giving a shite anymore. It was all part of the new Sirius, the one he'd decided to cultivate before Hallowe'en. So yes, his current mood was somewhere between these two extremes, and he wasn't sure which way it'd go in the end, but he figured James' anger would push it one way or the other by the time they reached their next class.
Sirius was not a fan of in-between moods. They made him itchy and frustrated.
"Just like I said I would yesterday," James retorted, running a hand viciously through his messy hair, clutching it at the back of his head for a moment as if wanting to tug it, then letting it go instead. "I am really not in the mood to debate this with you right now."
"Pride smarting?" Sirius asked, unable to stop himself from smirking. James sent him a cross look.
"Just had to screw it in a bit more, didn't you? I swear, you're impossible," the bespectacled boy huffed.
"I don't know what you thought apologising had meant," Sirius replied with a roll of his eyes.
"At least he had gotten the Slytherins out of the room first," Peter volunteered. "Well, most of them."
"Shockingly nice of him, that. And all it took was Remus asking him for it."
"Inventing conspiracy theories? Was Lily actually right?"
"Oh, sod off," Sirius said, pushing James on the shoulder with enough force to make him stumble a step before catching his balance. But, instead of retaliating as Sirius had expected the moment he'd done it, James only sped up in his step, leaving the two other Gryffindor boys falling behind.
"I don't think that's helped much," Peter noted, clutching his school bag a bit to his hip.
"I can tell that for myself," Sirius snapped. "What, you agree with him, Wormtail?"
"No, I... if that's what Remus needs from him," the pudgy boy answered, pulling back a bit, "then at least he's got a very good reason for it."
"So you're over what Remus had said at the end of last year, too, then?"
"I... thought you'd forgiven him, too."
Sirius gave Peter an incredulous look.
"Peter, don't be daft. Do I look like I have a choice whether or not to tolerate him?"
"But..." The boy twitched his nose and lips in a very evocative imitation of his Animagus form, but didn't say anything further. They hurried after James, and at the main entrance to the castle, Peter waved them off as he headed for the Great Hall – he wasn't taking Herbology with them, and had settled into spending most of his free time studying with other students who had a free period. James and Sirius, meanwhile, started crossing the grounds towards the greenhouses, where their next class was always held.
"You pissed at me, then?" James asked half-way there, slowing in his step enough to make it clear that his anger had burned itself out. That was James, though – unlike Sirius, he just didn't know how to nurse grudges properly.
"I'm pissed none of you are giving me much choice in the matter," Sirius answered bluntly, said anger making a proper appearance in his voice. "And I'm pissed because you are ignoring all the warning signs about Snivelly because Remus is in a tiff with us."
"It's not just a tiff, though. I thought you'd realised that by now – Remus has changed, hasn't he."
"So this makes him the ultimate authority on whether we keep Snivellus in check?!"
James grimaced, and it soothed Sirius somewhat, to know that his best friend wasn't suddenly someone Sirius couldn't even recognise, not truly. He'd meant what he'd promised Remus, that wasn't in question – James had always said what he'd meant, he prided himself on being straightforward as a Gryffindor. But that didn't mean he wasn't still struggling with it, which at least meant that Sirius wasn't suddenly all alone in his beliefs and stances after five years of thinking they were on the same wavelength when it came to Slytherins, bigotry and Death Eater wannabes.
"No, but I do think he's right in that we've crossed borders of normal behaviour into obsessiveness. I'm just... not sure how exactly this happened without us noticing it. Or why."
Sirius stared at James, wondering if all of his friends were just that obtuse – first Peter with his idiotic question about Sirius forgiving Remus, and now James acting as if he didn't know where his focus on Snape even came from. It made Sirius want to smack the other boy upside the head a few times and direct him towards a certain prissy redhead.
For his part, Sirius' reasons for detesting Snape were numerous and far more varied than James', the main one being that he was a Slytherin who was intelligent enough to be a truly dangerous enemy, and with very clear inclinations towards exactly that ambition. Sirius had no doubt the other boy was gunning for one day being Voldemort's right-hand man. Maybe it wasn't an immediate problem, but it would be a huge one down the line, and culling it now seemed by far the smartest choice, when they had the chance. Having grown up in a Slytherin household, Sirius thought that he understood the viciousness and evilness of Snakes much, much better than any of his friends did, which was why he was the only one who saw the eventual catastrophe heading for them.
When it was four-on-one, they had the advantage of the dirty-haired Slytherin; on the battlefield, where it was no doubt going to be utter chaos and mayhem, they might run into him one-on-one, and who knew what would happen then – much as he prided himself on his skills, Evans had forced Sirius in their practice duels to confront the fact that he just wasn't the best, and luck could be manipulated just as any other factor on the battlefield could, with Felix Felicis or other, darker magics. One clear advantage of going after Snape here, now, was that come that day of open warfare, he might flinch due to it if they faced him then, and it might save their lives. And anyway, it wasn't as if he'd not already thought the same thing – he was a Snake, it was exactly the way they thought.
"Fine," Sirius said in the end, "I'll follow your lead. For now. But if he ever steps over the line, all bets are off, yeah? And I'm not going to stop trying to figure out what he's up to all of a sudden."
