(Author Notes expanded slightly, 25th September, 2014)

Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following slightly fluffy, silly, one-shot is set in an alternate universe where the 'werewolf incident' of the Marauder Era took place during the Marauders' fourth year (1974-1975) and due to some unwise bragging by at least one Marauder in the Gryffindor common room immediately afterwards, Albus Dumbledore (although able to protect Remus' identity from coming out) was unable to completely hush things up. It's a slightly foolish piece, and of debateable adherence to what is known of some characters in canon. It commences as the 1974-1975 school year is winding down for the summer holiday.

Rated 'M' to be on the safe side for occasionally pithy language and mild innuendo.

"You sent for me, professor?" James Potter stood, uncertain, in the entrance to the headmaster's office.

The school year that was James Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts was finally coming to an end.

"I will not be here, next year, James." Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry said. "I have tried to protect you and your friends, but accounts of the werewolf prank involving Mr. Snape have been working their way through the ministry system, and as fortune would have it, I have been unable to make the incident entirely disappear. I did not expel you or any of your friends at the time, which is only acceptable in ministry eyes if I consider that it was entirely my own fault that the incident occurred – which, being the case, means that obviously I have to go."

"It's not fair that you should have to go because of Snivellus." James Potter said. "He's a dirty rotten Slytherin and…"

"James, James: For the record, it was not Severus Snape who reported the incident to the ministry, and I would hope that you would have realised that it is because your friend, Mr. Black, was unwise enough to initiate the incident in the first place – and to have boasted of it indiscreetly in the Gryffindor common room afterwards – that I find myself having to step down. I have pleaded that I was overworked, which to a certain extent I was, and the ministry are generously allowing me to keep working for the good of the wizarding community in other roles. I do not begrudge anyone over what has happened, but I would, as a going-away favour, request that you and your friends be a little more careful in who you prank and how you prank them in future. The man whom the ministry and governors are putting in to replace me is likely to be less forgiving of such incidents."

"You sent for me, sir?" Lily Evans stands in the entrance to the headmaster's office. It is the afternoon of the last day of term, and the room has the chaotic appearance that is the inevitable result of one man packing his things to clear out, whilst another tries to unpack his things to move in. Professor Dumbledore is currently absent, a man with a crazy glass eye and a scarred face instead being seated behind the desk.

"You're Evans, right? Lily Evans?" the man behind the desk glances up at her.

"Yes sir." Lily says, uncertain as to what is going on.

"This school is full of nasty incidents. It's virtually a war-zone at times. I'm not going to criticise my predecessor's style, but let's just say I can see why the ministry and governors felt a need for my particular approach. Alastor Moody, by the way. Auror. Or former auror. This was supposed to be just a six month job whilst I recuperated from my most recent injuries, but it looks like it's going to be one which needs much longer than that. Anyway, Evans, the last thing I need to worry about is one of the best pupils in your year going dark. Which is why I've asked you here, seeing as how you know him?"

"You mean Severus, sir?"

"Yes, yes, I mean Severus bloody Snape. I've talked to Professor Dumbledore and viewed some of his memories in a pensieve, and I've read the reports of heads of houses and other professors. And between him being in Slytherin, and the living hell some of the Gryffindors are giving him, Snape's sliding. The last thing, the world needs right now, is a lad like that deciding he wants to be a Death Eater." Moody shuddered.

"I don't think I can do much about the Gryffindors in question, sir. They don't pay much attention to me." Lily said slowly. "Well not except to try to entice me out on dates."

"No, girl, and I wouldn't expect you to try. These so called 'Marauders' are a pair of bored young nobles and their hangers-on, and it shouldn't be any of your business to try and get it into their thick skulls what idiots they're making of themselves and of other people. But I do think you've got influence, at the moment, with Snape. I'll be honest with you, Evans: I foresee that I'm going to have to expel Snape by Christmas unless things start to change for him. I can't risk the damage to the school and wizarding society of letting him complete his education here if he's going to go dark. My approach isn't one of be nice to people and give them lots of chances and hope that they turn out well, Miss Evans. That's not who I am. I've seen too many villainous scum on the streets in my time for that."

"So what do you want me to do, sir?"

"You're his friend, right?" Lily nodded in answer to his question, so he went on. "Well be his friend full time. Don't nag him. Just be there, as much as possible, and someone who isn't bloody Avery or Mulciber. It would be easier if you were in the same house, but I can't see him having the sense to ask to transfer out of Slytherin, least of all to Gryffindor where those pompous prats have been making his life hell for the last four years abide."

