Chapter 12 Works in Progress
Sirius returned from Dumbledore's office several hours later without speaking to anyone. The next morning he revealed that he had detention for a month, had to write letters of apology to both Snape and his parents, and was restricted from the grounds for the rest of the year except for class. It was still being decided whether or not he would be allowed to finish the Quidditch season.
Sirius didn't seem to be overly troubled by most of these punishments, though he wasn't looking forward to writing letters of apology to Snape and his parents. The part that upset him was having to explain what had happened to Remus.
After reporting this to James and Peter, Sirius had gone straight to the hospital wing to talk to Remus. He came back about a half hour later looking extremely upset and had lain down on his bed and closed the curtains. James, knowing when not to push an issue with Sirius, had gone to the hospital wing to see how Remus was holding up.
* * *
James stood in the doorway to the hospital wing, observing Remus. He looked even paler than usual and extremely dejected. Sighing, James moved toward him in order to assess the damage.
I take it Sirius talked to you," James began, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Remus, who only nodded in response.
"He didn't mean it, you know," James offered next, not sure what else to say. "He was an eejit but he didn't intend to be. He just doesn't think sometimes. You have every right to be bloody well furious with him, but you should know that he didn't mean it."
"Whether he meant it or not, he did it," Remus said hoarsely. "What if Snape tells everyone? None of the parents will want a werewolf in the same school as their children. What if Dumbledore decides that I'm too much of a liability after all? What if I can't finish my education? Worse yet, what if I had killed someone last night, Snape or Lily or even one of you?"
"Sirius didn't think about any of that," James mumbled uncomfortably. "He kept saying that he never meant for any of this to happen."
"Well it did, and I'm not sure whether or not I can trust him again," Remus said quietly.
* * *
The rest of the students returned to school the next day and classes began again on Monday. No one except for those present during the full moon knew why the Marauders didn't play their customary start-of-term prank or any pranks at all that first week, for that matter, and why the Marauders seemed unusually subdued.
Somehow, Dumbledore managed to convince Snape to keep Remus' secret. The Marauders speculated as to how Dumbledore had managed this, but the truth was that none of them knew enough about Snape to determine what sort of leverage might be used against him. As a result of that full moon, Snape's animosity toward all four Marauders increased substantially, toward James and Sirius in particular.
The disciplinary hearing against the eleven Slytheirns who had taken part in the attack on the Gryffindor sixth year girls took place on the first Saturday in the new term. Those eleven students were required to be present with their parents, along with Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Astral, and Flitwick, in order to hear the disciplinary decision. Much to the Gryffindors' disgust, none of the students were expelled, not even Bellatrix and Lestrange, who were each suspended for a week and lost some privileges, including all future Hogsmeade weekends, for the remainder of their time at Hogwarts. However, they had avoided real punishment and therefore weren't really repressed. If anything, they seemed rather smug about escaping serious consequences.
Ordinarily, a situation such as this one would have resulted in the Marauders declaring a vicious prank war against the Slytherins. However, to the shock of the entire school, the Marauders didn't immediately launch a campaign of highly organized and complex practical jokes against the offending parties. The rest of the Gryffindors picked up the slack as best they could, and the Marauders contributed rather half-heartedly to these efforts individually and in pairs, but didn't do anything as the cohesive unit they'd always been.
This newest cause for outrage against the Slytherins brought the Marauders a bit closer together; Remus was speaking to Sirius again because of it, even if the conversation between them was rather stilted. It was a start, at least.
* * *
Lily had been as disgusted as any of her fellow Gryffindors at the leniency Dumbledore had shown toward Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange; the topic kept her distracted for a week and a half at least.
But as familiarity caused the outrage to die down and she and the other Gryffindors were no longer preoccupied with the Slytherins, Lily had more time to turn her attention to other subjects.
But she had never counted on her attention wandering to James Potter.
Lily suddenly caught herself glancing at him in class for no apparent reason. She also found herself noticing his good qualities, like the way he was so obviously doing everything he could to patch things up between Remus and Sirius and the way he helped Peter with his work without making him feel stupid. Had he always been this way and she had just never noticed, Lily wondered, or were these things recent?
