A freezing cold Saturday in the Gryffindor tower found Lily, Marlene and Mary huddled around a small table near a window, plodding through History of Magic homework and trying not to fall asleep while snow assaulted the window pane behind them. Dorcas had refused to pull herself from her warm bed to do something so boring and, now that they were here writing it, they could hardly blame her.
"God, Charms after this too, it's endless." Marlene complained, thunking her forehead off the table in frustration. "Don't they want us to enjoy our weekends?"
"Don't worry about it, Mar," Lily assured her through a yawn. "I've done it, you can just copy me."
"Lifesaver."
They stared blankly at the parchment in front of them for another few minutes before Mary apparently lost her temper. She snapped the textbook shut and screwed the lid back on her ink resolutely.
"I'm not having it, he's a ghost, he can't even hold a quill to mark it. Let's do something fun." It took very little to encourage Lily and Marlene to give up and they were more than happy to abandon their work. Revived by the pleasant thought of the whole Saturday stretched out in front of them with no school work, suddenly the weather was much more appealing.
"Reckon that colour change spell will work on snow?" Lily mused, absently. Mary shrugged.
"I'd hardly know, haven't done the homework, have I?" She patted Lily excitedly on the arm. "Reckon it'll count as extra studying if we go and test it? Sure Flitwick will appreciate the practical application."
It was decided. Abandoning their textbook on the table, the three of them hurried up the girls' dormitory staircase to collect their cloaks, scarves and gloves, waking Dorcas up in the process with their clattering. She emerged from her covers, curly orange hair in disarray, eyes bleary.
"Are we having fun yet?" she mumbled, sticking her head out of the red curtains to watch them rummaging through their trunks.
"Yeah, get up, we're going out in the snow." Mary informed her, throwing a scarf at her face.
Dorcas grinned, suddenly alert and jumped out of bed, hissing at the cold stone floor on her feet. "Okay, give me a minute, I'm coming."
They piled on their warmest clothes and thundered down the stairs, heavy footed in their winter boots, chattering excitedly.
Out of the front doors, the grounds sprawled out before them, an endless blanket of snow, with only a few trails of footprints to mar it. To their left stood the Forbidden Forest, topped in white, but the trees so thick that the ground remained dark. Not far from the treeline was the groundskeeper's hut - welcoming smoke rising from the chimney stack. Around to the right, the greenhouses were out of sight behind the castle walls and ahead of them, passed the Whomping Willow, was the Quidditch Pitch.
"Reckon the lake's frozen?" asked Dorcas, leading them off to the left. "It feels cold enough. We could skate on it?"
They followed after her, debating whether the fun was worth the risk until they reached the secluded area where the lake bank met the forest.
Dorcas tested the water at the edge with her toe and it immediately cracked.
"Okay, forget that," she hurriedly backed away from the lake. "Show us your charm, then?"
Lily glanced around for something to test it on and decided to pull together a neat snowball.
"Okay, cross your fingers," she warned, pulling out her wand.
"Dissimulo."
The snowball obediently became green. Marlene 'oooh'ed in delight, taking it from her to examine.
"How do you choose the colour?" She asked, admiring the green ice melting into green water.
Lily shrugged. "You're supposed to imagine something that "exemplifies" that colour. But Flitwick said green was easiest. I can only seem to do green and blue."
"Right, well we obviously have to build a cool fort," announced Mary, gathering together an armful of snow and forming it into a neat block. Dorcas (who, shockingly, had not only studied the theory but also done the homework), got to colouring the snow-bricks sky-blue.
"What have you tried for pink?" Mary asked, red cheeked already. Lily shrugged.
"I didn't manage pink, I couldn't get anything I thought of to work. I tried pigs, but I've never actually seen a pig for real…" Lily trailed off for a moment, thinking back to waking up at Christmas and the familiar sight of her lilac wall that her and Petunia had painted years ago.
"I reckon I could do purple!" She announced excitedly, gesturing for Marlene to show her the snow that she was forming into a hard lump in her hands. Lily thought back to that comforting feeling of waking up and seeing the expanse of lilac instead of her Gryffindor hangings.
