Chapter Four

Generally Preferable to Lies

Over the course of the semester, Remus proved to be an invaluable asset to the project, which the boys had now taken to calling "Wonderland" while in public. One Thursday afternoon towards the end of the semester, when the boys were gathered behind the mirror, James was going over some of the more uncommon herbs and powders, rechecking their inventory to make sure they had enough of everything for the next step, when Remus realized that he was already well versed in many of their properties. Remus's father had used things like northerne aconitum and lycan talc on some of the more serious wounds he had retained after his transformations, and Madam Pomfrey had even used asafoetida on him on one occasion (he would never forget such a powerful smell), so he knew how to handle the treatment of the more temperamental ingredients, some of which, he explained, had a tendency to explode if jostled the wrong way.

"Yeah, we know," said Sirius with a slight hint of irritation as he shoved the cauldron to the middle of the room. "I had no eyebrows for a week. My chin hair still won't grow in properly."

"You don't have chin hair," said James, who was flipping though Animagus Law: How to Seek Ministry Approval and Why.

"Exactly my point," said Sirius. "What are you worried about Animagus law for?" he asked when he saw what James was reading. "You know the Ministry would never approve us – we're underage."

"I know, but it's fascinating," said James, absorbed in the text. "Most of it's cautionary tales – I guess to scare you into going through the proper channels. Like this one guy, he was working on the same step as we are now, and when he took a dose of what he made – here, check out the drawing," he said shoving the book under Sirius's nose.

"Uhg! What, is he molting?"

"Yeah!" said James excitedly.

"Is that supposed to be his head? What happened to it? Oh my god… Remus, come look at this!"

"Nope, that's fine," said Remus from a distance. "Just tell me that they were able to sort him out eventually. I don't need another reason to be worried about what we're doing. You know, besides the fact that it's illegal."

"Please, you know that only makes it so much cooler," said Sirius.

"Oh, he's fine, they found him in time to – oh… Nope, never mind. He's still in the hospital. Says here he still thinks he's an iguana," said James, though he still didn't appear too put off by this information. "Oooh, I see what he did wrong…"

"Good, so if one of us starts molting, you can be in charge of fixing it," said Sirius.

"I think I read something in "Stark Talk" about a lizard-man a few months ago-" Peter was saying.

"We should get started soon if we want to finish before potions," said James. "Have a look at the adder's fork and tell me if it's fermented enough," he ordered Sirius.

"Yes, sir!" said Sirius, mocking James's bossiness with a sarcastic salute as he marched over to inspect a large jar filled with thick green smog. "Oh yeah, I'd say it's done. It's gonna smell something powerful when we take the lid off."

"Got it covered," said Remus, taking out his wand. "Bubble-head charm."

"Remind me again why we didn't have him in on this sooner?" asked Sirius.

"Same reason I'm here now," said Remus. "I'm smarter than you are."

Fortunately, whatever Sirius said next was completely muffled, as Remus flicked his wand at Sirius's face, procuring a thick bubble around his nose and mouth.

The adder's fork was the only thing that the boys needed to add to the potion today, but they had to go about the process diligently for fear of having to redo three month's worth of work if they did something wrong. It took twice as long as they thought it would to stir and set the potion, so they had to literally run down two flights of moving stairs in order to get to the dungeons in time for class later that day.

"Oi! Potter!" someone shouted when James was just about to turn around the corner into the dungeons.

James turned around to see Martha Parr striding towards him down the Grand Staircase with great determination.

"Go on ahead," he told the others. "I'll catch up. What's up, Martha?"

Martha only stopped walking towards James when she was six inches away from his face. She looked even more aggressive than usual with her chin pushed up and her hand curled into fists at her sides. Both of Martha's parents were Aurors, so all of her mannerisms held an air of martial authority. It was part of the reason why she was such a great Quidditch Captain; she was one of the only students that James respected and – if he were being completely honest – feared. So when she strode up to him with that icy glare, James had to swallow his initial panic with a gulp.

"Just answer me this," Martha began, boring her eyes into his.

Uh oh, thought James.

"What – exactly – do you have going on in your life that's more important than your team?" she asked.

"Uh…" said James. "If this is about last week, I told Chrissie to tell you I wouldn't be able to make it to practice–"

"Yeah, I heard," said Martha.

"We all heard," said Tony Marsden, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere and situated himself behind Martha's right shoulder.

"So, what is it, then?' asked Martha, her fists on her hips. "Don't feel like winning the cup this year? Hm?"

"Yeah, too good to practice with the rest of the team?" said Tony. "Cuz I still show up, though I don't remember falling off my broom over the summer–"

"Sod off, Tony," shot James. "When my midair somersaults get as bad as yours, we'll have something to worry about."

"For the last time, when do you ever need to do a somersault during a Quidditch match?" asked Tony. "You only do it to show off like a sodding-"

"Shut up, the both of you!" ordered Martha.

"I'm on your side!" said Tony, looking affronted. "And listen – as far as I'm concerned, it's no sweat if Potter's got better things to do. I made a fine fill-in for center chaser last practice."

"Tony, there were only two of you. There can't be a center chaser with only two people. And you should be concerned when our best chaser, who unfortunately happens to be you," she whacked James on the shoulder, "doesn't show up to practice."

"What about me?" asked Tony.

"Listen, Potter," said Martha, ignoring Tony. "I wasn't gonna tell you this now, because it's not like you need a reason to gloat, but I'm planningon naming you Captain once I'm gone next year."

"What?" cried Tony.

"But I can't do that if McGonagall has reason to believe you're not committed to the position," she continued, poking James in the chest. "So are you?"

