A/N:
Big news: I now have a collaborator on this mammoth project of mine! Unfortunately, ffnet doesn't have an option for setting more than one author (that I've found), so she can't get the credit she deserves that way, but what I can do is introduce her before going any further.
SilenceoftheSolitude has in the last year become an absolutely integral part of this endeavour - not only has she been with me every step of the writing of Part III, reading and giving her precise and hugely beneficial comments and critiques, she's gone much further than that by agreeing to allow me use of her ideas for the political side of things (which will be getting prominence moving forward) and has put considerable effort as well as her professional expertise into developing concepts and situations for the First Wizarding War in tremendous detail with me. She's even written certain things for this verse, which I'll note as we come to them (and hopefully we'll even manage to do a joint writing project for side events of the verse). I am infinitely grateful to her for being willing to sacrifice her time and thoughts towards this neverending thing and can honestly say that both my life and this story would have been far poorer, were she not part of them.
Now, for the story - welcome back, everyone! Like before, updates will be fortnightly and hopefully regular, RL-permitting. Part III is fully written, and for those who are antsy, I promise definitive movement on the Snily front by the end of it. For those not wanting to reread the previous texts, here's a reminder of what's happened so far:
Part One Summary: Lily learns about Severus' run-in with Remus in werewolf form during a fight and prompts Dumbledore into teaching Severus the Patronus Charm in an attempt to help him with his emotional issues and win him to the side of Light. After a vicious attack by Severus' group on four seventh-years, Severus conjures Lily's doe Patronus and sides with Dumbledore. However, his relationship with Lily still deteriorates over the semester, culminating in the 'Mudblood' incident during O.W.L. exams. To save their relationship, Severus reveals his spywork for Dumbledore, and in their subsequent emotional conversation, Lily breaks down over treating her friend(s) horribly and not being the person she thought she was. Meanwhile, Lily agrees to join a secret society within Hogwarts; Severus makes some new friends outside his group; Lily and Remus become good friends; and Remus gets ostracised by the rest of the Marauders after standing up to them over their bullying of others.
Part Two Summary: Isolated in Cokeworth over the summer, Lily and Severus begin rebuilding their friendship. Terrified of ruining things again, Severus decides that he'll do whatever it takes to not mess up his second chance; driven by the need to be a better person, Lily seeks to improve her relationships with her friends and Petunia. Noticing that Remus is sliding into a depression, she invites him to Cokeworth, wanting also for Remus and Severus to find common ground. Her life is greatly upset by learning that her parents are on the verge of a divorce, but this gives the two boys a common cause to agree on a truce. Trying to come to terms with the situation, Lily, Severus and Remus spend a week by the sea, where Remus learns of Lily and Severus' plans regarding the war effort (though not of Severus' connection to Dumbledore) and agrees to help them. Lily deciding she will not let the divorce ruin her relationship with either parent causes new strife between her and Petunia, who is furious with their father. Meanwhile, Severus learns Occlumency at Hogwarts from Dumbledore, who also advises him to admit his part in the attack on the seventh-years to Lily. Severus does this right before holidays end and, misinterpreting Lily's fury with him as her rejecting him again, has an altercation with his parents afterwards. He flees to Lily's, where she confronts him about his overly solicitous behaviour over the summer and realises that his mistrust of her stems from his lack of self-esteem. They leave for Hogwarts on tense terms, Lily needing time to forgive him for his lies and both dreading having to pretend they are no longer friends so that Severus' spywork for Dumbledore is not put into jeopardy.
On the Marauder front, Sirius' situation at home worsens under the strain of Narcissa's wedding preparations, culminating in Bellatrix destroying the wedding dress and pinning the blame on Sirius as revenge for being humiliated by him earlier in the summer. Sirius' magic seriously wounds Walburga in self-defence, infuriating Orion, who confiscates his wand and promises punishment once Walburga is taken to hospital. Sirius decides to flee Grimmauld Place and seek shelter with the Potters, aided covertly by Regulus, who leaves his wand for Sirius to use in his escape. Sirius is subsequently disowned. Peter's summer is not much better; his mother is a long-term opioid addict and is on a heroin binge when he arrives home. Strapped for money, Peter uses his newly learned Animagic skills to steal drugs from Muggle drug dealers in an attempt to bring her addiction back under control. James, meanwhile, initiates a friends-with-benefits arrangement with Athenora, a progressive American witch staying with the Potters over the summer. Her non-judgmental admonishments about his treatment of Remus reach James, making him rethink his rejection of his friend. He falls in love with her and realises it just in time for Athenora to reveal that she is already in a relationship and has no intention of starting one with James, leaving him with his first heartbreak.
PART III - CHOICE
Chapter 31: Of Travels and Journeys
The Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station was teeming with people when Father Apparated Regulus and his trunk on the first of September. They were relatively early still, though perhaps later than Father would have liked – but Regulus had had to time things to perfection this morning, and making his father impatient by creating a bit of a diversion with Grandfather had been absolutely necessary if his plan were to have had any chance of success. He was not out of the woods yet, not so long as the Hogwarts train was parked and quiet, but so far, things had gone smoothly enough, and he couldn't quite tamp down the hope that he'd be just that last bit lucky.
The second part of the plan, he thought, would be even harder, for all that it was a simple, straightforward matter.
He knew why Father had arrived early – though his brother's name had not been spoken in their house since the night Mother had come from St. Mungo's and viciously charred a hole straight through Sirius' portrait and name on their tapestry, Sirius had hovered in every nook and cranny of Grimmauld Place since that horrible night, haunting all of them in unique ways. For Mother, it was in the way she'd sit in the sitting room, drinking her tea and glaring at that blackened circle on the tapestry; for Father, it was in the way his shoulders had stiffened, his face had set into an immovable mask, his breathing had gone more and more laboured at the simplest of physicalities. For Grandfather, it was in the way that he kept turning towards Sirius' seat at the breakfast table, as if expecting him to be making his usual racket and annoying the old wizard; for Regulus himself, it was in the bathroom that now belonged solely to him, in the other bedroom on his floor where he'd quietly, in the dead of night, put the furniture back to rights and then sat for hours and hours, staring at Sirius' ridiculous pin-ups of half-naked women and posters of Muggle motorcycles.
