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Severus's Protection


“Twenty-four April, Evans,” James said, dropping onto the bench in the Great Hall beside her. He looked at her with that grin of his and she blushed and looked away. “How many days ‘til 24 April, Love?”

“13 days,” Lily replied with a blush to her nose.

James grinned, “Hear that, mates. Thirteen days.” He turned to look at Sirius as he sat beside him and Peter and Remus across from them. “I’m starting a countdown. I can hardly wait.”

Lily stared down at her plate and Ali smirked at her from across the table, where she was sitting with Frank Longbottom’s arm ‘round her while he talked to Andy Woodhouse on the other side of him.

“I can’t wait, either,” Remus muttered, looking quite peaky, “Rather looking forward to getting past the 14th.”

Ali looked over, “What’s the 14th?”

Remus looked sick, “I --”

“Have career counseling with McGonagall.” Sirius supplied. “Still hasn’t finished filling out his paper. Really, Rey, you ought to get on that.”

Remus looked appreciatively at Sirius. “Yeah, I know… just been busy…”

“Oh I know,” gasped Ali, “I can’t imagine what you lot are going through! They’re piling loads of homework on us fourth years, too! And we aren’t even having O.W.L.s next month!”

“Next month?” Peter squeaked, a frightened look upon his face. “Already?”

“End of May,” Lily confirmed.

Sirius said, “Well fuck. That snuck up on us.”

“I know,” said James, his happy attitude wilted slightly, “I haven’t done near enough revising.”

Sirius looked at Remus across the table. “Why didn’t you remind us to study, Moony?”

Remus looked aghast. “Why didn’t I -- why -- why didn’t -- are you kidding me? Everyday! Every bloody day!”

“Why do you lot call him Moony anyway?” Frank asked, having tuned in at Sirius’s use of the F-word.

They all looked at one another.

“One time him and James made a bet on who could eat more cinnamon buns - me or Peter - and you lot best never bet against Sirius Black, let the record show, I blew Pete away. So as the loser, he had to do anything James told him to do and so he had to press his naked arse against the window of our dormitory,” Sirius said without cracking even a smidgen. “Nice moon, too.”

Remus closed his eyes in exasperation.

Could’ve made up anything, Remus thought, Yet he had to go with naked arse on the window. A nice naked arse, no less!

Frank cracked up and Peter snorted so hard Sirius was afraid that the story would be proven a lie. Sirius caught Remus’s eye and grinned at him, winking playfully, and Remus rolled his eyes and looked down at his plate, his face flushed.




“Twelve days.”

It was the next day and they were in Potions and Lily was carefully working on cutting the tuber they were to be using while James measured out some of the liquid ingredients with his scales. She raised her eyebrow as she sliced carefully, “Must you keep reminding me?” she asked, faking at being annoyed.

James smirked, “Evans, I can’t help it. I just like thinking about it.”

Lily pushed him gently and he exaggerated a fall from the stool, flinging himself off it with flailing limbs, “Ah you’ve killed me, you’ve killed me! And now what Evans? Who will take you to Hogsmeade if not me?!”

Severus Snape looked up from his book. He half-turned in his seat beside Sirius, who was drawing an intricate chart from something Slughorn had done on the chalkboard, and stared across the way at where Lily was laughing at James as he got back up from the floor, a happy smile on his face, eyes so glued to her that he didn’t even notice Snape’s stare…

“I’m perfectly capable of going on my own,” Lily said primly.

“You don’t want to though, yeah? You want to go with me, don’t you?” James asked, grinning.

Lily sighed heavily, playfully, and rolled her eyes - smiling, “If I must.”

“You must, Evans, you must.”

Lily laughed.

Severus Snape’s hands tightened ‘round a vial he held so much that the vial burst and the essence of murtlap he’d been holding dripped over his book and his lap and he scrambled to put the book up, sneering at the mess he’d made.

Sirius looked down, “Troubles, mate?”

