Disclaimer: The characters, spells, and general awesomeness are not mine. Except maybe a little bit of the awesomeness, but it probably all belongs to J. K. Rowling.
A/N: I figured it was high time for some action. Also, I hope you're happy. Two updates in one day.
James's face contorted with rage. "Snivellus."
Lily was horrified. "Severus!" she cried reproachfully, flushing with anger. "I know you hate him, but I thought you had some decency! His father died less than two weeks ago and you—you're—" There weren't words for what Lily was trying to express—or, at least, Lily's vocabulary didn't contain anything so obscene.
"He can go the same way as his father," broke in another voice. "So can you, Mudblood." A tall, hulking boy—Avery—stepped out from behind a different tree.
"One hex her way and you're both dead, Azkaban be damned," James snarled, moving in front of Lily protectively.
"Azkaban be damned, huh?" Avery mimicked mockingly. "Pretty brave thing for a head boy to say, don't you think, Snape? In fact, I think it's rather improper. Doesn't quite fit in with the pretty-boy job description, now does it?"
"Shut the hell up, Avery," James retorted. "Silencio! Levicorpus!" Avery's body flew into the air and he mouthed spells without any visible result, though his face grew red as all the blood rushed to his head and his anger mounted.
"Potter, that's my hex, you son of a—" Snape started, seeming not to realize that he was wasting time and breath yelling when it would have made far more tactical sense to hex James.
"Levicorpus! Diffundo!" James yelled before Snape had time to finish. The latter was the seam-splitting spell, and Snape's pants ripped, exposing underwear that looked about the same as the other pair of Snape's underwear that had been exposed to the public. Lily moaned. It was fifth year all over again. "Expel—"
"Sectum—" Snape yelled. For the smallest of split seconds, Lily froze. Was Snape really going that far? She remembered the spell—she'd still been friends with Snape when he started trying to come up with it—and it was genuinely horrible. He'd promised her a hundred times he'd never use it on anyone unless it was a matter of life or death. Oh, how things had changed.
"Expeliarmus! Silencio!" Lily shouted in Snape's direction. Snape's wand came flying toward her, and she tried to catch it but fumbled and dropped it. Her hands were shaking with fear and rage. She picked up the wand, took a deep breath, and tried to yell, "Crucio," but the word wouldn't come. The best she could manage was "Furnuculus!" which she shouted forcefully in both Snape and Avery's directions. Both of the Slytherins immediately erupted in huge red boils, which Lily found comforting, considering she'd just failed to produce an Unforgivable Curse that she had very much wanted, at that moment, to perform.
"Stupefy," James muttered, pointing his wand first at Snape and then at Avery. Both Slytherins immediately went limp and their eyes drifted closed, though they were still both hanging upside down by their ankles. "Mobilicorpus. Hey, Lily, can you take Snivelly's body? I'm moving Avery's and I don't think I can manage two."
Lily nodded curtly, shaking harder than ever now that the fight was over. This was far more intense than the worst shivering she'd ever experienced. "Yeah. Sure. I can do that."
James must have heard her voice shaking, because he turned to her and gathered her up in his arms, holding her tight against his chest. "Are you doing all right, love? You fought brilliantly. Really. I didn't know you could do all that."
Lily made a noncommittal noise. "Yeah, I suppose I did all right. Are you okay? Severus aimed a pretty nasty hex at you."
James released Lily and looked at her quizzically. "What does that hex do? I swear I'd never heard it before."
Lily nodded. "Yeah, Severus made it up. It was one of the worse ones. I mean, some of his spells aren't all that bad—Levicorpus, Liberacorpus, Mufliato—but that one, Sectumsempra? It rips your chest open, and, unless you get the right potions on it right away as an antidote, you'll bleed out really fast. As in, die. Merlin, I can't believe he was actually going to use that on you! He promised me so many times he wouldn't use it unless he was really desperate. Life or death, he said."
"Merlin, it would take a twisted mind to come up with that one," James remarked, looking disturbed.
Lily looked at the boil-covered, unconscious boy bobbing along through the air behind her. "Yeah, Severus is completely twisted. Evil, even. But, well, he didn't have the best odds, to start with. His father hates magic—and just about everything else in the world, too. And beats his mother. Beat Severus, too, before Severus started threatening to use Unforgiveable Curses on him. It's not a particularly happy life."
"Damn," James remarked. "I'd feel bad for him, but he just tried to kill me."
"Yeah. That was definitely inexcusable, and I'm not trying to make you like him. But there is more to the story than just Severus-is-an-evil-Slytherin. But he is! That's not the whole story, but it's hard to argue with all the same. Merlin, James, I didn't think he'd use that on someone. Especially not on you. I really thought his and your mutual hatred was a little too petty to get lethal," Lily remarked.
"Me too," James assured her. "Me too."
"I wanted to use the Cruciatus Curse on him," Lily admitted. "I tried, but the incantation wouldn't come. I could feel it, on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't say it."
"Wouldn't want to corrupt a lovely soul like yours, now would we?" James asked playfully, toying with Lily's hair. Then he dropped his hand and said much more seriously, "You really would have used an Unforgiveable Curse on him?"
"Definitely," Lily replied immediately. "He tried to kill you, James, and you didn't know how big the danger was because you didn't recognize the spell. That's low and conniving and evil in so many ways. He deserved the Cruciatus Curse."
"You haven't called him Sev all day—just Severus," James noted, a look of interest on his face.
"I call him Sev when I'm not too furious with him. I mean, we were best friends—damn it all, why do I even care about those memories anymore? He's evil!" James tried to get over his shock. He'd never, in seven years at Hogwarts, heard Lily Evans swear. At least, that is, until today.
"That he is," James agreed, trying to be nonchalant. Then he sighed and looked at the two limp bodies of the Slytherins. "What do we do now?"
"Dumbledore," Lily suggested. "We need to talk to Dumbledore. He'll sort everything out."
"Y'know, for once I agree with you about consulting authority," James remarked. "Let's go to the Headmaster's office."
A/N: What do you think? Please tell me! REVIEW!