Tuesday 2nd May 1978

Hogwarts Grounds, 16:00

"I still say a potion would be far better."

"Yeah, but that takes time," Sirius said with an eye roll.

"Which we don't have," James added.

"It wouldn't hurt for you lot to do a little bit more forward planning," Severus sniffed.

Then they could use a potion. Honestly. It wasn't that hard to come up with.

"We plan plenty!" Sirius protested.

That earned them a snort from the Slytherin. But he didn't deny it. He had discovered that an awful lot of planning did in fact go into their pranks. More so than their homework sometimes.

And they had dragged him into it. Even worse, they had dragged him outside to do some planning. And it was sunny. And warm. It was horrible. Though, the shade of the tree did make it more palatable. Just about.

"Yes. You do," Severus agreed with an eye roll. "A ridiculous amount. But still. The potion only takes a few weeks."

"Just a few weeks," Sirius snorted but Severus knew him well enough now to know that it was a fond snort. Like the sort he gave Remus when he found out something je thought was interesting from his many books. "Just a few weeks, he says. But that one requires us to brew another one to work in tandem."

"That also takes a few weeks," James added. "And it needs a bit of the first potion to even work."

"Which is time we don't have," Remus finished for them.

"Why do all the cool Potions take so long?" Peter wondered out loud.

"It's the long periods of simmering," James carelessly explained before Severus could. "They need that time to properly come together or else they're really unstable."

"Ah."

Severus folded his arms. "Like I said. If you planned a little bit earlier you could do it."

"But the spells are so much quicker," James pointed out.

"Yes, once you know them. You still haven't researched them."

Sirius brushed that concern off. "Moony will find them easily. And we'll all be helping."

Severus arched an eyebrow. "We will?"

"Yes. We will," James said firmly. "If only to stop Mooney from adding weird things to the prank."

"That's a bad thing?"

He honestly thought that the general idea for the Marauder pranks were the weirder the better.

"Yes," Sirius and Peter said at the same time while Remus blushed violently.

Hmm, he would have to get that story out of them at some point. Later. Because there were things to work out right now. More pressing things.

Would you believe that they were already planning their end of year prank? Yes, more than a whole month ahead. Okay, yes, Severus understood that they wanted it to be the biggest and best one they had ever done - it was going to be their last chance to do it, after all. And they had to take into account that their exams were starting in the next two weeks. Their NEWTs. Bleurgh. But still. The first week of May seemed a bit much to him. The very least they could do was do all this planning outside but no, of course not. They had to come out and "enjoy the sunshine". He did not enjoy the sunshine. Even if it was to plot things.

"The potion would still be better," Severus said stubbornly.

"At least we can all do the spells after a bit of practice," Remus pointed out. "Only you a James would truly be able to brew the potions."

"I see nothing wrong with that."

"Yeah, yeah, we know," James said dismissively and then said in unison with Sirius, "you don't do any of that silly wand waving nonsense."

"Not when a potion would do just as well," Severus said with another sniff.

"Well, we can't all be one trick ponies," James teased.

Severus shot off a quick spell which sent James flying. Much to everyone else's amusement.

"What the hell was that?" James spluttered, spitting out grass. "You just agreed about the silly wand waving!"

"That wasn't wand waving. That was an extremely efficient and effective wand jab," Severus informed him, struggling to keep a straight face.

Sirius snorted.

"You're supposed to be on my side, Padfoot!"

"Not if you don't even realise, you're about to be jinxed!"

"Hexed," Severus corrected

"Whatever."

"You could have at least helped!" James complained.

"But then I wouldn't get to see you look like an idiot."

"Not that that's hard," Remus added.

[xxxxxx]

Saturday 6th May 1978

Hogwarts Grounds, 14:00

"Do you know how odd it is to see Snape go around with the Marauders after all these years?" Marlene asked, watching those very people walk past them, having grouped together after a Slytherin versus Gryffindor Quidditch match.

The second to last of the season, so it was very exciting. Gryffindor had won, obviously and Lily had already given James his victory kiss. Yes, right in front of everyone. But now the team were celebrating the fact that they were going to be in the final match. Well, all but Marlene from the looks of it for whatever reason.

James, the big sap, blew Lily a kiss (which made her friend blush) and Sirius, being the dolt he was, wolf whistled at her. Of course, Marlene couldn't very well let that go so she cancelled, "Nice arse!" after him.

That somewhat backfired as he gave said body part a wiggle.

Severus and Remus both rolled their eyes at these antics. It was kind of funny.

"It is odd, isn't it?" Lily said, turning back to Marlene. "Up until last year they really didn't like each other."

