(Chapter Five)

James found Sirius staring hard at a book in the middle of the library, smacking the book out of his hands jovially. Sirius, slumped in the seat, shot him an irritated glance. "Getting grumpy already, Padfoot?" James asked with a grin. "I'm staying at Hogwarts with you and Remus over the holidays, so you shouldn't feel so glum."

Sirius was thankful that James had mistaken his surly attitude for the upcoming holiday break rather than what was really on his mind. He had two more days of detention with Lily Evans and he had been berating himself for his actions last night since it had happened. He was not sure why he had thought it would be a good idea to pull that little trick of his on her of all people. He did not want to get close to Lily Evans, either emotionally or physically. He hated that he now knew every tiny little detail of her face that he was sure James had already catalogued in his brain: the bright, green eyes, dainty nose, the dusting of very faint freckles over her cheeks, and how pink her lips looked up close.

This final thought made him so sour that he would have chucked the book in his lap at anyone's head at that moment.

"Yeah, well," Sirius said to distract James, "Regulus has been pestering me about going home for the holidays." This was not untrue, even if it was not the reason behind his behavior.

He had liked his life a good deal more when he had not noticed Lily's pretty looks and her appealing personality. He had attractive girls throw themselves at him before, but none of them were a cluster of sassy and intelligent like Lily. This, he knew, was the greatest appeal in her to James. Sirius had been a happier teenager before he noticed that same traits.

Of course, this would not be the first time that he and James had found the same girl attractive. Sirius had conceded on more than one occasion when James had started dating a good-looking girl. There was always something to find fault in them, though. With Lily, the only thing that Sirius could fault in her was her undying loyalty to Snape.

Which, granted, was quite a large flaw in and of itself considering the person in question kept trying to curse them left and right in the hallways.

"What's he want that for?" James asked him curiously.

"Regulus wants a happy little Slytherin family," he grunted. "Like the Malfoys. Their son is a right little puke, though."

"Oh, Lucius? He was a seventh-year when we first came to Hogwarts, wasn't he?"

"I think so. He's got himself a girlfriend now – a pureblood, of course." He rolled his eyes disgustedly. "Might as well be sleeping with your cousin."

Even as James laughed, Sirius felt himself sink deeper into his thoughts. He knew, without a doubt, that he could never tell James that he found Lily attractive. Even the mention of her having nice hair might make his friend uneasy. With Lily, everything was different. His friend had kept true to his word and had not gone on a date with a girl the whole term. It seemed that he was, as he had said, quite serious about her and Sirius could not justify casting any shadow on that.

No, Sirius thought to himself, he doesn't need to know. It's not important.

After a while of coaxing, James convinced Sirius to leave the library to go back upstairs to play a game of Exploding Snap. James ruffled his hair as they walked, making it look extremely untidy. Sirius followed him, still in a bad mood and wishing a great deal of harm on Mathilde Browning for getting Lily into detention when the subject of his thoughts materialized in front of them at the marble staircase.

"Hi," Mathilde said breathlessly to James. Her cheeks were flushed and Sirius eyed her critically behind his friend. She was undoubtedly beautiful, but there was a mean, calculating look in her eyes that he did not like. He recalled what Lily had said to him about her and the corners of his mouth turned down further. This was not even counting the other nutty things Sirius had heard about the girl.

"Hi," James answered, pausing on the steps. She had stepped into the line of their path purposely. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to see how things were going with Lily Evans," she said conversationally, tipping her head and smiling in what Sirius guessed was supposed to be an innocent, angelic type of way. James, however, wary since seeing the love letter that Sirius had given him, had developed a crease between his eyebrows.

"What's it to you?"

She blinked, taken aback. Clearly, she was not accustomed to boys rejecting her. "I was just curious," she told him, her cheeks pinkening slightly.

James continued to frown at her. "Oi, I got your letter, you know. If I didn't ask you out, you can guess why."

The hue of pink deepened in her face as it flushed from angry embarrassment. "I don't get what your problem is!" she exploded suddenly, gesturing towards Sirius. "Him and Snape go running around with Lily and you still seem to think she's the best girl in Hogwarts."

"First of all," Sirius cut in, "I'm 'running around with her,' because you got her thrown into detention. And for another, James had to go through most of the girls in Hogwarts to find one that he actually liked. You just didn't make the list."

She shot him a filthy look while James laughed.

"Sorry," James said, rounding on her, "but you're just not my type. See you." He gave a jaunty wave as they headed up the staircase, feeling her mutinous gaze behind their backs.

