Disclaimer: Any familiar characters and settings belong to J.K. Rowling.
13th September, 1976
It had been a week since Lily had been partnered with Severus in Potions, mostly due to the fact that Professor Slughorn would do anything to help his favourite student out, which included promising not to pair her with Severus again.
Therefore, Lily felt relatively safe from Severus Snape's apologies. She still saw him in Potions and other classes, and she still caught glimpses of him sitting with Avery and Mulciber over at the Slytherin table at dinner, and she still even passed him time to time on her way to class with Marlene and Adele, but she was safe from his apologies nevertheless. She was safe because the two were always distanced, whether they be on separate sides of a classroom or separate sides of the Great Hall, they were always distanced from one another, though it didn't seem to stop their groups of friends sending each other disgusted looks every so often.
It was because of this sense of safety that Lily felt no hesitation in making her way out of the noisy Gryffindor common room and down to the library, where she sat at one of the corner tables, books splayed everywhere. She had not been wrong in assuming that the sixth year's new free periods would not be free at all, and even when she studied during her free periods, she still had a horrific pile of homework to tend to after dinner every night. She didn't know how her friends ever got any sleep, with their refusal to go anywhere near the library unless absolutely necessary.
Lily was just starting on her Transfiguration essay when the seat across from her was pulled out and occupied. She looked up from her parchment, her eyebrows knotted together in annoyance, ready to curse Potter for following her down here just to antagonise her, but it wasn't James Potter sitting across from her now. It was Severus, and upon realising this, she quickly glanced back down at her essay and continued scratching words onto her parchment with her quill. She was not going to dignify him with her time.
"Lily," he said, though she didn't even flinch, didn't even acknowledge that she had heard him. "I know you don't want to talk to me." She bit back a scathing comment and wondered why she could never seem to bite back angry retorts when it was Potter she was mad at. "But I hope you'll listen to me anyway." She continued writing, though the composure and politeness of his dialogue was not lost on her. It was almost void of any feeling at all, she thought, almost like a true Slytherin. "I'm sorry. You have no idea how truly sorry I am. I never meant to say that word, especially not to you. I'd like to blame it on people like Oliver Avery and Lucas Mulciber, but they didn't force me to call you that name, I did it all on my own." His voice was starting to break down now, disappointment in himself shining through, and it broke Lily's heart. "But I miss being your friend. I miss having you around to reprimand me for saying stupid things you'd typically hear out of their mouths and not mine. I just..." he gulped. "I just miss you."
By now Lily's quill had stopped moving over her parchment, though her eyes were still glued to it for fear of looking up and revealing to Severus just how upset she was. "I miss who you used to be," Lily said quietly after a few moments of silence. "I want nothing to do with who you are now. So go away and let me finish my essay." It took everything she had to keep her voice from wavering, but still she was sure that he had seen through her attempt at stony indifference - he knew her better than anyone.
Sighing, defeated, Severus got to his feet and left her alone. After another half hour of trying to write her essay, she gave up, cursing Severus for interrupting her in the first place. Now she would have to finish it in her free period, when if she had been able to finish it tonight, she'd be free to work on something else tomorrow. Now she was behind and homework due dates didn't wait for anybody.
She arrived back at Gryffindor Tower and shot straight through the still busy common room and right up to her dormitory. Closing the door behind her with more force than she'd intended, she marched over to her bed and threw herself onto it. Lying on her stomach, she buried her face in her pillow and willed herself not to cry. She'd shed too many tears over him already, he didn't deserve anymore.
"Lily?" Marlene asked hesitantly, sticking her head into the dormitory. "Are you alright?" She had seen her friend burst through the portrait hole and bolt for the stairs.
"Yeah," Lily said quickly, looking up and blinking back tears, still adamant that she wouldn't cry.
"Do you want me to go or do you want me to stay?" Marlene asked cautiously, not sure of what had gotten Lily into this state but knowing that sometimes, the best thing was to be left alone.
"If you go I'll just cry," Lily said, sitting up on her bed and crossing her legs.
