A/N: This chapter was beta'ed by Faldo and I'd just like to take a few moments to thank her for her help and encouragement. This crossover may be out of her comfort zone but she most kindly offered to help me finish the story so I could get back to writing the story she had been my trusty beta on – Rising to the Bait which was stuck in Writer's Block Land. Thanks to her assistance I have have now finished the first draft of Serieux. She's proofed this chapter and chapter 26 and all that remains is for the last chapter - 27 and the epilogue to be redrafted and beta'ed.
Beta readers are unsung heroes who take someone else's often unruly but much-loved child and with great tact and care, help mould it into the end product you get to read and they do it with little fanfare and even less acknowledgement.
See End Notes for details on the delay in posting chapters.
Serieux Part 2
Chapter 25 Reminiscing and Rehearsal
"So let's practise," she suggested.
"What?" he squawked, caught off guard by her suggestion.
"Don't solicitors…um attorneys rehearse testimony with their witnesses?"
He nodded.
"So make me your guinea pig instead of Harry. Tell me about when you almost managed to kill Severus," she commanded, getting comfortable on the sofa - her eyes sympathetic but firm.
So, okay what Hermione said made perfect sense…intellectually. But damn it, she had no idea how difficult it was to sit here and discuss his youthful indiscretions, especially when he was already in a highly emotional state because of everything she'd revealed about Harry. Although Tony hadn't seen his godson for 17 years (23 years if he factored in the extra six years of using the Time-turner) it was still a highly volatile emotional trigger for him.
People who knew Tony saw a joker – someone who didn't hold grudges. An individual who was even-tempered, easy going and didn't take anything seriously. Most people had no idea that he possessed an extremely explosive temper since he worked extremely hard to keep it in check. It had caused him far too much heartache in the past and, more importantly, it had hurt people who he loved so he'd worked hard on supressing it. His anger, his need to chase retribution had enormously negative consequences for Harry, an innocent kid, had paid a terrible price for his inability to control himself.
Talking about what a stupid, arrogant jerk he'd been was the absolute last thing he wanted to revisit, especially with Hermione. Still, if it could help Harry to move on then how could he begrudge his godson his chance to overcome his survivor's guilt? Just because he didn't want to relieve his biggest mistakes and regrets. Nuh uh, he'd already caused enough harm to his godson, so it was time to suck it up.
He'd look at it as an opportunity to help gather his thoughts and memories into an account that was cogent to Harry. He should be grateful for the kick up the butt and he was. But…
Taking a deep breath, Tony closed his eyes and thought about what he wanted to say before he began to speak. "The Marauders had always been fierce with our teasing and joking and it wasn't only the innocent who were victims of our often very juvenile sense of humour. We also gave each other as good as we gave everybody else but it had always been good-natured hi-jinks, even if it was immature behaviour. Well, except for our treatment of Snape."
"So why'd you treat him differently to everyone else?" Hermione prompted curiously.
"You know what? Looking back on it now with the benefit of hindsight - largely my embarrassment and shame when I think about what we did…what I did, I'm struggling too trying to understand why. Even with the extra insight from Anthony's memories of being badly bullied at boarding school and the fact that both Snape and I were from abusive families, growing up, I don't honestly know why."
He stood up so he could move and get rid of the tension he was feeling and looked at the young woman, hoping she had the answers he didn't. "See here's what doesn't make sense to me, Hermione. If we'd been out and out bullying little shits, James and I would have zeroed in on Peter Pettigrew as the perfect target to bully and torment."
"Why?" she asked.
"Trust me, he possessed the archetypal victim profile and then there was the proximity angle – he was in our dormitory for Pete's sake! It would have been so damned convenient if all we were looking for was to have a target to bully. Plus, even then, he had an unfortunate rodentlike appearance that honestly, made him every bully's wet dream. Yet James, Remus and me all staunchly defended him, physically and verbally. We extended the hand of friendship to him. And we didn't just explicitly protect him from other would-be bullies either," he mused.
Hermione cocked her head on the side. "Okay, you want to explain what you mean by that, Sirius."
"Yeah, well by accepting him as a Marauder, Wormtail instantly became one of the cool students by association. The Houses of Black and Potter were old and venerable pureblood houses, influential with a lot of the other pureblood wizards and witches, not that James or I gave a damn about that, by the way. Yet we were admired by our fellow-students despite our disinterest regarding all that pureblood snobbery, not just for our tomfoolery and our inventiveness when it came to playing pranks either."
Hermione nodded. "I figured since you and James' best friends at Hogwarts and then after you finished school were a half blood Pettigrew, a werewolf and a muggle who James married and had a half blood wizard with, and also that you agreed to be Harry's godfather, you weren't pure blood bigots. You were very far from perfect but you sure weren't bigots, Pads."
"We didn't care if we were popular with all the other purebloods and that was a hugely powerful lure for those people aspiring to be what they saw as cool. Somehow, there isn't anything as cool or a sexy as people who honestly don't give a fu… fig, give a fig," he caught himself just in time, knowing that his younger companion didn't appreciate gratuitous swearing.
"Those tossers wanted to be like us, and wanting be accepted into our clique – purely for the prestige, I'm guessing. Peter, by association when he became a Marauder became one of the cool kids that the others wanted to be like and they felt like they had to impress him, to help win James and yours truly over. The irony was that we weren't interested in the Marauders expanding."
Sirius stood up and cracked his vertebra, wishing he could shift into Padfoot and go for an all-out blood pumping, muscle hurting run and stretch out his body properly. Dropping back down on the couch, the federal agent with quick-silver in his blood, continued his recitation even if it make him feel queasy in the stomach.
