See chapter one for all disclaimers.
Author's Note: Hello there, loyal readers! I have for you today another terrific installment from the Dark Side of the Moon – I hope you enjoy it. There really isn't much for me to say, except that chapter eight is also on its way – in any case, it's finished and sitting in the bowels of my Document Manager here on ffn and waiting for me to upload it. But I'd rather not distribute all my written chapters at once, which is why I'm waiting to publish it.
Enjoy, and tell your friends to stop by!
chapter seven
As it turned out, Potter had fractured two of his ribs in what Madame Pomfrey had termed 'a disgraceful brawl.' Severus wasn't sure that was a truthful phrase; a more accurate one would have been 'an unsuccessful lynching'.
Along with the fractured ribs, Severus had lost one tooth, broken another, and somehow had bitten through the centre of his tongue. He'd sustained numerous excruciating bruises on his torso, and his face was so swollen that it hurt to blink. On the back of his head was a knot the size of an Occamy's egg, which he had gotten from Potter repeatedly slamming him to the floor.
Potter, on the other hand, only suffered bruised and bleeding knuckles, which Pomfrey flatly refused to heal. Black was totally uninjured, and once the Vertigo Curse was removed, he swaggered around the hospital wing, glaring at Snape and grinning at Potter while the nurse screeched at them.
When Pomfrey had shooed both boys out, directing them to their House Head, she returned to Severus's bedside and began to magick away his injuries, one by one. She made a tidy job of it, and sixty-seven spells and a vial of Dreamless Sleep later, she permitted him to leave the infirmary.
By this time, it was Tuesday.
After hearing his story and confirming it with McGonagall, Ganymede Patina, Astronomy professor and the Head of Slytherin house, gave him a pass excusing him from his morning lessons. And as much as he hated to miss Defence Against the Dark Arts, he was still feeling lethargic from the Dreamless Sleep, so he slept away most of the morning, rising finally at twelve to go down to lunch.
He managed to keep himself conscious through Charms, and he was exceedingly glad that his next class, Astronomy, was hours away. He left Flitwick's classroom and went straight back to Slytherin, taking longer routes to avoid the main passageways. In the common room, he worked on his assignments until he started to drowse again, and then he packed his things back into his satchel, went down to his dormitory and crawled back into bed.
He woke up some time later, when the sky was going dark and the dormitory was beginning to chill, with a sudden recollection that today was Tuesday, and that somewhere above in a disused dungeon room, there was a fourth-year Gryffindor girl waiting for him. Or there would be, quite soon. He glanced at the level of silver sand in the hourglass beside his bed and cursed under his breath. Well, there was no way he was going to go up there this evening; he was sore and bone-weary and he had no inclination of consorting with a close acquaintance of Potter and Black's at the moment.
Instead, he dashed a curt note out informing Evans that he would be unable to meet her. He folded the parchment into a vaguely birdlike shape, put a harsh jinx on it that would prevent someone other than Evans from reading it, and with a tap of his wand he sent it flying out of the dormitories, trusting it would find its way out of the subdungeons on its own.
Lily entered the dank chamber to find it empty. She was puzzled; usually, Snape was there first thing to set up the cauldron and the ingredients and utensils, but evidently not this time. She wondered where he might be; perhaps a professor had held him up, or perhaps he was just late. But no, Snape was extremely punctual, and she doubted he'd just forget about a Tuesday lesson.
Or, perhaps he'd gotten a detention after that fight yesterday she'd overheard James complaining about to Sirius. Apparently, there'd been some sort of duel that had resulted in James getting a hefty amount of detentions and both Gryffindor and Slytherin losing a sackful of points. She'd seen the counters in the Great Hall at breakfast that morning; Gryffindor was down by a hundred points, Slytherin by forty-five, and neither house was happy about it. Eliza and Cordelia had refused to acknowledge either James or Sirius, which was unusual, especially for Cordelia.
…Come to think of it, though, she hadn't seen Snape at breakfast or lunch. Not that either was terribly unusual – he didn't seem to eat much – so it probably had no significance whatsoever….
She was just setting her satchel down on the table when she heard a papery scuffling. She turned around and saw, to her surprise, a crumpled-looking bit of parchment struggling to get in under the closed classroom door. Whether she would have gone to retrieve the parchment or burn it in case it was hexed or something, she did not know, as it freed itself before she could act, and it flew over to the table to perch atop her satchel.