"Yeah, I – I am, I just – wow, ok…" stuttered James, a little taken aback by the sudden and hostile way in which this tremendous news was delivered. "Listen, Martha, I'm sorry about skipping. I am. I only did because…" James faltered.

"Because why?" asked Martha.

"Because," said James, "I was visiting Remus in the hospital wing. I'd only just found out he was there ten minutes before practice, so…"

"Oh," said Martha, her eyes softening for the first time.

"Again?" asked Tony in a disbelieving tone.

"Yes, again," James sighed. This was true: last week, Remus was woken from his transformation a bit more banged up than usual. This tended to happen from time to time, when he was particularly stressed out for some reason or another, and all it meant was that he would have to spend a few extra days in the hospital wing afterwards. James had hesitated to tell Martha where he was, however, because he wasn't keen on advertising how often Remus had to visit the hospital wing, lest people start to see a pattern in his stints there. Unfortunately, Martha had backed him into a corner. Literally, actually, as with each shove that she had given him he had to take a few steps backward so that his back was now pressed uncomfortably against the wall of the Entrance Hall.

Martha sighed.

"Ok, just… Listen," she said, squeezing the part of her nose between her eyes as if just the sight of James was giving her a headache. "I've got another practice scheduled for tomorrow, and you had better be there, James Potter. Or else."

"Or else," repeated Tony.

"Would you cut it out?" Martha shouted at Tony. James would have laughed if he weren't so annoyed: the way Tony kept on repeating everything Martha was saying, combined with his beak-like nose and the way he stood behind her right shoulder as if on a perch gave him a remarkable resemblance to a oversized parrot.

"I'll be there, ok?" he said. He would have to skip going back to the passage behind the mirror with the others tomorrow, but so be it. Remus in the hospital was one thing, but the potion was stable enough to wait.

Martha seemed satisfied, because she dismissed him with a curt nod and marched off. Tony looked like he was about to say something else, but James walked through the dungeon doors before he had the chance.

"I told you she wouldn't be happy about you skipping," said Remus when James finally made it to his seat in the potion's classroom. "You don't have to visit me every time, you know–"

"Don' be daft, of course I do," said James curtly. "I'm gonna have to skip out on Wonderland tomorrow, though. Martha scheduled a makeup practice. You guys can handle it without me, right?"

"We'll try, but if it gets too complicated we're going to have to wait until your schedule clears," said Remus.

"Hey, I can't help it that everyone wants a piece of this," said James with a smirk.

As if to reinforce this point, Denise walked by the row of seats where James and the others were sitting waved her fingers at him flirtatiously.

"Hi, James," she said.

"Hey, Denise," said James, flashing her a grin before she walked off.

"Maybe I should join the Quidditch team," said Sirius, starting after Denise's backside as she walked to the front of the classroom. "I'm starting to see the perks."

James smirked, but in truth the perks that Sirius was referring to were a bit wanting in James's eyes. Sure, getting that kind of attention made him feel pretty good about himself, but as he imagined himself flying through the air amidst a stadium of roaring fans, it wasn't Denise's face that stood out to him in the crowd. For a moment he lost himself in the fantasy – he scores a fantastic goal, Chrissie catches the snitch, the game ends with Gryffindor in the lead by at least a hundred – no – two hundred points, and beaming up at him from the stands is a girl so beautiful it makes his heart skip a beat. He flies over to her, and she leans up in the stands, extending herself towards him, and they meet for a kiss, her hand on his arm, his running through her thick red hair–

"Oi, Captain Starry-Eyes, what's going on up there?" said Sirius, knocking on the side of James's head.

"Ow," said James, rubbing his temple. "Nothing."

"I was saying, when do you think you'll be free to jump down the rabbit hole again?" said Sirius.

"Not that I'm superstitious," said Remus, "but it feels like a bad omen to be talking about this here, of all places."

"What do you mean? Oh, yeah, right, like we'd blow up the same classroom twice," scoffed Sirius, rolling his eyes to James. "Ouf – hey!" he grunted, as James had just elbowed him in the gut. He found out why a second later when he looked over at James and saw Lily standing at the end of their row. She had clearly heard him, for she raised her eyebrows to James in a knowing kind of look before continuing over to her seat in the front of the classroom.

"Nice going," mumbled James.

"Oh, please, she knew the whole time," said Sirius in a throwaway tone. "You as much as told her we did it last year when you went begging to her for help."

"I didn't beg," asserted James as he stared after Lily. It was a moment before he was really conscious of the fact that he had gone back to imagining the touch of her hair through his fingers – until she seemed to sense the eyes on the back of her head, for she turned around as she sat down next to Snape and shot him a puzzled look. James darted his eyes away and tried to look busy with his scales.

"What?" Severus asked Lily, who had seen the brief exchange.

"Nothing," said Lily, though as she said this she made a mental note to watch her back for the next couple of days. She seemed to be catching Potter looking over at her a lot lately, and she was beginning to fear that she might be the boy's next target for an elaborate prank.

"So, I'm pretty sure the class is taking bets on how long it'll be until another classroom explodes," said Severus. "I'm personally more interested in how long it'll be before those morons actually get caught."

"Sev, don't be mean," Lily berated.

"So, what, you think they should just get away with it?"

"It's not that, it's just…" Lily paused, thinking of what to say. "It happened a while ago and I just don't see the point in hanging on to it. I mean, if no one's been able to prove it was them by now, I don't think-"

"Oh, come on!" hissed Severus. "Everyone knows it was them!"

"I'm not saying it wasn't," said Lily calmly. "I just don't see the point in obsessing about it."

"I'm not obsessing," grumbled Severus. "They're just… I mean, come on! Don't they annoy you?"

