Realisation and a Bucket.

Times are changing.

For a long time Severus Snape had been excluded. Marginalised and treated as an unequal. No-one except for a certain red-head had ever even made something remotely friendship-like with him and he hated life for it. He hated them. The main people involved in that would have been James, Sirius, Remus and Peter. Back in the school days. Now it ranged around a bit more. He certainly despised Harry and the new Sirius too. Remus was growing on him but they were still never going to be buddies after the history they shared. Then there was Charlotte.

He definitely hated her, she had always been the only person who didn't like Lily which was the main reason he despised her but he also loathed the way she was always smiling. And the fact that she was in love with Sirius didn't help.

At first it had made him happy seeing her, not to mention Sirius miserable. Now that Sirius still appeared to have some sort of feelings for her, which she was shoving away for a newly found teenager he was completely ecstatic. Finally the perfect looking, smart, arrogant prick that was Sirius Black was getting a taste of what it was like to be Severus.

"You told me to come back," Snape said angrily. "So that I could have this word with Potter. And now you are telling me he's busy?"

Remus put his hands into the air. "Look it isn't my fault okay? Molly is keeping him busy and she is certainly not going to let him come down to visit. Can't you just wait until he's back at school Severus?"

"No," Snape spat back at him. "It's top secret business from Dumbledore, are you really going to get in the way of that?"

Remus opened his mouth to reply but as he did the two men flipped around as a small sound sounded from the kitchen door. Charlotte went bright red in the face.

"Sorry," she squeaked. "I was looking for George."

Snape rolled his eyes and didn't bother trying to hide the fact that he loathed the obviously stupid girl. Remus however folded his arms.

"Well Charlie he's upstairs. You could tell Harry to come down here while you are up there if you like."

Charlotte still looked apprehensive at these words and she swayed slightly on the spot, almost like she hadn't heard his words. She bit her lip slightly and avoided the two men's eye contact. "Is Sirius up there too?"

"Yes," Remus said simply. "But things are sorted aren't they?"

She nodded so slowly it clearly said that she didn't feel that things were sorted. These things did nothing but bring a huge gleeful smile to Snape's face. One that looked highly unnatural on his face as such things were so rarely seen upon it.

"So," he said in a slow drawl. "The perfect couple, no longer perfect it seems."

Remus shook his head sternly at him but rather than repress what Severus was about to do it probably more provoked him. Charlotte didn't wince but her eyes seemed to glaze over a bit as she looked up.

"You so easily picked on others at school. Anyone you wanted and you did whatever Black wanted you to do. Like a prawn in his demented game of life."

"I wasn't a pra..."

But Snape wasn't slowing down. "It's pathetic how you dropped all of your friends to be with him. How you wore your hair in a ponytail, the way he liked it. How you both were so over the top kissing in public. You were horrible to people that he didn't like, just to impress him. Even Lily you seemed to like a bit better after you got together."

Charlotte's face was turning a very faint shade of pink and Remus was avoiding her questioning look. These things were obviously mulling over in her mind as Snape purposely left her a silence to think. "I didn't drop my friends. Mary and I fell out..."

Snape laughed cruelly. "I heard you say that. Funny how you only remember what you choose to. Lily told me that you and Mary were best buddies, till you began spending all your time with Sirius and his friends instead of her."

"I did that because we fell out! Not before!" Charlotte's voice was raised now and her eyes widened. "Tell him Remus."

Remus looked at his old friend finally. At her pleading eyes that were so clouded with fear. he knew why she was scared. What Snape was saying was beginning to come back to her.

"You always liked hanging with us, we liked you. It wasn't like it was a bad thing," Remus said finally, in a low tone. "Mary made other friends..."

Charlotte was slowly shaking her head from side to side. As if the more she did that the easier she could convince herself.

"It's okay to change. I mean, you fell in love with Sirius. It was just the way things worked out," Remus said.

"Funny how everything worked out the way Sirius wanted things to. Because he never really liked Mary did he?" Snape added.

This statement was followed by a hollow silence that seemed to draw breathe from Charlotte's own lungs. She remembered that night when Mary had yelled at her because she went out with James, and Sirius rather than spend the day with her on her birthday. She remembered saying she'd make up for it tomorrow, Sirius getting angry and him making her come to Hogsmede with him instead. She remembered all those times he had seemed insensitive, she remembered all the times she had seemed insensitive too. It was her who had told Mary that was it, but she remembered who had been in her mind the whole time and that was Sirius.

"You just don't know what it's like to care about someone like we did," she said to Snape forcefully. "Miserable git."

Snape smiled oddly at this. "No? I haven't ever been made to change to please someone but I'm glad. Otherwise I'd have never known if the person was in love with me or the person they had made me."

This stung. Definitely it did. Especially the way that Remus was sheepishly looking away. She knew she had changed with Sirius, but she had always thought it was for the better. Trouble was she only seemed to remember the good parts. The Charlotte who had liked Mary, the Charlotte who was a nerd who wore her hair in braids, and the Charlotte who had been nice to everyone including Snape was long gone. She had never seen it as a bad thing before now.

Remus put his hand on her shoulder and she felt him grip it tightly for a very short moment. "Could you get Harry for me? Severus is here to speak with him."

Charlotte nodded and quickly left the room. She didn't want Snape to know that he had got to her. Unfortunately, he knew exactly this and didn't need to see the look on her face to work it out.

His grin proved that to Remus straight away. "Severus just stick to what you are here for will you? The poor girl is stuck in an alternate universe. Give her a break."

Snape gritted his teeth in a snarling sort of way. "You know I'm right. Sirius completely moulded her into one of you. So you liked her that way, you didn't complain. But I can see she lost whatever moral she once had."

