Operation: Rescue Lily
SS/LE, AU, Marauder Era, Time Travel
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Chapter 3 Most Evil Sandwich
At last, everything was quiet in the first year Gryffindor girls' dormitory. Lily was so close to him. Alive, well, and so wonderful. But enough of that, his or her mission was to keep Lily alive. It would take years, and Seely could not let little things distract her.
Strangling Greta Catchlove because she would not shut up about cheese was not going to help reach The Goal. Aid in Seely's maintaining her sanity, definitely. Why anyone would question her or his sanity, was really a dunderheaded thing to do because it was other people that made Severus Snape crazy, not himself. Cheese of all things. Merlin. And he or she was the crazy one?
So far, so good. Both Catchlove and MacDonald were unharmed by Seely. If they needed to be eliminated, she'd ensure there was no witnesses, or maybe some evidence planted to convict Potter and possibly Black. Those two were the biggest current dangers to Lily's life.
Lupin and Pettigrew were also dangerous. Lupin should be relatively simple to eliminate and Seely could start tomorrow if the opportunity presented itself. Pettigrew … hm, well, he'd betray Lily eventually, perhaps he could be encouraged to show himself as a traitor earlier in life. Though without Lupin, there may be no illegal animagi. Without his form, Pettigrew was not useful. Not useful at all.
Seely spent her night contemplating the plan so far, and where the plan should lead her next. Changing her entire appearance and life, time travel and infiltrating Hogwarts and Gryffindor were the easy stages. None of these would help Lily. With or without her aid, Lily would go to Hogwarts and would get sorted into Gryffindor.
Even though saving Lily was his primary objective, Severus would always enjoy a generous helping of the succulent side dish of sweet, heaping revenge on his eleven-year old rivals. For him, the next seven years would be all too short for releasing his righteous fury upon them. Some may call him immature, even at forty, for holding a grudge against these four eleven-year olds, but he knew with absolute certainty, they sucked at the very teat of the most hideous succubus ever released from Hell. Dancing to the fiddle of Lucifer himself, as they played every stupid prank, spewed forth every insult, smilingly told every lie, broke into every self-assured, cocky smirk, and undeservedly won Lily's affection.
The Marauders would heartily enjoy the most evil sandwich ever created and packed by their house elves for their picnic from the fiery pits from which they emerged. Upon bread baked in a oven fueled by the bones of unbaptized newborns, using wheat harvested from Hell's half-acre, milled on the floor of a fetid, never cleaned slaughterhouse, baked by Satan himself, covered with mayonnaise beaten from the evil eggs of a basilisk, force fed by werewolves, cheesed boiled from the rancid udder of Shub-Niggurath, the black goat of the woods with a thousand young, layered with 666 separate meats from whatever Hagrid was currently breeding, which had maggots for blood. And it would be silly for anyone to assume that he had been planning this for the past thirty, painful, humiliating, lonely, unrequited, interminable years. Severus dearly hoped that this wicked sandwich would give them the most flatulent, explosive diarrhea in recorded and non-recorded history, but that would have to wait. Lily came first.
*** Go Go Gryffindor *** Go Go Gryffindor *** Go Go Gryffindor *** Go Go Gryffindor *** Go Go Gryffindor *** Go Go Gryffindor *** Go Go Gryffindor ***
Lily was friendly to all three of her roommates so Seely followed suit and was amiable to Greta Catchlove and Mary MacDonald, despite her real feelings regarding them. There better be no talk about cheese, hair or clothes today. It was their first day of classes at Hogwarts. Even these two brainless boobs should pay attention.
The four Gryffindor boys kept turning up everywhere they went, so Seely decided there was no time like the present. With a lopsided grin, she gushed over Remus Lupin, "Wow! No question why you got sorted into Gryffindor. You fight off a werewolf?"
Nervously, Remus repeated, "A werewolf?"
"Yeah, aren't those cursed scars? Not necessarily a werewolf, but some other dark creature? You are a lot braver than I. I would have ran as fast as I could."
The other first years were all taking note of Remus' face. It was not polite to point out someone's imperfections, but if Remus had fought off a werewolf, that was something else entirely.
"Um, I'd rather not talk about it," Remus muttered. His first day of school, and a girl pegged him as injured by a werewolf? Maybe he should talk this over with Prof. Dumbledore. The plan to 'go home' for every full moon was dodgy at best.
"That's alright. I didn't mean to embarrass you, but I'm trying to figure out what that old hat saw in me to put me in here. I think of myself as loyal and friendly which would be a Hufflepuff, right?"
"Hufflepuff?" guffawed Black. "They're worthless."
Seely smirked as a Hufflepuff beater who mysteriously carried his bat everywhere, like a child dragging a ragged, frayed blanket, passed and overheard Black. His eyes locked onto his target, and he treated Black's head like a rogue bludger, with the added bonus of knocking Black's head into also laughing Potter with a hollow sounding thunk, before they sunk to the floor.
