Complications

By: Dimantrien

Chapter 7: The World in Reverse

Dinner at Hogwarts for their group of friends used to be the highlight of their day, but that hadn't been the case ever since Lily and James's breakup. While the marauders and Celeste stayed in their usual place at the middle of the Gryffindor table, Lily was on the right end with the two other (girl) Gryffindor fifth years, Damaris was on the opposite end with Rhiannon, and Chase was nowhere in sight.

Peter was the one who first noticed her mysterious absence. "Hey, Celes, where's Chase?"

Celeste looked up from her pork chops, her eyebrows furrowing. "Um…I think she's with Snape…"

Sirius dropped the bowl of gravy he'd been holding and its contents spilled all over Remus' food-laden plate. "She's with Snape?" he said so loudly and incredulously that a few people glanced in their direction.

"That's what I heard… Is that any reason for you to ruin my dinner?" Remus demanded, pointing to his…ruined dinner.

"What's Chase doing with that slime ball?" Sirius went on, ignoring his friend completely.

Celeste rolled her eyes. "Potions project, remember? Why do you care, anyway? Chase can take care of herself without you."

Remus snorted derisively. "As if Padfoot's even capable of taking care of someone else's dinner," he scoffed, indicating his plate, which was a puddle of chicken and pork bits, bread crumbs, ketchup and gravy.

"Yeah, but why does she have to skip dinner? It's not like she's been so serious about a school project before that she'd decide to miss out on a meal," Sirius argued, waving his fork in the air (which still had a pork chop stuck on it) and causing more bits to rain down on Remus' plate.

Remus scowled at this observation, grabbed his plate, and switched it with Sirius'.

"Well, I'm certainly glad that she's starting to set her priorities straight," Celeste remarked in a superior tone. "Goodness knows it took her the better half of five years to improve her study habits."

Sirius finally put down his fork right at the exact moment that it was devoid of any clingy particles of pork chop. "But this is Snape we're talking about. How can Chase stand being with a person who thinks he's the reigning king of Potions, let alone spend her precious feeding time listening to him gloat about his supposedly superior knowledge and letting him order her around—"

"Oh, give it a rest already, Padfoot," James groaned, which effectively shut Sirius up, as these were the first words his best friend uttered all evening.

"Fine," Sirius grumbled after his initial surprise, picking up his fork and knife again. "But don't blame me if she ends up in the hospital wing with chicken feathers on her neck or something…" he trailed off, resuming his dinner…or, what he thought was his dinner. "Hey! Where's my foo—Moony!"

Said Moony was munching happily on the last bite of Sirius' fried chicken. Swallowing, he said, "Don't worry about being wherever Chase is, Sirius, like I said before, you're not even capable of taking care of someone's dinner—let alone your own."

***** 

Lily dragged herself up the stairs leading to the girls' dormitory, groaning. She'd managed to survive another day of acting like everything was fine (except for the part where she wasn't hanging out with the gang), but it was kind of hard since James was in all of her classes. Jeez, he even took all her extra ones—CMC, Divination and Arithmancy. Was nothing sacred?

As her hands gripped the cool metal of the doorknob, a realization dawned on her. She and James took the same new-since-third-year subjects because they had decided that when they had been friends—all the marauders had the same extra subjects except for Arithmancy, since Sirius took Ancient Runes instead of that one.

She shook her head, willing the memories of when she and James had a functioning relationship to erase themselves from her mind. All she wanted to do was avoid everyone, lie down on her bed and veg. Too bad she didn't stop by the kitchens to grab a cookie or two so that she'd really feel better. Then again, she'd probably run into Sirius or Rhiannon, which would only remind her of her problems, because Sirius was James' best bud, and Rhiannon was Damaris' closest friend. Yet another reason for escaping her social duties.

Lily stepped into the room, grateful that it was empty. Everyone was probably in the common room catching up on homework. She'd done all assignments already in hopes of distracting herself from thinking about James but now that she had nothing to do, it only caused her to think of nothing but him.

Sighing, she dumped her school things on top of her trunk and flopped onto her bed, reminding herself again that James wasn't worth the trouble, that she should have known from the start that he'd never change. Who does he think he is anyway? Thinks he can drop a relationship for no apparent reason and automatically assume that he's not going to hurt the girl—any girl—who's fallen in love with him? she thought angrily, punching her pillow. But even as she tried to convince herself, she knew that James had really changed. He'd done it for her. So why was he acting like this now?

