AN: Hey guys, I've been itching to submit this chapter all day, damn college! Thank you so much for the reviews, they make me smile and encourage me to keep on writing. They have been so supportive. I know kittyprettypryde wanted me to introduce Lily and more of the Marauders, so I have done. I hope I've written Lily properly. Enjoy!
DISCLAIMER; All characters apart from Simona belong to the almighty J.K Rowling. I am but a lowly fanfiction writer who puts her characters back after writing about them.
CHAPTER THREE; LILLY EVANS; THE PEACEMAKER
As Severus and Simona descended into the dungeons, Simona felt the temperature drop. 'I have got to get used to that'she thought. At the bottom of the spiral stairs lay a corridor with several wooden doors. Outside one of them, third year students were queuing up, ready to enter the classroom. Simona, accompanied by Severus joined the back of the Slytherin queue. On the other side of the door was the Gryffindor line. Simona spotted Sirius leering at her, sighing in exasperation Simona turned to look at Severus who was looked surly back at Sirius.
"Come in, come in. Welcome back fifth-years!" Professor Slughorn boomed as he bounced down the corridor, his graduate cap threatening to fall off his balding head. The students began to file into the classroom and take their seats.
Simona sat at the back with Severus and looked around the room. The potions room was large, spacious with blinding amounts of light filtering through the windows. Two of the walls were covered with large pine bookcases, which were full of an assortment of potions books. Sinks were located at the back of the classroom with various cauldrons and cupboards that were hung on flimsy, rusting hooks. Professor Slughorn pretty much skipped to the front of the class and sharply turned, he then began writing on the blackboard 'Pepperup Potion' in curly cursive.
"Now, today you'll be brewing the Pepperup potion. Can anyone tell me the effects of this potion?" Slughorn asked brightly, his eyes scanning the sea of gormless faces. "Miss Evans, surely you could tell me the answer?" Slughorn asked, after 30 seconds of awkward silence he began to sound desperate.
"Invented by Glover Hipworth, the Pepperup potion cures the common cold. It tends to cause steam to come out of the drinker's ears for up to several hours after it is consumed," said a voice from the front of the classroom. Simona snorted.
"Know-it-all," she mumbled absentmindedly doodling in her new notebook. Severus' black eyes snapped up at her, a sneer forming on his lips. "What is wrong with you?" Simona whispered, not understanding his sudden change in demeanour.
"Lily Evans is not a know-it-all. She's a very talented Potions student," Severus snapped back belligerently, his hands curling into fists. Simona, taken aback by his aggressive defence of a Gryffindor looked down back at her notebook in discomfort. Feeling it was unwise to challenge his cantankerous mood any further.
"I've written the instructions on the board, they are also in your textbooks, page 23. All of the ingredients should be at the back in the store cupboard. The best brew by the end of the lesson will receive 15 points for their house. Good luck!" Professor Slughorn instructed, waving his arms around for dramatic effect. "Miss Sforza, if I could talk to you for a minute." Slughorn added, motioning for Simona to walk over to him. Simona got out of her chair reluctantly and walked towards the front of the classroom. "Pray, sit Miss Sforza." He said, pointing at a chair and sitting at his desk. Simona complied, wondering what he wanted to talk about with her. "I understand that you have only just joined us this year, do you have any practical experience of Potions?"
"No, professor I have read the books though. My parents did not allow me to brew potions at home," Simona said politely. Her adopted parents were interested in the books Simona had been sent by Hogwarts in preparation for her start in September, but they drew the line at allowing her to create the potions from the textbook. Her adoptive mother, as kind as she was, was reluctant to clean up any of the messes Simona may have caused.