Severus didn’t answer at first, he was too busy grabbing his wand and siphoning up the mess. Slughorn looked around and saw what happened, but was busy with a Slytherin student across the room who was having trouble with the mixture and he didn’t bother saying anything. Severus was glowering.

“And you think it’s me that’ll bring our grades down!” Sirius jeered.

“Since when is Potter going with Lily Evans to Hogsmeade?” Severus hissed, looking up.

Sirius looked surprised that Severus was saying something to him that wasn’t a) an insult, b) Potions related, or c) a Potions related insult. He stared at him for a moment, then a smirk crawled over his face, “Why, Snivellus, are you jealous?”

“Tell me now unless you want your boyfriend exposed.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend,” Sirius’s words were cold, hard, and from a deeply broken place. The weight of them was evident.

Severus stared at him for a long moment. “Seen the light of your horrid ways, has he?” he whispered, “Realized what a horrible person you are?”

Sirius looked down at the textbook. Inside him, Achyls twisted horribly.

“Even a werewolf has more self respect than to date you,” Snape said, seeing the darkness clouding Sirius’s thoughts, and he sifted through them quickly, “The monster rejects the monster.”

“He’s not a monster,” whispered Sirius.

“But you are.”

Sirius stared at his textbook very hard.

Snape leaned closer, smirking at the tormented look on Sirius’s face, images flowing through his mind like a flipbook, and Severus smirked, “You want to heal others of the very thing that afflicts you? Save yourself.”

Sirius’s hands were shaking so that when he grabbed the next bottle and tried to pour it into the potion, he poured too heavy and the potion turned a shade of red when it should’ve been a light orange and he flushed, “Damn it,” he groaned.

Severus didn’t even care that Sirius had ruined the potion. He himself was doing well enough that he would pass his O.W.L. even if he bombed the rest of the term. Sirius Black however, would need near perfect grades in order to even dream of it. And the O.W.L. for Potions was crucial if he wanted to be a healer.

Severus stared at Sirius as he frantically looked through the book for a way to fix what he’d done.

“I know how to fix it,” murmured Severus.

“How?” Sirius asked, looking up.

Severus stared at him for a long moment. “Tell me about Potter and Evans.”

Sirius rolled his eyes.

“Guess we’ll just fail today, then,” Severus said with a shrug and he turned away.

“Look, they’re going to Hogsmeade together,” Sirius said, “Dunno what it matters to you. He asked her and she said yes. Now fix the potion.”

“When?”

“Last week. His birthday. Now fix it.”

Severus smirked. “What’s the magic word?”

Sirius glared at him.

Severus raised an eyebrow.

“Please.”

“Very good.” Severus turned and dropped a pile of sliced tubers in… adding two extra slices than the recipe called for. “The tubers stabilize the effects of the mixture and adding the extra slices counteracts the effect caused by the extra toad venom.”

Sirius watched the cauldron turn to exactly the shade it should be.

Severus looked back toward Lily and James as they worked together.

“If you really cared about her,” Sirius said, “You’d see she’s happy and you’d be happy for her.”

Severus’s eyes narrowed. “I would be. If he wasn’t insufferable. Or a blood traitor.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “A blood traitor, you say?”

“Same as you.”

A smirk played on Sirius’s face. “You know she’s a muggle-born, yeah?” he asked, then, lower, antagonizing, “Not a drop of magical blood in her veins according to blood purists. Not a single drop. You half-blood bit of rubbish.”

Severus looked at Sirius. “Regardless of whether he’s your boyfriend or not… you don’t want Lupin exposed do you?”

Sirius’s jaw set and he turned away from Severus to read the next bit of his textbook.

Severus kept looking back at Lily and James - getting along, laughing, her touching his arm now and then without flinching like she used to - and seethed.




