AN: Okay, Chapter nine. This one is... actually the whole story has been pretty dark in general. I am going to have to make a light, happy chapter. And soon. Okay, enjoy. :)


Chapter Nine: The Serpent and The Lion

"Madam Pomfry, he's our best friend. We have to see him!" James tried desperately to explain. It was after Breakfast and they only had about fifteen minutes before they were supposed to go to class. They didn't have time to argue with her.

"I've already said no." She said. "Now, I am rather busy. Why don't you both go to class?"

"We have time." Sirius huffed.

"Well, I don't." With that, she turned away from them and walked to the back of the room. The boys followed her after a quick look at each other. Madam Pomfry ignored them for a minute, pretending to be preoccupied, sorting through some healing potions.

"We aren't going to go away." James said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

"You can stand there as long as you want." She said, without looking at him.

"Ah, come on Madam P." Sirius sighed.

"Pomfry." She corrected, grabbing a stack of towels and walking over to the other side of the room.

"You know that we could just walk into the room." Madam Pomfry gave James a look that said that she would like to see him try.

"Or you could let us in." Sirius amended quickly.

"He's asleep." She said, finally giving them some sort of reason. "He's asleep and it would be best if he stayed that way."

"We always come in and see him the morning after…" James trailed off.

"Well, you can't this time." She said, not meeting their eyes. "Now get out of the hospital wing before I go and get the Headmaster."

"Fine." Sirius said, giving up. "But we will be back at twelve."

"And you better le-" James got an elbow to the stomach from Sirius.

"We would appreciate it if you would allow us to see him." Sirius said, glaring at James and managing to look angelic and the same time.

"We'll see. Now off you go."

"Why won't she let us see him?" James asked, once they were out in the corridor. "She always lets us see him."

"Why are you asking me?" Sirius asked.

"I am just thinking out loud."

"It is strange, isn't it?"

"It is possible that he's just tired. I don't think he sleeps much when, you know."

"Do we have to go to class?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"We skipped Herbology on Monday."

"So."

"We can't just skip all the time."

"Why?"

"Stop moaning. Professor Seresin would skin us alive if he knew we were skipping." James said.

"He wouldn't know." Sirius said confidently.

"If we both weren't there? I think he would work it out."

"Fine."

They walked the rest of the way in silence, taking the longer way so they wouldn't be too early. When they did finally make their way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, they were relieved to find that they were not the first ones to arrive. Though, they shouldn't have been.

Professor Seresin was quite a scary teacher. He had a hard face and a deep, rough voice that spoke words of praise only rarely. He rivaled McGonagall when it came to strictness, and wasn't as nice when it came to constructive criticism. When the students were doing something wrong, he told them in a no-nonsense tone and didn't bat an eyelash if the student burst into tears as Emma Abdulle, a second year Hufflepuff, had done during the first week of school.

Aside from being extremely harsh, critical, rude and frightening, his lessons were everybody's favorite, aside from Emma Abdulle's. They were fast paced, and exciting. By the third day of school, he had his second years doing spells on the third day of class.

There were a few Hufflepuffs scattered around and a few more Gryffindors. Not yet half the class but close.

Lily Evans just happened to be one of the Gryffindors who were lined up outside the door. James sighed but continued after Sirius. He was rather hoping that Severus hadn't mentioned the other day's incident. Unfortunately, luck didn't appear to be on his side.

"What's the matter with you two?" She asked spitefully, marching over to them with her hands on her hips.

"What are you talking about Lily?" Sirius asked, feigning innocence.

"He was asking for it." James shrugged. Lily's glare became even more pronounced and James felt his insides squirm, though he had no intention of letting her know.

"There were two of you. You ganged up on him." She said seethingly. .

"That didn't stop him and Avery from attacking me last Sunday." Sirius countered. She looked slightly taken back, this was obviously the first time she heard of this, but she recovered quickly.

"I doubt it." She said sharply.

"Why would I make that up?"

"I don't know. And even if that were true, which it's not, that isn't any sort of justification for what you two did."

"He broke my arm Lils." Sirius sighed. "I wasn't just going to let it go."

"He did not break your arm." She said, rolling her eyes.

"Right, because Snivellus is such a saint." James muttered.

"Don't call him that." She snapped. "And he's better than you." James looked genuinely hurt by that, but Lily didn't see because she turned on her heel as soon as she had finished speaking and marched over to her friends.

"Sorry about that mate." Sirius said, clapping a hand on James' shoulder.

"He's not better than me." James said, mostly to himself. "He's not."

"Of course he's not. She's just deluded, that's all." Sirius assured him.

A few moments later, Professor Seresin opened the door and let them all take their seats. It looked as though today's lesson was going to be a lecture. The blackboard was out and the desks were lined up in neat rows. James and Sirius went towards the seats in the back left corner and pulled out their quills and parchment.

"Today's lesson is going to be about-" Seresin stopped speaking when he saw a hand go into the air. "Yes Mr. Green?"