The tears started to spill almost simultaneously, and she didn't hold them back. She couldn't help it, couldn't help thinking of how wrong all this was, couldn't help remembering the good times she'd had—the good times that James and she had planned—back when things were okay. Now it was gone. Everything she had from the past year was gone…

She let out another sob and turned over on her side, willing the pain to go away. Willing her brain to miraculously shut down. Finally, about what seemed like hours later, she felt her eyelids growing heavy and she started to let sleep take her…

"Lily? Are you okay?"

Lily's eyes flew open, and she instinctively wiped her tears with a corner of her blanket. She knew that voice well, and she had no energy to deal with its owner tonight.

"It's none of your business," she snapped rudely, facing Chase and giving her the most hateful glare that her energy could muster. Chase's arms were loaded with sweets and cookies and such, reminding Lily too vividly of her earlier craving.

Chase's bright blue eyes hardened at Lily's reaction. "Well, excuse me for caring," she said, the familiar note of sarcasm evident in her voice. "You should have told me that you scheduled your daily cry-over-James fest for nine in the evening so that I'd leave you alone."

Lily felt her heart tug again at Chase's comment, and before she could blink them back, two tears spilled down her cheeks. "Shut—shut up," she sniffled, failing to hold up the dam of crystalline drops now that they started flowing, all attempts at showing her resentment gone from her tone. She turned her back on Chase, expecting her to make a snide remark now that she had broken Lily's armor.

She heard Chase's footsteps coming closer and closer until they stopped, and she could feel her presence right beside her bed. Here it comes…

Instead of the verbal assault she'd predicted, she felt Chase gripping her shoulder and pushing it down so that she was facing her. "Get up. You're making yourself look pathetic," Chase ordered, tossing a cookie at her.

Lily caught it, puzzled at Chase's odd behavior. At least it had done one thing, the tears had stopped. She shakily sat up, gaining confidence and strength as she did so. "Who gave you the right to say that? Just because you're emotionally stable doesn't mean you can go around insulting those who aren't," she retorted irately.

Chase rolled her eyes. "What would you rather have me do? Join in on your bawling on how unfair the male race is, act like a sympathizer who'll only make you feel worse for being pitied, or tell you to face the fact that you're degrading yourself? Our friendship might be over for you, but it won't take away the fact that I've known you inside out for four years. And I know that if you realized what you're doing right now, wallowing over a guy instead of fighting to get over it and making yourself stronger, you'd be disgusted with yourself."

It was Lily's turn to roll her eyes. There she went again, preaching to Lily about what she should and shouldn't be doing. Couldn't Chase take a hint? She just couldn't keep her mouth shut, not even if the two of them were fighting. Lily opened her mouth, about to direct a scathing comeback to her former best friend, when something inside her clicked. If you realized what you're doing right now, you'd be disgusted with yourself.

The problem with Chase was, she was so irritating when she sounded like she knew everything that was going on and suggested the exact remedy for it. She was so confident and self-assured that it grated on Lily's nerves.

But the truth was—and that infuriated Lily more—she knew that Chase was right.

"So, are you just going to keep on staring into space or what?" Chase said, snapping her out of her thoughts.

Lily glared at her halfheartedly. Suddenly she felt that arguing with Chase was useless. "At least it beats crying," she shot back.

"Is that an indirect way of admitting that you realized I was right?" Chase asked her.

Narrowing her eyes, Lily stared back at Chase. Was she mocking her to her face? Chase's eyes were twinkling, and Lily knew—and was sure of it—that her cynical witticisms were back. The genuine Chase was back. She felt like a weight was lifted from her shoulders—not all of it, that was for sure, but enough for her to feel a little better. In a sudden act of impulse she hugged her friend, causing her to drop the pastries she was holding onto Lily's bed.

Chase hugged her back, and Lily felt some of the tension being squeezed out of her. She never knew that not having Chase on her side would give her this much discomfort. Chase pulled away, a puzzled but relieved expression on her face. "I don't understand. Are we friends again?"

Lily just nodded. Now that she had Chase on her side again, there was only one more thing to worry about. And she was determined to get past it.

***** 

"Why do I have to do this?" Rhiannon moaned as she chased after a pot that had two furry ears poking from the sides of the rim and four legs attached to the base. She and Damaris were inside an empty classroom, practicing the spell they were supposed to learn for their previous lesson in Transfiguration.

Actually she knew exactly why she was doing this. Professor McGonagall had assigned James to tutor Damaris but since Lily and him broke up Damaris didn't dare approach him. The only person she could turn to was her best friend. Rhiannon didn't really mind much though. She knew Damaris felt bad about what happened and would have apologized to Lily long ago if she hadn't found out that Lily was practically an expert at hexes. If there was one thing that she feared the most, it was being cursed with the possibility that the spell that had a negative effect on her would be irreversible.

