For the first time since the night of Severus' incident in front of the Gargoyle statue, Lily and her group of friends sat near the Marauders for dinner in the Great Hall. But one of the seven fifth-year students was noticeably despondent.
Mary, usually so calm and friendly, had been crying on and off the entire evening since the incident in the Potions lab. Lily had been sure to bottle up several vials of the Draught of Peace they had brewed in order to help her friend cope, but even a perfectly brewed potion like that could only do so much. When she wasn't crying, she was almost catatonic, nodding absentmindedly to what her friends were saying without paying real attention. Even if the potion helped to calm her anxiety, it did little to shake the trauma and embarrassment of being tormented by her abusers so brazenly.
"That damned monster!" Marlene spat as her fist slammed onto the Gryffindor table. "That whole pack of snakes should be expelled!"
"I've been saying that since first year!" Sirius said, taking a seat beside the chocolate-haired, Muggle-born girl. "But oh, Evans wants to pretend that her precious Snape is somehow better than that rotten lot. I've lived with these fiends since the day I was born!"
Lily glared back at him with disgust. "Black, enough! This is hardly the time to try to get your licks in at Severus when Mary is the one who is hurting!"
"You think I don't know that she's hurting?!" Sirius roared back as he placed an arm protectively around his ex-girlfriend. "Of course she's in pain! Because of them! But what's done is done, and my only concern is how to keep it from happening ever again."
"As is mine! So focus on the monsters who planned and did this to her, and for Merlin's sake, stop trying to pretend like my friend is guilty or complicit in what happened!"
"If he's such a good friend, Evans…" James Potter broke his days-long silence with Lily to pipe in on the conversation. "Then why did he just stand there and let Rosier all but threaten to use the same bloody unforgivable on you? Friends fight for one another. They stick together and support each other."
Sirius and Remus immediately nodded in agreement, with Pettigrew being the one to lag behind before joining his friends' sentiments.
Lily's eyes lowered, unable to deny James' comments, much as she loathed the bespectacled boy. From the moment that Rosier and his gang arrived in the Potions lab, Severus was completely silent. She could see in his eyes that he wasn't okay with the things his fellow Slytherins were saying. It was unfair to expect him to raise a wand against such dangerous people, and that was assuming his magic was working correctly in the first place. But how could he not snap back at Rosier's comments?
And why, after the wanna-be Death Eaters left the classroom, did he leave with just an apology in his unusually soft voice? She was glad that Severus had kept his promise and been there to help teach Mary...but it was hardly appropriate for him to make such a hasty retreat after her fellow Muggle-born witch had been reduced to a panic attack. It took Lily almost a half hour to even get Mary to drink the potion and get back onto her feet to actually leave the Dungeons.
"Maybe he just thought he'd get in the way?" Lily tried to rationalize internally. "Severus has never been comfortable or good with emotional situations…"
Still...he could have tried. If for no other reason than to help the innocent bystander that his rotten house-mates had traumatized.
"You don't get to make accusations about his state of mind after you dropped him on his head, Potter." Lily hissed. "Or have you forgotten what he begged you to do that night?"
Marlene tossed her fork onto the empty plate in front of her. "Will you all stop arguing about Snape?! He's not the one who made Mary cry after bragging about violating her last year. I want to know what we're going to do about the ones that did this!"
"What can we do?" Lily asked in a huff. "Mulciber and Rosier have parents on the board of governors. Mulciber's wand was checked right after the incident and no sign of the Imperius Curse was found when we brought up the accusation. Veritaserum is forbidden, and the only one whose word we could take was Mary herself, but she has no conscious memory of what happened that day. We need concrete proof or an impartial witness before we can take any action."
"This is why I'm pointing at your snivelling boyfriend, Evans." Sirius said. "He could have spoken up and confessed on Mary's behalf, but didn't. So you can do us all a favor and stand aside because following the rules isn't going to work here. This calls for a brand of Marauder Justice."
Lily had a nagging desire to correct Sirius on calling Severus her boyfriend, but knew that wasn't going to help the situation. Nor was his suggestion of vigilante justice…
"Black, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I'm willing to look the other way on this one and pretend I didn't hear you say that. Let's say you get back at them. What's next? How do they retaliate after they regroup? Don't you see that this pointless back-and-forth can't keep escalating without someone being seriously hurt?"
"Says the girl who knocked Rosier's jaw loose, Lily!" Marlene said, looking at her in wide-eyed disbelief. "You may as well have painted a target on your back!"
"Exactly, and it's my back to paint it on. I'm aware of the consequences if it's just me that did it, but if this escalates into a full-scale gang war, think of how many are going to be hurt!" Lily argued.
