The Middle

by onceintothelight

September, 1975

In the window seat of a particularly rambunctious compartment near the very end of a gleaming scarlet train sat a redheaded girl, her arms crossed, her legs wound together, and a deep and rather angry frown on her face as she considered the empty seat across from her.

He'd promised. He'd promised.

Once again, Severus Snape had abandoned her to fend for herself. For the second year in a row. She supposed she wouldn't have minded as much if she wasn't so sentimental in nature, but more important than that, he'd made a promise, and there just wasn't any forgiving a broken promise.

Not until she'd heard his excuses, anyway.

Anyway, there were a number of reasons to be upset at Severus right now, but this was simply the cherry on a very large, very decadent sundae.

Lily Evans huffed and stole a glance at her slim brown leather wristwatch. 11:09. Oh, he was in such trouble.

The group of third years who occupied the rest of the compartment were so loud that Lily nearly missed the compartment door sliding open and her name being called twice in quick succession. She looked up.

Yuna Kang, a Hufflepuff in Lily's year, stood, propping the sliding door open with a hip, a rather confused smile on her face. "Aren't you supposed to be up front?" she asked, her brow raised.

"Come again…?"

"Erm. Eden Marrow mentioned it, her mum's one of the school governor's… you're the new Gryffindor prefect, right?"

It only took Lily a moment before the gears in her head clunked into place and she felt the blood drain from her face. "Oh, bollocks." She leapt from her seat, and hastened towards the door, nearly tripping over a girl's outstretched legs. "Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks! I completely forgot!"

Yuna stepped back to allow her passage. "I think they're in the first compartment," she said amusedly.

"Thank you!"

The train corridor seemed limitless as she sprinted towards the other end, dodging the stray students, a stream of paper cranes which went flying by her left ear, and a crate of Quidditch equipment someone had casually left out in the aisle. A short, blonde figure exited a compartment to her left all of a sudden, and Lily crashed into them before she could control herself.

"Ow!"

Lily whirled about, running backwards now, and gave her housemate, Peter Pettigrew, an apologetic look, one more sincere than she might usually allow him, considering the circumstances. "Sorry, Peter!"

"What's going on, Pete?" a voice asked from within the compartment the blonde had just left, but Lily was already hastening away before she could hear a response.

The panic had settled somewhere near her throat by the time she reached the prefect's compartment and, taking barely a second to compose herself, slid the door open as silently as she could. She needn't have bothered.

There weren't many left in the compartment, though whoever was there turned to her upon her arrival. Lily glanced at the boy seated near the window with a book propped on his knee, and was relieved to see him offer her a tiny wink.

Her view was abruptly blocked by a tall Slytherin girl sporting a gold badge on her chest. Lily swallowed in embarrassment at the Head Girl's look of heightened displeasure.

"I'm so, so sorry…" Lily started, but was cut off.

"I assume you're Evans?" she asked frigidly. "If your first impression is anything to go by, you'll be kicked out of your post by the end of the month." She quickly consulted the parchment in her hand. "You'll patrol the bathrooms at both ends of the train from noon until one. Watch for unauthorized magic usage in the compartments and the halls, exercise your authority within reason." She gave the redhead a tight glare and stomped from the compartment, slamming the glass behind her.

Lily's face burned with shame. Then, she trudged over to the window, towards the last remaining occupant, who was reading from a book entitled Unforgivable Curses and Their Legal Implications, sinking into the seat beside him with a groan. "I'm absolutely mortified," she muttered, leaning her head back on the seat.

"Where were you?" her companion questioned, still perusing his book.

"Waiting for you. At our usual compartment."

Severus Snape looked up with faint amusement. "Daft of you."

She punched him on the arm. "I'm very aware. Were they simply furious?"

He shrugged. "I wouldn't worry about it," he said, which was Sev-speak for "it isn't something you can change, anyway." Lily sighed.

"Who else, from our year?"

"Marrow and Eckhart from Hufflepuff. Selwyn and Fenwick from Ravenclaw. Chu from my house and…" Sev made a face of profound revulsion, shutting his book with a clean snap. "Lupin."

"Hm. Well, better him than Pettigrew. Or the other two," Lily commented lightly. "Can you imagine?"

