A/N: Please take this extra-long chapter as an apology for the tardiness of it!
All the usual warnings apply. as well as some mentions of racism and some scenes with low-level fantasy violence (jinxes and hexes).
March 28th, 1976
James and Peter had a secret.
Remus knew. How could he not? He'd known them since they were eleven years old, and besides, neither of them were particularly adept at hiding things. It was something different to what he'd previously suspected; to whatever they had been doing with - him. That was done, he thought. Peter wouldn't so much as look at him, and the convenient excuses were finished. They didn't stack strange books on their desks as they emptied their bags in search of quills, and Peter's slips were no more. There had been no hint of it since the full moon, and Remus had been delusional enough to believe that it was done, that they were done keeping things from him. He'd gone so far as to rationalise that it must have been the other who insisted on hiding whatever it was. If James and Peter had never wanted to keep it from him, than he had no right to hold it against them. No right to doubt them, and no reason to worry.
He'd made himself believe that, for a moment, for almost a fortnight, as though he wasn't a werewolf.
As though he wasn't a monster, and as though he didn't have to spend the rest of his life waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Despite the party, James woke at dawn and went about his shower so noisily that Remus and Peter got up, too. Remus' head throbbed gently. He'd spent most of James' birthday trapped in conversation with Frank Longbottom about the Auror department and their mock exams. Remus had no idea what he wanted to do after school, and upon admitting this, Frank tried very hard to become his career counsellor.
"If you want a Ministry career, they're taking pretty well anyone at the moment, depending on the department," Frank had said. "They do a bit of a background check, but that's not a worry for you. And with your marks, you could do anything. It's very comfortable, the union has negotiated annual pay increases – not much, mind, and there's been a bit of uproar about it, but personally I think it's good, don't you? In past years so much of it has come down to a game of who-knows-who – hard-working muggle-borns could go years being denied a raise… Auror salaries are up, too, one chap was on the wireless talking about hazard pay…" Remus had gritted his teeth in a smile and drunk rather more than he intended to. His chances at the Ministry stopped with a background check, if it was any kind of thorough, and even if it wasn't… A few days off and they'd soon realise. It made his wrists tingle. He didn't want to think about what would happened after Hogwarts… even assuming the best case scenario, in ten years he'd run into Frank in a pub and the older boy would tilt his head and pat his shoulder and give him a look of sympathy, all the while wondering, what happened? How'd he blow it? A prefect, with those marks, and yet…
Remus stabbed his beans.
"Alright?" Peter croaked. Remus wrinkled his nose. Peter had woken up in a fit of terror, frightened he smelled of marijuana, and had applied so many Sweet-Smelling Charms that the reek of orchids and something that vaguely reminded him of Pepperup Potion hung like an aura around him. Remus shoved the baked beans into his mouth to distract himself from the smell, and nodded.
James set his pumpkin juice down and looked up.
"The post," he said. Sure enough, a flock of owls swooped down upon the hall, envelopes and packages tied to their legs. A handsome barn owl grew closer and closer until it dropped a rolled-up newspaper beside a pitcher of water. James took the paper without hesitation and unrolled it.
"Prophet," he said. The owl returned and shot Remus an expectant look. He swallowed his beans and scrounged in his pocket. "Go on," James interrupted, tossing two bronze coins into the owl's attached pouch. Remus dug in his other pocket, finding only crumbs.
"James," he said. "I'll have the -"
"Don't worry," James said, waving his hand, and the owl took flight, rendering the point useless. "You're eating, so I'll read it. It's fair that I should pay for it." James had polished off his plate of fruit with unnatural speed for somebody who had been throwing up until about two hours ago. Remus' fingers froze in their efforts.
"Thank you," he murmured, the back of his neck heating. James hummed in response. He looked healthier hungover than Remus did on his best days; James was all tanned skin (in March) and casual coolness.
"There's a piece interviewing the new Wigtown beater about the match next week, about his sister joining up for Montrose… A market in Godric's Hollow… An illegal Animagus was apprehended in Appleby early yesterday evening." James raised his eyebrows.
"What?" Peter coughed. "I didn't… I didn't… I didn't think people could really, you know, erm, get into trouble for that."
"Didn't you know?" Remus said bleakly. "The Ministry hates anyone who turns into something non-human."
"Oh," James said, eyes skimming the text. "Well, they got him – he was a cockroach – in the Appleby Arrows changerooms. The Arrows' manager says it's disgraceful – I bet they asked Frizelle about it." He rifled through the pages. "Oh, they must have interviewed him before it happened. Not a good look, though. If Wigtown wants to win this year, they'll have to do better than spying…"
"Cockroach?" Peter goggled. "I didn't know you could turn into a cockroach! Nobody ever told me that!"
"You won't turn into a cockroach," Remus said. "You're not stupid enough to go and try to become one of those." A heat burned within him. "Anybody stupid enough to go and think it's fun to turn into something else gets what they deserve." It felt like a mockery of his condition. He was forced to become – to become a monster once a month – and other people went out and transformed themselves into a wolf for a laugh.
"Oh," said Peter. "You think so?" Remus said nothing. "I mean… yeah, you're right…" Remus felt like he was being watched. He met James' eyes. James pulled a face.
"Whatever you reckon, it's dirty tactics from the Wanderers," he said, and flipped through a few more pages. "Oh." He straightened his glasses.
"What is it?" Remus asked. Peter echoed his question with a voice muffled by a spoonful of porridge. James cleared his throat and spread the paper over the table, lifting his juice out of the way. The bold, black letters of the headline caught Remus' interest.
"Voldemort," James read. "The puppetmaster we should fear. By Sarah Ridgemont."
"Voldemort," Peter repeated, a smear of food on his lips. "That's the funny bloke who the Death Eaters like?"
"One of the leaders," Remus said. "Or one of the higher-up Death Eaters. They're not really sure. A couple of the ones they've caught have mentioned him, but nobody who really knows has come out and said anything." Remus wondered if he knew more. If his family did. "What does the article say?"
James coughed. "'Over the past year, vigilante activity propagated by a group of wizards calling themselves Death Eaters has increased substantially, but who is really accountable? Last April, elderly muggle-born witch Constance Hall became the group's first victim when her Ilkley cottage was broken into and violently ransacked. The shocking images of pig's heads mounted on her garden fence and threatening messages written in blood quickly caught the nation's attention. It was here that the name Death Eaters entered the public consciousness.
"'The group, whose members remain anonymous, claimed to be acting in the interests of restoring the rights of pureblood wizards, with the wish to repeal muggle-protection laws. Obvious similarities were drawn between the group, which is yet to be defined as terrorist in nature by Minister Minchum, the Preservation Party, who notoriously published a heavily redacted list of donors, with identities hidden in shell companies, last July after they were legally threatened for refusal to disclose the donations they had received. The Preservation Party may be considered fringe for its small membership numbers; however, it is anything but.
"'"Members of the Opposition have been meeting with Preservationists and with preservationist donors," an Opposition staffer told the Daily Prophet. "The Opposition hopes to gain the support of preservationist voters to win marginal seats in East Anglia, where people increasingly feel left behind by the decision-making of urban politicians."'"
"I don't get it," Peter cut in. "What's the Voldemort bit?" Remus furrowed his brows. In truth, his political concerns had always gone to the extent of werewolf legislation and anti-muggle laws. Seats and elections and governments didn't matter when they all wanted the same thing: to be rid of him. But…
"I think it's all the Voldemort bit," James said, but he adjusted his glasses and dropped his eyes further down. "Er – here. 'In August, two supposed Death Eaters were captured by Magical Law Enforcement and questioned. They appeared, according to the Ministry, to be bound by some variants of the Fidelius Charm, but the name 'Lord Voldemort' slipped out after interrogation by Head Auror Frank Jordan. Shortly afterwards, three Death Eater attacks included in their threats a mention of a 'Lord Voldemort', and depiction in the media soon elevated this Lord's status.
"'As all wizards and witches know, the House of Lords in the Ministry of Magic lasted only until 1721, fourteen years into the Ministry's rule. It was disbanded to prevent conflicts of interest between muggle land ownership and magical law. Nevertheless, some families, such as the prominent Malfoy family, styled themselves with their muggle titles up until the early 19th century, when such association with the muggle world became undesirable. According to the Department of Statistics, Sales, and Registries, Lord Voldemort was never a title known in either the muggle or magical worlds, and no wizard named Voldemort ever took a noble title. In fact, no magical child has been named Voldemort in the Department's two-and-a-half centuries of record-keeping, and genealogical records in the Ministry archives that precede the Ministry's inception further show no evidence of the name Voldemort.'"
"Who cares about the name?" Peter moaned. Evidently, James did, because he got an odd look on his face. Remus kept eating, though his stomach started to turn. James' words faded to no more than the general chatter of the Great Hall, and he stopped once Peter started trying to balance a spoon on his nose. James put the paper down abruptly.
"It's interesting, you know," he said, and sighed. "Remus, d'you want to read?"
"No," Remus said, and rubbed the back of his neck. "You can keep it."
"No, it's -"
"I won't read it," Remus said firmly. James squinted, but he only shrugged and tucked the paper away.
"Cheers, mate."
They finished their breakfast in silence, and when Lisbete arrived, in tears and surrounded by girls, they stood abruptly and headed down to the quidditch pitch. Remus and Peter took their seats in the stands, Remus rapping his fingers against his knee. James was through with her, finally, though nobody had bothered to tell Remus how it had happened.
The Slytherin team glowered at James as he kicked off, but they had been packing up their balls when he arrived. Vanity started marching towards the changing rooms, and when the team lagged, she spun on her heel and shouted until they followed her. James zig-zagged through the sky above them, grinning madly. Peter clapped for him. Regulus Black stood with his face to the sun, watching James, like a snake about to strike.
"Black!" Vanity shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth. Regulus watched a second longer, then took off after her. Peter snorted.
"Serves him right," he said. Remus didn't reply. Peter blew air threw his lips and reached into his pocket, pulling out a fistful of boiled sweets. He dumped them on the bench they sat on and selected one, unwrapping it slowly. "Can I talk to you about something?"
Remus jolted. "Erm – yes. Yes." Peter popped the sweet into his mouth and sucked thoughtfully. James flew laps around the pitch, chest almost flat to his broom, hair flying as he did.
"I's jus' tha' I can' ask J'mes a'ou' i'," Peter garbled. Remus nodded like he understood.
"Ah." Peter choked, thumped his chest, and swallowed.
"D'you think," Peter started, reaching for another sweet. "Oh. Sorry. Do you want one?"
"That's alright."
"Yeah. Erm. I think, I guess it's sort of…" The sweet Peter unwrapped was a violent shade of purple. "Sometimes I feel like, maybe, some people kind of get away with, with everything? And then other people don't get away with anything, and if they mess up, it's… well, it's sort of…"
Remus had a hard lump in his throat. His fingers curled into his robes. "Mm."
"But, but it's sort of…. Well, you know, if I do something, and then I mess up, and it's… even if I just say sorry it's not really enough, is it? Because I still did it. But… other people…" Remus' heart beat out the rhythm of his name, but he didn't dare think it, he couldn't bear thinking it. "Well, if, if they do, say, for instance, apologise… Why is their sorry good enough?" Remus clenched his teeth so hard his eyes burned. Peter looked hurriedly at him. "This is just hypothetical," he said quickly. "Just something I've kind of noticed. Over time. Not recently."
James finished his laps and started his next lot of drills, diving almost to the grass and shooting back up. When? Remus thought. Why not to me? His wrists stung with the efforts of Friday night. Sirius was the only one of them with long hair, and they clung to the drain in the shower, protesting their owner's disappearance. Remus had entered the bathroom so shortly after he had vacated it that the mirror was fogged. The house-elves hadn't got the chance to clear it. His chest had cramped so badly he'd sat down on the closed toilet lid, gripping the corner of the sink.
He's kept secrets from you a long while. What were they all doing together, sneaking off? What were those conversations and bouts of eye contact you couldn't understand? They were friends first, the three of them, before they ever adopted you. You were the last.
"There are some people others are determined to see the best in," Remus said finally.