"Oh, cool!"
Lily grinned, pleased with herself. "I think I have the hang of it now!"
The four of them set about building a stout wall, Lily coaching Mary in the theory behind the Colour Change charm as they went until they stood back to admire their lilac and blue fortress, complete with battlements.
"Alright, a castle guard, now," Dorcas commanded through chattering teeth, beginning to roll a gigantic snowman base. Mary started her own ball which Lily assumed was for the next segment, until she launched it as the back of Dorcas' head.
"Or, we fight!" she cackled evilly, ducking behind their newly built fort.
The girls scattered like cockroaches at the sudden threat of attack, shrieking in excited fear. Lily shot into the treeline and swiftly scaled the Beech tree at the edge of the lake for a better vantage point. It proved excellent for surreptitiously sending snowballs down on her friend's heads with a well-placed wingardium leviosa, but also allowed her to spot several small figures approaching in the distance.
She shook a nearby branch, creating a shower of snow and alerting her dorm-mates to her hiding spot.
"Look out!" She called, pointing to the advancing figures. "Enemy army approaching to the West!"
Mary groaned and rolled her eyes.
"It's the Idiot Brigade," she announced. "Should we ambush them?"
It took a few seconds of conspiratorial whispering before it was decided that Dorcas would run a stream of water across their path towards them and then freeze it before hiding with Mary and Marlene while Lily waited up in her tree for the second attack.
It seemed they were wise enough to realise that the disappearance of the girls and complete silence likely meant they were about to be attacked, but apparently hadn't foreseen the whole plan. Lily thought she might ask Professor Slughorn to place her memory of Sirius Black slipping face-first into the snow in a vial, so she could revisit it in perfect clarity whenever she pleased.
Lily tried her best to keep her sniggering silent as she watched Sirius lie there in the snow for a moment, apparently composing himself, while Remus and Peter went red in the face with suppressed laughter, carefully tiptoe-ing past the slippy trap.
The girls on the ground were none the wiser, but Lily could clearly see James levitating a heap of loose snow over to the fort and so she steadied herself and took her shot. Tugging on her Gryffindor scarf that she'd secured around a branch a few feet away, she released a cascade of snow down onto James' head. Marlene, Dorcas and Mary's heads popped up behind their snow battlements to enjoy the fallout. James was spluttering and feeling through the snow for his glasses that had been knocked off his face, Sirius rubbing his bruised forehead and Remus and Peter smugly laughed, safe at the back of the group.
"That was a declaration of war!" called James, ramming his glasses back onto his face, looking damp, but excited. Dorcas held up her hands in a ceasefire, pointing behind the boys.
"Hold up, who's this?"
Lily checked back and spotted who Dorcas had seen, a few paces behind. The hood of his winter cloak was up, but Lily couldn't mistake his walk.
"Sev?" She called from the tree and he looked up at her, cheeks unusually pink from the cold and the gaze of eight students upon him.
"Snivellus?" Sirius sneered in disbelief, laughing derisively at the Slytherin. "I didn't know you came out in daylight."
Severus was about to retort but he was cut off by Lily's call of; "Oh shut up!" as she jumped out of her position up the tree, landing behind the Gryffindor boys. "Back off, Black, you weren't invited. What's going on, Sev?"
Severus glanced bitterly at the Gryffindor boys before shoving through them and stepping up to Lily.
"Nothing, but…" he nodded towards their fort, raising his eyebrows in question. She obliged, leading him over to the girls. They didn't look delighted, but they could hardly argue.
"Sorry, I just- I saw you and I thought, well, this might be fun." He picked up one of their snowballs from the stash and held it out in his hand. "I learned it the other week. Ruptis!"
The snowball popped in his hand, showering them with a light dusting of snow.
Mary leaned forward, conspiratorially. "Snow grenades?" Dorcas was delighted, putting aside her distaste for Severus' awkward manner to agree to his offer of allyship. She stood up from her crouch, revealing herself to the Gryffindor boys left waiting a few metres away.