"I'm relieved you have read up on the theory Miss Sforza, but for the mean time I'd like you to pair up with Miss Evans, she is an exceptional potions student who will bring you up to speed rather quickly," Professor Slughorn said, nodding at Lily who was busily chopping up and adding ingredients to the Pepperup potion. Simona looked at Severus, who was also adding ingredients to the potion with precision, his eyes oddly focused on Lily. Why was he staring at her? And his sudden burst of anger directed towards Simona after she made a comment about Lily. Something was up, and Simona, as curious as she was, wanted to know what was going on. "Miss Sforza, is that acceptable?" Professor Slughorn asked, snapping Simona out of her thoughts.
"Hmm?" Simona asked, her eyes focusing back on Slughorn who had a raised brow in confusion. "Oh right, sorry professor, I was a million miles away, yes of course that is fine. Shall I approach her now?" Simona continued, remembering what Slughorn had just told her. Slughorn nodded slowly, still concerned with Simona's sudden lapse in concentration.
"Very well Miss Sforza, you may go talk to Miss Evans," Slughorn replied, waving his hand. Simona bowed her head and apprehensively approached the table where Lily was busy slaving away over her cauldron. After nervously clearing her throat, trying to gain Lily's attention, a pair of vibrant green eyes, hiding behind a curtain of shiny auburn hair looked up to see Simona shifting her feet uncomfortably.
"Oh hello, can I help you?" Lily asked politely, gently putting down her stirring rod and giving Simona her full attention. Simona slowly looked up and smiled minutely.
"Hello, Professor Slughorn said that if it's okay that you would help me in Potions. I have only just started at Hogwarts and well, I have no practical potions experience. He said you were the best in the class. And that you could bring me up to speed," Simona said hurriedly, reciting Professor Slughorn's words, breathing a sigh of relief after she finished. She felt that if she didn't come out with it straight away, she would have forgotten what Slughorn had told her. Lily raised a brow in amusement at the speed in which Simona spoke to her.
"Really, he said that?" Lily inquired, Simona nodded in response. Lily raised both eyebrows in shock, and went back to stirring her ingredients, adding powdered bicorn horn. "Well I'm Lily, if you want to just grab a stool and I'll tell you what I'm doing, and some basic potion brewing," Lily smiled, Simona nodded in response and sat next to Lily as she continued to stir the potion, noting its change in colour from a muddy brown to a healthy green. Simona quickly glanced into her textbook and noticed it was the correct colour. "So this is the Pepperup potion, I'm heating the cauldron at about 200 degrees Celsius, that tends to be the optimum temperature to brew potions. I've already added the chopped mandrake root, which adds the kick to the potion. The powdered bicorn horn creates the steam and clears the sinuses. All that needs to be done now is just to keep an eye on the potion, and if it goes a deep purple colour, it means it needs to be stirred more. Do you want to do that?" Lily asked, handing the rod to Simona, who nodded again. 'Merlin, that girl knows what she's talking about' Simona thought, watching the potion as it started to turn purple. Simona quickly stirred the potion carefully until it changed back into the green it once was. "That's good, it shouldn't take too much longer. I never asked your name by the way?" Lily asked with a small smile, with a hand extended towards Simona.
"Oh, I'm Simona, Simona Sforza," Simona replied, shaking Lily's hand. Simona quickly chanced another glance at Severus, who was staring back with confusion in his dark eyes, still stirring his potion. Simona smiled shyly and looked back at the potion, still a green colour.
"That's a pretty name, where's it from?" Lily asked, genuinely interested in idle chatter, at this point Sirius and the boy with the messy hair from the train swaggered over, and did what Sirius claimed to be an 'attractive' smile. It actually made Simona shiver with disgust.
"Hello Lily, aren't we looking beautiful today?" Sirius said, with an annoying toothy smile. Simona rolled her eyes and started stirring the Pepperup potion to stop herself from gagging at Sirius' perceived 'charm'. Lily giggled and blushed. "Oh, I didn't notice you there Simona, it must be because your guard dog, Snivellus isn't here," he sneered, the messy haired boy starting to show signs of amusement. Simona chose to ignore Sirius' comment with great restraint, she could just picture grabbing him by his hair and smacking his face off of the work bench.