That was a very mild way of putting it. Now, Marlene didn't know about James but she was almost definitely sure that Sirius had hated Severus Snape until this year.

"It's like someone spelled them or something." Marlene squinted at Lily. "You didn't, did you?"

"Didn't do what?" Lily asked in confusion.

"Spell the Marauders and Snape to like each other."

"One, I don't think there's a spell that could do that and two, no! I didn't!"

"Would a diluted love potion do that to them?" Marlene wondered out loud. "You're good at Potions."

"Marlene!"

Marlene gave her friend an innocent look. "What?"

"Don't say things like that!"

"Well, what other reason for there to be such a change in heart?"

"Maturity? Actually, listening to each other? Or even realising that they aren't mortal enemies or some such rubbish?" Lily offered but Marlene shook her head, not buying it.

"Nah, any of those might make them be civil to one another. Maybe even talk to each other but this?" she waved her hand vaguely in their direction. "Them being friends? Definitely the result of an outside influence in my opinion."

Lily sighed heavily. What? It was a valid thought!

"I'm pretty sure they just realised they were all idiots and they were, in fact, quite alike."

Marlene had to snort at that. She just had to.

"Yeah, right. Snape is nothing like the Marauders. Not that that's a bad thing," she added hastily at Lily's sharp look. "Actually, I suppose he's like Remus. But still. They really aren't alike. The Marauders are loud and brash and fun-loving. Severus is quiet, kind of sly and serious."

Completely different from each other. It was as easy as that. Even if Lily didn't look too convinced by her little explanation.

"Well, opposites attract," Lily said with a shrug. "I'm not complaining but I didn't do anything to them. They just genuinely discovered that they like each other."

Hmm. Marlene gave Lily a suspicious look but unfortunately had to believe her. Lily wouldn't do such a thing to her friends. Or ever. Which left the fact that the Marauders and Snape were friends. Which just seemed wrong to her. But she supposed Lily was right. There wasn't anything wrong with that, even though it felt that way. It would just take some getting used to.

Thursday 11th May 1978

Head Boy and Girl Suite, 23:30

They were busy plotting their final touches to tomorrow's prank when they were interrupted by Lily shuffling down the stairs in her pyjamas and giving them all an unamused look.

"If you must sneak around at night, can you at least do it a little quieter?" she grumbled, rubbing at her eyes.

"But we're not sneaking yet," Sirius pointed out.

Lily did not appreciate that but she was too tired for her glare to be any way effective.

"Hush," she said, going back to bed.

Okay then. The four of them went back to going over their plan one more time.

"Me and Pete will take the cloak," James said, running his hand over it.

It was still so smooth and slippery. He was still in awe of that even though he knew the whole story behind it. Sometimes it just seemed to be too good to be true. But it hadn't failed them yet and it wasn't going to fail them any time soon.

"I still can't believe you have an Invisibility Cloak," Severus said in awe, looking hesitant to even touch it.

"It's his dad's," Sirius supplied.

"Really? And it works?"

James shrugged with an uncomfortable look on his face. "Family heirloom."

James had come to realise over the years that not everyone had heirlooms like this to pass down through generations. Expensive ones. Powerful ones. He really didn't want to sound like he was trying to brag about it. Because he didn't. Brag about it. The cloak, anyway. That would kind of defeat the whole purpose of the cloak, wouldn't it?

"Why did your dad wait until like third year to give you the Invisibility Cloak?" Sirius asked. "Did he want to wait until you were a teenager or something? Was it supposed to be a rite of passage?"

James shrugged. "He claimed it was something about responsibility but, to be honest, I think he just forgot about it."

That did sound like a very Fleamont Potter thing to do. After all, the man wouldn't remember to eat if one of his House Elves didn't pop him down to the dining room to do so. They had had to do that for as long as James could remember. It wasn't too far of a stretch to think that he would forget about giving James the Invisibility Cloak for a few years. It wasn't like it would be uppermost on his mind.

"Huh."

They all stared at the cloak.

"Come on, let's go and actually use it," James said, draping it around his shoulders and making himself look like a floating head.

Monday 15th May 1978

Auror Academy, 10:45

This was hard. Why was this so hard? Was anyone else finding this hard or was it just him? He hoped it wasn't just him because that would be awkward. More than awkward. It would just be plain embarrassing and he didn't do embarrassing.

Frank came to a stop and tried to look like he was judging the height of the flames on his cauldron. Hopefully that would mean he wouldn't look lost. He had never been bad at Potions before but this was a whole other step up. Several steps up, in fact. Of course, it had to be. This was Auror Training, after all. But still. He had hoped that he would have understood some of it. But he wasn't. He wasn't understanding any of it.