"Trust me, Pettigrew would have had a miserable time of it if we hadn't adopted and championed him. – especially with many of the Slytherins who were terrible bullies." He thought about Bellatrix – she was incredibly cruel, even as a little child. Her torturing of toads and bats was legendary and quite the source of pride to her doting parents. Sirius thought about Archibald, Narcissa's beloved Kneazel which Bella killed. It was found horribly brutalised and when challenged, Bella justified it because she was jealous of her father hugging her baby sister too much. Even after all these years, thinking about Archie and how she'd tortured and mutilated him, made him want to puke.
Hermione was frowning in a way that Tony was learning meant that she was either thinking about something or remembering a past event. "I've no trouble believing that Pettigrew would have had a miserable seven years at Hogwarts if he hadn't been a Marauder. In my time at Hogwarts, the girls from Ravenclaw bullied my Press Secretary, Luna Lovegood unmercifully. Just because she was a little different."
Tony raised an eyebrow but didn't speak.
Hermione absorbed the gesture and re-evaluated what she'd just said. "Okay Luna was more than a little different but that isn't an excuse for hiding her belongings, laughing at her constantly and making her life a living hell. It only got better when Harry befriended her and became her protector. And closer to home, my own first few months at Hogwarts had been pure Hell until Harry and Ron saved me from the Troll and I lied to the teachers to save them from seven years of detentions.
"Once I was hanging out with The-Boy-Who-Lived, I was suddenly off limits when it came to bullies. Except for Draco, Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle and the rest of his Slytherin toadies, but then, they picked on Harry and Ron too - pretty much everyone, actually. So I can easily understand how Pettigrew was lucky James, Remus and yourself adopted him as a Marauder since kids, no matter if they were muggle or magical, Claws, Puffs, Lions or Snakes would have bullied him. Which only made Pettigrew's betrayal of you all that much more unforgiveable."
Tony glanced at his companion, thinking about everything she had said. It was true; kids magical or not could be unspeakably cruel to anyone who they sensed was even slightly different or even a little vulnerable. He thought about Anthony DiNozzo's experiences as a little kid who'd just lost his mother, being brought up in a highly dysfunctional home by two alcoholics who abused him in their own ways and then had he'd been shipped off to boarding school. Where the cruel little shits had stripped him to his underwear to humiliate him and ran him up the flagpole, as if he were a scrap of material and then after laughing and degrading him, they left him there.
It had been so deeply traumatising to him, that Anthony had buried it deep in his subconscious, even convincing himself he was the perpetrator. No doubt, the shame and abhorrence of being a tormenter was more palatable than being a victim who was weak and pitiful. Tony fumed as he understood how that crap of Senior's, about DiNozzos not crying or fainting because it showed weakness, had impacted on Anthony and made him repress the bullying. He'd blamed himself instead of the bullies because if he blamed the bullies, in his twisted logic then he was weak and being weak was a worse sin.
Once the memory that had proved to be false, resurfaced, Tony found he was piecing together more episodes of bullying that had occurred to Anthony DiNozzo at school. Plus, he'd begun to wonder how many of those automatic thoughts that Senior had created in Anthony as a child, had influenced Sirius too. Reinforced by Gibbs and his whole macho crap, especially his Rule #6 over the years had helped to beat him down. Certainly, when he first left Baltimore he'd never had put up with the crap of Jethro and the rest that he did as time passed by. Shrugging, he returned to the issue of kids bullying kids, as opposed to fathers bullying and browbeating their son's or team mates and mentors bullying, hounding and harassing their colleagues.
Tony recalled a variety of horror stories that Ducky had recounted over his fifteen years at NCIS. Donald Mallard was an old boy at Eton College and in his stories, the exploits of the Etonians would curl your hair. All in all, he concluded that if these kids that Ducky had gone to school with had a wand, they'd probably have wiped out half the school population, considering that their brains were still maturing (particularly the frontal cortex) and therefore were not good at predicting consequences. Some of the stuff the Etonian's got up to in Ducky's day kind of made most of the Marauders exploits seem almost tame by comparison - with the exception of his unforgivable brain snap.
Looking up, finding Hermione watching him, he realised he'd been trapped inside his head instead of sharing with her.
"Sorry, guess I zoned there. So anyway, I'm not sure what it had been about Snape that had evoked such violently aversive feelings in us, especially since neither James or I were pureblood bigots. Idiots, arrogant brats but definitely never bigots. We couldn't care less that Snape was a so- called half-blood, although I suspect that the other wizards and witches in his own house would have reacted much more negatively to him for just that reason alone. Slytherins believed, or liked to believe, that students in their house were exclusively purebloods, after all even if that wasn't the case."
"True – Tom Riddle and Delores Umbridge are two others who immediately spring to mind," she observed with a moue of disgust.
He nodded. "Yeah the Black family would be rolling in their graves at the thought of that infamous duo! Imagine if they'd gotten together and begat."
They looked at each other and chorused, "Eeew," as they imagined the mental image of snakey, toad-like offspring. By tacit mutual agreement they quashed the hideous picture of a baby UmbVold and moved on. Hermione muttered something about needing to bleach her brain.
Tony knew that a part of why they'd hated Snape was because he was a Slytherin. "James and I had a pathological hatred of Snakes because so many of the pureblood bigots and Death Eaters ended up there. If Snape been sorted into another house- say Ravenclaw – it might have been different since historically, Gryffindor and Slytherins are like oil and water together. It's like a self- fulfilling prophecy that we must despise each other on principle. Not that I believe we'd ever have been best friends if we belonged to other houses, just maybe…just maybe we might not have automatically become bitter enemies."
"Trust me, Sirius, I'm well acquainted with the enmity that exists between those two houses. Ronald and to a lesser extent, Harry were highly prejudiced when it came to anyone from Slytherin. Harry became more tolerant as he matured but Ron had a pathological hatred of them 'til the day the bludger killed him. It was so deeply entrenched in him… in the whole Weasley clan, but especially Ron that there was no shaking it," Hermione observed, somewhat exasperatedly.
