"Hey Moony, I'm having trouble with my Herbology homework. What fertilizer is used for a Sopophorous plant? I can't find it but I'm pretty sure it's Dragon…?"

"Mooncalf Dung."

"Of course, can't believe I didn't remember that…"

The door of the dormitory flew open, and a distressed Sirius Black stood in the doorway, breathing heavily with a manic expression.

"Hey Sirius, where have you-"

Sirius paid James no mind, and strode to the opposite side of the room entering the bathroom. The slam of the door and the bolt of the lock, echoed though the room.

James, Peter and Remus exchanged awkward glances.

"Well that was weird." James said. Remus and Peter nodded their agreement and the three went back to their homework, shooting furtive glances to the bathroom door. With each passing minute James, Remus, and Peter grew more and more concerned, and eventually, James cautiously knocked on the door.

"Sirius? Alright in there?"

"I'm fine." Sirius' voice sounded strained and panicked.

"Sirius, you've been in there almost a half an hour…"

"I'M FINE. GO AWAY PLEASE!" James' eyebrows shot up in alarm, but he decided to respect his friend's wishes.

"…Alright…" After returning to his bed. James and Remus and Peter once again resumed work. All extremely concerned with Sirius' odd behavior.

Ten minutes later Sirius emerged from the bathroom, his expression pure relief. Unconcerned with the presence of his dorm mates, he stripped his clothing off. Sirius took his time sorting through his trunk, occasionally starring at his own nether region in a way that made his roommates fidget uncomfortably, before finally putting on a clean pair of boxer briefs. He seemed to debate the pajama bottoms, eventually opting not to put them on, and finally collapsed in his bed. Clad only in the tight underwear. Sirius breathed slowly and deeply, seemingly calmer than the agitated teen that burst through the dorm nearly an hour ago.

"You look better." James broke the silence with a tentative voice.

Sirius sat up in his bed, and blinked. Only now really noticing the presence of his dorm mates. He ran a hand through his hair, embarrassed.

"I, uh, yeah. Yeah. Just didn't feel well."

"Ok… we're doing Herbology homework. Want to join in."

"Yeah… yeah sounds good guys, sounds good."

Grabbing his bag from his bedside. Sirius pulled out the homework, thankful for the distraction.

The four boys worked quietly, the silence only occasionally broken by a question or frustrated grunt, but Sirius could not concentrate on the differences between Gurdyroot and Gurdygrass. He was too busy concentrating on how to put Snape in his fucking place.

"Just who does that asshole think he is? Shrinking my fucking cock." He thought to himself grinding his teeth as he furiously doodled on his parchment. "Making me suck er… I mean… making me do THAT to him. He's going to be sorry. Just you wait. I'm going to get him back. I'll show him."

Sirius shot up almost knocking over his ink well. That was it! A mischievous grin spread over his face as he formed the plan for his revenge.

"James? I need the map and the cloak tomorrow. I have to get something from Gringotts."

James looked up from his work. Scratching his head.

"Uh… alright. What are you getting?"

"It's personal."

James nodded, but didn't press the issue as Remus shot the two of them a suspicious look. Remus' expression sent a twinge of guilt straight through Sirius, but he refused to let it bother him. This was all because of Snape after all, and Sirius wasn't going to lie there and take it. Yes, Snape was the one who started it, Sirius was just finishing it.

Saturday morning dawned, in a most peaceful fashion. Sunlight and birdsong filtered through the windows of Gryffindor Tower, bathing the seventh-year boys' dormitory in a soft morning glow. Alas, such a peaceful atmosphere was short lived for one dozing dorm member, as Sirius Black was woken with a hard whack to the head.

Sirius shot up, between the unpleasant wake up call and his throbbing head, rather dazed. "I didn't do it!" he croaked.

James was perched beside him, sitting on the bed, clutching a broom and looking down at Sirius with a sheepish expression.

"Whoops, sorry about that mate. Didn't mean to hit you quite so hard…"

Sirius rubbed his sleep-crusted eyes, and glanced at the clock. "James? It's 6:30…"

"And a beautiful morning. Perfect for flying!"

