See chapter one for all disclaimers.
Acanthocehpalous – having spikes on the head, pertaining to having spikes on the head
Oncotic – pertaining to swelling
Vertiginosus – vertigo charm, makes one giddy in the head
Aegritudo – ill-health charm
Percutio – to strike
Remiissus! – to return or send back
Occlusus – to stop a sound
Judging by what information JKR supplies in QTTA and FBAWTFT, 1 Galleon 7.35 or 5.10 pounds. This is the rate of conversion I use in this fanfic.
Author's Notes: I decided I'd post two chapters to make up for my being so terribly, abominably late. Though I haven't been online properly since November, and I haven't gotten a chance to post anything here since then, I promise I haven't abandoned this; besides these latest two chapters, I have five more chapters written up, waiting to be edited. I'm planning on writing a load more soon, but it might take a while because I'm going to public school part-time now (wow!) and I don't have quite as much free time as I did when I was fully homeschooled. But I'll do my best.
Books I recommend: since I don't have full access to the internet at the moment, I've been reading a lot more than usual. I've become quite enamoured with Oscar Wilde, but I also advise you to check out Clive Barker's Abarat books. They are fantastic, but I really wouldn't classify them as children's literature. They get darker and darker the farther you get into them.
I am currently having fun writing my Original Novel, which is growing steadily larger by the week. If you want some more details, I suggest you check out my livejournal (my username is givemethechild) and my website for some relevant art. (the site is linked on the journal if you're interested).
Nothing else for me to say here except that I am not sure when I'll next get to update this. It'll probably be a while, but I'll try not to make you wait months and months for chapter 7. In any case, happy reading, and tell your friends about it if you like it.
chapter six
Weeks passed in this way:
Tuesday evenings Lily worked at potions until her head swam and pounded from the fumes. Wednesday evenings she spent ill at ease in the company of James Potter. Thursday evenings she watched Snape work himself to exhaustion over a single spell and offered useful bits of advice she had gleaned from James the night before.
It was almost frightening how simple it was to juggle these lessons.
What was even more frightening was the fact that she seemed to be connecting with Snape. Or, at least, she was beginning to get used to his unfriendly, often argumentative presence. And it wasn't actually so much a frightening prospect as an amusing one; for one thing, she hadn't expected to discover that Snape had a sense of humour. But he did, and it was so dry and sarcastic she wasn't surprised at all that she hadn't seen it sooner.
One thing she was certain of, however, was that he wasn't warming to her by any means. He was just as unfriendly as before, in actions and words; his rare jokes – they were so subtle she didn't feel comfortable calling them jokes – were always mocking of her, her house, and her friends. She could ignore most of it – really, what could she do? Showing that she was offended would have only opened a door for more insults.
One evening, however, during a potions study, he began to subtly deride her friends – Sirius Black, in particular, who seemed to have committed some vile transgression against Snape over the weekend – and she calmly set down the wooden spoon with which she had been stirring the Acanthocephalous potion, and said to him, quite calmly: "I am forced to agree with you, Snape, that Sirius is quite often infuriating, but as he is not here at the moment for you to tell him so, and as I am in no mood to go over the particulars of his unpleasant behaviour, I'd appreciate it if you shut up about him and any other mutual acquaintances you might find fault in while I'm trying to count strokes."
Surprisingly, that seemed to have had some sort of effect, and he had kept his contemptuous observations directed mainly at her ever since.
She didn't kid herself. Some of his comments hurt. But she prided herself on the fact that she could ignore most of them, and that she could pretend quite convincingly that the other ones didn't affect her at all. This tactic seemed to both annoy and take the wind out of Snape; after a quarter hour of unreciprocated taunting, he tended to give up and let her get on with whatever she was supposed to be brewing.
And her potions skills seemed to be improving, just as gradually as his transfiguration skills were. After a month of lessons, she could see a difference in her potions, and Professor Eberwulf could, too. One Thursday morning he pronounced her Oncotic Elixir the best he had seen all week, and after class he caught her at the door and inquired whether she had taken his advice and gone to Patricia Carson for secondary lessons. Lily shook her head, told him no, and he'd let her go off to Care of Magical Creatures without further questioning.
He'd obviously guessed whom she had gone to, though, because the next day at double Potions he paired her with Snape himself.