"I don't, in fact, want to control you, Padfoot," James said, putting his arm around Sirius' shoulders and tugging him into a one-armed hug. "You heard what Moony said yesterday – he's already given up on you in any case, I'm sure you can push his buttons more than I can now, if you really feel like trying it. I'd rather you didn't, because I'd like you to take his words to heart too, he means well and he's right about most of it, but I'd never actually force you to go against what you think is best. Just... think about it? I know deep down you still care about Remus and his opinion of you, even if it's hard to remember why at the moment."
The disowned boy sighed mightily, giving into his best friend's plea somewhat more readily than he'd been willing to do before this little speech. James was often a bit better at judging these things than Sirius anyway, and it really reduced the pressure, knowing that he was being given a choice going forward in spite of how Remus had made it sound yesterday. He knew it meant that James would be on his side if Sirius and Remus came to blows in the future, and that was enough to make Sirius actually acquiesce to this new direction they were going in as a group.
He was going to have to spend some time thinking over what he should do in the long run, though, because none of this negated his worries about Snape's actions and their impact on the future. But if Sirius knew how to do something, it was bide his time. It was the one good thing that Wretched Woman had taught him in that house of horrors.
The fire crackles were strangely soothing of late, for some reason. She'd not paid much mind to it before now, really, but the sound was soft and unobtrusive, regular in its irregularity, calming. She'd taken to staring into the fire in the last few days, seeking solace, seeking peace and resolution to things that were ultimately out of her control.
She closed her eyes for just a second, just to focus on the sound, and the reflections of the yellow-orange little tongues of flame sparkled behind her eyelids. She could maybe fall asleep like this, warmed and comforted in equal measure by the heated glow.
Someone poked her, and she swatted it away distractedly, unwilling to move. There was still time before bed, anyway. They poked her again, and this time she frowned, annoyed momentarily at the intrusion, though the sound of the fire burning away merrily immediately soothed the feeling away.
A gust of wind hit her, and the fire winked out of existence, and with it, the illusion itself; immediately, the scene was replaced by Severus' angry face, yelling: "I have a problem with you saying that you were on my side, and then going and making cosy with my biggest tormentor!" and her heart twisted at the betrayal in his voice, hers as well as of her. Panicked at the thought of reliving the memory, Lily twirled herself around, and now it was James standing there, saying: "That stops now. You have my word that we will leave you alone so long as you return the favour," and her heart was tugged in two directions at once.
Dumbledore retreated from her mind on his own after that, leaving her a sweaty, shaking mess in one of his ugly chairs, her side warmed by the evening fire burning in his hearth.
"That was tremendous progress, my dear."
"What progress?" she asked, wiping her forehead distractedly. She couldn't quite put her mind fully back together just yet.
"I do believe we've found your primary defence."
Blinking owlishly up at him, Lily tried to sort out what in the world had even happened. The last thing she remembered of them speaking was of symbols and external focus...
"The fire," it came to her. "That fire, that wasn't this fire, was it?"
"In the beginning; afterwards, it was also in your mind."
"So the weird sense of lethargy and my friends trying to get me to bed, that was you?"
The Headmaster nodded. "Your ability to resist my general presence in your mind was quite strong, yes; your answer to my probes was also quite subdued."
"I felt annoyed for a second, but then it just... felt unimportant, somehow," Lily recalled. "That was Occlumency?"
"Indeed, as was your general thought process during this part of the exercise."
"But... I wasn't thinking of anything at all, sir."
"Precisely," Dumbledore said, looking very satisfied. "You'd successfully cleared your mind, and with sensational assistance, your mind in turn used that state to construct its instinctive shields."
"Fire," she repeated, looking at the real one before her thoughtfully.
"Does that make sense to you?"
"Yeah," she said with an absent-minded nod. "My parents always say that I have a fiery temper, and fire is the element of the Gryffindor House. I don't like the summer heat at all, but in the winter, I love the warmth of the fire. And it's dependable, too; I know how to create it, how to put it out, and I can control it with magic without trouble if it comes to that."
"Fire is destruction, and yet it is also life. It burns away the rotten and dry debris, leaving behind nutritional potash. It causes damage, and yet without it, some plants cannot flower. It purifies, like the release of emotions and acknowledgment of issues purifies your conscience, allowing you to overcome grudges and resentments. Yes, I believe fire is a very suitable symbol for you, my dear."
"So how come it's worked now and not all the times I was trying before?" she questioned. "I did try imagining flames before, among other things."
"I believe for two reasons – one is, as I've said already, that you had cleared your mind. The other is that this time, you were focused on the actual fire your senses could perceive – the sound of the crackles, the movement and brightness of flames, the warmth on your skin, the smell of ash and burning wood. I do believe we've been approaching your Occlumency training from the wrong standpoint."
"How so?"
"How would you say you learn best, Lily?"
"I... well, I suppose I have a pretty good memory, and if I understand what I'm reading, then it just stays in my head."
"And what of magic?"
She gave it some thought. "It doesn't usually take me long to learn a new spell, for instance. I have to do it a couple of times correctly to be sure, but I can... I suppose feel it, whether it'll work or not, even as I'm doing it. I can't explain it exactly, sir."
"And what of magic you've understood and memorised, but not yet performed? Something more involved, for instance, such as potionwork?"
