Disclaimer: It's all Jo Rowling's. I just like to play with her toys every now and then. Cheers!

Chapter Three

The Really Stinky Train

'Hi,' Remus Lupin greeted, sitting down at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, opening his Transfiguration book beside the cornflakes he was pouring into the bowl.

''ey, Remrsh,' Lily managed around her own sausages and eggs. Lupin raised an eyebrow at her manners, or lack thereof, but didn't comment. She swallowed, and glancing at the open book, asked 'Surely you're not still cramming?' Remus shrugged guiltily. 'Better you than me, I don't think I can fit anything else in,' she said jokingly, tapping her temple. 'Transfiguration is my worst subject anyway.'

'Mine too, but you're not so bad,' he said quietly, smiling. 'Still,' he continued, sighing softly 'I don't think I'll ever be able to conjure objects as well as Snape did yesterday.'

'Snape?' Lily asked, feeling an odd lurch in her stomach.

'Yeah,' Lupin replied, and looking up from his book, he saw that she didn't have any idea what she was talking about, he continued. 'Oh, that's right, you left before that, sorry. Snape wordlessly conjured ropes with an incarcerous jinx, but it wound around all four of us instead of just the one. Sorry about what he said, by the way.'

Lily brushed off the apology, and quietly remarked, 'We haven't even learnt wordless spells yet.' She thought of his chosen future as a Death Eater and concluded that he'd probably be quite good at it. Lupin misunderstood her comment.

'I know, it's weird, right? I was surprised too. You really didn't know?' he asked.

'No,' she stated, truly surprised, not at Severus' Defence ability, but rather his actions afterward. She would have guessed that if Severus had been able to overcome all four of the Gryffindor boys that he would frankly be a tad more vindictive towards them rather than leaving them roped together, unhurt.

'Yeah, he took off straight after you, I think,' Remus added, and Lily felt a lurch off guilt as Olivia hurried grumpily over for breakfast, greeted them and began helping herself to toast.

'Yeah,' she lamented quietly, not really wanting to talk about Severus at all, let alone with one of the four boys who were present at the lake yesterday. She generally liked Remus, but thought that he let the other boys dictate what he did and didn't speak up enough as a prefect to stop their bullying of Severus. Not, she thought to herself adamantly, that she cared what happened to Snape anymore. But that didn't mean that Remus should slip up in his prefect duties where he was concerned, simply because he didn't like Severus. She frowned.

'Er, Remus?' she asked hesitantly.

x

Spending the majority of his time in the Slytherin dormitory over the next few days, Severus hadn't had his usual distraction of dealing with imbecile students or preparing the Potions curriculum for his classes, as repetitive as it was, year in and out. In fact, he had had nothing to do but contemplate the position he found himself in and over-analyse his sixteen year old self. This morning before breakfast, Avery had caught Severus gazing at himself in the mirror, before asking snidely, 'Who are you trying to impress?' In lieu of an answer, Severus had shrugged. While he found it an irritating and ill-mannered mannerism in others, he had found over the last two days that with teenagers, it truly did work well to discourage further conversation, and Avery had left the dorm with merely a slight sneer.

Severus had continued peering at himself, fascinated by the youthful appearance staring back at him. He knew that he was not the most handsome of men, but his features now depicted someone with very different experiences than the older man inside. Premature lines and the sallow sunken cheeks were replaced with fresh skin, still pale, but it did not yet have the sickly shade to it had succumbed to after years of severe stress. Fresh, was the word, Severus decided, that signified this outward change in appearance. He felt invigorated and unsullied in a way, he reflected, that he had not had since the first time he was a teenager.

On the other hand, his fresh start with Lily was not exactly going as he had planned. Potter had warned him somewhat fairly, he thought, about going back to his worst memory, but his claim that Lily would forgive him in the future for calling her that word certainly looked bleak at this moment in time. Besides, he had never seen her lose control of her magic like that and strike out at anyone. He cursed himself again for panicking and grabbing her arm. Undoubtedly he had frightened her, and she was in all likelihood even less inclined to forgive him now.

She had been surprisingly adept at avoiding him, even in classes that they both attended, such as Potions and Arithmancy. She'd probably make a good spy, although she wore her heart far too much on her sleeve for that. With her avoidance skills and determination, Lily'd be a good Slytherin. Of course, they only had a few classes together before the Express would take them home for the summer, and Severus thanked Merlin once again that they shared a hometown.

His Transfiguration practical had been stunningly easy, provided he had been a practicing wizard for many years now. The paper exam, however, was another story as he tried to recall obscure theorems and reasoning, that in all honesty, a practicing wizard doesn't think about all that much once their education is over. A person doesn't stop and think of why it would be easier to conjure a straight backed wooden chair over a armchair, he just does it. If by some way he does have an armchair with lumps he may vaguely remember, soft surfaces are harder to conjure consistently, but Severus would just simply vanish the first attempt and try a second.