Of course James still had his bad points. The way he ran his bloody hand through his ridiculous hair whenever he saw her coming still irritated Lily to distraction, and that infernal know-it-all smirk still made her want to throw something heavy at his head or possibly his crotch. He still teased the first years and tormented the Slytherins, but somehow it didn't seem as bad as it used to; it seemed a lot less cruel, as a matter of fact.
Suddenly it was possible for Lily to imagine James as a person and not just some arrogant, bullying, attention-seeking tosser. She still quite definitely did not like James Potter. However, until the Whomping Willow incident, it had never occurred to Lily that James might have any good points at all and without warning it had not only occurred to her but there was actual evidence to suggest it.
Lily had meant what she had said to James on the walk back from Dumbledore's office that night. The side of himself he had revealed in the tunnel piqued Lily's interest; James Potter, a decent person? James Potter with a conscience? Who would have thought it?
Certainly not Lily, and she continued to watch James' transformation from the corner of her eye, telling herself very firmly that she still hated him with a passion.
It just somehow didn't feel as true as it had only a few short weeks ago.
* * *
By tacit agreement, the Marauders called a temporary truce toward the beginning of February for the planning and execution of their Valentine's Day prank.
They had been planning the prank for some time now, and none of them, not even Remus, wanted to see their prank shelved. As it was a complex, multi-layered operation, collaboration was the only option; none of them could have pulled it off singly or probably even in pairs, though James and Sirius could have given it a good go.
It was a start, anyway, in patching up the rift between Remus and Sirius, James decided as the four of them sat holed up in their dormitory with enough sweets to give a small army cavities, planning their latest scheme. This was, when all was said and done, how James had spent most of his time at Hogwarts; it felt natural to be doing it again, as he knew it did to the others.
Of course, James knew that these planning sessions weren't going repair the damage that had been done, but they had all bonded over their troublemaking in the first place. Maybe it would help now.
* * *
Severus Snape had rarely been so discontent with a turn of events in his life.
Snape prided himself on his ability to mold almost any situation to his benefit; he was nothing if not resourceful normally.
But these recent events with Potter, Black, and Lupin before the start of term had considerably dampened his promising new situation.
He had finally gotten Lestrange out of his way after helping in the attack on the Gryffindor girls; he had even gained some prestige from the whole ridiculous affair. His housemates, particularly the underclassmen, held him in something akin to fearful reverence now, and Snape had relished the power his new status gave him.
Whatever prestige he had gained within his house had been balanced out by his loss of face outside of it due to that humiliating encounter with Lupin in werewolf form and his cronies in the tunnel.
Snape cursed the impulse that had urged him to read the letter and then follow its directions. Why had he not heeded his better judgement?
As a result of his little foray into curiosity he was now beholden to James Potter, a person he hated with a thorough passion and had Dumbledore, the shrewdest wizard Snape had ever encountered, watching him closely to ensure that he didn't break his word and reveal Lupin's secret.
Snape was still amazed at Dumbledore's knowledge of his students. The man was absolutely flawless and there was nothing that Snape admired quite as much as perfection. Consequently he held a rather grudging but nonetheless deep-rooted respect for Dumbledore. Of course, the old man's ideals were unrealistic and laughable; it was absolutely futile to resist the future and the Dark Lord was the future. It would have been prudent for Dumbledore to make himself useful in his service, but Dumbledore stuck firmly to his principles, and Snape respected that.
Admirable or not, Dumbledore had made Snape's life considerably more difficult. He couldn't even use Lupin's secret as potential leverage; Dumbledore had made sure of that.
And Snape still could not fathom how Black had managed to evade expulsion over the incident. It was attempted murder, clearly and plainly; the fact that Black remained in Hogwarts and out of Azkaban was nothing more than a blatant example of Dumbledore's favoritism.
There was little Snape could do about the situation now; he was being watched too carefully in too many corners for that.
But Black and Potter had made themselves a devoted enemy through their arrogant stupidity.
* * *
Valentine's Day had arrived, a day that Lily was fairly certain was secretly dreaded by all of the teachers. Love was always in the air this time of year, which created a good deal of extra supervision on the teachers' parts.
