The trio had been sitting under the big tree by the lake for near half an hour when the Marauders discovered them on their way back from another action-packed Hogsmeade visit. They had been surrounding Lily so that James could try to cajole her into finally going out with him when Remus noticed the girls sitting in a circle on the ground in the distance. He pointed wordlessly to them and the others in their group all turned to stare at whatever Moony was pointing at.

"Let's all go over and say hello," James chimed, cornering a frustrated Lily who had been trying to make a quick escape. She now turned to look at the scene and decided to cut her losses and head for the quickest safe haven. She took off at a fast walk in the direction of the three female students while the four boys followed dutifully behind her.

"I can't wait until it's finally over," they heard Hermione say to the other two quietly as they approached, "the day that hypocritical bastard is destroyed is the day when I'll finally rest easy. Besides, I could never face the others when I die if we didn't finish the job."

Lily and the Marauders looked at each other questioningly, slightly wide-eyed at the petite girl's language. Lily was the first to alert them to their presence.

"Um, hey girls. Everything alright?"

The three simultaneously turned their attention to the group behind them with raised eyebrows, obviously wondering how much they had heard.

"So, Durant, who is it you want dead exactly?" It was naturally Sirius that bluntly addressed the elephant in the room much to the chagrin of the other eavesdroppers, but to their surprise, the three witches seemed to relax at his question.

"Oh you know," Hermione began with a disarming smile, "Voldemort."

The five teenagers visibly cringed at the name before staring at Hermione in awe. Of course everyone hoped that He Who Must Not Be Named would be defeated but no one had the guts to just state out right that they wanted him dead, let alone say his name so casually. Plus there was something just so personal about the way she had said it. Like it was up to them to stop You Know Who or something. Which of course was impossible. Wasn't it?

"Please, sit with us," Luna suddenly interjected.

The others blinked in surprise but quickly followed Luna's lead and sat gingerly onto the grass.

Lily, feeling like she was the closest to the three, asked the question that was on everyone's mind, albeit a bit more tactfully that Sirius might have.

"I hope you'll forgive me for asking, but it sounds as if you have a personal grudge against him. Everyone is afraid of him except Dumbledore but you sounded like to wanted to take him on yourself. I just can't help but wonder what your story is."

Lily was blushing by the end of her statement but the three mysterious girls seemed to share a look before turning to smile at her encouragingly.

Luna seemed to be looking for some confirmation from Hermione, which Hermione gave an imperceptible nod to before the blond girl turned happily to her curious new friends.

"Here is how the story goes," Luna began gravely causing the others to look around at each other nervously. She then inexplicably began half singing/half reciting,

"There once was a girl name Hermione,

And muggle she thought she was, blimey.

Until one fine day when she started to stray,

Into a magical village not far away.

Friends she did make and wards she did break,

Until finally they asked her to stay.

Her muggle parents agreed to have her stay,

So with Pansy and Luna she forever did play.

All was happy and all was right,

Until that one fateful frightful night,

That Voldermort came and had his cruel way,

While the girls were away till dawn the next day.

Upon their return,

The village still burned,

And then the girls did indeed pledge,

To see that right bastard drop dead."

The Marauders and Lily were staring at Luna in horror, unsure of how to react to such a strange situation until they were startled by the loud laughter of Pansy.

"Oh merlin Luna, I swear how do you always end up making me laugh? What in the world was that?" She wheezed between deep barks of laughter. "Please tell me that little song was something you just made up on the spot and not something you had rehearsed beforehand."

"That was something I made up on the spot and did not rehearse beforehand," Luna dutifully intoned smiling serenely at her friend.

As Pansy continued to laugh, the others seemed to be visibly shaking themselves out of shock. Sirius was the first to speak.

"That's not funny at all! Why in the world are you laughing?"

"Luna," Lily said urgently, "is that story true?"

Luna turned to look at her friend and replied evenly, "It is our story Lily. I had thought delivering it as a delightful song would make it less awkward and sad."

