A/N: Come on guys, please review.
It was December, and it was beautiful outside. Cold, but beautiful. There was snow outside, and the lake was frozen solid. Almost everyone was outside, except for four troublemakers. They were huddled under a tree. James was playing with a golf ball that had washed up out of the lake. He would throw it out as far as it would go. Just as it was about to hit the ground, he'd point his wand at it, mutter "Accio," and catch it as it came zooming back to him.
"Come on Moony, we know you like her," James was saying.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Remus protested.
"She'll have to find out sooner or later," Sirius said.
"Not if I can help it." Sirius snorted.
"Come on, Moony," he said, "We found out within a year. She has almost four years to figure it out. If she doesn't, she's an idiot." Remus didn't look at Sirius. He looked down at the book in his hands, and didn't reply.
"If you don't, we will," James finally announced.
"Not if I kill you first."
"Aw, you wouldn't do that to your best friends," Sirius cooed.
"Maybe not, but I could." But they all knew that it was an empty threat.
"Just tell her," James protested.
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"For me."
"No way."
"Come on, Moony. You should be the one to tell her. Do you honestly want her to hear it from us? At least you'll be able to explain everything. We won't necessarily do that."
"Fine."
"Thank you."
Meanwhile, up in the dormitory, Lily Evans was writing a letter. Her owl, Jane, was sitting patiently on her desk for her to finish. The letter was long. Lily's handwriting was impeccable. Her quill made a soft scratching noise with each letter that she wrote.
Dear Rose - it said.
How is it there at Morgan's? Is it snowing yet? I know that it's fairly cold there - I've been there, remember? I just had something to ask you. An old friend of your's from Morgan's, Sabrina Johnson, is here at Hogwarts. I don't know why I'm asking you about her. It's not even really my business. There's just something completely off about her. I can't place it. I know what happened to Artemis (you told me back in March), but that doesn't seem like reason enough for her to completely close herself off to the rest of the world. Well, maybe that's not completely fair. She talks to James, Sirius, and Remus. Yes, she'll talk to Lia, but she's never the one to start a conversation. I just wanted to know if there's anything off about her that you've noticed.
Love,
Lily
I was sitting on a snow-covered bench facing the frozen lake. Studying for tests wasn't my favorite pastime, but sitting on that bench, surrounded by snow, made it bearable. I'd always loved the snow. It reminded me of being back at Morgan's, without reminding me of all the horrible things that had happened to me there.
"Um, Sabrina?" called a voice.
I turned around at my favorite sound in the world.
"Yeah?"
"Can I sit here?" he asked.
"Sure," I answered, brushing the snow off the remaining seat on the bench. Remus looked nervous. I'd never seen him fidget before. I decided that I'd better start off the conversation, if he wasn't going to.
"I have a question," I told him.
"Yeah?" he asked, grateful that I'd started the discussion rather than him.
"This whole Sorting Hat thing. It seems kind of random. Haven't you ever wondered? What if? What if James had been a Ravenclaw? How would that have changed everything? What if? What if I'd been sorted into Hufflepuff, and never met you in the middle of the night, and had never found out that we were both complete insomniacs? What if?"
"I know," he replied, "I've thought about that, too."
"I mean," I continued, "It makes such a big difference. It's the little things, I guess, that make all of the difference. What if Snape had sat with you lot on the train, instead? What if the only spot open on the train for James was Lily's compartment? It could've changed everything."
"Yeah." I continued on to what I really wanted to ask him about. I mean, the conversation was interesting, but I really wanted to talk about Snape.
"I mean, what made Snape what he is? He's friends with Lily, isn't he? She's nothing like him!" Remus sighed. He knew as well as I did that this was what I really wanted to talk about. But I continued, ignoring his sigh. "Why are they even friends in the first place?"
"They were friends before they came to Hogwarts. Snape lives in Spinner's End. It's a wizarding neighborhood. It's rather low-class. Snape's mother was a muggle, and his father was a drunk. He was a wizard, but an alcoholic. Lily's family-"
"They live right near there, right?" I asked. I'd been to the Evans's house, and I distinctly remembered Rose pointing down the street, saying, "And down there's Spinner's End. It's a nasty place. If you get lost, don't head that way."
"Yeah," Remus said, "Snape saw Lily do magic in a playground right near their houses. It was right on the edge of her neighborhood. He told her about Hogwarts, and everything. He told her that she should get into Slytherin because it was the best house. They were really close friends. On the train here, for our first year, Sirius and James got in a fight with Snape. Lily thought they were nasty, because, well, they insulted him. In their defense, Snape wasn't exactly a polite kid, but from Lily's perspective, James and Sirius were in the wrong. She got sorted into Gryffindor, and he got sorted into Slytherin, but they were still, somehow, friends."
