“Evans,” said James dryly, “why on earth do you have a copy of Advanced Potion-Making?”
Lily tried to twitch the book away from him, but he, with the unerring skill of a Quidditch Chaser, snaked out one long arm and snagged the book.
“Isn’t this N.E.W.T. level stuff?” he asked, smirking.
She blushed”as a redhead, she blushed far too easily, and said, “No! Well,” she amended, “it is, but it’s not my book. It’s Severus’s, he was really interested in getting ahead on the Potions theory…”
“Snivellus?” asked James, and his smirk twisted into something uglier, meaner. Lily tried to snatch the book back, but he held it out of her reach.
“Don’t call him that,” she said stonily.
It was their third tutoring session. O.W.L.s were fast approaching, and for the most part, their evenings in the library had been rather polite and formal. Lily had been surprised at how dedicated to the work James Potter had been”he seemed actually to be invested in learning the material. After all of Severus’s insistence that James was only out to woo her, Lily was relieved”and also slightly offended. But only slightly.
Lily gritted her teeth as James turned away from her to flip through the book. “Probably grease stains all through it,” James was saying. “And what’s he written on the pages? Are these spells?” He turned the book sideways, squinting at the words written in the margins.
Desperate to get the book back, Lily leapt from her seat and, without thinking, launched herself at him.
His chair fell over backwards, his head hitting the ground so hard that his glasses ended up crooked on his face. Lily fell with him, pinning him to the ground. The book flew out of his hands, and she whipped her wand from her sleeve and shouted “Accio!”
The book flew into her hands, and she breathed a sigh of relief, tucking it into her pocket. Only then did she hear the snickers, and looked around to see that everyone in their vicinity of the library staring at them. She looked down to see that she was still sitting astride James Potter, who propped himself up on his elbows, pushing his glasses up onto his nose. He looked up at her, his hair more disheveled than ever, and winked. “Well Evans,” he said, “I should’ve known you like it on top.”
Her blush from before was nothing compared to the one that spread across her cheeks now. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew”she hadn’t even noticed that they were there before”high-five each other. She rolled gracelessly off of James and stood up, only to bump directly into Madame Pince who had stormed towards them and was now swelling like a bullfrog.
“Out!” screeched the librarian. “Out of my library this instant!”
And Lily Evans, prefect, model student, teacher’s pet, scooped up her books with as much dignity as she could muster, and looked down at James, still sprawled on the floor. “I believe, Mr. Potter,” she said imperiously, “that this concludes our tutoring sessions.” And she swept from the library.
She couldn’t be sure, but as the tail of her cloak whipped around the library’s doors, she swore she heard a low whistle.
Lily couldn’t help herself. She grinned.
---
In the boy’s dormitory later that night, James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus lay flung across their beds, wide-awake. They had their Charms practical, their first O.W.L., the morning after next, and Remus was, characteristically, going over some last minute notes, while Peter sat beside him, looking worried. James was on his back, staring intently at the ceiling, his wand in his hand. Sirius was looking quizzically at James, his head cocked to one side.
“Um, Prongs?” he asked tentatively. “What exactly are you trying to do to the ceiling?”
James flipped over onto his stomach, his gaze moving from the ceiling to his best friend. He stared at Sirius intently for a moment, and Sirius fidgeted uneasily.
“Prongs,” he began, but his words turned into a screech as James flicked his wand, and Sirius was hoisted into the air by his ankle.
James roared with laughter, and Peter leapt to his feet, looking between the two of them. Even Remus set aside his book, blinking up at them in interest. “How did you do that?” he asked curiously.
James shrugged. “Read it somewhere,” he said airily. “Levicorpus. Nonverbal.”
“I don’t care,” panted Sirius above them, “what it’s called. Will you just let me down?”
“Sure,” James said good-naturedly, raising his wand. Then he hesitated. “Um…as soon as I remember the countercurse.”
Sirius howled at him as Peter exploded into laughter, and Remus couldn’t hold back his chuckle.
---
“This is it,” Mary Macdonald muttered to Lily as they walked down to breakfast the next morning. “The day of truth. Our last day of freedom before O.W.Ls. Who will survive? Who will crack under the pressure?”