Pansy had by this time sobered enough to level her eyes on Sirius. "I am laughing because Luna is very funny and I love the way her mind works. If you have a problem with that then I suggest you leave."

The boys gulped audibly at her cold tone and Sirius, sounding very much like that of a kicked albeit petulant puppy said under his breath, "crazy witch, that's not how you're supposed to act when talking about stuff like this."

Pansy however chose to ignore him and turned her gaze completely away from them to level on Lily who looked as if she were about to cry.

"Oh I just can't believe such a terrible thing could happen; you're whole village?"

The three girls nodded sympathetically, as if they were the ones that needed to comfort Lily in this situation. Remus noted this as rather remarkable given the circumstances.

Sirius meanwhile was entirely preoccupied by a Pansy-shaped conundrum. He wondered absently if she had intentionally been trying to infuriate him so that he wouldn't feel any pity for her. She was a sly one, of that he was sure. But for some reason he couldn't stop thinking about her. It had been like this for weeks now and once again she was leaving him frustrated. What exactly—.

"Severus!" Hermione called out suddenly, waving frantically at the dark figure in the distance. James and Sirius instantly scowled while Lily simply looked bemused and Luna beamed. Severus caught her eye as he walked toward them hesitantly and blushed a pretty shade of pink at her enthusiastic smile.

"Do sit down Severus," Hermione said commandingly as Snape approached their party. He gave her a half-hearted glare but sat down anyway, much to the surprise of Lily and the Marauders. As a general rule, Snape was not one to indulge others people's requests, especially if the request required any sort of interaction with his sworn enemies.

"Oh no no no way," James cried out, "we are not going to talk outside of class around that greasy git. Everyone knows Snivellus is practically a Death Eater already. Everyone knows he's obsessed with the Dark Arts. How are Avery and Mulciber these days, Snivellus? Do you need us to give you another good hexing to remind you of your place?"

Silence fell upon the group at the end of James's proclamation. Snape expression had turned frighteningly dark and his lip curled slightly with rage. Lily, for her part, wasn't quite sure what to do. In the old days she would have immediately stood up for him, but the reason she had cut ties with Severus in the first place was not only because he called her the worst word possible, but because she had also begun to notice his interest in the Dark Arts and the fact that Avery and Mulciber, the vile creatures, seemed to be hanging around him more and more recently. At the same time, Hermione's voice kept running through her mind lecturing about forgiveness. She was very torn indeed.

At this point Sirius had broken out laughing at his best friend's statement while nodding in agreement. Sirius had a deep hatred for anyone who would associate themselves with the Dark Arts. He had to deal with those kinds of people enough growing up.

Remus remained aloof, eyes darting from face to face to see what would happen next. When his gaze landed on Hermione (which it tended to do rather frequently these days) he was startled to see a confusing mixture of rage and disappointment in her expression. Glancing at the other two girls, he noted that Pansy's face had gone completely stony while Luna's ever-present smile had dimmed into an alarmingly neutral expression (for her) that was tinged with just a bit of sadness sitting quietly behind eyes that were unusually focused for the seemingly dotty witch.

Remus discreetly nudged James to get his attention and shifted his eyes in the direction of the three peculiar witches. James, still looking smug, turned and shifted his eyes in the direction of Remus's indication. He froze. Upon noticing that his best friend had suddenly turned into what appeared to be a very alarmed-looking statue, Sirius ceased his rather obnoxious laughter and shifted his gaze in the direction James was staring.

Hermione seemed to be hardening her anger and disappointment into some intensely controlled state of being that produced an expression on her face that was far more frightening than any glare or scowl could ever be. Her eyes seemed to go dead while her mouth flattened into an unreadable position. To put it simply, she looked like she could kill somebody. Not the kind of murderous expression brought on by intense and uncontrolled anger, but something twisted and lifeless that should never be seen on anyone's face let alone a sixteen-year-old girl's. It was an expression that actually spoke of horrors, as if she really could kill if she had to. It was deeply upsetting. Even Sirius seemed to shrink back from it despite his usually cocky demeanor.