Lily closed her eyes, and thought for a long moment about her first friend in the wizarding world. Then she opened them, and screwed up all the courage which had got her placed in Gryffindor in the first place.

"I could ask to be re-sorted, sir."

"I can't ask you to do that, Evans. I can't ask you to walk into the snake pit."

"I'm not asking you to ask me, sir." she drew herself up as tall as she could, and did her best to look him in the eyes. "I'd want to do it for him as a friend."

Moody pursed his lips.

"Think about this very carefully, Evans. For one thing, I can't guarantee that if you are re-sorted that the hat will put you where you want, although if you're stubborn and determined enough, I gather that there's a pretty good chance. And… someone with your family background will have a lot of idiocy to deal with from some quarters in Slytherin. Ponder it over the summer, don't talk to anyone except your parents about it, and owl me at the end of August if you're still of a mind to do it, and I'll see it's done after the new first years have been sorted at the start of September."

The great hall of Hogwarts falls silent. It is the evening of the first of September, 1975, and all the first years have been sorted, and the new headmaster stands briefly.

"There has been a request from a current student to be re-sorted. I have considered it, and since the student seems to have thought through the implications very carefully, I have chosen to allow the student to ask the hat to consider anew which house the student should be placed in."

A murmur went around the great hall – a re-sorting was a rare occurrence, perhaps once in a generation.

Professor Flitwick announced the name to the hall: "Evans, Lily"

The girl rose from her place at the Gryffindor table; she closed her eyes for a moment and her lips moved as she seemed to steady her nerves, and then she opened her eyes and headed across the hall to the stool and the waiting hat. Apart from that momentary last gathering of strength to set out, she seemed to be perfectly calm, in despite of the storm of whispers and speculation going around the hall.

She sat under the hat on the stool for fully a quarter of an hour, before at last the hat stirred.

"SLYTHERIN!" the hat announced. And as Lily Evans rose to her feet, and removed the hat, the impatient murmuring that had been going around the hall turned to stunned silence. Most of the Gryffindors stared in disbelief as one of their brightest pupils gave a sad smile to a couple of her friends then turned and headed in a businesslike fashion for the Slytherin table. Most of the Slytherins were shocked that a muggle-born had been sorted – upon a requested re-sorting – into their house. There wasn't any doubt in Slytherin minds, at least, that Lily Evans could only be in Slytherin now specifically because she wanted to be there instead of Gryffindor.

"Budge over, Sev." she said to him, coming in range. "And don't look so surprised. Didn't you tell me on the train before the first year that Slytherin was the best house?"

Severus Snape moved, looking somewhat dumbfounded at this development. The fifth years he was sitting with looked surprised but in a much more eye-narrowing, calculating manner.

Then the shockwaves in whispers and frantic gossip began to go around the hall, before being curtailed as the headmaster once again rose to his feet.

"Right, now that that has played out, let's get on with the next order of business for the year: Let's eat!"

The clank and clatter of arriving dishes partially muted the murmurs that started to arise again.

It was October, and Lily Evans was in the headmaster's office once again. The portraits of previous headmasters, whether living or dead, were lined up on the wall, eyeing her curiously. Lily was interested to see Albus Dumbledore was there now, too, despite the fact that the man was still alive and highly active in the ICW and Wizengamot.

"How are things going, Evans?" the current headmaster asked. "For you personally?"

"There were some initial jibes and hexes from my year and the years above me, but they weren't anything I couldn't handle, and the head of Slytherin, Professor Slughorn, likes me a great deal, which helps." She hesitated. "I've had more trouble from Potter and Black and their cronies, to be honest sir. They call me a 'house traitor' and a good many things less pleasant than that, but I can take name-calling from those prats. I suspect they've tried to prank me too, but I have no proof of the origin of the attempts, and it means Sev is getting slightly less of their attention." She smiled slightly. "Plus, with the possibility that the Marauders are picking on me, it makes things easier for me in Slytherin itself. They don't want to be seen to side with the Marauders against one of their own."

"Hmm." Moody scowled for a moment, and sipped a mug of tea. The mug had the message 'CONSTANT VIGILIANCE!' emblazoned on the side of it, and a pair of cartoon eyes charmed to be constantly moving whenever the mug was in motion. "Okay, Evans, if you feel you're handling things well at the moment, I'll keep my nose out of it. You're growing up to be a sensible young woman, if you'll excuse my saying so, and I trust your judgement on that. Especially since you have, as far as I can gather, succeeded in arresting your friend's slide towards going dark – which was the reason for this in the first place." He gave an unexpected beam. "Oh you might like to make sure that you have some sort of attire for a social gathering laid in, as I gather that certain prominent figures want to take a look at you over the Christmas and New Year holiday. I don't approve of them, but they're not your enemies yet, so if they invite you it would serve you well to get a look at them before they declare open season on you."