"I know what you mean. The level of antipathy between the so called dark pureblood families and those that considered themselves to be of the light was well engrained over generations of being sorted into Slytherin versus the other three houses." Sirius yawned as he thought about the situation. "But in the Black family, generation upon generation was sorted into Slytherin and their contempt for all the houses but especially Gryffindor was infused into all their offspring's DNA. I'm sure that scores of them were rolling over in their graves when I was sorted into the enemy's camp.
"But since all my family also belonged to the same house as Snape – including my little brother Regulus and Andi, my favourite cousin and had done for many generations, it still doesn't really explain my over-the-top reaction to The Git. Yes, it's true that I'd been sorted into Gryffindor and that the Slytherins, including Severus, were all highly derogatory about my so-called fall from grace. But my bucking the trend of being sorting into Slytherin was a source of great pride to me, not to mention enormous relief that I wasn't going to spend seven years with a bunch snakey gits. Especially since many of them would end up volunteering to become Death Eaters. Even if it resulted in the final estrangement of my eleven-year-old self from my family. So it doesn't explain my loathing of Snape, not really."
Tony stood up and gathered their mugs, taking them into the kitchen and switching on the kettle to make another cup of chai tea. He wasn't truly desperate for another cup so much as he felt the urge to move. He often found he did his best thinking when he went running, or when he was doing other things and stopped focusing exclusively on a problem at hand and turned it over to his left brain to work on.
"Mind you, the philosophical divide between Slytherin and all three of the other houses, especially Gryffindor, has always been actively encouraged by the staff, and by the school culture," he observed from the kitchen. "It was looked on as totally natural and normal for us to hate each other."
"Well both Heads, Dumbledore and Minerva were Gryffindors and Phineas Nigellus Black and Severus Snape were from Slytherin. Perhaps if the Heads had been chosen from Hufflepuff, then it might well have been different," Hermione mused aloud.
"Excellent point – or Ravenclaw - maybe Luna should become the Headmistress – that would really shake them all up. Plus, can you imagine her Care of Magical Creatures classes?" he joked, fondly before becoming sober again. "But there were plenty of other Slytherins that I… um… we didn't end up hating with such a burning passion as Snape. Nor did we try to find ways to make their lives as unpleasant as possible.
"In the end, Snape's Slytherin-ness wasn't enough to explain our antipathy or the fact it was equally reciprocated by him. We were real little shits to him but he was a vitriolic jackass too - convinced of his own superiority and certainly not known to reach out a hand of kindness to those less capable."
He gazed at Hermione who was looking just a little sceptical. "C'mon Hermione, did you honestly think that his attitude to so-called 'dunderheads' had just appeared because James was a prat to him, or Remus nearly attacked him because of me? If that was so, then why didn't Harry turn into a selfish acid tongued little prick with all the shit that Severus and Draco put him through at school?" Tony demanded heatedly.
Harry's best friend was frowning with that I'm trying to figure something out look, although she responded to his question. "Because he's got a big heart and always puts other people's needs before his own."
"Severus always was snidely superior – convinced he was smarter than everyone else," Tony stated calmly.
"Harry found a potions text book when he was in sixth year that belonged to someone who called themselves the Half-Blood Prince," Hermione spoke slowly. "It had some pretty disturbing potions and spells and it caused a lot of arguments between us. In hindsight, I can see that it pointed to an extremely arrogant student who was incredibly negligent to write down some of the dangerous stuff that was in it. Harry only found out whose book it was by accident when he used that potentially lethal spell against Severus in anger."
"Snape's mother was Eileen Prince." Tony said conversationally.
"Yeah, that would have been really good to know back in 1996 Hermione noted wryly. I can't believe he left that book lying around for students to find."
"What was the spell Harry used?" Tony inquired curiously
"Sectumsempra."
Tony winced. "Harry found that in The Git's potions' text book?" he asked incredulously.
Hermione nodded gravely. "Yes. You know… from everything that Harry has told me about Tom Riddle at school, the similarities between him and Severus is spookily similar. The bad, abusive childhood, his hatred of muggles, his lack of empathy, his poor social skills, his obsession with the dark arts and his obvious skills in not just performing magic but creating spells. With the benefit of hindsight – why didn't Dumbledore step in and take Snape under his wing at school, try to guide him away the joining the Death Eaters?"
"Good point, but Albus was good at turning a blind eye to kids from abusive homes," Tony pointed out, thinking of Riddle and himself and who knows how many others. "In some ways, it parallels the abuse of house elves. Children are viewed as being owned by their parents, much the same way they own their house elves, so if they want to beat them black and blue – then that is their right. They've even convinced everyone, including house elves that they need to be indentured to wizarding families for their magic to thrive. That cannot be allowed to continue, Hermione or more Voldemorts will simply rise up to replace him until you do. Laws must be changed…attitudes radically changed, wizards and witches at risk of abuse and neglect at school identified and dealt with."
Hemione nodded. "Oh I completely agree with you. It is better to identify kids at risk and take remedial action before things are…"
"I believe the word you're looking for is FUBAR," Tony chimed in helpfully, ignoring his companion's reproving frown. "Anyway I guess we kind of veered off topic there. We were talking about Snape as a Hogwarts' student and the fact that red flags should have been raised and Dumbledore should have stepped in. But I think your comparison with Riddle has merit. Truthfully, the only real compassion I ever witnessed from him was the gentleness he showed Lilly Evans – his best friend."
He was silent for a while, clearly lost in thought and Hermione didn't push him. Finally, he looked across at her speculatively.
