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A/N: I have made two small changes to canon:

1. The bullying scene by the lake takes place BEFORE Sirius' prank on Snape (rather than after as is revealed to be the case in DH)

2. I have added 10 years onto the canon dates (so instead of the Marauders taking their OWLs in 1976, it is 1986).

Image Credit: 'Marauders' by upthehillart

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Chapter 1 of 6: The Burning Book

For most magical teenagers, a 'Hogwarts Heatwave' was unimaginable. The very concept was an oxymoron - one likely to induce scoffs, rolled eyes and an 'I bloody wish' from any student hearing of it. But the Summer of 1986 was different.

All throughout revision season, students had been clamouring to master cooling spells, breeze conjuring and, best of all, particle controlling charms which allowed them to rub ice across their necks during class without it ever melting. The portraits squabbled and squashed together to get out of frames near windows due to a paranoia about melting temperatures; the frazzled teachers gave out detention after detention for uniform violations ("BLACK! Bare chests in the classroom will NOT be tolerated!"); the ghosts simply glided past everyone smugly. The staff attempted climate manipulation spells in the Great Hall but so far little had made any difference. The powerful magic that dwelt in every inch of the castle walls seemed to actively repel lesser charms.

It was as if the temperatures outside were trying to keep up with the heat of the tensions that had been steadily rising in the school. The Wizarding World had been tearing itself apart for almost six years in a war that showed no signs of slowing. Indeed, the past year had seen the front-page of the Daily Prophet announce another murder, explosion or disappearance monthly, then weekly and, by Spring, practically daily. As the fighting intensified, the realities of the war outside had encroached on school life more and more.

Whether it was finding 'Die Mudbloods' burnt onto a desk in the Charms classroom or getting hit in the back by a flying anti-Voldemort poster that spewed out red and gold fireworks, the ideological clashes of the outside world had become an unavoidable fact of everyday life at Hogwarts. Defence Against the Dark Arts classes were now notorious for culminating in visits to the hospital wing - so much so that the entire timetable had to be overhauled in order to separate the Slytherins from the Gryffindors.

The arrival of O.W.L season had a slight calming influence over the fifth years, but the concoction of resentment and rivalries - not to mention the pure intensity of teenage hormones - continued to bubble away under the surface. As May turned into June and the school's most tempestuous year group were left with just one O.W.L remaining, the ceiling of the Great Hall was still a bright, cloudless blue.

It was a Friday afternoon and the fifth years had descended en masse to the cluster of thick- branched trees by the great lake. After a week of gruelling examinations and a whole weekend to wait until their final test on Monday, they were determined to give themselves a much deserved evening of fun. Robes were thrown off, butterbeers were cracked open and books were temporarily thrown to one side.

But there was one fifth year who shunned the crowds. Who, instead of flocking to the sunny grounds, sought instead the quiet solitude of the Hogwarts library. Sequestered in his favourite corner - a private spot behind some bookcases and beside a thin slit of a window - Severus Snape was deep in study.

With each turn of the thick pages of the great tome before him - 'Transfiguration: The Philosophy of Form' - small clouds of dust puffed up from between the sheets, swirling up around his head and catching the light of the hot afternoon sun. Hunched forward, his long nose leant in close to the musky-smelling book, Severus Snape's black eyes darted from side to side as he took in every word. The desk was strewn with paper - every inch of which was covered in minuscule, spidery handwriting. Severus' robes were slightly too short at the wrists, revealing pallid, almost translucent, skin which looked as if it hadn't been touched by the sun in years.

As he squinted at the next chapter, 'Conjuration, or The Dialectics of Being', a bead of sweat travelled down from beneath Severus' mop of stringy black hair to the end of his hooked nose and dropped to the page.

Confound this blasted heat he thought as he mopped his brow with a frayed cuff, resenting having lost his focus.

Severus despised hot weather: the claustrophobic atmosphere of the classrooms; the oven-like quality of his four-posted bed at night; the way it made his black school robes stick clammily to his body. But most of all he hated the effect that the heat had on his fellow students. What was it about sunshine and long days that made his peers even more insufferably idiotic than usual?

Severus had been pointedly ignoring the view out of the window onto the grounds where, it seemed, every single mindless teenager in Hogwarts had decided to congregate. Friday afternoon it may be but there was still one more O.W.L to take and it was the one with the most fiendishly difficult reputation - Transfiguration. The fifth years instead seemed to take the option of merely pretending to revise whilst lounging together on the grass. The shallowness of his peers never ceased to disgust him.