She snatched it up, which might have been a stupid thing to do considering the fact that she didn't yet know whether it was harmless or not, but as her fingers still remained attached after touching it she figured it was probably safe. And it was addressed to her, or at least it had her initials on it – 'L. E.' was scrawled on a wing of parchment in a familiar hand.
She unfolded the parchment and read the enclosed note.
Evans:
Due to circumstances, I will not be meeting you this evening.
SS.
Lily snorted. No apology, no explanation – that was so undeniably Snape it was almost funny. He must have gotten a detention after all.
With a shrug and a sigh, she folded the note back up and tucked it in her satchel before exiting the classroom.
She found Sirius in the common room, sitting on the floor by the fire, leaning against the couch. He was reading a magazine – Transfiguration Quarterly she knew right away by the golden covers. She wandered over and, without ceremony, plopped down on the couch beside him.
"Hi, Sirius," she chirped.
Sirius glanced up at her, looking somewhat surprised that she'd approached him. "Hey, Lily. What's new?"
"Not much. You?"
"Just reading up some stuff on Ferguson's theory of grey change."
Lily shook her head. "How such a bright boy can bear to waste his time on pulling pranks and disrupting lessons is beyond me." She laughed, and said, "Speaking of which, do you know where James is?" She knew very well that he was at detention with Professor Sprout, but she wanted to ask Sirius a few questions and that was a perfectly good place to start, and after all, she wasn't really supposed to know that James was at detention.
Sirius turned a page in his magazine and told her casually that Potter was serving a detention in Greenhouse Four.
"Detention?" she asked, sounding puzzled. "Why's he in detention? – Oh wait, does this have to do with the, ah, significant decrease in house points I noticed this morning?"
Sirius snorted. "You could say that."
"Why aren't you in detention with him?" she asked. "Or were you lucky and not present at the scene of the crime?"
Sirius looked at her sharply. "Why do you want to know?" he asked.
Lily shrugged. "Just curious," she said innocently. "Actually, I probably don't want to know. Knowing James, he most likely got into a scuffle with Snape or something."
She watched Sirius carefully as she said this, and noticed with satisfaction a slight, sharp rise of his chest, which meant an irregular intake of breath. "Yeah, probably," said Sirius, sounding deceptively casual and unconcerned.
Lily was silent for a moment. "Well, I'd better get to work on that Divination assignment. Professor Vectis wants two feet on Cassandra. Honestly, the woman's almost as bad as Binns, rattling on about ancient historic seers and augurs. Ugh. I'll talk to you later, Sirius."
And she left the couch in favour of her dormitory, where Lara Cranfield was nagging Cordelia about the mess of Quidditch gear, wrinkled robes and potted plants on her side of the room. She stretched out on her bed and ignored the two bickering girls, powerfully curious as to what had happened the previous day that had warranted James an unseemly amount of rotation detentions and had detained Snape from their weekly potions study.
Obviously, Sirius wasn't going to say any more about the subject than he already had. She might be able to weasel something out of James, but she was doubtful. Remus, maybe; he was a good friend, perhaps he'd tell; but then again, Remus was very loyal to James and Sirius, and while he didn't condone their ruthless harassment of Snape, he probably wouldn't be inclined to tell her about what James had done to lose so many points and gain so many detentions. And she would never get anything out of Snape; that much was assured.
But what about Peter?
Peter was a talkative boy, and while he wasn't disloyal, he was rather careless. She could probably get the story from him, provided that he actually knew the story, and that was only a minor snag. She'd wait a few days – he should know it all by Friday at least – and then she could ask him about it.
She knew it was terribly meddlesome, what she was doing. It really wasn't any of her business, and if James refused to tell her what happened, she should just let it go. And what was more, it was devious. She couldn't believe how – well, how Slytherin she acted sometimes. Even with all the Gryffindor influences in her life, she believed that if she went back to the Sorting Hat, it would tell her just what it told her that first night at Hogwarts. And she still wondered how things might have turned out if the Sorting Hat could have put her into Slytherin instead of being obligated by the state of her blood to put her in a different house.