"You know, Hermione, in hindsight, I've often thought about their friendship and came to the conclusion that Lils was more of a plaything or a possession to Snape rather than a friend of equal standing. Like he was the wizarding world's version of Professor Henry Higgins and Lily Evans was his Eliza Doolittle – to be made over into his idealise form of the perfect witch. One that was worthy of - to borrow his own moniker – the Half-Blood-Prince."
"If that's the case, then when his 'Eliza' had gotten herself sorted into a different house to Severus he must have been disappointed," she ventured slowly.
"I guess so but surely he never expected that a first-generation witch would stand a chance of being sorted into Slytherin – the most pureblood conscious house in the damned school. After all, he always was telling us he had superior intellect, for Merlin's sake." He snorted cynically.
"And everyone knew that muggle born wizards and witches were never sorted into Salazar Slytherin's House. If the Sorting Hat had gone against all known precedence and sorted Lily into Slytherin House, the 'Snakes' would have, at the very least, made her life for seven years at Hogwarts an absolute misery," he retorted angrily, and Hermione remembered that Lily had become a good friend of his too, even if their initial relationship had been a rocky one. After all, Lily had made him Harry's godfather.
Hermione couldn't help thinking though just how much Sirius had understated the situation of a muggle-born witch in Slytherin. "It was much more probable that with the likes of Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Black, plus the Lestrange brothers among other less than compassionate alumni, they could easily have killed her and not lost any sleep over it, Sirius. Or hurt her badly enough so she was sent home, permanently disabled."
He nodded. "Yeah, knowing Bellatrix that would have been highly likely, Hermione. She was always crazy as a loon." He decided there was no point in oversharing Bellatrix' history with her. "Lucius never liked getting his hands dirty if he could avoid it. Preferred to have someone else to do it for him," he said with evident revulsion.
"So anyway, surely if Severus cared for Lily as much as he claimed, he wouldn't have wanted her to be sorted into a house which was patently unsafe for her to be in, just so she was in the same house as him. Why was he so pissed off with her when she was happy and successful in Gryffindor?"
Okay, Hermione conceded that was a very salient point; as was the whole observation about Pygmalion too. There were many types of love, love where you put the wants and needs of the one you loved before your own – like a good parent did for a child or a lover did from their partner. But there were also many forms of love which were obsessive, often resulting in stalking and domestic violence, even murder suicides where an individual, often male, was insanely jealous and incredibly controlling. Where they decided if they couldn't possess the object of their desire then no one else would either, so they decide to kill them. Was Sirius right – was Snape's love for Lily Evans obsessive?
Oblivious to her thoughts, he continued his thinking out loud.
"And it's not like he could expect her to espouse pureblood propaganda to fit in with the other Slytherins either. Despite maintaining a friendship with Severus and loathing the Marauders for our arrogance and juvenile humour, it didn't mean that she wouldn't support a more inclusive Gryffindor-like philosophy of magic being a first generation witch. After all, it supported her very right to exist in the magical world, unlike Slytherin and the pure bloods. Yet when she didn't respond the way he wanted her to, Snape was bitter and cruel to her, calling her the worst possible epithet that a wizard or witch could call someone born to non-magical parents."
Hermione thought about Lily Evans. She often found herself identifying with Harry's mother. They were both first generation witches, highly intelligent and therefore gifted at the more intellectual side of witchcraft. Often to their detriment, when it came to being a target to the likes of Voldemort and his ilk. Although she'd had friends in other Houses, Hermione decided that having a best friend in Slytherin would have been exceeding hard for her to manage. Even if she'd gotten along okay with several of the Snakes who were in classes with her which Harry and Ron weren't, friendship was problematic for both of them.
She didn't know if personally she could have a Snake for a best friend – especially one who hung out with the likes of such students as Bellatrix, Narcissa, Crabbe and Goyle Seniors and Lucius Malfoy. All were, when said and done, purebloods and future Death Eaters in the making. And honestly, how could a best friend who truly loved Lily think that she'd have been happy to survive after Voldemort killed her husband and baby Harry, which was what Snape had intended for his 'best friend.' How could a best friend believe that Lily would thank him for her life (when his hatred had killed her family) and expect her to then become his lover. That degree of self-delusion spoke, in her professional opinion, of a jealousy and obsessive love, not the pure self-sacrificing love where you put the person who you love's personal happiness before your own.
Sirius stood and began to pace as he talked out his thoughts.
"Snape's connection to Lily may have contributed to the rivalry and hatred between Severus and James, but it couldn't be blamed for the bad blood between me and him, except perhaps peripherally. As reprehensible as our teasing was and Snape's own equally snotty-nosed attitude, I'm deeply ashamed of my own bigoted, vindictive behaviour towards him at Hogwarts." He walked over to the piano and started gently playing single notes on the piano – like an accompaniment to his thoughts. His expression became tortured as he started to talk about the situation that he most regretted during his seven years at Hogwarts
"I can't make excuses for my criminally dangerous prank - setting Snape up with Remus at the wrong time of the month had been indefensible. I won't excuse it! All I can say is that it was an impulsive and totally dumbass move but it wasn't a premeditated act against Severus – more of an impulsive brain snap. If you need evidence to back it up my assertion, just think about what would have happened if my idiotic stunt had succeeded and James hadn't saved the day by saving Snape's miserable arse. Remus would have been locked up for life in Azkaban for attacking a wizard or they would have sentenced him to death. Plus, Dumbledore and the staff would have been charged for endangering the students."
Hermione, knowing how much Sirius loved Remus agreed that someone who had spent blood, sweat and tears for several years secretly learning how to transform into an animagus to help his friend, wouldn't put him in danger if he'd actually stopped for a minute to consider the consequences. Family was everything to Sirius, and James and Remus were his brothers.
"Okay I think that's a really salient point to highlight to Harry. Not as an excuse but honestly, he should be able to identify with doing stupid stuff that wasn't thought out properly. The Fight at the Ministry was a classic example of not engaging brain before responding to a situation emotionally." She exchanged a meaningful look with him. "And other people paid a huge price for his impulsiveness."