Lily giggled in spite of herself. “I heard Dedalus Diggle’s already been sent to the hospital wing three times for a Calming Draught!” she said, and Mary winked.
“That might also just be Dedalus though,” Mary said wisely. “He is extremely excitable.”
The two of them laughed, perhaps louder than they would have usually, due to nerves, as they rounded the corner to the Great Hall and slid into their usual seats at the Gryffindor table.
As they sat down, Marlene McKinnon, a pretty sixth-year with blonde ringlets, leaned forward in her seat. “So Lily,” she said, with a mischievous wink, “I heard you were straddling James Potter in the library last night.”
Lily, momentarily speechless, opened her mouth, and closed it again. Mary prodded her in the side, half excited and half annoyed. “Excuse me!” she said indignantly. “I believe there is a story you need to tell me!”
Lily, blushing yet again, did a quick scan up and down the Gryffindor table. None of the four boys in their year were at breakfast, and she breathed in deeply.
“Tell!” said Mary, elbowing her in the side again. Marlene laughed, saying, “I’d like to hear this too!”
“Well, it’s really nothing,” Lily began, just as Leda Wood, one of the other fifth-year Gryffindor Girls, sat down next to her, looking worried.
“Have either of you seen Amelia?” she asked Lily and Mary, naming the fourth girl they shared their dorm room with. “She was gone this morning when I woke up, and we were supposed to review our Charms notes this morning.”
Lily shook her head, glancing around at the Gryffindor table. “I wouldn’t worry,” Mary was saying to Leda, “I’m sure she’s fine.”
Leda pointed over to the Ravenclaw table. “Her brother Stephen isn’t here either,” she said, frowning. “I’m just not sure””
Lily let her gaze stray to the Slytherin table, where she saw Severus, his slight shoulders rounded as he leaned forward, apparently deep in conversation with two of his friends, Mulciber and Avery. Lily curled her upper lip distastefully at the sight of them. As though he felt her gaze, Avery raised his head, and locked eyes with her. She saw him say something to Severus, who raised his head and glanced towards the Gryffindor table. Lily raised her hand, giving him a small wave, but he seemed to not see her, and turned back to his friends.
“Who are you waving at?” Mary wanted to know. “Is that Snape again? Lily, I really don’t understand what you see in him…”
“We’ve been friends for a long time,” Lily said simply, “before we were ever Sorted. I don’t see what the problem is, anyway.”
Mary sighed heavily. “It’s not a problem, exactly,” she said. “It’s just…unusual.”
Lily shrugged, and started to reach for the plate of bacon, just as James Potter landed heavily in the seat across from her and swiped the last three slices. She scowled at him, and he grinned roguishly back. And then she was jostled rudely to the side as Sirius inserted himself between her and Mary, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders.
“Ladies!” he said. “I can see that you missed me. Clearly, you were inconsolable at my absence. My late arrival had you all worried.”
Lily laughed, but not until after she had removed his arm from her shoulders. “Looks like you’re not the only one late to breakfast,” she said, nodding up at the staff table. “I think Dumbledore’s going to say something to us.”
And indeed, the headmaster had arrived, and was somberly surveying the students. Lily frowned; in her five years at Hogwarts, she had never seen Professor Dumbledore so serious.
He cleared his throat, pushing the half-moon spectacles up his crooked nose as the Great Hall fell silent. “You may have noticed,” Dumbledore began, and his gaze lingered on the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables, “the absence of a few of our students this morning. It is my sad duty to inform you that Stephen and Amelia Bones have left Hogwarts for the remainder of the school year. It has yet to be determined if they will return next year.”
A low murmur had broken out among the students, and Dumbledore raised one weathered hand. “I believe that many of you have begun to hear whisperings of a certain wizard, one who has fashioned himself the name of Lord Voldemort”” There was a collective shudder in the hall, and Dumbledore smiled gently and continued “”or, as many of you seem to be more comfortable hearing, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This wizard appears to be behind the deaths of Stephen and Amelia’s parents, along with several other of their family members. I fear that dark times are approaching, and it is important for you all to know of the dangers that lurk outside our walls.”
With one last long look at them all, Dumbledore fell silent.
