Sorry about the long delay, anyone who cares, but my college work is taking up a lot of my time...but i hope, now that ive settled in a bit, that i'll be able to post on all my stories more often. Thanks.
Lily was speechless. She knew Severus was slightly inclined to the Dark Arts. Hell, he was friends with that lot. But she didn't know he would go this far. The curse, what ever it was, was obviously very harmful. She couldn't quite accept that Snape had taught it to others. Well, she could hardly accept that he knew it at all.
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. He couldn't have done it. Sirius is lying. They hate Severus, of course he is. But deep down, deep down she knew he was capable of it. And it tore her up inside that he could do it. That he would do it.
Pulling herself out of her thoughts, she tried to focus. Both to figure out what had happened in the time she had been thinking to herself, and to stop herself crying. There would be time for that later. When Potter wasn't here.
Focusing on what was going on in the room, Lily noticed the look in James' eye. She couldn't quite pin point what it was exactly, something of a mixture of grief, respect, and pure loathing. Whether for Severus or Sirius' family Lily wasn't sure, but she sure as hell was glad neither of them were there.
Just then, James took a breath, and began to speak. His voice was quiet and shaky, trying to control his emotions for his friend's sake, "So, you," He took another breath, trying to calm himself, "you didn't get anything out apart from your wand?"
Sirius shook his head in reply. His personality seemed to have crumbled with his taking off his shirt. It was then, in that one moment, when Lily saw tear building in the boys grey eyes, when she saw into his soul, when she could see the emotion, the fear, the hatred, the love for his friends. Only then did she realise it all was a pretence. Only then did she realise that this boy, joker of Hogwarts, was afraid and frail and not self-confident and exuberant as everyone believed. Sure, it was part of his personality. But just then she realised, there was much more to this boy. So many shades of grey appeared in that one look he gave to James, that she suddenly understood. She had been wrong about them. Yes, they were arrogant bully's, but maybe they did have a reason for their total dislike for most, if not all, Slytherins.
Later on in the year, looking back, she wasn't sure this was a good revelation. Sure, it helped her realise that there were reasons for everything. Reasons why people did everything. But it made it so much harder for her to stick by Severus when they started to bully him, remembering the exact reason why Sirius had no shirt on. The reason why she had to summon James Potter to her house. The fear and concern in his eyes for his friend. But then again, even later, she would think that it was this that helped her move on away from her childish beliefs that people acted as they did because it was fun, or made them popular. And, after a while, she would come to realise that this day was the first day she saw the real James Potter. The first day she began the slow journey to falling in love with him.
James nodded his head briskly. "Right. Well, like I said, we'll get someone to grab your stuff. Anything they don't give back we'll buy. Merlin knows we have enough." A small smile played at Sirius' lips at this line, but it was soon to disappear, "And I think we're going to have to get someone to check out your back. No, not going to St Mungo's" he added at Sirius' reaction, "No, we'll get an independent healer, or someone from Mungo's to come up. They'll make sure you don't have any infections."
That moment seemed to be too much for the grey-eyed boy. He looked up into the hazel eyes of his best friend, and hugged him. Putting all the emotion he could into that one hug, Sirius began to weep. James, being slightly used to these outbursts of emotion, just returned the gesture, and allowed Sirius to release all the emotion of the past few weeks.