Ex Intempestivo Pax

Chapter 9

Distracting Others From The Truth

The best lies really do have an element of the truth to them...

Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, nor do I own the Harry Potter Series.

"...make sure that the Death Eaters are not influencing Minister Bagnold with magic of any kind; it is probable that they have already infiltrated several of the Ministry departments..."

Lily knew that this was very important, and normally she would be paying strict, close attention to Dumbledore's lecture to the members of the Order, but today she was just too preoccupied to care. She was too busy trying to deal with what had happened over the past day and night for even important information about the Death Eaters to really sink in...

Petunia had, during her celebration, revealed to everyone the fact that she had very recently become pregnant with what she and Vernon hoped would be their first son; it had made Lily realize just how low the chances were that she would ever get to carry out her plans to have her own family, considering just how bad things were. Even though things were quiet at present, everyone knew that it wasn't going to last, and then the killings would begin anew.

Originally, Lily had planned to take time to get her career as a Potions Mistress started before having kids; after all, it was likely that she would need to take a break from her work during the pregnancy or pregnancies, as the potions fumes were extremely toxic to developing fetuses and young infants in many cases. It had been the main reason that there were far fewer Potions Mistresses than Potions Masters, in spite of the fact that they were generally equally skilled as their male counterparts, according to Severus when they were in school at least.

However, Lily was starting to reconsider her plans; it was quite likely that one or both of her and James would die at some point during this war, and then any plans to wait until the business had grown strong would be meaningless, as either she or her husband would be dead...

Speaking of her future husband, Lily gave James' hand a quick squeeze, which he returned. Lily then smirked slightly; James had been quite supportive of her possible reconsidering of their plans for the future when they had talked about it during the romantic candlelit dinner he had surprised her with last night.

Admittedly, part of the reason was because of how he had really wanted to get started on their family quickly to begin with, as he intended to have a large family to the point that they could practically be a Quidditch team on their own. 'Heh, if he had his way, I would have probably been popping out babies from now until when I turned thirty!'

Originally, after some intense negotiations wherein Lily had found herself kissed senseless more than once, they had agreed to bring up the issue again after the wedding. Now however, Lily was starting to think that having one child right after they got married might not be a bad thing; James could be a bit of a whiner when things didn't go his way, and having one kid now might satisfy his hunger for his stable of kids for the moment, and with the whole pressure of the war on top of that...

Lily then saw Severus frown at Dumbledore from across the table where they were all sitting, and frowned herself, before giving James a bit of an apprehensive glance; Severus was here as a new recruit to the Order under an assumed name and Polyjuice potion, as his first assignment from what he had told her was to try and find if any members of the Order were also members of the Death Eaters, because Dumbledore had some suspicions that the Order had been compromised in part.

Lily wondered to herself if Dumbledore's suspicions were correct, fervently hoping that the man's normal brilliance was wrong for once, as it would be truly terrible if Voldemort had managed to sink his claws into the Order; if the very heart of the resistance to Voldemort's evil designs had been compromised, then she had a sneaking suspicion that all was truly lost...

'Still, if there are any two people who could root out a traitor before he or she kills us all, it would have to be Sev and Albus.' Lily thought to herself, 'Sev probably would have been the pride of Slytherin house if he hadn't been such a loner, what with his brilliant cunning, cleverness and sheer sneakiness, and Dumbledore is...Dumbledore...'

Lily had to admit that she was proud of her oldest childhood friend, as she doubted that she would be able to even come close to fulfilling the task he was appointed with, while pretending to stay loyal to his Dark master; although she knew that they were about an even match in terms of intelligence, Severus had the advantages of near-paranoia and not being...hampered by faith in their comrades, or so he had put it when Lily had been at a loss for words...

Thinking of Severus brought her mind to the other thing that was troubling her: that morning when she had shared the second of the five memories she had agreed to show Severus. That memory had been only a couple of months before O.W.L.s, and everything had seemed to go straight to hell with their friendship soon after, with Severus being almost constantly annoyed and practically spewing insults of James every five minutes.

Flashback:

"OK, Severus, this memory occurred shortly after the time that James saved your life. Ready?"

Severus growled for a moment, annoyance flashing across his face, then nodded his head in an affirmative; the two of them then pressed their heads into the Pensieve's bowl together, almost touching cheek-to-cheek. Quickly, the memory formed around them... (AN: In this Chapter, as the flashback is all in italics, the underlined sections will be what they witness in the memory)

"Hey, Evans! Can we talk?"