She turned it around in her head, realising where the old wizard was leading her. "Just following passively as someone else does it never helps me do better; I need to do the physical work myself for it to stay with me. That means... I have to experience it first-hand in order to be good at it."
"And this is what your Occlumency training has been missing. You work by your instincts, yes, but unlike Severus, your instincts are fuelled by your past experiences, not by theoretical understanding as is the case for him. Now that we know this, the path forward is quite clear – you shall continue to practice clearing your mind, however, this time in front of a fire. The general activity in your Common Room shall serve as a good challenge, as well, in managing to clear your mind in spite of outside distractions."
"Am I supposed to feel so... disconnected, from everything around me?" Lily questioned with a frown.
"No, though this is not uncommon in the beginning. That is, however, what I would like to discuss with you as well. How is it that you've found it so easy to slip into that state of fugue while here, in my quarters, while we engaged in conversation?"
The Headmaster's voice was kind, without judgment, but Lily still blushed in embarrassment. Oh, she knew how she'd managed it, of course; it was because since Saturday evening, since Severus had rebuffed and reproached her so painfully, she'd been in a state of despondency that clung to her no matter what she did, how hard she focused on her classes, how much she worked at their communication devices. It all felt so insignificant compared to the fact that he'd told her to her face that he didn't trust her, that she wasn't enough, that her efforts to protect him were causing him pain.
"I'm sorry, sir."
"You do not need to apologise, Lily. I would just like to understand. From your memories, I take it you and Severus had an altercation on Saturday?"
She did not want to talk to the old man about it, but she knew he'd continue to prod, and anyway, maybe not talking about it was the problem. She couldn't tell Remus that she'd met up with Severus on Saturday, as McGonagall had come to pick her up, so there was only Dumbledore who could know.
So she explained it to him, haltingly, throat tight and dry, about how Severus had accused her of hurting him by becoming friends with his bully without asking her if she'd had a proper ulterior motive for it, and how she'd called him out on not wanting to show her his Patronus.
"I don't know what to do," she admitted in the end, feeling her eyes watering. "I mean, I knew that he didn't trust me fully, but I thought that he was at least willing to try. You know his Patronus, Headmaster; what is so bad about me knowing it, too?"
"Alas, I am afraid, my dear, that this is an answer only Severus may give you," the old wizard answered gently. "We all wrestle with our own demons, Lily, and Severus has more than most for his age. But you mustn't give up on him. Patience and time is something that you will always need with him, but from my own experiences, the effort will return to you tenfold. Have patience with him, and give him time to reconcile his own emotions, until he is ready to share them with you."
"I miss him." It slipped out, an afterthought that had pervaded everything in the last few months. She missed him so much. Going from having him by her side through her toughest, to not having him near even when they could be open with each other... it hurt, as if something deep within her had been gouged and wouldn't stop sluggishly bleeding, debilitating but not mortal.
She rallied, as she'd been doing on and off since Saturday. Despondency was not her natural state, and though it had such a firm grip on her at the moment, she knew she needed to combat it. "Do you think that I should stop associating with James Potter and his group, sir? Would it make things easier for him?"
"What do you think?"
She wanted to tell him that this was exactly why she was asking, because she was doubting her own judgment, but the annoyance went as quickly as it came, as it had a hundred times before, throughout the last three months. She'd decided that these moments of discord with the old wizard were just part and parcel of her Occlumency training, and that if nothing else, she could use them to practice her self-control.
"I think that James can change. I think that if Remus and I can get him to truly change, then it's worth it. But clearly it's hurting Severus, so is it?"
"There are very few people in the world, Lily, that are incapable of change," Dumbledore said, tapping his wand on the tea table for their customary cup of tea. "James Potter is not one of them. But for him, like for Severus, overcoming years of ingrained behaviour is not an easy task. That task becomes almost impossible if there is no one in his vicinity who encourages it, and I am afraid that young Mr Black is not at the moment as receptive to yours and Mr Lupin's advances as Mr Potter."
"A rock would be more responsive," Lily agreed with a roll of her eyes.
"Would you not feel, then, that we have an obligation to act where we know our actions are needed for goodness to prevail?"
He was completely right; Lily did believe that – it was why she'd not given up on Severus for years when all of her friends had insisted she should have, because she'd felt that she could reach him still, and so then, how could she not try? And when she and Remus were so close to reaching James, too!
"Remus and I think that if James puts his foot down, then Sirius will toe the line. He has, as a matter of fact, this Monday. He apologised to Severus for something or other, Remus wouldn't tell me what. Frankly, I was thinking the whole time that it must be snowing in hell, because if anyone had asked me whether James would ever apologise to Severus for anything, I'd have said that hell would sooner freeze over!"
"Clearly, then, your efforts are paying dividends."
"But at what cost, that's my question," she reiterated.
Their tea popped into existence. Handing her a cup, Dumbledore poured tea – a herbal blend, for soothing the soul, he always said – and took a sip of his own.
"Do you find it difficult to watch Severus interact with his fellow housemates?"
"It makes me sick to my stomach sometimes," Lily admitted readily enough. "But I know that it's necessary, and I think he doesn't like them very much anymore, except for Michael Stone and his group. He didn't sound at all pleased with them over that murder on Hallowe'en."
"Are you afraid that they will pull him back towards the Dark?"