All in all, he thought he had answered most questions on the paper adequately, and was actually nervous to get his results back. Of course, he knew what all of them but Transfiguration would be, and he was thankful he had had only one OWL subject remaining upon his return. It would have been hard to bluff his way through multiple subjects apart from Potions and Defence.

Of his detentions, he had forgotten just how tiring it was to clean out cauldrons by hand, and every night he cursed the dunderheads that used them every day and failed to properly clean them after finishing their potion. His hands were chapped and red raw, and although he was well able to heal them, he refused to. Slughorn had suggested he see Madam Pomfrey at the last detention upon seeing the state of his hands. It was a kind of penance for scaring Lily by grabbing her arm. It would never make up for what he'd done, but it was a start in the right direction. The right direction was the only direction he was taking from now on. A path towards Lily.

x

'Your teeth are gonna fall out if you keep eating those, you know,' Benjy said to Olivia, gesturing towards the acid pop she had just procured from the trolley and started sucking on, while Lily was oblivious with her head stuck in a particularly good book. She shrugged, not really caring as the compartment door opened and Sirius Black looked down at them.

'D'you mind if we hide in here a sec? Thanks,' he added, not waiting for an answer and pulling the three other Gryffindor boys in behind him quickly. They promptly moved to sit down on the seats with the others before Mary protested.

'This compartment is for six.'

'That's okay, we'll only be here a sec,' Potter assured, his hand going to his hair when he noticed Lily was in the compartment. 'Budge up, please?' he added, somewhat politely, at least for Potter. Around half the occupants acquiesced, and Lily sighed.

'What're you doing in here anyway?' Benjy asked. 'I thought you got a compartment near the front.'

'We did, but-' Black started.

'-we had to er, evacuate-'

'-you know, so we could-'

'-breathe. Accidental dungbomb explosion,' Potter finished. Lily found it disconcerting the way they seemed to talk over the top of each other when they were excited.

'So, in other words, you'll be with us for half the journey, until the stench goes away?' she asked drily.

'No, we-' Potter laughed.

'Wait a minute,' interrupted Olivia, 'you guys were actually stupid enough to set off a dungbomb off in your own compartment? I know you're mentally challenged, Black, but they do come with instructions.'

'No my dear,' he said gallantly, putting an arm around Olivia that she attempted to throw off. 'We know how to set a dungbomb. We do have experience,' he assured, and she rolled her eyes at the obvious innuendo he was trying to make. 'However, what we didn't anticipate was the sixth year Slytherins anticipating our little anticipatory send off, and so in anticipation the anticipatories then had the audacity to articulate-'

'Get on with it,' Olivia said.

'Right. They switched compartments at the last minute, leaving bewitched-'

'-or bewizard, er, -ed. Bewizarded-' interrupted Potter.

'-objects with their voices.'

'So you got stuck with the stinky compartment?' Mary asked, wrinkling her nose.

'Yep,' Remus sighed, opening a book of Lily's after a questioning look and sitting on the one of the sofa-type seats. It was quite squishy, with four people to a side, and Potter and Pettigrew were still standing.

'So, in other words, we are stuck with you then?' Clancy concluded.

'Er, well, we were hoping you'd be rather welcoming,' Potter added.

'Yeah, right,' snorted Olivia derisively.

'Fine,' he said. 'Pete, can you go check the smell? We left the window open,' he added to the compartment in general as Pettigrew left silently.

'Goody,' Lily snarked, not feeling in the mood to put up with their antics today. Black whipped his head around.

'And what exactly is your problem Evans?'

'What d'you think, Black?' she said airily, not looking up from the book.

'Got me, but I've got a bone to pick while we're in here-'

'-Which you shouldn't be-' Kimberly interrupted Sirius.

'-d'you mind telling us which of you girls sneaked on us to McGonagall?'

At that Lily did look up.

'I'm a prefect, Black, what did you expect?'

'How 'bout some house loyalty, huh, mate? We got three detentions for that, you know, and Moo- Remus and Pete got two as well.'

'Good,' she replied. Black glared. 'You were teasing Snape, you know,' Lily said coldly. 'You deserved everything you got.'

'Oh, give it a rest, Evans,' Black complained. 'Do we ever do anything right by you? Don't answer that,' he added, by Lily wasn't about to.

'She's right, we were teasing him,' Remus interrupted, and Black again whipped his head around to look at the other prefect incredulously.

'Since when d'you have a great love of Snivellus?' asked Potter derisively.

'Severus,' Lily hissed out of habit, then kicked herself. He was Snape now.