Lily, who had been reading a book in the Gryffindor Common Room, turned around and said with a sigh, "What is it Potter? I'm rather busy right now..."

James looked around the common room, making sure that the two of them were alone, then said angrily, "Call off your little 'friend', Snivellu-"

"Don't call him that!"

James growled for a moment, then said with a glare, "...Snape; he's been following us around during the full moon for nearly four months now! It HAS to stop; he's really cramping our style!"

Lily set down her book, then said mock-curiously, "You have a sense of style...?"

As their memory-counterparts continued bantering, Lily said with a slight chuckle, "Needless to say, I wasn't really all that interested in him at the time, although I did find him rather attractive when his head wasn't up his rear end. I didn't have any inclination to pursue it beyond the level of bantering though, as there was no way that I was going to go out with someone who was bullying my best friend..."

Severus looked somewhat pained, then hid his face behind his hair and said dismally, crossing his arms in front of him as he did so, "I-I knew that, at least to some extent, you were interested in him; sometimes you'd look at him while the two of you were arguing and it was as if no-one else existed. I was...afraid that you would one day give up on me and choose him, abandoning me..."

Lily wanted to ask why, if this had bothered him so much, he had pushed her away for so much of the later half of fifth year; however, in the end she said simply, looking away from him as she did so, "Severus, I didn't give up on you because I was interested in James Potter; I gave up on you because you had stopped even bothering to pretend listening to me about the Marauders or your friends. Don't get me wrong; I can see your point of view about your friends now, but you absolutely refused to even consider my own point of view..."

She then heard Severus whip his head around to look at her, before saying angrily, "That was because your point of view was inherently flawed, and thus not worth listening to; Potter was the scum of the earth, and that was the beginning and ending of it."

Lily groaned aloud, saying heatedly, "Oh dear Merlin, I know that he was arrogant and was a bully at the time, but he did save your life. I had hoped that you could be MATURE enough to ATTEMPT to bury the hatchet then, but instead your dislike of him turned into an unreasoning hatred thanks to your bloody pride! You hated the idea of being saved by him so much that you started trying to humiliate him every chance YOU got, acting just like he did!"

Severus' eyes started glittering dangerously, and he opened his mouth to speak, but he was suddenly distracted by what was happening in the memory...

"...OK James, so you're telling me that Severus followed you and your friends last night into the Shrieking Shack; what happened then?" Lily said while clearly hanging on James' every words.

James swallowed, then said as he looked at her carefully, "Well, he ran into this creature and nearly got himself killed; I had to pull him away before it bit him, as that would have been very, very...bad."

Lily looked jumped up, looking around as she got her stuff together, packing up all of her books as she said frantically, "Oh Merlin! Is he alright!? Did Sev get hurt!? I've gotta go see him right away! Thanks-"

James then grabbed her by the shoulder and said, rolling his eyes, "Don't worry, your little git of a friend is just fine and will live on to be a slimeball another day; heck, he wasn't even hurt! If he hadn't been so careless in following us though, he would have never gotten in such a scrape to begin with..."

Lily paused, then looked back at him curiously before asking, "Wait, if Severus was in danger from being bitten, then wouldn't that mean that you would have been in danger as well? Speaking of 'this creature', what was it?"

James looked uncomfortable for a moment, then he said with an air of mystery, smirking as he did so, "Well, you know how we Marauders know the school like the back of our hands? Well, this is something that Dumbledore doesn't want to get out because of what problems it might cause..."

Severus, who had suddenly become positively riveted, looked between Memory-James and Lily with an air of interest, but said nothing...

"...You see, Hagrid has been breeding these giant spider-things in the Forbidden Forest, Acromantula if I recall correctly; if it gets out, he could lose his job once the school governors find out. I need you to promise me that you will never reveal to ANYONE this secret, not even Severus; if word of this got out, then..."

He then paused, before saying in a bit of a huff, "As for Snivellus, while I might not like him very much, that didn't mean that I wanted him to get bitten; I know that it was dangerous, but it was far better to take a chance than to sit around and do nothing, you know?"

Lily nodded, then whispered, "Thank you..."

Noticing that Severus had gone positively stock-still as the memory ended, Lily then said, unable to look him in the eye, "Yes Sev, I actually knew all along about the Acromantula that you ran into while following the Marauders, and I'm sorry that I didn't-"

Severus then let out a snorting laugh, before turning around and saying with a normal-sized smile on his face, which for Severus was the equivalent of him grinning brightly, "Don't worry, Lily, I now understand your point of view completely."

