CW: Violence, friend abuse

After Snape had been obliviated, we thought we wouldn't have any more trouble from him, but as much as I hate to admit it, we were all so wrong. Even if he wasn't giving Sirius and I trouble with blackmail, he now knew for certain that James and Lily were a couple, and was going mental.

One night in the dormitory, around midway through November, James shared with us that Lily was constantly feeling anxious, and was always jumpy while Snape was around.

"That doesn't sound like her, though..." I said. "She's never acted that way around him before, has she? Before you and she became a thing?"

"No," said James, his teeth gritted. "It makes me wonder... has he done something to her to cause her to act like this? If that's the case, then..."

"We don't know for sure, Prongs," Sirius said. "Try and stay calm, alright? I'm sure she'll confide in you if she needs and wants to. She might not want to."

"But... but I'm her boyfriend," said James.

"You've been together for just under two weeks," said Sirius. "I wouldn't exactly call it a committed relationship."

"OK, well, I'll talk to Snivellus about it, then," James said.

I personally didn't think that would be a good idea, but I just went with it because I was too tired to argue and wanted to go to bed.

As Sirius, Peter, and I entered the Great Hall the next morning, I noticed that James was already sitting at the Gryffindor table, his expression dark and tense. I walked over to join him, taking a seat across from him and pouring myself a glass of pumpkin juice.

"Good morning, Prongs," I said, trying to sound casual. But I knew him well enough to sense that something was troubling him.

"Morning, Moony," he responded, not looking up from his plate.

The four of us ate in silence for a few moments, the tension in the air growing thicker by the second.

"Where's Lily?" I asked, worried for a second that they'd had a fight and broken up, which was why James seemed upset.

"Did you hear about what happened to her last night?" James asked.

I shook my head, feeling a knot form in my stomach. If something had happened to her, it couldn't be good, judging by James's mood.

"What happened?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to know.

"Snape," James spat out the name like a curse. "He cornered her in the corridor last night, hexed her, and scared her half to death."

My heart sank. I knew Snape hated James and his relationship, but to go after Lily like that was unforgivable. She used to be his best friend, for god's sake!

"I'm going to talk to him," James said, his jaw clenched. "He needs to know that he can't just hurt people like that."

I opened my mouth to protest, knowing that this was a recipe for disaster. But before I could say anything, James had already risen from his seat and was striding towards the Slytherin table, his wand at the ready.

"Prongs, wait!" Sirius called after him, but he didn't listen. He was already standing in front of Snape, his face twisted in anger. Sirius, Peter, and I got up and ran over to where James was.

"You think you can just hurt people and get away with it?" James spat. "Well, not anymore. Lily is the love of my life, and I won't let you treat her like that."

Snape sneered, his eyes flicking over to Sirius, Peter, and me. "I see you've brought your little lapdogs with you, Potter."

I bristled at the insult, but James was already firing back.

"They are all twice the wizard you'll ever be, Snivellus. And if you ever go near Lily again, you'll regret it."

There was a moment of tense silence, and I braced myself for a fight. But then Snape sneered again and stood up, brushing past James, and stalked out of the Great Hall.

I let out a sigh of relief, knowing that things could have gone much worse. But as I looked over at James, I knew that this wasn't the end of it. The tension between him and Snape had been building for years, and I had a feeling that this was only the beginning of a much larger conflict.

To my surprise, however, the rest of November passed quite peacefully. We barely saw Snape, only when he passed us through the halls, and the occasional class we shared with him.

However, on the first afternoon of December, James told Sirius, Peter, and I to meet him in the library straight after our last lesson of the day, which, for all of us, was Charms.

As soon as we found a quiet spot in the library, we all plopped down onto cushioned armchairs, and James cast a silencing charm around us.

"Marauders," said James. "I need to tell you guys something, but you must not tell anyone, especially not Evans."

Peter gasped. "Are you having an affair?"

"What? No. But Snivellus and I are having a duel tonight," said James.

"I'm sorry, what?" I said.

"Can I be your second?" Sirius asked eagerly.

"He challenged me during Transfiguration," said James.

"And you accepted?" I said.

"Well, yeah," said James. "He hates my guts. I hate his. Why would I not want to defeat him in a duel?"

"What sort of duel is this?" I asked.

"Oh, spells, jinxes, and hexes only," said James. "No curses. I don't know if he'll follow that rule..."