Lily was surprised at how different it felt to actually work alongside Snape, as opposed to working alone at his instruction. The potion they were brewing, a milder derivative of a particularly stringent cleaning solution, required quite a bit of attention in the preparation of ingredients, and Lily helped him with the slicing and mashing and powdering until they were ready to begin adding things to the cauldron. It was strange working on opposite sides of the table, passing utensils and jars of ingredients back and forth in an almost comfortable silence.
Across the room Lily could hear Sirius arguing loudly with Elbert Avery, and wondered why he even bothered. Things were so much easier if you kept your mouth shut – for her, anyway, and when you saved your wit for your work it resulted in a lot less mistakes. But boys – the Gryffindor boys, at any rate – tended to be like that; loud and brash and more concerned with one-upping their Slytherin partner than paying attention to their assignment.
By the end of the class, Peter and Breda Jones had melted their cauldron; Rodolphus Lestrange had dumped minced bat's heart into James's bag, and Carmine Bright and Cordelia had gotten something foreign into their potion that turned it into a noxious stew. The only other perfect potions belonged to Eliza and Acte Hart, who were both quiet and fair brewers, and Evan Rosier, who was working alone, as Remus was in the infirmary recovering from a nasty bout of influenza.
Once their potion was cool, Snape bottled it, careful not to slosh a drop on the tabletop, and Lily took it up to Professor Eberwulf.
"Very good," said Eberwulf, holding the bottle up to the light. "It has the translucency of milk, the consistency of weakened jelly and the colour of a good tea. Full marks for you and Mr Snape."
Lily walked back to their table, grinning. "Full marks," she told Snape, who was wiping calcium residue out of a pot that had until recently held powdered wurm claws.
"What did you expect?" said Snape. "You take the cauldron; I'll take the rest."
While they washed up the equipment, Lily said to him, "I didn't know Rosier was so good at potions."
"He's not," said Snape. "Eberwulf was helping him. If Lupin had been there to partner him he probably would have blown something up or boiled something over."
Lily shook her head. "Poor Remus," she said. "Flu again. He's always ill."
"Honestly, Evans, I couldn't care less whether Lupin dropped dead in the middle of the Great Hall on Christmas day. And stop splashing; these robes don't take well to damp."
Lily rolled her eyes. Typical Snape. "Touchy, touchy," she muttered, but finished washing her cauldron in silence.
After class, she joined the boys in the corridor on the way down to the Great Hall for lunch.
"Bloody idiot," Sirius was saying in disgusted tones. "Read the recipe wrong and got ibex blood from the pantry. Ibex. Not ibis. What a berk."
"And his smelly friend Lestrange put bat's heart in my satchel," James said, glaring down into his bag. "I thought I had it shut. I never leave it open during double Potions."
"Last time I did, Wilkes slipped me a Dungbomb," Peter said glumly.
"Yeah, poor Pete here's had the worst of it today," James said, clapping Peter on the shoulder. "Melted his cauldron! Well, that's all right, Peter; at least you got Jones…."
"Dissolved the shoes right off her feet, you did," Sirius said proudly. "There's hope for you yet!"
"Don't pay any attention to them, Peter," Lily said firmly, catching up with them. "I guarantee you there's no future in dissolving shoes."
"Hey, Evans," Potter said. "I guess if there's one thing to be said for working with Snape, it's that you get good marks, eh? Heard Eberwulf going on about it. Sounds like Snape was useful for once."
Lily raised an eyebrow. "So you're saying I couldn't have done it myself?"
"Oh, no, I just – well – "
Lily laughed at his flustered expression. "Hey, thanks for the vote of confidence, Potter," she said. "See you at lunch."
And she pushed past them, chuckling to herself as she hurried down towards the Great Hall.
The next day was a Hogsmeade Saturday. Accompanied by Eliza and Cordelia, they explored the little village, stopping at the bookstore, the sweets shop, and, on Cordelia's insistence, Desdemona's Gown Emporium. After a drink at the Three Broomsticks they split up, and Lily popped in to the apothecary to purchase a few extra potions supplies that Snape had mentioned in a recent lesson. She really disliked having to use his private supplies all the time; she felt especially guilty when the potion she was brewing collapsed – this had happened once, to her embarrassment – thereby wasting valuable portions of ingredients he'd supplied her with.