She shook her head to clear her mind. Too many thoughts, too many thoughts… better to concentrate on something else, like Lara and Cordelia now earnestly arguing over the state of the walls on either side of the latter's bed. Lara was beginning to shriek, and Cordelia's face was beginning to get red, and Lily debated throwing her pillow at them to get their attention, but she decided that would probably have more of an inflammatory effect than a mollifying one. As she slipped off her bed, she decided she was lucky to have been born of Muggles: though they didn't always all get along, the Gryffindor girls as a whole were much more agreeable than the Slytherin girls.
Her alarm rang at twelve-fifteen that night. She got out of bed, poked Cordelia, who was still asleep, and pulled her school robes back on. She pulled a brush through her hair and tied it back before digging her astronomy text out from under her bed and stuffing it into her satchel.
On her side of the room, Cordelia was complaining to Merlin about early morning classes. Helen was muttering in dismay about the havoc her pillow had done to her tight auburn curls, and Eliza was yawning and trying to apply lip balm at the same time. Lara was primly gathering her parchments, quills, and books, and at length she began to accuse Cordelia of stealing the eyepiece for her telescope.
"Merlin, Cranfield, will you get a life? I didn't take your stupid eyepiece!" Cordelia cried at last in extreme aggravation. "You probably left it in the tower last Thursday! God!"
Lily rolled her eyes. "And if not," she said before Lara could protest, "you can probably borrow one from Professor Patina."
"We're going to be late," said Eliza from the doorway.
Lily swung her bag over her shoulder. "Coming," she called.
In the common room they met the boys, and they all left the tower together, which was required for students heading out to late Astronomy lessons. If a student were found wandering around alone after hours, nothing, not even the excuse of an Astronomy lesson would get them out of a detention.
As they climbed up the last flight of stairs leading to the tower top, they met the Slytherins, coming out of their eleven o'clock lesson. Lily could picture the hackles bristling and the fangs being bared as the two classes passed.
"You've recovered nicely I see, Snivellus," she heard Sirius mutter as they walked by Snape. Lily saw Snape hunch his shoulders and scowl.
"Keep talking, Black," he said through gritted teeth, "and I guarantee you won't recover."
James chuckled, low, and glanced over his shoulder to address the Slytherin: "Threats, Snivelly?"
And then, to both Lily's great relief and disappointment, a voice from the tower entrance called, "That will be enough, Mister Potter; don't you think you've lost Gryffindor enough points already?"
Ganymede Patina, the professor of astronomy, was glaring death at James and Sirius.
"Well? What are you all waiting for?" Patina snapped. "We don't have all night." And she moved out of the doorway, indicating that the Gryffindors should follow.
Lily caught up with James in the classroom. She sidled up to him casually, polishing a telescope lens on her robe as she did so. "Hey, Potter," she said softly; "what was it with Snape in the corridor?"
James scoffed and turned his attention away from his brass telescope. "Oh, hey, Evans," he said. "Ah, it was nothing…."
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Really? Sure didn't sound like nothing." When Potter didn't answer, she prodded, "You know, I heard something earlier about a duel yesterday…."
"Ha, and wouldn't you just love to know about it!"
Lily smiled hopefully. "Very much so," she said. "Surely you aren't going to miss the opportunity to boast about another smashing Gryffindor victory!"
Potter gave a grim little chuckle. "Oh, right, Evans. And you're just anxious to hear about Snape getting his arse kicked in a wizard's duel."
Lily nodded. "Of course I am," she said, as if that was perfectly obvious and he was silly to think otherwise.
James's expression was pure scepticism. "Ri-i-ight."
"Really!"
James laughed now. "No, I don't think so."
"Mister Potter!" Professor Patina's voice rang out through the classroom. "Miss Evans! A little less talk back there!"
"Yes, Professor," the two chorused, and before Lily could say anything else, James scooted off to the other side of the room, telescope in hand.
Lily gave a huff of disappointment. Well, she hadn't expected it would work… all the same, Potter was acting distinctly suspicious, more so than usual. Most of the time, he never missed an opportunity to brag about besting a Slytherin in one way or another. Perhaps he was just keeping quiet because they were in the Head of Slytherin's class at the moment. She had her doubts about that, though; his attitude about it led her to believe that something had happened that either he was embarrassed about or he thought she definitely wouldn't have approved of, and he wasn't going to say another word on the subject.
Somewhat irked, she followed the rest of the class out onto the wall walk to set her telescope up beside the parapet.