Lily sighed as she flipped through her copy of Intermediate Level Potion Making. "I've said it before and I'll say it again. For someone who claims not to like them, you really do bring them up an awful lot–"

"Because they're nauseating!" Severus cried in exasperation, setting a fire under his cauldron with a little too much gusto. "Potter acts like he's so cool… You know, I heard that Jorkins girl saying his flying is shot – fell off a broom over the summer or something, smashed it to smithereens," he added, eager to remind Lily of anything that would make Potter out to look like a fool. "What kind of Quidditch star falls of a broom?"

"The way you talk, Sev, you'd think he deserved it," said Lily. "James and his friends, they may be a lot of things, but they're not that bad."

"How can you say that after what happened at the end of last term?" asked Severus. "Your hair was purple for a week!"

"Yes, well, that was bad, I'll give you that. And I do agree with you that it was probably them," Lily admitted, deciding not to tell him that she knew this for a fact. "But no one got hurt – well, besides Duncan McCloud, but he really shouldn't have been hanging from the ceiling, that was silly. Look, all I'm saying is that you're making them out to be – oh, I don't know – evil or something. Pulling a prank is a far cry from the worst of what goes on around here," she finished, both hoping and dreading that Severus knew exactly whom she was talking about.

In fact, the potions debacle of '74, as everyone was now calling it, was by far one of the most damaging 'pranks' that Professor Slughorn – and most of the teachers at Hogwarts for that matter – had ever witnessed. Truth be told, the only reason why Lily was going easy on the Marauders now was because, thanks to the deal that she and James had struck at the end of last term, she now had an idea of why the boys had done what they did. Also, she was pretty sure that they hadn't intended their scheme to be quite as 'successful' as it turned out to be. And, if she had to be perfectly honest, the whole thing was, in retrospect, pretty impressive. Then again, that same incident was also the start of a series of events that had nearly lead Lily and Severus to a breaking point in their friendship.

The whole debacle had begun when James, Sirius and Peter were in the first stages of becoming animagi. While preparing for a potion that they would have to make as part of the early stages of the process, they discovered that three of the ingredients could not be bought anywhere on the open market. Wizards had to cultivate it themselves because it took a special license to be able to handle the materials. However, they suspected that Slughorn had a stash of everything they needed in his private storage closet. Unfortunately, there was no way he would let any of his students into his closet, least of all the most notorious troublemakers in the entire school. Therefore, they had no choice but to steal the ingredients. To make things more complicated, the classroom that leads to the closet was inaccessible when classes were not in session, so they would have to break in during one of their potions classes. The boys decided that James could use his invisibility cloak to slip into the office, but they couldn't risk Slughorn noticing that one of his students had suddenly gone missing. Most teachers kept at least one eye on the mischievous boys at all times as it was, and Slughorn had a habit of slipping into his office at odd times (most likely to stuff a few pieces of crystallized pineapple into his mouth), which would increase the danger of being caught.

The boys quickly realized that in order to have and chance at getting into the private supply, they would have to create a sizable diversion. Sirius had come up with the idea of dropping several boxes of Fizzing Wizbies into a few brewing cauldrons and letting the side effects – they were bound to be obnoxious – create the havoc they needed to go through with the rest of their plan without being noticed. It was perfect, he said, because no one was going to question them for carrying around a box of candy. It was subtler than dungbombs, but just as effective overall. The others thought it was a great idea, but Remus had suggested that instead of sabotaging their peers' cauldrons, they could drop the candies into some of the beakers in the public cabinets around the classroom. Remus himself didn't know what they were actually stealing the ingredients for at the time, as James, Sirius and Peter had made up something about Sirius needing a few provisions to perform a crude incantation that would keep his family out of his bedroom while he was stuck at home with them. After some debate, Remus had finally agreed to help. They boys knew that he would give into the story eventually, as Remus was well aware of the horror-show that was the Black household and sympathized with Sirius's situation. Besides, just because he was usually the voice of reason didn't mean that he didn't enjoy a little mischief-making every once in a while.

So, using a secret passage that they had discovered in their second year that leads to the cellar of Honeydukes, Peter, eager to be of use, snuck five boxes of Wizbies into the castle. All they had to do was wait until their next class and drop the Wizbies at the earliest opportunity.

Slughorn often spent extra time examining the potions of his favorite, most talented students, Lily and Severus. The two often sat together in potions class, which meant that Slughorn would have his nose in their cauldrons as opposed to in the boy's business for an extended amount of time. They figured that all they needed was less than five minutes to slip over to the cabinets, drop in the Wizbies, and rush back to their seats without being noticed. Just to be sure that they wouldn't be caught running back to their seats as the cabinets behind them started thundering and fizzing, they had taken a small beaker of kneazle milk from the public cabinet the day before (an easy swipe) and dropped a few Wizbies inside in the safety of their common room to see how long the reaction time was. It took less than ten seconds to start reacting noticeably, so they would have to be quick.

The boys took care to sit near the back of the classroom, so as to have better access to the cabinets. This meant that they were farther away from the office door, but this was not a problem, as James could slip over there easily in his invisibility cloak. When Slughorn started making his rounds to examine each student's cauldron, Peter took the boxes of candies out of his bag and divided them between Sirius, Remus and himself. They waited until Slughorn, per usual, leaned over Lily's cauldron to take a long whiff and begin asking her questions about her process.

When the professor's back was fully turned, the three box-laden boys got up and slunk over to three different public cabinets, pretending to be in search of an ingredient for their potion. They had to make sure that they all poured out their boxes at the same time, so that one cabinet wasn't exploding while one of the others was still pouring out the Wizbies into another. When they were all at their respective cabinets, they turned their heads to look at the others, and nodded definitively.