She spent a little more than four Galleons on supplies, which was probably more than she could afford for the semester, but they'd last if properly stored; and if it turned out she didn't have cause to use them all she could give them to Snape, who would no doubt find use for them. Then, she left the shop, caught up with Eliza and Cordelia, and they took one of the horseless carriages back up to the school.
Halloween was in two and a half weeks, and the first of November hailed the opening of Quidditch season and the formation of the house teams. Lily had learned from James that the Gryffindor captain, Lisa Perry, had graduated the year before, leaving a sixth-year named Graham in charge of the team. Graham, according to James, was brilliant when it came to Quidditch, and he had high hopes for this season.
Lily wasn't a Quidditch fanatic, unlike most of her contemporaries, but she did enjoy the sport. If she was a better flyer she might have considered joining the team, but not only was she merely competent when it came to manoeuvring a broomstick but joining a team was a sure way to get killed, especially if you belonged to Gryffindor or Slytherin. For some reason, those two houses always seemed to be the focus of the school; their enmity was infamous, and even the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs would stop sneering at each other when the red and green houses stepped into the limelight. Gryffindor-Slytherin matches were traditionally brutal, and not for the squeamish. After November, Quidditch players were Madame Pomfrey's most recurrent patients.
What really threatened the players, though, weren't necessarily field injuries but pre-game duels and hexes in the hallways. Lily herself had been forced to duck stray jinxes in the past, and she wasn't eager to be pushed into the direct line of fire. Generally, the Quidditch players either knew a lot of countercurses or they stayed out of the hallways when a game approached.
Lily wondered, not for the first time, what it'd be like to attend a normal, Muggle school, one where classmates didn't turn into badgers if they hadn't done their homework.
Not to say that she was dissatisfied with Hogwarts. The wizarding school was the best thing that had ever happened to her, despite the subsequent estrangement from her sister. Looking across the coach at Eliza and Cordelia, Lily wondered whether Petunia had ever had such good friends.
"What are you staring at?" Eliza asked, noticing her absentminded gaze.
Lily blinked and shook her head. "Just thinking," she said. "Quidditch starting up in a couple of weeks. Isn't that going to be fun."
"Oh, absolutely," Cordelia said from her left. "I'm actually thinking about trying out this year… since Perry and Hurley left, they'll be needing a Chaser and a new Beater."
"Oh, you play?" Lily asked interestedly.
"Yeah," Cordelia said. "I grew up riding on ancient hand-me-down brooms and lobbing crab-apples at my brothers. It was great."
"You should try out," said Lily. "Are you any good?"
"Better than some," Cordelia shrugged. "And think; if I get the Beater's position, I'll have a valid excuse to hurl ten-inch iron balls at Snape." She giggled.
"Now, that's not very nice," Lily said.
"Quidditch isn't a nice sport, Lil," Cordelia said. "Besides, Snape's been needing a good Bludging for years."
"Fat luck you'll manage to hit him," Eliza said with a roll of her eyes. "He's almost as quick on his broom as James is."
"Not quick enough," said Cordelia.
Snape had been the Seeker for Slytherin for the past two years, and he was good, almost as good as James, who was a natural at the sport.
"If someone was going to knock Snape off his broom, don't you think it would've happened by now?" said Eliza.
"Come on, now," Lily said loudly.
"Why are you wasting breath defending Snape, Lil?" Cordelia said. "He's just as much of a bastard to you as to the rest of us."
Eliza's lips had thinned at the profanity, but Lily shook her head. "Yeah, I know – I'm not defending him, I'm just – that kind of talk brings me down, you know?"
Cordelia stared. "Brings you down? In Merlin's name, why? My heart thrills at the thought of Snape being smashed by Bludgers."
"I must be abnormal or something," said Lily dryly, "but the thought of violence and bloodshed just doesn't do it for me."
Cordelia laughed and patted Lily's arm. "All right, I'll be quiet. But I reserve the right to knock Snape off his broom if I get the chance, right?"
"Yeah, whatever," said Lily; "just save it for the field, okay?"
"No problem."
Lily fell silent, wondering at her own words. Since when did she defend Snape? If it had been Auster Wilkes Cordelia had been talking about, Lily would have agreed wholeheartedly. She despised Wilkes, and what was more, he scared her. Snape, though frighteningly temperamental at times, didn't worry her like Wilkes did. And perhaps that was why she felt defensive about him: yes, he was cruel, and yes, he was callous, but he was intelligent, and he lashed out in defence more often than he instigated attacks. She felt safe working with him.
