They Call
Chapter 28
Good Morning Hogwarts
"Sev," a voice calls. "Sev . . . Sev . . . SNAPE WAKE UP!"
The sleepy boy groans and buries himself in his bed covers. He known the voice is not the one that has been in his dreams. That one had been a girl's, this one was not. "Fine miss breakfast." Severus recognizes Regulus' voice. He hears Evan add, "Don't forget you've got some broom charming to take care of today." The two Quidditch players leave their friend to his Saturday sleep in.
There was no way Severus could fall back asleep now. He still didn't want to get out of bed. If he gets out of bed he'll have to think about reality. Not that it hadn't snuck into his dreams either. His dreams that night had started off with how it had been only a few months earlier.
Severus walked from the grove to Lily's house. He wanted to find out if she had snuck out to bring the quilt to him, and how she knew he needed it.
"I don't know how I knew," Lily explained through her bedroom window as Sev sat on a branch of a tree outside of it. "I just knew."
The boy asked, "Why didn't you wake me up?"
There was a hesitation before the girl answered, "I knew if you woke up, you'd ask me to stay."
"And that is a problem, why?"
"You have no idea how much trouble I'd be in if my parents knew I snuck out at all, never mind if I'd stayed out all night."
Severus' face screwed up in confusion. "Your parents? They never get mad at you."
"No, but they'd worry. I don't want to worry them."
This explanation didn't seem to penetrate Severus' thinking. "It's not like you've never camped out with me before."
"That was when we were little Sev. And before there were gangs of people going around trying to hurt Muggleborn witches and wizards."
There it was, the issue they had been avoiding all summer. It was still the last thing Severus wanted to talk about. He didn't want another lecture on his friends at school. He tread carefully. "Yet you still snuck out."
"Well, I couldn't let my best friend freeze all night. Now could I?"
This made Severus smile. She was still calling him her best friend. They had had more than one discussion about this back in school. Severus started to tell her something. "You know I'd never let . . ."
He was cut short by Lily warning, "Petunia's knocking on my door." Lily had already been lectured about how she was at an age when it was not proper to be talking to boys out her bedroom window. They had never said Severus specifically, but he was the only boy who ever climbed the tree to talk to her.
Before Severus could ask Lily to meet him somewhere else, she had shut the window and drawn the shade. He could hear Petunia ask, "Who were you talking to?"
"Myself," Lily lied. "I'm such a weirdo, I do it all the time."
Outside in the tree Sev snickered and thought, 'That's my girl.' He knew the nosey sister would be looking out the window, so he dropped down and hid around the corner of the house. He waited in hopes that Lily might return to the window and give the all clear, or for her to actually come outside. These hopes were dashed twenty minutes later when he heard the entire Evans family climbing into their car. Petunia was still trying to get Lily in trouble. "I know you were talking to 'that' boy out of your window."
Severus never heard if Lily argued back, or if her parents believed Petunia as the car doors shut.
'It's Sunday,' Sev thought to himself. 'They always go to church, then out to breakfast Sundays.' Knowing it would be hours before they returned, he'd have to find something else to amuse himself.
The waking thought he'd had when Regulus and Evan tried to wake him was that if he climbed up to that branch this summer, Lily'd knock him off of it. 'Or she'll saw it off so I can't climb up at all,' he thought. Then his thoughts went to his mother. They said she was getting better, but they hadn't moved her out of that horrible locked ward yet. When he finally crawled out of bed Snape was in a foul mood. He was glad his roommates were gone. He couldn't help wonder what they had thought of the personal pity party he'd thrown the night before. He wished he knew a spell he could have used to keep them from hearing his failed attempts to hide how he was feeling. If he couldn't find a spell, he'd invent one. He had a whole summer to do just that. Until then, he'd have to do better at stuffing those feelings down.
As the early risers of Slytherin house climbed up to the Great Hall one of them was ready to rip into their friend. "Can you believe Snape?" Rosier groaned, "Kid's turning out to be a regular cry baby."
Mulciber asked, "What you talking 'bout? Never figured Sev for a cry baby."
"Of course you wouldn't hear all that sniffling. You were snoring so loud, I don't know which kept me awake."
"You telling me Snape was crying last night?"
"Yes blockhead. I just said he was a crybaby, hence he was crying."
To everyone's surprise it was Avery who stood up for Severus. "Like to see you say that to his face."
Evan hemmed and hawed. Mulciber might have been the only one in the school who could have walloped Rosier in a physical fight, but Potter and Black were the only ones in Hogwarts who had ever bested Snape in the hexing department, and that was only ten percent of the time. Severus always got them back, and his hexes could be quite nasty. Weather he thought Snape was being what he called a cry baby, Evan wouldn't want to find himself on the receiving end of that wand. He still didn't like Avery telling him what for. "Why you hassling me, I'm not the one blubbering all night."
Avery didn't like to confront Rosier, but he sympathized with Severus. "Ever think he might have a good reason for crying?"