"Sir, I was just wondering if you could talk about what happened yesterday. It was in the papers, but I don't really understand." Seresin sighed, leaned back on his desk with a thoughtful expression on his face. James and Sirius exchanged looks. They had no clue as to what event Eustace was referring. They had left the Great Hall before the mail came so that they could go to visit Remus in the Hospital Wing.

If any other student had asked Seresin to meander away from his original lesson plan, he would have given them a detention for interrupting and otherwise ignored them. Eustace Green was a special case though. The Hufflepuff had lost his mother during an attack last year and had to leave school to attend her funeral. During the same raid, he had also lost his grandparents, a few cousins and a family friend. Eustace was not the same person he had been a year ago. Many speculated that if he were to be sorted now, he would be put into Gryffindor.

"You saw the paper." Seresin finally replied, after taking a moment to collect his thoughts.

"Yes sir, but why can't the Ministry catch any of these 'raiders?'"

"I don't know how you expect me to know the answer to that." Seresin said, locking eyes with Eustace, probably hoping that the boy would back down. He didn't and Seresin gave another sigh. "Late last night, an Auror was found, murdered outside the Leaky Cauldron with a serpent painted on the wall behind him. This is the first time that the serpent has made an appearance, but the Ministry is fairly sure that it's the raiders because… Well, the Auror was a muggle-born and there were witnesses who said they saw some masked men leaving the alley."

"Who was it?" James asked, not bothering to raise his hand. Seresin looked like he was about to note that but shook his head and answered him instead.

"It was Willoughby Abrams." He shook his head and for a moment, his face looked softer than normal, but this was probably just a trick of the light. Seresin was not the sentimental type. "I knew him when he was a child."

"Abrams?" James asked. "My mum worked with him."

"You're mum works with all of the Aurors, Potter." Seresin barked.

"I mean I knew him. He used to come around for dinner sometimes." James said rather snappy. "Was he the only victim?"

"Yes. Don't you read the paper?"

"I didn't get mine this morning." James explained.

"Fine. If you don't mind, I'd like to get back to my original plan for today." He looked around the room, making sure that he wasn't going to be interrupted again. When nobody moved he started his lecture on the mechanics of a duel. It was rather intriguing but not many students were paying attention.

When the bell rang, James and Sirius gathered up their things and made their way to the door. Lily met them just before they reached the door, blocking their way.

"Did he really attack you with Charles Avery?" She said, choosing to ignore the affronted looks that she was receiving.

"Yes, Evans. Now please move." Sirius said.

"Why?"

"You're in our way." James said cheekily. Lily glared at him before turning her attention back to Sirius.

"I don't really try and figure out the inner workings of Snivellus's mind." Sirius sighed. "But it probably had something to do with the fact that Remus was stuck in a trick step and he knew he could."

"Remus was stuck in a step?" She asked, looking slightly horrified.

"If it makes you feel any better, Daniel Baker stopped them before they could attack Remus." Sirius shrugged. Lily looked absolutely appalled now.

"Remus?" She whispered.

"Yeah. Can you move now?" You're blocking the rest of the class." It was true. There were a few students behind James and Sirius waiting rather impatiently for them to move out of the way.

"That doesn't make it okay for you to attack him."

"I'm sure he's sorry." Sirius said, jabbing his thumb at James.

"Terribly so." James nodded.

"You two are horrible." Lily said, rolling her eyes and walking out the door.

"You're not too bad yourself." James called after her. The two boys walked out of the door quickly, allowing everybody else to leave the classroom and started towards their next class.

"What does your mum do? I thought she worked on the St. Mungo's board, or something like that." Sirius said.

"She did last year." James nodded. "After the raids started, she applied for her original job again. She used to work in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She's the head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad again. Dad's not exactly happy about it, but she doesn't have to do much field work. She only started working at St. Mungo's because of me anyway. She needed a job with 'reasonable' hours." He said, putting air quotes to show that this was his mum's choice of words. "But with me at Hogwarts all year, she can go back without feeling guilty."

"I think that it's bloody brilliant that your mum is head of the M.L.E.S."

"I'd feel better about it if people weren't dropping dead every other day." James said quietly. Sirius smiled sadly at his friend and didn't say anything more on the topic.


Remus was sitting up in his bed at eleven o'clock, staring at the wall on the other side of his little room and trying to ignore the blood stained cloth wrapped around his leg. He hurt everywhere and it was better if he didn't think about it. Madam Pomfry was trying to heal him quickly, but she didn't want to make any mistakes or become careless so she was doing things by the book. This meant that she couldn't really give him another dose of the pain potion for another forty-five minutes. He had already exceeded the maximum dosage for a twenty-four hour period. He was starting to wish that he would have waited a bit longer to come down yesterday.

The Prophet was sitting beside him on the bedside table, much to Madam Pomfry's dismay. He had begged her to leave her edition with him. She had made the mistake of bringing it in with her when she came in this morning to clean the gash on his forehead.

He didn't know Willoughby Abrams but the story had upset him nonetheless. The serpent painted on the wall up above him was unnerving as well. In the magical community, snakes and serpents had always been a symbol of dark magic or a source of evil. Speaking to snakes, or parseltongue, was a sign of a dark wizard. Even in the muggle world, snakes weren't a good sign.

