It took Lydia far too long to make the most obvious and simple of deductions, and once she did she realized that she'd gone and made a complicated mess into a disgustingly complicated mess.
Sirius, it would seem, had been the one to send her the pendant at Christmas.
Perhaps she should have realized it before spring rolled around, but she had never been especially perceptive. She'd worn the pendant several times, hoping that someone would actually comment to her on it, other than people who obviously just thought it was pretty. She was hoping someone would make some hint that they'd bought it, but that had never been Sirius's style.
No, she eventually noticed that when she wore it, he would get closer to her, seem happier.
One day, when she was wearing it, he didn't even make pretenses of spending long periods of Arithmancy staring at her.
When she saw on the way out that he'd been sketching her wearing it, she knew for certain.
Sirius Black had given her the pendant. And now she really had a problem.
If the boys knew, then they knew that she was wearing it actually quite a lot, and how would Remus understand that?
Sirius seemed to think it was a sign of her interest, and if he did it wasn't such a big stretch to think that Remus would take it the same.
She paced the dormitory, frustrated.
Why couldn't boys just accept that girls liked wearing pretty jewelry and leave it at that? Why did they have to read in all these hidden meanings, give sneaky gifts to decipher Lydia's emotional leanings?
Lydia didn't even know her own mind! How were her accessorizing patterns supposed to tell something she herself didn't know?
Well, she knew she wanted Remus, that she loved Remus, but the whole thing with Sirius was still up in the air.
She didn't realize she was twirling the pendant between her fingers for a long moment, another bad habit she'd picked up. She'd seen Severus glaring at the thing and she had a feeling he knew exactly where she'd gotten it.
It wasn't like she could just suddenly stop wearing the thing. After all, she really did love wearing it, and she'd gotten a lot of compliments. Just taking it off and never putting it on again would make a lot of people very curious. Especially her friends, who thought it was one of the prettiest things any of them owned.
That made her a bit proud touching the pendant as she looked at herself in the mirror beside Lily's bed. She didn't think it suited her, exactly. It was far too pretty for her and she knew it. But she had liked the way it looked on her in Sirius's drawing of her, from what she could see of the admittedly rough sketch. She wished, wished so badly, that she could look in the mirror and see herself the way Sirius seemed to see her.
"Are you okay?" Mary asked, coming into the room, watching Lydia gripping the pendant while looking in the mirror.
"M'fine," Lydia said, dropping the pendant, letting it fall back against her chest, and quickly adjusting her hair. It was silly because she knew Mary had seen what she was doing, but somehow she still felt the need to hide.
"Sirius and I were studying the other day," she said slowly, sitting down and touching the chain of the pendant thoughtfully. "I saw his drawing of you as he was flipping through his notes. It was quite good, if unfinished. He's very proud when you wear it."
Did everyone know, or was Mary just that good at noticing things?
"Maybe I shouldn't wear it," Lydia sighed, running her fingers absent through her hair.
"No," Mary said with a small frown. "Not unless you want to upset him. I mean, have you decided what you want to do about him yet?"
"No," Lydia admitted, rubbing her hands together. "I mean, I certainly don't want to upset him. But I want Remus, Mary. Everyone knows that."
"But you can want more than one thing," Mary said with a shrug. "I want chocolate and pie, but I don't feel like I need to choose between them."
Lydia certainly did feel the need to choose between them, so she really couldn't understand her friend's explanation, but she simply nodded quietly, resisting the urge to touch the pendant and twirl it between her fingers again.
"Dinner soon," Mary finally supplied when it became clear that Lydia would say no more on the subject of the necklace. "Do you want to go down?"
"Yeah, just a secondly," Lydia said, putting her hair up quickly, since it had been bugging her most of the day. When she'd finished, the two girls made their way slowly to the Great Hall.
They sat down with Artemis and Lily, just down the table from the Marauders, and Lydia could feel Sirius's eyes on her as she sat forward a bit to reach the soup, the pendant moving away from her breast, dangling from her neck. She tried not to look at him, not to catch his eye, but she really couldn't help herself, sitting up again and glancing over to find him staring unabashedly at her. He smiled slightly when she caught his eye and she felt heat pool in her cheeks, looking back down at the soup she was dishing up, knowing that he was still watching her.
All of this distraction with Sirius had Lydia well off her guard, and trying to focus on the fact that he kept looking at her even when he returned to his food along with the soup she was trying to casually eat had left her more vulnerable than she'd been in public for a while. Certain people take advantage of such vulnerabilities with ease and confidence, and Organza was certainly one such person.
She could feel Sirius's eyes on her again and so pointedly wasn't looking at him when she felt the pendant fall from her neck into her soup.
Lydia blinked at it.