You should've known.
"The same people that get all the chances." Remus' tongue burned, but he forced himself to meet Peter's eyes. "We're never going to be purebloods, Peter." Peter put his sweet down, lips parting slightly. Remus' head thudded. Didn't you ever make anything of yourself? You did so well in school… Well, sometimes it just doesn't work out for people!
Why doesn't it work out?
Why? Why? Why?
"James isn't like that," Peter said uncertainly, giving up the farce. James swooped into another dive, laughing as he did so for the sheer joy of it. Remus wondered if he'd ever been as happy as James was every single time he got on a broom. When he had been little? When his brain hadn't worked well enough to capture those moments? When it hadn't thought it would have to store them up and preserve them because that would be it, for the rest of his life?
"Then why does he do it?"
March 29th, 1976
The premise was simple.
What was something the Dark Lord would need? What was something Mulciber would appreciate? What was something difficult enough to impress them, clever enough to be unique, and practical enough that it could be used?
What did Severus want?
(He wanted the nightmares to stop. He wanted to never have a class with them again. He wanted to tell Lily everything. He wanted to be able to focus in his lessons. He wanted to feel normal, whatever normal had ever been for him.)
Revenge.
His bookbag grew heavier. He sat alone, by choice, in his lessons. What could Avery offer him? What could Rosier? Avery did ask him why.
"Mulciber's orders," he murmured. Avery frowned, but didn't ask again. Severus couldn't listen to the teachers for the length of a lesson anyhow, so it didn't matter that he was reading other books under his desk, or hiding them in the covers of his textbooks. Potter wouldn't so much as look at him, but he caught Black half a dozen times, pale and frozen in some opposite corner of the room to his gang of mates, eyes like grey slush. Corrosive regret. Severus swung his bag into Black's desk as he slipped out of Transfiguration, and Black said nothing.
On Wednesday, Severus trod on his toe in the hallway. On Thursday, Severus coughed into his face as they passed each other. On Friday, Black knocked his potions kit and sent his supply of porcupine quills scattering across the floor. Severus happened to get out of his seat at the same time to ask Professor Slughorn a question – pure coincidence of course – and accidentally crushed Black's quills to pulp.
"Oh," he said. "I suppose you'll have to ask your mother for more."
Black had grabbed his wand then, and Severus braced, leaving his hands empty. Go on, he thought. You want to, don't you? Hit me again. Hex me again.
Black looked at him for a long moment, and waved his wand.
"Evanesco." A portion of the quills vanished. Black flung his other arm out, gesturing for Severus to go on his way. He did. Fuming. Black cleaned the mess up and trudged back to his bench, and finished his potion without the ingredients. Professor Slughorn sniffed and shook his head as he made a mark on the roll. Black's face was tight, but he didn't once look over.
"Very good," Professor Slughorn said, taking the measure of Severus'. "Hm. When did you add your moonstone, m'boy?"
"Before the hellebore," he said, "but I added a pinch to the quills, sir." Professor Slughorn took Severus' ladle and gently pulled it through the opalescent liquid.
"You've been reading Quiverton," he murmured. Severus firmly held his face still.
"Yes, sir."
"A risk," Professor Slughorn said, "and it has paid off. Very good, Mr Snape. You have quite the understanding, don't you?" he chuckled. "Quiverton… I taught his wife's brother, you know, charming boy… I wonder…"
On Saturday, Severus went to the library.
Seventh-years lined the tables, heads bent over texts for their upcoming mock examinations, and Madam Pince's face pinched as she stalked the aisles, summoning abandoned books with a fierce flick of her wand. A tearful Hufflepuff ran after her and pleaded for their book back, but Madam Pince paid them no mind, and by the time she returned to her desk, a line of other students jostled for the chance to read the rare tome.
Severus passed them all by. His homework was done; his revision was in hand. Today served a different purpose. He went not to the Charms shelves or those of Transfiguration, not to the section on Defensive Magic or that epilogised the Third Goblin War or catalogued wizard-muggle disputes. Past the shelves that had some relevance to the curriculum were the truly interesting books – those deigned for background reading, or else kept simply because Hogwarts had one of the greatest libraries of Magical Britain. He trailed his fingers through the dust, leaving his imprint, as he searched for a promising title. In the end, he chose three, and levitated them alongside as he found an untouched desk.
He had Lily's book, too. Of course.
Madam Pince ushered him out at the library's close, and he went to bed with a rumbling stomach. Most of the seventh-years had left an hour or two earlier, grinning conspiratorially. The corridors were curiously quiet. The Slytherin common room retained most of its members, but Padgett's bed was empty.
Severus went to breakfast early on Sunday. Potter's party, they whispered. Potter himself sat at the Gryffindor table reading his paper, and left with his lips twisted upwards, smug and sixteen.
"No Black," said Park, who was in a different dormitory to Severus. "Potter broke up with his girlfriend, though." The little blonde twit who had been his shadow. Had he broken up with her, or her with him? Maybe she'd finally got too clever for him to keep up with. Maybe she'd realised he wasn't the hero he liked to pretend to be. No Black. Severus' chest warmed each time he thought of it that day, like a lucky charm. No Black. And what was Black without his gang of mates?
The Killing Curse, one book read, one book not quite in the Restricted Section but near enough as to provoke furtive glances, near enough that Severus chose a table at the end of the aisle to read it at, hidden from the view off passers-by, is theorised by many to do irreparable damage to the soul, which is why it is never recommend for use in recreational hunting. Furthermore, it is an entirely unsatisfactory method of subduing and capturing prey, due to the spell's nonviolent appearance. Others have tried the use of the Cruciatus Curse, but concerns similarly arise about the sanctity of one's soul, and understandably hunters have doubts about risking damage to their soul for the sake of a hobby. Additionally, activists have protested that the Cruciatus Curse is an inhumane method of subduing, capturing, and killing prey, claiming that it causes unnecessary suffering, especially in creatures who are believed to have sentience. The question is, then – what is a solution that both satisfies the hunter and does not torture the prey for a prolonged period of time?
The book had an illustration of a nogtail on the inside cover. Severus had never known a nogtail to have its sentience contemplated. Nevertheless, he kept reading, jotting down ideas and copying out fragments of the text. He could see Potter's face as he had given chase that night, and his heart pounded in his chest at the ghost of that run. What had wizards been to begin with but apex predators? What were they but highest on the food chain? Even the muggles understood the concept. He and Lily had been friends by the time Miss Collings had drawn it up in chalk, prattling about all the things they'd need to know for when they went to secondary school. Severus kept telling Lily about Hogwarts under his breath, and for that she'd abandoned Sally Sturt and shared his desk instead. The classroom had been short six to begin with, and Miss Collings had once been Mick Cooper's teacher – and everyone knew he'd once broken four desks and nine chairs in a single term.
"How many of your fathers have killed a rabbit for you to eat?" Cokeworth was a mining town. Neither Severus nor Lily rose their hands. "Well, how about a chicken?" Lily's hand hesitantly went up.
"My dad killed rats for us once," volunteered Patty Clark. Miss Collings flushed.
"Yes, well," she'd continued, "you understand then that humans are bigger than rabbits, bigger than chickens, and bigger than rats. We can kill them and we eat them for tea sometimes. So that makes us higher, in the food chain, than they are. But foxes can kill chickens or rabbits too, can't they? So they," and she'd done a terrible drawing of a fox on the blackboard, "are higher in the food chain than a rabbit, but because we can shoot a fox, we're higher in the food chain than they are."
"Do wizards have farms?" Lily had whispered, elbowing him. Severus wrinkled his nose. That wasn't in any of his mother's schoolbooks.
"Of course they do," he'd said, digging his thumbnail against the wooden desktop. They had to, didn't they? At the very least, somebody had to grow the trees that made wands, and the herbs that were used in potions.
"Isn't it mean to kill something, though? Just so we can eat it?" Sue Rogers had asked. Miss Collings tapped her ruler impatiently against the board.
"Well, we need to eat to stay alive, don't we?" she'd asked. "Animals aren't as clever as we are, and they don't feel in the same way we do. We're on the very top of the food chain, so we eat them. They eat smaller animals to survive too, don't they? So all's fair."
Miss Collings had been wrong, though, about them being on the top. But she couldn't have known that. She hadn't known an awful lot, and she'd never realised that the boy whose hands she smacked with that ruler for talking through her lesson knew far more than she did. The basic premise, however, was right – wasn't it fair, for the group at the top to rule? Wasn't that nature's way?
He ran into Michael Hoover on his way back to the common room, crossing paths in the Entrance Hall. Hoover song-and-danced but Severus followed him down an empty corridor, hand on his wand.
"You've let me down," he said. Hoover's eyes narrowed.
"Good." If Severus had figured out that spell… "Heard Potter got the best of you anyway."
Severus' hand twitched around his wand. "You do spend a lot of your time thinking about him, then."
"What do you want, Snape?" He stepped closer, and Hoover backed into the wall. His face shone like bronze in the torchlight.
"Black and Potter are fighting. Why? What are people saying?"
"I don't know," Hoover said. Severus raised his wand incrementally. Hoover eyed it and swallowed. "It's not to do with you and whatever happened with the Whomping Willow that Potter saved you from." Severus bristled. "Alastor said Black slept with Striding and Potter fancies her. Lisbete's been going spare and now he's chucked her, and Indira Kumar saw Potter and Striding together last night."
What? "It's not about Remus Lupin?"
"The prefect?" Hoover shrugged uselessly. "Dunno. He's taken Potter's side, but. Black must've known he liked her and gone on with it anyway. Alastor said -"
Useless.
He rose early on Monday to pour over his notes, shoving half a dozen additional textbooks into his bookbag to take with him to his first few lessons. It weighed on his shoulder until he walked almost lopsided, but a Feather-Light Charm eased that. Avery joined Rosier and Mulciber and Selwyn and Yaxley and Regulus Black at breakfast, laughing about something. They looked his way and his chest seized, but their eyes went past him. Selwyn muttered a spell and smirked.
Bwomp bwomp bwomp bwomp.
Severus turned his head and caught sight of Deborah Crabbe, cheeks pink and eyes wet. She took another tentative step. Bwomp. The table sniggered. Her round face went scarlet, and her wet dark hair curled around her face, making her resemble the ugliest cherub ever painted. She stepped again – bwomp – and took a seat. The girls next to her slid away at once, closer even to Severus, who blinked rapidly. Deborah grabbed a bit of bread and stared at her plate.
"Debbie!" Selwyn shouted, and her head snapped up. "That's what he calls you, isn't it? Your husband?" The girls by Severus tittered. They all marry the moment they leave Hogwarts to someone their parents choose, he thought, but in truth there was no comparison. Alfreck Rosier had run off with a Crabbe – a pureblood, but not a respectable one – before they'd even got their O. . It was idiocy. And yet Rosier will inherit a better fortune than I ever will. If his father didn't disown him.
Crabbe wiped her face and reached for the butter dish, but another quick spell made it jump out of her grasp.
"Are you warlock and wife, then?" Selwyn continued, leering. "Consummated and all?" Yaxley balled a fist and pressed it against his upturned lips; Mulciber's shoulders shook. Regulus Black chewed his mouthful. Deborah went for the jam, and it too flitted away, but not before her fingers caught the rim. It left them red as if bloodied. "Oi, Debbie! Have you been shagging him, then? If I pull on my dress robes, will you let me get a leg over too?" He made a crude gesture. Crabbe jumped to her feet, knocking her bread to the ground. Selwyn grasped Raimund Rosier by the shoulder. "You little thief! You've taken Raimund's inheritance and Alfreck's virginity! Look out, Evan!"
"I don't need to keep my eyes very open," Evan retorted loudly. "She's not bloody hard to miss, is she? Old Slaggy Freidwulfa!"
"The Giantess of Crabbe," Selwyn snorted. Bottom of the food chain. In Slytherin, blood mattered, but status ruled. Severus of the Snapes of a lie Lucius Malfoy had agreed to for the future he foresaw could never overleap a Yaxley or a Selwyn, but a Crabbe was a different matter altogether.
