Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: No, I don't like Nazis. How is that even a question?

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); Mc4A (Year 4)
Individual Challenges: Short Jog; Old Shoes (Y); Gryffindor MC (x4); Hufflepuff MC; Slytherin MC; Rian-Russo Inversion (x2); Ethnic & Present; The 3rd Rule; Lunar Era; Bucket Listing (Y)
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 05
Subject (Task No.): Duelling (Task#3: Write about the end of a long friendship.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [87](Lily Evans Potter); 365 Prompts [167](Alice Longbottom); Scavenger Hunt [24](Bi Character); Weddings Month [10](Confetti); Penguin Awareness [04]("...for this?"); Flowers [13]("...affect you?"); Sytherin OTPs [25](Lily/Alice); But Can You Spell It? [T](True); Bottle Fame/Brew Glory [Amortentia](Peppermint)[Alice Longbottom]
Other MC4A Challenges: SpB [4E](Kiss); TrB [2D](Power of Love); Ship (Gilded Lily)[Bingo](4C - Epiphany); Hunt [Sp Settings](Castle);
Representation(s): Black Lily Evans Potter/Alice Longbottom
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Odd Feathers
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: n/a
Word Count: 1397 words

(^^)
Badger Justice
(^^)

Alice walked out of the castle with her arm around Lily's shoulder. The other girl was leaning heavily onto Alice, almost making them both stagger drunkenly. The smell of the cocoa butter Lily preferred for conditioning her locs filled Alice's senses, teasing out a sense of relaxation that had been difficult to capture the last few months. Alice knew that Lily had found their OWLs particularly stressful. It was a combination of having everything riding on the results (since she didn't have any familial connections in the wixen world to fall back on) and the increase weight of her prefect duties that came from the escalating fighting between the self-named Marauders and the group of Slytherins that everyone knew where just biding their time until they were accepted as Death Eaters.

The war that was raging out in the real world was already deeply entrenched in the school. The fact that the majority of the professors weren't stopping any of it certainly didn't help any. Some didn't have the influence to manage it outside of their House or subject. Professor Sprout tried as did her bondmates Professors Hooch and Sinistra, but too many of the students either wrote them off due to being Hufflepuffs or because of the limited reach of their subjects. Slughorn was actively trying not to rock the boat, so to speak, because doing so would damage his web of influence that he took such pride within. McGonagall was the worst because she actively built up the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin with how she chose to punish (and not punish) students based on which House they were in. And all the while, she somehow got the reputation as being fair.

Alice had no clue how the old cat had managed that. Otherwise, she might have been a little impressed with it. If she could figure it out, maybe it would also shed some light on how Dumbledore had managed to get the reputation that he had. Hel's Bells, there were people who truly believed that Dumbledore was this great and innovated wizard to the point of believing that he could do no wrong. It was honestly more than a little bit scary.

The commotion by the lake drew both of their attention, even as weary as they were from a week of grueling exams. The small crowd that was gathering around whatever was happening hid what was happening from sight. That alone did not bode well, as it meant that other students were not likely to step in to stop it.

That usually meant that it involved the future Death Eaters in some way.

And given that the crowd outside was mostly made up of fifth-years who had just finished their last OWL, that meant that it was likely to be Severus Snape and at least one Marauder.

Lily heaved a sigh that echoed with tired defeat as she straightened out of her leaning. Alice watched as she visibly buried the exhaustion beneath a mask of authority. The crimson and gold prefect badge pinned to her robes was a heavy burden. Alice knew that all to well, given how she had a matching yellow and black badge pinned to her own.

"Kiss for luck," Lily murmured before darting in to press their lips together briefly. Alice only let her move a little bit away before pulling her back in for a proper kiss. When they broke away, Lily shook her head as if dazed. The silver bells dangling from her ears tinkled merrily at the motion. "Did you had to discombobulate me before I walk into that mess?"

"Oh, darling," Alice teased, "if that's all it takes to discombobulate you, just wait until I can get you into an abandoned classroom later."

"You're gonna kill me," Lily whined. Alice grinned wickedly.

"This is very true," she agreed. Lily rolled her eyes, already accustomed to her girlfriend's sense of humor.

Not saying anything more, they both hurried towards the crowd. Severus was visible above the heads of them all now, as he dangled upside down from one ankle. His robes kept falling down to bunch in his armpits. Thankfully, he had not followed the tradition of most wixen, meaning that he would have been wearing nothing beneath his robes. Unfortunately, he had followed it enough that he was just wearing pants and nothing else.

That was still more than Lily would have wanted to see of her childhood friend.

Alice gave her own sigh as she watched Lily go charging in to save the ungrateful git. Undeterred, she followed her girlfriend, intent to back up the effort to break up the confrontation. She knew for certain that the other Gryffindor prefect was not going to be any help. Remus Lupin was just as useless as a prefect as Lucius Malfoy had been as a Head Boy. Actually, if Malfoy was around, then he might actually have been more useful if only because Severus was a part of the same clique of bigots.

It was bad enough that Severus refused to thank Lily for any of her help, but there was a list of other things that he did which rubbed Alice the wrong way even if Lily kept forgiving him or making excuses. Near the top of the list of things that bothered Alice was how Severus kept making comments about Lily being different than other Muggle-borns and how he constantly seemed to 'forget' that Lily was dating Alice. Seriously, if she had to listen to him say that she and Lily were friends one more time, she didn't think she could stop herself from hexing him with boils somewhere both awkward and uncomfortable.

And James bloody Potter wouldn't be far behind him.

She might actually declare a blood feud against the boy if he didn't stop asking out her girlfriend.

"I don't need your help, mudblood," Severus shouted. Lily jerked back like he had slapped her. Then she visibly steeled herself.

"Fine," Lily said with a tone of firm finality as she holstered her wand. "I'll leave you to it, then."

And with those words, Lily ran off back towards the castle. Everything in Alice wanted to follow her, because it couldn't have been easy making the decision to cut the racist git out of her life after so many years of friendship (or something like it), but someone had to break up the fighting. Not to mention that Alice had been planning for this eventuality for the last year.

Alice pursed her lips into a stern frown as she reached into the drawstring bag that she had taken to keeping on the belt that she wore to cinch her robes at her waist. With a dramatic flare of her hand (that she definitely hadn't practiced until she got it just right), Alice threw the hand fully of muggle confetti at the dangling boy.

"What the bloody hell?!" Severus yelled.

"It's a celebration of just how stupid you are," Alice told him. She threw another handful at Potter, making him sputter in protest while his buddies Black and Pettigrew laughed so hard that they both were holding their stomachs and bent over by the time she had managed to get both hands reloaded for their own glittery baptisms. "I came all this way for this? To listen to you be a racist bag of dicks?"

"Oh, she's got your number, Snivellus!"

Alice threw another handful of confetti at Potter, making him sputter as some landed in his open mouth.

"Does nothing affect you?" she snapped. "You're just as bad as he is! Lily is already dating someone! Yet you constantly bother her for dates! At least he has the excuse of not seeing her as a person! You claim to be better than that, so maybe it's time to actually start acting like it!" She put her hands on her hips. "Now let him down, preferably without breaking his neck, and all four of you will follow me to report to Professor Sprout."

"Sprout?!" the Gryffindors protested as one. Alice grinned at them, knowing that she was showing too many teeth for the expression to be any comfort.

"There seems to an issue with your tolerance and self-discipline," Alice told them. "Who better to deal with that than the Head of the House with those values?"

None of them protested the decision again.