The truth was, Regulus missed his brother, especially in those moments when he didn't, when the resentfulness at having been forced into the position of the family heir, at what Sirius was putting their parents through, eclipsed everything else. The house was too quiet without him, too full of Slytherins who always double-spoke and never said anything straightforwardly. And Regulus, having lived for four years in such surroundings, would never have thought that this would bother him. Yet it did, and even though he knew how dangerous it was going to be, what it might mean for him, he was still going to have to try.
He was going to talk to Sirius, at least one last time. At least to finish the mission he'd given himself.
But that was for later; for now, he stood by Father, both erect in posture, both similar in looks, the powerful Head and the spotless Heir, and watched the sea of people for the same thing that Father was – for the wayward, discarded son.
He wasn't sure how long they stood there; for his part, he spent that time studying the ebb and flow of people around him, trying to pick out as many familiar faces as he could. It always paid to know who interacted with whom, whose parents were friendly with whose. He noticed Stacie, with her two friends, talking with Valeria Anderson, the only other Slytherin girl in their year. He caught sight of Kennard Wilkes in the company of two other seventh-years, clearly scanning the crowd as well. Thistletwaithe from the year above was being quite cosy with a girl Regulus thought might be a fourth-year Slytherin, though there were seven girls and only one boy in the year below, so he kept constantly confusing them.
And finally, there was Sirius, standing next to James Potter and laughing loudly at something Mr Potter had said, looking fully recovered from his ordeal at Grimmauld Place, his hair back to its full length, his smile wide and unforced. Anger clenched in Regulus' gut at the sight, turning to apprehension when he heard the rustle by his side that meant his father was finally moving from his place.
"You have everything you need, Regulus?"
"Yes, Father."
"Good. Keep me apprised," he instructed, looking down. Regulus was still the shortest of his own year – and actually almost as short as the girls in the grades below – which meant that he had to crane his head up a bit to meet Father's eyes. He couldn't wait for that growth spurt to finally hit him, he really couldn't. He was fifteen bloody years old, it was past time. "I expect you for Christmas."
"Of course, Father."
With one last nod, he was gone, leaving Regulus to stand on his own. Stacie noticed him before any of his male friends, and tugged the black-skinned boy along with to help with Regulus' trunk.
"How's you summer been, Reggie?"
"The usual," he answered untruthfully. "Yours?"
"The same," she lied as well. "Valeria's your fellow Prefect, by the way. I imagine that's no surprise."
"Not a particular one, no," Regulus agreed, offering a smile to her coy grin. They both kept quiet while he and the other boy – Brick? Stone, his name was Stone – carried the trunk into a storage compartment, and then were left alone, the two friends agreeing on a course of action with quick non-verbal communication Regulus tried and failed to parse out. "What is it you want of me, Stacie?"
"I heard what happened with your brother, I thought I'd offer support to my fellow housemate."
Regulus eyed the taller girl for a moment before sighing. "What do you want in return? You know I don't do deferred payment."
"A few passes to the restricted section," the girl answered. "Nothing you can't get easily enough from Sluggy."
"Fine. I'll have the letter for you by the time we get to Hogwarts. For curiosity's sake, how will you get it to him?"
Stacie shrugged. "I have my ways." Her eyes tracked the currents of the platform, and Regulus followed them to a surprisingly familiar redhead who'd just walked in, standing out all the more than usual because her hair colour was certainly artificially made more vibrant. Lily Evans, the new queen of Gryffindor upper-years. He knew her from his brother's many rants – he tended to tack any and all titles to his official nickname for her just to make her sound even more pompous (Regulus believed the last was Saint Perfect Prefect Lily Sodding Evans) – and he of course knew, like many Slytherins that he spent time with, of her connection to Severus Snape, though that one had been broken very publicly at the end of last year. Now she was accompanied by another familiar face, that of Sirius' friend Remus Lupin.
Almost on instinct, Regulus sought his brother out with his eyes and found his own eyebrows rising at the way Sirius very deliberately turned his head away from Lupin. The shabby boy either didn't notice it at all or else pretended very well, because he kept his attention firmly on what Evans was telling him as they carried their luggage into the train.
A warm, soft dryness of padded skin pressed against his cheek, and Regulus abruptly lost focus, turning to stare wide-eyed at the girl who'd kissed his cheek and feeling his face start burning as if he'd run a mile.
"Do be careful, Regulus, will you?" Stacie told him, and then she was jumping off the train lightly, to melt into the throng of people in front of them, leaving Regulus to stare unseeingly at where she'd vanished and trying to figure out why in the world a girl he exchanged favours with had suddenly done something as shocking as kiss him.
Entering the Prefects compartment, Lily surveyed the old and new faces already gathered there. By sight, she knew the youngest Gryffindor Prefects, Murdock McGonagall and Doris Darling, both looking very nervous and only the boy trying to hide it behind typical Gryffindorish bravado; of the other newbies, she only truly recognised another face, that of Black's younger brother, which didn't surprise her much. From sixth and seventh-years, Neela Fellington, the Gryffindor Prefect from Clotilde's year, as well as Veruca Nithercott and Samantha Rose, Lily's Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff counterparts respectively, were already in. The boys, as usual, were absent, but then they tended to run in at the last moment for the Head Boy and Girl's speech.
It wasn't hard to take pity on the poor newbies, so Lily seated herself and Remus directly across from them and offered them an encouraging smile. The boy blushed beet red, while the girl visibly brightened, and Lily blinked a moment, then dismissed it.
"Don't worry," she told them, "we'll help you get the hang of everything. I'm Lily, and this is Remus."
"We know," the boy said, then started, turning even redder, if that was possible, "I mean, we know who you are. I mean, I didn't mean–"
The girl rolled her eyes and elbowed her fellow yearmate.
"What he means is, everyone knows who you are, Lily. And he meant no offence, Remus; he's just got a very bad brain-to-mouth filter."
The corner of Remus' mouth twitched, while Lily suddenly found herself realising why they were both acting so oddly – with Gloria Mueller, the previous year's oldest Gryffindor prefect, gone, Lily was now the sole holder of the popularity title in their House.
Oh, it wasn't like she'd not been aware of it; it would certainly have been hard to miss the fact that with Alice's departure two years ago, Lily had been the one slotted into the 'it' girl position her friend had left vacant. In a way, it had even made sense – Lily was extroverted and thus enjoyed volunteering for various extracurricular activities simply for the benefit of socialising, which had allowed her to meet and befriend plenty of people from all Houses over the years. Last year, it had also given her a pleasurable feeling of lightness and pride; being the centre of attention, until practically the end of the year, had carried its own reward, even if it had created friction between her and Severus due to other people's demands on her time.