"You must swallow poor little Alfreck up whole," Selwyn continued. "Give me a try, Freidwulfa. Don't blush," he added, as she scrambled backwards over the bench. "You don't really expect me to believe you've still got anything to blush about, do you?" Crabbe turned her cow eyes on the boys around Mulciber, but she was an idiot if she thought they'd come to her aid. Selwyn strode up the length of the table until he was facing her, grinning cockily. Crabbe stepped back again with a resounding bwomp, and some of the Ravenclaws turned round and laughed at the noise.
"Don't look at me like that," Selwyn said. Crabbe wiped her tears and left jam blotches like strawberry teardrops on the curves of her cheeks. "Don't you know who I am? Bit more important than a Rosier – no offence," he laughed, and Mulciber thumped Raimund Rosier on the back. "Much better than the little runt anyway. You're not scared of what little Alfie will do, will you? I don't think you're allowed to get divorced until you're seventeen." He made a mocking bow. "Come on, Friedwulfa. My giantess. How about it?"
Severus held his wand under the table, heart thumping. He made eye contact with the group of boys, so they knew, and then moved his wand. It was an awkward angle to aim on, but he had practice. He knew he could do it.
"Aqua Eructo."
A fountain of water burst from the end of his wand, far stronger than any simple aguamenti. It poured over Crabbe like a wave. Her robes flopped, soaked against her skin, and her hair fell from its loose tie. Selwyn cackled, doubling over, and a roar went up throughout the Great Hall.
"Oh, Merlin's balls," Selwyn gasped. "Debbie, you're fucking soaked for me!"
Severus stowed his wand away at once. Crabbe wailed and ran from the hall, bwomp-bwomp-bwomping as she did so, sobbing noisily. The teachers rose from the dais and descended on the student body. Severus made fleeting eye contact with Selwyn and returned to the notes spread across his desk, studiously making notes.
Professor Slughorn stopped most of them and asked what had happened, but nobody had seen; he murmured admiringly on Severus' ability to revise through all the commotion and continued on his way. Selwyn lost five points for hassling her, but he insisted he'd genuinely been trying to have a nice conversation about her marriage until she got soaked.
"I understand it's – ah – a deeply unusual situation," Professor Slughorn said, "but we must be kind to those who don't have the same – capabilities, if you understand, hm? Manners are very important…"
"It's awful," Lily said later, when he sought her out at lunchtime. She'd hesitated when he asked her, looking sidewards at her friends, but he'd said her name again and she'd come along. They sat in a back corner of the library, sharing a packet of sweets – muggle sweets, from Lily's mum. Madam Pince was preoccupied with a horde of raving fourth-years. He trusted Lily, despite her house and her glaring blind spots, and he'd been thinking about that lesson with Miss Collings rather more than he cared to admit. He certainly wasn't about to ask Avery about a muggle school lesson. As far as Avery was concerned, Severus didn't know what a muggle school was.
Severus hummed noncommittally, putting another sweet in his mouth, and Lily huffed as she glanced over her shoulder to where Deborah Crabbe sat, sobbing silently into Alfreck Rosier's shoulder.
"I mean, it's idiotic," she said. "She's not even pregnant. But there are two things to blame, and the fourth-years aren't a consideration in it. One, the laws are absolutely backwards – what kind of law lets a child get married? They haven't even sat for their O. . And obviously they're not very comprehensive, if there's a loophole that even schoolchildren can exploit. But two, it was Black who married them, wasn't it? He ruined their lives for a laugh. Nobody's dousing him in water. Selwyn is such a -" Lily hesitated. Severus looked at her curiously. Why would she censor herself in front of him?
"- a creep," she finished. Severus arched an eyebrow. She blushed prettily, and dropped her voice to below a whisper. "A cunt."
Surprise lodged in Severus' throat. "For the water?"
"In general," she said, returning to her usual library volume. "Everyone knows it. But with the water this morning – I could hear him from the Gryffindor table! The whole school must have heard. He was going on and on and that little stunt was just humiliating for her." Lily's eyes crackled furiously. "Next time I'm on patrol – I'm going to get him for something, I swear…"
Severus was torn between discomfort and admiration. He was thankful Lily didn't know the water had been him, while simultaneously hoping the other Slytherin boys did know – and there was some part of him that liked seeing Lily like this. Her whole body lit up when she was angry. She got a colour in her cheeks and breathed a little harder, and it stirred deep within him. She looked over to Crabbe again, and guilt sprinkled over him. But no – he had nothing to feel guilty about. It was no worse than what Potter and Black did to anyone, and Crabbe had brought it on herself, hadn't she?
"Do you remember Miss Collings?" Severus asked. Lily's chin rested in her hand.
"Yes," she said. Severus slid his fingers over the pages of his textbook. Advanced Potion-Making. He'd grabbed it out on instinct for something to do, mindlessly colouring in vowels and adding notes in the margins. It was in here, in the Index of Ingredients, that he had been keeping the majority of his spell-making notes.
"I was reading an essay on ethical potion-making," he started. "The author was asking if it was right, morally, to use the products of creatures in draughts and that sort of thing."
"I doubt Miss Collings would know."
"Do you remember when she taught us about – the natural chain, I suppose. Predators and prey." Finally, Lily looked thoughtful, one brow furrowing.
"Is it wrong for a predator to use a prey?" Lily asked. "To eat them, or for a potion?"
"Mm."
Lily bit her lip. "Well, I'm not a vegetarian, and I don't think I could be," she said. "I mean… it is sort of how we survive, isn't it? As carnivores -"
"Omnivores," Severus corrected softly.
"Omnivores," Lily said hotly. "As omnivores, we almost have to eat meat, or some sort of animal product, to survive, don't we? I mean, there are people that don't, but for the most part – you know what I mean. But I think we have a duty to try to do it in as nice a way as possible. There's a difference between sort of, making it painless, only doing as much as necessary, and cruelty, I think."
"What about with people?"
Lily blinked. Severus ran his fingers over the lines of his book.
"People?" she said.
"Say for the Polyjuice Potion," he improvised. "You need a bit of human for it to work. If you're a more powerful wizard – higher on the chain – is it ethical for you to, say, hex someone's toenail off, to use for your potion? Assuming you wouldn't use it in an unethical way – you were only making it just to see if you could."
Lily folded her arms across her chest. "That sounds unlikely," she said.
"It's a thought experiment." The candlelight danced over her cheeks like golden spotlights.
"People are different," Lily said. "I think it's different when they're – you know – human. If a cow could march up to me and tell me about their mum and the moon and what they'd like to be when they grow up, I'd probably be put off beef. It's sort of -" and she scrunched her face up for a moment, "- the whole thing about being human is that we're supposed to protect those who don't have what we have, isn't it? That's what makes us different. So, if you were to tell me you'd gone and hexed some first-year's toenail off for the sake of a potion, I'd think you were a twat."
"I haven't."
"Good."
She was silent for a moment, and he watched her, wishing he knew Legilimency. There were books on it… All said it was difficult without a tutor. For something so powerful, the methodology described was terribly imprecise. He wondered if Lily would ever consider learning it. Sometimes he couldn't find the words to say to her what he wanted her to know; if they could look into each other's eyes and understand…
"Sev," said Lily.
"Yeah?" He looked at her – not that he hadn't been before, but now he did more closely. He could see the slight red of a pimple on her chin, and the clumps of her eyelashes, and the lines across her lips. Her eyes narrowed infinitesimally, and when she looked away she might as well have slapped him.
"I should go," she said. "Have fun with your book. I'll see you around."
March 30th, 1976
The only relief from the torrents of rain came as they ducked beneath a bus shelter, water sloshing in their boots. It was almost midnight; they had met after her Astronomy lesson. It hadn't been difficult to shake Cynthia off, and the North Tower was near enough to Ravenclaw Tower that there had been little chance of her being caught; even if she was, she had the badge. She'd climbed the spiralling stairs and slipped up the trapdoor, bundled in her cloak with her wand in her pocket, though she didn't know why it had been a necessity. There had been little explanation; they'd had their usual meeting in the afternoon, and Professor Nicholl had told her almost as an afterthought, pushing a handwritten note from the Headmaster across the desk. Her heart had thumped wildly. It did now.
Dorcas had never been to Bath. Her family seldom took holidays, and then only as far afield as Oxford, or London for school supplies. Her mother said Dorcas was impossible to travel with. It was true. She had fits of panic if she didn't know what they had planned for the day, and when she had been five she had refused to have a bath for a whole week because the taps had been a different colour to those at home, and had cried herself to sleep because the pillows felt wrong. They had been asked to leave the only wizarding pub in Colchester because she had bitten into a pie and seen a bit of red in it and couldn't stop screaming. Dorcas peered out beneath the hood of her cloak and bit her lip, hoping it wasn't an overnight visit. Her pulse was erratic enough. She trusted Professor Nicholl, but all the same, she didn't know what they were to do here, or why she was involved.
The bus shelter was on a large island in the middle of the road; old, three-storey buildings stood opposite, their proud golden sandstone darkened in the wet. Few enough muggles were about. A few men smoked beneath a streetlight, but they paid the witches no mind. Professor Nicholl looked round and withdrew her wand, holding it closely to her chest.
"Impervius," she whispered, pointing to herself. She lifted one arm as to mask them from the street with her long sleeve, and pointed the wand at Dorcas. "Impervius." She tucked the wand back into her robes and held a finger to her lips. Dorcas nodded.
Professor Nicholl looked up the length of the street and motioned for Dorcas to follow, before ducking across the road. There were no automobiles and no buses, so Dorcas did the same. They stopped again outside a confectionary called Maynard's. Dorcas looked in the window. The stillness of the price tags and the art on the boxes was damningly muggle. Professor Nicholl started off again, keeping close to the storefronts and away from the pools of yellow light. Large white-paned windows stared down sightlessly, curtains pulled shut behind them. They turned the corner, and Dorcas kicked her toe on an uneven paver. Signs swung overhead, illegible in the darkness. Chimneys churned dark smoke into the low, cloudy night. They crossed the street to pass a grand building with Romanesque columns supporting the jutting roof. Bath had been a settlement of the Romans, Dorcas remembered. They said ancient magic lay here, awoken by the Britons and nourished by the Romans. Dorcas concentrated. Was it her imagination, or just the rain, or could she feel it?
The cathedral brought her to a stop. It dwarfed the other buildings, and candlelight hummed in its windows, lighting the stained glass. A square unfolded in front of it, and a couple of teenagers shot them nervous looks. Another odd building, topped by a dome, sat next to it. It pulsed, as though she had a migraine. Eerie figures peered over a stone wall at them, features twisted by the rain. Dorcas grabbed her wand.
"Statues," Professor Nicholl murmured, though her wand was out, too. Her brown curls clung to her cheeks within her hood, and the hem of her robes dragged. "Not far now." Dorcas' stomach twisted uneasily. In this light, the statues almost looked as though they were… moving.
The muggles have spotted us, Dorcas thought, but she supposed if there was a problem, Professor Nicholl would have been concerned. All the same, it unnerved her. She had never known anyone else to be taken from the school grounds in the middle of the night by a teacher, and especially not to go to the other side of the isle to someplace muggle. Why had the Headmaster wanted this?
They took a laneway opposite the square, past gaping windows that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. They emerged into another square, dominated by a tree the size of the Whomping Willow. Raindrops rolled from its broad leaves, but the ground was drier by its thick trunk. It swallowed up half the sky. Music drifted from a pub behind it, notes quietly slipping through the pitter-patter. Dorcas frowned; the pub wavered into double vision. She blinked furiously. It stood as one. She looked to Professor Nicholl for instruction, and found the older woman already looking at her.
"Curious," Professor Nicholl said quietly. Dorcas' lips parted, but she didn't know what to say. Professor Nicholl shook her head. "Come on. We're nearly there."
The Georgian townhouse they made for faced the big tree. Two wrought-iron fences guarded the staircases that led down from the street level to the bottom floor; Professor Nicholl walked up three steps and stopped before the big white door. She muttered something under her breath before tapping her wand in an odd pattern against the door. It swung open. She ushered Dorcas in and pulled it shut behind them.
