These Are The Days of Our Lives Part 2/3

Friends

Severus Snape
Severus Snape was an outcast from day one at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. No one paid any attention to the thin, greasy-haired boy from Slytherin, unless the Marauders were up to something. Then, he was usually on the receiving end of their pranks, and people watched avidly as the Marauders toyed with him as they wished. That was the sort of attention he could have done without.

The possibility of friendship with anyone never even entered his mind.

Until one day when the Marauders were in the midst of pulling a particularly vicious prank. Severus was dangling helplessly in mid-air, waiting for the array of dungbombs that would almost certainly be heading his way, and trying to figure out how to reach his wand when he couldn't even move his arms.

The dungbombs never came.

Instead, Lucius Malfoy came around the corner and strutted up to a very surprised and embarrassed Snape as he deducted "Ten points from Gryffindor, Potter, Black, for hexing a fellow student!" Potter's fish expression was priceless, Black's look of annoyance even better. They turned tail and bolted before any more points were lost.

"I don't need your help!" Severus exclaimed once he was on the ground.

"Oh, really?" Lucius didn't even try to mask the amusement in his voice as he addressed Severus.

"You seemed to think differently when you were hanging upside-down and helpless in the air."

"Sod off! I don't want your pity!" Severus turned to stalk away angrily, but was stopped by

Lucius' hand on his arm.

"Don't want my pity? Whatever made you assume I would give you that?" Lucius raised an eyebrow.

"Well, why would you help me then?"

"Because it pleased me to find an opportunity to take points away from Potter and Black. Just as it would please me to have you join us for dinner." Lucius' tone left no part of his speech open for interpretation. Severus was to join him and his friends for dinner, or Lucius too would make his life a living hell. Apparently Malfoys didn't take rejection well at all.

"Very well. I will see you there." And with that, Severus Snape took off down the hall, feeling somewhat better than before.

He had a friend.

Remus Lupin
Remus Lupin's friends were everything to him. He would have gladly died for them, as they would have for him.

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. The best friends he could have asked for.

Because they accepted him. They knew about his "furry little problem" as James liked to call it. They had even become Animagi for him, to keep him company during his transformations. He knew that he could never express his gratitude properly without saying something ridiculous (or ridiculously funny), but he did the best he could.

Friends. Those seven years at Hogwarts were the best years of his life because of them.

And they'd stuck together. Through his transformations, through pranks, through James chasing Lily, through Sirius fooling around with girls, through Sirius getting disowned, through James getting Lily, through girlfriends, pranks, weddings, funerals, all of it.

They'd always been together.

After all, that's what friends are for.

Harry Potter
Many people would have loved to claim that they were "the friend of the Boy Who Lived!" Only a few people had rightly earned that privilege, if such it could be called (meeting the Dark Lord up front and personal really wasn't what most people considered a benefit.)

Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger were Harry Potter's two best friends. They were the two voices of reason in his life (or, at least the two voices of "Bloody hell, mate!" and "Honestly, boys!" respectively.) He knew they would do anything for him, just as he would do anything for them.

Harry was very, extremely greatful.

Sure, they'd had their rough patches: arguments, fights, near-death experiences, but that's normal in any friendship, and this was no exception. It was the good times that stood out the most, anyway.

Harry knew he would never forget that evening in the bathroom when he and Ron had saved Hermione from the troll. That evening, their friendship had been forged.

And it would stay strong. Harry was pretty sure that friendships formed from near-death experiences lasted a long time. This one had lasted six years, five murder attempts, one Yule Ball, and the death of Albus Dumbledore, and it was still going.

Whatever the future threw at him, Harry knew that Ron and Hermione would be there with him.
That's what good friends do, and Ron and Hermione were the best.