"She's a piece of work," Sirius remarked, glancing behind his back to watch her storm off towards the Hufflepuff common room. "You'd think she'd take a hint."

"Oh, I know those type of girls," James said, unbothered. "Her ego is so bruised she'll do anything to get me to date her at this point."

Sirius did not voice his opinion that the 'anything' might include the girl that he was after, instead keeping this nugget of information to himself.

On his way to detention that evening, he walked a little slower than usual, feeling more reluctant to attend detention than he ever had during his years at Hogwarts. Usually, he did not mind going to detentions – at times, depending on the professor, they broke up the monotony of class and homework. After last night, though, he wanted to keep as far from Lily Evans as possible. Before detention, he had kept his distance to avoid getting sassed and hexed; now he felt that she had become the equivalent of a plague to him, something that might contaminate him. The less he knew about her or talked to her, the better.

As he was doing his death march down the corridor towards McGonagall's office, he had the unpleasant realization that someone was waiting for him. He almost groaned aloud upon seeing Severus Snape standing outside one of the empty classrooms, his back as rigid as a wooden board. As Slytherin prefect, he was given the luxury of being out in the corridors later than other fifth-year students whose curfew was nine in the evening. Clearly hanging around in the halls did not worry Snape at all.

"Come to play white knight?" Sirius sneered, smirking at Snape.

"I'm just here to make sure that you don't have any plans towards Lily," he said stiffly and Sirius could see his hand at his side, tightly clutching his wand.

"You really are a pest, Snivellus." Sirius's own hand drifted inside his robes to where his wand lay, closing his fingers round it in case Snape decided to get a little trigger-happy with his spells. "I already heard the little rumor you're trying to float around the school about me and James. Don't you get bored acting like a girl?"

Snape's pale, thin features flushed angrily. "It's not a rumor. You both are trying to go after her."

"Wrong. James is, I'm just in detention with her – or are you too stupid to understand that?"

"You think you're so clever – using detention as a cover."

"Just because you don't have the balls to stand up to your Slytherin groupies to get with the girl you want doesn't mean every guy that talks to her is after her," Sirius told him, beginning to get annoyed with Snape's jealousy. "You're not even dating her and are acting like an overbearing boyfriend."

"I don't – I never – "

"Oh, shut up. The way you've been acting makes it obvious."

"You don't know anything!"

Snape whipped his wand around so fast that Sirius did not have time to counter. Instead, he dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way. He pulled his wand out, ripping the pocket of his robes as he did so. He swore loudly and was sure that McGonagall had heard him with how silent the rest of the castle was at this time. He shot a wordless jinx towards Snape, who parried, his face white with rage. As Sirius raised his wand once again, both his and Snape's wands flew into the air. Sirius looked around, expecting to see McGonagall.

Instead, it was Dumbledore.

"Boys," Dumbledore said to them in his serene voice, peering at them over his half-moon spectacles, "forgive me for interrupting what appeared to be a very, ah, spirited exchange." His wand hand held his wand aloft, their own wands grasped loosely in his other hand. "Sirius, if I'm not much mistaken, you have detention tonight, do you not? As avid of a detention-goer as you are, I highly doubt you want to land yourself in another week's worth."

Sirius, having had his fair share of run-ins with Dumbledore, gestured towards Snape disgustedly. "He tried to curse me just because he's jealous of his damn girlfriend."

"Language, Sirius," Dumbledore said mildly, but Sirius was sure that he had seen the faintest shadow of a smile behind his very long, white beard.

"She is not my girlfriend," Severus spat.

"You want her to be, you stupid prat!"

"Professor Dumbledore!" Professor McGonagall had clearly been roused from her classroom by the shouting and came bustling down the hallway. She took one look at the two boys and her nostrils flared like a dragon's Behind her, Lily followed more slowly, her eyes trailing to Snape, who was breathing hard as if he had run down the length of the corridor. It did not take a brilliant mind to put two and two together. "What on earth – "

"It's quite alright, professor," Dumbledore cut in with the patience only a headmaster could possess. "They were just exhibiting their impressive skills to me, nothing more. Isn't that right?" His gaze held Severus's, who after a few seconds, looked away grudgingly.

"Yes, sir," he muttered under his breath.

"Very good." Dumbledore handed them their wands and then pocketed his own. This time, Sirius was sure that he saw the headmaster smile. "Run along then, Severus. And off to detention with you, Sirius."

