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Chapter Text

“See ya, Snivellus!” - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33: The Prince’s Tale

Eleven-year-old Lily Evans let the compartment door slam shut behind her, pulling her best friend along beside her as she marched angrily down the length of the Hogwarts Express. 

“Of all the horrible things to say! Why should they care what House we want to be in, anyway? I know I’d rather be in Slytherin than get stuck in the same House as those stuck up jerks, can you imagine having to share a room with them?!” 

To say that the redhead was unimpressed with the boys they had left behind in the compartment would have been a serious understatement, and she had no qualms about making her feelings clear. Severus Snape, hurrying along beside her, found his own anger and embarrassment at the wannabe Gryffindors’ teasing begin to fade slightly as he watched her. In all his excitement over finally going off to Hogwarts, and his excitement at finally being able to openly be friends with Lily instead of hiding from their parents and the other kids at school, he hadn’t realized just how great it would feel to have a friend on his side. Having someone who would stand by him, who would get angry enough at someone insulting him and the House he wanted to be in, the House his mom had been in, that she would storm out of the compartment like that for him...it was enough to make him almost forget about being called “Snivellus” for a little while. 

“You know you wouldn’t have to share a room with them anyway, boys and girls have different dormitories. Though I suppose you’d still have to see them in the common room,” Severus looked over at Lily as he said it, hoping to prompt a smile by pretending to take her rhetorical question seriously.

“Ugh,” Lily made a face, though she did seem to be calming down. “Do you think we’ll have classes with them even when we’re in Slytherin?” 

Severus tried and failed to hold back his smile at her apparent certainty about their Sorting. He had been hoping to be placed into Slytherin ever since his mother, on one of the rare occasions when she agreed to talk about magic, had revealed that she had been a member of Slytherin House while she was at Hogwarts. She had described it as the House for clever people, for people who knew what they wanted and weren’t afraid to work for it. Severus had thought that sounded wonderful, and Lily had agreed when he had told her about it the next time they had managed to slip away to meet by the river after school. The fact that Eileen Prince Snape had described the Gryffindors as headstrong brutes who were always looking for a fight, the Ravenclaws as nerds who thought they were smarter than everyone else, and the Hufflepuffs as such nonentities that no one really paid any attention to them had certainly factored into the children’s thought process as well. Now, with new firsthand evidence for Gryffindors (or at least wannabe Gryffindors) being bullies, and neither Severus nor Lily aware of the unlikelihood of a muggleborn being Sorted into Slytherin House, the pair was more sure than ever that Slytherin was the place to be. 

“We’re still not Sorted yet, and neither are they,” he cautioned, enough of a pessimist (or perhaps a realist, based on his past experiences) to suspect that nothing could ever go perfectly right for him. It would be just his luck to be placed in the House of his dreams, only to find that the rude train boy from the Slytherin family was there as well. “But I think most of the classes are divided by House.”

“Oh good,” Lily smiled a little, then grinned even wider as she looked through the door they were passing. “And look, an empty compartment!” 

The pair quickly claimed the compartment, and spent the rest of the train ride in contented speculation about what Hogwarts would be like. Severus had already shared all of the information that he had coaxed from his mother over the years, but that didn’t stop them from wondering about everything else, or from going over the information that they had already collected. Both Lily and Severus had already started reading through some of their textbooks as soon as they had gotten their hands on them, and soon they were discussing random things that they had seen there as well. Severus, who would be using his mother’s old school books, was curious (and more than a little nervous) about whether there was really anything added in the fancy new editions that Lily had bought in Diagon Alley only weeks before. Neither had read all the way through their books, so they couldn’t be certain yet, but by the time the train arrived Severus had been reassured that his books were not missing large quantities of information the way he had feared. And besides, as she reminded him yet again, Lily would obviously let him borrow her books if he needed them. Even to Severus, with little experience in the conventions of friendship, the idea that someone would “obviously” do anything to help their friend wasn’t exactly a new one, but the idea that such a concept applied to him was odd, though far from unpleasant. 

As the Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station, the corridor filled with students in black robes pushing and shoving as they made their way to the exits. Severus and Lily waited in their compartment as long as they could to avoid getting trampled, and soon found themselves shepherded towards a fleet of little boats along with the other first years. The crowd of students scrambled to find places in the boats, Lily and Severus ending up with two girls who giggled and whispered to each other, all four children staring with wide eyes as the castle came into view. Soon enough they made it across the lake and made their way into the castle itself, ushered along by an imposing teacher who introduced herself as Professor McGonagall. The first years, Lily and Severus among them, entered the Great Hall, lining up at the front of the room and doing their best not to look too overwhelmed by the wonder of it all. The Sorting Hat was brought forward to sing its welcoming song, and then the hall fell silent as Professor McGonagall began to call the first years forward one by one for their Sorting. One of the first to step forward was Sirius Black, who Severus and Lily recognized as the boy on the train with the Slytherin family. The Hat barely touched his head before declaring him a Gryffindor, and Severus let out a sigh of relief as Lily grinned at him. 

A few more names were called, and then it was Lily’s turn. Severus gave her an encouraging smile, and she made her way up to the front and sat down on the stool. Before she even put the hat on, she was already repeating her wish over and over in her head: Put me in Slytherin, I want to be in Slytherin. Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin.

The Hat, which had opened its mouth to sort her into Gryffindor as soon as she sat down, paused and closed it again as it registered her thoughts.

“You want to be in Slytherin? A muggleborn? There is no place for you in Slytherin, it is Gryffindor where you belong...”

No! Not Gryffindor, they’re a bunch of bullies. I want to stay with Severus! Sirius Black and his friend passed through her thoughts, along with Severus and her longing for the two of them to be placed together. 

“Ah, I see, it is for your friend that you hope for Slytherin,” the Hat seemed to consider the odd request, “Such loyalty, to wish for an unsuitable house out of love for your friend. Yes, I think you will do very well in HUFFLEPUFF!”

For a moment Lily just sat there, stunned by the Hat’s sudden declaration to the hall. Hufflepuff? She had asked for Slytherin! But Professor McGonagall was taking the Hat off her head and shooing her towards the yellow-trimmed table that cheered and clapped loudly to welcome her as she approached. Lily shot a disappointed look back at Severus, still standing among the other first years, then found a seat among her new housemates. For his part, Severus was in shock, and had no idea what to do. He watched the older Hufflepuffs smile and welcome Lily to their table, watched the Slytherins sitting coolly at their own table on the other side of the room, barely clapping for the other students and welcoming even their own new first years with significantly less enthusiasm than their yellow-clad peers. He watched James Potter join Sirius Black at the Gryffindor table, the two clearly already well on their way to being best friends, and came to his decision. He had spent years dreaming of going off to Hogwarts, learning magic, following his mother’s path to Slytherin House, but what was the point of any of that if he couldn’t do it with Lily? Severus made his way to the front when his name was called, and the Sorting Hat got its second surprise of the night: Hufflepuff. I want to be in Hufflepuff. You put Lily there, so you’d better put me there too. 

The Hat thought for a moment, looking through Severus’s thoughts. “Hmm. To cast aside your own ambitions for the sake of another, yes, you treasure loyalty above all else, do you not? I see it now, it is clear that you belong in HUFFLEPUFF!”

The boy did not even try to contain his excitement as he tore off the Hat and rushed towards the Hufflepuff table, where a beaming Lily made room on the bench for him. He slid into the seat beside her, smiling as his best friend threw her arms around him as the rest of the table clapped and cheered for their newest members. It wasn’t what either child had expected when they boarded the train that morning, or even when they entered the Great Hall earlier in the evening, but as the Sorting finished and the feast began, the two friends were still grinning at each other. They may not have entirely understood or agreed with the Sorting Hat’s logic, but they were together, and that was all that mattered. Little did they know just how much it truly would matter, their choice to place each other and their friendship above everything else. In this world, Lily Evans and Severus Snape ended their Sorting Feast together, happy and seated at the Hufflepuff table, and that would make all the difference in the world. 

Chapter Text

Following the initial excitement of the Sorting, the rest of the feast was fairly uneventful for Lily and Severus, and before long they were being led out of the Great Hall and down a flight of stairs towards their new dormitory. The Hufflepuff common room, when they finally reached it, proved to be a cozy space full of crackling fireplaces and comfortable chairs, with couches and little study tables scattered about. The prefects welcomed the first years, showing them around the room before splitting up the boys and girls to lead them down the branching hallways towards the dormitories themselves. Lily wished Severus a good night, and he returned the farewell, though with a little more hesitation. Unlike Lily, who was excited to see her new room and meet the other girls she would be sharing it with, Severus was more nervous to be left alone with the other first year boys. He had never had much luck in making friends before, Lily being the one and only exception, and he had always found that boys in particular were much more likely to tease or beat him up than to be nice or welcome him.

But Lily was already walking away, and he couldn’t follow her down the hallway with the girls’ dorms, for the boys had already been warned that it was warded against male intruders. He briefly considered calling out after her, but then the prefects were shepherding him down the boys’ hallway with the other first years, and the opportunity was lost. He followed the other boys into the first year dorm, with its sunny yellow walls that almost seemed to glow in the light of the many candles and the dancing flames in the fireplace. 

“Alright boys, this is it, welcome again to Hufflepuff House! Your trunks have been placed by your beds, but feel free to switch around if you’d like,” the prefect smiled at the younger boys, who were still clustered around awkwardly by the door. “I know it’s hard being away from home, but any of the older students will be happy to help you if you have any trouble, and if you need someone to talk to you only have to ask. Us prefects are just down the hall, you can always knock on any of our doors!” 

Severus nodded along with his new roommates when it became clear that the older boy was waiting for a response, though he couldn’t help noticing that the prefect hadn’t really added much to what had already been said out in the common room. 

“Great, then, have a good night, and there’ll be a walking group from the common room up to the Great Hall for breakfast if you’re worried about getting lost!” Severus was beginning to think that the prefect would never leave. His glances at the other boys showed that more than one seemed to be trying desperately to hold back laughter as their guide continued to tell them enthusiastically about the wonderful features of their room, Hufflepuff House, and Hogwarts in general, before wishing them a good night for the third time (or possible fourth, Severus was losing track), and finally leaving the room. 

The door closed firmly behind him, and for a moment the new Hufflepuffs just looked at each other in the silence he had left. 

“I didn’t know a person could be that excited about furniture,” Severus said quietly, and first one and then another of the boys began to giggle. As all of the boys dissolved into laughter, Severus felt his face go red, and ducked his head so his hair fell forward to hide his expression. He wasn’t sure that he had really meant for them to hear the comment, it had just slipped out, and now they were all laughing at him, just like the boys at his old school always had. But as he listened more closely, it sounded different from the mean laughter he was used to hearing, and he thought he heard one of the other boys choke out “so true!” through his laughter. Then another one started to perform an impression of the prefect’s excited descriptions of the room ( “There are beds! They have yellow blankets! That’s our House color! Go Badgers!”) and Severus started to laugh a little too, realizing with relief that the boys hadn’t been laughing at him at all. 

As they all introduced themselves and scrambled to find their beds and change into pajamas before anyone came to chastise them for making such a ruckus, Severus dared to hope that maybe these boys really were as nice as they seemed. Maybe Hogwarts would really be just as perfect as he had always dreamed. Trusting that the boys who shared his room weren’t going to jump on him the minute his back was turned, and dreaming of starting classes with Lily the next day, Severus fell asleep with a small smile on his face. 

As Severus and Lily met their new roommates in the basement dormitories of Hufflepuff, similar meetings were going on in the first year dorms of the other three Houses. In the dungeons of Slytherin the children of old and powerful wizarding families sized each other up and began to build friendships that could one day foster strategic political alliances. In the airy tower rooms of Ravenclaw, new students discussed what classes they were most excited to take, planned ahead for study groups and stayed up too late talking about obscure topics. And high up in Gryffindor tower, in the first year boys’ dormitory, a certain group of friends was beginning to form, four boys whose fates were much more closely tied to those of the two little Hufflepuffs than any of them could have imagined. 

It would be some time before the Marauders would truly become a single unified group, for Remus Lupin was cautious and shy about making friends, afraid of anyone noticing his strangely regular absences and correctly identifying his lycanthropic problem. Peter Pettigrew too remained more in the shadows for the first few weeks of school, not daring to believe that such a dynamic duo as James Potter and Sirius Black could possibly welcome his company. For James and Sirius had been virtually inseparable since the Sorting Feast, and just as the Hogwarts professors soon became aware of the “two littlest badger kits” (as they called Severus and Lily in the privacy of the staffroom), they were equally focused on the antics of the “Double Trouble” Gryffindor boys. 

It took only a single lesson for Professor McGonagall to see that James and Sirius would be best friends, and even less time for her to know that they would be trouble. Halfway through that first day of class, she caught them levitating their half-transfigured needles (their first Charms lesson had been the day before) and using them to poke one of the girls sitting at the desk next to theirs. While slightly pleased in spite of herself (from an educational standpoint) that the boys had managed to turn their matches pointy enough to poke anything, McGonagall was not at all amused with their choice of entertainment. She found it even less amusing when they burst out laughing and high fived each other when she called them out on it, and expressed her displeasure by assigning the boys their first punishment of the year. To her exasperation, it would prove to be little deterrent, and would be only the first of many detentions that the pair of Gryffindors would serve during their years at Hogwarts. 

In contrast, Severus and Lily, in the opinions of most of the Hogwarts staff, were found pleasantly at the other extreme. While both the Hufflepuff pair and the Gryffindor twosome (and later foursome) became generally known for their intelligence, magical abilities, and curiosity, the Gyffindors became quickly associated with chaos and troublemaking, while the Hufflepuffs stayed mostly to themselves and generally out of trouble. That is not to say that the boys were not as intelligent or studious as the Hufflepuffs in their own right, but they were much more likely to get bored and think up mischievous ways of entertaining themselves when their work was done than to talk quietly or start brainstorming ideas for their next assigned essay. Lily made friends among the girls who shared her dormitory, and Severus at least tolerated the boys in his, but it was clear from the first days of classes that the two of them were best friends, and intended to stay that way. It was rare to see one without the other, for they attended all the same classes, sat together in the Great Hall for meals, and spent much of their free time together in the library, the common room, or walking down by the lakeshore. They worked together in all of the classes that required partners, helping each other when either ran into a problem that the other could solve, or working together to figure it out when neither fully understood.  

No, the  professors had little to complain about when it came to the Hufflepuff duo. Severus and Lily were studious and bright, learning their spells and potions quickly and efficiently, and asking for help when they needed it, but not before first trying to figure it out themselves. Though Severus became more outgoing over time, as he found more people who would take the time to listen to him, instead of cutting him off or teasing him for his ideas, he would always be more shy than Lily. She was the one who could make friends easily wherever she went, who could go up and ask a question of a professor without worrying that they would hit her or laugh at her for being stupid the way Severus always feared they would. He barely spoke in class for the first few weeks, talking only if a professor called on him without warning, though he always knew the answers. He let Lily take the lead on answering questions in class or asking professors for help. She didn’t really mind, most of the time, though she did try to encourage Severus to speak up for himself. 

She snapped at him about it only once, a few weeks into school, while they worked on an assignment in Defense Against the Dark Arts class. The professor, a large, imposing man who always appeared to be slightly annoyed about something, had told them to work through an assignment in pairs while he graded essays at his desk. Severus and Lily had, unsurprisingly, decided to work together, and each started working on a different part of the problem. Severus quickly ran into an issue based on an inconsistent explanation in their textbook. He showed it to Lily, who was equally puzzled.

“I have no idea, Sev, why don’t you go ask Professor Draguar?”

Severus shifted nervously in his seat, hair falling into his face as he looked down at the textbook. “Could you ask him?”

“Severus, I’m working on the other question, just go ask him yourself. Honestly, you have to learn to speak up for yourself, you’re acting like he’s going to hit you or something!” Lily snapped. Focusing again on her own parchment, she saw her friend flinch out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly realized what she had just said. “Oh God, Sev, I’m sorry, I forgot about your dad...”

“It’s fine,” Severus mumbled, studying the textbook as if he could make the words change by staring hard enough. 

“No, it isn’t, and I shouldn’t have snapped at you either,” Lily was determined to make amends, her flash of fiery temper gone as quickly as it had come. “I’ll go ask him about the chapter, it’s not like I understand it either.” 

She stood up before Severus could say anything else, walking towards Professor Draguar’s desk. “Professor? We had a question about the last paragraph in chapter 3...”

Severus watched her go, not entirely sure how he was supposed to react to Lily’s outburst and subsequent apology. With an internal shrug, he decided that if she didn’t bring it up again then neither would he; figuring out why Draguar had chosen such a stupid textbook, and what that stupid textbook was trying to say, was a much more pressing issue in the moment.

Days turned to weeks, and all the first years settled into their new classes and friend groups and grew accustomed to the ways of Hogwarts and its ever present magic. For Severus and Lily, both of whom had been dreaming for years about leaving their regular lives and going off to Hogwarts to learn real magic, the novelty and excitement took a long time to wear off. Even loaded down with essays and reading assignments, spells to practice and potions to prepare, they still sometimes caught each other’s gaze across a library table or workbench and grinned at each other, overtaken by the wonder and magic of their new lives. But even the best of situations must have its stumbling blocks and pitfalls, and their first year at Hogwarts was no exception. There was the one teacher who managed to suck the excitement out of what should have been a marvelous class (Professor Draguar, an Auror taking a sabbatical to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, though one could only hope he was better in the field than in the classroom), and one class which likely wouldn’t have been very exciting even with a better professor (History of Magic, which both Hufflepuffs had been very disappointed in, thinking perhaps incorrectly that a magical history class should be more compelling than the muggle kind). 

And of course, there was one of the biggest causes of annoyance in the school - the first year Gryffindor boys. By the end of the first month of school, the mischievous duo of James Potter and Sirius Black had expanded into a quartet with the addition of Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, and the Hogwarts professors braced themselves for a long seven years. The other students too became aware of the Gryffindor boys and their proclivity for trouble, but as the first year Hufflepuffs had only Herbology with the Gryffindors, Lily and Severus assumed (or hoped) that they would have little reason to interact with the rude boys they had met on the Hogwarts Express on the ride to school. But much to their dismay, it became clear that the Marauders, as they would eventually become known, were not content to ignore their Hufflepuff yearmates, and went out of their way to try to cause trouble for Severus in particular. 

For though Severus and Lily had no way of knowing this, James had held a fascination for Lily from almost the first moment he saw her on the train, and a hatred for Severus almost as long. Most of that hatred stemmed from simple jealousy - James fancied himself in love with Lily, saw Severus as standing in the way of them being together, and was jealous that the Hufflepuff boy could be with her while he could not. There was nothing romantic between Lily and Severus, and never would be, but to James such a thing was simply inconceivable. For years the Gryffindor would pine after her, despite her repeated spurning of his advances, and with the incomprehensible logic of an almost-teenage boy he would come to the conclusion that everything wrong in his life was Severus’s fault. 

For this reason James and his friends made it their goal to pull as many pranks as they could on Severus, to tease him and bully him and try their best to get him into trouble (something made difficult by the fact that Severus, particularly with Lily’s assistance, was rather more subtle in his counterstrikes than the Marauders in their attacks). It was mostly small things at first, non magical things - calling Severus names, or trying to trip him as he walked past James and his friends in the corridors on the way to class, or stealing his tools in Herbology (since that was the only class they had in common). Sirius, who had taken up James’s cause against Severus as if it was his own, even contrived to spill an entire jar of ink all over the Hufflepuff boy’s notes in the library one evening, but soon found that he had miscalculated on two counts. 

Firstly, Lily had been working at the same library table as Severus, and their notes, textbooks, and in-progress essays were all mixed together, with the result that Sirius had spilled ink not only on his intended target’s things, but on hers as well. Lily would have been inclined to get back at the Gryffindor boy even if he had only ruined Severus’s work, but this added a new level to her annoyance, and roused her already somewhat infamous quick temper. The second thing that Sirius did not bother to take into account was Madam Pince. Of course, there was no way Sirius could really have known that the librarian would be walking down the row of books right beside the Hufflepuffs’ table, but surely he should already have known, even after only a month or two in the castle, how strict the librarian was, and thought carefully about pulling any sort of mischief in her domain. Now he got to see firsthand just how angry the older witch could get when she saw ink spreading across one of her tables, dripping down onto her carpet, drenching a pile of books, including some of her own precious library books.

“SIRIUS BLACK!” Madam Pince screeched, coming out from behind a bookcase just in time to see the Gryffindor trying to rush away from the inky table as Severus and Lily jumped from their chairs and tried to stop the flow of ink from ruining too much of their work. 

“Don’t you try to sneak away, I saw what you did! Get back here and clean up this mess, and then we will see what your Head of House has to say about this!” 

The two Hufflepuffs watched with barely contained glee as the formidable librarian chastised the other boy, their own anger at the prank set aside for the moment in the face of the satisfaction of bearing witness to his getting caught. Sirius sullenly helped them siphon off the ink as best they could, then slunk out of the library with a note for Professor McGonagall clutched in his hand. Severus might have been satisfied to leave the issue there, particularly once they heard that McGonagall had given the Gryffindor detention for the prank, but Lily was not. It didn’t take very much effort for her to convince Severus that some retaliation was due, and only a few days to set a plan in motion. They initially planned to only go after Sirius himself; after all, they were not Gryffindor bullies to attack people without direct provocation. But after all four Gryffindors were complicit in an attempt to grab Severus and steal his Transfiguration essay right before class the next day, the Hufflepuffs decided they might as well go after the whole gang. 

The first part of their plan was simple enough: brew a potion that would make the drinkers’ hair turn bright pink. That was fairly easily accomplished, for both Severus and Lily had discovered quickly that they had a talent for potion making, and all of the ingredients they needed were available in their student potions kits. Technically they weren’t supposed to brew anything outside of class, but it only took them a little over an hour in an empty classroom, and it wasn’t a potion that could go too badly wrong anyway, so they didn’t feel terribly guilty about it. The rest of the plan took a little more work, for figuring out how to get the Marauders to drink the potion was not an easy task. There was no way the boys would drink anything that Severus gave them, and only James might be besotted enough to drink a suspicious liquid offered by Lily. Lily’s first idea, to spike their breakfast pumpkin juice, was deemed too risky. There was no way they could sneak over to the Gryffindor table and put anything in the boys’ drinks while they were sitting right there, not without being seen by the entire student body and the teachers.

 It took the two little Hufflepuffs a couple days to come up with a seemingly foolproof plan, but they were very proud of themselves once they did. First, Lily convinced one of the older Hufflepuff girls to show her how to get into the Hogwarts kitchens, with a charming story about wanting to be able to give some cupcakes to a friend for her birthday. When she returned from the kitchens with a plate of little cakes, Severus met her with the hair-changing potion, which they carefully drizzled over each cake (they had wanted to inject it into the middle of each cake, but quickly realized that they had no idea how to go about doing such a thing, and settled for letting the potion soak in from the top). After that it was simply a matter of having Severus walk around by himself one evening, carrying the treats where the Gryffindor boys might see him, and waiting for them to steal from him. And indeed, it was not long before the Marauders went strutting by (well, James and Sirius may have strutted, but the same couldn’t honestly be said for Peter or Remus, following along behind). Seeing their favorite target, and noting (in James’s case) that Lily wasn’t around to see them harassing her friend, they quickly overpowered him and stole the cakes, as Severus did his best to put up enough of a fight to avoid suspicion without encouraging the boys to actually beat him to a pulp. The Gryffindors were laughing and joking around as they walked off with their prize, leaving Severus behind on the floor where they’d shoved him, but it would be the Hufflepuffs who had the last laugh.

The next morning, all four Gryffindor first year boys came down to breakfast with bright pink hair, having consumed the spiked cakes back in their dormitory the night before. Though they must have quickly figured out the cause of their bright transformations, and indeed their glares at the two Hufflepuffs all through Herbology class confirmed that they had, there was little that the Marauders could do about it. The potion would reverse itself after a day or two, but there was no easy way to undo its effects before that point, and any attempt to get the Hufflepuffs in trouble would have to involve admitting their own theft of the cake in the first place, something which the Gryffindors had no interest in doing. So they simply suffered the stares and giggles of their classmates for a couple days, doing nothing more than make faces at the Hufflepuffs while the pink hair lasted (mostly at Severus, since James refused to admit to himself that Lily might have had anything to do with his current predicament). The newly self-dubbed Potioneers felt quite satisfied with the results of their efforts, and for at least a little while there seemed to be a stalemate between the two groups. Sooner or later tensions would rise again, with one prank leading to another, usually with the Marauders instigating and the Potioneers simply defending themselves, though it would only be fair to note that the Hufflepuffs were not entirely innocent, for they certainly managed to hold their own against the Gryffindors. 

But for a few weeks, perhaps even a month, after the Pink Hair Scheme, as Lily called it, things were fairly peaceful. Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors alike settled into a rhythm of classes, homework, and occasionally even free time, and before any of them knew it winter break was fast approaching. Severus, quite happy to spend as little time at home as possible, signed up to stay at Hogwarts as soon as he heard that was an option. Lily, who planned to go home to see her family, offered to ask her parents if he could come home with her, but Severus refused. With most of the other students leaving (including all four Gryffindor boys, some more reluctantly than others), he was looking forward to the quiet of the castle over break. He was willing to admit (at least to himself) that it would have been more fun if Lily was staying at school with him, but that didn’t mean he wanted to follow her home and have to deal with her annoying sister (who already hated him) and her parents who sounded sweet but would surely ask too many awkward questions about why he didn’t want to visit his own parents. 

Not that Severus told Lily all of this, not wanting her to feel sorry for him or try to talk him into going with her anyway; he simply told her that he was looking forward to everyone being gone, trusting that she would understand that he didn’t include her in the “everyone” that it would be nice to not see for a while. She did, and they parted in good spirits under the bare branches of a tree down by the lake where they often sat and studied, or just talked, when the weather was nice. That day it was cold, and beginning to snow a little, but Severus had wanted to walk Lily to the train, and even though they both knew he couldn’t keep her company all the way, stopping at the castle doors hadn’t felt far enough, especially when it began to sink in that they wouldn’t see each other for almost two weeks. But soon enough it really was time for Lily to go if she didn’t want to miss the train, and she rushed off, looking back to wave wildly at Severus as he began to trudge back up towards the castle through the falling snow. 

The castle was peaceful over the holidays, practically deserted; Severus was one of only a handful of students who had decided to stay. All of the other first years had gone home, as well as all the older Hufflepuffs, and after a week or so even the generally antisocial Severus was beginning to look forward to the return of the other students. He changed his mind rather quickly once the hordes of chattering schoolchildren had descended on the school once more, filling the halls with their noise and energy, though he was excited and pleased to see Lily again. Only a few days after their reunion and the start of the new semester, Lily surprised Severus on his twelfth birthday with a little chocolate cake, just big enough for two to share, that she had begged from the Hogwarts kitchens. They sat together to eat it in a cozy corner of the Hufflepuff common room as the fire crackled and snow piled up against the round windows set high up by the ceiling. The first years’ Herbology class had been canceled because of the storm, and Severus and Lily spent the afternoon curled up together in an overstuffed armchair by the fireplace, reading or talking quietly in turns. It was the best birthday Severus could remember having, and would become a memory that he would cherish for many years to come. 

Exactly three weeks later, as January drew to a close, it was Lily’s turn to celebrate a birthday. This time it was Severus who snuck into the kitchen to hesitantly ask for a cake, pushing aside his reluctance to ask for help in order to ensure his friend’s birthday was as special as she had made his. Having accomplished his mission (and confirmed for himself that the kitchen elves were always happy to provide treats for students who came to them), Severus proudly presented the cake to Lily before they went to breakfast. Needless to say, both children ate more cake that morning than any real breakfast food, in what the birthday girl declared to be a perfect start to the day. Even the prospect of Herbology with the Gryffindors couldn’t dampen Lily’s mood, and as it turned out the Marauders were missing two of their number that afternoon. Remus Lupin was out once again with some unspecified illness, and James Potter, who had broken his arm in a foolish stunt during flying lessons that morning, hadn’t been released from the hospital wing yet. The remaining boys were much more subdued than usual, and the Hufflepuffs enjoyed a very interesting lesson without any pranks or mishaps, ending the day on a high note. 

 The year continued day by day, lesson by lesson, (and occasionally prank by vengeful prank), as winter howled its last and passed slowly into spring, and the students of Hogwarts spread across the lawns and to the shores of the lake as the weather warmed. Before they knew it spring break was upon them, seeming barely long enough to warrant going home (and indeed, the castle stayed much more crowded than it had over the winter holidays, though Lily was among the many who did still leave). Severus found that break much less enjoyable than the previous; there were too many people around to avoid them all, an air of stress permeated the school from the older students frantically studying for their OWL and NEWT exams, and he didn’t even have Lily to spend time with. But before long she and the rest of the students returned, and all too soon professors were beginning to talk about end of year exams and students were buzzing with plans for summer vacation. Even Lily was excited to be going home, though she confessed to Severus that she would miss being able to do magic while she was away from school. Her parents had written to say that they were planning a short family trip to Paris, where she had never been before, and much of the remaining summer would be spent at one local summer camp or another. 

Severus, on the other hand, was not at all thrilled with the prospect of spending the entire summer trapped at home with his parents, and even went so far as to ask Professor Sprout for advice, in an uncharacteristically bold move. He stayed behind after Herbology one day, motioning Lily on when she paused to wait for him (she left, shooting him a curious glance as she went, though she waited right outside the greenhouse for him to come out). 

“Um, Professor Sprout? I was hoping I might ask you something?” As soon as Severus started to speak he began to wonder if this had been a terrible idea, but he had to try. 

“Yes dear, of course. What can I help you with?” The Hufflepuff Head of House smiled at him. Sprout was always happy to help any of her badgers, and was particularly pleased to see that Severus, one of her littlest and shyest students, was feeling comfortable enough to ask for her help. 

“It’s about the summer, I was wondering if maybe I could stay here like I did for winter break...?” Severus trailed off, seeing Sprout’s smile fade a little. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked, I was just hoping...I know it’s stupid...” 

He grabbed his bag, and started to back up slowly towards the door when Sprout stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“Mr. Snape, I wish there was something I could do, but I’m afraid it’s school policy. Students can’t stay here over the summer break. It wouldn’t be safe, most of the professors are gone too, and there would be no one to keep an eye on you. I can speak to the Headmaster if you’d like, but you shouldn’t get your hopes up. I am sorry.” 

She watched with concern as he mumbled a barely intelligible response and rushed out the door, head down to hide what she suspected might be a few angry tears. Sprout sighed. She wished there was something she could do to help the boy, and cursed the rules (not for the first time) that stopped her from helping her students outside of school as much as she could within its walls. All she could do, all she would do, was complain to the Headmaster yet again and hope that her littlest badger had a better summer than he was obviously anticipating. 

For his part, Severus stayed upset for a few days, partly at Professor Sprout for being the bearer of bad news, but mostly at the school as a whole: at the Headmaster for not allowing students to stay over the summer break, at all the other students for being so excited about the end of school and the chance to go home to see their perfect families. He was even mad at Lily for her stupid trip to France, though he could never stay upset at her for long. As the end of the year approached, his focus, and that of all the other students, shifted to studying for final exams. Lily and Severus were determined to do well on all of their exams to finish off the year strong, though considering how well they had both been doing all year long there was little real reason for concern. That didn’t stop them from organizing and reorganizing their notes, writing out study sheets, and practicing until the night before each test. With all the extra work and stress, there was little time for Severus to worry about the summer, and he pushed the issue to the back of his mind as long as he could. 

The exams went well for both Hufflepuffs, as anyone might have guessed that they would, with more than a few perfect scores between them and the rest not far off, and the pair arrived at the end of year feast generally pleased with their first foray into wizarding education. Ravenclaw narrowly beat out Gryffindor for the House Cup (due, in part, to a certain set of first year boys losing a substantial number of points for some ill-advised pranking during exams), and Hufflepuff coming in at a respectable third place. Trunks were packed, goodbyes were said, and the Hogwarts Express departed Hogsmeade Station right on time, carrying its young passengers away from Hogwarts and back towards families both magical and mundane. For some, like Lily, James, or Remus, it would be mostly a summer of fun and good times with family (though not without the occasional snag), while for others, like Severus or Sirius, it would be a harder one, with more familial clashes and worries. But for all of them, Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, Marauders and Potioneers alike, it was still only the beginning of the newest chapter in their lives. 

Chapter Text

“Sev! You’re finally here!” Lily squealed, rushing forward and grabbing her best friend in an enthusiastic hug, almost knocking the skinny boy over with her forceful greeting.

“Get off Lily, I can’t breathe!”

Severus managed to extract himself from her embrace, though he was equally happy to see her, grinning as he looked her over, confirming for himself that she was all in one piece. It had been a long summer, two whole months apart after an entire school year of spending virtually every day together, and both children were delighted to finally be reunited. 

Lily’s parents hurried over to catch up, carrying their daughter’s school things. Lily had left them behind as soon as she spotted Severus standing alone with his trunk on the train platform (his parents had dropped him at the station without going all the way to the platform with him). Severus recognized the Evanses from photographs Lily had shown him and from previous visits to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, and was relieved to see that Petunia had apparently decided not to join them. He had never officially met Lily’s parents, and still had hopes that they might not hate him, but winning Petunia’s approval (or even tolerance) was most likely a lost cause given their past interactions. 

“Lily, dear, I’m sure you’re excited to see your friends, but please don’t run off like that, we almost lost you in the crowd!” Mrs. Evans sounded slightly exasperated, though she smiled at her daughter as she fussed over her. Mr. Evans, following behind his wife, put down Lily’s trunk and held his hand out towards Severus. 

“You must be Severus! Lily hasn’t stopped talking about you all summer. I hope we don’t have to worry about you two distracting each other from your schoolwork, at least not for a few more years!” His eyes, the same color as Lily’s, twinkled as if he’d said something funny, and Mrs. Evans elbowed him, though she was smiling slightly too.

“Dad!” Lily did not seem very amused by her parents’ behavior, but Severus managed a polite smile and shook Mr. Evans’s hand. 

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Evans. You too, Mrs. Evans.”

The train whistle blew a warning, and Lily and Severus joined the crowd of students making their way onto the train. Lily hugged her parents one last time and Severus diplomatically pretended not to be listening when her mother whispered, “He seems like a very nice boy, you should keep him around.” 

Lily rolled her eyes, and waved at her parents again as she followed Severus onto the train. 

“Sorry, they can be a bit much sometimes; Dad seems to think that any boy I talk to for more than five minutes must want to marry me or something.” 

Severus snorted. “Wonder what they’d think if they met Potter, then.”

That made Lily giggle as they made their way into an empty compartment, though she sounded more serious when she spoke. “Maybe this year he’ll be over it, and leave us alone.”

“Maybe,” Severus said, unconvinced, “but I wouldn’t bet on it.” 

Whether or not James Potter would continue his undesired pursuits of Lily or his feud with Severus would remain to be seen, but at least for the duration of the train ride the Marauders left the Hufflepuffs alone. Lily and Severus passed an uneventful trip, swapping stories of the summer (mostly of Lily’s adventures, for Severus had few experiences that he wished to share from his summer at home, which he had mostly spent roaming the town and trying not to get in his father’s way) and eating too many snacks that Lily bought on the train. They were both delighted by the apparently horseless carriages that were waiting to carry them to the castle, for neither had any reason to suspect the existence of thestrals. As Severus pointed out, carriages that moved without anything pulling them shouldn’t have been so enthralling to children who had experience with automobiles, but somehow the knowledge that they were moving by magic rather than technology made all the difference. There was something exciting, too, about being second years, no longer the babies of the school. There was a whole new set of students coming in and being Sorted, standing at the front of the Great Hall and fretting about where they would end up, while Severus and Lily were already safely settled at the Hufflepuff table. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pair found that watching the Sorting was much more enjoyable than participating in it, though it did get boring after a while, watching a stream of people they didn’t know pass under the Hat. The most interesting moment was at the very beginning of the Sorting, when Regulus Black, looking enough like his brother Sirius to make it obvious who he was even without the shared last name, was placed into Slytherin. He walked proudly to join the green and silver crowd, taking a seat beside an older girl with silvery blond hair who smiled and gave him a hug, while at the Gryffindor table Sirius’s face twisted with dark emotions. The rest of the first years passed without incident as Severus and Lily clapped loudly for all the new Hufflepuffs, and for everyone else a little less enthusiastically. Finally, thankfully, they reached the end of the ceremony and the arrival of the feast itself. Food was eaten and speeches made, most notably introducing the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, a very pretty woman who many of the older (primarily male) students were eyeing with great interest and appreciation. After a few final words from Professor Dumbledore, the students began to make their way to their various common rooms and dormitories, shepherded along by their prefects. Lily and Severus said their goodnights in the Hufflepuff common room, then split off to their own familiar dorm rooms, hoping for a good night’s sleep before the first day of classes.

When the Potioneers received their schedules the next morning at breakfast, passed out by a cheerful Professor Sprout, they found them to be little different from the ones they had received the year before. The exact order of lessons had shifted about, and they had already known that there was a new professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts, but other than flying lessons no longer being required (much to Severus’s delight, for he had never had much luck or skill on a broom), the rest of their classes had stayed the same. The second-year Hufflepuffs would still be with the Gryffindors for Herbology (which they were not thrilled about, though not terribly surprised either), and with Ravenclaw for Potions (which was much less likely to be bothersome, due both to the less volatile combination of students, and to Severus and Lily’s greater love for the subject). 

Classes began, and the weeks seemed to fly by in a haze of lessons attended, essays written, spells cast, and potions brewed. The trees out on the Hogwarts grounds turned to bright reds and yellows, their leaves falling to carpet the grass in the brilliant colors of autumn as the temperatures dropped. Lily and Severus began to spend more of their free time holed up in the library or in the cozy Hufflepuff common room, and less walking outside by the lake as they had in the warmer days of late summer and early fall when the school year had only just begun. By the time Halloween arrived, it had become abundantly clear to the little Hufflepuffs that their second year was not at all very different from how their first year had been, though without the initial period of adjustment. They had found their new normal by the end of first year, and were able to simply pick up where they had left off when they returned from the summer break. 

Unfortunately, though perhaps predictably, that status quo still included the ever present nuisance that was the Marauders. One might have hoped (and indeed the Potioneers certainly had) that after an entire year of being ignored and rebuffed by the object of his misplaced affections, James might have come to his senses over the summer and decided to leave Lily alone in the future, but it was not to be. He returned from summer break still determined to win Lily over, no matter what her thoughts on the matter might be, and his fellow Gryffindor boys helped concoct many a scheme to advance that goal. Most of their plans involved tormenting Severus in one way or another, since James still believed that Lily would be more likely to notice him if he got the other boy out of the way first. In practice this had the opposite effect, causing Lily’s opinion of James to stay rather low, and prompting the Potioneers to come up with their own retaliatory strikes against the Marauders. The Gryffindor also made a point of showing off whenever he had a chance, whether practicing spells where Lily might see, or strutting about the castle in his new quidditch robes after making the Gryffindor team as only a second year (which admittedly was an impressive feat, though perhaps not one likely to overawe a girl who didn’t particularly care about the sport, and would have been rooting for her own House’s team regardless).  

Most of the time the pranks and jinxes that flew between the groups were fairly harmless, causing little lasting damage and only rarely catching the attention of any authority figures. But there were exceptions, some more dramatic than others. More than once James or Sirius made the mistake of instigating an attack on Severus within view of a professor, or misjudged their target and caught innocent bystanders in the crossfire. Their detention records grew longer with every passing month (as did those of Peter Pettigrew and Remus Lupin, though at a slightly slower rate), though the minor punishments seemed to have little effect on their enthusiasm for sowing chaos. Severus received the occasional detention as well, though nowhere near as frequently as the Gryffindors, for he preferred to keep his counterattacks more subtle and well out of view of any passing professors. His hospital wing visits far outnumbered his detentions. Lily pointed out on more than one occasion that that wasn't exactly something to be proud of. 

Lily herself had landed in detention only once, a record and occasion that she was more than a little proud of. She and Severus had snuck out of bed and climbed onto the roof of the astronomy tower after curfew one night in a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of a passing comet. Professor Sinistra had mentioned it offhand in class, and the two Hufflepuffs had been determined to try to see it, even though the astronomy professor had indicated that it likely wouldn’t be easily observable because of the position of the moon. Their inevitable failure to spot the comet was overshadowed by the beautiful views of the moon and the Hogwarts grounds at night that they did get to see, and they were quietly making their way back to the Hufflepuff common room when they were caught. Professor Sprout was not pleased to find her little badgers out of bed after hours, though she was secretly amused by their explanation for their outing. Lily and Severus both ended up in detention, but both agreed that the little adventure had still been worth it, a highlight of the semester. 

It was not long after that episode that the students began to buzz about their winter break plans. Lily, assuming correctly that Severus had no plans to go home and old enough now to suspect that he had been lying the year before when he claimed to be happy to stay at school, invited him home with her. He was hesitant at first, not wanting to be a bother or ruin her plans with her family, and not entirely sure how he felt about being trapped in a house with Petunia for two weeks, but Lily was determined. As Severus had already learned quite early in their friendship, Lily could be incredibly stubborn when she wanted to be, and she refused to let go of the idea just because her friend was being silly (as she saw the situation). When a letter arrived from Mr. and Mrs. Evans explicitly inviting the boy for the holidays (prompted by Lily’s own message home telling them that Severus was planning to stay at the dreary old castle all by himself for Christmas and that they really ought to do something about it), Severus gave in. He was happy to spend the time with Lily, and excited to see the new house her family had moved to the year before, in a neighborhood even fancier than the one where she had lived growing up (though even her childhood house, which he had seen only from the outside once or twice before, had been much larger and fancier than his own parents’ shabby little house down by the old mill). 