Okay. Frank closed his eyes and tried to remember. He could see his notes right there in his mind. Everything was just blurred. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself down. Panicking wasn't going to do anything. Deep breaths.

Ah ha, he knew how this potion went. Oh, how could he have forgotten. He gave it two figure eight turns and it quickly turned the shade of green that it was supposed to. Phew. Frank didn't think he'd ever felt such relief in his life. It worked. It actually worked.

That had to be a first in recent weeks. Yeah, they hadn't exactly been going well for him. Not even a little bit. He was just... too... slow. Slow to pick up new spells. Slow to dodge. Slow to understand concepts. It was embarrassing. Especially since it was starting to feel like he was being left behind. Oh, sure, he still managed to get things. Understand them. Do them. Somewhat. But not as quick as he would like. Not as quick as what was needed.

It was annoying. Frustrating. These were things he thought he would be good at. Except maybe the physical part of it because he never got into Quidditch or the like. But no, everything was difficult and he was just struggling along.

At least today seemed to be going better. The potion hadn't gone a funny colour or started to smoke. That was a good sign, wasn't it?

He looked up to see the instructor staring at him. Frank couldn't help but freeze. Had he seen Frank mess up and forget something? Had he forgotten something else? Had he been watching the whole time?

Then the instructor did something Frank really didn't expect. He nodded approvingly at him. What?

Okay, this might just be the best day of his whole training so far.

Thursday 18th May 1978

Potions Lab, Dungeons, 18:30

"This isn't going to work," Sirius said stubbornly, folding his arms.

"Oh, it is," Severus assured him.

"We've tried for months. No, make those years. What makes you think that you can just swan on in a think you can sort everything out."

"Because I can."

"He's a fresh perspective, Padfoot," Remus said quickly before Sirius could retort with something scathing. "Now let him do this so we can get back to important things."

"This is important, Moony!"

"Not as important as our NEWTs!"

Sirius opened his mouth to disagree with that but Remus cut him off. "Not. As. Important. As. Our. NEWTs."

"Come on," Severus said persuasively. "What have you got to lose?"

"Yeah," piped up Peter. "Shadow's great at Potions. This will work!"

"Stop trying to make that nickname a thing, Peter," Severus said with a sigh.

"It already is a thing," James assured him.

"No, it's not."

"Sure, it is. Shadow."

"Shut up."

They all fell silent as Severus stirred the potion. James couldn't help but feel a bit anxious as he did so. Because what if it didn't work? Then the map wouldn't be finished. Well, not in his mind anyway.

It was brilliant, Severus said he had found a way to track people movements on the map so that they knew what people were doing in real time. It would make it much easier to dodge people or even track them down. Much better than the number count they had for each room currently.

The only downside was that it was a finicky potion. But Severus thought he could do it and if he couldn't, who could? He may as well give it a go. The rest of them had tried all sorts of things on this map and not everything had worked. James couldn't help but think back to the time he and Remus managed to invert one of the layouts of a hall. It turns out that mispronounced the spell didn't make it not work, it just gave you odd results. Unfortunately, they had discovered this when they were trying to set up a prank in that hall and it had all gone wrong.

Let's try it with this quick sketch of the Dungeons," James said, holding the bit of parchment out.

It was literally just a quick sketch. He had done it rather than letting the spell do it. Though, the spell mimicked his drawing style, with a lot smoother lines. This was really just a rough sketch but it would do the job.

Severus carefully tool it off him with a pair of tongs and slowly submerged it in the cauldron he had simmering. They all waited with bated breath as he counted to twenty-three and pulled it out again.

They looked down at the piece of parchment which glowed briefly before disintegrating completely. Even the corners that Severus held in his hands.

"Told you it wouldn't work!" Sirius crowed.

"That was just the first try!" Severus complained. "I just didn't get the timing right. That's all that meant. Its early fixed.

James thought it was a good thing he made multiple rough sketches. With that glint in Severus' eyes, they could be here a while.

Friday 19th May 1978

Charms Corridor, 14:00

Chryssie ducked her head down and tried to make herself as unnoticeable as possible as she went down this corridor. She didn't want to draw attention to herself. Not with those people down there. And there was no avoiding them. There was no other way to the Charms classroom. She would have to walk past them. Oh, how she wished she knew of an invisibility charm.

She didn't need this type of stress for her Practical Exam. She didn't. She wasn't like Lily; Charms didn't come easily to her. Anything could throw her off. Like what was about to happen right now.

"Oh, look who we have here," came a horrid, oily voice.

"Don't look up, don't look up," she told herself.