Changing the subject, she asked, "So what exactly led up to you sending Severus off after Remus when he was in his werewolf form, Sirius? Did you just walk up to him and say 'Why don't you go to the Shrieking Sack, Snape,' and why would he listen to anything you told him, anyway? Not as if you were buddies – surely he was suspicious."
Frowning he sighed. "Severus hated all of us and the feeling was mutual – well at least it was reciprocated for James and me, but Remus usually tried to get us to give him a break. Kept telling us Snape had a difficult life, yet for some reason Severus was always making snide remarks about Remus when the truth was that Moony was the most meek and mild wizard.
"He definitely didn't deserve to be hassled by Snape. He knew Remus had a secret and trust me, he was absolutely determined to find out what it was, just so he could expose him. He was pathologically jealous of Moony. He kept sneaking around trying to catch Remus in his "full moon state" and I got tired of having to hide it. I know…stupid but I just snapped one day and thought if he was so desperate to find out what we were hiding, then let him crapped his pants in fright, it would serve him right."
He looked at her candidly. "Yes, Mooney could be pretty damned fierce when he transformed, although by that stage we were playing with him during his Mooney times and thought of it as the Marauders' playtime. I sort of forgot just how dangerous he could be."
Knowing she'd seen just how scary Remus could be when he became a werewolf, he knew she had a good idea what would have faced Snape if James hadn't raced to the rescue, he shook his head, disgusted.
"As I said…idiot that I was, I guess I thought…no I didn't think… I was far too pissed off with him always making snide remarks and I snapped. Maybe I felt like if Remus got a chance to frighten the crap out of him it would serve him right for not minding his business and leaving him alone. Didn't think about what the ramifications would be for Mooney." He got up from the piano stool and stalked out to the kitchen and put the coffee maker on.
Hermione muttered about the male brain, immature frontal cortexes and how it translated in a lack of insight into consequences in teenagers.
"Took a long time for him and Prongs to forgive me," he confessed remorsefully as he came back into the living area. "I've never managed it myself though! All those years of learning to transform to help him, and that included wanting to help keep his secret and stupid idiot that I am, I threw it all away in my frustration. All for a few moments of childish gratification."
Hermione thought about how Remus' monthly absences from teaching had been a tip off that he was hiding something – especially when it coincided with the full moon. Snape was an abysmal teacher, but with a Mastery in Potions he wasn't stupid by any means. She had put two and two together when she was only thirteen, figuring out about Remus' lycanthropy, not because she was desperate to expose her Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, but just because she was a puzzle solver. She reckoned Snape had to have put Remus' absences and the full moon together and come up with four although, unlike teenage Hermione, she was fairly sure that solving a mystery wasn't what had motivated the teenage Snape.
"Why was Snape so fixated on Remus?" Hermione pressed. "Was Moony an arrogant little git like you and James?"
"No, I told you. He was a really humble and unassuming wizard. As a werewolf, he was terrified he'd be found out, so he was obsessive about keeping a low profile. Which was why my brain snap was so unforgivable. Bad enough to be betrayed by an enemy but by a best friend… it was inexcusable. Apart from which, he was a genuinely nice kid, kind to others, polite to the teachers, loyal, humble and trustworthy."
"So Severus' determination to expose him, and chances were he'd already figured out about the lycanthropy because he wasn't a fool, wasn't because Remus was a jerk and he wanted revenge. So, why?" Hermione mused curiously
"If I had to hazard a guess I'd say Snape was jealous of him." Sirius replied. "Remus was smart and studious and Severus was one of the top students in our year. If he was in any other form he'd probably have been dux of the year but he had some fierce competition across the houses. Lily was brilliant at Potions and Charms and… really, she was good at everything she studied. She was pretty much acknowledged to be the smartest witch of her generation. Professors Horace Slughorn and Filius Flitwick swooned over her, both offered her apprenticeships when she left Hogwarts.
"James was brilliant at Transfiguration and Athrimancy but to be honest he was no slouch generally and Remus was like Lily, an excellent student right across the board, but he really excelled at DADA and Care of Magical Creatures. If Remus and Lily weren't in his year, Snape probably would have been top of the class, especially in Potions and DADA – they were his top subjects." Sirius reminisced. "Instead he was pipped at the post by that pair in his two best (favourite) subjects"
"And since Lily was his best friend he could hardly resent her for beating his ass in Potions, not consciously. So he blamed Remus for it instead," Hermione hypothesised , nodding slowly. "Was Snape especially invested in being top in Defence Against the Dark Arts?"
Sirius chuckled somewhat bitterly. "Are you kidding? DADA had always been seen as the crème de la crème of magical subjects for wizards and witches, particularly if they intended to become an Auror. But for wizards there was also something of a virility aspect to it, for some wizards anyway. You know… the whole duelling aspect. Someone like Lily was more concerned about the theoretical side of spell work or the strategic aspects of duelling though.
"Remus wasn't exactly into all the machismo crap but I think as a werewolf he had dreamed from the day he was attacked that someday he would make sure that no other witch or wizard suffered the scourge of lycanthropy from Fenrir Greyback. He always saw it as a curse while some werewolves revelled in the enhanced senses and the incredible physical that it brought them. Moony took everything about DADA incredibly seriously.
"As for Snape, when it came to Defence Against the Dark Arts, he always thought he was hot stuff but he could never best Remus when they duelled. He was always really sneaky, always sailing just this side of illegal - but he could never match Remus' reflexes. Probably because of his lycanthropy, he was preternaturally quick on his feet, so no matter how down and dirty Severus became, Mooney was faster."