Acting as if they were not interrupted, Seely replied, "Loyalty isn't worthless. And by the way, boys, no brain, no pain."
"They're loyal to each other," a dazed James corrected woozily. He added with difficulty, grasping for the words for a hilarious comeback, as if he had been not been owned in front of every student present. "They aren't the sharpest quills in the pumpkin patch …"
Seeing the next group of students to pass, Seely suggested, "Isn't that Ravenclaw, or even those cunning Slytherins?"
"Slytherins suck. They're all scum," Black all but shouted, rousing from his comalike stupor, unable to let such a remark pass without comment.
Being the fine examples of fair play that they were, the Slytherins took advantage of Potter's and Black's prone state on the floor, and smoothly introduced their well-polished shoes to their ribs and perhaps lower once or twice, as they passed, without pausing. This caused some of the male spectators to wince with sympathy pains.
To Lily, Seely said, "I don't think so. Everyone has good qualities. It just takes longer to find them with some people," she said with a pointed look towards the male Gryffindors.
Lily grumbled, "Those two are toerags. They were on the train yesterday. I value loyalty, and Severus is loyal too. I hope we have a class with him."
"Did you understand anything in Transfiguration? Those charts she had on the board. What the heck were those?"
"I don't know, and she's our head of house. Do you think she'll hate us if we can't get it?" Lily asked.
"I hope not. The only thing I have a chance at on this schedule is Flying, and I heard we only have it for a short while. What am I going to do for a decent grade for seven years?"
"Maybe Severus can help us. His mum's a witch."
"So's mine. Hopefully his told him something more than mine did."
They did finally see Severus in Potions. When Slughorn told them to pair up in twos, Seely shrugged and commented, "Well, you can see me any class, Lily. Severus has been your friend much longer than I."
Seely also knew there were four other Slytherin boys and two Slytherin girls. If Lily did not pair with Severus, no one would. Catchlove and MacDonald paired, Pettigrew and Lupin, and Black and Potter.
Sitting alone among hissing first years was no big deal to Seely. She turned to give Lily a smile to show that everything was all right, and saw that Severus was staring at her. Oh right, she chose the name Seely Prince so he didn't spend seven years hissing in Lily's ear about how terrible she was. Well, the mystery was eating at him, so she decided to be a bit silly and gave Severus a thumbs up. Oh man, Severus looked behind him before accepting she was signaling to him, so he purposely turned his attention to his book. What a moron he had been at eleven.
Slughorn took attendance, then had the audacity to ask if she'd be all right on her own. "Yes, professor." Seely's eyes narrowed. Maybe today she'd brew her first potion correctly, then she'd hose up a simpler one later. Like failing to boil water.
At first Seely thought one of the gas taps was defective because there was a constant hissing noise. But no, it was Black. "Pst, Prince … you're so homely Evans would rather work with a slimy Slytherin than you."
Feeling generous after their beatings, Seely made the appropriate first year response face to such a juvenile taunt, and waited till Slughorn complimented her concoction as he passed before fixing Potter's and Black's. The two were so busy laughing and having a fine time, they paid no attention to some extra ingredients levitated into their cauldron so by the time Slughorn circled back to the them, they had something resembling greenish mud that was improperly stirred so was overheated and sticking to the bottom of their cauldron.
Those two had better watch their step. Severus, or Seely, sorry, could recall some mighty fine potions accidents, usually starring Neville Longbottom, pure genius. She also had the experience and magic to do it quietly and fairly unseen, if she got to the classroom first and was able to 'fix things' around their table in the back corner. Lots of nice, dark nooks on the shelves behind them.
After Potions, Seely joined Severus and Lily. They had Flying next. As Seely recalled, Severus would have his first disastrous flying lesson today with them.
Lily was already telling Severus, "Seely's flew lots already. Maybe she can show us."
"Well … maybe I exaggerated a bit. There's some brooms that won't do crap for me," Seely explained. "I'll probably end up with the one that throws off everyone. Then you'll think me a proper fool, won't you?"
"Your name's Prince?" Severus asked, not allowing this gabbling dunderhead to distract him with her chatter.
"Yeah … uh, is there some family feuding thing going back to the Picts and Saxons with your family?"
"Oh no, nothing like that. My mother's maiden name was Prince."
"Oh!" Seely exclaimed. "My parents … well, if I had known, I certainly would have sent you a card every birthday and Christmas, at the very least. How can I make it up to you?"
"Make it up to me?"
"Oh please, Severus. Don't be angry at me. I didn't know."
Haltingly, he replied in confusion, "I'm not angry."
