See chapter one for all disclaimers.
Author's note:
First off, I'd like to apoligize for the break problem that manifested in the last chapter. This PC refuses to let me edit anything once I've got it uploaded, so I probably won't get to rectify the problem until Tuesday. Please bear with me here.
Back again, and with a new chapter. This one is short, I'm sorry – but it's wrapping up Part One, which I am retitling "Speak to Me". (Theme! w00t!) I'm not sure how many parts will make up the complete work, but I'm betting that Dark Side of the Moon will end up at about three hundred pages or so – maybe that's just wishful thinking, but I do know that DSotM will be novel-length, and will end somewhere near the end of 1981. I don't know how long it will take me to finish this, but as I've said before, I do intend on finishing it. It's just a matter of writing it all down; the story's pretty much complete in my head.
Now, as for those of you who are wondering, "Where the heck is Lucius? Shouldn't he be around to tempt dear Sev down the dark side of the Force?" Well, rest assured that I haven't forgotten about Lucius. If you'll bear with me for an extensive author's note, I'll proceed… or just skip on down to the beginning of the chapter, if you don't really care about CRUCIAL CANONICAL DETAILS.
Lucius Malfoy is six years older than Snape, Lily, and the rest of the class if 1977. This fact is supported by canon. In OotP (which takes place in 1995), on page 304, it is stated that Lucius Malfoy is 41 years old (which would mean he was born in 1954). Assuming that he entered school at the usual age (11) and didn't skip or repeat a year, Lucius Malfoy would have graduated in '72, in Lily and Snape's second year. (On the other hand, we have not yet been given any clues as to what year Narcissa was born, so I have taken certain liberties in my fic.)
Rowling has said that Snape was born on January 9, 1960, which makes him only 35 in 1995. (Did they cast Alan Rickman wrong, or what?) He is six years younger than Malfoy, as were Lily and James and the rest of the class of '77. (Born in 1960, he would have entered Hogwarts in 1971, and graduated in 1977.)
Yes, I am a sorry case, and terribly obsessed with details. I've also worked out how old Voldemort and Hagrid are… and I'll put the results here for posterity's sake.
In CoS, we overhear Malfoy Jr. saying that the chamber was opened once before, fifty years ago. CoS takes place in 1992, which would mean that the Chamber was opened once in 1942. We know that Tom Riddle was 16 when this happened. Subtract 16 from 1942 and you get 1926. Therefore, Voldemort was born in 1926, making him 49 as of 1975 (Lily and Snape's 5th year). He was 55 when he was defeated on October 31, 1981, and 65 when he first shows up again in Book the First.
How did I get Hagrid's age? Well, we know that he was in his 3rd year when Voldemort was in his 6th. Not taking into account the (highly possible) event of him being held back a year, we can assume that he was born in 1929, entered Hogwarts in 1939, and expelled in 1942, when he was but a lad of 13. In 1975, he would have been 46, and he would have been 62 when Harry first showed up at Hogwarts.
Funny that I'm so good at figuring ages of fiction characters using only tidbits of information, and then I'm so terribly bad at algebra.
Nevertheless, ph33r my m4d sk1lzz.
Enjoy!
chapter eleven
Another weekend, this one obscured with snow and haunted by a bitter cold that numbed extremities in such an alarming way that Madame Pomfrey threatened to cancel the match. But Quidditch was never cancelled for any kind of weather, no matter how severe, and so the game proceeded as planned.
The stands were as close to desertion as house loyalty would allow, and the few Slytherins and Ravenclaws who did show up were so swathed as to be nearly indistinguishable from each other. The customary house pennants didn't wave, for even the fanatics valued their fingers, and many voices were weakened with rheum or muffled by scarves.
In preparation for the match, Lily had carefully hidden her hair. She wore green beneath her heavy cloak, and her emerald earrings sparkled at her lobes. Her gloved hands, carefully hidden in the cuffs of her sleeves, clenched and unclenched nervously as she made her way to the field, hoping that no one would recognize her. Her fears were unnecessary, though, and she arrived unaccosted at the pitch.
But when she got there, she found herself in a dilemma; namely, where to sit. Were she to sit with the Slytherins, she was sure to be spied upon, found out, and either hexed to pieces or ridiculed for the rest of her educational career. And were she to sit on the Ravenclaw side, she would be extremely conspicuous, for she would cheer when they would sigh in disappointment, and vice versa.
What was she to do? Where was she to go? Feeling extremely put out, she began to scan the stands for a place in which she could install herself, but no solutions were forthcoming. She was just preparing to go back the way she came when a hand on her elbow stopped her.
