Thanks for the Memories by tiger_lily821
Chapter Notes: So...this takes up from Snape's revenge plot (obviously, hence the title) mentioned at the end of chapter 5. R&R!
Severus’ quill paused. He wondered how to do what he had made up his mind to do. There were so many choices! To make Polyjuice Potion or to steal it from Slughorn…
He shook his head. He wasn’t worrying about that now. The note he was writing now read:
Potter,
Meet me in the Trophy Room at six o’clock tomorrow night. I need to tell you something.
L.E.
P.S. ” There’s no need to send a return owl.
It was the best imitation of her handwriting and her style that he could do, though it looked a bit shaky from his nerves. He only hoped it would be good enough.
At this point I think an explanation of Severus’ clever plot would not go amiss. He intended to somehow procure one of Lily Evans’ hairs (he still hadn’t quite worked out how to do that yet), then either steal or make Polyjuice Potion. Next, he would send Potter his note and go to the Trophy room at six o’clock, turn into Lily, and wait for Potter to turn up. Then…he wasn’t sure what he’d do then. Pay Potter back for all the times he’d hexed him just because he was alive, and of course for stealing Lily. It was the perfect plan.
But, as everyone knows, even the most perfect plans can fall apart. Snape was determined not to let that happen. He made up his mind.
He suddenly stood up, crossed the Slytherin common room to the door, and exited. Snape was running along a corridor he knew well, the one leading to the dungeon room where Potions classes were held. He often went there on weekends and after classes were over, and Slughorn now recognized his aptitude for Potions. Of course, the professor did not know exactly how good he was at Potions. No one did. The knowledge would scare them.
By this time, Severus had reached the Potions room. He knocked hard on the door.
“Come in!” Slughorn boomed from inside. Severus did so.
“Severus, m’boy! Haven’t seen you in days! I thought you had forgotten where the room was!” Slughorn cried. “Come to brew another sixth year potion?”
“No, sir,” Snape said. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“Ask away, m’boy, ask away!”
“I was wondering if, er, if I could take some Polyjuice Potion, professor,” Severus said, feeling extremely stupid. “I wanted to experiment with its properties, and I didn’t think I was up to making it myself,” he finished, lying through his teeth. He was perfectly capable of making it himself, but he thought the veiled flattery would help his case nicely.
It worked.
“Well of course, m’boy, of course!” Slughorn proclaimed. “It can’t hurt to give the best potioneer a bit of help, can it?”
“No, sir,” Snape replied, hardly able to believe that it had worked. Slughorn was thicker than he had thought. He took a flask from the inside of his robes and ladled as much Polyjuice Potion as he could into it. After thanking Slughorn a little too profusely, he made his way back to the Slytherin common room, glowing with pride and success. It was time for phase two.
“C’mon, Remus! Dumbledore said you could tell us!” Sirius cajoled, forgetting what Dumbledore had also said about not influencing their friend’s decision. James hadn’t.
“Stop it, Sirius,” he said. “If he doesn’t want to tell us, we shouldn’t make him.”
Sirius threw his friend a look of shock and dismay.
“Jamesie, you’re turning into a…a responsible student!” he cried. “If we don’t watch out, you could become a prefect! Or even Head Boy! I would disown you if that happened,” he warned. James rolled his eyes.
“D’you really think Dumbledore would make me a prefect or,” he spat the next words, “Head Boy? I’d die of the shame!”
“Then you’re all right, mate,” Sirius acknowledged. The two turned back to Remus, who had used this time to think of a comeback to the question that was sure to come.
“If you don’t want to say, that’s fine, but I warn you, we’ll find out. Marauders have a way of finding out things we probably shouldn’t,” Sirius sighed.
Remus was surprised. The question had not come. But this was hardly better. Remus knew they were right; James and Sirius were the best students of the year; they would of course figure out that his mother was always ill or something always came up every full moon, and then where would he be? All three of the boys in his dormitory would be afraid to go near him. It was too much. Remus ran from the dormitory and his only friends, out the portrait hole, and to the library. At least he would get quiet there. And there was the added bonus that James, Sirius, and Peter avoided it like the plague.