She wondered whether Cordelia was really serious for trying out for the team. Cordelia tended to be fanciful; she had grand ideas but she rarely acted them out. She had been more passionate about other plans but hadn't put them into action; perhaps this Quidditch thing would be the same way. Lily thought she might be rather disappointed if it didn't work out, though; there hadn't been a girl on the Gryffindor team since Lily's first year, and it would make an interesting change.
They arrived at the school, and Lily followed Eliza out of the carriage, stretching to dispel the knotted sensation the jouncing of the carriage had caused. "Lovely day for a fly," Cordelia said, clambering out behind Lily.
"Wish I had my own broom," Lily murmured, adjusting the strap of her satchel over her shoulder.
"We should go down to the Quidditch pitch," Cordelia said. "Eliza and I have our own brooms – you could ask Pruidwick for a pass – and we could have a game!"
"The field's probably already taken," said Eliza doubtfully.
"Oh, it's a big field," Cordelia said, waving a careless hand. "If anyone's down there, they can share."
"Unless it's Slytherins," Lily said.
"If there are more than three we can play catch on the other side of the castle," Cordelia said. "What do you think?"
Lily shrugged. "If I can get a broom from Master Pruidwick, sure. Eliza?"
"I'll just get my broom," said Eliza. "And shall we see if Helen and Lara would like to come along, too?"
"If they'll come," Cordelia said. "But they probably won't. Cranfield's a prude and Klonn's afraid of heights."
Lily laughed. "I love the way you can assign people into such belittling categories without batting an eye," she said.
"It's a gift," said Cordelia. "Well, come on."
They hurried up to the castle. Lily stopped in her dormitory just long enough to put her new potions things safely on her bed and change into a warmer robe. She then ran down to the flying instructor's office to get a three-hour broom pass. When she got down to the field her friends were already there, waiting for her.
"What took you so long?" Cordelia demanded as Lily approached them.
"Pruidwick," Lily said, panting a little from the run. "He was being difficult about releasing a broom to me. As if I'm going to crash it into the Whomping Willow or something." She referred to the unusually violent tree that had been planted on the grounds the year she had come to Hogwarts.
"Nah, that'd be Potter or Black," said Eliza. "Who, by the way, will be sharing the field with us, along with Pettigrew."
"Not Remus?" Lily asked.
"I didn't see him out there," Cordelia said with a shrug.
"Maybe we could interest them in a game," Eliza said.
Lily winced. "Only if you want to lose," she said. "I'm no good at Quidditch. And this broom isn't the most spectacular of the lot, either." She gestured with her borrowed broomstick, which was twiggy and scraped and looked as if it was on its last leg of life. "Bet it doesn't top thirty."
"Oh, we'll take turns on it," said Cordelia. "You really need to get yourself a broom. But come on," she said suddenly, "we're wasting time just standing here talking. Let's go play."
They walked onto the field, and Lily looked up just in time to see Black dive for a scarlet ball that Peter had thrown him. He just barely caught it and twisted to launch it to Potter. James, who had been distracted by the girls' arrival, caught it in the side of the head.
Sirius roared with laughter, Peter chuckled, and James, blushing furiously, descended to earth after recovering the ball. "Idiot," he called up to Sirius, before turning his full attention to the girls. "Out for a fly?"
"Hm," said Cordelia sarcastically, "why else would we be standing on the Quidditch pitch, brooms in hand? We were wondering if you boys were interested in a game."
"Out of curiosity," Lily said, "where's Remus?"
"He's not feeling up to flying," said James, frowning, "but he's in the stands over there." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder; Lily looked over at the stands opposite and saw a figure swathed in robes huddling on one of the seats. She and Eliza waved, and Remus waved back.
"I imagine he's feeling better?" Lily asked.
"Fairly," James said wryly.
"I swear, that boy catches everything," Eliza said, shaking her head.
Sirius and Peter had landed and walked over. "What's the news?" asked Sirius.
"We didn't see you in Hogsmeade," said Eliza. "Were you here the whole time?"
"Couldn't leave Remus all by himself," said Peter.
"Are we going to play or not?" Cordelia asked.
Lily nodded suddenly. "Yeah, I've got a time limit on this broom here."