"I hope to Merlin I only have to say this once," Hermione began in tone that that was so controlled and deliberate that it didn't even need to be loud to have its intended effect, "I understand that you boys are still just children who like to put down others in a pathetic attempt to cover your blatant insecurities, but I no longer have the patience for such petty teenage angst. I can tell by the way you spoke and what I've observed that this sort of bullying has gone on for a very long time. You're bloody hypocrites is what you are. Putting Severus completely aside for now, you should be at least intelligent enough to realize that your cruelty is just the sort of behavior a Death Eater would exhibit. I keep hearing about how Gryffindors are all supposed to be brave and chivalrous; all I see are some cowardly wankers that like to gang up on other students when they get into a torturing mood. And chivalrous? I see no gentlemen here. Have some dignity for Merlin's sake! You're just the type that ends up giving legitimacy to the stereotype that Gryffindors are all hot-headed, self-righteous pricks with a holier-than-thou attitude toward everyone whose not in their house. Do you really want to perpetuate that? And as for Severus, have you ever even tried to have a civil conversation with him? Maybe if you tried it sometime you'd figure out how ridiculous you sound. He doesn't even want to join Voldemort's," the others collectively cringed in horror as Hermione continued without pause, "little band of merry men. Being a Slytherin happens to be a little more difficult than walking around laughing and getting into mischief. There are dynamics within in that House that you naïve little boys couldn't begin to understand. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Severus just acts the way he does to in order to survive. As far as the hierarchy goes, he doesn't rank very high at all because of his background and therefore is severely restricted by the Slytherin social construction. That does not mean that he is evil or has any intention of becoming a murdering, raping, bigot at this point in his life, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was eventually pushed to that point if only because of his hatred for you hooligans." Hermione took a big breath to once again calm herself.

The others were of course gaping with eyes wider than what would seem to be physically possible. Sirius, still in a state of shock and attempting to process the rather long admonishment, reflexively from years of habit responded without really realizing he was even speaking out loud.

"He still has a love affair with the Dark Arts," were the words that weakly tumbled out of his mouth.

Hermione, to the still speechless group's surprise, merely rolled her eyes in exasperation, "you really are naïve, aren't you? Let me explain something to you. Something that truly wise wizards and witches are able to realize. There is no such thing as a list of 'Dark Arts' and 'Light Arts'," Sirius almost spoke up in protest but Hermione put her hand up in warning, "As with any act in life, intent is the source from which meaning is drawn. Of course there are spells that dark wizards throughout history have favored for nefarious purposes, but that doesn't mean all of those spells are evil. Some have even been used beneficially. What truly makes a spell dark is the wizard or witch casting it. Spells do not have a conscious, no sense of right or wrong; it's people that make the choice of what destiny the spell undergoes. Even stereotypically harmless spells can become evil if the intent behind them uses them as such. What I'm trying to make you understand here is learning about and being interested in certain spells does not make you evil. You are only evil you use the spells for evil purposes."

Hermione looked into each one of their eyes meaningfully, including Lily's who had retreated so far into herself in thought she had curled into a tightly ball with her bright green eyes staring but not really seeing.

Severus, for his part, was a wreck of emotions. Of course, he did his level best to keep them off his face in case anyone should look in his direction now that Hermione had finished speaking. How did she even know about Avery and Mulciber's attempts to "subtly" recruit him by pretending to be his friends. She hadn't even been here that long! And for that matter, what did she know of the Slytherin hierarchies? She was a muggleborn and a geographically foreign one at that. Plus she spent absolutely no time with any of their other housemates besides Pansy and himself. And how had she guessed so accurately the relationship between him and the dunderheaded duo.

At the same time, these suspicious thoughts were being pushed stubbornly, and quite roughly in fact, from the forefront of his mind as he began to realize that she had defended him. And not in an embarrassing way. She had spoken matter-of-factly about the unfairness of the Gryffindors and had stated that he was not evil, as if it should be obvious. She had even defended his interest in the Dark Arts.