Lily, somewhat wary, then said slowly, "So do you see why I was so angry at how you were acting?"

Severus looked at her, then chuckled and said, "With the exception of the 'Acromantula' part of the story story, most of what Potter said was true, in the same sense as saying that humans need fluids to survive; much of what he told was the truth, but he told so little of the story that it means almost nothing in regards to what really happened, nothing at all..."

Lily only frowned at him in confusion, not liking how his smile reminded her of a shark seeing a man jump into a pool while bleeding out of his stomach...

End Flashback:

Lily frowned anew; Severus had refused to go into any more detail after that, saying that he wanted to show her the whole and complete truth of the matter, and that would have to wait until it was his turn to reveal memories. Knowing him, he was probably waiting to save it for one really big barrage of memories...

However, she had a mystery to deal with now: what did Severus mean by what he had said about it being only a part of the whole story? Also, why would James have lied to her about it being an Acromantula?

She couldn't quite understand the second part, as she couldn't think of anything that would make sense about it; Severus had implied at the time that Remus might be a werewolf, but that didn't make sense. After all, even Sirius wasn't reckless enough to hang around with a savage werewolf during the full moon, and there were no spells to stop them from attacking humans...

Lily knew that it was unlikely that she would be able to deduce what had actually attacked Severus, but she had a feeling that she had forgotten something important about the first part. Suddenly, Lily gasped aloud, unnoticed by the people surrounding her; she had completely missed it at the time, but how would Severus have been the one to run into the 'creature' if he were behind the Marauders, following them?

Remembering how Sirius had been complaining soon afterward about how he had nearly gotten a month's detention and banned from Gryffindor's next game of Quidditch, Lily thought that she had a pretty good idea of what had happened: Sirius must have somehow nearly gotten Severus killed, perhaps using a hex, and James must have been trying to cover up that little incident when he told her about the Acromantula... He must have been trying to protect Sirius...

'Merlin, the next time I talk to Sirius, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. No WONDER Severus hated the Marauders so much afterward!' Although Lily knew she didn't have the full story, she was pretty sure that she had a good idea as to its general contents...

Suddenly, she felt James tapping her on the shoulder and realized that while she had been musing, the meeting of the Order had drawn to a close; quickly giving Severus an understanding look, Lily prepared to apparate home...

Noticing Lily's look, Severus nodded quizzically, waiting for her to apparate away like the rest of the Order; when everyone but him and Dumbledore had left, Severus then walked up to the aged man and said coolly, "We have a problem; Potter wants to have the Auror department to an investigation into me, which would turn up my 'official' standing of being a Death Eater. This would meant that I would have to either reveal publicly that I am a member of the Order or end up in Azkaban, with both choices likely resulting in my death. Any ideas to rein him in?"

Giving him a frown that Severus was sure was because of what Dumbledore felt about his trying to steal back Lily, the older man then said after a few moments of thought, "I have a few ideas, and one of them seems to dovetail nicely with our objective of making Voldemort trust in your loyalty. Remember how he gave you instructions to try and find out who were members of our Order as part of your work for him? Well, Dorcas and James seem to be reasonably good friends..."

Looking at him warily, Severus then said in a tone of voice that indicated the dubiousness of the proposal, "Are you saying to reveal Dorcas' membership in the Order to Voldemort?"

Shaking his head, Dumbledore said gravely, "No, I am saying that you are to kidnap her...or at least appear to do so..."

Author's Note: Needless to say, Lily's leap of logic has more than a few holes in it, but that's how supposed epiphanies usually go. As for what James told her, I figured that when he told her about the incident he probably told enough of the truth in such a way as to make it seem like the whole truth. Otherwise, Lily wouldn't have been so sure of what had happened in canon, although the Acromantula part was my idea.

As for Lily's thoughts about Remus being a werewolf, it is something that one has to consider from the point of view of not knowing it for a fact that we had in canon; really, how likely was it that he was a werewolf if he were hanging out with the rest of the Marauders every night during the full moon? If one didn't know about the rest of the Marauders being Animagi it just wouldn't make much sense, as it would be insanely dangerous to the point of suicidal.

Don't forget, Severus still has yet to tell Lily the whole truth about the werewolf incident, or what he thinks of it; no wonder he is frustrated, both now and in the past...