"Someone is going to go to Azkaban for this, you know."
"You think it will come to that, really? Probably just a prank gone wrong, I'd say."
"It's not a prank when someone almost dies, Black. Honestly."
"That's why it's a prank gone wrong, Evans. Obviously no one meant for this to happen."
"Well, I certainly hope not." Lily chewed on a hangnail pensively, staring at the toes of Sirius's shoes. They turned away from her.
"Don't worry about it. Snape didn't die, did he? Hear he's expected to make a full recovery," Sirius said, clapping her on the shoulder as he turned away. "No harm, no foul, yeah?"
She watched his back retreat across the Great Lawn in the direction of the Quidditch pitch where the Gryffindor team was practicing. The players' shouts echoed back up to her. It seemed morbid that they were already using the pitch again when just the night before Severus Snape had been pushed off the stands there and nearly met his end on that very grass.
It was a very crude affair, apparently-no evidence of any spell damage to Severus-he'd simply been pushed by a pair of as of yet unknown hands. And Severus wasn't being of any help to anyone: he was still unconscious in the hospital wing.
And Sirius was acting pretty flippant about it all, if you asked Lily.
"I suppose I ought to feel worse about the whole thing. It's not really right to wish someone harm, no matter how much of a tosser he is, but this is bloody brilliant, I think. We have an attempted murder mystery on our hands after all."
"I'd be more excited if I weren't worried about a few blokes who must be prime suspects right about now," Sirius said through his teeth, elbowing short and out-of-earshot second and third years out of the way as he and James waded through a mass of them on the way to Charms class.
"Oh, bollocks. We didn't do it, so no one can prove we did, right? Let them have their suspicions. I reckon it could even be fun!"
"You know, Lily was acting a bit dodgy earlier when I was speaking with her. I think she may have her suspicions herself."
"Lily!" This bit of information sent James crashing back down to earth.
"Yeah, and I reckon she doesn't think it makes you a bad boy in the cool, sexy way."
"No, she wouldn't," James said, scowling. "You know, damn it all, this would be so much... fun, if she weren't friends with him for some inexplicable reason."
"Strange taste she has, I agree."
"It's not just strange, it's downright morbid."
Sirius pushed open the classroom door. Lily Evans was sitting in the front of the class, her legs crossed and her fingernails drumming impatiently on the desk in front of her. James's eyes immediately assumed that far-away sparkle they got every time a bright red ponytail or thin red lips pressed into a disapproving frown appeared in front of him.
"Lily hello lovely day Lily lovely..." he whispered, clearly in a state of rapture.
Sirius patted him on the back. "Louder, mate, I'm always telling you louder. Although, maybe it's better she doesn't hear. Don't know that she would take kindly to advances coming from an attempted murderer."
At that phrase, Lily seemed to snap to attention. She looked them up and down as they stood in the doorway and frowned pointedly.
Sirius smiled and waved. Needless to say, Lily did not reciprocate, but she kept looking at him for a long time, long enough that his smile faded and his heavy lids lowered over his pale eyes.
The Great Hall. Lunchtime. Lily, who was already beginning to consider herself Girl Detective in the grand tradition of Nancy Drew, stood at the head of the Hall, pretending to be looking for a place to sit.
Of course, seating at lunchtime had been established pretty much as soon as friend groups had been, that is, since that first evening in the Great Hall when they were eleven.
After a moment of perfunctory and entirely unnecessary scanning, Lily's eyes came to rest on a very familiar spot in the Hall, where, at the moment, one Remus J. Lupin was sitting, alone for now. While she stood at the front of the Hall watching him, a short, podgy boy with messy blond hair walked over and sat down next to him. Peter Pettigrew. Peter, whose face was turned towards her, was talking quickly in a quiet voice, an over-eager smile tugging at the corners of his round lips. Remus's back was to her but she could see him nodding and gesturing with his hand. She knew Peter must be telling him about Severus. She hesitated briefly, harms on her hips and a severe frown cutting across her face, before nodding her head to herself and marching forward.
When she sat down, making her presence known by banging her palms against the table, Peter and Remus jumped in their seats and looked over at her with twin bewildered expressions.