The next day, James apologetically informed her that he would be unable to tutor her that evening, and said that it'd be best if they moved the lessons to a different time. Lily reminded him of her revision group, and said that they'd either have to do it later on Wednesday evenings, or on Friday afternoons.
James agreed to reschedule, and dashed off to his Muggle Studies class.
At Arithmancy, in between taking notes and fending off Wilkes, she wondered how she could deal with this change in schedule. The previous schedule had worked very well: potions with Snape on Tuesday evenings, after which she asked what he was having trouble with in Transfiguration; transfiguration with James on Wednesday nights, where she requested help with whatever it was Snape was having difficulties with; transfiguration with Snape on Thursday afternoons, during which she taught to him what she had gleaned from James the previous evening. It had worked quite well like that, even when James didn't expand on the theory as much as she liked; she managed to muddle along well enough with Snape, and he was improving, to her satisfaction. But now that her Wednesday lesson was being moved to Friday – or later, even – she wondered how efficient the new plan would be. How would she adapt to it without Snape thinking anything was off?
She decided to stop worrying about it. If she got herself into trouble with this, she'd deal with it – she probably deserved it, anyway; no Gryffindor should be allowed to get away with something so sneaky. Lily wondered how unethical it was of her to be able to juggle people like this and not feel too guilty about it. In truth, she felt guiltier about not feeling guilty than she figured she should.
She pushed away from that line of thought and concentrated on keeping her satchel out of Wilkes's jinxing reach.
Thursday evening, she only debated for a moment whether she should go up to the disused classroom on the third floor. If Snape had detentions like James did, it would be held after dinner – detentions usually were – and if he had other plans she was sure he would have notified her earlier. And she wasn't disappointed after the long walk to the classroom; Snape joined her only minutes after she had arrived.
He came in quietly, as usual, shoulders hunched and head bowed in his customary crablike posture. She greeted him carefully, and when he did not return the greeting, she pretended as if it was nothing and was silent as he seated himself at the table. He said nothing, only studied his knuckles, which were almost completely hidden by the cuffs of his black sleeves. His stringy black hair obscured his face, and the fact that Lily couldn't see nor catch his eyes was disconcerting for some reason.
But then he lifted his head and his gaze met hers. She was surprised at the mediocrity in his eyes; he looked weary at a psychological level. The silence was punctuated by a sharp intake of breath; Lily managed not to gasp but couldn't help that one slight betraying reaction. Almost immediately, Snape's expression returned to its habitual scowl.
"What are you staring at?" he snapped.
Lily shook her head quickly. "Nothing, sorry – sorry. Are you – that is to say – you look rather tired," she finished lamely.
He regarded her coldly, sitting up straight now. "And?"
Lily shrugged uncomfortably. "And, nothing," she said. "I was just – do you think you're up to transfiguration this evening?"
"If I wasn't," Snape growled, "why would I even be here?"
Lily let her breath hiss out through her teeth. "It was a simple question, Snape," she said. "No need to bite my head off. I was asking out of concern, for your information."
Snape scoffed. "Right."
"And anyway," Lily said, as if she hadn't heard him, "I don't even owe you a lesson tonight, since you skipped out Tuesday."
Snape was suddenly still. "I expect you'll want to wait until next week to resume usual lessons, then," he said at length.
"Only if you're not up to it tonight," Lily said graciously, remembering only belatedly that this was the wrong approach to take with Snape. The Slytherin would never admit a weakness; it would have been a better idea to agree right then to postpone the lesson until next Thursday – or even continue the evening's lesson and have Snape owe her one for once.
As Snape's lips thinned, Lily, mentally cursing herself, hastily amended: "Let's forget about it until Tuesday, all right?"
Snape muttered something under his breath that Lily did not catch. "Tuesday, then," he said aloud, agreeing with a curt nod, and then he began to get up.
"Wait!" She stopped him. "Don't go yet. Stay and have some tea."
Snape looked at her as if she was insane. "I beg your pardon?"
Lily smiled mildly at him. "Some tea. I found out how to summon house elves," she explained. "And I thought you might like something to drink before you left?"
Snape's expression was arctic. He glowered at her for a moment before turning around and sweeping wordlessly from the room; Lily suppressed a chuckle as the door shut behind him. It had been worth asking, after all; she had intended to quiz him a little about what had happened on Monday, though she had been quite sure he wouldn't have answered any question she'd put to him – but his incredulous expression had been priceless. Smiling to herself, she packed her bag over her shoulder and left the room.
