A/N – Well, finally we come to the business end of the story. This chapter contains Angsty!Snape, Feminist!Lily, Villainous!Nott and Vengeful!Luc and Lucius.

Disclaimer – I don't own any of the canon characters or concepts. Having said that (glances over at rest of fic) quite a lot of the rest must be mine. The song 'I Am Woman' by Helen Reddy came out in 1972 – just in time to influence two impressionable young girls. I'm sure we all know the words.

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus,
To the lepers in your head?

U2, One.

Chapter 14
Severus Snape stared dully at the note his father's owl had just delivered, waking him up out of a rare snatch of sound sleep.

Marcus Malfoy is dead. Now we shall see how the cubs manage alone.

The words swam before him, echoing, and he could all but hear the satisfaction in his father's silken, deceptively soft voice.

Marcus Malfoy is dead.

He had been deliberately distancing himself from the Malfoy brothers, anticipating this, for the last six months. But here was the real thing – this note, and the tidings it bore, spelled the end of any kind of amity between them all.

Because his father had finally succeeded in destroying his old enemy. And, even more than that, Severus was certain that his father had been the one to Marcus Malfoy – no doubt he had promised any number of favours, incurred any number of debts, merely for the pleasure of the last and fatal blow.

He had sold the last ambitious, hate-blinded remnants of his soul for this one, vicious gratification.

And more than that, he had finally struck the last blow freeing his son from the closest thing to a real friendship he had ever had.

Now we shall see how the cubs manage alone…

Before breakfast the next morning, after passing a sleepless, haunted night, he found Lucius alone and tried, haltingly to explain. Sitting on a stone bench in a grassy alcove, because Lucius liked to walk in the morning, he found it incredibly difficult to broach the subject – it was a gloriously sunny morning, a perfect day, and somehow he did not want to ruin it with his news.

But if he did not tell them, they would soon find out – either from the Ministry or other, darker sources – and that would be worse, somehow, than if they heard it from his confession.

"My father has long hated yours," he began, somewhat clumsily.

Lucius slanted him a glance. "I know."

Somewhere, a lark was calling, its high, clear voice piercing the morning light.

"He deliberately led you astray on that long-ago trip to Diagon Alley, so that he could contrive a friendship between us."

"I know," Lucius said again, wryly.

Snape was aware of a tightness in his chest, a pressure; knew it was because he did not want to go on. He did not want to take this to its inevitable conclusion, where he would finally lose Lucius' calm amusement and Luc's brilliant laughter…

"He used it," he went on, "to cause trouble for your father. And then, when he refused to bend knee to Lord Voldemort…"

Lucius laughed. "But this is honest!" He sobered. "What's wrong, Sev? We all know the situation, we've known it since the beginning – why state it out loud unnecessarily?" For a public statement of a thing previously unsaid became a matter of record.

Snape swallowed unhappily, upset enough to show it. "I have to say it. I have to explain… I received a letter from my father last night. He said that your father…"

He paused, swallowed again. Lucius did not interject.

"He said that your father is dead. And I am very sure, reading between the lines, that my father killed him himself…"

Slowly, Lucius' face blanked, and went rigid. He looked away, unseeing, and they sat there, both of them, in terrible silence. The lark was still singing, completely oblivious to the tension; the normal morning sounds of Hogwarts – laughing, chattering children, rapid, hurrying footsteps and opening and closing doors – carried to them, but did not interrupt their silence.

Snape had never possessed Lucius' gift of fair, easy speech. Sitting there, unable to do or say anything to comfort his friend, he wished that he could do something that would make it all better –

Something that would bring Marcus Malfoy back, and heal the enmity between Malfoy and Snape, and magically solve the problem of the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters –

But he had never believed in such fairy tales.

Instead, he said, "I'm sorry."

It was such a pitifully inadequate response that he cringed inside, even as he offered it as the only comfort he had. But Lucius only laughed – an abrupt, almost unsteady laugh that held more bitterness than mirth.

It was the only outward sign of his reaction.