"I thought that was a school broom," Sirius said, squinting at the broomstick in Lily's hand. "No one in their right mind would wreck their own broomstick like that."
Lily blushed. "It's awful, I know," she said. "But it works. Sort of," she corrected herself.
"Ah, you can use mine," said Sirius. "Girl deserves to have a fly on a decent broom now and then."
Lily blinked in surprise. "Really? That's very sweet of you, Sirius," she said.
Sirius smirked; he stuck his hands in the pockets of his robes and shrugged. "Least I could do," he said. "'Sides, my broom's not all that spectacular, either."
James snorted. "Since when are you modest, Sirius?" he said. "He's got a refurbished Silver Arrow," he said, turning to the girls.
"It's an antique," Sirius muttered.
"It's gear," James said. "It's an original Jewkes. It's – "
" – Bought and paid for by the parents," Sirius cut in sharply. "Moving on, James."
"Oh, all right."
Sirius traded brooms with Lily – his was considerably more substantial than the school broom, rather more streamlined and in much better condition overall. "Wow," she murmured. "This is great, Sirius."
"Are any of you planning on moving any time this century?" Cordelia asked waspishly from several metres above their heads.
They mounted their brooms and a moment later they were all airborne. James tossed Cordelia the Quaffle first. She caught it neatly and hurled it to Peter, who fumbled, managed to recover it at the last second, and threw it to Lily.
They played a leisurely game of catch, and eventually, prompted by Sirius sidling up to Lily and telling her to test the acceleration of the Silver Arrow, they started racing each other. After Lily – to her very great surprise – had beaten both Cordelia and Peter, Cordelia halted in midair and yelled peevishly across the pitch, "That is not a Silver Arrow!"
Sirius cackled from their end of the field. "Refurbished, remember?" he called back. He seemed in much better spirits than he did before.
"You could kill yourself on this thing," Lily said in tones of admiration. "What's the top speed?"
"Only slightly lower than that of the Nimbus 1001, which is what James has got," said Sirius beside her. "A competent flyer on this Arrow could beat an average flyer on James's Nimbus."
Lily looked at Sirius curiously. "Why aren't you on the team?" she asked.
Sirius shrugged. "There isn't a spot for me," he said. "Or, there hasn't been up until this year."
James flew up next to them. "You should try out, mate," he said, and to Lily, he added, "I've been trying to persuade him into it."
"Really?" Lily glanced across the pitch, where Cordelia and Eliza were playing keep-away with Peter. "I think Cordelia's tossing around the idea of trying out, too."
"Oh? Is she any good?" James asked.
Lily rolled her eyes. "Are you blind? Look for yourself." She gestured towards the other end of the pitch.
"She's pretty good," said James vaguely after a moment. "But I don't know if she's House Chaser quality."
"I think she prefers Beater," said Lily. "But you'll have to talk to her yourself if you want to know more. I don't know. She might just be after a lark."
"Aren't we all," Sirius said, grinning.
James laughed. "Speaking of which, how's your project coming along?"
Lily looked at him blankly. "What project?"
"Your charms project," said James. "The one with the Muggle thingy."
"What Muggle thi – oh. The cassette player. Badly, I'm afraid."
"Oh? What's wrong with it?" Sirius asked.
"Yeah, maybe we could help," said James, who was probably more inclined to break the cassette player rather than configure it for running off magic.
"I doubt it," said Lily. "For one thing, I realized that tampering magically with Muggle devices is sort of illegal. I wish I'd thought of it before I did all my research, because I was doing really well until I remembered."
Sirius chuckled. "Oh, the irony."
"Indeed," Lily frowned. "Anyway, I'm trying to figure out a way to get around that. Like perhaps dissembling the player and reassembling it… then, technically, it'd be wizard-made. Or something."
"The technical points are usually the weakest," Sirius said sagely.
"Couldn't you sell it to the professors as an extra credit project and get permission?" James asked. "Aren't there special allowances made for personal articles and research projects and the like?"
Lily shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "I thought about creating a reading apparatus of some sort – like record players, they have needles, and the cassette player has tape heads; I thought about making something magical that would be compatible with the cassette. Like enchant a roller or something. But it'd be a lot more difficult – I'd have to think up some sort of phantom power to move the tape at just the right speed, and what I'd do for speakers I have no idea – it wasn't this technical before." She shifted on her borrowed broomstick, balancing her knee on the shaft.