Lily sat in the back of Defense Against the Dark Arts, hating the teacher more than she knew it was possible to hate someone. Professor Hancock stalked down the aisles, surveying each first year’s notes with an overly critical eye.
“Mr. Potter!” he said sharply, stopping by James’ desk. James looked into his cold grey eyes, utterly unafraid.
“Yes, my lovely Professor?” James simpered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Lily admired his daring.
“What in the name of Merlin are you doing to that piece of parchment?”
James had been alternately scribbling on and tapping the parchment in question with his wand. Professor Hancock picked it up. Lily saw James mutter a spell, and the writing on the parchment disappeared. The professor clicked his tongue in annoyance. He drew his own wand.
“Specialis Revelio!” he cried, pointing his wand at the parchment. A few scribbles appeared. James smirked.
“Satisfied, Professor dearest?” he asked sweetly.
“No, I am not satisfied, Potter, and don’t you take that tone with me! That would be a detention!” the professor said forcefully. Then he appeared to see something. “Hmm, ‘J.P. and L.E. Forever,’” he read from a corner of the parchment. “I wonder who this L.E. would be?”
His eyes never moved from Lily. The Slytherins (whom the Gryffindors were sharing yet another class with) hooted with laughter. James slipped farther down in his seat, and Lily saw that his ears were a flaming red color to rival her own hair. Out of pity for James and something else she couldn’t quite name, Lily did something she had never had enough nerve to do before.
“Everyone knows that,” she said loudly. Professor Hancock raised his eyebrows, daring her to go on.
“It’s true though! Everyone does know that James likes me,” she continued unashamedly. That shut the Slytherins up.
“Detention, Miss Evans,” he said silkily. “I will not be spoken to such. Class dismissed.”
Fuming, Lily slammed shut The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection. Detention, for pointing out the painfully obvious? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
In all the confusion, nobody noticed as a hair separated itself from Lily’s scalp and zoomed into the waiting hand of Severus Snape.
Lily stalked from the room, unable still to believe that she had just received her first detention.
“Hey, Evans! Lily, wait up!”
She didn’t know what made her do it. James Potter was the last person she wanted to talk to at the moment, but she turned. Shockingly, James looked sincere. He took her hand, and for reasons unbeknownst to her, Lily didn’t pull away. This seemed to bolster James’ confidence.
“Thanks for standing up to Hancock like that for me,” he said. “I really don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.”
Lily softened, and she gave James’ hand a little squeeze.
“You would have been laughed out of the room by a bunch of Slytherins,” she told him bluntly. He chuckled.
“And don’t sweat the detention. You know, that’s the only true mark of a Marauder,” he teased. “Me and Sirius””
“Sirius and I,” Lily corrected automatically. James made a monumental effort not to sigh or roll his eyes.
“Right you are, Evans, Sirius and I,” he amended, “must have racked up about thirty detentions together.”
Lily didn’t deny it.
“Evans,” James started, and braced himself as if for impact, “will you go out with me?”
Lily hesitated for what seemed like an age to both of them, but what was in reality only a couple of seconds. “Prove to me that you love me.”
James took a deep breath. This was it. “This should prove it,” he murmured.
Without so much as thinking about what he was doing, James planted a kiss on her lips. As he pulled away, he saw that her eyes were shining; not with happiness, however, with tears. James’ face fell.
“Lils, I’m sorry, I””
But Lily had turned her back on him and was running away down the corridor, and James thought he heard a muffled sob as she disappeared from sight.
Arya Knightley marched down the staircase from the girls’ dormitory, looking determined and vindictive. She walked straight up to James Potter, and when he looked up to see who it was, she punched him hard in the face.
James felt several teeth part company with his gums, and he bit his tongue till it almost bled to keep from crying out. It occurred to him that she must have practiced her right hook on her little brother. That was one kid he definitely did not envy.
“You filthy scumbag, Potter,” she said coldly. “Lily is up in our dormitory crying her eyes out; she said you’d forced another kiss on her.”
Arya raised her arm as if to hit him again, but thought the better of it. She sighed.
“Don’t you learn, Potter? Lily won’t like you, let alone go out with you, if you keep taking advantage of her like that. I thought what happened at the Quidditch final would have knocked some sense into you.”