Hermione remembered how during the Duelling Club that Gilderoy Lockhart had started, how Snape who was assisting, had adroitly paired Draco with Harry and suggested the serpent spell which was ethically reprehensible for an adult wizard, let alone a Potions Master, Professor and a Head of House. She recounted the story to Sirius, explaining that it had rebounded on Draco and Snape when they discovered Harry could speak to snakes.
"Severus always was desperate to become the DADA professor at Hogwarts," Hermione observed. "Plus he was always quite derogatory to Remus when he was appointed to the position."
He nodded grimly. "Must have pissed him off badly to see Remus get what he wanted so badly. And when Moony forgot to take his wolfbane because he saw me and Peter on the Maurader's Map, 'The Git' must have thanked his lucky stars, since it gave him a legit excuse to rat Remus out. It must have seemed like poetic justice to get him thrown out of the job that he coveted so badly."
"There was a rumour doing the rounds that Severus put in an application every year to become the DADA professor at Hogwarts and got knocked back," the new minister mused. "Guess Dumbledore wouldn't take the chance that the DADA curse would strike his ultra-secret spy," she retorted scornfully.
"Of course, the other thing that he could have been pissed off at Mooney for was that while Lily had nothing but scorn for James and me for the longest time, she adored Remus," Tony said slowly. "They were always good friends – they'd often be found together in the library or the Gryffindor common room, heads bent over their school books. And why wouldn't she want to spend time and be Remus' friend - he was smart and kind, not an arrogant jerk like James, Snape and me."
Hermione was getting a much fuller picture of how it had been at Hogwarts for the Marauders, Lily and Severus. In lots of ways it wasn't all that different to when she had been there. But instead of the enmity between her, Harry, Ron and Draco and his followers, it had been the Marauders, Lily, Snape and his Snake mates butting wands. Voldemort had been more of an overt menace back in the Marauder's time but still he'd hovered over her time at Hogwarts too.
"You know Sirius, I was thinking that it might help you in talking to Harry about you and James 'picking on' Snape if you were to let him see your memories in a pensieve. He's only seen Snape's side of what happened and as you pointed out, there are at least two sides to everything. I think that if he saw your memories too, rather than just hearing about them, it might make that point more impactful. Don't forget he's had twenty years of believing Snape's version of the past is the gospel truth."
"That's a pretty good idea about the pensieve, Oh-Incredibly-Wise-One, but I don't have one. I've never really bothered to venture into the magical shopping enclaves in any of the cities I've worked in – not unless I followed a suspect in there once or twice, if I thought they were magical. I tried hard kept away from the wizarding world until I accidentally got taken home for dinner by Tobias."
Hermione decided not to respond to the nickname he'd called her. Shaking her head, she focused on the problem that had been identified. "That's easily fixable – we could go out shopping while I'm here if you want to, Snuffles. By the way, you never told me about the rest of the Marauders. How did you get on academically? I know you and James were on the quidditch team together but what were your best subjects?"
If she'd been better acquainted with his facades, she would have realised he'd been deflecting. Leading her away from a topic he didn't want to talk about. But she had seen him as a broken, angry individual who had escaped from a terrible experience and was not able to contain his emotions. Now he was much more together, very different in demeanour, although there was sometimes a brief flash of something emotional on rare occasions. Something that hinted that he wasn't quite as self-possessed as he appeared to be – like Throw-Pillow - Destructor-Padfoot. Still, most of the time he was generally an emotional iceberg over things that he felt strongly about.
"Pettigrew's best subjects were Muggle Studies and History of Magic," he revealed reluctantly. "He was always rather lazy – took soft subjects when he could. Plus, he managed to copy off Lily when he could get away with it. He was good at playing the victim card when he saw she had a soft spot for birds with broken wings…"
"I didn't realise he was a first-gen wizard," Hermione interjected on his account, surprised.
"He wasn't. Oh… I see, Muggle Studies? Well that class has always been a bit of a joke – you must know that, Hermione. The professor who taught it was completely clueless and Wormtail was a real fraudster. He would make up the most fantastic stuff about non-magicals and the professor fell for it, hook line and sinker. Since the professor wouldn't have recognised a muggle if she'd fallen over them in the street and they'd shouted their non-magical status in her face, Peter found it dead easy to hoodwink her. Just needed to flatter her about how smart and pretty she was. Should have clued us in about his morals back then, eh?"
"Why didn't the first gens or even the half-blood students call his bluff?" she demanded, clearly incensed about the thought of someone getting a grade that wasn't deserved. That was anathema to the studious witch.
"Why didn't you take Muggle Studies, Hermione?"
"Because it was about a century out of date and taught by fools," she harrumphed indignantly. "I tried to tell them about the Moon Landing and the Mars Probes by the Russians and the Americans. And space shuttles and how there were planes that travelled beyond the speed of sound or that doctors were doing heart, kidney and liver transplants. The professor and the students accused me of being a liar or being crazy. Ah yes…I see. First-gens don't enrol in the class in second year as an elective because it's a complete farce."
"Exactly. And the only half-bloods taking the class were weasels like Pettigrew who were bone lazy. So, they weren't about to blow the whistle on him because they would have been cutting off their noses to spite their faces."
"And you? Were you hoping I wouldn't notice that you never mentioned your academic achievements, Pads?"
"Ah…I was kind of a Jack of all trades… master of none," he answered. evasively she thought.
"But you were accepted as an Auror. So, you must have had reasonably good NEWTS. C'mon Pads, you know I'll go and look you up in the DMLE archives when I get back home if you don't tell me."
Scowling at her with a glare he'd learnt from Gibbs, reluctantly he revealed, "I got four Es and seven O's." He got up and started clearing the vestiges of their Indian meal and carried it into the kitchen to begin rinsing the plates before loading them into the dishwasher.