Lily stared at him, speechless. To one side of her, she could feel Leda shaking, one hand over her mouth. To her other, Sirius’s arms had fallen limply to his sides. Glancing up at the hall, Lily saw that a number of students had raised their goblets in the air, toward the enchanted ceiling, in silent tribute, and she did the same, bowing her head. Beside her, she felt the other Gryffindors raise their goblets as well.
For a long moment, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she looked towards the Slytherin table, and saw, with a sting of fury, that many of them remain stubbornly still, their goblets on the table, hands in their laps. With a pang of horror, she realized that Severus was one of them.
He glanced over his shoulder then, and she almost didn’t recognize him; there was something hard in his eyes that she had never seen before. But then it broke, and he held her gaze for a long moment, and surely that was the Sev she knew so well.
---
The fifth years were quiet as they walked to Potions that morning. Professor Slughorn glanced around at them kindly, his hand resting on his potbelly, but then announced, with a small tremor in his voice, that their O.W.L.s were upon them, and they were going to have a review day. The class groaned, and it was almost any other day.
Slughorn had them brewing antidotes in preparation for the practical, and surprised them with random questioning to prepare for the written. This somewhat upped Lily’s confidence; she felt she had remembered the details of Amortensia quite well, and Slughorn’s beaming smile at her answer quite influenced this belief.
Leda, however, had never been quite as confident in Potions. Coupled with the stress of the morning and a deeply rooted fear of public speaking, she babbled incoherently for three minutes after Slughorn asked her about Forgetfulness Potions. Lily winces as a bemused Slughorn tried to stop a wildly desperate Leda from continuing her speech, when there was a faint whisper from the Slytherin half of the room, and the whoosh of a spell. Leda stopped talking the instant the hex hit her; her tongue had been glued to the roof of her mouth.
Laughter erupted from the Slytherins, while the Gryffindors roared indignantly. A frantic Slughorn dismissed class early and ushered Leda out of the classroom down to the hospital wing.
Lily and Mary filed out of the classroom with the rest of the Gryffindors; as James Potter pushed past her, Lily heard him mutter, “At least I won’t be the only one failing the Potions O.W.L.” As much as she didn’t want to, Lily rather found himself agreeing with him.
As the entered the corridor, Lily grabbed Mary’s shoulder. “I’ll see you in the common room, all right?” she muttered. “There’s something I need to do.”
Mary looked at her quizzically, but nodded, and Lily turned back to the door, just as Severus came out of it.
Lily grabbed his arm and dragged him into a corner as the rest of the Slytherins passed them. “I know it was you,” she hissed at him, and was glad to see that he had the grace to look ashamed. “You invented that tongue-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth curse, it couldn’t have been anyone else!”
“I’m not denying it!” he said hotly. “It was just a laugh, Lily. Blowing off steam before exams, you know.”
“It wasn’t right, Sev,” she said severely, “and it wasn’t you! You were just trying to impress those awful friends of yours…”
“Yeah?” he asked, his face turning red, and he suddenly turned savage. “Well speaking of friends in low places, I heard you were all over James Potter last night. Sharing all sorts of fancy Potions tricks with him, were you? Gave him a nice long look at my copy of Advanced Potions-Making, did you?”
Lily gave a cry of outrage, and whirled away from him. “God, Sev!” she wailed. “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t fancy James Potter? I don’t even like him. Him or Sirius Black. And I would never show him your book!”
Severus sighed, and looked at her sideways. “I know,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about Leda. I just…I don’t know what came over me.”
Lily looked steadily back at him. “Sometimes,” she said quietly, almost inaudibly, “sometimes, Sev, I’m not sure I even know you anymore.”
He bit his lip, and looked her full in the face. “Friends?”
She hestitate for the barest of moments, then smiled. “Of course, friends,” she said softly. Then she dug through her back and pulled out his Potions book. “You should probably take this back though,” she said, “since the O.W.L. is soon, and I know you have notes in here.”
He nodded and took the book from her, sliding it into his bag as he turned towards the Slytherin common room. She watched him go for a long moment before heading up the stairs to her own dormitory.
---
Lily put down her quill, and for the first time all exam, looked around at her classmates. She took one more look at the exam in front of her”Defense Against the Dark Arts”and took a deep breath. She had finished the test a good twenty minutes ago, and had spent the remaining time checking over her answers. Convinced that she could do no more, with five minutes left in the exam time, she rolled up the scroll in front of her, and leaned back in her seat.