Sirius counted the seconds in his head as he poured his first box into a large vile of purple liquid. One, two, three, four, five. Then the next box. One, two three, four… He didn't dare count how long it took to get back to his seat.

Peter was the last to return to the table, and just as his bottom plopped down swiftly on his seat, him huffing nervously all the while, his cabinet started to emit low gurgling noises. A few students looked up from their work to stare quizzically at the piece of furniture that was now beginning to shudder and belch. Then, from the other side of the room, a sound like a firecracker going off, followed by a high-pitched whir, erupted from a different cabinet. Slughorn's head swooped up from over Snape's cauldron and his body whipped around to face the direction from which the noise was coming. His eyes grew wide and his mouth hung agape as a slew of golden sparks shot themselves out of the cabinet, leaving a burning hole in one of the doors.

"What the devil-" he began to exclaim, but was cut off as Vanessa Krink, a snobby Slytherin girl with an annoyingly high-pitched voice, started to scream and jump up on her desk, frantically pointing at something at the foot of the gurgling cabinet.

Everyone saw quickly enough what she was scrambling away from – the beaker of clear fluid that Peter had dropped his box of fizzing wizbies into had reacted to generate an unearthly amount of sluggish purple foam that was now oozing at an incredibly fast rate through the cracks of the cabinet doors. There was so much of it that it was already spreading towards the students' desks. The whole cabinet seemed to be expanding from the amount of foam that was generating inside it until finally the wood frame started to crack and the latch on the door resembled a button that was about to pop off of a small shirt that had been forced onto a very large man. Most of the students were already out of their seats and scrambling to the center of the room. All of this was happening so quickly that Slughorn, always slow to react in times of crisis, was still at a loss for words. Finally, the cabinet that Remus had been responsible for started emitting short, incredibly loud bangs. Slughorn turned around once more, his rotund stomach bouncing from the force of the movement. On the sixth or seventh bang (they happened in such quick succession), the doors of the cabinet burst open from the force and the banging immediately became ten times louder. Everyone threw their hands over their ears and winced. With every bang a different color flashed brightly from within the cabinet, so that the effect was something very much like a strobe light. As this happened, another slew of golden sparks erupted from the other cabinet, then another, and another, burning more and more holes in the wood, the time between each firework-like shower dwindling rapidly from seconds to milliseconds. The sparks were shooting around the room, flying over student's heads and crashing into walls, desks, and – worst of all – cauldrons, creating a mass of boiling puddles on whatever floor space that wasn't already covered by purple ooze.

By this point, total chaos had broken out among the students. About half of the class was shrieking and throwing their hands up over their heads as they ran around the room like headless chickens. No one knew where to run for cover, as something was erupting from almost every corner of the room. Vanessa fell off the desk she was standing on as one of the golden sparks can zooming right at her face. Somehow, for reasons beyond anyone's understanding, Duncan McCloud was suddenly hanging from one of the lamps attached to the ceiling. Directly below him a large puddle from a turned over cauldron was bubbling menacingly. Many students were now starting to pile onto the desks to get away from the ooze that was now over a foot deep and had spread to cover a good third of the floor. Others found refuge under the tables on the side of the room where the ooze had not yet spread in order to protect themselves from the sparks. This is where Sirius, Remus and Peter, all dumbfounded by the immensity of these reactions, chose to hide.

Slughorn, though still stupefied by everything that was happening, had nevertheless gained enough control over himself to fetch his wand from his desk and begin to dash back the zooming sparks while calling order to the class.

"Alright everyone!" he was shouting. "Just stay calm! McCloud, get down from there at once! Everyone stay CAAHHGHH!"

Sirius, seeing that Slughorn was now completely preoccupied, as one of the sparks had just zoomed past his face close enough to light his mustache on fire, poked his head out from under the desk to catch a glimpse of the closet door. It was shut, which he took to mean that James had already found his way inside.

"He's in! This is working out great!" said Sirius to the others in a loud whisper.

"Are you kidding me?" Remus shouted exasperatedly. This had all ended up being a lot more trouble than it was worth. Their experiment in the common room hadn't been nearly so colorful.

"EEEEE-NOUUGH!" shouted Slughorn, and in three successive blasts from his wand he produced thick, bubble-like shields over all three cabinets. It took a few moments for everyone to realize what had just happened, but soon enough the shrieking died down and everyone ceased trying to climb on top of or under their desks. Slughorn huffed as he looked around the room, the hair above his left ear smoking, his thick moustache thoroughly frizzled so that it resembled a cat with its hair standing on end.

"Now," he began in a voice of forced calm. "We are all going to evacuate this classroom in an orderly manner and file into the entrance hall, where you will wait patiently until I come for you… Now!"

Professor Slughorn, who was normally a very jolly and mild-mannered man, appeared to have shocked his students with his change in temperament far more than the preceding chaos had done, as everyone jumped when he shouted and dashed up the stairs obediently, fearing that he would turn his wand on them next.

Sirius scanned the crowd nervously for James, who still had yet to be seen. The three boys tried to hang back as long as possible so that they were the last ones out of the dungeons. Just as they thought that they would have to leave without any sign of James, Sirius felt an abrupt tug on his shirtsleeve. Turning to Remus and Peter he whispered, "Ok, let's go!" and the four of them dashed up the stairs after the rest of the class.

Once they were in the Entrance Hall, James made sure that Sirius, Remus, and Peter were blocking him from everyone else's view before he took off his cloak.

"Why'd you still have the cloak on? You should have let him see you leave with the rest of us," said Peter.

