"Reeeemus…"
"I'm reeeeading…"
"Have you any time for study~ing?"
Remus Lupin sighed and placed an old-looking scrap piece of parchment into his book before closing it. The librarian, Madam Pince, did not stand having folded pages or weak spines on her books. She was nearby so it was best to play it safe. Remus looked up at his friend and raised one eyebrow. She grinned.
"Is that a yes?" she asked, sitting down across from him at the table.
"Lily..." Remus said, rubbing his forehead, which had one or two tiny scars on it. "I've already scheduled studying with Sirius." Her nose crinkled as he said it, and again Remus sighed, because he understood her intense dislike for his own best friends. If they weren't such damn good friends, he would try to help, but, seeing as things were, Remus did not have power among the Marauders. "Just ask Snape."
"I would," Lily said, expression guarded. "But he's off doing Merlin knows. I can't find him anywhere."
Remus's stomach turned over. He vaguely remembered Sirius telling him that there was some "business" that needed to be taken care of before their little study session. He immediately pictured James and Sirius torturing the unfortunate Slytherin.
"Are… are James and Sirius…?" he asked hesitantly, prepared for any outbursts.
"Are they what?" she asked sharply, eyes cutting through his face worse than his own claws.
"You know…"
Lily stood up and picked up her bag. "I'll look. If they are—Remus—you promised you would—" She stopped, and bit her lip. Remus cringed. He didn't care much for Severus Snape, but Lily could make him feel guilty about almost anything. It looked like she was about to cry.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, but she was already walking away. Remus sat there doing nothing until she was gone, and then opened up his book again, praying that his friends were doing something, anything, else.
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Humiliation and pain. He deserved this. At least, that's what James kept telling himself. Dirty. Slimy. Creepy. All adjectives describing a crafty little snake. When you were being cruel and unfair to a Slytherin, it didn't count as being cruel and unfair to a person. Slytherins weren't people. Especially Snape.
"You fucking creep!" James spat, brandishing his wand at the already wounded Severus. "You'll pay for what you did to Wormtail."
In fact, Severus had done absolutely nothing to Peter Pettigrew, but the boy was in the Hospital Wing because of the mistreatments of Mulciber and Avery. Severus, very much like Remus, was present at the time of the bullying. Peter was an unfortunate character; thin, short, and he had mousy brown hair that was in constant need of attention. His friends, so much more attractive and charismatic, not to mention intelligent, did not pity the fellow; they loved him and amused themselves with tyrannizing him.
"I didn't," began Snape, but James rolled his eyes and pointed his wand at the large, awkward nose.
"Shut up. Silencio."
Severus, defenseless and in pain, tried to shout. James started to turn away, and Severus let out a breath of relief. But James shot another spell—"Stupefy!" - to finish the job.
He glanced around the empty classroom and chuckled. "Poor Snape," he murmured. "Don't have Evans here to suck your cock."
He left the room by slamming the door shut. Severus groaned, bringing his hands up to his face to rub his eyes. His vision was blurry, but James hadn't snuffed the light. Slowly he regained sight and could spot the wand five feet away, all ten inches of beautiful dark cedar. He crawled toward it, took hold and pointed it at a few cuts and bruises. After a little contemplation, Severus decided he wasn't very good at healing charms; that was more Lily's forte. A potion was in order for this. Perhaps Professor Slughorn already had something.
Severus stood up, albeit somewhat shakily. He cleared his throat, flattened out his school robes, and made way for the door. When he got there, he picked up the book bag and slung it over his shoulder to hide a small, fixable tear in the cloth of his robes. There had to be some shred of dignity left within him when he faced his peers.
Walking down the corridor hurt, but holding onto the wand in his pocket helped soothe the pain. He took a sharp intake of breath when he saw the staircases; since when had they been so large? So steep? So unsteady?
Severus limped toward the stairs, sitting down with a grunt at the bottom of one of the few normal, no-trick-steps-but-still-will-fuck-you-up staircases. He and every other student, teacher, ghost, and maybe even parent, wanted to murder the architect of these bloody useless contraptions.
Severus pulled his wand out and stared at it for a few moments. There had to be some healing spell he could use nonverbally, even with his mind muddled and heavy. Merlin, it was so heavy… he slipped the wand back into his pocket, not even bothering with a simple spell, because if he fucked that up, getting to the Slytherin dorm would be even more of a backbreaking task.
Go to the Hospital Wing, he told himself, but there wasn't really a choice, was there? Peter Pettigrew was in the Hospital Wing, which meant James and Sirius and maybe even Remus would be there. And he didn't want to give Potter the satisfaction of defeating him. Again. It'd been the same thing since they were twelve, when the bullying had gone from verbal to physical.