"Sometimes. I worried a lot in the beginning of the school year. And it's... frightening, to see how accepted he is now, when for five years, he was just their lapdog. I guess... he had the potential all this time, to be that, and yet he'd not..."
"Because of you," the Headmaster finished for her. "Even during the beginning of our training, when he had been so resistant to any help or guidance I sought to provide him with, when I had not been certain I would succeed, he had still restrained himself from his full potential, because he had had you to think of. And he agonised over the rift that this had caused between you two, because you had not trusted him to see the correct path before him. But he proved himself to you, and you relearned to trust him. He needs to learn to trust you, as well, even when he might not fully understand your motivations, or agree with your actions."
"Trust goes both ways."
"It does, yes. Do you have trust in yourself, to navigate this path? It will not be easy; the hatred that runs between Severus and James Potter is deep and poisonous, but it is understandable. I fear that you will never be able to completely purge it, and I would urge you not to reach out for that, either. Instead, attempt to bring peace terms to them, however uneasy those may be. Mr Potter and his friends will no doubt also find their place in the Order of the Phoenix when the time comes, and thus your association with them will not be avoidable. Delaying is rarely a good strategy, unless there is some clear benefit to be gained from it."
Her determination resolved itself, and Lily nodded. "You're right; James is maybe finally properly trying to becoming someone better, and if I can help him, then I have an obligation to do it. And Severus needs to find a way to learn to trust me, because I won't always be able to think of what he'd feel of my actions, just like I have to accept that he's doing and will do things in the future that I am and will have trouble dealing with. I just... wish it wasn't all so hard," she concluded with a sigh.
"Ah, but do you feel that it is worth doing?"
There was no hesitation in her in response. "I do." And she did – if she could live in a world where she'd not have to fear persecution in the future because of some maniac, and have Severus by her side in that future, free of his own brand of persecution he was dealing with, then the pain and difficulties were absolutely worth it.
"Can I speak with you about something?"
Pulling herself out of her trance, Lily blinked away from the fire and up at James, looking very much as if he'd woken her up, even though she'd clearly been awake. He felt his heart skip in nervousness, and scratched the back of his head in lieu of shifting from foot to foot. Lily looked around them, catching sight of their friends playing Exploding Snap in the other corner of the Common Room, and then nodded, tucking a throw blanket tightly around her already curled form, so that only her socked toes remained exposed, warmed by the glow of the hearth.
"Of course. What is it?"
James seated himself on the sofa opposite her and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and interlacing his fingers so tightly they started feeling almost numb.
"Remus is... angry with me."
"I have noticed," she replied dryly. "Though he won't tell me what about."
James felt himself blushing, grateful beyond compare to his friend for keeping last Sunday's incident between only the four of them. Aside from feeling ashamed of being terrified of his friend after six years of wholehearted acceptance of his condition, he also couldn't quite forgive himself yet for never realising just how horrible that experience truly was. He did not want Lily to know this. "It's better if you don't know; I don't think you'd be nearly as forgiving as he's been these past few days."
She seemed to accept it, to his surprise, only saying a soft 'okay' and nothing else.
"I promised him that I'd, uh, walk the talk, so to say, turn over a new leaf." He found his throat constricted and had to stop to clear it. "It's just that I'm not quite sure how to stop myself from doing impulsive things that get me into trouble."
"I can't say that I ever took you for very impulsive."
He supposed she was right to call him out on that one.
"Habitual things, then. Like calling Snape 'Snivellus', or doing... what I did to make Remus angry."
"And you want my advice on how to accomplish it?" she clarified. James nodded minutely.
"If you have any, yeah. You've made so much difference with Remus in just a few months, and he always says that you treat him better than we've ever done – he's right," the bespectacled boy hurried to add, "I'm not... not arguing that – and I thought..." Spit it out, James, "could you help me?"
Looking a bit caught out, the redhead nodded.
"I can try," she said, "but the actual doing is on you. I can't change your behaviour for you, much as I'd like to. Merlin knows that would've saved us so many headaches in the last five years," she added under her breath, and James felt himself wince as a pang of guilt assaulted him at causing her distress. "Well, the way you change yourself... I suppose the most important thing is that you never stop thinking about what you're doing in every moment. You need to police yourself really closely, and catch yourself before you do something bad. And if you do do a stupid thing, then you need to set things right – make amends, apologise, try to do better next time. Every failure and mistake you make should be a reminder for next time, until hopefully you'll eventually stop making those mistakes."
It sounded bloody exhausting to him.
"And it's not foolproof, either," Lily agreed. "I've told myself over the summer that I wouldn't react in the first second someone makes me angry, and yet I still did just that last week and only made things worse."
"With your dad?" he asked, watching as her face tightened even as she nodded. The need to soothe her rose up unbidden. "I hope you managed to sort things out with him."
"Not completely, but I know we'll be fine eventually," she answered, dismissing the topic. "Now you tell me something."
"Alright."
"Do you understand why Remus and I have so many problems with your actions? I mean, really understand?"
James pushed his glasses up a bit further onto his nose and shrugged. "The pranking and sp–" no Map talk, mustn't talk about the Map, "I mean, stalking people and going after them. Snape, I suppose."
"Yes, but why this is all wrong?" Lily insisted, looking quite earnest.
