To Adapt

Lily

I had a pounding headache as I sat in the deadly quiet common room. We were all waiting for news and the James and Peter were sitting pale and tense opposite me. Everyone had gone to the hall after the attack and there had been a role call in which they marked who was here and who wasn't. We had then all been dismissed to our dorms.

There were seven people in Gryffindor who weren't here.

Toby Moffet, Jennifer Brown, Asha d'Argo, Eloise Max, Sirius, Lara and Alex.

James said... he said that one moment Sirius was next to him and then, as the DE's were disapperating, he had disappeared. What if one of the DE's had grabbed him and apperated him away? Others said that they'd seen Alex being hit by something and none of us knew what to assume anymore. Remus... he had been frantic. As soon as he realise Lara was gone he'd raced to the hospital wing.

It was him we were waiting for.

The room was silent; the whole house was here, just waiting for news. James had his face in his hands and I knew he was worried something had happened to Black, everyone knew they were basically brothers. I wondered if I should comfort him but I just did not know what to say. I didn't want to break the quiet of the room so I settled for laying a hand on the crook of his arm. He raised his head and his hazel eyes met mine. They were filled with uncertainty and fear and I held his gaze. The minutes ticked on by and people started to come back. First was Asha d'Argo who had been knocked out but was back to normal now. He reported that the Hospital wing was chaos and that many had been removed to St. Mungo's.

Then Toby Moffet stumbled into the room in tears, his girlfriend Jennifer had died. Her younger brother had been there and had just sat there in shock before he stormed from the room. I sent my heart to him and felt tears fall down my face. Jennifer... she was a year older and I hadn't known her all that well but we had talked before and she had been really sweet. And now she was gone, like my parents, like so many others...

Then the portrait swung open and Remus stepped through, looking dishevelled and exhausted. For a moment I expected the worse but he shrugged and I sighed in relieve. At least it wasn't a definite death... I couldn't handle that... not again. He walked to us and slumped into a nearby chair.

"Lara and Sirius are at St. Mungo's with Alex. Apparently he was hit pretty badly by some curse and they don't know what's going to happen to him. It's pretty close but it's thanks to Lara that he even has a hope."

I gulped. What if Alex died? Lara, what would happen to Lara? I saw obvious relief in James' eyes and he slumped in a daze.

Alex

I reached for consciousness and blinked my eyes groggily. There was a chemical taste in my mouth, bitter and yet horribly sweet and sticky. My eyes, unwilling to open, strained against a bright light. I was in a bed but for the life of me I didn't know what bed it was. It wasn't mine, or Sirius' or even the hospital wing. But it was definitely a bed.

Lara was instantly there in my mind, her presence oddly blurred, and for a moment I was miffed at having her so close. What was going on? I blinked back the light and concentrated on the figure of my sister standing at the foot of my bed. What I saw had me pushing myself into a sitting positions in worry. This process also alerted me to a burning, twisting pain in my chest and I gasped sharply.

She looked exhausted, her eyes had dark circles under them and her whole face sagged and shouted 'I haven't slept in a very long time'. She stared at me with mind shaking relief that was almost painful and she reached out a shaking hand to clasp the bed frame. I saw tears fall from her eyes as she fell slowly to her knees.

Her mind was blank now, awash with the knowing that I was okay. But subsequently I had absolutely no idea what had happened to me. What had it been...?

We had been fighting, I remember that, in Hogsmeade... something had happened - a spell had gotten through our vision. I had turned and seeing the spell I had drawn up the first shield that came to my mind. Protego. It was the quickest I could get up... but it wasn't strong enough... I should have used Protego Duo or Protego Virtutem. Needless to say...the shield had fallen...

"What was it?" My voice crackled and broke.

Odimpetum was the quiet thought and I gulped.

