A/N: Here is another chapter! I really hope you like it as much as I liked writing it. Oh, and spot the semi-pun at the end!

Disclaimer: I am not Rowling so none of this belongs to me or was originally created by me.

September flashed by as everyone settled back into an easy rhythm. Hogwarts appeared very peaceful on the surface. Orange leaves were starting to drift gently from the trees and the weather became colder - an oasis from the chaos of the rest of the world. In reality, trouble brewed in its very depths as the tensions from outside gradually infiltrated the impenetrable walls, darkening the minds of its inhabitants.

Severus Snape sat on his bed in his dormitory, leafing through a potions manual. His dark lank hair covered his face as he absorbed as much information as he could. After losing Lily Evans' friendship, he had nothing much to do other than submerge himself in his studies as a way of trying to escape his cold reality. It bothered him how fine Lily seemed to be; she didn't look heartbroken or lonely or even slightly put out. She just looked the same as always: kind and beautiful and full of life. Why was she not feeling his loss the way he was grieving hers?

The door slammed as Styx Avery charged into the dormitory, causing the picture frame on the wall to rattle violently. One of Snape's other roommates that had been reading in the dormitory - Mulciber - watched him carefully.

"Why have we never done something about that blood traitor Potter or his disgrace of a lackey?" Avery spat.

The pure-blooded Slytherins avoided calling Sirius Black by his surname because of the shame it brought them. He was a painful reminder of the besmirching of the once impeccable Black line. Sirius took great pleasure in this and took every opportunity to remind them of his surname - even going as far as changing the names on all the Slytherin Quidditch uniform to Sirius Black mid-game.

"We have," Mulciber said, rolling his eyes, "but they've never been particularly bothered."

Snape, annoyed by the loud disturbance to the once quiet dorm, started to pull his curtains to.

"We need to hit them where it hurts, where they can't ignore us. We need to show them what it is to feel the strength and power of Lord Voldemort."

Mulciber stared at Avery; his eyes not betraying a hint of emotion. He answered coldly.

"And where might that be?"

The two boys deliberated for a moment. Both were trying to think of what someone could do to make them hurt, but neither had anything they cared for enough - other than Voldemort's cause.

Snape knew exactly what the answer was that they needed. He weighed his options. If he helped the boys in his house, he could gain some helpful contacts for the future and could prove to Lily how he was a person that she should be close to because he had power and could keep her safe from Voldemort. However, by helping Avery and Mulciber, he could risk hurting Lily. But maybe that's what had to happen for the greater good - this might be a way of getting Lily back.

"Evans"

Mulciber and Avery turned to Snape, eyeing him wearily. Neither knew the boy they had shared a dorm with for the past few years very well. To them, Snape was a half-blood (not worth much effort) who hadn't expressed much interest in their cause and seemed to spend all of his time hanging out with some girl. Last year, Snape had called that girl a mudblood, but that seemed to be more to rile Potter up than actually meaning the word. Although, Snape did seem to be very skilled in Potions and the Dark Arts and Voldemort was looking for more recruits. Maybe this was a way of pulling him into their circle.

"Alright," Avery said, leaning against one of the bedposts at the foot of Snape's bed. Everyone knew about the strange interest Potter had in Evans and it bothered them all. The Slytherins couldn't stand the thought of the ancient Potter blood being tainted by the blood of a muggleborn and Snape just didn't like the thought of anyone but him being interested in Lily. "What do you propose we do?"

Snape wasn't stupid and recognised this as a test. He would have been disappointed if Avery hadn't asked more of him. This meant that Avery was paying him some attention and Snape meant to prove himself. So together, the boys schemed, plotting against a girl who had been nothing but a friend.

"Do you think Professor Binns realised how boring his lessons are and just spontaneously died of horror?"

Sirius was nudging Remus, trying to get his attention. Remus was trying to ignore him as he wrote down notes from the lesson.

