Disclaimer: As always, I take no ownership of the characters or concepts from the Harry Potter franchise, books or movies.
Flying through the skies around Hogwarts offered an entirely new perspective for Lily Evans as she remained firmly in the arms of her best friend. Alongside the whirling air that kept them aloft, the forward momentum high in the sky sent a wonderful, spring night's breeze through her hair. Looking up into Severus' eyes, she saw he was deep in concentration, his gaze focused on the skies ahead of them as they circled far above the castle.
It was almost too intimidating for the Gryffindor girl to speak up, but where was she to start? There were a million questions she wanted to ask, but all she could focus on was the obvious.
"Sev...are you going to tell me how exactly we're flying? Or is that going to have to wait too?" she asked with a frown.
"Yes, it's going to have to wait, Lily…" Severus immediately grunted in response, his eyes never leaving their flight path. "I can't very well keep us airborne unless I focus completely on it, so please wait a few moments…"
Lily's premature expression of disappointment dissolved into one of surprised relief. Not wanting to distract Severus any further, she instead placed her attention back on their current situation. They were flying at a speed that was even faster than any broom Lily had been on during her time at Hogwarts. It was astonishing how much more control her best friend seemed to have over it too, the precision of his turns, the maintaining of altitude, none of this was like the failed experiments of those who had tried for centuries to master the power of flight without a broomstick or other enchanted flying object.
The question then was an obvious one, how could Severus, brilliant as he was, discover what countless wizards failed over an entire lifetime at the mere age of 16? She always knew how intuitive he was with creating his own spells and potions recipes, but this went far beyond something like Langlock or even Sectumsempra. He had never once hinted to her in the past that he had been working on such an ability, and though it stung Lily that he had been so secretive with her as of late, she couldn't help but beam with pride that her beloved friend was capable of solving the mystery of flight.
The pair began their descent, turning swiftly over the Whomping Willow, and Lily couldn't remove her contented smile. Any doubts that she might ever have about Severus' loyalty to her could finally rest once and for all, and knowing that, she instinctively rested her head on his chest once again. Their velocity slowed gradually, and for a moment, Lily wondered why they seemed to be aiming far outside of Hogwarts' walls when they finally touched down on the hills near Hagrid's Hut.
When Severus finally let go and her feet touched the ground, Lily immediately wrapped her arms back around him and a few of those unshed tears that remained finally came out.
"Thank you, Sev...thank you so much…" her voice choked with a tearful rasp.
Severus quickly returned the embrace with an equal fervor, but his voice seemed to resonate of something far different than Lily's happy relief. "What were any of you thinking?! Without a wand, very few wizards are any more useful than a Muggle! If any of those idiot Marauders brought their wands, they could've disarmed him! If you brought your own, you could've stopped your momentum! Never, EVER go ANYWHERE without your wand, Lily. I don't care if it's a stroll to the loo or an exam for a class that doesn't focus on doing magic, you never know what will go wrong, especially around me."
His harsh words stung Lily, but she knew he was right. The situation was made far worse than it could have been if any of them besides Severus had been prepared for confrontation. Of course, how any of them could predict that Pettigrew would go rogue and apparently throw his lot in with the militant Slytherins, she didn't know. But before Lily could feel any further shame about what had happened, Severus tightened his embrace around her.
His voice was considerably softer when he spoke again. "I'd never let anything bad happen to you, Lily. I hope you know that. But I had no idea when I made that jump if it would even work. With the way my magic has been as of late, everything seems backwards about the way it comes out."
Lily's eyes widened as she drew apart from Severus just enough to look into his eyes. "You mean you didn't know if you'd even succeed? You just jumped after me with no thought as to whether or not you'd actually make it out alive?!"
"I'd never be able to live with the shame of letting you die if I didn't at least try…" he admitted to her.
"I made that mistake once before...never again." he added to himself mentally.
The tearful smile returned to Lily's face as she hugged him again with a touched laugh. "How incredibly Gryffindor of you."