"Leave her alone Sirius, she's new. I wish you would stop calling Sev that, it isn't nice, "Lily said batting Sirius on the arm, Sirius laughed and looked into the cauldron.
"Why do you stick up for him Lil, he deserves it," Sirius whined, waving mockingly at Severus who was scowling back, his black eyes narrowing into dangerous slits, who was now vigorously stirring his potion.
"Because Sev's a good guy Sirius, You just can't see past his house. Why can't you give him a chance?" Lily chastised, causing the messy haired boy to tut in unison. "Don't you start James, you give him a really hard time. Of course he's going to retaliate if you keep picking on him," she continued. Simona smiled, she admired how Lily was so willing to stick up for Severus, which must be why Severus kept looking at her, and why he got so mad earlier in the lesson. She seemed to be one of the only Gryffindors who were friendly to him.
"Fine, okay we'll give him a break, but only because you're a good mate Lil," James said resignedly looking at Sirius for a reaction. He nodded with an exasperated sigh.
"Good, now leave me and Simona alone. We want to win those house-points," Lily said with a grin, looking at Simona and winking. Looking at the potion again, Lily wrote a few extra notes in her book and slammed it shut. "It looks like we're done here Simona; let's just hope it's good enough to win us those points. Sev is usually hard to beat," Lily said, smiling warmly at Severus, who quickly looked down at his potion, blushing.
"Should we start to pack away?" Simona asked, hoping to be of more use than a potion stirrer. Lily nodded and pointed at the spare ingredients.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Just put the spare ingredients in the jar labelled 'waste products' just by the sink, the stirring rod needs to be washed and when you're done with that just give me the rod back. I'll pack away the rest," Lily said politely. Simona nodded and carefully picked up the ingredients and carried them to the back of the room.
After Simona had finished doing as Lily said, she went and sat back down next to Lily, just in time for Slughorn's inspection of the potions. He started at the front of the classroom and worked his way back, after muttering a few compliments, and patting the back of one student, who looked extremely frazzled and drained of energy he got to Lily and Simona, who were looking expectantly at him. "Miss Sforza and Miss Evans, let's see how your joint-effort went eh?" Slughorn said excitedly, peering into the cauldron, after a few seconds he stepped back with a huge grin on his face. "Merlin's Beard! Well it certainly looks right, the colouring is spot-on. You two look like strong contenders for first place," he said, his eyes glittering with enthusiasm. Lily exclaimed in surprise and smiled broadly at Simona who returned her smile, with less conviction. After a few more inspections and coughing fits caused by copious amounts of steam billowing out of some of the more 'questionable' brews, Professor Slughorn reached Severus' table. Severus was stood tensely, his eyes boring holes into the back of Slughorn's head as he peered into the cauldron. "Almost there Severus, I think you just stirred it a tad too much. The colour is a bit too on the blue side, but a gallant effort all around," Sirius and James sniggered quietly, just loud enough for Severus to hear whose eyes snapped up and glared at them with revulsion. "I think that makes Miss Evans and Miss Sforza our victors for today, 15 points to both Slytherin and Gryffindor. That'll be all for today everyone, you may leave," Slughorn said brightly, Lily grinned and went to high-five Simona, who only reluctantly complied.
"I'm so glad we won Simona, it was great working with you. I can't wait until next lesson," Lily beamed as she quickly packed up her belongings and skipped off to join Sirius and James, who were still smirking unpleasantly at Severus. Severus was busily packing his own effects away. Simona walked up to Severus and caught his attention.
"Are you ready to go?" She asked kindly, Severus nodded firmly, still not in a good mood. As they walked out of the classroom and onto their next lesson, which was Transfiguration Professor Slughorn bounded behind them.
