Chapter 1: "We Can't All Save the World"
There's never a start to war – never a single, defined moment that one can put a thumbtack to, because everything just builds and soon it's impossible to realize which of the falling foundational bricks caused the whole house to crumble down. But if there was to be such a moment, if they were to single out a "start" to fit their end, to condense a story neatly into clean lines and elegant words, it would be this, Moody thinks later. Much later, because every war starts as a single battle, a small fleet of battles, a larger fleet of battles, until suddenly, you look around and realize it is a war, and it has been, perhaps since that very first battle.
The first battle is this: a whispered Imperio through a light, almost golden-colored, wand into the brilliant green eyes of a strong man, once confident but increasingly desperate as he realizes just what he had got himself into. Years of Occlumency training, failing because mental defenses are impossible to keep up for so long, and he's just so tired. And just like that, while everyone is sleeping, on a biting winter day in November, 1975, the world slips into what will later be known as war.
Lily Evans was one of those who would fight that fact, though – the type of person who would argue with a fire in her eyes burning as bright as her auburn hair that the war had never really ceased from Grindelward's time, just been pushed back. That the forces of light had powered over the dark then, but that it wasn't meant to stay that way forever, because there would always be another one.
However, when she woke up in her bed, the one closest to the door on the left-most side of the room she shared with the four other Gryffindor sixth-year girls, that wasn't what she was thinking about, because, of course, she didn't know there was a war at all. Instead, she was thinking about her name. Lily Evans quite disliked her name.
It wasn't because she hated being named after a flower, but because it was that flower. Symbolism: devotion and innocence. Frilly dresses, a maiden in need of rescue, stuffed animals and everything else precious.
Of course, she didn't mind most of those things: she rather liked wearing dresses, still kept stuffed animals on her bed, and had quite a large of things the other members of her house deemed 'cute but useless'. She quoted Jane Austen and put clips in her hair and wore high heels.
However, what she did mind was what she called the 'pure maiden' interpretation. People named Lily in books – for she got a large amount of her knowledge base from them, having done very little else besides reading in a tiny treehouse at the edge of the woods that were a ten-minute bicycle ride away from her childhood home – weren't doers. They were beautiful, and pure, and occasionally brilliant, but she had never heard of a main character in an adventure novel being named Lily. And she wanted to be one.
It was perhaps this thought that led her to hate James Potter in the first place, all those years ago, even before he'd hexed her and after she'd rejected becoming friends with him, that first day at the Great Hall. 'James' was a name like that too. It was a name for poets, maybe, and writers, but not Quidditch players. People named James weren't doers – so how could he so effortlessly become one? In reality, he didn't much care for his reputation, but she cared rather a lot about hers, and she was naïve enough and just a little bit foolish enough to think that everyone thought like her. But of course, she would learn it in time.
Back to her, though – Lily Evans, a Muggle-born witch, seventeen years old next January. She was pretty, but in an average way: the kind of girl that you wouldn't notice out on the street, but realize that she was really quite beautiful if you looked into her eyes, a deep, rich green color that felt sort of earthy, like a reflection of the forest. She quite liked that, because it sounded like something out of an Oscar Wilde novel. That was another reason why she had never liked James, and, unfortunately – or well, fortunately for her – that one was not very accurate either, because although he teased her for it relentlessly, James Potter had spent many hours reading in the Potter family library himself, which – once again – she would learn in time.
"Get up Lily, breakfast is almost over!" A cheery voice sing-songed, and suddenly the curtains around her bed were opened to reveal bright sunlight streaming through the windows. Lily groaned, lifting her hands to shield her eyes from the sunlight. She was not a morning person, but the girl in front of her – Anne Bainsbridge, a petite blonde with a penchant for fashion and driving Lily mad every morning, most definitely was.
Anne was pretty, but in a more striking way than Lily: her hair was so light it was almost white, but her eyes were a deep, chocolate brown and there was something about her that made you want to look twice. She was bubbly and outgoing, a great friend but also someone Lily had had to reign back so many times because she was just so reckless, so utterly Gryffindor that Lily could not fathom how she had been a Hat Stall (two-and-a-half minutes). She got up early in the mornings to watch the sunrise from the Astronomy Tower, and her best friend was one Remus Lupin, who any outsider could tell she had a crush on (and if they couldn't, she'd tell them – she said she liked to process these sorts of things through talking about them, but really, she just wanted word to get back to him so he'd say he was interested, or say he wasn't interested, or whatever.)
