James Potter slammed the dormitory door behind him. He could not believe that Lily could kiss that evil, slimy git.
"Whoa, Prongs what's up?" Remus asked concernedly.
"It's obvious isn't it, Moony?" Sirius said with a laugh, "He just had his detention with Evans."
"That's not it," Peter said confidently.
"Excuse me?" Sirius said turning to look at Peter. "Wormtail, do you know something we don't?"
"Well that's not his normal 'Lily-fight' face. That's his 'hurt and angry' face." Peter said.
"Can you all please stop talking about me like I'm not right here in front of you?" James snarled angrily.
"Ooh good call, Wormy. He's definitely angry." Sirius added to his running commentary of James' actions. James made a lunge at Sirius as if he were going to tackle him. He would have had Remus not grabbed him from behind.
"Breath James, we're sorry for being assholes aren't we Sirius?" Remus said with a glare toward Sirius. "We shouldn't have baited you mate. We were just worried about you. Some of us," he said throwing another look at Sirius, "just don't have any tact."
"C'mon, sit down Prongs. I took the cloak and smuggled up some firewhiskey earlier. We figured you might need some after earlier. Besides we have a prank to plan." Peter said handing James a bottle.
"Where's Longbottom?" James asked after a moment.
"Off snogging with Alice somewhere, of course, poor whipped fool." Sirius shook his head somberly.
"Oh sure, pick on Frank when he's the only one of us that has ever managed to have a serious girlfriend. Of course it's not like I have a choice in the matter but you and James are ridiculous." Remus said with laugh.
"Hey , what about me?" Peter called out.
"You, my dear Wormy?" Sirius asked, " If you ever found someone to date I would heartily recommend that you keep her and hold on to her as if your life depended on it."
"Mr. Padfoot," James said with a grin, "you are forgetful. Mr. Womtail has had his share of girlfriends."
"Yeah I shagged the Midgen girl!" Peter said.
"Oh right I guess I tried to forget that image: The rat shagging the ugly duckling…ick."
"Shut up, Padfoot" Peter said as he threw a pillow toward Sirius' head.
"To your point Remus, I've tried to get a serious girlfriend. It's just the only one worth getting doesn't want me." James said bitterly.
"Which brings us back to my original point that something was up, so spill Prongs," Sirius said, serious for once.
"I saw Evans," he was cut off almost immediately.
"I told you it was Evans!" Sirius exclaimed.
"Well I didn't doubt it was Lily I mean he did just have detention with her. I was merely pointing out it wasn't his normal 'I had a fight with Lily' face." Peter said in response.
"And we'll never find out what really is wrong unless you both shut up!" Remus said with a smile in their direction. "Please continue Mr. Prongs."
"Why thank you my dear Moony. As I was saying I saw Evans and she was…she was" it was still hard to think it, let alone say it, "with Snape."
"James," Sirius said suddenly completely serious. He knew this was a sore spot for his best friend. "We've been through this over the summer with everything that happened with the attack on Evans, Lily and Snape were friends. I know he's a slimy git but you can't expect Evans to just forget her years of friendship with him."
"You turned in your own family! And it wasn't like Evans and Snape were just talking! She was bloody kissing that bastard! He attacked her! He left her there to die, damn it! He's a fucking death eater and she kissed him? How is it that I am an ass in her eyes but yet he's some prince charming!?" James yelled. He really shouldn't hold everything in like this, he knew that, and it felt good to let it all out at once. Sirius rose from his bed without saying a word and walked over to James. He gave James a hug, the type of hug only a best friend can give you.
Remus and Peter remained quiet for a moment. They understood the bond between James and Sirius, more brothers than best friends. They knew James needed this moment. Sirius and James pulled apart from each other after their brief moment. Remus and Peter took their cue to each give James a brief hug of comfort.
"Are you sure Snively wasn't just attacking her?" Peter asked in an attempt to be helpful.
"She was kissing him back" James growled.
"What are you going to do about it?" Remus asked seriously.
"Our prank," James said suddenly with a look of an epiphany, "I want to add a special part in it for Snape. I want him to pay for what he did to her over the summer. And I want Evans to know why we are targeting that bastard now." James answered darkly.
"James, I'm not sure if that's a good idea," Remus began hesitantly.
"Of course it is," Sirius exclaimed, "We'll show that slimy git!"
Lily lay in her bed tears streaming down her face, replaying the last hour in her head. How could she have let Severus kiss her? Did this mean she had feelings for him? How had all this happened? She knew the truth, but she was not sure she could face it.
She had always loved her best friend, just not in the way he had loved her. She had once wished she would come to love Severus as more than a friend. It had been the only way she could see that would not involve her hurting him. But that was a long time ago and many things had changed. She was not an idiot. She knew he was not the same person he had once been. She knew he was no longer the scared little boy who had cowered in fear from his father, the intuitive friendly boy who had shown her she was a witch. That boy had died a long time ago. But for a brief moment tonight she had thought she had seen him again. That was why she had let him kiss her, it was why she kissed him back: she needed desperately to believe that boy was still in there somewhere.
Severus Snape walked back down to his dungeon common room. He felt like for the first time in his life everything was right in the world. He had Lily. He loved her and she loved him. He had kissed her and she had kissed him back. She had finally chosen him. She had finally realized that he was not a bad person, that he every choice he made he made for her.