This was a side of Avery the other Slytherin hadn't know existed. "You think there's a good reason for a sixteen year old guy to be crying?"
Rosier was the only one who looked harshly at Avery. They all had a feeling why he was sticking up for Sev. They were not surprised when Avery said, "Are you an idiot?"
Evan rounded on the other boy. "An idiot? Coming from you that's rich."
Everyone also knew that Avery wasn't the brightest bulb in the pack, but he knew what was really bothering Snape. "You mean to tell me, that if your mum was in the hospital, possibly dying, you wouldn't be acting just like Sev is?"
Rosier looked dumbstruck. Avery had made a good point. He remembered it was a few years before that the other boy's mother had been seriously ill, but had pulled through. He didn't remember if Avery had cried then. "Look, I can feel bad for Snape because of his mother, but you guys have to admit, Sev has got something seriously wrong with him."
This time it was Regulus who spoke up, "Evan, all of us have something wrong with us."
There was a long stretch of silence as the Slytherin boys all looked at each other awkwardly. They all knew, as tough and mean as they all were, each of them had some foible.
"Right now," Mulciber broke that silence. "What's wrong with me is, I'M BLODDY HUNGERY!" He broke away from this strange gathering on the stairs and the other's followed him. Though the tension had been broken, it was not a good start for the Slytherin Quidditch team who had to play that afternoon.
Another boy who had woken up in a foul mood had been James Potter. Late the night before his father had arrived shortly after the owl with the message about his mother. Mr. Potter would take his son to see her. Unlike Severus, the only thing James needed from the headmaster was permission to go.
Mrs. Potter had been in good spirits, but she was very weak. "See Jimmy, there are some disadvantages to being purebloods," she gently joked with a touch of black humor. "We're the only ones who catch the wasting disease."
"That's not funny Mum."
"I know dear, but if I don't laugh, I'll spend my last days crying." This made her son choke back a tear. "Oh no James, I didn't want you to cry. I'm an old witch. I've lived a right good life, and my old age has been blessed with a son like you."
James couldn't say anything. His mother's statement actually worried him for a moment. She didn't know what kind of things he and his friends got up to in school.
That slight twang of guilt did not last through the night. By morning he had rationalized all of his hexing of other students as necessary because, 'they deserved it.' Mostly because they were Slytherin, though he had hexed people of all of the houses, including his own. 'Maybe I should only hex Slytherins. They're the ones planning to join You-Know-Who. They're the little twerps like Snivellus, playing around with the dark arts. They're not like other wizards. They're evil.'
He was awake early. He, Remus, and Peter were in the Great Hall when the Slytherin Quidditch team arrived.
Everywhere in Hogwarts the entire school was anticipating the Quidditch game that would determine who would play Ravenclaw in the final. The other two houses were supporting Hufflepuff; Gryffindor because they could and or would never support Slytherin; Ravenclaw because it would be a lot easier to beat them in the final. Despite all of this support, the chances of Hufflepuff winning were a thousand to one. This didn't stop the Gryffindors' seeker from mouthing off at breakfast.
"You know what they say about being over confident," Potter said loudly, making sure all the other tables could hear.
His attempt at getting the Slytherin team shook was cut short because Rosier was faster at a comeback than Potter's friends were.
"Yeah, you end up like Gryffindor. Not in the finals. Even with fat-head Potter playing."
James turned it around by saying, "That's right. I'll save a seat right next to me for you so we can watch the final together."
Rosier stood to declare, "The day I sit next to a wanker like you, is the day . . ."
"Yet you sit next to Snivellus every day."
"Why don't you just shut up Potter," Regulus broke in. "My brother's not here for you to impress."
Ignoring this Potter continued, "Speaking of Snivelly, is he hiding? He and Peter have a score to settle."
"That's right," Wormtail put in.
"Don't make me laugh," Mulciber gave his opinion. "That little puke will pee his pants as soon as Snape even looks at him. Or are you going to fight his battles the way you always do? None of your bunch ever fight fair." For Mulciber this was a soliloquy. All the other Slytherin were looking at him as if they'd never seen him before. "Well they don't. They always wait till Sev's alone, and it's all four of them." The look of the pain of thinking could be seen on Mulciber's face. "Even if there's only three now."
"Oooh, Mulciber can count," James taunted. "With brains like that on your team, it's a shoe in . . . for Hufflepuff."
With that, all hell broke loose between the Slytherin and Gryffindor tables. It had not reached a physical point, but food and insults were flying free.
Down the corridor the teachers were on their way to what they thought was going to be a peaceful breakfast. It was McGonagall who spoke first. "Do I hear the dulcet tones of inter-house rivalry?"
"So much for a quiet end of term," Slughorn added.
"When have we ever had one of those?"
Before Horace could answer, both heads of the fighting houses heard the head master's voice above the noise of the fracas. "In case you hadn't noticed," Dumbledore's voice was enough to silence everyone. "This is a school; Not a barnyard."
tbc