"Too crowded," James huffed as he frantically stuffed the cloak back into his bag, which Sirius had grabbed for him on the way out. "I put on the cloak under the table before I went into the closet, but Slug got a hold of everything a lot quicker than we anticipated, so I had to dash back, and I didn't have time to duck and cover before taking it off."

"So, did you get everything?" asked Sirius, waving off the fact that James had just barely prevented himself from getting caught.

James looked around at the three of them, grimacing. "Um… yeah. There's something…" He took a deep breath. "Don't be mad, ok?"

"What?" asked Sirius. "Did you forget something?"

"I… I couldn't get in," he admitted lamely.

"You what?" hissed Sirius, Remus and Peter in unison.

"It was locked," James said, grimacing.

"Did you try Alohamora?" asked Remus exasperatedly.

"Oh, no, I forgot that one – gee, and there I was trying to pry it open with brute force!" James replied sarcastically, looking quite affronted. "I tried as many charms as I could, I even tried using Topelarium to unhinge the damn door, but that thing is locked up good. And it's not like I could have just blown the door off its hinges completely. Someone was bound to notice that, even with everything that was going on. The only thing that's gonna get us in there is the key."

The boys stared around at each other dumbfoundedly.

"I can't believe we just did all that for nothing!" Remus finally said, bringing a hand to his forehead. "What if he finds out it was us? Anyone could have seen us at those cabinets! Half the class is made up of Slytherins, and they're bound to tell Slughorn if they saw anything just to get points taken away-"

"Hey, hey, take it easy, alright?" cautioned Sirius. "As far as we know, we're in the clear. So let's just try to act as surprised and innocent as everyone else," he gestured toward the rest of the class, who were all talked animatedly in the Hall, or else trying to un-singe their hair or dump purple goo out of their shoes. "Which," Sirius added after some consideration, "would probably involve us not standing around in a conspiring circle and talking in very low voices."

"Yeah, right," said Remus, rolling his eye. "Innocent. That's a new look for us."

As a matter of fact, Remus was partially right in his fear that somebody had seen them acting suspiciously. Though Severus and Lily had not seen the boys go up to the cabinets, they did notice several things during all the commotion.

When the fireworks started, Severus had turned to Lily and shouted, "This has got to be Potter or Black! It's got their names written all over it–"

"Sev, get down!" Lily exclaimed, pulling him under the table with her. Severus stopped talking at once when he realized that he was now crouched under a desk with Lily, and that their faces were only inches apart.

"Oh my god, what is going on?" Lily was shouting.

Severus looked around. "Look – look over there! Black and Lupin and Pettigrew – do you see them?"

"Yes, Sev, I see them – but I-"

"And do you see Potter?"

"I… no, but… But who cares at this point? Ohhh, look out!" for the purple goop was inching their way. Climbing out from under the desks, the pair tried to make their way to the center of the room, which seemed to be the area least affected by the chaos.

"He's not here!" Severus continued. "And I'm telling you, I saw him come in!"

"Alright, Sev, alright!" Lily was shouting in frustration as Severus whirled about on the spot, trying to see if Potter was anywhere to be seen.

When Professor Slughorn had silenced the cabinets and everyone stopped running around, Severus could finally see for sure if Potter was around. "See?" he whispered to Lily once he was sure. "I don't see him anywhere – and Black just grabbed Potter's bag! Look!"

But as the two made their way up to the ground floor with the rest of the class, Lily shook her head. "I don't know, Sev. I'm not defending them, but sometimes your... your rivalry or whatever seems a little obsessive."

"It's not an obsession!" grimaced Severus. "Who do you think started it, if it wasn't them?"

"I'm not saying I don't think it was them. I'm just saying that sometimes you seem to go out of your way to–"

"I don't have to go out of my way! They go all the way there on their own!"

"Alright, Sev," sighed Lily as she took a seat on one of the bottom steps in the Entrance Hall. "I just don't want to talk about it right now." Truth be told, her usually infallible good mood had flattened a bit when her shoes got filled with goop. And the hem of her robes were now at least six inches deep in the stuff. Sure enough, when she took off her shoes to drain out the goop, she found that her socks were colored completely purple so that she more or less resembled an overgrown Cornish pixie from the knees down. Severus, deciding to drop the subject – however reluctantly – followed suit for the time being and took of his own shoes.

Lily, for her part, didn't think anyone else besides the Potter and his friends could be both clever and stupid enough to do something like this. However, she was growing tired of Severus's constant suspicions regarding the boys, and agreeing with him on this point would have only made his ramblings about them all the worse. Glancing over to where the Gryffindor boys were standing, she saw all four of them, Black, Remus, Pettigrew, and Potter, standing together in a tight circle, talking rather anxiously.

"I'm going to go see if the noise from the dungeons has stopped," Lily told Severus, who nodded distractedly. She got up and walked over to the entrance to the dungeons and pretended to listen for any sounds that might be coming up from the classroom. Instead, she did her best to listen in on the conversation that the four boys were having close by.

"–can't believe we just did all that for nothing!" Remus was saying. "What if he finds out it was us?"

Blessing her good luck to have walking in on the conversation at that precise moment, Lily dashed back over to the steps before the boys could catch her snooping. Severus handed Lily her shoes, which he had just cleaned with a Scourgify charm. Lily smiled as she took them, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Why those boys needed to create such a disaster in the potions room was beyond her, but clearly they had been attempting to do something else more important. They had done it all for nothing, Remus had said. What had they actually wanted to do? She would have liked to discuss her thoughts with Severus, but she held her tongue, not wanting to add more fuel to the already raging fire. And in any case, Lily Evans was no sneak. No one had been hurt, and to be completely honest she was rather impressed by the extent of the magically induced chaos that the boys had produced. No, she would deal with this in her own way.