Dorcas thought someone very impressive must live here; not the Headmaster himself, surely? Through a second door, this one of dark wood, they found themselves in an old stairwell. Grand doors led off to different rooms. Dorcas started to ask a question.
"Quiet," Professor Nicholl ordered, casting furtive glances at the doors. "Sublets."
The lights flickered as they climbed the stairs. On the first floor, they stopped. Professor Nicholl knocked at the door. They were all the same, imposing and immaculate. Dorcas swallowed. Nobody wore their uniforms to their Astronomy lessons, and more than half wore their pyjamas. She had not gone that far, but she had thrown on plain robes of dark blue. Nothing suited to this sort of elegance. She was always dressing wrong. She could only hope that the Headmaster's friend did not deride her for it. I ought to have worn my uniform, she thought – but would that have defied the nature of this secret meeting?
The door cracked open. Dorcas bared her teeth in an attempt to smile pleasantly. No light emerged through the crack, and Professor Nicholl did not wait to be welcomed. She pushed the door open a sliver more and entered, without a word. Dorcas hesitated. What if she wasn't to be there yet? What if Professor Nicholl had not told her to follow for a reason? Was she supposed to stand guard? Would they come and get her? She squirmed. The moments stretched on without an answer. If they wanted me to come in, they'll be furious if I dawdle. Was the Headmaster's friend a furious sort of wizard? Dorcas didn't actually know if they were friends – they might have simply been associates.
I have to ask what they want. She couldn't guess. Hesitantly, she edged through the door – the gap was more difficult for her to pass through than it was for Professor Nicholl, who was slender and willowy.
At first, she met complete darkness. The door shut. Panic rose blindly in her throat. Was this a trap? Had something happened? She thrust her wand into the darkness, trying to think of spells. What spell do I use? I don't know who's there. How do I choose? Her wand was slick from the rain and slid between her fingers. Her heart leapt. She caught it before it fell.
Twin fires lit, small flames across the room. Dorcas rubbed her eyes. More lit, on different levels, and with them, the sitting room came to life. Three taper candles burned on the mantle, their bottoms stuffed into green glass bottles, reflected by an ornate mirror; five on the low coffee table, flickering across Professor Nicholl's face as she sat on the brown, geometric-patterned sofa; two atop a long footed shelf filled with books and records, dancing across a bronze gramophone and licking at the wooden doors of an striking cabinet; and one in a red glass candelabrum in the hand of a part-Chinese woman who looked oddly familiar.
"You must be Dorcas," she smiled. "Welcome."
She was beautiful, Dorcas realised, as her eyes adjusted to the light. She wore long, flowing robes in orange paisley, with a witch's hat perched atop her straight dark hair. Her skin was as warm as her smile, and she had small black eyes and soft pink lips. If she was twenty, it was barely. Dorcas stared at her outstretched hand, fixed on her short, well-kept nails and the chunky, swirling rings on her fingers. Oh. She was supposed to shake. Dorcas' heart did a flip, and she awkwardly took the woman's hand.
"Emmeline Vance," the woman said. "Welcome. Take a seat."
Dorcas did. Professor Nicholl took the lid off the little biscuit tin and helped herself. Dorcas didn't dare ask for one. Emmeline went to the window, where the curtains were pulled wide open. It looked out to the tree, its branches so close they almost brushed the glass.
"Alright getting here?" Emmeline asked. Professor Nicholl nodded and swallowed.
"No trouble."
"Do you like the tree? Oldest architecturally planted, they say." She looked over her shoulder, dark eyes twinkling mischievously. "Dorcas?" Dorcas jolted at the address.
"Erm," she said. "It's very big." Emmeline hummed and left the window. Her robes floated around her, shimmering like wings.
"Did you notice anything?" she asked, picking something up from the mantle.
"Say what you mean," said Professor Nicholl. "Plainly, for her."
"Of course." Emmeline slid a cigarette between her teeth and lit it with her wand. The end glowed in the darkness. She exhaled smoke. "What do you notice here? In the city?" She smiled playfully. "Anything… off?"
Dorcas looked uncertainly to Professor Nicholl, who said nothing. She shifted.
"There's magic here," she said. "Old magic."
Emmeline beamed. "He wasn't lying, was he?" She sucked on the cigarette again. Dorcas had never tried one, and had never wanted to until she saw Emmeline. Emmeline made it look effortlessly cool. Not that Dorcas cared about coolness, or lack thereof. Social capital was irrelevant.
"Emmeline is an important part of our little team," Professor Nicholl said. "Like Diggle."
"You've been to see Deddy? One of his birds shat on me." Emmeline plopped herself in an emerald porter's chair opposite them, slinging one leg over the other. "I want to see her give it a go, before we start. Can I? Or is that weird? You don't have to do it if it's weird," Emmeline told Dorcas. Dorcas frowned.
"Do -?"
"Your box," Professor Nicholl said. "We're very nearly at the exciting part." Dorcas' skin prickled. She felt like they had been talking about her when she wasn't around.
"Still the box?" Emmeline leaned forward curiously. "I only ever got to the box. I wanted to do well, but the truth is I'm rubbish at Occlumency. Not got the natural ability."
"I – I don't know how you'll be able to see what I see," Dorcas said. "Unless… unless you were to perform Legilimency."
Professor Nicholl and Emmeline shared a look.
"Don't worry about it," Emmeline said. "Just have a go?"
Dorcas took a shaky breath, their gazes like raking nails across her face. But she could do it. She'd been doing it every night. She shut her eyes and focused on her breathing, and then let herself go blank, easing into the nothingness. It came to her easier than the last time; and the last time had been easier than the time before that. The wooden box was latched shut, and faint runes wrapped around the outside, ones she'd learned in class. Her head pounded. She reached with nothing. The lid lifted, revealing a lining of midnight velvet. Nothing else.
A whiff of floral perfume.
It threw her from the mindscape into reality, and she couldn't breathe. Her hands massaged her throat. Florence. Dorcas coughed, and her breath returned. Her hands shook. Has something happened? Is she having a seizure? Does she know? Did she feel me? Did she think of me? Did –
"Dorcas." Professor Nicholl gripped her shoulders. Dorcas jerked away from the touch.
"The perfume," she said raggedly. Emmeline made an odd sound. Professor Nicholl tried to touch Dorcas again. "What if -?"
"No," Professor Nicholl said, but a strange expression flitted across her face. "No. You were barely in there a moment. She's in Scotland. Even if – she's in her dormitory, no? The other girls would know at once. You're alright. Sh."
"It's true," Emmeline said, shaking her head. "Merlin and Salazar." Dorcas pressed one hand into the couch, trying to steady herself. Her mouth was dry.
"Could I – could I – have some water? Please?" She couldn't perform the spell herself, not outside of school. She felt exposed.
"'Course you can." Emmeline summoned a red champagne flute and filled it from a jug. It was icy cold. The world stabled. Dorcas kept sipping. Even if Florence was safe – what if she had felt Dorcas? If it had been that night with the perfume that had forged their bond altogether… Dorcas' throat burned. What if Florence had never wanted her before that? If all they were were webs spun by Dorcas' shifting mind. Her eyes fell on the big tree outside, its branches studded with new growth like spikes.
"Is it time?" Emmeline asked, looking past Dorcas to Professor Nicholl.
"Bring it out."
Emmeline's shadow jumped fluidly from flame to flame. The witch disappeared through a door. The water was thick on Dorcas' tongue. Professor Nicholl's fingers brushed her arm.
"Are you feeling better?" she asked. It hurt to swallow.
"I think so."
"Good, good." Professor Nicholl stood and closed the curtains. Emmeline returned carrying a bronze tray, stacked with an eclectic array of sugar bowls. She set the tray before Dorcas. They held not sugar but poultices and murky potions, here and there powders. Some were familiar from her classes, but others were completely foreign.
"The bowls are nice," she said uncertainly, looking up at Emmeline. The older girl smiled.
"Thank you," she said. "Now, Dorcas, don't feel you need any of these. They're… aids. So don't stress, hm? No stressing." She sat down on Dorcas' right. Professor Nicholl sat on her left. The sofa scarcely fit the three of them, and they pressed up against her. She hunched her shoulders. Her muscles tightened.
"What am I meant to do?" Dorcas looked between them. Professor Nicholl made a small hushing sound.
"We only want you to confirm something," she said. "It's very similar to what we've been doing. I want you to go to that place where you see the box, but you need to stop just short of that. Don't see the box. I want you to reach out and just – feel what you feel. See what you see."
Dorcas' brows pulled together. "But… that's Legilimency," she said. "That's… You can't try Legilimency until you've mastered Occlumency. Or at least Skill Seventy-Seven."
"Codswallop," Emmeline said. "I think you can do it. Everyone says how clever you are." She drew one knee up. "You only need to give it a go." Emmeline's dark eyes shone in the candlelight, and Dorcas could feel her thigh through her robes.
"It won't…?"
"Nothing can go wrong, not with us here," Professor Nicholl said at once. "Go on, Dorcas. This is an important part of your learning."
Dorcas couldn't see how it was, or why anything the Headmaster wanted would have to occur in Emmeline's flat, on the other side of the isle. But she couldn't say no. Professor Nicholl was her teacher, and Emmeline…
She didn't want Emmeline to move away from her. As sharp as each breath was when she was enclosed by the two older witches like they were stone walls, she didn't want Emmeline to scowl at her. She didn't want Emmeline's leg to stop touching hers.
Dorcas gave a tiny nod. "Alright."
At Emmeline's suggestion, she sipped an olive-green mixture. Sipping felt safer than sniffing. It ran like a shot of caffeine through her synapses, sparking at the ends.
"It's -"
"See," Professor Nicholl ordered. Dorcas' eyelids fluttered and she dove. There was nothing but the shadow of candlelight against her lids, and that fuzzy red-grey static. She inhaled and reached. It was a sort of tightness in her chest, a stop in her glottis. The box came to mind, but she pushed it aside. "Open," Professor Nicholl whispered, and she let go of her breath, feeling –
The rain. Cool breezes. Wet grass. A bubbling – no, a gurgling. A chasm like a mouth. Rust and stone and rust. Water rushing. A stench. Limestone figures with crushed heads. Figures without faces – gouges where their nose might be. Rope, and a bough, and the veins of its leaves, sucking. Drinking fountains. A tap. A wooden archway, door swinging open. Rivulets of brown water. Pipes. Up and up and up. Mirages, vision blurred but the world heatless. And a humming. Under the water's gurgles, burbles, its soft calls for silence, was the hum. Something made her hesitate. The hum was rich and deep, more vibration than sound, more instinct than thought. She probed lightly. The rain fell hard and rushed down a mountainside, through thick, gnarled trees, and it poured over a stone ledge, deep below, and it clogged her throat and welled in her ears. It spouted from her nose like she was some carved fountain. The humming droned, and within it, there was a whimper. Like a wounded dog. And –
At once Dorcas was back in the room, Emmeline's hand burning her arm, candles flickering furiously. She panted for her breath. A finger brushed beneath her nose. Thin water trailed over it. Dorcas stared, shifting her hand in the light, but it dried as quickly as she had noticed it. Sulphur lingered on her tongue.
"What did you See?" Emmeline asked, shifting closer. The contact stung. Dorcas pulled back. Her lips open and shut a times, babbling softly. She pressed them together and hummed.
"Dorcas?" said Professor Nicholl. She kept humming, and tried to mimic the whimper. She couldn't do both. The hum came from her diaphragm, and the whimper from the top of her head, piteous. There was something in the humming she couldn't recreate, either. It was like when someone laughed in a different language. There was some infinitesimal tone of difference, like a ridge in a desk where a student had once scratched their quill, on accident, nine centuries before.
"Dorcas," Professor Nicholl repeated. "Dorcas, you need to speak. Can you hear me?" I am.
"Water," she said. "River River."
"Sorry?" Professor Nicholl's brows met. Emmeline tilted her head.