He had never actually used any of that darker knowledge on another human being; he just found the history and creation of the spells fascinating. They were some of the most complex spells in the whole of the wizarding world, in fact. Being a bit of a spell-creator himself, he found that he could truly understand the effort that had been put into this type of magic, despite the negative connotations it tended to collect. No one had ever understood that before. Mention the word Dark in any sentence and people automatically label you as lost cause, evil by association.

Severus glanced at the crazy-haired witch in question who was still staring expectantly at the leaders of the Marauders while they attempted to pull their heads out of their arses. She was still bloody weird, but it suddenly struck him that he respected her even more than he had before and he was glad that this strange trio had befriended him.

Right as this thought finished drifting through his mind, his gaze naturally slid past the girl in question before doing a double take at the girl sitting on the other side of her. Luna was looking at him with what he considered to be the oddest expression. She was smiling at him. At him. And not her usual dreamy closed-mouth smile but a full on grin that almost looked proud. Her eyes were practically glittering and he was momentarily distracted by the startling shade of blue before willfully shaking himself free from whatever mental spell she had to be using on him.

First of all, nobody smiled that way at him, as if they were proud. Not even Lily had given him a look like that when they were young and still the best of friends and certainly never his useless excuses for parents. So what the bloody hell was this witch up to? Not to mention his own reaction! Severus Snape did NOT get lost in people's eyes. It just wasn't done. She had to have done something, his stomach was even twisting in knots and his heart was pumping faster than it should have been. Hopefully whatever she had done wasn't permanent. It was not exactly comfortable.

At that moment Lily's head shot up, drawing the attention of the rest of the group. She looked around with a frown on her face before seemingly forcing her gaze to fix upon Severus's face. She still seemed to have trouble actually looking him in the eye but her stubbornness seemed to be winning out as her eyes remained fixed on the Slytherin.

"I-," She started before clearing her throat delicately, "I am still upset about what you called me Sna- Severus. I'm not sure if we will ever be able to go back to how we were. However, I am capable of understanding the circumstances you are in. Hermione appears to have a gift for knocking sense into people," at this Luna and Pansy nodded in solemn agreement that just only belied the slight amusement beneath the surface; Hermione really had always been the one knocking sense into people and time had only made her more successful in her attempts, "What I'm trying to say is that maybe I should have been a little less self-centered while we were friends and tried to understand what you had to deal with beyond just the bullying of my housemates. I'd like it if we could slowly try to become friends again. I mean, if you still want to that is," She trailed off suddenly a bit insecure.

Severus just stared at her. He would have gaped but he determined that his dignity could not afford another gape today. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the three other witches present grinning from ear to ear as if they were sharing in his joy at hearing those words. Potter looked as if he was about to protest but Lily gave him such a quelling look that he just started to sputter. Black, for his part, just continued to stare at the ground in front of him as various odd expressions flicked over his features: scowling, confused frowning, consternation, pouting, contemplative.

Severus turned back to Lily, weighing his words carefully, distinctly uncomfortable with displaying emotions in front of the Marauders, "Lily, you've always been the only person I consider family. The day I met you, you became my real sister. I really am sorry that I betrayed your trust and hurt you even though it was the one thing I swore I would never do. I'm grateful that you would allow me the chance to slowly make it up to you. Last summer was nearly unbearable without you." Severus stopped abruptly, partly because he was saying really personal things in front of a bunch people and it was embarrassing, and partly because he felt like he had probably said too much. In his experience less had always been more. Yes or no when talking to the Old Man; "I'm fine, don't worry" to his weak-willed mother; nodding dutifully at professors unless forced to speak. Things were just easier that way.

There was silence for a few moments until, to Severus's horror, Lily began to tear up. He began to panic; what had he said this time? "Don't cry," he said quickly, helplessly not knowing what else to say. Suddenly, before he even realized what was happening, Lily launched her self across the impromptu circle the group had formed and nearly strangled Severus with the force of her hug. Literally, he was wheezing and wagging his arms before the angel that was Hermione called gleefully, "Lily, dear, I think this reunion will be pretty useless if you end up strangling Severus to death."