Professor McGonagall glared down at him as he passed her, but said nothing. Instead, she shooed him and Lily back into her classroom and closed the door to return and meet Dumbledore, likely to ask whether Sirius needed punishment. After all, she was his head of house. Sirius made his way to the storage room rather annoyed and fuming from the encounter with Snape. Whatever Snape thought was going on was clearly enough for him to threaten getting detention himself while on what it had appeared to be prefect duty.

"What was that all about?" Lily demanded, joining him in the storage room.

He was so angry that he snapped back, "I thought you weren't talking to me, Evans?"

She twitched, as if he had physically slapped her, but raised her chin a notch, her cheeks pink. "I don't know what you're on about, but whatever you did to Sev – "

"For the love of – " he began and then accidentally dropped a glass orb that he had been moving from the counter. Immediately breaking into another stream of swearing, he took out his wand and said, "Reparo!" The orb collected itself and he picked it up, placing it back on the counter before he could break it again. "Have you ever thought, for once in your life, that he did something to me?"

"What reason could Sev possibly have for attacking you?"

"Oh, I don't know," he sarcastically quipped, "maybe because he thinks that both James and I are trying to date you and he's got a thing for you? Ever think of that? You might as well be in a ruddy smut novel."

Whatever acid remark she had lying in wait for him was immediately swallowed and her face went flush in embarrassment. As he made to organize one of the books, he smiled grimly to himself. Good, he thought, that shut her up.

It was not so much that he was angry at her than at the situation. With all of James's other girlfriends, they had known better than to involve him in their problems and they had never entreated him to convince James to take them back because they knew whose side he would take. This situation, on the other hand, was on a whole other level of complicated and frustrating. James was not even dating Lily Evans and he was getting Snape trying to curse his face off, Mathilde Browning trying to drag everyone through the mud, and the girl in question coming at him whenever she thought someone was going after Snape.

This isn't even a love triangle, Sirius thought bitterly, reminded of Remus's words, it's an oval.

When McGonagall came in to redirect them to a specific cupboard, she said to Sirius, "I thought I told you to stay out of trouble, Black."

I thought Dumbledore told you to stay off my case, he replied irritably in his head. Even he was not foolish enough to talk back to her, though. Instead, he said, "Hard to stay out of trouble when it comes looking for me." He coupled this by shooting Lily a dark look, which she returned in kind.

"Well, run away from it next time then," McGonagall snapped. "You'll lose Gryffindor enough points to end up in the negatives at the rate you're going this term!"

Affronted, Sirius turned to her, saying, "How can you expect a Gryffindor to run away, professor?"

"Easily! By using his head!"

This incensed Sirius so much that he stared after her as she marched into the classroom. She might as well have been breathing fire.

By the end of detention, all three members were angry and only Lily said, "Good evening, professor," when she released them. He could still feel McGonagall's stare on his back as he made his way out of the classroom without a backwards glance. He did not wait for Lily, either, refusing to endure more nagging on behalf of Snape, who could have taken his head off for all he knew when he had directed that initial spell towards him.

However, as his steps slowed and his breathing calmed, Lily's footsteps caught up to him on the way up to Gryffindor tower. "Sorry," she said to him, sounding a little breathless. It was clear she had walked quite fast to catch up to him. He glanced at her coolly, but said nothing. "I shouldn't have assumed."

"Only your sweetie Severus is an innocent in this school, is he?" Sirius asked moodily.

"I said sorry!" she protested, frowning at him. He halted in the middle of a staircase, whirling around to face her. "You can't help me for thinking that."

"No, I can," Sirius returned sharply, "and you know why? That foul little Slytherin of yours was the one who started hexing James and I first, not the other way around. If you're going to take sides, then you better damn well get your facts straight."

"But – "

"No, listen to me." Sirius dragged both of his hands through his hair as if pulling it away from his forehead would stop the pounding headache that he had been suffering for the past half hour. "I don't care what you think about me, James, or Snape. Hate all of us if you want! I had no reason to give him a second look up until he started poking his nose where it didn't belong and trying to make himself look good by cursing James after Quidditch matches. You wouldn't know about that because he was always careful not to do it in front of you – that'd make him look like the bad guy, wouldn't it?"

After his sudden exposition, the two of them stood on the staircase staring at each other, Lily looking abashed and rather guilty. This was quite satisfying, as Sirius had never bothered to set the record straight previously. This time, though, caught in the middle of what looked like a mini-war taking place between far too many people, he had had enough.

"I...I'm really sorry," Lily said at last, the fight having left her body. "I didn't know."

