AN: It's been a while, so if you're just hopping into this chapter and need a refresh, the barnacles are featured in Ch 3.
"The barnacles never get old. You'd think they'd learn to stop saying it by now. Honestly, it's one of my favorite parts of the morning—seeing all those hideous Slytherins," Lily said, her eyes lit with dark amusement. "And they still haven't figured out who did it." She gave him a knowing look but didn't elaborate.
James was more pleased by her statement than he could say, and his mouth split wide into a silly smile he couldn't hide as they made the rounds of the floors for curfew. Lily looked away, but James continued to look at her side profile, admiring her features in the dim hallway and the soft turn of her smile.
There had been a string of vandalism over the past weeks, and Dumbledore had asked them to make sure that everyone was in their common rooms by the set time. The vandalism had been petty and stupid, painted in highly trafficked areas, and always anti-muggle-borns. James secretly worried that it was retaliation for the barnacles charm he'd helped place on the threshold of the Slytherin's dungeon, which was still affecting anyone who said the word mudblood within radius of it. Even if it were retaliation, it had been worth it and perhaps the only prank he was genuinely proud to have pulled at Hogwarts. They could paint graffiti wherever they wanted in the shadows, but each morning, everyone knew loud and clear who the bigots were.
The extra time one on one in the evenings with Lily was an unexpected bonus. Whatever animosity she had felt toward him at the start of the term seemed to have abated. He'd felt the change ever since their day in detention together. Part of it had to do with that conversation, but some of it had to do with his role as Head Boy. Somehow, the role suited him—truly suited him. James was as surprised as anyone, except perhaps Dumbledore, who had seen something in him that the others hadn't.
With the crumbling of the wizarding world around them, this year felt different than all the others at Hogwarts, and James felt so changed from whom he had been. There were more important things than being popular, it turned out. He'd cared so much about what other people thought of him, had spent endless amounts of energy trying to be cool, and it had worked, to an extent, but the popularity was just an empty thing in the end. What did any of that matter when there were terrible things happening everywhere, every day? Every day it was clearer to James that life was short, achingly short, and when it was done, it was done. He didn't care about being popular anymore, he wanted to be good, like his father had been.
James liked protecting people, helping people. He liked helping the first years get reoriented when they were lost, liked taking house points when anyone was cruel to muggle-borns in the hallways in between classes. He liked the order and the responsibility of keeping the peace. He'd spent so many years mindlessly wreaking chaos for the hell of it, that having a real purpose—creating light in a dark world—changed him more than anything else could have. Plus, the role gave him the illusion of control in a world gone mad. He couldn't stop what was happening out there, but he could stop some of the bad within Hogwarts.
And if he turned a blind eye to Sirius sometimes…well, he was only human.
People had liked him before, but now he felt their respect and it was intoxicating, making him strive day after day to be better. Plus, it didn't hurt that Lily was willing to have more than a moment's conversation with him now, something he was becoming more and more attached to.
The castle was quiet as they turned the corner to the corridor leading to the library. The students were used to the curfew by now, and they hadn't run into anyone except a few stragglers hurrying back to their common rooms. He'd thought the patrols would be exciting when they first started, that he'd play a bigger role in keeping everyone safe. But most evenings were calm—boring even. They walked the hallways, saw a few students, and talked: the wizarding world, his family, her family, muggle culture. Somehow they never ran out of things to talk about. He'd always liked Lily, but he hadn't known before how easy she was to spend time with.
He told Lily about Sirius's flat and his muggle landlord to pass the time. "The place has the biggest enlarging charm you've ever seen, and the bloke walks in all confused about the palace on the inside of this studio flat, and Padfoot goes, 'I just added some mirrors. Really opened the place up,'." James did his best Sirius face, all nonchalant and cool, flipping imaginary hair off his face for good measure. He'd had years to perfect it. "And the landlord just nodded like it made perfect sense! Muggles," he said with exasperation. "So determined not to see magic."
Lily laughed, a bright sound that James liked very much and was always trying to get more of.