Rhiannon sighed. She liked Transfiguration and all, but it was no picnic most of the time, unless you were James Potter. She collapsed onto one of the many empty desks in the classroom, giving up chase on her quarry.

"I may be wrong, but I think you did a Cat Jinx on it, not the actual spell we're supposed to do," Damaris spoke up quietly, referring to her Intermediate Transfiguration book. "It says here the two are almost the same, there's just a subtle difference in the wand movement…"

Rhiannon responded with a groan and raised her wand once again. "Finite," she said sharply, and the runaway pot she had burned energy for just a few minutes ago returned to its normal, inanimate state.

"Sorry for dragging you into this," Damaris said, picking up the pot rather lethargically. She had been that way ever since "the incident," as Rhiannon preferred to call it.

Rhiannon smiled faintly, thinking of how her best friend's cheerfulness had declined for the past few days. "C'mon, I've read that a little more enthusiasm would do wonders if you're trying to get a spell right. Why don't you try it a bit while I take a breather?" Without waiting for an answer, she closed her eyes, focusing on breathing deeply and exhaling.

Damaris nodded even though she knew Rhiannon couldn't see it. She felt that she should get this right today; Rhiannon certainly deserved to see her improving after all the effort the food fanatic had exerted in helping her. Focusing on the pot and her wand movement, she muttered the incantation under her breath and watched, half-amazed, as the lifeless pot transformed into a kitten before her eyes. She knelt down, gesturing for the tiny cat to come to her, and it happily obliged. She scratched it behind the ears and it purred softly in contentment.

Rhiannon's eyes flew open at the soft meowing. "Hey! You did it!" she exclaimed happily, jumping up from her chair and hugging her still-kneeling friend and knocking them both over in the process. The kitten, frightened by the sudden movement, darted out of the way and continued out the open door.

The two friends scrambled to a sitting position on the floor. "Oh well," Rhiannon said with a shrug, "You can always get another pot to transform into a pet if you need it."

They both laughed, and Rhiannon realized that it was the first time in a while that Damaris was happy. Feeling like they had already practiced for a sufficient amount of time, she thought that maybe it was time for her to speak up on the Lily-James subject.

"Hey Damaris, have you, you know, talked to Lily yet?" she asked quickly, fidgeting with her wand and causing it to emit blue sparks.

Damaris' eyes lost some of their glow. "Oh. Well, actually…not yet," she admitted, averting her gaze from her best friend.

"Why not?" Rhiannon pressed. "I mean, I'm sure she wouldn't mind, if you tell her your side of the story…"

Damaris shook her head. "No, it's not that. It's just… she's been so upset and I don't want to make things worse. I'm sure she'll just hurl a curse at me once I'm within talking distance."

Rhiannon grinned. "Aw, come on, Lily's not that bad. I'm sure she only jinxes people who deserve it."

"Yeah, and I do deserve it," Damaris muttered dejectedly.

"No you don't, if you tell her the whole story. If you ask for my opinion, you should try talking to her now while she's in a good mood."

"A good mood?"

Rhiannon nodded. "Yep. She and Chase made up already, didn't you know?"

"And I was the one who caused their fight in the first place," Damaris interjected.

Rhiannon gave herself a mental clap on the forehead. "Yeah…well…maybe indirectly, but—"

"It was my fault, and you know it," Damaris insisted disconsolately.

Rhiannon tried a different tack. "Fine, so, let's say it was your fault, but don't you blame yourself entirely, you didn't know Lily and James were going out. If you're taking blame, then it's only right that you should apologize, right? And I'm sure Lily would accept that. And it's better to do it when she's feeling happy at the moment than when she's in a bad mood."

This time her words seemed to be taking some effect. "I… I suppose that might work," Damaris said slowly.

"It will work. Best to do it while the thought's still fresh on your mind or you'll chicken out. Wait right here while I go fetch Lily, okay?" Rhiannon sprinted out of the room without waiting for an answer.

Damaris stopped at the doorway. "Wait! I'm still not sure if…" But too late, Rhiannon was gone.

***** 

Sirius and James met in one of the dungeon corridors. James had been assigned by Witzgromeneirre to rid the Potions classroom of any unpleasant ingredient remains, like frog guts and essence of skunk, because she had found out about his ordering Avery to do everything and had deducted ten points from Gryffindor to boot. James, who was feeling listless as usual and had no energy for any task which required concentration, had ordered Sirius to do it for him. Sirius grudgingly obeyed, remembering their bet, and reasoned that an order of manual labor from his best friend was better than a more embarrassing command when James was actually capable of thinking of a way to make him suffer, say for instance, making him dress like a house elf and answering his every beck and call for twenty-four hours.