James shook his head in frustration. "It may have escaped your notice, Evans, but You-Know-Who has split the whole wizarding world and the battle lines are being drawn. You're fooling yourself if you think that Rosier's band of snakes won't be our enemies after graduation. Don't talk about us starting a gang war when the war is already here."
Remus took the chance to add his piece to the conversation. "Nearly everyone in our year is 16 years old. In just a few months, we'll all be adults with no trace and no more simple consequences like detention. We're on the cusp of entering an adult world, and it's going to be ugly even with two years to go before we graduate. They've chosen their way, and everyone else at this table has chosen another."
"They started this fight. We'll finish it." Sirius added with spite.
"Peter…" James said, eyeing Pettigrew. "Do your thing and find out what the password is to the Slytherin common room tonight. That way after the Potion's O.W.L. tomorrow, we can pay the snakes a little visit."
"His thing?" Lily thought curiously.
After dinner, the Gryffindors made their way back up to the Common Room with the sole exception of Peter Pettigrew, who had disappeared shortly after James Potter's request. Lily wasn't sure how the lump of a boy had vanished, but she did know the reason. James and Sirius, even Remus to a lesser extent, could not be dissuaded in their goal to get back at Rosier's gang. The girls, preoccupied with getting Mary to the safety of sleep, did not linger in the common room and retired to their bedroom.
And so, Lily tried to rest, knowing that James and the Marauders were likely planning some form of retribution. She only hoped that her willingness to look the other way just this once would not be a choice she'd regret. For the sake of other students who might be caught in the crossfire...most importantly, Severus.
Lily knew that they were right. It was no secret to any of them who was going to take up the horrible cause of Lord Voldemort and commence their purge of Muggles and Muggle-born witches and wizards like her. All in the name of a mission that painted the Muggle world as a prison for witches and wizards to live in hiding, and evoked imagery of the horrible witch hunts and executions from a more barbaric era in order to recruit new followers. A message of independence for all magic folk, freedom from the shackles that the Ministry of Magic and the yoke of laws that seemingly only existed to protect Muggles and punish themselves.
A clever political maneuver to sway those with prejudice and influence in the magical world. It was just like the horrible stories her mother would tell her of a childhood in Germany during the 1930s, and the atrocities that were committed in the name of an equally insane tyrant during the Nazi regime. How the poison spewed by a tyrannical madman tainted the minds of impressionable young people. Startlingly similar to what had happened in recent years in the wizarding world.
But Lily couldn't believe that all of them were beyond saving. She'd long suspected that Severus would join the Death Eater cause for his own misguided reasons. Whether it was feelings of inadequacy to his impoverished living conditions, or his total distrust of Muggles due to a very unpleasant father, Lily couldn't be certain. She knew that her best friend had his own warped perceptions that joining Voldemort might not be a bad idea, and those suspicions had been the cause of their rapidly deteriorating friendship.
Had their conversations in the last week gone even slightly differently, Lily may have written Severus off forever as being a lost cause, even if it broke her heart to do so. Yet friends they remained after he showed remorse and the truth of his fragile mind became apparent to her. Even that afternoon in the Potions lab, though he had said nothing in protest to Rosier and Mulciber's disgusting display, she could see the shame in his eyes. Once he left her to tend to Mary, he departed with an apology that seemed to almost be on the verge of tears.
That was not the appearance of an irredeemable monster like how her other friends saw him. She knew Severus had it in him to make a better choice. Perhaps he had already made it and was just awkwardly trying to tiptoe around things while his spellcasting ability was still problematic?
Lily sighed, rolling onto her side and looking out the window to the crescent moon visible outside her window. Where had he gone after leaving the classroom? If he had gone to retire to the Slytherin dormitory, he would have had to walk the opposite direction down the hallway, but instead he had taken the path which led back up to the upper floors. And again, he hadn't even come to eat dinner in the Great Hall. Something in Severus' daily routine had drastically changed, even after leaving the Hospital Wing. Almost as if he were trying to avoid everyone else even more than usual.
"Where is he disappearing to?" she thought to herself as sleep finally took her.
Several hours later, Lily woke up well before daybreak, and mercifully realized that she'd gotten enough rest for such an early start. It was still almost two hours before dawn, and as she groggily padded towards the showers clad in her white nightgown, she mentally prepared herself for the monolithic day ahead. She had been assigned morning Prefect patrols on the third floor hallways while it was still dark, and then of course there were the Potions O.W.L.s later in the day.
Still, despite the early start to her day, Lily was happy that it was on a relatively unpopulated part of Hogwarts. Some of the more ominous patrols in her year as a Prefect had taken her down to the Hogwarts Dungeons, which was never a pleasant experience if she ran into an out-of-bed Slytherin. The third floor was a much more uneventful route, and the only time she'd ever found anyone were the poor souls who had run afoul of that enchanted mirror. She'd given many detentions and taken points away from the houses of students who had remained near it until the wee hours of the morning, but they often were too dazed by the images they saw to really protest her decision.
