CW: Homophobia, homophobic slur, abuse

"In conclusion, now my mother knows about us. And I just needed to warn you, because I'm worried that they'll… they'll try and hurt you…"

Walburga didn't say anything at first, but the way she was looking at me, her lips thin and eyes squinted, I knew that was a look of hatred.

"You," she hissed.

"If I tried to move my arm my mother would do diffindo on my arm…"

"You," I found myself hissing back, clenching my fists. "What do you want?"

She didn't say anything else, just drew her wand and used it to force me against the wall.

"P-Professor!" I shouted, but Dumbledore didn't respond.

"You… you are the reason my eldest son is the way he is… first you, Potter and Pettigrew brainwash him into liking mudbloods, then you… you turn him into a poof…"

"I heard my mother telling my father it was to leave me there to die."

"I didn't make him anything," I said.

"Crucio."

I winced. I was released from being pinned to the wall and managed to stand. It was worse and better than transforming at the same time. She was better at the curse than Greyback.

I didn't have my wand on me, I'd left it in the classroom, so I couldn't do anything magical to defend myself, and I couldn't do anything physical to defend myself because if I moved that would just make the pain worse and I'd probably just fall over and not be able to move at all.

So, I just stood there, because, unlike during werewolf transformations, at least I could stand up straight while being hit by this. I just clenched my fists and breathed slowly and deeply and tried to develop a plan, but that was hard when my head was swimming from the pain.

Why would Dumbledore let her into the school? Why would he ask me to come up to see her? Why would he leave me alone with her? Did he not know how horrible she was?

She finally released the spell and gripped my hair. I would hit her if I had to, but for now, I stood my ground and waited to see if she'd tell me something I needed to know.

And she did.

"I'm going to take my son home now," she said. "He will not be returning until I have thoroughly fixed him. But first… Avada–"

She drew her wand again, so I kicked her in the groin. She winced, and let go of my hair for long enough for me to make a run for it, out of Dumbledore's office, and I closed the door on my way out to buy a few extra seconds.

There was still no sign of the Headmaster, but I managed to run to the History of Magic class and grabbed my wand, then ran in front of Sirius's desk. He was asleep.

"Sirius!" I hissed. "We've got to go. Right now."

"What…?" Sirius murmured, not opening his eyes.

"It's your… your mother… she's here, she's here, Sirius, we've got to go," I said, tapping his head manically. "Get up, get up, get up!"

"Excuse me, Mr… Mr… Lennon, would you please sit down?" Professor Binns drawled.

"Yeah, Remus… what the hell are you doing?" Lily asked, but I ignored them both and looked at James. He nodded and stood up. Peter did as well.

The three of us forced Sirius to stand up and began dragging him out of the classroom.

Lily was the only girl in Gryffindor now, so she was left alone in the classroom, however, she quickly followed us out of the classroom.

"What the hell is going on?" she asked.

"Sirius's mum is here," I said. "We need to go… go somewhere… hide somewhere…"

"The place where I hid James's things," Sirius grumbled, finally awake and moving fast.

"Perfect," said James, "lead the way. You wanna come, Evans?"

Lily paused. She was probably the most well-behaved student at Hogwarts, and here she was, cutting class with the marauders. She nodded, and we continued walking.

"Evans," said Sirius, "if we happen to encounter my mother, you're pureblood, OK?"

"OK," said Lily, nodding nervously. "So… so I'm guessing she's really mad about something?"

"Yes," I said. "Very much so."

"Why's she mad?" Sirius asked, leading us around a corner.

"I… I'll tell you later," I said to him, and then our eyes met, and he seemed to understand immediately.

He looked away from me and walked faster. We came to the statue of the one-eyed witch, and Sirius drew his wand. "Dissendium."

The witch's hump opened, and the tunnel appeared, then the five of us walked through. Peter closed the hump behind us.

A few of James's belongings were still scattered across the room, and Lily was looking around in awe. James picked up an old shirt of his and handed it to Lily.

"For you, Evans," he said, bowing to her as he held it out to her. "You can have the smell of eleven-year-old James Potter with you forever."

"That's disgusting, Potter," said Lily, stepping away from him.

Sirius was sitting against the wall, and I sat next to him.

"Did she hurt you?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, self-conscious of the fact that we were in an extremely small passageway and James, Peter and Lily could clearly hear us.

"Moony, I'm so sorry…" said Sirius.

"But if… if you know, it was in December, I don't know why she's only coming after me now in March," I said.

"I dunno," said Sirius. "Never question the ways of Walburga Black, I suppose."

"Yeah…"

"Ugh, I feel so stupid hiding from my own mother," said Sirius.

"No, don't feel stupid," I said.

"Guys," said James, interrupting us. "You know how we couldn't unlock this door last time we were here?"

"Yeah?" said Peter.

"And how Sirius told us there was a knife that unlocks anything somewhere…?" James continued.

"James…" said Sirius, standing up. James was grinning now. "James, you haven't…"

James somehow grinned even wider and pulled a dagger from his pocket.