Severus was still writing; she smiled softly as she saw his quill flying across the parchment. Remus Lupin, a few seats down from him, was still writing as well, albeit at a slower pace. Peter Pettigrew beside him appeared to be sleeping. She glanced over at Mary, who appeared to be eyeing a lounging Sirius Black appreciatively. Lily rolled her eyes. Mary’s standards for boys were low; as long as they were breathing, she didn’t discriminate.
Lily spared a worried glance for Leda; she knew the other fifth-year was still very stressed, but she appeared to be going over her answers one last time confidently. Then Lily’s gaze slid to James Potter. His quill was still moving, but he appeared to be doodling something. She half-laughed as Professor Flitwick called time, and summoned the test papers to the front of the room; James jumped and scribbled quickly over his doodle. Lily smirked. It was probably butterflies. Or rainbows.
“All in all,” said Mary to Lily as they filed out of the room together, “I think that could have gone a lot worse.”
Lily nodded fervently in agreement. “I got turned around on that question about grindylows and kappas,” she said, “but I think that was just nerves. Other than that, it was pretty easy!”
Mary grinned. “We’re almost done then!” she said happily, skipping for a few steps. She turned to Lily and said seriously, “I know you probably want to spend all of our lunch break and in-between time studying for the Defense practical tonight, but let’s just take a little bit of a break right now. It’s so nice out, we can go hang out by the lake for a little while.”
Lily hesitated for a second, but as they stepped out onto the grounds, the sun hit her face, and she could feel summer in the air She smiled. “Race you!”
Mary shrieked and chased her to the lake. They arrived breathlessly, and flopped down in the shade. “Exams haven’t killed you yet?” they heard someone ask, and looked up to see Marlene McKinnon and a group of her sixth-year friends watching them, half-amused and half-sympathetic.
“Not yet!” cried Lily. “The end is in sight!”
“What do you have left?” Marlene asked them.
They told her, and she sympathized with them, and for this one moment, Lily tilted her head back in the sunlight and tried not to think or worry about the upcoming exams. She was determined to take these few brief moments to relax and de-stress.
She closed her eyes, but then she heard Mary say “What’s going on over the castle?”
Lily opened her eyes and stood up, glancing over at the knot of people. She thought she saw James Potter in the center of them, his wand arm outstretched, and beside him, a familiar looking boy was twitching, upside-down in the air…
“Oh no,” Lily breathed, and then she was running, ignoring Mary’s quizzical shouts behind her. As she approached, she could hear that it was indeed James Potter who was jeering something, but the wind was in her ears and she couldn’t make out the words.
She skidded to a stop in front of the crowd, saw James preening in front of his audience, Severus spitting out soap bubbles and dangling in the air by his ankle beside him.
Lily’s blood was boiling, her heart pounding with fury as she yelled at him to let Severus down. And James Potter turned to her cheekily and said “I will if you go out with me, Evans.” Lily was taken aback for a moment; she had never really believed that he fancied her. But then she snorted”he paused from tormenting her best friend to ask her out? What did he expect her to say to that?
‘“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” said Lily.
“Bad luck, Prongs,” said Sirus briskly, turning back to Snape. “OY!”
But too late; Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants…
Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said “Let him down!”
“Certainly,” said James and he jerked his wand upward. Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the ground. Disentangling himself from his robes, he got quickly to his feet, wand up, but Sirius said, “Locomotor mortis!” and Snape keeled over again at once, rigid as a board.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.
“Ah Evans, don’t make me hex you,” said James earnestly.
“Take the curse off him, then!”
James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the countercurse.
“There you go,” he said, as Snape struggled to his feet again, “you’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus””
“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”
Lily blinked. “Fine,” she said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”
“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him.
“I don’t want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James. “You’re as bad as he is…”
“What?” yelped James. “I’d NEVER call you a”you-know-what!”
“Messing up your hair because you think it looks cool to look like you’ve just got off your broomstick, showing off with that stupid Snitch, walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can”I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.”
She turned on her heel and hurried away.
“Evans!” James shouted after her, “Hey, EVANS!”
But she didn’t look back.’ (1)
---
Mudblood. He had said it.