And that was the reason why Sirius had an unpleasant odor lingering about him as he and James walked down the dimly-lit hall. He was hoping that he could have spotted Chase and Snape doing their project somewhere down here, but each room they passed was empty.

James sighed for the umpteenth time that night, which annoyed Sirius to no end. Not only was he forced to clean a whole room without magic (for that was how Witzgromeneirre liked her classroom cleaned, the horrible old goat), he had to put up with his best friend sulking. "For goodness' sake, Prongs, if you miss her that much then you should just go make up with her," he said exasperatedly. He took out a bottle of men's body spray from his robe pocket and started spraying himself furiously, to no avail. The skunk scent couldn't be gotten rid of no matter what he did.

James shrugged, but didn't comment.

Sirius, getting more irritated at James's lack of conversational skills at this moment, ranted on. "See, that's the problem. Some girl waltzes into your life and kisses you, and then you break up with your real girlfriend, which makes you roughly equivalent to the living dead—"

"Interesting, Black. Are you talking about yourself?" a sneering voice suddenly spoke up from the darkness behind them.

Sirius wheeled around and surveyed his mocker coolly. "And what makes you say that, Snivellus?"

Snape's eyes glinted maliciously. "You know what I'm talking about, Black. Have you forgotten about Chase Tarlise, or should I relay her the message that what you two had was just a little fling?"

"'What we had' is none of your damn business, greaseball, so keep your overlarge nose out of it," Sirius snapped, suddenly realizing the resemblance between James's plight and his own.

"Getting a bit too defensive, aren't we? From your tone of voice I'd say you're still hung up on her," Snape said mockingly.

"Yeah, well, whatever you have to say is never relevant, so excuse me if I—or anybody else, for that matter—have difficulty in believing you," Sirius retorted. His hand gripped his wand tightly in his pocket, but he fought the urge to hex the moron in front of him with all the self-restraint he could muster.

"Anyone would hardly think whatever you say could possibly be said in all seriousness, Black, despite the word's uncanny resemblance to your name. But that's not the matter at hand, is it not? This is you and Chase we're talking about here—"

"Stop saying her name like you're a close friend of hers!" Sirius shouted at him. At that moment he wanted to vent all his frustrations from the second half of the last school year to the present onto Snape. How dare that slimeball stand there all smug and sly as if he and Chase were best buds and Sirius couldn't beat him for her attention? Why was it that Chase spent a suspiciously large amount of time with the school idiot but couldn't spare a single moment to smile at him?

"How would you know if I'm not a close friend of hers, Black? Are you supposed to monitor who she should or shouldn't hang around with? Should I pass that message along too? Though, I doubt very much that she'd like you meddling with her social life…"

Sirius laughed mirthlessly. "Spending a couple of hours with her with a cauldron and a fire doesn't amount to a plausible friendship, Snivellus."

"Why don't you ask her yourself? Ask her who she'd rather spend her time with, a Slytherin who could offer her reasonable advice and company, or a former Gryffindor boyfriend who broke her heart by going out with another girl in public—"

"THAT WASN'T MY FAULT!" Sirius yelled angrily at him. One more quip, Snivellus, he silently warned, one more and I swear I'll hex you so bad you'll have to be lay down on a stretcher and sent to the intensive care unit of St. Mungo's…

"Tut, tut, Black, you should try learning to keep that fiery temper of yours in check; people might start to think that you're a raving lunatic, just because of your nonexistent—"

But whatever nonexistent thing Sirius possessed, he never found out, because right at that moment he chose the time to aim a well-placed curse at Snape. Snape, caught off guard, got hit on the ear, and it transformed into what looked horribly like an elephant's ear.

In revolted retaliation, Snape whipped out his own wand and muttered a string of incantations directed at Sirius.

"Protego!" Sirius said at once, and while he was preoccupied deflecting most of the curses Snape took the time to perform the countercurse on his mutated ear. He was halfway done when Sirius once again attacked, sporting a right hand whose fingers were converted to five wriggling tentacles. He had failed to deflect the last curse.

"Furnunculus! Impedimenta! Petrificus Totalus!" The first two missed their mark entirely because Sirius had to use his left hand to hold his wand, but the Petrifying Curse hit Snape full in the chest, instantly making him stiff as a board. He crashed unceremoniously on the floor and Sirius advanced toward him, a menacing look in his eyes…

"STOP! Sirius Black, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing?!"

