Summer Plans
Disclaimer: Characters and setting are the property of J.K. Rowling, I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.
Katharina-B: Thanks for the feed back.I like both Snape and the Marauders so I've been trying to come up with a scenario where they all contribute to a situation thatgradually escalates into their feud.
Severus Snape glared venomously at the man lingering in his office doorway. "Is there a reason for your presence Lupin?" he snapped barked.
Remus glanced down at something hidden in his hands. "I don't know," he said.
"Then figure it out else where."
Remus leaned back against the doorpost. His body language clearly stated that he wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. "Perhaps I'm feeling nostalgic."
"I could hex you if you truly desire a reminder of what our mutual past was like," Snape offered harshly.
"We weren't always adversaries," Remus remarked.
"You are correct. There was a time when I didn't know you," Snape replied. "Remove yourself before I remove you."
"Albus would scold us if you did. Worse yet, what if Minerva or Poppy caught us brawling?" Remus smiled to himself. "I may be feeling nostalgic but I don't wish to be scolded like an errant first year."
Remus ignored Severus' forbidding glare and walked over to the Potion Master's desk. He set a photograph on top of the paper Severus was grading. "I was going through Sirius' things."
Severus drew back from the long ago moment as if the photograph were coated with a virulent toxin.
"Do you ever think abut why our year doesn't hold reunions?" Remus asked quietly.
"I would presume it is because it traditionally falls to the Headboy and Headgirl to arrange such ordeals," Severus answered coolly. "I am certain you remember that they are both dead. They were your friends after all."
Remus pulled up a chair and sat down. "James and Lily are dead. As are Tia Chang, Gerry Abbot, Chelsea and Mara Figg and now Sirius," Remus' shoulders slumped. "We're not even forty, even muggles don't start attending reunions to count who's left until their seventies. Already sixty-eight percent of our classmates are dead. Another seven percent either are in Azkaban or would be if not for Voldemort. Abigail Longbottom and a dozen others will never leave St. Mungos. Nearly half of our remaining classmates were suspected of being in collusion with the Deatheather during the last war; who knows what they're doing now… I was in a morbid mood this morning."
Severus listened to Remus' grim accounting in shocked silence he hadn't expected the former Gryffindor to have calculated those particular statistics. Reluctantly he said, "You over-estimated the number who supported the Dark Lord. A significant fraction of those cleared by the Ministry were, in fact innocent."
Remus' expression brightened minutely for a few seconds. "But you and I are the only ones left of our generation who remember anything of Sirius apart from James and Lily's murder. Even if Peter were to confess his guilt before the whole of the Wizarding World they still wouldn't truly remember Sirius. Twelve years is so long and we held ourselves apart, the misconceptions are all they'll remember now."
Severus stared at his former classmate with a close approximation of horror on his face. I am the last person you want to reminisce with."
"Who else is there?" Remus demanded. "Who else is left who remembers anything about Sirius before Azkaban? Who else remembers James and Lily for anything besides their sacrifice?"
Severus subtly increased the distance between himself and Remus as the other man became possessed with a kind of mania.
"You remembered James playing with that silly snitch, I hadn't thought about that for years. You must remember how Lily always chewed on her quills while she was studying, it always annoyed you for some reason."
Severus froze at Remus' first statement but the werewolf continued on, oblivious.
"Even if you hate Sirius at least you hate him for his mistakes not for Peter's betrayal." Remus took a deep breath. "And there was a time when you didn't hate Padfoot… No, it was Siri back then, we hadn't come up with our Marauder names yet. We were still using Andromeda's nickname for him. You remember."
"Potter told you what he saw?" Severus realized. His sallow features paled with rage. "Who else did he tell?"
Severus' shouted demand shocked Remus back to himself. "Harry talked to Siri and I about what he saw. Severus, he needed to. Siri and I were there, he didn't tell us anything that we didn't already know. He was appalled by how we behaved. Harry wasn't trying to humiliate you. He was asking us to explain ourselves."
Severus' expression showed disbelief and that he was far from pacified.
"I wish you had been able to keep that memory from Harry," Remus stated calmly. "It would be one thing if Lily and James were here to explain how they fell in love; if Harry could see that James outgrew that sort of inane cruelty. As things stand Sirius and I would have rather kept Harry from knowing ourselves."
"Sometimes I still forget that Evans was right about the Houses," Severus said. "Gryffindors attempting to be manipulative is still unexpected."
"You're just shocked that I'm good at it," Remus replied. "Besides how can the truth be manipulative?"
"The truth is the best tool for manipulation, if properly utilized. However, that assumes that there is any truth in your words at all." Severus scowled at the other man.