Not so now; after everything that had happened at the end of last school year and then during the summer with her family, Lily found herself feeling nothing but mild annoyance at having been placed on a social pedestal. Not only did she not have time for it, she also didn't have a lot of brainpower to devote to the obligations that came with that title, and now that, in the back of her mind, there was the constant reminder that she and Severus would need to pull off the deception of the century, it was also impossible to ignore the fact that this would be making their meeting in secret that much harder.
But there wasn't much she could do, short of leaving the school. Making any sort of scene to sour her own reputation was out of the question, because it would only result in the opposite extreme, and that would bear even more scrutiny. At least with everyone liking her and wanting to be her friend, she had the option of having people unknowingly cover for her if necessary; if they viewed her as a freak, they'd no doubt keep a very close eye on anything more out of the ordinary she might do, and trying to secretly meet with a Slytherin she'd publicly rejected would definitely fall under that classification.
Still, it bore thinking on a bit more closely, she decided.
Time for casual chatting was short, at least at this stage of the trip – the role of the Prefects was to ensure that all of the students were safely ensconced in various train compartments, and that the newest batch of firsties was not unduly alarmed by the craziness. Therefore, Lily and Remus didn't linger in the compartment for the moment, but rather took the two fifth-years under their wing as they went about patrolling the train and the platform, breaking up arguments about who got which compartment, gently hustling the kids who were reluctant to separate from their parents, scolding the more mischievous students from playing practical jokes on the harried people around them. Only when the train was on its way and the corridors seemed somewhat quieter did they all head back to the Prefects compartment for the usual beginning-of-the-year meeting with the newest Head Boy and Girl.
"So, who are the other fifth-year Prefects?" Lily asked the two fifth-years once they'd all reclaimed their seats. Murdock almost tripped over himself trying to explain it, while Doris kept rolling her eyes at him, butting in with her own comments as she saw fit. They managed to just about cover each of the newbies when their new bosses (as it were) arrived – one was, to the horror of all Gryffindors present, the now former Prefect for Slytherin, Wysandria Avery. The other was a Ravenclaw student whom Lily didn't know, a boy who introduced himself as Gaspard Shingleton. Lily and Remus exchanged apprehensive looks, already confident they knew what a Ravenclaw/Slytherin combination of their Heads would mean for the rest of the Prefects, now numbering twenty-three to boot. Wysandria's former male counterpart, Joseph Neggleworth, certainly looked more than a little put out by the situation, though whether it was because he now had to shoulder both of their responsibilities or because she'd been promoted over him, that Lily couldn't tell, and didn't much care to know, either.
Their speech, at least, was more or less balanced. Wysandria didn't appear to be interested in asserting the Slytherin's usual favouritism towards their own, at least not at this point, and Gaspard appeared nice enough and, more importantly, not nearly as discomforted by having to share these duties with a Slytherin as either a Hufflepuff or a Gryffindor might have been.
Lily tuned them out, for the most part, once she determined that they were speaking in the exact same vein as Amir and Melissa had last year. Instead, she found her mind drifting back to the last couple of days, which had found her and her father meeting up with Petunia and their mother after several days in separate camps.
Her father had naturally been curious about why her plans with Severus had fallen through, and Lily had kept it simple by saying that they'd had a bit of a row and that she hadn't wanted things to be even more awkward than they already were, given that she and Stephen were going to be spending a couple of days all on their own, without either Monica or Petunia's presence to represent any kind of buffer in the backs of their minds.
The truth was, little had truly changed between them, and Lily wasn't certain how to deal with that. Her fight with Petunia had made her doubt herself, but seeing her father in his own space drove home the point of just how much he'd been unhappy until now, and for how long – long enough, certainly, that Lily had not even realised that was what she'd been seeing for years. Oh, it wasn't that he was any more cheerful or unburdened than he'd been a month ago; to the contrary, he was obviously still grieving, and Lily had even heard him crying once, on the first night in Manchester. But there was a sense of newfound determination, of enjoyment in making things be just the way he wanted them to be, that illustrated exactly what he'd admitted to her after her seaside trip – Lily's mother had become a smothering influence on him.
As for her own behaviour... Lily wasn't so sure. She knew that she took after Monica in that way, unwilling to stop fighting for the things she wanted, trying to make people agree with her rather than the other way around. Severus had accused her of this often enough in the last two years, when she'd hounded him about his friends and dismissed the gravity of Potter's group's actions towards him, that she couldn't simply dismiss the idea, no matter how much she disliked it, not also in light of her father's experiences.
But perhaps that was why she'd never felt this sort of influence of her mother's on their relationship. No doubt, the distance helped with that – Monica could hardly attempt to exert influence on Lily's choices and decisions from hundreds of miles away. But for all that it had rarely, if ever, been felt, it didn't mean that it wasn't present in general in the now broken household. After all, Petunia was more or less the same way, and she and Lily certainly clashed constantly. If they hadn't, she would never have been friends with Severus in the first place, and who knew whether the rest of her life would have looked at all similar to how it did now.
What Lily had concluded in over the weekend was that she refused to be like her mother, refused to put that sort of look on anyone's face, that her father wore when he thought she wasn't looking. She loved her mother dearly, but when they'd met up at Petunia and Martine's flat last night, she'd found herself uncomfortably eager to leave for Hogwarts, because these kinds of thoughts were making her feel awkward around Monica, and she really didn't want her mother to notice. It had gotten better as the evening and next morning had progressed; during dinner for six at a nice, old-fashioned restaurant, Guthrie, Martine and Marissa Dalloway had all served as excellent buffers between the three Evans women, and Lily had even managed to catch up with her childhood friend to the point where they'd exchanged addresses for letters (Lily gave the usual reroute address for Hogwarts that all students with connections to the Muggle world were instructed to use for mail needing to travel through regular post) – Marissa was heading out for her school in the morning as well and the telephone use was privileged there, which neatly allowed Lily to sidestep the issue of Hogwarts not having those.