'I don't James, but you've got to admit, we did give him a hard time.'

'No more than he deserves after calling Lily here that, um, word.'

'Evans,' Lily interjected. 'And the word is Mudblood, Potter. "A word only has power if you allow it to",' she quoted directly from Professor McGonagall.

'What the hell is wrong with you?' Sirius asked her. 'Can you only rudely interrupt other people's conversations by correcting them like a bloody know-it-all?'

'Hey, lay off, Black!' exclaimed Olivia, but Lily simply ignored him. She was sick and tired of putting up with these infantile boys, and she wasn't going to fight with them anymore. Time to try a new approach, and go with the flow, wherever it leads. But she wouldn't bully other students. She had to draw the line somewhere.

'You levicorpused Severus before he insulted Lily,' Remus reminded Potter, who ignored him and turned as Pettigrew opened the compartment door looking miserable. Potter raised an eyebrow.

'The smells gone.'

'Great, let's go,' Potter said, giving both Remus and Lily a look that clearly said your sticking up for Snape, really? He was already on his way out of the compartment, and Black had gotten up, but Pettigrew merely turned around with his mouth half open in a dumb expression. 'What?' snapped Potter, turning back around.

'Someone's taken our compartment,' he said gloomily.

'May wanna lead with that next time, Pete,' he said grumpily, striding back into the crowded compartment and taking a seat on the floor. 'Happy?' he asked Lily sarcastically.

'Ecstatic,' Lily remarked, promptly re-opening the book and trying to drown out the immature conversation going on around her. She was pleased to hear that Remus was actually sticking up for Snape though, and acknowledging that what they'd done was wrong. One small step for man, she thought, quoting her father's favourite phrase since the moon landing.

x

'Afternoon Severus,' greeted a woman from behind, and he turned and got a bit of a shock to see Mr and Mrs Evans smiling at him. When Lily hadn't forgiven him the last time, he had convinced himself that muggles like her family were truly unimportant. He still didn't know what had happened to these people that had, he remembered, actually been kind and considerate to Severus. This had not always been the easiest of things to do, and a sullen teenage boy coming from a lower-class, abusive home could not have been the easiest friend to accept for their younger daughter. Hindsight was a wonderful thing, he mused, for about the hundredth time this week.

'Hi,' he managed to get out finally, attempting to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. Mrs Evans kindly ignored this, and gestured towards the train with a smile of her own.

'Did you have a good year?' she asked kindly. Severus nodded, not meaning to be rude, but still processing the fact that Lily's parents were in fact alive. The Evanses didn't comment on his monosyllabic answer, seemingly expecting something along those lines from a teenage boy.

'Have you seen Lily?' Mr Evans asked, waving a hand at the scarlet engine, which was steaming impressively in the warm June air. 'We'll never find her in this throng.'

'Sorry, Mr Evans, I haven't,' he replied, words finally becoming forthcoming, as he looked around at his surroundings. There were Hogwarts students swarming in all directions as they exited the train carriages and found their families. Severus noticed Black walk past with his younger brother, and noted that Black didn't seem all that happy and smirked.

'I think we saw your mother before, Severus-' he whipped his head around to stare at Mrs Evans again, '-but she's probably trying to find you too, dear. Best stay with us until we find her,' she added kindly. Severus nodded, having thought that he'd have to make his own way to Spinner's End to see his family, but apparently his mother was already here to pick him up from the train. He tried to remember if she had picked him up after his fifth year the first time, but couldn't remember. He dismissed the thought anyhow, since he hadn't been home or owled his mother, how could he possibly have changed his her actions in this lifetime? He must've simply forgotten that she had picked him up.

'Thank you, ma'am,' he said quietly with a smile to Mrs Evans. This one didn't turn into more of a grimace.

'Dad!' yelled Lily as she snuck up behind him and put her arms around her father in a bear hug. 'Hey, mum,' she added, her voice somewhat smothered by the hug. The black-haired girl whose name Severus couldn't remember was with her again.

'Hullo, Snape,' the girl intoned, her voice neither warm nor friendly. Severus nodded in greeting.

'Hi Lily,' he said, hoping that he'd get at least a reply in return. She kissed her mother's cheek before her smile faded and she turned to him.

'Hi,' she said simply. She turned to her mother. 'I'm going to help Liv find her parents, but I'll be back, okay?'

'Sure,' Mrs Evans replied. 'Leave your trunk, sweetheart.' With that Lily disappeared as quickly as she had arrived. Severus sighed in frustration. He had been hoping to try to talk to her again.

'Severus?' asked a voice from behind him. He turned around quickly.

'Mum?' he managed, and wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug.

Let me know what you think!

~Tilly~