Life
October swept in and the air turned abruptly cool, the trees on the edge of the Forbidden Forest took an edge of tension tinged with brown at the prospect of oncoming storms. There was a bite in the air on the way to Herbology in the mornings and frost threatened to appear each night. James Potter could feel the Quidditch season beginning as he jogged down to the pitch, he breathed deeply and realised that life was good.
This year everything had changed.
Sirius had bounced back after the full moon; for a few days he had been almost uncontrollable, swinging between moods of guilt-ridden despair and ecstatic enjoyment of the simplest things life could throw at him. Remus had retreated into the shadows, as expected, but after some careful coaxing, persuasion and blatant blackmail, James had pulled him back to somewhere near his normal self. Peter, of course, was still simply in awe of the whole ordeal; Sirius had almost got Snape killed, James had stepped in at the last minute, and Remus had nearly torn him limb from limb.
On top of all that, they were covering up their Animagus abilities and trying to create the un-createable; a combination of map, pensieve and ward key. Then, thrown into the mix was the Gryffindor Quidditch team, of which James was now Captain and James' new found hope in Lily Evans. He still didn't know what emotion he had seen in her eyes that night as he told his tale of woe, werewolves and a painful trip to St Mungo's, but he did know that her opinion had changed.
In the past week and a half though, he had barely had time to see her; he'd been given a Special Award for Services to the School, he'd been trying to bolster Remus' faith in himself, stop Sirius flying off the handle over inconsequential matters, keep Peter calm, do his school work, uncover new Quidditch moves and research arcane magic that no school student ought to be studying.
He took another deep breath of cool, dawn air. But for him, he was glad to be alive, happy to be able to get up and simply live.
Lily was wondering what had happened in the last few weeks.
She was bright enough to realise that James Potter had started to change before he had ended up in St Mungo's, but the boy now was… he was incredibly different to the person he had been last year.
Yes, he had still been an idiot on the train back to school, but somewhere between then and now he had stopped being the fool and started being… something else.
She hadn't seen him in break any rules, not since the werewolf incident, and he hadn't been anything other than, well, almost normal recently. As normal as James Potter could be.
He hadn't even spoken to her since she had hugged him. But then, she hadn't tried to speak to him; after so many years it felt odd just to accept his presence anywhere near her. The Marauders had even stopped being so obnoxiously loud.
Was it James or was it all of them? Only time would tell.
'So these Gryffindor scum drag you out into the Forest?'
'Yes.' Severus admitted, blushing a dull red.
'And say they're going to leave you?'
'Yes.' he choked through gritted teeth.
'Then the werewolf turns up?'
'Yes, you know this already.'
'Someone is going to pay for this; it's an insult to Slytherin, not just you, Snape. This isn't personal anymore.'
Severus looked round at the ugly looks on the other boys' faces; Lily had told him to follow Rosier's example, but after what Black, Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew had done...