Once everyone had gone their separate ways for the evening, Lily had finally gotten a chance to spend some genuine alone time with her mother, and what she'd seen made her go back to being upset with her father in the same way that seeing his behaviour made her upset with her mother – Monica was hurting, yes, but more than that, she seemed lost somehow, unmoored and trying to cover it up with her usual forceful decisiveness. She'd grilled Lily on Alice's wedding and more broadly on all her friendships, and Lily had indulged her until Monica had started disparaging the boys, at which point Lily had bitten her tongue, reminded herself that this was her last evening with her mother until at least the winter hols, and firmly changed the subject rather than argue. Whether or not her mother had realised that she'd said something problematic, the older woman had nonetheless almost readily jumped at the topic of Petunia and Martine's flat and their short-term plans, in a way that seemed to Lily more desperate than anything else, which made her ache inside.
Her parents had both made that bed they were now lying in, they'd hurt one another and had both had a hand in destroying that marriage, but Lily couldn't escape the conflicted, tangled up mess she was feeling inside at seeing the aftermath, and she wished that things could have been different.
But she'd learned very well this year that wishing didn't make things different, only actually attempting to change them did, and she hoped for their sakes that her parents would realise this as well and find their way forward. That was the best she could offer them at the moment, after all, because her own distressingly tangled life beckoned, and Lily had no choice but to return to it. Her parents were both adults and responsible for their own lives; as Clotilde had told her during the seaside vacation, it wasn't Lily's job to manage how they lived and behaved, what choices they made. Her job was to always look to her own future, and to never give up being their support when they needed it.
Petunia was a different matter entirely. They were now firmly back to where they'd started at the beginning of the summer – Petunia had barely spoken two words to Lily in all the time they'd ended up spending together, making herself very clear on the fact that she thought Lily was betraying both her and their mother by choosing not to shun their father. Towards him, too, Petunia was cold as ice, and where Stephen appeared to be very understanding, if hurt, by it, Monica didn't appear to notice anything worth censure in the elder daughter's behaviour. For her part, Lily found herself wanting to slap her sister silly, and this sense of a clear line being drawn in their now crumbling family as far as the sisters' relationship was concerned, between Monica and Petunia on the one side, and Stephen and Lily on the other, was leaving a very frightful sense of dread in the pit of Lily's stomach, because having now known peace with Petunia, she wished it back tremendously. But she knew that bending here would mean bending to her sister's whims until the day they both died, and that was something Lily simply couldn't live with. So all she had left was a hope that her sister would calm down some in the next few months and unbend enough to put Lily's choice aside in their relationship, if she couldn't forgive it.
As the Hogwarts Express chugged ever northwards, putting more and more distance between one of Lily's lives and the other, the sixteen-year-old swore to herself that she was going to find a way of bridging that line between the two camps in her family, somehow. It was obviously going to stay, because she did not think that Monica would ever be willing or able to forgive Stephen for his transgressions and choices – and Lily neither faulted her for it nor expected anything different – but Lily had absolutely no intention of staying on either side of it permanently, and she hoped desperately that her mother was not petty enough to blame her for wanting to maintain the relationship she had with her father, that she would not take it the way that Petunia had, as Lily choosing either over the other.
They were both her parents, and she intended to keep it that way. For everything else, she supposed, it would depend on time and the other parties involved.
Watching the busy urbanity of London slowly give way to the fields of the countryside made James' eyes feel heavy and his limbs numb as he stared out the window in silence. To his right, Sirius and Peter were discussing professional Quidditch, and as easy as James had found it initially to be out of his head while he'd said his good-byes to his parents and greeted the third member of his group, he was finding it just as hard now to focus back on the world around him.
He hated it; he'd been doing this for going on five days now, ever since Athenora had left him standing on his front steps with his mind and soul all scrambled up inside. Sirius hated it even more, and James knew his best friend was now no doubt quite relieved to have Peter there to occupy his mind. James wanted to be able to take a leaf out of Sirius' book and force his attention so far outwards that his thoughts were forgotten and unheard. But where Sirius had had years and years to perfect that skill, James had never needed it, and so he was struggling.
He was reluctant to accept Sirius' help, no matter how gregariously or urgently it was offered in the form of anything from dirty Muggle magazines to running through the countryside surrounding the Potter property in their Animagus forms. Part of it was the fact that ever since Athenora had reshuffled his brains on the issue with Remus, James had been going back and forth on how he was going to deal with it, and knowing Sirius' eventual reaction to it made him feel unwilling to interact with Sirius too much. But that wasn't really the reason why he was avoiding his best friend.
Truthfully, he felt too heavy for anything, exhausted.
He'd spent the first day after Athenora's departure mostly on his bed, miserable and pissed off in equal measure. The anger had won out over the misery when his mother had come to his room, worry etched on every line of her aging face, so that he'd spent the second and third day being angry, with Athenora, with her girlfriend, with Sirius, with himself, with the whole wide world.
The anger had burned itself out quick enough, though; James wasn't the type whose grudges were ever truly fuelled by strong emotion, rather than the memory of such. Unlike Sirius, he simply didn't have the mental constitution for prolonged anger. In its place had come self-debate, trying to assign blame in a more methodical fashion, wondering how he'd been manipulated by her, if she'd tried to teach him some kind of lesson.
Sense had re-established itself around day four, helped along by a very vigorous flying session with his Granian stallion, Fiend. He couldn't help himself in that – feeling the air whipping at his face, pulling on his hair, feeling his stomach swoop with tight turns and deep drops, the burn in his legs from keeping the balance, these were the things that he existed with, that filled him up and cleansed him through. It was the same as flying a broomstick, why he'd even seriously considered a professional Quidditch career last year during the Career talk with McGonagall. Flying was the most perfect state of being for James Fleamont Potter, and it was this that helped him more or less find his balance and put his head back into order.
The other had been his father.
"James?" Peter's voice broke through his thoughts, making him turn to meet his pudgy friend's eyes. "You ok?"
"Fine," James lied, shaking his head. "Just thinking."
"Becoming our resident philosopher, isn't he, Wormtail?" Sirius threw back with a roll of his eyes. "Since we lost our previous one before the summer."
"Actually..." Peter said softly, licking his lips in a nervous gesture. "What are we going to do tonight?"
"Do?" Sirius asked. "What we always do on the first day of school, of course. Drink and be merry we're back."
"No, I meant–"
"I don't know," James cut him off, not feeling very willing to let Sirius continue with his passive-aggressive behaviour as regarded the topic. "I think..."
"Oh, no!" Sirius exclaimed in a huff. "Don't tell me you're still letting her get to you that way!"