"It's all Gobbledegook to me," Sirius said.
"Yeah, me too," Lily said gloomily. "I'm going to have another chat with Professor Flitwick and see if he has any suggestions."
"I wouldn't," said James. "Flitwick was a Ravenclaw; I don't think he'll approve of you trying to weasel around the Muggle Artefacts laws."
"I'm not giving up," Lily said seriously. "I'll find a way to work it out."
The boys were silent. After a moment, Lily flew off to join Peter and the girls, and James and Sirius eventually followed.
The following Monday, Lily stopped at the Great Hall only long enough to snatch a couple pieces of toast for breakfast before rushing up to the Charms classroom. Flitwick was at his desk, leafing through a sheaf of parchment. He looked up as she entered and bid her good-morning.
"Good morning, Professor," Lily said, setting things at her usual spot before coming up to the desk. "Sir, do you remember the conversion charms I asked you about last month?"
Flitwick considered this a moment before nodding. "Poulinni's Conversion," he said. "Yes, I do, Miss Evans; did you find the books I recommended?"
"Oh, yes; they were very helpful, they were just what I'd been looking for – but I've run up across a problem. I've been working on this project, you see, and I've encountered this slight – technical difficulty…."
Flitwick's expression was suddenly comprehending. "Ah," he said. "You're trying to enchant a Muggle music device to compatibly run off magic, are you?"
Lily did a double take. "What? Uh, yes, I am – but how'd you…?"
Flitwick smiled. "Every year or so a Muggleborn student comes to me or your head of House, asking after translation and conversion spells. You're not the first one who's thought up that idea, nor the first who's belatedly remembered about the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts laws."
Lily sighed and felt the uncharacteristic urge to curse. "Is there anything I can do?"
Flitwick shook his head. "Those laws are regrettably fixed. Short of creating an entirely new reading device, I'm afraid you'll have to stick with the National Wizard's Radio during the school year."
"And they don't play Pink Floyd," Lily said. "How frustrating."
Flitwick patted her hand. "I'm sorry, my dear. I know some of you Muggleborn students are very fond of your music."
Lily laughed. "Some of us are, yes," she said. "Aren't wizarding children like that, too?"
"Oh, yes," Flitwick said. "But the wizarding music industry isn't nearly as vast as its Muggle counterpart. You'll find that more of us are predisposed to classical compositions than popular, modern tunes."
Lily knew exactly what he meant and she had to admit she had her doubts about a society who didn't wholly recognize rock and roll as a suitable form of entertainment. Cordelia, for example, was a wonderful person with a spectacular personality, but musically she refused to accept anything beyond Michael Hadyn. And while Lily agreed wholeheartedly that Hadyn had his place in society, nothing excused the repeated playing of "Surprise", blasted so the whole of Gryffindor House could hear and appreciate and develop migraines.
She nodded and thanked Flitwick, and silently resigned herself to her seat.
Dear Mum,
The project I was working on has all but sunk. It looks like I won't be listening to any of my tapes until the hols at least. There are these laws, you see, that prohibit the experimentation of magic on Muggle artefacts – cassette players, for example. My Charms professor says that unless I invent a totally new, magical gadget, I'll be listening to the NWR – a wizard's station that plays mostly archaic wizard 'pop' and Beethoven concertos – for the next three years.
Lucky me.
Anyway, I just wrote to complain a little bit. Sending this with a school owl – don't try to make it wait up; I did that once and it nearly ate my fingers.
Much love,
Lily
She'd just gotten out of a double Herbology session with the Hufflepuffs, and now that she'd sent off her letter she was going to go wash up. Herbology was fun – most of the time, anyway – but it was terribly messy, especially since they'd moved into Greenhouse Four, which was basically one big mud hole. Today they'd been working with Flailing Creepers, which, though not much more than pale sprouts, were showing definite signs of life. Lily still had clumps of dirt in her hair.
"Good God, Evans," came a familiar voice from her left. "You look like you just crawled out a hole."
Lily turned to regard Snape coolly. "Thank you, I know," she said. "Fitting appearance for a Mudblood, don't you think?" She resisted the urge to give a saucy little twirl, mostly because she didn't want to turn her back on Snape after offering a cheeky remark.
Snape blinked. "What happened, Evans, did your owl die?"