If she kept moving, maybe they would leave her alone. It was wishful thinking, she knew. Why did they have to be like this? She had never ever done anything to them!

It was what was becoming the usual crowd of Slytherins that found pleasure in taunting her. It was horrible. She still didn't know a lot of their names. All she did know was that nothing she said stopped them. Not like they did for Lily. Sometimes.

Oh, it was okay for Lily. She had some sort of authority. Not that people like them cared about points being taken from them by a muggleborn but still. Chryssie couldn't even do that.

"Doesn't it smell horrid," one of the boys sneered.

"Quite foul," another agreed.

"Why are they even allowed to go around like that?"

And there were the tears springing to her eyes. She couldn't help it; they were so mean. Even being seventeen years old wasn't enough for the comments to stop hurting. It wasn't fair.

Now they were approaching her. No, no, no, she didn't want that. Oh, just leave her alone.

"Okay, that's enough," Professor Flitwick's voice suddenly pierced her thoughts.

The diminutive Professor was standing just outside his office with a stern look on his face.

"Gentlemen," he addressed the Slytherins, though there never was a more undeserving term, "Are any of you waiting for you Charms exam?"

There was a lot of shuffling of feet and head shakes at that. Huh. Chryssie hadn't known that they were intimidated by her Head of House. Interesting.

"Well then, I'm afraid I must ask you to leave so you don't distract any of the students who are taking their exams, please. Thank you."

They couldn't exactly say anything to that so, thankfully, they left. Chryssie breathed a sigh of relief as they disappeared.

"Miss Evans?" Flitwick said cheerfully, his whole demeanour changing. "Are you ready?

Chryssie squared her shoulders. "As I'll ever be."

Monday 22nd May 1978

Dungeons, 21:30

Severus was quite pleased with himself. He had managed to finish a particularly tricky potion and he had managed it before curfew. That was a first this term. He tended to get... carried away. Not that Slughorn really minded but still. Sometimes it was nice to not have to sneak around Mrs Norris. Not that he was bad at it but sometimes he liked to not jump at every flickering shadow.

Yep, definitely a good evening. Hopefully the start of a good week. Tomorrow he and Lily were going to go gather some potions ingredients from the forest, weather permitting. And then there was another potion he wanted to brew with some of those ingredients. He couldn't forget the study session with the Marauders, Lily and Marlene either - he needed some help with his Transfiguration. He refused to let it get the better of him. He was going to get at least an EE in his NEWTs in it. He was.

Unfortunately, he was too deep in his thoughts to hear the very muffled steps coming from behind him. They got closer and closer and closer, until...

Severus gasped as he was suddenly flung against the stone wall with a sickening 'CRACK'

"That hurt," was the last coherent thought he had before passing out.

He came to again. He wasn't sure how quickly je did but he did. And he was alone. Thankfully. And also, hadn't been moved. Which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good thing because whoever knocked him out didn't lock him away somewhere but a bad thing because no one had found him to help him.

Severus tried to scramble to his feet and winced as his head protested at the movement. He definitely needed help. Head injuries were no joke.

Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be anyone about. What time was it? The candles in the wall had been dimmed, it was definitely past curfew. Maybe a Prefect would find him? But it was cold. He couldn't stay here for long. No, he had to do something. His head started to spin. Hopefully without throwing up.

It was a close call but je managed to stagger down the halls without emptying the contents of his stomach onto the floor. It was a close call in some cases but he managed it. It was more the dizziness that was causing him problems. Lots and lots of dizziness. All Severus was saying was that he was glad that there were no staircases between the Dungeons and the Hospital Wing. He didn't think he would have managed it otherwise.

He had dragged himself to the Hospital Wing. Slowly but he got there. In a lot of pain and multiple instances of thinking he was going to just keel over but he got there.

Correction, he got to the very much closed doors and proceeded to stare at them in dismay. He didn't think he could move another muscle never mind push them open.

But he did. Almost fell through them but at least he was in the Hospital Wing.

"Mr Snape?" Madam Pomfrey asked in an alarmed voice.

Ah, yes. Students turning up at night probably would do that to a MediWitch.

"I might have a concussion," Severus said faintly before swaying slightly and falling to a crumpled heap on the floor.

Tuesday 23rd May 1978

Hospital Wing, 07:00

There were several things that Severus had not been expecting when he woke up this morning. The main one being that he did not expect to not be in his bed in his dormitory. No, the bed under him was very definitely a different bed. It was stiffer. Not as soft. And the air smelled strange. Kind of like antiseptic. He was in the Hospital Wing, wasn't he?