"Now look," she said, giving each of them a warning glance. "I know you two clowns are innocent, but if you're not straight with me right now I'm going to make your lives a living hell."
Peter's eyes widened, and he began reddening as though he knew there was something he ought to be ashamed of but he wasn't sure what it was.
Remus just looked at her like she was insane. "Excuse me?"
"Oh, cut the crap!" she said, but as soon as it was out of her mouth she turned as red as Peter. She took her hands off the table and put them in her lap. "Sorry," she said, trying to keep the tone of her voice even and firm. "I was a little caught up in the moment."
"In what-"
"BUT I know you two must know something about what happened to Severus Snape last night," Lily cut Remus off before he could finish his question.
"Lily, look, I know you two were friends, but-"
"And I know you're friends with the bastards who did it, and that's how I know – look, I know you two have hearts. I know you're nice, deep down somewhere, and I know you want to protect your friends. But I already know they did it, so you might as well tell me."
"I'm sorry I have to say this, Lily, but you don't know what you're talking about," Remus said. "They didn't do anything. They were with us in the library all night." His eyes shot quickly over to Peter, who started.
"Y-yeah. They were doing revisions with us."
"Potter and Black were doing revisions? Please give me a better story than that."
"You're right. Those two never need to revise at all. That's why they were helping us," Remus said calmly. He looked composed enough, but Peter was still red and jumpy. "We went back to Gryffindor Tower around two in the morning. You can ask the Fat Lady. We didn't leave again."
"When did you go to sleep?"
"Around 2:30."
"And you, Peter?"
"2:30 sounds right."
"And neither of you got up again for the rest of the night?"
"No."
"No, and neither did James or Sirius."
"And how do you know?"
"Oh come on, Lily. Why would they go to sleep, just to get up in the small hours of the morning, go to the Quidditch stands, and push Snape off? Besides, I went to the bathroom around 4:00 and they were both sleeping like little angels."
"I thought you didn't get up again."
"Stop grilling us like we're some kind of criminals."
"And would you call what happened to Severus anything other than criminal?"
"No, but we didn't do it. Not any of us. Neither Peter and I, nor James and Sirius. They're not evil, Lily... just mischievous."
"They're idiots, Remus. They don't think about who they're going to hurt, and sometimes I don't think they care much, either."
"You're wrong."
"Well, I don't think I am. And I'm going to be asking Madam Pince who was in the library last night." She stood up.
"Bye, Lily," Remus said, raising his eyebrows almost imperceptibly, but defiantly all the same.
She glanced at Peter. He was less red now, but still wouldn't meet her gaze.
She looked back at Remus and he smiled, not without a hint of bitterness, and nodded. "We'll see you in class, then."
"Yeah, sure," she said, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from turning down, and spun around, marching off towards the doors.
She was halfway down the corridor to the stairway when she heard the quick patter of feet and panting behind her. She turned around to see Peter hurrying after her.
"I had to tell you," he said, not waiting for her to acknowledge him. "What Remus said isn't entirely true." He paused, biting his lip. "He wasn't lying about James. He helped us revise and went to bed when we did. But Sirius wasn't there. I heard him come to the dorm later; I don't know when, exactly. I don't know what he was doing. I'm sure he didn't hurt Snape, but you should ask him if you're not convinced. I'm just telling you, cos you'd have found out anyway, and I don't want you to think badly of James - you know how he feels about you - or to think we're liars. I'm sure Remus had a good reason to say what he did..." He trailed off.
"Thanks, Peter," Lily said, taken aback by his effusiveness.
"Well, that's all I had to say." He was blushing again, whether from physical exertion or from embarrassment, Lily couldn't say. "So, well, I'll see you in class, then." He turned away and hurried off in the opposite direction, towards the open front doors of the castle.
Lily went directly to the library after her conversation with Peter to verify his story with Madam Pince. She was confused to find herself pleasantly surprised when the story checked out.
She supposed the next logical step was to confront Sirius Black, but plucky girl detective though she was, she found herself less than keen on the task. She sat down at a library table to try and think things over.