James grimaced. He still didn’t like to think about that particular catastrophe. One thing bothered him, though. Why had Lily sent her friend to do her dirty work? She had proved herself more than capable, after all. He voiced this query.
“Because Lily is too busy being distraught to do it herself and I thought someone needed to do it,” she replied. James offered a small smile at this. Arya scowled in return and stalked back to her dormitory.
The last thing James expected was an owl from Lily. But the next morning, a screech owl that he did not recognize swooped down on him and dropped a note into his eggs. It looked like the writer’s hand had been shaking badly.
Potter,
Meet me in the Trophy Room at six o’clock tomorrow night. I need to tell you something.
L.E.
P.S.”There’s no need to send a return owl.
No need to send a return owl…that was odd. Lily Evans wasn’t the type of girl to act without assurances. Whenever Marauder plots concerned her, she would make them all run over the plan in its entirety at least ten times before she would give it her OK. This was totally unlike her. James looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She was talking animatedly with her friends; only the dark circles under her eyes hinted that she had not had a very good night. He decided to forget how unlike her it was and go. Besides, a sly voice in his head said, you’ll still be alone with her…
Six o’clock was approaching. James ran as quietly as he could toward the trophy room. He looked inside before entering. Lily was there, all right, twisting a strand of the hair that was her best feature. Well, thought James, that and her face, and her eyes, and everything else about her. He walked into the room.
“’Lo, Evans.”
“Hi, Potter.”
“Looking good tonight,” James said. After all, it couldn’t hurt to get in some compliments.
“Shut up, Potter.”
James obliged. Snape (because that was who it of course was) was nearly beside himself with glee. Never before had Potter actually shut up when he told him to. It was a nice feeling.
“Let’s get down to business,” Snape said. “Potter, we’re over.”
James simply looked puzzled. “What d’you mean, we’re over?”
“We’re over. Done. Through.”
“I don’t understand,” James said, his brow furrowing even more.
Snape groaned and put a hand to his temple. This would take longer than he had anticipated. “I’m breaking up with you, Potter. I’ve found someone else.”
James was not half so stupid as Lily (and Sirius) occasionally made out. He knew that whoever this was probably was trying to break him and Lily up. Obviously, this boy had seen them kissing one of the two times, and thought they were going out. There was only one way to find out who this imposter was.
“Who’s the lucky guy?”
Snape smothered a grin. The git was finally cottoning on.
“Severus Snape,” he said, savoring the way his name sounded in Lily’s voice.
“Snivelly?” James said incredulously.
“Don’t call m”him that!” Snape said, a little too shrilly for his liking. James just laughed.
“You didn’t have a problem with it yesterday,” James said, also smothering a grin. “You call him that yourself behind his back.”
She did? That was news to Snape. But Potter wasn’t done.
“What is the name of Sirius’ favorite cousin?” he shot at Lily-Snape.
“I don’t know,” Snape said, a little worried. This was not in the plan…
“What are all the titles of Albus Dumbledore?” James asked next. Snape tried getting angry.
“How should I know? Potter, if you have a point, kindly get to it!”
“All right, my point. You should know Andromeda’s name because you were praising her creativity and attention to detail only last week. And you sure as heck knew Dumbledore’s titles on the first of term. Bloody near knocked my dad off his feet. Therefore, I draw the conclusion that you are not Lily Evans, but Snivellus Snape.”
“What gave me away?”
The question was out before Snape could stop it. James smiled patronizingly.
“Snivellus,” he said, pausing dramatically, “I was never going out with Evans.”
James walked in a slow circle around Snape, who was frozen with terror.
“I think I’ll leave you here for Pringle to find, Snivelly,” James thought out loud. “And so you can’t run away,” he continued as Snape’s eyes flicked to the door, “I think I’ll do this. Petrificus Totalus!”
Now Snape was frozen with something other than fear; the Full Body-Bind Curse. His limbs sprang together and he keeled over backward, hating Potter all the way down. The plan had completely backfired. He would have cursed if he could move his mouth. As it was, he settled for glaring at Potter. Potter waved cheerily back.
“See you ‘round, Snivelly. Or rather not,” he added as an afterthought. He walked out of the room, careful to leave the door open. Why not make things easier for Pringle, the dear man, he thought sarcastically.