"You need not apologise, Sev."

Lily found her sister down by the lake, throwing scraps of bread to the giant squid. For once, there was no sign of Luc, or of any other Slytherin escorts: Kate was completely alone, and it was only now, out of sight of the others, that Lily could see how she had changed.

There was a vulnerability about her, now – a distance, an air of abstraction. Kate had always been prone to introspection, but now she hardly ever spoke and had become adept at sliding into the shadows. In fact, had it not been her stubborn determination at Quidditch, despite everything others threw at her, Lily would have thought her broken –

And then she would have had to kill Luc.

"I've heard the news," she said, sitting down next to Kate and appropriating a slice of bread for herself. "It's all over the school."

The official Ministry notification – the dreaded black envelope – had been delivered that morning at breakfast, in full view of the whole student body. The brothers Malfoy had been the focus of eight hundred pairs of eyes as they opened the message – and quite a number of onlookers had been bitterly disappointed to see their complete lack of reaction to the news.

"Is that so," Kate said flatly. Here, Lily noted bitterly, Kate would show spirit: here, where nobody who mattered could see.

"Speculation is rife," she continued doggedly. "They say –"

"They say many things," Kate cut her off. "I have heard it all, and more, whispered in the Slytherin common room." She drew in a deep, ragged breath, turned her face away to gaze out over the lake. "And it scares me, Lily…"

Lily froze. "Luc…"

"Is seventeen years old. He is unsure, and ambitious, and angry and grieving all at the same time. He swears he will protect me, but I begin to wonder if he can – or if he will need protection himself."

"I thought you had complete faith in him," Lily argued. She had never heard Kate talk like this before.

Kate's smile was twisted and bitter. "My dear Lily," she said, "I'm a Slytherin, and a realist. We never have complete faith in anyone."

Oh, Kate, look what you've become…

"Well then," she said, rallying determinedly, "we'll just have to be strong enough on our own. You don't need Luc to protect you – this is 1977, and you're a strong, modern woman. You can stand on your own two feet, without any man to support you."

Slowly, imperceptibly, Kate's eyes brightened with amusement. Lily forged on. "Do you remember when we were young, and we swore we were going to take on the world all by ourselves, just the two of us? Nothing would ever stop us – we would be strong and invincible, just like the song…"

But here Kate's laughter dimmed. "Yes… But that's only a song. You can afford to live up to it, Lily, because you're a Gryffindor – but it doesn't work like that in Slytherin."

"Oh, that's bullshit, Kate – you can't tell me –" But Lily's protest was cut off by a sneering, vicious voice from behind them.

"Look – it's the mudblood and her sister, sitting all alone out here, out of view of the castle. I know mudbloods are stupid, but I credited even you with better brains." Alastair Nott, solid, burly and avowed enemy of Lucius Malfoy, looked delighted with his find.

"Oh, sod off, Nott," Lily snarled. "Go bother someone who cares what you think."

Kate watched her sister's defiance with horrified fascination tinged with furtive awe. She herself had long ago learned never to fight back as Lily was doing, but that didn't mean she didn't – deep, deep down – admire her sister's spirit. Even if it would be broken after a year or so in Slytherin…

Hastily, she reverted back to her silent, passive persona, knowing from bitter experience that it was the best way to deal with Nott's crude taunting.

"Was I talking to you, bitch?" he sneered. "I was talking to Malfoy's whore – who may be looking for another protector soon. If she's lucky, I might even step in and offer myself as a candidate…"

Lily went white, and then flushed furiously, bristling with rage. But still, Nott ignored her. "Well, Kate darling, what do you say?"

Kate merely bowed her head and turned away, refusing to answer. Luc had always stepped in before this, preventing it from going any further – but Luc was not here.

Nott laughed at her response, stepping forward confidently and reaching for her chin – to force her to turn and face him, or to see whether he had affected her, she didn't know. But she did know it was becoming dangerous – he'd tried this before, always half in jest, but this time it was deadly serious.

