(Chapter Three)

The news that Lily Evans had gotten into a duel with Mathilde Browning spread fast after the Halloween feast. Both of the girls had been issued detention, something that was inconceivable to the Gryffindors who knew Lily well. Professor Slughorn was overheard blustering to Professor McGonagall about his favorite student, puffing out indignantly when she snapped at him that his little parties did not constitute the girl from missing detention for attacking another student. Thoroughly chastised, Slughorn had cast Lily an apologetic look one day in Potions and gave her a genial pat on the shoulder.

Sirius took this in over the next week, Mathilde's love letter burning guiltily in his book bag. He had been there when Mathilde had sidled up to James, smiling coquettishly and idly playing with the end of her ponytail.

James had cast her his winning smile, saying confidently, "I'm already planning to ask someone out for the first Hogsmeade weekend."

Mathilde's smile had faltered, her gaze sharpening at the words. "Oh? You are?" There was a brief pause when James showed no interest in supplying the information, already turning away from her dismissively. "Lily Evans?"

James had glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyebrows rising slightly. "Yeah. That's right."

She had laughed in disbelief, brushing her curly hair out of her face and crossing her arms over her chest. "You do realize she's already seeing someone, right? Severus – in Slytherin? Everyone knows they date outside of school."

As if James had needed another reason to hate Severus Snape, this seemed to be the pinnacle of injustice to him. Sirius, however, was doubtful of the truth in Mathilde's statement. It was true that Snape and Lily had been on the train their first year and had been study partners up until last term, but since then there had been relatively very little contact between the two. Nothing in neither Lily nor Severus's countenance suggested anything beyond friendly had happened during the summer.

Something that Mathilde had not taken into account was that, unlike their other fellow Gryffindors, Sirius came from a long line of pure-blood Slytherins and had his own ways of collecting information.

After a week of listening to rumors and gossip and dealing with James's brooding moods, Sirius met his younger brother, Regulus, outside in one of the courtyards. Regulus had conjured a warm, flameless fire that he was hiding underneath his cloak to keep warm as he waited for his older brother. He smiled when Sirius approached. Regulus had been sorted into Slytherin, following the Black tradition, and had a quiet temperament, quite unlike Sirius's explosive, cocky attitude. In spite of their opposing Houses, the brothers had held no ill will towards each other, though Sirius had often launched into tirades about Regulus's propensity to follow his Slytherin friends rather than choose his own path.

At thirteen, Regulus was nearly the same height as Sirius, although he had the wiry build that fit his position as Quidditch Seeker. In the few times that Regulus and James had encountered each other, the two of them had talked comfortably of Quidditch, although their attitude on the pitch was quite different.

"I didn't think you'd be interest in gossip," Regulus said to his brother as he moved his cloak to release some of the warmth. They stood shoulder to shoulder to block the view of the magical flames from any of the teachers.

"It's not gossip if it's information."

Regulus chuckled and then shrugged. "Sure, okay. I take it you're trying to find out for James, anyway." A few seconds passed while they waited for a group of girls to pass, giggling at the brothers, and then Regulus continued, "Snape was getting called a Mudblood lover last year. Mulciber's been giving him a hard time the most, calling him a blood traitor and all kinds of things. Him and Snape got into a shouting match last year in the common room about it, Snape said some ugly things about Lily that I'd rather not repeat. Regardless, what he said seemed to satisfy Mulciber."

Sirius could imagine what type of things Snape had said to get back into the good graces of the Slytherins.

"Did anything he said make it sound like something was going on between him and Lily?" Sirius asked.

"Not exactly, but Mulciber saw them during the start of term and when he went in on Snape, Snape said he'd never touch a Mudblood even if she threw herself at him. I think some people ran with that and it got blown out of proportion. It's not like Snape's any good looker and there have been a lot of guys that have asked Lily out."

"Then where's this rumor about her and Snape dating during the holiday?"

"Probably from last year. It's not like people didn't know that they were friends when they started." Regulus pulled his cloak around him a little tighter, peering over at his brother. "I wouldn't go after Snape, if I were you. Mum will have a fit if she gets sent another owl about you hexing someone."