"Suicide, Sirius," James spat out harshly, unable to help himself. "Did you not hear her?"
"She was winding you up, like she'd been doing the whole summer!"
Sirius had certainly changed his tune on Athenora after her departure, that was one of those glaringly obvious things in the last few days that weren't really making things any easier on James at all.
"Are you really willing to take that chance?"
Sirius pinched his lips and crossed his arms, but James knew he'd scored a point there. Sirius could hold his grudge as long as he wanted – and unlike James, Sirius' anger burned unceasingly once it was lit; the only thing keeping it from consuming him from the inside out was the fact that he'd perfected the art of extroversion to the point of being able to completely push his other emotions to the side if he wanted to, the skill that James envied tremendously these days – the truth was, Sirius cared about Remus still, of course he did. They all did, because five years of friendship couldn't be erased with a wave of a hand and one hurtful argument.
"What are you two talking about?" Peter asked, eyes flying between the two of them.
"Just something we learned about werewolves over the summer," James dismissed it. "I think we should talk to him about everything that went down at the end of the year. We don't have to be friends with him, Padfoot, but we're going to be living with him for another two years; sustaining the battle lines we drew right before the summer is unrealistic, yeah? Peter, you agree with me, don't you?"
Peter shifted in his seat, glancing at Sirius' thunderous face before looking back at James' pleading look. He licked his lips again and shrugged.
"He might not want to talk to us, though; he and Lily still seemed close at the station."
"Well, there's no harm in trying," James shrugged and went back to staring blindly at the passing scenery.
The mention of Lily made his thoughts return to Athenora. Much as he wanted to hate her, at the end of the day, James found himself unable to, because every time he turned the summer around in his head, he found yet another way in which he himself had screwed up, he himself had lost track of their arrangement, he himself had been the infatuated girl in this relationship.
Manipulation was absolute antithesis to Athenora Adelmann; James was almost willing to go so far as to say that the very thought of her trying to teach him a lesson was bordering on absurd. Athenora had never hidden who she was, never deliberately misrepresented herself. She'd not asked for permission, and had never been apologetic for being the sort of person who took actions she wanted to take, even if others considered those actions wrong. That was what had been so refreshing about her that even Sirius had found himself pulled in, when usually he was mistrustful out the gate.
Athenora had simply not shown him a very large part of her life, for the reason that she'd felt a couple of months of casual shagging hadn't entitled him to it. The thing was, James couldn't help but feel that she'd have told him, if he'd only asked; he hadn't. Being interested in more than the girl was offering freely had only ever earned James deeper infatuation on their end, so right off the bat, he'd approached Athenora with the same attitude. That he'd been the one to start offering bits of his inner personal life had slipped his notice, but looking back, it wasn't hard to see how easily he'd spilled his guts to her regarding his feelings for Lily, for his friends, for school and his future plans.
And no matter how hurt he was over it, James was raised a gentleman, with Gryffindor values, and at the end of the day, these were the things he had to fall back on, as his father had duly reminded him two evenings ago.
Fleamont had called him into his study after dinner on Monday evening and had asked him what exactly had transpired between the two teens. James had been circumspect – he had no intention of making his father any more aware of his sexual activity than the man had figured out himself – but he'd in the end spilled his guts, because Fleamont was ninety-four years old and if James trusted someone to steer him right, it would be his old man.
"Your instinct will be to find something or someone to blame for what happened, Son," his father had said in the end. "Placing blame on yourself is not something to avoid; to the contrary, it is how you learn to do better in the future. Everyone needs a broken heart before they find the one they choose to spend their life with. You're a Gryffindor; chivalry, honour and valour are our defining traits. Take the time to consider everything that has happened through their prism, and when you come out the other end, you will be grateful to her because she will have made you a man more worthy of the woman who will choose you as her life partner and protector in the end, and she will have made you capable of surviving the day when your chosen woman is gone."
Fleamont's words had haunted James for the next two nights, haunted him right onto this train, and not only because of Athenora. Her assessment of Remus and their quarrel had shaken him, too, even more now that his father had told him to accept the blame for what he deep down knew were his own mistakes in the first place.
Of course, it was easier to think that he was not going to hate or blame Athenora for what had happened than to truly feel it. His mother had spoken to him briefly the next morning after his conversation with his father, obviously clued in, and all she'd told him was: "You lead with your heart, James, and that's a good thing, but when your mind knows that your heart is wrong, listen to it. Eventually, your heart will catch up, if you only don't let it rule you."
So that was what he was doing, about Athenora and about Remus too. He was going to close the book on this wretched summer, and he was going to find a way to not hate Athenora for his own mess, because until the very end, she'd been nothing but good to him, and she deserved that chivalry on his part. Because, until a couple of weeks ago, until perhaps the very morning of her departure, he'd thought that this was exactly how they'd go their own ways – as friends, he to his bright future with Lily and she to her grand plans of adventure and business opportunities, and it had been a thoroughly pleasant thought.
He wanted to go back to feeling that way.
Severus' decision to board the Hogwarts Express in Manchester had been a very deliberate one. He'd had very little contact with anyone from Slytherin in the summer months, and he knew that would reflect on things, but it had certainly been something that could not have been helped – his mother had ensured that owl post never arrived at their house, and Severus had not been very eager to receive any mail by the Muggle post, because the risk of either or both of his parents reading it had been unacceptably high.
He had written as such to both of the Death Eaters checking in with him – Evan Rosier and Lucius Malfoy in turns – and made it clear to both Thistletwaithe and Michael's group that anything arriving by post needed to be sparse and on the surface appear as just the usual summer communication between teenagers, with no sensitive information whatsoever. Naturally, none of them had been very prolific as a consequence.
There was no doubt about whom he was going to spend the Hogwarts Express trip with – his job as a spy in the House of Slytherin and the Dark Lord's supporter group was starting as of the moment he boarded the train, which meant that he was going to be sitting in the compartment of his old friends, rather than the new. The bigger question there had been whether any developments had occurred in the relationship between Thistletwaithe and Avery; he was not sure whether the stocky, gap-toothed boy and the back-stabbing opportunist were still warring, or if they'd managed to overcome Avery's betrayal during the attack on the seventh-years.
And, of course, there was also Kennard Wilkes as the new variable in the equation, one Severus hadn't exactly counted on this early in the year, but ended up being forced to, as a gangly teen who was at most a fourth-year intercepted him while he was still bringing his trunk onto the train to deliver a message from the Quidditch Captain and the new leader of the Hogwarts' Death Eater recruitment group.