The main drawback (maybe even the only drawback) to a visit to the Evans family, as far as Severus was concerned, was Petunia. The older girl had disliked Severus from the moment she laid eyes on him when they were kids, and the feeling was mutual. While the Evans sisters could generally manage to get along with each other (though they certainly had their fair share of sibling fights and arguments), adding Severus into the mix seemed likely to cause absolute disaster. But, throwing caution to the wind, Severus boarded the Hogwarts Express along with Lily when the day arrived, trying to prepare himself for what could either be the best or worst holiday season of his life.  Despite his pessimistic predictions of doom, the break turned out to be wonderful. Perhaps her parents had spoken to her, or perhaps Petunia had simply been overcome with Christmas spirit (though Lily suspected the former), but whatever her reasoning Petunia managed to be quite civil to Severus, and to Lily. It helped that the older girl spent most of her time out of the house with one friend or another, or chatting away on the phone at all hours with her boyfriend of the moment, so Severus and Lily were mostly free to avoid her company and find their own amusements. 

It was a perfect vacation, and Severus pushed aside and ignored the tiny twinges of guilt that he felt at enjoying the company of another family so much more than his own, and at being not so very far from his parents’ house and not even stopping by to see them. But perfect or not, all too soon it was time to return to Hogwarts, and the rest of a year that seemed to be slipping by far more quickly than the usual passage of time should allow. Severus and Lily’s birthdays passed, bringing with them the now almost traditional cakes for breakfast and little presents of the sort that newly thirteen-year-olds could craft themselves. Lily’s parents sent her a gift, of course, and even included a little something for Severus, which made the boy get all flustered when Lily gave it to him. His own parents had no extra money to spend on gifts; he received a birthday note ostensibly from both of them, but couldn’t help noticing that it was signed only by his mother. 

February soon arrived, and with it the entertainment of watching the older students stumble through their early attempts at romance. A Hogsmeade weekend was scheduled to fall out on Valentine’s Day itself, and the days leading up to it were particularly fraught. It seemed as though most of the older students were either frantically scrambling to secure a date for their trip to the village or desperately trying to plan a romantic enough outing to avoid losing the significant others that they had somehow already managed to entrap. Severus was somewhat bewildered to see that even some of his own peers were getting caught up in the madness, as he would have thought them too young for such things. He commented as much to Lily, after watching one of his roommates painfully labor for days over a terrible love poem for one of the Ravenclaw girls who shared their Potions class (which, incidentally, would prove to be no help at all in winning the affections of the young lady in question). 

Lily just laughed. “Oh Sev, you can be such a prude sometimes. At least Jake is only writing poetry, you should have seen what Madge was trying to do to her hair last night! She borrowed at least five haircare potions from her older sister, and made such a mess in our bathroom.”

Severus tried to come up with something, anything, to say to that. But while he had learned well enough since coming to Hogwarts how to keep his own hair from being too much of a disaster, his knowledge of fancy hair potions was even less extensive than his knowledge of teenage courtship. The best response he could come up with was a hesitant “Did it at least turn out how she wanted?” 

Lily’s answer was a very emphatic “no!” which, in hindsight, at least explained why Severus had thought he had seen Lily’s roommate wearing a hat at breakfast that morning. He had thought it seemed a bit odd, but considering how ridiculous so many of the students had been acting for days, and the ever changing whims of teenager wizarding fashion, he hadn’t paid it much attention.    

Defense Against the Dark Arts class stalled several times that day when more than a few of the boys in the class interrupted to declare their undying love to Professor Bonhomme, as most of the girls rolled their eyes or tried to hide their disappointment that none of the boys were saying such sappy things to them. Severus was less than amused when James tried to give Lily a valentine’s card and a flower in the corridor, though not nearly as unamused as Lily herself. She hexed him and threatened him with even worse bodily harm if he didn’t start leaving her alone, risking another detention in the process. Severus stood by, silently cheering her on while getting his own wand ready in case any of James’s friends decided to join the fight. Professor Bonhomme happened upon the scene before it could escalate any further, and seemed to feel that any boy who got himself hexed by a girl on Valentine’s Day probably deserved it. She declined to give anyone detention, only docking a single house point each from Hufflepuff and Gryffindor before sending them all on their way with a request to please try to keep any romantic affairs from blocking the corridors. 

Of course, no one (except perhaps Professor Bonhomme) thought that this would be the end of the matter, but it at least pushed the issue to the side once more, where it would be overtaken by schoolwork and quidditch and all the other things that so preoccupy a group of twelve and thirteen year olds. And soon enough, the second years had one more thing to pile onto their workloads when their professors announced that they needed to consider what elective courses they wished to take in their third year. That set off a flurry of activity as students pored over the lists of classes and asked parents, teachers, and older students alike for career advice, for many of the second years had gotten the idea (not entirely incorrect, though not exactly right either) that their class choices now would entirely determine their options for the rest of their lives. 

Neither Severus nor Lily had anyone at home to ask for long term career advice, not in the wizarding world at least, for Mrs. Snape had left that world entirely behind not long after her own graduation from Hogwarts, and both of Lily’s parents were muggles. But they felt no lack of input, for there were helpful Hufflepuff upperclassmen who were glad to share their advice with the little badgers, and Professor Sprout made herself available to everyone as well. 

Though the Potioneers appreciated most of the advice and information that was being thrown at them, they both agreed that they perhaps could have done without all of Professor Slughorn’s unsolicited advice. The Potions Master, as they were learning firsthand, had a habit of collecting students that he considered promising or interesting for one reason or another, taking them under his wing and trying to steer them towards a successful future. Many powerful members of the Wizarding World had made their start as a member of the so-called Slug Club, and Lily and Severus were only two of the newest students from their year that Slughorn had begun to take an interest in. It should have come as no surprise, perhaps, for they excelled in his class as much or more than in all their others, and while neither came from a powerful or impressive family, the Potions Master was never one to ignore promise because of birth (or at least, not when it suited him). Now, as the first major choice of their educational careers approached, Slughorn made a point of suggesting not only courses but entire career paths to those students whom he had chosen as the ones most likely to succeed and gain influence later in life. Some of the information was useful, or at least interesting, but as Severus was always slightly wary of help offered apparently for free, and both Hufflepuffs agreed that it was a little early for Slughorn to be quite so invested in their hypothetical future careers, the constant stream of advice from all sides began to feel more than a bit overwhelming. 

Ultimately, with the help of the input from their professors and peers (and perhaps occasionally in spite of it), Severus and Lily opted for three elective classes each (Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Care of Magical Creatures). Overachievers as they often were, they ignored the reminders that the standard was to take only two, confident that they could make it work. Neither of them had chosen to take Muggle Studies, having both grown up in muggle homes, though Lily had briefly considered it. She told Severus that she wanted to understand the wizarding viewpoint of the issue, but had dropped the idea when she realized it was impossible to take all five offered electives. Severus had debated taking Divination instead of Care of Magical Creatures, not always being terribly comfortable with living things, but ultimately decided that he would rather not waste his time on Divination, generally considered to be the least useful class offered. He had no reason to think he might have an actual gift of prophecy, and for anyone without it there was little point in trying to learn. He claimed that Lily’s already stated interest in taking Care of Magical Creatures had no bearing on his ultimate decision to sign up for that class, though they both knew that was a lie. They would both much rather take all their classes together if they had the option, and it would be both more enjoyable and practical to have a friend to lean on if and when things got more difficult. 

By the time those decisions were sorted out, the end of the school year was upon them, with its flurry of frantic studying that left little time for anything else. Exams were taken, and both Hufflepuffs passed with flying colors, cementing their places at the top of the year academically. To add to the satisfaction of a year well spent, Hufflepuff was slated to come in second place for the House Cup behind Slytherin (and perhaps more satisfying to the Potioneers, Gryffindor was dead last). Students and professors all gathered in the Great Hall for the last feast of the year, with the walls hung with banners of Slytherin green and silver. It wasn’t until partway through the feast that Lily nudged Severus and pointed out that Professor Bonhomme was missing from the staff table. As they watched, it became more clear that something was off; some of the professors seemed tense, and kept glancing at the space where Professor Bonhomme’s chair should have been, between Professor Slughorn and Professor Sinistra. The chair itself had been removed, to make it less obvious that anyone was missing, but judging by the whispers throughout the hall, it was clear that Lily wasn’t the only student who had noticed the Defence professor’s absence. 

Severus had expected that the Headmaster would say something in his final speech, perhaps mentioning that Professor Bonhomme was ill or something of that nature, but Professor Dumbledore only smiled enigmatically and gave his usual sort of end of term address, thanking them all for a year well spent and wishing everyone an enjoyable summer break. It wasn’t until the next day on the train back to London that the gossip made its way to where Lily and Severus were sitting with a few of their housemates, carried by a second year Ravenclaw girl who burst into the compartment. 

“Have you heard?!” She rushed on without giving anyone a chance to respond, “Lucy Harrington told me, her brother’s a Gryffindor prefect, he said that Professor Bonhomme eloped with one of the seventh years last night, that tall Gryffindor chaser with the blond curls, I think his name is Rupert?”

She finally paused to take a breath, and all the Hufflepuffs started bombarding her with questions, though it quickly became clear that the Ravenclaw had already passed on all her information. She soon left, no doubt to keep spreading the rumor throughout the train, leaving her yearmates to digest the news. Lily was horrified that a teacher would run off with a student like that, and even more disgusted when one of the other girls suggested that maybe it wasn’t so bad since he was of age, turning away in a huff. 

“Well,” Severus said, breaking the silence before it could get too awkward. “In a shocking change from the usual state of affairs, I guess we’ll have a new Defense professor for next year!”  

He tried to keep a straight face as he said it, but he was cracking up by the end, and the rest of the compartment joined in his laughter. Even Lily came out of her sulk about inappropriate pedagogical practices and running off with someone half your age to grin at Severus where he sat beside her. Defense professors might come and go, but at least they could count on each other to always stick around. 

Chapter Text

 As Severus and Lily began their third year at Hogwarts, they had no reason to assume that it would be terribly different from the previous two. They expected some surface level differences, of course; a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, new first years looking even younger than the previous batch, a few new classes, but nothing substantial. It certainly began the same way as the previous one, with an overly enthusiastic greeting from Lily on the train platform that knocked Severus over into a pile of trunks, for she was now several inches taller than he was. Lily’s parents helped them up as Mrs. Evans tried to hold back her laughter at the sight of the two children tangled together in their robes on the ground, a task made even more difficult by their almost identical expressions of disgust at the situation. With their assistance (or perhaps in spite of it), Severus and Lily were quickly straightened out and heading for the train. Mr. and Mrs. Evans waved them off, calling a reminder to Lily to write home and to Severus that he was “of course” invited for Christmas, making the boy blush slightly. 

“Your mom is great,” he told Lily as they made their way down the corridor, looking for an empty compartment, “but I can practically hear her thinking about how ‘cute’ we look all the way from here. Aren’t parents not supposed to want their daughters to date?”

“That’s dads,” his friend replied with a mock serious expression. “Didn’t you know? Moms are always secretly thinking about grandchildren.”

“Gross! Do you think they won’t make me come for Christmas if I let slip that we aren’t a couple?”

“Sev!” 

“I’m only joking! Wouldn’t want to give them any ideas...” They found a compartment and settled in, still laughing over Mrs. Evans’ romantic aspirations for her daughter, and casually avoiding any speculation about what Mrs. Snape might have to say on the matter. Though Lily had told her parents about Severus as soon as they began at Hogwarts (Severus had begged her not to tell them before, concerned that they would be upset at her for hanging out with a boy from the wrong side of town and hoping that things would go smoother if they thought of him foremost as a friend from Hogwarts), Severus had yet to tell his parents much about her. They knew he had a friend at Hogwarts, and he had told them after the fact that her family had invited him home for Christmas break, but Mr. and Mrs. Snape knew nothing about Lily’s origins or the fact that she had grown up so close to their home, albeit in a neighborhood so different that it might as well have been another country. 

He had toyed with the idea of telling them that summer, in hopes of getting to spend more time with Lily before school began again, but ultimately decided against it. The Evans family had moved just after Lily began at Hogwarts, and were no longer within walking distance of his own parents’ home or the park by the river where Severus and Lily had met after school when they were children. With no way to see her during the summer anymore regardless of his parents’ opinion, Severus felt there was no need to risk a potential negative reaction by giving any additional information about his friend. The pair sent occasional letters by muggle post to stay in touch over the summer, for neither Severus nor Lily owned an owl, but such infrequent communication was nothing like their near-constant interaction during the school year, and they were both excited to be reunited once more. 

Lily and Severus found the ride to Hogwarts quite uneventful and the Sorting Feast just as time consuming and boring as ever, with only the introduction of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor to spark a moment of interest. Professor Wythering proved to be an ancient witch who seemed constantly on the point of dropping dead in the middle of lecturing, leading to more than one quiet betting pool among the students as to whether she would last the year. For better or worse, the rest of the year would prove to be somewhat more interesting. For it was in their third year that the status quo would begin to shift ever so slightly, foretelling greater changes for the two Hufflepuffs. Third year, of course, was the first year of elective courses at Hogwarts, and new classes opened up new opportunities for inter-House interactions and rivalries. Lily and Severus began that year with identical schedules of ten classes, as many as Professor Sprout had allowed them to sign up for: their original seven, plus Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, and Care of Magical Creatures. They were both looking forward with great excitement to the new lessons ahead, though perhaps they would have been slightly less pleased with their choices if they had known that all four of the Gryffindor boys had signed up for Care of Magical Creatures as well. Luckily, it quickly became clear that it would only be in that one additional class that the Badgers would suffer the presence of all four Marauders, though Remus Lupin would be taking Arithmancy and Ancient Runes with them as well. 

Though Severus gloomily predicted that it would be the worst year ever, facing two classes with the whole Gryffindor gang and two more with one of their number (though admittedly the least annoying of the bunch, even in Severus’s opinion), he was pleasantly surprised to find himself partially wrong. Care of Magical Creatures did soon become Severus’s least favorite subject, with its combination of forced contact with often messy or uncooperative animals, and the presence of his four least favorite yearmates, but Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were among his favorites. Lily enjoyed the Care of Magical Creatures class more than he did, since  she at least  liked the subject matter. She found Professor Kettleburn highly entertaining, enjoyed the chance to get outdoors instead of sitting inside the castle all day, and loved learning about all the interesting magical creatures that he brought to class. 

Severus agreed that the creatures were interesting, though he would have preferred if some of them were interesting from a little farther away from him, and was more than a little wary of the fact that Kettleburn seemed to be missing multiple limbs, presumably lost in pursuit of his chosen studies. The fact that the Marauders were continuously trying to set creatures on Severus or hex him when the professor was occupied with the other students did little to increase his enjoyment of the class. On the bright side, Professor Kettleburn’s often divided attention did allow Severus and Lily to make their fair share of counter attacks against the Marauders, so perhaps even Care of Magical Creatures wasn’t entirely a loss.  

Both Ancient Runes and Arithmancy proved to be challenging courses, often structured differently from many of the other lessons at Hogwarts. Most of the classes on wand magic focused on learning to cast particular spells, and even Potions in the first few years was focused much more on correctly executing a specific recipe rather than on broader theory (though Severus had been known to conduct his own side experiments during class to see how best to enhance the recipes given in his textbook, and Lily often jotted notes about how entirely different potions could be used for the same effects). In contrast, both of the new electives focused on tools that could be used for any purpose, giving them fascinating implications. Yes, there were runes to memorize, equations to learn by rote, but Severus was enchanted by the infinite possibilities offered up by the more theoretical nature of the coursework, and the promise that with a solid grounding in runes and arithmetic properties he could understand how magic worked, and how to manipulate it in ways not already captured in known spells. Lily, who had loved her math and science classes back in muggle primary school, was equally delighted to find subjects that she not only understood and enjoyed, but where her muggle upbringing was an asset rather than something to be overcome. 

Even the presence of Remus Lupin in their new classes turned out to be less infuriating than Severus had predicted. The Gryffindor boy proved to be rather more pleasant company when not overshadowed by James and Sirius, though it would take some time before Severus -or Lily, for that matter- would be entirely comfortable with him. Initially, their intention had been to simply ignore him and hope that he, as the least confrontational of the Marauders, would agree to the unspoken offering of a truce for their shared classes. Each side would simply let the other get on with their work and avoid distraction. And indeed, that plan worked splendidly for the first few weeks of the semester, until the day when Remus approached Lily and Severus directly after class, unaccompanied by any of his friends. The Potioneers were walking towards the Great Hall for dinner after a particularly intense Arithmancy lesson, discussing the homework Professor Vector had just assigned (involving a more complex form of equation that they had only just begun to study), when they heard him call out from behind them. 

“Hey, Evans, Snape, hold up a second, would you? I just want to talk.” 

Lily glanced over her shoulder to see Remus hurrying towards them, continued walking for a moment, then sighed and paused as he called out again. Severus stopped when she did, slipping his hand into the pocket where he kept his wand, prepared to draw it quickly if it became necessary.

“What do you want, Lupin?” Lily managed to keep her tone polite, though her body language echoed Severus’s wariness. 

The Gryffindor looked a little sheepish as he responded. “It’s about the Arithmancy homework. I missed last class, and I was pretty lost in today’s lecture… Look, I know you don’t like me, and I don’t blame you, but you guys always seem like you know what’s going on in class, and I was hoping maybe you’d help me out, give me a few pointers?”

He trailed off a little at the end, looking from one Hufflepuff to the other: Lily was standing with her arms crossed and Severus still had one hand on his wand, neither looking terribly impressed with his request. For a moment they all just stood there, and Remus began to seriously second guess his plan. It had seemed like such a logical solution. He had no friends in Arithmancy, no one to ask for help, and while Professor Vector was sympathetic to his monthly absences from class, she had made it clear that she expected him to solve his own problems. Remus had seen the two Hufflepuffs working together in the library many times before, and it was obvious that between the two of them they had a much better grasp of the material than he he had achieved on his own. On the other hand, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that Lily and Severus wouldn’t want to help him, considering everything his friends got up to. He gathered up his bag, and started to turn away, “Sorry, it was stupid of me to ask. I’ll just go.”

Severus and Lily exchanged a glance, silently debating. Severus was ready to walk away, but then Lily  chased after Remus and offered to meet up in the library after dinner. Severus followed her with a sigh, hoping desperately that they wouldn’t come to regret this. The Gryffindor met them in the library that night, having excused himself from his friends as soon as he saw the Hufflepuffs getting up from their table. James and Sirius were initially curious when he said he was meeting someone, but lost interest when he mentioned it was to study Arithmancy. 

“And here we thought some girl might have caught your fancy! But no, classic Moony, all work and no play,” James teased. Remus was spared a need to respond or give away exactly who his new study partners were by Sirius, who began to ridicule James for his own futile attempts at catching the admiration of a certain Miss Evans. As the Marauders’ boisterous conversation started up again, Remus slipped off to the library, where the aforementioned Miss Evans was waiting, along with Severus. The Hufflepuff boy had been wary of the meeting, sure that it must be a trap laid by James and Sirius, but Lily had eventually convinced him that even the Gryffindors weren’t stupid enough anymore to play pranks in the library where Madam Pince could see them. Lily’s sharp glance at Remus as she said it made it clear that this had better prove true, or he would answer to her as well as to the formidable librarian.

 But despite the somewhat rocky beginning to their collaboration, Severus found to his surprise that Remus could be a pleasant and useful study partner. The Gryffindor had been raised with more knowledge of the Wizarding world than either of the Potioneers, and had some useful insights from that perspective. On the other hand, his muggle-raised classmates had better foundations in mathematics and formal logic, something which Remus, like so many wizards, lacked any solid training in. 

As the year went on, both Severus and Lily came to enjoy their time spent studying with Remus, and began to occasionally seek out his company even when there was no homework to work on together. For his part, Remus found it somewhat refreshing to spend a little time away from the other Marauders and with people who better matched his own academic interests. That is not to say that the Gryffindor boys lacked in intelligence or skill, and James and Sirius at least were hardly slouches when it came to schoolwork, but they had less interest in knowledge and education for its own sake. To the Marauders, it was the end goal that mattered, while for the Potioneers the process, the theory, and the joy of understanding why things worked were a greater focus. It would be quite a while before the Hufflepuffs and Remus would become friends of a sort rather than only occasional study partners, and even longer before any of them would admit to such a change in their dynamic, but such a shift was indeed coming whether they realized it or not.

But courses and potential friends were not the only new or changing things in store that year for Lily and Severus. Third year was the first year that Hogwarts students were allowed to visit Hogsmeade village, and both children were eagerly awaiting their first trip. Diagon Alley and Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters were the only magical locations that either one had seen before, and those only infrequently. Even Severus had never visited Diagon Alley until it was time for him to buy his wand, for his mother had turned her back on the Wizarding world almost completely when she married his father, and though she had occasionally spoken of magical things to her son when her husband was not around to overhear, she had never brought him to see her old world until it was time for him to join it at age eleven. 

So it was with great excitement that the two Hufflepuffs joined their classmates, signed permission forms in hand, to make their way down to the village on the last weekend in October. For weeks the older students had been filling the third years’ imaginations with tales of all the magical shops and eateries, noting landmarks to look out for and things to do in town. Severus had been a little nervous when it became more clear just how much of the apparent appeal of Hogsmeade to the older students was shopping for various things, for while his mother had signed his permission form without a fuss, he had very little pocket money to spend on any of the toys and sweets that seemed to be all the rage. Lily, for her part, would have been perfectly willing to buy Severus whatever souvenirs he might have wanted, for her parents had sent her off with more than enough allowance for two children’s worth of candy. However, with the growing maturity of her almost fourteen years, Lily had begun to realize how prideful her friend could be, and how touchy he was about having to rely on others, even her. 

With that in mind, she told Severus as they made their way down to Hogsmeade that she just wanted to look around first and see everything before deciding if they wanted to buy anything. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to buy any candy at all, since the Halloween feast would take place the following night, and they both knew there would be more candy than they could eat there anyway. Severus gave her a look as if he knew exactly what she was doing, but she just stared back at him with a look of such wide-eyed innocence that he couldn’t even pretend to be mad at her. So while the other students congregated in Honeydukes and Zonko’s joke shop, Lily and Severus wandered the streets of Hogsmeade, taking in the sights and simply enjoying each other’s company. They looked at all the gaudy window displays, the robes in the window of a tailor’s shop that struck a different pose whenever anyone stopped to look, the brilliantly colored candy inside Honeydukes, and laughed at all the couples sitting inside Madam Puddifoot’s tea shop pretending they felt romantic rather than awkward in the frilly cafe. 

The day was cold, though not as frigid as it could have been, and Severus and Lily huddled together when the occasional gust of cold wind blew past them. Lily had forgotten her gloves, not noticing their lack until it felt too late to turn back to the castle, and Severus offered to lend her his. Lily initially refused, arguing that there was no reason he should have to have cold hands when she was the one who forgot her gloves. After some discussion, they came to a compromise. Severus gave one glove to Lily and kept one for himself, and they held hands with their bare hands to make sure they wouldn’t get too cold either. To add to Lily’s satisfaction, she had managed to convince Severus that it was only fair that she buy him a butterbeer to make up for the loan of the glove, something he had agreed to with only minor reluctance when it was clear she wouldn’t back down from the issue. 

The Hufflepuffs were just heading towards the Three Broomsticks to warm up before heading back to the castle after what they both agreed had been a perfect day when it became clear that they may have spoken prematurely. For who should be coming out of the pub towards them but their three least favorite Gryffindor boys, and Remus, whose standing was somewhat more in flux. It had been less than two months since Remus began studying with Lily and Severus, and while the trio were friendly in their study sessions that friendship had not extended beyond the classroom and library walls. More importantly, the rest of the Marauders were still in the dark about who Remus’s study partners were. Or they had been until now, when he made the mistake of greeting the approaching Hufflepuffs as “Lily and Severus” rather than the Marauders’ customary “Evans and Snivellus.” There was a moment of silence as they all just stared at each other, then everyone began to talk at once. 

“ Lily?! Since when are you on a first name basis with Evans?!” James was incredulous. 

“ Severus?! Do you mean to say you’ve actually been talking to this slimeball?” Sirius had slightly different priorities, much more concerned that his friend might be consorting with the enemy than that he might have been speaking to James’s crush. 

“You idiot, are you simply incapable of keeping your mouth shut?” Severus glared at Remus no less than at the other Marauders, drawing his wand in response to Sirius doing the same. James was still scowling at Remus, though his anger seemed to be turning towards Severus as well. 

Remus began to stutter out an explanation about studying and Arithmancy, but none of the others were listening to him. Sirius and Severus had resorted to shouting insults at each other, both with wands drawn though they had not yet reached the point of actually dueling, in large part because Lily and James were in the way, arguing at the top of their lungs. Peter had his wand out as well, though he didn’t seem entirely sure where to point it, and a crowd of other students were beginning to gather, drawn by raised voices so close to the Three Broomsticks. Reports were conflicted, afterwards, over who cast the first spell, and whether it had been cast before or after the first punch was thrown. It was indisputable that Lily jinxed Sirius after hearing a particularly nasty comment directed at Severus, though it may not have been the first spell cast, and that someone punched Remus in the face, though whether it was Severus or James was difficult to determine in the confusion. Someone certainly hexed James, though both Lily and Severus claimed credit for that (and at least a few bystanders were fairly sure that it had actually been a badly directed shot from Peter, intended for Severus). 

Needless to say, by the time Professor McGonagall fought her way through the crowd of students after being called out from the pub where she had been enjoying a hot drink, it was obvious that all six students were involved in the altercation, and she dragged all of them off to her office after forcibly separating them and taking points from both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff, scolding them all furiously. Once back at the castle, the Deputy Headmistress summoned Professor Sprout, who proved to be just as angry with her Badgers as McGonagall was with her Gryffindors once she was told what had happened.

“Brawling in the streets of Hogsmeade! Dishonoring your Houses, and your school, not to mention yourselves! I have never seen such behavior in all my years,” Professor McGonagall fumed, causing all six students to shuffle awkwardly and stare at their feet. 

Professor Sprout nodded in agreement, looking directly at Lily and Severus. “I expected better from both of you, from all of you. I am very disappointed. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior.”

The professors continued their scolding until they felt sure that their students had gotten the message, then moved on to their punishments, agreeing that it was only fair for all six students to receive the same punishment for the same crime, rather than each Head of House choosing on her own. The two witches consulted for a moment, as their charges stood uneasily, sneaking looks at each other while they waited. Professor McGonagall had already docked fifty points from each student in her initial anger, and now assigned detentions and banned all six students from Hogsmeade for the duration of the year. James and Sirius spluttered a bit at that, but went suddenly quiet when McGonagall threatened to extend it until graduation. With that sorted out, though not exactly to anyone’s satisfaction, McGonagall escorted the Marauders back to their common room while Sprout brought Severus and Lily to theirs, where she made it clear that while loyalty was admirable, and defending one’s friends was always important, neither was a good excuse for getting involved in a public brawl. Private business should be settled in private, she reminded them, and violence should never be a first resort. They nodded along and made their apologies, hoping that it all would blow over soon. 

In that they proved lucky, for while Hufflepuff House was not terribly impressed at the loss of one hundred points in one afternoon (and on the weekend at that!), they soon moved past it. The many eyewitnesses who could confirm the motivation of the fight helped with that as well, for while Professor Sprout could not publicly admit that she was proud of her little Badgers for standing up for each other even if it required hexing someone, the rest of Hufflepuff House had no such restrictions. Lily and Severus served their detentions, held separately from the Marauders in a move that both Professors Sprout and McGonagall had suspected might be necessary to avoid additional bloodshed, and began to win back points in their class performances. Lily received a reproachful letter from her parents, who had not been pleased to hear about the situation, though like her fellow students, they mellowed somewhat when she sent them a fuller account of the situation, explaining that she had really been standing up against bullies. Severus’s parents didn’t bother to respond to the letter that Sprout had no doubt sent them, which was perhaps for the best. Sirius wasn’t so lucky, receiving a Howler at breakfast which filled the Great Hall with echoing shrieks about how much he was disgracing the House of Black before he set it on fire to silence it. 

Remus stayed away from the Hufflepuffs for weeks after the incident, focused on fixing his friendships with the Marauders before trying to convince them that he could study with Lily and Severus without abandoning his real friends. It took some time, but the Gryffindors eventually came to an uneasy acceptance of Remus’s academic relationship with the Potioneers, and even more reluctantly his growing friendship with them. James and Sirius (and to a lesser extent Peter) would never lose their dislike for Severus, and it would be long years before James gave up on his unrequited love for Lily, but Remus began to slowly move away from those old rivalries. He drifted over time into an odd middle ground between his long standing Gryffindor friends and his newly found Hufflepuff study partners, and would remain balanced there, more or less, for several years.

After the excitement of Halloween weekend and the following days of turmoil, things settled back into a routine. The Hufflepuffs were kept more than busy with their many classes and the increasing workloads they brought with them, and before they knew it the winter holidays were upon them. Lily had worried that her parents might retract their invitation to Severus after the Hogsmeade incident, but her fears proved unfounded when Mrs. Evans wrote at the beginning of December to confirm that they were looking forward to seeing their “two favorite Hogwarts students” for Christmas. Severus had blushed when Lily showed the line to him, having never quite believed that his friend’s parents could really have liked him, no matter how much he and Lily had joked about it. Determined to do something to thank them, he begged Lily to help him figure out what to make her parents for a Christmas present. He had never gotten presents for his own parents, and they had generally given him practical things rather than anything fun, so he was unsure of the proper etiquette. 

Since coming to Hogwarts his presents to Lily for Christmases or birthdays had been little things he could make himself -- a rock from the edge of the lake that he had smoothed and polished with magic and then carved her initials into, or potions recipes that he had modified for her. After some consideration (and an unsuccessful attempt to convince Severus that he really didn’t have to get her parents anything, they wouldn’t be expecting it), Lily suggested something potions-based, so he could get most of the supplies from the student ingredients stores. She and Severus were usually able to complete their assigned potions work early, and Slughorn would hardly mind if they were brewing something else at the same time or after they finished their work. 

On the contrary, the Potions Master always seemed pleasantly impressed by the extra projects that the Hufflepuffs did in their spare time, and was unlikely to chastise his favorite students in the class. In the end, Severus presented Mr. and Mrs. Evans with a little first aid kit that he had made, consisting entirely of magical creams and potions intended to be applied topically, for those were the ones that could most easily be modified to work on non-magical people. They were delighted with the gift, gushing over it as well as Lily’s (also of a magical nature) enough to cause Petunia to storm off in a huff and refuse to speak to Severus or her sister for the entire remainder of the break. Neither particularly minded. 

Before long the break was at its end, and Mr. and Mrs. Evans drove Lily and Severus to the train station for their trip back to Hogwarts. They settled back into what had become their usual routine after the holidays, broken up by first Severus’s and then Lily’s birthdays, and then remaining fairly consistent until the arrival of spring break, and then again after it. As the winter stretched on, the Hufflepuffs stayed inside the castle as much as they could, venturing out only for Herbology lessons in the blissfully warm greenhouses and for Care of Magical Creatures when the weather was good enough. More than once that class was driven inside the castle by the weather, where Professor Kettleburn told stories of different magical creatures, most of which were too dangerous for practical lessons at their level anyway. Occasionally he brought in some animals which could be handled inside the classroom, with mixed results. As the class learned to their dismay, nifflers did not make good indoor pets, and one memorable afternoon was spent chasing the little beasts around the castle in an attempt to recapture them after Kettleburn’s earlier class left their cage unlatched. 

But their other courses were unaffected by the season, branching into more and more complex spells and charms and potions. Lily continued to outperform Severus (and everyone else) in Charms, and he maintained a slight edge in Potions, though they were both far enough ahead of most of their peers that Slughorn took serious notice. Lily found it amusing how the Potions Master fawned over Severus, in no small part because she could see that Severus found it just slightly irritating. If it had seriously bothered him she would have been upset, but as things stood it was rather entertaining to watch. Both Potioneers remained fascinated by everything they were learning in Runes and Arithmancy, and their study sessions with Remus were becoming highlights of the week. The Gryffindor boys had declared something of a temporary truce, still smarting from their punishments from the Hogsmeade incident and wary of drawing Professor McGonagall’s ire once more. The animosity between the two groups had reduced to a low simmer. James and Sirius, and Peter by association, certainly weren’t anything close to friends of Severus and Lily, but all of them tolerated the fact that Remus was associating with both groups, and they had settled into an uneasy peace. 

Spring break came and went, with Lily and Severus both deciding to stay at the school, and delighting in the fact that all of the Marauders had gone home (or in Sirius’s case, to James’s house). The Hufflepuffs roamed the castle, and took advantage of the slowly warming weather to sit out by the lake and watch the Whomping Willow attack passing birds. It felt good to get outside the castle, not only because of the weather. Hogwarts was filled with fifth and seventh years frantically studying for the OWL and NEWT exams, and sixth years panicking almost as much for their upcoming finals, and the aura of stress felt almost contagious. On the first days of break Severus and Lily had tried to go to the library, hoping to do some extracurricular research inspired by some topics mentioned briefly in a few of their classes, but fled to the safety of their common room when it became clear just how stressful an environment it had become. All too soon the other students returned, bringing with them a return to their own regularly scheduled classes and homework, though not much decrease in the stress levels of the castle.

Hogsmeade weekends passed by one after another, the final one taking place just before final exams. Neither the Potioneers nor the Marauders were permitted to go down to the village, though all were on their best behavior on those weekends when they were trapped inside the castle with the younger students. Professors McGonagall and Sprout informed them as the school year came to a close that their privileges would be reinstated in the Fall, with the warning that a single toe out of line the next time they were in Hogsmeade would result in a lifetime ban from the village, a threat the the wizardborn in particular took very seriously. The exams themselves, when they finally arrived after what felt like weeks of anticipation and studying, went very well. Severus and Lily were tied at the top of the class for both Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, and Remus shyly admitted that he had come in just behind them. For the other classes they were similarly near the top, with one occasionally overtaking the other, or tying with others in classes held jointly with the other Houses. 

The year that had started off somewhat eventfully had ended rather more calmly, and quite satisfactorily. In spite of the Potioneers’ lost points in the first half of the year, Hufflepuff had worked its way up to second place in the House Cup, though Gryffindor had made an even more miraculous comeback to take first, helped by an impressive Quidditch Cup win (and the fact that the Marauders had been fairly unobtrusive for much of the year). Final announcements were given and the end of year feast was eaten beneath banners of red and gold, and all too soon the students were making their way to Hogsmeade station to take the Hogwarts Express back towards the real world. Severus and Lily rode back together, in a compartment filled with their Hufflepuff housemates, cheerfully discussing summer plans, quidditch, and whatever else they could think of to pass the time. 

Remus didn’t stop by their compartment, staying instead in the area claimed by the Gryffindor boys, but he waved goodbye to the Hufflepuffs as they exited the train at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters and headed off to find their respective parents. Severus and Lily both returned the gesture, smiling at each other as they walked away. Perhaps they weren’t all quite friends yet, but it would certainly be inaccurate to say that things weren’t shifting in that direction. None of them could predict where their lives might be heading, but it was clear that the era of strict divisions between Marauders and Potioneers was coming to an end, and only time would tell what the future had in store for two Hufflepuffs and one Gryffindor.

Chapter Text

While third year had been a time of major changes both academically and socially, it was Severus and Lily’s hope that their fourth year at Hogwarts would prove to be as uneventful as their peaceful second year had been. After all, they would be taking the same classes as the previous year, with the same classmates, friends, and professors (except for Defense Against the Dark Arts, of course, for which they were expecting their fourth professor in as many years after ancient Professor Wythering was strongly encouraged to go back into retirement lest she risk traumatizing the children by suddenly dropping dead in front of them). It was not yet time to begin worrying about the OWL or NEWT exams, stresses better left alone until fifth year and beyond, and they had long since left behind all of the transitional angst of beginning school or even of starting new classes. No, this one would surely be a peaceful year, a normal year, and the Hufflepuffs were greatly looking forward to it. 

They met on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, full of excitement at seeing each other after a long summer apart, ,. This year it was Lily who arrived first, accompanied by her parents and a pouting Petunia, who had been forced to come along on the family outing despite her many protests. Lily looked around for Severus, finally spotting him coming through the barrier from the rest of the station and waving her arms around wildly to get his attention. 

“SEV! Over here!” 

His face lit up with a quick grin as he saw her and waved back, fighting his way through the crowd towards the Evanses as Petunia sniffed disdainfully at her sister’s antics. Lily immediately grabbed him in a hug as soon as he got within reach, startled to find that he had shot up several inches over the summer, making them now almost exactly the same height. They began chattering at each other, catching up as they worked their way towards the train. Lily’s parents trailed behind them, looking on fondly, while Petunia did her best to pretend she didn’t know any of them. Farewells were exchanged, and the Hufflepuffs scrambled onto the train and into an empty compartment, Lily continuing to wave to her family out the window even as the Hogwarts Express began to move away from the platform. The train picked up speed, hastening towards Hogwarts and the feast that awaited them there, and Severus and Lily settled in for the ride. 

Before too long, the train was pulling into Hogsmeade station, and the Potioneers disembarked with the rest of the students under the light of the brilliant full moon rising above the village. Neither gave it much thought at the time, though it would not be too long before they looked back on it with a rather different view towards its significance. It was not until the Sorting was completed and the feast well underway that Lily noticed that Remus Lupin was not seated with the other Marauders, with a second glance confirming that he wasn’t sitting anywhere else at the Gryffindor table either, though both she and Severus were too tired from travel to put much thought into the situation. By the time their first class with the Gryffindor boy came along a few days later, Remus was present and the Hufflepuffs had almost forgotten his earlier absence. Almost, but not quite. 

It would be early in that fourth year at Hogwarts that Lily and Severus would begin to seriously wonder about Remus and his mysterious absences. Before their third year there had been little reason for them to notice his supposed illnesses or their timing, or, frankly, any reason for the Badgers to care. At the time they had attended only Herbology together, and he had missed only a few of their joint classes, for with the complex course schedules Herbology certainly did not always fall out on the full moon. The Hufflepuffs had always been vaguely aware that Remus was a somewhat sickly and pale sort of boy, but had thought little of it at the time. In third year his absences from class became more noticeable; with four overlapping courses it would have been hard for them to miss, particularly when the three students began to spend more time studying together outside of class. But they weren’t friends even in third year, and there was no reason to assume that he wasn’t in the Hospital Wing or in his own dormitory suffering from some legitimate mundane injury or illness. As the study partnership evolved into a sort of friendship by the end of third year, Lily and Severus had begun to take more notice and become more suspicious about Remus, and by the beginning of fourth year they were formulating theories. 

With the addition of the newest evidence, a night when they had seen a full moon and knew that Remus had not been at the feast, the werewolf theory was inevitably thrown around, though both Severus and Lily felt that it was a bit of a stretch. It seemed highly unlikely that in a world so clearly full of prejudice the school board would allow a werewolf to go to Hogwarts. They would continue to go back and forth about the issue, but ultimately came to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t worth spending too much energy wondering about it. After all, even if Remus were a werewolf, then clearly allowing him to attend Hogwarts wasn’t a terrible and dangerous idea. He had obviously never attacked anyone at school (they were quite sure even Dumbledore couldn’t cover something like that up), and if he wasn’t a werewolf then whatever real reasons he had for missing class were none of their business. And, as Lily commented to Severus on more than one occasion, just because some people felt the need to constantly stick their noses into other people’s business and butt in where they weren’t wanted, didn’t mean that they had to do it too. 

There was never much doubt about whom she was referring, for James Potter had grown no less interested in Lily over the summer apart, and indeed it sometimes seemed that he was growing even more determined to win her over. Perhaps it should have come as no surprise, given that more than a few of the fourth years were beginning to make more serious forays into the world of teenage romance (with varying success rates), but that did nothing to make it less irritating to either Lily or Severus. To make matters worse, fourth year brought with it new opportunities to force interactions between the Marauders and Potioneers, making it ever more difficult for Lily to simply ignore her would-be suitor. While the Defence Against the Dark Arts course at Hogwarts was traditionally separated by House, the newest professor had requested permission to teach two Houses at a time, as part of a well-intentioned attempt to promote inter-house unity among the student body. As the earnest young professor explained to the amused Headmaster at his interview, when better than a time of growing unrest to encourage teamwork and unity? 

To Professor McGonagall’s dismay (for as Deputy Headmistress, it would inevitably fall on her to handle the sudden rearrangement of the entire Hogwarts course schedule), Professor Dumbledore greeted the plan with enthusiasm, and gave the newest member of the staff free rein with scheduling and lesson planning. Considering that Koalemus Rosenbrylle had been the only applicant for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position that year, putting up with a bit of grumbling from the rest of the teachers seemed a small price to pay, and schedules were rearranged to allow for the combined classes. When it came time to choose which Houses were to be paired, Professor Rosenbrylle had, not unreasonably, assumed that Hufflepuff/Gryffindor and Slytherin/Ravenclaw would be safe combinations (for while he might have been a little more enthusiastic and high-spirited than other members of the faculty, he wasn’t entirely a fool) and requested the classes be assigned accordingly. 

He would come to regret that decision by the end of a term of wrangling the fourth-year Hufflepuff-Gryffindor class, but was afraid of irritating Professor McGonagall any further after her clear exasperation at having to rearrange the schedule for him at the beginning of the term. He forced himself to soldier on until the end of the year, at which point he would promptly turn in his resignation, retire from teaching entirely, and spend the remainder of his career in a research laboratory with a spell on the door to keep out anyone under the age of 25. It didn’t help that “The Koala” (as the students universally came to call the man) attempted to promote inter-House unity by requiring his students to pair up with students of other Houses in class whenever partners were required, with mixed results. While some students eagerly teamed up with friends from other Houses, and a few did form new friendships as a result of the exercise, others were less than pleased with the arrangement. 

Among the fourth-years, James, unsurprisingly, jumped at the chance to work with Lily. She did her best to avoid him, pairing up with one or another of the Gryffindor girls, or even Remus, but James, undiscouraged, managed to get them assigned to the same group on occasion. Sirius initially grumbled at having to work with someone other than James, but got over his disappointment rather quickly after one of the more attractive ladies of Hufflepuff shyly asked to be his study partner on the second day of class. Severus, never terribly interested in making new friends on his own, suffered through a week or two of being paired with whatever random Gryffindors happened to be available, growing more and more irritated every day. After one particularly difficult day of watching Severus struggle with a partner who would rather gaze dreamily at Professor Rosenbrylle than actually pay attention (leading her to almost set Severus’s robes on fire three times in one lesson, despite the lecture not even being about fire spells), an exasperated Lily enlisted Remus to work with him. 