That's... well... really bad. Odimpetum: hate attack was its Latin name and it was a really nasty spell that could only be made with pure hate. I didn't even want to think about what had happened to me but thank Merlin I was knocked out cold. It was a really, really, dark curse, one which sucked out the heat of your body and used it to slowly break down the internal veins in the body by pumping black magic to the heart. In the end you either died of cold or internal bleeding... I guess that explained the gnawing pain in my chest then...

Yeah, that might be the reason, was my sister's sarcastic reply to that thought.

I suddenly became aware that someone else was in the room. It was quite shocking how slow my Legilimency was. I looked to my left and saw a head of black hair resting on my covers. He was slumped over, sitting on a chair by my bed, it didn't look very comfortable.

"He tried to stay awake but I guess exhaustion..." Lara trailed off, her voice bleak and slack. I couldn't see her from where she was drooping on the floor.

I nodded and placed a hand on his silky head, letting my fingers trail through the fine hairs and scrape over his scalp. He groaned and shifted at the touch and turned his face to face mine. He was still asleep and I took my time to study his face. His lips were pursed and his eye brows furrowed, showing his stress. I felt something tug at my heart.

Lara got up from her crouching position and stumbled to my side. I could hear her thoughts and gladly raised an arm so she could curl up next to me, her head tucked under my arm. I wrapped my arm around her waist as she sobbed into my top.

We stayed like that until she fell asleep in exhaustion and dragged me with her. I didn't even wake up when Siri stirred and, seeing us, decided to climb in next to me too. Though I certainly found out when I woke up with very little breathing space and two very warm bodies either side of me.

Lara

The next day Alex was moved to the Hogwarts hospital wing and I had to go back to classes. As soon as I got back Remus, in a state of nervous tension, hunted me down and started ranting on about how worried he had been and how I'd never contacted him after I left and how he had to find out where I was from Poppy. Naturally I was feeling very guilty and in the stressed out, emotional state I was in my body decided to break down and cry – again. This, though it didn't help for soothing Remus, certainly stopped him being angry at me, a plus side that balanced my embarrassment quite well... What? It's not like I deliberately exploited his fear of tears.

That would just be rude.

Everyone seemed to be in a state of fear after the attack and all visits to Hogsmeade had been cancelled.

Five people died.

There was one third year Ravenclaw boy named Henry Fillet who died in St. Mungo's from a curse as he tried to get away. A seventh year Gryffindor, Jennifer Brown, who had been helping to fight and had died of blood loss in Mungo's. There was Benny Shore, forth year Ravenclaw, who was one of those under the Crutiatus and was eventually silenced by the killing curse. And sixth year Josie Morale, Hufflepuff, had died from a stray curse. And there was also a man who had been shopping and who was also helping in the fight, hit by the killing curse.

The whole school was under a black mood...

When I saw Severus Snape sitting in the library alone I acted on impulse. I knew just as well as some of the DE's how pressure around you and being inbred to think in one way could decide your future. My heart was telling me that Severus Snape was not a bad person, he did not have to take that route I knew it. I would try because who else would? The Gryffindor students hated him because of the Potter/Snape dispute. They would never try and show him the other side of the equation. I was going to prove this boy wasn't all bad because Merlin knew the world was full of enough merciless people and this one, this one could be changed, I knew it.

Severus

"Oh hello Severus, mind if I sit here? Thanks" I looked up and saw Larissa Grey sliding into the seat opposite me, pulling out a DADA book. I glared at her - which she ignored. Yes I very well did mind! What did she think she was doing? Why the hell would she want to sit with me? Did the wonder-pair set her up to this? She could hardly do something in the middle of the library...

"What do you want? And don't call me Severus" I asked bluntly with a sneer. Why couldn't she just leave me alone? First she was doing the whole 'I'm going to help you' tirade and now...

"Well that's nice. I don't want anything"

"Liar. Everyone wants something"

She laughed and I clenched my quill tightly.

"Well if you put it that way... I want lots of things Severus Snape but you don't want to hear them, do you?"