"Well, now you do," Sirius told her. His head hurt so badly. He just wanted to go to bed.

When she said nothing more, Sirius continued his way up towards the tower, hearing her follow close behind. He did not wait for her at the portrait hole, continuing through and then straight up the boys' dormitory.

Lying in bed later, he wondered what it was like having a calm term, one that did not include teenage love ovals.


Lily was properly embarrassed of herself and her friend the next day. She might have ignored the entire ordeal if not for Sirius's remarks about Severus hexing them first. This was so far from what she had believed that she had felt as if he had pulled a carpet out from underneath her feet. As a result, rather than joining her friend at the Gryffindor table that morning for lunch, her eyes found Severus at the Slytherin table and she swept up the length of the table, halting next to him. He looked up, startled by her appearance. "I need to talk to you. Now," she said without preamble.

"You've got a mouth on you," another Slytherin, Wilkes, said with an ugly leer.

She ignored him, her eyes pinning Severus in place.

She was not very good at it, but he had begun to teach her Legilimency and Occlumency. She knew that Severus was quite good at Legilimency, as he had broken through her mind's barriers last winter holiday. It was something, he had told her, he had been working on since his first year when discovering it in an obscure book his mother had bought. He had said that eye contact was crucial and thus, she hoped that he could see every thought in her mind at that moment and more importantly, the intense feeling of betrayal.

After a few seconds, he dropped his gaze, shifting it to glance at his friend. "Alright...," he said slowly, getting to his feet. The other Slytherin boys made a sound of "oooooh" as if were in trouble with a parent.

She led him outside the Great Hall and when they stood some feet from the entrance, she swung her red hair around, off her shoulder, and glared at him.

"You've got no right to act like that towards James and his friends, Sev," she said coldly. "Either you talk to me here in school and actually be my friend or stop attacking them in the hallways."

It was a long time until he responded. He watched a group of third-year girls make their way to the Great Hall, chatting avidly and giggling. It was as though he were calculating his response, determining if there were some other way to handle this situation than agreeing to her demands. When he did return his gaze to her, it was with reluctance.

"Then we'll talk at school," he decided in a low voice.

Exasperated, she threw her hands up. "You would rather get teased by your friends than stop hexing someone?"

"You don't know how they are."

"Oh, I don't?" Lily asked him, puffing up with outrage. "What do you think I am, a poor female incapable of being able to handle my own battles? It's not your place to defend my honor, Sev. You made that clear last summer, so you had better just get comfortable with that. I can handle myself."

He looked stung and she realized she might as well have slapped him across the face.

Without quite knowing why, she suddenly wanted to cry. Fighting with Severus was so far from what she wanted that she felt the push of frustrated tears against her eyelids and considered, for one wild moment, not returning to Hogwarts after Christmas. Very briefly, she imagined a quiet life in a Muggle high-school with no Severus's, no James's, and especially no Sirius Black's.

Blinking against the threat of tears, she clenched her jaw as she stared at the uneven bricks in the wall, thankful that she was not looking at Severus just then. She did not want him to see inside her thoughts. Even so, he could tell that she was trying not to cry, for he began to wring his hands in an anxious sort of way.

"Lily," he begged in a quiet voice, "don't be upset like this. They're not worth it."

"They?" she repeated, nearly spitting the word as she jerked her gaze back to his. "This isn't about them, it's about you."

This statement did not bring him any enjoyment, thankfully, and Severus looked more uncomfortable than ever.

"I'm supposed to be having the time of my life at Hogwarts," Lily continued ruthlessly, "not ending up in detention and dealing with my best friend hexing random people in my House just for the fun of it! I don't know where you got it in your head that it's okay to treat people like that, but this is just like when you dropped that branch on Petunia's head – "

"I didn't do that intentionally," he interrupted in a quiet, pained voice, "and you know that."

"Even so – "

Whatever else Lily had to say to Severus was interrupted as a loud, jovial voice called out, "Oh ho! What do we have here?"

The two of them turned to stare at Professor Slughorn, who was inspecting them with a devilish grin. Lily's stomach sank. She could already see the conclusion that Slughorn was coming to upon seeing them. The two of them bent together, talking fiercely, must have looked like a lover's quarrel rather than anything else and knowing Slughorn, he was going to misinterpret it as an inter-House love match. This was so bothersome to Lily, who was already enduring enough gossip, that she hastened to correct the misunderstanding immediately.

"Professor Slughorn, he's been getting into fights with people in Gryffindor," she quickly said to him, causing Severus to stare openly at her.