"I would have simply thrown myself off the train," Sev said drolly, and Lily laughed. She suddenly remembered she'd spent the morning properly resenting her friend for absolutely no reason and felt a surge of guilt.

"When's your patrol shift, anyway? Why don't you join me in our compartment... we can eat our weight in licorice wands and chuck the wrappers at the other kids."

Sev was silently considering the cover of his book. "…I can't. I promised some of my housemates I'd sit with them."

Lily furrowed her brows. "For the whole trip?"

"You know I'm trying to be on good terms with them," Sev said in a low voice, looking at her beseechingly.

Yes, Lily acknowledged, this was true.

It had been very clear since she'd entered Hogwarts' hallowed halls for the very first time that the friendship between Sev and her was considered very, very… odd. Borderline unacceptable. While they'd worked around this minor inconvenience, it did make people around them take notice, and they'd unwittingly caught the eye of all the witches and wizards in their respective houses and year.

In her own case, she had been somewhat determined not to build enemies within her own house… but over the years, the task had grown insurmountably challenging. She maintained a decent working relationship with her dormmates, four girls who she'd never managed to get all that close to, but could count on to lend her a quill in class. But being on good terms with her other housemates meant putting up with dungbombs in her school bags, the occasional wily hex on her hair or a tripping jinx in the hall, and generally repressing the urge to whap all four of them over the head with a broom.

On the other hand… being on good terms with Sev's Slytherin dormmates meant cracking jokes about Muggleborns, discussing and participating in the Dark Arts and sharing in purist propaganda.

She didn't want that for him... but what was she to do?

Lily chewed her lip in dissatisfaction. "…alright. But if you can, come find me later."

"Of course."

The line for the rear end toilet was oddly long. Lily peered around the shoulders of some antsy students and considered the locked door. She tapped the elbow of a dark-haired girl in front of her. The girl turned.

"Erm… how long have you been waiting?"

"Nearly fifteen minutes, it's a bloody joke," the girl scoffed. Her eyes caught on Lily's chest. "Hey, you're a prefect! Can't you do something? Throw your weight around somehow?"

Lily sighed and maneuvered her way around the line and stood before the occupied toilet; she knocked. After a long moment of silence, she knocked again.

"What?" a shrill, sharp female voice responded.

"Could I ask what the hold up is? Only, you've managed to gather quite the line out here…"

"And that's my problem… how?"

Lily blinked. She looked back at the line of heads, all watching with equal amounts of curiosity and impatience.

"Well, it's less of a crowd now and turning into a bit of an angry mob, if you know what I mean. So I'd say that'll become your problem soon. Is there something going on? Do you…" she lowered her voice. "Do you need a tampon… or something?"

There was the quiet sounds of sniffling and then the sound of a nose being blown quite aggressively into a paper towel. "Just… just give me a second, okay?"

Lily turned to face the crowd. "Only a moment, everyone!" The line cheered.

After about two minutes of protracted silence in which Lily smiled nervously at the crowd and checked her watch about every five seconds, the door finally slid open to reveal one of Lily's roommates, Mary Macdonald, holding all of her luggage, including her school trunk. Clearly, the brunette hadn't been expecting her either, judging by the ay her brown eyes widened and her glossy lips parted in shock.

"Evans!" She looked around, grabbed the redhead by an elbow, and dragged her away from the group, allowing the first person in line to duck into the toilet. ("Fucking finally!") "Please don't… tell anyone about that. Will you?"

Lily shook her head. She really didn't care. Plus, who on Earth was she supposed to tell? Like Severus gave a rat's arse about petty Hogwarts gossip.

Mary sighed in relief, her shoulders sagging. Her warm eyes were still a bit red and this was what softened Lily, just a bit. "Do you have somewhere to sit?"

Mary glanced at her. "No, actually."

Lily found herself leading the smaller brunette down the hall. Lily's own compartment was still buzzing with activity as Lily guided her housemate into the seat nearest to her. They hauled her luggage over the rack and settled in place, the two of them exchanging a quick, awkward smile.

"So…" Lily started, tugging at her sleeve.

Mary pointed at her chest. "I knew you'd get that."