She gasped and whirled around; a passer-by, identifiable as a Ravenclaw by the bit of blue scarf draped round his neck, gave her an odd look but continued on.
Lily, meanwhile, was surprised to find her accoster an undersized boy, no more than twelve years old, with jet-black curls peeping out of a knit cap, and startlingly pale blue eyes that looked terribly familiar.
And when the boy spoke, Lily knew him: this had to be Regulus Black, Sirius's little brother.
"You must be Evans," said the boy, voice musical and wavering soft; "you're the Mudblood."
It didn't seem like such an insult coming from this angelic little creature, and Lily's expression clouded more out of habit than out of indignation. "You must be Regulus," she said. "You're the good child."
Little Regulus erupted into childish peals of laughter, which he hastily quieted, conscious of the attention of the sparse crowd around them. Lily had to smile at his exuberance; his pale cheeks glowed with amusement. "Is that what Sirius calls me?"
"Among other, less flattering things, yes."
"No matter," said Regulus, and, with a shrewd sparkle in his eye, "What are you doing here?"
Lily felt her wind-chapped cheeks turn redder. "I've come to see the game."
That sparkle sharpened into something even more significant. "Who've you come to see?"
Lily raised an eyebrow. A sharp little boy! (She had conveniently forgotten that Sirius's brother, whom she had always heard described as "little," was really only a couple years younger than herself; however, she had fallen unwitting victim to the prejudice of years, and considered two to be quite a large gap.) "What gives you the impression that I've come to see anybody?"
Regulus smirked now, wholly Slytherin in his manner. "For one thing," he said, "I can see your shirt collar. It's green. You've not just come for the love of Quidditch."
Lily looked down automatically and gave a soft, noiseless laugh. "You're clever for your age."
"I've heard you are, too," said Regulus. "My brother raves about you, you know. But, if you're so very smart, why aren't you dressed in blue instead of green? Unless, that is, you're supporting one of mine." His white teeth glinted in a smile at those last three words.
Lily regarded the clever boy with an evaluating gaze. "Why are you so concerned?" she said at last, and was chagrined to see his face split into a triumphant grin.
"You are! I knew it. So who is it? Nott? Mulciber? Or someone older – Rookwood, maybe? Or – oh, I know! I know! Wilkes. Auster Wilkes. He's the one, isn't he?"
Lily shook her head furiously, waving her hand at him to still his eager rush of words. "Of course not!" She heaved a shudder. "Your imagination is overactive, kid."
Regulus's full, wicked-angel smile suddenly flattened into a scowl. "Who're you calling kid, Mudblood?"
Lily glared at him. "Look here, you," she said firmly, refusing to let her temper get the better of her; "I wasn't the one who – "
But his smile had come back, and he beamed at her agreeably, touched his mittened hand to her arm. "Please don't be angry with me," he interrupted in a gentle tone. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. But – but will you sit with me? I won't talk about Wilkes again, I promise."
And he smiled so sweetly that Lily, despite her doubts, couldn't resist.
Before they went into the stadium, however, she bent down to say nervously in his ear, "Are you sure about this? I don't want to be – "
"Noticed? Oh, don't worry. I doubt my housemates'll know it if we win, they're all so busy trying to keep their noses from freezing off. Come on. I have a good place to sit."
And he did. No one noticed them creeping high up in the stands to perch on the narrow bench, their backs to the frosted wooden wall. Regulus chatted to her as they waited, his pale eyes never flickering from hers as he continued his almost one-sided conversation. His chatter was unimportant, consisting of his observations of his teachers, how far ahead he was in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and how much he hated Professor Eberwulf.
"I like him," said Lily at the last proclamation.
Regulus shrugged. "To each his own. But he doesn't like me. Probably 'cause my brother's so bad in his class."
"Oh, I'm sure Professor Eberwulf wouldn't discriminate just because your brother's performance was – ah – substandard!"
Regulus snorted, and she sensed he was going to add something to that, but at that moment a voice echoed through the stadium, stilling some of the chatter as it announced the teams – as if someone in the crowd didn't know – and then the names of the Ravenclaw players as they sped out onto the field.
The Slytherins came after, and Lily watched with guilty pleasure as Snape circled the pitch, coming to a halt somewhere above the centre circle.
She didn't notice that the boy beside her watched her more intently than he did the game.
She spent most of the game watching the Slytherin Seeker curl over the field, peering through Regulus's enchanted binoculars because she had forgotten her own. The screams of the other spectators didn't affect her; she wasn't interested in the race for the Quaffle, nor the dangerous pursuit of the Bludgers. It was only Snape and his hunt for the Snitch that interested her; nothing else, not even the curly-headed boy sitting next to her, could divert her attention.