The Slytherin couldn't have felt more sorry for himself as a group of third years laughed and joked right down the hall, and if they turned they'd see him. He quickly got out a roll of parchment and tilted his head to hide bruises behind a curtain of dark hair. Same old, same old. They walked past hardly even noticing him; he needn't have gone through the trouble of creating an alibi for sitting on the staircase. They didn't care.
Instead of putting the parchment away, Severus stared down at it. Maybe now was a good time to write that Defense Against the Dark Arts essay, or at least start a rough draft. He'd been having ideas for an opening since Professor Slinkhard assigned it.
"Severus!"
The shrill cry had come from the left, and Severus's head snapped up painfully. He squinted at the intruder of his silence: a short, fuzzy body running toward him. By the time he could make out that it was Lily, she was already on her knees, hugging him.
"Merlin! Sev—Sev, did Potter hurt you, oh God, let me see—here, I've got my wand, let me help you."
Her voice was still piercing, but she'd lowered it considerably and the feel of her arms around his shoulders was so comforting and he really didn't need anything else right now…
Lily pulled away and gently put her hand on his face, turning his neck to examine the damage. "Oh my God… let me kill him for you…"
"It's not," Severus choked out, the silencing charm having finally worn off. "It's not a big deal. You'll only piss him off, Lily."
"Piss him off? You've got a thick skull, Sev, if you think he's not pissed me off. I'll wring his bloody neck." She took out her wand and lifted it to his face.
"It's alright, really. I mean—"
"Hold still. Episkey. Hold still, and… okay. What is it?"
Severus felt his face; it was much better. He blinked, forgetting what he was saying for a moment. Lily put her wand back into her pocket and sat down next to him. She held up her hands in defense.
"You weren't gonna say I shouldn't pulverize him, were you?"
"Well, you shouldn't—"
"Don't be a bloody tart. I'll not— hurt him. It's just that Remus promised me…"
"We've been through this before."
"What are you doing?" Lily asked, peering down at the scribbles on his parchment.
"Essay for Slinkhard. Lily, just ignore it, just this once. If it happens again, I'll fix it. I don't want to give him the… satisfaction."
Lily rolled her eyes. "Fine. Fine. I won't touch a hair on his precious little head. I'll just tell McGonagall that her favorite student is—"
"Lily."
"Okay. I won't. I don't know why, but… I won't."
"Thank you," Severus said quietly.
There was a pause.
"Do you need some help to the Hospital Wing?"
"I'm not headed there. I'm going to the Slytherin dorm."
"Why?"
"Pettigrew's in the Wing."
"The Potions classroom is close to the dungeon. We'll go there first and get you healed. Spells can't do much for your aches."
Severus nodded, prompting a sharp feeling of pain in his head. He was glad Lily found him, even though it was embarrassing. She was right in the head at the moment; her judgment was a little clouded by anger, but she knew what was going on and could think clearly. Severus started to stand up, and she helped him.
"You really want to go this way?" she asked, gesturing to the ascending staircase. It would be a feat to climb it. Severus nodded again; it would be easier to go down a different staircase since the dungeons were below them. But a different way led them right past the Great Hall, where people were probably finishing off lunch and Severus just didn't have the patience for such noise.
She helped him up the stairs, which was even more embarrassing. Why did Lily have to be so nice? Severus wanted to be more stoic but she was so stubborn that it was impossible to argue, especially in his current state.
"Almost to the top," Lily said.
"I know, Lily." Speaking was painful.
"Shut up," she snapped, fully aware that it hurt him to say anything. It was Severus's turn to roll his eyes as they finished the staircase, and he pushed her away when she tried to help him walk.
"I'll use the railing," he said.
They walked along silently. Lily kept giving Severus sidelong glances, grinning at his attempts of tolerance. She felt a little sorry for him but that was okay. The paintings all stared at them, still not used to the idea of Slytherins and Gryffindors getting along. Some of them made snide remarks, which Lily and Severus had ignored since they were eleven, though not before Lily had taken a painting and thrown it down a staircase. Luckily no one had been around to see except Severus, but Dumbledore found out about it and spoke with her privately. In an eleven-year-old panic, she thought she would be kicked out, but he reassured her again and again that expulsion required much greater offenses, and that there was nothing to worry about— "But please, my dear girl," he had said, "Do not harm any more portraits."
They got to the staircase leading to Slughorn's classroom. "Are you okay?" Lily asked after some hesitation.
"A little sore," Severus admitted. "But we can easily make a potion to fix that. And we'll let Slughorn know what ingredients we used."