It wasn’t the word itself that stung, Lily thought, looking into the fire in the Gryffindor common room a few nights later. They had had their last exam that morning, and Lily had managed to keep her mind off the incident on the grounds by throwing herself into her studies. But now, with O.W.L.s over, her trunk packed, and only a few more nights until the start of summer holidays, she had nothing to do but think.
She’d never been one to take offense at verbal insults. It was something she’d had to get past; ever since she had started at Hogwarts, Petunia had grown more and more vicious, calling her a freak every time their parents weren’t around. Lily could hold her own.
So it wasn’t the word “Mudblood” that had upset her. She had heard it before from the Slytherins, and brushed it off. It was the fact that it was Severus who had used it. They had had each other’s backs since even before Hogwarts. She had defended him to her Gryffindor friends, and had thought that he was doing the same for her in Slytherin. But what kind of friend turned savage in a crowd like that? Even James Potter, she knew, considered it the height of dishonor to betray a friend.
Lily stared broodingly at the fire, and slumped lower in her armchair. The common room was deserted; most people were packing for the end of term, or catching up on sleep after exams. Even James and his friends were absent; strange, for usually they threw rowdy parties in the common room after exams in order to blow off steam. But as light from the full moon streamed through a nearby window, Lily found she was glad for the silence. Then she started as the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open, and Mary slipped through.
“Lil,” the black-haired girl said tentatively, “Severus Snape’s outside.”
Lily’s faced darkened, and she turned away from her friend. “I don’t want to talk to him,” she hissed.
Mary shrugged. “I don’t blame you for that,” she said, “but he says he’s going to sleep out there if he has to. If I were you, I’d get it over with.”
Lily blinked up at her. Mary patted her shoulder sympathetically, and Lily appreciated the gesture, although she knew that Mary didn’t really understand. She had never approved of Lily’s friendship with a Slytherin.
Sighing, Lily got to her feet and slid out the portrait hole. Severus was indeed sitting there, his back to the wall, arms crossed stubbornly. He jumped to his feet as she moved to stand in front of him, and opened his mouth, but she spoke first.
‘“I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here.”
“I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just””
“Slipped out?” There was no pity in Lily’s voice. “It’s too late. I’ve made excuse for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends”you see, you don’t even deny it! You don’t even deny that that’s what you’re all aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?”
He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.
“I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way, I’ve chosen mine.”
“No”listen, I didn’t mean””
“”To call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”’ (2)
She turned away from him without waiting for an answer, and pushed back into the Gryffindor common room.
---
It was surprisingly easy, she realized over the last few days of their fifth year, to adjust to life at Hogwarts without Severus Snape. Her Gryffindor friends embraced her completely, glad that she was no longer splitting time between them and Severus. She just had to bury the feeling that part of her was missing. She could get through a summer of Petunia’s barbs, without those visits to Spinner’s End. She could start her sixth year fresh. She just had to get used to it, that was all.
She boarded the Hogwarts Express home with Mary, craning her neck to look for a compartment. Ahead of her, Mary gave a triumphant little shout, and pushed open a sliding door. Lily peered inside and hesitated. The compartment contained the other Gryffindor fifth years”including James Potter and his friends.
Lily hadn’t spoken to James since that morning by the lake. While she knew that Severus had been different for a while, that their friendship was already severely damaged, she didn’t think that she could ever forgive James for being the one who showed that to her, or for the cruelty with which he had treated the boy who had been her best friend.
Lily took a deep breath, still teetering between the compartment and the corridor. Then, almost eerily, she felt eyes on her, and looked up to see Severus standing a few feet to her left, his mouth open, as though he was about to speak.
Without a second thought, she turned away from him and entered the compartment. She breezed past James as he looked up at her, sitting instead between Mary and Peter Pettigrew, determined to keep a stiff upper lip the whole train ride home.
1. James/Lily/Snape dialogue, pg 657-648, copyright J.K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
2. Lily/Snape dialogue, pg 675-676, copyright J.K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"
Trickster by Willow Rosenberg
Chapter Notes: So this is the last chapter of the fifth year. I apologize for the long wait--family problems, finals, a computer crash, and no internet for the summer kind of slowed me down. But I did get a chance to write a whole lot more of this story--it's actually almost done now, so updates should come quickly!! And this one is pretty long, to make up for it.
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