Sirius snorted. "I'm already a walking disappointment to her, one more week of detention is hardly going to bother her."

"You could at least try to see it her way." Regulus, always the pragmatist, was looking at Sirius in a way that reminded him that, out of all their family, his brother was the only one he felt comfortable speaking to anymore.

"Thanks, Reg," Sirius said, avoiding the topic and patting him on the back. "I'll go in first."

He could feel Regulus's disappointed gaze on his back and tried his best not to feel guilty. He knew the follow up question was coming when their mother was brought up: are you coming home for the holidays? His brother had asked him every single year since he had come to Hogwarts and Sirius hated to see when his younger brother's face fell when he said 'no.' No matter how close he was to his brother, nothing would entice him to be at the horrible place with his mother if he could help it.

He made his way up to the Gryffindor tower, feeling cold and tired from being out in the fading autumn. Already November, it was nearly time for winter when it would be getting bitterly cold outside the castle.

"Rosemary tripe," Sirius said to the Fat Lady, who swung forward so he could climb through the portrait hole. In the common room, James was slumped in one of the deep, squashy chairs unusually subdued. Next to him, Remus was working away at an essay for Professor Slughorn while Peter struggled through what looked to be their Transfiguration homework. The mousy boy was practically sweating all over the parchment.

"If you keep that up, you're going to end up soaking the parchment, Wormtail," Sirius said to him as he took a seat next to James. Peter started in alarm and then guiltily wiped at his pudgy face.

"I've still got six inches left on this essay," he whined pathetically. He set his quill aside, rubbing his watery eyes and looking dolefully at what little he had written.

Smirking, Sirius turned away from their friend and said to James in a low voice, "I've found something out from Regulus about old Snivellus."

James slanted him a moody look, saying nothing. As Sirius repeated what his brother had told him, his expression transformed from that of a sulking reject to that of outraged hero.

"He said that?" James said to him, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "That little scumbag – " He delivered a list of expletives that had Remus looking up from his essay in interest. Peter had buried himself into a book, far too preoccupied with his disgrace of an essay to bother with gossip at the present.

"Also," Sirius continued, pulling out the love letter that he had opted not to give James, "there's this." As James made to grab it, he pulled it out of reach from his friend. "Wait a second. You have to give me your word if I give this to you, you're not going to do some damn stupid thing with it. That Browning girl is a nutcase."

"I told you," James said impatiently, snatching it out of his hand, "I'm not interested in dating around." He broke open the letter and read through it with a detached expression. After he had finished it, he raised his gaze back to his friend. "Where'd you get this? She gave it to you?"

"No, Evans did," Sirius told him, causing James to blink at him in surprise. Sirius shrugged. "Apparently Mathilde asked her to give it to you for her."

"Girls are ruthless," Remus remarked enigmatically. The two boys turned to look at him, nonplussed. Remus raised his eyebrows mildly in return. "Well, it's obvious, isn't it? She could have asked any of the girls in Gryffindor, but she singled Lily out and then they got in a fight. She probably knew that James had a thing for her and was trying to figure out if she was a threat."

"You're joking," James said in disbelief.

Remus shrugged. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

Peter muttered to himself, "I'm going to die alone before dealing with any of that."

"The rate you're going, you will die alone, Wormtail," Sirius said to him.

"Good," was the dark response.

The boys laughed, except for James, who was frowning distractedly to himself.

Sirius eyed his friend, before saying, "You're not really worrying about this, are you? It's not your fault that Evans got herself into detention."

"How is it not?" James asked, continuing to frown in a preoccupied manner.

"He has a point," Remus agreed, setting his quill aside and stretching his arms above his head and then rubbing the back of his neck. He was looking a little peaky and worn out from the last full moon. "Evans isn't about to end up in detention for you, mate, but she might for Snape."

James gawked at him, stung, and Sirius shot Remus a scowl from behind him.

Unbothered, Remus continued in a pragmatic sort of way, "If you don't want to ask her outright, then ask one of the girls she hangs around."

"Right," Sirius sarcastically said, "because that's not going to look suspicious."

"Everyone already knows that James likes her."