"The River Avon," she said. "'Avon' is just river in a different tongue. More or less." Dorcas put her hand over her mouth and groaned, struggling to find the words. They asked what she had Seen, but in truth it had been a knowing. The tree had never appeared before her, but she knew that its leaves were green and its trunk grey-brown. She had never touched the grass, but she knew that it itched her fingers, thin and damp.
"It's underneath us," she murmured, trying to make sense of it. "Underneath us, but coming up. Everywhere. The water. And in it, beneath it, older…" The same as the cathedral, as the baths. "Magic. Always magic."
Professor Nicholl looked at her with something nameless, almost frightening in her eyes. Confusion? Surprise? No. Dorcas reached instinctively in her wondering, skimming across the surface, and found it.
Hunger.
And now, maybe surprise.
"Legilimens," Professor Nicholl said, touching her forehead. Dorcas shrunk back.
"I didn't mean to," she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't – I shouldn't have -"
"I let my guard down," Professor Nicholl said. Dorcas pressed her back hard against the sofa.
"But," she said, "I shouldn't – I shouldn't be able to do that. You can't do Legilimency until you've mastered Occlumency. It says so." She turned to Emmeline. "You can't, can you? You're not supposed to. Can you? What's happening to me?
"
But they mirrored each other perfectly in expression, peering down on her. Dorcas hunched her shoulders. She was very aware that she was only fifteen, and ought to be in bed, in her dormitory, sleeping and safe.
"Dumbledore," Professor Nicholl whispered. "He knew."
"Well, they reckon he always knows, don't they?" Emmeline stood and smoothed her robes down. "I'd better write."
"What do you mean, the Headmaster knew?" Dorcas asked. "What did he know? Is there something wrong with me?"
Professor Nicholl smiled. "Nothing. You have a remarkable aptitude for Divination, Dorcas. You're a remarkable student."
It wasn't right. They said their goodbyes and walked beneath the big tree – something curled in Dorcas' stomach – and made for the bus stop and apparated back to Hogsmeade. The night was crisp and foggy, but without rain. Professor Nicholl knew how to open the school gates. An owl landed atop one of the winged boars that decorated the posts, watching them with its round eyes. It wasn't right for her to be able to do any of what she had done tonight. Eye contact was essential to performing the spell on another living being, and most needed to perform the spell as well. Only after much practice could one perform it nonverbally and windlessly, as one might perform any other spell – but Dorcas had not even thought of the incantation. She had just felt, with some invisible psychic arm. Even natural Legilimens didn't behave in such a manner – for them, Legilimency was as natural as breathing, and they certainly didn't suddenly acquire it at age fifteen.
Professor Nicholl escorted her to her common room and sent her to bed. She crept in, careful not to disturb the others. Florence had left her curtains open, and her dark hair swirled on the satin pillow beside her. Dorcas' eyes stung. She put on her pyjamas and climbed beneath her covers without brushing her teeth. It wasn't right. She had never come across it in a book, not even in fiction.
As sleep drew nearer, one thought pierced her mind; it was very like what had happened between her and Florence, wasn't it? But that had been months ago…
And day came quite without clarity. Her eyes blurred over breakfast and burned through swallows of tea, and she watched the Staff Table, where Professor Nicholl talked animatedly without a hint of fatigue. Around her, the Hogwarts hubbub sprouted like the plants in the Herbology greenhouses. Had they always spoken so loudly, and without censure? The tea soon went to water on her tongue. Cynthia coughed loudly and smiled at her, inching away from Branton, who was by her side. Opposite them were Florence and Glen. Florence twirled a lock of dark hair around her finger. Dorcas picked at the crusts of her toast. Professor Flitwick visited, and Dorcas' ankles and wrists cramped anxiously.
"I'm afraid Professor Quinlan is ill," he informed them. "You'll have your Defence lesson this morning instead, and Arithmancy after lunch." There was a mad dash to the dormitory, and Dorcas yawned into her elbow as she replaced her books. She brushed past Cynthia on the stairs and a bolt of lightning went through her; she found the energy, somewhere, to run all the way to the Grand Staircase, where she collapsed against the railing, trembling.
Her eyes grew heavy in Defence, and she was thankful today was only a theoretical lesson. Professor Forcier paced across the front of the room, hands folded behind his back. The blackboard held a chalk sketch of a basic Shield Charm, labelled, with empty bullet points awaiting answers.
"You need to have an understanding of how long you need your shield to last," Glen volunteered. Professor Forcier clasped his hands together, rubbing his palms.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's important to know how long you intend on maintaining this defensive move…"
"You need to know what you're defending against," Florence added. She and Glen and Cynthia and Branton took up the front row, the perfect portraits of what Ravenclaws ought to be, and Dorcas wondered why she had been given the prefect badge and not Florence. A dark little thought pulled at her stomach; it wasn't only because it made her frequent visits to Professor Nicholl less suspicious, was it? It wasn't only because it made it more acceptable for her to roam the corridors at all hours of the day and night?
The Headmaster wouldn't do that, she reminded herself. You've read too many novels. His very job is to uphold the school rules. Her leg bounced as she watched Professor Forcier make his amendments to the blackboard. Was it right for an extra-curricular activity for Divination to make her so tired in Defence? Ordinarily, she would never have stayed up so late on a school night. Dorcas knew how much she needed her sleep. Why had the Headmaster thought it a good idea? Why couldn't it have waited for a Friday or Saturday night? Why did it need to be at night at all? Couldn't they have donned muggle clothes and gone to visit Emmeline, or else used Disillusionment Charms?
"You need to understand your enemy," said Perseus Padgett, bright-eyed with glowing skin, from the seat behind Florence's. "You can't use the Shield Charm to simply have a break. You need to be anticipating their next move, and to do that, it's really imperative that you know what they want. And what lengths they'll go to, to get it."
Why was Emmeline involved in Dorcas' learning-extension activity anyway? What did she have to do with Diggle? Did they both go around locking themselves in Owlerys? Come to think of it, Dorcas hadn't seen any owls at all in Bath – only on the school gates, when they'd come back. What was she missing?
From there they went to Charms, where Mary Macdonald gave her a little wave. Dorcas lifted her hand in response. Something about Mary kept bugging her, too. How could she be good at nothing? It didn't make sense. Since Dorcas had begun tutoring her, there had been some improvement – Mary's retention of tarot card meanings was better, but she shook her head miserably whenever she looked into the tea leaves, and when Dorcas asked her to use her intuition, she replied that she had none. Dorcas took a seat by Kenna Macdougal and watched Mary throughout the lesson, finding the other girl easier to watch than Professor Flitwick, whose eye contact was especially painful this morning. Sometimes her face looked painted – as though she were Botticelli's Mary.
Potions came next, and Rose Striding made Kenna Macdougal laugh so hard that water spurted from her nose. Dorcas was washing her hands at the back of the dungeon when someone brushed her elbow, and made her heart fall through her stomach.
"Excuse me," Florence said, taking the basin next to hers. Dorcas edged as far from her as possible, painfully conscious of the other girl's presence. She scrubbed her hands harder. Florence dug beneath her nails. "I know about Bellchant."
Dorcas' stomach contracted. "What has Bellchant done?"
Florence gave her a long look. Dorcas could still feel the curves of her lips, the way she had smiled against her mouth, the flutter of her eyelashes. Every memory was an ache.
"Cynth told me," she said, rubbing soap over her long fingers. "I'm surprised it's him, but I knew you would. Isn't it better this way?" Dorcas turned the tap off ferociously.
"Knew I'd what?"
"I know you're not that stupid," Florence said, gaze focused on her hands. "Don't be coy. It doesn't suit you. I know you fancy him."
Dorcas coughed. "Bellchant?" The fibres of the handtowel stung, but in a good way.
"Cynth said so."
"She couldn't have, because I've never felt anything remotely like that in my life." Dorcas threw the handtowel back on the rack. Florence snorted derisively. Dorcas balled her fists. It was wrong, she thought, to be cross with Florence – but at the same time, it was as though she needed to be. Her taut muscles begged for release, and magic sparked in her fingertips. She itched for her wand.
"Come off it," Florence said. "I know she promised not to tell you, she told me that too – but the truth is her and I have been friends longer than you and I were friends." The past tense was a slap in the face, though Dorcas knew it to be true. "I know how to get things out of her. Dorcas – Cassie – I'm perfectly happy to be friends with you again if you can stop throwing a fit over all this nonsense."
Dorcas reefed Florence's tap off so quickly she nearly pulled it clean from the sink. Florence's hands dripped uselessly.
"I don't like Bellchant," Dorcas said in a fierce undertone. "I don't even like him as a housemate, to be honest with you. And I would never fancy him in a thousand years, or any other boy for that matter, from our year or the one above or the one below or from Timbuktu, I wouldn't."
Florence's eyes flickered, and she stepped back from Dorcas, a horrible open-mouthed expression upon her face. "Careful."
"Careful?" Dorcas stepped forward. "People think I'm odd anyway." The previous night came back as hot as fire and as searing as the sun. "There's more than what people at school think. I don't care if they think I'm -"
"Don't."
Other students were coming to rinse themselves, and Florence grabbed Dorcas by the elbow and pulled her from the crowd. Professor Slughorn leisurely supervised, calling out lazy instructions and laughing with some of his favourites.
"You kissed me," Dorcas whispered. "I was there. I remember. That party in December." When Florence had been the moon and the sky and all the stars in it. "You wanted me."
Florence's mouth tightened. "And I will regret it for the rest of my life."
Dorcas didn't bother to watch her go.
April 1st, 1976
Lily knew what she needed to do from the moment she woke up that morning. Well, it had been an inkling the night before, but it crystallised when she woke to a world coated in yellow, her vision as thick and gluggy as butterscotch. Through the tint, she could make out the other girls' beds, which meant her curtains were open.
"I know you bought this last time you were at Hogsmeade," she said loudly. "You're not subtle, Marlene."
"It actually tastes pretty good," came Alisha's voice. Lily propped herself up on her elbows and wiped the goop from her face. Alisha sat on the end of her own bed, licking her fingers. "Lemon zest."
It came off in the shower, and to Lily's relief nobody had spiked the water or the soap or her shampoo. She dried off her hair with a charm and brushed her teeth quickly, running through a checklist of precautions for the day. In her first year, she had been caught entirely off-guard. In her second year, she hadn't anticipated the boys riling it up a notch. In third year, she had been fourteen, and it was doomed from the moment somebody so much as looked at her.
As for fourth year – well, she would never trust a frisbee again.
They went down to the Great Hall for breakfast without too much ado, though Lily was left disappointed when she scanned the hall for her targets. She cast a Revealing Charm on the benches before they sat down. Renee Walker had once sat down in the common room on April 1st and found the back half off her skirt torn off when she stood. With that sorted, they thoroughly inspected their food and drink before delving in. Anything that went in a pub, Lily had learned, went doubly so in the Great Hall on April Fool's Day, unless you fancied feathers in unmentionable spots.
A little blond boy in Ravenclaw pranced proudly up and down the length of the table, declaring himself able to rid anyone of any ailment they should suffer. Lily and Laura Vickers locked eyes, and Laura went off to handle it – that is, to shove the problem back to the Ravenclaw prefects. Leeks sprouted from Billy Pomfrey's ears, and Connor O'Neill passed along vials from lap-to-lap under the table. Lily snatched it out of Marlene's and held it up. Connor winked at her.
"Specialis Revelio," she said promptly, rapping her wand against the vial. Nothing happened. She uncorked it and smelt. "Eugh."
"What is it?" Mary asked, ashen-faced.
"I think," she sniffed again, "just really awful gin."
"Oh, that's a shame," Marlene said. "Give it here then, so I can get rid of it."
Lily snorted. "Not likely." Down the table it went to Alice Rhysfield, who pocketed it with a sly smile.
She couldn't help but watch Potter over her porridge, wondering when they were going to make their move. She wondered for a moment if Sirius' absence meant he was off doing something – but he hadn't sat with them for weeks. An unpleasant chill ran through her. Something to do with Sev. Severus, and Remus, and the full moon… She had wanted to ask Severus about it, but she hadn't been able to muster up the courage. Useless bloody Gryffindor she was.