I growled at her, stupid Gryffindor twisting my words. I resigned to ignore her and continued to scribble into my Potions book. It was quite surprising how hard it was to ignore her though. She was just sitting there, she didn't say anything else, just sat there reading but her very presence set me on edge. I kept expecting some spell to hit me or some sniping remark about how I was such a bad dirty Slytherin with narrow-minded views. Finally I broke.

"Are you just going to sit there? Because I am trying to work"

She hummed vaguely in accent, not looking up from her book. It was infuriating. I tried to think of a way to get her away; maybe if I insult her enough she'll leave me alone...

"That brother of yours, the queer one, I heard he was in St. Mungo's. Nearly died didn't he?" I said with as much spite as I could and a tone which said I wasn't at all sorry. Which I wasn't, any brat of Black was nothing to me.

She hummed again, nodding, not taking the bait, and I felt like throwing something at her.

"Then there's that Lupin guy you're dating. I heard he was pretty annoyed when you disappeared. Does it bother you he's so dominating? Well, I guess it's probably something about being an alpha wolfy, isn't it?" I tried the werewolf boyfriend route.

Her eyes looked over her book at me and I smirked, expecting her anger.

"You know, I'm fairly disappointed. If you're trying to annoy me you're not doing very well" She turned her eyes back to her book.

I gapped at her.

"Oh and by the way? You have ink on your nose" She said without looking up in a conversation tone.

This time I really did growl.

"Anyone ever tell you you're annoying and meddlesome?" I hissed.

Hum. Nod. Eyes on her book.

She was so... infuriating! Ugh!

Regulus

"So... you've been hanging out with Larissa Grey?" I asked, hopefully casually.

Severus raised his eyes over his book and scowled. I chuckled, apparently this wasn't a fact that he enjoyed. I had stumbled on them in the library, him sitting tensely, obviously trying to ignore her and Larissa barely concealing amusement as she read. She was up to something alright, but I didn't know what. I didn't think it was bad this for Severus, though he plainly couldn't stand her... though the fact he hadn't cursed her had to be a high.

"She doesn't give me a choice, I have no idea what she's up to but she keeps ambushing me in the library, annoying little blood-traitor"

I nodded. I was feeling bizarrely jealous, which was stupid really but true... Why would she want to spend time with him? The greasy git, I mean I knew he wasn't all that bad and at least I actually talked to him but... still. Was it some plan of my Brother's? No, I couldn't see it. Larissa never seemed like the sort to follow stupid degrading pranks like them.

I had been watching her and I had seen the stubbornness ingrained in her bones. I had seen her after she'd gotten back from St. Mungo's, she had been nearly broken then and Lupin had virtually carried her to their tower. I had seen her in the fight too. I hadn't been fighting, I couldn't, not without insulting one of the parties, but I had seen her. She had been beautiful, wild and powerful. The way she moved, like it was a choreographed dance that she knew better than the texture of her wand. I had been scared for her and I was guilty of feeling relieved it had been her brother to be hit by that curse not her. Either way though... I certainly wouldn't mind meeting Avery down some dark alleyway for causing that fear in her eyes.

It was twisting in my thoughts and I knew it was hopeless. Merlin, I was so hopeless...

Severus

"Don't you think it's rather stupid how these textbooks always leave out all the vital information? Like the fact if you add a single gram more of Lovage than specified you create potentially toxic concoction, where is the logic in not telling you that?"

"Where is the logic in you not leaving me alone" I said trying desperately to ignore Larissa bloody Grey.

"Oh hush you. You could leave if you wanted, I won't stop you"

"Isn't your boyfriend suspicious of you of spending time with the big bad snake?"

"Why? Do you thing I'm interested in you? Are you interested? Aww Severus, I never knew." She smirked and I gritted my teeth "For the record I'm not interested and while Remus questions my sanity by annoying the 'big bad snake' he doesn't own me"

"Could have fooled me" I muttered.