"I suppose people have gotten accidentally hurt in our pranks sometimes," he allowed, not liking where this was going in the least, though he'd approached her. Lily gave him an unimpressed look and shook her head.
"It's not even about that; I mean, yes it is, but even more, it's about forcing your targets to live in constant fear. You know how haunted Remus is by his condition?" After Sunday, he knew it better than he could ever have thought to. Anxiety twisted his gut at her words. "It's the same thing – it's something you can never wrest control of, because there's four of your tormentors and one of you, and it can happen at any moment, so you have to be on your guard day and night. And when it comes, it's not even just the physical pain, it's that they make you feel worthless, a weakling for not being able to defend yourself even though the odds are so far against you that you'd have to be a superman to achieve it. Then they go further and degrade you for things that are also out of your control. Even things that bring you joy and comfort, they take away from you by making them out to be something disgusting and scornful. And they do it in public half the time, so that you never have anyone who'd see you for who you are and tell you that you do have worth." With each sentence, James felt himself sinking a bit further in his seat, the anxiety making him want to suddenly hide from the girl before him. "You were so worried about Remus taking his own life because of your actions; what I'm curious to know is how you can be so compassionate about him, and yet feel nothing about the fact that your actions, far worse than what you'd done to Remus, might be directly convincing someone that their life isn't worth enough to continue living?"
James almost flinched at the thought; he knew by now that she was directly talking about Snape, not just some random kid, and much as he hated the bloke, when she described it like this, without naming names, forcing James to imagine himself – or worse, Remus – in that position... Merlin, he felt like the ground couldn't swallow him quickly enough.
Even if it was Snivellus Snape and his ugly face that sprang up in his mind as a counter-argument for why they were all blowing it out of proportion, the shame won out in the end.
"You are talking about him."
Lily lifted her eyebrow. "Severus. His name is Severus Snape. Not 'Snivellus', not 'him'. And unless you've done the same thing to a lot of other people I don't know about, then of whom else would I be talking about?"
"I don't..." he cleared his throat, ran his hand through his messy hair in agitation, frustrated and not quite knowing why. "How can you still care for him, after what he's done to you?"
"Because hatred is a poison, James," she said vehemently, leaning forward as if to drill the point in. "And he may be willing to poison himself with it, but I am not. I care about him still because he was my best friend for seven years, and if ever I stop caring about him, I will still not hate him. I'll never hate him, because that hatred won't do anything to him, it'll only do something to me. And I don't know where your hatred of him came from, but it's made you do things that are unconscionable, and the fact that you clearly never crossed all those lines with everyone else exactly proves my point."
"But we have had altercations with other Slytherins," he pointed out, frowning at her, not even quite sure why he was trying to poke holes in her arguments anymore.
"Yes, but you didn't go out of your way to persecute them the way you've done to him," she volleyed back. "You ambush Slytherins when the opportunity presents itself – don't think I haven't caught onto you aborting in the last moment because either Remus or I pop up just when you're thinking of crossing the line between thought and action – but you always seek him out specifically. And after you attack the Slytherins, you make your pleasure in it known, but you don't prolong the agony of defeat, you saunter off, oh-so-proud of yourself for catching them off guard and, I suppose, thinking you've demonstrated your prowess over them. Only with Severus have I caught you actually humiliating beyond that initial point-proving moment. And your pranks, they often go too far, but at least in the beginning, I never thought that you'd meant them to. So what is it about him that turns you into the worst possible version of yourself, tell me that."
He wasn't sure how to answer her. It had just always felt right, made sense. Snape and his loitering around Lily, pretending at being her best friend when he was so openly cavorting with people who wanted to kill her, being possessive and dismissive and, and...
"I... I don't know," he said, slumping low in his seat, the admission feeling quite true, and at the same time like a total lie. "I don't know, Lily."
...Having the gall to keep standing up to you in defiance even when you'd clearly put him in his spot.
He had no idea where the thought had even come from, but it sounded like Athenora's calm judgment-free voice, and he mentally flinched away from it, for a moment remembering every one of her comments on this topic and realising, with growing horror, that though she'd said it in such an accepting manner and Lily's voice had always held nothing but judgment, the two girls had said the exact same thing, in the end.
"Well, do you even want to change?" the redhead broke through his thoughts, a blessed respite from his own rather disturbed mind. "For yourself, I mean, not for Remus."
"What difference does that make?" he asked, caught by surprise.
"All the difference, of course," she retorted. "If you want to change just to please him, then what will you do when you're certain he won't find out about it? Will you still act the way he'd want you to, or will you go back to your old ways? But if you want to change for yourself, then that's a different story entirely."
He stared into the middle distance, turning and turning her words around, remembering those few comments of Athenora's that had given him pause (It seems Remus was rather late to finding his conscience, if that's the case. Bit weak-spirited of him, that, and No wonder she was angry with you; I can't imagine she cares for the way you bullied the guy, and I'm not judging you, Jimmy; I've done my share of uncharitable behavior), that now, away from his infatuation with her, actually sounded so recriminatory; remembering Lily's tears and fury as she'd told him he was scum just a couple of months ago, as she'd defended Snape at the lake in June; and wondered if this really was the person he wanted to be.
