As Severus spent more time in his common room, he thought about how he could turn the tables to his advantage. Slytherin was perhaps the most complicated house in Hogwarts.

Children are taught from a young age, right and wrong. Slytherins were children too. They too were taught the same. Honour, truth, and righteousness. Except, they were taught by biased parents whose beliefs of right and wrong was unbelievably off the mark.

The children in Slytherin were proud of their families and loved them. They want to do what is right and make their parents proud. Again, the exception is that what they think is right is the domination and in extreme cases, the extermination of muggles. They didn't know a thing about muggles and they base their beliefs on what they were taught. Hence the hatred for the muggle race.

Many of these children were innocent. They were also more ambitious than others. And they would go to any length to protect themselves and those they loved. They were separated from the rest of the houses for those very qualities: ambition, cunning, and self-preservation. But that did not mean that these qualities were to blame. These were great qualities to possess, the only underside being that these were the qualities that made them extremely vulnerable in the current situation.

The solution would be to use those very qualities of these children to turn them against the dark lord. That would be the path he would have to take. And it would be risky and difficult. But isn't that what he had been doing all this time? Taking risks and facing the danger of discovery, torture, and death. He had done this every day for years together. And this time, he would do this the way he wanted. He refused to serve another master, never again. This was why he would exclude Dumbledore too unless it came down to it and there was no way he'd become a death eater again.

He only had to do it right. There was no need to rush things.

The next morning, Severus walked into the Great Hall for breakfast and found Lily.

"Good morning", he smiled. It filled his heart each time he saw her alive and smiling.

"Good morning Sev!"

"Do you want to meet up in the Library after classes?"

"Sure, I'm free after lunch. What about you?"

"I have a free period too. Let's meet there after lunch then".

"Okay"

Severus thought briefly, and added, "You can join us if you like Lupin."

Everyone at the table was shocked. It was common knowledge that the Marauders and Snape were mortal enemies and they took every opportunity possible to prove it.

"Okay, I'll join you then". If Severus' offer didn't do it then Lupin's response had everyone questioning reality.

"Remus, mate! Why would you want to be around Snivellus?" yelled Sirius.

"Don't call him that!" admonished Lily but she was shocked too. "And what's going on? Sev, you are inviting Lupin to study with us? How come?"

"We're friends now," he said. It was a little uncomfortable but he decided not to care anyway. He was done with sneaking around. It was what he'd done for years and he was sick of it. Besides keeping their 'friendship' out in the open would let him communicate with Lupin regarding the Wolfsbane Potion.

"And when did that happen?" asked Lily incredulously.

"Recently," he said nonchalantly. It was still weird even calling Lupin his friend. He did not want to make any explanations.

The rest of the Marauders looked at Remus like he'd gone mad. This was Snivellus! No one should want to be friends with him least of all one of them, Remus!

"We decided to be friends," said Remus.

"Why?" demanded James Potter.

"We met in the Library by coincidence. He asked me why we had to fight every time we saw each other and we decided it wasn't worth it. He asked if we could be friends and I agreed. Now if you don't mind I have better things to do. Good Day," answered Severus before he turned around to walk back to the Slytherin table but not before shortly glaring at Lupin as if daring him to say it any other way.

"I asked him to be friends and he said yes? Merlin! " thought Remus as a smile slipped onto his face.

"Is this for real Remus?" asked Peter

"Yeah. It's a little childish that we keep fighting. Besides, Evans is friends with Snape so I figured he can't be that bad. Why fight when we might as well get along, right?" he said fully knowing that this discussion would not end here.

"That's great! It was getting old. But you two hated each other and you just decided that you'll be friends now? It's a little hard to believe. Not that it's a bad thing! This is good, really good. I just want to know how?" asked Lily.

"Why did you suddenly want to be friends with Snivellus of all people? Nothing good can come out of that, trust me. He's a Slytherin! You know how they are! And Snivellus revels in the Dark arts! You know better than to hang around the likes of him!" said Peter

Look, mate, whatever he's playing at, you can be sure that he's up to no good! I bet he has some twisted reason for playing with your head. Like he wants to be friends with you! A Slytherin's idea of friendship is not the same as ours!" added James desperately.

"He's using you, Remus! I bet it's some kind of trick to hurt you! You can't be serious! And why do you suddenly want to be friends with him? I can't believe you'd fall for such a trick!" cried Sirius.