"Like you'd care," Lily scoffed. She had been feeling increasingly put out as the day passed, both because her experiment had failed – or, rather, been put a stop to – and because it hadn't been as original an idea as she had first believed it to be. "Don't bother me, Snape. I'm not in the mood for it."
Snape actually laughed at that. "As if someone truly determined would be deterred by that! You're not in the mood! In the mood for what, exactly? For being assailed by a Dark wizard with a drawn wand? For being hexed to pieces? Oh, Evans, you must really be in a state, to go saying things like that to people like me."
Lily stared at him as if he'd gone mad. "You're in a good mood," she said in amazement.
Snape smirked. "Yes, well, it happens occasionally."
For some reason, Lily found that prospect scarier than his usual bad temper. "Always at other people's expense?"
"For the record, Evans," said Snape, "you're only inviting discrimination with that attitude, to say nothing of your appearance." His eyes swept over her, taking in her mud-covered robes and filthy hair. "I'd clean up if I were you," he said. "Filch wouldn't appreciate you tracking mud all over the floors."
Lily snorted. "Considerate advice from you? What, is hell freezing over? For your information, Snape, I was on my way to the baths when you stopped me."
"Oh, and I suppose I really twisted your arm, did I?"
Lily growled in aggravation. "Shut up, Snape!"
Snape smirked, obviously extremely amused at her irritation. "But of course." He gave a small, mocking bow, straightened up, and marched past her without a glance.
Lily glared after him. Could he possible be any more annoying?
Probably, Lily admitted to herself. But it would be a tricky thing.
Severus continued up to the Owlery, still smirking to himself. Evans was incredibly simple to frustrate sometimes. Then again, sometimes she was only incredibly frustrating, acting as if she was totally deaf to taunts, or as if she enjoyed being mocked.
He turned his mind abruptly away from that subject. Evans was strange, even eccentric at times, and it was ridiculous trying to work out a riddle you only heard half of.
He suddenly realized that, even after a month of acquaintance with her, he knew very little more about Evans than he did when they first came into this arrangement. Of course, it had to be taken into account that he hadn't made any active movement towards trying to learn more about her personally – he really hadn't any inclination to do so, after all – but surely, spending two evenings a week with a person, not to mention the classes they shared, would provide some sort of enlightenment into their character!
Evidently this was not the case with Evans, though. Severus decided that either she wasn't much of anything psychologically, or else there was quite a lot of her lurking invisible beneath the surface. And he was inclined to believe the latter. Evans didn't strike him as the superficial type.
Which was quite odd, in itself. Most Gryffindors wore their hearts on their sleeves, and Evans, at first glance, didn't seem to be any different. But being with her brought into sharp relief her odd mood swings, her faint cynicism, and her gentle and vicious enthusiasm for the giving and receiving of knowledge.
Severus shook his head abruptly. It was futile, this contemplation. Better to mull over the events of his latest Transfiguration lesson.
This thought almost brought the smirk back to his face. On his fourth try he'd perfectly transfigured the wooden box into a large, solid cube, which earned him a rare startled look from McGonagall and a stiff commendation for his good progress. Evans was peculiar, but he had to admit that she was more than competent as a teacher.
He reached the top of the Owlery tower and found a school owl roosting where he could reach. He took the note – a curt letter requesting supplies from home – out of his robes and affixed it to the owl's leg. As soon as he had finished and given the owl its order it flew out of the tower in whispering silence.
Achaicus Snape had not given Severus the customary purse of silver this year; rather, he had entrusted it to McCrae, the housekeeper, to pass along instead. Severus wasn't entirely sure that McCrae hadn't skimmed a little off the top of the sum while it was in her possession; the bag had felt lighter than it should have, though Severus had to admit that he was no expert in the matter of weighing out gold. He was better measuring crushed fire-crab shells and beetle eyes.
In any case, it wasn't as if he needed a lot of gold to get him through the year. The things he needed – extra potion supplies, quills, that kind of thing – he had only to write home for and eventually he'd get it. And the things he wanted weren't great in number. There wasn't much in Hogsmeade that appealed to him; he didn't care much for sweets, butterbeer made him ill and his disdain for the new joke shop, Zonko's, knew no bounds. The only things he really spent his gold on were extra-curricular potion ingredients and texts and occasionally some Quidditch thing or other. As it was, he still had Galleons left over from last year's allowance, and he was sure they more than made up for whatever the light-fingered housekeeper might have taken.