He looked up, found himself mesmerised by Lily's vivid green eyes and the fire reflecting merrily in them as she waited patiently for him to come to his conclusions, and realised that he never wanted to disappoint either her or Remus, ever again.
"I want to change for both Remus and myself. And you."
"Me?" she asked, voice lilting in surprise. James kept his gaze firm, not trying to show her how he felt about her, but not trying to hide it either.
"I know you've only been hanging out with us because you were worried about Remus," he told her openly. "But I really like you, and I want us to be proper friends. So yes; for you as much as for him."
The smile she bestowed on him held warmth and pleasure, making James' heart give a painful, yearning lurch. "Thank you," she said softly, nothing but sincerity in her voice. James dared to smile at her, feeling more motivated by the second, and felt giddiness wash through him when her smile became a shade warmer, a bit lovelier, all for him.
For her, he knew, for her and Remus, and for himself too, he was going to really change.
Anger simmering beneath his mental shields, Severus kept himself ensconced in the darkest, quietest corner of the Slytherin Common room and his head firmly buried in his Transfigurations homework essay, letting his hair obscure him from view of the currently extremely loathsome populace of his House.
Even that made him irritable, that he couldn't make up his mind anymore on how he wanted to wear his bloody hair – some days, the oily strands felt like they were crawling all over his face, getting into his mouth and eyes, and it was all he could do to not just chop it all off; other times, it was the only thing that kept him sane, that feeling of a curtain between him and the world around him.
It was Lily's bloody fault, is what it was. If she hadn't pushed and prodded him into tying it back this summer, he knew he wouldn't have been bothered by it now. But she had, and he'd caved, and now he felt conflicted and unable to settle on just one preference.
And wasn't that a bloody on-the-nose metaphor for his whole life. If Lily hadn't pushed and prodded at him about a great many things, he could have been out there now, working towards a seemingly bright future in the Dark Lord's service, unburdened by duties and their costs. If she hadn't insisted on defending him to Dumbledore about that night of terror, he wouldn't have been sitting here, tearing himself up about what was to come in six weeks. If she hadn't bamboozled him with her fiery passion and her seemingly strong convictions, he wouldn't have felt so torn between protecting that last piece of his heart he'd not yet given her and their relationship going to hell, again.
If she hadn't befriended him in that park all those years ago, or even forgiven him at the end of last term, Severus knew that he wouldn't have felt an ounce of conflict over everything that was going on around him and his position in this clusterfuck the school year was turning into.
He also knew, though, that this would have been because he'd not have had her to guide him, to pull him into the right direction, to show him the way, and so, no matter how much it was Lily's fault, all of it, he couldn't truly blame her, not for any of the big things, and certainly not for something as silly as his annoyance with his own hairstyle.
Transfiguration homework was a poor substitute for brewing when it came to an escape from his turbulent, progressively more terrifying thoughts, about the Dark Mark and his mission in a bit more than a month, about the Gryffindor king's apology four days ago that had left Severus wanting to beat the arrogant sod bloody, about Lily's chumminess with said arrogant sod, about their argument and her crestfallen, wounded expression when he'd refused to show her his Patronus, about the silence that had fallen between them and stayed since. But homework was still better than nothing when it came to distractions, and it needed to be done in any case, so Transfiguration essay it was.
"You going to brood there in the corner all night, Snape?" Avery interrupted him mid-sentence, making Severus send him a murderous glare, where his dormmate was leaning against the stone wall. Friday evening apparently meant two very different things for Severus and for the remaining Slytherin upper-years, since they'd smuggled in spiked butterbeer and were now conducting an impromptu, extremely loud gathering.
"I'm busy, if you haven't noticed," he shot back, annoyance more than obvious in his voice. "So kindly fuck the hell off, Avery."
"Ooooh, touchy this evening. What is it, business not going too well anymore? Or is it to do with the Gryffindor golden foursome... Snivelly?"
Severus was on his feet in an instant, wand squarely pointed at Avery's throat, his anger searing in his veins.
"What did you call me?"
"What, you going to attack me in the middle of the Common Room on a Friday evening?" Avery scoffed, utterly unconcerned for his own precarious position. "You think I don't know what you're doing, Snape?"
"And what's that, pray enlighten me," Severus hissed back. In response, Avery uncrossed his arms and banged them palms-down on the table. His blue eyes, when he lifted them up to meet Severus', were filled with honest loathing.
"That position is mine, Snape, and no matter how much you suck up to Rosier's leftovers, it won't change a thing. I'll make sure it doesn't. You know how dirty I'm prepared to fight for what's mine."
Severus' brain belatedly caught on to what the hell Avery was prattling on about, and he barked out a laugh, putting his wand down. The look on Avery's face at his response was priceless, too, only spurning his laughter. And it was a relief, in a way, to laugh like this, from the belly, even though nothing was truly funny, because it allowed him to let off just a little bit of the steam that had been trying to escape the iron grip on self-control Severus had imposed upon his own feelings in an attempt to keep it all concealed.
"Something funny?"
"Oh, just your petty life goals, Avery. You're welcome to the leadership position next year as far as I'm concerned. I've got bigger things to do."
Avery narrowed his eyes, straightening to cross his arms over his chest.
"Such as?"
"Such as actually being of service to the Dark Lord. Now, if that's all, I've got homework to catch up on, so as I said – take a hike."