Severus snuck a glance out of the window now, finally giving in. Sure enough, their books and notes scattered haphazardly around them, there they all were: preening and posing, slaves to 'popularity'. As a boy, when he and Lily had fantasised about and longed for their time at Hogwarts, he could never have imagined the truly vacuous, empty-headed, wilfully ignorant nature of their future classmates.

Severus shifted uncomfortably in his heavy clothes. Ever since the incident by the lake, he had taken to wearing trousers underneath his robes at all times. A boiling hot rage rose up inside him at the memory of the jeering, the laughter, the self-satisfied vindictive look on James Potter's face as his spell held Severus upside down, baring his underwear to the crowds.

Never again. Severus grit his teeth. I'll get him back, he vowed for what must have been the hundredth time since the incident happened just three days ago.

Breathing heavily, Snape turned again to the window, this time leaning closer. He tutted in derision as he saw what they were all wearing. Muggle clothes. Dressing like muggles had become the latest craze for every Hogwarts wannabe. Supposedly it was a political statement, a gesture of solidarity with muggle-borns, but Severus recognised it for what it really was: attention seeking, pure and simple.

Needless to say, no Slytherin would be caught dead dressed in jeans or, Merlin forbid, a pair of dungarees. A true wizard would never demean themselves in such a way. Severus' own muggle clothes were unwashed and ignored, squashed in the bottom of his trunk - only to be taken out when necessity demanded. Severus wasn't a muggle-loving weakling like so many of those he attended school with.

A bright flash caught Severus' eye suddenly. It was the sun reflecting on metal - something silver was shining up from the grounds. Blinking at the view out of the window again, Severus saw an individual who made a shiver of hatred pass through him and goosebumps spread across his skin, despite the heat.

Swaggering across the grass was Sirius Black, wearing the most ludicrous of all Muggle clothing items: a black leather jacket with gleaming silver studs. Though too distant to clearly see an expression, Severus could picture the self-satisfied smirk he'd be wearing as he winked to those lying on the grass. Black clearly had no idea how ridiculous he looked; how he shamed the great name he carried. Had Severus been born into one of the sacred twenty-eight families - if he wasn't cursed with muggle scum for a father - he would be proud of his ancestry. He wouldn't disrespect it. He wouldn't squander it at every turn like Sirius Black. Black was a traitor to his blood - it was no wonder his poor brother was embarrassed by him.

Trotting eagerly behind Black, came Pettigrew. He was another disgrace to the word pureblood, but his pathetic lack of magical skill rendered him below acknowledgement in Severus' eyes. Potter and Black clearly only put up with him because he fed their insatiable egos. His endless fawning and flattery reinforced their belief that they were the kings of the school; that they were somehow better than everyone else.

Severus' eyes were searching the grass now. Where is he? He was filled with a malicious urgency to set eyes on the one he despised most of all. Where is Potter? He was rarely far away his faithful sidekicks and, sure enough, a few metres behind Pettigrew strutted the sixteen year old Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. Obnoxious and arrogant from the soles of his expensive Muggle trainers to the tip of his permanently stuck-up hair. The hatred that curled in the pit of Severus' stomach was almost pleasurable. It was a hatred that he had cultivated ever since their first meeting, a hatred that burned in him, and in some deep, twisted way he relished. As long as he would live he would hate James Potter.

Severus gripped his quill hard as he stared at his nemesis, feeling its hollow shaft crack and splinter under the vice grip of his hot palm. How easy it would be, how satisfying, to curse Potter from up here in the library. Severus leaned forward, long nose close to the glass now. Potter would crumble to the ground, writhing, screeching, pleading for mercy as he, Severus Snape, showed him what a real wizard could do. Severus' wand twitched where it lay on the desk beside him.

There had been a time when Severus hadn't been able to decide who he hated more: Potter or Black. But year on year, it had become more and more obvious. Potter had his eye on Lily. Potter fancied Lily. It was when Potter had looked at Lily with a licentious stare, had started pestering her, that the purest most undying loathing that Severus had ever felt had sprung up inside him. The fact that Potter dared to believe himself worthy of her. The fact that Potter would think about Lily - would think dirty things about her - sealed his fate.

