"James, I can't believe you would do that!" Lily shouted, storming into the room.
"I don't understand why this bothers you! You said you didn't like him anymore, that you weren't friends!" James followed her. The common room was deserted due to the late hour. The couple had just returned from a Hogsmeade visit. It had been a lovely day for the both of them, celebrating their six month anniversary. However, one offhanded comment from James about Severus Snape had turned it all around.
"It doesn't matter if he and I are friends or not! You can't call someone 'a friendless bastard with nothing better to do then stalk a love interest whose head he fucked with and ultimately destroyed' in front of that former love interest and not expect there to be consequences. He was my best friends for quite a bit of my life and no matter what he said to me, I will defend him on every account!"
"Un-freaking-believable." James muttered, throwing himself down on the couch, head in his hands.
"Why is this so wrong to you? We spent six years doing this same thing. I'm always going to have some loyalty to him, James. You can't expect one thing to make me hate him for the rest of my life. Maybe I won't forget, but I will forgive him eventually. Do I love you James? Yes. But Severus is a good person."
"I should've expected this. I knew you were in love with him! I knew you could never let him go! Maybe we should break up and you can go with the real love of your life."
"When did I ever say that I loved Severus? As a friend sure, but I was never interested!"
"Just go LIly. I can't deal with you right now. This is too much. Maybe Snivellus can comfort you."
"You are absolutely ridiculous." She stomped up the staircase to the boy's dorms and flung open the door. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew were sitting in the corner, seeming to be plotting out their next scheme. All three of the boys looked up at Lily.
"Hey Lil, what's going on?" Sirius asked. Without explanation, she marched across the room, grabbed his arm, and dragged out of the room, down the stairs, past a confused James, and through the halls until they'd reached the grounds. "Lily what the hell?"
"What would piss off James the most, do you think? Give me anything, just anything." She had a crazed glint in her eyes that Sirius had seen only a few times. He chose to answer her question before he asked some of his own.
"Well stealing his broom would be bad, not helping him with his school work, how angry are you?"
"Profusely, but that's not the point. I need something worse, the worst offense you could commit against James Potter."
"I'm not sure you'll want to hear this. I can't say I'd want to be the one who gave you this idea."
"Tell me or I'll hex you. I'm not messing around, Sirius."
"Okay, well, um, one time we were all talking about you, right after you finally agreed to go out with him and I remarked that he would have to be careful you or I would steal you from right under his nose, jokingly of course. He got this dead pale look on his face and told me if I ever did that to him, he would never be able to forgive me or you. He said that not even you and Snape cheating on him would be as bad as me taking you from him. That would be the worse thing you could do to him. Cheat on him with me."
Lily weighed the possibilities. On one hand, she could lose the boy who she thought she could end up marrying. He really might not forgive her after this. On the other hand however, this was the sole way she could get back at him. Taking his beloved broomstick wasn't quite enough this time. She loved him with all her heart, and she knew that under her anger. But the white hot anger had already blinded her to the consequences. She had made her choice. Now the only thing stopping her was Sirius.
Sirius watched Lily as the wheels turned in her head. He could practically see the smoke pouring out of her ears. He had never seen her this mad. Of course he had heard the argument from the common room. It hadn't exactly been quiet. James was being ridiculous, as usual, but this time Lily was equally guilty. She had resolved to stop defending Snape after he called her a "mudblood." She did have the right to be angry at James. Sirius could admit that to himself. He had been a rather large asshole over the past few weeks. He had sucked it up for today, trying to make the anniversary as nice as possible. Sirius really wanted to know what had gone done at dinner, there clearly being more to the story than what had been discussed. But what he really wanted to know was if she would follow through on this. Could she really be angry enough to do this? Could he be unfaithful enough to James to do this to him? Sure, maybe he did have feelings for Lily, but he worked so hard to repress them so that he could be happy for his best friend. He watched the girl, wondering what she would decide.
"Sirius, come here." Lily finally answered, holding out her hand. After a minute of silence, he took it, following her into the darkness of the grounds.