Sirius groaned and turned over, burying his head into the pillow. James was undeterred, poking Sirius' side with the end of his broomstick.

"Come on you lazy git, come fly with me. Then we can sneak to Diagon and be back by lunch."

This got Sirius' attention and he sat on the side of his bed. Stretching his arms above his head, and exhaling a large yawn, before carelessly throwing on casual clothing.

While he'd usually tell James to piss off for waking him up so early on a Saturday, getting to Gringotts was paramount to the plans he had for Snape. Grabbing his broomstick and grinning at James the two boys raced to the pitch laughing the whole way there.

The two boys whispered conspiratorially to each other as they trudged up from the pitch. The morning fly was refreshing and left them free to work out the details of how to sneak out to Diagon Alley.

Entering the portrait hole though, they were stunned to see that the common room wasn't empty. In fact, at 8:00 on a Saturday morning, the Gryffindor common room was completely full.

James and Sirius frowned and dumped their brooms by the entrance. Scanning the room, James quickly found Lily Evans consoling a shaky first year, and jogged over to her.

"Lily what's going on?"

Lily turned around. She was shaking almost as badly as the crying eleven year old, and her face was white as a sheet. She tried to say something, but when no words would come out, she instead handed over a copy of the Daily Prophet.

The headline sent a jolt through both James and Sirius, and the gravity of the situation became clear.

CHAOS AT WATERLOO STATION

An incident at Waterloo Tube Station last night, threatened not only wizarding Britain, but indeed the magical community world wide. At 6:00 pm Friday October 14th, a peak time for Muggle commuters, He Who Must Not Be Named staged an attack on the station, with the intent of exposing the magical community to our non-magical counterparts. Killing over 200 Muggles and injuring even more.

Once informed of the attack the Ministry of Magic immediately jumped into action, dispatching all available Aurors and Obliviators directly to the scene.

"The Death Eaters fled soon after we apparated in," said Ephesius Roth, Head of the Auror Department, "But the damage was already done."

Waterloo Tube Station is the busiest station on the Muggle underground and as such the damage was very extensive. Along with the casualties, the attack caved in some of the tunnels, and crushed half a train. Damages to the station itself estimate in the millions of pounds (over 300,000 galleons).

The Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee has been working round the clock to do damage control on the Muggle media. "We are doing everything we can," assured Silas Polk, Head of the department, "We have the full support of the Muggle Prime Minister and the International Confederation of Magic. Together we have been working tirelessly to ensure the true story isn't leaked, nationally or internationally. Currently the Muggles believe it to be a terrorist attack. And we have charmed Muggle newspapers and Muggle Fellyvizon broadcasts to ensure a wide acceptance of the story."

But while the ministry works to uphold the Statute of Secrecy, protests wage in the Ministry Atrium to allow this attack to be reported in full.

"This has been a long time coming," said Nazarius Nott, Age 115, "The Statute of Secrecy undermines wizarding life giving deference to mudblood vermin. It's about time we took back what's ours and the Dark Lord has given us the opportunity."

This incident did not come without loss of life. While the Death Eaters left soon after Ministry Officials were dispatched, 2 Aurors, and 3 Obliviators were caught in the crossfire.

The Daily Prophet offers our condolences to the families and friends of these brave Witches and Wizards.

Seneca Ventus, Auror Squad Captain, Age 65

Desmond Connelly, Junior Auror, Age 27

Myfanwy Rydderch, Senior Obliviator, Age 55

Scaevoal Ecdurus, Obliviator, Age 42

Ovidius Silva, Obliviator, Age 32

Sirius was too stunned to even move. In seven years of maneuvering, this was the biggest move You-Know-Who had ever made. Over 200 Muggles dead in one fell swoop. He was unsure which was the most infuriating, the incident itself or the way it had been reported.

"We don't know…" Lily's shaky voice brought him out of his stupor, "So many of our parents take the tube. We don't know…" Lily's voice broke mid sentence with a loud sob and James stepped forward, gently placing his hands on her shoulders.