And it wasn't long before the climax of the game brought Lily to her feet with the rest of the crowd. She clenched her hands so tightly that her fingernails left welts in her palms – but she didn't cheer; she kept her lower lip locked firmly between her teeth, and only when the Snitch at last flapped helplessly in Snape's leather-gloved hand did she allow a hiss of satisfaction to escape her. Only then did she allow herself to relax, and she sat herself down on the bench and breathed an inaudible sigh. Her hands were shaking.
"Good game, huh?" said Regulus, scrutinizing her carefully with glinting blue eyes. She didn't notice his sharp attention, but rubbed at her fast-beating heart and nodded.
"Yes, very."
"A few more games like this and we'll have the Cup, no trouble."
"I'm sure."
"Well." Reuglus stood up, stretching and yawning like a contented cat. "Let's go back to the castle. It's cold, and I want some tea."
Lily began to nod, but then his words registered on her mind, and she glanced sharply at him. "You go," she said, wondering whether he had meant to invite her to share a cuppa. "Thanks for letting me borrow your binoculars."
"Omnioculars," Regulus corrected her. "No prob. And hey – if you'd like to come to the next match, and want an escort – " his eyes twinkled mischievously, and Lily was strongly reminded that he was Sirius Black's younger brother – "I'd be glad to help."
Lily smiled. "You're such a gentleman. I'll send you an owl if I decide to take you up on that offer."
Regulus beamed and scampered off, skipping down the steps two at a time. Lily grinned despite herself. She could see why Sirius hated him; Regulus was so much more adorable than his older brother! Lily thought the boy was absolutely charming. He had a wicked streak, yes, but most children that age did, and especially those coming from families as old and as wealthy as his. In any case, it was nowhere near as pronounced as his older brother's, which frequently manifested itself in the forms of dangerous pranks.
She buried her gloved hands deeper into her pockets and escaped the stadium without being recognized.
She found Snape in the library later that evening, searching through a pile of books on advanced potions and antiquated Muggle chemistry.
"Hullo," she said, voice pitched low to avoid the razor-sharp hearing of the librarian. Snape looked up, startled, and moved aside some of his things so she could sit down. She did, and having smoothed her skirt over her knees, she said, "I came to the match today."
His eyebrows arched sharply. "You did?"
"You played very well," Lily replied.
Snape slowly shut his book. "Thank you," he said carefully.
And then, from behind them: "There's something I never thought I'd hear you say, Snape."
Lily whirled, but it was only Maria, slouching slightly, her empty satchel hanging loosely from her shoulder. She smiled crookedly at the two fourth-years, and moved to stand beside the table.
"Good job at the game today, Snape," said Maria. "I wasn't there – had some Head Girl duties to tend to – but I heard about it from Rookwood."
Snape gave a stiff little nod, suddenly seeming rather uncomfortable at all the attention.
"So," said Maria, "Evans, I see you've got your bandage off."
"Just this morning," said Lily.
"How are you feeling?"
"Quite well, thanks."
"So you'll be there Wednesday night?"
"Yeah, most likely."
"Be glad you weren't there this week. Without our fearless leader there to guide us into the Land of Muggle Devices, there wasn't much for us to do. Black got her knickers in a knot over some small thing and most of the hour was spent keeping her and Greta's claws sheathed. It was the most godawful thing ever."
Lily gave a sympathetic smirk. "Hopefully they'll have calmed down by Wednesday."
"God, I hope so." Then, somewhat sarcastically: "So, what are you two doing in here together? I hope you're not corrupting her with your devious Slytherin ways, Snape." Despite her joking attitude, Lily blushed, and across from her, Snape scowled.
"I just came in to congratulate him on his game," Lily said, somewhat defensively. "And I'm afraid I interrupted him from his studies." She stood up. "Sorry, Snape."
His expression was one of extreme irritation as she bid him goodbye, and she departed before he could respond, leaving him in the company of the highly self-sufficient Maria Welteislehre.
"You didn't have to chase her off," Severus snapped, pulling his books toward him again. Maria laughed, to his chagrin, and plopped down in the seat next to him.
"I didn't chase her off," she said. "If anything, it was your murderous expression that did the trick. I assume that look is directed at me?"
Severus glared at her. "Do you have anything worthwhile to say, or am I sacrificing valuable study time listening to the breeze rattle the rushes?"
Maria raised an eyebrow. "Touchy, touchy," she said. "What's your problem, Snape? Do you like her or something?"