Once the pair finally started walking back towards the moonlit castle, Lily took hold of Severus' hand and interlocked their fingers. A blush was shared between them at her gesture, but the Slytherin made no movement to free his hand. Truthfully, Lily needed to have some form of physical contact so soon after her fall. The terror she felt at the notion of dying alone left her with a reflex of needing to stay close to Severus, though she disguised it with a mischievous grin.
"So. How long have you known how to fly, Sev?"
Severus turned to look down at Lily as they walked in sync up the hill. "Almost a year." He answered honestly. It had been a reward by Voldemort for his killing of Dumbledore. The Dark Lord had from that point considered Severus his most trusted servant and had shown him the technique to accomplish the mastery of flight.
"And why didn't you tell me that you solved the greatest mystery of the wizarding world, Mr. Slytherin Prodigy?" she asked with a hint of sarcasm.
"Because it's dark magic, Lily, and I know how you feel about that. Truth be told, I never wanted to use it again unless absolutely necessary." It was true. Now that he was back with Lily alive and well, the last thing he wanted to think about was his time in the service of the one who had murdered her.
"Dark magic..?" Lily's eyes widened. "How can something like that be dark, Sev? If anything, I would think the ability to fly would be a charm on our bodies…"
"Dark magic does not mean evil magic, Lily." Severus said with a frustrated sigh. "Unless it's an unforgivable, there is always both a good and a bad use for magic, and I'd think the brightest witch of our year should know that by now."
"How does it work, then? If the ability to fly is dark magic, then what's the answer to why so many others failed?"
"Humans cannot be enchanted with the ability to fly. Such things are only possible for inanimate objects like brooms, cars, I've even heard of motorcycles being enchanted to fly. We, however, cannot."
Seeing Lily's confused expression, Severus decided to elaborate a different way. "Lily, I take it you're familiar with Fiendfyre?"
The redhead's eyes widened a bit at the insinuation. "Yes...it's a very dark spell, but that's not even discussed at the fifth-year level...Seventh year at the absolute earliest."
Severus nodded. "Yes, but do you know WHY it's classified as Dark Magic? It's because it conjures fire, but it goes far beyond a simple Incendio. Fire is one of the four elements. Anything that tampers with an element's innate behavior is against the natural order of life, and thus, Dark Magic. Elements are not discriminate. Fire can burn and kill, but it also cooks our food, and warms our homes. Fiendfyre not only conjures flames, but bewitches them with an almost supernatural affinity to seek out life and engulf it. That's why Fiendfyre is more destructive than any flame; it's been tainted by the caster's malevolent will.
"The same holds true for all four elements. Water can drown and erode, but it also sustains our bodies and quenches our thirst. Air, when violent, can rip apart our homes, but it's also what we breathe. Earth can crumble and crush our bodies in its more dense forms, but it also has nutrients to grow plants and herbs. The natural world renders the elements indiscriminate of good and bad, they just are.
"Air, for example, is an element of utmost freedom. The sky is an endless plane above us, the winds change in direction and intensity, it moves the weather. What happens then when you take away the freedom of air? What happens when you use your own magical core to reach out and subjugate the air around you, force it to your will, and turn one of nature's elements into an extension of yourself? A metaphorical Imperius on the air itself, if you will."
"You can fly…" Lily responded, understanding. "Sev, are you really comparing the ability to command the air around you to something as destructive as Fiendfyre?"
"They both desecrate the elements of nature, Lily, just in a different form. I'd wager that truly inventive, dark wizards would be capable of other things just as unnatural with Earth and Water, but all I've ever heard of are Fiendfyre and now this..."
"But Sev, that would require a really powerful, really focused magical core. How can something like that be possible for someone still in school like you?" Lily asked, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Not that I doubt how brilliant you are, but that seems like a feat that most practiced wizards would find quite challenging."
"Soon, Lily. I promised you, soon. Just a little longer…" The Slytherin pleaded dismissively.
With a sigh, Lily nodded. After a few more minutes, the pair finally reached the castle's gate, and that reminded her of something else she wanted to ask her friend. "Why was it so important that we not land anywhere actually in the castle, Sev?"
"Because this is not something that needs to be spread around the school." Severus declared, not leaving much in the way of argument.