"Miss Sforza, good work today. You and Miss Evans seem to work together like a dream, how interesting," he pondered, turning back seemingly in deep thought. Simona looked at Severus and shrugged her thin shoulders.
The rest of the day went to go by with relative ease. Simona had struggled to turn a cup into a tortoise, causing it to turn it into a tortoise-patterned cup. This earned a few giggles from the Gryffindors, and Professor McGonagall to smirk in amusement. Simona was then saddled with the task of practicing the transformation for the next lesson. In Defence Against the Dark Arts, Severus seemed to be obsessively taking notes, including some rather crude drawings of stick-figures being subjected to various different spells. One of the drawings seemed to have parsnips instead of hands, Simona couldn't stop smirking at these scribbles, much to the vexation of Professor Ray. One subject she seemed to be adapting to quite well was Muggle Studies, which after the confused gawks she recieved from the other students, was able to answer the majority of questions asked by a rather surprised Professor Jennison. She earned 20 points for Slytherin in that one lesson, when Simona left the classroom she felt quite proud of herself.
At supper, Simona who was glad for a break propped up her Transfiguration textbook and attempted to change one of the spare cups into a tortoise. After half an hour of no success she gave up. Grabbing some tomato soup and eating it disappointedly. Severus was too busy scrawling in his notebook to notice Evan and Avery slumping down at the table. They immediately started piling food onto their plates and chatting idly. As it approached the end of supper, and the end of the first day at Hogwarts for Simona, Severus slammed his book shut. This caused Simona, Evan and Avery to jump.
"Bloody hell Snape, you almost gave me a heart attack!" Avery said in frustration. Severus' mouth curled into a smirk. "So how was your first day, Sforza?" Avery asked in an attempt at conversation as he leaned over the table.
"Fine," Simona replied tersely, after only knowing him for a day, Simona didn't like Avery too much. She felt he was too judgemental and hostile. She didn't feel much like talking to him. "I'm going to the common room now, Severus are you coming?" She asked, not wanting to be in Avery's company for much longer. She was also exhausted. Severus looked up at her, and after a few seconds nodded.
"Bye," Severus said curtly, and stood up to walk with Simona. Avery scoffed and continued shovelling food into his mouth, which Simona found repulsive. As Simona and Severus reached the doors of the Great Hall they were blocked by the appearance of James, Sirius and two other figures, unknown to Simona she had seen them before on the train. One seemed to look ill, with slicked back blonde hair and deep bags under their honey coloured eyes. The other was round, with rat-like features and two front teeth that were exposed from over their bottom lip. All four were sneering at Severus, whose hand went to reach for his wand again.
"Now, now Snivellus, we don't want to cause any trouble now do we Sirius?" James said, stepping forward with a nasty grin on his face. Simona glowered at the four Gryffindors.
"What, do you want?" Severus said quietly, with a dangerous tone to his voice. After being on the receiving end of Severus' temper before, Simona knew the Gryffindors were in trouble. Sirius stepped forward with his hands up, as if trying to tame a feral dog.
"Calm down, Snivelly," Sirius said, spitting out the last word, causing Severus to narrow his eyes, his hand sill not moving away from his wand. "Lily told us to play nice, so we are. Say we're, waving the white flag," Sirius continued, mirroring James' nasty smile. Simona did hear Lily berate Sirius and James earlier for their attitude towards Severus, but she knew Sirius was just using empty words. She didn't believe him. Severus seemed to recognise this too, his black eyes still narrowed with distrust.
Just as Severus was about to reach for his wand, Lily skipped over to them, a friendly grin on her face. "Hey guys, what's going on?" She said, putting an arm on James' shoulder who in turn tried to look nonchalant.
"Just telling Snape we're going to be pleasant from now on, weren't we Sirius?" James said, his brown eyes scrutinising Sirius, as if to jolt him in saying the right thing. Sirius nodded, albeit a bit too enthusiastically.