Avery, acting nothing so much as a wet ferret trying for a dignified exit, straightened his robes and turned to walk away.
"Oh, and Terry-bear?" The little twerp stiffened at Severus' quiet call. "The next time you dare call me that name, you will regret it, I give you my word."
Avery didn't deign to turn back and face Severus; he chose instead to march away and in the process shoulder Mickey, who was coming towards them. Lifting his eyebrows as he watched the slighter boy pass, the conman dropped himself into the second of the two chairs at Severus' table.
"That was a tiff there."
Severus rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Avery pissing on his territory to mark it. As if I haven't enough things to deal with."
"Ah, so you've also news, then."
Taking stock of where the important Slytherins were located in the room, Severus cast a couple of privacy wards and silencing spells to ensure they'd not be easily overheard. He'd not forgotten how easily Mickey had let the Gryffindors know he had Severus' back on Monday, without ever giving off the impression that Severus had needed backup in the first place, and it made him feel even more protective of the friendship that had grown between the two of them in the last half-year or so.
"Lucius Malfoy has extended an official invitation for an introduction to the Dark Lord in the shape of an induction mission."
Mickey frowned, though he kept his body language open and relaxed for curious eyes. "Which means what?"
"It's the first step towards taking the Dark Mark," Severus clarified. "To be formally accepted into the inner circles, I would need to pass muster with the Dark Lord himself, but having Malfoy's sponsorship nearly guarantees me that I'd succeed in that – he wouldn't be foolish enough to present anyone in whom he didn't have absolute confidence. I have impressed him in the last six months and he's giving me one chance to prove myself beyond doubt, by assigning me a mission."
"Was it expected that it'd only take you a couple of months to secure such an invitation?"
Severus rubbed his forehead. "Opinion was divided on it; I didn't believe so. It seems I was mistaken." Huffing in frustration, he rolled up his homework parchment and pushed it away from himself on the table. "The only true limitation at the moment appears to be a legal one, namely my age."
"Your seventeenth birthday is on the 9th of January."
"Thank you for stating the bloody obvious."
"What a lovely birthday present."
Wasn't it just, the greasy-haired Slytherin thought to himself. This time last year, he'd almost been looking forward to the moment when he'd be able to stand in front of the Dark Lord and show all that he was capable of. Now, the very thought of it turned his stomach. If he was discovered as a spy, he had few illusions as to how painful and protracted his end would be, not after his sessions with the Headmaster since Hallowe'en.
"I've something to cheer you up," Mickey spoke up, making Severus realise he'd gone exactly down a train of thought he'd been trying to avoid for days now. "We'll be needing that Polyjuice for December after all."
"You've learned something of Wilson?"
"Nothing concrete, unfortunately, though we're almost certain we will have the information we need by Christmas. The best time to pull the con would be right before the hols, when the school is collectively preparing for departure and everyone's worried about mid-term grades and such."
"But if you don't get the information you need?"
Mickey shrugged. "I'm planning for all eventualities. Should I not count on you in case we are forced to push it to after Christmas holidays?"
"I imagine that'd be more prudent," Severus agreed. "December new moon is after the beginning of the hols; you should be fine with the November batch, but I'll make another one for you, as I'm staying here in any case."
"You'd better; I want to keep the option open for proceeding only after we're back in January as well. Now then, if you need a distraction, how about a game of cards with me, Stace and Black?" Mickey offered, giving Severus a friendly look. "I'll even guarantee something much better than the slop these people have put together."
'Something much better than spiked butterbeer' sounded beyond appealing right now, and really, it was Friday. Who the hell knew what fresh hell would add to his burden come Monday. And if it kept his thoughts from the near future, then perhaps he could almost – almost – understand why his old man had grown only to love the sight of the bottom of a bottle.
The first Thursday in December was the day when the dynamics shifted; Remus, still quite uncharitably predisposed towards James, felt the shift within a couple of days, reflected not in the bespectacled boy himself, but rather in the girl who'd become the second most important person in Remus' life in the last six months.
Whatever conversation Lily and James had had that evening, by the weekend, Lily's depressed mood had lifted again, and she was back to engaging with everyone with her usual enthusiasm. Remus only realised James was the direct cause of it when they came together to the Patronus Charm practice on Sunday evening, the boy apparently in the middle of telling some outrageous Marauder exploit while the girl giggled throughout. For the few moments that Remus could observe them without being noticed, he found his annoyance with James flaring up, even as a hard rock settled itself in his gut.
He caught himself regretting not telling Lily about the incident the previous Sunday and it spoiled his evening, his attempts at conjuring the Patronus meeting with even less success than usual as a consequence. Lily naturally fretted about him and the fact he'd refused to miss the practice in spite of his pre-full-moon exhaustion, but she devoted a lot of her time to James as well, correcting his wand movement and suggesting the types of memories to try. Remus gave up on the whole thing when he caught sight of Sirius' disgruntled expression and realised that it fully reflected his own state of mind, choosing to spend the remaining time buried in the Patronus Charm theory book and deciding to chuck his emotional upset up to the fact that the full moon was next evening.