Remus sighed. "It would never occur to Harry to use what he saw against you. In his eyes you aren't the one who should be ashamed of that day. And he's right. I'm sorry about how we used to treat you. Harry demanded an explanation from us and there was nothing we could say except that we eventually out grew bullying people."
Severus sat back down. He picked up his quill. Then he noticed the picture again, he pushed it away and selected an essay to grade. "Are you done?" he asked.
Remus leaned forward and turned the picture back toward himself. "When you were with us, our friendship, truce, tolerance of each other… Whatever it was, it was constantly in the process of breaking," he said. "I still don't understand how it all turned so nasty."
Summer Break – Before the Marauder's Second Year
Severus felt a smile tugging at his mouth and forced it to go away. He wasn't supposed to enjoy the though of spending time with the idiot Gryffindor. They weren't friends, they didn't like each other and there'd been over a dozen ugly quarrels during the course of the school year. He shouldn't be looking forward to spending time with Sirius Black.
Black always chose his friends over Severus, just like Narcissa always chose Malfoy over him. Narcissa was Slytherin; ambitious and cold-bloodedly practical. Lucius Malfoy was a more advantageous alliance than he was; Severus understood that. He knew why she acted the way she did and did his best not to mind. Black was a Gryffindor they weren't supposed to think about things like that, they were loyal to the point of stupidity. The obvious conclusion was that Potter, Pettigrew and Lupin were the only ones Black considered friends. He shouldn't be happy.
Black was just using him to get away from his family. Despite the Blacks' best efforts Severus had no doubt that he and Sirius would spend the better part of the coming month with Sirius' Gryffindor friends and that they would spend most of that time pretending Severus wasn't with them. Still Black was the only one who invited him anywhere.
They'd probably end up at the Potters' for dinner on a regular basis. He liked Harold Potter. James took his parents for granted; it drove Severus crazy. That arrogant moron did whatever he liked, he broke his parents' rules all the time and he never really got punished for it. They gave James everything he wanted, they were proud of him, they loved him and each other and James never ever noticed. Severus' parents weren't speaking to each other anymore. The only reason his mother hadn't left was that he refused to go with her. He hated James Potter.
He hated Peter Pettigrew too, but Remus Lupin and Sirius were okay. They were better when the others weren't around to see them being nice to him. Narcissa was nice when Malfoy didn't know about it. His father flat out told him that he was ashamed of Severus. His mother was the only person who mattered to him at all who wasn't ashamed of him.
The urge to smile and thus make a fool of himself vanished. Severus picked up a handful of floo powder and declared, "House of Black."
"Hey." Severus accepted the offered hand and let Sirius pull him to his feet. "Ready to go? This month is going to be hell."
"A month in Wales with Narcissa's family, what's the problem?" Severus asked.
"Did you forget who your idol dates?"
"Don't call her that!"
"Alright, alright." Sirius held up his hands. "Don't go nuts on me. But Malfoy is going to show up. Bell lives there. Lestrange and his brother will visit her. Andy will run off every chance she gets and Aunty Clarissa is every bit as bad as my mother…"
"So what are we going to do and why am I going with you?" Severus asked.
Sirius made a face. "Well I just figured with my Slytherin chaperon along maybe they'll let me out of their sight once and a while."
"So you're just using me again?" Severus' tone was lightly sarcastic. "We'll make a Slytherin of you yet."
Sirius shoved Severus and drew his wand. "You take that back!"
Severus didn't hesitate or think; he attacked. Sirius threw up a quick blocking charm. He followed up with a barrage of sparkles then tackled Severus. The two boys went down in a heap. Severus took the brunt of the fall.
Sirius knocked the wand out of Severus' hand then noticed the dazed look in the other boy's eyes. Sirius glanced up and saw blood on the corner of the coffee table behind them. Sirius' heart raced. He pulled Severus up and started checking for injuries. "I'm sorry," he exclaimed.
Severus put his hand to the back of his head; it came away bloody. "Ouch," he said. The Slytherin boy dug a vile of potion out of his jacket and downed it with a grimace.
Sirius glanced away and saw the burned spot on the wall where he'd deflected Severus' hex. "Bloody hell, why'd do you gotta be such a lunatic Snape?"
"You started it."
"I wasn't the one throwing dark magic around." Sirius accused. "You always have to overreact to everything."
"You were going to attack me!"
"I… Oh forget it. I don't want to spend the whole month fighting."
"Why not? You usually hate me for at least a week every time something ticks you off. It's always my fault isn't it?" Severus complained.