"That's the third couple I've seen McGonagall tell off since I sat down," Kathleen reported that morning at breakfast as the others turned their heads to watch the luckless snogging couple receive the riot act from a thoroughly out of sorts Professor McGonagall, the faces of all three quite flushed, albeit for different reasons.
"Wonder what Dumbldore said to Filch that's made him so tetchy," Dorcas mused as the irate caretaker all but ran out of the hall.
"Probably just cranky from lack of sleep; someone got all of the portraits along most of the main corridors completely filthy - don't ask me how - and Filch had to clean it all up late last night," Lily reported.
Before the girls could speculate further, their attention was drawn to Alice, who had let out a great sob as a result of something she was reading in her morning post.
"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed tearfully and buried her face against her rather bemused boyfriend's chest.
"Happy tears?" Morwenna asked, lips twitching. Alice nodded without turning her head. None of the Gryffindors were surprised when Alice and Frank stood up rather abruptly a few minutes later and left the hall hurriedly, hand-in-hand.
Alice and Frank's relationship had been progressing quite well since returning from the Christmas holidays; very soon after the term started they had begun using "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" when referring to each other. This had quickly progressed to the public displays of affection stage, and now their friends were witnessing the advent of the going-off-to- have-a-serious-snog-while-pretending-no-one-notices-the-signs stage.
James watched the pair go off rather wistfully and glanced down the table at Lily almost involuntarily. He was relieved to see that she didn't look shocked or disapproving but actually seemed rather amused. That was a good sign.... Mentally James shook himself. He and Lily were nowhere near the snogging in dark corners stage. She still hated him as far as he could tell. She'd never said another word to him about that night outside of Dumbledore's office.
However, James refused to be depressed about his love life today, not when there were so many other people's on display to laugh at. Plus, he and his fellow Marauders had their prank to look forward to, and if the look on Filch's face was any indication, it would seem that the potion had kicked in. James grinned in anticipation of the walk to his first class in approximately a half an hour.
* * *
James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all wore large grins throughout the entire day - their prank had been an unequivocal success.
After adding a love potion to Filch's bottle of Portrait Polish, the Marauders had used their wands to blow large amounts of dirt over all of the portraits along the most traveled corridors late the previous evening.
By the time the students filed into the corridors on their way to their first classes, the potion had taken full effect and most of the portraits were engaging in what Professor McGonagall would have termed "highly inappropriate public displays of affection."
Apparently inspired by the portraits, the students were more amorous than usual, even for Valentine's Day; many weren't even attempting to snog discreetly anymore. The first years went about goggle-eyed the entire day, not knowing where to look first or if they should look at all.
Filch was forced to patrol the halls with a stick, poking the portraits that were getting too randy. It was an uphill battle however, and after several warnings two adjacent portraits of a former Hogwarts headmaster and a renowned dragon trainer finally had to be removed from the wall outside of Professor Flitwick's classroom and taken to a more remote location.
Professor McGonagall went about all day with a rather high color in her face and came down harder than ever on all violators of Hogwarts' no- snogging policies. Dumbledore took this upheaval with his usual calm sprinkled with barely discernable traces of amusement.
The Marauders, well pleased with themselves, dealt with their mischief-induced high in different ways. Sirius joined in, sneaking off with several girls throughout the day and adding to his ever growing- mountain of valentines and candy. Remus, slightly abashed as always to be the source of the trouble but highly entertained anyway, behaved more or less as usual. Peter darted up and down the corridors spying on the snogging portraits and students, giggling interminably and a bit girlishly, or so Sirius told him after the third time he'd caught Peter peeking at him and his current snogging partner. James, amused as the other two, wore his trademark arrogant grin and secretly wished he too could sneak off in some semi-secluded corner and snog. Too bad only girl he was interested in snogging anymore had on more than one occasion publicly declared her preference for the giant squid over him.
Then James thought about what Lily had said to him in the corridor and the looks she snuck at him when she thought he didn't notice.
Maybe Lily Evans wasn't as much of a lost cause as he'd thought.