The post came, and with it, Lily's first target. The blonde arrived in a crush of people, her best friend's arms around her, a lacy handkerchief dabbing at her eyes. It had been five days since Lisbete Moult's name had ceased synonymity with James Potter's, and for five days she had come down shortly after the cascade of owls, her usually-pink face pale and her golden curls tied up. Both were considered victories for prefects everywhere, with two dress-code violations knocked out, but everyone else agreed it served to show the depth of her heartbreak. Lily kept her scepticism to herself. One hand slipped into her burning pocket, the weight of Lisbete's lipstick heavy.
For five days, Lisbete had been impossible to reach. Lily had had to file that report in the end, and had smudged the details just a little to keep herself clean. She'd honestly not intended on hauling the little pink tube from lesson to lesson and from breakfast to lunch to dinner. She'd been hunting down Lisbete at James' birthday party when the wails had started, and after that it was a fool's errand.
"You just need to bludgeon in and throw it at her," Marlene said, tearing open an envelope with a mouthful of food. "'Hello, so sorry to hear you're not getting your regular shag, pop this on and you might have better luck.'"
"They weren't shagging," Lily said, closely inspecting a grape before taking a tentative bite. Her fingernails stayed the same length, and her bum remained firmly on the seat, so she kept eating. Lily's eyes snapped back to where Potter sat, now mussing his hair and looking in the opposite direction to Lisbete, which meant Lily could only see the back of his head. There was no chance Potter and Lisbete had been shagging – the whole school would have known if it were true, with them going out as long as they had been. Hell, Lily had heard the rumours about Black and Striding, and that had apparently been a one-time thing (all the more scandalous, depending who you asked). Maybe it was a bit mean, but Lily was almost sure if Lisbete had got anywhere beyond making out with Potter, her little friends would have spilled it to their entire cohort within an hour or two. "Even she's not stupid enough to sleep with him. And she's only in third-year."
Marlene only shrugged. "They reckon her mate's gone that far before. Dale's sister."
"That's ridiculous," Lily said. Cathy Roshfinger stroked Lisbete's hair as the blonde sobbed, murmuring something. She knew ten Cathys back in Cokeworth, who'd been smoking at twelve and flirted with men at the pub in hopes of a pint. She knew what they'd do and what they wouldn't, and what people liked to say about them regardless. "She's not a slag just because she wears hand-me-down robes."
"Exactly," Mary said. "And… well, people aren't really… It's just made-up, isn't it?" She chewed her thumbnail. "Nobody would really do that at school." Lily and Marlene exchanged a look.
"Well, you're not meant to," Lily said. "You can get yourself expelled." Nobody had been since the 1600s, though.
Marlene unfolded her letter and skimmed through it, brows meeting as she read. When she was finished, she tossed it aside.
"Dickhead," she grumbled.
"What is it?"
"You'd think someone as ancient as he is would have more bloody sense," said Marlene.
"Your dad?"
"My brother." Marlene handed the letter to Lily, whose eyes raked over the neat lines of writing. The end was signed, 'love from Denny and Rosalie'. "They popped out one – what, a year ago? Oh, shit, her birthday's tomorrow, isn't it? Point is – what business has Denny got making jokes? He's twenty-two."
"You think it's a prank?" She'd found the bits that mattered, but it was a very long letter. She didn't argue with Marlene about twenty-two being ancient. Didn't wizards live until a hundred and twenty-two? Dennis was practically a teenager in that case, if you compared it to muggle aging. Lily imagined herself at twenty-two and all she saw was her bumming around in some flat with Marlene and Mary, arguing over the dishes.
"It's April Fools'," Marlene said. "Who sends proper news on April Fools'?" Lily raised her eyebrows mildly.
"They didn't." She pointed at the date and handed it back. "March 29th. You're going to be an aunt again."
"Congratulations," Mary said, but Marlene went a sickly shade of green.
"I've only met Rosalie once," she said. "I don't know who she thinks she is sending me letters." She folded the letter and shoved it in her bookbag. Lily started on about their History of Magic coursework.
Her second target never made it to breakfast.
She gave Marlene's strategy a brief attempt as the students spilled out of the Great Hall, drifting to their lessons or else for a swallow of sunshine.
"Excuse me," she said, slipping past Gumboil and Hoover, who jumped out of her path. "Excuse me – er, could I get to Lisbete? Yes – excuse me -" But Lisbete and Cathy slipped away in the confusion of the crowds, and Lily was left scowling with the tube in her hand.
"I ought to throw it out," she said.
"Do it," said Marlene. Lily grumbled some more, but stowed it away safely in the end.
Her free period was interrupted by the first-years calling her for help with Peeves, who had nicked cleaning solutions from Filch's office and was dumping them on unsuspecting students with the tiniest bit of mud on their shoes.
"I'm in command with that little old man, students beware of the gunk in their hair!" Peeves cackled. The first-years had hurried off to retrieve another prefect, and brought back none other than Marcus McLaggen. He smiled nervously at her. She returned it with a flutter in her stomach.
"Typical Peeves," she said, sidling up to him and bumping his elbow. He wore a grim look of resignation.
"I don't see why they keep him here," he said. "He needs an exorcism." Lily snorted.
"You couldn't do that," she said. "The Bloody Baron's heart would break. Who would he have to yell at?"
It took them half an hour to get rid of him, and that with plenty of threats of calling the Slytherin ghost. In the end, Lily turned the cleaning supplies back onto him, mops sword-fighting in mid-air, as Marcus ran around and did his best to Vanish the solutions. Filch came along and abused them both soundly, but Peeves fled and that was good enough.
"Do you think the school's got endless money?" Filch shouted after them. "Wastrels! I remember when we used to hang wasteful little students by their ankles, oh yes, we'd give them a good shaking until their parents repaid what was owed… If we did that now… Oh, they'd complain… Too soft…"
Lily's skin burned gently with the slick of a lime-green potion used as a stain-remover, and Marcus' usually-gelled hair sprouted in tight ringlets. They made for the prefects' bathroom, where they found themselves quite alone. The stained-glass mermaid flashed her scales and smiled, and the gold of the fifty or so taps around the giant bathtub gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Gilded frames wrapped around shining mirrors over ornate sinks, and even the doors of the toilet stalls seemed to glitter. Marcus beelined for the mirrors and started grumbling at his hair. Lily's lips twisted into a smile; perhaps he was more like Potter than he'd ever want to think. Or perhaps they were opposites; for Marcus was desperately trying to flatten the rogue curls.
"I like them," Lily said, walking up behind him. Marcus caught her eye on the mirror and pursed his lips.
"You might," he said. "It looks unprofessional."
"How can your natural hair look unprofessional?"
Marcus withdrew a bottle of Sleekeazy's from his bookbag and began applying it liberally. "Haven't you seen what they write about Frank Jordan? He's Head Auror. All they've ever cared about is the way he looks."
Lily bit her lip. She'd thought the Daily Prophet was full of arseholes, but had never put the pieces together on their little comments about the Ministry's Head Auror. They did the same to muggle-borns – eviscerating them on the little details. Wearing trousers was unprofessional and surely indicative of some more sinister allegiance, and God forbid you were caught dead with a muggle book, or able to pronounce 'television' correctly. But she supposed at least you could lie about being muggle-born if you had to, for a time. If you dressed up enough, you could fly undetected. There was no such thing when it was based on the way you looked. And it was in the muggle world, too. Lily had never had to experience something as pervasive as that.
"I'm sorry," she said. "They're narrow-minded gits." She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him in front of the mirror, carding her fingers through her own hair to pull out globs of sticky green solution. "I do like your hair, though. Really." Marcus had slicked most of it down now. The ghost of a smile flickered across his features.
"You're kind."
"I would've preferred if you called me honest," she said, but her chest warmed all the same.
She ran a little late to Charms, but Professor Flitwick waved her through. Their mock exams began next week – Lily swallowed hard at the thought – and most of the lesson was focused on reviewing what they'd learned. The mocks didn't really matter, but they were important for careers counselling, and gave you an idea of where you were at. Marlene huffed and Mary paled when Flitwick mentioned it, and Lily's teeth gnawed at her lower lip. Their meetings with their Head of House next term were supposed to help them figure out which subjects to prioritise, but Lily hadn't the faintest idea of what she would be telling McGonagall. She barely knew what professions existed in the wizarding world. There were teachers, and there were aurors, and shopkeepers and potioneers and healers too. What else? There were no mines that she knew of, the pubs seemed pretty well thoroughly staffed, and she'd never heard of a primary school. Did they have secretaries? They certainly didn't have drill-making companies. Lily wasn't sure what else there was to even do as a job, unless you got yourself famous. And more to the point, what jobs were women allowed to do? Sure, they were meant to be a bit more open-minded now, but Lily couldn't see how they'd ever employ Alice Rhysfield in the MLE, unless she was behind a desk.
Dorcas Meadowes got in the road of Martin Flegler trying to turn Richard Enfield's eyebrows pink, which prompted Flitwick into giving them a lecture on the proper use of Charms and being more mature as O.W.L-level students, but otherwise they made it to History without much ado. That was where the trouble came. The Slytherins traipsed down the corridor from Transfiguration, variously disgruntled. Perseus Padgett made a show of kissing Florence Diggory as she passed by. Severus was towards the back of the group, wand already out. He hadn't spotted her. Her gaze followed his to Potter, Remus, and Peter. Lily wondered if she could give the lipstick back to Potter to give to Lisbete. It might help his apology, if he intended on making one for chucking her in front of half the school.
Potter said something that made Peter snort, and Remus rubbed his arm and looked away. Potter ruffled his hair – and in the split-second he was off his guard, he stumbled and fell to one knee. A Tripping Jinx. It was childish and opportunistic and – Sev was tucking his wand away.
The door unlocked for their lesson, and the class slunk in. Lily let Marlene and Mary go ahead and waited back until Sev came through.
"Not your cleverest," she said, and he jolted.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on," Lily said. "You can do better than that."
She should've known she didn't need to fight Potter's battles.
Professor Binns gave no indication he was aware of any examinations, mock or otherwise, and ploughed on with his content. Afterwards, Lily, Marlene, and Mary headed outside to take advantage of the warm spring day, and she spotted Lisbete under a tree, tearfully recounting something to a group of horrified second-years. Lily looked about for her second target. No appearance at breakfast, and if she'd been let out for lunch, she was bunkering down somewhere. Lily wondered if she'd decided it was easier to stay in bed all day than battle her peers. Lily couldn't blame her. She was thankful, as she pressed her back against the tree and shared a bag of sweets around, that she had never become the centre of gossip in that way. She touched the trunk for luck. A little over two years left, and she hoped she remained firmly out of the spotlight. She was no Potter, and she never would be.
They prepared thoroughly for potions; they pulled on their dragonhide gloves and their scarves and tightened the laces on their shoes. Lily got Marlene to throw jinxes at her so she could practice her Shield Charm. As they descended the stone steps, they pulled their hats over their ears. Their concerns were shared. Sadia Aziz from Slytherin smiled smugly in her hijab, hair protected from any rogue spills or hurtled hexes, and Dale wore a balaclava.
"'Snot 'gainst dress code, is't?" he asked, voice muffled. It was worth noting that the balaclava had twisted around so that his ear poked out one of the eye holes. Lily raised her eyebrows.
"Not explicitly." She caught Remus' eye, who tried and failed not to laugh. But even he had pulled his gloves out. It wasn't warm by any means in the dungeons, but it didn't necessitate their level of coverage either. They'd had four years of training for this very moment, however, and everyone had some plan.
Dale's was thwarted when Professor Slughorn insisted he take the balaclava off for the duration of the lesson, and he quickly switched tactics to faking a stomach ache. Professor Slughorn shook his head tiredly. Before they'd all found their seats, Dale pulled out a cigarette, and that got him sent off to Professor McGonagall – and, more importantly, out of danger.
The Gryffindors and the Slytherins usually sat on different sides of the room, but today they crammed five to a bench rather than risk being within arm's reach. Lily, Marlene, and Mary claimed their customary place, where Alisha and Amy soon joined them, and Potter, Remus, and Peter went to the other. Padgett took a place with Maccioni and Park and Gamp and Sexton, while Sev ended up with the meaner boys, including Avery and Rosier. Sirius Black stood in the middle, looking between them. Potter shuffled over to make room at the bench, but Peter spread his things across the bench so there was not an inch spare.