"What would Lily think of this, Prongs?" I said. "It's about her, isn't it?"

"Hence why she doesn't need to know," said James. "The loser has to stay away from her."

"Oh my god, don't die!" Peter cried.

"Well, if I die, at least Snivellus will be expelled," James laughed.

"Don't joke about your own death," I said.

"Sorry, mum."

"I'm serious, Prongs! It's not funny anytime, but especially when we're in the middle of a raging wizarding war!" I cried.

"Alright, well, the duel is at three in the morning," said James. "Midnight duel? No, that's pathetic. We have duels during the devil's hour."

"Sweet," said Sirius. "Wake me up when it's time to go. Who's his second?"

"I dunno, probably Mulciber," said James, shrugging. "It'll be fun."

"I swear to god Padfoot if either you or Prongs gets badly hurt..."

"Moony, it's alright," Sirius whispered, playing with a curl in my hair as we lay in his bed together that night. "We're facing Snivellus. He's weak, he can't hurt us."

"What about that bleeding spell thing he does?"

"Well, surely that's a curse," said Sirius. "It's a curse-free duel. Alright, well, I'm going to go to sleep now, I need to be well rested for this. Goodnight, my love."

I woke up early the next morning and immediately turned around to see Sirius. He was still asleep and looked almost completely unscathed from the duel. Thank god.

I climbed out of the four-poster and walked over to the window. The sun was midway through rising, and, when I looked at the mountains in the distance, I noticed that they had gone white. It must have snowed overnight.

I sat by the window and watched the sun rise, and by the time it was up, the alarm went off and the others all got out of bed.

"Prongs?" I said as saw James's curtains being pulled back. And when I saw him, I inhaled sharply. There was a large gash across his face, and part of his hair was slightly singed. "What happened?"

"Don't worry, Moony," Sirius said to me, holding onto my wrist. "He's OK."

"He doesn't look OK!" I cried. "Prongs?"

"He can't talk at the moment."

"What?" I cried, shooting Sirius a look. "What did Snape do to him?"

"I... don't know," said Sirius. "We got to the third floor, where we were to have the duel, and we met Snape and Mulciber there, and we'd Snape and Prongs had only just pulled out their wands, Prongs had done one jinx on Snape, the jelly-leg jinx, completely harmless, and then Filch came. We saw Mrs. Norris first, so Prongs and I went straight under the invisibility cloak, intending to leave, but then, all of a sudden, Prongs started screaming, I had to cast a silencing charm over us, I looked at Snape, who was pointing his wand in our direction just as Filch found him. It was really weird."

"What, so you don't even know what spell Snape did on him?" I asked, pulling my wrist from Sirius's grip and walking over to James slowly.

"How's that possible?" Peter asked.

"Prongs?" I said. "Nod if you can hear me."

No response. James was just looking into the distance, glassy-eyed. I looked at Sirius, who just shrugged.

"Are you serious? You don't know? Why didn't you go to Madam Pomfrey last night, when he was screaming?" I said.

"It was three in the morning!" Sirius protested. "She would have been asleep, plus we would have to tell her that we were out of bed that late!"

"Padfoot, you're so careless!" I cried. "Do you even care about your best friend?"

"Of course I do!"

"I thought you said you two were going out, why are you arguing?" Peter asked. I wanted to tell him to get out for saying that. Did he really expect Sirius and I to get along every single second of our lives?

"Alright, well, I'm going to go find Lily," I said, ignoring Peter's comment.

"No, don't, Prongs didn't want her to know," said Sirius, but I ignored him and walked out of the dormitory and down to the common room. I then began to walk up the stairs to the girls' dormitories, but quickly stopped when I remembered what happened the last time I'd attempted to go up those stairs, and quickly walked back down.

Thankfully for me, though, Mary and Lily came down the stairs not long after I'd got off the stairs.

"Morning, Remus," said Mary.

"Hey," I said, nodding to her, then turning to Lily. "You're able to come into the boys' dormitories, right?"

"Yeah, girls can go in there but you just can't come into ours," said Lily. "Why?"

"Can you come, please?" I said.

"Alright," said Lily. "I'll meet you in the Great Hall, Mary."

Mary nodded, then Lily and I walked up the stairs to the boys' dormitories. As soon as she saw James, she gasped even louder than I had and clasped her hand over her mouth.