* * *
Author's Note:
The next chapter will be up sometime early next week. Thanks to Captain Oblivious, Agloechen, juliet's rose, and Ronald's Girl for reviewing the last chapter. More reviews help me write faster...:-)
Sirius returned from Dumbledore's office several hours later without speaking to anyone. The next morning he revealed that he had detention for a month, had to write letters of apology to both Snape and his parents, and was restricted from the grounds for the rest of the year except for class. It was still being decided whether or not he would be allowed to finish the Quidditch season.
Sirius didn't seem to be overly troubled by most of these punishments, though he wasn't looking forward to writing letters of apology to Snape and his parents. The part that upset him was having to explain what had happened to Remus.
After reporting this to James and Peter, Sirius had gone straight to the hospital wing to talk to Remus. He came back about a half hour later looking extremely upset and had lain down on his bed and closed the curtains. James, knowing when not to push an issue with Sirius, had gone to the hospital wing to see how Remus was holding up.
* * *
James stood in the doorway to the hospital wing, observing Remus. He looked even paler than usual and extremely dejected. Sighing, James moved toward him in order to assess the damage.
I take it Sirius talked to you," James began, sitting on the edge of the bed next to Remus, who only nodded in response.
"He didn't mean it, you know," James offered next, not sure what else to say. "He was an eejit but he didn't intend to be. He just doesn't think sometimes. You have every right to be bloody well furious with him, but you should know that he didn't mean it."
"Whether he meant it or not, he did it," Remus said hoarsely. "What if Snape tells everyone? None of the parents will want a werewolf in the same school as their children. What if Dumbledore decides that I'm too much of a liability after all? What if I can't finish my education? Worse yet, what if I had killed someone last night, Snape or Lily or even one of you?"
"Sirius didn't think about any of that," James mumbled uncomfortably. "He kept saying that he never meant for any of this to happen."
"Well it did, and I'm not sure whether or not I can trust him again," Remus said quietly.
* * *
The rest of the students returned to school the next day and classes began again on Monday. No one except for those present during the full moon knew why the Marauders didn't play their customary start-of-term prank or any pranks at all that first week, for that matter, and why the Marauders seemed unusually subdued.
Somehow, Dumbledore managed to convince Snape to keep Remus' secret. The Marauders speculated as to how Dumbledore had managed this, but the truth was that none of them knew enough about Snape to determine what sort of leverage might be used against him. As a result of that full moon, Snape's animosity toward all four Marauders increased substantially, toward James and Sirius in particular.
The disciplinary hearing against the eleven Slytheirns who had taken part in the attack on the Gryffindor sixth year girls took place on the first Saturday in the new term. Those eleven students were required to be present with their parents, along with Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Astral, and Flitwick, in order to hear the disciplinary decision. Much to the Gryffindors' disgust, none of the students were expelled, not even Bellatrix and Lestrange, who were each suspended for a week and lost some privileges, including all future Hogsmeade weekends, for the remainder of their time at Hogwarts. However, they had avoided real punishment and therefore weren't really repressed. If anything, they seemed rather smug about escaping serious consequences.
Ordinarily, a situation such as this one would have resulted in the Marauders declaring a vicious prank war against the Slytherins. However, to the shock of the entire school, the Marauders didn't immediately launch a campaign of highly organized and complex practical jokes against the offending parties. The rest of the Gryffindors picked up the slack as best they could, and the Marauders contributed rather half-heartedly to these efforts individually and in pairs, but didn't do anything as the cohesive unit they'd always been.
This newest cause for outrage against the Slytherins brought the Marauders a bit closer together; Remus was speaking to Sirius again because of it, even if the conversation between them was rather stilted. It was a start, at least.
* * *
Lily had been as disgusted as any of her fellow Gryffindors at the leniency Dumbledore had shown toward Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange; the topic kept her distracted for a week and a half at least.
But as familiarity caused the outrage to die down and she and the other Gryffindors were no longer preoccupied with the Slytherins, Lily had more time to turn her attention to other subjects.
But she had never counted on her attention wandering to James Potter.
Lily suddenly caught herself glancing at him in class for no apparent reason. She also found herself noticing his good qualities, like the way he was so obviously doing everything he could to patch things up between Remus and Sirius and the way he helped Peter with his work without making him feel stupid. Had he always been this way and she had just never noticed, Lily wondered, or were these things recent?