"Wow, your costume jewelry is so cheap it can't even stay around your neck," Organza said loudly, and people started to look over as Lydia closed her eyes, mortified.
It was starting all over again and all she wanted to do was crawl into a corner of the castle and hide forever.
"You know it wasn't costume jewelry, Organza," Artemis scoffed. Some of the other tables were turning in interest to look at them now. "You were the one who was so outraged about it when we got back from break because it was more expensive than anything you own!"
Organza stood up and Lydia shrank a bit in her seat. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to just vanish on the spot and rematerialize somewhere, anywhere else. Even the other side of the room would be okay. She just didn't want to be where she was sitting.
"We all know she can't afford stuff like that, so she must have gotten it for opening her legs for someone."
"Organza!" Lily gasped, but she didn't shut her up, merely egged her on with this response.
"So who are you whoring yourself out to, you little slut?" she snarled.
Lydia was paralyzed with fear and mortification. Organza had been mean in the past, but this was so much worse than ever before. Had Organza discovered who had given her the pendant? Was she jealous? Lydia had never gotten the sense that Organza was particularly interested in Sirius, but there were always surprises were the Marauders were concerned.
And what seemed worse was that no one was really standing up for Lydia, who wanted little more than to sink under the table and be forgotten. Couldn't somebody do something?
Even the Slytherins were starting to pay attention, Lydia realized, catching Severus's furious eye from across the room.
"Leave it, Organza," James said firmly.
Lydia knew he didn't particularly care, but he was her Quidditch Captain and he really didn't need someone thinking Lydia was sleeping with their boyfriend and attacking her. Girl fights were worse than the pre-Gryffindor-Slytherin match antics that happened every year. Mary had been accused of sleeping with a Ravenclaw she'd never even spoken to once and she was in the hospital wing for a week of practices.
"Why defending her, Potter?" Organza said, smirking. "Is it you? Merlin knows you've got the money for a trinket like that, and maybe she's been doing you favors in the Quidditch changing rooms."
James was turning red, and Lydia could tell that Lily was furious as well, but it had already gotten well out of hand. Ravenclaws were whispering to each other behind their hands. The Hufflepuff Quidditch team was eyeing Lydia with interest. The Slytherins looked positively gleeful, with Severus as the exception. He looked ready to murder. The scariest part was that Lydia was fairly certain he was capable of it.
"Excuse me," Lydia said softly, feeling her blush reaching to her ears as she got up, attempting to leave the situation as gracefully as possible so she could find some quiet place to cry. She saw Mary fishing the pendant out of the untouched soup as she walked away, but she didn't even get to the doorway before she felt a Trip Jinx at her ankles and she stumbled onto the stone floor face first.
For a split second Lydia thought her nose was bleeding, but then she realized the warm liquid was her tears as laughter and horrified gasps rose up across the Hall. Without a second thought she scrambled to her feet and ran, ran as far as she could as fast as she could, ignoring any voices she heard in case they were calling her name. She didn't want to see anyone. She just wanted to find a nice quiet broom closet to cry in.
Finally, when Lydia felt she'd gotten far enough away, she climbed into an empty classroom and locked the door with every spell she could think of, conjuring a mirror.
Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks covered in tears and streaks where other tears had already been. There was a large scrape on her knee where she'd slid across the stone floor of the Great Hall, and as she watched it began to bleed. She wiped her eyes with her left hand as she used her right to pull out her wand, cleaning the wound before closing it up. She then cleaned off her socks, which were streaked with dirt that had been tracked in by feet on the way to dinner and had yet to be swept up by Filch. He really ought to thank her for making his job easier.
Her skirt had a bit of a tear that Lily would have to deal with later. Lydia was horrible at mending, so much so that if she ripped something when she wasn't at school she would call up Severus or Lily, or if it was close enough to the return to school she'd bring it along for Lily to mend. At least it was just a little tear.
She sighed, sitting down in a chair and rubbing her temples. Sometimes she actually had nightmares about Organza, and she wasn't sure what hurt most about this whole mess. Perhaps the fact that nobody had really defended her. Not Remus. Not Sirius. Nobody did anything. She could almost hear Severus in her head telling her that she needed to be the one to stand up for herself, but she couldn't. Hadn't he ever known what it was like to be frozen in horror? She knew he had. She'd been there when James and Sirius tormented him.
Feeling less shaken, Lydia sighed, getting up, deciding to go back to the common room. It wasn't as if she could hide from someone who lived with her all the time.
But Organza, Lydia learned quickly, would not be returning to Gryffindor Tower for several days.