That led him straight to the second thing he had not expected. The throbbing headache that made him groan when he opened his eyes. And he only opened them a sliver!

Which of course led to the third but not quite final thing he had not been expecting. Three far too familiar faces peering down in concern over him. The concern was the fourth thing he hadn't been expecting. Why would anyone ever be worried about him?

"James? Sirius? Peter?" He managed to croak out.

His mouth was dry. Why was his mouth so dry? A glass of water was pressed into his hand and, with a lot of frustrating shaking from his hands, he managed to take a sip. Most of it ended up down his front but some got in his mouth. Enough that it no longer felt like the whole Sahara Desert was in there.

"We thought we'd just check up on Remus like usual but here we found you!" Peter exclaimed.

He was too loud. Severus groaned.

"Why are you in here?" James demanded but Severus could hear the undercurrent of worry in his voice.

"Are you sick?" Sirius threw his own worry into the mix.

"My head hurts," Severus mumbled into his pillow, completely missing the exchange of worried looks his friends gave each other above him.

He couldn't remember what had happened to him except that he had finished a Potion he had been working on. Had it been very late? Did he run into someone? Several someone's? He couldn't remember.

"What are you boys doing?" Madam Pomfrey demanded, striding over to them. "Mr Snape needs his rest and he can't do any of that with you lot hanging around his bed."

"We were just making sure he was okay!" James said defensively. "We didn't even know he was in here!"

"Well, now you do and now you can leave him alone."

"But-"

"Out!"

"We haven't seen Remus yet!"

"He is still asleep."

"But-"

"And he's fine," she said sternly and pointed towards the door. "Out!"

Just as they were turning around Lily chose this moment to enter the Hospital Wing.

"How's Remus?" she asked upon seeing the Marauders.

"You out as well, Miss Evans!" Madam Pomfrey scolded.

"But-"

"Everyone out!"

Severus had to chuckle as the MediWitch tried to herd them out.

"Is that Severus?" Lily asked, dodging around the woman.

Madam Pomfrey sighed loudly and threw her hands up in exasperation.

Thursday 25th May 1978

Head Boy and Girl Suite, 19:00

It had been surprising but after a lot of pestering Madam Pomfrey had let herself be persuaded by James to let Severus stay in the Head Boy and Girl Suite with him and Lily. James was quite proud of this. It hadn't just been Madam Pomfrey he had had to persuade; you see. It had been Professor Slughorn and Professor McGonagall. Who, admittedly, had been quite easy to persuade. All he had had to point out was that none of them knew who had attacked Severus but it was more likely to be a Slytherin considering where he was found at the time. It wasn't safe to let him return until they had discovered who.

So, they had agreed. And they had helped him with Madam Pomfrey. Who was much harder to convince? Mainly because she wasn't convinced that he would take it easy if he stayed with any of the Marauders. She had actually voted their original idea of having Severus use the spare bed in the Gryffindor Dorm since James didn't stay there anymore. No, she wasn't having that. Apparently, that wasn't her idea of taking it easy.

But she did agree to letting him stay in the Suite. Mainly because Lily took over the persuasion. Madam Pomfrey was of the opinion that she was the most responsible of the lot of them and she probably wasn't wrong there.

Eh, James didn't mind because it ended up how he wanted it. Severus with them where he could keep an eye on him.

Honestly, what was up with his friends and not looking after themselves? There was Sirius who's don't-care attitude meant that he refused to recognise when he was sick, Peter and his not wanting to be a bother and don't even get him started on Moony. James honestly thought that Severus would be better than all that but apparently not.

"So, what am I allowed to do?" Severus asked in exasperation ad he and Lily tag-teamed him on the long list of things that Madam Pomfrey gave them that he couldn't do.

"Go to the bathroom by yourself?" Sirius teased.

"Is that on the list, Lily?" James asked her quite seriously.

She perused the list and shook her head. "Nope."

James turned back to Severus. "You're good to go."

"Thank you," he said sarcastically.

"We're just trying to look after you."

"Whatever."

"Yeah, whatever, pretty deer boy," teased Sirius.

"I'm a stag!" James retorted indignantly.

Everyone couldn't help but crack up as James glared at them all. It only had the effect of making them laugh harder.

"I wouldn't be laughing, Shadow!" Sirius said after catching his breath. "You might not be allowed to do that!"

Severus responded to that by hearing his hair green and silver. Sirius retaliated by turning Severus' nose gold and face red. Soon they were trying to change each other's entire bodies their house colours.

A while later, Severus, out of breath, complained, "How did I become yellow and black and you bronze and blue?"

"You weren't supposed to be doing magic at all!" scolded a red and green polka-dotted Lily.