Of course James still had his bad points. The way he ran his bloody hand through his ridiculous hair whenever he saw her coming still irritated Lily to distraction, and that infernal know-it-all smirk still made her want to throw something heavy at his head or possibly his crotch. He still teased the first years and tormented the Slytherins, but somehow it didn't seem as bad as it used to; it seemed a lot less cruel, as a matter of fact.
Suddenly it was possible for Lily to imagine James as a person and not just some arrogant, bullying, attention-seeking tosser. She still quite definitely did not like James Potter. However, until the Whomping Willow incident, it had never occurred to Lily that James might have any good points at all and without warning it had not only occurred to her but there was actual evidence to suggest it.
Lily had meant what she had said to James on the walk back from Dumbledore's office that night. The side of himself he had revealed in the tunnel piqued Lily's interest; James Potter, a decent person? James Potter with a conscience? Who would have thought it?
Certainly not Lily, and she continued to watch James' transformation from the corner of her eye, telling herself very firmly that she still hated him with a passion.
It just somehow didn't feel as true as it had only a few short weeks ago.
* * *
By tacit agreement, the Marauders called a temporary truce toward the beginning of February for the planning and execution of their Valentine's Day prank.
They had been planning the prank for some time now, and none of them, not even Remus, wanted to see their prank shelved. As it was a complex, multi-layered operation, collaboration was the only option; none of them could have pulled it off singly or probably even in pairs, though James and Sirius could have given it a good go.
It was a start, anyway, in patching up the rift between Remus and Sirius, James decided as the four of them sat holed up in their dormitory with enough sweets to give a small army cavities, planning their latest scheme. This was, when all was said and done, how James had spent most of his time at Hogwarts; it felt natural to be doing it again, as he knew it did to the others.
Of course, James knew that these planning sessions weren't going repair the damage that had been done, but they had all bonded over their troublemaking in the first place. Maybe it would help now.
* * *
Severus Snape had rarely been so discontent with a turn of events in his life.
Snape prided himself on his ability to mold almost any situation to his benefit; he was nothing if not resourceful normally.
But these recent events with Potter, Black, and Lupin before the start of term had considerably dampened his promising new situation.
He had finally gotten Lestrange out of his way after helping in the attack on the Gryffindor girls; he had even gained some prestige from the whole ridiculous affair. His housemates, particularly the underclassmen, held him in something akin to fearful reverence now, and Snape had relished the power his new status gave him.
Whatever prestige he had gained within his house had been balanced out by his loss of face outside of it due to that humiliating encounter with Lupin in werewolf form and his cronies in the tunnel.
Snape cursed the impulse that had urged him to read the letter and then follow its directions. Why had he not heeded his better judgement?
As a result of his little foray into curiosity he was now beholden to James Potter, a person he hated with a thorough passion and had Dumbledore, the shrewdest wizard Snape had ever encountered, watching him closely to ensure that he didn't break his word and reveal Lupin's secret.
Snape was still amazed at Dumbledore's knowledge of his students. The man was absolutely flawless and there was nothing that Snape admired quite as much as perfection. Consequently he held a rather grudging but nonetheless deep-rooted respect for Dumbledore. Of course, the old man's ideals were unrealistic and laughable; it was absolutely futile to resist the future and the Dark Lord was the future. It would have been prudent for Dumbledore to make himself useful in his service, but Dumbledore stuck firmly to his principles, and Snape respected that.
Admirable or not, Dumbledore had made Snape's life considerably more difficult. He couldn't even use Lupin's secret as potential leverage; Dumbledore had made sure of that.
And Snape still could not fathom how Black had managed to evade expulsion over the incident. It was attempted murder, clearly and plainly; the fact that Black remained in Hogwarts and out of Azkaban was nothing more than a blatant example of Dumbledore's favoritism.
There was little Snape could do about the situation now; he was being watched too carefully in too many corners for that.
But Black and Potter had made themselves a devoted enemy through their arrogant stupidity.
* * *
Valentine's Day had arrived, a day that Lily was fairly certain was secretly dreaded by all of the teachers. Love was always in the air this time of year, which created a good deal of extra supervision on the teachers' parts.