"Why don't you join Snape?" Slughorn smiled genially, looking quite clueless. "You both have a knack for today's brew, I think. Wouldn't that be something, Black and Snape together?" To Lily's surprise, Severus actually smiled. What shocked her even more was the uncomfortable knot in her stomach. She knew Sev too well to believe that.
"Come here," Lily said, waving Black over. Before Slughorn could protest at the numbers, Lily gathered up her things. "Why not switch it around? I'll work at Lupin's table." She dumped her books on the boys' table before her courage deserted her. Black fixed her with an odd look. Mary grimaced.
"Come on, Black, get your bony arse over here," Marlene said. "You're saving our marks today. Better be as good as Lily."
"Oho! That's quite the challenge," Slughorn beamed. Black hesitated a moment longer, before his tongue swiped his lips.
"Better," he said, and took Lily's spot.
It was simple brewing – a fourth-year potion, which Slughorn hinted heavily would be useful to know for their exams. Peter apologetically stuffed his belongings back in his bag to make room for Lily, who only now realised the gravity of what she'd done. Remus and Peter were fine – but she had volunteered herself to be stuck with Potter for an entire hour on April Fool's Day.
He didn't have to lift a finger to turn her into a fool.
"I want a good mark," she said, without preamble. "You lot are supposed to do well. I'm not having us humiliated by failing something even Potter's little girlfriend can do." Lily regretted the jab about Lisbete the moment she said it. To her frustration, Potter only smiled. What did he have planned? She suspected the goop in her hair would be a breeze compared to whatever nefariousness he could come up with.
"So there's someone she hasn't sobbed to," he said. "Fret not, Evans. We'll be great."
"But I'm shit at Potions," said Peter. Potter shook his head.
"You're being modest."
"I'm not," said Remus. "I ruin every cauldron I touch." Potter threw his arms around their shoulders and grinned at Lily.
"Humble, aren't they?" he said. "I have to carry the pride for all three of us."
Lily rolled her eyes, and didn't dignify him with a response.
Potter did try to be helpful, though, in his own uniquely annoying way. It was a strange way of making fun of her, but effective. He offered to get the ingredients, but Lily elected Peter to do that instead, guessing that Potter would try to nick something if he faced the temptation of the hundreds of ingredients kept in the cupboard. Did he really think she'd fall for that? Next he whipped out his mortar and pestle, but Lily could see only one way of that ending – with the crushed shells ending up down Severus' robes. So she deployed Remus for that. Lily withdrew her knife to start chopping the roots.
"Is that silver?" Potter asked, shoving himself between her and Remus to rest his head on the table and look up at her. His face was tauntingly close to her chopping board. Would a human nose go for a pot of silver on the black market?
"Steel," she said. "D'you think money grows on trees? Do you turn up tuppence in your shoes?"
"Tuppence?"
"Wizards," she grumbled. "Can you make yourself useful?"
"You won't let me. At this rate, Si – Marlene's table will beat ours." Lily noticed his correction. She looked over her shoulder at the other table. It was true that they were starting to mix the ingredients in their cauldron, but they were stirring too slow, and the smoke was curling rather than swirling.
"Tortoises," she said, chiefly to confuse him. "Not hares."
"Sense," Potter retorted. "Not riddles."
"It's not a riddle, if you're muggle."
"You know I'm not, Evans."
"Ask Professor Clearwater about it, then. I'm not here to make up for your educational deficiencies, as numerous as they might be." It sounded good in her head, but she stumbled on the end of the sentence and flushed. Potter's lips twisted upwards, and he flung his upper body off the bench.
"Did you join us just to bully me, Evans?"
"I joined you because you've obviously had a falling-out with Black and you can't be bothered to fix it."
That wounded Potter more than any crack about Lisbete could. His face morphed as if he'd been punched. His eyes darkened. An apology flew to the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. He'd made that comment about the knife. There was no chance that had been genuine – he had to know her family wasn't like his, even if he didn't really know her at all. She wasn't constantly showered in parcels the way he was, and she didn't have gold and pearls hanging from her ears the way Lisbete Moult or Florence Diggory did. The weekends found her in the singular pair of jeans she'd brought to Hogwarts, with the flower necklace her parents had got her for her birthday hanging around her neck. The earrings she wore looked like gold, but they were only cheap metal in the end. When had she ever bragged about holidays abroad or a new broomstick or had owls deliver brand new records, signed, at breakfast time?
"Don't." Lily went cold. It was Remus who said it, voice grave and throaty. Potter's jaw tightened. Remus stared. Lily's stomach fell away.
"I'm sorry," she said. Remus went back to crushing. Potter stepped around him and went back to his Potions textbook, rifling through it. Lily looked back at Black. He stood with his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on a bit of the wood grain, looking as though he'd been cut out of some moody magazine and pasted into the classroom.
What the hell had Sev done to them? What the hell had happened on the full moon?
The eventuality they'd all prepared for came in the twenty-eighth minute of the lesson, when Potter ignored Lily's decision to send Peter back for more of the Standard Ingredient and raced across the dungeon himself. He passed within two feet of Sev's table, and with a snort from Avery, went sprawling to the ground. Lily wondered if she'd got it wrong earlier. Potter landed on his hands and knees, but the pose lasted only a moment.
"Levicorpus!" It was the spell Sev had used on Remus, the one he'd made up with the help of the book she'd given him. It hit Avery, and in a second the boy's inkwell had shattered and he was hanging by his ankle in mid-air. In typical pureblood fashion, he was too magical to wear trousers or, God forbid, pants. His robes fell around his waist to reveal the linen braies favoured by purists, which covered him almost to the knee and were all but the same as bloomers. Lily clapped her hands over her mouth, fighting to keep her composure. She made eye contact with Lauren Clarke, one of the few Slytherin muggle-borns, who openly burst into laughter. Lily lost it then. Avery might have been wearing underwear that belonged to her grandmother. She knew it was awful, really, and she ought not to laugh especially as a prefect – but her eyes watered and she choked on her breath.
"I know you were trying to be funny, Avery," Potter said casually. "And fair enough. It's the day for it. But I think everyone's getting a bit more amusement out of this, yeah? Look. Even Evans is laughing at you, and we all know she's meant to be a swot." The class looked at her. Lily wiped her eyes and kept one hand firmly clamped over her mouth.
"Boys," Professor Slughorn said, bustling down the aisle between the benches. "Come on now. Come on. We're all in high spirits today, aren't we? It's a little overzealous, hm? Mr Potter, if you could put Avery down now – I'm sure he's learnt not to mess with you!"
"Oh, I'd love to, sir," said Potter. "But I can't remember the counter-spell, I'm afraid. I know – number one rule of spellcasting." He looked directly at Sev. "You wouldn't know, would you, mate? You wouldn't be able to use a jinx like this."
"Snape," Avery said, struggling to hold up his robes. Severus' lips pressed in a thin line, his eyes practically bulging as he thought. Professor Slughorn pulled out his wand and cleared his throat. Severus' lips parted.
"Professor -"
"Finite Incantatem," he said. It happened in a flash; one moment, Professor Slughorn was standing there almost regally, in his velvet robes and embroidered waistcoat – the next, he was hanging next to Avery, suspended by his foot. His hat fell to the ground.
"Oh my!" he said, and his face reddened as the blood rushed to his head. "Mr Potter, put us down!"
"I'm not joking," Potter said, laughing in shock. "I honestly don't know it. Really, sir."
"Snape!" Avery said. Severus gripped the bench.
"If Potter wants to use a spell unknown to him, and quite beyond his capacity, liberally, then that's on him."
Lily could never have said who Avery was aiming for, but somehow he hadn't dropped his wand. He thrust it out and garbled an incantation. It missed Potter and Sev both and hit Padgett. There was the faint scent of a spell gone wrong. And then –
Augusta Gamp screamed. Padgett spun around, and a large purple tentacle burst from his forehead.
All hell broke loose.
Avery shouted spells, one of which did hit Severus and made him dance uncontrollably. Grant and Schoupp dove under the bench, but Schoupp's elbow caught their cauldron and knocked it to the ground. Lauren Clarke and Jeanne Hall climbed on their bench instead. Potter got off a spell and caught Rosier, who swung in his surprise and launched a spray of crushed beetle shells across the dungeon. Slughorn shouted furiously, but his wand had fallen to the floor, where Gamp scooped it up for him but couldn't reach to give it back. Black got Severus as he danced and gave him the beak of a duck, which Potter topped off with a pair of rabbit ears. Rosier caught Amy in the elbow and sent her pirouetting furiously, and then Marlene was in the fray, smashing Maccioni into backflips. Mary screamed and clapped her hands over her ears. A hex bounced off Sadia Aziz's hijab. Lily spun to Remus and Peter, but Peter was amongst it now, furry feelers poking through his sandy hair, and Remus threw a Shield Charm in front of Black just as Severus finished his incantation. Black stopped dead, and as Remus ducked away, Severus took aim again. Pus squirted from Black's nose, and with a second spell his legs crunched, knees jumping to the back of his legs. Lily's stomach rolled. Severus was advancing on him again, but Black grabbed his leg and pulled him down and rolled on top of him, hitting anywhere he could reach. Slughorn was still shouting, his long johns on display –
Liberally.
Lily remembered.
"Liberacorpus!" she shouted, hoping a jab of her wand would be enough. No. What had Sev done? What would he do? "Liberacorpus!" she tried again, jerking her wand upwards, and Professor Slughorn fell to the floor. "Expelliarmus!" Avery's wand flew out of his hand, though she wasn't quick enough to catch it – instead, it sailed into Potter's grasp. Bloody Quidditch reflexes. It was no matter. "Liberacorpus," she said again, and Avery joined Slughorn on the stones.
She put her hand out to help Professor Slughorn to his feet.
Potter had got his revenge.
Professor Slughorn marched them up to the senior Transfiguration classroom and asked for Professor McGonagall, who came at once. The entire class of fifth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins stood in the corridor. She pinched the bridge of my nose.
"Were any of them not involved?" she asked tiredly. Professor Slughorn peered behind her.
"Ah," he said. "What about Miss Evans?"
That was how Lily ended up standing in front of the Ravenclaw and Slytherin fourth-years, a blackboard full of Transfiguration equations behind her. She wasn't terrible at Transfiguration, but an EE brightened her whole day. Her attempt at teaching wasn't improved by the occasional shouting from the hallway outside, or from McGonagall's office.
"Er," she said. "So, I understand, um, that you've been working on Gamp's Laws?"
They looked at her blankly. Lily swallowed. They were Ravenclaws and Slytherins. One of them ought to have their bloody hands up by now. She crossed her fingers, and after a moment, one of them saved her.
Relieved, she smiled brightly at the boy. "Yes, er -?"
"Giblin."
"Giblin. Yes. Er, ah, what are you thinking?"
"Is it true that James Potter stripped Warren Avery naked and covered him in flobberworms? In this lesson just now. In the dungeons."
Lily blinked. "Er – we've only just come from Potions."
"Well, yeah. Did it happen?"
"How do you even know there was a fight in Potions? It's been ten minutes!"
"So it did happen?"
Professor McGonagall returned briefly to dismiss them for their next class, and told Lily to come back after Ancient Runes. Lily grabbed her things and was halfway out the door when the realisation hit her.
Target Two had been in front of her for twenty minutes and she hadn't even registered it.
She took off down the corridor, following the Slytherin contingent as the Ravenclaws traipsed towards History of Magic. Regulus Black was in the middle of it all somehow, one boy chatting animatedly to him, but that wasn't who Lily wanted. No – she caught Target Two ahead of her but lagging nevertheless, head down as she descended the Marble Staircase.
"Excuse me," Lily said. "Excuse me – can I have a word?"