Lily looked down at the gleaming badge that rested there. "Oh, this?" she laughed. "I don't know, Corinne might have given me a run for my galleons."

"Her?" Mary's pretty face twisted into an expression of disgust. "The only way she could handle a position of authority is if she was Imperius'd through it."

Lily blinked. Mary, Corinne Hathaway, and Anna Price, another one of their housemates, had been inseparable, best mates, since their very first year. Lily resisted the urge to ask what the hell was going on and why, exactly, she'd found Mary crying in a locked toilet.

"It was definitely yours. The only thing off with you is that you're always hanging around that dodgy Snape character... isn't that right?"

Lily narrowed her eyes. "He's not dodgy. Plus, he's the Slytherin prefect now."

"Oh. Weird," Mary said, unconcernedly flipping her dark locks over a shoulder. "I might have expected Arvin Mulciber, maybe… he's really cute. Great hair."

Lily wondered what, exactly, this had to do with anything.

Before she could summon up an adequate response, the compartment door slid open, granting her a welcome distraction. When she looked up, however, her expression deadened.

There couldn't have been a more unwelcome distraction in the history of distractions.

"Ah, Mary… and Evans." Said with a bit of relish. How irritating. How hateful.

Lily raised her brows at the skinny, messy-haired boy now occupying the compartment entrance. His wide grin was wicked, and he didn't seem put off by her open distaste. She supposed it had never stopped him before. To her deepest annoyance, the rest of the compartment seemed to have gone slightly quiet in the presence of this boy, which meant, when he spoke on, he didn't have to yell over the din at all, simply resuming his normal tone of speech.

"I didn't realize the two of you were mates," he commented, gaze flickering between the girls.

"Why wouldn't we be, we're in the same house?" Mary snapped. Lily glanced at her. They certainly weren't good mates, but they'd always been… vaguely mate-y, so she supposed it wasn't an outright lie. Anyway, Mary was clearly going through some friendship crisis at the moment, so she allowed her this untruth. "Oh, go on, what are you doing here?"

Potter exhaled. "Weeeeeell, Anna came around our compartment, was requesting I permanently jinx your eyebrows off your face the next time I saw you, you remember that clever little move of mine—oi, budge up, mate—" he added, kicking a third year out of his seat and planting himself down on the empty bench across from them like it was a throne, "—and see, I don't hex on command, s'not my thing, but I thought I might come down here and figure out what inspired such hatred." His eyes shifted to Lily, and he gave her a lazy grin. "And why you've moved on to present company."

Lily said nothing, observing him coolly. He seemed to enjoy that, his hand coming up to ruffle his hair as they maintained unflinching, corrosive eye contact.

"That bitch," Mary said roughly, and the moment broke. Her hands were curled into fists against her lap. "She's really, really asking for it."

"What'd you do?" Potter asked, leaning forward.

"Never you mind."

He raised a dark brow and leant back in his seat, shifting his robes until they revealed the handle of his mahogany wand, jutting cheerfully from the pocket of his trousers. He fingered it carelessly. "I really didn't want to have to do this, but…"

Both Mary and Lily eyed his wand warily. He smiled.

Arrogant berk, Lily thought furiously.

"It's a long story, involving some stupid, silly pact that I broke, and the girls hate me, and it's all my fault, okay? Move along," Mary snapped, talking very quickly. Perhaps she thought she'd be hexed if she didn't.

"This wouldn't happen to do with the Quidditch party at the end of last term… and Sirius and you… would it…?" Potter asked slyly. "Birds are hysterical."

Mary was disgusted. "He told you?!"

Potter shrugged, looking nonchalant. "There are no secrets amongst the Marauders."

"Gross," Lily muttered, before she could help herself, and he heard her, hazel eyes flashing to her. After a long moment, a smile crept onto his face.

"But you might want to be careful, Mary," he said slowly. "Spend too much time with Evans and you'll end up with her all-too-unpleasant Slytherin stink. It'll take more than a few showers to rid yourself of that!" He laughed and hopped out of his seat, leaving the compartment in a flash.

Lily's jaw dropped.

That arrogant berk!