Severus' face twisted savagely, as if her words disgusted his very soul. "Don't be ridiculous, Welteislehre," he growled.
"Ridiculous?" Maria chuckled. "Don't be so sensitive, Snape. I swear, you're one of the most easily-offended Slytherins I know. And that's saying something." She heaved a windy sigh and stood up again. "I'd best be off. Congrats again on your game."
And she went, empty bag swinging from her shoulder.
After Divination and a shower Tuesday afternoon, Lily headed down to the disused dungeon room for her potions lesson with Snape. She was particularly preoccupied at the moment, seething inwardly about the metre-long essay on the Delphi Oracle Professor Vectis had assigned, so, when she entered the dungeon room, she didn't even notice the wand that directed the hex at her.
"Stupefy."
Lily didn't even have time to gasp; she went totally limp and slumped to the floor, eyes wide and staring. Her heart thundered crazily in her chest
whohowwhy
but she couldn't even lift her little finger, so effective was the hex. And as her attacker moved into view above her, her terror soured with confusion – Snape? But – but she'd thought –
"No wonder they managed to curse you," he said coldly, standing over her with an expression of distaste on his wan face. "You have the worst reflexes I've ever seen. I gave you a whole half-second to defend yourself, and still you didn't notice."
He uttered the countercurse, and she immediately sprang to her feet and seized him by the front of the robes. "Don't you ever do that again!" she shrieked, shaking him for emphasis.
"Let go of me," he said coldly. "I'm doing you a favour, Evans."
"What, so a heart attack's a favour now? Snape, if you don't explain yourself in two seconds –!"
"I'm trying to," he snapped, and swatted her hands away. She snarled at him, stepping back and retrieving her satchel, which she had dropped when he'd Stupefied her. She hoped her ink bottle hadn't broken.
"Blast it, Snape," she muttered as she shouldered her bag, wincing as the strap pressed on a newly-acquired bruise. "That really hurt."
"Pain is the most effective conditioner, I've discovered," he said in an unconcerned tone. "We won't be studying potions today."
Lily looked up from her bag incredulously. "What?"
"Your skills in that area are sufficiently improved to move on to something new."
"The hell – "
"Kindly do not curse at me, Evans," Snape said. "It only serves to draw attention to your stunted vocabulary."
Lily took umbrage at that statement. Her vocabulary was anything but stunted. "Now look here, you – " she began, but he ran right over her.
"Do you have your wand with you?"
"Of course I do!"
"Take it out."
Lily obliged only too happily, ready to hex Snape into oblivion – though logically that was impossible, seeing as how much more advance he was in the field of the Dark Arts – but before she could utter even the Jelly-Legs jinx, he was speaking again.
"While the subject of potions-brewing is hardly one to be overlooked, an even more vital subject is the Dark Arts and the defence against them. The curriculum practised here at Hogwarts is, of course, laughable – in our seven years here, we cover not even one-hundredth of the plethora of curses that abound in the world outside of school – so, there are some forward-thinking students here that take matters into their own hands and seek extracurricular teaching."
Lily narrowed her eyes at him. "Like the kind you're offering?"
"Yes. Only my teaching won't be half so… rigorous… as what you might receive from others willing to tutor you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means," said Snape, "that I wouldn't, for example, shove you into a dark room with a boggart and expect you to defeat it without first preparing. Nor would I practice an Unforgivable on you to 'give you a taste' of what you'll be fighting against."
Lily laughed humourlessly, though inside she was fluttering at the thought of Snape performing an Unforgivable on anyone. Could he actually do it, or was it just talk? "I don't think so, Snape," she said. "I'll stick with my potions lessons, thanks very much."
"Don't thank me," he said sharply. "I refuse to tutor you in potions any longer. Or, at least, not until you've learned this lesson."
"What, learned how to perform illegal Dark curses?" she said sarcastically.
"You must learn to defend yourself," Snape gritted. "The school can teach you the words that will counter curses, but they can't teach you to use curses to prevent getting hexed in return."
"Um, did you ever think that there might be a reason for that, Snape?"
"There are too many wild cards, so to speak, to teach such skills in a classroom setting," he said. "At least, this is the school board's thinking. What they don't understand is that those proverbial 'wild cards' will find alternative routes to learning this forbidden knowledge if they are ambitious enough, and that those students who really could benefit from such teaching are put at an even larger disadvantage."
Lily shook her head. "I don't need that teaching, though," she said. "I highly doubt I'm going to get lynched the next time I go walking through Diagon Alley."
