It seemed impossible, but as January went on, I found myself slowly but surely finding myself able to forgive Sirius. Not enough to want to have a romantic relationship with him again, but enough to be able to make casual conversation with him, even when no one else was around.
On the first Tuesday of the year, I had a patrol with Lily, and we spent a lot of the time talking and complaining about Snape.
"Honestly, he's changed so much since we were ten... I mean, everyone changes, he's turning sixteen on Friday, like, he's getting older, but the people he hangs out with... he defended Mulciber after what he did to Mary! And he... he went to that crazy tree and because of that, he's crazy convinced that you're a werewolf, I keep telling him you're not, I'm trying to not let him know, I really am..."
"It's alright," I said, "he knows."
"He knows?" Lily repeated.
"Yeah," I said. "That crazy tree, the Whomping Willow, I go down through there during a full moon. It leads to the Shrieking Shack."
"The Shrieking Shack!?" Lily repeated. "Don't the shrieking ghosts hurt you?"
"Um, there are no ghosts," I said. "The shrieking and howling and all that the villagers hear, that's me."
"Oh..." said Lily. "Wait, so Severus went down there...?"
"Yeah, during a full moon," I said. "And he saw me as a werewolf."
"Oh..." Lily said again. "Why did he go down, like, did he suspect you'd be there?"
"Sirius told him to go there," I said, feeling weird for telling her, but for some reason, I really wanted to tell her. "Because Snape kept pestering him and he thought it would be a funny joke."
"A funny joke?" said Lily, raising her eyebrows.
"He made a mistake," I said. "I was really upset for a bit, and I still am a bit... but I think I've accepted that he sees me as more than just a werewolf, which is what I thought he thought after I found out."
"So, you're able to forgive Sirius?" Lily asked. I nodded. "I think that's a good quality for a person to have, to be able to forgive someone for something like that."
"Uh, yeah, I guess..." I said.
"What does Severus think, then? If he knows for sure that you're a werewolf?" Lily asked. She didn't even flinch when she said the word werewolf, which I appreciated.
"Um, he's not the most accepting," I said, thinking back to last Friday when he'd punched me until I'd gone numb. But I didn't want to tell Lily that. I didn't want to fracture her friendship with Snape any further, because that could potentially hurt her. "It's alright, though. I wouldn't expect him to be, I almost killed him."
"But you can't control what you do during a full moon, can you?" said Lily. I shook my head and shrugged. "Ugh, he's such an ass. I'm so sick of him but I don't know how to end the friendship without being rude."
"Well, if it's his birthday on Friday, maybe the marauders could pull a little birthday prank and you could help?" I suggested.
"Oh, on his birthday?" said Lily, biting her lip. But then the corner of her mouth lifted into a smile. "Sounds like a plan."
Over the rest of the week, the marauders and Lily spent countless hours plotting the greatest birthday prank to play on Snape.
I didn't want a repeat of Snape almost getting hurt again, so I made everyone agree to keep the prank completely harmless.
James was going crazy over the fact that Lily was taking part in the prank. He was convinced the main reason that she was joining us for it was so she could have an opportunity to spend more time with him, and although we all (including James) knew that wasn't the reason, we all went along with it.
Having Lily helping us, however, put us at a massive advantage. After over five years of being friends with Snape, she knew the best way to poke fun at him while not hurting him physically or emotionally. She was very insistent on not hurting Snape's feelings.
The five of us discussed it over dinner on Wednesday night, and Sirius suggested that since Lily was so good at Potions, she should cook up some Polyjuice potion and we take Snape's hair, and all make ourselves look like him.
"First of all, that would be mocking him which could hurt his feelings," said Lily. "Secondly, you don't 'cook up' a potion, you brew it. Thirdly, it's illegal to make Polyjuice Potion without the supervision of someone with a Potions licence. Fourthly, Polyjuice Potion takes over a month to brew, and we need it in two days."
"There's a Potions licence?" James asked.
"Yeah, those who are still doing the class do a course in seventh year," said Lily. "It basically gives you permission to make almost any Potion legally. Without a licence you can only make basic Potions without the assistance of someone with a license."
"I'm still not doing Potions," Peter laughed.
"Is there a potion you could make quickly which will target his hair?" James asked.