Peter looked up from his essay, rubbing his nose and smearing ink on the side of it on accident. He blinked his watery eyes and suggested, "Why don't you ask Marlene? She and Lily get in fights all the time about Snape."

"How do you know that?" James asked.

"I've overheard them and she's argued with Alice about it, too. Doesn't seem to think she should be hanging around Slytherins."

"You've got ink on your nose, Wormtail," Remus told him.

As Peter made to clean off his nose, Sirius rested an arm against the back of the sofa and turned to look around the common room. It was loud, bustling with teenagers clustered in groups talking excitedly. And, just as he expected, Marlene was lounging near the window, talking to Dorcas Meadows, a pretty black girl with voluminous, dark curls that floated around her face like a cloud. If he remembered right, James had gone on a date with her last year, and had said that she had "too strong of a personality for his taste," which Sirius later found out translated to, "I went in for a snog and she tried to hex me." Usually this was quite the turn-on for him, but Dorcas had tried to hex his nether regions every time James approached her after that and he had learned to steer clear after the first three times.

"I'm not going over there," James said in the tone of a wounded animal. Sirius glanced at him and saw that his eyes were inspecting Dorcas, as well.

"Fine, make me do your dirty work," Sirius grunted, getting to his feet and ruffling his dark hair.

He was not like James, who effortlessly flirted with every girl within a ten-foot radius. He rather suspected having the unfortunate experiences with the women in his family had caused his attitude towards girls to be less than inviting. However, like his brother, he was handsome and appealing to the girls at Hogwarts. He was aware of it and used it to his advantage, even with some of the teachers, though he did not much care to do so.

"Oi, Dorcas," Sirius said as he approached the pair, interrupting their animated conversation. Marlene scowled at Sirius, but Dorcas cast him an appraising look before raising her chin to meet his gaze. He pointed to the common room door with his thumb. "Can I talk to you out there?"

Again, the appraising look, and then she smiled. "Alright." To Marlene, she said, "I'll be right back."

Sirius could feel Marlene's eyes on his back and wondered if Lily had gone into details about the Browning girl. As he stood outside the portrait hole, his head bent close to Dorcas's, he had to wonder whether any of this was worth it if James was just going to get shot down again.

After a bit of flirting, Dorcas graced Sirius with a kiss and then, to his surprise, said, "Maybe you should teach James the proper way to get a girl's attention."

"What?" he said blankly, feeling a little disoriented from the kiss and the sudden comment.

She rolled her eyes. "C'mon. It's pretty obvious he sent you over there to get back at me, right? Because he's too scared of me."

This was so out of left field that Sirius had to stare at her for a few seconds. "Er," he stumbled over his words, "yeah."

"I mean, I don't mind," she went on, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're good-looking, and not a bad kisser, honestly, but if his ego is that wounded, he should really try again himself."

"Right," he agreed automatically, unsure of what else to say to this.

"Anyway, he'd better stop playing games if he wants Lily's attention," she continued. "She doesn't like guys that do that." She smiled at him and then waved a hand. "Thanks for the snog, though. Now I get to tell all the girls I've gotten one from Sirius Black." She snickered and made her way back through the portrait hole, leaving Sirius perplexed.

"What the hell does that mean?" he asked himself.

"Ah, to be in the throes of passion," the Fat Lady commented sardonically, reminding Sirius that she had been watching the entire time.

"Don't you have anything better to do than eavesdrop?" he snapped.

"No," she answered blandly, "or have you forgotten I'm a portrait? What am I supposed to do, plug my ears every time a student has a personal moment in front of me?"

Sirius cast her an annoyed glance before making his way back into the common room. Dorcas had rejoined Marlene at the window, although Marlene did not seem interested in whatever conversation they were now having. Dorcas did not even spare Sirius a glance as he crossed the common room back to his group of friends. Remus had finished his essay and was rolling it up to put in his school bag, having already cast a drying spell on the ink.

"Do you know what she said to me out there?" Sirius demanded of the group.

Remus looked at him, deadpan, and said, "Sorry, prefect duty."

"We overheard," Peter explained with a nod towards the two girls as Sirius watched Remus hurry up the boy's staircase to deposit his bag.