The Malfoys did not do things by halves. That meant that the invitations to their little Yule gathering this year portkeyed guests to a pavilion half a mile remote from Malfoy Manor, where sledges pulled by reindeer waited to take guests to the manor itself. Given just how much real snow was currently lying around Malfoy Manor, it was apparent that the Malfoys had been very extravagant in their spending for this Christmas.

Somewhere in the Alps, a ski-resort was probably wondering where most of their snow had gone.

There were rumours, of course, that Abraxas Malfoy and his son Lucius were heavily aligned with Voldemort. Since there wasn't any evidence, to date, and the Malfoys never actually poisoned or otherwise harmed invited guests attending these little social occasions, the rumours seldom stopped members of any but the most rabidly anti-Voldemort families from declining an invitation, and even the Malfoys' worst enemies tried to get invites or to send along friends of friends simply so they could keep an eye on what was going on at these events.

It was the first time Lily Evans had been to such a gathering and the food and glamour of the occasion was sufficient to almost turn her head. She was at the very least impressed, and relieved that Moody had warned her in advance to have something suitable to wear. She may not be dripping with jewels, but she did at least not feel underdressed.

The men had all disappeared off into a smoking room some time ago, for postprandial 'brandy and cigars', leaving the ladies to socialise. Lily did her best to navigate the treacherous waters of high-society of the wizarding world, given her disadvantages of blood-status and not coming from a family of any wealth. She spent a lot of time exchanging polite pleasantries with women most of whom she didn't know, but at least some of whom did have jewellery which featured family crests, and trying to remember etiquette and lineage she'd been reading up on since Moody had tipped her off. Reactions she encountered ranged from mild disapproval (although since she was here as an invited guest, and this was the first time she had been seen verbal sniping was kept to a minimum) to slight amusement.

She was supposed to be here with Sev, but he'd spent a lot of the time being buttonholed by various Slytherins, whether current Hogwarts students or recently graduated, who wanted to talk to him for one reason or other, leaving her to do her best on her own.

Lucius Malfoy's consort (Lily doubted he would have anything so common as a 'wife') Narcissa seemed to spend a lot of time interested in Lily. Lily recalled that Narcissa was a cousin of Sirius Black, of Hogwarts Marauders infamy. Lily had spent the last week of term avoiding one particularly nasty booby-trap after another which Black had set for her. Apparently he'd spent several months thinking of possible ways to humiliate her, because she was obviously 'Snivellus' girlfriend'. Fortunately for Lily she'd spent several years hearing Black boast in Gryffindor tower about just how his pranks functioned, and she was considerably better at charms than he was.

Lily had not arrived at this ball considering herself Severus' girlfriend, but since Black had spent the last few weeks doing his best to convince their year and the school that she was, he would only have himself to blame if she ended up in that position.

Anyway, at least Sirius' cousin, Narcissa, was polite, and didn't spend the evening trying to fill Lily's hair with some sort of unspeakable green jelly or to turn her clothes to rags.

Eventually Severus emerged from the smoking room, coughing slightly, and collected Lily, and took her back outside. He applied a couple of quick minor spells, as he did so, to remove the smell of smoke. He caught Lily's eye.

"Magical residence, remember? Nobody's likely to come down on me for underage magic here."

Lily giggled.

"Actually I was thinking how hard Black's been trying to persuade the school that we're dating, and here we are attending a ball together. Maybe we should date?"

Severus snorted.

"You deserve more respect than being dated just to prank Black, Lily. In fact I have just been in a room full of people where one of the topics of conversation was how exceptional you appear to be." He became much more guarded. "You clearly fall outside of current rules. There was considerable discussion as to whether this meant that you were the exception which proved the rules, or if the rules themselves might actually need looking over."

Lily shivered slightly, realising he was talking about her blood-status, and that the Malfoy males and their friends had been trying to work out how to treat her.

"Don't worry Lily, I've got your back." he said. He seemed on the edge of saying more, then shook his head and firmly closed his mouth.

A sleigh arrived, to take them back to the portkey point, and they spent the journey snuggled up to one another.

"Well?" Lucius asked his wife, the party over.

"Well what?" Narcissa returned.

"Our youngest two guests?"