"Yeah, a few," said Lily. "What are you thinking?"
"Is there one that'll make grease come from his hair?" James asked.
Sirius snorted. "That probably wouldn't make a difference."
"Well, there is this one Potion, it takes less than an hour to make, it makes grease, like, black car grease, drip out of the person's hair," said Lily. "And at breakfast on Friday morning, I could sit with him, my excuse being that it's his birthday, then offer to pour his milk onto his cereal for him and slip it in then."
"Alright, do you want help making the Potion?" James offered.
"Yeah, maybe, I guess we'll have to do it tomorrow afternoon," said Lily. "Are you guys free?"
"Oh, actually, I have to meet my brother for afternoon tea," said Sirius.
"Really?" said James, but Sirius made a face at him, and tapped my foot under the table.
"Oh, yeah, and I have a lot of homework to do, I should probably do that tomorrow afternoon," I said, catching on to Sirius's plan immediately.
"I can probably help," said Peter. I tapped his foot under the table, but he just looked at me, confused.
"Peter, I thought you said you had study group tomorrow afternoon? And there was going to be a pizza party so you really can't miss it," said Sirius.
"I don't go to-" Peter started, but Sirius and I both gave him a look and it clicked in for him what we were trying to do. "Oh, yeah! Yeah, sorry, guys, I can't miss out on pizza..."
"Guess it's just you and me making the potion, Evans!" said James, grinning.
"Potions date! Potions date! Potions date!"
James had taken a shower straight after our last lesson of the day, had changed into a nice outfit, and was now messing up his already messy jet-black hair to the extreme.
"Why do you want it to be so messy?" Sirius asked, physically cringing.
"Because if I attempt to make it flat it will just look worse, so I may as well own the messiness like a king," said James, setting his glasses aside and spinning his head around like a windmill to make his hair go crazy.
"I'm supposedly having pizza, so I actually want pizza now," Peter grumbled, plopping himself onto his bed.
"What time is it?" James asked, ceasing to spin his head around to glance at the clock. "Three-thirty. We agreed to meet at four. Would it be weird to show up this early?"
"Yeah, because she wouldn't even be in the Potions room yet," said Sirius.
"I can't be late for the date!" said James, running his fingers through the knots in his hair.
I exchanged a look with both Sirius and Peter. The three of us agreed this didn't count as a date when all four of us were supposed to be going and we'd made excuses to let James spend some time alone with Lily, but none of us were going to tell him that.
"I think I'll go," said James, slipping his glasses back on. "I'll... set out the cauldrons or something while I wait for her. And who knows, maybe Evans will be there early, too!"
James bounded off happily, and Sirius, Peter, and I all looked at each other.
"It's not a date, really," said Peter.
"Well, two people hanging out without anyone else..." said Sirius. "Could be considered a date."
"Well, then that's saying any time you spend with only one other person is a date," said Peter. "Like, if you two just hung out at Hogsmeade together, that wouldn't be considered a date..."
The urge to look at Sirius's expression was excruciating, but I managed to keep my eyes on Peter for the silence that followed his statement.
Thankfully, the silence was short-lived, because Peter said, "I really want pizza now guys. Thanks a lot."
"Let's go to the kitchens, then," said Sirius, relief in his tone. "I'm sure the House Elves will cook us up a nice pizza."
"OK," said Peter happily, as Sirius grabbed the invisibility cloak from James's trunk.
"I'm sure James won't mind if we use this."
"And even if he did, I think he's a little lovesick to care about anything right now," I said, standing up and walking towards the others. Sirius through the cloak over the three of us. It fit a lot better with three people than with four, and when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't see a single trace of our shoes.
We made our way out of the common room and then began walking down to the entrance to the kitchen. As soon as we were in there, the House Elves began crowding us happily and asking how they could help us. When Peter requested a pizza, they immediately got to work.
"Are the three meals a day that the elves already work hard on to make for you enough?" came a voice. I knew it was Regulus because I remembered he had an obsession with defending the House Elves, and Sirius obviously recognised his own brother's voice.
"They seem happy to help," said Sirius, standing stiffly and crossing his arms. He hadn't seen anyone in his family since he'd run away except perhaps passing Regulus in the halls, but not acknowledging him.
"Oh, it's the fat one, of course he'd want extra food," said Regulus, eyeing Peter.
