Thanks for all the awesome reviews, everyone. Not only for this story, but for my JBro spoofs as well. I'm glad you all like them. But, I must warn you, this chapter is kind of slow, it just adds some transition between class and detention. Bear with me. My most favorite and action-acked chapter is coming up soon.
Lily was sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall the next morning, picking at her scrambled eggs, too worried to eat. Yesterday afternoon, Severus had almost been killed by that Potter boy and his friends during Potions class. She was even surprised that Remus Lupin, James's usually calm buddy, had jumped into the fight. She got along with Remus much better than she did with James and Sirius and Peter, but she couldn't bring herself to even look Remus's way.
He was sitting just a few seats away, his unusually loud voice carrying over to where Lily was sitting with Alice and Mary. They were having a late breakfast that Saturday morning, and had been joined by the group of boys that Lily so detested. She had even heard that they had made a name for their little band. The Marauders.
Lily rolled her eyes and listened to Remus's shouting. "—how you could have done something so stupid," he was saying, "and now I've got to give up my Saturday night because I was breaking up the fight!"
Sirius snorted. "As if you or any of us have anything exciting to do on a Saturday night. Oh, wait. James does." James looked confused, but Sirius continued. "What is it, mate, your tenth night of the 'Let's Stalk Lily Evans' campaign?" He laughed, and so did James. Lily blushed furiously.
"I'm not stalking her," James retorted. "Besides, she's always hanging out with Snivellus, so it's not like I get a chance to talk to her."
Lily frowned, still staring. But Sirius had looked up and caught Lily looking. "Don't look now, mates, but Lily Evans herself is looking this way." The four eleven year olds looked up at a shocked, deer-in-the-headlights Lily. The four raised their hands and gave a wiggly sort of wave towards Lily, all in unison. Sirius's was dripped in sarcasm; Remus's was genuinely friendly; Peter's was a bit confused; while James's was—well, Lily didn't know what it was, but she didn't like it. It scared her a bit.
"Come on, let's go," she said suddenly to a digesting Alice and Mary, who scrambled to clean up as Lily dashed out of her seat. But as she hurried down the aisle, hearing James's and Sirius's laughs behind her, a pale, freckly hand caught her arm and towed her to a stop.
Lily found herself looking into the face of none other than Arthur Weasley, who was happily eating breakfast with his girlfriend, Molly. Lily blushed unknowingly, the memory still fresh in her mind from when she had unpurposefully exposed her undergarments to Arthur—along with the rest of the Gryffindors. "Hey," Arthur said, and Molly turned around to look at Lily. "I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you before, but you're always scampering off so quickly to places. I wanted to apologize for embarrassing you."
By this time, Alice and Mary had caught up to Lily, Mary breathing heavily from running down the hall. Lily didn't smile, but appreciated Arthur's apology. She nodded.
"Merlin's pants, Arthur!" Molly exclaimed, smiling kindly at Lily. "You embarrassed her so much she still can't talk to you."
But Arthur didn't laugh at Molly. "I didn't mean to make your first night so miserable." He added in a whisper, "I would have cried, too, if anyone had seen my underpants my first day." He smiled at Lily, who giggled a little, loosening her up a little bit. "Friends?" Arthur held out his hand with a hopeful look.
Lily smiled, and then grabbed Arthur's hand in a firm grip. "Friends," she told him.
"Great." He turned back to his breakfast and Lily continued to make her way out of the Great Hall.
The grounds were breezy that morning, and Lily had to keep her jacket closed with one hand to keep it from flying away. The entire world seemed bent; the trees, grass, and just about any vegetation on the ground were being pushed over by the wind.
Mary and Alice wanted to go back inside, and Lily left them, watching after them as they ran back to the castle. She, however, continued to walk towards the lake, the wind sending ripples of water over the usually glassy surface. She strayed away, however, from a certain beech tree that the Marauders usually occupied. Lily tried to distance herself from it as much as possible while still staying in the same area in which Severus had told her to meet.
She had not been waiting very long when Severus came trudging out of the castle. Lily could tell by the look on his face that he had not had a very good morning; in fact, according to his word, not very many of his mornings here at Hogwarts had been very good.
She smiled at him when he came to sit down beside her. Lily noticed a bit of scrambled egg in his hair and reached up to pull it out. "Hi," Lily said cheerfully, and Sev tried his best to do the same.
"Hi," he said with a grimace that Lily knew he was trying to make into a smile.
"What's wrong?" she asked him, slipping her arm through his. But Severus didn't speak for a while. He picked up a pebble and threw it into the lake, breaking the surface further. Lily thought she heard a shrill scream when the water broke, but she must have been imagining it.
"My detention's tonight."
Lily sighed. "I know. Why did you do it?"
Severus looked shocked. "Do what?"
"Hurt Sirius!"
Severus gave Lily a look she didn't like, as if she was stupid for not knowing. "Because Black tried to strangle me!"
Lily sighed. Thinking it through much more than Sev, she said, "He wouldn't really have hurt you. You're giving him the satisfaction he wants. He wants you to hurt him, so he has an excuse to hurt you back."
Sev scoffed disbelievingly. "You're not taking his side, are you?"
Lily stood up indignantly. "Of course not! I just wanted—"
"Do you like him?"
Sev had stood to his feet now, too. Lily stood in shock, blushing again, remembering the phrase Sirius had said about stalking her in the Great Hall. "That's—that's beside the point," she told her friend, sitting down. "I'm only eleven."
"Sometimes it seems like you're much older," muttered Severus, sitting beside her again, brushing windswept hair out of his face.
"Don't be silly," Lily told him, and put her arm through his again. "How's your weekend going?"
"Bollocks," Sev told her. "Stupid Mulciber and Avery were food-fighting this morning in the Great Hall and got eggs in my hair; did you see them?" His tone was annoyed and Lily shook her head guiltily. To be honest, she hadn't seen Sev at all that morning before this meeting.
But Sev didn't look too discouraged. He flicked out another piece of egg and the two fell silent, until they heard a chant break out right behind them.
"Lily and Snivellus, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!" Lily turned around, and sure enough, Sirius and James were right behind them, waggling their fingers again. Peter was joined in with them, and Remus stood a ways off, looking uncomfortable but doing nothing to stop his three friends. Sirius plopped down beside Lily and tried to link his arm with hers, but when she refused, he cried out in a worried tone, "What, Lily, won't you let me hold your hand?"
Lily scowled, feeling on the edge of tears again. "Go away," she said hoarsely, wiping at her eyes. James didn't catch her doing this, or else he would have stopped. "Leave us alone."
"Did you hear that, James?" Sirius called. "Snivellus and Lily are an 'us' now!" He snickered, and so did Peter, but James looked a tiny bit unsettled when looking at Lily's face. But hatred for Severus didn't stop the Marauders from continuing farther. "What's for dinner tonight, James?" Sirius asked him suddenly.
"I don't know," replied James, this joke obviously pre-planned, "but I'm planning on using all the grease in Snivellus's hair to fry me some bacon!"
James, Sirius, and Peter roared with laughter, and to Lily's surprise, even Remus's lip curled in a smile. "Ohhhhh!" she exclaimed, and Severus pulled her to her feet.
"Come on," he instructed her, and together they ran away from the lake, leaving the four Marauders behind. Lily turned back a moment, to see James and Sirius giving each other high-fives. And with this look, she burst back into tears.