“If Sev has to work another day with Cecelia Drake, I think the only question will be who he decides to murder first, her or the Koala! Won’t you please help? I know you don’t really want to keep working with Marcus, I heard you complaining about him to Potter on the way out of class yesterday.”

Remus raised an eyebrow at her, the effect ruined slightly by the fact that his other eyebrow didn’t quite stay still (he had been practicing, but he still couldn’t do it as well as Severus could). “He hasn’t asked me himself, how do you know Severus won’t find me just as annoying as Cecelia?”

“Oh please,” Lily laughed, “Sev stopped being annoyed by you at least six months ago. I bet if you give it a few more years he might even realize that you’re friends. But you know how bad he is at asking for help...”

“Alright, alright, no need to twist my arm, only a monster would abandon a friend to Cecelia’s bad aim,” Remus grinned and Lily smiled back as Severus made his way over to the library table where they were sitting. The Hufflepuff raised his eyebrow quizzically at his clearly conspiring friends, causing Lily to burst out laughing as she recognized the expression that Remus had been attempting only a few minutes before. Lily tried to regain her composure, but lost it completely when Remus gave her an identical questioning look. As she tried to explain between her giggles, the boys started to grin as well when they noticed each other's expressions, and soon all three were laughing hysterically as they fled the library under Madam Pince’s watchful glare, almost forgetting to grab their books in their haste.      

Though Defense Against the Dark Arts was the course that had changed the most since the previous year, it was not the only class where things were beginning to feel a little different. For years Lily and Severus had been made aware of Professor Slughorn’s habit of singling out favorite students, noting the ones that he thought showed the most promise and offering advice and opportunities. Up until this point they had mostly noticed it within the context of Potions class itself, but that began to change as they entered their fourth year. For it was to fourth year students that Professor Slughorn first offered his invitations to meetings and dinner parties of his so-called “Slug Club,” much coveted invitations which were denied to the younger students. For the sort of students who had been actively hoping for such an invitation, and trying to get the Potions Master to notice them, the early days and weeks of the semester were spent waiting with bated breath for the first event of the year. Severus, who often found the old professor’s attention to be more irritating than useful, was more resigned than enthusiastic when Slughorn stopped him and Lily on the way out of class one afternoon to inform them that he was having a “little get together” the following night and would be delighted to see them there. Lily was more optimistic. 

“It might be fun! Slughorn does have interesting things to say when he isn’t too busy fawning over someone’s random relative, and I’m sure the food will be good.”

“Sure,” Severus agreed, “Slughorn is fine, just nod and smile and he’ll wander off to bother someone else instead. The real question is how many of our useless, annoying, and boring classmates will be going too?” 

To that Lily had no answer, though they would both find out soon enough, much to their dismay. When the pair of Hufflepuffs arrived at that first soiree one lovely fall evening, they found that, in addition to an assortment of older students, the dinner was attended by both James and Sirius. To add insult to injury, Remus, who by this point had been officially upgraded in Severus’s book from “the only vaguely tolerable Marauder” to “a solid study partner, and pretty decent to hang out with too,” was nowhere to be found. Lily, who would even have gone so far as to call the Gryffindor boy “a very good friend,” was particularly disappointed not to see Remus there, though she couldn’t have said exactly why. Considering how abysmal the boy was at Potions, and the fact that he had no famous relations to endear him to Slughorn, it perhaps should not have been a surprise that Remus had not been invited, but his absence was sorely missed by the two Hufflepuffs. 

The evening quickly went from tolerable to mildly unpleasant when Severus and Sirius were forced to sit next to each other at the meal, though Lily was at least spared the ordeal of having to sit with James. The boys managed to avoid any physical violence during the meal, though they came close a time or two, sticking instead to pointed comments and the occasional whispered insult. Both were at least attempting to be on their best behavior and not make too much of a fuss in front of the older students and Professor Slughorn, though whether out of an actual desire not to get thrown out or only for appearances sake would be hard to say. Whatever each boy’s motivation, both made it through the meal uninjured, though the truce (such as it was) lasted only until Care of Magical Creatures class the next day. 

It was difficult to reconstruct exactly how the fight had started, as most of the possible witnesses had been focused on their work and the remainder couldn’t be considered remotely objective in their defense of their respective friends. Certainly by the time Professor Kettleburn broke things up, both Severus and Sirius had gotten in their fair share of minor hexes, and James was sent to the Hospital Wing with a sprained ankle from stumbling over his own feet as he rushed to his friend’s aid (or, in his telling of the story, from being purposefully tripped by a bystander). Any other teacher would no doubt have sent both boys to detention, but easy-going Kettleburn simply docked a few points each and reminded them not to upset the creatures, and that was that, for the moment. 

Between Slug Club meetings, minor (and slightly more major) altercations with the Marauders, lessons, homework, study sessions with Remus, and all the other drama and excitement that goes along with being fourteen years old, the fall term passed quickly for Lily and Severus. Halloween passed uneventfully, and any potential awkwardness over which group of friends Remus should spend time with at the first Hogsmeade weekend was avoided when the Gryffindor boy “happened to fall ill” that weekend. Severus speculated that he might be faking to avoid the sort of confrontation that had lost both Marauders and Potioneers their Hogsmeade privileges the year before, though Lily pointed out that it wouldn’t be very Gryffindor of him to hide in his room to avoid a fight, or very Remus of him to give up a chance to buy himself chocolate. As the Hufflepuffs walked back towards the castle that evening under the light of a glowing full moon, they both deliberately avoided bringing up the werewolf theory; it was a topic they had already discussed to death without coming to any consensus, and there was no point rehashing the same conversation if they weren’t going to do anything about it. Remus would be back in class on Monday, looking perhaps a little paler than usual, and that would be the end of that, at least until the next month. 

Soon the end of the term approached, with final assignments, Christmas vacation, and visits home looming ahead for good or for ill. Lily’s excitement grew with every passing day. Her mother had written to say that Petunia had decided to spend most of her holiday with friends, and Lily had talked Severus into coming home with her again. Lily anticipated having a wonderful time, and there was Slughorn’s Christmas Party to look forward to even before that. She had never been to a real formal party before, and all the rumors suggested that Professor Slughorn intended to go all out with his event. The second Hogsmeade weekend of the year fell shortly before the end of term, and Lily abandoned Severus for the morning to go shopping for dress robes with a gaggle of girlfriends. 

The shopping expedition was apparently a success, though Lily refused to show Severus the gown she had picked out, saying that he would simply have to wait and see on the night of the party. She helped him pick out his robes, though, after he threatened to simply show up in his Hogwarts uniform. Lily tried to convince him to let her buy him a fancy new set as a Christmas present, and might have succeeded if Severus hadn’t spotted James and Sirius entering the tailor’s shop as they approached, with Peter and Remus trailing behind. At that point he flat out refused to even consider getting the sort of robes that rich snobs like Potter and Black might wear, and led an exasperated Lily to the secondhand shop down the street to look for something there, Lily muttering about boys and their stupid pride all the way. 

Dress robes and dates. Those, as the frantic activity of those lucky few who had secured an invitation to Slughorn’s party would attest, were considered the two must-haves for the event. Among the older students, those sixth and seventh years who were already quite entangled in the game of finding a partner that so often drives teenagers to madness, acquiring a date was quite crucial. In the eyes of many of those students, to appear alone at such a party was to declare to all and sundry that you had no romantic prospects at all, and even attending with a friend might reflect upon your social status. Among the younger set, particularly the fourth years who were only just now beginning their tentative forays into the Hogwarts dating scene, it was still social suicide to attend alone, but taking a friend rather than a romantic partner was not at all unusual or frowned upon. Despite this, there were always some 4th years who took such an occasion as an opportunity to appear in public with their significant other of the moment, or to make dramatic declarations of love to an unsuspecting crush. 

Unsurprisingly, James, who was always a romantic at heart, fell into the latter category. He ambushed Lily one afternoon only a few days before the party. He didn’t quite go down on one knee in the corridor (cooler heads, namely Remus, had nixed that idea at the frantic brainstorming session held in Gryffindor Tower the night before), but he had come prepared with a bouquet of roses. He tried to give her the flowers while delivering an impassioned speech declaring his love and requesting her fair company at Slughorn’s fete, but Lily had had enough. Level refusals and renewed pleas quickly devolved into shouting on both sides (though admittedly Lily hadn’t started off particularly calm, so it wasn’t so much of an escalation on her part). A small crowd of onlookers began to gather, students on their way between classes drawn by the noise. Some simply stopped to watch the drama unfold, while others prepared to take sides in a fight if one broke out. 

Several of the Hufflepuff girls standing with Lily were already drawing their wands, and James and Peter seemed only moments away from doing so as well. Remus, faced with the exact situation that he had predicted and tried to convince James to avoid, seemed more resigned than anything, trying to talk his friend down from the fight. Severus’s wand was within easy reach up his sleeve, but he didn’t bother drawing it; Lily seemed content to stick to a verbal duel rather than a magical one, and he knew she was more than capable of hexing Potter herself if she changed her mind. Perhaps things might have escalated to the point of violence, with jinxes cast or punches thrown, if it weren’t for the appearance of several prefects walking down the hall. They broke up the crowd, shooing everyone away down the corridors and reminding them that they certainly had better things to do than stand in the hall gawking. Lily took advantage of the distraction to stalk off in a huff, tossing her brilliant red hair over her shoulder as she went. Lily’s girlfriends hurried after her, commiserating about how silly and impulsive boys could be.

James watched her go for a moment, flouncing down the hall with her friends, then turned away with a sigh. Sirius clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look.

“Bad luck, mate, I really thought the flowers would do it. Maybe next time.”

“I just can’t see what I’m doing wrong! She has to know I like her by now, right? Why wouldn’t she want to come to the party with me? You don’t think she’s planning on going with Snivellus, do you?!” James sounded horrified by the idea, and Sirius’s expression mirrored his tone. 

Remus just sighed, exchanging a rueful look with Severus across the hall before the Hufflepuff turned away to follow Lily. Remus watched the group of Hufflepuffs making their way down the corridor, more than half wishing that he was walking away with them instead of having to listen to James and Sirius’s increasingly wild discussions about what the Gryffindor had done wrong and what he should do now to find a date in time for the party. Sirius seemed to be in favor of finding any random pair of girls and asking them as a double date, but heartsick James refused to accept any substitutes for the girl of his dreams. The boys started to walk back towards their common room, still analyzing the situation. Remus fell into step with the rest of the Marauders, tuning back into the conversation just in time to shoot down James’s plan to ask Lily out again the next day. 

“Why don’t we all just go as a group?” Remus finally suggested. “Sirius can take Peter, and I’ll go with James, and nobody has to ask out any other girls. It’ll give things time to settle down.” 

The other boys agreed, after some playful bickering over how they should pair up. Remus relaxed, glad that the crisis had been solved for the time being, and wondered idly what Lily was going to wear to the party. Not that it mattered, of course, but he was sure she would look even more beautiful all dressed up than she did every day in her school robes. That night Remus dreamed of dancing with Lily, laughing with her hair swirling around her like glowing flames, then of Severus and James taking turns hexing him while Lily stood by and watched. 

In spite of all the chaos leading up to the party (or perhaps because of it), the day of the party itself was not overly eventful. At the allotted time the members of the Slug Club and their guests made their way to Professor Slughorn’s office, finding the room full of dazzling lights, music, and food. The four Marauders appeared together, though Sirius would split his time between staying with his friends and attempting to dance with as many pretty girls as possible (and more than a few cute boys as well). The other three boys stayed mostly to the side, talking and eating instead of taking to the dance floor. James was still smarting from his latest rejection from Lily, and had little interest in dancing with any of the other girls present. He had hoped that Lily might come to the party alone, and that he might have a chance to ask her to dance as she sat abandoned at the side of the room, but those dreams were soon dashed once more when Lily and Severus arrived together. 

The two Hufflepuffs had met in their common room and walked up to the party together. Severus had grumbled a bit about going, not being one for big crowds and raucous parties, but Lily had asked him to, and he always had a hard time saying no when she made those bright green puppy dog eyes at him. He had begun to second guess that decision, waiting in the common room for Lily to come out. There were other Hufflepuff couples meeting up at the same time, and other dressed up students heading out to meet dates from other Houses, all of them walking arm-in-arm, a few kissing when they thought no one was watching (or when they knew everyone was). Severus wasn’t worried that Lily would expect anything like that; they were friends, best friends, but he certainly wasn’t interested in snogging her like that. And while he was pretty sure she knew it too, he did wonder if everyone else would assume they were dating after this, and how much annoyance that might bring with it. But those doubts were pushed aside when Lily came into the room, looking even more beautiful than usual, and flashed him a brilliant smile, which Severus couldn’t help but return. They could deal with any consequences later. For tonight, they were just two best friends walking hand in hand, ready to spend time together and dance the night away. 

Their entrance at the party was not a dramatic one, just slipping through the door together, along with a few other students arriving at the same time. But it did not go unnoticed by James or Remus, both of whom commented (one out loud, one only in his head) just how stunning Lily looked. She seemed almost to be glowing with happiness, giggling as she pulled a reluctant Severus onto the dance floor. James had eyes only for Lily, though Remus noted with surprise that Severus was not a half-bad dancer, if not quite as enthusiastic as his partner (a skill which had been just as surprising to the Hufflepuff boy himself). Despite James’s grumbling, even he realized that it would be a bad idea to hex Severus in the middle of the party, or to go ask Lily to dance (which would likely lead to a similar result), and contented himself with pining from the sidelines. The other Marauders did their best to distract him from the situation, some intentionally and others by simply being their entertaining selves. At the end of the night it was Sirius who forced them to flee the party, chased out by Antonia Primrose’s date, a big sixth year boy who did not appreciate Sirius kissing his (possibly now ex) girlfriend. Severus and Lily left shortly after, Severus having exhausted his social battery for the day (or possibly for the whole year, to hear him tell it).     

The last few days before break passed quickly, with students either too exhausted from their studies or too excited by the prospect of going home to cause any trouble. When the day finally arrived, the entire student body boarded the Hogwarts Express back to London. Most were going to see their own families, though a few would be spending the holidays with their friends’ families. Severus was going home with Lily, looking forward to spending time with her parents and more than a little excited that Petunia wouldn’t be there to bother them. After several years of practice, he no longer felt any guilt or regret over avoiding his own parents for the holidays. Sirius was likewise escaping from his own troubled home life and overbearing parents, staying with the Potters for break. The time flew by faster than any of them expected, and before they knew it it was time to get back on the train for the return to Hogwarts. 

Indeed, it seemed as though most of the drama of the year had been used up in the first term, and the rest of the school year passed without much additional excitement. Professor Rosenbrylle’s Defence Against the Dark Arts class was still as much of a disaster as it had always been, though the sympathetic student might admit that he wasn’t actually a terrible teacher, but rather a decent one with some very misplaced enthusiasm for a few bad pedagogical practices. The other classes, with established professors who had no need to work out any major kinks in their teaching styles, ran much more smoothly, though the fourth years noticed that their workloads were beginning to increase. The professors claimed it was good practice for the OWL classes that they would be taking the following year, and perhaps they were right, but most of the students would have been happy to forgo the extra hours spent studying in the library or toiling over essays in their common rooms. Before long, spring break arrived, somehow managing to feel like a shock both in its earliness and lateness (“We just had winter break, didn’t we? But now you’re telling me we’ve only got a few months left until summer?!”). By that point even the most studious of students were feeling the toll of the extra assignments, and few bothered to go home for the break. 

The next few months also sped by in a cycle of classwork, homework, studying, and the occasional feuding and dueling between rival friend groups. There were some sanctioned breaks to the monotony as well, such as Hogsmeade weekends, Slug Club parties, and quidditch games (for the people that liked those sorts of things), but by and large the year simply flowed along. Perhaps the greatest excitement of that year, at least for four Gryffindor boys, was the Marauders’ eventual success at becoming animagi shortly before the summer began. It had been an ongoing project, originally in theory and later in practice, for the last several years, practically since the day the other boys discovered Remus’s “furry little problem,” as James called it. Severus and Lily were unaware of this, and would remain unaware of the animal alter egos of the Gryffindor boys for several years. By this time the two Hufflepuffs were becoming ever more convinced of the “Remus is a werewolf” theory, but would choose to ignore it for a while longer rather than confront him. 

When summer arrived, the students boarded the Hogwarts Express once more, chattering about their vacation plans or arguing about who would be the next Defence Against the Dark Arts professor now that Koala Rosenbrylle was leaving (or “fleeing” as the less charitable might say). Severus and Lily parted ways at Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, with a last wave from Severus to Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who had come to pick up their daughter. Petunia was nowhere to be seen, for which Severus tried and failed to fein disappointment. Mr. and Mrs. Snape were likewise conspicuously absent, having decided that their son was old enough to find his own way back home through muggle means; Mrs. Snape had sent a hurriedly scribbled note to that effect several days before. 

Farther down the platform Remus, who had stopped by the Hufflepuff compartment on the train to say goodbye, was reuniting with his mother while his father stood stiffly by her side, looking more worried than pleased to see his son. Nearby, Peter Pettigrew’s mother hugged her son, and James’s parents laughed and smiled as they reunited with theirs. Mrs. Black was there to collect both her sons; Regulus received a hug from his mother, but she and Sirius were already arguing as they left the platform. Only three days later Sirius would leave his parents’ house for the last time, finding refuge at the Potters’. Six children, six teenagers, Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, friends and enemies, each going their different ways, living their different lives, but perhaps more similar than some of them would like to admit. Times were changing, and war was coming, and none of them could say how they might change along with it.

Chapter Text

It was a gray and chilly day, hinting at the rapidly approaching autumn, when the students of Hogwarts gathered to board the train at the start of the new school year. The gloomy weather mirrored the feelings of some of the children, facing the end of their summer freedom and a return to the toils of academia, though there was plenty of excitement and anticipation there as well, particularly among the younger students. Among some of the older ones, and many of the parents who had come to see their children off, there was worry as well. There were growing concerns about the increasingly unstable state of the wizarding world and those who threatened it. There had been attacks that summer, still few and sporadic, but increasing in frequency as the followers of the self-styled Lord Voldemort increased in number and influence. Parents spoke about it in whispers on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, and older students discussed it as they settled into their compartments on the train, trying to keep their voices low to avoid concerning their younger schoolmates.

Anyone could see that things were not quite what they had been even as recently as the spring before, though much of the enthusiasm and joyful reunions that usually filled the station on September first were still present, if perhaps slightly muted. Parents still fussed over their eleven-year-olds going away to school for the first time and friends still ran up to each other chattering about all their exciting adventures over the break. First years still anxiously searched for familiar faces and seventh years still reminisced together about school years of the past and marveled that this would be their last train ride to Hogwarts.

James and Sirius arrived on the platform together, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Potter. James had been persuaded not to put on his shiny new quidditch captain badge until he changed into his robes, but made no secret of his position, loudly discussing new game strategies with Sirius. His behavior was only partly due to ego, though. Mrs. Black was visibly fussing over Regulus farther down the platform, and James was also hoping to distract his best friend from the scene. Sirius was doing a reasonably good impression of his usual carefree attitude, but his laughter sounded a little forced and he occasionally glanced towards his family before quickly looking away. The arrival of Remus wearing a Gryffindor prefect's badge prompted a more natural grin, as well as some good natured teasing of the most studious and well-behaved of the Marauders.

Remus wasn't the only one to become a prefect that year, nor even the only one of his friends. To no one's surprise, Lily had been named the new Hufflepuff girls' prefect. She had been very excited to find out, immediately sending Severus a letter by muggle mail to share the news. Severus, much to his own relief, was passed over for the role of prefect; the job had gone instead to Marcus Smith, a slightly pompous boy but not a bad fit for the job. Severus was quite content to avoid any requirement to interact with the younger students, though he was happy for Lily. The two Hufflepuffs met up at the train station as had become their tradition, with Lily's parents looking on in fond amusement as the teenagers for once managed an enthusiastic hug without knocking over themselves or their luggage. The pair said their goodbyes to the Evanses, gathered up their things, and made their way onto the train.

Lily's new role required her to attend a meeting in the prefects' compartment of the train at the start of the trip, but she planned to leave her things with Severus and rejoin him later in the journey. The pair ran into Remus as they made their way along the train; he had left the Marauders to find their own compartment while he met with the other prefects. Neither Lily nor Severus was terribly shocked to see that Remus had landed the Gryffindor prefectship, and he was equally unsurprised to see Lily's badge, though he had wrongly guessed that Severus might have gotten one as well. Congratulations were shared all around, an empty compartment was located, and Remus and Lily set off down the train together in search of the Head Boy and Girl. Severus was left alone with his and Lily's belongings, and his thoughts. He was happy for Remus, maybe even as much as he had been for Lily, as odd as it was to realize. Severus had grown fond of the Gryffindor boy in the two or so years that they had been studying together and had begun to think of him as a friend, perhaps even his best friend other than Lily (though he would not have admitted it to anyone but her). There was still no love lost between Severus and the other Gryffindor boys, though, and the Hufflepuff dared to hope that Remus might be more successful at reigning in the other Marauders with his new authority.

With both his friends busy with their prefect duties, Severus pulled out a book to read as the train began to pick up speed. It was a worn copy of a work on Ancient Runes, focusing on practical applications for healing and defensive magics. Severus had noticed the battered old volume in a secondhand shop when he went to pick up his new textbooks for the year, and used most of his hard-earned pocket money to buy it. He had just selected a fascinating chapter on shielding runes used in ancient tombs and treasure vaults when a knock came at the door to the compartment. Expecting to see one of his friends, or at the very least another student, Severus was surprised to see an adult witch enter in response to his "come in." She was fairly young by grown-up standards, though clearly too old to be a student, and was slightly out of breath as if she'd had to run to jump onto the train as it pulled away from the station. She grinned sheepishly at Severus, running her fingers through windswept shoulder-length black hair in a futile attempt to tame it.

"Sorry for barging in like this, I'd forgotten how difficult it is to find a seat when you don't show up an hour early. Mind if I join you?" She waited for Severus's nod before throwing what looked like a muggle hiking backpack up onto the luggage rack and sitting down across from him. "I'm Diana - er, Professor Arratay, that is. Damn, that's going to be hard to get used to."

Understanding dawned on Severus. "You're the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

Professor Arratay sighed dramatically. "For my sins, Professor Dumbledore has coerced me away from my passion and life's work to wrangle a bunch of teenagers who no doubt would rather do literally anything other than listen to me teach. But alas, such is life."

Severus snorted with laughter at her clearly affected pompous tone, tried to cover it up with a fake coughing fit, then gave up when he spotted the young professor's grin.

"So, now that we've confirmed that I have no sense of proper professorial decorum, what's your name?"

"Oh, right. Severus Snape. Fifth year." Severus managed the introduction without too much trouble, desperately hoping that he wouldn't have to engage in boring small talk for too long. Though the professor seemed decidedly unboring so far, he had found that many grown ups seemed to think kids couldn't handle a real conversation about anything interesting. His fears were quickly put to rest, though, when Arratay instead began asking him questions about his book, leading to a lively discussion about Ancient Runes. Severus quickly learned that the older witch had trained as a Cursebreaker at Gringotts and was well versed in the kind of defensive runes that he had been reading about. He was fascinated by stories she told about reworking existing rune arrays for new purposes, already thinking of ways the concepts could be applied to creating entirely new spells. Arratay admitted that that was not something she had much theoretical background in, but it was clear that she was genuinely intrigued by the idea.

Lily returned part way through the journey, her surprise at finding an adult sitting with Severus in the compartment quickly forgotten as she was drawn into the conversation as well. By the time the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station at Hogsmeade and professor and students made their separate ways up to the castle, the Hufflepuffs were sure that Professor Arratay would be the best Defense teacher they had ever had. She had refused to "spoil the surprise" by telling them the topic for the first lesson of the year, but they were sure it would be interesting. It was obvious that she knew what she was doing, which was already infinitely better than some of the professors they had had in the past four years. Arratay had mentioned offhandedly that she herself was considered an expert duelist as well as a Cursebreaker, and Severus was hoping that she might focus on dueling in class (a subject which none of their other Defense professors had covered at length).

Severus and Lily spent most of the Sorting Feast continuing their discussions from the train, though Lily devoted some time to trying to make the newest additions to Hufflepuff feel welcome. By the time the Headmaster officially introduced Professor Arratay at the end of the Feast, word had been spread around the Hufflepuff table by the Potioneers just how interesting a teacher she was, and they greeted Dumbledore's announcement with loud applause. At the head table, Arratay noticed her train companions at the center of the enthusiastic clapping and shot them a wink and a grin. The pair of Hufflepuffs grinned back, entirely unembarrassed by their antics. The rest of the start of year announcements went as usual, and the hordes of Hogwarts students rose from their seats and began to make their way to their various common rooms. As a prefect, Lily helped take charge of the first year Hufflepuffs, trying to shepherd them into a line (or at least a slightly more coherent gaggle) and lead them out of the Great Hall. Severus held back, not interested in fighting his way through the mob. Across the room he could see Remus at the head of a line of little Gryffindors, and gave him a quick wave when he saw the prefect looking towards him. There was no point in trying to do any more, not with a crowd between them and the other Marauders standing nearby, but they would see each other in classes soon enough.

And indeed, when schedules were handed around the next morning at breakfast, Lily and Severus found that their first class of the day was Ancient Runes, where they could work with Remus without any interference from his other friends. Severus was a little disappointed to see that they wouldn't have Professor Arratay until the following afternoon, but double Potions on the first day of school made for an excellent consolation prize. There was always a certain excitement to the beginning of the year, returning to classes after a long break with a newly refreshed desire to learn, a sense of getting back into a good routine. After four years at Hogwarts, Lily and Severus had a pretty good sense of what to expect in all their classes and how their different professors liked to teach. Even their electives had become familiar after two full years, and the subjects were no longer as strange and mysterious as they had been on the first day of third year. The one wildcard, of course, was always Defense Against the Dark Arts. With its constantly changing cast of professors, none lasting more than a single year, each Fall brought with it the potential for disaster, or the potential for greatness. After their time with her on the Hogwarts Express, Severus and Lily were both expecting great things from Professor Arratay's class, and they would not be disappointed.

The Gryffindors were the first class of fifth years to have Defense that year, but Remus refused to tell Lily and Severus anything about it when they met in the library that night to go over their Runes homework. Despite Severus's many pleas, the Gryffindor would only say that it was an excellent class and they would have to wait and see, all the while trying to hide his grin at the Hufflepuff boy's increasingly annoyed expression. Even Lily, herself almost as desperate to hear about the class as Severus, had to giggle at the adorably grumpy face that her friend was making. Eventually they settled down to work. Their professors all seemed determined to make it clear how much harder OWLs year would be by loading them up with homework even on the first day of classes, and Runes was no exception. After a while Remus apologetically said his "good nights" and excused himself to go back to Gryffindor Tower; he had promised to meet the Marauders to study with them too. Lily watched him go, feeling a sense of disappointment as he walked away. They would see each other again tomorrow in Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures (scheduled back to back this year, so they would spend the entire morning on the grounds). But his friends would be there so she would barely be able to even speak to Remus then, and more likely than not James or Sirius would do something stupid and start a fight and land them all in detention again. Or worse, the hospital wing. She sighed a little, and Severus looked up questioningly from his essay.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. No. I don't know;" she answered, not very coherently. "I just wish we didn't have to always sneak around to hang out with Remus. I miss him when he's not here."

She felt her cheeks heat up a little when she said it and hoped Severus wouldn't notice. If he did, he didn't comment on it. He just leaned over to hug her and quietly said "I know, I do too."

Lily hugged him back tightly; at least she always had Sev.

The next afternoon Severus was practically vibrating with excitement as he and Lily made their way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom after lunch, along with the rest of the fifth year Hufflepuffs. Their morning classes had gone well since the Marauders had been kept too busy for mischief, and now Severus was finally going to see whether Professor Arratay was as interesting in a classroom as she had been on the train. The Hufflepuffs began filing into the room, barely having time to notice that their professor apparently wasn't there before the door suddenly slammed shut and the lights went out. More than one student screamed in surprise or fear; with the windows covered, the room had gone completely dark. Or almost completely, for the darkness was immediately broken by jets of orange light as spells shot towards the area where most of the students had been standing. Chaos broke out in the room, shouts of "get down," "scatter," and simply "help!" echoing through the space. Some students ran or hid, tripping over the desks and chairs scattered about the room, those closest to the door trying and failing to get it open. A few were hit immediately by spells and fell silent. In the darkness it was difficult to say what exactly had happened to them. Lily and Severus had been among the first to enter the room, and had been partway across the floor when the lights went out, rather than clustered by the door like some of their fellows. It was this stroke of luck, or enthusiasm to get to class, that spared them from the initial round of spells aimed towards the door.

They ducked down behind a desk, but almost immediately realized that staying put would not be a viable strategy when another spell hit right next to them, barely missing Severus. He managed to roll out of the way just in time, crashing into Lily in the process.

"Sorry!"

"It's fine, we need to move! Should we split up?" Lily whispered, detangling herself from her friend and pulling him along as she crawled towards what she was pretty sure was the side of the classroom.

"No, probably safer together. Look! She's on the move." Severus pointed, then felt like an idiot when he realized that if he couldn't see his own hand then Lily couldn't either. They could see that the spells were coming from a different part of the classroom now; the flashes of light made it harder for their eyes to adjust to the dark but stood out like beacons on their own.

"They look like color changing spells, probably overpowered enough to knock people over. Maybe we should shoot back. There aren't so many students left, she'll come after us eventually."

Lily had mentally flipped through her repertoire of spells and come to the sudden realization that she had never learned any shielding spells. Severus was coming to the same conclusion. They both knew some defensive runes, but nothing that they could use in a hurry in the dark. Severus grinned. "They do say the best defense is a good offense. Looks like she's by the back wall now. We'll have to get a bit closer."

They kept low, fumbling their way between desks and over other students lying on the floor. After a quiet count of three, they jumped apart from each other and began shooting color-changing charms at the approximate location of their professor. Lily thought she heard a soft "ouch" coming from that direction, but that didn't stop Arratay from hitting her with a returning spell and knocking her over. A moment later the lights suddenly turned on, revealing the carnage. All of the students were on the floor, and as they cautiously stood up it became clear that the professor had in fact been using a variation on a color charm: every single student's robes had been turned bright orange. Lily spotted Severus a little ways away, looking in disgust at his own orange robes and shaking his head. Professor Arratay, standing by the door, had a few splotches of different colors on her own clothing, and a smile on her face.

"Well, that wasn't too bad for your first surprise attack! Almost 7 minutes to the last one down. Quite a few of you tried to work together too, much better than some of my other classes, though I suppose I should expect that from Hufflepuff House." She started walking to the front of the room as she spoke, waving her wand and de-oranging each student as she passed.

"Now then. I am Professor Arratay, usually a Cursebreaker at Gringotts. I'm on loan to Hogwarts for the year to teach you all a bit about defending yourselves. Shall we start with a discussion of our little opening exercise?" She reached the teacher's desk and turned to look at the students.

They had mostly gotten themselves into their own seats by this point, though only a few had gotten themselves together enough to start pulling out parchment and quills to take notes. Many still looked confused, trying to process the experience of getting hexed by their professor on the first day of class, while a couple looked upset or even angry. Lily and Severus, having regained their seats, were more excited than anything else. Lily would grumble a bit that it would have been more fair to at least tell them what they were allowed to do before starting the exercise, and even Severus agreed with that. But once the shock wore off it would all seem like a brilliant trick, and a good way of showing just how much they had left to learn about defense against other wizards. As Professor Arratay began to talk about strategy and self-awareness and how important it was to realize what you didn't know while you still had a chance to fix it, she had the students' full attention, and would keep it for the rest of the year.

Practice duels and war games intended to mimic attacks without hurting anyone too badly became a regular part of Defense Against the Dark Arts classes. As the year went on, students grew ever more prepared for surprise attacks launched by their professor at random times during lecture, in addition to their usual class work or hands-on spells practice. Ironically, Professor Arratay quickly became a favorite not only of Severus (and to a slightly lesser extent Lily), but also of the Marauders. James and Sirius in particular idolized her. Both Gryffindor boys hoped to become Aurors when they graduated, and absorbed any and all fighting tricks that the professor mentioned.

Severus was less interested in the melee fighting or strategies for large teams, preferring the elegance of a one-on-one or doubles duel. Truthfully, the more the Hufflepuff learned of dueling, the less interested he became in upfront fighting as a concept. He had always been one to aim for sophistication and subtlety in a fight, rather than the brute force methods that Gryffindors often favored. He picked up the few offensive spells that Arratay taught with no less aptitude than the Marauders, but given the choice he would rather a complicated shield and method of distraction than blasting away at an opponent. It was Lily, between the two of them, who preferred to take the offense, and their best fights even in years to come would always be the ones where they could fight side by side or back to back.

Remus, who was a solid but not terribly flashy dueler himself, often thought that it was probably a very good thing that Gryffindor and Hufflepuff didn't have Defense Against the Dark Arts class together anymore. Having seen all of his friends practicing their dueling at one time or another, he was not eager to see a fight between James and Sirius (who complemented each other as well as Lily and Severus, if in a different way) and the two Hufflepuffs. Professor Arratay, along with the various Heads of House, had made it very clear early in the year that anyone caught dueling outside the context of class or supervised practice sessions would be made to seriously regret it. By that point her reputation had grown enough that few students in the school would have dared to cross her (and fewer would have wanted to) and the relative peace of Hogwarts held. That is not to say that the Marauders and Potioneers never butted heads that year, for they certainly did, but none would have risked the wrath of Professor Arratay by engaging in a major duel against her orders.

And so the year went by. The fifth years found that all of their classes, Defense included, were pushing them harder than ever, with constant reminders that their OWL exams were coming at the end of the year. Their workloads grew, but the topics covered in the classes in many cases grew more interesting as well as challenging. For the new prefects there was more responsibility as well, added on top of their schoolwork and whatever extracurricular and social activities they might try to pursue. Lily and Remus found themselves spending more time together as they went about their rounds and attended meetings with the other prefects. It wasn't that they made any active effort to be assigned to the same duties, it simply seemed to happen, perhaps more often than might be expected due to chance. The fact that the Head Girl, a Hufflepuff named Alice Fawley, strongly approved of Hufflepuff-Gryffindor friendships (and relationships) may have had something to do with it, though there was certainly no way to prove anything.

While Lily and Remus were off dealing with their new responsibilities and deepening their own friendship, Severus was left on occasion to amuse himself. He found the state of affairs not terribly objectionable. There was still plenty of time for studying with Remus and curling up with Lily by the common room fire, and the time alone he could spend pursuing his own thoughts. Severus had always had an interest in potions experimentation, and that interest had extended into spell development as he learned more about it. It was on these sorts of projects that the boy spent much of his free time, either researching background in the library, planning out ideas, or occasionally attempting hands-on experiments, sometimes with Lily's help and sometimes alone.

Actual experimentation was far more difficult than theory work, especially as the weather grew colder. In the warmer months they could go down by the lake and attempt new spells without worrying about causing too much damage when the prototypes inevitably produced unexpected results, but it was harder to find a practice space while trapped inside the castle by the cold. Severus dreamed of one day being able to work on creating new healing spells, being increasingly fascinated by the idea of magical healing. He had little knowledge of the current state of spell-based healing, though, and was forced to focus only on potions work in that area. He and Lily discussed asking Madam Pomfrey for healing lessons of some kind, but quickly realized that neither of them had the kind of free time that they would have wanted to devote to the endeavor and shelved the idea for the future.

Many of Severus's attempted spells were focused on issues of stealth, concealment, and protection, spurred in part by what he was learning in Professor Arratay's class. He spent some of his free time visiting her office, alone or with Lily, listening to the stories the professor told and discussing not only her work but his own ideas. It was perhaps the first time that Severus had found an adult who was interested in his thoughts not only as a classroom exercise but as ideas that could be developed into something real and new. Arratay had no experience in creating new spells (it was hardly a common talent or skill), but her theoretical knowledge of Runes and general magical theory far exceeded that of her students, making her a fascinating resource. And, to Lily's delight, she had a wealth of experience in coming up with creative uses for the spells she knew, and ways of repurposing knowledge. The two Hufflepuffs were far from the only students who met with the Cursebreaker outside of class; the professor had made it clear that she was happy to engage with students and held regular office hours to facilitate conversations. James and Sirius could often be found haunting her office, usually with Peter and/or Remus in tow, always wanting to learn more about magical dueling.

In fact, much to the relief of Remus, the Marauders stayed so busy during the early months of the school year that they had little time left for causing problems with the Potioneers. James might still try a little too hard to sit near Lily in Care of Magical Creatures, and there had been a few incidents between Sirius and Severus in Herbology, but things remained relatively calm. There were two Hogsmeade weekends over the course of the Fall, both of which Remus spent with the Marauders. On the first visit he didn't see the Hufflepuffs at all, and later heard that they had decided to skip the trip in favor of walking by the lakeside in the unseasonably warm weather. The second time he saw Lily and Severus from a distance, laughing and walking hand-in-hand along the main road of the village, but only waved at them instead of going over. Remus didn't think James, Sirius, or Peter had spotted them, and figured it was safer to keep it that way, feeling a pang at the reminder that his friends hated each other. At Slug Club meetings Remus couldn't observe their interactions, not being a member himself, but everyone seemed to still be on their best behavior at Professor Slughorn's events, which he was glad to hear.

Halloween passed, and soon Christmas and the end of term were rapidly approaching. As in the year before, Slughorn's Christmas party promised to be the event of the season among the fifth years, bringing a chance for entertainment and drama to take center stage. Remus fruitlessly hinted at James that it might be better to ask literally anyone other than Lily to go with him, given what had happened the previous year. Unsurprisingly, his suggestions fell on deaf ears, and all he could do was try to commiserate with both James and Lily separately after the proposal was made and shot down. James had created and sent a variation on a Howler, which was supposed to sing its message to a cheery holiday tune at breakfast before transforming into a bouquet of lilies in an explosion of confetti. In reality, an explosion happened quite a bit sooner than James had intended, when Lily blasted the thing out of the air before it could sing more than a few bars.

In the end, James chose not to attend at all that year, despite Sirius going to the trouble of getting the lovely Cecelia Drake to agree to accompany him. Remus had to spend the night of the party listening to his friend complain about the fickleness of women, making sympathetic noises and resisting the growing urge to point out that Lily's behavior couldn't exactly be called fickle when she had been consistently rejecting the other boy for over four years now. For her part, Lily went with Severus for the second year in a row and enjoyed herself immensely, though she did blushingly confess to Severus a certain disappointment that Remus had been unable to attend. Severus, who was growing to enjoy dancing more than he was willing to admit, had a rather good time as well.

Sirius, in what James called a shocking lack of regard for his friend and Captain's broken heart, did attend the party. To make matters worse, he took James's abandoned date with him. Sirius thought James was more offended by that than he had any right to be, considering that neither he nor Cecelia had been terribly interested in attending together in the first place, though Remus agreed that it was a little gauche. Sirius brought his original date as well, the same Antonia Primrose whose (now ex-)boyfriend had tried to hex him at the previous year's party, though he had barely spoken to the girl since the incident. That budding romance proved doomed, however, and by the end of the evening Antonia was once more joined at the lips with her beau of the previous year. Sirius, whose broom closet rendezvous with Fabian Prewett had prompted Antonia's flight in the first place, didn't seem terribly upset by the turn of events. Cecelia, who had only been looking for a way into the party, had split as soon as they got through the door and was later spotted with a boy on each arm, and several more trailing behind and fawning over her.

With the excitement and spectacle of the Christmas party suddenly behind them, the Hogwarts students scrambled to get through their last few assignments and classes before boarding the Hogwarts Express and heading home for the holidays. As had become their custom, Severus went home with Lily for the winter break, enjoying the time spent with her parents in their cozy little house. Petunia, to Severus's hastily suppressed disappointment, was home as well. She had apparently decided that the sophisticated grown-up version of tormenting her little sister was to simply ignore her and Severus, which suited the younger pair just fine. The break rushed by in a blur of food, presents, and several snowball fights in the backyard that even Mr. and Mrs. Evans participated in, always followed by hot cocoa with little marshmallows back inside the house.

All too soon they were on their way back to Hogwarts, where the professors wasted no time in piling on work, along with increasingly frequent reminders that the OWL exams were rapidly approaching. Stress levels were increasing exponentially among fifth years of all Houses, and everything other than required coursework fell by the wayside. The more frantic students (mostly Ravenclaws) began to write up their study guides almost as soon as they returned from winter break, and as spring break approached it was the rare student who hadn't begun to stress at least a little. But it was then, right as OWLs prep approached its peak, that they were warned to start thinking about their career plans, and meetings with Heads of House were scheduled for after Easter. None of the fifth years went home for Spring break that year, instead choosing to stay in the castle to study for OWLs or peruse pamphlets on different wizarding occupations. For some, the question of what career to pursue was obvious, though others were far less certain of where they hoped to end up. As with the selection of elective courses three years before, many students found advice thrown at them from all directions. Older students, professors, relatives, and friends all rushed to provide their input, some more helpful (or requested) than others.

Both Severus and Lily were considering healing as their chosen field of study, with slightly different focuses. Severus's interest leaned more towards the research side of things. He would have been content to spend his days in a medical research laboratory, formulating new healing potions and spells and rarely if ever having to interact with human subjects. Lily, on the other hand, had more interest in the clinical aspects of healing, working with real people ("Patients, Sev! Not subjects!") and helping to solve their problems. Professor Sprout left both of their advising meetings satisfied that her not-so-little Badgers would be well suited and well prepared for their chosen paths, and immediately went to speak to Madam Pomfrey about perhaps offering a healing elective or club the following year. By this point the Matron knew both Hufflepuffs fairly well from the frequent times that Severus had ended up as a patient after some mishap or another, usually with Lily accompanying him (or practically carrying him once or twice). She was delighted to hear confirmation that their interest in her field had indeed progressed from simple childish fascination as they watched her work to the more focused curiosity she thought she had seen on their more recent visits.