"But Sev, you can't seriously be keeping this to yourself?! Think of all the good it could do wizardkind if one of the great mysteries of the magical world were finally solved!" she whispered as they passed through into the castle proper.
"How about you think of all the bad? Do you know how many of my lovely, fellow Slytherins would spill it to their parents over the Summer, many of whom have close contact with a certain dark wizard? Are you so sure that you want HIM to find out about this when he probably hasn't even solved it himself yet?"
'Yet..?" Lily asked suspiciously. "Anyway, what exactly am I supposed to say when people ask how you saved my life?
Severus cursed himself silently, wishing he were more careful at choosing his words with Lily. "Just tell them that I cast a wandless Arresto Momentum shortly before we hit the ground."
"Your solution not to attract attention is to tell the school that you cast a charm wandlessly in the heat of a life-or-death situation?" she asked with a skeptical look.
"Why not? You did something similar on the swingset back in Cokeworth the day we met…" Severus admitted with a smile.
"That was accidental, underage magic, and...oh, fine." the Gryffindor girl sighed in defeat. "I still think that it's going to be something that has to come out at some point, at least with a trustworthy wizard like Dumbledore."
"I'll be the one to decide that, Lily." he declared as he rounded up the steps towards the seventh floor. Severus would take no chances, he'd see Lily to her common room before anything else would occur tonight.
Once they reached the Fat Lady's corridor, Severus and Lily were startled when the portrait to the Gryffindor common room opened up, and out sprinted James, Sirius, and Remus all in a row. Each of the Marauders sighed with relief upon seeing Lily unharmed. Severus, however, immediately grew furious.
"I had better find out that you idiots were leaving your Common Room to tell the Headmaster of the situation, and that Pettigrew is bound and restrained, in there...You're telling me you dunderheads actually lost track of him?! Honestly, it's not enough that none of you were armed for any mishaps, you were actually outrun by that overweight lump?!"
Sirius shook his head. "We all tried our best to follow, but Wormtail's never run that fast before...we came back here to get our map to find him."
James nodded. "And this…" he pointed at the map where the two new arrivals could see, revealing a broom cupboard on the ground floor of Hogwarts. "-is where our little traitor is hiding. I reckon that's where he's going to lay low for awhile, then make his escape from later. But why he'd do that when he knows we have the map, I have no idea."
Remus reached into his robe pocket, and after a brief moment, his hand emerged with Severus' ebony wand, handing it back to the Slytherin. "I grabbed this for you on the way down. Will you be coming with us, Severus?"
Immediately, Sirius and James both turned to their friend in disgusted protest, but Severus ignored them, instead facing Lily seriously. As he let go of her hand, he noticed Lily's face flinch slightly from the absence of his touch. "I'll babysit the Marauders and follow them to Pettigrew. Something doesn't seem right about this situation, Lily; I want you to go back to your dorm. You don't have your wand, and you've been through enough disasters for one night."
Lily nodded. Normally she might argue with him, but after having been through one near-death experience, she wasn't particularly keen on facing the one who had tried to kill her once already for the night.
"Alright, Sev. You be careful...and before I forget…" Lily stood on her toes, kissing Severus gently on the cheek. "Thank you for saving my life, Sev...I'm sorry if there was ever a time that I thought you might not." she added with a smile before turning to the open portrait and shutting it behind her.
For a moment, the Slytherin was dumbfounded by the gesture, feeling the heat of a blush rise to where Lily's lips had been just before. But upon turning and seeing James seething, absolutely beside himself, along with a bit of a hidden smile from Remus, he smirked at the Marauders, before swiftly marching towards the staircase, where they all immediately followed suit.
Something was bothering Severus as he made his way down the steps, contemplating what had happened. From what little he had known of the rat animagus, Pettigrew had never been so bold in any of his ambitions, preferring instead to cower and let others fight for him. As they rushed down the steps, another thought had occurred. Why, of all things, had the overweight boy outrun the other three Marauders, each of whom was considerably more fit. It would be one thing if he had transformed into a rat and snuck somewhere that normal people couldn't fit. The conundrum disturbed Severus, yet it hadn't yet shown in his controlled face when they finally reached the ground floor.