"Lily, I'm going to go find McGonagall, we need to organize some support and figure out how to access the list of Muggle casualties. In the meantime, I need you to gather the prefects. You can round up the girls, Sirius you can wake up the guys. Bring them to the common room and we'll figure out what to do."

Lily nodded blinking away her tears, "We need… we need interhouse support… We're head boy and girl, we need to make sure everyone is pulling their weight."

James nodded and squeezed her shoulders before dropping his hold. "You stay here and round everyone up."

Lily turned and dashed up the stairs to gather the prefects. Before Sirius followed suit James grabbed his arm. "I'm staying here, but you can bail if you need to. After you get the boy prefects downstairs, you can borrow the cloak and map no problem."

Sirius cut James off with a look, "Not a chance. This is way more important."

James gave a solemn nod in response, "Thanks mate, I appreciate it," and exited through the portrait hole.

Severus woke up to a booming cheer. Glancing at the clock, he groaned and buried his head in his pillow. He would not deal with this nonsense today. Quidditch wasn't nearly important enough to be woken at 6:30 am on a Saturday. They must have defeated Gryffindor or something with this kind of racket. Did they win the cup? Was it even late enough in the year for that? He didn't know or care. It was too early for coherent thought.

Drifting back into the oblivion of sleep was interrupted with a hard whack to his head.

"Wake up Snape."

Snape scowled blinking the room into focus. Mulciber was on the side of his bed, grinning like an idiot and repeatedly slapping him with a rolled up newspaper. He waved off the assault turning back to his pillow.

"Geroff' Mullber don' care 'bout bloody quich…"

"I don't know what the fuck "quich" is Snape but you need to wake the fuck up! The article is out. Told you we'd make the front page!"

The events of last night finally resurfaced, and Severus jumped out of bed grabbing the paper from Mulciber and drinking in the headline, "Chaos at Waterloo Station."

He read the article through three times, hardly able to believe what had happened. It was simply too good to be true.

"Worth losing beauty sleep over yeah?" Mulciber asked, clapping him on the shoulder. Snape looked up, surveying his dorm room. The small area was still cramped, with even more people than the night before. The thirteen from last night had grown to nearly twenty.

"Tell it again Avery." A prepubescent voice called from the corner.

Avery launched into his story once more. Although he had repeated it nearly ten times already, Snape hadn't tired of hearing it: the regaling tale of these brave wizards taking a stand. It was a story he was sure one day would be recounted in textbooks: the first step to abolishing the Statute of Secrecy, the first step to wizards reclaiming their rightful place over their inferiors. This event was history in the making, and he so desperately wanted to be a part of it.

He looked at the paper again. The casualty count stood out to him like a shining trophy, over two hundred Muggles dead. Even if the ministry covered this up it didn't matter. Every wizard, every witch, every mudblood in the world would know about the cause. The Prophet could no longer brush aside The Dark Lord as a fringe movement. Every dead Muggle crushed in that tunnel was proof, not only were they serious, they were a force to be reckoned with.

Severus watched in awe as Avery and Mulciber rallied the crowd of exuberant youth. And together with his housemates made his way to the common room, fully intending to arrive at breakfast together in a smug show of force.

He exited the dorm pushed to the front of the crowd. His seniority affording him the privilege to walk beside Avery, Mulciber, Wilkes, and a few choice sixth year purebloods.

As they entered the common room he spied the small group of Slytherin half-bloods and muggleborns cowering in the corner. The terror on their faces was obvious, expressions begging not to be seen by the large group of Dark Lord sympathizers. Avery and Mulciber however, were not inclined to grant that wish.

"My, my, friends look what we have here. It seems we have some mud on Salazar's carpet. Maybe we should clean up, it's only polite." The large group circled the trembling underclassmen and Wilkes threw a copy of the prophet at their feet.

"Read the paper yet? Good, now you know what's waiting for you when summer rolls around."

One of the second year girls started crying and Mulciber laughed. Avery gave her a look of mock pity.