His fingers crept now to the hidden breast pocket inside his robes. A small black book procured from Knockturn Alley sat there. It had helped him design spells, helped him to learn magic he had previously only been able to imagine. One day he would get his chance to use them…

Severus' hate-filled reverie was interrupted when Potter suddenly turned towards the castle. For an adrenaline-full moment, Severus thought that Potter had somehow sensed the intensity of loathing that was bearing down on him from the library window. But instead it was to wait for a fourth figure to catch up - Potter had now slung an arm around the thin shoulders of Remus Lupin.

Severus never used to think about Lupin much. Potter and Black had always demanded more attention - and Pettigrew more contempt - leaving Lupin as the unremarkable one. He was what weaker people might refer to as nice, but what Severus himself called uninteresting. But not anymore. Because now Severus was certain that there was something interesting about Lupin or, to be exact, there was something wrong with him.

It had all started when 'in the interests of student safety', the entire timetable had been chaotically overhauled in order to separate Gryffindor and Slytherin. Lily and Severus had sat next to one another in Professor Vector's small Arithmancy classroom ever since third year: untangling complex theoretical problems together and laughing at their own little jokes. Severus loved watching Lily's brilliant mind at work. She had a habit of scrunching up her hair at the back of her head and biting her lip whenever trying to work out an advanced theory. She would turn to him in delight as soon as she had worked it out - her beautiful eyes full of joy - and grasp his arm as they read out the answer to one another simultaneously. Their shared desk was so narrow that they sat shoulder to shoulder. His senses were alive to her presence: a strand of her long red hair tickling his wrist; her delighted laugh in his ear; the smell of her perfume, fresh and floral, as he breathed it in. Arithmancy had been theirs.

Severus had immediately gone to look for her after her first lesson with the Hufflepuffs and been appalled when she'd cheerfully informed him; "I sat next to Remus"

Severus had felt a horrible sinking feeling. To hear that Lupin, who had previously sat behind them at the back of the class and minded his own business, was now going to be sitting next to Lily was very unwelcome news indeed.

"I've got to know him pretty well, you know, since we've been prefects together" Lily continued. "He's got absolutely appalling taste in friends, but he's actually a really kind person'

Severus snorted grumpily and replied "Kind? Is that a polite word for complete drip'"

"He's not a drip" Lily had shot back. "Just reserved. He's actually got quite a wicked sense of humour. Very dry. And clever too"

When Severus had spluttered in horror and tumbled over his words as he'd attempted to assure her that Lupin was "just another one of Potter's talentless lackeys", Lily had stopped in the corridor and fixed him with one of her stern looks. This was an example of what she had started to describe as his "possessive tendencies". They'd had a cold goodbye that day.

Later that night, as he lay in bed unable to sleep, he had made a decision. Lupin had to be taken down. Lupin was one step away from Potter. And Potter could use this loyal henchman to sneak closer to Lily himself. So Severus had started watching the pale, soft-spoken enigma. And there had been a lot to watch: absences from meals, fainting at a quidditch match and a strange pallor about him - a sort of haunted quality - that Severus couldn't put his finger on.

Black, Potter and Pettigrew were always crowding around him, with a silencing charm bubble around them, plotting. The three of them looked exhausted sometimes too - as if they'd all been up all night. Severus' first action had been to plant a tiny stone inside Lupin's robes on which he'd placed a complicated surveillance charm. The spell had taken him all night to perfect, but the bastards had caught him in less than five minutes. They cornered him after dinner. Black slammed him against the wall by the front of his robes whilst Potter made the charmed rock explode next to his ear. Then they left him dangling upside down in the hallway. By the time Avery found him, Severus was bruised and enraged - but exhilarated. Because this encounter had taught him something - messing with Lupin had seriously rattled them. And Lupin, whose mask of benign calm never normally slipped, had looked positively terrified.

For the next few months, Severus had attempted to keep tabs on Lupin but to no avail. He was impossible to track down - always one step ahead of him. But one day, they were careless. Avery informed him that he'd overheard the four of them talking without their usual silencing charm - discussing "tonight". So Severus had cast his best disillusionment spell and waited outside the Gryffindor common room. Just after sundown, the portrait hole had swung open as if by itself - but he'd seen the disembodied soles of their shoes creeping along and followed.