"You look like the sort that could get angry. I'll try to do my best to avoid that. Just you wait. Besides, Lily and I already have trouble with … oh, what did you call them, Lily? Oh! Toerags! Yes, toerags. I like that word. Anyway, there's a couple boys in our house that are really rotten. Not even just in the normal boy sort of way."
"The two from the train, Severus. They're in Gryffindor with us and are just plain horrible," Lily agreed. Seely and Severus were related somehow? They had similar faces, along with black hair and eyes.
By the time they were outside and standing around with the brooms, Severus' head was spinning. Prince, at least, was trying to talk about flying, but Lily was angry about those boys on the train. Prince was related to him, somehow. Did that mean she was just friendly, or did she fancy him? She was quite odd. Prince smiled directly at him and made friendly hand gestures across the classroom.
He looked at the broom. His mother did not have one so he had never tried it before. Lily hadn't either. There had to be others in the class that had never ridden a broom. Prince said she had, but as they got closer to this class, she protested that some brooms were not rider-friendly. He smirked, thinking that perhaps she was covering for her lack of skill too.
"Shut up already." Severus turned his head to figure out who Lily was talking to. It wasn't Prince because she was standing by Lily's side with her hands on her hips, glaring in the same direction as Lily.
"Ah, come on, you two. It's obvious you are fighting over that piece of Slytherin trash," one of those boys from the train continued.
"We're friends, not fighting, dunderheads," Seely replied.
She called them dunderheads? Severus wondered to himself.
"Well, the three of you can talk all you want, but you'll all be cheering for me when I show you how flying's really done," Potter boasted. "I got a Nimbus at home."
"This old broom must be a step up from that, eh?" Seely taunted.
"What?" Potter exclaimed, falling for her taunt. "The Nimbus 1001 is the best racing broom ever."
Seely raised her right hand and folded her fingers over her thumb repeatedly to mock Potter's yakking. "Yeah, yeah, you know the models of some racing brooms. Here comes the teacher so you might want to start backpedaling."
"I do to have a Nimbus 1001. You know how much those cost, Prince?"
"I already got a broom, Mr. Nimbus."
"Mine's better. Just you wait till next year."
"Can you mount this one, Potter, without a stack of galleons to use as a stepstool?"
"Shut up, you stupid girl," Potter huffed and turned to talk to his mate, Black.
Severus saw Prince cast something, but it was not obvious. Potter's school broom throwing him face first on the ground could be a coincidence. Not likely, and Severus had his own problems with the broom he ended up with. Prince offered him hers to try once she made sure hers knew what the word 'up' meant. He allowed the trade and then she made a spectacle of herself giving his former broom a stern talking to while choking the handle and holding it up to her nose. He might write his mother to inquire if insanity ran in the Prince family. Lily found her funny.
After Seely told the broom who was boss, she smacked it with her wand sparking, and then mounted it, going high enough that the tips of her toes barely touched the ground, as instructed. She waited while Lily and Severus adjusted their height, and also spared a glance for Potter who was complaining vociferously that the broom he was given was absolute rubbish.
"Hey, does your toy broomstick at home even get this high, Potter? Don't they have a two foot limit?"
"Shut up, Prince."
Seely smirked. No one was laughing at Severus, as they had previously during his first flying lesson.
"You got a Nimbus None at home too, Black?" she asked.
"I'm eleven. My little brother gets all my old crap."
Wait … Seely might be able to break up Potter and Black? Saving Lily was the important thing. Couldn't have her suddenly pitying Potter and still end up dead.
Even Pettigrew did better than Potter. He was complaining to everyone and then the second broom he tried out spun completely over, dumping him on his head. This time Severus was watching Prince, rather than Potter. She did it. Severus could not tell what, but she cast something.
Once the three of them were let out of class, Severus accused, "I saw you."
Seely responded, "Uh, well, you should see me when I'm actually allowed to fly, and I mean on a good broom."
"Not that. What you did to Potter."
"What could Seely do to Potter? We were all trying to stay out of his way so he didn't crash into us," Lily complained.
Seely rolled her eyes and added, "That's all that egocentric moron needs, someone to blame his poor flying on. Did you hear him? He blamed everything but gravity working on that fat head of his. It was the brooms, the sun in his eyes, the shoes he's wearing, his school robe, and that boy on the other side of him veering into his 'flight path'. Yeah, I hexed his broom every time, and maybe I should show up at the quidditch try-outs too."
"What is this quidditch anyway? Can't Potter get through a sentence without saying Nimbus or quidditch?" Lily huffed.
Severus was not sure if Prince was on his side, but she definitely did not like those boys that bothered Lily and called him Snivellus on the train. He wouldn't tell on her now, but if she did anything to Lily, he knew a couple spells that would set her straight. A first year able to mess with brooms meant that she knew a few spells too, but nothing as good as what Severus knew.