Pansy burst out laughing while Luna just smiled serenely. Lily abruptly loosened her grip on Severus before holding him at arms length with her hands on his shoulders. Tears were still falling from her eyes much to Severus's distress. He hated tears.

"Oh Severus, I feel terrible that we had such a miscommunication. You know I've always considered you a brother as well. Especially with the way Tuney's been acting. She just keeps getting meaner and meaner the older we get, even though I still love her like I always did. Anyway, you have to promise me that you will actually tell me what's going on in your life so we don't let something like this happen again. Don't just close off into your little black shell and try to handle everything on your own because that's when you start taking out your temper on people." She looked at him sternly like a mother would to her child.

Duly chastised, Severus nodded in agreement. He could put aside his pride for Lily. He would do anything for her.

"So wait a second," James suddenly said when the discussion was over causing all the heads to turn in his direction, even drawing Sirius out of the twilight zone, "Are you saying that all this time you were never in love with Evans? You actually thought of her as a sister."

Remus, who had been one of the first to get over the shock of Hermione's tirade and then had watched rather amusedly while Lily and Snape made up, wished he could take a picture of the look on James's face. It was some sort of strange mix between horror, disbelief, shock, and maybe just a touch of guilt. Secretly, Remus was glad that someone had pulled the rug from out under their feet. They were his best friends of course but they could be real arseholes sometimes and to be honest, he had always felt like he couldn't say anything to them about it because of all they had done for him.

They, along with Peter, were his first friends ever and had accepted his lycanthropy, even going so far as becoming unregistered animagi in order to help him on full moon nights. He owed them, and what's more he didn't want to risk losing them. But there was always that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when they did something particularly cruel and he was hoping that maybe this incident would be enough to bring things into perspective.

Hermione certainly had a way with words. And the way she seemed to radiate power; Remus could have sworn that her hair had started to spring out the angrier she got and it looked as if sparks were shooting out the ends. He wasn't sure if that was all together possible but he had still sat in awe as he watched her, copper colored eyes flashing with intensity. By the end of it even he was feeling guilty for any bad thought he may have had about Snape and he had never even done anything to the bloke!

'This girl is dangerous, Moony,' Remus thought to himself uneasily, 'and not just in the way where it seems like she could take down any tosser who dared challenge her. She's dangerous because she is far too compelling. In every sense of the word. It is not a good idea to get attached to her. You know that those kinds of feelings are not an option for you.'

Remus shook his head to clear out the thoughts before he went down that depressing lane. He turned his attention to Snape in order to see what the response to James's question would be, noting that Peter just seemed to be taking everything in curiously at this point.

Severus raised an eyebrow at the unexpected question, "Are you suggesting that your were under the impression that I had romantic feelings for Lily? That's utterly preposterous, it'd be like having feelings for a kid sister for Merlin's sake!" Lily swatted him jokingly on the arm for implying she was in any way a kid or un-dateable. Severus merely smirked back at her. It was almost like old times.

"But you were always following her around, hanging on her every word. You tried to keep her away from other guys and would say bad things about me- I mean them," James pressed forcefully flushing a bit at his slip, "you even carried her books around for Godric's sake!"

Severus just stared at him somewhat blankly as if he couldn't believe someone as stupid as James exsisted.

"Exactly," Snape replied slowly as if explaining something to a particularly dim child, causing James to frown in a mixture of confusion and annoyance, "Like I just said, Lily is literally the only person I have ever considered family and therefor loved. Of course I was over-protective of her, that's what brothers do. Personally I have yet to meet a man even close to worthy of her. As for talking bad about you personally, I think you started that whole fiasco in the first place and Lily already firmly disliked you all on her own without my help. I'd also like to reiterate that she was my only friend. It was only natural to spend all my free time with her and offer to carry her books. Have people really been assuming I'm some sort of pining pillock who turned bitter because he'll never get some? The very idea is disgusting!"