"She's a good person," Remus said. "Sweet, fun and lovely."

Snape sniggered. "People who don't give a shit about other people aren't sweet Remus. And anyone who is like Sirius is not lovely."

Remus shook his head but before he could say anything Harry entered the room looking rather grim.

"What do you want?" he spat at Snape rudely.

Upstairs Charlotte was fuming. She was pacing about Sirius' old bedroom and throwing her hands about in the air every few moments. Muttering incoherent words. George's eyes followed her as he did so with a smirk sliding onto his face.

"Are you sure you're okay Charlie?" he asked after a particularly loud muttering.

She turned to face him with such anger in her face that he looked mildly scared. "Who does that complete ass think he is? He doesn't know what I went through at school. He doesn't know what Sirius and I felt? Who is he to judge me?"

There was a nagging thought at the back of her mind that told her Snape hadn't had the easiest life either but it was overpowered by her shame and anger from what he had said before.

George made a face. "I thought you said, things were over between you and Sirius?"

She sat down on the bed beside him, wringing her hands together. "They are. I'm sorry George. He just got to me. He was saying that I'm a terrible person because I changed when I was with Sirius and things like that."

George frowned deeply, a soft crease appearing in his pale forehead. "Well that isn't on is it? You are a wonderful person."

Charlotte didn't seem to be able to stay in one place for long because she had stood up once more and was pacing the room again. She stared hard at the photo from back in her school days trying to pull from it anything that she could that would help her situation but nothing surfaced. George was swinging his legs slightly, kicking at the already splintering wood on one of the beds legs. He had a thoughtful look on his face. One that Fred would have recognised instantly. It was the one that came before the formation of a plan.
"How about we put that prank into action then?" George's voice hit the room lifting the atmosphere immediately.

Charlotte smiled slightly, spinning around, her gaze focussed on George who was smiling back at her. Sliding back next to him he leant against her ever so slightly and she could almost feel the way he cared coming off of him in waves. Like an aura or something, if you believed in things like that. George really, honestly liked her for her. Or the her that he saw anyway. She didn't know who she actually was anymore.

"Sounds like a pretty brilliant idea if you ask me," she replied.

So she was a different person now, that happens. Snape was still a git and it was going to feel pretty good pulling a prank on him.

Heading into the attic the two of them searched through the thick dust, slicing it off surfaces with their fingers and then coughing as the clouds of particles flew past their nostrils. Charlotte squinted through the musky air trying to see if any of the equipment that they needed was there. They couldn't see a thing through the thickness of it all and her eyes were beginning to itch.

"Not much here is there?" she asked.

George shrugged, or it looked like he did anyone of what she could see. "I'm sure I can transfigure us a bucket and things."

Charlotte smiled at this. He had told her how he didn't pay much attention in school but he had obvious talent. no one could argue that. It was undeniable, he just couldn't use the talent in schoolwork. She remembered a similar thing with her in her 5th year. The teachers wouldn't stop talking about how smart she used to be, how she wasn't paying enough attention anymore. She wasn't doing her homework anymore. But Sirius never had to do homework so she hadn't either. Trouble was it was only her that fell behind. She could have never transfigured a bucket. Then again, what did it matter. She had been so happy in Sirius' arms, so passionately in love. And now there was George. She wished she could just stop moaning to herself in her mind. It would make everything a lot easier.

Walking downstairs they had to dodge Harry and Ron who were cursing to each other about something Snape was making Harry do. Both George and Charlotte had to smile at this.

"I suppose I'm not the only one he annoys," she said with a sideways grin.

The two of them crept around so that they were in the stairway standing just above the front door. Charlotte could see from where she was now crouched the umbrella rack that Tonks always knocked over whenever she came inside, and the portrait of Sirius' mother that was near impossible to get to stop screaming. Inside she was sort of glad his mother had never met her. Then again Sirius always said she would have loved her much more than she loved him.

"You still okay?" George's whisper tickled the back of her neck.

"Yeah," she whispered back, her whisper a little louder and harsher than his. "You?"

"Yeah."

They waited patiently and sure enough after only a couple of minutes a very annoyed looking Sirius and a very smug looking Snape were walked out of the room by Remus. He was standing between the two with their wands in his hand. After much persuasion he eventually handed the wands back and he seemed to be trying to talk them out of something.

"Go now," Charlotte whispered. "Bewitch it to go straight over to him."

George shook his head. "Remus' head will get in the way. We'll have to wait."

But as they waited Snape moved closer and closer to the door.

"There's not enough time," Charlotte said. "Try going around the edge of them so it its him face on."

George nodded and with intense concentration he sent the bucket flying towards them. The red shiny bucket flew unsteadily around Sirius, then in front of Remus and just as it was about to tip onto Snape's head it swerved out of the way and tipped a cascade of soapy water onto Remus' head. Remus let out a bubbly cough.

Charlottes hands flew to her mouth and George winced. "Ohh no. What happened George?"

George held back a snigger. "I dunno. I was aiming at Snape."

"You should never try and prank a Slytherin!" Snape yelled upstairs with a slight triumphant tone.

George shrugged at Charlotte and the pair went downstairs feeling slightly sheepish as Remus wiped at his face, removing bubbles of soap from his vision.

"Sorry Remus," George said with a grin. 'I wasn't aiming for you."

Remus shook his head a bit like the way a dog would and his hair ended up sticking out at all angles. Sirius burst out into laughter which was slightly contagious and pulled George, Charlotte and Remus into it as well.

"I guess I won't need to take a shower now," Remus said through the laughter.

None of them noticed when Snape sulked out of the room feeling annoyed that they were laughing even though he managed to foil their plans to prank him.

a/n Please review! And thanks so much to everyone who has. You're loyalty means so much. :D