"Yeah, alright Potter - you're on!"
It was perhaps the first time that Lily had seen Severus play with any other students. In fact, if she really thought about it, they had never really played. They had talked and talked and daydreamed and imagined, but never played together like her and Petunia did. She tried not to let her (happy) bewilderedness show on her face as she watched him, tucked safely behind their blue-and-pink snow fortress wall, dutifully exploding each snowball that came near them from the Gryffindor boys.
For their part, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter had a few tricks up their sleeves. Remus had a neat little trick of sending their own projectiles back at them and James and Sirius seemed to be conspiring with Peter, who was furiously making a stack of ammo while Remus stood guard in front of him. It soon became clear what the plan had been when a steady succession of snowballs flew over their battlements, landing directly on Severus' head. He moved to the other side of Marlene and Mary, but the cursed snowballs seemed to follow him, always landing squarely on the top of his head. Severus pulled his hood up, all traces of his spirited dedication gone, replaced with a trademark scowl.
Marlene laughed as another snowball broke on the top of his head.
"Guess Black has good aim," she commented, lightly. Severus' teeth were gritted.
"It's not aim, he's cheating," Severus spat furiously, swiftly casting ruptis at the next incoming projectile to spare himself.
"It's just snow," she said, reasonably. Lily knew Severus well enough that it wasn't just snow. On the one hand, it was a snowball fight, and it was snow. On the other hand, she knew that Severus was always on a hair-trigger, waiting for a slight to come so that he could retaliate. She was well aware that it was hardly unjustified - he'd spent his whole childhood on eggshells and he was certainly targeted both at Hogwarts and in Cokework - but his habit did tend to escalate things. She would rather he were easier to laugh things off.
She watched, unwilling to step in this time, as Severus stormed around their barricade and trudged up to the other boys, popping projectiles as he went. The laughs on James, Peter, Sirius and Remus' faces faltered a little, once Severus made it across no mans' land. Lily shrugged at her dorm mates dispassionately. If Black, Potter and Pettigrew were going to wind him up, she certainly wasn't going to keep running between them. Severus could handle himself.
Severus and James were of similar heights, though James was certainly stockier. Sirius, however, was tall enough to look down on Severus when he stood next to him.
Sirius smirked.
"Just thought we'd do you a favour and wet your hair. Been a while since you've washed it, has it?"
Severus shoved him, hard in the chest and Sirius stumbled, but didn't fall. James looked a little startled, not expecting Severus to get physical.
"Watch it, Snape," warned James, though his voice was still light. "I'd suggest picking on someone your own size, but I'm not sure there's anyone else in your weight class attending."
The ability to form a sentence seemed to have left Severus in his bubbling mixture of humiliation and fury. Seemingly remembering himself, he pointed his wand directly in James' face.
"Ruptus!"
Blood gushed from James' nose and mouth, splattering the snow as he spluttered and coughed. Lily could only catch a fleeting look from Severus before he'd stormed back to the castle. The girls emerged, spirits and knees dampened as they crowded around to inspect the damage. James was pinching his nose and gagging at the taste of his own blood. It seemed that, along with giving him an impressive nosebleed, Severus had split his bottom lip.
"Your pal's a right piece of work," Sirius snapped at Lily, pulling on the arm on James' cloak to nudge him towards the castle doors. "Goodness knows why you'd want to spend time with a worm like that."
The four of them trudged up to the castle, a spotty trail of blood following them in the snow. Lily turned, nervously to the Gryffindor girls, a little sickened.
"I didn't know he was going to do something like that," she said, feeling a little defensive under Marlene's reproachful look. "I don't think he could have even known it was going to be that bad…"
Mary sighed, giving Lily a weary one-armed hug. "He's a weird one Lily, but to be fair, they did start it. Say we go in and get changed? I'm damp and cold and I could do with some lunch."
This chapter gave me so much grief. I'm not great with multiple OCs, and Mary, Marlene and Dorcas are basically OCs tbh, they have no canon character.
Also, Severus just getting more autistic by the day, damn.