"Of course, you did," he muttered, dropping to the couch where James was sitting, combing through a book with a look of concentration. "Well? Did you get what you needed?"

"I think I've got something even better – an ally!" James replied, not looking up from his book. Sirius cocked his head to read the spine, which read, The Right of Creation: Spells, Incantations, and Hexes.

"What is that?"

"My dad bought it for me awhile ago," James said, flipping the cover over so that Sirius could see it. "It goes over all the fundamentals and necessary properties to create a new spell. It's harder to block a spell that you're not familiar with and old Snivelly likes to create his own, so I figure – why not give him a taste of his own medicine?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows slightly, thinking of what Dorcas had said. "And you think this will ingratiate you towards Evans?"

"No," James admitted, "but he deserves what's coming to him for what he said about her."

He watched Remus leave for Prefect duty and smirked, an idea forming. "What about next full moon?" he suggested in an undertone.

"What do you mean?" James asked, pushing his glasses back up onto his nose, raising his head from where it had been bent over the book.

"You know how nosy he's been about Remus disappearing every month. Let's leak where Remus goes and give him a scare when he turns."

This seemed to delight Peter, who giggled madly at the idea, but James's gaze had shifted uncertainly back to the book, which now seemed innocuous compared to what Sirius was suggesting.

"Oh, don't be such a wimp," he said to James, catching the hesitation. "Nothing will actually happen to him. All three of us will be there."

He did not mention that they would be transformed as Animagi in case anyone overheard. It had taken then five years for all three of them to learn to become Animagi so they could go out during the full moon with Remus. It was highly illegal to be an unregistered Animagus in the wizarding world and while Remus had had his misgivings, they all felt that it was a justifiable use since they were not breaking into any shops or doing anymore more nefarious than wandering the grounds with each other after hours. Up until they had learned to become Animagi - and it had taken a good deal of trial and error over the past four years since they had learned Remus was a werewolf that could have gone worse if they had not been careful – Remus had spent painful nights at the full moon at what had become known as the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade, tearing at himself and the walls within it. With them, at least, there was some semblance of sanity, although there had already been a near miss with Wormtail nearly getting torn open. Thankfully for him, he was a rat that could scuttle away fast.

"I think we should do it," Peter said, looking a bit too excited. "It would be the perfect prank!"

James nodded slowly, though he did not look entirely convinced. "Alright...Let's do it."

Lily knew when Professor McGonagall approached her after class what she was going to say and braced herself for the impact. "You'll be doing detention with me for the next two weeks, Miss Evans," Professor McGonagall said to her. "Cleaning up the animal cages for this week and then next week, organizing the Transfiguration objects." There was still that piercing, inquisitive stare, as if she expected Lily to give a belated explanation, but she did not.

She knew that Mathilde had already done her detention with Filch, as she had gone into a dramatic tale of how painful her hands were after cleaning without magic and how the lye in the soap had made her hands raw and cracked. In her head, Lily had thought to herself, You deserve it, and felt a brief pang of remorse for being so bitter.

Lily had not told anyone but Marlene and Alice why she had gotten detention and while they were both incensed at Mathilde for calling her such a name, Marlene had also thrown Severus into the mix. This was expected and this time, Lily did not defend him. She was unsure whether Severus had been saying anything about her and was too afraid to approach him to ask. Rosier, one of Snape's Slytherin friends, had taken to making disparaging remarks about her in Potions class when Slughorn was too busy or far away to hear. Snape, who sat at the same table as him, never spoke up in her defense and she had made herself ignore him. At times, it was very hard and after class, when Rosier was handing in his work, she snuck a look at Severus, who seemed to be determined not to meet her gaze.

What, she wondered, had happened between the beginning of term and now? He had waved at her then. Rosier had even gotten his attention and pointed her out to him. It had seemed fine then.

When Lily showed up for detention at the Transfiguration classroom, she found that she was not the only one doing detention. There was a disgruntled second-year Slytherin boy and, unsurprisingly, Sirius Black. He raised a hand languidly to her in greeting as she entered the classroom.

"What'd you do this time?" Lily asked coolly. "Hex someone in the hallway?"