Snape sneered. "Didn't that episode last week teach you anything?" he said, tapping his own forehead. "It doesn't matter where you are that puts you at risk. It's who you are. You're Muggleborn, Evans. No wizard in this day and age will tolerate a Muggleborn. Don't look at me like that, you know it's the truth. These dark times are getting darker. And you, out of all our peers, could most benefit from higher knowledge of the Dark Arts."
Lily was silent. Inside she raged: the audacity of him! But beneath that fury was a settling curiosity. What exactly could Snape teach her? And how much was she willing to forfeit to learn it? Because, of course, she knew the knowledge would come with a price.
She asked him outright. "What do you want, Snape?"
Snape's eyes flickered. "I ask for nothing more than what you're giving me now," he said.
Lily snorted. "Oh, please. Humour me with honesty, Snape, just for once. You're not the two-faced snake my friends make you out to be, but you're not exactly selfless, either. Give me a reason."
Was she dreaming, or did she notice a tinge of rose in Snape's pallid cheeks? – But no, it was gone as soon as the thought registered in her mind, and Snape distracted her by speaking. "I value intelligence, Evans," he said blandly. "I don't need your gold or your thanks. I do need practice, however. You can help me, and I can help you in these regards – such a mutual exchange suits me. And you'd be a fool to turn down my offer, Evans; you're never going to receive another like it, let me assure you." And his expression turned inward and dark, and Lily felt that for a moment he forgot that she was standing there, watching the expressions flicker over his moon-pale face.
But his beetle-black eyes refocused, and came to lock with Lily's green ones, demanding an answer of some sort – of any sort, if it would but divert his burning gaze away from hers! Because something in Lily's breast twisted at that look, and it frightened her.
So she said: "All right."
He seemed to droop for a moment, as if her surrender eased his tension all at once, and then he straightened, nodded curtly, and took a step back, tucking his wand up his sleeve.
"But I have a condition," said Lily.
"State it," said Snape after a suspicious moment.
"You must never again surprise me with a curse," she said. "No matter what."
There was a silence, and Lily was just beginning to wonder exactly why Snape had trouble promising not to do as she requested, but then he relented. "Never again," he said, and his voice was soft and low – the voice of one surrendering himself to the gallows.
Later, Lily would think she imagined that tone, but now it unsettled her, and she took her leave hastily.
Quidditch matches came and went. Lily attended both James and Snape's matches, the former out of some reluctant sense of duty, and the latter out of plain temptation to do something universally considered to be verboten. To her dismay (and her distress that she was, in fact, dismayed), Snape's winning streak came to an abrupt end with a particular May match in which James annihilated the Slytherin team, 200-10, and soon after, Slytherin was out of the running for the Cup. Snape was out of sorts for a week over this, and Lily tactfully cancelled their meetings together until the metaphorical storm blew over.
To speak of which, Lily and Snape continued their clandestine meetings. He still came to the disused classroom on the third floor on Thursday evenings, but as the months progressed, his skills advanced to the height of Lily's own knowledge of the subject, and she wondered why he still came when she couldn't teach him any more.
His knowledge of the Dark Arts, however, were not so easily gained. To her surprise, the first night she met with him over those lessons, he did not immediately start showing her jinxes and hexes, as she had expected, but had handed her a book and instructed her to read it through.
It wasn't a curse book. It wasn't even a wizarding book. It was The Prince.
She'd never heard any of Machiavelli's philosophies before. The book intrigued her, and she finished it quickly, hungry for more, and equally guilt-stricken, because the philosophies Niccolo di Bernardo Machiavelli presented in his book were radically against everything the Gryffindors stood for and upheld. But she didn't back down when he provided her with more, and though she knew what he was doing – namely, 'corrupting her with his devious Slytherin ways', as Maria Welteislehre has so eloquently put it – she devoured his library with the dedication of one starved. And as she did, she pulled farther and farther away from her Gryffindor friends.
They noticed. She didn't.
Gryffindor won the Cup. Everyone saw it coming, and Lily, while obligated to congratulate James, was truly disappointed on Snape's behalf. The end-of-year feast didn't hold the usual excitement for her – no, she spent the evening picking at her food, and fighting the drowsiness it brought on. When the winner of the House Cup was announced, Lily wasn't surprised to learn that Gryffindor had won that, too – and she was less than impressed with her House's ability to win it for the fourth year in a row.
She spent her last night of her fourth year in sleepless disquiet. Despite the mild soporific she was sure the evening feast contained, she could not sleep peacefully, and tossed and turned all night, rising too early the next morning to dig through the trunk the house elves had already packed.
Her departure from the school was unusually gloomy that year.