Anne Bainsbridge, however, was also the bane of Lily's existence at the moment, and it took everything Lily had to not pull her covers up and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, Lily was quite hungry, and anyways, Anne definitely would not let her sleep, so instead, she pulled the covers off and reluctantly got up.
After a long, arduous process of about twenty minutes, Lily was finally rewarded with arriving at the Great Hall. She sat down at the very middle seat on the left side of the table, directly opposite to Anne. On her left side was Peter Pettigrew, a blond-haired, pink-cheeked boy with just a bit more baby fat than was 'cute' and just a slightly rounder jawline than was 'sharp'. Lily liked Peter just enough to sit next to him, but then everyone did – he was a master at witty jokes if you liked to hear that sort of thing, and he could carry on a conversation well enough otherwise. On her right side was Marlene McKinnon, a tall girl with hair as red as Lily's but a bit more vibrant, another of her roommates, although admittedly the one she knew the least about. Marlene did not really talk that much to Lily; she didn't talk to anyone much at all. She was of the rare type that preferred to always be by herself, and she only really talked at mealtimes when something monumental had happened. Lily looked at the breakfast selections, peering curiously although she knew everything was almost always the same, and then took a large bowl of fruit, because she had made a bet with Lydia Brown, one of her best friends (along with Anne) who lived in her dormitory (although Lydia always went to breakfast early nowadays), that she could eat healthy for a longer time. So far, they were up to twenty-seven days with neither of them having backed down.
"Lily, have you seen the daily Prophet?" Marlene asked when Lily had taken her first bite of cantaloupe. Lily shook her head 'no', and motioned for Marlene to go on.
"They've published a ransom letter from some Lord Voldemort fellow." Lily's eyes went very wide at this, and – though she'd deny it later – her face went very pale. She had kept up with the news interestedly in the past few years, wanting to be informed on politics because she wouldn't stay in the Hogwarts bubble forever, and knew exactly what this "Lord" had in mind for people like her, and Lydia, who was also a Muggleborn.
"'If the Minister does not step down immediately, the Auror Cattermole will be disposed of, and I'd hate to see any pure-blood spilled at the hands of the Ministry.'" Marlene continued, not meeting Lily's eyes but with a quiver in her voice that made Lily suspect she was much more rattled than she appeared, which scared Lily more than even the letter, because Marlene was normally one of the most calm people she'd ever met, and she wouldn't be scared unless it was for good reason.
"Do you think they'd really do it?" Lily asked, knowing the response but wanting to hope that someone would prove her wrong.
"Nah, if the Ministry's got any sense they'd realize there's no way he's going to be left alive either way." James Potter, a tall boy with messy jet-black hair and circular glasses who was sitting a couple seats down the table, interjected. Lily glared at him, both for interrupting the conversation (although could she really consider it interrupting when he was almost right next to them?) and for saying the harsh words she'd known would be the correct answer.
"Shouldn't they save him then?" Peter asked from next to Lily, saying the words she thought, and James sighed, shaking his head a bit.
"They should, but have they got the Aurors?" James replied smoothly, and his hand did not shake while he buttered his toast, even with such a gruesome subject matter. Lily still thought he seemed off today somehow, and scanned him, when it struck her what was odd: his whole body was still – from the leg that was constantly shaking under the table, to the eyes that were lifeless when they were usually full of laughter, to the hand currently picking up a grape. No, this most definitely was not normal.
"They wouldn't just let him die." Peter replied, his brow furrowed. Lily nodded, agreeing – since when had the world come to such desperation that they would just let Cattermole, one of the most experienced Aurors, die? Wasn't it worth it to save his life, even if it wasn't worth it to save anyone else's?
She looked for Reg Cattermole, a fifth year and the Auror's son, at the Ravenclaw table, but he looked – well, normal really, laughing and joking around with his friends, which ordinarily would be commonplace in Hogwarts, but there was a subdued air this morning, and everyone spoke in whispers besides him and the Slytherin table.
"'Suppose so." James shrugged, and then no one spoke for a bit, because it was frightening to think that an auror had been kidnapped, but only for a bit, because then Sirius Black (ironically, a laid-back boy who was anything but serious), James' best friend who had the same dark hair as him but with grey eyes instead of brown ones, made some joke to James, who was sitting next to him, and then he laughed and told it to Peter, and then they started having a conversation, and then some spell broke and conversations broke out all over the Gryffindor Table. When Lily, who had been engrossed in talking to Anne about the new Potions assignment ("God, wasn't it such a bore?" "I swear Slughorn assigns more busy work than real NEWTs prep"), looked up, everyone else had started talking too. Reg Cattermole had left.
One note about Reg Cattermole: he most definitely could not stand this type of attention. He had bright red hair, dark brown eyes, and a consistently-rumpled blue tie. The Sorting Hat had nearly put him into Hufflepuff, because really, he was about as carefree as it got (but he wanted Ravenclaw, and all his family had been Ravenclaw, so it had begrudgingly agreed). He liked to play pranks; he wanted to have fun in life, and he was the most easygoing of almost the entire fifth year.
So, when he got the news about his father, he acted in a very strange way: he did not act as though it had happened at all for a few minutes, choosing instead to ignore the Prophet laid out in front of him and the kind, concerned, and annoying, stares from the other members of his House. But then, coincidentally of course, he felt an overwhelming migraine come on, the kind that hits so hard it feels like your brain is throbbing, and he left the Great Hall, ending up instead in the secluded alcove behind the tapestry of the sleeping knight on the sixth floor, coincidentally, of course.
He went there, sat in the single wooden rocking-chair dusty alcove that might well have been a forgotten broom closet, with the amount of cleaning supplies present, and he waited, and he tried to prepare himself for the article he knew would be coming out soon, the one that would say "Auror killed by Lord Voldemort", because for all he acted like a Hufflepuff, he was still a Ravenclaw, and besides that, he was no fool. He took deep, even breaths – well, tried to, but somehow they just came out shallow, and before he knew it, tears were rolling down his face. And no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stave off the hope that maybe – just maybe – they would save him.
It was ridiculous, really, not very logical at all though he prided himself on his calm mind, and he knew that there were too few Aurors to spare, especially with the random Muggle killings that had been happening recently – it occurred to him then that they were probably done by this Lord Voldemort – and anyways, it wasn't a good look to bow down to those in power, especially with the government being this unstable already.
But it didn't stop him from staying in the dusty alcove and hoping, right up until it was time for his first class of the day (Potions, which he actually quite adored, although Slughorn was one of his least favorite professors). And when he left, he would think later, he left a piece of his heart right there on the dirt-covered ground.
A few hours later, Lily started to her next class, and the first one that she would see her friend and dormmate, Lydia Brown, in all day, Ancient Runes. The two had partnered up together since the beginning of third year, and though she'd never tell, Lily thought that Lydia was easily one of the most brilliant people she'd ever known.
Lydia Brown was not very plain, but neither did she stand out; she was quieter than either Anne or Lily, but not so quiet as Marlene. She had straight black hair that fell slightly below her shoulders and light brown eyes that could almost pass for amber in bright lighting. She wore her skirts to near-perfect regulation, but not exactly perfect, and she did not add any accessories except for a silver bracelet that used to be her mother's. She wasn't stuck-up, but she wasn't self-deprecating, either. If Lily (or really anyone) had to describe Lydia in one word, she would say "normal", but she was also amazing in her own, perfectly average way, and got along with a lot more people than Anne or Lily (who had fiery enough personalities that they were somewhat steered clear of).
The only thing that Lily could not guess at is how Reg Cattermole and Lydia had ended up having an Autumn Break fling, and Lydia was notoriously short on details, saying only that both their families had ended up vacationing in the same place, which was already quite remarkable considering Autumn Break was only four days long, and getting reduced every year besides (soon, Lily thought, there would be no break left, all thanks to the Board of Governors and their want to eliminate fun in all of Hogwarts).
She didn't think about any of these things as she went to sit beside Lydia, though – Lily had accepted that Lydia just needed time. The problem was that, in the meantime, Lydia was coming to meals early to avoid Cattermole, who everyone knew took his meals rather late, for whatever reason. As such, Lily barely got to talk to Lydia if it wasn't in Ancient Runes.
"Hi" Lydia greeted simply, "have you seen the Prophet?"
"I have." Lily replied, taking out her quill – a special one given to her by Severus on her fourteenth birthday (she couldn't justify throwing it away, when it wrote so nicely, and there was a little part of her that wanted to be reminded that she had once been friends with Severus today, when she had looked over at the Slytherin table and seen him smirking at the news) and an inkpot.
"D'you think it'll be alright?" Lydia said, and there was an edge to her voice that was strangely unfamiliar. Lily had lived with Lydia for six years, and she'd never heard quite that one.
"I'm sure the Aurors will think of something." Lily replied, and smiled. Lydia smiled back, and that was the end of the conversation, because Professor Billywings had come into the room, and he took points off if he heard even a single letter breathed during his class.
Anne Bainbridge was not ugly, nor was she altogether unpleasant to talk to, and she didn't have bad breath, nor did she smell, nor anything of the sort. Really, she was an attractive sort of girl, she thought, and though she was not the most popular girl in Hogwarts, neither was she lacking in potential boyfriends, if she wanted one.
The only problem was that she didn't just want anyone: she wanted him. Remus Lupin, her best friend of seven years, ever since she had asked him if he was a werewolf on the first day she'd met him.
She could look back on it fondly now, but when she had been a child, she never would have thought she'd fall for him, or even become friends.
"Hullo, I'm Anne." Anne struck out her hand to the boy she'd been partnered with for the first day of Potions, a quiet Gryffindor in her year she hadn't talked to at the feast, and Remus looked at it nervously, but eventually took it. His grip was too strong, and he stuttered over his introduction, but she didn't notice. She was too focused on the mark on his collarbone that she had briefly caught a glimpse of, recognizing what it meant.
"Are you a werewolf?" She asked bluntly, and he jumped back as if he'd been stung.
"I—I don't mind, you know, I just couldn't help seeing the mark." Anne added, but Remus stayed silent, looking almost terrified.
"How do you know what a werewolf bite looks like?" He finally asked, looking at her up and down like he was suspicious, but with the same caged expression. He hadn't covered it because he had been assured no one would be able to tell what it was, but he was starting to think maybe he should have used a glamour after all.
"My aunt is one. A werewolf, I mean. So I don't mind." Anne said, smiling at him in an effort to look more friendly.
"I didn't know there were people who didn't mind werewolves." Remus replied, but some of the fear left his eyes.
"Let's be friends, yeah?" Anne smiled brightly, and Remus nodded.
At the time, she hadn't thought she could really talk to such a quiet person, but that was before she got partnered with him for nearly every class – apparently they had the same skill level – and before she really got to talking with him.
Now, they were practically inseparable, taking nearly the same classes and studying together every day. And they just – they just fit, you know? It wasn't that she had always fancied him, or even that she had fancied him for a long time. It had really only been a month – they'd been in the library, at the second table at the back just like always, and she looked up and saw him working intently on the History of Magic essay that was due in two days, and it occurred to her then, that she would really rather like to date Remus.
And then she ducked her head, and kept working on the Defense of the Dark Arts essay she'd procrastinated on for nearly a week, but the idea wouldn't leave her mind, and now it'd been a whole month and it was still bouncing around there.
Anne had tried – she'd tried a lot – to get it to leave her head, but it wasn't working, and she knew there would be a time when she'd have to tell him. There would be, but she was quite afraid, and for now, she wanted to take the path of least resistance, because God knows her grades depended on it, with the amount of NEWTs practice McGonagall was assigning already. So when Remus arrived for their usual study session (he had Arithmancy before, while she had a free period), she pretended, as she usually did, that she didn't feel anything at all. And they studied, and it was a comfortable sort of atmosphere.
The next day, in Potions, Lily noticed James Potter was acting funny.
Well, everyone was acting a bit funny, but James Potter especially. And Lily wasn't sure if everyone was just pretending not to notice (they weren't), or if she truly was the only one to see something so obvious (she was).
Because every time she looked at him, he had that obviously-painted smile on his face, and every time anyone talked to him, he replied in that eerily smooth tone. He hadn't always been like that, Lily was sure, although admittedly, she hadn't been paying close attention.
All the parts that made him up were there, from the humor to the talent to the boy himself, Lily knew, but there was something intangible, a certain je ne sais quoi that was missing. What made him James Potter, the boy that had infuriated Lily for so long, was gone; in its place was some sort of lifeless zombie. And she knew that she should let it alone, and she knew that she didn't have any right to go around talking like they were friends, but this? This was just odd.
He was pretending to be okay, just like the rest of them, but he was trying so much harder than everyone else, and it was so forceful it was unnatural. Lily wasn't sure why - it was the first time she had ever seen James so unsure, and although she liked to say she was worried about him, the truth was that she was curious, mostly; there was no lost love between them (thank God he'd stopped asking her out – and really talking to her at all – in sixth year), and she justified it by saying she rather thought that if he had needed anyone to console him, it would not be her. That, of course, did not make her want to ask him about it any less (but she wasn't that much of a fool). But she stayed watching. Even now, he was stirring a bit mechanically.
It was just her luck that the potion they were brewing today, the Elixir to Induce Euphoria, required a lot of waiting in between steps — in an attempt to stop thinking about James, she met Severus's eyes no less than three different times.
Stop it Lily, she said to herself, knowing she should have moved on by now, but she couldn't help but hope that he wasn't a part of Lord Voldemort's followers, at least. Didn't he owe her that much? But there'd been so many rumors going around school lately — you could never really know who to trust.
As she added the last ingredient, wormwood, to her potion, waiting for it to turn yellow so she could bottle it up and leave (Slughorn didn't mind if she left early, so long as her grades continued to be high, and she was sure he especially wouldn't mind it if his favorite student had a headache that she simply could not seem to be rid of), she told herself to stop looking at Severus, instead taking a glance at her cauldron - it was already at an orange-yellow sunset color, and it looked quite beautiful.
Out of habit, she looked over at Sev's, and it was still orange: he must have added something else, for potency or maybe for the side effects. He had always been ingenious that way, truly caring about potions for the sake of the potion, not using them as a tool like Lily did. It was one of the things she had liked best around him: when he talked about these sorts of things, asphodel and shrivelfig and bobutuber pus and whatever else, his eyes lit up and his face, hardened by his childhood, lost ten years.
She couldn't still be friends with him, though: he'd chosen his side, and it was with the people who thought she was inferior to him. She had repeated these words over and over back in fifth year, so much so that they'd almost lost their meaning, and they still held true now. Just — missed opportunities, you know? They were supposed to be best friends, and she knew that if he had been sorted into any other House, it wouldn't have been that bad, and really it was his mates that were corrupting him. She glared at the friends in question: Cleo Nott was still adding castor beans, while Matthew Avery was sweating over a potion that had somehow, inexplicably, turned blue. Really, he deserved better (although come to think of it, she hadn't been that good in first year either, not until Sev had taught her the concepts). He deserved better, but if he was so hell-bent on making his life miserable, she couldn't really stop him, could she?
Though Lily thought she was the only who had noticed James being so odd, there were in fact others who were concerned – namely, Sirius Black.
"So, I'm glad you've all decided to come to this exceptionally import—" Sirius started, once he'd shut the door fully, used a Muffliato, and faced Peter and Remus.
"You dragged us into this broom closet." Remus interjected, crossing his arms over his chest, though they all knew he wasn't really mad (how could he have become friends with them otherwise?).
"Trying to snog us, Sirius?" Peter added amusedly.
"Well, whoever's genius idea it was to come here, it's irrelevant. Friends, I hate to say it, but we have a problem." Sirius's eyes turned stormy and intense.
"Is there another girl who's trying to slip you a Love Potion? Or has she hexed you now? Another… shrinking accident?" Peter asked jokingly, and Sirius put his hand to his heart like he'd been wounded.
"We agreed to never speak of that again! But this is – pardon the pun – serious! How do we fix James?" Sirius cried.
"You can't fix him, he's not a sort of doll," Remus replied, "you've just got to let him get over it."
"Isn't there something we could do, though? Operation Fix-James?" Sirius pleaded hopefully.
"I think this is something unfixable, mate" Peter said sadly. "Sometimes, people just change."
"That's dumb. I don't change." Sirius said.
"Many would say that's one of your greatest faults." Remus sighed, and walked over to the doorknob. "If you've really got nothing to say, I'm going to get back to studying." With that, he left.
"D'you think he thinks he's being subtle?" Sirius asked, and Peter nodded a "yes".
"Remus is just thick enough to not realize his heart eyes are obvious to anyone who's paid more than ten seconds of attention."
"And hers."
"And hers." Peter agreed, "You think maybe we could speed them up?"
"Now that, Wormy, is a brilliant idea if I've ever heard one." Sirius grinned, and lit up. Peter was glad: an unhappy Sirius Black was no good, after all. Good thing he had a one-track mind, and the attention span of a squirrel to go with it.
When Remus had gotten back to the library table he spent hours working at every day, he found Anne staring into space, blankly chewing on the end of a Sugar Quill, which was not uncommon, especially considering the topic she was working on (Arithmancy was a bit of a bore, to say the least). The sight was funny and – if he was admitting it – endearing, and he smiled as he pulled out his chair.
"Remus! You're back! Please help!" Anne blinked her eyes and exclaimed in a whisper, "I think I might actually die of boredom working on this problem."
"Which one?"
"Number seventeen from the practice questions in class. You know, I was thinking today, and it's rather remarkable how absolutely awful I am at Arithmancy; you'd think after taking it for a couple years, I would at least remember the basic formulas, right? But I'm still at exactly the same level I was before I wasn't even at Hogwarts." Anne said thoughtfully, and Remus actually grinned at this – he couldn't deny that Anne wasn't the best at Arithmancy, but she did it anyways, purely because McGonagall had said she wouldn't be able to even scrape a pass back in third year, and he thought her ridiculous level of stubbornness to pursue a subject she could not care less for was also endearing, maybe even inspiring in a way.
"You got an E on the OWL." Remus quipped, because somehow, some way, she had.
"I do believe that's because of my tutor, who made me do practice problems until I dropped." Anne replied, cocking her head to the side. Remus remembered those times – she had stayed up for two days straight, powered by an ungodly amount of coffee, working through every single concept that could be covered on the exam.
"You must have a rather brilliant tutor, then." Remus said, though he knew it had really been all her.
"Yes, I'm quite lucky. So, number seventeen?"
"Alright, so what you do is—" Remus started, and they studied, and it was a comfortable sort of atmosphere.
Contrary to everyone's opinions, James Potter did not know he was in a rut, or how mechanical his movements seemed to anyone who was looking. All he knew was that his world was falling apart, but then how could his world fall apart, because he hadn't really been injured, had he, not like Cattermole or like Sirius or like everyone else had been or would be.
He was one of the rare few who saw this for what it was, or perhaps he was just one of those who couldn't stand not acknowledging the terrible, harsh reality for what it was – a power play. Lord Voldemort wanted to make sure everyone knew his name, and kidnapping, and later killing, Cattermole was the easiest way to achieve that goal.
He was also one of the few who truly knew, beyond a reasonable fraction of a doubt, that the same Lord Voldemort had been behind the recent Muggle town massacres, and really he was one of a minority of people who knew these killings had happened at all, owing to the fact that his father (like all old family heads) had contacts in the Ministry, but could not keep a secret from his son to save his life (years of "surprise" birthday presents that James had learned about a month beforehand had proved that). Innocent civilians being murdered, just for living their lives.
And when you consider that he knew that, how could you possibly think he was okay? No, James Potter was not alright. But he had to be, because he also couldn't stand himself if he went around being depressed – after all, what did he have to lose? He was pureblood, his parents were high-up officials in the Ministry, he had all the money he would need to not work a day in his life; he had no right to feel this way, not like everyone else. So instead, he tried to fool everyone, with hands that he forced to hold still and eyes that he forced to betray nothing.
It hadn't slipped his mind that Lily Evans was paying him close attention, either; he just didn't care enough to stop it. It didn't matter anymore, not really, what she thought of him. Once upon a time, it had been the most important thing in the world, her opinion of him, but it had all gone away, seemingly overnight, when that edition of the Prophet had come out and he'd realize that the world was going to have a big upheaval soon.
She was staring at him now, even, from across the room. He met her eyes, in a sort-of-glare that was not truly antagonist, but not entirely friendly, either. It was a mixture of some sort of combination of emotions, but when he looked at Lily, he was only met with confusion and curiosity in return. It made him quite angry, really: he had half a mind to hex her, when he was being studied with those green eyes like he was a particularly interesting Potion.
Reg Cattermole was also one of the few who had made the connection, and he was also trying to keep his feelings a secret, but he did not succeed: Lydia found him on the fourth lunch he'd taken in the room.
He took all his meals to the alcove, nowadays – the dust, the corner of his heart there were much better company than the pitying stares of half of Hogwarts, and the sneers of the other half. And inside the alcove, he didn't have to pretend that everything was okay the way he did outside. It was suffocating now, being around his friends, having fun, keeping up his reputation, and he didn't know how he'd ever enjoyed it.
No one had ever seen him go into the alcove, and he stayed just long enough at mealtimes that no one was worried, or that's what he hoped at least. But today had been especially bad (no news from the Prophet, but a tear-stained letter from his mother who somehow didn't see through his strong façade, and owled him every other day to say how worried she was), and he'd been a little too careless, not Disillusioning but instead hoping that no one would be around in the corridor because of lunch.
(As it turns out, no one would have been, but Lydia happened to be walking back from the Great Hall to Gryffindor Tower, for she had a free period, and had seen Cattermole there too, and he appeared to be crying.)
The doorknob shook, the door swung open, and the worried eyes of Lydia Brown met his.
"Are you quite alright?" She asked, but then appeared to realize it was a terrible sort of thing to ask, when evidently he was not alright, judging by the tears pooling in his eyes and the tracks on his cheeks. Instead, she bit her lip, and, in one sudden motion, leaned over and hugged him.
It was really rather remarkable, he would think later, the power of a human touch. He didn't know what came over him, but he felt the desire to tell her – anything, everything, he didn't know.
"I got—a letter—from my mum." He said finally, and his voice was thick and muffled from being pressed against her shirt.
Lydia simply sighed, and held him close.
"It's okay to not be alright all the time." She said, after a long pause that seemed filled with tension, in some odd way. And then she said nothing at all, and they just stayed like that, until lunch ended, and then he bolted out of the room as quickly as he could.
Damn. He'd never be able to look her in the eye again, would he? Reg sighed, but there wasn't much else he could do, anyways.
She was there the next lunch, too.
Lydia Brown really did not know what was happening with Reginald Cattermole.
She had avoided him for so long, because their – what was it even considered? – fling, she supposed, had ended on a rather abrupt note. They'd just met up one day, and the spark hadn't been there, and then they didn't talk anymore; there was no reason for it, or that was what she told herself. (Of course, there was a reason, but she didn't realize that yet.) And how did one really act around someone that they'd kissed during Autumn Break at sunset in a field just a few blocks from Hogsmeade?
That didn't mean she didn't still care about him, though, even just as a friend (and really, as 'something more', too, but she'd never tell), and she had (of course) seen what was approximately the most loosely-kept secret at Hogwarts: Reg was not coping.
That was why she had followed him when he had ducked into that corridor on the sixth floor, and that was why she kept going back – because he'd never told her not to, and she knew better than anyone that even the mere presence of a person helped. She wanted to do that. Help.
But, she thought with a sigh, nothing would truly help him but getting news, because even if his father had been struck down with the end of a Death Eater wand, a wound could never heal if it was never properly closed up. The waiting had to be killing him, and all she could do was try to help with the fallout.
"I thought you were in love with him, at one point." Lydia said, two days later, evenly, from her seat on Lily's right – she had caught Lily staring at Severus during breakfast again.
"I never was." Lily replied, a bit stonily, but then, she wasn't the type to talk about these kinds of things unless she was asked.
"I can see that. You're not looking at him like you love him: you're just looking at him like a science experiment. Lily, did you even like him?"
"What? Of course I did! He was my best friend!" Lily exclaimed, but still in a low enough voice no one would hear.
"Did you like him for what he was, or what he could be?"
Lily shifted uncomfortably. "I'm not sure", she admitted.
"Lily — you're just trying to save him." Lydia sighed, knowing that her friend had good intentions, but there was no way to save Severus. Anyone could see he was too far gone, and she suspected Lily knew that too, but Lily always was an optimist of the worst sort.
"Save him?"
"Save him. Because he's part of the world, and you want to save the world, and you think that's how to start."
"I just think— if he was like how he was before, it would be nice." Lily said in a very quiet voice, so faint Lydia had to strain to hear it.
"He's not the same person anymore."
"Why can't he be?" Lily asked, finally meeting Lydia's eyes and speaking in a defensive tone, loud enough this time that Anne and Marlene, who were chatting animatedly about something-or-the-other two seats away, took notice. She seemed to realize immediately that she'd been too loud though, and looked back at her hands.
"Because he's made his choices." Breakfast was almost over, and Lydia shifted her eggs around her plate. There was really no reason to come early now that she was alright with Cattermole, but it still felt strange to go back to her old ways when everything had changed.
"He was influenced."
"You wouldn't have done that under any circumstance."
"He went through a tough time, and I just think—"
"But you tried your best, Lily. You did everything you could've done." Lydia interrupted, perhaps a bit more fiercely than she should have, but she was tired of Lily trying so hard just to get hurt.
"But what if— what if, I could've saved him?" She said in a whisper, looking down at her hands.
"You tried your very best. And that's enough." Lydia replied, after a short pause, and got up to go to History of Magic.
Lydia's voice thrummed in her head, for the rest of the day. But no matter how she tried to justify it, those first words had stuck out the most to her.
"Did you like him for what he was or what he could've been?"
She didn't know, truly. There was a Severus who was kind to her, who told her about magic, who she spent hours with in the library. But there was also a Severus who called her 'Mudblood', and hung around with Avery. And which one was the true one? She thought it was the former, sure, but what if she was wrong and she assumed maliciously?
Out of everything in the world Lily hated, she hated misunderstandings the most. Because ultimately, if you misunderstood a person as someone worse than they were, you were doing them a wrong. And she liked to think that she was someone who would try to not do any wrong.
She was the type to assume the best in a person; there was something loveable in everyone, after all. She'd resolved to be optimistic no matter what, especially on the content of a person's character, because she knew she could always right herself, but it was impossible to consider how deeply you'd hurt someone else. It was impossible to pick up the pieces of someone else.
But mostly, it was because she well and truly wanted to believe that Severus was the former. She was desperate for any sign he'd changed, but he didn't give her even the slightest hint of it.
It was a Saturday when the news they'd been waiting for came.
It was a Saturday when they saw a blood splatter on the front page of the Prophet, a result they'd known all this time but had not wanted to think about.
It was a Saturday when Reginald Cattermole ran out of the Great Hall, and Lydia Brown traced his path with her eyes, but did not leave from her place on the table.
It was a Saturday when James Potter's eyes really hardened, and Sirius Black truly realized what a war meant.
It was a Saturday when Lily Evans felt a deep, unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach that would never lift for the rest of her life, and when Anne Bainsbridge felt a calling to fight like nothing else.
And though some say the war started much earlier than that, and perhaps they would be right, there is no denying that this Saturday, and the second-to-last Thursday before that, were the days that everyone felt it.
A/N: Wow, this chapter was NOT fun to post, but it's up now, and hopefully another one should be up by the end of the week! I hope you liked it; have a good day, yeah? Reviews are also appreciated since I'm a beginner at this haha