"Oh them. They're an item. They just haven't realised it yet." She saw Lucius frown. "Any attempt to break them up had better be fast and very well executed, because it could backfire spectacularly otherwise. However." Narcissa raised her hand warningly, cutting Lucius off before he could speak. "She would be at least as valuable a recruit as him, and as a pair their value would be massively multiplied. Imagine if my sister were paired with someone even half as good as her instead of that bumbling Lestrange idiot."

Lucius' brow furrowed.

"There is a problem there. She is, ah, muggle-born, and the Dark Lord is not known for much sympathy for anything which originates with muggles."

"Well unless he's started picking on school-children, you've got at least a couple of years to figure something out – absent an event which specifically directs him against them and their families." Narcissa replied. "And I have faith in your intellect and deviousness, my husband."

"Ahh. The way you purr, may I take it that you are interested, perchance, in sojourning to yonder chamber, oh light of my eyes and heart, to explore my qualities further?"

"Why, my lord, you make that sound like a most… interesting… challenge. Perhaps we should retire to explore those possibilities further…"

The New Year and return to Hogwarts saw a cessation of hostilities from Black and Potter and his cronies. Lily kept what wary eye she could on the situation, and what friends she still had amongst the girls of Gryffindor kept her informed as best they could. Apparently the Marauders had gone into seclusion, disappearing a lot to hold private meetings, and it was rumoured that occasionally the former headmaster Albus Dumbledore turned up on the school grounds and met with them.

Spring arrived then turned to summer, and OWLs arrived, and after the last one was over, Lily and Severus were walking arm in arm by the lake, when they were ambushed by James Potter and his cronies.

Lily was jerked abruptly off her feet by a levicorpus and her mouth suddenly filled with soap bubbles, whilst Potter appeared out of nowhere and held Severus at wandpoint. Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew had materialised, too, strategically spread out and wands drawn.

"Don't worry: James will give you what's coming to you in a moment, Snivellus." Black taunted. "But for now we're going to make you watch as we show you what happens to girls who turn traitor on the light and Gryffindor and run away to be with snakes like you."

Lily tried to ignore the soap currently inhibiting her ability to speak and the awkward dangling-in-the-air thing, pulled her wand out, and wordlessly got rid of the hampering bubbles whilst Black was busy gloating. She and Severus had feared a Marauder ambush like this for months, and had prepared for the possibility of being disarmed or partially incapacitated.

She saw Remus' eyes widen as he noticed what she'd done, but her primary concern right now was Severus. She jerked around as best she could, whilst suspended in mid-air, and shot a disarming spell at Potter, giving Severus a chance to recover position whilst Potter cursed and scrambled for his wand.

And then she shot a speciality at Black she'd been preparing for this day, whilst he was still busy gaping that she'd wordlessly dealt with his soap bubbles.

His clothes went a speckled yellow-brown, and his hair went red and stood up on end like a coxcomb. When he opened his mouth, all which came out was a 'cock-a-doodle-do'.

"Something else for you to crow about, Black." Lily scowled. Pettigrew stared at Black, almost helpless with laughter at his friend's comic situation. Severus and Potter were now duelling. Lily tossed a tickling charm at Pettigrew to keep him occupied, then turned on Remus, who had his wand pointing at her and was frowning.

"You could just let me down, Remus." she said.

"They're my friends, and they have a point. He has been corrupting you. You associate with the likes of the Malfoys, these days."

"I have met the Malfoys once in the last twelve months, and it was at a Christmas party they were hosting. That was the first time any 'old' family had invited me to one of their bashes. Am I supposed to tamely decline and stay out of wizarding society because I'm a muggle-born, Remus? Is that what you think? Because it's funny, I thought that that was supposed to be the Malfoy family line."

"No, that's not what I meant at all." Remus glanced at the fight between Severus and Potter. Despite the fact that Severus was keeping his side of the fight absolutely clean, and using nothing more advanced than second year spells, Potter was still losing.

"We'll discuss this later, Lily, and I'm sure we'll be able to make you see reason…"

He raised his wand.

Despite the awkwardness of her position, Lily was still faster, and wordlessly stunned him. Then she proceeded to liberacorpus herself, returning back to the ground.

She was just in time to see Severus polish Potter off with a creative combination of tarantallegra and wingardium leviosa.

"I don't need to try and use blasting curses to try and win a duel with you." Severus gave the sprawling Potter a withering glare.

"He tried to use a blasting curse on you?" Lily froze.

"He mumbled something which sounded like 'reducto' and went through the necessary wand motions." Severus said.

"I would have been prepared to let this slide, since they didn't exactly succeed in harming us," Lily glanced around at the beaten Marauders, "but if he used a blasting curse, we ought to get the teachers involved."