Remus, as it turned out, was no help either; he answered her enquiries with soft, silent smiles that infuriated her to no end. And Peter was hopeless; apparently, neither James or Sirius had told him anything pertaining to the truth; he was under the impression that James had flown a school broom into the Whomping Willow as a prank and the damage of the broom and the tree were what had gotten him all those detentions. Lily didn't bother to illuminate him; obviously, James and Sirius had their reasons for not telling him.
And then she realized how deplorably intrusive she was being. For God's sake – if the boys wouldn't tell Peter, what on earth gave her the idea that she should know? It wasn't her business; she couldn't benefit from knowing what happened, and no doubt the information would only serve to begrudge her against James and Sirius or Snape.
Ashamed with herself, she pushed the matter out of her mind, vowing not to pry again, and concentrated on other things.
Such as the Quidditch season.
Teams officially formed the morning after the traditional All Hallows Eve feast. Lily understood there was a general clamour for the Quidditch pitch, but the Ravenclaws managed to book it first, and bad moods were abundant for that first week. To Lily's surprise and delight, Cordelia did join the team, though she made it as Chaser rather than Beater, a position that went to a fifth-year named Fredrick Brissett. James had been furious that Sirius hadn't even bothered to try out, but he admitted eventually that both Cordelia and Brissett were quite good and the team wouldn't suffer from the lack of Black.
The first game took place on the third Saturday of November. The Gryffindors were pitted against the Ravenclaws, who had put together a surprisingly strong team, and the Gryffindors won only by forty points. It was a wonderful beginning to the season, and Lily was excited in spite of herself.
Lessons with Snape and James were abruptly knocked off kilter. Both boys had practices twice a week, sometimes more, if the team captains were feeling optimistic, and setting a solid date for lessons was almost impossible. Sundays were the only days that were consistently free, and everyone agreed that they should remain so. Lily was hard-pressed to come up with good times for study-dates, and it wasn't long before she began to consider dropping the whole arrangement with Snape and returning to a somewhat less hectic lifestyle.
The problem, though, was that she was improving quite a bit now under Snape's tutelage, and she was reluctant to stop before she reached her full potential. Snape's behaviour was bearable, and it seemed now his comments weren't so cruel and irrelevant as much as blunt truths aimed to alert her to faults in her work process.
A lesson she was beginning to imagine she could do without, however, was transfiguration with James. More and more she was realizing that he didn't have much to tell her about the subject that she didn't already know, and what there was didn't do anything to aid her in her lessons with Snape. And to tell the truth, she was getting more than fed up with James's joker attitude. Now that Quidditch had started up again, he was more full of himself than ever, and though she tried to ignore it, she was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate while he was acting so cool and smug. On some days Lily honestly would have picked an afternoon with Snape rather than suffer another hour in James Potter's company. At least then she wouldn't have to feign politeness.
Relief came in the form of the Christmas holidays.
The Gryffindor boys were caught between fury and glee that the first Gryffindor-Slytherin match was slated for the first Saturday after the holidays – fury for the postponement of the eagerly awaited game and glee that they'd get an extra two weeks of potential practice time to make up for the delay. James lived in a country manor, surrounded by uninhabited woods and fields that were perfect for Quidditch, and he planned to have all the Gryffindor players Floo to his house one day for an afternoon of heavy practice. Practice would, of course, be augmented with a dinner of feast-like proportions to ensure that no player failed to turn up, and Lily, considering the makeup of the team – that is, seven hearty, healthy teenage boys who probably hadn't turned down an offer of food in their lives – had no doubts that the ploy would work.
Meanwhile, Lily herself had received a summons from home directing her to board the train on the morning of the eighteenth of December with her trunk. Mr Evans would pick her up at Kings Cross and take her home for the holidays. Lily was happy; she had been getting rather homesick. She had hoped she might outgrow this, but apparently such was not the case; she was eager to see her parents and even her irascible sister Petunia.
So, it was with a light heart that she boarded the Hogwarts Express early Saturday morning, wand shoved up her sleeve and knee socks already drifting towards her ankles. She found a compartment to share with Cordelia and Lara and Helen and made herself comfortable for the long ride back to civilization.