Unfortunately, he underestimated the difficulty of maintaining a strong charm whilst moving quickly through the intensely magical environment of Hogwarts. After a clumsy stumble when a staircase started moving unexpectedly, Black, Potter and Pettigrew had caught him. This time, they had locked him in a suit of armour. Filch found him at four in the morning and an utterly baffled Slughorn deducted 100 points from Slytherin. Severus could have reported the three of them, but decided to bide his time instead. Then, only last month, Severus had seen two figures crossing the grounds in the late afternoon: it was Lupin and Madam Pomfrey, of all people. This stoked his curiosity into a raging fire. Where was Lupin being taken? Why were Black, Potter and Pettigrew following him in secret? He needed answers.

Severus leant his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. His revision now entirely abandoned, he gave himself over to plotting. It was all about Lupin: he was the weak link. If he could expose Lupin's secret, whatever it was, he could bring them all down.

Just then, a commotion on the other side of the bookcases interrupted his reverie.

"I can't believe you're making me go to the library on a day like today!"

"Bertha, if I don't revise properly I'm going to fail Transfiguration. I just know I will!"

Severus sighed. Bertha Jorkins and Irene Swain. Two of the most inane, dunderheaded girls in Hogwart's fifth year. They weren't fit to wipe Lily Evans' shoes.

"Fine!" Through a thin gap between the shelves, Severus could see Bertha Jorkins slumped dramatically in a chair, fringe plastered to her forehead. "But I don't see why we can't just revise outside"

"Because I can't concentrate out there" Irene was twisting a strand of her poker straight blond bob around her finger whilst frantically flicking through the pages of a Transfiguration textbook. "Peter's friends just keeping showing off and - "

"Speaking of Peter" Bertha's small eyes glittered as she interrupted her friend. "What were you two talking about so heatedly this afternoon?"

Irene hid her face behind her book and muttered "Nothing"

"It didn't look like nothing" Said Bertha, flicking her friend's book down onto the desk with a snap. "Come on, you can tell me" She wheedled.

"No, I can't! Not this time, Bertha. I promised Peter. It's a huge secret…he wasn't even meant to tell me…Sirius and James made him swear not to!"

Severus, irritation instantly replaced by curiosity, whispered an incantation to amplify the girls' voices for his ears only.

"Irene…you're my best friend" Bertha was doing what she did best: pulling secrets out of people. "You can trust me"

"Okay" Irene sighed. Severus rolled his eyes - she was giving in pathetically easy. Perhaps she wanted to tell this secret - too many people at this school were embarrassingly eager to claim any connection to Potter and Black. "There's going to be a party. In the Gryffindor Common Room. Tonight!"

"Tonight?" Bertha's eyes lit up and her nostrils flared. "They're hosting the end-of-year rave before the last exam?"

"Petey said it was to throw the teachers off the scent! They've been planning the party for ages but they knew that after last year the teachers would be watching them like hawks as soon as exams finished. So they're doing it tonight instead!"

"I can't wait!' Bertha was ecstatic. 'What are you going to wear?"

"Nothing! I mean - I'm not going! I have to revise" The panic had crept back in to Irene's voice. "Besides, if my parents found out that I'd gone to a rave I'd be in SO much trouble! There's going to be…" Irene dropped her voice melodramatically "Alcohol there. James and Sirius have smuggled in crates of fire whisky from Hogsmeade!"

Severus sat back in his chair as he absorbed and savoured this new information. It may not be rumbling Lupin's secret, but telling the professors about an illegal party in the Gryffindor common room was sweet nonetheless. Hundreds of points would fly from Gryffindor's house tally. A certain Prefect badge would be history. Perhaps there would even be suspensions…

Severus exited the library with a spring in his step. Clutching his books and notes, he swept down the stairs and corridors towards the Slytherin Common Room distractedly. He was picturing the faces of the Marauders - as they so pretentiously styled themselves - as McGonagall burst in on their party whilst it was in full swing. Severus' robes billowed behind him as he strode faster and faster through the school, lost in anticipation. No doubt they'd been hoping to be the talk of the school - getting themselves and others drunk on cheap booze, flirting, -

But, before he could finish the thought, Severus rounded a corner and his heart suddenly leapt to his throat.

Lily.

