Ambushed

Severus probably shouldn't have been surprised when they ambushed him on his way to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"What do you want?" he asked, trying as hard as he could to keep terror off his face as the Marauders pinned him against the wall. A thousand jinxes jumped into his head, but his wand was shoved up his sleeve; with Black gripping his arm so tightly, there was no way to reach it.

"No need to be rude, Snivellus," Black said as he took out his own wand and tapped Severus' wrist, fixing it against the stone wall with some invisible force. "We only fancy a chat."

"You'd think he doesn't like us." Pettigrew shook his head with mock pity. "We're lovely guys, once you get to know us." He tapped Severus' other wrist—whatever spell the two of them were using felt decidedly weaker on Pettigrew's side, but it was enough to hold him immobile.

Severus clenched his jaw. There were only three of them today—Lupin was mysteriously missing—but three sixth-years against one meant he was still hopelessly outmatched. "A chat," he said, struggling against the bonds at his wrists. "About what?"

Potter was glaring at him from behind his glasses. "It's going to stay civil," he said as he twirled his wand between his fingers. "As long as you don't say anything stupid, of course."

"Three on one?" Severus attempted a sneer, but his heart was still beating uncomfortably fast. The last time they'd faced each other, he'd ended up hanging upside down in front of—well, he didn't like to think about her anymore. "Seems a bit cowardly for a group of Gryffindors, eh?"

Black raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth to say something, but Potter cut him off with a look. "I don't want to fight today, Snivellus," he said. "I just want to talk. It's about Lily."

(He decided he'd rather be hexed.)

"What about her?" Severus asked, pulling once more against the bonds on his wrists.

Pettigrew sighed. "Do stop struggling. It's like you're trying to get away."

"Oh, you think?" Severus said sarcastically, yanking so hard with his left arm that his wand was dislodged out of his sleeve. It hit the floor with a quiet clatter that Potter either didn't hear or didn't care about enough to glance at.

"This is important," Potter said, and if Severus weren't drowning in the sound of his own heartbeat he might have noticed that Gryffindor's golden boy sounded sincere for the first time since they'd known each other. "I want—I want to set things right between us."

Severus forced himself to laugh. "And you had to have your brutes tie me up in order to achieve that, is that it?"

"I'll take the spell off once I'm sure you're listening." Potter looked almost nervous. "I just need to make sure you're listening."

Severus hadn't met Potter's eye once during the entire exchange. "I'm listening."

"Good." Potter took a deep breath. "I've asked her to be my girlfriend."

Severus snorted. "What else is new?"

(The spell was weaker on his right wrist; if he twisted a certain way, he could feel it start to give way.)

"Here's what's new," Black cut in. "She said yes."

Severus' heart, which had been beating double-time, collapsed.

"She said yes?" he whispered, all escape attempts forgotten for the moment.

"Took her long enough, I say," Pettigrew said. "It's been, what, six years?"

"I asked her over the summer," Potter said. "She was quite broken up about the two of you falling out. Needed a shoulder to cry on." He was smirking. The son of a bitch had the nerve to bloody smirk. "S'pose I should be thanking you, really."

He was looking at Severus as if he expected a response, but there was nothing to say, and anyway he was too busy choking on the dust of everything that had just come crashing down. "I . . . I. . . ."

"She wanted me to make things right with you," Potter said when the stuttering had gone on a bit too long. "Not because she forgives you, mind—she just doesn't want any animosity."

Images of Lily Evans floated across Severus' vision, and for a moment he wondered whether he was going to faint. "She . . . girlfriend?" he managed.

"Don't sound so disbelieving," Black said, clapping Potter on the shoulder and offering him a grin. "James here is quite the catch. Evans is a lucky woman."