"Nothing expensive. Make something simple."
"Of course."
"We can go to the Hospital Wing eventually, right?"
"Yeah, sure."
That satisfied her for now. They got down the stairs, alohamora'd the door (teachers always locked their doors but knew fully well that students could come in as they pleased; this made a few uncomfortable, but no one went to such extreme measures as casting the anti-alohomora Charm on their doors) and entered the classroom.
"You prepare the cauldron. Tell me what to get."
Severus agreed. They both got to work. When the fire was lit and at the correct temperature, he instructed Lily to get several ingredients from the cupboards, as well as a small silver knife and one small glass phial of dittany extract. She brought everything over one by one, careful not to break or bend anything. When everything was transferred, she sat on the stool next to him and helped stir steadily.
"I didn't ask for dittany," Severus said.
"I know. But there's a new supply; he won't miss one phial. It's only a few drops. And it's not even that expensive."
"It's pretty expensive."
"A few drops? A few Sickles. Let's get you better, then we can talk."
"Well, I've got to wait five minutes for this to brew right now. We can talk."
Lily glanced at the bubbling potion and then looked at Severus again. She shrugged. "Alright then, what is it? What do you want to talk about? I want to know why I can't yell at James. He deserves it."
James? Since when had she called him James? It had always been Potter this, Potter that, not ever James. Just hearing her say it made him feel sicker, but he didn't let his disgust show. "He's not worth it."
"You're worth it."
Severus chuckled. That was Lily, always trying to make him feel better. "I'm not worth getting you in trouble," he said.
"You're worth a mountain of trouble, Sev," Lily insisted. "Else I wouldn't've stuck around so long." She winked, but the insinuation—whether intended or not—still lingered. She must have been referring to his Slytherin friends. They meant trouble—real trouble. War trouble. And they weren't ready for the war right now, not really. Lily had just turned sixteen; they were swamped with homework and acne, not blood and Voldemort.
"Is it ready?" Lily asked.
"Nearly. Don't worry, I'm counting."
She tapped her fingers on the counter. "I'll stir it, yeah?"
"Yes."
Lily looked at the bubbles again. The color was exactly the same.
"Is it ready?" she asked again.
"When it turns darker."
"It's not getting any darker."
"That means it isn't ready yet, Lily," he explained.
She stood up and walked over to the cupboard, then pulled out a large jar of greenish liquid. It was almost full, and the label was clean and new. "Dittany," she explained. "Slughorn could weigh it and not even notice I took any."
"I believe you," Severus said.
She put it back and crossed her arms. "Is it ready?"
"Come here and stir." She rushed over, grabbing the ladle. "Clockwise," he instructed. "Three times clockwise, then six times counter."
She complied. They both watched the liquid get darker and darker with each stir. When she'd finished the ninth rotation, he held up his hand. "Stop—"
"I know."
Severus turned the fire up. The bubbles got bigger and the potion turned yellowish brown. Lily wrinkled her nose at it, and Severus rolled his eyes at her reaction; they were still twelve, apparently. He counted silently, though his lips still moved, one, two, three, four, five, six…
The potion turned bright pink when he got to nineteen. At twenty, he put out the fire and took the ladle from Lily. The empty bottle was soon full as he spilled it inside, the pink fading to a more dull hue. Lily waved her hand around to disperse the thick steam, and inhaled hesitantly; the scent was rather lovely. Some sort of plant, like an herb, but not one that he'd used. Something you'd cook with. Real earthy.
"Drink it," Lily ordered.
"I have to shake it first."
She groaned, head falling. "God, Potions are so weird."
"Just read your textbook."
"You seem to have a problem with our textbook, Mr. Prince."
"Well, the school's been using it since the forties, so I can't ask to change it."
"You could."
Severus shook the bottle and then took the top off, downing the first sip. Lily watched eagerly as he seemed to spring back to life. "Feel better?" she asked hopefully.
"Loads."
"I'll clean up. You go to bed."
"Rubbish. We'll clean together."
"Such a gentleman."
"I'm only being fair. Wash the cauldron. I'll get the rest."
Lily tapped the cauldron cautiously. It wasn't hot, only warm. She brought it over to the sink and filled it with water.
"Do you want to study?" she asked, "later tonight? I know the Defense essay is due next Tuesday, but our Charms test is only two days away."
"No, Lily, I'd love to," Severus agreed. He smiled at her. Lily looked down at the water, grinning to herself. They washed and put everything away in mostly silence. As Lily was drying her hands, Severus came up next to her, holding the bottled potion in his hand.
"Ready?"
"Nearly."
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a/n: Written late, reread once, looking for proofreader. Thank you!