"What's up with you?" Amycus Carrow asked as Snape entered the common room. Carrow and his lump of a sister, Alecto, were in Snape's opinion exceedingly annoying. He was forced to put up with them only because they too wished to be Death Eaters and The Dark Lord had given Snape the unenviable task of watching over them while Lord Voldemort decided whether or not they were worthy to be included in his most inner circle. Snape hated "babysitting".
"I fail to see how that is any of your concern, Amycus." Snape said quietly. Augustus Rookwood, who was jinxing a mouse he had found just for fun, gave Severus a lazy grin. They had formed a subtle friendship over the years. Both had been early victims of the Marauder's pranks. Rookwood, like Snape, was constantly the brunt of jokes due to his appearance and both were Death Eaters.
"You've got a touch of lipstick on the side of your mouth there, Sev. It looks like that color your darling little Evans wears." It was only because of his friendship and respect for Snape that he refrained from calling her a mudblood. Amycus and Alecto were not as wise.
"What? You were kissing a mudblood! Ew! That is disgusting." Alecto screamed in a mocking tone. Under normal circumstances Snape would have hexed Alecto for insulting Lily but his mood was impervious to insults tonight.
"You're disgusting," Snape replied heatedly. "I think anyone would prefer kissing a mudblood to you." Alecto screamed something back in response but Severus was already ignoring her again. This had been the best day of his life, and no one was going to ruin it.
Daphne Brown was a sixth year Gryffindor and was one of the few people who could rival James and Sirius in total number of detentions. She had blonde curly hair that fell in ringlets around her face. She loved to laugh and she loved parties. Half of her detentions were from getting caught by Filch sneaking down to the kitchens to obtain food for one of her many blowout bashes she held in the Gryffindor Common Room.
She made her way up the winding staircase to the sixth year boys' dormitory before pausing to knock on the door. Peter opened the door suspiciously but relaxed upon seeing that it was Daphne, she would not turn them in for drinking.
"Hi, Pete" Daphne said kindly, "Did you have a good summer?"
"Yup, pretty good. How was yours, Daphne?"
"Oh you know me," she said with an exaggerated wiggle of her eyebrows. "I drove all the boys crazy." She laughed her famous laugh and all the boys joined in. She slid past Peter and flopped down next to James where he was now sitting on his bed. "Hi there Captain Potter," she said saluting James sarcastically. "When are tryouts?"
"Like I'm going to make you try out Daph, you're the fastest damn seeker in the school." James said with a wry smile.
"Fast in more than one way too," Sirius said.
"Oi watch it Black before I hex you're prick right off so that you'll never be able to go at any speed with a girl ever again!" Daphne said with a scowl.
"I'm only teasing you, Brown. You know I love you. You're a female version of me!"
"I'm not quite that bad."
"No one is that bad," Remus said with a smile.
"So are you planning your annual back to school prank?" Daphne asked with a smile.
"Yup, but we can't tell you anything about it. You know the rules Daphne 'marauders only'" James answered with a grin.
"I know, I know" she answered with a role of her eyes. "So I take it you boys don't need any help?"
"Us? Help planning a prank? Miss Brown you insult us?" Sirius said with a smirk.
"Fine, fine, so long as nothing is aimed at me."
"We would never break the Pranksters Code, Madam" Sirius looked shocked by the very idea.
"This is aimed at Snape and the Slytherins," Peter said enthusiastically.
"Wormtail!" Sirius exclaimed, "Remind me never to make you secret-keeper." The boys and Daphne laughed. Everyone knew Peter was horrible at keeping secrets. He didn't mean to spill secrets about pranks he just got so excited it was hard to contain him.
"Targeting Snivelly, huh?" Daphne said with a smirk. "That wouldn't by any chance have to do with the slimy git's friendship with my roommate would it?" She said turning to look at James.
"Not everything has to do with Evans," James said.
"Oh, please everything you do has to do with Evans," Sirius said with a sigh.
"Yeah, even the first time you screwed me," Daphne said in a mock somber tone. Sirius, Remus, and Peter all laughed. James did not.
"That had nothing to do with Lily and everything to do with you taking advantage of me." Daphne threw her head back and laughed loudly.
"I took advantage of you?" she said still laughing. "As if, James Potter! You were just as guilty if not more so! You had just found out that Sirius had lost his virginity to that Ravenclaw girl. What was her name again?"
"No idea," Sirius shook his head as if trying to jog his memory.
"That's sad."
"Well it's easy for you to remember you actually knew the person you were shagging. I mean you and James were friends so of course you would remember losing your virginities together. I have no such thing to help me remember."
"You are such a pig," Daphne said with a shake of her head. "Anyway you Mr. Potter came up to me and asked me to go on a walk with you. You led me to the deserted passage way behind the One-Eyed Witch statue and proceeded to kiss me senseless. The only thing I did that I could possibly be held responsible for was not stopping you and letting you go further than anyone else ever had."
"Exactly," James shook his head in agreement, "I was a 15 year old boy. Could you really expect me to stop? I was relying on you to have the better judgment." He said with a smile as he leaned down and gave Daphne a quick peck on the nose.
A/N: Not a lot happening in this chapter but a lot of important ground work was laid for the coming few chapters. The next chapter should be up by the end of the week. I spent a lot of time writing and have the next few basically done I just need to edit them. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!