"What is it with you and your obsession over the House Elves?" said Sirius. "It's their job to help at the castle. They get paid."
"They are not paid," said Regulus coldly. "Nor is Kreacher. At least he won't have to deal with your ungrateful arse anymore. You have been disowned. I'm the heir to the family's fortune now. And you've been blasted off the family tree. Mother did it herself, as soon as you left. She's done with you."
Regulus seemed proud, rubbing it in Sirius's face that he'd been disowned in front of his friends, but Sirius seemed unfazed.
"Good," he said. "That means I don't have to see that old bat ever again."
At that, Regulus gasped and clenched his fists. "How dare you! How dare you refer to your own mother in that way!"
"Maybe we should go," I said, wanting to avoid a fight between the brothers.
"But the pizza's not ready..." said Peter.
"No, let's go," said Sirius, looking away from his glaring brother.
"C'mon Peter, we'll get pizzas another time," I said, throwing the invisibility cloak back over us, then leading the way out of the kitchens and back to the common room.
"Bloody hell," said Sirius, taking the cloak off of us and sitting on an armchair that was positioned right in front of the fireplace.
"So, is Regulus going to get all the money you were supposed to get?" Peter asked, his voice sympathetic.
"Yeah, that means when our parents die, he'll have the right to all of the money in the Black vault in Gringotts, and the house," said Sirius. "I'd only get it if he was to die before me, which most likely won't happen since he's younger, but even if he did, I'd be really old and about to die myself. Anyway, the money doesn't matter. Staying with them for another year wouldn't be worth it for all the money in the world."
"That's fair," I said, just as the door burst open and James came in, grinning.
Sirius, Peter, and I all stood up immediately and crowded him.
"So?" said Peter. "Did you kiss?"
"No, but we got along!" James cried, walking over to his four-poster and collapsing on it. We all sat around him. "The potion looked great, Evans tested it, and her hair was so greasy, that you couldn't even see the red in it anymore. She just looked like she had black hair. I wanted to hang out more after we were done, but she went to the prefect bathroom to wash her hair, which is completely understandable."
I felt like we were acting extremely girly, all sitting on James's bed while he gave us a report of an event that occurred with his crush. But when no one else was around, and you were just with your closest friends, you didn't care about that sort of thing.
The next morning when our alarm went off at seven in the morning, none of the marauders had any trouble getting out of bed. We were all way too excited to see literal grease pouring out of Snape's already greasy hair.
We all got dressed as fast as we could, then ran downstairs to the common room, where Lily was already waiting for us, grinning from ear to ear.
"Good morning, Evans," James said, smiling widely at her.
"Hey," said Lily. "Are you guys ready? I've got the potion here."
She reached into the pocket of her robes, then brought her hand out with a small vial in it.
"Just a drip of this into his cereal and his hair will be greasier than my dad's hands after he attempts to fix our car instead of calling a mechanic," she said happily, slipping the vial back into her pocket. "Let's go."
"You sound kind of evil," said Sirius as we walked out of the common room. "Didn't know this side of you..."
"I love it," said James dreamily, but everyone ignored me.
"Well, I'm sick of Snape," Lily said, responding to Sirius. "He deserves it."
"He does," said Peter. "This is going to be really great!"
We entered the Great Hall and all craned our necks to get a good look at the Slytherin table. Snape was there, sitting between Avery and Mulciber.
"Eugh, of course he's got to be sitting with them," said Lily. "Well, I'll be off. And don't all of you watch, because that'll make it obvious. Look when everyone else is looking only, OK?"
"OK," said James. Lily nodded, then walked over to the Slytherin table, and the marauders walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down in silence.
It was almost impossible to eat my pancakes without looking over to see what Lily and Snape were doing. Soon enough, I heard a cry from the Slytherin table, and everyone turned their heads to see where it was coming from, and so did I.
Just as Lily had described, black grease was pouring from Snape's hair and onto his robes. I would have tried to hold back the laugh that was developing inside me, but everyone else was laughing, so I let it out loudly.
Snape lasted less than a minute before he turned red and ran out of the Great Hall, clearly humiliated by having this happen to him in front of the whole school.
"Happy greasy birthday, Snivellus!" James cried out, but Snape was already gone.