This was the forth, forth, time she had ambushed me at my favourite table in the library. Why, oh why, would she not just leave me alone! The first two times I had, as she said, left the library to study in my dorm. A very annoying fact as it meant I had to suffer through the incessant chatter in the common room: All those pure blood girls going on about marriages, dresses, hair and whatever else. The first years with nothing better to do than squeal and jump on the sofas. It soon became apparent that she wasn't going to leave me alone and I really did need the library. So I had to suffer to ignoring her.

"Honestly, I thought we got over the whole insult malarkey?"

"Yeah and I thought I had gotten it clear that I don't appreciate your presence."

"Looks like we'll both just have to suffer then, pity"

She. Was. So. ANNOYING.

She had continued to read her book - an increasingly irritating habit of hers. She would very calmly talk to me through the pages of her book, as if she was talking about the weather, never ever rising to my countless insults. The bitch had patience I'll give her that.

What she was waiting for I hadn't figured out...

"Black finished nursing his girlfriend back to heath yet?" I asked, continuing my plan to annoy her enough to leave.

"You almost sound concerned." She said musingly "and I'll have you know that my brother is in fact a guy"

I shrugged with a sneer. She had yet to convince me of the fact.

"And no, my brother is still in the hospital wing. It's no easy thing you know to heal from Odimpetum" I looked up and saw an oddly pained look in her eyes.

"Was that it was... I did wonder" I said out loud in what I hoped was a blasé attitude. Mentally though I was wondering how the hell Grey was alive and who cast that particular spell. No wonder he'd been in the hospital wing for the last week and a half. It wasn't a well known curse either and I did pause to think about how Female Grey knew about it. I guess she was a pure-blood...

Something suddenly came to my mind.

"Oh, and Regulus has been asking me about you"

He had acted so weird that day, there had been something in his eyes...

"Really? Aww how sweet of him, send him my love" She said as if talking about a child.

"...You know him?"

"Meh, in a roundabout I-was-engaged-to-you sort of way" my eyes widened.

"Oh."

"That book you read. Confronting the Faceless. Why do you read it?" She looked up at me then down again at her book's spine. I had never actually read it and had little intention of doing so; it looked like the sort of book which cushioned everything.

"Well Severus, you might not have noticed but I do believe we are at war. It also happens to be quite an informative book, if a little dry." She smirked "It is also more appropriate for public reading than Black Magi: Ideology and Counteraction"

I gapped at her, now completely sure the girl was crazy, either that or I had hit my head somewhere and was going as loopy as Xenophilius Lovegood. No way was the blood-traitor-in-bright-light Gryffindor studying the Dark Arts

"You're kidding right"

She laughed and I resisted the temptation to curse her (a regular occurrence believe me).

"I'm not studying the Dark Arts, not with the intention of using them at least. I am studying Black Magic, which I assure you is different. It is merely a branch of magic which includes the Dark Arts among other things. That is what I am studying, for the purpose of knowing how to defend against it and I'm a healer, it's good to know these sorts of things." I nodded. As much as I was loath to admit it she did have a point. So many people were squeamish of learning about the Dark Arts even just to defend against it. A pathetic attitude if you asked me.

"Is that how you knew about Odimpetum?"

"No – Yes, Sort of" She clamped her mouth shut and gave me a pointed look not to ask anymore. I snorted, as if I'd be curious enough to ask. It didn't matter to me whether Lupin's Grey was learning the Dark Arts. Idiot girl.

She rose to her feet and smiled at me, I scowled right back. Stupid cheerful, devious Gryffindor...

"Here, you can read it, I've finished anyway" She held out her book and I stared at it in confusion "You never know, you might find it to be less 'Cushioned' than you think"

She placed in on the table and left and I stared after her in shock.

Cushioned? I don't remember saying that out loud...

"I'm curious-"

"-Of course, you're an over-inquisitive snooty-"she kicked me under the table and I growled at her.