"Oy!," she said, in mock offense for the world she came from. And then with a smirk, "Well, it's a bit true…", pushing him playfully, her hand lingering on his arm, just as Snape walked into the hallway in front of them. He was one of the last students leaving the library and had a handful of books in one arm and a heavy bag draped over his other shoulder. He froze in place at the sight of them, a flush creeping into his pale cheeks.
James narrowed his eyes, his laughter from the story evaporating almost instantly. But he didn't say anything other than what they'd told all the other students they'd seen this evening, albeit with more of an edge to his voice. This was the one thing that mattered to Lily, he knew: the thing that had been at the heart of her annoyance and dislike for him. And his record with Snape was less than clean; even the smallest action against Snape would push her away from him and the tenuous bond they'd been making, so he held every one of his normal reactions in check, lightly biting the inside of his cheek to keep from saying anything other than the script.
"Curfew is in 10 minutes. Dumbledore wants everyone back by then. You should be on your way to the dungeons."
Snape had seen the tail-end of their interaction, with Lily's laughter and her hand on James's arm, and he looked like he'd swallowed a bitter potion. His eyes were hooded and sullen, seeing ahead to everything that was in that touch and that laugh, seeing everything that was gone from him with it.
"Or what," he said icily. "You'll hex me? We all have curfew, but you and your little friends can run around the grounds as you please, of course. Dumbledore's golden boy."
James bristled at that, but Lily cut in before he could say anything in response.
"Of course he won't hex you—we're just doing what Dumbledore asked." She was redder than normal and discomposed in a way he'd never seen her look before.
Snape looked directly at Lily for the first time, tearing his watchful eyes away from James. His expression was hard, but she held his gaze defiantly. "You're defending him now," he said after a long pause, the statement quiet but heavy with meaning, and she flushed even redder than she had been.
"What are you even doing here this late?" James interrupted, goaded by Snape's statement into speaking, even against his better judgment. They'd just passed the mid-terms and were starting new lessons. No one had any major assignments yet, and certainly not any requiring so many books. "Looking up ways to impress your little Death Eater friends?"
Snape stared James down with contempt for a few tense moments, a sneer arching his upper lip. His eyes were dark with deep dislike, and he drew himself up to his full height, though he was still shorter and slighter than James, and James knew that if Snape's hands hadn't been full of the books, and if Lily hadn't been there to see, Snape already would have hexed him right then. It took everything he had not to reach for his own wand. Waiting for Snape's response, he registered that Snape was barnacle-free. And not just today; James hadn't ever seen him with any. Every other Slytherin to a one had suffered at least one day with the barnacles. But not Snape. He furrowed his brow at the thought.
"I'll let you two get back to whatever little moment you were having," Snape finally said, ignoring James's question. The sarcasm was heavy, his words bitter and cold, and Snape walked by, careful not to touch either of them in the narrow hallway, his head held high.
James fingers twitched, wanting so badly to reach for his wand and to have the last word. He settled for a comment to Lily. "He didn't even try to deny the Death Eater thing," he said with disgust, and he was about to elaborate until he really looked at Lily, noticing the wobble in the lines of her mouth. He'd never seen her make such an unhappy expression. She looked straight ahead at the twinkling candles along the wall, and her expression was carefully neutral, but James could see the effort behind it, and it struck him that she was fighting back tears. Her eyes were shiny in the candlelight.
They walked in heavy, awkward silence, turning a corner and walking the whole length of another corridor before James finally mustered the courage to ask if she was okay.
"No," she said in a voice filled with emotion. She spoke not much above a whisper, each word carefully controlled to keep her voice from breaking. "I know you won't understand, but he was my friend. My dear friend." She turned her head away from him.
That stung. She'd reacted to him the way she'd used to, like he was a bug, incapable of anything human. But he couldn't deny that in this instance she was right; James didn't understand it. He had never understood it, and after a moment, he said so.
Lily just shook her head. "We grew up together. He was my—my tether to the wizarding world over the summers. And he's really clever. He's funny. He's a good person. Or was." She chewed her lip. "Or still is. I don't know." Her features scrunched in uncertainty.