Severus found his tongue. "Well," he said in a voice as lofty and snide as he could manage. "Congratulations are in order, then. I hope you and the mudblood are very happy together." The harder he pulled at the spell binding his right wrist, the weaker it became; whether his anger was giving him strength or Pettigrew's shoddy spellwork was just wearing off, he wasn't sure. "I hope you get married and have a hundred mudblood children, and I hope you die in each others' arms at the ripe old age of seventy."

On the last word, his arm broke free from the wall.

Before any of them could react, Severus had dropped to his knees—his left wrist remained attached to the stones, but he could stoop low enough to pick up his wand. "Expelliarmus," he cried, aiming the spell up into Potter's face; ordinarily the Gryffindor might have been able to retain control of his wand, but Severus had the element of surprise on his side, and Potter's wand came soaring out of its owner's hand and into Severus'.

The victory was short-lived. Black had his own wand up in a second, stunning Severus in his uncomfortable squatting position. "Why are you so defensive about this, Snivellus?" he asked, bending to tug Potter's wand out of Severus' hand. "It's not as if Evans was a friend you valued."

Severus couldn't speak to deny it.

"She can't have been," Black continued, tossing the wand back to Potter. "She's told us all about how you were always calling her names."

"How you ignored her when your Snake friends came around," Pettigrew chimed in.

"Seems like you were desperate to push her away, mate."

(He was denying it so loudly in his head that he half-expected them to be able to hear it.)

"Isn't it obvious to the two of you?" Potter asked, turning to address his friends. "Snivellus has got a crush."

"On Evans?" Pettigrew raised his eyebrows.

Potter nodded. "Don't you tease the girls you want to sleep with?"

Severus wanted to protest loudly at the words sleep with, and he nearly made a mental note to tell Lily how Potter was talking about her before he remembered that he and Lily didn't speak to each other anymore.

"I don't buy it," Black said, shaking his head. "He wouldn't call her a you-know-what if he liked her at all."

"Of course he would." Severus' odd position didn't allow him to see Potter's face, but he was imagining a sneer. "Got to keep up appearances in front of the other Slytherins, hasn't he?" Potter looked down at him. "I won't tell her," he said, and if Severus didn't know better he would have said there was a note of pity in the other boy's voice. "But in return, you've got to leave her alone, mate. Don't upset her. Don't speak to her. Don't look at her."

Severus had never wanted to kill anyone—not really—but for Potter he thought he might make an exception.

"If things go wrong between us and she ends up crawling back to you, then fine. She's yours. But things aren't going to go wrong. And you aren't going to ruin this for me." Potter stowed his wand in his robes. "Release him," he said to Black, standing and turning away. "I'm going to be late for breakfast with Lily."

As Potter disappeared down the corridor, Black rolled his eyes. "I'm not releasing him," he said to Pettigrew. "Let one of the Slytherins find him and let him go."

"He'll turn us in," Pettigrew said, chewing on his lower lip.

"Let him. I've got so many detentions, one more won't matter." Black began to swagger after Potter. "Let's go, Wormtail."

(As they swept around the corner, Severus realized that people who had been stunned did not have the ability to cry.)

"I just don't understand," Lily said later on as she sat in the library with Remus Lupin. "Sev and I were such good friends. And now . . . nothing."

(At the next table over, Severus hid his face behind his book.)

"Maybe he just doesn't know how to make it up to you," Lupin said.

"He hasn't even tried." Lily sighed and flipped a page in her textbook. "He avoids me. I know he does." She picked up her quill and dipped it in a pot of ink. "James says I'm paranoid."

"Probably," Lupin said. "And anyway, don't you think you're better off without him?"

Lily shrugged. "I suppose I am."

(Severus rubbed at his left wrist so hard that it burned almost as fiercely as the brand-new tattoo on his forearm.)

Quidditch League Round 2:

Holyhead Harpies, Seeker

Prompt: A third party interest in your OTP (Snape vs James/Lily)

Word Count: 1,505

[New Years Resolution Competition: Least Favorite Pairing (Snape/Lily)