"As I was saying before I was interrupted. I'm curious at whether you are bothered at being around somebody who is – to be blunt – on the other side of the war"

"Well it's not like I have a choice as you won't leave me alone!"

"That is not what I'm asking"

"Well that Grey is a key aspect" I bit back. I wasn't going to answer her questions, I had work to do dammit, don't I always? "If I had a choice you wouldn't be here and you'd never talk to me ever again"

"Because I'm on the other side of the war or because you stubborn, don't like the Marauders and Gryffindor's in general?" she asked and I shook my head at the bizarreness of this conversation.

"No, I just don't like you - as you damn right know" I clenched my teeth.

"Ahh, but that's not true because you didn't even know me when we first met so therefore your opinion was not based on me but one of the above prejudices"

"How about because you're irritating and intrusive and – OW! I swear to Merlin and Slytherin combined that next time you kick me I am going to hex you till you can't even remember your name!"

"Ooo, looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!"

Overcome I bashed my head against the table, close to sobbing in frustration.

"Why. Won't. You. Leave. Me. Alone!"

Lara

"So, how is your project coming on?" Remus asked with a barely surprised smirk.

"What project?" James asked coming to sit by us where we were gathered around Alex's hospital bed.

I grinned at him.

"Project: Prove the Marauder's wrong, is coming on very well thank you!"

Remus shook his head in bafflement and Alex rolled his eyes. James and Sirius just look inquisitive and slightly defensive.

"And what is this project Greyette?"

"Well Black you will just have to wait and see wont you!"

Cynthia

Today I saw you, Alexander, my used-to-be-but-technically-still-is husband. I didn't recognise you though. I saw your eyes, your broad chest, your naturally silver hair but you were far detached from the man I met. I was sitting, looking out of the window and I saw in the reflection on the glass you entering my prison. I saw you look at me with unreadable eyes and an unreadable posture. I didn't know you anymore. When I turned to you, with what could only be called an empty expression, you looked decisively to the left of my head. Avoiding my gaze. In my mind I remember the last time we were in the same room, too long ago to pinpoint, and it feels heavy on the air around us.

Have you come to pull out your wand on me? You couldn't do it last time, have you gained the bravery to curse your wife, the woman you used to love? Do you love me? Did you ever love me? I dared not ask but I was surely broadcasting it clear in my eyes, perhaps that's why you would not meet them now.

I guess it was good that you never killed me, that you never actually harmed me. It showed that I was still important, that some feelings were remembered of our once upon a time love. Or at least... that was what I told myself

I cannot remember the words you spoke. They were cold and emotionless and thus unimportant to my rocking mind. They didn't bring any news and they didn't comfort me. They were nothing. I was silent and I think it unnerved you. Serves you right though. You leave without meeting my watchful eyes once and when you are gone I sighed in disappointment and turned back to my window. I had wanted you to look into my eyes and see the pain, the loneliness that you caused me. I had wanted you to see what I would never say out loud, call it what you want but to my mind, it was a small revenge.

You don't know though that my real revenge is coming, do you? I still hear the screams, real and imagined. I still see the pasty skin of my children under the candle light and the blood that stained my hands. Stains my hands... I still hear them beg, plead, hear them cry with unimaginable pain. I still remember. You think I am harmless don't you? A wild cat caught in a steel cage.

Sometimes I go crazy with desire to smite you. I hate you now as much as I used to love you. Hate you... I look to the stars when all I can think of is revenge and escape from these three rooms and they sooth my worries. 'Not yet child, you must wait' they whisper as they glitter down on me, my in-law ancestors.

I will get out of here though my sweet and then we shall see what has happened to this crazy woman you have locked up. The best part though, my dear, is that I, despite all your power, know exactly how I'm going to get out. It had come to me, the thing I had been waiting for, though the waiting was not yet over.

It's only a matter of time my love, only a matter of time…