As she reminisced under the steam and hot water of the shower, Lily recalled the time that she had found the mirror after getting lost in the castle during her first year. How happy she was at the image she saw of herself and Petunia hugging and acting like true, loving sisters again. At that time, the mirror had been in a disused classroom on the fifth floor, and due to its rather addictive nature, it never seemed to have a permanent home in the castle.
Lily had long since given up hope for any reconciliation with her older sister though, and while Marlene and Mary could never be related to her by blood, she loved them dearly as if they were.
"I wonder what I'd see looking into it now?" she thought as she continued her early morning shower.
Making her way down the Great Staircase, all Lily could hear was the echoing pitter-patter of her footsteps alongside the distant ticking of the Hogwarts Clock Tower. It was a rare sound for her to hear outside of these patrols, since the overwhelming roar of a crowd of students could so easily overtake its repetitive noise in the distance.
Once Lily made it to the third floor, however, she was startled by a voice that hissed softly in the darkness as she made her way towards the old staff chambers where the mirror currently resided. Just as she was about to announce her presence as a Prefect and demand that the presence identify itself, she started to make out what was a very familiar, rhythmic and deliberate delivery.
"-Mark my words…" the voice whispered before it trailed off, too hard to hear amidst another voice whimpering.
"Sev..?" Lily asked herself as she tiptoed softly towards the staff room, confirming to herself that it was him as the voice became clearer on her approach. "Who is he talking to?" She silently extinguished the light at the tip of her wand so as to not give her presence away.
"I will find you. I will cut you with my spell until you nearly bleed to death. Then, I will heal the wounds and force feed you a blood-replenishment potion. And I will do this every day of your miserable life until one of us dies of old age. A Dementor's Kiss is as nothing before my wrath, Pettigrew. Do you understand me?"
Lily gasped in horror at the ruthless threats that Severus vowed, nearly dropping her wand as her fingertips instantly went numb.
"Y-y-y-yesss!" the second voice squealed, and Lily recognized it as the voice of Peter Pettigrew.
"Go. I'm sure Potter is worrying where his little rat has been all night. Feel free to lie to him, not that it matters to me."
Lily planted herself against the stone wall nearby as Pettigrew ran past, nearly tripping over his own legs in order to escape the student who had so brutally threatened him. Luckily, it seemed like neither boy noticed her from the darkness of the hallway, but now what was she to do? How could she just ignore what she heard?
That dark voice...it was almost identical to the cold-hearted Boggart who wore her friend's face and the robes of a devoted Death Eater. But this was no doppelganger. It was Severus himself. She could see his shadow illuminated by the light of the fireplace she knew to be in that room.
Was Severus...living there? In the same room as the mirror?
Taking a single step forward caused that shadow to extend back towards the entrance of the room.
"Forget something, Wormtail?" he spat with an icy dagger of hostility audible in his voice.
But as Lily revealed herself in the doorway of the chamber, she instantly saw the aggression and sneer dissolve from his face.
"...How long were you listening?" Severus asked, his black gaze searching her for something.
"Long enough. Start talking, Severus." Lily demanded, her eyes wide in disbelief and disgust. "What the hell was that all about?! And why in Merlin's name did you threaten to torture Pettigrew?! What you just said was more horrible than the bloody Cruciatus Curse!"
Her breaths grew shallow, her lips quivered. She could immediately notice the change in his demeanor when she made her presence known, but should she believe it anymore? Could she?
Was his belligerence just a mask he used to intimidate those that he had a mutual dislike for? Especially one of James Potter's Marauders? Was the soft-hearted boy from Cokeworth that she now stood before in fact the true self of Severus Snape?
Or was this the mask? Was that kindness and remorse just a honeyed appearance that he put on for her to keep her around? Had her fears come true after all? She had to know. One way or another, she would have her answers on where he stood.
And as Lily tapped her foot impatiently, awaiting his answer, a part of her was bracing for what could be their very last conversation ever as friends if he were truly capable of the unspeakable violence she had overheard.
Author's Note: I bet some of you thought that things were going to be all sunshine and rainbows for Lily and Severus moving forward, eh? She'd forgiven him, it seemed like all was well, but ultimately Severus Snape is who he is; a dark hero.
Naturally, there's more to the story than what Lily overheard, and reasons why Severus would make such a vicious threat. And then of course there's the conversation with Dumbledore which predates Lily's early-morning patrol. We'll swing back around to the Severus PoV for the next chapter! Thank you all for the reviews and comments so far, and PLEASE keep them coming. Details, thoughts, and theories are what I love to see following a few hours spent writing. I appreciate you all.