"Wilkes asked for ya," the kid said, looking quite self-important for having been sent on a literal fetching errand. "Said you're to come to his compartment at the back."
Severus nodded, then lifted an eyebrow pointedly when the kid dawdled to get him running along. He took a few moments to put his Occlumency shields into order before trekking up the train towards one of the big front compartments that unofficially belonged to the Slytherin upper-years, his bag slung over his shoulder and his trunk charmed to be light enough to drag without slowing him down.
Two thirds of the way in, he ran into Lily on her rounds, because that was just his luck. He didn't let their eyes meet for more than a second or two, though his heart began hammering double-time in his chest immediately, instead letting them slide past her as he lifted his head up in an unmistakable message of purposeful rejection. Still, he caught the rictus on her features out of the corner of his eyes. She too made sure not to stare at him at all, but instead swept her hair off her shoulder and when they passed each other, she sniffed dismissively in such amazing imitation of Petunia that in spite of the deep twist of hurt in his gut that Severus forcibly ignored, there was certainly plenty of relief in knowing Lily had remembered their charade, not a little bit of tentative hope that they might just manage this, and just a smidge of amusement at what the horse-faced girl might have thought, had she known she was now apparently Lily's role model.
Letting out a mental exhale once they were past one another, he refocused on the task at hand. Kennard Wilkes was sat in the corner by the window, surrounded on both sides by fellow seventh-years Pax Parkinson and Aaron Montague. Severus had spoken to Parkinson once or twice but never to Montague, though it was hard to miss the older boy, given that he towered over most of the student populace. Where Montague was the athletic type, playing as the leading Chaser on the Slytherin Quidditch team and, more importantly, having a good head for strategy on his shoulders as well as being a team player, Parkinson was an intellectual bloke, very good with numbers and even better at managing people. Knowing this about his two fellow Slytherins, Severus wasn't surprised in the least to find that Wilkes had effectively pulled them into his own orbit.
"Snape. Do join us," Wilkes welcomed him with a flash of pearly white teeth that stood out all the more for their contrast to his dark skin. "I hear your summer has been rather on the unpleasant side."
There were several options for the meaning of Wilkes' comment, the worst of which for Severus would be relating to his friendship with Lily or his stay at Hogwarts. Four months ago, he might have felt panicky about it; now, his Occlumency training allowed him the clarity to remember that it was safer to play dumb and verbally acknowledge only the most innocuous and innocent, if for no other reason than to buy oneself a few moments to think, though more importantly, to avoid accidentally incriminating oneself.
So Severus gave himself the freedom to take his time with the answer by levitating his trunk up to the overhead compartment and making himself comfortable in one of the seats opposite Wilkes', before inclining his head in dismissive confirmation.
"That's how summer tends to be when one's father is a worthless Muggle afraid of magic."
"So, thinking of finding your own place come next summer?"
Severus shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps, if the opportunity presents itself, I might do. But I have no intention of having him chase me out of my own house; he's only a Muggle, after all, and I turn seventeen in January."
That seemed to amuse Wilkes. "Your mother won't object?"
Severus sneered, unable to stop himself from remembering his last clash with Eileen; following the night he'd spent at Lily's after their row, she'd been even frostier to him than he could ever remember her being, giving him a cold shoulder right up until she'd Apparated him to the Manchester train station this morning – and even that, Severus suspected, was because she'd foisted some brewing on him in the last minute that he hadn't managed to finish until the small hours of the morning, and thus had had no time to catch a train or bus on his own.
"She's free to object as much as she likes; she's the one who chose him, not I, and she's certainly been comfortable being blind and deaf to his treatment of us."
"And so the Half-Blood Prince comes into his own come January," Parkinson noted with a sniff and a tiny smile in the corner of his mouth. "Rosier seems to be expecting great things from you, Snape."
"Oh, has he acquainted you with them, Parkinson?" Severus shot back. "Really, I wasn't aware you ranked so highly in Rosier's esteem."
Wilkes gave a bark of laughter, while Parkinson haughtily sniffed and lifted his pug-like nose, though there was red tinging his cheeks. In truth, while Severus had no doubt Parkinson would find his place among the Dark Lord's followers in due course, the boy's family was seen in the higher social circles as rather a bit too desperate to be acknowledged as full-fledged Pure-blood superiority supporters due to several scandals in the last few decades, and unlike the Blacks, who were swift enough to expel from the family line anyone they deemed risky to their reputation, the Parkinson family couldn't afford it, seeing how those at the centre of their scandals also seemed to have the most assets solely in their name.
This was a big part of the reason why Severus didn't fear strained relations with Pax Parkinson, though he certainly didn't intend to retaliate more than Parkinson himself provoked him into by speaking out of line. The other part of the reason was Severus' mission – if he wanted to be useful to Dumbledore, then he needed to establish himself as highly as was possible for a Hogwarts student to do in the Dark Lord's organisation, so that once the school's restraints were off his person, he'd manage to fulfil the full potential within his grasp. And that meant not tiptoeing around everyone's feelings and playing ruthlessly for the keeps.
"Tell me of the others in your year," Wilkes instructed. "Which of them might be interested in following your footsteps?"
"Boromir Philes will keep to Avery," Severus answered after momentary thought, "though I don't doubt he's interested in our cause. Zebadiah Thistletwaithe is not nearly as forgiving of Avery's betrayals last year, but he is inclined towards our cause as well. Felix Jones is a vocal Light sympathiser, though I doubt that needs saying after he managed to get Mulciber arrested. Michael Stone is neutral on the issue and from everything I know of him, is likely to stay so. I don't believe attempting to recruit him would be either successful or useful; his interests lie elsewhere."
"Yet you're associating with him and his," Montague noted with a raised eyebrow.
"Which is how I know," Severus pointed out dryly.
"So does that mean you're done associating with him, now that you know?"
"And this is your concern how, exactly?"
The mountainous teen leaned forward, effectively managing to loom over the whole compartment with just that one move. Severus held himself still, making sure that not even his facial muscles twitched at the perceived threat.
"Never can be too careful, isn't that right, Snape?"
"Perhaps you should be asking Rosier this; Lucius Malfoy as well. Or are you implying that I was not thoroughly vetted before being issued the invitation, Montague?"