"JAMES!" Sirius screamed, his grin matching James's. "Have you used it before? Does it work?"

"You bet it works," said James, leading us up the stairs, then sticking the blade into the keyhole of the trapdoor and turning it around. There was a clicking sound and James pushed the trapdoor open, causing Sirius to scream louder.

"James, you knob!" he cried. "You never told me!"

"Surprise," James grinned.

"Holy shit!" Sirius cried, opening the trapdoor further and pulling himself up. As soon as we were all up, my nostrils were blessed with the scent of sweets. "Where did you find it?"

"Filch's office," said James proudly.

"Mmm… where are we?" Peter asked, taking in a deep sniff.

I sniffed harder. "Old smell of students… sweets… it has to be Honeydukes."

"This doesn't look like Honeydukes," said James.

"No, I think we're in the cellar…" I said.

"You mean… we're in Hogsmeade!?" Lily cried. "We… we must've gone underground, then. Wow, that's… that's… really impressive… and the dagger! Wow! That… that's really cool, Potter."

James smiled widely at her. "Shall we go upstairs? Ladies first…"

Lily gave him a small smile and headed up the stairs.

"Do you have the cloak?" Peter asked James, who shook his head.

"It's in the dormitory," said James, "I don't usually bring it to class."

"What do you mean cloak?" Lily asked.

"An invisibility cloak," James smiled at her. "I'll show you later if you want!"

"Alright," said Lily, pushing her dark red hair behind her ears.

We entered Honeydukes through the cellar and found the worker sitting behind the counter, eating from a massive bowl of sweets, obviously stealing from the store. His eyes widened when he saw us.

"We won't tell if you don't," said James.

"Deal," the worker nodded.

The five of us walked out of the sweets store and out into the street. It was less crowded than it was on the weekends we normally went, but it was still full of villagers.

"We should go to the clothes shop to get some different clothes," said Sirius. "People are going to find it suspicious if we're in Hogsmeade in Hogwarts uniforms. We're all told to keep money on us during class for emergencies… well, this is an emergency…"

"We can't hide here forever…" said Peter.

"We'll stay here for the rest of the day, I think," said James, "just to be safe… because I suppose she threatened to hurt Sirius?"

"To take him back to Grimmauld Place," I said.

We walked towards the clothes shop and I grabbed the cheapest clothes I could find.

"Wow, that dress is almost as pretty as you, Evans," said James, regarding the dress Lily was holding. "D'you want to get that one?"

"I - yeah, I'll probably get it," said Lily.

"I'll buy it for you!" James cried.

"Oh, it's OK… I can buy it," said Lily.

"No, I'll pay for it!" said James, taking his own outfit and hers to the front counter and paying for them both.

"Thank you, but do you think I don't have enough money, or something, Potter?" Lily asked as James handed the dress back to her.

"That's not the case, I just wanted to buy this dress for you, because it's beautiful, and you're more beautiful, and…"

"OK…" said Lily.

"OK," said James.

"OK."

"OK."

The rest of us bought our clothes, and then we all walked to the bathrooms to get changed.

"See you in a minute, Evans," said James, and the moment he, Sirius, Peter, and I were alone in the bathroom he bombarded us with questions. "Was it good to buy her a dress? Should I take her for a butterbeer? What do I say when she comes out wearing that dress?"

"Mate, it was just a casual dress, nothing special," said Sirius.

"I know!" James moaned. "But she's so beautiful! I don't want to ruin it! Holy bloody hell, I love her so much..."

"Remember," I said, "be yourself."

"I know, I know, I know!" James cried, stepping towards the urinal. "Holy shit, you don't know how much I don't want to mess this up!"

"Be cool," I suggested, stepping into the cubicle, and changing out of my robes. I felt stupid giving James girl advice. What did I know about girls? The only girl I knew girl things from was my mum, but she was in her forties, so she probably thought very differently to Lily.

I came out of the cubicle. The trousers were too short near my ankles, and the coat was too big, but I didn't really care. Once we were all changed, we walked out and saw Lily waiting for us, and James stopped dead.

She did look pretty, I had to hand that to her. The dress had roses on it, though, which I thought was kind of ironic.

"Wow, Evans," said James, "you look great... I mean, you always look great, I'm not saying you just look great because of that dress, you always look great, I've already said that... but yeah, that dress has sort of accentuated how beautiful you are, and..."

"Alright, Potter," said Lily. "I think that's enough commenting on my appearance for one day."

"Oh, OK, if you'd rather me shut up, that's OK," said James, messing with his hair.

"So, what do we do now?" Peter asked.

"Walk around," I shrugged, "blend in."

"Given the fact we're all clearly teenagers, this is going to be interesting," said Lily.

"Let's go down to the forbidden area, near the fence," Sirius suggested.

"I swear to god, if we're caught, Black..." Lily started, but followed us down there anyway.

The moment we got down there, we were greeted by a surprise: Severus Snape was sitting by the barbed wire fence and stood up the moment he saw us.

"Lily... what are you doing with these guys?" he hissed, clenching his fists.