With Death Eater activity on the rise, and an increasingly unstable climate in the wizarding world as a whole, James and Sirius planned to join the Aurors together, which Professor McGonagall strongly supported. They would certainly have the qualifications for it, and she was quite proud to see two more of her lion cubs growing up to fight against evil. Remus had always been reluctant to speak of his plans, wary of even wishing for a future that he might never be able to have. Among the Marauders he spoke rarely of his concerns, and with his Hufflepuff friends not at all. As far as he was aware, Lily and Severus still had no knowledge of his lycanthropic nature and hoped to keep it that way, worried about how they might react. Remus's interview with Professor McGonagall was an awkward one. She knew as well as he did that it would be incredibly difficult for him to get a job anywhere in the wizarding world if they found out that he was a werewolf, and it would be difficult to hide that from an employer long term. All McGonagall could honestly recommend, as much as it pained her to say it to such a promising student, was to get the most he could out of his remaining time at Hogwarts and hope that he could find some job where he could slip under the radar. Peter Pettigrew arrived at his meeting with an equally amorphous plan for the future, though for a very different reason. He had spent most of his time at school tagging along with his friends, pulled along into more greatness and popularity than he could have dreamed of achieving on his own. McGonagall gently but firmly opined that he would be unlikely to follow James and Sirius into the Auror Corps. She suggested that he look into some lower-level ministry jobs, perhaps in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement if he wished, but avoid aiming above his abilities.

With career counseling behind them, accomplished in some cases with more satisfaction than in others, it felt as though the only things standing between the fifth years and the freedom of summer vacation were their OWLs. They grew increasingly frantic in their studying, and more than one student found themself being fed Calming Solution in the hospital wing after a breakdown from the stress. Soon enough, whether they were ready or not, the exams were upon them. For two weeks the OWLs ran, written and practical exams coming one after another with barely any time to recover from one before it was time to sit down for the next. The days sped by, and suddenly it was the last day. The afternoon exam was Arithmancy, and for many students the morning's History of Magic test was the last one. As Remus, Lily, Severus, were sitting down for their test, the rest of the Marauders relaxed outside, enjoying the beautiful weather on the Hogwarts grounds. As is so often the case with teenage boys, their talk inevitably turned to the topic of romance, and the conversation began to spiral rather out of control without Remus to provide a check. James's infatuation with Lily seemed only to have grown over the course of the year, and he was even more convinced that her rejections came from a lack of understanding, rather than a lack of reciprocity. As he explained to Sirius and Peter that afternoon by the lake, if he only had a chance to explain to her how he felt, in private, without either of their friends to get in the way, he was sure that she would get it.

"But how can I ever get her alone, she's always got Snivellus skulking along behind her! Our love is doomed!" James flopped back on the grass with a dramatic sigh.

Peter made the appropriate sympathetic noises, sure that his talented friends would be able to come up with a solution somehow. And indeed, Sirius was getting the sort of gleam in his eye that usually foretold what he would call a brilliant plan of action, the sort that Remus often tried to veto if at all possible.

"What if we got Snivelly out of the way for you, distracted him so you could talk to Evans? We could do it tonight. You get a nice tryst with Evans, and maybe we get Snivellus out of our hair for good once he figures out she's done with him," Sirius was on a roll now, ideas coalescing into a single perfect plan.

"What about Moony?" James's interest was piqued, but he wasn't quite convinced yet. "You know he's always saying to leave Snivellus alone. He'll be pissed if he finds out we locked his study buddy in a broom closet all night, even if the git deserves it."

"What Remus doesn't know won't hurt him," Sirius winked ostentatiously. "You can go on a little moonlit stroll with Evans, and Remus won't have to know until it's all over."

A slow smile spread across James's face as understanding dawned. "Brilliant."

The planning went quickly after that. Sirius promised to take care of Snape, and James was distracted enough not to notice that his friend never mentioned how he was going to keep the Hufflepuff boy out of the way. Remus joined them after his exam, but the impending full moon was already beginning to make him feel ill. It was easy for the other boys to keep the subject off of James's plan for a short time until the werewolf gave up and went to the hospital wing. James went to change into fresh robes that hadn't been rumpled by an afternoon lounging in the grass, and Sirius began to set the plan in motion. He sent a note signed by "Remus" asking Lily to meet him in the Great Hall that night to go over their Arithmancy exam, knowing that the two liked to rehash their answers. Another went to Severus suggesting that "Professor Arratay" had something fascinating to show him in a secret room underneath the Whomping Willow.

It never occurred to either Hufflepuff that they were being set up, perhaps because there had been so little conflict with the Marauders in the last few months as they all focused on preparing for their OWLs. The notes were delivered through intermediaries, first by a random Gryffindor second-year right after dinner whom Sirius had asked to pass a note from his friend Remus. Later in the evening, a Hufflepuff first-year delivered the second note, knowing only that a Gryffindor boy told her to bring it to the common room. Both were fairly believable situations; Lily and Remus both enjoyed going over their test questions, which made Severus nervous, and it would not be the first time that Professor Arratay wanted to discuss a new idea at an odd time. The two Hufflepuffs walked together to the entrance hall, then Severus slipped out the front doors, trying not to be too conspicuous with the sun going down and curfew almost upon them.

He hurried down towards the tree, muttering under his breath about Arratay making him wander the grounds alone and risk getting caught by another teacher instead of meeting him in the castle so it would be clear he had permission. As he approached the tree he found a stick by moonlight and used it to poke the knot that would, according to the note, stop the willow from whomping. He wondered for a moment if he should wait for the professor, then, with a shrug, figured he might as well go ahead. The last thing he noticed as he slipped into the tunnel was the beautiful full moon. Poor Remus, he thought idly as he lit his wand and began to carefully make his way down the odd passageway. No wonder the Gryffindor had looked so ill by the end of their exam. Distracted by thoughts of whatever Professor Arratay wanted to show him and by the oddness of the tunnel he was in, it didn't occur to him until much too late that Remus could not possibly be meeting with Lily if he must be transforming into a wolf at that very moment.

Back in the castle, Lily slowly made her way across the entrance hall, Arithmancy notes under her arm. She was a little early to meet Remus, but she went into the Great Hall anyway; she didn't mind waiting if he wasn't there yet. Not seeing Remus, and feeling oddly small after standing for several long minutes alone in the vast emptiness of the space, she walked back towards the entrance hall. She now intended to cut him off there and come up with somewhere a little more comfortable to talk than the empty Great Hall. Intimate, her brain supplied, somewhere cozy and intimate. She pushed the thought aside, glad there was no one around to see her cheeks turning red. Lily walked out into the entryway, turning towards the staircase where she expected to see Remus appear. A few minutes later, she spied James Potter walking down the stairs instead, and her smile disappeared.

"Is something wrong with Remus?" It was the only reason Lily could think of for Potter to be there instead of their mutual friend.

"What? No!" Taken aback by her question, James fumbled for an answer. "He's fine —I mean, he's not fine —he's sick! But that's not why I'm here, I'm here to see you."

He had almost reached Lily by that point, but she pulled away when he tried to reach out a pleading hand towards her.

"I just want to talk, please!"

"I'm not interested! If you've just come to blather on about how much you think you love me, you can save your breath. If Remus isn't here then I'm going to see what Arratay and Sev are doing under the Whomping Willow. I'm sure it's a sight more interesting than you."

She whirled away, her hair nearly slapping James in the face as she started towards the outer doors of the castle. James was already starting to follow her, ready to deliver his carefully rehearsed speech even if he had to shout it at her retreating back, when he finally registered what she had said and froze.

"Under the Whomping Willow?" He could feel the blood draining from his face and the words came out as a croak. "No, he wouldn't...Evans! LILY, WAIT! It's a trap!"

James chased after her, shouting for her to stop. He didn't care if anyone else heard him now. Sirius had apparently sent Snape to get mauled by a werewolf, and Lily was about to go charging in there. She had a head start on James, but he caught up, desperation making him run faster.

"It's not the professor, it was Sirius — a trap for Snape!" She wasn't listening, so he tried the only thing he thought might get through. "THERE'S A WEREWOLF!"

Lily stopped abruptly and James almost ran into her. He saw her glance up at the sky and notice for the first time that the moon was full, heard her whisper "Remus?" then, much louder, "SEVERUS!"

Suddenly she was running with her wand drawn, sprinting towards the tree before he could try to stop her, and he followed, pulling out his own wand though he hardly knew what he intended to do with it. Lily barely slowed as she approached the tree, jabbing at the knot with a long stick grabbed from the ground the way the note to Severus had instructed, and half-falling into the tunnel with James right behind her. Tripping over the uneven ground, they hurried along as quickly as they could, animosity temporarily pushed aside by shared concern. They hadn't made it very far when they saw a shape coming towards them along the tunnel, stumbling and rebounding off the walls as he came. Severus spotted Lily and James coming towards him and immediately tried to move faster, shouting at them to turn around and run.

"He's behind me! Spells don't work right —only delayed him! RUN!"

Lily could see a larger figure behind Severus now, a wolf that to her eyes seemed almost large enough to eat all three teenagers whole, but the Hufflepuff boy was staggering, left arm pressed tightly against his side as if injured, and she had a sudden fear that he would fall and not have time to get back up. She began to run towards him, shooting stunning spells towards Remus which seemed to barely slow him down, whether because she was unconsciously underpowering them or because of his werewolf immunity to magic she had no idea.

"Help me!" Lily shouted at James, and the Gryffindor forced himself out of his panic and raced to help, shooting off a few spells of his own before he reached Severus and began to half support, half drag him along. The three of them desperately raced for the entrance of the tunnel as Remus the wolf gained on them, Lily using a shield charm to hold him off as she and James struggled to keep Severus moving. The tunnel wasn't quite wide enough for the three of them to walk shoulder to shoulder, and Lily lagged behind, keeping a shield up while James supported Severus, practically carrying his entire weight. Lily felt herself getting weaker, the repeated battering of her shield taking its toll. James noticed her slowing down, and how her breathing was growing shallower. They were nearly to the exit, but James knew with heavy certainty that they wouldn't make it out before Lily's shield broke. He glanced dubiously at the roof of the tunnel before coming to a decision.

"Evans, you need to get Sniv– I mean Severus– out of here. Moony can't fit through the opening like this. I'll boost the two of you up."

"Are you crazy?" Lily wheezed, "I can't keep the shield up when I'm climbing out."

"Just trust me!" James snapped.

They had reached the opening. James stooped to lift Severus and pushed him through the hole. Lily cast a wary glance at James before accepting his assistance, maintaining the shield for as long as she was able. As soon as she was clear of the exit, James vanished down the tunnel.

For a moment Lily and Severus just lay on the ground, struggling for breath. Then the tree above them began to creak ominously, prompting them to drag themselves upright and stumble their way out of reach of its branches before collapsing once more and falling into unconsciousness.

Severus couldn't have said exactly how they made it back to the castle. He later vaguely remembered an odd dream about being carried on the back of a horse, though he doubted it had any bearing on reality. When he awoke, he and Lily were in the hospital wing, James hovering awkwardly nearby. None of them were too badly hurt, in the physical sense, though an unlucky swipe from Remus had opened bleeding gashes on Severus's left forearm. A white-faced Madam Pomfrey informed Severus in a shaky voice that the shallow wounds would scar; only a werewolf bite could create a new werewolf, but even their scratches scarred forever.

It didn't take long to patch Severus up, and even less time for Lily and James's little scrapes and scratches from the tree and tunnel. Even Lily's minor magical exhaustion was set right by a single potion, but Madam Pomfrey was reluctant to let any of them leave before morning. Once Lily's shock began to wear off and she started shouting at James and threatening to curse him and all his horrible friends, the Matron decided it might be better for everyone if the Gryffindor returned to his dormitory. She sent him on his way with a rather sharp reminder not to say anything to anyone about the incident. Severus, who Pomfrey wanted to keep for observation, and Lily, who refused to leave without him, were put to bed at one end of the hospital wing, though it would be a long time before either managed to fall asleep.

They were quietly released the next day, but it would be several more before Lily, Severus, and all four Gryffindor boys were summoned to the Headmaster's office. In the intervening time, while the involved parties awaited formal justice from Dumbledore, quite a lot of informal justice had taken place amongst the students themselves. Madam Pomfrey had kept Remus in the hospital wing since his return from the Shrieking Shack, both to offer medical attention and to give him a place away from his roommates, with whom he was understandably furious. By the time they were assembled before the Headmaster's desk, all of them had, alone or within their smaller groups, agreed that the best approach to the situation would be to play dumb. They could, would, and already had begun to deal with the ramifications of the Whomping Willow Incident amongst themselves, but Marauders and Potioneers both were damned if they were going to let the school or Ministry of Magic punish Remus when he had done nothing wrong. Lily had expressed to Severus a fervent wish to get Sirius and even James in trouble, but they both knew they could only do that if they admitted what had happened, and they couldn't risk it.

Of course, the students were aware that Madam Pomfrey knew at least some of what had happened, but she was bound by confidentiality, and loyalty beyond that. No doubt the seemingly all-knowing Professor Dumbledore had puzzled some things out as well, but surely he had even less proof, and little desire to admit that he had allowed a werewolf to run rampant at his school. And so they found themselves, nine people arrayed in the Headmaster's study locked in a game of chicken: six students with the best poker faces they could muster, one Headmaster watching intensely and trying to see who might need to be encouraged to keep silent, and two Heads of House preparing for trouble from any side. Dumbledore began with an attempt to put them at ease, offering tea and lemon drops before getting to the matter at hand, looking at each student in turn as he spoke gently but firmly.

"We have a very serious matter before us. Do you know why you are all here?"

Hastily averted glances all around, each student waiting to take their cues from everyone else. It was Severus who broke the silence, locking eyes with the Headmaster as he spoke sharply, warningly.

"I can only assume this has to do with Mr. Potter's ongoing sexual harassment of Miss Evans. Is that it, Headmaster?"

"Of course, my dear boy, what else could I possibly mean?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, and the tension in the room relaxed. Normalcy would be a long time coming, if indeed it ever truly did return after this, but it was a step in the right direction.

Chapter Text

With the dramatically tumultuous end of their fifth year being what it was, it was no surprise that the summer before sixth year got off to a rocky start for all of the students involved in the incident. James’s initial anger at Sirius for his part in the almost-tragedy had not faded by the time the Hogwarts Express set out from Hogsmeade, and Sirius chose to go home with Peter for the summer rather than spend it with the Potters. But after only a week or so apart, James had managed to convince himself that things hadn’t really been as bad as all that, and that Sirius couldn’t possibly have been expected to know that Snape was stupid enough to confront a werewolf, so it wasn’t really his fault anyway. This sudden shift may have been partly due to the well-meaning efforts of Mr. and Mrs. Potter, who, not knowing what exactly James and Sirius were fighting about, assumed it was a minor brotherly spat and encouraged their son to reach out to his friend. James, despite knowing deep down that his parents’ advice was meaningless without their knowing any of the context, eagerly latched on to anything that would allow him to overcome not only his rift with Sirius, but his own lingering guilt. By the end of two weeks James had written to Sirius and invited him back to Potter Manor, and his friend, bored to tears with only Peter and Mrs. Pettigrew for company, accepted immediately. Double Trouble were so focused on mending their own relationship and reuniting that it barely occurred to them to think of Peter, firmly put back in his place as the least of the Marauders and abandoned as soon as someone better came along. Though the other boys had no way of knowing, their actions that summer were the beginning of the end, setting Peter on a path that would lead to treachery and tragedy for them all in the years to come. 

Remus himself was nearly as forgotten as Peter that summer, at least as far as the Marauders were concerned. Admittedly, he had never interacted much with the other boys in the summer months other than a few letters, but even those went unsent that year. The werewolf boy was too angry at his so-called friends to bother writing to them, still unable to believe that they had set him up to potentially kill any other student, let alone someone who he considered his friend as well. He had been told that he had clawed at Severus as a wolf, and knew that he could just as easily have bitten him, or Lily when she came to help the Hufflepuff boy. The thought that he might have killed them or cursed them with the wretched life that he himself was forced to live was unbearable. He spent the summer alone, wallowing in guilt and misery, sure that the Hufflepuffs must hate him. Lily wrote to Remus every week, and Severus several times over the course of the summer, but he threw away all their letters unopened. Remus didn’t hate himself quite enough to subject himself to reading letters that he assumed were full of loathing and blame for what he had done and almost done to them. He eventually admitted to his mother what had happened and she tried to console him, claiming that it wasn’t his fault at all, only that of the other boys, but Remus assumed she was just lying to comfort him. His father berated him for not being more careful, for jeopardizing his place at Hogwarts, just barely stopping short of blaming him alone for the entire incident. Mr. Lupin’s words were full of the fear and shame that the wizard could never quite hide from his werewolf son; they were far more believable to Remus than Mrs. Lupin’s placations. 

Nightmares plagued Severus, twisted memories of walking into a room expecting to see his favorite professor and being instead attacked by a wolf. In his dreams he couldn’t run, could only face down a horrifying monster with glowing red eyes and blood-covered fangs while Potter and Black cheered from the sidelines. He felt himself being torn apart in those nightmares, saw Lily staggering down a shrinking tunnel with her robes soaked in blood. Some nights his dream self killed the wolf, and it transformed back into Remus before dying, staring at him in fear and confusion with eyes begging to know why Severus had killed him. Many nights he woke shaking, shivering despite the heat of his tiny bedroom, hoping that he hadn’t cried out and woken his parents. He hadn’t told them what had happened at the end of the year, and it didn’t seem that the school had sent them any sort of message. Severus wasn’t sure whether to feel upset or relieved by that fact. His mother had noticed the new scar on his arm, but had apparently been satisfied with the potions accident he had made up to explain it. His father hadn’t even bothered to ask, if he noticed his son’s injury at all. Severus counted the days until he could return to school and get away from the little house that felt even more suffocating than in years past. He wandered beside the river and through the dirty streets, trying to make sense of his own thoughts. He wished he could see Remus, talk to him and reassure himself that the boy he had befriended was still there, that he would not be left with only the monster of his dreams. Severus had never had an issue with werewolves in general, or with Remus when he had known theoretically that the Gryffindor was one, but he could not instantaneously push aside the terror of meeting the wolf face to face, no matter how much he wanted to. He hoped it would become easier to separate the monster from the friend.

Lily spent the summer writing letters. Letters to Remus, to which she received no response. Letters to Severus, in which she poured out her heart and soul, confessing the fear she had felt when she saw him staggering down the tunnel under the willow, her anger at Sirius Black and James Potter, and her worries about Remus and what he must be going through. Letters to the other Gryffindor boys, horrible hateful letters cursing them for what they had done to her, to Severus, to Remus — those letters she burned, or shredded into tiny pieces, and felt better for it. She even wrote letters to herself as a sort of diary, trying to understand her own swirling mess of emotions, though she had stopped keeping a journal long before she went off to Hogwarts. The writing helped, stopped her from bottling things up. Talking helped too. She had debated whether to tell her parents what had happened, but they had seen through her happy facade immediately, and their gentle prompting had let to her tearfully explaining the incident within an hour of getting home from the train. Curled up on the couch with her parents’ arms wrapped around her, she was able to start putting herself back together. It would take many such evenings, times when she could simply talk and they would listen, before she felt ready to face returning to Hogwarts, but it would come. More than once in the summer both Hufflepuffs wished that Severus’s parents had a telephone in their house so they could talk without waiting for the slow muggle mail system. But reading Severus’s letters helped too, and she hoped that hers were helping him as well; to his surprise the boy found that the letter writing did help, both the sending and receiving. The anger would eventually lessen, though it could never be forgotten entirely, and the fear and hurt would fade with time. 

Chapter Text

By the time September rolled around, Lily was desperate to see Remus. The more letters she had received from Severus, the more the lack of correspondence from Remus had begun to worry her. Severus had told her that his own letters to the Gryffindor had not been answered either, though he admitted that he had not sent nearly as many as she apparently had. When the two Hufflepuffs met up on Platform Nine-and-three-Quarters, it was with a mingled sense of relief at seeing each other and a determination to hunt down their friend and make him talk to them. But as they looked around the platform, watching other friends reunite and families say their goodbyes, Remus was nowhere to be seen. After long minutes of searching, as the time of departure grew ever nearer, Mr. and Mrs. Evans gently shooed Lily and Severus onto the train. There was nothing to be gained from missing their ride, and no doubt Remus was just running a little late. Severus wished he believed that, but worried that the other boy might not be coming at all. It was only after Severus found a compartment and Lily left to join the other prefects that Remus came sprinting through the platform barrier and made it onto the train just before it began to pull away from the station. Severus saw him out the window and relaxed a little. From the glimpse he'd gotten, Remus looked pale and worn out, but at least he was there.

Remus avoided Lily's many attempts to make eye contact during the prefects' meeting, but she cornered him as soon as the Head Boy and Girl released them, foiling his attempt to slip away. She marched Remus back to Severus's compartment, despite the Gryffindor's protests that he was sure Severus didn't want to see him and that he should probably just go find somewhere else to sit. Lily ignored him. Severus, when they reached the compartment, had quite a lot to say to Remus, starting with "you're being an idiot" and continuing on to "we don't hate you" and "stop ignoring us" before circling back around to "if you don't stop acting like an idiot we really will be mad at you." Lily nodded along in agreement, adding her own occasional comments and hushing Remus any time he tried to break in with an apology for his actions under the Whomping Willow. Finally, he managed to interrupt, almost shouting in an effort to be heard.

"Why don't you get it?! I COULD HAVE KILLED YOU! And you just want to forget it and be friends? What the hell is wrong with you?"

At that Severus lost it, shouting over Remus. "What the hell is wrong with you? When will you get it through your stupid head that IT WASN'T YOU?! Black tried to kill me, not you! Just because your furry alter ego happened to be there doesn't mean it's your fault!"

"Not my fault?! I almost killed you, and you won't even let me apologize —!"

Lily, in the unlikely position of least worked up and not entirely sure how she felt about it, did her best to calm both boys down. "Remus, the only thing you owe an apology for is ignoring us all summer."

"And maybe your lousy taste in friends..." Severus muttered very audibly. Lily shot him a glare that clearly said "not helping!" but Remus was startled into laughter. He sank down onto the seat with a sigh.

"Can't say you're wrong about that. Though I never thought any of them would actually stoop to attempted murder! I really am sorry though, about everything," he looked at Lily before adding with a weak smile "Especially for ignoring you this summer."

The rest of the ride went rather more smoothly after all that, and when the teenagers parted to sit at their respective tables for the Sorting Feast, it was as friends once more. Remus still hadn't entirely absolved himself of blame for the attack, and it would be a while longer before they all stopped having the occasional nightmare about the incident, but they were past the crisis and things were back on track. The same could not be said for Remus's relationships with the Marauders. Even while he had been blaming himself he had known that blame lay with his so-called friends as well. The more he was able to forgive his own part in the almost-tragedy, the angrier he became at them. Remus could not forget what Sirius had done, nor ignore James's attempts to downplay the severity and maliciousness of Sirius's actions. It was as though Sirius could do no wrong in James's eyes, and even attempted murder could be laughed off as a clever prank gone awry, an attitude that Remus could not grasp. That year James and Sirius grew even closer together, as if Remus's departure had shattered the Marauders to leave only Double Trouble behind. Peter continued to hang out with the other two boys, of course, but he was a third wheel to their friendship, and he knew it. When they had been a group of four it had been a more equal partnership, or at least Peter could convince himself that it was. But with only the three remaining it was clearly "James and Sirius," with Peter tagging along behind. His resentment became increasingly stronger, though its poisonous fruit would not fully ripen for a few more years.

With all of the drama of fifth year and its ramifications spilling into the summer and beyond, it was easy to forget that sixth year was an exciting turning point for other reasons. The results of the OWL exams had been sent out towards the end of the break, spreading satisfaction and disappointment alike to the rising sixth years of Hogwarts. The grades themselves would have been enough excitement, considering how much effort had gone into both classes and tests the year before, but they brought with them the additional importance of NEWT class selection. Most of the sixth years already had a pretty good idea of which classes they wanted to continue taking at the NEWT level even before receiving their results, but the scores had the final say. For many, the OWL letters simply provided confirmation of what they already knew, tests they were confident they had passed with flying colors or tests which they already knew they had failed miserably. But there could be surprises, some more pleasant than others. Remus had been very disappointed in his Acceptable for Arithmancy, which would not be enough to let him take the class at a NEWT level. That exam had taken place the afternoon before the full moon and he had already been feeling unwell at the time; he had suspected that his preoccupation would be reflected in his performance, but had hoped for a little higher. In contrast, Severus had been pleasantly surprised to see that he had managed an Outstanding in Care of Magical Creatures, when he had thought that he would get an Exceeds Expectations. He had never liked the class too much, and still intended to drop it for sixth year, but it was nice to see that all the studying had paid off.

By the time the Heads of House went around the Great Hall tables to pass out schedules at the beginning of term, there was little to discuss or approve in most cases. There were still the occasional students trying to get into a class they just weren't quite qualified for, though, or the ones who had to be talked out of taking too many classes or too few. When Professor Sprout reached Lily and Severus, she informed them before they gave their requests that Madam Pomfrey had agreed to host a healing club, so they might want to take that into account when choosing how many classes to take. The Matron had been unable to get permission to add an official Healing elective course, which made Lily grumble a bit, but at least this way they would be able to get some useful skills before graduation. Despite that, both Severus and Lily signed up for six classes. Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Herbology, and Defense Against the Dark Arts were all required for Healing professionally, and neither one was willing to drop Ancient Runes despite Sprout's halfhearted warning that six NEWT classes might be a lot. She didn't really doubt that her Badgers could do it, but she did have an obligation as their Head of House to let them know what they were getting themselves into.

Over at the Gryffindor table, Professor McGonagall signed off on James and Sirius's schedules without any argument. Both boys had chosen to continue with Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Potions. Sirius had only narrowly managed the Exceeds Expectations that Slughorn required for NEWT potions, but both Gryffindors were otherwise perfectly qualified for their courses. Remus continued with both Ancient Runes with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures with Peter, along with Transfiguration, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts. Remus had little skill in Potions, and less interest in Herbology, and with no real career aspirations to guide his choices he was generally free to take whatever classes he wanted to, for better or worse.

Over the next few days, it became clear why so many sixth and seventh year students limited their NEWTs course load to only four or five classes. The professors seemed to feel that they should immediately pile on the coursework at the beginning to make it clear just how difficult the class was going to be for the next two years. The mountains of homework seemed to say "You thought OWLs year was tough? Well get ready, because NEWTs are even worse." Many of the subjects had only a small number of students left in them at that level, whether because they were too difficult for most students to be allowed to take them, or because the students had so little time for non-essential classes that they were forced to drop anything unrelated to their future careers. Several were taught with all four Houses together for that very reason. After all, there was no point in offering more than one section of Potions or Astronomy if each one would have only a couple of students from each House. For the elective courses, which had always been much more niche and many of which had always had small class sizes, some now contained only a handful of students.

Some classes were still large, though, large enough to warrant multiple sections. Both Transfiguration and Charms were considered generally useful subjects, and most students were taking at least one of them, making it reasonable to keep it divided by House and offer multiple sections. Severus was glad not to share those with the Gryffindors; having to deal with James and Sirius in Potions and Herbology was already an unpleasant enough prospect. At this point he was not so concerned that the boys would do anything drastic, for James seemed to have convinced Sirius that it was better not to make waves right now, but there was still plenty of opportunity for minor tricks. But more importantly to Severus, Lily's tolerance for the Marauders' behavior was at an all-time low at the beginning of that year, and she was ready and willing to put them in their place by force if she deemed it necessary. The fewer classes she had to spend with Sirius Black and James Potter, the more likely that they would all survive the school year alive, with all their limbs intact, and with a detention record not too much longer than they'd had going into the term.

With political and societal tensions growing more strained than ever, an already powerful Dark Lord growing more influential by the day, and open war seemingly about to break out any day, there were few students interested in dropping out of Defense Against the Dark Arts, even before they had any way of knowing whether the newest professor would be any good. As it turned out, Professor Johnson was quite competent, if not as flashy as Professor Arratay had been the year before. He did a more than passable job preparing his students for their exams, managed to keep most of the students' attention most of the time, and was a fair grader, which sometimes was all you could ask for from a Defense professor.

Despite the initial changes in their schedules, which somehow felt like an even bigger upheaval than the start of electives three years before, the students fell into their new routine quickly enough. Remus was not taking the exact same courses as his Hufflepuff friends, but they still had four subjects in common (even though they were in different sections for all but Ancient Runes). The three students continued their habit of meeting in the library to study together, though they had long since expanded beyond simply working on their homework to hanging out even on the rare occasions where there was no work to be done. For Remus and Lily there were still prefect duties to carry out as well, meetings and patrols and making sure the youngest members of the school didn't do anything too outrageously dangerous. The new Head Boy and Girl felt that it was more important than ever to have prefects keeping an eye on things whenever students of different Houses were together without professorial supervision. There had been incidents, still few but growing more frequent. Muggleborn students being hexed by purebloods, or half-bloods who found the words "blood traitor" scrawled across their things when left unattended. Even Professor Johnson's classroom was vandalized once, after the news got around that he was a muggleborn himself, though the culprit was never identified. In the student-on-student attacks, it was rare that there was enough proof of blame for any of the instigators to be punished, and there was apparently little that the professors could do to stop it when they were not personally present. It often felt that there wasn't much the prefects could do even when they were present, but most of them did their best, with a few glaring exceptions mostly among the Slytherins.

A week or two after classes began, Madam Pomfrey's new Healing Club was officially announced, with flyers put up in all the common rooms and an announcement at dinner from the Headmaster. The Matron had been mentally prepared for the possibility that only Severus and Lily would show up, but was pleasantly surprised by the fairly large turnout at the first few meetings. The realization that many of the oldest students had come hoping to learn about battlefield first aid was rather sobering, though not too unexpected given the state of the world. Attendance fell after the first month or so, as students lost interest or found that they didn't have time for additional extracurriculars, but a core group remained. Lily and Severus were among them, of course, and they had dragged along several of their friends from Hufflepuff. It hadn't taken much convincing to get Remus to come; he hadn't expected to be very good at Healing, but was always curious to learn more about any subject, and would rarely say no to spending time with his friends. He turned out to be not as bad as he had feared, as long as he didn't have to actually brew any of the healing potions on his own. Remus's skills, however, were no match for Lily or Severus's. The Hufflepuffs soaked in Madam Pomfrey's lessons and advice, and eagerly looked forward to when they would be able to start official Healer training after graduation. Two more years felt like an eternity, though judging by how quickly the previous five had flown by, no doubt it would feel like a blink of an eye.

The first few months of school sped by in a flurry of work (and occasionally a brief moment of leisure), busy and tiring, but enjoyable all the same. With everything else going on, there was little time to spend on extra research projects, but Severus filled the margins of his textbooks with scribbled notes on healing spells he wanted to develop, and potions he thought could be modified to increase their effectiveness. He and Lily had begun to quietly research lycanthropy, not wanting to tell Remus and get his hopes up, but certain they could eventually find some way to cure his condition, or at least lessen its severity. After all, surely every disease must have a cure, if you only knew where to look and how to find it. It was just a dream, then, and would be no more than that for a long time, but it was a good dream, albeit one born from worry. Remus still had not told the Hufflepuffs about the Marauders' animagus transformations, feeling that it wasn't his secret to share, so he was not able to explain to them the reason why his full moon transformations had suddenly become even worse than they had been in years. Remus wasn't sure whether the other boys would have agreed to transform with him if he had let them, but he had no interest in finding out. Before the first full moon of the school year, he informed James that he didn't want their company and refused to discuss it any further. Lily and Severus, unable to do anything but watch their friend suffer and offer words of sympathy, became more convinced than ever that something must be done, though it would be years before they managed any real breakthroughs.

But despite that, things were going well enough for all three friends, until the beginning of November. Tragedy struck at the end of October, though word did not reach Hogwarts for another day. Even that speed was due only to interference by wizards in the muggle postal service, who flagged the letter addressed to "Hogwarts School, Scotland '' and sent it on by owl. It was Professor Sprout who read the letter and brought Severus back to her office to give him the news and a shoulder to cry on. It was an accident, she told him gently, his mother slipped on the stairs. A neighbor called for help but the muggle healers came too late. The muggle aurors came first, and his father was so overcome with grief that he tried to attack them, and they thought he had a gun. When the healers came there was nothing that they could do for either one of them.

Sprout finished speaking, and Severus simply sat there, trying to understand what she had just said. An accident, she said, but he didn't believe it for a minute. Not a real accident, not a woman just misstepping, slipping on the stairs, falling to her death. It wasn't possible. Not if his father had been close enough to call for help, close enough to try to grab her as she fell, close enough to push her down the stairs. An accident. The kind of accident where a man hadn't really meant to leave his wife black and blue, his son with a red handprint across his face, a woman cowering in the corner trying to shield her child from any more accidents. The kind of accident where a witch couldn't save herself from falling because her wand was hidden in a drawer full of socks. The kind of accident that the police would never really believe, but would write in their report and no one would care. Just an accident.

Professor Sprout was talking, but Severus didn't hear a thing she said. Her words kept swirling through his head. An accident. A gun. But his father didn't own a gun. There had never been a gun in the house. No gun, and no accident. But two bodies, lying on the floor. And one boy left behind, abandoned. Alone.

But then he wasn't alone. A flash of color at the door to Sprout's office, a flaming red streak as Lily ran towards him, her arms around him. She was talking, saying his name. Severus. Sev, I'm so sorry. I'm here. She was crying, tears dripping onto Severus's robes as she held him, but his eyes were dry.

Severus couldn't say, later, how everything got done. Who organized the funeral, two unornamented pine boxes lowered into the ground in a rundown graveyard; who found Severus a faded black suit to wear; who gathered the handful of people who cared enough to watch Tobias and Eileen Snape get buried. Fewer than ten people, even counting the old priest someone had found to mumble his way through a service. Widow Hanley from next door, who had watched Severus run around as a child and helped Eileen cover up her bruises before going out to the store. Two men from the local pub who would probably grieve more for the loss of Tobias's money when they gambled than for the man himself. They still grieved more, perhaps, than the man's own son. Professor Sprout was there, witch's hat and gardening robes replaced by a respectable black dress and peacoat. Lily's parents, returning to the rundown neighborhood they had worked so hard to get away from, not for the dead but for the boy who wasn't yet sure how to mourn. Lily was there too, holding Severus's gloved hand as he stood silently before the open graves. His eyes burned, but there were still no tears to shed.

The tears would come later. After he went to the house. After he saw where the threadbare carpet had been torn up at the bottom of the stairs to get rid of the blood that had soaked into it beyond any muggle ability to remove. After he saw his mother's wand near the top of the stairs, broken in two. After he saw the burn marks on the wall and realized that the gunshot the neighbor had heard was the crack of a misfired spell. There had been no marks on his father, other than from the policeman's bullet; his mother's final, only, attempt to use magic against her husband had missed him completely. It was Sprout who pulled him away, brought him back to where Lily and her parents waited outside; they had thought to offer him privacy but refused to leave him completely alone.

Severus looked back as Lily led him towards her parents' car, parked in front of the house where there had only rarely before been an automobile. He supposed it was his house now, there was no one else to inherit it. His mother had been the last to bear the name of Prince, and he would no doubt be the last of the Snapes. Perhaps it was for the best; neither one was a legacy he was overly proud of, though the magic of his Prince legacy had at least granted him a way to leave Spinner's End and his father. Why should he carry the name of a murderer, a man who had given him nothing but pain and grief his entire life? Better, perhaps, to carry his mother's name. After all, hadn't he always been more of a Prince than a Snape? His mother had often said that to him, back when he was a little boy and she still spoke of magic. That was all he had left now. Her magic running in his veins, and the name of the man who had killed her. A warm hand slipped into his, Lily leaning against him in the backseat of the car. She didn't say anything, but squeezed his hand when he met her eyes. Not alone, her look seemed to say, I'm right here. He returned the squeeze. He didn't think that he had ever loved anyone as much as he loved her at that moment.

The next two months were a blur. Professor Sprout brought Severus and Lily back to Hogwarts the day after the funeral, letting them spend the night at Lily's parents' house and picking them up in the morning. She had offered to let Severus take more time if he needed it, gently suggesting that it was important to give himself the space to grieve. He told her he would prefer to return to school. There was no point in staying away, nothing to stay for. Lily's mother hugged him before he left, said that he would always have a place with them whenever he wanted to visit. Severus tried to remember the last time his own mother had hugged him like that, and came up blank. It was better at Hogwarts, less complicated. Most of the students didn't know what had happened, other than perhaps a rumor that he had lost a parent, and the professors didn't bring it up. Sprout had quietly made it known to the faculty that it would be more helpful to the boy to leave him be and not remind him of his recent tragedy. So Severus returned to his classes, returned to his essays and spells and potions, focused on his studies. He tried not to dwell on the darkness of the past, and instead look ahead to the future. His friends helped. Remus had not been able to get permission to attend the funeral, but he was as supportive as Lily once Severus returned to school. The two of them together tried to do whatever he needed, be whatever he needed. What Severus wanted most of all was for things to return to normal, and Lily and Remus did their best to make that happen.

Severus managed to go days or even weeks at a time without remembering. After all, it wasn't as though his parents had ever written to him at school, so in Severus's day to day life at Hogwarts there was little difference between his parents ignoring him from their home and lying dead in the ground. There was enough to do, to distract. His days were kept full: piles of work that the professors assigned, evenings with Lily by the common room fire, helping Remus work on the spells they learned at Madam Pomfrey's healing club, or finding an empty classroom to practice the dueling techniques that Professor Arratay had taught the year before. The three of them went to Hogsmeade together, their planned leisurely stroll through the town derailed by a spontaneous snowball fight that had Severus laughing as hard as the other two, even when he somehow got snow down the neck of his robes. Lily insisted on buying both boys hot chocolate at the Three Broomsticks afterwards, claiming that butterbeer was not an appropriate drink for a snowball fight. Severus remembered Mrs. Evans saying something very similar (though her rejected drink was tea) after their own snowball fight the previous Christmas and hid a smile behind his mug.

There were limits, though, moments when he would remember his mother's broken wand or the coffins sinking into the earth, and things wouldn't seem quite so entertaining. There were days when Severus flinched every time a Professor called him "Mr. Snape," and thought again of changing his name. He had looked into it, a little, unsure whether that was something that you could even do if you weren't a lady getting married. Lily's parents, when consulted via letter, said it could be complicated in the muggle world, but Professor Sprout thought that if he waited until he was 17 it could be done without too much trouble at the Ministry of Magic. It was hard to believe sometimes that it was only a few short months until his birthday, though at the same time it felt like an eternity away.

But the end of the term was quickly approaching, and the denizens of Hogwarts once again began to dream of Christmas and a well deserved and much longed for break from school. Lily and her parents had, as usual, invited Severus to their home for the break, but this time he declined. He didn't think he was quite ready to face Mr. and Mrs. Evans and their inevitable well-meaning offers of sympathy and comfort. Severus feared that they might try to tone down their celebrations or constantly tiptoe around him in an attempt to not to make him uncomfortable, which would certainly have the opposite effect. He was not interested in trying to explain to the nice and functional family that he really wasn't all that sad or depressed about his parents' deaths. It had been shocking, of course, unexpected, sudden, and he did miss his mother somewhat if he stopped to think about it for too long, but his father's death hardly counted as a tragedy. The idea of trying to explain any of that to sweet, motherly Mrs. Evans, though, was unthinkable. Besides, Lily had passed on the news that Petunia would be bringing her boyfriend home to meet the family, and that was definitely not a situation that Severus had any interest in dealing with, now or ever. Lily offered to stay with him at school, not wanting to leave Severus to mope in the dreary castle by himself (and perhaps not being too interested in meeting her sister's beau either). Severus knew she would have been disappointed to miss seeing her parents, though, and it didn't take much convincing on his part to talk her into leaving. Lily still worried though, until Remus told them that he was staying at Hogwarts too, thereby solving what Lily saw as a problem and leaving her free to face the mixed joy and annoyance of holidays with her whole family, including the soon-to-be fiance of Petunia. Remus didn't give any explanation for his decision, in a way that made it clear he didn't really want to talk about it, and his friends respected that (Severus immediately, Lily with a bit more prompting from Severus).

With their plans for break settled, the most pressing issue became Professor Slughorn's Christmas party. The past two years it had been a given that Lily and Severus would attend together, while Remus's attendance was contingent upon the invitation of James or Sirius. This year, though, things were different. All three friends had been growing closer than ever, and it had seemed obvious in the fall that Remus would attend with the two Hufflepuffs. After the death of Severus's parents, he wasn't sure he was in the mood to deal with Slughorn and the often overwhelming social chaos of the event and suggested that his friends go to the party without him. He had already begun to pick up on signs that his friends might be interested in getting a little closer to one another (though neither seemed quite ready to admit it), and suspected the suggestion would not meet much resistance. As he'd expected, Lily made some minimal protests about abandoning him, but didn't put up much of a serious fight. She wished it would have been for a more pleasant reason, but she was far from upset by the opportunity of going to the event alone with Remus, and the Gryffindor felt similarly. They both reassured Severus, and anyone else who would listen, multiple times that they were just going as friends. Severus refrained, barely, from quoting Hamlet at them. "The lady doth protest too much," indeed.