Hermione leaned over and muttered rather smugly to Pansy, "I told you."

Pansy rolled her eyes but still smiled, "yes, yes, we all know that you are the Queen of Insufferable Know-It-Alls, the swots of the world bow down to you."

This little exchange was uttered just quietly enough that the rest of the group didn't even hear it. Remus, however, had a little bit of an advantage in the form of wolf hearing and was able to clearly make out what had been said. He frowned; what had Hermione told Pansy about? Did she know about Snape's platonic feelings or something? More importantly, why would Peasegood say something so horrible to someone she considers a friend? He quickly turned to look for Hermione's reaction, hoping she wouldn't be too upset by the somewhat cruel taunt.

However, to his utter surprise, Hermione almost burst out laughing. She covered the noise at the last second but her shoulders were still shaking in barely suppressed mirth.

"Good," she gasped out at last, "Let there be no mistake about who the Insufferable Know-It-All is around here. I'll bring out my list of references if I have to. I'm sure I could get in touch of them relatively quickly." Hermione smirked and winked.

Pansy giggled gleefully, knowing that her reference was currently sitting next to Pansy herself and was approximately 20 years younger than the man who had originally given Hermione the title which had long since become an affectionate joke.

Remus, however, just stared in utter bafflement at the two witches. He needed to start compiling a list, and not just a pranking-weakness-list, of all the strange things these mysterious transfer students did and said. He had this unshakable feeling that he was missing something. There was just something off about them.

Meanwhile, during the short period of time in which two witches had their exchange and Remus processed it, James's jaw had dropped and he was staring at Snape as if he'd never even seen him before. As James tried to comprehend the fact that all of his reasons for hating and tormenting Severus Snape had just been succinctly rebuked in a way that didn't leave much room for argument, Lily watched curiously as the mixture of expressions flew across his face. She wasn't exactly sure what to make of him. What in the world could be going through his head that he would make a face like that. It seemed like a combination of annoyance, pain, guilt, embarrassment, and… hope? Though that was impossible. This was James Potter. He was incapable of such honest emotion. All he did was mess around and play jokes on people. Puzzling.

A moment of silence descended upon the group as James processed; Lily studied (James); Severus shuddered at the thought of people thinking he was in love with Lily; Remus studied (Hermione); Sirius continued in his efforts to be catatonic; Peter contemplated all of the interesting changes the new girls had brought to their lives; Hermione smirked while admiring her handy work; Luna hummed while watching the clouds float by and Pansy's eye, meanwhile, was caught by Sirius's unchanged position.

She wondered if he had died sitting up or maybe had a mental breakdown. He certainly didn't look all there at the moment. In fact the entire picture felt wrong without his usual cockiness unabashedly oozing out. She may not be able to stand the bloke but for some reason she felt the need to wake him up and make him say something annoying like he always did.

"Hey, Black!" Pansy suddenly called out, causing the others to turn their attention away from their various "intellectual" pursuits and look between her and Sirius. Sirius seemed to flinch at the sound of his name but did not shift or raise his case, still frowning fixedly. Pansy continued on nonetheless.

"You look like you belong in an insane asylum right now. Is your mind still all there, puny as it is? Or are you so easily done in as to crack over the possibility that you were wrong and only realized it because a Slytherin explained it to you?" Pansy smirked as Sirius's head flew up and shot her a proper glare. Sure she was a little harsh, but the intentional jibe had worked. Remember boys and girls, if you ever want to get the attention of a Gryffindor all it takes is one little barb and they'll see nothing but red and you. So predictable, thought Pansy.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Sirius snarled out so harshly it actually sounded as if Padfoot the dog himself had made an appearance.

Pansy raised one elegant black eyebrow and responded, "Just what I said, Black."

Before Sirius could retaliate, Hermione entered their conversation, commanding attention with practiced ease.

"Speaking of which, Sirius, I've been meaning to have a talk with you about your brother."