"Enough! Stop calling him that wretched name! He's not like that!" yelled Lily.

"Can you all just stop? Look, I believe he's changed. Or something about him changed. I don't know. I believe him for now. And I'm tired of these fights. You're all making such a big deal out of this! He invited me to go to the library, not to Azkaban! And he invited Evans first, we'll all be studying together! I know you guys don't trust him but I'm your friend and you should trust me! And I'm the one who asked him to be friends not the other way around so suffice to say I know what I'm doing. I'm not a five-year-old child. I can take care of myself thank you very much! So if you do care then stop fighting and don't do anything stupid. I'm heading to class. I don't want to be late. I'll see you guys there." Remus walked away from the Gryffindor table with everyone looking stupefied at their table. "This is not going to be easy", he thought and with a heavy sigh, he headed towards his first class of the morning, Transfiguration.

Severus was tired of pretending to be a student. He knew everything that was being taught and the few topics that faded in memory over the years were so easy that his mind was going numb. He had to pretend in this aspect though. This was going to be hard. He'd just have to use his free time to do some reading of his own. He would just have to shut up and endure these classes for now.

After lunch, he headed to the library to meet the two Gryffindors. He browsed the shelves for books he hadn't read in his previous life and after finally finding one such book on some advanced transfiguration, he sat down at a table in the corner. He did not have to wait long. Lily and Lupin came shortly and sat down next to him flopping their bags on the table. Lupin looked tired and Lily's eyes were demanding answers.

"So…? Are you going to tell me what this is all about?" she asked struggling to keep her voice down.

"This is about studying with you, obviously" he replied.

"Don't avoid the subject Sev! You know exactly what I mean! What brought this on? Tell me!" Lily demanded.

"You said that all this fighting was getting old and that Lupin wasn't exactly like the rest of his friends"

"Yes but you didn't exactly listen to me then, did you?"

"I did now."

"How come?"

"If you want the truth, I don't know. I just thought it would make everything easier I suppose. One less person to fight or something on those lines."

"What?"

"What do you want me to say?

The truth is that I agreed to be friends with him because I was feeling tired. I wasn't thinking much about it at the time. I don't want to do that now either. If you say I shouldn't then I'll go ahead and drop this arrangement."

"What? No! This is good. It's nice that you two decided to get along." She stared dumbly at both of them.

"So that's it?" she asked. "You two became friends because you felt tired of fighting?"

"Yes," they both replied at once.

Lily did not know what to think. So she decided to let it go. There wasn't much she could do about it anyway. Not that she wanted to, it was for the best after all.

"Okay. Fine, so what are you reading anyway?" she asked, her voice was laced with resignation.

"Transfiguration." He replied.

"That book looks like it's too advanced for the third year," said Remus.

"It is, I suppose," Severus said.

"Shouldn't you be building up the fundamentals before going for advanced books?" Remus asked.

Severus thought for a moment. He couldn't pretend all the time, it would drive him mental. He could not keep reading those mediocre books for children. He could openly read this in front of Lily, it couldn't hurt and Lupin would not be a problem anymore, he was probably under constant fear of his secret being revealed.

"I'm just tired of pretending," he said.

"Pretending what?" both Lily and Remus asked at once.

"Nothing. I just felt like reading this book, I'm bored with the ones we've been reading. Do you have anything you need help with?"

They sat in the library studying for the next hour and a half. In the guise of helping with homework, Severus scribbled on parchment and gave it to Remus.

"If you promise to keep it just between the two of us, I'll tell you about that potion I mentioned before."

"Okay. I won't say a word. So what does it do?"

"It's no cure but it allows the human mind to remain in the forefront so that it's only the body that transforms"

"Are you serious? Is this possible? I've read almost everything I could get my hands on about the condition but this is the first time I'm hearing of such a thing."

"Yes, I'm serious. It needs to be taken before the full moon. Meet me in the abandoned classroom to the right on the third floor that day. We'll communicate the specifics later."

"What are two doing?" asked Lily looking at the two of them.

"Homework," they both said at the same time.

"Right..." said Lily suspiciously. "Sev hated Lupin and now they're friends? They seem close too…when did this happen? And Sev would tell me if something like this happened. They're both being secretive too. They are definitely up to something. But what? What business could Sev possibly have with Lupin? And what are they being so secretive about?" she thought. She decided to leave it be for now. They weren't exactly telling her anything anyway.