But, protestations and potential blossoming romance aside, it was clear afterwards that Lily and Remus had had a wonderful time. Lily confided to Severus that James's face when they walked in together had been rather priceless, though she had been pleasantly surprised by his apparent effort in reigning himself in and not saying anything or making a scene. Perhaps miracles really were possible, and James Potter was finally gaining some maturity. By the end of the evening he had even been spotted dancing with Mary Macdonald from Gryffindor, and Lily dared to hope that his long standing infatuation with her might be finally moving towards its conclusion. Judging by Lily's blushes when she told Severus about her evening, her own romantic feelings for Remus seemed only to be growing, and the Hufflepuff boy made a mental note that it might be a good idea to check whether the Gryffindor was on the same page. He figured there would be plenty of time for that over break; Severus and Remus were the only students signed up to stay at Hogwarts that winter. Professors McGonagall and Sprout gave permission for them to visit each other's common rooms and lifted their curfew for the duration of the break, though it was made clear that they did expect them to sleep in their own dormitories. The boys spent most of their waking hours together that break, quietly reading side-by-side, wandering the castle, or just hanging out. Remus taught Severus how to play chess (the regular kind, the way he had learned as a kid from his muggle grandfather), and they spent hours playing game after game in the Gryffindor common room. It was a few days after Christmas that Severus finally brought up the topic that both boys had been thinking about for the better part of a week, one evening as they sprawled on a rug in front of the Hufflepuff fire, toasting marshmallows begged from the kitchen elves.

"So, I hear you and Lily had a nice time at Slughorn's party? She said she had a lot of fun dancing with you." Severus winced, hoping his lack of subtlety hadn't been as glaring as he suspected it had been. It had never exactly been his strong suit. He pretended to focus on keeping his marshmallow from catching on fire, looking at Remus out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah, it was really great!" Remus started enthusiastically, then hesitated. He sat upright, seeming suddenly uncertain. "Hey, um, Severus, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what's up?" Severus turned back towards his friend. "Is this about the party?"

Remus winced. "Kind of? Er, not exactly. I mean, it's about Lily. Do you, uh, do you think she likes me?"

Severus's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Of course she likes you."

"No, I mean, I know she likes me, but do you think she likes me?" Remus blurted it out, a little shocked by his own directness. He could feel his cheeks heating up and hoped desperately that Severus wouldn't notice in the flickering light of the flames.

Understanding dawned on Severus. Finally they were getting somewhere. "Oh! Yeah. Remus, Lily more than likes you."

"And you're...okay with that?" Remus seemed even less confident now. "I, I know you two are really close, and I don't want to step on your toes or anything...but you've had six years to make a move and — and I'm getting the sense you maybe aren't actually interested in her like that?"

"What, dating, and kissing, and all that?" Severus made a face. "Yeah, not so much. She's my best friend. I love her more than anything, but — not the way you do, I think."

"You're sure? So, you maybe wouldn't mind if I asked her out? On, on a real date?" Remus sounded hopeful, but still looked a little worried that Severus might jump up and start hexing him at any moment, or at least throw a marshmallow at his head.

"It's not like that's my choice, it's up to Lily. But if anyone asks, I'd sure as hell vote for you over Potter!" Severus grinned.

"Gee, thanks for that ringing endorsement. How can I possibly handle your excitement?" Though his tone was wry, Remus was smiling now too, and it was clear that a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His tone became more serious when he spoke again. "Hey Sev?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. I know I don't need your permission, but you're Lily's best friend, and I'd never want to change that. You two will always be best friends...but I hope maybe you and I can be best friends someday too." Remus's voice went up a bit at the end, turning it into almost a question.

Severus snorted. "You're an idiot sometimes, Remus, you know that? Of course we're best friends." It was only as he spoke that Severus realized that at some point in the last few months, it had become true.

All too soon the solitude that the boys had been enjoying throughout break was disrupted by the return of their fellow students. No longer did they have the run of the castle, the ability to wander into each other's common rooms at virtually any hour of the day and never have to encounter another student. The halls were once again full of students rushing between classes and getting underfoot, the common rooms packed and lively. But Lily was back as well, with plenty of amusing stories to tell about Christmas with her family and the introduction of Vernon Dursley, so the return to normalcy wasn't all bad. A few days after the start of term, the sixth years were excited to find a notice posted with information about apparition lessons, available for anyone turning seventeen before the end of the summer. For Severus, though, that excitement turned to worry when he saw the twelve galleon fee required for the class. For a boy who had been making due for years with his mother's old school books whenever possible, wearing second hand robes and only having money to spend on nonessentials if he earned it himself, it seemed like an enormous sum of money to have to suddenly come up with. He agonized over the issue for days, snapping at Lily and Remus whenever either of them tried to bring it up, before it finally occurred to him to go to Professor Sprout and ask for advice. His Head of House confirmed what Severus had begun to hope, that while the price was set by the Ministry and couldn't be eliminated entirely, Hogwarts did have a fund available to help pay for apparition lessons which he was welcome to take advantage of.

By the time Severus's seventeenth birthday rolled around a few days later, he had mostly gotten over his annoyance and embarrassment at having to ask for help, and had returned to the excitement of his friends at being able to finally learn to apparate. Despite all the magic that they had lived with over the last handful of years and learned to use, the novelty hadn't entirely worn off, and there was something about learning to teleport that prompted childish glee in Lily and Severus. Remus, who had grown up around more magic than the other two and had even done side-along apparition with his parents once or twice, was not quite as tickled by the concept but was still more than excited to learn himself. All three were a little disheartened by their first lesson, in which none of them managed the slightest bit of movement (and neither did anyone else), but improved by leaps and bounds over the months that followed. By the time of the testing date in the middle of April, they would all manage to pass on their first try, along with Sirius and James. Peter Pettigrew, as always lagging slightly behind his friends, would have to retake the test twice before finally passing.

In February, not long after Lily turned seventeen (leaving Remus the only underage member of their group for a little more than a month), Lily and Remus officially declared themselves to be dating. They had been skirting around the issue since at least Christmas, while Severus watched with mixed amusement and bewilderment as they continued to pretend that they weren't interested in going out. Things came to a head with the February Hogsmeade trip, which despite not actually being on Valentine's Day was close enough to cause quite a few Hogwarts couples to get together or break up at the prospect. James Potter and Mary Macdonald, who had to all appearances been going out since Christmas, were among those who broke up in a panic at the prospect of going to Hogsmeade together and making things seem too serious. Remus and Lily, on the other hand, were pushed to the conclusion that they should just go together and accept that they were now "officially" a couple, since they weren't fooling anyone with their "we're just friends" act. After all, as Severus pointed out before quickly ducking behind a chair to avoid Lily's halfhearted jinx, snogging while you were supposed to be on prefect rounds wasn't exactly the best way to convince the school rumor mill that you weren't a couple. He chose to opt out of that Hogsmeade trip, preferring to stay at the castle and read rather than third wheel his friends on their first real date, though both Lily and Remus had tried to convince him to come hang out with them for at least part of the day. All three friends were more than a little wary of how the budding romance might change their dynamics, though they needn't have worried too much. There would be changes, of course, as in all evolving relationships, some subtle and barely noticeable and others more obvious as time went on, but the core would always remain the same: three people bound together by love and friendship, bonds that are not easily broken or abandoned.

Other ties, though, are more easily severed, and much more deserving of such dissolution. Since his parents' funeral, Severus had grown ever more disinclined to keep his father's last name, and his seventeenth birthday in January had removed his largest obstacle to getting it changed. As spring break approached, little more than a week after Severus, Remus, and Lily passed their apparition tests, the Hufflepuff boy approached Professor Sprout with a more concrete plan, and a request. Severus had little desire to go back to his parents' empty house for the holiday, but instead wanted permission to leave school for a single day to visit the Ministry of Magic. He was of age, and his Head of House had little reason to object, nor any real desire to do so, and helped arrange for a round-trip portkey for him to use. Sprout was hardly surprised when Lily approached with a request to go with him, and gave her permission as well, though with an admonition not to make a big deal about it so all the other seventeen year olds wouldn't start asking to leave randomly as well. It wasn't against the rules, exactly, not when it was already an official holiday, but the professors didn't want to set too much of a precedent. Remus gave Severus his best wishes, but didn't accompany the two Hufflepuffs to London. The full moon was fast approaching, and he didn't feel up to a lengthy day potentially filled with bureaucratic nonsense. So it was just Severus and Lily who walked down to Hogsmeade on the bright April day, took a portkey to London with Professor Sprout, and made their way to the Ministry of Magic. It was the first time either of them had been there, but Professor Sprout helped direct them, and it proved to be not too difficult to navigate to the registry office once inside the Ministry. It was only after they entered the office, leaving Sprout outside, and walked up to a clerk's desk that they encountered the first minor hitch in Severus's plan.

The young witch behind the desk looked up as they approached, smiling at what she apparently assumed to be a couple of newlyweds, and spoke directly to Lily, ignoring Severus entirely.

"Congratulations, dear! Here to get your name changed after the wedding? It's always so lovely to see a wizard coming along with his bride instead of leaving her to deal with the paperwork on her own, you've clearly picked yourself a good one!" She beamed at both of them, now, already reaching for the forms.

For a moment Lily and Severus just stared at her in confusion, then looked at each other and burst out laughing. Lily regained her composure first, managing to answer the increasingly bewildered clerk with a stumbling explanation that they weren't married at all, and that anyway Severus was the one changing his name. They had to try several more times to convince the woman, who seemed quite willing to accept that a newlywed wizard was changing his last name, but didn't believe that no one was getting married, least of all the young people in front of her. After a few minutes of this, another clerk, one who seemed to possess more of both seniority and common sense, rescued them, sending the younger witch for a break while she took over.

"I do apologize for Amelia, I'm afraid she can be rather excitable. Now, what is the current name so I can locate your record?" The older witch settled herself behind the desk, quill and wand in easy reach.

"Snape. Severus Snape." It felt odd, realizing that this might be the last time he ever introduced himself that way. Lily, still standing next to him, squeezed his hand, seeming almost to have heard his thoughts.

The clerk muttered to herself a bit, summoning a stack of files from somewhere and leafing through until she found the right one.

"Severus Snape, son of pureblood witch Eileen Snape née Prince and muggle Tobias Snape?"

Severus tensed slightly, not sure what to make of the woman mentioning his parents' magical blood statuses, though he answered in the affirmative, it was him. Her tone had been neutral enough, businesslike, just reading off what was in the file in front of her, but it still made him a little uneasy to realize that things like that were apparently part of the Ministry's records.

"Very good. Now, understanding that certain family names cannot be claimed without proof of relation and approval from the family in question, what's the new name you've chosen?"

Again, there was that slight perceived emphasis, a reminder that a wizard couldn't simply take any last name they wanted, not if it might offend a no-doubt rich and powerful family. But there would be no one to challenge Severus here; the last Princes had been dead for years, and now even Eileen was gone, leaving no one behind to deny Severus his final revenge on his father. It would be Tobias Snape's name that died that day, denying him the legacy of his son's future.

He answered firmly, all hesitation gone. "My name is Severus Prince."

Chapter Text

Though much of sixth year had been very eventful for Severus, Lily, and Remus, the final term had concluded with surprisingly little fuss. The most cause for excitement, other than the occasional confused reactions of professors and students when Severus returned from spring break with a new last name, had come at the end of year feast. After awarding the House Cup to Hufflepuff, to the delight of the Badgers who had been hovering at second place for the last several years, the Headmaster announced that Professor Johnson had agreed to continue teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts the following year. Given that it had been over fifteen years since a Defense professor lasted more than one year, which had long prompted students to whisper about a curse on the position, the news caused quite a stir. The train back to London was full of whispered speculation about whether Johnson really would return again in the Fall or whether something would cause him to back out over the summer, gossip which would turn out to be tragically prophetic.  

But, Defense professors aside, the summer would bring about its own changes and challenges. It was Severus’s first return to Spinner’s End since his parents’ funeral, to the little house which now technically belonged to him. That he could return there at all was due in part to Professor Dumbledore, who had somehow ensured that the muggle authorities wouldn’t look too closely at an underage (by their standards) boy taking possession of the house and living there alone. Lily had tried to convince Severus to come stay at her parents’ house for the summer instead of spending it all alone, but had only managed to talk him into visiting for a week or two. It was far from the only time they saw each other that summer though, making it one of the best summers Severus had ever had despite everything else. Severus, Lily, and Remus could all legally apparate, and Lily had earned her muggle driver’s license at the beginning of the break, so it was far easier for them to meet up than it had been in the past. With his friends by his side, Severus began to make plans for fixing up his parents’ house, using a combination of muggle and magical means. Many of the improvements, like Severus’s dreams of wall-to-wall bookshelves and hidden passageways, would have to wait until there was more time and money to spare, but they made a start on turning the house back into a place he could call home. 

There weren’t many neighbors about, and fewer still who cared what went on in the last house on Spinner’s End, with the exception of Mrs. Hanley. The widow had lived next door to the Snapes since before Severus had even been born, occasionally helping take care of him as a child. She had been as close to a friend as Mrs. Snape ever had in the neighborhood, offering commiseration and advice where she could, and was one of few locals who had bothered to show up to the funeral the previous autumn. Mrs. Hanley had always had a bit of a soft spot for Severus, and did her part in making sure he took care of himself that summer, dropping off the occasional dish of food or inviting him over for tea. She greatly approved of Lily, whom she had met briefly at the funeral, dropping more than a few comments about how sweet they looked together, and quickly developed a fondness for Remus, whom she felt needed fattening up as much as Severus did. When he first gently shot down her theory that he and Lily were together, she almost immediately switched gears and started to make subtle comments about what a lovely boy Remus was and how Severus should really have him over more often. It had taken several of these sorts of encounters before it finally dawned on Severus that Mrs. Hanley had somehow concluded that his lack of interest in dating Lily came from a hidden desire to date Remus instead. He did his best to set the record straight, though he was touched that she was so supportive of his supposed sexuality. It wasn’t clear that Mrs. Hanley ever entirely believed that it was Remus and Lily who were a couple, and that he wasn’t dating either one of them, but Severus eventually gave up on trying to convince her (especially since she always made a show of agreeing with him before going on to make comments that showed she thought he was just putting on a front). 

Ironically, while Severus was more connected with the muggle world that summer than he had been in the past, it was also the first summer when he spent time in the wizarding world. He had realized before he even got back from school that he had finally had the chance to get a summer job in the wizarding world, where he had the skills for something a little more lucrative than delivering newspapers or stocking shelves at the local market. With Professor Slughorn’s help, Severus had applied for a low-level brewing position at an apothecary in Diagon Alley. The salary was nothing to get too excited about, and most of the work was laughably easy for a potioneer of his talents, but it was far better than nothing, and vastly more enjoyable than any other job he could have found. With events in the wizarding world growing ever more unpredictable, with attacks coming more frequently and politicians making statements left and right, each seeming more unhinged than the next, it was an important time to stay aware of the news. Severus was wary of getting the Daily Prophet delivered to Spinner’s End by owl, afraid of drawing unwanted attention, but he picked up a copy in Diagon Alley most mornings on his way into work. Lily had taken to getting the paper delivered to her parents’ house, and spent breakfast every day comparing incidents reported in the muggle and wizarding news and trying not to get too upset at the political drivel being printed on both sides. She and Severus both scanned the obituaries every day, concerned by stories of random attacks on muggleborns, though it was not until just before their return to Hogwarts that they spotted news of anyone they knew. 

The murder of Anthony Johnson and his wife made it to the front page of the Daily Prophet, though only as a small article placed below the fold. The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor would not be returning for a second year at Hogwarts, having been slain in his home as he tried to protect his pregnant wife. The article noted that Johnson was a muggleborn and his wife was a muggle; they had been childhood sweethearts, raised in the same muggle town where they were murdered. Given the nature of the attack, and the presence of the Dark Mark in the sky above the crime scene, the incident was being treated as a Death Eater attack and assumed to be motivated by the blood status of the victims. The article went on to say, in a self-congratulatory tone that caused Severus to throw the paper across the room, that the memories of all the muggle neighbors had been modified and there would be no issues with containing the story in the muggle press. When Lily checked a muggle newspaper as well, the obituaries listed the couple as having died in a gas leak in their home. For a long moment she simply sat there, staring at the page. She had known that the wizards covered things up, made sure muggles didn’t become aware of magical incidents in their area, but the implications had just hit home in a more personal way. It suddenly occurred to Lily that if she herself was killed by Death Eaters, the wizards would do the same thing to her. Maybe they would tell her parents the truth, or her sister. Maybe. But to everyone else, the neighbors, cousins she barely saw and old friends from primary school, what story would be told? If she was murdered by Death Eaters, how many people would think she died in a gas leak, or a car crash, or whatever other story was cooked up to keep the muggles clueless of the dangers surrounding them. She didn’t realize she had started crying until she felt her mother’s arms around her; when Lily explained what had happened through her sobs, Mrs. Evans cried along with her.  

The students of Hogwarts gathered on Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters just a few days later, the grim atmosphere at odds with the sunshine beaming down from a sky of cloudless blue. Nearly all of them had already heard the news of Professor Johnson, and the few who had not were quickly filled in by friends and classmates. The youngest students still managed a certain level of excitement at reuniting with their friends and going back to Hogwarts, but the older students’ faces were somber. There were no cheerful reunions among the seventh years, no nostalgic reminiscing as they boarded the train for their last year at Hogwarts. They had known that a war had been brewing for years now, but now it was more personal, more real. They would be leaving Hogwarts at the end of the year, entering the real world, where the teasing and little jinxes of schoolyard bullying became legislation and curses that maimed and killed. For some the war had already felt real, but now they could all feel it. The sides were taking shape, but it was not always clear where each student would end up, where the lines would be drawn. Today’s friends could be tomorrow’s enemies, and yesterday’s rivals might by necessity become allies in days to come, but there was no way of knowing for sure. 

Lily and Severus arrived on the platform together, said their final goodbyes to Mr. and Mrs. Evans, and set off in search of Remus. They found him with his mother, both of them looking pale and drawn, though Remus managed a weak smile when he saw his friends. He had already changed into his school robes, with his new Head Boy badge pinned to his chest. It hadn’t been much of a surprise to any of them when Remus and Lily received news of their appointments as Head Boy and Girl, though it had seemed much more exciting before they heard the recent news. But, exciting or not, duty called, so Lily and Remus made their way to the Prefects’ compartment, this time to lead the meeting instead of just attending it. Severus, for once not in the mood to sit alone while his friends were busy, joined some of his Housemates in their compartment. He soon came to regret the decision. The conversation, perhaps inevitably, had turned to the implications of Professor Johnson’s murder both for Hogwarts and for the broader world. It was understandable, of course, as it was the topic foremost in everyone’s minds, but no one had anything new to add and it soon began to spiral into all the same old issues and arguments. None of the Hufflepuffs in the compartment would have gone so far as to express support for the Death Eaters, but the “traditionalist” views of some of the students veered a little closer to the line than Severus might have expected or hoped to hear from his peers. He was saved from his growing desire to jinx Madge Buckthorne’s mouth shut by the arrival of Lily, Remus, and Marcus Smith, returning from the prefects’ meeting. Severus immediately vacated his seat and left with his friends, pleading a lack of room in the compartment. Marcus immediately took his seat and began what seemed (at least to Severus) to be a contest with Madge to see who could sound the most pompous, while Lily, Remus, and Severus made their escape. It was too late to find an empty compartment, but they found one with only two little first years who were overawed by the appearance of the Head Boy and Girl and eagerly made room for the three of them. The rest of the trip passed without incident, and Severus found even the company of the eleven year olds preferable to the raging political debates of his own yearmates. 

The Sorting Feast, once they arrived at the castle, was the most subdued that Severus and his friends had ever seen. The seat usually assigned to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor sat empty at the high table, draped in black, and the professors at the high table looked grim. Even the Sorting Hat’s song seemed to have a darker edge than in years past, warning of the perils of disunity. The Headmaster too was uncharacteristically somber when he gave his welcoming speech at the end of the feast, acknowledging the loss of a good man and dedicated professor and offering hopes for a year of unity and future peace. With Professor Johnson’s death coming so close to the beginning of the term, Dumbledore had been unable to find an immediate replacement. Until a permanent professor could be found, he announced, the other Hogwarts professors and the Headmaster himself would be taking it in turns to teach the Defense classes. That set off a wave of whispers throughout the Great Hall, speculation among the students about who the eventual professor might be, and how their other teachers might approach teaching the subject in the meantime.  

It would prove to be close to two months before the arrival of the newest member of the faculty, weeks spent in an odd state of partial limbo. On the one hand, most things were barely different from the year before. The seventh year students were taking all the same NEWT classes that they had begun in their sixth year, with the same classmates and, with one glaring exception, the same professors. Lily and Remus still had their rounds to make as Head Girl and Boy just as they had as prefects, and they still found opportunities to sneak off for a little alone time. Severus and Lily still dragged Remus to Madam Pomfrey’s healing club, and spent some of their limited free time helping out in the hospital wing as much as the Matron would allow. Severus still continued his spell creation experiments, with occasional advice from Diana Arratay, with whom he had kept up a sporadic correspondence. As in years past, all three friends spent the vast majority of their “free” time in the library, working their way through unending mountains of homework and trying to prepare themselves for the NEWT exams and their futures after graduation. But even as things fell back into a routine, there was a feeling of turbulence. For weeks, each time they entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom there was a different professor at the front of the room, a different topic covered, a different approach to the subject. Professor Slughorn spoke of poisons and antidotes, when he was finally forced to take a class; Professor Kettleburn gleefully took the opportunity to lecture on dark creatures to a larger audience than he ever got in his own course. Professor Dumbledore spoke of theory, philosophy, the nature of good and evil and the classification of spells. Remus said the Gryffindors had listened with rapt attention; Lily and Severus had been disappointed by how many of their fellow Hufflepuffs seemed uninterested. Rumor claimed more than one Slytherin hadn’t even bothered to show up that day.

There was a tension in the halls of Hogwarts, an echo of the political storm brewing outside its walls. Some students, particularly among the upper years, were beginning to take sides more openly. Others attempted to play the middle ground, keep their heads down and avoid the issue, or simply keep their opinions to themselves unless openly challenged. The most open in their views tended to be the Slytherins and Gryffindors, brashly declaring their allegiances and fighting duels in the corridors with those who opposed them. James Potter and Sirius Black got into more than their share of fights, though the professors seemed more reluctant to punish them under the circumstances. One of the more dramatic fights, between Sirius and Regulus Black, was the talk of the school for days after, with each brother declaring the other a traitor for his views. Quite a few hexes were cast and punches thrown before Professors McGonagall and Slughorn arrived to drag them apart. 

It was a strange time for Lily, and for her friends as well. As Head Girl she should have commanded respect among all four Houses, but her muggle parentage prevented more than a few students from taking her seriously in her position, or as an individual. Remus and Severus got into several fights attempting to defend her honor; both boys knew Lily was more than capable of taking care of herself, but she was reluctant to cause too much of a scene, while they were not. Remus would face some minor opposition and disrespect from the Slytherins in his role as Head Boy, but nothing as extreme as what Lily faced. They were predisposed to dislike him for being a Gryffindor, but at least he had two magical parents, even if he was dating a muggleborn. They might not have approved of that sort of behavior, but it was hardly unexpected for a Gryffindor, and most of them weren’t terribly interested in what a relative nonentity like Remus got up to anyway. 

To his dismay, Severus discovered that some of the more elitist students of Hogwarts had begun to pay attention to him. They had apparently come to the conclusion that his changed last name was a hint at his true opinions, a declaration of loyalty to the ideals of pureblood superiority. They saw it as taking up the mantle of the old pureblood Prince family while casting aside his muggle heritage, and watched him to see how far he might go. Quite a few Slytherins in particular made overtures towards him, mistakenly assuming that sooner or later he would abandon his liberal views and unsuitable companions and join them. Severus’s claims to the contrary (with more than a few hexes to back them up) did not entirely convince everyone, and the issue would resurface, but most were dissuaded from bringing up the topic for a while. 

It was to this hornets’ nest of a school that the newest member of the Hogwarts faculty arrived at the end of October, not long before Halloween. No one had known what to expect from Dumbledore’s last-minute find, though Severus had received a cryptic note from Diana Arratay a few days before, telling him to say “hi” to the new professor for her. Professor Alazandra Langston made her appearance at the head table one night at dinner, wearing her blonde hair in a crown braid and split robes with trousers rather than the full robes predominant in wizarding society. The Headmaster formally introduced her at the beginning of the meal, calling her a professional duelist, though the whispers that spread throughout the halls used a different word. Streetfighter. There was only one kind of dueling master who would dress like that; not the sort who engaged in the carefully choreographed, elegant dueling of the upper classes, but one who made her living in the rougher spectator sport, the entertainment of the streets. It was legal, though occasional legislation sought to ban the sport as unbecoming, with just as many regulations as its more sophisticated variant but a slightly different set of skills necessary for success. 

The students turned to their meals, but the speculation continued, rumors and generalizations flying along the tables. Many streetfighters were known to be half-bloods or muggleborns, and more than a few were suspected to participate in the illegal version of the sport where all rules were suspended and magic and muggle fighting styles mixed together. While some students doubted that Dumbledore would have hired an actual criminal to teach at the school, others were less convinced. Professor Langston herself would do little to dispel any of the rumors. When one student got up the courage to ask how she had ended up with the job, her only reply was a raised eyebrow and a short “You think there were a lot of options this late in the game? Headmaster called in a favor.” Which, of course, did nothing but raise more questions for teenagers desperate to find intrigue and gossip at every turn. Lily overheard one theory, from a fifth year prefect no less, that Dumbedore had bailed Langston out of jail for illegal dueling, and it was in repayment of that debt that she had agreed to come teach. After all, everyone was more convinced than ever that the Defense Against the Dark Arts position must be cursed, having now even killed a professor to stop him from returning for a second year, and surely no one in their right mind would take a job like that without a hidden motive. 

But, whatever her background, no one could honestly deny that Professor Langston was an excellent teacher, and the speculatory tales that the students concocted about her mysterious past only served to make her more fascinating. She deflected any attempts to ask her about illegal freestyle dueling, but was more than happy to share tales of her time as a streetfighting champion, and lectured well on a variety of relevant topics. To the surprise of many, particularly those initially inclined to dismiss her as an uncultured brawler, Langston proved equally well versed in the more traditional style of dueling, reintroducing many of the same teaching exercises that Professor Arratay had used two years before. She laughed when one student, surprised to encounter an unusual technique a second time, pointed it out in class. 

“Where do you think I learned it? Dia—ah, Professor Arratay— and I have been sparring partners since our school days. She’s taught me quite a few things over the years.”

Antonia Primrose, who had asked the original question, looked suitably impressed, and word spread quickly through the school. It was perhaps the only thing that could have increased Professor Langston’s alluring air of mystery even more, linking her with the almost legendary former Defense professor. Indeed, when the two witches were spotted holding hands in Hogsmeade towards the end of the fall term, the Hogwarts rumor mill nearly combusted. Several of the older students stopped to say hello when they spotted their former professor in the village over the course of the day, though most were polite enough to keep it brief and leave the witches to their date. Lily, Severus, and Remus waved through the window of the Three Broomsticks as the witches passed by outside, and got a smile and wave in return, but didn’t bother following them into the cold. James, for once unaccompanied by Sirius, might have kept the women talking for hours if not for the intervention of his own date. Mary Macdonald, who seemed to be back together with James for good after the better part of a year of on and off dating, mouthed an apology at the current and former professors as she dragged him away. Diana made a half-hearted attempt to hide her grin behind her hand, but Alazandra laughed openly. It was a contagious sound, a rare bright spot in the increasingly grim and serious atmosphere of both school and village. 

As the end of the fall term approached, there was rampant speculation over whether or not Professor Slughorn would host his annual Christmas party. There had been fewer Slug Club dinners and get-togethers during the term, and they had felt a little more subdued than usual. But it seemed that the Potions Master was unwilling to let anything spoil his holiday festivities, and announced that the party would be going ahead as usual. Severus, who had not attended the previous year, was surprised by how much he was looking forward to the event. No one would ever call him a social butterfly, least of all himself, but the Hufflepuff had grown to enjoy the occasional social event, particularly one which offered the opportunity for dancing. He and Lily met up with Remus in the entrance hall, making their way to Professor Slughorn’s office as a trio. They ran into James and Mary in the corridor, the two Gryffindors clearly dressed up for the party as well. With all five of them heading to the same place, there was no polite way to avoid small talk as they continued the walk. Lily and Mary broke the initial awkward silence, giving the boys a moment to recover from their surprise. They two young women weren’t friends, exactly, but they had always been cordial, and that was more than could be said for some of the others in their group. It was not until they had almost reached the party that James spoke, quietly, awkwardly, fumbling out a sort of apology to the two Hufflepuffs and to Remus. It wasn’t enough, couldn’t be enough, to erase the years of rivalry, infatuation, and broken friendship that had passed between them. But it was a valiant attempt, well intentioned and honestly meant, and by far the most mature thing Lily had ever seen James Potter say or do. And for that moment, at least, it was enough that he had bothered to make such an attempt, to take a first step towards peace or reconciliation.  

It was the first Christmas ball where James didn’t waste any effort or energy pining over Lily Evans. He danced with Mary, laughed with her, kissed her under the mistletoe, and marveled at the end of the night how much more enjoyable it had been to focus on the young woman in his arms rather than one who had always been forever out of his reach. Lily too found herself happier than she had been in some time. For one night, there was nothing to worry about. The impending war was far away, her Head Girl duties put aside, and James Potter seemed to have finally gotten over her. She watched him with Mary as she herself spun across the room with Remus; the Gryffindor couple looked as happy and content as she felt. Remus bowed out of the dancing soon enough, after he made them both mix up the steps a few too many times and have to flee the dance floor because they were laughing so hard. Severus met them there, Lily leaning against his shoulder for support as she tried and failed to stifle her giggles. The three of them stumbled their way to a table, still laughing, helping themselves to the food and drink set out there. Lily took to the dance floor with Severus after that, leaving Remus on the sidelines as he preferred. He loved watching them together, seeing the way Severus’s face lit up and Lily’s eyes sparkled as they whirled across the floor, never missing a beat. It may not have been a perfect evening, but as they made their way back to their common rooms after hours more of dancing, entertainment, and good companionship, they were all in agreement that it came very close. 

With the party behind them, there were only a few more days separating them from winter break, which sped by in the blink of an eye. And a very eventful holiday it would prove to be, for the wedding of Petunia Evans and Vernon Dursley was scheduled for just before the New Year. More than once during the fall term, Lily had expressed an intense relief that she was not able to participate in any of the later stages of wedding planning. She had been unable to avoid dress shopping with her mother and sister at the end of the summer, but it could have been worse; Vernon’s mother and sister had been thankfully unable to join them. Remus, who had been coerced into attending the event as Lily’s date, grew more and more nervous the closer the wedding came. He had never officially met Lily’s parents or sister, and worried about making a good impression, particularly at such an important event. Severus, who had flat out refused to attend despite Mrs. Evans’s claim that everyone would be delighted for him to come too, kept gleefully relaying stories about how annoying Petunia could be, which certainly didn’t help Remus’s nerves. But even Severus was unable to simply avoid Petunia and Vernon entirely. Perhaps as payback for his smugness at getting out of the wedding, or possibly because she knew her parents really did want to see him, Lily had accepted on Severus’s behalf an invitation for Christmas dinner at the Evanses. He grumbled a bit when she told him, anticipating that a meal with Petunia and Vernon might be even worse than with Petunia alone, though he was glad of a chance to spend time with Lily’s parents. Remus would be with his own parents on Christmas, of course, but he made plans to visit with Severus at Spinner’s End for a few days of the break. 

To the surprise of virtually everyone, no major social disasters occurred during the winter holiday, and a relatively good time was had by all. The last minute wedding details sorted themselves out without too much difficulty or shouting, and Petunia and Lily had more fun together than they had in ages, reminiscing over childhood memories as they faced impending adulthood with Petunia’s marriage and Lily’s upcoming graduation. It was almost enough to make Lily forgive the frilly pink bridesmaid’s dress that Petunia had insisted she wear. The fact that Vernon’s sister Marge would be wearing an identical dress, and managing to look even worse in it, was little consolation. Severus and Vernon took an instant disliking to each other when they met on Christmas, but managed to put on a reasonable facade of civility for the family’s sake. Severus doubted that he was really fooling anyone, but he would do his best to put up with anything if it made Mr. and Mrs. Evans happy. He seemed to succeed on that count at least, though he hoped that Petunia and Vernon might choose to spend the holidays with the Dursleys in the future; he wasn’t sure how much longer they could pretend to like each other. The wedding itself went off without a hitch, and Lily’s parents were delighted to meet Remus at last. To the Gryffindor’s relief, he and Lily even managed several dances without tripping or stepping on anyone’s toes, though he had a feeling that Severus could have done it a little more gracefully. 

When Severus heard how little drama had taken place at the wedding he almost regretted not attending, though he had a feeling that if he had been there things might not have gone quite as well; he and Petunia always seemed to bring out the worst in each other. He had instead spent the day of the wedding visiting with Mrs. Hanley next door and helping her fix a few small things around the house. The older woman had invited Severus over for tea as soon as she noticed that he was home again, asking all about those lovely friends of his and the fancy boarding school up north. Severus had been surprised to learn that his mother had bragged about him to the neighbors, about how well he did in school and that he was going to be a doctor one day. Mrs. Snape had never been generous with her praise when speaking to her own son; it was odd to realize that she had expressed so much more pride when speaking about him. Severus enjoyed the time with Mrs. Hanley, listening to her gossip about the locals, tell stories about his mother, or complain about her son who never came to visit now that he had a posh job and a wife from the other side of the river. It was refreshing, hearing about such different problems than the ones he was usually dealing with, small town neighborly disputes and family troubles instead of impending war and a dangerous and uncertain future.   

 The return to the realities of Hogwarts hit hard at the end of break. For two weeks Severus had been cut off from news of the wizarding world, and even Lily, whose parents had continued their subscription to the Daily Prophet, had been barely skimming the headlines. Of the three of them Remus had kept the most up to date on current events, mostly from hearing his father’s rants at the dinner table, but even he was shocked to return to school after three days at Severus’s house to hear that there had been a major demonstration in Diagon Alley the day before. No one had been killed, though there had been some injuries when the Aurors arrived to break things up, and some not insignificant damage to a few shops run by known “muggle lovers.” It was all anyone was talking about on the train, discussions growing more heated as some students were hit once more with unpleasant reminders that not all their peers agreed with their political opinions. There were calls for the Aurors to crack down harder on demonstrators, for the government to take a harder stance against social reforms, for everyone to wake up and realize who was really to blame for the problems of wizardkind — not that any two students could seem to agree where the problem really lay. 

For better or worse, political discourse was mostly shelved when classes started up again. The younger students quickly lost interest in debates, distracted by their own little problems; to a twelve-year-old, the question of which of three girls Gaius Abernathy was secretly interested in was rather more pressing than who should be Minister for Magic. The older students, who were generally more aware of current events and had stronger opinions, were too weighed down with work to cause too much trouble, though they still found time to worry about their own futures. Among the seventh years in particular, with NEWT exams around the corner and life beyond Hogwarts looming ahead, it was difficult sometimes to think about larger issues when there were so many small ones to wade through first. In between finishing class assignments, studying and practicing for NEWTs, extracurricular activities like quidditch, Madam Pomfrey’s healing club, or the dueling club that Professor Langston started in the second half of the year took what little free time was left. Purely social events were few and far between, and the seventh years grew more and more adept at multitasking. Hanging out with friends while studying for exams, practicing spells under the table at mealtimes, or doing homework while watching a quidditch match became standard practice. 

Very few of the seventh years went home for Easter break, having been spurred to an even higher level of panic by a reminder that they would be having another career counseling meeting after the holiday. The lack of classes did at least provide a bit of relief, and a chance to catch up on work and planning that had fallen by the wayside during the term. The advising meetings, when they arrived, were routine and simple for some but more sobering for others. In all cases, of course, final career options would depend on the results of the NEWT exams, information which would not be available until the summer, but all the Heads of House reassured their students that if they had made it this far in NEWT level classes without failing them yet it was unlikely that they would suddenly flunk the exams, barring any unforeseen disaster. Among the Gryffindors, not much had changed from two years before. James and Sirius were both on track for their desired careers as Aurors, with good grades and professors willing to give them recommendations. Peter was aiming for a clerk’s position in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which Professor McGonagall was confident was within his reach. 

Remus had the qualifications on paper to do anything he wanted, but growing anti-werewolf sentiment made it even less likely that he would be able to obtain and keep any high-level job in the wizarding world. A job at the Ministry was entirely out of the question, and with political tensions so high it would be increasingly difficult to find a position even in the private sector. McGonagall promised to let him know if she came up with any leads, though Remus was beginning to suspect that someone like Professor Langston, with connections in low places rather than high, might be more useful in finding a way to keep a roof over his head. What he did not mention to his Head of House, though did discuss with Lily and Severus, was that he was also starting to consider trying to make his way in the muggle world rather than the wizarding one. He was only eighteen years old, after all, and had grown up with one foot in the muggle world. Perhaps it wasn’t yet too late to look for a life there instead. Severus and Lily had extenuating factors to consider too, if perhaps not as immediately as Remus. Both were more than qualified to enter Healer training in the fall, assuming that they passed their exams at the end of the year, and that was still what they were planning to do. But while Professor Sprout tried to be diplomatic about it, she tried to give realistic warnings as well. At that moment there were no restrictions on where muggleborns could work, but it was not inconceivable to imagine that that might change within even a few years. Popular opinion could be a dangerous thing, and it was more important than ever to be aware of the changing political climate. Severus, as a half-blood, officially had the least to worry about — none of them seriously considered that there would ever realistically be legal discrimination against half-bloods — but even a pureblood could be in danger from association and known opinions, and a half-blood even more so. 

But there was nothing to be gained by overturning their lives because of a potential future threat, and all three did their best to continue on as they had planned without adding any more worries than the world was already putting on them. And, for the moment, the most pressing concern was not discrimination or future career opportunities, but simply living long enough to take their NEWT exams without collapsing under the weight of the essays they had been assigned. All too soon, long before the students would have considered themselves ready, the end of the year was upon them. They sat their NEWT exams over the course of two weeks, though for many students much of that time was spent studying rather than taking exams, depending on how many they had chosen to take. Severus had assumed that the tests would feel similar to the OWLs they had all taken two years before, and they did to an extent, but the tales of how much more difficult NEWTs were compared to OWLs had not been an exaggeration. It was with a sense of great relief and accomplishment that they exited the last test, the Defense Against the Dark Arts practical portion. Seventh years spilled out across the sunny Hogwarts lawn, mingling with the fifth years recovering from their OWLs as the lower years remained trapped inside the castle classrooms. 

The last few days before the end of the year were that strange mix of nostalgia and dreams for the future that is so common among graduates at any stage of schooling. For better or worse, the seventh years were about to leave Hogwarts for the last time, a place where they had spent nearly half of their conscious lives, and venture out into the “real world.” Severus, Lily, and Remus wandered the halls and the grounds, reminiscing about the good and the bad. Here was the antechamber where they had all stood as scared little first years, waiting for the Sorting Hat to decide their fates, and there the corridor where Remus had first asked the Hufflepuffs for help with his Arithmancy homework. The library where they had spent so many years huddled around the same table, the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom with its ever changing cast of professors, the Hospital Wing where Madam Pomfrey had patched them all up from injuries large and small. The Whomping Willow they avoided, but they recalled the corridor where Lily first hexed James on Valentine’s day, and the spot in front of the Three Broomsticks where the Marauders and Potioneers had gotten themselves banned from Hogsmeade. Here was the armchair by the Hufflepuff fire where a much younger Severus and Lily had curled up and shared a cupcake for Severus’s birthday, and just beside it the hearthrug where Remus and Severus had roasted marshmallows just the year before. There the shadowy corner where Lily and Remus had shared their first real kiss on a prefect patrol, and here the spot by the shore of the lake where Severus had told Lily that he loved her. Everywhere they turned, memories surrounded them. 

As the Hogwarts class of 1978 gathered on the shore of the Hogwarts lake, saying their final farewells to castle and staff, for a moment they were unified. Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors, Slytherins, and Ravenclaws alike spent a moment looking back at the people who had been with them for seven long years, now preparing to go their separate ways. They boarded the same boats that they had sailed to cross the lake before their sorting, now going back the opposite direction towards the train. Some still shared with the same people they had arrived with, but many others had found new companions. Sirius, Peter, and James were joined in their boat by Mary Macdonald, holding hands with James as they gazed across the water. Lily and Severus, who had made their first journey across the lake with two girls with whom they had barely spoken since, this time crossed with Remus. As they sailed away from Hogwarts castle, laughing as the giant squid’s splashing tentacles sent a spray of water showering over the little fleet, they didn’t look back. There were memories behind, but the promise of their future lay ahead. 

Chapter Text

The newest Hogwarts graduates spent the summer after seventh year in a state of limbo, waiting to see how their futures would progress. They waited for their NEWT results, and began submitting formal applications for the professions or training which they hoped to begin in the fall. For some, a return to their parents’ homes, the houses where they had grown up, seemed to keep them with one foot stuck in childhood. Others, moving physically away from home, felt as though they were taking their first steps into “real” adulthood. James and Sirius, financed by Mr. and Mrs. Potter, fell into the latter category. They began to spread their wings a little and embrace their independence with a shared apartment in London, close to the Ministry of Magic where both boys hoped to be working by the end of the summer. Peter Pettigrew, who had once hoped to be included in such a housing venture, was left to spend the summer at his mother’s house, inadvertently shut out once more by the boys who were supposed to be his friends. Lily and Remus too returned home to their respective parents, leaving with their families from Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters as they had at the end of each previous school year. For Severus, graduation meant a return to Spinner’s End, to what had once been the Snape household, but now should more accurately be called the Prince house. He began the summer there alone, but was joined by Remus before long. 