In fact, an opportunity to make a deal revealed itself two weeks later during a Transfiguration lesson. At the start of class, James had sat down next to Lily with a very determined look on his face and snapped at Mary, who had been about to sit there, to find another seat somewhere else.

As Lily made a movement to get up from her seat and join her friend elsewhere, she felt James put his hand on her arm.

"I need to talk to you," he said quietly, looking her dead in the eye.

"Well, you're off to a great start," she said sarcastically.

"Just listen," he said, still utterly serious. "Slughorn is having a thing – a get-together, or whatever you call it – this weekend. I need to go."

"And you want me to make that happen?" said Lily, raising an eyebrow.

"You can invite people, can't you?" he asked.

"Yes, but… why on earth would you want to go?" she asked, knowing full well how many times both Potter and Black had scoffed the idea of Slug Club and everything to do with it. "And what makes you think that Slughorn will let you near his office after what you did to his classroom?"

"He'll have no reason to protest to my being there if – er, not that I did have anything to do with it, that is," he finished off slowly, though he had caught himself a little too late. "Besides, I'll be going with you, and he's not going to turn down the date of his favorite student."

"First thing's first, Potter – this would not be a date," Lily reprimanded, ignoring the compliment and hoping that James didn't notice that her face had flushed a bit. "And what makes you think I would even take you?"

"Several reasons come to mind. One being that most girls in this school would jump at the chance-"

"You need to get into his private stash, don't you?" Lily said, cutting him off. "Oh, don't look so surprised, I'm not an idiot. Cabinets don't just explode for no reason."

"Keep your voice down," James berated, darting his eyes around to make sure no one was within earshot.

"Why should I? Why would I possibly want to help you steal something that could just lead to another blown-up classroom? Nice going, by the way."

"Ok, bypassing this uncanny knowledge of my affairs, I do have something to offer you," said James.

"Oh?"

"Being seen at a party with me-"

"Ha!" Lily scoffed loudly.

"Fine. Forget that. What if I told you I could get you something you want in return?"

"Like what?" she coaxed.

"Ok," said James, considering. "You like Honeydukes? I can get you as much of your favorite stuff as you like."

"Seriously?" asked Lily dryly. "Candy? You're bribing me with candy?"

"Didn't mean to insult," said James, putting his hands up.

Lily was about to turn him away, but at that moment she caught sight of Severus walking into the classroom. He stared up at James and herself, saw them sitting very close together, and with a newly soured expression on his face he shuffled dejectedly to the back of the room to sit with Macnair and Crabbe. He had taken to hanging out with them whenever he found Lily in the presence of her Gryffindor friends. In truth, if she could ask for anything from Potter, it would be to find a way to stop this stupid Slytherin vs. Gryffindor rivalry he had going on…

"I have an idea," said Lily, suddenly struck by the possibility of the thought.

"Anything," he said eagerly.

"I want you to leave Severus alone," she said.

"Pardon?"

"Now, I'm not daft. I know I can't just expect you stop whatever rivalry you have going on with all of Slytherin forever. But if you can and your friends leave Severus alone for the rest of the semester, I'll get you into Slughorn's party."

"You've got to be joking," said James.

"Severus is my friend," said Lily flatly. "So, no, I'm not joking."

This struck a cord in James. Sure, he disliked Severus, but he had to admit that the bloke was one hell of a lucky guy to have a friend like Lily. And though he may not have understood a lot about the enigma that was Lily Evans, he could certainly respect her loyalty.

"And if you don't keep our deal until the end of the year, I will go to Slughorn with what I know about the explosion in his classroom," she added, making sure that James understood all of her terms.

"You would never!" said James disbelievingly. "Gryffindor would lose the house cup for sure–"

"Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't," said Lily teasingly. "Do you really want to take the chance?"

James mulled this over for a moment, and when he opened his mouth Lily was sure he was going to decline her offer.

"Ok," said James. "I'll do it."

"Well, that's too bad, because – what?" Lily faltered, not sure if she had heard him right.

"Ok," he repeated.

"Ok?"

"Ok."

"You're going to leave Severus alone?" she asked.

"As if he didn't exist," he said.

"For the rest of the year?"

"For the rest of the year."

Lily eyed him suspiciously.

"Whatever you need from Slughorn's office must be pretty important," she said.

"Not getting it isn't an option," said James flatly.

"And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you need whatever it is I'm helping you get?" she said.

"I don't remember that being a part of the deal," said James carefully.

He was right, and Lily didn't want to take a chance on the deal she'd miraculously been able to conjure up between them.

"Fine," she said. "Slughorn's party is this weekend. If you haven't gotten into a duel with Severus by then – wands or words, I don't care which – then I'll get you in. But that's with the understanding that you keep leaving him alone for the rest of the year."

"You got it," said James, and they shook on it, with an air of near comical decorum, each equally skeptical of the other's intention to keep their word.

When Lily asked Severus casually come Friday if he had gotten into any tiffs with the Gryffindor's recently, his response was that he was even more suspicious of the boys' behavior towards him than ever. At first, Lily was bitterly disappointed, and was already thinking about how to confront James when Severus elaborated.

"I know they're planning something big, because they don't usually avoid me – usually Potter and Black go out of their way to pull out their wands on me in the corridor, but… I just wish I could figure out that they're playing at."

"So… they've been leaving you alone?"

"No, no you don't get it! They're planning something. I know they are. Like, the other day Potter was walking by a group of us in the hall – Macnair, Crabbe and me and a few other Slytherins – and Macnair started going on about the last Quidditch game, saying Potter had cheated him out of the last goal. Anyway, he went on and on and Potter just stood there, and then he turned to me, and you know what he said?"