She was in the hospital wing, had been sneak-attacked in the corridor, and apparently had several particularly nasty and inventive curses thrown at her. If it hadn't been things completely beyond Lydia's ken, she apparently would have been the prime suspect. Sirius and the other Marauders had been questioned, but they all had airtight alibis. To the whole school, what happened to Organza was a mystery.
But not to Lydia.
She found him sitting in their spot, starting at a stone in the wall as if it was insulting him. She sat beside him, curling into his side until he wrapped an arm around her waist.
"Why did you do it, Sev?"
"Do what?" he said softly, not his dangerous voice, but he was clearly fuming just under the surface.
"You can tell me, Severus," Lydia said, not looking at him, knowing he wasn't looking at her. "I know those curses better than anyone but you. I couldn't do them. You're the only one who could, Half-Blood-"
"Don't," he hissed. "Don't call me that."
Lydia's mouth closed again, her chest rising and falling easily. Most things were easy with Severus, like the silence they sat in for about ten minutes.
"How's your leg?" he asked.
"Fine," Lydia said with a shrug. "I fixed it up all right. It's my stupid skirt I couldn't-"
Severus pulled out his wand and smoothed her skirt over her leg, touching the tear with his wand. She watched as it laced itself back together. How was it that Severus was so good at everything?
"She deserved it," Severus said softly. "People like her; they shouldn't be allowed to speak."
"And that's why you decided to twist her larynx?" Lydia said dully. She glanced at him and saw the corners of his mouth turning into a self-satisfied smirk. She sighed. "Sev, you know I'm glad you're willing to stick up for me. But I really don't want you to kill for me."
"She wasn't going to die," he said unconvincingly.
"She nearly did from the sound of things," Lydia said, rubbing her forehead.
"I was there," Severus snorted. "You're getting this from the rumor mill. She was fine. I wouldn't have let her die. I know you don't want blood on your hands."
She didn't want blood on his, either, but she said nothing.
They sat there quietly for a while longer, Severus still gripping his wand. He was still angry at Organza, although Lydia's anger had faded the moment she learned what Severus had done. She found it difficult to be feeling anything else when she was worried, and it seemed that she was often worried about Severus.
"Please," she finally whispered, "don't do it again."
"What?" he asked. "That spell?"
"Don't attack Organza on my behalf," she sighed. "Just don't."
He snorted. After several moments he said, "You want Lupin and Black and Potter to defend you, but you never seem pleased when I-"
"You could have killed her!" Lydia snapped. "You're not infallible, Severus. What if something had happened to you? Or worse, what if you'd been caught? They would have thrown you in Azkaban."
"Now, we both know that's not true," Severus said softly, tapping his fingers absently on her waist.
He was probably right about that. Everyone knew it was Mulciber who had attacked Mary, and with an Unforgivable no less, but nothing anyone could discern had happened to him. A slap on the wrists, and he might have killed her.
"Your father can't buy your way out of trouble," she whispered. "James, Sirius, they can. They probably will, if it ever comes to that."
Severus stiffened, but finally he nodded at her slowly and she realized he was agreeing not to attack Organza again. Lydia let out a sigh of relief and rested her head on Severus's shoulder.
"I really hate her," Lydia muttered, feeling his arm tighten around her.
"I believe the feeling is mutual," Severus said dryly. After a long pause, he continued, "You could always stand up to her, you know. You don't have to just sit there every time she picks on you."
Lydia just shook her head, not listening to him. They'd had this talk a hundred times before, every time someone picked on her, and especially when it was Organza. Severus hated Organza almost as much as Lydia did, but never before had he gone this far. She felt his finger move to her chin, forcing her to look at his black eyes as he stared her down.
"You're worth so much more than she is, Lydia," he said sternly.
Not according to your blood supremacy people, she thought wryly. Lydia Rowe was a half-blood. On those stakes, the stakes on which Severus was living his life, she would never be able to amount to Organza.
Nor, for that matter, would Severus.
So Lydia said nothing, smiling sadly at him for a moment before getting to her feet, brushing off her newly repaired skirt.
"I need to be getting back," she said slowly. "They'll be worried about me."
She didn't want to say Lily's name to him, not so soon after the break. Still, even without saying it she could see the pain in his eyes. He knew what she was omitting.
"Do you want me to walk you back?" he asked, although he already knew her answer.
"No, thank you, Severus," she said softly, smiling at him at the strangely Gryffindor gesture. He did that sometimes, just like the way he'd attacked Organza. "I reckon I know the way."
His black eyes looked darker than usual as she held their gaze in that moment, and then she turned away, left him sitting alone in their spot, still staring at the wall. The walk back to the dormitory seemed a bit more lonely than usual, and Lydia was surprised that no one even stared at her when she got to the common room.
Perhaps everyone had already moved on to the next thing after all.
