Nope, don't own them. I just take them out of the box and play my own twisted games with them.
AN: This is a prequel to my story "Reassembly". It's kind of the back story of Severus' friendship with Sirius, Remus, and James. Since "Reassembly" is AU after book 4, some elements of the subsequent books are disregarded.
Ch.1: Fallout
"I can't believe you were that stupid, Siri!" James Potter was fuming. "He could have been killed! You know, there's a line between pranking and bullying and nearly getting somebody killed! Thank Merlin I was able to stop him in time!"
"James is right." Remus Lupin stood up from his seat in the Room of Requirement. "I can't believe that you would endanger anyone, even Snape, much less me, in that manner! In fact, I'm going to go apologize to him right now!" He marched out of the room without looking back.
Lily said nothing, just walked over and slapped Sirius hard across the face. She was crying as she did so. "I could have lost him!" She fell to her knees, sobbing.
Sirius just turned and stared at the wall. "Leave me," he said softly. "I need to think."
"That you do," James said crisply, helping Lily to her feet. "You really need to find your heart again, Siri," he said sadly. "I know you have one, and the two of you really aren't all that different, you know." He too left the room, taking Lily with him.
Sirius paced the length of the room, running his hand through his long black hair. Where did it go wrong? I only wanted him to stop nosing around every month. I figured...SHIT! Remus loses control around humans during that time. Oh Merlin, how could I have been so STUPID? He really COULD have been killed, and I would have caused Remus to become the very thing he wants to avoid! Nobody deserves that, not even Snivelly. He felt sick. I nearly got somebody killed and betrayed one of my best friends.
"Mr. Black. Just the young man I wanted to see." Dumbledore was standing in the doorway.
"What is my punishment, sir?" Sirius said quietly.
"I think that you are doing a sufficient job of punishing yourself," the aged headmaster replied. "Sit." They both sat down. "Have you realized what you have done wrong, Mr. Black?"
"I do. I nearly sent a fellow student to his death, and I betrayed one of my best friends."
"Two grave sins indeed. How do you propose to make amends?"
"I intend to apologize to both of them, though I don't expect or deserve their forgiveness." He gave a short, humorless laugh. "I always muck things up, don't I?"
"Mr. Black, I believe that some things that were supposed to be bad often turn out good. By your doing two bad things, I can see four good things possibly coming to pass. You forgot one thing in your proposal. You must also forgive yourself, even if they do not forgive you. That is the only way you can move on. Now go do what you know you must."
Sirius nodded and walked down to the infirmary, which was mercifully empty except for one occupied bed.
"Black. Come to finish me off, have you?" The voice was flat, brittle, but with an underlying current of pain.
Sirius sighed and sat down on the empty bed next to Snape's. "No. I came to apologize, though I do not expect or deserve your forgiveness. What I did was horribly wrong. Hell, I've been horribly wrong to you all along." He held up a hand to take an oath. "I swear never to act with malicious intent towards you again." He sighed. "I'm sorry." He got up and started to leave.
"Wait." Sirius turned towards the other boy. As he did, he saw how slumped his shoulders were, and how thin he was. "Don't go." I don't want to be alone when the nightmares come, even IF it's Black.
"I'll stay as long as you want...what do you want to be called? I like for my friends to call me Siri." I can't BELIEVE I'm doing this, but I can't just leave him. Oh well, maybe James and Lily are right...
"Sev, if you're my friend. I don't have any friends here other than Lily." Great. Expose another vulnerability to him, why don't you.
"I'll be your friend if you let me, Sev." And I mean it, if you take me up on it. "Lily's always said you were an all right guy, we've just never given you a fair shake." Or bothered to get to know you.
"How do I know you're not..." He yawned. "...setting me up?"
"I wouldn't tell somebody I was setting up what I really prefer to be called, and I never offer to be somebody's friend unless I mean it. Friends are hard to come by if you're a Gryffindor in a Slytherin family. Even my own brother rarely speaks to me. 'Course, I ran away last summer, so I stay with James' parents now. Remus actually has parents that care about him, and Peter's got his mother. 'Course, Peter's not had much to do with us this year, for some reason. His loss, I guess."
"My only other friend is Lucius Malfoy, but he graduated four years ago."
"His family's friends with mine. My cousin, Narcissa, is betrothed to him. She's a year ahead of us."
"We've met. I really don't know her, though."
"She's not too awful. She risks a lot to even acknowledge that I exist. So, you seeing anybody?"
"You can answer that question on you own. You?"
That means Lily. "Sort of. There's a cute second-year, Jade Cummings, but I'm going to get to know her better and wait until she's a bit older before we get too serious."
"Are her sisters Olivia and Eleanor, and her brother Richard?"
"Yes, why?"
"Olivia is in our year in my house. In our potions class, the small, thin black-haired girl that always partners with Mary MacDonald. Eleanor was the same year as Lucius, and Richard graduated two years ago. Eleanor was a Ravenclaw, and Richard was a Slytherin."
"Do you remember, last year, the tall, thin, strawberry-blonde that was sorted into Gryffindor? This year, she's a beater on the quidditch team?" Severus nodded. "That's Jade."
"Olivia is an oddity among the pureblood Slytherins girls. She's not betrothed, since her father refused to betroth any of his children. His first marriage, the one Eleanor resulted from, was, by all accounts, a match made in hell. He feels tha no alliance or monetary gain is worth that."
"Jade's not betrothed either." No shit, Sherlock!
"I grew up with Lily, so I know she's not, since she's muggle-born."
"Wow. So you two have known each other for a long time."
"Since we were four. She's been my best friend since the day we met, when her family moved in the house next door to us." He laid back on the pillows. "The fight we had last year after you guys pantsed me was mostly for show. We do that a lot."
"I really didn't have any friends growing up. Rick Cummings was a friendly aquaintance, as was Lucius Malfoy. Caspar, his father, is a real bastard. Makes my parents seem almost kind." He bent down and removed his shoes, then transfigured his clothes into pajamas, then got under the blankets. Might as well stay here tonight. Who knows when he might be this open again. I hope Pomfrey doesn't mind too much. "Rick and Jade's father, Eugene, is decent enough. Has the Slytherin ambition, but doesn't believe in breaking people apart or crushing them on your way up. Says that you never know when you might need to call in a favor or need a contact. But my only real friends are James, Remus, Peter, Lily, and Jade, and out of those, James and ..." He yawned. "...Jade are the closest." He looked over and saw that Sev had already drifted off. He gave a rueful half-smile and snuggled down into the pillows and began to doze himself.