"Close," Sirius answered unconcernedly. "Bewitched my Transfigured rat and flew it into Bertha Jorkins's hair." He gave a satisfied smile. "She screamed and tried to set it on fire, caught her hair instead. Anyway, McGonagall didn't think it was funny."

Lily stifled a smile at this. Bertha Jorkins, she had discovered, was one of the girls that had been gossiping about her and Severus.

"And then I hexed her in the hallway the next day," Sirius continued blithely. "Unfortunately for me, McGonagall saw that, too, so now I've got two weeks detention."

"I didn't know you had a problem with Bertha that much," she said, dropping into a desk next to him.

"Usually I don't," Sirius said, "but she wouldn't shut her fat hole after I flew the rat in her hair."

"Maybe you shouldn't go around snogging girls then," Lily told him wryly, having overheard Bertha talking about Dorcas and Sirius kissing outside the portrait hole.

He scowled, his expressing darkening. "It wasn't even like that."

"Obviously since Dorcas is going on a date with someone else now."

"Good, that'll give people something else to talk about."

Lily chose not to point out that was highly unlikely, at least when it came to Bertha Jorkins, whose only interest came from her fellow students' intimate liaisons. She had gotten hexed last year from watching two of their fellow students kissing behind the greenhouses and telling the entire year about it out of spite because she had a crush on the boy in question. It had gotten so bad that Lily heard even Professor Dumbledore had called her to his office to have a discussion about it.

Professor McGonagall set the three students to their work in the storage room attached to the classroom. The Slytherin student was set to cleaning up in a separate storage area from the room where the bird cages were located. Sirius was assigned cleaning up the rat droppings since, as Professor McGonagall put it, "You enjoy playing with rats so much."

"Not as much as you must, professor," Sirius had said, taking the comment in stride, "being a cat Animagus and all. The instincts must come out from time to time."

Lily, assigned to the frog cages, glanced back to see Professor McGonagall almost smile before she told Sirius off with a, "Watch your mouth, Black, and get cleaning."

It was disgusting and laborious cleaning out frog tanks. Having grown up as a Muggle, Lily was accustomed to cleaning things without magic. It was not efficient and her hands were soon smelling strongly of chemicals. Algae from the tanks had begun to collect underneath her fingernails. She had tried the first few times to pick it out and then gave up, deciding she would deal with it when she returned to the common room.

"So," Sirius said conversationally after an hour when it was clear McGonagall was absorbed in grading papers and could not hear over the loud bird sounds from the other room. They heard the Slytherin boy swear from time to time, likely from the birds pecking at him. "Tell me about why you got detention."

"The whole school knows why I got detention," Lily said shortly, handling a slippery frog that croaked at her in protest.

"Sure," he agreed smoothly, "but I think it'd take more than some girl wanting James to get you into a duel."

Lily frowned, placing the frog in the empty tank. It was not so much that she cared what James or his group of friends thought of her, but she did wonder what the rest of the school heard from other people. According to Mathilde and, upon reports from her friends, everyone thought that she and Severus were dating, which was blatantly false no matter what she thought of him or had felt for him during the holidays.

"I'm not dating Severus," she said flatly, as if Sirius had asked that instead. She looked up and saw him raise an eyebrow in question. "I know that's what everyone thinks."

"That's what it was about?"

"Kind of," she replied evasively.

A silence stretched as she removed the old leaves and branches from the tank and set to scrubbing at the dirt and algae that had collected at the bottom of the tank.

"My brother's in Slytherin," Sirius said suddenly. "Regulus – he's on their Quidditch team as Seeker. We don't hate each other, even if we're in different Houses, but we don't go out of our ways to hang out while at school. He was hoping to get in the same House as me, even if he was afraid of how our parents would react. I might as well be a blood traitor for ending up in Gryffindor according to them." He paused, shaking out the hay that was in the rat cage. Lily had looked up to watch him. "Have you ever thought that Snape is in the same boat?"

"He's not like the rest of them," was her automatic response, even though the words did not ring true to her ears this time.