"Of course he's not implying that," Wilkes resolved the issue with a careless roll of his eyes. "I would like to know the answer to his question, though, Snape."
Severus refocused his attention on the leader of this little group, meeting his eyes squarely. "I am a potioneer, Wilkes; we tend to hold onto materials that might prove to be of use at a future point, even if it costs us some storage space and the materials look worthless at the moment. Call it a professional deformity."
"All right," the Quidditch captain acquiesced. "So long as he and his keep out of our way, you're free to have your currently-useless-but-might-one-day-come-in-handy materials collect dust all you like. More importantly, Snape..."
At Wilkes' pause, Severus raised an eyebrow, though inside he clamped down on the panicky thought that this was about his connection to Lily; after all, the last time they'd spoken of his connections, the conversation had gone right in that direction. When Wilkes continued with: "What do you think should be done about that rift between you and Avery?", Severus released an internal sigh of relief.
"That depends," he answered candidly. "Do you want Thistletwaithe or not? Because I don't see those two working side by side."
"Never mind Thistletwaithe; I want to know where you stand."
"I believe I made myself clear on that the last time we spoke, Wilkes."
The dark-skinned boy eyed him in silence, and Severus kept the eye contact steadily, kept his stony mask firmly on his face and his mouth shut. One thing he'd discussed with Dumbledore during his summer stay at Hogwarts was the kinds of attitude and behaviour that would work best for the crowd he was going to be infiltrating. They'd both agreed that the only way Severus would progress quickly through the ranks would be to stand his ground enough to earn respect, and if he wanted to be of proper use to the Headmaster, then he needed to be notable enough to Rosier and Malfoy that they'd secure him an audience with Voldemort as soon as he turned seventeen, the earliest Severus could take the Mark since his mother was never going to give her consent to it being earlier.
The goal wasn't to make Wilkes feel like getting information out of Severus would be akin to pulling teeth; at the same time, though, becoming known as a yes-man with a loose mouth was not something Severus could afford. Balancing on that edge between the two things was what Severus' mission rode on, and while he wasn't feeling nearly as confident as he hoped he was projecting, if life at Spinner's End had taught him something, it was that some things you had to do even if you weren't sure you could do them.
After a good two or three minutes of silence, Wilkes relaxed back in his seat, no longer so alert, and just for a second, he looked impressed.
"That changes, I need to know. We clear?"
"Crystal," Severus replied, making sure to not demonstrate his relief in even the smallest way.
"Well, then, I imagine you might be interested in tracking down your friend Zebadiah, see how his summer was? And Snape..." Wilkes called out once Severus had gotten to his feet, "I'll be in touch in a few days."
Severus nodded once before turning his back to the seventh-year and his posse. That worked just fine for him.
The traditional back-to-school party wound down in the Gryffindor common room around midnight; after some seven hours of travel followed by a very lavish, boisterous dinner and with classes looming the very next day, the party wasn't much more than friends catching up over smuggled booze and contraband wheedled out of the house-elves from the kitchens, mostly unwinding and re-establishing the usual House hierarchy now another generation was gone.
Lily, Remus and the other four prefects had made sure to dispatch the little ones to bed promptly at nine-thirty, knowing that they'd have a hell of a time getting them out of bed tomorrow otherwise, though none of them doubted that there would be more conversation in the dorm rooms. The older students had lingered, but by eleven-thirty even most fourth- and fifth-years were gone (though one rather precocious fourth-year had to be dragged to bed by her girlfriends), leaving only the N.E.W.T. levels there.
Lily's group had claimed one of the central sofas close to the stairwell to the girls' dorms, and to Remus, it had looked the whole evening as if they'd been holding court. Lily had ended up sitting in the middle, with Mary and Bettina on either side of her, and Clotilde on a cushion on the floor, leaning against Lily's shins, while Clotilde's three yearmates Neela, Sally and Janette had found seats on the settees around them. Remus, after running out of excuses to keep from participation once all of the younger children had been taken care of, had gotten dragged between Lily and Mary, and was now serving as his best friend's pillow while she sleepily conversed with her friends.
It was in many ways an uncomfortable place to be, and not only because the sofa was just that bit on the cramped side with four of them on it. Lily's girlfriends were still mildly baffled by Remus' sudden inclusion in their group, and they weren't the only ones – the rest of their House had watched in fascination as the male side of the court had not formed into its usual configuration, remaining a threesome, with both younger and older boys flocking around them. The rumours were flying, naturally, both about the rift that had remained over the summer between the Gryffindor kings and about Sirius' new excommunicated status, which made Remus feel in equal measure worried and saddened for his former friend, and thus upset with himself for still caring.
In a way, though, being claimed so publicly by Lily was more than a little reassuring; granted, his position tonight was no different from his position among the Marauders in the previous years – the quiet, unobtrusive one that no one much noticed – but for the first time, it didn't bother him too much, because this time, he forced himself to actually participate in conversations and express his opinions, and that won him Clotilde's friendliness. Between her and Lily, they managed to resolve any momentary friction caused by his presence, so that by the time midnight rolled around, Remus felt almost relaxed.
Not fully, of course, because Lily's hair smelled flowery and reflected light in interesting ways where she'd tucked her head against his shoulder, reminding him that he did, in fact, still harbour something of a crush on her, and James was shooting him glaring looks that were ticking him off, and some of the other girls were eying him and Lily speculatively, which Remus just knew was going to grow into some rumours he'd have to manage if he wanted to keep on Snape's good side (which he did, to his own continuing surprise), but Remus was going to take what he could get, and with the prospect of soon having to once again share his sleeping quarters with his former friends, a bit of discomfort was worth it for a largely pleasant evening.
Lily yawned widely, covering her mouth with her hand, eyes pinched tightly shut, then sighed.
"I'm so bloody tired, I don't even know how I'll manage to climb up into my own bed."
"Remus can carry you," Clotilde said with a smirk.
"She's too heavy for him," Mary said at the same time that Bettina commented: "But the stairs won't let him."
Remus grimaced – because, while her weight was no problem, courtesy of his furry problem, that was not the way to kill any impractical rumours – and Lily shook her head.
"Pot stirrer," she muttered at her currently magenta-haired friend, flicking her in the head lightly with one nail-polished finger and earning herself a raised eyebrow. "Seriously, see those wankers there?" she pointed to the Marauders lightly, who were at the moment glaring in their direction. "I'm just reminding them what they threw away, and how much that something has been appreciated in spite of them. Not that you're 'something', Remus," the redhead added, rubbing against Remus' shoulder as she looked up at him upside-down.