Lily started forward, as if she were actually going to physically attack him, but another voice intervened, breaking the ugly atmosphere. Kate's heart lifted, thinking it was Luc – but then she recognized Sirius Black.

"If I were her, Nott," he taunted, that smooth, dry voice unmistakably revealing his heritage – the heritage he had so disgraced – "I would sooner take a viper to my bed. I'd have more chance of survival."

Alastair Nott hated Sirius Black almost as much as he hated Lucius Malfoy.

"What the fuck does this have to do with you, Black?"

"Well," said James Potter, pretending to think it over, "Kate is Lily's sister, and Lily is ours." He indicated Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew, the rest of the famous foursome. "So we can't have you harassing her, Nott," he growled, fingering his wand.

Nott gave an inarticulate snarl and fumbled for his own wand. And then, shifting her eyes away from the impending brawl, Kate saw Luc, standing about twenty metres away in a stand of trees, watching the unfolding drama impassively.

Their eyes met.

She wondered if Nott would have the brains to say, I was not harassing your mudblood, Potter, but her sister, who belongs to another. And if that other sees fit not to object to my treatment of his own mudblood…and what would happen if he did.

She wondered if Luc had known that the Marauders were near. She wondered if he knew that Nott would lose his temper, and therefore had deliberately not stepped in.

She wondered if he would step in next time, and if he did, whether he would be able to put a stop to a situation gone far, far past the point of a joke…

"I saw that little comedy down by the lake," Lucius said, that night in the privacy of his own, separate bedchamber.

"Did you?" Luc asked coolly. He had no wish to speak of earlier today. He was not proud of his actions…

"I was ready to intervene myself, if it was called for. And yet you stood there and watched, after all the fervent avowals of your right and determination to protect her."

There was a little silence.

"I froze," he admitted. "I did not… I did not want to have to choose."

"Well, how hard can it be? You have chosen to protect her before…"

"But that was different!" He stopped, aware of the foolishness of his words. Always before, there had been an option to remain neutral, to hide behind their father who had the ultimate choice of action and loyalty. Now, in these first few days after his death, their actions would define their loyalties.

"We must do something," Lucius said musingly, thinking out loud, "to show our strength. If you insist on keeping your mudblood" – he ignored Luc's scowl – "then it must be quite spectacular, and yet nothing that would irrevocably proclaim our intentions…"

Almost unwillingly, Luc grinned. Lucius sounded like the quintessential mad genius – all it needed was a fluffy white cat. But it was true enough – Kate seriously complicated matters. As much as he hated acknowledging it, and as much as the sheer prejudiced blindness infuriated him, he knew that his father had been right to advise against her. Before this morning, he would have sworn any number of oaths that he would protect her, no matter what came…

But that had been before Marcus Malfoy had chosen the most impossibly inconvenient time imaginable to misstep and fall.

Somehow, he heard himself say, in a very strange, almost breaking voice: "When you first told me this morning, all I could think was that the timing was inconvenient…"

"A protective mechanism, I am told," Lucius said calmly, a shocking contrast to Luc's thoughts. "The mind's way of dealing with grief."

"Truly? Do you think it so?"

Lucius looked at him. "Of course I do. We both loved him. But I know – and so do you – that other things must come first, before we can afford the luxury of grieving for him…"

Of course. Their father would not be pleased to see them wallowing in self-pity while the world fell apart around them.

"Right." He drew himself together. "We must show them all we're not the weaklings they think us…"

"Without revealing, I trust, that we are indeed not nearly as strong as Father was…"

Luc threw him a black look. "Well, oh great leader? What think you?"

Lucius' eyes were hammered metal, fierce and bright. "Augustus Snape," he said very, very clearly.

Luc's eyes widened – this was not his calm, unemotional brother! – before he brought himself under control, and smiled in complete, unqualified approval. "Augustus Snape," he repeated, in tones of great satisfaction and anticipation.

Thank you to all my reviewers. Your comments and feedback are greatly appreciated. Next chapter, the Quidditch match.