"What?" asked Lily, growing concerned again.

"He asked me how you were doing. Yeah, then he said to tell you he said, 'Hi.' What's he playing at?"

"I don't know, Sev," said Lily, a little more surprised than she was pleased. "Maybe he just didn't want to start something."

"You weren't there, you didn't hear him," said Severus. "I was like he was rubbing something in my face. I just don't know what." He looked her over suspiciously, as if to ask if she were holding anything out on him that would explain Potter's inquirey after her.

"Me either," said Lily. She didn't feel very good about the lie, but also didn't know what good would come of telling Severus that she had struck a deal with James Potter over him. Especially one that involved accompanying him to a party. And that's when she realized that she had forgotten something very crucial in her plan.

"Oh, Severus, are you going to Slughorn's party tomorrow?" she asked, trying to sound as if it were a throwaway question.

"Oh, no, I… I…" Severus faltered. He would love to go to Slug's party with Lily, but he had plans with some of his Slytherin housemates that he couldn't back out of, and he didn't want to tell Lily that they were the reason why he had to ditch her tomorrow evening.

"Oh, ok, don't worry about it," she cut him off, relieved that she wouldn't have to play referee between Potter and Severus when she showed up the Slug's party with the former. I have plans. Just wondering."

"Well, how about after?" he asked. "We'll do something else to celebrate the end of the year."

"Sure," she said, smiling as she briefly squeezed his arm before walking off to find Potter.

Severus touched the spot on his arm where Lily had touched him as he watched her figure recede down the corridor. Maybe tonight, he thought. Maybe I'll tell her how I feel. Maybe she feels it, too.

On the night of the party, however, Severus's plans with his housemates fell through. Macnair, who was still bitter about the last game between Slytherin and Gryffindor, was planning on jumping the Gryffindor seeker, Christina Channi, in the corridor on her way back from her usual tutoring session at the library. But the lucky girl never showed, so Severus suddenly had an evening free and decided that, since Lily wasn't around either, he might as well go to Slughorn's last party of the year.

Needless to say, he had no words for what he saw when he walked into the enlarged office later that evening.

James bloody Potter was there. He was chatting it up with a group of people, looking pleased as could be, and when Severus walked over to find out how on earth he had gotten himself in, he saw Lily amongst the group.

She was laughing. She was actually laughing at whatever it was that Potter was saying. She thought he was funny. He felt sick. He wanted to go over there and confront her, but part of him also felt like leaving before anyone noticed that he was there. Instead, he secluded himself to a corner of the room with a drink, deciding to wait until Lily was on her own before confronting her.

When he scanned the room for her a while later, however, Severus realized that neither Lily nor James were anywhere in sight. He took two turns around the room, and when he finally saw them emerge from a dark corner ten minutes later, James looked exceedingly happy. Severus even caught him wink at Lily as they sat back down near Slughorn, who was utterly engrossed in a story that he was telling his students and much too tipsy to give much notice to anything else. When James leaned closer to Lily to whisper something in her ear, and Lily giggled – actually giggled – Severus had to leave. He didn't know that Lily had disappeared with James to get the key to Slughorn's closet and rob him of some adder's fork, a few bezoars, and a vial of ground pixie bones. He didn't know that what James was whispering in her ear was simply a joke about Slughorn's drunken demeanor. But it wouldn't have really made a difference if he had. The two of them together was bad enough. Exactly what James was saying didn't bother him as much as the fact that his lips were so close to Lily's ear.

Severus slammed his drink down on a nearby table, finally resolving to leave to party. But the sound had caught Lily's attention, for she looked up in the direction of the noise and saw Severus staring at her with eyes full of betrayal.

She ran after him, leaving James back at the party, confused as to why she had suddenly taken off without so much as a word to him. Had she really been that eager to leave him after she had gotten what he needed?

"Severus, wait! Please!" she shouted as she chased his receding figure down dungeon corridor. "Where are you going? Please, just let me talk to you!"

"I can't believe you actually went to Slughorn's party with him! We always go together! You told me you weren't going! Why would you lie?" Severus went on and on, finding it slightly easier to talk to her when he replaced his feelings of hurt with anger.

"It was a favor, Sev, that was all. I was doing him a favor. Look," she said, trying to figure out a way to explain everything so that he would listen. "We had this deal. I agreed to get him into the party if he did something for me."

"You lied to me," Severus spat back. "You wouldn't have if there wasn't something else to hide. You didn't want me there."

"It's not that, and I didn't lie, I just didn't mention it because I knew you'd react like – no," Lily stopped herself, her shoulders dropped under the weight of her blame. "No, you're right. I may not have said anything, but that's just as bad as lying. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sev."

"I just…" continued Severus, still not able to look her in the eye. "You'd really rather go with him than me?"

"No, Sev! That's not it at all! I told you, we had a deal – I was…" Lily came to a halt in her explanation. She knew Severus, so she knew that he wouldn't react well to knowing that the deal she had struck with Potter had been about protecting him from the big bad bullies. "Look," she started up again, finding a new approach. "I know you have this long-standing rivalry with most of Gryffindor, but don't you ever get tired of it, Sev? Don't you ever wonder why we all can't just be?"

You don't get it," snapped Severus. "You only see it that way because – because you didn't grow up in – you just don't understand the way it works in this world sometimes. It's all about whose side you're on–"

"I don't get it?" asked Lily, growing angry for the first time. "I don't get it? How dare you, Severus. If I understand one thing about this world it's the rivalry. I see it every day, Sev, because in case you've forgotten, I'm muggleborn. There isn't a day that goes by where I'm not reminded by somebody that I'm different, that some people think I don't even belong. And you know – you know – that most of those people are your friends. But have I ever cut you out for wanting to be with them? Have I ever tried to stop you from making your own choices? So excuse me! I'm so sorry that I actually had fun with someone other than you for a change! You always do this, Sev! And not just with James Potter, but with Mary and Denise and everyone else I spend more than five minutes with! Am I just supposed to sit around by myself while you go off doing God knows what with your housemates? I understand perfectly well what your friends think of me, but I have never tried to control you. And you dare tell me that I don't get it?"