There she was - leaning gracefully against the stone wall behind her and pulling her long, thick red hair up to the top of her head into a messy bun. Everyone else surrounding her blurred into an indistinct mass in Severus' eyes: Lily was everything. He stood stock still, trying to take advantage of the precious moments before she inevitability noticed him and her expression changed to one of anger.

Memories flooded Severus' mind. He and Lily had spent the previous summer holiday together: roaming the forests outside Cokeworth; finding shady patches where they could read; endlessly discussing spells and potions and decrying the rule forbidding them to do magic outside of school. When the sun finally set at the end of each long, glorious day they would lie in the grass and look up at the stars. Severus would lie next to her, paralysed. Their hands would be less than an inch apart; their little fingers almost touching. He would try to imagine what the stars must look like reflected in the green pools of her eyes. But he was never able to summon the courage to close the gap between them. If he had been brave enough he would have told her the truth. That he loved her. That he would be in love with her until the day he died.

"Lily"

She jumped slightly at the sound of her name and her hair dropped back down, bouncing around her shoulders, landing in a flame-like mess. The sight of her beauty made his breath catch in his throat. But then, her eyes narrowed. She pushed herself away from the wall and began to stride swiftly away without a word. Lily's friends had noticed him now too. And their expressions were just as hostile.

"Wait! Please!" Severus hated the pleading note in his voice, but it was a little too late for pride. He'd already plumbed the depths of desperation when he'd threatened to sleep outside the Gryffindor Common Room until she spoke to him - and that was only three days ago. She'd crushed him then using one of the qualities that he loved most about her - her indefatigable moral will. But if he could only convince her of how sorry he was -

"Lily!" Severus started forward after her.

"I thought she was just a mudblood to you?" Mary McDonald, a 6th year Gryffindor Prefect, was now glaring at him venomously and blocking his way.

"You stay out of it!" He snapped at her, trying to get past.

"What makes her so different? Oh yeah that's right - you think she's hot so you're prepared to overlook it. You make me sick"

Severus swerved past Mary McDonald and began to run. His robes flapped and his books and papers jostled around in his arms. "Lily!" he called again as he saw her start up a marble staircase, he sped up but suddenly he was flying forward and -

CRASH

Severus landed heavily on the floor, painfully spreadeagled on the stone. In his disorientation he could hear laughter around him and a burning shame reddened his cheeks. He started furiously gathering his books and papers back together which had spread out wildly from where he had hit the ground. He refused to look up and swore bitterly under his breath as he groped around for his wand under the mass of paper. Then - suddenly - someone pushed it into his hand. Severus raised his eyes. Lily was crouched in front of him, avoiding his gaze as she performed a spell that gathered the lost items into a neat pile between them.

"I'm so sorry, Lily...You have to believe me...I'll keep apologising for the rest of my life if that's what it takes"

She didn't respond, keeping her face dipped and hidden behind her hair.

"I just want things to go back to how they used to be. How they were….last summer"

Lily still didn't speak, but Severus could see her lower lip trembling slightly. Her eyes were still fixed down in front of her. For a moment, her body stiffened as she looked at the pile of his things. Then her hand reached out to pick something up off the top. As she slowly drew the small black book towards her, Severus realised with horror what it was.

"No!" He yelled in panic and tried to snatch it away from her. But Lily was rising to her feet now, cat-like, holding the book close to her. Severus watched in horror as she opened its yellow pages and her eyes scanned the contents.

"I can explain…" He began but broke off as soon as Lily's gaze met his. Her eyes burned with a rage that he had never seen before.

"This. Is. Disgusting" She breathed, flicking through the pages, her fingers clumsy in her repulsion.

Severus' mouth opened and shut as he tried in vain to find the words to explain. He longed to make her understand; to make her see that all he wanted was a better world for wizards. A purer world. A world where only the most talented - people like him and Lily - would make the decisions and could rise above their origins. Why should an entire type of magic be banned and hated just because of its potential power? But the words didn't come. He knew she would never change her mind.

"This…this is…" Lily struggled for her words, until finally managing to hiss "This is everything that I hate". Then her wand was out and the book became a ball of flames in the air. Lily turned to run away and Severus was left alone. The ashes from the little book of dark magic floated down into his lap and the smell of burning filled his nostrils.

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Later, hours after the sun had gone down, Severus sat alone in the Slytherin Common Room. He resolved to cling to the only comforting thought he had left that made his life bearable: making Potter, Black, Pettigrew and Lupin suffer.