The library was hot and stuffy, as usual. She thought Madam Pince must've put some kind of heating charm on the air. The stuffiness was probably inherent in the dust that was constantly being disturbed and resettling on the covers and in the pages of old books.
She ran her fingers through her hair and gathered it up in a thick ponytail. If it had been James Potter, it would've been easy enough. She confronted him all the time. True, usually not about anything as serious as attempted murder, but she thought deep down she'd always known James Potter was incapable of something so... cold-blooded.
She put her hand to her forehead. Black was something else. Cold fit him perfectly, though most students would be more likely to describe him as "cool". This was perhaps the first time she was coming face to face with the reality of the situation: there was a very real possibility that Sirius Black did indeed try to murder Severus Snape - and murder! How could she talk to him alone? She had to consider the possibility that she was in over her head here. What would Nancy Drew do?
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped clear out of her chair and in the next instant was standing nose to nose with James Potter. For once he wasn't smirking or grinning stupidly.
"L-Lily," he stuttered, pulling his hand off her shoulder. "I-I didn't mean to scare you, I just - Look, Peter told me about your... conversation. I'm not a murderer."
"You couldn't be, Snape's not dead."
"I mean - I would never try to kill anyone. Not even Snape." He licked his lips nervously.
"I know. Madam Pince confirmed your alibi," she said, flicking a lock of hair that had fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear and curling her lip slightly.
"But... Not Sirius's," he said, looking down and trying to catch her eyes.
"No. But Peter already told me he wasn't here."
"He didn't do it."
"You don't even know that. You can't possibly know that because you were asleep at 2:30, and Sirius didn't come back until well after that. According to Peter."
"Well…" James said, widening his eyes and scratching the back of his neck. "That doesn't matter." He pulled his hand off his neck and pointed his finger at Lily. "None of it, because I know Sirius."
She batted his hand away. "You know, I really don't think that helps your objective reasoning at all."
James gritted his teeth, loyalty and lust clearly at odds in his head. "Ever since he got to Hogwarts, people have been prejudiced against him, because he's a Black and he's in Gryffindor. As though he could help the family he was born into."
"That's not the reason I'm prejudiced against Sirius Black."
"Oh yeah? No one ever gives him a chance, but I know him like no one else does, and he's a good person. A good person and an honest person, and he didn't do it."
"What, did you ask him?" she asked, smiling smugly and crossing her arms over her chest.
He blushed, just like Peter had. "I wasn't serious. I was just kidding around."
"And he said no?"
"He said that, no, he hadn't tried to kill Snape."
"If you were kidding around that sounds like a pretty serious response to give."
"You can't just put everything under a magnifying glass like that. It wasn't that strange; if you were there you wouldn't have thought it was weird at all."
"Look, if you want to prove Black is innocent so badly, I have a proposition for you."
"Anything. Anything at all."
"Help me confront him."
"What?" Potter looked as though she had just slapped him.
"You said anything."
"I'm not going to accuse my best friend of trying to murder someone. Lily, you don't know how hard it is - if he thinks I doubt him-"
"If you're such good friends, why do you have to walk on eggshells around him?"
"Being reluctant to accuse him of a crime I know he didn't commit isn't exactly walking on eggshells," Potter said, and it was his turn to look smug.
"Well, you don't have to. I have to admit-" Lily hesitated, choosing her words carefully, "I'm somewhat uncomfortable doing this on my own. But I'll have to do it. It's your choice - you can either be there to help ameliorate the stress, or you can let it go. You can help defend him, or you can... not. It seems like the choice for a real friend would be obvious."
"You can't bully me into doing something I don't think is right."
"You could consider it a personal favor," she said, smiling suddenly and running her thumb against the underside of his tie.
He swallowed so heavily she could hear it and looked away. "That's not fair, Lily."
"James," she said, ignoring his words and putting her hand on his waist. "You know what's right. It's just to put my own mind at ease, that's all."
A/N: Fun mystery time hooray! I actually have an ending and everything already written (and posted elsewhere) for this one, but I'm thinking of rewriting it for posting here. To make it less crackalicious/ridiculous/offensive/insulting to the intelligence and moral fiber of basically every character involved. But it's about 10,000 words total, so fairly short, should be posted in its entirety within a week or two.