"Do you think Sirius Black realises how annoying he is being?"

"Sirius Black doesn't have the capacity to be annoying, you know that. Any attention from Sirius Black is a blessing."

Remus rolled his eyes and Sirius started to kick his chair.

"Mooooooony, I'm bored."

Noticing that Remus was ignoring him, Sirius sat back and scowled and looked about the room to try to entertain himself. Many of his friends weren't there; History of Magic wasn't a very popular subject to choose for NEWTs and Prongs was 'ill'. Lily Evans sat in the front row doodling something on her parchment. Sirius noted that the class really did have to particularly boring for Lily to not pay attention. He now felt much more justified in his decision to slack off. There were a fair few Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs in the class but none of them were doing anything engaging. Some were even paying attention! However, the Slytherins at the back captured Sirius' attention. Severus Snape and Styx Avery were sitting together (unusual in itself) and speaking in hushed voices. Since when had they been so chummy? This was something he should probably report to his fellow Marauders.

After the lesson was dismissed, Remus said goodbye to Sirius as he had another lesson to go to, so Sirius started to head back towards Gryffindor tower by himself. Lily was a few paces ahead of him, adjusting the books in her bag. Suddenly, a bright light shot past her head, missing narrowly. She toppled onto to the hard stone floor as she tried to dodge, falling hard.

"Evans!"

Sirius ran to check on her whilst looking around for the source of the spell. From the gloomy shadows of a tapestry, Mulciber and Avery appeared and Snape lurked behind them. Sirius stood up slowly and held his wand in one hand, whilst offering Lily the other.

"Very brave - catching people at unawares." Sirius drawled, eyeing the three boys in front of him. He could bet that, if this came to an actual fight, he and Lily could easily take them on.

"We're Slytherin: we don't have time for arrogant displays of bravery." Avery snapped as he threateningly took a few steps closer to the Gryffindors, Snape and Mulciber flanking him.

"And Snivellus," Sirius ignored Avery's comment, "trying to make some new friends? Scrap that, trying to make any friends at all?" He felt a pinch and turned to see Lily frowning him. How was she still sensitive about bullying Snivellus? That girl must have a heart of gold.

Snape remained impassive.

"I don't rely on a band of fools the same way as you do, Black."

Lily then took a step in front of Sirius, disregarding his vigorous tugs on her robes as he made an attempt in vain to keep her behind him.

"How about," She said cautiously, "We all just go our separate ways,"

A loud snort came from Avery.

"Scared, mudblood? You damn well should be. Lord Voldemort doesn't take mercy on blood as dirty as yours."

Snape saw the flicker of pain behind Lily's eyes as her entire existence was belittled into one word, but that was masked by a much more intense anger in response to the threat. Sensing this pause, Sirius took action.

"Stupefy!" Sirius shouted as he aimed at Mulciber, who took the spell head on and fell backwards onto the floor. Snape stepped over him and started firing spells at Sirius and Avery challenged Lily.

Bright flashes of light filled the corridor as a passionate fight ensued. Everyone involved fuelled their spells with hot-blooded fury as they ducked, dived and dodged.

"Impedimenta!"

"Petrificus totalus!"

"Furnunculus!"

"SECTUMSEMPRA!"

Sirius and Snape turned to see Lily lying on the floor: a dark crimson line appearing across her torso. Avery was running away from the scene with Mulciber. The two exchanged a high five as they bravely fled. Snape paled. This hadn't been the plan. This hadn't been the plan at all. Potter was meant to have been with them. They were supposed to threaten and insult Lily a bit before turning on him. That curse was never meant to be used on her. It should have been Black instead of Potter. Not her.

Sirius immediately abandoned Snape and ran to Lily on the floor.

"Help her!" He shouted at Snape, who was frozen watching the scene, "I don't know the counter spell and she's bleeding out!"

Of course he didn't know the counter spell; it was Snape's spell.