It was shameful how some people relied so heavily on money.
His dorm-mates, for example. Auster Wilkes was another old-family boy, and his monthly allowance was enough to make the other boys' eyes cross. Wilkes was an extravagant spender, too; every Hogsmeade visit he'd bring back to the castle more bags than he could carry by himself. Anything that caught his eye he had to have; he had dozens of robes crammed in his wardrobe, pounds of Quidditch gear weighing down his trunk, and scores of shady spellbooks and novels piled beneath his bed. It was disgusting, actually.
Elbert Avery was of mixed stock; that is, his mother was a pureblood of the Black line and his father was a second-generation wizard, which meant that there was a blood taint in one of his great-grandparents. Avery was a dull boy, not exactly stupid, but not bright by any means. His parents weren't very wealthy, and what money Avery got he frittered away at the Three Broomsticks or Honeydukes. He seemed happy with that, though, and Severus gave him a grudging respect for not complaining that he never had any spending money.
Evan Rosier did that constantly. He was incessantly griping that his parents were penny-pinching misers who refused to give their firstborn son so much as a full round Knut, when in fact he'd just spent his last Galleon on peppermint straws or the latest edition of Which Broomstick. Severus found his complaints disgraceful, not to mention monotonous.
Rodolphus Lestrange was a different story, however. Coming from a pureblood family more ancient than even the Blacks, he was no stranger to money in all its forms. But he was no spendthrift. Quite the contrary; Lestrange spent money as if there was nothing in the world he could possibly want that he did not already possess, which was probably quite true. The only thing he seemed to really indulge in were a certain brand of French cigarettes, which he'd been smoking since their previous year. Auster Wilkes often ridiculed him for buying Muggle cigarettes, but to Severus's knowledge the only reply he'd ever gotten was a cold and silent stare.
To Severus's knowledge, that was the only reply anyone had ever gotten from Lestrange. The boy was as stone.
Severus rounded a corner in the hallway and walked straight through a patch of freezing air that turned out to be the Grey Lady.
"Excuse me," Severus said, teeth clenched to keep them from chattering.
"Quite alright," said the Grey Lady in her faint, thin voice. "You dropped something."
Severus followed the Grey Lady's pointing finger and saw his wand, laying in the middle of the floor. As he bent to retrieve it, wondering how it had slipped out of his sleeve, he heard an extremely unwelcome voice addressing him from a side corridor.
"Snivellus!"
Snape dove for his wand, dropping to the floor just in time to escape a hex that zinged over his head. Ignoring the dismayed sigh of the Grey Lady, he snatched his wand up and brandished it at Black. "Vertiginosus!" he cried, and immediately, Black started to wobble, gibbering woozy nonsense. Potter snarled and flung a jinx at Severus, which he blocked and retaliated: "Aegritudo!"
But Potter stopped the curse, and hurled back another. "Percutio!" And Severus, who had been getting to his feet, was hurled back as a phantom fist connected quite solidly with his jaw. Before he could catch his breath, Potter cast again. "Remiissus!"
Severus slumped to the floor as if his bones had suddenly all turned to jelly.
Potter was moving to revive Black, who had collapsed on the ground and was rocking back and forth, clutching his head. Severus managed to move his fingers enough to direct his wand at Potter, and he whispered, "Occlusus." Potter was suddenly mute.
Potter whirled on him, mouthing furiously and silently. Severus grinned weakly: Potter couldn't do a thing if he couldn't speak, not to relieve his friend or curse Severus. And he was feeling rather smug until Potter rushed at him.
Severus hadn't expected that.
Potter kicked his wand away before he could use it, and then went at him with his bare fists. There wasn't a thing Severus could do to defend himself; he was still suffering the awful relaxing effects of the remiissus spell and he could hardly twitch his fingers, let alone block the furious punches of a brawny teenage boy. All he could do was lay there and wait for help.
And though by normal standards Filch wasn't long in coming, three minutes was certainly a lot when someone was ruthlessly beating you. Severus couldn't tell whether the curse had worn off yet; it wouldn't have mattered anyway, because he was in too much pain to move. When Filch finally dragged Potter off him, he was covered in bruises and splattered with blood and very nearly unconscious. Filch was screaming bloody murder, but Severus didn't get to hear much of it; he passed out before the first teacher came to investigate.