"That's the third couple I've seen McGonagall tell off since I sat down," Kathleen reported that morning at breakfast as the others turned their heads to watch the luckless snogging couple receive the riot act from a thoroughly out of sorts Professor McGonagall, the faces of all three quite flushed, albeit for different reasons.
"Wonder what Dumbldore said to Filch that's made him so tetchy," Dorcas mused as the irate caretaker all but ran out of the hall.
"Probably just cranky from lack of sleep; someone got all of the portraits along most of the main corridors completely filthy - don't ask me how - and Filch had to clean it all up late last night," Lily reported.
Before the girls could speculate further, their attention was drawn to Alice, who had let out a great sob as a result of something she was reading in her morning post.
"Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed tearfully and buried her face against her rather bemused boyfriend's chest.
"Happy tears?" Morwenna asked, lips twitching. Alice nodded without turning her head. None of the Gryffindors were surprised when Alice and Frank stood up rather abruptly a few minutes later and left the hall hurriedly, hand-in-hand.
Alice and Frank's relationship had been progressing quite well since returning from the Christmas holidays; very soon after the term started they had begun using "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" when referring to each other. This had quickly progressed to the public displays of affection stage, and now their friends were witnessing the advent of the going-off-to- have-a-serious-snog-while-pretending-no-one-notices-the-signs stage.
James watched the pair go off rather wistfully and glanced down the table at Lily almost involuntarily. He was relieved to see that she didn't look shocked or disapproving but actually seemed rather amused. That was a good sign.... Mentally James shook himself. He and Lily were nowhere near the snogging in dark corners stage. She still hated him as far as he could tell. She'd never said another word to him about that night outside of Dumbledore's office.
However, James refused to be depressed about his love life today, not when there were so many other people's on display to laugh at. Plus, he and his fellow Marauders had their prank to look forward to, and if the look on Filch's face was any indication, it would seem that the potion had kicked in. James grinned in anticipation of the walk to his first class in approximately a half an hour.
* * *
James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter all wore large grins throughout the entire day - their prank had been an unequivocal success.
After adding a love potion to Filch's bottle of Portrait Polish, the Marauders had used their wands to blow large amounts of dirt over all of the portraits along the most traveled corridors late the previous evening.
By the time the students filed into the corridors on their way to their first classes, the potion had taken full effect and most of the portraits were engaging in what Professor McGonagall would have termed "highly inappropriate public displays of affection."
Apparently inspired by the portraits, the students were more amorous than usual, even for Valentine's Day; many weren't even attempting to snog discreetly anymore. The first years went about goggle-eyed the entire day, not knowing where to look first or if they should look at all.
Filch was forced to patrol the halls with a stick, poking the portraits that were getting too randy. It was an uphill battle however, and after several warnings two adjacent portraits of a former Hogwarts headmaster and a renowned dragon trainer finally had to be removed from the wall outside of Professor Flitwick's classroom and taken to a more remote location.
Professor McGonagall went about all day with a rather high color in her face and came down harder than ever on all violators of Hogwarts' no- snogging policies. Dumbledore took this upheaval with his usual calm sprinkled with barely discernable traces of amusement.
The Marauders, well pleased with themselves, dealt with their mischief-induced high in different ways. Sirius joined in, sneaking off with several girls throughout the day and adding to his ever growing- mountain of valentines and candy. Remus, slightly abashed as always to be the source of the trouble but highly entertained anyway, behaved more or less as usual. Peter darted up and down the corridors spying on the snogging portraits and students, giggling interminably and a bit girlishly, or so Sirius told him after the third time he'd caught Peter peeking at him and his current snogging partner. James, amused as the other two, wore his trademark arrogant grin and secretly wished he too could sneak off in some semi-secluded corner and snog. Too bad only girl he was interested in snogging anymore had on more than one occasion publicly declared her preference for the giant squid over him.
Then James thought about what Lily had said to him in the corridor and the looks she snuck at him when she thought he didn't notice.
Maybe Lily Evans wasn't as much of a lost cause as he'd thought.
* * *
Author's Note:
The next chapter will be up sometime early next week. Thanks to Captain Oblivious, Agloechen, juliet's rose, and Ronald's Girl for reviewing the last chapter. More reviews help me write faster...:-)