"But if Lily was such good friends with a Slytherin, and she wanted to be a Slytherin to be in the same house as he was, why isn't she in Slytherin? Doesn't the Sorting Hat take a person's opinion into account?"
"Usually, it does," Remus explained, "The way I see it, sometimes a person's personality is so strong that the little coincidences, and the what if's, they don't matter. Lily was such a Gryffindor, that no matter how much she wanted to be in Slytherin, the Sorting Hat wouldn't have put her there."
I guess that it made sense. Lily was, after all, a muggle-born. Muggle-borns don't get into Slytherin. Remus was fidgeting again.
"Sabrina?" he asked nervously.
"Yes?" I answered.
"I have something to tell you," he said. I didn't reply. If he wanted to tell me, he would. If he didn't, then he didn't. After a long pause, Remus drew a deep breath, and said, "I'm a werewolf."
I suppose most people would've been okay with finding out that their best friend was a werewolf. They would've accepted them, or whatever. I didn't have that reacted. A look crossed my face. Shock, I think. Then alarm. Then disgust. Then, my least favorite emotion of them all – numbness. It was like those last few months at Morgan's. It was my body, my mind, shielding itself from anything that might hurt me. All Remus saw was the disgust.
"I'll leave. Save you the bother," Remus spat. Then, as he left, the numbness left, replaced by anger. I might have felt bad for him, put that didn't matter, did it? What mattered was that he'd kept that from me, and, of course, that he was a werewolf. That alone was a problem.
I stormed up to the girl's dormitory. The four others were sitting around. Lily was reading a textbook. Georgia was polishing her broomstick. Lia and Alice were discussing the finer points of Summoning Charms.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded. Everyone looked up at me. Only Lily spoke.
"Tell you what?" Lily asked angrily. She threw down her textbook.
"About Remus," I spat, "How could you not tell me?" I should've stopped arguing. It's never a good idea to argue with Lily Evans. I should have realized that. God, I'd spent three years with Rose Evans, the girl with the biggest temper in the world, and I still argued with Lily?
"Because I'm not naïve!" she screeched at me, "I don't trust everyone I meet! I'm not Rose! Rose is welcome to give out secrets to complete strangers, but even though I look like her, I'm not anything like Rose!"
"Why are you bringing Rose into this?" I demanded. Then, I saw a paper on her bed, next to the textbook. It was distinctly Rose's handwriting. "You're right. It's none of your business." "Have you been writing to Rose about me?"
"So what if I have?"
"It's rude, that's why," I yelled at her, "You're asking your sister for personal information about her old friend. She's right - it's none of your business!"
"Yes, because you've given me so many reasons to trust you," she said sarcastically, "It's not like you haven't said a word to me for the last four months."
"Lily, you have no idea what I've been through!"
"Well, that'd be kind of hard, since you've never told me!"
"Do you honestly expect me to say anything?" My rage was building up. How could she? Did she have any idea how lonely and sad my life had been?
"All I'm saying is to stop saying that you've had a more difficult life than anyone else, until you have the faintest idea what you're talking about! You have no idea what any of us have been through, right girls?"
"What are you talking about?" Georgia finally asked.
"Our families have been on the front lines against You-Know-Who since we were born. All our lives, we've been scared. Scared that we'll be next. Scared that next time we go home, there'll be nothing there, and our families have been murdered."
"Two of my three brothers have been sent to Saint Mungo's in the past six months," Alice offered.
"My father came home, ranting and mad because he'd been tortured, and watched people being killed by Lord Voldemort," Ophelia said.
"I never knew my older sister," Georgia said.
"And my sister despises me for what I have no control over," Lily finished.
"You think that that's more than me?" I shouted. How could they possibly think that? Nothing horrible had happened to them, yet! Besides, Petunia didn't hate Lily. She simply disliked her. Petunia hated Rose.
"Oh, shut up, Sabrina!" Lily snarled.
"No!" I yelled. "I'm an orphan, and I've got nowhere to go. My best friend was murdered. You guys are so scared that something's going to happen to your families, but I can't be scared, because it's already happened."
"You treat our fears and experiences as if we were little kids," Lily said, "Sure, it's horrible what happened to you! But, you can't say what we've been through is nothing, and you certainly can't blame us for not being sympathetic when you won't even tell us what's going on!"
"I don't want your sympathy," I spat.
With that, Lily cast me an evil glare, and stormed out of the room. Georgia and Alice followed her. Only Lia stayed.
"Why don't you leave too?" I snarled, "Join your friends."
"Maybe I should," Lia said quietly, but she stayed. This time, she didn't have a smile on her face.
"Leave me alone," I spat.
"Maybe I should." But she stayed.
"Why are you here?" I finally demanded.
"I'm here because Remus Lupin's my friend. I'm here because a friend of Remus's is my friend, too. He trusted you, Sabrina. I don't get why, but he did. And look what you did with that trust."
Lia shook her head sadly, got up, and left.