"Someday you're going to learn when to shut up Sev."
"Don't call me that. And it'll probably be the day before you do."
"So we're good again?"
"Whatever."
"My mom's gonna give me hell when she sees that wall," Sirius commented.
"Your problem, not mine."
"I really don't like you. You think she'd notice if I moved that portrait?"
"I think so. You do remember that notice-me-not charm Professor Flitwick was teaching?"
"Sure, Charms is my best subject." Sirius grinned. "You know there's something wrong with you right."
"I hang around with you don't I?"
Clarissa and Polaris Black's home was a rambling country manor that had been added on to for centuries. From the front lawn it had the look of a Tudor estate, at its heart was a medieval fortress, from the back it was a simple hodgepodge of styles and building materials.
The three sisters each had their own suit of rooms in different wings to suit their personal tastes. Narcissa made her home in the Victorian East front wing. The fine-boned blonde seemed well suited by her delicately refined surroundings. Also the wing was nearest to the kennels where Narcissa kept a menagerie of pets.
Bellatrix had chosen to live in the upper levels of the central hall, the oldest section of the house. Heavy, stone walls, narrow windows and the fact that she lived directly above the old dungeons, in which the skeletons of her family's ancient enemies still resided, didn't bother Bellatrix. Her rooms were done up in lavish velvets but they couldn't completely disguise that her home had begun its life as a place of war.
Andromeda lived near the kitchens in the rear West wing. It was the most recent addition to the house and almost modern. She'd decorated in the latest muggle styles or at least a near approximation of them. An actual muggle might have been disturbed if they noticed that the electric cords on Andromeda's appliances were simply tucked behind the nearest piece of furniture rather than being plugged into an outlet but her mother had drawn the line at wiring the house for electricity.
Sirius, Severus, Regulus and a friend from Regulus' primary school were housed in the East rear wing. The guest rooms there were comfortable, but not nearly as fancy as the ones near Polaris and Clarissa's rooms in the West front wing. There were always guests at the Black Estates. Bellatrix and Narcissa had their friends, their beaus and the boy's families over on a regular basis. Clarissa entertained an endless stream of prospective suitors for the independent minded Andromeda as well as her own circle of friends. Polaris had his business associates, friends and a number of politicians over. Elaborate parties were a common occurrence. The Black family house-elves were a harried lot; they all eagerly looked forward to their rotation at the much quieter Black residence in London.
Regulus and his friend settled in immediately and started gleefully exploring the estate grounds. Severus asked about access to the library and an area to set up as a potion lab with those secured he set to dividing up his time between his studies, Sirius and Narcissa. Publicly Sirius sulked about being cut off from access to fellow Gryffindors. Privately he went over terrain maps and made flight plans for reaching the Pettigrew's place in the next township over.
On the third morning Severus looked up from his book to see Sirius leaning against the frame of his door. The blue-eyed boy was smiling brilliantly. "What are you up to?" Severus asked.
Sirius shut the door behind him. "Today's the day," he said in a hushed voice. "Aunty and Uncle are going visiting right after lunch, they expect us to be in bed before they get home which means we won't be missed until breakfast tomorrow morning."
"I hate flying, I hate your friends. Count me out," Severus replied. He was more than a little surprised that Sirius had planned to drag him along since they would both be sneaking out of the house. "I've got a potion I want to try. I've got my books. Narcissa's here. You don't have to play the dutiful host."
"And normally I'd be delighted but Malfoy's expected," Sirius replied. "Knowing him he's probably still ticked about that little stunt we pulled during the Leaving Feast. Aunty and Uncle are going to be out, remember? There aren't any professors here. Andy snuck out last night and won't be back. Bell likes to see people suffer and Cissa'll never stand up to her boyfriend. You're the one who told me that sharing a dorm with Malfoy was the reason why you learned to make every healing draught known to Wizard-kind. I'm not leaving you here with him, remember the stocks?"
Severus cocked his head to the side and examined Sirius closely for a moment. "If a Gryffindor is advocating the better part of valor how can I disagree?"
"Course I was planning on leaving a little surprise for dear Lucius before we took off," Sirius added.
Severus smirked.
"It shouldn't be a problem for you to whip up a little growth accelerant right?" Sirius asked.
"What do you think half my healing salves are?" Severus replied. He rolled his eyes at Sirius' ignorance.
"But do they work on plants?" Sirius asked. He produced a Devil's Snare seedling. "Lucius' room would look much better with a touch of greenery."
"If I encapsulate the growth accelerator, I should be able to delay the effect until he's in bed." Severus remarked as he set aside his book.
"Cool."