"Can you believe that tosser?" Mary said incredulously, though Lily wasn't sure if she was referring to his last comment or the fact that he seemed to be aware of some secret tryst between Mary and his best mate. "I mean, where does he get off? Threatening us like that?" She huffed, paused and considered, and then slipped an arm through Lily's. "Don't worry about him, Evans, he's only jealous that neither of us would give him the time of day, even if he begged. Anyway, I've lived with you for four years and there's no stink on you, not a thing," she added, as though Lily might actually be concerned about this.

The redhead repressed a smile. "Right. Thanks, Mary."

The rest of the train ride was remarkably uneventful, which Lily was grateful for. They feasted on cauldron cakes and licorice wands and Lily purchased a few Drooble's for the carriage ride. Sev never did make it to her end of the train for a visit, but perhaps that was for the best, as she seemed to have grown a shadow, in the form of a Mary MacDonald, and she wasn't sure how the two of them would interact were they forced to do so.

Speaking with Mary was a wholly different experience; she wasn't all that serious, she was very focused on the subject of boys, which Lily had never given much thought to, and she seemed to be extremely concerned about the status of her popularity, now that she'd lost both her closest friends after snogging Sirius Black at the end of last term.

"I mean, it's not as though I went into that night knowing I'd go off with Black," she was saying as they changed into their robes, dodging the flailing elbows of the pack of third years who were doing the same. "But then I had a few, he was being all… charming, and he's just so fit. I couldn't control myself. I promise, if either of them had been in the same situation, they would have done exactly the same thing. And I wouldn't have had a cow about it! I only went along with that 'slags before shags' pact because they were being so scary and intense about the whole thing, I thought they might peel off my nail beds in my sleep if I said no. I mean, both of them desperately need to get shagged," Mary finished her assessment.

Lily was riotously amused by the entire thing, but was trying not to showcase it, in case it offended the girl. "Hmm."

"What about you, Evans? I've never seen you out with a bloke… unless… you really are seeing Snape?" she asked, making a face.

Lily looked over at her as she fiddled with her sleeves. "First off, he's not so bad. I don't understand why you're being so harsh with him."

Mary made some unintelligible noises under her breath.

"Second, no, I'm not seeing him, nor anyone. I'm not interested in that right now," she finished with dignity. "I mean, they're all just boys. I like men."

Mary laughed at that. "I think you've got the right idea there, Evans!"

The train slowed to a stop and Lily glanced out the compartment window at the sky. It was a dark, velvety charcoal, and there was a faint drizzle falling on the village, which was building in momentum. Lily considered jamming her hair into a hat, but decided she'd risk the jog to the carriages.

There was some chaos in the corridors, which Lily and Mary managed to somewhat avoid. Mary stepped off the train, gesturing for Lily to hurry, before shrieking as she ran for the cover of the carriages, part of her robes held over her head to block out the rain. Lily made to follow but nearly fell off the steps as something small and bright came careening towards her; she grabbed the side of the train entrance to steady herself and caught the flying thing before it smashed into her face.

It was a Golden Snitch. It fluttered helplessly in her hand, eager to escape her clutches.

"Good catch, Evans! Color me impressed. Now, hand it over, won't you?" a voice drawled and Lily looked down, already very aware of to whom this bloody thing belonged.

Potter looked up at her, a calm, haughty smile on his face, and behind him stood his cronies, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew, waiting impatiently and shivering very slightly in the drizzle. She made eye contact with each of them in turn (Black and Pettigrew looking bored) and her eyes lingered on the badge pinned to Lupin's robes.

Oh, it was going to be a long year, indeed, with one of these duffers in a position of authority.

She turned her eyes back on Potter and something in his expression, the hubristic belief that everything would work in his own favor, and as he would desire it to, gave her pause. Without even making a conscious decision of it, she released the little Snitch in her hand and it zipped above her head and out of sight.

Potter stared.

"I figured you wouldn't want it anymore. It'd be a pain to get all that Slytherin stink off of it," she said very casually.

She knew she'd pay for challenging Potter, but just then, she was feeling far too smug to care.

She stepped off the train, leveled her eyes with his—they were exactly the same height—and knocked shoulders with him as she made her way to the horseless carriages that would take them up to the school.