Severus had made the offer before they left Hogwarts, having heard from Remus that tensions with his father were rising, and knowing from personal experience the unpleasantness of sharing a roof with a hostile parent. The former Gryffindor had thought (or perhaps hoped) that the situation wouldn’t be as bad as the heated letters from his father implied they could become, but found within days that he had been mistaken. He held out a little longer for his mother’s sake, but by the time a week passed Remus determined that things would be much more pleasant for everyone if he moved out, and hesitantly broached the topic with Severus. Remus was well aware of how small the house at Spinner’s End was, having visited often the summer before, and worried about getting in Severus’s way and invading his space. Severus, after fondly berating his friend for thinking such a thing (“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it, idiot, I’m not that nice”), helped Remus move his things into what had once been the master bedroom. They transported his things the muggle way, loaded in the back of the car Lily borrowed from her parents, to avoid any awkward questions from Mrs. Hanley next door. She was sweet, but a bit of a busybody, and Severus felt that trying to explain Remus arriving without any belongings would have been more trouble than just carrying the few bags and boxes by hand (especially with a featherweight charm cast on them; Severus wasn’t above a little cheating). The older woman turned out to be delighted to see Remus moving in, and immediately invited all three young people over for tea when they finished hauling. Severus belatedly realized that Mrs. Hanley might become more convinced than ever that he and Remus were secretly a couple, but figured if she wasn’t going to make it a problem (which seemed unlikely, judging by how pleased she seemed to be by the new addition) then it wasn’t worth making a fuss. 

Remus, determined to repay Severus’s hospitality by at least helping out with expenses, since Severus refused to even talk about him paying rent, started looking for a job immediately after moving in. Lily, with no expenses while she was living at her parents’ house, was holding out for the permanent offer she would hopefully receive once her NEWTs came in, but Severus had reclaimed his brewing job from the previous summer in the meantime. After a little effort, he managed to convince his boss at the little apothecary to give Remus a job too, working as a clerk and occasionally helping out at the counter. Remus hoped that Severus’s recommendation might help him keep the boring but steady job even after Severus inevitably left for Healer training in the fall, though he wasn’t confident he would even make it past the first full moon on the job. The prospect of full moons at Severus’s house was stressful for more reasons than just job security. When Remus had first moved in, he and Severus had worked to create a safe and secure place for him to transform. They magically reinforced and soundproofed the small cellar, where Severus had once planned to set up a potions laboratory. Remus had offered to go back to his parents’ for each full moon, not wanting to take away even more of his friend’s limited space, but Severus had refused to let him banish himself from the house (“ your house, Remus, as long as you want it to be”). Remus gave in. There was no point arguing with Severus when he got protective and sentimental like this; he could rival Lily for stubbornness when it came to doing what he thought was right for his friends. Remus promised himself, though, that he would figure out a way to expand the cellar enough to get Severus his laboratory space again, no matter how long it took. 

With the safe room in place, the first full moon went better than either young man had dared to expect. Severus locked Remus into the fortified cellar before the moon rose, and returned to release him at sunrise after spending the night tossing and turning, barely getting any more sleep than the werewolf. He got the worst of Remus’s self-inflicted injuries taken care of and got him settled back in bed, then rushed off to the apothecary, barely making it on time. The owner seemed to accept the story that Remus was sick, though Severus thought he seemed slightly more suspicious by the third day of Remus’s supposed illness. The apothecary didn’t say anything when Remus returned though, and the young men dared to hope that they had gotten away without any trouble. After Remus missed work for a second full moon in a row, though, it became clear that they had not escaped notice. The owner of the shop met Severus and Remus at the door when they arrived together on the day after the full moon, and in no uncertain terms informed them that they were both fired. 

“I can’t be having this sort of thing in my shop, you understand? If it got out that I’d hired a werewolf —” he lowered his voice and looked around furtively, making sure no one was in earshot. “Well, you know how things are nowadays. I can’t risk it, not for either of you.”

Severus, looking murderous, opened his mouth to give his former boss a piece of his mind, but Remus cut him off with a sharp elbow to the ribs. “We understand, no one wants any trouble. We’ll just get out of your way now, sir.” 

He dragged Severus away from the shop, hoping to avoid the other boy saying something that would make it impossible for either of them to get another job anywhere in the Alley. Severus pulled out of his grasp when they were halfway down the street with a muttered “you should have let me hex the bastard,” though he didn’t try to turn back. Remus just sighed. If he went around cursing everyone who discriminated against him, he doubted he would end up with time for anything else. Still, he understood Severus’s sentiment. His first job ever, and he had already been fired for being a werewolf. It was hardly an auspicious start to post-Hogwarts life or a promise of a fulfilling career to come. At least he knew that he would have other opportunities to make a difference, in an arena where his lycanthropy would not be held against him, and might even have the potential to be an asset in the fight against evil. 

For barely a month after graduation, just a couple weeks after Remus left home and a month or so before his apothecary clerk’s job went sour, Albus Dumbledore came recruiting. The Order of the Phoenix had been founded years before to fight the self-styled Lord Voldemort, but with the threat of outright war growing stronger every day the Headmaster felt a need to increase his own numbers as well. Letters arrived at Spinner’s End, addressed in Dumbledore’s own loopy handwriting to “R. Lupin” and “S. Prince,” invitations to a private meeting to discuss “current events.” Similar invitations were sent to the London apartment that James and Sirius shared, to Lily’s parents’ home, to Peter’s mother’s cottage, and the cozy house where Mary had grown up. All seven had heard rumors of Dumbledore’s organization, his Order, though its membership was a far better kept secret than its existence. For six of the new graduates, it was a welcome call to arms for a cause they believed in, and they accepted eagerly, albeit with varying degrees of nervousness. Going to war is not a thing that can ever be done lightly, but they all believed in the cause of the Light and the need to oppose the Death Eaters. 

But for Peter Pettigrew, the situation was far more complicated, and would have far more dire consequences. For while his friends had rebuffed all attempts to recruit them to the side of the Dark Lord while they were at school, Peter had been more easily swayed. Feeling ever more abandoned by his friends, left out and left alone while James and Sirius planned their glorious futures, promises of power and comradery and a chance to be part of something bigger than himself once more had been enough to tip him over the edge. Even as he sailed across the Hogwarts lake with James and Sirius, Peter Pettigrew had already promised himself to Voldemort’s recruiters. His oath of fealty to Dark Lord and Death Eaters was sworn within the week, along with that of a not quite seventeen-year-old Regulus Black. When Dumbledore offered him a place in the Order mere weeks later, not knowing of the young man’s secret allegiance, Peter jumped not at a chance to fight Voldemort, but at an opportunity to raise his own place among the Death Eaters by spying on the Headmaster and his people. 

It was nearing the end of July when the recent Hogwarts graduates were reunited at their first official Order meeting, hosted one evening in a little cottage in Godric’s Hollow. Lily, Severus, and Remus had discussed their invitations from and meetings with the Headmaster amongst themselves, and speculated endlessly about who else might also be involved. They were still unprepared for some of the people they were introduced (or reintroduced) to when they entered headquarters. That James and Sirius had been recruited was not terribly shocking — even Severus grudgingly admitted that they were talented wizards and would no doubt be an asset, though that didn’t mean he had to like them. Peter seemed to always tag along wherever the other two went, so his inclusion was not much of a surprise either, though his usefulness was less certain. Other older members were also not unexpected. Frank and Alice Longbottom, who had been a couple years ahead of the new recruits at Hogwarts, had already begun to make a name for themselves among the Aurors, and everyone had heard of the great Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody. Fabian Prewett, with whom Sirius had had a romantic fling several years before, and his older brother Gideon, were more unexpected; neither had joined the Auror corps after school, and their apparent vigilante activities had so far remained out of the public spotlight. Most of the others at the meeting were strangers to the new members, though they were more than surprised to recognize the barman from the Hog’s Head pub scowling in the corner of the room. Diana Arratay and Alazandra Langston were present as well, which, as Lily put it later, explained more than it didn’t. Neither witch had ever given any indication to their students that they had worked for Dumbledore in anything but an academic capacity, and had tried to keep politics out of their classrooms as much as possible, but nor had they kept their views very secret. 

When the initial introductions and welcoming words from Dumbledore were concluded, the real work began. In their first days in the Order of the Phoenix, the seven newcomers sat through hours of reports, most fairly routine and relatively boring once the initial novelty wore off. Though Dumbledore predicted escalation by the Death Eaters in the near future, things had not yet reached that point. There was unrest in the wizarding world, minor attacks, vandalism, violent protests in Diagon Alley, the occasional isolated murder, but it was not a full-fledged war. The Order focused primarily on preparations for the inevitable battles ahead, gathering information and planning for the future. There was not much that the teenagers could do for the Order or the war effort, not before they had a better sense of what was needed and their new comrades had a better idea of what they could do to help. Those summer nights were spent getting up to speed, learning about the Order and training for the kind of fighting they might expect to take part in. Sirius and James spent as much time as they could with Alice, Frank, and Mad-Eye, eager to learn not only about their roles in the Order but about life in the Auror corps as well. It was the three Aurors who took care of most of the combat training, though Alazandra, Diana, and the two Prewetts each played their parts as well. There were no Healers in the Order, though several members knew at least rudimentary first aid. Aberforth the barman (who was shockingly revealed as Albus Dumbledore’s brother, though he rarely used his last name) was in charge of stocking healing potions, though he seemed glad to hand off the brewing responsibilities to Lily and Severus. 

All seven newcomers spent much of their time with the other younger members of the Order. The Prewetts, the Longbottoms, Diana and Alazandra mingled with the seven, cultivating new relationships or rekindling old ones, even managing to dispel some of the difficulties between the former Gryffindor and Hufflepuff rivals. There would always be some tension between Sirius and Remus, and between Severus and Sirius, though James and Remus managed to mostly repair their friendship, and even Lily and James managed to work together when necessary. Lily, Mary, and Alice became fast friends, and it was not uncommon to see the three of them conspiring with Diana and Alazandra in a corner of the room. Sirius and Fabian quickly returned to their Hogwarts courtship, developing it from the casual dalliance it had been in school into a full-fledged romance. Frank became close with James and Sirius, taking the soon-to-be Auror trainees under his wing, and Alazandra helped Remus find another job in Diagon Alley (and another, and another still, as so many fizzled out after a month or two) through some of her streetfighting contacts. Severus and Diana continued their correspondence through mail, but both were pleased by the opportunity to collaborate in person once more, finally as equals rather than separated by the distance between professor and student. Peter alone cultivated few new relationships himself, simply coasting along in his friends’ wakes as he so often did. When James and Sirius spent time with Frank, or with Gideon and Fabian, it was a given that Peter would be with them too, but he initiated few new contacts on his own, behavior which his friends attributed to shyness. 

One of the first things Dumbledore began to teach his new recruits that summer, considered almost a rite of passage in joining the Order of the Phoenix, was the Patronus Charm. It had not been taught to them at Hogwarts, being generally considered of little use; after all, its only official purpose was fighting dementors, all of which were safely contained at Azkaban as guards. But the Headmaster had years before developed an alternative use for the spell, a slight modification that allowed it to be used as the swiftest and most secure form of messenger, and it was for this purpose that he taught it to all members of his Order. It took time to learn, and effort to cast, though it was significantly easier to think of pleasant memories to cast it without having to fight against the overwhelming presence of dementors. Their friends and comrades offered what advice they could, demonstrating with their own patronuses and waiting with ill-concealed curiosity to see what animal forms each one would take. By the end of the summer nearly all of their cohort had successfully cast the spell at least once, though with varying levels of consistency. James and Sirius were unsurprised to see their patronuses take the form of a stag and a big dog respectively, having heard that animagus forms and patronuses were generally correlated, though that didn’t detract from their enjoyment of seeing the silvery animals each time. Remus had been resigned to the fact that his would probably take the form of a wolf, and it was likely his mixed feelings about this which initially gave him some difficulty in casting it. It was only on the night when Lily and Severus first successfully cast theirs corporeally, as Remus watched them race their pair of wolves around the room, that he managed to add his own to the pack. Mary’s gazelle took longer to appear, though Dumbledore still seemed quite pleased with her progress. Peter never managed to master the spell. 

It was not long after their initiation into the Order of the Phoenix that NEWT scores arrived for the seven recent graduates of Hogwarts, Ministry owls bringing news of their prospects for the future. To the relief of all, there were no surprises in the results, and no changes necessary in the plans that were already being laid for those beginning their jobs or training at the end of the summer. When the fall arrived, as the Hogwarts school year began without them for the first time in seven years, Severus and Lily began their training as Healers, and James and Sirius as Aurors. Peter had taken an entry-level clerk’s position in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and did his best to pretend he was as happy with it as his friends were with their more exciting and prestigious paths. Mary had been hired as a journalist for the Daily Prophet, despite James’s worries about her safety as a muggleborn writing potentially controversial articles. As she pointed out, touched but slightly exasperated by his concerns, being a member of a secret vigilante group wasn’t exactly safe either, and neither was being an Auror. And, more soberingly, no muggleborn could ever be entirely safe while the Death Eaters were around, no matter what job she chose. For Remus, there were hardly any jobs to choose from; he continued to cycle through an assortment of jobs that Alazandra helped him find in Diagon or Knockturn Alley. Some were intended to be temporary — fill in for a clerk on vacation, work as security for a single streetfighting tournament. Others simply fired him after the first or second full moon on the job, whenever they felt they had enough evidence of lycanthropy to not want him around. Of the few bosses who were willing to hire werewolves, Remus quickly found that most were only hoping to take advantage of a labor pool that would be unlikely to complain about their unlivable wages and bad treatment. 

As autumn turned to winter, the youngest Order members spent most of their time acclimating to their new jobs and their new stage of life, as well as their responsibilities to the war effort, settling into a routine. For most of them, the effects of the war were obvious both at work and at home. Auror training was being expedited in the face of increasing attacks throughout the wizarding world, hurrying new recruits through their courses and testing in an attempt to get them out on the streets faster. James and Sirius were among the many new Aurors who were being sent out on patrols with senior wizards while still in the early stages of their training; some of the others did not survive the experience. Not much was printed about it in the Daily Prophet, but Mary revealed that the paper was being swamped with letters accusing the Ministry of either trying to raise an army to use against its citizens, or killing off the best young fighters by rushing them through training and getting them cut down on patrols. At St. Mungo’s, Lily and Severus spent much of their training shadowing more experienced Healers as they went about their rounds, rarely allowed to take any action but expected to learn by watching. Unlike with the Trainee Aurors, though, no one dared risk rushing Healers through their training too quickly. An untrained Auror could easily get herself killed, but an untrained Healer could kill his patients. But the evidence of the impending war was there too, in the whispers of the senior Healers, the injuries of the patients, and the expressions of family visiting their people. Barely a week after their arrival, Severus and Lily helped the staff set up an overflow ward for curse damage; there were already enough victims of dark magic trickling in each day that the Healers predicted they might need to expand onto another floor before long. 

It was an odd stage to be at, old enough to be well aware of what was going on in the world, on the brink of being able to do something useful, but young and inexperienced enough not to be able to help as much as you wished. All of the new graduates felt the frustration to varying degrees, working hard at whatever they could do in an attempt to alleviate the feelings of uselessness. Peter was growing nervous. The less valuable the information he was able to pass on to the Death Eaters, the more inconsequential he would become, but he had access to little of real note. None of them did; they were the newcomers, the trainees. It was people like Alice and Frank, the Prewett boys, or Alazandra and Diana who were the real rising stars of the Order, and there were plenty of older members who had been fighting for years already. James and Sirius grumbled when Dumbledore was out of earshot, wanting to help the Order, to go out and fight, but forced instead to stay back until the Headmaster felt they were ready. Lily and Severus threw themselves into their training, soaking up new healing spells and methods. Severus was content to focus more of his efforts in the research laboratories of St. Mungo’s, spending only as much time with patients as required. Lily, on the other hand, spent as much time with real patients as she could, often convincing her supervisors to let her do more than might have been strictly allowed. Remus helped Dumbledore however he could, desperate for something that could make him feel more useful than wandering through Diagon Alley looking for work. He brought back whatever news he could, whispers of fear and discontent from the broken, desperate wizards who frequented Knockturn Alley, and fought to avoid becoming one of them. 

It had been a recurring fear for Remus throughout his young life, that he would be cast aside by anyone who might have loved him, simply for the crime of being a werewolf, and one which his different friends had always tried to alleviate in their various ways. Remus had thought he had overcome that fear by the time he graduated Hogwarts, after seven years of friendship and support, but his constantly failing attempts to secure a job had shaken him. He worried that Severus would throw him out of Spinner’s End if he wasn’t able to contribute to the expenses of the house, or that Lily would come to her senses and go searching for a man who was more worthy of her love. Both of them made it clear numerous times that these concerns were entirely unfounded, but the feelings would still resurface on occasion. It was in October that Severus, slightly fed up with Remus’s latest “why would Lily even like me” angst (which, in his defense, had been prompted by several older werewolves at his newest workplace telling tales of all the women who had left them over the years), suggested that he just ask her to marry him. 

“You love her, she loves you. She knows it, I know it, even you know it when you aren’t too busy being a self-pitying idiot to remember. Just get married, and then I don’t have to hear either of you moping about why you aren’t engaged yet.” Advice delivered, Severus calmly went back to eating his dinner, while Remus gaped at him with his fork frozen halfway to his mouth. 

“I just listed about ten reasons why Lily should get as far from me as possible — most of which apply to you too, by the way! — and your response is ‘just get married already?!’” 

Severus shrugged. “Sounds about right. There is a war on, after all, no time like the present. Safety in numbers and all that.”

Remus spluttered a bit longer, faced with what had to be the least romantic suggestion of marriage that he had ever heard. But, as a slightly smug Severus later pointed out, that didn’t make it a bad idea, and within the week he was watching Remus get down on one knee. There was no fancy diamond — what eighteen-year-olds could afford such a thing? — but to Lily the simple placeholder twisted by hand from silver wire was the most perfect ring she could have ever dreamed of. A romantic would have said that love was in the air for the Order of the Phoenix when both the McKinnon wedding and James and Mary’s engagement also took place within the month, but a realist might have blamed it on the winds of war. 

By the time Christmas rolled around, there seemed to be something of a lull in attacks, though the Order stayed on alert through the holidays, concerned that it might simply be the calm before an even worse storm. Severus, Lily, and Remus celebrated with Mr. and Mrs. Evans, the excitement over Lily and Remus’s engagement warring with the concerns of current events. To everyone’s relief, Petunia was spending her first holidays as a newlywed with Vernon’s family, eliminating any need to censor discussions of magic for her benefit or comfort. Severus had worried a little about what Lily’s parents might think about him joining them now that Remus’s engagement to Lily made it even more officially clear that he would never be marrying their daughter. Thankfully the older couple seemed to take a similar view to Mrs. Hanley on Spinner’s End, namely that they didn’t really care who was or wasn’t romantically involved with whom, as long as everyone was happy. Lily, who had gotten that message several years before when she started dating Remus, tried and failed to resist the urge to say “I told you so” when Severus expressed his relief. 

As the old year gave way to the new, cases of Dragon Pox began to appear throughout the wizarding world. Some assumed the disease was simply flaring up, as it did from time to time, while others ascribed more nefarious aims, noting that cases seemed to be sporadic and targeted rather than epidemic. Among those to fall ill were the parents of James Potter, who died one after another, not long after being rushed to St. Mungo’s. The Healer in charge of their case said it was natural; tragic, of course, but not unexpected in people their age. James was less certain. There had been rumors that the Death Eaters were spreading Dragon Pox intentionally, as a form of biological warfare against those who disagreed with them, and James had only a week before turned down another attempt to recruit him into Lord Voldemort’s ranks. Lily and Severus were both on shift at the hospital the night the Potters were brought in, Lily working on the infectious disease ward under the strict supervision of a senior Healer and Severus brewing in the laboratory. A distraught James went to Lily, begging for her help in proving whether or not his parents had been murdered, but it was Severus who was ultimately able to provide the answer with the help of a modified tracing spell. The spell, designed for tracking the spread of infectious diseases, could not prove whether an outbreak was natural or maliciously manufactured, but it did show that the Dragon Pox had passed between six or seven people before reaching the elder Potters. As Severus bluntly put it, if it was an assassination attempt it was the stupidest one he’d ever heard of, relying entirely on luck to reach its targets. Lily said it a little more gently when she relayed the news to James, but the meaning was the same. The death of the Potters was a tragedy of nature rather than malice; knowing that did less to ease their son’s grief than he had expected. 

But life had to move on, and the war would not stop for losses suffered. James moved back to the Potter estate where he had grown up, taking his fiance with him. The two of them did their best to move forward together, trying to look towards the future, their future, instead of suffocating in the grief of the past. Fabian Prewett took the opportunity to move in with Sirius, filling the new vacancy in the two Marauders’ apartment; a reminder that love can bring joy as well as sorrow. While James and Mary chose to push off their planned wedding until the summer, out of respect for James’s parents and to give the groom time to mourn, other couples had no such restrictions. 

Only months after the Dragon Pox outbreak of January 1979, Remus and Lily tied the knot, worried about the worsening war and fearing to wait too long lest something happen to one or both of them. Unsurprisingly, Remus picked Severus as his best man, though Lily initially argued that he should really have been her best man to save her from the obligation of asking Petunia to be her matron of honor. She gave in for the sake of family peace, and resisted the urge to choose an ugly dress for her sister as payback for the frilly monstrosity that Petunia had forced on her the previous year. Instead she found a pretty blue for Petunia to wear, along with Mary and Alice as her bridesmaids. The wedding was a small affair, held in a muggle style, though attended by more than a few wizard friends and family of the bride and groom, mostly members of the Order of the Phoenix. Despite all of their concerns, the ceremony went off without a hitch, there were no unwelcome interruptions by Death Eaters, and even the occasionally troublesome family members (namely Petunia, Vernon, and Mr. Lupin) behaved themselves. Remus, terrified of making a fool of himself while dancing and ruining Lily’s day, had enlisted Severus’s help practicing in the weeks leading up to the wedding, to great success. Both mothers cried a little during the ceremony, and again during the first dance, and even Severus teared up a little from the joy of seeing his two best friends together. A few worries had certainly crossed his mind about how the wedding might change things between them all, just as he had worried when Lily and Remus first started dating, but no fears that they might leave him entirely. After all, both Remus and Lily would be living with Severus in the house on Spinner’s End. Remus had already been living there for the better part of a year, and Lily planned to move in after the wedding. She had been growing increasingly concerned about Death Eaters finding her at her parents’ house, and hoped that moving away from the elder Evanses might help contribute to their safety. Since the young couple certainly had no money for a house of their own, even if they had really wanted one, it seemed like the obvious solution. 

Not long after the Evans-Lupin wedding, things suddenly became much more complicated for the little family. Remus had been spending more and more time in the seedier parts of wizarding society, both from his own attempts to find and keep a job and as a way of keeping an ear to the streets for Dumbledore and the Order, and his lycanthropy was becoming an open secret in certain circles. With anti-werewolf sentiment being what it was in mainstream wizarding society, more than a few lycanthropes had begun to gravitate towards Voldemort’s side, in hopes that his prejudices leaned in a different direction. Perhaps it had been only a matter of time, then, before Death Eaters came to try to recruit Remus, whom they knew to be both a werewolf and a skilled, Hogwarts-educated wizard. This wasn’t the first time that someone had tried to sound him out, but it was the first serious offer Remus had received since graduating from Hogwarts, and it offered the Order of the Phoenix their first possible opportunity to plant a spy within Voldemort’s organization. Remus had immediately gone to Dumbledore with the message he had received, an invitation to meet and discuss his allegiance, after first discussing the matter with Lily and Severus. The Headmaster was immediately in favor of Remus accepting the offer and attempting to infiltrate the Death Eaters. The young man’s bride and best friend, unsurprisingly, needed a lot more convincing. Eventually, with varying degrees of reluctance and shouting, they all came to a tentative agreement that if Remus was willing, it was worth trying to get an informant on the inside. Remus, still a reckless Gryffindor at heart despite his relative calmness and reason when compared to the chaos of certain of his Housemates, jumped at the chance to aid the war effort.

On the designated night, he was met in Knockturn Alley by two cloaked and hooded figures who took him by portkey to a manor house that he didn’t recognize (though Remus would have been the first to admit that he was familiar with very few pureblood estates). He followed his guides down a back corridor, trying to unobtrusively look for any identifying features of the house — a family portrait, or a coat of arms like some of the older families still used — though he was not surprised when he found nothing. Voldemort and his followers were many things, but they were not often stupid, and only so much trust would be given to a new recruit who had not yet sworn loyalty to the cause. He tried to hide his nervousness, but there was nothing quite like being surrounded by enemies to make a person feel alone. Remus carefully kept his hand away from his pocket, not wanting his companions to think he was reaching for his wand, and wary of drawing unwanted attention to the emergency portkey stored there. Lily had insisted that Dumbledore give him one when she agreed to the mission, an old button from Remus’s robes that wouldn’t look obviously amiss if anyone spotted it. It was set to drop him in the alley behind the Hog’s Head if he spoke the activation word; none of them had dared to admit to themselves that if things went too badly wrong Remus might not have a chance to use it. At least they’d left him his wand; he hadn’t been certain they would. He knew he wouldn’t have much of a chance against multiple opponents, but he felt better knowing he had it. 

They entered a room, dark and full of shadows, and Remus fought to keep his face still as a snarky comment about the wonderful ambiance flitted through his mind; it was something he imagined Severus would have said. A figure sat in an ornate chair before the fireplace, almost a throne, backlit by the dancing flames. Remus’s guides pushed him forward towards Lord Voldemort, and he knelt as he had been instructed, head bent and waiting to be addressed. 

“So. Remus Lupin, come to join us.” The voice was cold, higher than Remus had expected. “Grown tired of being Dumbledore’s lapdog, hmm?”

“I — I just want to be useful — to have a place,” Remus’s voice steadied as he went on, and he took the risk of looking up at Voldemort. “I want to be part of something bigger. Dumbledore would never let someone like me have any power.”

Brown eyes met red, and Voldemort appeared pleased with what he saw. 

“Power.” Voldemort seemed to savor the word. “Even the weakest men may hunger for power, but only some are deserving. What would you sacrifice for power, little wolf?” 

Remus swallowed hard, but didn’t dare tear his eyes away from the figure before him, red eyes boring into his soul. “Anything.” The word came out softer than he had intended, more hesitant, but there was nothing he could do about it now, only hope that Voldemort assumed nerves rather than treachery. 

“Anything,” Voldemort repeated softly, firmly. His lips twisted with a shadow of a smile. “But words can be empty of meaning without actions to demonstrate their conviction, without proof of devotion. You have taken a wife, a mudblood held dear by the old fool Dumbledore. Kill her, and prove your loyalty.”

For a moment Remus was frozen, unable to process. Kill his wife. Kill Lily. He wanted him to — “NO!” The word burst out before Remus could stop it, spoken from his heart without any input from rational thought. It was followed immediately by the portkey activation word as he jammed his hand into his pocket to grab for the button. Remus felt a tugging sensation in his gut, and saw a look of shock and anger on Voldemort’s face for just a moment before the portkey whisked him away. 

He landed in a heap in a Hogsmeade back alley, and was immediately grabbed by the arm and dragged through the back door of the Hog’s Head as he struggled to regain his feet. Aberforth, having seemingly assured himself that Remus was neither dead nor injured, simply an idiot (or so Remus gathered from his muttering), bundled him off into one of the pub’s upstairs rooms with instructions to stay put and keep his mouth shut until the Headmaster showed up. He tried to protest, arguing that he needed to contact Lily and Severus, but a look from Aberforth shut him up. 

“You’ve caused enough trouble tonight, and I don’t give a damn whether the mighty Albus Dumbledore thought this was a good idea or not, it’s my pub that’d get burned down if someone sees you leaving.” The old barman seemed to be running out of anger, at least towards Remus, and his gruff voice seemed a little gentler when he continued. “It’s a fool who defies the Dark Lord to his face, boy. A brave fool, but a fool nonetheless. I’ll get word to your people.”  

Albus Dumbledore, when he arrived at the Hog’s Head hours later, seemed more impressed with Remus’s “heroics” than his brother had been, but Remus detected a hint of disappointed resignation that he had been unable to complete the deception. After what felt like an eternity, the Headmaster appeared satisfied with the completeness of his report (not that Remus had seen much of any value), and an exhausted Remus set off for home. The house at Spinner’s End had never been connected to the floo network, and it was dangerous to apparate into the middle of a muggle street (or into a wizard home whose occupants were no doubt on high alert after Aberforth’s no doubt cryptic message). Remus apparated instead to a secluded, sheltered spot on the banks of the river, and walked the rest of the way to the house, dressed in muggle clothes with his robes bundled in his arms in case a neighbor chose that moment to peer outside. He found Lily and Severus waiting up for him despite the hour — so late that it could justifiably be called early morning — curled up together on the battered couch with worry etched across their faces. Their relief at his return was palpable, and they allowed themselves a moment of joyful reunion. The fear and the worry would return later, the planning for how to keep themselves safe now that Remus would surely have an even bigger target on his back, but for a few minutes, all that mattered was that their Remus had returned safely, and they were all still alive. 

In the following days, Severus and the Lupins kept their guard up, putting new measures in place to protect themselves and their home. Remus had to become even more careful about his job hunting, as it quickly became clear that Voldemort and his Death Eaters were not at all happy with his actions. The trio called on Diana Arratay to help them put up better wards on the house at Spinner’s End, worried that someone might track Remus there or come hunting for all of them. The cursebreaker was more than happy to assist; her professional work involved dismantling more defenses than she put up, but her expertise and passion extended to casting them as well. Lily and Remus tried to warn their families as well, unsure how far Voldemort’s interest and animosity might extend, with mixed results. Remus’s father bluntly told him that they could take care of themselves without their werewolf criminal son putting them in any more danger by trying to help, and very nearly slammed the door in his face. Mr. and Mrs. Evans were more open to assistance, though they did not entirely understand or appreciate the danger. There were limits to the magical defenses that could be used on a muggle house without raising any red flags at the Ministry of Magic, but Lily did what she thought she could get away with, mostly an alarm spell to warn of any attacks on the Evans house. Lily tried to speak to Petunia too, with less success. Petunia and Vernon seemed convinced that if they simply ignored that magic existed it would go away and leave them in peace, and no amount of arguing could persuade them otherwise.   

Lily, Remus, and Severus were not the only Order members growing increasingly aware of their own personal danger. As the political and social hostility grew stronger in the wizarding world, Mary’s articles in the Daily Prophet grew more heated as well, and she was gaining notice. The paper, for the time being, seemed content to quietly back her up. She was called before her editor several times a week with polite suggestions to tone things down and cut back on the divisive, warmongering pieces, but they didn’t seem ready to fire her, which was a small victory. On the other hand, while the staff offered sympathy for the death threats and curses mailed to her by angry readers, they did little to actually help with the situation, and it fell to Mary and James alone to try to keep the hate mail in check. For most of the other Order members, they had either already been on the enemies list of the Death Eaters for so long that nothing new could phase them, or they were still managing to slip under the radar for a little while longer, though no one could predict how long that relative safety could last. 

As spring worked its way towards summer, things continued routinely for most, albeit with some differences like increased tensions and additional safety checks. Peter had made little upward progress in his professional life over the course of the year, and several of the older Order members were far from impressed with his continuing inability to cast a patronus charm, but he had gained credibility as a reliable (though hardly exciting) source of information among the Death Eaters. Lily and Severus, in addition to the rest of their healing training, finally obtained permission to work with Damocles Belby, a potions researcher at St. Mungo’s, on possible cures for lycanthropy or mitigators for its symptoms. Belby had been idly toying with various decoctions of the wolfsbane plant for years, but seemed reinvigorated by the new ideas that Severus and Lily brought to the project (after all, they too had been planning for this potion for years already). James and Sirius were approaching the end of their first year of Auror training, where they were gaining reputations as wizards to be reckoned with. Much of James and Mary’s attention was focused on preparations for their upcoming wedding in June, the earliest they had felt appropriate to hold it after the death of Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Sirius would be James’s best man, of course, a dashing figure at the reception with Fabian on his arm. Peter claimed vehemently to have had no interest in being a member of the wedding party anyway, though inwardly he seethed that James had apparently not thought to ask him. Remus and Lily attended the wedding, where Lily was acting as one of the bridesmaids, but Severus declined the invitation that James offered him. The tension between the two young men had mellowed in the time they had been working together, but Severus didn’t feel that it was quite at the “dance at Potter’s wedding” level yet, if indeed it ever would be. 

The end of the Hogwarts school year came and went, with little notice taken by the seven young men and women. It had been only a year since they themselves had graduated from its hallowed halls, though it felt like an eternity. So much had changed, paths set or abandoned, friendships made or broken, so many plots set in motion and pieces placed in the greatest, most deadly game of all. Seven young people looked back at a year of trials and triumphs, or ahead at a future that promised moments both bitter and sweet, but none had any real notion how much could change, how much would change, within just one more year. 

Chapter Text

Though darkness loomed distantly on the horizon, the winds of change blew slowly as summer turned to fall. The weather began to cool, the leaves changed color, and a new crop of students made their way to Hogwarts School on the 1st of September. But for those young people already past their formal education, the days and weeks blurred together, continuing on as they had for a year or more. There was little to mark the difference between a trainee Auror with ten months of experience or twelve, and the same was true among the student Healers of St. Mungo's. There was more trust, yes, more responsibility, but it was gradually earned, with none of the schoolyard fanfare at completing a year or passing a class. Events in the world, too, still showed little change with the passing seasons. There was perhaps not a formal stalemate or truce, but neither side seemed to have made a decisive move to cast aside the status quo completely, to drastically change the balance of the wizarding world and overturn the lives of everyone in it. But even in the absence of outright war, there can be tragedy and horror, and even those incidents too inconsequential to make it into the history books or even the newspaper can be devastating for the individuals involved. One incident, one shop vandalized with ugly slogans, one window smashed, one person beaten in an alley, one job lost. Such attacks mean little in the grand scheme of a world at war, but they are everything to the people involved.

Ever since Remus's run-in with Lord Voldemort nearly half a year before, he, Lily, and Severus had remained on high alert, expecting to be the targets of a retaliatory strike at any moment. The Death Eaters were known for their terrible vengeance against those who dared to speak or act against their leader, and their cruelties against those dissenters' loved ones. Remus had refused Voldemort's orders in private, standing against him with only a few Death Eaters to witness rather than in a grand public display. He suspected that was the only reason why he and his family hadn't already been hunted down in the time since that fateful night. The trio was well aware that Remus was on Voldemort's radar now, and that the Dark Lord knew about his relationship to Lily, though perhaps not about Severus. There was a limit to how much any of them could lower their guard, but as time went by with no attacks directed at them, the three young people dared to hope that they might have lost the attention of Lord Voldemort and his followers.

That hope was shattered one evening in October by the sound of an alarm spell piercing the calm of Spinner's End. All three of the little house's inhabitants were in the kitchen, preparing for dinner and catching up after a long day. Severus was cooking, as was his habit (he had banned Remus from the task when it became clear the other boy's culinary abilities were on par with his potions skills). Remus gathered plates and silverware, bringing them over to the table where Lily sat, idly flipping through a cookbook as she joked with the other two. The shriek of the alarm cut through their chatter, and a plate slipped from Remus's hand to shatter on the ground. Lily jumped up from her chair, nearly overturning it in the process, and Severus whirled from the stove, all three of them reaching for their wands. They had been so prepared for an attack at their own home, so sure that the fight would come here, that it took precious moments to realize what they were hearing, to understand what was happening. It was not the alarm spell for Spinner's End that was wailing in their ears, but the one cast around the Evanses' house to warn of wizards entering. A moment of frozen shock, a sudden intake of breath, a quiet curse, an exchange of horrified looks. Lily and Severus apparated immediately, wands already in hand, matching looks of fierce determination on their faces. Remus paused only long enough to send a patronus message to Godric's Hollow before following suit. The room stood deserted, stripped of the cozy laughter of moments before. Shards of pottery lay scattered on the floor, and the stew began to burn on the stove; the alarm echoed in the emptiness, then suddenly fell deathly silent.

The trio arrived to a scene of chaos, appearing out of thin air in front of Lily's childhood home without a care for who might see them. The house seemed to have been the origin of an explosion; flames still roared amidst the wreckage, and fire had spread to other buildings along the street, faster and farther than wind alone could explain. Car alarms blared, sirens wailed in the distance, and neighbors ran panicking in the street or stood huddled together, frozen in shock and fear. Above it all, the Dark Mark glowed green, filling the darkened sky with an eerie glow and the wizards with a terrible sense of dread. Most of the Death Eaters were gone, leaving behind their sinister calling card to mark their handiwork. They had been startled by the sound of an alarm spell in the muggle house, unprepared and unwilling to meet whichever wizards might respond to it. Besides, their mission was already complete; the horror and grief of the gathering crowd attested to that. Even the last one or two, who had remained a moment after their fellows to cast the Dark Mark and ensure their conflagration would continue to ravage the neighborhood, were already apparating away before Remus could do more than shoot a spell or two their way. Lily had immediately run for the house despite the raging inferno, with Severus barely a step behind her. Remus was unsure whether the other boy meant to pull Lily back or follow her into the flames, but he had no intention of seeing either one throw themselves onto their own pyre.

Lily fought him as he pulled her away, screaming as tears streamed down her cheeks, making clear tracks in the soot streaking her face. Severus stumbled to a halt just beyond them, falling to his knees in the scorched grass as his hastily cast homenum revelio spell reported no one left alive inside the building. He seemed frozen in place, staring at the ruined house and the raging fire, unable to pull himself away from the sight but stopped from continuing towards it by the heat. The sirens grew louder, police cars and fire trucks filling the street, their uniformed occupants trying to corral panicked people and spreading flames alike, staring wide eyed at the ominous vision hanging overhead. Sudden loud cracks announced the arrival of the Order of the Phoenix, ready to fight Death Eaters but still unprepared for the tragic scene that met their eyes. Still, they jumped into action, adding their magical efforts to those of the muggle authorities. Rounding up panicked neighbors, some injured by fire or debris, making sure they wouldn't leave until their memories had been modified by the Ministry officials who had now been summoned. Helping to extinguish the flames before they could spread any farther, and sifting through the wreckage of the houses for the remains of those who had not been able to flee in time.

Lily refused to go anywhere until her parents were found. It took the efforts of both Potters and Remus, in a barely better state than his wife, to stop her from seeing what was left of the bodies when they were finally carried out of the house hours later. Diana took charge of Severus, though it would be a long time before she could pull him away from his vigil on the ash covered ground. The night passed in a blur; the flickering reds and yellows of leaping flames and eerie green of the Dark Mark snuffed out to leave behind only the darkness of the sky, the ashes strewn across once immaculate lawns, the twisted, charred frames of once cozy, welcoming homes. There were questions too, interrogations, faces of policemen and Aurors alike blurring together as they tried to piece together what had happened. Remus did most of the talking; Lily could hardly speak through her tears and Severus hadn't said a word since his first spell revealed the Evanses hadn't made it out of the house. On the muggle side, the investigation was closed quickly, helped along by a series of memory modification spells cast by the Ministry Obliviators. The incident was ruled a house fire that spread out of control. A terrible tragedy, with great losses of life and property, but an accident nonetheless. Only among the wizards was the truth remembered; far from an accident, and one of the most deadly attacks on muggles thus far in the war. Lily's parents had clearly been the intended, targeted victims of the attack, but there were nearly a dozen fatalities all told, and countless more left scarred and traumatized by the incident.

Lily barely remembered the funeral, afterwards. She gave a eulogy, as did Petunia, though she hardly knew what either of them had said. Standing among family and friends, most of whom had no idea how or why the couple had died, tears filled the bright green eyes that Lily had shared with her father. "The Evans eyes," her mother had always called them, looking fondly at her husband as she said it. Petunia's blonde hair had been his as well; Lily's fiery locks came from her mother's side of the family, though Mrs. Evans's own hair had faded with time to a gray-streaked chestnut. She had joked about getting old, going gray; Mr. Evans always claimed that she looked as young as the day they met, twirling her around the kitchen or swooping in for a dramatic, romantic kiss like in the movies. They would never grow any older now, never get to see the grandchildren they had hoped would one day fill their home with the sound of little feet once more. Petunia's son would be born the following summer. There had been no opportunity yet to tell her parents she was pregnant; she whispered the news to their open graves, sobbing in her husband's arms.

Lily had thought her own tears had already been spent, at the fire, in the sleepless nights planning the funeral at Spinner's End, at the funeral home. But as she stood in the graveyard, with Remus's arm around her and Severus's hand in hers, she found her eyes welling up once more. Severus had been surprised to feel the tears running down his own face; he hadn't shed a tear at his own parents' funeral three years before. He had not realized how much it would hurt to lose Mr. and Mrs. Evans, how much he had come to love them as the caring, supportive parents who had been there for him in a way that the Snapes had never really managed.

It was the last time Petunia and Lily would meet face to face. The elder Evans sister resisted the urge, barely, to confront the younger even as their parents were lowered into the ground, to scream her accusations and blame the witch for getting them killed. That restraint lasted only until the guests had drifted away, until it was only the two sisters and their partners standing by the fresh graves. It was the final breaking point for their relationship, years of animosity, jealousy, and rage rising to the surface as the two young women hurled their final barbs and walked away for the last time. Lily would never hear another word from her sister, though she would never stop trying to keep Petunia's family safe in whatever ways she could. But it was her own family that needed the most protection, and it was towards that goal that Lily threw her energy and effort. They had already put up wards around the house on Spinner's End, but they reinforced and added to them now, increasing the protections not only on the house itself but on the surrounding area. Lily, coming across a reference to the Fidelius Charm in a book lent to her by Diana Arratay, argued with Remus for the better part of a week over whether it was worth the magical effort and difficulty of trying to cast it. That debate was only ended by a gentle but firm reminder from Remus that there was no foolproof way for Lily to ensure perfect safety for her loved ones, no matter how hard she tried.

"Sometimes things will just go wrong, Lil," Remus's voice broke a little, but he pressed on. "It doesn't mean you didn't try hard enough, or — or didn't love them enough."

Lily let out a sob, and threw herself into his arms, her momentum carrying them both onto the worn out couch. Remus held her tightly, feeling the tears welling up in his own eyes. "I'm so sorry." He wasn't entirely sure which one of them whispered it first, but it didn't matter. They stayed there for hours, just being together, being there for each other. Severus found them there asleep, cuddled up together on the couch with tear stains on both their cheeks, when he returned from a late shift at St. Mungo's. He gently tucked a blanket around them with a fondly muttered "Idiots. Serves you right if I let you freeze," before grabbing another blanket for himself and curling up on the other end of the sofa.