Taking that as her answer, Marlene entered the sixth year girls' dormitory and closed the door behind her. "Did you hear the Clearwaters had a baby girl?" she asked, attempting to distract Lily from whatever it was she didn't want to cry about.
"No, I didn't," Lily said, smiling. "What'd they name her?"
"Penelope Valentina," Marlene said, excited at being the deliverer of such happy gossip. "Second of September, she'll probably be the first birthday of the school year. No better way to end the first week of the school year than with a birthday party. Speaking of which, it's Sirius' birthday soon, what're you gonna wear?"
She girls raided their trunks for appropriate clothing for what would likely be the first party of the year in Gryffindor Tower, and boy did the Marauders know how to throw a party. Just as Lily knew she would, Marlene had successfully managed to distract her from Severus for the rest of the night, and when Lily's head finally hit her pillow, she was so exhausted (as many are after dealing with Marlene's exuberance) that only a single fleeting thought was spared for Severus before she fell asleep.
"What are you, first years?" James cried over to the group of Gryffindor students wobbling about on their broomsticks two days later. "Get out of here, you can't even fly straight!" With crestfallen expressions, the first years dropped the few feet to the ground and disappeared off of the Quidditch pitch.
"When has a Quidditch team ever taken fuckin' first years?" James growled grumpily to the few students that remained. "So the rest of you are here either for the keeper position or the beater position, right?" he asked, just wanting to clarify before he sent them on a lap around the pitch to test their flying skills only to find that they were really wanting the position of seeker or bloody chaser.
The five remaining students nodded their heads. James handed over beater's bats for two of them, who shot up into the sky nervously. After five minutes, Robin Vane had finally hit the bullseye of the target that Sirius had conjured for them ten times and the other hopeful beater disappeared off the pitch with a look on his face much like that of the first years'.
"Sirius, go show him the ropes," James yelled to Sirius, who nodded and zoomed off after a bludger, no doubt to hit to Robin, who would hopefully be able to hit it back to Sirius. "Right, you, to the goalposts," James told one of the fourth year try-outs whose name he couldn't remember for the life of him.
The keepers had ten chances to defend the goalposts from the quaffle, and by the end of it, the one who had saved the most goals, Jacob Gibbs of fifth year, was made keeper. While the whole process of this had been smooth enough, it had taken just over an hour and James was fed up. Even when he wasn't captain, he'd always hated having to watch the try-outs. So when the last of the disappointed try-outs traipses off the pitch, James ordered his newly formed team to fly a few laps of the pitch before having a game of Quidditch, just to get everybody, including himself, in a better mood.
"Gibbs isn't too bad this year," Marlene commented as she flew side by side with James around the pitch. "Last year he was horrible, fell off his broomstick and everything." James grinned at the memory.
"Well Slytherin's keeper is that bad this year, if not worse," he responded knowingly. "We'll slaughter them for sure when we play them."
"Been spying on Slytherin try-outs, have we?" Marlene laughed.
"Gotta know the competition," James shrugged. "Not that they're not much competition for us," he said before shooting one last grin at his fellow chaser and speeding up ahead of the team. Taking this as a challenge, Marlene started after him and zoomed in and out of the goalposts just to show off.
Marlene had stayed out on the pitch after everybody else. She hadn't returned to the change rooms with them, choosing to stay in the sky as the sun set. She didn't know how long she spent out there, just sitting on her broomstick as the night came alive around her. She just didn't want to go down, it felt so much better up high than down on the ground. Up high, it was like nobody could touch her, nobody could bother her. On the ground was a different story.
She flew slow laps around the pitch, not thinking of anything really, just taking in the clear air and how light it made her feel when the wind blew past, brushing the few flyaway lengths of brown hair out of her eyes. She wondered how much longer she would have to enjoy this feeling of untouchability. Her parents didn't want her to play, thought her love for Quidditch was taking away from her focus on schoolwork. Her N.E.W.T. grades had nothing to do with whether she'd go pro after Hogwarts, though. But she couldn't tell them this. They wanted her to go into the Ministry, like them, and it was so hard disappointing them, even when they disappointed her all the time.