The masks had always been a symbol of the raiders, something that instilled fear into the public. And now there was this Serpent.

Remus's head was throbbing.

He reached over and took the glass of water off the table and brought it up to his lips. The cooled liquid felt nice on his sore throat but it didn't stop the pain, and the pain that reaching over to grab the glass caused his arm made it almost not worth it. Almost.

"How are you dear?" Madam Pomfry said, as she walked into the room, closing the door behind her.

"Just trying to make it another forty minutes." He replied dryly.

"Only thirty-five minutes actually." She smiled at him while putting a hand to his forehead. "Your fever is going down."

"It usually does." He muttered. He didn't know where his attitude was coming from, but he felt bad as soon as the words left his mouth. The matron gave him and odd look but didn't comment.

"Your friends said that they are going to be here at twelve. You want to try and get some sleep before then." It was supposed to sound like a question, but it didn't. Remus knew that she was really telling him that if he didn't get some sleep now, she wasn't going to let James and Sirius come in.

"Of course." He said. "But only on… two conditions."

"Oh?" She smiled at him.

"Yes. You have to wake me up in thirty-two minutes for the potion, and then again when James and Sirius arrive." She nodded.

"We'll see."

"No. Wake me up at twelve. I want to see them." Again, he was being harsh. What was wrong with him?

"Alright. Now if you don't stop snapping at me-"

"I'm sorry." He interrupted. "Really, I don't know what's wrong with me."

"That's alright. Now get some sleep."

"Yes madam." Remus said, laying down and pulling the covers up to his chin.

"Good boy." She said, patting his head.

Remus didn't fall asleep but he pretended to.


Lily was in the library waiting for Severus. She had asked him to meet her there during lunch. She hadn't been able to talk to him earlier, because they didn't have a class together until after lunch and even then she wouldn't be able to actually talk to him.

She didn't want to believe what Sirius and James had told her until she heard his version. She didn't want to believe that Sev would do that. He wasn't like that. He didn't just attack people. The whole idea was completely preposterous.

She heard the door to the library open and turned and saw Severus walk in.

"Hi." He said, sliding into the chair next to Lily.

"Did you get into a fight with Sirius and Remus?" She was blunt. It was both a curse and a blessing. Right now… it was useful.

"What?" He asked, completely taken back. Lily didn't fail to notice that he didn't deny it. She sighed.

"I said, did you get into a fight with Sirius and Remus?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"You aren't answering me." He didn't say anything and looked down. She didn't want to take that as confirmation, she wanted to hear him say it. "Sev."

"Does it matter?" He asked sharply, taking her by surprise.

"Of course it matters." She said

"No it doesn't."

"It does." She said a bit louder than she meant to. "If you did then you are no better than James and Sirius. If you attacked somebody who was stuck in a stair, that makes you worse than them."

"You don't mean that."

"Give me an answer." Lily said, ignoring his last statement.

"Yes. I got into a fight with Sirius. I didn't attack Remus."

"You broke Sirius's arm."

"He turned my skin green." He said as though it was the obvious explanation.

"Yeah, after." She muttered. She didn't know why it suddenly seemed okay, but Sirius and James turning his skin green didn't seem all that bad any more. "Were you going to attack Remus?"

"I wasn't." He said quickly.

"Were you going to let Avery attack Remus?" She asked. Her knowledge of whathad happened was clearly shocking him.

"Are you listening to rumors now?" He asked. "Rumors spread by Black, and Potter no less."

"I can't believe you." She said, her face flushing to match her hair. "Why?"

"Everybody thinks they're perfect." Severus muttered. "They aren't."

"Nobody is perfect." Lily sighed. "And I can list off a great number of people who think Sirius and James are at the opposite end of the spectrum." He smiled at her, but she wasn't having any of it. "If Carlee was here she would make you apologize." She snapped, effectively wiping the smile from his face.

"She's not here." He mumbled.

"No, but I am." She said, raising her eyebrow.

"I am not apologizing to them." Severus said. "I am sorry that it happened because it upset you. I will try not to let it happen again." Lily thought it over. He was her best friend and she didn't even like Sirius. Why was she so angry in the first place. Sirius and James were awful to him, he was a boy. James and Sirius being awful plus Severus being a boy would explain why it ended in violence. "He's my best friend." She thought, as she looked at the sincerely apologetic face before her. She finally decided that his offer was the best she was going to get, even if she did decide to sit here and argue the point until dawn, and nodded.

"Alright. If it never happens again, I will forgive you." She said sternly. "But only this once."

"Of course." He smiled.

If only she knew how many times she would have this conversation in the next four years, she might have acted slightly differently.


AN: And there we are. I think that it is much easier to make Snape and Lily fight than it is to make James and Lily fight. Especially when they are 12! What do twelve year olds fight about? Okay... don't answer that. I know the answer. But still. Anyway, let me know what you think. The next chapter is going to be the first Quidditch game. Fun fun fun. :D

~Craz