By Wednesday of next week, James' commitment to change largely managed to appease Remus' previous fury – he caught the messy-haired boy talking Sirius down from doing mischief at least three times in those initial ten days, and he walked away from two more altercations with the Slytherins, though not including Snape either of the times. He made sure that both Padfoot and Wormtail were at the Shrieking Shack on Monday evening on the dot, and even managed to finally fully win over the wolf from what Remus could vaguely remember the next morning.
And yet the feeling of unease persisted, flaring up every time James hurried after Lily as soon as they were all released from their shared classes, every time Remus' intent to have a private research session with Lily was pre-empted by James pulling the Gryffindor sixth-year girls into evening activities. It only came to him that what he was feeling was jealousy when Sirius snapped at James for running after the redhead like a lovesick puppy and the bespectacled boy shrugged without an ounce of embarrassment, as if he'd already known and fully accepted the sudden strangeness of his own actions.
It left Remus wondering towards whom that jealousy was directed, and over what, exactly. Because some days, it felt like it was due to James hogging Lily's time and attention, encroaching on what had until now been Remus' territory, while other days, it was over the fact that Lily had somehow managed, in one conversation, to push James into becoming this new version of himself, where three months of Remus' anger and cajoling and vigilance hadn't born fruit.
And that, too, forced him into finally facing certain emotions of his own which he'd done his utmost to push away, a relatively easy task so long as he'd had the Marauders to occupy his mind. Because the truth was, though he'd very consciously decided to let that one moment between him and Lily pass, his crush on her hadn't quite faded the way he'd thought it would. He was pretty sure it hadn't gotten worse, but he couldn't pretend that he only ever thought of her as his friend, either. Throughout the last six months, Lily had brightened Remus' life and had helped him find his inner core of steel even when she'd had so much of her own to battle with, that he felt his feelings for her almost inevitable.
What he realised hurt was not that James really did appear to be falling for her at the speed of light, and properly this time, not the way the messy-haired boy had childishly thought himself to be in the previous years, or that he knew Lily would never even think of Remus the same way, or even that she appeared to have opened herself up to James after three months of resistance to find laughter and easy camaraderie as a result, something James always had inspired in those he'd considered his friends. No, what hurt was that Remus felt excluded all of a sudden, after months of being the go-between for the two sides, after months of being able to say that Lily only tolerated the rest because she cared for him. And the absurd thing was that he'd not even felt that way this summer, when he and Snape had had to find some kind of resolution between them to share her! Among all of Lily's family problems completely occupying her mind, among open hostilities from the Slytherin boy, Remus had felt more included than he did now, among his best friends of five and a half years and new friends of this fall.
In the past, he would've hidden his feelings of unhappiness, buried them among the pages of his book and his work on the Map, waited out until they passed or learned to live with them. Now, he found himself resistant to old coping mechanisms, and instead went the other route, by catching Lily before everyone in the morning and asking her if she'd spend the day with him. Proving his insecurities and doubts completely unfounded, Lily agreed easily enough, so they spent the afternoon and evening exploring the castle and updating the Map together, followed by the work on her secret communication journals. The day went an enormous way towards improving his mood and settling his turbulent feelings. In the end, he even managed to gather enough courage to request that they make it a more regular arrangement, which Lily accepted without hesitation, declaring Wednesday nights as exclusively reserved for them to hang out together without the rest of the group.
What he realised out of it was that far from Lily being the one thing that brought him happiness and stability, as he'd half-way believed until now, it was rather he himself who secured it. Lily was his rock, the person he knew he could rely on day and night, the person who made him feel contented and fulfilled, but if he felt himself lacking that in his life at any given moment, it was on him to be proactive about it, to reach out to her and ask for what he needed. He'd spent most of his life accepting what he'd been given by his friends, grateful for any scrap of affection and attention they bestowed on a Dark creature like himself. The rejection of the other three Marauders, though it had been almost debilitatingly painful and destructive, coupled with Lily's nurture of their friendship and Snape's tacit willingness to put their former animosity to the side at least to some extent, had shown him that it was all right to reach for more, to believe he was worth enough for something better. As a consequence, that next step of not just believing he deserved it but actively asking for it hadn't feel like some Sisyphean task, and the pride he felt in himself helped him come to terms with the changes he'd wanted to happen to his friends but nonetheless hadn't been fully prepared for.
He knew what should follow this realisation, as well – his friendship with James was slowly but surely getting back onto fully solid ground; his friendship with Peter had been there even when the other two hadn't; his friendship with Lily was what gave him courage and strength to face forwards with his back straight and his head held high; his friendships with Mary, Bettina and Clotilde were new, soothing things to be cared for; it was his relationship with Sirius that needed work next. He had to focus his attention now on figuring out how to regain what he'd lost with the person he knew the wolf claimed as its own the most, his lupine side recognising its closest kin. And if it gave him another excuse not to focus on his errant romantic feelings for the redhaired teenage witch, then so much the better. Unsure of what to do about them instead and refusing to let them rule him the way they'd done this time around, he decided to wait them out until they fully faded, because if nothing was permanent, then they wouldn't be either.
A/N: Because I'm an idiot who forgot to keep track of who might remember what in the story, a belated author's note: Mickey in this chapter talks about the Hustle gang's plan to pull a long-con on their DADA teacher, Marcus Wilson. He previously said they intend to research him in chapter 35,III, Of Suspicions and Doubts. Pay attention to this, because this little plot thread will play a big role in the closing chapters of Part III.