Deborah Crabbe looked up. God, how much time had Lily spent chasing younger students about these last few weeks? The girl looked awful. Not as in ugly, though she was plain-featured – but her eyes sagged in their sockets, and deep lines crossed her forehead despite her youth. She flinched at Lily's breath.
"What do you want?" she mumbled, looking down again. Lily reached for her but Crabbe stepped back into a passing Hufflepuff, who apologised and kept moving.
"Can I just have a word?" Lily said. "Just down here. Just for a moment." The speech she'd been preparing had disappeared in the rapid beats of her heart, but she thought she could grasp at the gist.
"No," Crabbe said, and tried to shoulder past her. Lily grabbed her sleeve.
"Wait," she said. "I just wanted to say, it's not fair how people are carrying on, and if -"
"Go away," Crabbe growled, shaking.
"If you need anything," Lily continued, "I know I'm in Gryffindor, but if you want people to leave you alone, or if you need contra -"
"I don't need help from a filthy fucking mudblood!" Crabbe shouted, pulling away so hard that Lily stumbled. Half the Great Hall looked on, including most of the Slytherins from Crabbe's year. Crabbe flushed. "Get your grubby hands off me! It's none of your business!"
Lily set her jaw. "Fine," she said. "Go and get yourself pregnant."
It was an awful thing to say, she thought later, sitting towards the back of the Defence class that was only three-quarters full. The Hufflepuffs were abuzz with gossip, but she didn't feel like entertaining them. Mary meekly took notes that probably wouldn't cover anything in depth, and aside from the pair of them there was only Alisha, who sat on Lily's other side, putting her hair in a hundred little plaits, and Dale, who was both balaclava- and cigarette-free and was loudly giving Professor Forcier the wrong answers. Lily had gone to try to show Crabbe that everybody else was in the wrong for laughing at her about her admittedly fucked-up situation, and in the end had only made it worse. Guilt gnawed at her.
"Do you think I'm a bitch?" she asked Mary, who frowned.
"No," she said. "You're my friend."
And perhaps being even bitchier, Lily thought that was the most counselling she was likely to get out of Mary.
Peter was back by Ancient Runes, but Severus wasn't, and Lily didn't want to join the gorge of Diggory and Lewis and Padgett and Glen. She pulled Mary over to Peter and they sat down next to him. He kept rubbing his head.
"I'm sorry," he said. "About ruining the potion and everything."
"It wasn't ruined, it just wasn't finished," Lily told him. "How are you finding the allophone rules?"
Professor McGonagall only asked her what had happened and how she'd known the counter-spell. She never had reported the incident with Severus and Remus outside History of Magic all those weeks ago, and she didn't want to bring it up now. She didn't want to mention that Severus had created the spell, either. She chewed the inside of her lip.
"I don't know," she said eventually. "It just sort of popped into my head. I must have read it somewhere." Professor McGonagall looked down her nose.
"Miss Evans," she said. "This spell is not registered with the Ministry of Magic. Neither Professor Slughorn nor myself have encountered it before. This does constitute an illegal jinx, and as such we will need to bring it to attention. It is a most serious matter."
"I understand, Professor," Lily said. "I don't know. There's been lots of people up in the air today – I saw Renner Filch floating in a bubble on the way to History of Magic. I must have heard someone using it in the corridors this morning." She scuffed her toe along the floor. "I expect that's where Potter's picked up the incantation."
Professor McGonagall steepled her fingers. "I value you as a prefect, Miss Evans. You perform your duties and you perform them consummately."
"Thank you."
"Professor Slughorn is very thankful for your saving him this morning. You did well."
"Thank you, Professor."
"Mm." Professor McGonagall said nothing for a very long time. Lily shifted under her gaze, feeling as though she was being read to the depths of her soul. Finally, McGonagall spoke. "You may go."
Marlene was out of the hospital wing by then, though she convinced them to go up to see everyone who was still confined to their beds. Students swarmed the wing, exchanging rumours and who had seen what when they'd gone to get so-and-so. A large sign hung on the double doors warning them all to 'KEEP OUT' except in case of emergencies, so the throng lined the walls and eagerly awaited the release of another jinxee like they were celebrities. Peter and Remus spotted them and waved them over, to where they'd reserved a bench.
"Get off, get off, our friends are in there, we're fifth-years – you off too," Peter directed, sending the first- and second-years scattering with quite a proud look on his face. One of the boys doubled back to ask if Potter and Black had really turned someone into a manticore.
"They did," Peter said, and Marlene snorted into her elbow. "No, really, yeah, they did. You should've been there! And James said to Sirius, 'd'you reckon he'd look better in a fluffy bathrobe?', and then -" and so on the tale morphed until the most popular story wound up with Avery and Severus being in St Mungo's with every bone in their bodies broken, and Potter and Black nobly recovering with an Award for Special Services to the School imminent, probably to be presented at dinner that night.
"You're lying to them all," Mary piped up at one point, agog as Peter sent off two Hufflepuffs with the daring account of how Potter and Black had duelled back-to-back against a tide of screeching Slytherins.
"They like it," Peter said. "And you bet James will, too."
"You couldn't make – him – run with his tail between his legs?" Remus asked gruffly, arms folded across his chest.
"Nobody'd believe that. It sounds better with the two of them. Loads of girls fancy Sirius."
"I don't give a fuck if loads of girls fancy him," Remus said, unusually cold. "I'm going down to dinner. I'll bring up what I can." With that he strode off, not so much as looking back. Lily cocked her head to one side. She'd assumed the rift was chiefly between Potter and Black, but…
She was missing something. Something key. Severus had figured out something about Remus and the Whomping Willow, and Potter and stopped him from – what, was it a passage to the Forbidden Forest? Was that where Remus transformed? Why weren't they all banded together, furious at Sev for what he'd done, trying to find Remus out? Yes, Sirius had probably slept with Rose Striding, which had sent them all in a funk for some reason or another, but would what Sev did not be enough to bring them back?
At seven, Remus returned, and they all ate little bits of food out of napkins, except for Mary. Twenty minutes later the doors opened. The crowd held its breath. Severus Avery, Black, and Potter were the ones who had not yet emerged, and they were the ones whose exploits had already been spun into legend. Who would they see first?
Sev.
The crowd surged forward, wands lit and people laughing, jeering, yelling out crude suggestions. Severus kept his head down and stalked past them, fists balled. Lily joined Marlene in standing on the bench to get a better look, and Severus turned his head and – their eyes met. His dark ones flashed with something indecipherably unfriendly. Her chest cramped. He was almost running by the end of it, though his dignity kept him from full speed. By then the doors had banged open again, and here was Avery. A gang of Slytherin boys near the front clapped him on the back and surrounded him in a protective shield – Mulciber, Jugson, Yaxley, Selwyn, Rowle, and Evan Rosier. They whispered to him as the less tactful third-years nearly wet themselves laughing, miming hoisting themselves up in the air and flashing.
The doors opened again.
James Potter and Sirius Black were rockstars. Full Mick Jagger.
They didn't touch as they swaggered out, but they were clearly a duo, walking in step. They might have been the home team running out onto the football field. A dozen girls shouted for them, and Lily knew at once that if it had been Striding they were arguing over, she would soon be forgotten. Lisbete too. James twirled and his robes flared out, showing off his now-uninjured body. Sirius gestured to his pusless nose. His kneecaps appeared to be in their proper place, too. People inundated them with questions, and Madam Pomfrey appeared between the double doors of the Infirmary to shout for everyone to stop loitering. Lily's prefect badge felt heavy, and so she wriggled through the crowd and tokenistically reminded the younger students of their curfews – the first-years had precisely five minutes to get back to their common rooms, and if you were a Gryffindor that spelt trouble.
"I'm sure Potter and Black will be coming back to their own common room," she soothed one hiccupping first-year girl. "You can see them up there, alright? Won't that be even better? You'll have them more to yourself."
The girl sniffled. "But – but – do you think Black will notice me?" Lily fought to keep her face neutral.
"Well, we never know, do we? But if you're not away to your common room now, I'm afraid you'll have to go right to bed and won't get a chance at all." If Black so much as said more than 'hello' to the first-year, Lily was interrogating him, because the only time he ever showed interest in younger students was when there was some way he could torment them to amuse himself. "Go on now."
The crowds started to disperse, and Lily rejoined Marlene, Mary, Remus, and Peter. Potter grinned cheerfully as he answered questions and even signed someone's arm, the prat. Black hung back, head down. Finally, Potter grabbed him by the shoulder and steered him towards Lily and the others, though Black shrunk from the touch.
"You're alright!" Peter exclaimed. Lily wondered if he'd bought in to his own fibs.
"'Course," Potter said. "Alright? Oi, Evans, you waited for me." Lily snorted ungracefully.
"I think you might need to go back to Pomfrey."
He shook his head and hooked his arm around Black's, dragging him in towards the group. Black's brows furrowed, but Potter gave a tiny nod. His other arm caught Remus around the neck and his fingers stretched for Peter, who awkwardly shuffled in. Potter cajoled all of the boys into a bizarre huddle, in which he looked to be the only one pleased. Marlene scrunched dup her nose.
"You're my best mates," Potter said, like he was giving a pre-match speech. "All of you, right? We've done the map together. We did the…well… yeah, you know… we're all in it, yeah? And I need all of you if we're going to smash Ravenclaw's skulls open, and I need all of you to go off to Oz and win this thing, alright? So that's what we're doing."
"Map?" Marlene whispered. "What the bloody hell is he on about?"
"I think they're sharing a delusion."
They broke apart, and Remus rubbed the back of his neck. Peter shuffled his feet. Potter looked about with a blazing confidence. Lily realised what she needed to do.
"Can I talk to you, Potter?"
"To me?" he looked over his shoulder, like there might be someone standing behind him.
"That's why I said your name, isn't it?" She crossed the corridor to give them a little more privacy. Peter 'oooh'ed. Potter followed her obediently.
"What's the matter?" Potter asked. His dark hair was tousled and sticking out, and his hazel eyes creased happily behind his rectangular frames. She had to tilt her head to look him in the eye, and she hated that.
"I want to be a bitch," she said, biting her lip. Potter laughed, brows raising, and flashed the brilliant white of his teeth.
"You need my help for that?"
Lily rolled her eyes and pulled out the lipstick, holding it flat on her palm. "Thought you might be familiar. No doubt your lips have ended up coated in it sometimes."
"Ah." Potter took it. "I thought prefects weren't supposed to nick things."
"I meant to give it back, but she's been -"
"I know," Potter said, and slipped it in his pocket. "I'll get it to her. I have other things to give back to her anyway. Thanks, Evans."
"Thanks," she said quickly. Potter nodded, still beaming like some idiot puppy. Lily swallowed. "I thought you'd give it to Sev worse."
"Snivy?"
"Don't -"
"Yeah," Potter said quickly, cutting her off. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, looking sidewards to where Black and Peter made stilted conversation. "He got what he needed. Better things to do today. But you know he's a dick, right? You've seen the people he hangs out with? Mulciber and Avery and -"
"I know," Lily said shortly. Potter sighed and brushed a stray lock from his face.
"Bloody hell, Evans," he said. "I wish you didn't. It's easier to think you don't know any better than to know that you do, and you just don't care."
Lily's mouth dropped open. She burned. "I don't care? I'm the one they're targeting! What the hell does it have to do with you? You could – you could swan over and go and join them and they'd be right pleased, a good pureblood boy like you!" She thought of his family in that bloody book. But Potter laughed in her face.
"You don't know anything about me," he said. "You think they'd accept a Potter? Merlin, Evans. What's it going to take for you to realise your little mate isn't all he's cracked up to be? D'you know what he tried to do to Re-" Potter cut himself off. Lily's heart pounded. She could feel the others looking at them, taking note of their raised voices. Something about Potter got under her skin.
"I thought Black must've done something," Lily said quietly. Potter's jaw tightened.
"You thought wrong," he said, voice just as low as hers, stepping closer. That day at Auld Kirk Green flooded her mind unwittingly, when they had been pressed up against each other, when she had felt – Lily couldn't breathe. "I know my best mate. I know what he's capable of. Do you?"
And he left her there, chest tight and breath short, head spinning, ever the fucking fool.