At first Sirius didn't recognize the voice, but as the figure got closer he realized it was Chase, and she had a livid look on her face that he had never seen before. The rage alone in her tone must have made it unrecognizable.

"Getting rid of the filth in the dungeons," he said without missing a beat, wondering why she looked so furious when she had let him curse Snape and his buddies more than a dozen times.

SMACK! Sirius backed up a few steps, stunned, holding his left hand over his cheek. He didn't know what was wrong with Chase; if his memory wasn't malfunctioning he was positive she had just slapped him with all the angry adrenaline she had at her dispense. What the hell—

"What did he do to you?! And you," she turned to James, who looked like he had spaced out all throughout Sirius and Snape's fight, "what are you standing there for, when you could break them apart—"

"Hold on a sec," Sirius interrupted, getting over his momentary shock. "What's going on here—?"

"I'm the one who's supposed to ask that," Chase said, the rage gone from her tone and expression but replaced with overflowing disdain. "If you want a test dummy for your hexing practices go find a replacement, you've tortured Severus enough for four years…"

What… test dummy…hexing practice…Severus…torture…what is she talking about?! "I have not been hexing him without a reason, besides, he started it, and—what's it to you if I'm hexing Snape anyway?! Don't tell me you care about—" He stopped midsentence, staring in disbelief at Chase who was reversing the curses Sirius had inflicted on Snape and utterly bewildered at her dysfunctional behavior.

"I still can't turn your ear back to normal… Severus, why don't you go to the infirmary and I'll take care of these two idiots myself?"

"No, I'm not through with Black yet—"

"Now."

Snape grudgingly stood up and glared at Sirius, his eyes glittering malevolently. The smug expression he still had on his face implied that he thought he had won, because Chase was siding with him, a Slytherin, and not with Sirius, one of Chase's longtime friends. With his half-shrunk elephant ear, he would have looked comical, but these were not normal circumstances; this was a time where Sirius was positive he had stepped into an alternate world—James didn't jump at the chance to join Sirius in his curse-Snivellus-to-oblivion opportunity; Chase was defending Snape and was livid with Sirius.

When Snape had disappeared round the corner, Sirius turned his attention to Chase. "What the hell is up with you, Chase? You were hanging over that Slytherin scumbag like he was your precious pet—"

"Why did you have to hex him if he provoked you? If James was in the right state of mind he would have jumped right in and joined you—is that what you want? To curse him until he's permanently maimed?" Her voice was no longer angry or disgusted, but she spoke with such coldness that Sirius actually shivered. Chase never, ever talked like that unless she was speaking with somebody she hated.

"Of course not, but—"

"But what?"

Sirius looked helplessly at James. James sighed yet again but this time he spoke. "Snape was provoking Sirius, Chase. It's always been routine for them to hex each other after an exchange of insults."

"What were you two fighting about, anyway?" Chase demanded, her blue eyes not reflecting any of their sparkle as she looked at Sirius.

Sirius hesitated. "Well, he was, well, making up all these lies and—"

"Snape was telling Sirius some rubbish that he became a close friend of yours and that Sirius was acting like he had to approve who your friends had to be first," James said wearily.

Sirius glared at him. Of all the times James had to speak at last, he had to say all the wrong words.

"What! And who told you that you had the authority to decide who I'm supposed to be friends with?" Chase's eyes flashed as she shifted her gaze from James to Sirius. 

"I never said that, Prongs has it all wrong—"

"Gods, Sirius, just because you hate Snape doesn't mean everybody else does," Chase said, as if Sirius were the most childish person on the planet.

"What're you talking about—don't tell me you actually think Snape is friend-worthy—"

"That's what I'm saying, and you just can't get it through your fat head that some people are worth knowing; you think you're above everybody else—"

"I do not think that way, Snape is—and always will be—a class A git, and therefore not worthy of—"

Chase shook her head and held up a hand. "Say whatever you have to say, Sirius, but don't expect me to hang around and listen to you. I'm outta here."

Sirius opened his mouth to utter a last word of protest, but none came. He alternately opened and closed his mouth, staring after Chase's retreating form.

He looked at James in complete bewilderment, his expression effectively conveying, What the hell was that all about?  But like usual, James only shrugged, not looking the least bit shocked at Chase's atypical outburst.

Sirius looked back at the empty corridor before him. He had a feeling that he couldn't be able to formulate a complete sentence what with everybody interrupting whatever he was going to say. Why was Chase suddenly being so unreasonable? Was she going crazy?

Or was he?

***** 

A/N – OotP might be out but I'm sticking to the personalities I've thought up for them instead of the canon ones. I'll end this story after two more chapters, I think. Feedback is more than welcome.