Hermione was more than a little dumbfounded by his reply; she got 12 Outstanding Owls in 5th year and it had nearly killed her. When she went back to school to do her 7th year after the Battle of Hogwarts she decided not to be so Type A and take things easier, only sitting for eleven subjects for her NEWT exams. She'd performed adequately, gaining ten Outstandings and one Exceeds Expectations, topping her year. but then she was constantly referred to as the smartest witch of her age and the expectations for her to do well had been enormous.
Creeping up behind him, she jumped when he growled at her without turning around. "Grab the cream out of the fridge for the coffee if you want one or do you want something stronger?"
Making an inelegant eeeping sound in surprise, she asked. "How did you know I was there?"
"Your perfume," he replied simply. "Vanilla, honey, orange blossom."
Hermione giggled – more to let off steam after he scared her by pre-empting her prank. "It's Armani Code and I guess I should know better than trying to catch you with your pants down, Snuffles," she joked.
Watching as he dried his hands on a handtowel before moving to the fancy coffee maker, looking at his face, which was unusually grave, she decided not to pursue the topic of his pants or lack of them. She knew that Sirius had a reputation as a lady's man back in the Marauder's era, but she'd tried flirting with him a few times since coming to the States, so far without success.
Toby had warned her that he'd endured a painful breakup with a federal agent from the DEA and an even more painful reunion with the love of his life, who was now married. Still, with someone as hot a Sirius was, she couldn't help fantasizing about him, but she'd try harder to keep her thoughts to herself. She was starting to feel like a sexual predator and if Sirius was clinically depressed as she suspected, apart from the pain his broken heart, depression could really put the kibosh on a sex drive.
Maybe he just isn't attracted to you, Hermione she remonstrated sternly. And it wasn't as if he didn't have enough on his plate right now with the betrayal he feels with his boss and his treatment of him. Leave the poor guy alone.
She also resolved to look up his NEWT results when she returned home, since he was so reluctant to discuss them with her.
Instead she responded to his previous enquiry about after dinner drinks. "What about both? Can I have an Irish Coffee?"
Sipping her coffee which was perfect, she decided that there was a mystery to be solved and she wouldn't be able to let it go until she found out why he'd sat for eleven NEWTs.
End of Flashback:
Once she'd returned to London she'd checked the DMLE personnel archives for Sirius' Auror record. Sure enough, he'd obtained 11 NEWTS in his final year at Hogwarts just as he said. Contrary to what she'd been expecting to find, he hadn't opted for any soft (easy) electives. He'd selected Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, Astrology, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Alchemy and Magical Theory.
Alchemy and Magical Theory? How come she wasn't given the option of taking Magical Theory or Alchemy? After further investigation, she discovered that Alchemy was offered as a 7th year elective if enough students wanted to take it. Although in Sirius' case, because there weren't enough students who were interested, James Potter's parents had paid for him to be tutored privately in both Alchemy and Magical Theory. Apparently, Dorea Potter nee Black had encouraged his unusual study choices after they'd adopted him into their family when he was sixteen after his parents disowned him.
She'd asked Sirius on a subsequent Skype call why he'd decided to sit for 11 intellectually challenging subjects and he'd given her some trite answer about how because James was the Head Boy, Lily was Head Girl and Remus was a Gryffindor prefect, he'd had too much time on his hands in his last two years and was bored. But considering that Pettigrew was only sitting for seven NEWTs and three of those were considered by academic types (no, not intellectual snobs) such as herself to be cakewalk, being bored was a pretty flimsy pretext since he could have hung around with Peter. Finally, he'd admitted that he'd always coasted at Hogwarts, not wanting to be seen as too smart but his parents had still tried to force him to join the Death Eaters anyway.
Voldemort it seemed, was desperate for someone from the Black line which was well versed in Dark Magic to come up with even more heinous curses and spells in his war on Muggles. Apparently, some of the Marauder's pranks at Hogwarts conveyed by the children of Death Eaters, convinced him that Sirius could be an asset to his side. Hermione considered this, shivering in dread when she thought not just about the Marauders and how much harm could have come from their dubious 'talents' as anarchists but also Fred and George Weasley if Voldemort had ever recruited them.
Sirius explained that once he was finally disowned by his parents and the Potters gave him sanctuary when he was beaten nearly to death, he decided it was time to actively fight against Voldemort, especially when his little brother joined the Death Eaters. So, with Dorea's gentle encouragement, he chose subjects that he thought would be beneficial in his law enforcement career.
Hermione didn't know whether she felt more proud of Pads or insanely jealous that he studied two subjects she'd never had. He was clearly much deeper than anyone gave him credit. She wondered why he was so closed mouth about his achievements. Even now, Tobias had discovered that he'd studied a Masters in Forensic Psychology and graduated without any of his teammates being aware of it. Not that it was classified or anything – since Fornell found it when he was doing his check about how Tony had been in three police precincts at once. Likely he'd used the time -turner to help him complete the degree in five semesters while still working full time, especially for someone like Gibbs, who Toby had assured her was a tyrant.
And as someone who loved to learn and was justifiable proud of her own academic achievements, she struggled to understand why Sirius wouldn't want everyone to know. Her psychologist side also noted parallels to Harry and how the Dursleys encouraged him to strive for academic mediocrity since when he did succeed, he'd showed up the repugnant Dudley, his cousin. Sirius, like his godson had chosen to deliberately underachieve academically. Still his team mates had to be fairly gormless to take him at face value – weren't they supposed to be the best of the best investigators?
Once again, Hermione gave thanks for her wonderful, supportive parents.
She thought about the mess between Snape and the Marauders. It wasn't just Severus and Sirius' deplorable home lives that had contributed – Hogwarts had taken on a huge responsibility for their socialisation, not merely the magical education of its students and therefore had to accept some culpability. Hogwarts – the jewel in the UK wizarding world's crown, like most boarding schools, magical or non-magical, had a deeply entrenched culture of bullying, often tacitly rewarding students who engaged in it.