As they finally turned to the cupboard door, the four took another look at the map, confirming that Peter had not moved from his location. James took the lead ahead of Severus and without checking for locks, immediately blasted the door apart with a Reductor Curse.
"James Potter, Ever the impetuous little fool. Though I doubt I'll be any better once I get my hands around that rat's neck…" Severus thought to himself.
As the smoke remaining where the wooden door had been started to dissipate, however, all four fifth-year boys gained a look of shock as they saw the sight of the one they had been pursuing. Peter Pettigrew lay unconscious on the cupboard floor in nothing but his underwear, bound by ropes that had been obviously conjured by an incarcerous spell. His school robes were nowhere to be found.
Immediately upon seeing the boy in this state, Severus knew what had happened as the Gryffindors started to rouse Peter and remove his bindings. "He didn't do it...No...There's only one direction the culprit went!" he grimaced, voice bubbling with rage as he took off towards the Dungeons in a heated sprint.
As he entered the Slytherin Common Room, Severus' eyes jolted in every direction, not finding anyone out of bed, just the eerie, green light that spread dimly across the room. Not satisfied, Severus thrust open the door to the Slytherin Boys' Bathroom, and immediately noticed a very powerful aroma that hung in the air. Taking a a deep breath with his eyes shut confirmed the presence of a very particular brew that someone had obviously tried to dispose the remnants of.
"Polyjuice Potion…" Severus snarled in frustration, empty-handed with everything but the knowledge that someone in his house had tried to murder Lily as a way to make a statement to him.
Author's Note: Confession time, I hadn't actually intended to release a chapter today; when I mentioned Saturday I was referring to the day in-story where Severus is taking his Ancient Runes Makeup O.W.L. But seeing so many people get excited after the last chapter, I felt it would be wrong to deny you guys a follow-up even if I hadn't intended it as such.
So here we are, the end of Wednesday and going onto Thursday, an attempt was made on Lily's life and we no longer have a concrete idea on who did it. The friends had another heart-to-heart on their way to the castle, Severus explained a bit more on how the power of Unsupported Flight works, and now we're on to Thursday's O.W.L. with everyone's favorite subject, HISTORY OF MAGIC!
Honestly, that's a subject of notorious boredom and I'll likely just touch over it before making it to the party in Gryffindor House that the Marauders had planned. Things are likely to carry over into Friday and the beginning of Saturday leading up to the exam, so we can finally put the rune mystery to rest.
Regarding Lily: I don't want to make it seem as though she's a two-timer. At this point in the story, Lily is attracted to James, though it's more on a subconscious level than anything else as his behavior annoys her besides the more mature flashes that he has been given in some of the chapters. As for her feelings for Severus, if there's an attraction to some of the things he does, it's on an EVEN MORE subconscious level than for James. You have to remember that he's only turned over a new leaf for just over a week now, and though she finally trusts him completely again, it's going to take quite a bit of doing before Severus Snape can truly win Lily over romantically. Not to mention he's her best friend, not her boyfriend, and I don't care what anyone says, there is a very staunch difference between how women see the two.
Another thing I'd like to mention is that there is a very strong contingent on both sides of the fence regarding who they think Lily should end up with. I've made it very clear that I don't like the character of James Potter, but I'm not going to morally assassinate his character like I've seen other fanfiction authors do. Jilly is canon, after all, and I'd like to at least keep an element of that hanging over the readers' heads, as a form of tension for those that don't support it, and as fanservice for those that do. Nor am I going to spoil who Lily romantically ends up with (or if she even survives the story at all). There's a great engagement in the character direction not being obvious to the reader, and I want to keep as much of that engagement as possible for you all to speculate.
As always, I'm very happy to read the reviews and see the response that each chapter gets (last chapter in particular seemed to really get folks excited for what's to come), and as a writer, that's what I strive to do. As intoxicating as it is for you guys to see an update of mine and eat it up, I also eat up the reviews and words that you send me in return, so please continue to do so.
Thanks so much for the support and feedback, and I hope to have another chapter set for you all to enjoy soon!