"Oh, really? Indeed?" Slughorn patted his wide stomach, casting a shrewd look to Severus. The statement seemed to throw him off his initial assumption, thankfully, even though it had been at the expense of her friend. "Nothing like some good House rivalry, eh, Severus?"

As predicted, Slughorn had no plans to punish Severus, who earned more points for Slytherin than any of the other students in his House combined.

"Yes, sir," Severus managed stiffly.

Turning away from the boy dismissively, Slughorn smiled genially at Lily, who beamed brightly at him in an attempt to dispel any further suspicions. "My girl, you must come to my Christmas party next weekend before classes end. I plan to have some very influential guests there." He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. "You might yet just be able to get a good word in with some of them. I'm expecting great things out of you. And this time, be sure to bring a date, won't you?"

Severus's expression went flat behind her.

This had become a joke between her and Slughorn, who had long ago invited her to join what he called the Slug Club. He had been setting her up interviews and offering internships whenever he had the chance and often tried his hand at matchmaking amongst the members of his elite group. She had accepted a few internships over the summer, but had dodged every attempt he made to set her up with what he considered to be another brilliant mind in Hogwarts. He had not, of course, yet done so with a Slytherin. Even as generous as Slughorn was, he still held a very old mindset of keeping the blood pure, though she doubted he would ever admit to it.

"Of course, professor," she said presently. "I always attend your Christmas parties."

"There's a good girl." He adjusted his robes with a smile and then made his way into the Great Hall, leaving the pair gazing after him.

"Who do you plan on taking?" Severus asked mildly.

"Nobody," Lily said. "I never take anyone."

"I would go if you asked."

"No, you wouldn't, Sev," she said to him, frowning. "We both know you hate Slughorn."

They were silent for a few short seconds and then Severus said, "I'll go in first. I'm sorry that I upset you. I didn't mean to."

Lily watched him walk away, feeling as if she had won a battle at a cost to herself rather than Severus. She stifled a sob and pressed her hand briefly to her eyes, sucking in her lower lip. She did not want to be one of those girls that cried in the hallway.

When she withdrew her hand, she froze upon seeing James and his friends making their way out of the Great Hall, passing Severus. James said something snarky that made Peter laugh. Sirius, however, had spotted her in the corridor. A frown caused his eyebrows to knit together as their gaze met, but he looked away before anyone else had seen her. Severus had ignored James and continued into the Great Hall, likely avoiding conflict because of their conversation.

Wiping her face of the few tears that had slipped out, Lily made her way back into the Great Hall to finally enjoy her lunch.

"What was that all about?" Marlene asked, gesturing towards the Slytherin table.

"Nothing that you would want to hear about," Lily told her honestly.

"Well, excuse me," Marlene replied, offended.

"Don't start, you two," Alice said, looking up from the homework that she had been trying to finish before their History of Magic lesson.

"I'm not starting anything this time. I was just asking a question."

Lily ignored this, helping herself to some shepherd's pie without any appetite. She listened with half an ear as Alice asked Marlene to borrow her homework to copy. Marlene grumbled, but gave up the scroll of homework, briefly glancing at Lily, who usually scolded them for copying homework. Lily poked at her food, taking a bite between thoughts.

Sirius saw me crying, she thought, taking a bite. Sev is worried about him.

Another bite.

Sirius is getting upset at Sev.

Another bite.

They both are getting upset at me.

She paused in eating, staring at her half-eaten food with a perplexed expression. Somehow, she was missing something in this equation that was not making sense. Sirius thought that Severus had feelings for her, but when she had confessed, Severus had not admitted to anything. Conversely, Severus had thought there was something between her and Sirius, causing him, she suspected, to start that fight in the hallway during detention.

No matter how much she looked at it, it did not make sense.

The subject of Severus's animosity had always been James. His sudden interest in Sirius was abnormal and, frankly, illogical.

If Sev liked me, she thought gloomily, I wish he would have said so last summer when it still felt like that could be a possibility. Now, with all of this between us, I don't even see that as being something that I want anymore.

This realization was more devastating than she would have admitted and the shock of it made her set her fork aside. Marlene and Alice both stopped talking, hearing it clatter against the plate and looked to her.

"Oh, dear," Alice said sympathetically and leaned over. "Lily..."

Without knowing why, she had started crying and had bowed her head against her arms, resting them on the table to avoid anyone else seeing. And even as she felt both Alice and Marlene's hands on her back, she wanted nothing more than to be home in her Muggle parents' bedroom where her heart did not hurt so badly.