Severus screwed up his face in what Lily recognised as his 'political expression' as he did the maths trying to work out how this might play with the politics of Slytherin.

"Alright." he agreed. "Keep an eye on them, and I'll send a message to Slughorn."

"He needs to be stopped." James Potter ranted at the headmaster. "He uses dark magic and he's corrupting Lily Evans."

"Mr. Potter!" the headmaster barked. "I have inspected all the wands used in the little fracas down by the lake, and the closest I have found to anything dark is the trace of a blasting curse in your own wand. I found traces of several disillusionment charms in the wands of yourself and your friends, however, which seems to me to be commensurate with Miss Evans and Mr. Snape's story that you ambushed them, and I also found the residue of a particularly nasty jinx in Mr. Black's wand which seems to match something that somebody unidentified hit a group of first year Slytherin students with last night." He eased his tone slightly. "Now, I appreciate your concerns regarding the use of dark magic, but I have been taking particular notice of Mr. Snape since the re-sorting at the start of the school year, and he has been an exemplary pupil by the standards of any house." Moody gave a smile. "It seems to me that Miss Evans is a good influence on him rather than being the other way around, and having served as an auror before coming to my present post as headmaster, my options for keeping track of who is doing what at Hogwarts are considerable indeed. As you and your friends may find out next year, if you persist in your attempts to attract my scrutiny."

"You've been keeping an eye on what Snape's been doing all year?" James Potter sagged suddenly.

"He's one of the two prize pupils in his year. Of course I've been keeping an eye on him." Moody said. "Now, Mr. Potter, I shall send for your friends messieurs Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew, and we shall discuss what punishment will be appropriate for your actions of today."

"Did I ever tell you, how beautiful you look, when your cause is just and your wand is drawn in anger, Lily Evans?" Severus Snape murmured to her. They were back down by the lake, sitting next to one another, watching the sun sink below the mountains, and this time without a Marauder around.

She thought about this for a moment, and laughed.

"No."

"Well you do."

And then he leant into her and softly kissed her on the cheek, before drawing back, slightly embarrassed and concerned that he had gone too far.

"Hey come back. I'm not offended, and we should try it lips to lips." Lily grabbed him.

Fortunately they had set a charm to warn them of the approach of curfew, otherwise they might have been too distracted to make it back to their quarters in time.

Author Notes:

This is, as I acknowledged in the opening notes, a slightly silly, fluffy, piece, written in a phase of looking at the Marauder 'era' at Hogwarts. It's messing around in a not terribly serious fashion with the notion of what might have happened if the werewolf incident had resulted in Dumbledore's being sacked and a somewhat different style of leader installed instead. Whether her canon counterpart would or not, the Lily in this universe has tremendous respect for the authority figure of the new headmaster.

At the time of writing these notes, I'm unclear when Alastor Moody sustains his various injuries in canon. As far as the version of him which occupies this particular story and alternate universe is concerned, as of the summer of 1975 he's acquired his canon counterpart's famous 'replacement eye' for one he's lost in battle, but hasn't suffered the injury which results in the wooden leg. He's not so (overtly) paranoid as canon Alastor Moody is depicted to be by the time Harry Potter attends Hogwarts. The 'constant vigilance' mug is a present from a colleague in the aurors.

At the time of writing these notes, I'm also unclear when Narcissa marries Lucius in canon. In this particular universe, they're recently married as of Christmas 1975.

This story is written as a one-shot. For the curious, I had a few vague ideas about the how the future would develop in the bigger picture: Alastor Moody being headmaster would over a few years result in Voldemort's recruitment from Hogwarts being severely messed with, and a disillusioned Lucius Malfoy would ultimately defecting from the Death Eaters after his increasingly desperate attempts to try to persuade Voldemort to think about recruiting Severus and 'that mudblood' come to nothing. Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix would probably hog all the glory for a successful end to the Wizarding War (somewhere in 1979 - with his recruiting from Hogwarts severely impaired, things go to pieces on Voldemort fairly quickly after Lucius defects) but it's a relatively happier end to the war (and sooner) than in canon...

Update:

Thanks to duj for thoughts on when canon Alastor Moody acquires injuries, including that in canon Alastor still seems to have two regular eyes as of the end of the First Wizarding War. Obviously Alastor Moody in this universe has started acquiring serious injuries sooner than his canon counterpart.

Update (25th September, 2014):

For the record, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew end up spending a lot of the summer holidays of 1976 doing manual labour with Hagrid (no wands allowed) as a punishment assigned to them by Alastor Moody for their ambush on Lily and Severus after the defence OWL.