Though the Fidelius Charm had been nixed, there were other protective measures that the trio decided were worth the effort. They used a portion of Lily's inheritance from her parents to pay a rather impressively sketchy contact of Alazandra's to ensure that the Ministry of Magic have no remaining records of Severus's ownership of the house on Spinner's End, or of who else was living on the property. As it turned out, they needn't have bothered. It had always been a muggle house, owned first by Tobias Snape's parents, then himself, and inherited by Severus through the legal bureaucracy of the muggle world. Even the confirmation that the wizards had never had any record of it at all would have felt worth the effort, though, for peace of mind is often no less important than physical safety. And, as it turned out, there was a more tangible result from the wizard's efforts as well. Alazandra's friend was a good natured and well meaning sort of wizard despite his profession, not to mention secretly disappointed that he hadn't had an opportunity to forge any records in the Ministry of Magic. For his own satisfaction, and at no extra cost, he reported back to Severus a few days later that he had "taken care of" all their muggle records as well, "just to be on the safe side, you know."

It was a small thing, perhaps one that could only barely be termed an act of kindness rather than a job, but it meant more to its beneficiaries than the forger probably knew. In a time so full of darkness for the Lupin-Prince family, even such a small demonstration of the occasional enduring goodness of humanity was a bright spot. As the end of the year approached, bringing with it the heartbreaking prospect of the first holiday season without Lily's parents, the trio were making a conscious effort to focus on any little sparks of hope and joy that they could find. And, despite the overall atmosphere of death and despair hanging over not only their own lives but the wizarding world as a whole, there were more than a few bright spots to cling to. Shortly before Christmas, Severus and Lily made a major breakthrough in their lycanthropy research. Their recipe for a potion to mitigate the symptoms of lycanthropy, which they had dubbed the "Wolfsbane Potion" after some deliberation, was still in need of some final modifications, but the pair was confident that they might have something usable within as little as a few months. Damocles Belby, their research mentor and the Potions Master officially in charge of the project (though the majority of the work was done by the two Healers), was more cautious in his timeline. As he reminded the eager youngsters, even when they considered the work complete, any potion intended for consumption had to go through certification and extensive clinical trials, a process which itself could take months or even years. Lily and Severus, who had every intention of brewing the Wolfsbane potion for Remus as soon as they were confident in the recipe, regardless of what any bureaucrats had to say about it, put on a show of caring just until Belby left the room.

The last full meeting of the Order of the Phoenix before the end of the year, held the day before Christmas Eve, brought more good news, as well as some bad. The Death Eaters had been growing bolder over the last few months, and Lily's parents' neighborhood was not the only muggle area that had been targeted for its ties to wizards. Only a few days before, the village where the non-magical side of Alazandra's family had lived since time immemorial had been attacked, prompting her family to flee to her mother's magical relatives in Brazil. Her immediate family had made it out alive, if not uninjured, though the village itself had been burnt practically to the ground. Alazandra had returned from ensuring her family's safety with an even stronger determination to see the war through to its end. Diana returned from the same trip wearing an heirloom ring that Mr. Langston gave Alazandra to propose with. There had been no time for a proper wedding, but the family had at least gotten to see the witches engaged before they departed, and the pair had legalized the proceedings with a quick stop at the registry office on their way to Godric's Hollow. The Longbottoms too brought good tidings to the meeting, announcing that Alice was pregnant and precipitating a second chorus of "awww" and "congratulations!" from most of the witches and quite a few of the wizards present in the room. The evening ended with toasts and good wishes for the two couples, and for a better upcoming year for all in both the wizarding and muggle worlds. There was an air of celebration in the cottage headquarters, more than most of those present had felt in months, and all were glad for a chance to be merry if only for a moment.

The rest of the holiday season was rather more subdued, at least on Spinner's End. It was the first Christmas since the death of Lily's parents, the first one in twenty years that she would be spending without them, and the first in eight (bar one) that Severus would not be spending in the Evanses' cozy home. For Remus, too, it was an odd year. Not just for the loss of Lily's parents, whom he had liked quite a lot but really only known for a couple years, but for the distance from his own parents. Mr. Lupin had made it clear that he had no interest in seeing his son for the holidays, and while Remus's mother had come to visit him a time or two, and wrote to him fairly regularly, it was clear that she was in a difficult position being pulled between her husband and her son. Remus hadn't realized just how much he had secretly hoped that his mother would invite them all over for Christmas dinner, or offer to stop by Spinner's End for tea instead, until the day was upon them with no such invitation in sight. But with both Lily and Severus so clearly grieving for people who were actually dead, it seemed selfish to be so upset to be separated from a woman who was at least still alive and even still in contact with him. Remus did his best to hide his feelings, but, as Severus pointed out, the Gryffindor wasn't exactly known for his subtlety or acting skills. Lily too picked up on his mood fairly quickly, and scolded him for thinking that his feelings were any less important than hers or Severus's. None of them felt up to trying to cook a fancy meal, and presents had been mostly forgotten in all the chaos of the preceding months, but things could have been much worse. With all three off of work for a few days, there was something nice about simply being. Not trying to force the extreme joyfulness expected of the season, but allowing themselves to enjoy the time together, and the small nice things, without getting bogged down in the guilt and grief of remembering those who weren't with them.

It snowed on Christmas Eve, and they had a snowball fight in the yard, not caring what the neighbors might think of three adults shrieking and sticking ice down each others' backs. Mrs. Hanley invited them all inside for hot cocoa and marshmallows, and they commiserated with her about her good-for-nothing son phoning to say he wouldn't be coming to visit. He had claimed it was about the snow and the road conditions, but Mrs. Hanley speculated darkly that "that posh wife of his put him up to it." With extra food already prepared, and horrified when Severus accidentally let slip that the three of them didn't have any plans for Christmas dinner, it was natural that the older woman would invite them back the next day, and they found the meal to be more fun than they might have expected. As Severus had noticed in previous interactions with Mrs. Hanley, there was something relaxing about her manner, a way of focusing on small, fixable issues to the exclusion of great worldly problems. In Mrs. Hanley's house, there were no worries about Death Eaters, about war, or even about whether Remus's current boss would take him back after the holidays. Her concerns were about her son, the neighborhood gossip, or whether Severus and his friends were eating enough. She was sympathetic to the loss of Lily's parents, but not overbearing about it, and offered gentle advice about Remus's parents when he found himself spilling his worries to her as they washed dishes together after the meal. By the time the new year rolled around, all three residents of the last house on Spinner's End were surprised to find that they were somewhat rejuvenated, and even thought themselves ready to face whatever the coming days would bring, though they had no way of knowing just how difficult the year would become.

The month of January passed quietly, with the usual post-holiday lull that seemed to infect so many places of work in both the wizard and muggle worlds. Even the Death Eaters seemed to have taken some time off for the holidays, as it were; there were a few incidents here or there, but few and far between, and of lower intensity than in the previous months. On one weekend at the end of January, an increasingly visibly pregnant Alice invited a few of the other young ladies of the Order on a shopping trip to Diagon Alley. Ostensibly it was a practical outing to buy maternity robes and baby things, though in truth it was primarily an opportunity to simply hang out without the usual pressures and formalities of Order meetings. Alice, Lily, and Mary arrived first, and began wandering from store to store, window shopping while they waited to meet up with Diana and Alazandra. The younger trio spotted the newlywed witches coming out of Gringotts, chatting with Fabian and Gideon Prewett, and began to make their way towards them. The group converged in front of the bank, exchanging greetings and discussing their various plans for the rest of the afternoon. After some good natured prodding from his brother, Fabian showed the girls the engagement ring he had retrieved from the Prewett family vault, blushing a little at the chorus of "ooh, congratulations!" and happy squeals that greeted the news.

"He hasn't said yes yet, so don't go telling anyone anything," Fabian cautioned, prompting a snort from Alazandra.

"As if Sirius would ever say no to you, or you to him! Hopeless romantics, the both of you." She grinned up at her own wife as Diana slipped an arm around her waist and leaned in for a kiss. "Not that there's anything wrong with a little romance, of course."

It was then, as they laughed together, saluting life and love, that disaster struck. A series of sudden loud cracks heralded the appearance of a crowd of hooded and masked figures. The peaceful bustle of Diagon Alley was shattered in an instant, and the scene was thrown into chaos. The usual hum and chatter of conversations turned to screams, as curses began to fly and victims began to fall. Frantic shoppers scattered, desperately trying to take cover or flee, and discovering to their horror that anti-apparition wards seemed to have gone into effect in the area. Shards of glass from smashed shop windows glittered on the ground, reflecting the flames of a dozen small fires and the colored flashes of light as hexes and spells passed through the air. Some lucky few ran for the Leaky Cauldron, or barricaded themselves inside one shop or another, but too many were left exposed to the growing mob. The young Order members scattered too, to fight rather than to flee. There was no time to waste hoping for reinforcements to arrive, not when there were already bodies lying in the street, and others still writhing on the ground under the merciless wands of Death Eater torturers. Diana and Alazandra threw themselves into the fray, dueling side by side, fighting their way through the crowd and trying as hard to get the civilians to safety as to incapacitate their attackers. They worked together seamlessly; Alazandra holding off an attacker while Diana sketched a hasty runic shield for a cowering mother and child, Diana's spell catching a Death Eater sneaking up behind Alazandra as she put his fellow in a chokehold. Their allies came and went, Mary fighting first beside the other witches, then darting away to help drag an injured wizard away from the thickest fighting. Lily passed them, knocking out a hooded figure attempting to hit Alazandra from behind, but there was no time for more than a nod of thanks.

Time seemed to stretch, minutes feeling like hours, yet passing in the blink of an eye all the same. One opponent blurred into the next, all swirling black cloaks and masks hiding those who would call themselves the wizarding elite, masked too by the swirling smoke that filled the air. Still near the steps of Gringotts, Fabian and Gideon fought back to back, anticipating each other's moves and covering each other's weak spots. Their opponents ebbed and flowed, now only one apiece, now a half-dozen surrounding them, but they fought on, spells flying from their wands one after another. They held their own, even then, two against five yet managing to seem almost evenly matched. Two brothers, still bantering and laughing together even as they fought, calling out challenges to their attackers, still young enough to think themselves invincible despite the odds. But even the greatest of skill and power cannot overcome the strength of numbers indefinitely, and luck does not always favor the brave and true. The spell came as if out of nowhere, a blade of light cutting through the air, one among many shooting towards them from all sides. Gideon's attention was held by a curse aimed at his brother, his focus on his shield protecting Fabian as the younger Prewett deflected two more spells himself. Neither brother saw the curse slicing towards Gideon's own unprotected side until it hit, severing his left arm above the elbow and sending him to the ground with a scream. Fabian spun around at his brother's cry, firing off a spell that instantly killed the Death Eater who had attacked Gideon. Fabian called to his brother, falling to his knees beside him, trying desperately to staunch the bleeding. A sudden flash of green, a killing curse to the back. Fabian collapsed, Gideon's name still on his lips, his lifeless body falling across his injured older brother's.

A sudden flash of light, and the Dark Mark lit up above, casting an eerie green glow across the scene of pain and panic. Lily fought beside Alice farther down the Alley; separated from their friends, neither was able to spare the time to determine which of their comrades' deaths the Mark might signal. A loud crack announced the fall of the anti-apparition wards, and another opponent appeared before the two witches, one who made no effort to hide his identity behind a mask. Lord Voldemort had arrived. Lily and Alice shared a glance, a determined nod, then charged. He laughed as they approached, daring them to fight him, though his expression changed as they evaded his first attacks and responded with their own. The duel lasted only minutes, curses flying furiously back and forth, the young women managing, barely, to hold their own. The Dark Lord seemed impressed, as much as he ever was, calling Alice a "worthy opponent" when her spell singed his sleeve, coming within inches of hitting him dead on. Lily followed up the attack with a swarm of glass shards while he was distracted; he deflected most, but one slipped through to graze his face.

The damage was minimal, superficial, barely more than a scratch, but Voldemort's expression became murderous as he felt the sting on his cheek. The shock wave caused by his next curse sent both Lily and Alice flying backwards. Lily lay stunned by the impact, momentarily blacking out before beginning to struggle to sit up and fumble for her wand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alice lying on the ground, a few nervous bystanders tending to the pregnant witch. Expecting to find Voldemort advancing to finish her off at any moment, Lily was shocked to find him gone by the time she managed to rise. She was later told that the Dark Lord had apparated away immediately after blasting her and Alice, pausing only to warn all present of the cost if they continued to stand against him. The remaining Death Eaters had quickly followed their master's lead, leaving only the panicked crowd, the dead, and the dying to lie strewn amidst the destruction of the Alley.

The entire battle, such as it was, was over in barely an hour, but the implications, the recovery, would take much longer. There were injured to tend to, dead to bury, shops to repair and scorch marks and bloodstains to scrub from the cobblestones of Diagon Alley. The death toll was lower than it might have been, fewer than two dozen killed rather than the hundred or more it could have been if the Death Eaters had intended a slaughter, but far more than anyone had been prepared to see dead in one of the centers of the wizarding world, and many more were injured. Gideon was rushed to St. Mungo's in the aftermath of the battle; there was no way to regrow his arm, but his brother's hastily cast cauterization spell saved him from bleeding out. He would live to attend Fabian's funeral alongside Sirius Black, wearing the engagement ring that his almost-fiance never had the chance to give him himself, alongside their sister Molly, nine months pregnant with her sixth child. The baby would be named for the uncle he would never get to meet, Fabian Ronald Weasley, though no one would be able to bear calling him anything but "Ian" for many years to come.

Other Order members were at the funeral too. Dumbldore watched solemnly from the sidelines, McGonagall by his side wiping away a tear for her lost lion cub. Alazandra and Diana standing together, both with their fair share of bruises, Alazandra still nursing several cracked ribs, and Diana with a new scar fading on her cheek. Alice, anxiously watched over by her husband but recovered from her injuries, was still determined to continue fighting as long as her pregnancy physically allowed, and made no secret of it. She and Lily (quite recovered now from being slammed into a wall) had appeared in the Daily Prophet the morning after the attack, photographed during their duel with Voldemort. It was printed alongside one of many articles about the battle ("Death Eaters Attack Heart of Wizarding World —Is Nowhere Safe?"), and accompanied by a caption "Young witches stand defiant against Dark Lord! Auror Alice Longbottom and Healer Lily Lupin face off against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." Lily called the article overdramatic, not to mention a security risk if Voldemort didn't already know what they looked like. That didn't stop Remus and Severus from cutting out and saving several copies, though they did take down the one they'd hung on the refrigerator after Lily threatened to hex both of them if it wasn't gone by dinner.

Those initial articles would be far from the last time the fight on Diagon Alley would be discussed in the newspaper, though few others would bother to mention Lily by name. The attack, the first in such a public area, brought issues to the forefront of politics and press that had been simmering under the surface for too long. Suddenly forced to confront certain realities of their world, the public erupted in panic, searching for someone to blame. For some, that anger was easily directed towards Voldemort himself, and his Death Eaters, while others railed against the Minister for Magic or the Ministry as a whole, and politics grew more chaotic and hostile than the norm. For most of the Order, the politicking was less concerning than the increased brazenness of the Death Eaters' attacks. That was what mattered in their work for the Order, and most of their day jobs were not too tangled in the politics of the moment. For Mary, though, the interpretation of politics was an integral part of her work. As the situation grew more divisive, her articles for the Daily Prophet grew more controversial. The paper had declined to fire her so far, though she knew it would be only a matter of time. She had already been the recipient of multiple cursed letters both at work and at home, and the Potters had been forced to set up mail screening charms to protect themselves. Lily had worried that her own moment in the media spotlight might cause issues, but was relieved to find that public interest faded quickly, allowing her to slip back into her work with Severus at St. Mungo's without too much issue. She knew she might be on Voldemort's radar, but given that Remus had already been on his blacklist for the better part of a year, there was no reason to think the danger had increased for any of them any farther than its admittedly already high level.

During the weeks after the raid and subsequent fight in Diagon (or the "Diagon Alley Massacre" as some had begun to call it), Dumbledore's followers focused on mourning, healing, pulling themselves back together and trying to find their way forward in an increasingly hectic world. Their leader, however, soon found himself grappling with seemingly loftier concerns, and issues greater than politics or the minutiae of war. Less than a month after the battle, Albus Dumbledore interviewed a supposed seer for the post of Divination professor at Hogwarts. The previous teacher on the subject had retired at the end of the previous year amid little fanfare, and there had been no remotely qualified applicants when the school year began. Though the Headmaster had resigned himself to simply not offering the course anymore (and wasn't particularly upset by that plan), he had allowed himself to be talked into this last interview, held one chilly night at the Hogs Head inn. The interview went rather poorly, and Dumbledore was already rising to give Sybill Trelawney a courteous rejection when she began to speak in an eldritch voice quite unlike her own.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark them as his equal, but they will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies..."

It took all of Dumbledore's long years of practice at feigning politeness to keep his astonishment in check as the moment passed and the witch before him transformed back into the mundane, uninspiring figure she had seemed before. He would need time to ponder the prophecy, if indeed a true prophecy it had been (and that question alone begged consideration), but the Headmaster was hardly one to disregard a possible asset in the middle of an intensifying war. Instead of the rejection he had planned to offer Trelawney, he found himself promising her the post of Divination instructor, with an option to start immediately. Skeptic as he may be to the art of divination, this prophecy had the ring of truth to it, and Dumbledore would not risk a true seer wandering the streets and falling into the hands of Lord Voldemort. Indeed, the more Dumbledore contemplated and studied the prophecy in the days to come, the more certain he became that it had come in a moment of true clairvoyance, an admittedly rare occurrence for Sybill Trelawney.

As the Headmaster scrutinized the words in the weeks to come, replaying Trelawney's pronouncement over and over in his pensieve until he could have recited the prophecy by heart, he had immediately thought of the Longbottoms, and the child that Alice carried. Perhaps it was arrogance on his part, assuming that only members of his own Order of the Phoenix could have defied Voldemort the requisite three times, but all the signs seemed to fit. The baby was due to be born at the end of July, surely meeting the requirement of being born "as the seventh month dies," and there was little doubt that Frank and Alice had been a thorn in Voldemort's side for several years now. The photograph of Alice dueling the Dark Lord himself, now buried in a stack of Daily Prophets on Dumbledore's desk, was testament to that. The Headmaster was well aware of the difficulties in trying to interpret prophecies, and kept his thoughts and theories to himself for over a month while he tried to decide what, if any, action to take, but he was buoyed by renewed hope. Simply knowing that there was a path towards Voldemort's defeat, that there was hope for the wizarding world, was enough.

It was a welcome thought, given the tragedies of the previous months. Fabian Prewett had been far from the first casualty in the war, and he would not be the last, but his loss had been a major blow to the Order of the Phoenix. The younger members had taken his death the hardest, losing a friend, brother, and lover as well as a fellow soldier. Dumbledore worried about morale, though not enough to risk sharing the prophecy in hopes of rallying them. His former students had come out of the battle in Diagon Alley more determined than ever to fight, but with a new darkness to them. They would continue to fight, and still believed they could win, but there was a certain bleakness too, the knowledge that even winning could be as tragic and horrifying as losing. The young people clung to each other, trying to make the most of the friends and family they had left before they inevitably lost anyone else. Sirius, unable to bear staying in the home he had made with Fabian, abandoned his apartment for Potter Manor, finding solace there again with James as he once had as a teenager fleeing his parents' home. He threw himself into his work, both for the Order and as an Auror, Fabian's ring on his finger and a thirst for vengeance in his eyes. Gideon struggled. The double loss of his brother and his arm, the guilt of failing to keep his little brother safe, the pain in his sister's eyes when she begged him to give up the fight because she couldn't bear to lose another brother and he refused. Fabian would never have forgiven him if he abandoned the fight, abandoned their friends; Gideon couldn't have forgiven himself either. So he fought. They all did. For lost love, for vengeance, for hope of a better future, to protect the ones they still had left, the members of the Order fought on, all intending to keep fighting until they won the war or died trying. They hoped without proof, and Dumbledore let them, keeping close the flimsy shreds of evidence that they were right to keep fighting, right to keep hoping.

For what he thought the greater good, the Headmaster did not reveal the contents of the prophecy even to the Longbottoms, thinking it safest to avoid any possibility of Voldemort finding out that his nemesis was on the way, and hoping that his soldiers could keep their spirits up without his help. While Dumbledore was wary of revealing his hand too soon, neither would he risk the prophecy child being killed or discovered too soon, and it was with cryptic half explanations that he encouraged Frank and Alice to go into hiding. They took his advice, Frank more eagerly than Alice; while Alice had given every indication of planning to fight until the baby's birth, Frank was growing a little more concerned about having his six-month-pregnant wife on a battlefield. With Dumbledore's arguments added to his, Alice acquiesced; Frank tried not to be offended that Dumbledore's vague "your baby might save the world" was more convincing than his own "I love you and really don't want either of you to die." The pair made their new home in a rarely used, half forgotten Longbottom family cottage out in the countryside, with plenty of alarms, wards, and shield spells. There was no reason to think anyone would try to track them there, given that only Dumbledore himself knew of the prophecy, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

For many in the Order, particularly those who did not know the Longbottoms well, Dumbledore's explanation that they were taking a step back from military operations given Alice's advanced pregnancy seemed quite reasonable. Even for those who had heard Alice's oft-repeated refrain that she had no intention of sitting anything out, pregnancy be damned, it was not unbelievable that Frank might have finally convinced her that six months was far enough. Peter, always looking for any tidbit that he could pass on to the Death Eaters, informed the Dark Lord that the Longbottoms seemed to be out of the game for the foreseeable future, but neither he nor his Death Eater comrades had any reason to think there was any particular significance to the matter or reason to take action. It was simply one more piece of information on the operations of the Order, the knowledge that they were two fighters down, and they didn't question the tale.

Indeed, the only person to seriously question Dumbledore's story was James Potter. With his own wife now a couple months pregnant herself, he had begun to worry more about any additional perceived threat. Knowing quite well that Alice had never planned to stop working so soon, yet seeing the Longbottoms suddenly gone into hiding, his stress conjured one hypothetical danger after another, each theory wilder than the last. Finally he broke down and went to Dumbledore with Mary, trying to determine whether Alice's pregnancy had anything to do with what was going on, and whether they needed to be similarly concerned about their own unborn child. Dumbledore, with a twinkle in his eye, assured them that they were in no additional danger, but that Mary should of course feel free to take a step back from fighting given her condition. The Headmaster kept things vague, as was his wont, simply saying that the Longbottoms' position was unique and required them to take additional precautions, for the war effort. Dumbledore assumed the Potters were satisfied with his explanations, and that the matter was closed, though perhaps he should have remembered that he was speaking to a journalist and a wizard who had never simply taken any explanation at face value in his entire life.

It was common knowledge that Dumbledore had just hired a new Divination professor more than halfway through the Hogwarts school year, one said to be the descendant of a famous seer, despite the Headmaster's known skepticism of the subject. Putting this together with Alice Longbottom suddenly in hiding because Dumbledore thought her family's survival was crucial to the war effort, it was inevitable the Potters would conclude a prophecy was involved. There was no way for them to know what it said, but James was increasingly certain there was one, involving the Longbottoms, probably their baby, and winning the war. Sirius, still living with the Potters, was the first to hear their theory, but it spread quickly. It was James who mentioned it to Peter and Gideon when the boys came over one night, and Mary who told Lily, but before long most of the younger members of the Order had their own theories. It had been inevitable that Lily would pass it on to Remus and Severus, though Remus heard it also directly from James when they ended up on patrol together one night, and Severus was told a third hand version from Diana via Gideon. They kept things mostly quiet, just passed amongst themselves, and learned quickly not to try asking Dumbledore for more information; he shot all the youngsters a stern look any time they tried to bring it up, but didn't try to quell the speculation entirely, which would only have made them investigate more. It would take some time before rumors of the prophecy spread beyond the Order of the Phoenix, for Peter did not immediately bring the tale to the Death Eaters. He had told Voldemort when the Longbottoms went into hiding, but was less confident that the Dark Lord would be interested in a theory cobbled together by a group of twenty-year-olds with no basis. In the end his fear of withholding information outweighed his fear of passing on something useless, though Voldemort would not act on the rumor for a long while.

Though debating theories about the potential prophecy kept the younger Order members relatively entertained in those spring months, they had no shortage of more pressing affairs on which to focus their energy. For Severus and Lily, the issue of the day was potions research, specifically finalizing the recipe for their Wolfsbane potion, which they completed around the time the Longbottoms went into hiding. It would take a further many months for the Ministry to complete their official testing and certification protocols and declare the potion legal and safe for human consumption, and Damocles Belby would be given most of the credit despite his primarily supervisory role, but the Hufflepuffs didn't care about any of that. They had concluded all of their own tests and were confident in the safety of their creation, confident enough to brew a batch for Remus as the next full moon approached. All three of them agreed that it was one of the most stressful lead ups to a full moon in a long time; they trusted the potion, but this would be its first complete, real world test, and nerves were high. Remus began drinking the potion a week before the April full moon, experiencing no adverse side effects other than the terrible taste. He complained about it goodnaturedly to his partners ("I thought I asked you to make it chocolate flavored, what happened to that!"), prompting a long suffering sigh and eye roll from Severus and an absentminded lecture on the effects of sugar on wolfsbane leaves from Lily.

As moonrise approached on the first night of the full moon, they both accompanied Remus down to the cellar where he usually underwent his transformations and locked him into the cage. There had been quite a bit of argument over that point; Lily had been adamant that there was no need for it anymore, but Remus had insisted that they take all the usual precautions until they knew for certain that he wasn't still going to attack them once he turned. Severus sided with Remus, reluctantly agreeing that they should be more careful for at least that first night, though in the end the cage proved unnecessary. It was the first full moon in fifteen years that Remus Lupin spent without pain or injury. He was still transformed, though even that was less physically painful than in months past, and he was freed from the mindless bloodlust that usually overtook any werewolf on the full moon, keeping his mind throughout the night. They stayed in the cellar the remaining nights of that first full moon, too, wanting to be certain everything went well for an entire cycle before risking a rampaging werewolf getting out of the house if something went wrong with the Wolfsbane potion, but didn't bother with the cage after the first night. For the first time since his split from the Marauders nearly four years before, Remus was able to spend the full moon with the people he loved, not separated by metal bars or wards; the first time ever with ones in human form. It was everything that Lily and Severus could have hoped to achieve, and the joy of seeing Remus simply curled up peacefully to take a nap in his wolf form, or sprawled out across their laps, was something that would stay with them for days.

That period of joy and accomplishment would be soon dampened, however, by news that would set off a painful time for the younger contingent of the Order, including the residents of Spinner's End. At the beginning of May, barely a month after the Longbottoms went into hiding, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black formally announced the death of their son and presumed heir Regulus Arcturus Black. What was not announced, but quickly spread by rumor in certain circles, was that the eighteen year old had been missing for over half a year before being declared dead, and that his body had still not been found. Dumbledore, always searching for ways to further the war effort, immediately suggested to Sirius that this could be his chance to infiltrate the Death Eaters. As he pointed out to the young man, Regulus's funeral would provide a perfect time to stage a reconciliation with his mother and the rest of the family. It was a calculated move on the Headmaster's part, and perhaps a cruel one as well, for he surely knew that Sirius was not in the most stable state of mind for making such a monumental decision for himself. Sirius, known for recklessness in the best of times, still grieving his fiance's death and now confronted by the sudden loss of his brother as well, jumped at the chance to do something, anything, to make himself feel like he was making a real difference in the war. He told only James about the plan, swearing him to secrecy, for this sort of infiltration could only work if no one knew of his plot. Dumbledore had warned Sirius that even letting James in on the secret could prove dangerous, but the younger wizard couldn't face the thought of his best friend really thinking he was suddenly betraying him to become the perfect pureblood heir the Blacks had always wanted.

For the rest of the Order, however, it came as a slap in the face when Sirius Black attended his brother's funeral, had an apparently genuine reunion with his mother over the casket, and left the graveyard for the Black family's London home in the company of a swarm of pureblood cousins. A family house elf appeared outside Potter Manor the next morning to bring Sirius's things back to Grimmauld Place and deliver a stiltedly formal letter on monogrammed stationery informing "Mr. Potter" that he would not be returning. James brought the note to the next meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, causing something of an uproar when he read the contents aloud and announced Sirius's apparent defection. Some initially assumed it was a joke, albeit one in rather bad taste, others were quick to point out that the Blacks had always been a bunch of sneaky bastards and bitterly questioned why they had ever assumed Sirius would be any different. Dumbledore, unwilling to reveal the true plan in case there was a Death Eater spy within the Order, and ever concerned not to share a secret too far, made no effort to contradict the tale told by Sirius's actions, leaving the Order to cope as best they could with the shocking turn of events.

For those who had been close to Sirius, it was a devastating blow, and even for those who had been simply colleagues, comrades rather than personal friends, it was hardly less so. Severus fought the urge to say "I told you so." He had never really become friends with Sirius, even in the recent years when they worked together for the Order, and had never been able to forget that the other wizard had tried to murder him at age sixteen, but even he had not expected Sirius to switch sides like this. For Remus it was even harder. His friendship with Sirius had waned since the Whomping Willow incident, but they had been good friends for years before that point, and had reconnected more in their time since graduation; the thought of Sirius as a traitor was a painful one. Gideon, perhaps surprisingly, was one of the most sympathetic to Sirius, attributing his desire to reconnect with his family, even at the cost of betraying his friends, to some combination of guilt and grief, a reaction to Fabian and Regulus's deaths. James, fully aware that Sirius was still on their side, was doing the most important acting job of his life trying to keep anyone else from figuring out what he knew. Mary was skeptical of his performance, and he did break down and tell her before long, but the rest of his friends seemed no more suspicious of him than ever.

For his part, Sirius was playing on a rather more dangerous stage. He bided his time at Grimmauld Place, trying to piece together as much useful information as he could from his mother's dinner guests or at parties held at the homes of the pureblood elite, playing the properly repentant prodigal son until he was inevitably invited to join the Death Eater cause. Any wrong step could arouse suspicion, and suspicion in this arena could mean death. Cousin Bellatrix, in particular, was disinclined to believe his "I was a rebellious teenager, but now I'm over that and ready to reclaim my rightful place" spiel, though others were faster to accept it. The other excuse, which he used only reluctantly, was that the death of his (appropriately pureblooded) fiance had set him on the path of realization that war was a waste, and that the best chance for a good, peaceful society was through the Dark Lord. That story was one that he seeded more quietly, letting it spread on its own among his family and their friends. He allowed even the way in which he gave his explanations for coming home to tell their own story, the young man putting on an act of brash arrogance while hiding his sensitive side, his grief and love for his brother and fiance. It took time, building up acceptance before he would be invited to join the Death Eaters rather than only being allowed to attend their dinner parties and soirees, and it was not until the beginning of June that the coveted invitation was finally extended. Indeed, Bellatrix's eventual agreement to sponsor him before Voldemort was motivated in part from his reaction to the birth of her sister Narcissa's son. Sirius had apparently managed an appropriately snobbish reaction to the birth of the newest scion of the Black and Malfoy dynasties, securing Cousin Bella's approval, if not her complete trust.

The meeting was to be hosted at the Lestrange Manor; far from the first time that Sirius had visited in the last month or so, but the first for business rather than social activity. The Dark Lord had not yet arrived when Bellatrix led Sirius into the study where the Death Eaters were beginning to gather. Most were known to him, members of the same social circles that his parents had frequented, and Bellatrix made formal introductions to those few with whom he was unfamiliar. It was as Sirius was greeting Lucius Malfoy and a few of his cronies, Cousin Bella still by his side, that he spotted Peter Pettigrew slipping in through the door. Sirius's heart seemed to stop, and for a moment he was simply frozen, eyes locked on his friend across the room. There was only one reason for Peter to be at a Death Eater meeting, greeting people with the familiarity of long comradery. Treachery. How long Peter had been spying on the Order, Sirius did not know. How long ago had he turned on his friends, betrayed his comrades, how long had he been passing information that could have gotten them killed? Had he helped plan the attack on Alazandra's parents, or on Lily's? Was he the reason Mad-Eye Moody had lost his leg in a Death Eater raid, or Gideon his arm? Was Peter the reason why Fabian was dead? Memories flashed through his mind in an instant. Each time the Death Eaters had seemed a little too prepared, each time an Order member had been injured on what should have been a routine mission, each time Peter had sat with them and laughed with them, each time he pretended to be Sirius's friend.

Peter had only just spotted him, beginning to make his way towards Sirius with a surprised smile. Perhaps he was pleased with the thought of one of his old friends joining his true side, happy not to be the only traitor to the ones they left behind, ready to take his place as Sirius's best friend now that James had been cast aside. Sirius acted before he could think, lashing out with all the pain and anger of a friend and soldier betrayed, the killing curse flying from his wand in a flash of green light accompanied by the cry of "traitor!" It was Sirius who cried out in his anguish, but the word was echoed by the Death Eaters around him as Peter Pettigrew's body hit the floor with a thud. They surrounded Sirius on all sides, not bothering to wait for their master's word before turning on the would-be spy, intending to tear him apart for his betrayal of their trust and rejection of their very way of life. Bellatrix was the first to attack, but far from the only one. Sirius, realizing much too late how deadly a mistake it had been to give in to his murderous rage, fought to hold his own against the mob, but knew it was a losing battle. For every curse he managed to block, another struck home, leaving him ever more battered, injuries upon injuries and pain compounding pain a hundredfold. It was growing more difficult to fight, more difficult to think, but still he tried, spitting out spells through bloody lips, a gruesome smile on his lips as he saw another figure fall. Another curse struck him, shattering bones, sending him to the ground as a wave of agony shot through him, wand almost slipping from numb fingers. He saw Bellatrix's face as if through a haze, kneeling down beside him, raising her wand, taunting him, a cat playing with a dying mouse.

But Sirius wasn't dead yet, and he'd be damned if he died without telling someone about Peter, without saying goodbye. He would not be another Regulus, disappearing with no one knowing how or why he died. He tried desperately to focus. Destination, determination and deliberation. The destination was obvious, though the image he formed was fuzzy and vague. No one could doubt the determination. Bellatrix leveled her wand at his face, and there was no time for deliberation; Sirius Black gathered what little strength remained to him, and apparated. He arrived in the foyer of Potter Manor, barely conscious, gasping for breath in a growing pool of blood. He had splinched himself badly. Apparition was risky in the best of times, attempting it while mortally wounded could only have seemed reasonable to one already desperate and delirious. James and Mary came running, horrified by the sight, trying desperately to help, sending a frantic patronus to Lily and Severus, but knowing deep down that there was nothing more to do. James knelt beside his best friend, oblivious to the blood soaking into his own robes, tears streaming down his face. Mary knelt beside him, hampered slightly by her pregnant belly, her cheeks as wet as his. Sirius reached out towards James, struggling to speak. James could feel Fabian's ring digging into his hand as he clutched Sirius's. He leaned in closer, trying to hear Sirius's words.

"Peter—spying on us. For the—" he cut off, coughing, splattering James with blood. "Death Eaters. Don't know how long—stinking rat—"

Anger flooded James, almost overriding his concern for a moment. "Damn it! I'll kill him!"

A ghost of a smile crossed Sirius's face. "Too late — already dead..."

"No! Sirius, stay with me! Sirius!" James was frantic, begging, uncertain whether Sirius could even hear him, feeling his friend, his brother, fading before his eyes.

He fought as someone tried to pull him away, making room for Severus and Lily, but the two healers pulled back after just a moment, shaking their heads, leaving James still holding Sirius's limp hand. He knew what they would say before they said it, could see the emptiness in Sirius's eyes, feel the same emptiness in his own heart.

"He's gone. I'm so sorry."

Chapter Text

The days and weeks following Sirius's death passed in a haze of shock and grief for those who had known him. The Order of the Phoenix mourned the loss of their friend, their comrade, their brother, and struggled to understand the twisting series of events that had led to the pain of their current circumstances. For over a month most had believed Sirius's pretense of treason, and had barely accepted that betrayal before being hit with his true loyalty and martyrdom all in one terrible blow. Combined with the unmasking of Peter Pettigrew as the real traitor in their midst, it was far too much, too soon. Over the course of six months nearly half a dozen of the younger Order members had been removed from the fight in one way or another, losses piling atop one another, almost too much to be borne. Fabian and Sirius, fallen in battle, to be remembered and mourned as heroes. Peter, cut down as a traitor, his faithlessness more painful than his death; he would not be mourned by the two surviving Marauders, though they could never entirely forget the years of friendship they had once shared before his betrayal. Alice and Frank, sent into hiding, bearing a desperate hope for a better future but sorely missed in the present fighting.

Fabian had been dead barely four months before Sirius was buried beside him. Fate had denied the two young lovers the long lives they had hoped to spend together, but in death they would be united for eternity. It was all James could think about at the funeral; one freshly dug grave beside one still not fully settled or covered by grass. He wasn't the only one. It seemed like only yesterday that the Order had gathered to mourn Fabian, and now here they were, back again for another funeral, the cruelest kind of deja vu. Molly and Arthur Weasley and Gideon Prewett, who would have been, should have been, Sirius's in-laws. Diana and Alazandra, this time uninjured physically, but making no attempt to hide their grief and anger at the senseless loss of another student turned friend. The Lupins were there again too, Severus and Lily keeping back a little while Remus joined James at the graveside. The former Hufflepuffs had never had much reason to call Sirius a friend, though several years of fighting side by side in a war could overcome quite a bit of childhood animosity and schoolyard rivalry. It would be a long time before Severus could forget the sight of Sirius's mangled body on the floor of Potter Manor, forget the helplessness of knowing that there was nothing he could do to save him, the pain of knowing that he would be equally helpless if it was his own loved one dying in front of him. For Remus the pain was even sharper, the grief brought about by years of love and brotherhood, regardless of the strife that had also passed between him and Sirius. He had never fully repaired their old friendship, that deepest trust that had been shattered years ago, but found that his sorrow was as great as if they had never grown apart. After all, grief has never been known for its logic.

The pain of terrible familiarity was only heightened by the differences, the people who should have been at the funeral but were not. There had been no expectation that any of the Black family would attend, given the circumstances of Sirius's death, not to mention the years of conflict and hatred that lay between them; James had not bothered even to inform or invite them. But the absence of any of Sirius's blood family was still telling, in its own way. James was glad, almost, that his own parents had not lived to see this day; they would not have to feel the pain of burying the young man who had become their second son. James tried to push aside the thought that naturally followed that one; the Potters would not be around to grieve either of their boys, if and when James himself might fall in battle. The absence of Alice and Frank was perhaps the most conspicuous. The Auror couple had been the glue holding together all the younger Order members when they first joined up, helping to welcome them when they were the newest recruits and binding them together with the ones who had come before them. Frank had been Sirius's mentor when he began his Auror training; Alice had given Fabian the final push to ask Sirius out on their first real date. Painful as it sometimes was, the needs of the living had to come before those of the dead, and Dumbledore had forbidden the Longbottoms' request to attend the funeral despite Alice's tearful pleas. Their son would not be born for almost two more months, but it was unclear whether they would be able even then to leave the cottage that was beginning to feel as much a prison as a sanctuary.

But even in the darkest of times sparks of hope could be found, reminders of why they were fighting, who they were fighting for. Each time Mary went to an Order meeting with her increasingly obvious pregnant belly, each time Gideon passed around photographs of his littlest nephew Ian or the rest of his sister's children, each moment of joy planted another seed of hope and defiance. The long anticipated arrival of Neville Longbottom was another such seed, a child born at the end of July to parents who had set aside their own active resistance against the Dark to nurture what Albus Dumbledore believed could be the salvation of their world, though to most he was simply a reminder that life goes on even in the darkest of times. They dared not go to St. Mungo's for the birth; though there was little concrete reason to expect trouble there, an overabundance of caution felt prudent under the circumstances. The baby instead was delivered in the hidden cottage, attended by his very anxious father and the closest thing to midwives that the Order of the Phoenix had to offer. Severus and Lily, though technically not fully certified as Healers, had all the skills and training required for the situation, and the birth went as smoothly as could be desired. Both trainee Healers considered their first delivery a job very well done, though they managed to hold off on their self-congratulations until they returned home to Remus. In all fairness, their pride was well deserved. The mother and baby were both well, the father wasn't too traumatized by the experience, and Lily even managed to hold off Augusta Longbottom until Alice felt ready enough to see her, a minor miracle of its own. The new parents claimed that this service had nothing to do with Lily being named godmother to baby Neville, though neither she nor Severus fully believed it. The whole Order rejoiced when they heard the news, though none but Dumbledore had any deeper reasoning than the simple joy of new life in a time so full of death and despair.

The Longbottoms, now a little family of three, remained in hiding as summer turned to fall, while Dumbledore's thoughts of prophecy and fate remained a secret from the rest of his Order. But there were other secrets which the Headmaster did not hold back, mysteries that he knew would take more than a single mind to untangle. Just before Sirius's death the young man had stumbled upon an object that would prove crucial to defeating Lord Voldemort, if only its importance could be deciphered. The true significance of the golden locket with its glittering green "S" would not be identified until after Sirius was dead and buried, but it was his actions that set the Order on its newest path towards the Dark Lord's destruction. In truth it had been just a whim that led Sirius to the horcrux, an attempt to relieve boredom while trapped in his parents' home. Forced to play a role he hated in a place he loathed, with no one but his mother and the family house elf for company, Sirius had wandered the halls of Grimmauld Place in search of entertainment or mischief. It had been an act of spite against the only person he could risk antagonizing, stealing away one of Kreacher's few remembrances of favored "Young Master Regulus" when he came upon the elf attempting to destroy it. Hindsight and history would paint the act in a more heroic light, of course, and not without reason, for the consequences were pure and good in a way that the action was not. With only a glimmer of an idea that it might hold importance, Sirius had sent the locket to James. He in turn passed it along to Albus Dumbledore, only days before Sirius escaped Lestrange Manor to die in his best friend's arms.