For James, she might as well have been speaking a foreign language, and his confusion was genuine. "Are you sure it wasn't some kind of charm…" he started lightly, only half-joking before Lily interrupted, fiery with annoyance.
"You're so pig-headed sometimes. You don't see anything except what you want to."
The words wounded him more, and he opened his mouth to protest hotly, but she overrode him.
"I know you have a knack for setting each other off, but you don't know anything about him. He's not had an easy life, you know. Have you ever stopped to consider what it's like for him?"
James flushed under her searching look, feeling the slightest bit ashamed because no, he had honestly never wondered what it was like to be Snape. Lily looked knowingly at him.
"He's poor. And that makes everything difficult. There's nothing for him except what he can find for himself, and it's always been like that. There's no dinner with the Minister, or whatever you do at your house." He had to look away at that, and Lily nodded as her well-aimed point hit home.
James had lamented his sheltered and privileged background at the start of the semester, wondering how he could have missed so much of the fear and the worry and the pain that was going on in the world around him. Now, here it was again, this time from Lily, like his defining characteristic was how lucky and privileged he was. His parents had hosted the Minister at the house before, and James had never thought twice about it, had never questioned it. The prickles of shame grew.
"He belongs to this world, but he's always been on the fringes of it—on the outside, looking in. And that's…that's exactly how I've always felt, too," she added quietly.
James raised his eyebrows at that, turning to look at Lily more closely. This was news to him. She had always seemed so fierce and so confident. He pictured her as she had been the other day, laughing in their Charms lesson as she made a teacup dance, her hair tied back but with loose pieces falling around her face, her eyes dancing with the joy of seeing the cup do a jig. He'd never seen anyone look so witchy.
"If anyone belongs to this world, it's you." He wanted to say more, wanted to tell her how brilliant he thought she was, but it was too much—too complicated a feeling to put into words.
But his tone must have conveyed some of it because her expression softened as she looked at him. "That's sweet, Potter. But it hasn't been easy for me. I told you about my sister, how we don't really…" she shrugged, pain entering her expression. "I found out I was a witch and then lost my sister because of it. Then to come here and find out what some people think about muggle-borns..." The corners of her mouth turned down. "Severus was there for me, through all of that. Whatever he is now, it doesn't change the fact that he was my good friend."
James wondered where he had been through all of this. Playing quidditch? Playing pranks with Sirius? Why hadn't he noticed? How had he been so self-absorbed? He was struck by a sudden thought—a parallel example. What if Sirius became everything his family wanted him to be? Caved under all that pressure. He and James had been like brothers from the start, but what if he changed into a real Black? To see him in classes, to share a room with him, knowing all they had been and all that was forever lost…it would be devastating. And that was how it was for Lily and Snape. He swallowed hard.
"You must be a witch. You're making me feel bad for Snape."
Lily looked like she wanted to smile despite herself. "Good."
James couldn't let it stand though—maybe everything Lily said was true, but it was only half of the picture. She had to know that. He stopped them in the middle of the hallway, turning her to face him and lightly holding her arm for emphasis. "But he's going to be a Death Eater. Going to join Him. You know he is, Evans."
Lily inhaled deeply and then let out the long breath. "I know," she finally said, her shoulders sagging. "But that's who He recruits: people on the fringes. The people who feel like they've gotten a bad deal. People who feel they're owed something. Who else would want to burn everything down? Who else would be blind enough to not see what He's really offering? He offers the powerless the illusion of power. A place. A role. I can hate it all I want, but I know why it appeals to Severus. I just hope that he has enough sense…" She sighed again. "I just hope he doesn't join them," she finished with a tone of finality, her eyes focused on the middle distance. Suddenly, she switched her gaze, turning those clear green eyes on James. "Can you please just…not torment him?" All trace of a smile was gone, and she stared up at James with an earnest expression.
"I'm not!" he protested. "I haven't been," he amended, and then he paused and took a deep breath, meeting her eyes fully. "I won't."
She nodded once, holding the same expression as when she said she'd hoped Severus wouldn't become a Death Eater. Then she turned away and continued walking, footsteps quiet down the long hallway, with James trailing a few steps behind, both wondering if it was a promise he could keep.