Eventually Marlene came down and instead of changing back into her school robes; she headed straight for the castle in her Quidditch uniform. She didn't know what time it was, but she'd be lucky to make it back before curfew.
Heading into the Entrance Hall and up the main staircase, she realised it was definitely past curfew. The candles had dimmed somewhat and not a single student was in sight. Taking light, quiet footsteps, she made her way up to the seventh floor, hoping she wouldn't bump into Filch or Mrs Norris on the way.
But alas she did bump into somebody as she rounded a corner on the sixth floor. So focused was she on making it back to Gryffindor Tower as quickly as possible, she rounded the corner and walked straight into the hard torso of Remus Lupin.
"Steady there," he said light-heartedly, grabbing her by the arms to keep her on her feet.
"Shit," she muttered, rubbing her forehead. "Sorry, I wasn't..."
"Watching where you were going?" Remus asked, a grin on his face. "No, I don't think you were."
"Shut up," she huffed at the Gryffindor prefect clearly on patrol. "So what is it, detention? Docking points?"
Remus chuckled. "Where were you? Quidditch try-outs were over before I even left the common room."
"I was on the pitch, still."
"Why?"
"Thinking?" she snapped. "What does it matter? Do I have detention or not."
Remus narrowed his eyes at her before sighing and shaking his head. "No detention. You didn't walk into me at all."
Marlene stared at him, taking a moment to grasp what he meant. He was giving her a free pass, and with an apologetic smile, she dashed past him.
"Snape's on the seventh floor," he called out after her. She called out her thanks before taking a turn and heading up a flight of stairs.
She made it back to the Gryffindor common room without an encounter with Snape, who she'd been made cautiously aware of thanks to Remus' warning. Exhausted, she slumped up the stairs to her dormitory, took a shower, and quietly crawled into bed so as not to wake any of her sleeping dorm mates.
"Hey," Sirius said the next night, sitting down beside Adele on the couch by the fire in the Gryffindor common room. She was reading over an essay, her face scrunched up in adorable concentration, and looked up in surprise at Sirius' greeting. Not many people were around this late at night, Adele was about to turn in herself, once she was sure she hadn't forgotten anything in her essay for Potions.
"Hi," she replied, giving Sirius a somewhat uncomfortable smile. They hadn't spoken since the day by the lake before classes had begun, partly because Sirius wanted to give Adele time to cool off, partly because Adele considered herself too busy with schoolwork to worry about something so trivial as an argument about the wizard she was going to marry with the boy she was previously betrothed to.
"How are you?" Sirius asked, making himself comfortable on the couch.
"Tired," Adele responded frostily. "So if there's nothing in particular you wanted to say..."
"Oh, right," Sirius said quickly, not expecting to be rebuffed so soon. "I just. Well I wanted to say sorry; I was a bit of a dick that day by the lake. I didn't mean to be. I can just be a dick sometimes."
"I've known you all my life," Adele laughed. "You think I don't know that you can be a dick sometimes?"
"I know," Sirius said, cracking a grin at Adele's laughter. "I just wanted to say sorry for being a dick anyway. I don't think I apologise for it enough."
Adele quietened and looked at Sirius, clearly in deep thought. "I knew you wouldn't take it well," she said slowly, "Dolohov isn't exactly my ideal husband, either." She sighed. "But you need to understand that I can't do what you did. I just... can't." She looked down at her lap, ashamed at how weak she was compared to Sirius, Sirius who had said fuck you to his family and the whole pureblood fanaticism that was running rampant in the wizarding world. She couldn't do that, not to her parents, not to her sister.
"I know," Sirius said, tucking a strand of Adele's ash blonde hair behind her ear. "It's alright. We've got, what, two years to figure a way out of this mess for you."
"One," Adele said, looking back up at Sirius. "I'm of age in March. No doubt Mum'll want a summer wedding."
Sirius, initially taken aback, regained his composure quickly. "We'll think of something, a year's a long time."
If only he knew how wrong he was.
A/N: So last chapter got seventy hits and four reviews... While I'm glad you guys are reading, I'd really like to know what you think, so spare a couple of minutes of your avid reading to hit me up with a review and I'll try to update as soon as I can (: