"Yesterday you called him an asshat for saying hello to you in the common room," Mary confirmed in confusion as Lily kept smiling casually where James had walked off.
Lily still jumped at the once empty corridor for her roommate's open approach just like they all had at anyone but their little group of eight talking. It was wearing off, being around others again, slowly.
"Yes, well, today he's my asshat," Lily tried to shrug like it was no big deal, but Mary's face only grew into concern. Harry's accusation of such an abrupt personality change flashing through her mind, she tried to sound robustly sane and not at all like she'd just spent some unknown amount of time being trapped in a weird dimension reading a book about her future kid less than twenty-four hours ago. "Look, I recently learned some things about Ja-err, Potter, and he, well I gained a new perspective, alright? Did you, want to head down to the Quidditch Cup?"
If anything Mary looked even more concerned for her health and Lily to late remembered she'd been avoiding the sport as much as the star player, but she was now as determined to give the game a try in good faith as she was her-maybe-not-quite-friend who was a boy she definitely had kissed once but they hadn't said anything about it since...
Her reaction only seemed to spur her dorm mate not to leave her side for now though, which Lily smiled for as Mary uneasily nodded along and began after James's long gone hustling pace. Lily was grateful for the company, and that her weirdly sporadic nature didn't have the girl screaming in the opposite direction. She'd have to change plans now and pick seats away from Alice and Frank and hope they didn't take offense, or at least play it more cool than she was managing, hanging out with people she never had before. Mary had been a passive acquaintance at best yesterday too, but things had changed, she'd changed, all eight of them had.
Mary, in fact, might have been her only semblance of a friend before all this, considering she had less than four days now to decide how to handle her best friend until-
"Hey, Lily!"
She stopped with such a pit of dread in her stomach, she was sure she'd heave it up later and discover the physical properties of the feeling as she turned slowly on the spot to face Severus Snape.
She'd been avoiding him in the time spent between meeting with the Headmaster, explaining themselves as not somehow wildly making this up, Dumbledore confirming proof of the Horcruxes and assuring he'd begin looking farther into the known ones, especially the diadem in this very castle at once, not trusting leaving that to chance and going with him to see it locked up behind a portrait in his office, going to sleep in their actual beds, breakfast, and a whispered hushed meeting about going back up there and making sure Dumbledore knew not to leave them out of the loop when he collected the other bits of Voldemort's soul, (James and Sirius had even offered to ditch the Cup in favor of that before the rest of them convinced the idiots that would be suspicious,) and right now.
In retrospect not much time at all, but enough she'd almost, almost, been letting herself forget about this coming confrontation.
Her once best friend and she didn't even know what to call him now with all the revelations and barbs she wanted to throw at him walked casually up to her with a confused smile on his face for her companion, though thankfully it was Mary Macdonald he caught her talking to and not James.
Caught? She scoffed at herself for thinking. She'd done nothing wrong to be caught at anything! She could talk to whoever she wanted!
"Hi, Sev," she gave a painful smile and bit back the accusation of how many first-years he'd made cry recently. Merlin, she had been hanging around the Marauders to long.
"Heard you had to go see the Headmaster with Potter and some other kids," he gave Mary a dismissive look and only addressed her. "You okay?"
"All good," she assured.
He stood there waiting for the rest, and she fibbed on the spot, "J- Potter found some weird diadem thing and tried to convince me to put it on, McGonagall showed up and had us take it to Dumbledore."
She didn't know what she was waiting for, a look of fear, even awe as she mentioned a horcrux in this school as vaguely as possible. His followers did have some inkling of their existence...
He did none of that and rolled his eyes with a fresh scowl. "He'll learn one of these days. Want to come study our Owls?"
"Erm," she couldn't stop a light grimace as he hit the spot on why she didn't want exactly that.
He was the last person she wanted to discuss her future with now, she still had to resolve in herself how much a part of it he'd be, and she had until her coming DADA O.W.L. to do it, maybe longer? James's offer was still on the table to recreate the scene and see if Severus would still call her that foul word, but she didn't want it to go that far and push him, and yet still had the undeniable urge to know if he'd always be thinking it of her... and if he even really loved her at all but the idea of who he wished she'd be...ugh, she needed to talk to Alice and Frank. So much had bloody happened too fast, even when they'd been trapped out of time!
Severus heard the reluctance in her voice, glanced with a hint of suspicion at Mary now, and then back up the way he'd come. Lily looked around resignedly and was unsurprised to see Mulciber and Avery lingering at the end of the corridor, just like they always were.
Anger easily trumped indecision for now, though she did well to stamp down on a true temper, she didn't want that to get the best of her anymore either and kept herself only as frustrated as the situation called for.
"Mary talked me into going to a Quidditch game for once," only realizing after the fact when she glanced at her she was hoping the girl would not tattle on her lie. Mary, mercifully, kept her face straight as if this were no news to her. "You're welcome to join us Sev," she emphasized who wasn't invited. A test then, hopefully the only one he'd ever need that he would just spend time with her away from those awful Death Eater friends she'd always known had been bad news even before she had it confirmed-
"Ugh, really Lily," he scoffed and turned a true scowl on the innocent bystander, finally addressing Mary with venom and still somehow only speaking to her. "We've agreed for ages those things are pointless, and Potter will be there." The amount of inflicted hatred he put into that last name made her flinch, only because Mary was right and she'd have said it the exact same way 'yesterday.'
"I'm well aware he's on the team," she said acidly back, stepping in front of Mary and demanding his vitriol that lessened considerably, if still a very annoyed frown. "I've decided to give the game a second chance, we all change a bit." She hoped it was only to her own ears how significant that sounded.
He hesitated before answering this time, plastering a fake if at least attempted smile. "I guess, have it your way. Come find me when you get bored though, we'll be down by the greenhouses."
Lily watched him go with a heavy heart as he went right back to his friends. For once she wasn't abandoned in the corridor alone though as she turned back to Mary and waited until she was sure he couldn't hear her whisper on the next corridor, "um, thanks, for not ratting me out."
Mary pursed up her lips and said nothing. Lily recalled a particularly unflattering line from herself in the books that had her prodding now, "he's never, um, I mean, bothered you, right?" She finished lamely. Mary still said nothing. "I hate those arseholes he's always hanging around, I keep telling him to stay away from them but it just makes us fight so I've tried to just, be neutral about it, but it keeps getting harder," she finished and decided to drop the prodding if Mary didn't want to tell her.
She spotted Alice and Frank with her promised saved seat, but they only gave a casual nod as they saw Mary leading her towards a group of cheering Gryffindor's. A few rows above them sat Remus and Peter, but no Regulus in a convenient spot nearby as they sat awfully close to a group of green. With any luck he was playing, she hoped for him, and would have to mind herself more than ever.
They got dragon-roasted nuts from a concession booth one girl was making bank at and were in the packed, noisy stands before Mary finally answered. "No more than any other Muggle-born in this castle," she very carefully selected her next one and chewed slowly before adding, "calls me slurs and shite, if a spell hits me I usually know who did it whether they linger around to laugh or not. Our dorm mates have tried telling you this a dozen times though and you've never listened."
Lily wrapped her hands around the warm treat and gazed at the grass in the summer breeze in disgust for her past ignorance. "I've recently decided to stop keeping my head in the sand about Severus and, well, everything. Bad things are happening out there, not just to us Muggle-borns in school, and no matter what he thinks, he can't stop them happening to me too."
Now Mary really looked at her, studying her, she had such kind eyes and as far as Lily knew had literally never said a mean word about anyone, even just now when she'd had ample opportunity to curse Snape to high heavens to someone who needed to hear it. Instead she placed a gentle hand on Lily's shoulder and squeezed. Maybe she suspected Severus had been treating her badly and Lily was tired of pretending otherwise, maybe she now had suspicions of what her and James had been talking about in all the wrong ways, but all she did was smile and say, "glad to hear it," and then turn back to Madam Hooch on the pitch and shouting with enthusiasm for her house pride as the players were announced.
...
Chances were they were just being paranoid, but if so, they were doing that together too.
Nobody wanted to know what exactly Reginald Mulciber had done to Mary Macdonald to so infuriate Lily Evans she'd confronted Severus Snape about it in his last pensieve memories.
It was possible it had already happened and Lily hadn't wormed it out of her after one friendly Quidditch game, while blushingly telling James yes she'd seen that Quaffle throw, shut up idiot.
The fact remained they had less than two days now before exams on Monday to find out and had no intention of letting Mary out of their sight, just in case.
Alice and Frank had tried to linger around for this very fact in the partying room, but McGonagall had already come around and scolded many others for being out after curfew, so they'd given their friends very apologetic faces as they departed. It was so frustrating they were all being wary of to many changes at once and pretending nothing had happened, for now, lest word somehow reach Voldemort from his spies in the castle. She could already feel the conviction slipping as they kept trying to invoke conversation during the party, and they'd be blatantly enjoying each others company by the time exams were over.
Regulus, looking very hot and uncomfortable under the collar but still the very last one to leave when not a soul had dared dismiss him after Sirius and James's enthusiastic greeting, had in fact confirmed he'd heard whispers in his own common room something was going down tonight no matter who won the Cup among the hooting, cheering, madness around them while spending the remaining time in the corner with Peter well out of the way until a seventh year Prefect had finally noticed him and kicked him out.
James had volunteered to be the first to leave with her in the middle of their celebration when she'd tipsily giggled about needing some air in the corridor.
The girl had laughed with more drunkenness than any butterbeer could ever give her at the sight of Lily and the four Marauders all in the same corridor without hexing each other, but instead trying to make it seem casual they were just milling around watching Mary fan herself at the window before waving and going back inside, shaking her head at the oddity.
"Well, if something is going on, it won't be in there," Sirius tried to play off even as he kept anxiously looking up and down the dark, empty space.
"Better safe than sorry," Remus shook his head and was already giving the Fat Lady the password again, "I'm not going to presume there's only Death Eater henchmen in Slytherin, no offense Pete."
"Just because you say no offense doesn't mean I'm not offended mate," he snorted as he followed him inside, though their snark had only proved a valid point and Sirius stepped back inside with them.
James and Lily lingered out in the corridor alone now, the shrieking and laughter being cut off along with whatever conversation they decided to have now that they didn't have an excuse to keep avoiding it all of a sudden.
Lily took a cautious step forward and put her hand in his, he instantly threaded their fingers together but still gave her a cautious smile back.
"I had fun, at the game today," she needlessly clarified but smiled at how warm his rough hand was.
"Did you curse at any of the fouls? Please tell me you did and the exact phrasing?" He smiled back instantly.
"That Black guy, he's a hell of a Beater," she teased instead of answering. He raised his other hand to his heart in mock protest.
"I'll have you know," James leaned in casually, there was so little space between them left, "he's taken, but if you'd like a rundown from your favorite player..." he trailed off suggestively with a wink, and she found herself giggling at his playfulness. She could have so easily leaned in and kissed him again, but maybe she should wait, and he was still smiling lightly and expecting nothing, letting her set the pace of whatever this was and they really should clarify that first-
A flash of white light and his hand vanished from hers. "James?" She gasped in shock, rubbing at her eyes and trying desperately to see, then she screamed.
He was leaning against the wall with that hand for support and quickly slipping down it, half his face covered in blood, it was gushing right through his fingers as he tried to stem the flow, his glasses were covered so much they were slipping right off his face. "James!"
A vice like grip yanked her back from him, and Severus's hook nose was pressed against her as he hissed in furry, "come on, get away, he can't do anything to you anymore-"
"No! Get off- James!" She shouted louder, desperate to get to him as he tried to stay on his feet and go for his wand but he was swaying with delayed shock and dripping a fountain of scarlet splattering his quidditch gear like mock rubies in a victory party...
The Fat Lady screamed for her, some nonsense for help she'd hope, as Severus tried to drag her off, but she came to her senses before she'd staggered a whole three steps and drew her wand, cursing his arm off as he yelped in his own pain.
"Get out of here Snape, before I change my mind," she snapped, looking him straight in his solid black eyes, no room for confusion on his part if she was in her own right mind.
He didn't move, his face sallow and whiter than the spots still dancing in her lids, but then Mulciber and Avery were dragging him off and she was snapping the password, forcing the magical portrait open so that she could shout inside, "Quick! Go get help!" as James finally collapsed to the ground.
...
Sirius couldn't stop snarling his protest even as he let his feet propel him down stairs and through corridors for Pomfrey, not Snape. Moony and Wormtail hadn't a prayer of keeping up, it was all on him right now no matter he wanted to be hunting down Snivellus blood for blood, drag his animated skull back by its greasy hair for the counter charm- but no, James. The school nurse would keep him breathing and then he'd deserve that murder charge for going after-
Focus you idiot! He scolded as he literally slammed into the thick hospital doors for not being able to stop fast enough and yanking them open with enough force to rip a hinge off. No repeat mistakes, it wasn't Mary that got hurt this time, and he wouldn't let his brother suffer the first of many changes coming for them all.
"Pomfrey!" She met him before he could reach her office door, thank Merlin for the woman's hustling pace. He was already yanking her hand along behind him and she wasn't even protesting the treatment as he hastily explained. "James, he's bleeding everywhere, I don't know the counter charm, but I had to grab you not him, please," he desperately babbled as he fought off the urge to carry her over his shoulder back to Prongs.
She kept pace all the way back up the tower and didn't once bat an eye at any of the short-cut passages he used. Thank Merlin for Moony's sharp mind, he'd made his own trip for the able-spelled Headmaster who was already bent over his best mate and Sirius made a pathetic sobbing noise as he saw how pale James was and tried to rush back to his side without slipping in the pool-
Strong arms locked around him, Sirius instinctively wanted to fight him off but Remus whispered in his ear, "let them work love."
Sirius sagged in his grip, joining James on the floor, smearing blood onto his knees and palms as Remus folded with him, and it was for no run of the castle that he couldn't breathe. This could not be happening, he could not lose him, not after just one whole day back!
Lily hadn't been forced to move, still kneeling on the spot by his head, clutching the broken frames of his glasses with each white knuckled grip, one half was shattered and speckled rustic red already, the other had been cut clean off as the curse had come so dangerously close to his eye this time...
"Let's get him up," the school nurse said judiciously, and Sirius swore his heart only then kept beating as he looked carefully at her drawn face, she tapped him gently and now James was hovering between them as they tried to usher him off. He rose with them with no thought behind the motion but to keep him in sight as a white towel appeared from nowhere, the magical aid not enough to absorb it all, they left little dotted trails he wouldn't need the map to follow. If he were dead would they fake it? No! He was breathing, he would not believe otherwise-
"No," Dumbledore stopped the procession of the parade of students that tried to follow, but it was Remus's grip that forced him to hesitate for even a second and hear the rest. "The rest of you are to remain here until I find out-"
"It was Snape," Sirius spat at once with all the loathsomeness any one person could possess. "He-"
"Mr. Black?" McGonagall appeared now with a panting Peter behind her, Merlin knows why he'd gone to fetch her. "Do you have proof of this accusation?"
Sirius glowered at his Head of House and turned to Lily to back him up, but she met his eyes, and pressed her hands together in a silent plea, as she shook her head. James's gory glasses in her palms mocked him.
He saw red, for a moment he meant to draw his wand and curse Evans down to the dungeons where she could stay forever with that scum, but he beat down the impulse as he slammed his eyes shut and forced himself to keep breathing even before Moony tightened his arms around him.
Lily had been purposefully stupid in the past, but she'd made strides to fix that and he had to bloody trust she had a reason for this deception, he had to bloody trust someone other than himself and James, and Remus's hold on him only reinforced this fact before he slowly opened his eyes and turned back to face McGonagall.
In the slight delay, the Headmaster was already out of sight with Madam Pomfrey and his brother. "No mam," he managed mechanically, "no proof, just past experience." Temper, temper, he minded himself. Watch your mouth, if he started shouting, if he did anything in front of his head of house she may well start issuing detentions and he had to sneak down and see James the moment he could slip back to their dorm for the cloak, best to keep on her good side.
"Be that as it may," did she look, disappointed? He wondered if Dumbledore had told her, if the secretive old bastard was going to tell anyone else. She was frowning heavily at him as she raised her wand, but a wave of it merely made the blood vanish as if the devastation had never happened while Sirius grew colder the farther away James was. "You are all to remain in your dorm until this is sorted out."
Sirius couldn't move, couldn't think, or he would snap. He just let himself be steered by his boyfriend back into the thrall of other Gryffindor's who whispered like an angry beehive all around him until the portrait was shut once more.
Keeping every movement carefully measured so he wouldn't do anything rash, he grasped Remus's hands and lowered them from him at last while meeting Lily's eyes, and tipping his head towards the staircase.
She nodded and none of the four of them cared who saw what or why the whispering increased as they slammed the door to their dorm.
"You mind telling me-" he kept his voice from shouting as much as he possibly could.
"He thinks I was confunded or something, I'm sure of it," Lily spoke at the same time, her voice more exhausted than anything. "Remember Harry thinking the same, I think Mary does already. Think about it Sirius, ever since we've been back-"
"So you're still protecting, defending that-" he was already losing the thread of that not shouting thing as he stormed over to James's trunk and flipped it over in frustration, it landed on its side with a thunk as the contents spilled out.
"No, I'm not, just listen for a second," she stepped right into his path and matched him glare for glare now. She was still holding Prongs's glasses, the shattered reflection of the two in a bizarre fractal pattern. "What would you think if you didn't know better why I've been-"
"I, don't, care," he emphasized every word by his voice going lower, more dangerous now. "I'm going to see him, and then-"
"You'll what Sirius?" Remus broke in with an uneasy, quietest whisper of all.
Sirius stopped and swallowed actual bloodlust as he once again rearranged his thoughts while swinging the cloak around his shoulders.
"Go owl his parents," he foolishly finished, hands trembling with such frustration the flowy material wouldn't sit right on his shoulders no matter how he readjusted it as he finished with a level threat at her, "that doesn't change what he did Evans, I don't care his excuse, he nearly killed him-"
"I know that," she said stoutly, keeping her shoulders back, but easing her tone out of a fight now. "Just let me talk to him, please?"
"As if I get a say in it!" He spat at all of them before he swung it on and stormed out, throwing the door against the wall and hearing it bang off to slam shut for him.
"Shouldn't we have, ah, gone with him, kept an eye on him?" Peter scratched uncomfortably at his ear.
"Wouldn't have done any good," Lily scoffed as she trudged to the door next. "Sirius will ruddy do what Sirius thinks is best! To hell with all of us! Never mind we'd all have liked to go with him!" She threw her hands up in fury before slamming the door open and stomping on every stone step down as it too banged against the wall and once again slammed itself back shut.
The two exchanged an uncomfortable look in the heavy silence that followed before Remus decided, "go with her, but stay changed, okay? I don't like the idea of her confronting him alone. I'll summon an elf from the kitchen to tell the other three on my way after him."
Peter nodded and then a large brown rat was scampering forward into his palm, which Remus carefully put into his pocket as he gently eased the door open and shut.
He slipped among the students and banners that now held the air of a funeral gone very wrong, but nobody tried to stop him as he left. The Fat Lady was crying hysterically into a wine glass for some reason as he slipped Wormtail back out of his pocket, but before he put him down commented, "not exactly a good omen we've been back for twenty-four hours and they're at each other's throats."
His friend made a squeak of agreement before he was placed down on the flagstones and took off.
Remus didn't know any of the house-elves names in the kitchen, but thankfully that was all he had to verbalize before one appeared to him, and the little gal even produced ink and quill and took a duplicated note for him to his three friends in other houses without any questions asked, so that was one problem down.
Remus didn't even pause for the irony he of all people was going to visit the hospital wing as he nudged the door open and looked inside, only to freeze in the entryway with dread.
James was propped up on a mound of pillows, so many bandages covering half his face he was almost unrecognizable, it was a horrifying sight in itself even if they hadn't seen Harry's corpse looking all too similar not to long ago, all Prongs was lacking was the scar. Worst of all was the red patch still growing vertically where his eye approximately was, showing they had only slowed the curse, but not yet stopped it.
Sirius was sitting on the bed nearest to him of course, trembling in place so much it was a coin toss if the cloak had slipped off or he'd purposefully taken it off, glaring daggers at the disfigurement as if he could dare it away, James would wake up and escalate it all to hell and back of course just like they always did...
Remus sat tentatively beside him, half expecting his boyfriend to tell him to leave and suffer his grief with privacy, but Sirius didn't, instead reaching out and pulling him closer, then crushing him to his chest so that he now sat awkwardly on his lap and legs dangling uncomfortably off the bed as his ragged breathing made another vain attempt at evening out.
"If, if," Padfoot couldn't even utter the words, his throat convulsed as Remus wrapped his arms tight around him back and shifted his weight to get comfortable so that Sirius could somehow pull him closer. "Merlin I'll lose both of you because I'll do it, I'll kill that bastard for this."
He still wasn't as convinced as Sirius was for his capacity for murder, but if anything could push him over the edge, he didn't like his odds on this one. The softest noise of a door, and then the cloak was around them again, Sirius moving with purpose and Remus getting a better gauge of this. Padfoot was in control of himself to some degree then, at least enough not to get caught and be planning in the middle of his madness, which was somehow even worse than downright panicking.
Madam Pomfrey was back bending over James stopping him from even daring to whisper for now, and the two watched with bated breath as she began unwinding the layers to expose to them a scar on their own Potter.
It was clean and even, of course, Sectumsempra caused nothing less from what they'd gathered, and it traveled from cutting the hairs from one eyebrow down, dangerously slicing at the very corner of his closed lid and continuing right onto his mouth, indenting in the thick skin at his lip but mercifully stopping there as the thin red line quickly grew to trickle back down the rest of the way. Prongs didn't twitch as a heavy, red drop lingered near his mouth, a separate bead was dribbling right onto his closed hazels, another trail heading towards his chin as if it would never stop.
His heart throbbed with misery at the sight, and for just a moment he felt it too, to shut off his voice of reason and perhaps dish out a little tit for tat at the very minimum on Snape for causing this- but no. That was a very dangerous dance that he would not indulge in, and he didn't believe Padfoot was capable of it either no matter how impulsive he was.
The nurse had already vanished the trickling blood flow that continued to weep through the stitches she'd tried and was dabbing some foul smelling ointment onto it, causing the wound to scab up for a few moments before the scar merely reopened, the barest of an inch less perhaps. She sighed and taped a new strip of gauze to it that was stained the Gryffindor colors in moments, but was too busy tipping his mouth open and pouring some coppery smelling drink in. Why didn't the poor woman have an assistant? He wished he could help her, the smell of blood left his stomach curdling with horror and he still wanted to lean forward and offer to help any way he could-
Sirius tightened his arms around him with near bruising force and buried his face into the back of his neck, shaking so much Remus was in fear he was about to go into a fit.
Madam Pomfrey redid him up with clean bandages on half his face once more, then patted the still exposed cheek maternally and went bustling back to her office muttering about another book to try as the scarred skin already began repeating the process of peeking out at them.
He waited until her office door shut to gently whisper, "Padfoot?"
Some slurred grumble was his response as Sirius pressed his nose painfully into his shoulder blade.
"He's going to be okay," he promised, speaking in absolute facts now. "She doesn't even know the curse that did it and is slowing it down, I promise love, Prongs is going to be up and running and driving us all nuts again in no time."
Sirius leaned back and looked into his eyes and didn't even try to hide how red rimmed they were or the wet cough that preceded his confession, "I wasn't there Moony, again! He could have died out there and I never would have even noticed."
"Lily was there, we can't all be everywhere at once," he grimly corrected. "You blame her for this?" He tried to get him to hear how ridiculous it sounded to be blaming anyone but Snape.
Sirius swallowed and lowered his face in shame, black hair spilling around him. His voice came out hoarse. "I won't forgive Snape for this, and if she still thinks he can be changed after this, Merlin Moony if she just stood there and watched him do this-"
"She did no such thing," he corrected at once. "She was yelling for help like she was dying, Merlin I thought that was her blood when," he shuddered for the scene they'd fallen into, over each other trying to get out the door and see. "We can't change everything, we knew that," he hated the horrible words that spilled from his lips as Sirius freely started crying. "If this is how he got that scar from Snape this time than at least now we know and don't have to worry about that happening again."
Sirius tried to stifle another sob, then pressed his face into Remus's back again as the door swung open for another round with the nurse.
...
"Severus! Sev get your butt out here and talk to me now!"
Lily had been pounding on the blank stretch of stone wall for a solid eight minutes with no response, and Peter was just considering changing back to tell her the password Regulus had given him when finally it slid open to reveal the slimeball himself ushering her back and looking anxiously around.
"Lily, calm down, Merlin I'm glad you came to see me but," he was frisking in his robes as the door slid back shut but Lily didn't care as she grasped his shoulders and gave him a little shake. Peter had just caught up to her as she'd repaired the spectacles and wrapped them lovingly in a cloth to be tucked into her pocket, they wiggled about in there now like she was hiding a rodent on her person for the vigorous movement.
"Sev, Severus please, look at me," he stopped rummaging and did as asked, smiling of all things. Wormtail's fur bristled on end, he felt things lesser as an animal and still had the urge to run forward and start biting him from the toes up. The sight of James paler than the dead, and yes he spoke from experience, all because of this git, and still he smiled! "Potter's done nothing to me." She clearly enunciated each word.
He didn't even hesitate. "He obviously put some sort of enchantment on you," he scoffed and shrugged her off as he produced a vial from his pocket and handed it to her. "Here, drink up, this'll fix whatever he's done."
She glowered in frustration, her voice already broken beyond repair as she whispered, "you don't believe me?" It was probably unfair of her to hope some part of him would just be able to tell, to know if there was really something wrong with her.
"No," he scoffed. "Are you nuts?"
Lily took a ragged breath as she accepted it. She tried to steel herself and drink it, knowing beyond any doubt and whatever shreds of knowing him she had left Severus would not have poisoned this...
but she couldn't do it. It was something she could barely explain to herself. Her breath stayed lodged in her throat with fear, paranoia, perhaps a bit of insanity and certainly something she might want to seek therapy for like the rest of her friends, but after her ordeal she couldn't make herself drink it first.
"Let's both," she flatly redirected, praying this would work, that they could talk civilized and she'd be grateful to explain her real problem later. "Let's be clear here."
He looked affronted, even made to protest, but then reconsidered and popped the cork, clearly wanting her back to cursing Potter's name so bad he'd play her game, and took the smallest sip.
She swung back the rest of the drink with a shudder, relieved to find the horrible taste of Lacalvum. It was the magical equivalent of a laxative, to purge any outside spells or potions from her system. She handed the empty vial back and spoke with determination. "James Potter has not done a thing to me. Severus, I need you to hear my words, you've got to stop hanging around Mulciber and the like, for the last time-"
Snape wasn't taking in a word, looking infuriated from the glass back to her, and then clearly speaking to himself. "Bloody hell, I can't believe that didn't work, what's he done to you? There's no way he beat me-"
"This has nothing to do with Potter!" She lashed out, her frustration growing by the word, tears of anger in her eyes. "Listen to me, for once, Severus, Mulciber! Reginald Mulciber! If you keep talking to him, we can't be friends anymore."
He didn't even hesitate, he scoffed and took her hand, trying to pull her down towards the potion class as he brushed off, "he was holding your hand, you two were laughing together, obviously you're not in the right head. Come on, I'll fix you-"
"You're not listening," Lily tried to jerk her hand free, but he didn't let go, gripping her wrist tight and trying to put the fakest smile in place as if to placate her. She stamped her foot, speaking with more fury than any curse could ever do to him. "You never do! It's the Death Eater's or me!"
He froze, for the first time some of her panic traveled to him, and then an eerie calm fell over as he dropped her hand, but took a step closer, right into her face as he whispered, "how did you know that? We haven't, I mean it's not official but-"
"So it's true?" She took that step back, clutching at her throat as if he were going to slice it open. She lowered it hastily though, her voice beseeching, pleading, "Severus, it's not to late, please just stop now, you can leave, back out of whatever they've asked of you, even if you have the mark, it's not to late-"
"This, this is Potter," he spat, drawing himself to his full height as Lily shrank back and shook her head, no longer in denial, just sorrow. "He's, lying to you, about what it's like, filling your head with, I won't let you-"
"Let me?" She echoed back, and her voice was so soft, a flint of fire ready to spark. "Let me? You don't let me do anything!"
Snape stammered, trying to back track, but Lily pressed a finger into his shoulder and hissed with quickly catching kindling, "hear my words, I have not been placed under magic, I did everything to try and help you, and you threw it in my face time and again! Don't you ever talk to me again, you've chosen your side."
"Lily!" Fear, for the first time, as Snape reached out to try and stop her. Peter tensed, on the verge to change any second and back her up if he tried anything worse. "Lily wait, please, I can't just, it's not the same for me! They'll, I sleep in the same dorm as them," she hesitated, his fingers a lose string away from her elbow, biting her lip, Wormtail chittered softly and didn't know what to think. He hoped Severus would at least try, but he didn't believe he had it in him like she did...but then, he hadn't believed in himself until somebody did for him. "I can't just, it's not so bad, you know? I do my thing, they just ask for-"
She turned back to him, her face etched in horror as he kept digging his grave deeper. "Your thing?" She demanded in a dead kind of voice, he was dead to her now. "Making up dark spells and always thinking you know better, is that your thing?" Even Wormtail shivered at how cold she sounded. "Like Sectumsempra, is that your thing now?"
His face flushed red, adding a hint of color to his sallow skin, but not in embarrassment, no, that was defiance as he snapped back without answering. "How did you know, that's, he did something to you-"
"I know lots of things now you never bothered to tell me Snape," Lily said, her hand twitching for her own wand in fury now as it all piled down. He flinched at the use of his last name, and tried to whisper something, but she kept going. "Tonight you were planning on ambushing Mary Macdonald," he gaped at her and didn't even bother to deny that one, her hand slipped into her pocket. "She's not the first, or the last. You'll never see me as an equal, I'm just as much a Mudblood to you as her," here he tried to shake his head, waved his hand in protest, and she did have some regret for letting those angry words out when he'd once scolded Karkaroff for saying the same. If only he'd say something, but he just kept shaking his head and looking back towards the Slytherin's Entrance. It occurred to her who was on the other side of that door, his friends, waiting to ambush anyone who had come along with her if they could. She was stepping back with a vengeance now, "you don't get to decide anything for me anymore, not ever again."
Remorse ebbed and flowed across his features as he tried to lob anything back, looking desperately from his seat of power to her. The password was axiom, an accepted truth. It was his choice what to believe now. Wormtail wanted to believe it for him, not leave Regulus feeling so alone in there too. 'Offer to be a spy,' Peter pleaded with the universe, knowing Lily still wouldn't take that long-term, but it would even just be the start in the right direction. 'Promise to put some distance, just try, please...' He was wringing his hands, he opened his mouth...
"Just stay down here for one night, meet them properly, you've never tried. I'll figure out what Potter did to you and we can go back-"
"Langlock!" Lily shrieked in fury, as Snape gagged on his own curse while Lily took off running.
Peter changed back once they were at the staircases to almost keep up, panting for his fourth bloody trip up and down these things in a single hour but finally making it to the hospital wing to see Sirius throwing off the cloak and half dumping Remus on the floor as he moved to intercept her before she could tackle James, but she instead threw herself into Sirius's arms, sobbing, "I'm so sorry, I thought he, I, he," she broke down and clung to him, and Sirius hugged her back, running his hand soothingly across her back.
"I'm sorry too Lils, I was being an arse, but James is going to be fine, Marauder's swear," his voice sounded as rough as hers.
Remus and Peter smiled for the bizarre scene nobody would ever believe happened if they weren't here to see it.