"Aw, going to cry mudblood? Better run to mommy, if you still have one that is."

The girl started to cry harder and Mulciber gestured with his hand for the group to follow him out of the common room. There was more important things to do today than bully little girls. The group turned and exited the room.

"Disgrace," Mulciber muttered under his breath, "Salazar is turning in his fucking grave for sure."

Snape looked back over his shoulder at the terrified youths, barely able to make out their faces over the sea of people following him and his dorm mates.

The young girl was crying, trying desperately not to make a sound to incite any violence and for the first time he wondered if Lily's parents or sister had been in the station yesterday.

Severus cursed his traitorous mind, immediately stamping out any fears for Lily's family. The air still buzzing with camaraderie reinforced what he knew to be true. Those Muggles that died, those ministry officials who lost their life were for the greater good after all. If it benefited the cause, any loss was an acceptable one. And as for Muggles, he really shouldn't even count Muggles as a true loss at all.

Sirius surveyed the common room, nearly every Gryffindor was packed in the room. It was chaos, loud, indistinguishable conversations being punctuated by the occasional sob. Everyone was terrified as they waited for James to come back with McGonagall.

Remus stood beside him scanning the room with equal fear, and Peter stood behind the two.

"Remus let's spread out. James would want us to help as many people as possible." Remus gave a quick nod and swept away leaving Peter behind, holding the paper and twitching.

Sirius strode to the corner of the room, where a few first years had congregated. He bent down, taking a seat beside them.

The kids looked up at him, unsure what to make of his presence. The only boy in the group was a pureblood. Even though he was six years younger and two feet shorter, the boy, Benjamin seemed to shift protectively over the two Muggleborn girls, Penny and Elise. Sirius felt a twinge of shame run through his body like an electric shock. It was after all no secret the Black's were Death Eater sympathizers.

Sirius didn't say a word, instead taking off his tie and transfiguring it into two handkerchiefs, one scarlet and one gold. He handed one to Penny and one to Elise.

"If you need anything let me know," he said quietly, "I know it's difficult waiting, but we're Gryffindors. We stick together. The prefects, the upperclassmen, we care about you. We'll be here if you need it."

Benjamin relaxed, patting Elise on the back as she cried. Sirius hugged his knees and looked down at Penny, who was dabbing her eyes on the scarlet handkerchief.

"Why… Why don't they care? The article talks all about the wizards who died and the threat of exposure, but the Muggles that died were practically a footnote."

Sirius didn't know what to say. The exact same thought had been piercing him since reading the piece. It was disgusting. The Ministry did every thing possible to distance itself from attacks like this, but the systematic prejudice of the government was obvious in this kind of reporting.

"Mum takes the train every day." Penny's voice broke and she started sobbing openly. Sirius instinctively put his arms around her, letting the first year cry on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Penny. I'm so sorry." The true meaning of the words resonated deep within Sirius' heart. He was sorry and he was ashamed. Ashamed of his family being so intrinsically tied to such a fucking psycho.

James entered the portrait hole behind a solemn McGonagall. McGonagall gave a speech about courage, and honor and condolences, but Sirius couldn't concentrate. He was too lost in his own thoughts. Sirius kept coming back to what Remus had said at the beginning of the year, about being a decent person, about being mature. Remus was right he was a selfish person. Remus was right, all of this nonsense and obsession about Snape seemed trivial when confronted with the larger picture of the war.

And as McGonagall distributed the list of Muggle casualties, the idea of getting back at Snape was driven further and further from his mind.

A/N Apologies everyone for the time between updates! Please believe me when I say the story was never far from my mind, and believe it or not this chapter really did take a whole month to write. Hope you all enjoyed it! A little Death Eater drama, Severus' prejudice rearing its' ugly head, Sirius being a big brother Gryffindor, and a resolution not to prank Snape anymore. Could it be true?! Or will there be more smut next chapter… Who knows, oh wait I do :P. Thank you all for sticking with it, every review fuels me to write more. You guys ROCK!