"The sentiment is appreciated nonetheless," he answered dryly.
"James has been glaring this way all night," Bettina noted softly.
"Jealousy. Doesn't suit him," Mary answered, sniffing lightly.
"Wish someone would tell him that," Lily muttered, before purposely turning the topic of conversation in the direction of N.E.W.T. classes.
Fifteen or so minutes later, most of the girls had said their goodnights and left for their dorm, so that by the time Remus was ready to head for bed too, it was only Lily, he and Mary still sitting in the common room, the brunette apparently waiting for the redhead so that they'd go together. Looking down at his best friend to determine whether she had any intention of moving any time soon, he caught her pinched expression as she stared across the room at the boys' corner, where the three sixth-year Gryffindors were still sprawled out, seemingly waiting to see what Remus was going to do next.
"Don't worry," he assured her, squeezing her arm lightly with his fingers, "I can handle them."
"You sure?"
He shrugged. "Even if I wasn't, there's not much choice in the matter; I have to live with them for another two years, and you can't shadow me for the rest of our Hogwarts careers to protect me."
"No; I can't seem to protect anyone from them," she noted morosely, shaking her head and straightening up. Mary rose as well, and the two girls headed up to their dorm, Lily dropping a kiss on Remus' cheek as she passed that felt purposefully designed to provoke James. Smirking lightly to himself at her antics (and what the heck, he got a kiss on the cheek out of it), Remus headed up himself, his lupine senses on alert for his three yearmates.
He managed to change into his pyjamas, barely, before they barrelled into the dorm. Peter was quiet, though he did give Remus a tentative smile behind James' and Sirius' backs, which Remus returned just as covertly. That part he'd expected.
What he hadn't expected – though he really should have – was James' first sentence, spoken in barely supressed anger.
"Are you dating her?"
Rolling his eyes heavenwards, Remus ignored the other boy, instead focusing on unpacking his school books and sorting them out at his desk with efficient wand movements and muttered Latin.
"Well?"
The hair on the back of Remus' neck stood up slightly, and he turned so that James wasn't in his blind spot anymore.
"My personal life is none of your business," he replied coolly, crossing his arms over his chest. "You made yourself perfectly clear before the hols."
"Are you. Going out. With Lily?"
Annoyed, Remus shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe I am. Or maybe not. Wouldn't you like to know?"
James growled and stalked to his bed, while Remus eyed him slightly warily, going in his head over the wards he'd learned so far. It was hard to even imagine his friends – former friends – attacking him in the night, but the days when he was deluding himself were long gone, and given how vicious they could be against some of the Slytherins, he wasn't feeling very reckless with his own safety.
At least Sirius had so far not even tried to approach him, which was an improvement over his barbs back at the end of the last schoolyear. Pretending that Remus didn't exist was actually easier to bear, on the whole, so Remus didn't mind it, though he did throw a few glances Sirius' way in an attempt to gauge where the other boy was at psychologically. He couldn't quite help himself. He'd spent the past five years watching the autumn aftermath of the abuse that Sirius suffered at home, and if he'd truly been disowned this summer, before he'd even turned seventeen... well, Remus could only imagine how messed up Sirius was on the inside, and much as he didn't want to, he still felt bad for his former friend.
He read Gulliver's Travels a bit, more out of a need to wait the other boys out than because he had any interest in the text at the moment; thankfully, they appeared just as tired as everyone else, because James began lightly snoring within ten minutes of crawling into his bed, and in another ten, Sirius looked about as dead to the world, flopped on his stomach and with his covers already tangled around his feet, a good indicator that he wasn't awake anymore. And almost as soon as he'd noticed that, he also caught onto the light tugs on his own covers that made him put down his book just in time to see a brown rat scurrying up onto the bed.
Moving to free up some space on the side facing Peter's bed, Remus waited until the pudgy boy transformed back in near total silence, and smiled.
"Hello," Peter whispered.
"Hi, Peter."
A moment or two of awkward silence followed, before Peter rubbed his nose and flashed a shaky smile.
"So, how was your summer?"
Remus shrugged. "Surprisingly nice, all things considered. Lily invited me to visit with her for a couple of weeks; we went to the seaside together in the end for one of them."
"Yeah, you look way better," Peter agreed. "Sirius and James spent half the evening debating it, actually."
"Did they, now?" Remus asked, casting his eyes towards the other two Gryffindors. "And, what's the verdict?"
"James is feeling bad about what went down before the hols," Peter admitted, peering through the darkness to make sure the boy in question was asleep. "He got side-railed after he saw how cosy you and Lily are now, though."
"Typical James," Remus muttered, shaking his head and letting go of the momentary flash of hope that had crept up on him at Peter's words. "And Sirius?"
"He's still angry. He had a pretty bad summer, though."
"So the story about him being disowned is true?"
Peter nodded. "Yeah, he ran away from home; Mr and Mrs Potter took him in."
Feeling a pang of dread on behalf of his fellow Gryffindor, the werewolf boy winced. "Must have been unbearable, if he felt that was his only option."
"I haven't yet figured out what exactly had happened, but he was apparently in bad shape when Prongs managed to track him down and bring him back to the Potters' place."
"And you? How was your summer, Peter?"
His pudgy friend shrugged his shoulders. "Usual. Thanks for your help, Remus, with the Animagus stuff. You were right, by the way; Animagic is not Traceable."
"Good to know," Remus decided, feeling somewhat self-satisfied that his educated assumption had been proven correct.
"So... are you and Lily dating?"
Looking down at his friend, Remus couldn't help but snigger lightly to himself at the question. "I see where everyone's priorities are these days." Off Peter's sheepish one-shouldered shrug, he relented. "No, Lily and I aren't dating. But I'll let James sweat it out a bit, see whether him feeling bad about last summer gets more priority than whether I'd 'stolen his girl'. As if Lily is a possession he can claim, the arrogant prat." Rolling his eyes heavenwards at the idiocy of teenage boys, Remus turned to Peter. "You'll keep me posted on goings-on?"
"Yeah, whenever I get a chance," the other boy promised.
"Thanks, Petey."
And in spite of the tension he was feeling, Remus slept better than he'd ever thought he could have while having to share a room with two hostile boys.