However, stupidity and institutional cruelty aside, adversity tended to test the mettle of an individual and show their true worth. Anthony DiNozzo, from what Sirius had shared with her - was neglected and abused, brought up by alcoholic parents in a mansion in Long Island New York. He was educated at schools, where he was bullied and lonely, yet he'd chosen to became a cop to help other people. Harry neglected and abused, grew up to be equally self-sacrificing, kind and caring about others.
Which wasn't to say that either man was a paragon of virtue or was perfect by any means. They were not, they both were deeply flawed individuals yet they didn't hate the whole world for what they had endured through no fault of their own. Like Sirius, they chose not to take out their pain and anger on innocent bystanders. Sirius and Harry both made conscious decisions not to become Death Eaters unlike Snape who decided that other people, innocent people should be made to suffered for what he'd endured.
Still, bearing in mind the mutual antagonism that Snape and Sirius shared for each other, she wondered, could it have just come down to a clash of individual personalities, pure and simple. Plus, two individuals grievously damaged by their families who should have expected that Hogwarts wouldn't let them down by perpetuating pathetically outdated forms of bigoted bastardry disguised as rah-rah house competitiveness
And its consequences - ugly – so very ugly in the fallout for so many!
End Notes:
Okay, so I have a confession. Faldo beta'ed this chapter weeks ago, while I was in the middle of a major work contract. However after a lot of soul searching, I decided not to post it and I'm not going to apologise for that either. I've always tried really hard to do right by my readers. I don't hold them hostage for reviews, I don't leave stories unfinished. I don't start scores of stories when I get a new idea and then abandon the story or slap together an poor ending, just so I can move on to the next plot bunny that is leaping around inside my head. I believe that the ending of a story is probably the most important part, since readers have hung in there on the journey.
That said, while I treat my readers with utmost respect, I write my fanfic stories to please ME. I don't really care if you don't like it because let's face it, no one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to read my stories, nor do you pay me to write what you want to read. I do that for a living, and when I get paid to write specific content, I DO care what the client thinks and wants and will do my best to provide it every time. My beta readers will tell you that most of the time, I take concrit and suggestions from them pretty well. That said, they have earned my trust and respect and having sought their help it would be pretty ungrateful not to listen to their suggestions…unless I feel very strongly about an issue- which is rare – but it has happened.
So why did I hold back this chapter for such a long time? Because if I had posted it then, I was also going to post the epilogue just so I could mark the story as complete and stop dealing with the crap I get by putting myself out there for people to take pot shots at. All the crap infuriates me and being angry interferes with me being able to think and write in my job, so it is a no-brainer which one will always take precedent if I have to choose.
There is a phrase that has become popular with fanfic writers recently - reader entitlement. It is the belief by a subset of readers that authors who write fanfic stories really really want to know that you hate what I've spent hundreds of hours creating. It is the belief that I am in anyway interested in knowing what they think that my writing is too introspective or too analytical or that I care one iota that they are only interested in reading about Tony from NCIS, even though the story is clearly marked as an NCIS/HP crossover and therefore has characters and canon from both.
Let me be very blunt – I DON'T CARE! Go find another story or author to read as I have no intention of changing the way I write my fan fiction stories because someone doesn't like it. I'm not forcing anyone to read my stories. I'm just as happy writing a rough draft that feeds my need to read/write what I want to read and then sharing that rough draft with just my close fanfic buddies.
I feel that generally, authors are being taken more and more for granted and the respect with which I've strive to treat readers isn't being reciprocated. Case in point, I posted a 12,000 chapter on another of my stories - TATM and the site didn't post it properly. It was all in code – and within minutes I had PMs and reviews telling me that it couldn't be read and wanting it rectified. So, what's wrong with that I hear you ask? Well apart from one very lovely and appreciative PM from a reader, many of the deluge of notifications were from people who never bother to review my work and surprise, surprise, once the chapter was fixed and they were able to read the story, they didn't even bother to say thank you.
Of course, not everyone falls into this category; some of my readers are incredibly faithful ( and they have been following me for years) and are amazingly supportive. They've kept me posting on this site when I wanted to pull the plug. I've no problem whatsoever with them letting me know there was an issue with the chapter, and no surprise, they also posted to let me know they appreciated my efforts to fix the problem and thanked me for the chapter. And yes, I know that people will tell me to just ignore all the self-entitled people but the truth is that it's impacting on my writing and my work. No one likes to feel like their efforts are taken for granted. So, I decided that while I don't like making people wait longer than absolutely necessary for a chapter, that it's not as important as my work.
In the interim, safe in 'my creative writing bubble' I wrote the end of Serieux plus a tag for my other work in progress – approximately 30, 000 words in all. Writing makes me happy and to be honest, I'm reluctant to risk ruining my euphoria by posting my work. As time goes by I become even less inclined to do so.
TBH I'm still on the fence about whether I'm masochistic enough to publish the two additional chapters I've written for Serieux Part 2 here or simply finish it by posting this chapter and the epilogue that will tie up most of the loose ends. After all, the two extra chapters will also contain content from HP since it IS a crossover story. Plus it will absolutely contain introspection and analysis on canon events since it's what I write and it makes me happy. It remains to be seen if I will continue to post regular stories here either after I finish off Rising to the Bait and There's Always Tom Morrow. Having said that, I hope you enjoy chapter 25 since I've spent far too many hours redrafting and editing it.
But if you don't like it – I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW! and here 's a novel thought – write your own stories so you can make sure that they are perfect. Then post them and when you have written approximately 1.8 million words and suffered trolls, flames, a stalker or two and had entitled readers telling you they didn't like your work, then come back and criticise my stories and I just MIGHT be prepared to take what you say with any degree of gravitas.