"Oh, okay. Hiya Simona, I'll see you tomorrow in Potions eh?" Lily said, smiling amiably at Simona, who nodded in return. Lily turned her emerald green gaze to Severus and smiled again. "Sev, good work today, I thought you were going to beat us! Better luck next time?" She said with a small laugh, Severus blushed and looked at the floor, avoiding her warm gaze. "I'm off back to the tower, are you guys coming with me?" She asked the other Gryffindors, after tearing their eyes off of Severus nodded and started to follow Lily. "Bye guys," she said politely as she walked off. After Lily had left, Severus looked back up and saw Simona staring back with an arched brow.
"What?" He mumbled, Simona shrugged her shoulders and yawned, the first day of Hogwarts had left her exhausted, how she was going to survive a year without falling asleep she didn't know.
"Shall we go back to the dormitories? I'm so tired," Simona asked, avoiding another yawn that almost snuck up on her. Severus nodded and set off almost straight away, leaving Simona struggling to keep up with Severus' long strides.
When they finally got into the Slytherin common room, Simona had to stop herself from collapsing straight onto one of the sofas. It was then that Simona noticed Vicky hunched over several textbooks looking deep in thought.
"Oh hiya Simona," Vicky said, noticing Simona's arrival. She smiled, but there was a strange look in her eyes. "How was your first day?" Vicky continued, with the same weird smile.
"It's been good, I earned 35 points for Slytherin today," Simona replied, attempting to sound conversational. Vicky smiled wider, putting her quill down and looking interested in what Simona had to say. "I'm really tired though, I don't know how I'm going to do it for the rest of the year," Simona smirked, Vicky laughed loudly, drawing the attention of the students who were in the common room. "I'm off to bed now, I'll see you later," Simona continued, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself.
"Bye Simona, have a nice rest," Vicky replied, her eyes resting on a piece of parchment full of frantic scribbles and corrections. Simona walked back over to Severus who was slumped in a chair, his greasy hair hung over his face. It looked like he was about to fall asleep.
"Severus, I'm going to my room now, I'll see you tomorrow," She said softly, not wanting to wake him up. Severus started and looked up at Simona in confusion. "I'm going to bed, see you tomorrow." Simona repeated. Severus nodded sleepily and walked with her up to her room. As they reached the top of the stairs Simona turned and looked at Severus. "Well, this is me, double Herbology first thing. That should be fun," Simona retorted sarcastically, earning a minute smirk from Severus. "Goodnight Severus," Simona added, smiling and walking into her dorm.
Simona walked straight towards her bed as soon as she entered the dorm, wanting to avoid Bellatrix's once again piercing glare. Changing out of her school robes she put on her pyjamas and went to brush her teeth. Simona wondered why Vicky seemed off with her, the last couple of times they had spoken Vicky was almost overtly happy, annoyingly so. But this time she seemed withdrawn, and trying to act like nothing was wrong.
Once Simona had finished that train of thought and stopped brushing her teeth she almost leapt onto her bed out of exhaustion. Pulling the curtains around her, she quickly fell asleep, ready for the next day of Hogwarts.
Elsewhere in the boy's dormitory, Severus Snape lay awake. 'Why on earth is that Simona being so courteous to me?' he thought, not understanding why Simona continued to stick up for them when he came under fire from the Gryffindors. He also considered why they were 'trying' to be nice to them. 'Lily' he internally scoffed, 'forever the peacemaker'finally closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.
AN: So that's chapter 3 guys, I am currently working on chapter 4, and hopefully I will publish it tomorrow, if not asap! I made up some of the Professor's names as I wasn't too sure who taught each subject back when Severus and the Marauders were at Hogwarts. I also used, with the aid of Harry Potter Wikia some information on the Pepperup Potion, and I read about the Transfiguration lesson in POA. I will probably just make stuff up though. Hope some of you guys don't mind! Please review, like I said, I really do appreciate every review I receive! :)