"No?" Sirius set the cage down and turned to meet her gaze. "Regulus hears the type of stuff he says and so does the rest of the school. He's all about Death Eaters and blood purity, just like the rest of them. What do you think he's going to do when he gets out of school? Go work at the Ministry and keep his nose clean?" He laughed and it sounded more like a bark. "He knew more dark spells than any first year did. Don't let him drag you down just because you're childhood friends. He's choosing his side."

The word 'slut' rang through Lily's head again and she blinked back the painful tears as her heart broke a little more. "I don't want to know what people are saying – I want to hear it from him."

"That'll never happen. He's a coward."

"Why do you care?" she snapped. "Because of James?"

"I don't care," he replied with a shrug, "but yeah, James does. He thinks Snape treats you like rubbish and I agree. He isn't worth the time or effort."

"I'm not going to go after your friend just because Sev might be into different politics," she said disgustedly.

"Oh, right," Sirius said sarcastically, his own temper seeming to fire up, "because that's all it is – politics. How thick can you get, Evans? Those people out there aren't just trying to change the Ministry – they want people dead and anyone outside of wizards enslaved. You haven't hung out with a pure-blood family to know the difference." There was a distinct note of bitterness behind his words that Lily could not help but hear and it gave her pause.

He was right, of course. Severus would never invite her over to his family's house citing one reason or another. She knew that his parents fought, yet had always wondered in the back of her mind if there had been something wrong with her. His mother had come to find him from time to time during their childhood and had cast a reproachful look to her son each time. He would slink away with her, his head bowed, and in those moments, he did not smile and wave as he went home. Whenever she tried to broach the topic, he would avoid it. She knew that Severus hated talking about his home life and his family, though he always spoke with reverence about his mother, so she knew that it was not because he hated them.

The way he spoke was quite different to how Sirius spoke now, as if his family outside his brother could disappear and he would be happy.

"You're right," she said after a moment, "I'm sorry. I just don't want to think Sev as the type that would go out killing Muggles. He's never been like that."

"People change," was his muted response and she knew that the conversation was over. Being reminded o whatever he experienced with his own family had pulled him into a dark mood. He was cleaning the rat cage so vigorously that she felt he had gone somewhere within himself, far away from Hogwarts and the present.

The remainder of that night's detention was spent quietly up until they had to rescue the Slytherin boy from a band of birds that had gotten angry with him trying to clean their droppings.

It was nearly midnight by the time McGonagall sent them to bed and there was still so much cleaning to do for the rest of the week. Lily's hands ached and she was bone-tired. She and Sirius made their way to the Gryffindor tower together, unable to avoid each other's company. Something about Sirius's story made her want to be honest and so, when they came to the top of the steps and the portrait hole was in view, she said, "She called me a 'wanna-be Death Eater's slut.' That's why I attacked her."

Sirius paused, looking at her over his shoulder. His face was unreadable in the dim lighting.

"Not that it's my business," he said at last, "but are you interested in Snape that way?"

"I told him I liked him, but he doesn't feel that way and I'm okay with that. I just don't want to lose my best friend. I'm not...we never..." She flushed, unable to address the part of the insult that stung so badly.

"It's pretty obvious you're inexperienced," Sirius stated bluntly. "Hard to be a slut when you probably have never even kissed someone."

"That's not even – how do you – you shouldn't assume that!" she spluttered, her cheeks burning with heat.

Sirius smirked, saying, "Yes, because you're so experienced with that response." Lily glared at him, not wanting to admit that she had yet to experience her first kiss. "You know, you can't separate everyone out to be good people and Death Eaters. Maybe he's just a prat and always has been." He pointed a finger at her. "I would start thinking about that if you really want to be friends with him. You might find other times you had excuses for him."

Lily watched him turn and walk towards the portrait hole. What he had said made so much sense that she was beginning to see why he and James, in spite of their goof-off attitude, were still top of their class when it came to exams. Behind Sirius's roguish good looks and cruel jokes was an intellect that belied a fifteen-year-old boy.

As little as she wanted to, she decided that she would take Sirius's advice and reflect back on her friendship with Severus. After all, if anyone would know, a Gryffindor born into the family of Slytherins would understand adversity better than anyone else she knew.