It was only when the Headmaster returned to his study of the locket in the months after the funeral, suspecting that it was a horcrux but unsure how to open or destroy it, that he first considered letting others into the secret. It was a calculated move, as so many of Albus Dumbledore's decisions were. It was intended not only to further the research on the horcrux but to bring together an Order grappling with betrayals real and assumed, to give something tangible to work towards, to show that the Headmaster still needed and trusted his remaining troops. Much of the Order's focus remained on their preexisting goals, countering Death Eater raids, offering protection and escape routes to muggleborns and their families, and other such tasks, not to mention the work that each member had in their day-to-day careers. But they had a new goal too, and Order meetings were now used also for brainstorming how to destroy horcruxes and how to determine if there were any more of them. It was at the end of yet another extensive discussion on horcrux destruction methods that Dumbledore let slip that horrifying thought, softly musing that Voldemort was the type who might consider more to be better, safer. Lily, taking notes for herself halfway down the table, splattered ink across the page in surprise. She wasn't certain the Headmaster had meant anyone to hear him, but from the sudden silence around the table (save for the shattering of Marlene McKinnon's dropped teacup) it was clear that everyone had. To the Order, for whom the idea of even a single horcrux had seemed abhorrent, the possibility of a multitude was even more horrifying. But for a monster who had no qualms with any number of terrible acts, even the most vile plans had to be considered.

Indeed, it was a determination to avoid becoming so monstrous themselves which stalled many a proposal on how to handle the horcrux or horcruxes. What little information was available on the subject indicated that it would take the Darkest of magics to destroy a horcrux, things which even a wizard as powerful as Dumbledore would not trifle with lightly. It was Severus who came up with the first seeds of another path forward, reminded by the arrival of a patronus messenger of the usual purpose of that charm. If patronuses, the embodiment of light and love and goodness, could act as guardians against dementors, creatures of darkness and despair, perhaps horcruxes too could be defeated through good rather than evil. It would take long months to determine how to put such an idea into practice, to figure out how to heal away a horcrux, so to speak, rather than destroying it outright, but all agreed that it was a step in a rather more palatable direction. A new hope sparking to life, that their task might prove not only doable, but solvable without the ruin of any additional souls.

Even the Headmaster's increasing certainty that the locket (which he believed had belonged to Salazar Slytherin) could only be opened by parseltongue was proven to be less of a roadblock than he had anticipated. Though the only parselmouth of Dumbledore's acquaintance was Voldemort himself, it was not only human parselmouths that could speak the language of snakes, as Alazandra quietly reminded him one evening. Waiting until all the Auror members of the Order were conveniently out of earshot, but seeming not to care that Severus and Remus were both lingering close enough to hear, Alazandra revealed that she was a snake animagus. An unregistered Brazilian rainbow boa animagus, to be exact, able to speak parseltongue while in her animal form. She would be able to open the locket when the time was right, when a way was found to destroy it. That task, which had been left primarily in the capable but apprehensive hands of Severus Prince, would occupy much of the Healer's time during the fall and winter months.

It would prove to be an eventful time, those final months of 1980, filled with occasions of both sorrow and joy for members of the Order, and for the wizarding world as a whole. Sirius's funeral was barely behind them and the horcrux discussions were just beginning, when Mary Potter announced her withdrawal from the Order's front lines as the end of her pregnancy approached. She was unable to shake a feeling that she was abandoning her friends and continued to play a role from the safety of headquarters in Godric's Hollow long after her husband might have wished, but she would not risk the life of her child to add a single wand to a fight where one witch could hardly make a difference. It was for James's sake too, as much as for her own or the baby's. He had already lost too much too quickly, and Mary feared what he might be driven to do if he lost her and the child as well. On Halloween night, almost exactly three months after the birth of Neville Longbottom, Sirius Harry Potter was born. The little boy, immediately nicknamed "Siri" by his father, had long been intended as the godson of Sirius Black; he had instead become his namesake. It was a bittersweet moment, the joy of new life juxtaposed painfully against so much recent death. James kept half expecting to see Sirius walking into the nursery to visit the baby, kept wishing that he had gotten the chance to see his best friend and his son together. But life had to move on, and the delight and wonder that the new parents gained from their little Siri was a help in moving forward. They could never forget about their friend, but in their son they found another reason to keep going, a source of joy and hope not only for themselves but for their friends as well.

The news of Siri Potter's arrival was well received by the rest of the Order; good tidings were hard to come by, and most would take any glimmer of happiness they could. For Remus, bad news came only days after the birth, carried on the tired wings of his parents' elderly owl. His mother, never in the best of health despite the efforts of modern wizarding medicine, had fallen suddenly ill. By the time Mr. Lupin thought to send for their only son, it was far too late, and she died before Remus could say goodbye. Mrs. Lupin had always had a frail and sickly disposition, and life had not been kind to her or her family. The added stresses and worries over an intensifying war and a son who had become a vigilante with the Dark Lord's own target on his back had hardly helped matters, and her health had been in decline for some time. Her death wasn't exactly a shock, but it was devastating nonetheless. Less surprisingly, the death of Mrs. Lupin signaled the end of any attempt at a relationship between her husband and their son, costing Remus both his parents in one fell swoop. Mr. Lupin's feelings towards his son had been mixed, to put it lightly, since Remus's transformation into a werewolf as a child. He now blamed his son for the death of his wife, claiming it was Remus's reckless behavior that cost Mrs. Lupin her health and ultimately her life. Remus willfully ignored his father's dropped hints that he should not bother coming to the funeral, showing up at the cemetery with Lily and Severus in tow. Despite Lily's best efforts to keep the peace, the ceremony was followed by a graveside argument between father and son that escalated to a brawl before they regained their senses and stalked apart with a few last shouted insults from Mr. Lupin. It would be many more years before the elder Lupin died, but Remus would never again see the man as long as he lived.

Remus later claimed to regret the single punch that he had landed on his father, though Severus suspected he was more regretful of the time and place than the action itself. Severus would have loved a chance to punch his own father in the face and found watching Remus fulfill that fantasy to be quite satisfying, though he was careful not to mention it where Lily could hear. While she was well aware that neither Remus nor Severus's relationships with their parents had been nearly as functional or loving as her own, she did not always understand or appreciate all the consequences, and both young men knew it. Lily had little advice to offer on the subject of Remus's estrangement from his father, and for that he turned more to Severus, who could better understand the complex realities of a dysfunctional father-son relationship. The two of them spent more than a few late nights together on their shabby living room sofa, or pacing the confines of the kitchen cursing Mr. Lupin and Mr. Snape alike. Lily made herself scarce when her boys were in that sort of mood, understanding there was little she could do in that moment and trusting that they would be there for each other, take care of each other, in a way that she couldn't. When Remus's thoughts turned to his mother, though, Lily was there for him. That was a grief she well understood, barely a year since her own parents' murders, and one that Severus knew as well, from Lily's parents if not always from his own. It was a difficult time for all of them, new and recurring personal griefs piling on top of the ever present background of the war and the everyday difficulties of living in a world full of prejudice, but they did their best to work through it together, helped along by the arrival of some unexpected good news to rejuvenate their flagging hopes.

Since Lily and Remus's marriage almost two years before, and even before, the topic of children had always been something of a question. While both had dreamed of little ones in the future, Remus had been terrified since his own youth of passing on lycanthropy to his children. With so little information available on the subject, so little research done into what the child of a werewolf might experience, no way of knowing whether he would be unwittingly cursing a baby with painful transformations from the moment of birth, Remus had been understandably hesitant to father children. Lily and Severus's Wolfsbane potion, proving its worth over months of painless full moons, had changed the equation, as its creators had intended and hoped. They still couldn't know whether their potential child would transform, but they could guarantee that they would not experience the horrors that had plagued Remus's childhood as a young werewolf, and that was significant enough. When Lily's initial suspicions of pregnancy were confirmed, not long after the death of Remus's mother, the parents-to-be were plagued only by the standard fears and panic over having and raising a child during a war, safe (at least mostly) from additional worries over their baby's potential for lycanthropy. Excitement and joy filled the little house on Spinner's End as its inhabitants prepared for the anticipated midsummer arrival of "Baby Lupin," though the worries of the world could not be forgotten entirely.

That Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters were continuing to stir up trouble was hardly a surprise, at least to the Order of the Phoenix, but issues arising in the realm of politics were becoming increasingly worrisome as well. That too was far from shocking, of course, for it is a rare political body that brings more blessings than concerns, but it was clear a political storm was brewing no less than a military one. Officials of the Ministry and members of the Wizengamot made their opinions known, some on one side and some on the other, and the polarization and factionalism that had been spreading slowly among the common people now seemed to be accelerating rapidly towards chaos and what passed for open warfare in the more lofty political arenas. Officially, the Ministry of Magic was vehemently opposed to the Dark Lord and his followers, putting in place harsh measures in an apparent attempt to crack down on their activities, but few efforts were made to address the underlying issues of the day. The decision to allow Aurors the use of Unforgivable Curses, and changes to procedures for arrests and trials, were met with enthusiastic support from some and horrified shock from others; which individuals fell into which camp were often as surprising as the legislation itself.

Mary Potter, planning for her impending return to the Daily Prophet as her maternity leave approached its end, was stunned to receive a recommendation that she not return at all. Additional digging, with the help of the few colleagues who had not yet been terrified into silence, found confirmation of what Mary had suspected. Certain individuals, ones with substantial monetary influence on the newspaper, were unhappy with things she had been writing, and felt that she had become too political for the Daily Prophet, which prided itself on its non-partisan reporting. They claimed not to be firing her, and made appropriately shocked and indignant noises when she accused them of getting rid of her for being muggleborn, but firmly reiterated that they had no work to offer her for the time being, and did not expect to have any for the foreseeable future. James, more than offended on his wife's behalf and hopeful that his own name and reputation might have more of an effect on the snobs down at Daily Prophet headquarters, offered to help, but Mary refused. It was clear the way things were shifting, and even the word of a pureblooded Potter would not keep an opinionated muggleborn on the newspaper staff for much longer.

Mary was the first among her friends to lose her job over thinly disguised blood politics, but they all knew she was unlikely to be the last. For purebloods like James, Gideon, or the Longbottoms (if and when they came out of hiding) there was far less reason to fear, and Diana's job with the goblins would be safe regardless of her blood status. But for the half bloods there were worries that sooner or later they would come under scrutiny, and for Lily it seemed inevitable that sooner or later she would be forced from St. Mungo's. It would take time, no doubt, for the hospital was less concerned with politics and public opinion than a place like the Daily Prophet, and had fewer pressures from outside its own walls. But it was not a concern that could be ignored completely, no matter that mainstream wizarding society had not yet turned against its muggleborns. And while the persecution that Lily feared was only just beginning to appear with a hint here or there, another form of prejudice had taken center stage in the form of new legislation which would affect Remus personally and immediately.

Amid growing fears of Lord Voldemort, and rumors that werewolves had been flocking to his side (a rumor more true than many, though that hardly excused the actions taken in its name), the Ministry announced its intention to create a mandatory werewolf registry. Werewolves would be allowed to retain their wands, and even go about their lives as full citizens of the wizarding world, provided that they publicly registered themselves with the Ministry, made no effort to deceive anyone into thinking they weren't a werewolf, and generally kept out of trouble. Disobedience of these or any other wizarding laws would result in punishment more severe than for "regular" wizards, and the particulars of the crime of "hiding lycanthropy" was left vague enough that virtually anything could, under the right circumstances, be used as an excuse for arrest. The new Wolfsbane potion, just now finally entering the open market after months of bureaucracy and additional testing, should have made such measures feel less necessary by eliminating the very real threat of werewolves accidentally getting loose and attacking people. Instead it was twisted the opposite way, with pamphlets and editorials spreading fear that werewolves would now be able to hide their condition and creep into society without notice. Lily and Severus were left to watch in horror as the very thing they had created to help Remus was used as the foundational argument for making his life infinitely more difficult. For better or worse, the credit for Wolfsbane had gone primarily to Damocles Belby, and few outside their immediate circle knew enough of the role the two Healers had played in its invention to cast any blame their way. It was little consolation.

Christmas came and went, overshadowed in the Lupin-Prince household (as in so many others) by the turmoil of current events, despite Lily's best efforts to create some modicum of normalcy and festivity. Soon the New Year was upon them, and the Order of the Phoenix found themselves in an increasingly precarious situation, as one threat was overtaken by another and simultaneous hazards appeared, seemingly designed to stretch their resources and force unthinkable choices. For weeks they had prepared for a possibility of violence in Hogsmeade in the early days of January, at the planned inauguration of the newest mayor of Hogsmeade village. It seemed an obvious target for Death Eater activity: a chance to publicly eliminate the mayor elect, a halfblood who made no secret of his support for muggleborns and hatred of Lord Voldemort and who had already been warned to cease his fiery rhetoric or face the consequences; a chance to sow terror in a major wizarding gathering place; a chance to make Dumbledore look weak by attacking under his nose even as the children of Hogwarts returned by train for the new school term. All the Headmaster's suggestions and pleas to cancel or tone down the event were met with resistance, born from a combination of idealistic stubbornness and pompous conviction on the part of Thadeas Macmillan that the Death Eaters wouldn't dare to actually attack him. The Ministry of Magic too was certain that there was no real threat, and refused to provide more security than the nominal Auror or two that was standard for such an event. Still unconvinced of the lack of danger, Albus Dumbledore intended to provide his own fighters in case of attack, regardless of the wishes of Minister or mayor. Those plans were choreographed in advance, plotted out carefully to ensure full coverage of the village, and the Headmaster had begun to feel prepared, if far from relaxed, as the day in question approached.

But even that minimal sense of control was lost when warning of a new threat arrived mere hours before the Hogwarts Express was scheduled to leave London, a threat of violence against the train and the hundreds of students it would carry to Hogwarts that very day. The head of the Auror Corps dismissed the warning as a hoax, refusing to risk the public relations nightmare of sending Aurors to Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters or stationing them on the Hogwarts Express. With no chance of aid from more official channels, Dumbledore saw no choice but to divide his own meager troops between the two possible attack sites. Frantic patronus messages flew between members of the Order, directing some to the festivities at Hogsmeade while calling others back to guard King's Cross Station and ride the Hogwarts Express to protect the students. With the Longbottoms still in hiding and Mary forced to stay home with her two month old son, barely ten fighters could be cobbled together for each location even with the few new members who had joined in the last year or two. But with no way to confirm whether the Death Eaters were truly intending two simultaneous attacks, or whether train or village was the more likely target for a singular strike, fortifying one site at the expense of the other was not an option. The Headmaster himself took charge of the Hogwarts Express, bringing with him most of the younger Order members, including Remus, Gideon, Alazandra, and a few of the newest recruits. Lily, now three months pregnant, was permitted to join them after a slightly heated discussion with Dumbledore. As she pointed out, the Order only had two Healers, and with Severus already assigned to Alastor Moody's Hogsmeade team the Hogwarts group would be left without medical backup unless she participated. Severus was silently grateful that she hadn't tried to argue her way into Hogsmeade; both locations had the potential to become bloodbaths if things went badly, but Dumbledore's presence provided a sense of greater safety. For his part, Severus was keenly aware that most of the Hogsmeade team consisted of older, significantly more experienced Order members, perhaps to make up for the Headmaster's presence on the train. Even James and Diana, the other two "young" members of Moody's team, had much more combat experience than Severus; he was a more than passable dueler, but all knew that would not be his primary role that day.

With last minute plans made and assignments received, the chaos of early morning turned to an anticipatory calm before the storm as the members of the Order found their places. On Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters, some shepherded students onto the Hogwarts Express, trying to subtly hurry them along without causing a panic or garnering attention from parents. Others were completing a sweep of the train itself, ensuring no one else was trying to sneak onto the train with the children. But soon enough that task was done, the train loaded and all the students settled in their compartments, leaving their watchful guardians with nothing to do but pace the corridors or peer fretfully out the windows, standing ready for an attack that could come at any moment, or not at all. It was odd, Lily mused to Remus, how much difference two and a half years could make. Less than three years since the last time they had sat on this train as students, and now they were back as adults, as guards for all the students who suddenly looked so much younger than they had even a few years before. Alazandra, overhearing the comment, couldn't help but laugh despite the circumstances. "You think a single morning babysitting the train is bad, imagine trying to teach for a whole year. I was half sure McGonagall would still give me detention for being out after curfew!" It felt good to laugh, breaking the stress of waiting if only for a moment, before continuing the seemingly endless patrols. The hours stretched on, and the train continued its trek north, while its defenders grew ever more tightly wound as each additional moment passed without incident, leaving them to imagine what might still await them.

In Hogsmeade, the situation began much the same, an initial burst of activity giving way to hours of tense vigilance combined with the boredom of waiting out the mixture of political showmanship and festivities that comprised the mayoral inauguration. Moody had split up his fighters in pairs as soon as they arrived in the village, spreading them throughout the gathering crowd and surrounding area. Unlike the train, which had a finite set of players and clear demarcations between bystanders and potential combatants, Hogsmeade was already a mob scene. Witches and wizards came and went, constantly milling about, now moving closer to the raised platform where Thadeas Macmillan would give his formal address (now hosting a fluctuating set of musicians and other entertainers), now wandering away to visit the shops and booths that had sprung up around the village. It was an ever changing stage, and the Order could only hope that its next act would not prove to be a tragic one. Severus had been paired initially with Diana, and they meandered together through the crowd, wands within easy reach but not yet held ready to avoid setting off a panic, constantly watching for any signs of unrest. The cold of the early January day was held at bay by braziers lining the streets and warming charms cast with abandon, but a strong chill still lingered in the air, and Severus found himself thinking wistfully of the warmth of the Hogwarts Express. It felt like an eternity, hours upon hours of boring people giving boring speeches, throngs of festival goers pushing and shoving, shouting and cheering loud enough that Severus was doubtful that they would hear if anyone did call an alarm.

On that point, for better or worse, he would be proven wrong. The attack on Hogsmeade, when it came, was far from a subtle one. The sound of the Death Eaters' apparition was indeed lost in the sounds of merriment, but the subsequent explosions were more than loud enough to grab the attention of the crowd. For a moment the scene seemed frozen, masked figures surrounding a crowd too terrified yet to even scream. It lasted only seconds, then everything seemed to happen at once, panicked people running in all directions, impeding each other's progress far more than they advanced their own. The attackers had begun to move as well, curses shooting through the crowd, coloring the scene with bright flashes of light. The Order had begun to move as well, some attempting crowd control, trying to clear a path of escape for the fleeing villagers and defending the increasingly large number trapped by flying curses and falling debris, others attacking the Death Eaters directly. Another explosion, the stage collapsing too quickly for anyone to halt its motion with a spell, the screams of people pinned beneath its wreckage. So many screams, desperate cries for help, but far too few for the number of people who must have been caught beneath the debris. Severus saw two wizards dragging Thadeas Macmillan's limp body out of the wreckage, feeling a flash of anger towards the man. Dumbledore had warned the mayor that his event would make the village a target, and now how many more would pay the price for his arrogance? That Macmillan himself was dead was no consolation; he had not been a bad man, simply one with an overabundance of confidence and a dearth of common sense.

A flash of green narrowly missed Severus as he bent down to check the breathing of a man on the ground; Diana Arratay's returning shot hit the Death Eater who had cast it straight in the chest. The air was filled with smoke, fire spreading from fallen braziers and miscast spells, adding even more confusion and danger as the people of Hogsmeade attempted to flee or fight. Diana was dueling a masked wizard now, and Severus could see Dorcas Meadows and James Potter fighting side by side, trying to reach a group of children defended by a single witch. He turned that way, trying to make his way towards them, stopping to help what injured he could along the way. Nearly tripping over one body, Severus was unpleasantly shocked to find himself meeting the staring lifeless eyes of Caradoc Dearborn, an Order member whom he had last spotted fighting alongside Alastor Moody against a half dozen or more Death Eaters. Severus spun wildly, searching for the older Auror. There was nothing more to be done for Doc, but where the hell was Mad-Eye?

It took a moment to spot him in the chaos of the fighting, and Severus's blood ran cold when he did. Moody was surrounded, and it was clear already that he had not escaped unscathed from the attack that had killed his partner. Even as Severus watched, desperately fighting his way towards the older wizard, a spell hit Moody's wand, shattering it into pieces. Everything was happening too fast, and Severus would later have difficulty reconstructing what exactly had occurred. For just as it seemed that it must be over, with Moody wandless and his opponents closing in, a flash of red and gold split the air, phoenix fire suddenly there and gone, and Moody was no longer unarmed but wielding a silver sword encrusted with ruby at the hilt. He rose again on unsteady legs, lashing out at the Death Eaters who surrounded him, deflecting curses with his blade and sending more than one wizard to the ground. But even the truest of bravery and courage can take a man only so far, and even as magical a blade as the Sword of Gryffindor cannot hope to defeat seven wizards wielding wands. Severus, still too far away to help, saw his own horror mirrored across the battlefield in James's eyes as the two young men bore witness to the final stand of Alastor Moody.

The fighting continued after Moody's death, but Severus could hardly have said what happened, the afternoon passing in a blur of smoke and blood, curses and flames, bodies lying still in the streets of Hogsmeade and the wounded crying out as the world seemed to end around them. And then, with no warning, the Death Eaters were gone, disapparating as quickly as they had appeared an eternity before. Taking with them their own injured and the Sword of Gryffindor as a trophy for their master, they left behind wreckage and the Dark Mark to cast its eerie glow across the scene as the winter twilight darkened the sky. It was only then that the next stage of the battle could begin, the rescue efforts no longer hampered by curses flying to and fro, searching for the dead, the dying, the injured. Moving the debris, the wreckage that trapped living and dead alike, hunting for loved ones in the flickering light of the flames that still burned among the broken buildings and broken people. A train whistle sounded in the distance, cutting through the sounds of the battlefield, a sudden horrifying reminder to the surviving Order members that they had no idea what might have happened to their comrades on the Hogwarts Express.

Those on the train were having a similar moment of fear as they drew nearer to Hogsmeade Station, lovers and friends with no notion of what their fellows might have faced, knowing only that they themselves had been met with nothing but the stress of possibility. Remus, Lily, and Alazandra were the most on edge, staring desperately out the window as if they would be able to see Severus and Diana and know that they were well if only they could focus hard enough. It was Remus who first spotted the glow in the distance, and all three relaxed for a moment, for the glow of Hogsmeade and Hogwarts had always meant safety and the end of the journey to school. It was only as they grew nearer that the relief turned once more to concern, as the village came into view and it became clear that the light came not from the cozy household fires and streetlamps, but from flames burning in the village itself and the Dark Mark hanging above it. It was all the Headmaster could do to stop the trio from rushing ahead, reminding them that their work was not done until the students were safely within the castle, though his own worry was clear. The death toll, when they learned it, was sobering. Though Severus, Diana, and James had all survived the battle more or less unharmed, Alastor Moody and Caradoc Dearborn had been joined in death by Dorcas Meadows and Edgar Bones, nearly half of the Order members stationed in the village. The rest of the casualties were still being tallied, and there were those who had been sent on to St. Mungo's who might yet succumb to their wounds. It was already clear that the day had seen more magical blood spilled than any other in recent memory.

The turmoil of January spilled over into the following weeks and months, as the wizarding world grappled with the new stage of war that seemed to be upon them. There were no further attacks on the scale of the Battle of Hogsmeade, but the implications of the incident could not be easily shaken. For the Order too, it was a difficult time, struggling to cope with yet another reminder of their own fallibility and mortality, not to mention the growing concerns about the effects of their losses on the Order's ability to continue on. For Dumbledore there were other fears too, concerning the Sword of Gryffindor. Those present at the battle had been able to confirm that the sword had appeared to Alastor Moody in a moment of great bravery, and that the Death Eaters had taken the sword with them when they departed at the end of the fight. Given that the one horcrux the Headmaster was certain Voldemort had made was the locket of Slytherin, he feared that the Dark Lord intended to turn the sword into a horcrux as well. It was a thought almost too horrible to contemplate, particularly given that there was nothing the Order could do to prevent it, but a scenario that seemed all too likely nonetheless.

Indeed, though Dumbledore could not know for certain, he had predicted with perfect accuracy one piece of Voldemort's grand scheme, a part of the plan already underway. For the Dark Lord did intend to turn the Sword of Gryffindor into his sixth and final horcrux, and had already selected the death to use in its creation: Neville Longbottom, the infant son of Alice and Frank. It had been the better part of a year since the Longbottoms went into hiding, perhaps nine months since Peter Pettigrew hesitantly told his master that Dumbledore believed the Longbottom baby important and that the young people of the Order suspected there was a prophecy relating the child to the Dark Lord's downfall. Voldemort had set aside the thought for those long months, choosing to spend his time on more pressing matters. But now, with the wizarding world cowering in fear as they waited for his next move, with yet another victory won and the Sword of Gryffindor finally in his grasp, it was time. Prophecy or no prophecy, Dumbledore feared for the safety of the Longbottoms, and the timing of their disappearance suggested their son was a part of it. And prophecy or no prophecy, the death of the Longbottom boy seemed an appropriate one to mark the Dark Lord's final horcrux. It took time to track down the Auror couple, hidden as they were in a long forgotten property of the Longbottom family, but with no fidelius charm to keep them undiscoverable and Death Eaters working diligently on the problem, the information was in hand in a short matter of months. While the Order of the Phoenix fought to keep the wizarding world from sliding into chaos on multiple fronts, their enemy prepared a blow much greater than the minor attacks and terrorism that had kept them on their toes since January.

On the evening of the seventh of March, just under a year after they went into hiding, the wards on the Longbottoms' cottage were breached, and the two Aurors found themselves face to face with Voldemort. Taken by surprise in a place they had assumed safe, nonetheless Frank and Alice fought back, desperately trying to save their son, if not themselves. Their triggered alarm spells sounded in Godric's Hollow, at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, a cry for aid ringing unheard in the empty building. Another night there should have been someone there, would have been someone to hear and rally the troops, but it was not the only attack that night, nor even the first. Those on backup duty had already been called away to aid on other fronts, and Alice and Frank were left to fight alone. Skilled duelists both, and talented wizards, they were still unprepared, taken off guard, and proved no match for the power of Lord Voldemort. Until their last breaths they fought to shield their son, and it was only when both Aurors lay dead upon the blood splattered floor that the Dark Lord was able to approach little Neville. Barely seven months old; he would grow no older. Satisfied, and believing his mission accomplished, though he would ultimately prove less successful than he had believed, Voldemort vanished into the night. Leaving behind a silent cottage and the cooling remains of a loving family, lit only by the Dark Mark looming above in a cloudless sky.

Word of the Longbottoms' deaths spread quickly, and horror and sorrow spread with it. It was a tragedy for the wizarding world at large, both the deaths of the too-young individuals and the termination of an ancient and well regarded family tree. Only Augusta Longbottom, the dowager of the house, was left behind to bury her son, daughter-in-law, and only grandchild; the Longbottom line would end with them. For the Order of the Phoenix, it was a blow equally grievous. The loss of friends, of comrades, of James's mentors in the Auror corps, Mary's best friend and fellow young mother, and the glue that had first brought the young members of the Order together. The loss of the sweet baby that Lily and Severus had delivered together, of Gideon's godson, the source of hope and celebration for so many, and Albus Dumbledore's prophecy child. Each survivor felt the loss differently, faced the grief as best they could, found comfort wherever they were able. All but one endeavored to continue living, to continue fighting as they knew their fallen friends would have wished. All but Albus Dumbledore. While his followers struggled through their shock and horror at finding the Longbottoms dead but refused to lie down and accept defeat, the Headmaster seemed to have simply given up. To him, this was no mere random loss of soldiers, or even of friends and proteges, but the fulfillment of prophecy foretelling the victory of the Dark Lord and the coming triumph of everything he himself had long been fighting against. The rest of the Order, still unaware of the prophecy's existence, were left with no explanation for their leader's sudden loss of morale and dwindling will to fight, stumbling through their continuing resistance with less and less input and support from the Headmaster, and increasing concerns and fears of their own.

The following months were a dark time for the Order, and for the wizarding world at large. Death Eater attacks grew bolder, more frequent, and Auror Corps and Order both could only try to contain the damage. As fear grew among the common people, so too did support for Lord Voldemort, that odd, incongruous kind of support that so often follows prospective dictators, stemming less from true agreement than from concern for one's own safety, but support nonetheless. With Albus Dumbledore withdrawn, and his obvious successors (Alastor Moody and Edgar Bones) both dead, it fell to those younger or less well suited to leadership to take control of the workings of the Order and continue what efforts they could. Among those efforts, abandoned by the Headmaster but stubbornly pursued by his followers, was the destruction of the locket horcrux. For months Severus Prince had labored to create a combination of potions and spells full enough of light and healing magic to destroy the evil of a horcrux through opposition of their natures, and by the middle of March had finally created a testable prototype. Alone in the room that had long before been designated as potions laboratory at Order headquarters, Alazandra ordered the locket to open from her snake animagus form, then retreated to allow Severus to confront the horcrux. It spoke in the voices of Remus and Lily, their distorted forms twining together and mocking him for believing they could ever love him when they had each other, claiming that they would have no need for him when the coming baby completed their real family. The words seemed plucked straight from the deepest, darkest corners of his own mind, thoughts and fears long suppressed raising their ugly heads to taunt him. But these were battles he had fought and won already, fears consistently banished by Lily and Remus's repeatedly voiced love for him, worries that had crossed his mind when Lily first told him of her pregnancy only to be quashed immediately by her reassurance ("our baby, Sev, not just mine and Remus's. It's all of ours"). No warped horcrux-Lily could unsay words that the real woman had spoken; no coldly-speaking snake-Remus could take back the warmth of the true version.

But while ignoring the temptations of the locket proved less difficult than Severus might have feared, destroying it proved less simple. That first trial was a failure, as were the next month and a half's worth of attempts, as Severus continuously modified potion and spell alike, trying to create the perfect combination. When success finally arrived at the end of April, it came as a surprise. The effort had become something of a routine, one that both Alazandra and Severus had become quite accustomed to over the last months: Alazandra opening the locket then slithering out of the way as the twisted serpentine images made their appearances, Severus pouring the potion over the horcrux and activating its full power with a chanted incantation, then slamming the locket shut when it inevitably wasn't destroyed. This final time began no differently, though Severus had been initially hopeful when he completed brewing the most recent batch. The horcrux healing potion (as Severus often thought of it) usually came out white or silvery, often with hints of shimmer or iridescence, but the latest attempt seemed almost to glow. With the addition of the softly chanted spell it did begin to glow in truth, and the whispers of the horcrux figures distorted and faded to nothing as Severus was momentarily blinded by a final flash of brilliant light. Hesitantly approaching the table where the horcrux had lain, he found only an empty locket, its insides marred by what could only be described as a silvery scorch mark across the gold, a pearly white rather than burnt black. Surprise quickly turned to excitement, and headquarters erupted in rare celebration as the news was spread among the Order. Glasses were raised and toasts made: to Albus Dumbledore, dragged to the party by an already tipsy Hagrid; to Alazandra Langston-Arratay, the best serpent the Order could ask for; to the destruction of enemies, defiance of the Dark Lord, and Severus Prince. Looking around the room, Severus saw rare peace and good cheer, friends and families gathered together to savor their victory, their little moment of rebellion. Lily and Remus stood next to him, her with her nearly seven month pregnant belly and him with the brightest smile Severus had seen in weeks, Alazandra and Diana arm in arm nearby with Gideon beside them, James and Mary cradling a sleeping six-month-old Siri while quite a few older Order members looked on fondly. It was a perfect moment.

The proverbial storm hit within the week, on Friday May 1, 1981. It came in the evening, when so many witches and wizards had finished their work day, their work week, and began to flock to the cultural centers of their world for some much needed recreation. The bars and restaurants were well populated, if perhaps not so full as they would have been months or a year earlier, shops were full of customers, and the streets of newly rebuilt Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley bustled with life. More wary, perhaps, than in years past, but the promise of spring had brought with it a sense of hope and optimism untouched by the realities of the war-torn country. Only the most diligent or socially deprived workers remained at the Ministry of Magic so late, and St. Mungo's had been left to the tender mercies of the night staff, freeing most of its employees as well. Lily and Severus flooed from the hospital together after work, meeting Remus in Diagon Alley; the celebratory feelings from the horcrux destruction still lingered, and the trio had decided to risk an evening out and about. They strolled through the Alley, or rather, Remus and Severus strolled. What Lily did would more accurately (though less charitably) be described as "waddling," though neither of her companions would ever have dreamed of using such a term.

The illusion of peace and tranquility was shattered in an instant, the realities of a world at war crashing down upon the dinner goers. Not only Diagon Alley, but Hogsmeade, St. Mungo's, and more than a few towns and villages known for their large wizarding populations, were simultaneously targeted. Some were minor attacks, one or two Death Eaters appearing to make a point but do little damage, while others transformed into bloody battlefields in moments. Of all the wizarding centers in the country, only Hogwarts was entirely spared, though the attack on the Ministry of Magic was delayed after the others. Diagon Alley was the site of one of the more comprehensive attacks, and Lily, Remus, and Severus quickly found themselves in the midst of an active fight. Panicking civilians ran past them, screams filling the air, bringing with them reminders of numerous massacres and fights in the last several years. The trio ducked into a side alley, pulling out wands and readying themselves to join the battle, when Lily suddenly cried out in pain and surprise. Remus and Severus both spun towards her, but it was Severus's eyes that the pregnant witch met as she clutched her belly. A silent diagnostic spell confirmed the Healer's initial worried thought, and Severus felt his own face pale as he fought to keep his voice steady. "We need to get out of here. Lily's going into labor."

Even as Severus and Remus rushed to help Lily back to Spinner's End, battles continued to rage behind them. Members of the Order of the Phoenix hurried to one front or another, calling futilely for reinforcements and trying to stave off the seemingly unending attacks. The Aurors were called out, leaving the Ministry of Magic virtually unguarded as they assembled wherever their assistance seemed most needed. Unbeknownst to them, their presence would have been of most use at their own headquarters. With the Ministry emptied of its defenders, Lord Voldemort went entirely unopposed as he made his way into the heart of wizarding governance. Accompanied by a bare handful of his most trusted lieutenants, the Dark Lord made his way to the Department of Mysteries. A year since he heard the first rumors of a prophecy, a theory of teenagers hesitantly presented by Peter Pettigrew, nearly two months since he killed Neville Longbottom and began to wonder again if there was any truth in that speculation, Lord Voldemort stood alone in the Hall of Prophecies. The prophecy orb was found with ease; a single listen to the recorded words and a moment of thought provided all the confirmation the Dark Lord had required. In the span of a few hours the fighting would be over, the Ministry of Magic and the wizarding world under the control of the man who had once been called Tom Riddle. As the lazy late spring sun began to set over London, he stood before the assembled wizarding press to declare his victory. The words would be broadcast over the wizarding radio, relayed through magical loudspeakers in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, and printed in the morning paper; soon enough all would know the news. He displayed the prophecy orb, reciting its contents, elucidating its meaning as he understood it, finishing with a declaration of his own victory.

"I have defeated your chosen one, your prophecy child, the one with the so-called power to vanquish the Dark Lord. Neville Longbottom is dead, and no man alive can threaten me now! Join me in the new world we shall build together. Lord Voldemort will reign eternal!"

Chapter Text

"We need to get out of here. Lily's going into labor."

Remus stared, looking between Lily and Severus in shock and horror. "What —how—it's too soon!"

Severus was already at Lily's side, guiding her deeper into the alley, calling a response back towards Remus as the other man hurried to catch up. The Healer's worry was evident, though he managed to keep his voice fairly level, playing at a confidence that he didn't feel. "She's right at the end of the 7th month. It's pretty early, but — we'll make it work. Everything's going to be fine."

Lily gasped as a contraction hit. "We need to go. Now."

"You can't apparate!" Remus, in his panic, clung to one of the few pregnancy facts he could remember in that moment, prompting exasperated sighs from both Lily and Severus.

"In case you haven't noticed, Remus, I'm in labor and we're in the middle of a warzone! This is not the time to look for alternate transportation! Now take my arm and aim for the bedroom, no way in hell am I climbing those stairs right now."

Remus scrambled to obey, grabbing Lily's left arm as Severus took her right, all three of them focusing all their concentration on getting Lily home in one piece. A moment of relief when they arrived safely on the upper story of the house at Spinner's End, then the reality of the situation hit. Lily was in labor, months before the anticipated end of her pregnancy, Diagon Alley was under attack, and they were on their own. Remus was outwardly the most panicked, out of his element and terrified to think of all the things that could possibly go wrong, things that he could do nothing about. Severus, with a better understanding of what was going on and a clearer role to play, was at the same time more concerned and less panicked. He knew all the things that could go wrong, the things that already might be going wrong to send Lily into labor so early, but he also knew what steps to take and how to proceed given the situation. Lily, ironically, seemed the calmest of the three, once her initial shock began to wear off. She trusted Severus, perhaps more than he trusted himself; he was the one who had overseen her whole pregnancy, the one who she had always planned would deliver her baby. She knew exactly what knowledge he had, what training they had received together, remembered well the delivery they had presided over side by side. If anyone could get them through this, it was him, whether he believed it himself or not.

And indeed, Severus seemed to grow more confident by the moment, pushing aside concerns and worries that he could do nothing about, and focusing on the steps that he could take. Pulling out all of the potions he had begun to brew as soon as Lily's pregnancy had been confirmed, potions to ease labor and alleviate pain, and a calming draught for Remus, who seemed in dire need of one. Casting every spell he could think of to monitor both Lily and the child, already anticipating what might need to be done to ensure the survival and wellbeing of a baby born after only seven months. Even with the assistance of magic, labor continued for hours, long hours of feigned confidence and hidden fears, anticipated joy warring with thoughts of everything that could possibly go wrong. Night fell and the stars came out, just visible through a crack in the window curtain, peace and calm at odds with the frenzied activity of the birthing room. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, just as the first hints of dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, Lily gave birth to a tiny, perfect baby girl.

There were tears and congratulations, relief and celebration, all the emotions suppressed (with varying degrees of success) over the course of the long night bubbling to the surface. A few more tests, diagnostic spells confirming that both mother and child had made it through safely, reassurances that they all needed after the fears of the last dozen or so hours. It was then that exhaustion hit, and before long all three Lupins had surrendered to much needed sleep, some more fitfully than others. Severus, on the other hand, found himself far too awake despite the hour. No doubt he would crash before too long, when the excitement and adrenaline finally wore off, but for now there seemed no point in attempting to rest. He made his way down to the kitchen, brewing himself a mug of coffee and settling at the table to drink it, staring at the wall and thinking of everything and nothing. An owl tapping at the window roused Severus from his reverie, and he rose with a sigh to collect the Daily Prophet, to which the household had only recently resubscribed to keep abreast of the news. Absentmindedly unrolling the paper, he was suddenly glad that he had not yet taken a sip of his drink, for no doubt he would have spat it across the table. It had been easy, caught up in the whirlwind of Lily's labor, to forget the scene of chaos the trio had fled in Diagon Alley, to set aside worries over what might be happening in the rest of the world and focus only on the little piece of it that was most important in that moment. Severus had been dimly aware of Remus receiving a patronus message not long after they had apparated home, a call for reinforcements from James, but had put it from his mind as soon as Remus's response ("Lily's in labor, we can't leave her. Good luck") was sent. It was only now, confronted on the front page of the Daily Prophet by a photograph of Voldemort's victory speech at the Ministry of Magic, that he realized the true extent of the previous evening's events. It had not been a single, isolated attack on Diagon, or even a set of several coordinated assaults on other cultural centers; it had been the conquest of the entire wizarding world.

He couldn't tear his eyes away, reading in rapt, horrified fascination. The Dark Lord's speech was printed in its entirety, along with the prophecy that seemed to damn them all. Severus's thoughts whirled, shock making it only more difficult for his sleep deprived mind to focus on the words in front of him, struggling to process what he was seeing. The words swirled in front of his eyes. A prophecy, just as he and his friends had speculated so long ago — had it truly only been a year before? So many of the young Order members who had sat together in each other's homes, stood whispering after meetings at Headquarters, so many of them were now dead. They had been right, but there was no satisfaction in that, not when Alice and Frank were dead because of it, not when little Neville was gone, and with him all of Dumbledore's hopes. Another piece connected then; no wonder the Headmaster had reacted so strongly to the Longbottoms' deaths, going into seclusion and all but abandoning his people. Severus read through the prophecy again, as if he could make sense of the situation if only he could commit the words to memory. Born as the seventh month dies. Neville had been born at the end of July. Severus remembered it well, the summer heat as he and Lily delivered the baby. His thoughts flashed back to another delivery room, only the night before, or had it been morning by then? His own words reassuring Remus over and over that Lily's baby would be fine, it was the end of her seventh month, that was long enough. The end of the seventh month.

His thoughts turned to Neville again, another perfect baby he'd held so briefly in his arms, only to be found dead within a year. Desperately Severus tried to redirect his thoughts, flipping through the newspaper. His eye caught on a photograph, Alice and Lily dueling the Dark Lord, the photograph he and Remus had tried to hang on the fridge before Lily put a stop to it. They still had it somewhere, tucked away as a memento. Young witches stand defiant against Dark Lord, the caption had said. It was reprinted here, along with the matching line from the prophecy. Born to those who have thrice defied him. The phrase sounded familiar; Severus's tired mind tried to make the connection. A toast after he himself destroyed the locket horcrux, Diana's voice echoing in his ears 'To Severus Prince and defiance of the Dark Lord'. And another, Remus, voice gruff in imitation of Aberforth Dumbledore: 'it's a fool who defies the Dark Lord to his face, boy'. He flipped the page, the words of the prophecy written out again and again. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. 'It's alright, Remus, it's the end of the seventh month, she'll be alright'. Born as the seventh month dies. The pieces swirled together, thoughts almost aligning, slipping past each other. Defiance. Born to those who have thrice defied him. Born as the seventh month dies.

Severus's mug smashed to the ground, spilling coffee across the kitchen floor. Upstairs, Althea Prince Lupin began to cry.