"I… you… I don't… I could care less about your girlfriends! It's Potter-"

"Why are you so threatened by him Severus?" cried Lily in a last-ditch effort to get a straight answer out of him.

Severus, unable to fully comprehend what Lily just said, much less make any recognizable sounds come out of his mouth, simply stared at Lily as all the blood rushed out of his face.

"I… am not," he began to stutter, his voice barely above a whisper to stop himself from yelling at the top of his lungs. "I would never… you just… if you weren't so flighty-"

"Flighty?" Lily hissed. "That's a laugh coming from you."

Severus, if possible, turned even paler.

"Thanks for letting me know what you really think of me," Lily said, her voice shaking slightly. Before Severus could pull himself together, she turned on her heel and walked away from him, down the long corridor and around the corner. She didn't look back once.

Severus wasn't the only one that Lily had avoided for the remainder of the term. Though he hadn't done anything wrong – well, besides steal from Slughorn, but she didn't care about that – every time she looked at him she thought of her fight with Severus. At the very least she could be glad that he had indeed stuck to their deal until the end of the semester.

James, for his part, couldn't work out what had changed since Slug's party to suddenly make Evans even more distant from him than she had been before. He told himself that he shouldn't care, but it still bothered him. For the past three years, he and Evans had been like oil and water; they clashed whenever they came up against each other. But he had actually had fun with her last night. She had topped almost every quip he had made throughout the evening, had turned every dull conversation into a lively verbal match, and it quickly came to pass that they were talking to one another on their own, out of the buffering presence of a mass of people, and neither of them were any less comfortable for it. Now whenever he saw her in the Great Hall or before class or walking down a corridor, his mind instantly went solely to the idea of picking up where they had left off. He didn't know if he would really call his feelings toward Evans romantic, and she still puzzled him endlessly, but he did know that he found her fascinating and smart and funny and kind. But it seemed as though, whenever he did happen to catch her alone, she would actively try to avoid talking to him. What had he done wrong?

And what did Snivellus done right? This was what he had been asking himself ever since the night of Slug's party.

And now another semester was nearly at a close and James was no closer to finding an answer.

"Time's up, everyone!" Professor Slughorn boomed from the front of the classroom. "Bottle up your potions – and don't forget to tag them this time! I doubt you'll remember whose is who's when you come back from Christmas holiday!"

While most of the other students in their class scrambled to fit a few more ingredients into their potions, Lily and Severus tied tags onto their own flasks and walked up to the front of the classroom together to put them on Slughorn's desk.

"Looking forward to seeing what my two best students have managed, as usual!" Slughorn said, beaming at the two of them. Behind them, Sirius pretended to retch into his cauldron and James rolled his eyes so far up into his head that the backs of his eyeballs actually started to hurt.

"I swear, if Snivelly doesn't ask Evans to marry him one of these days, Slughorn will," Sirius said as he, James, Remus and Peter walked out of the classroom together.

Peter laughed heartily. Remus wrinkled his nose in slight disgust. James felt the same way that Remus did, but for the sake of his own pride he laughed feebly at the joke. He glanced back at Lily, who was now making her way up to the entrance hall with Snape some ways behind the boys, and tried to convince himself that he wasn't hurt by the fact that she would still rather hang around with that Slytherin brat than with… well, with him, for example.

"You alright, mate?" said Sirius suddenly, looking at James.

"Yeah," said James, coming out of his reverie. "Why?"

"You just looked all gloomy all of a sudden," said Sirius.

"Did I?" said James. "No, I'm just thinking. I just remembered that I haven't gotten my parents anything for Christmas yet," he lied, too prideful to admit that he might actually have feelings for a girl who didn't seem to like him back. "And we leave at the end of the week."

"Oh hey, that reminds me!" Sirius said, snapping his face back to normal. "I will die if I have to spend all the holiday with those people," he said, and James, Remus and Peter knew him to be referring to his family. "They're gonna have the whole lot there this year. All my cousins, even the in laws-"

"Well, that'll mean Andromeda will be there, right?" asked Remus.

"Are you kidding? Her name hasn't been uttered in that house since she took off with that Tonks guy," said Sirius, referring to when the Black family found out last month that Andy was pregnant with a muggleborn's baby. "Actually, I should thank her. That debacle actually took some of the pressure of me for a while. So, no, I don't think she'll be showing up. Although, Uncle Alphard should be there, and he likes me. And he's so old and far gone that nobody really bothers to convince him that I'm scum."

"Well that's… good," said Remus, trying to be positive.

"You won't have to deal with any of it for long, mate," said James, getting back to the point. "You can spend the holiday with me. My parents have already said they don't mind picking you up. They don't want you taking the knight bus again – said it's dangerous or something. I don't know, they've never let me on it."

"They think the knight bus is dangerous, but they're willing to come directly to my house?" asked Sirius, half-amused by this conundrum. "Just do me a favor and let me know when they're coming so I can literally leave the second they get there."

"No problem," said James. "I'll write as soon as I get home."

Sirius smiled as the four boys made their way into the great hall for supper. Somehow, despite the fact that he knew he had to spend the beginning of the holiday with his own despicable family, he felt that he could get through it all if it meant spending the rest of Christmas with James and his parents.