Snape hurried over and started muttering under his breath over Lily's pale limp body, as Sirius clutched her hand and held her head.

"There. It's done. She'll be fine." Snape said, more trying to comfort himself than inform Sirius.

He wasn't expecting Sirius to slam him into the wall, holding his wand to Snape's throat.

"If you ever come near my friends again," Snape could feel his hot breath against his neck as Sirius jabbed the wand harder into his windpipe, "there will be hell to pay. We're not powerless to cowards like you. You'll be able to see that power at the Whomping Willow under the full moon in a few nights. Trust me, Snivellus, once you see that, you won't want to cross us."

At that, Sirius loosened his grip and pushed Snape back into the wall before returning to Lily, who was slowly regaining consciousness. Snape didn't have a choice but to look at the two for one last time before rounding the corner that Avery and Mulciber had, shaking and wondering what twisted tale Sirius would tell his friends and Lily. Potter would surely do his hero act.

"Lily? Lily! Wake up, please please wake up."

Lily could make out the blurred shape of Sirius Black crouching over her. She felt light-headed and dizzy and her jumper felt oddly warm and sticky.

"Sirius?"

He heaved a huge sigh of relief as she started to sit up, gripping his arm tightly as she tried to keep her balance.

"Lily! You looked so bad- I was so worried- I'm just so glad you're ok!"

He gave her an enormous bear hug, crushing her ever so slightly. Lily laughed quietly before realising how uncomfortable this was all making her. She wasn't feeling quite up to laughter.

"Ow, Sirius, ow," she said smiling at him, "I'm fine, really. I'm improving by the second."

Sirius grinned, checking her for any injuries but the obvious, but he could find none.

"Do you think you'd be able to walk to the common room with me? We can make you so much more cosy there."

"I think so," Lily said uncertainly. She used Sirius to support her as she stood up and she rested against him as they started to make their way back to the common room, her looking very much like a baby horse walking for the first time.

James was lounging on the sofa in front of the crackling fire when the two stumbled in. Sirius was tiring as he held Lily and both their bags and Lily was starting to look quite white.

"Padfoot! How was…what the hell happened?!"

He leapt up to support Lily's other side and they slowly guided her to the sofa, where they set her down. James immediately started to gather cushions for Lily to rest on and covered her with the fluffy golden Gryffindor blanket, but not before checking with Lily that she wasn't still bleeding.

"We should go and get one her friends Padfoot. They could help her change her clothes and get her a good book and then we could go get her dinner and-"

"We were on our way back from class, Prongs, when three of those mini Deatheaters ambushed us. They got Lily with this strange curse and she lost a lot of blood. Snape knew how to counter it and healed her." Sirius defeatedly explained as he realised James wasn't going to stop babbling.

James was incensed, but tried to keep it cool around Lily.

"Who exactly?!"

"Avery."

James clenched his fists as he tried to keep calm.

"We should go to Dumbledore," Sirius continued, "We can't let them get away with-"

"No." Lily spoke up.

The two boys whipped their heads around to look at her.

"But Evans," Sirius spluttered, "they could have killed you."

"No. I want to show them that we can hold our own without running to Dumbledore. It'll give them all the more reason to bully us and I don't want to let pure-blooded wizards bully me out of this school." She explained firmly.

"Evans. That's stupid." James said, looking at her calmly. "Dumbledore could actually do something about them this time."

"I'm sorry, Potter, but it's what I want and, as the person who got sliced, I think that that should be respected."

He sighed and assented, though not without showing Lily his exasperation.

"Fine." he huffed, "Tell me if you need anything."

He aggressively picked up his book and sat himself down on an armchair and proceeded to hold his book open whilst watching Lily, who settled down to sleep. Sirius watched them, pondering the near-miss they had just had. He wondered what James would do.

But, amidst all this drama, Sirius had totally forgotten what he had said to Snape, and this would come back to bite him in the worst way possible.