Severus caught Lily in the hall after the class was over as Sirius shoved past and a look of concern crossed James’s face as he hurried after Sirius down the corridor. Lily looked at Severus’s hand on her elbow, then up at him. He knew she hated when he grabbed onto her like that, yet he didn’t let go. Something about having her in his grasp like that made him feel powerful, like he could do anything in the world because his hand was upon Lily Evans… He pulled her closer and whispered, “Tell me it’s just a stupid rumor or a trick, you going with him on Hogsmeade weekend?”

Lily shook her head, “it’s not.”

“Why would you do that? You know he’s only doing it to mock you.”

“To mock me?” Lily raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. He’s up to no good, Lily. I can see it in his mind, he has a big insane plan --”

“You’re lying.” Her words were incredulous.

Severus said, “I’m not --”

“You are. Don’t lie about not lying.” Lily paused, then, more determined than ever, “I’m going to Hogsmeade with James Potter and nothing you say will stop me from it, Sev. It’s not any of your business anyway.”

“It is. I’m trying to protect you!”

“Protect me from what?”

“Him,” Severus said, jabbing his arm in the direction James had gone.

Lily wrenched her arm out of Severus’s grasp.

“He’s bad, Lily.”

“You know, you keep saying that Severus, but there’s absolutely no evidence of it.”

“Five years of bullying isn’t evidence enough?”

“People change.”

“I haven’t changed.”

“You have.”

Severus scowled. “How have I changed?”

“You become more like those boys you hang about with every day, Sev. It’s frightening.”

He glowered.

“And honestly, you keep saying all these awful things about James, and I keep listening to you, but it’s madness… You know, there’s more evidence for what he says about you than there is for what you say about him.”

Severus’s eyes narrowed, “What he says about me? What does he say about me?”

Lily stared at him. “That you bully him back. That you tell fibs about him and his friends. That you are no good for me. That you’re becoming a Dark Wizard, that you’re a Death Eater. That you have the dark mark.”

Severus pulled his sleeve up to show her his left arm. “Your boyfriend is a liar.”

“He is NOT my boyfriend,” she said with vehmenence. Then her mind went rouge. Yet.

Merlin’s Beard. I did not just think that. Oh my Godric. I did. I did think that. Do I want James Potter as a boyfriend? Mother of Merlin. Yet! Oh my goodness. What - what am I thinking? I’m mad. Oh but -- and he’s so --

Severus’s face was anger. Pure anger. He stared up at her with the most horrible look of jealous rage he had ever worn. “You want him to be,” he hissed.

Lily looked at Severus, feeling her face turn red.

“His hair is always a mess,” Severus said, countering the things that had flashed through her mind about him that she liked.

“And yours is always --” Lily caught herself and covered her mouth with her palms.

Severus stared at her. “You see? He’s a bully and he’s already rubbed off on you!”

“You’ve started it.”

“He’s arrogant.”

“He seems worse than he is. He’s really not as full of himself as he seems, he’s actually really --”

“He attacked me over holiday. Him and his friends attacked me just last month. Set a werewolf on me.” He hissed the last bit so as not to be overheard by the last of the Slytherins leaving Potions or by Horace Slughorn, who hovered in the doorway of the Potions classroom, watching them disperse, and once they’d mostly gone, Slughorn backed into his room and closed the door.

“You’re - you’re wrong, you hit your head, they say… you remember… unclearly… what happened. He saved your life.”

“There’s very little left to save if you leave me, Lily,” Severus moaned, switching tack.

Lily stared at him, “Leave you?”

“We’re meant to be together, Lily. You and I.”

“We’re not,” she replied. “We’re friends, Severus.” She couldn’t even bring herself to say best friends anymore.

He stared at her.

Suddenly Mulciber was at his side, sliding his hand over Severus Snape’s shoulders, grinning at Lily with his wide, toady smile, his yellowed teeth showing under his fat lips. He looked at Severus. “Is this filthy mudblood bothering you, Severus?” he pulled his wand from his pocket and grinned menacingly at Lily. “Does she need to be learning a… lesson?”

Lily glared at Mulciber. “If you try to lay even a finger on me, I’ll neuter you.”

“Ohh we got a live one, boys.” Mulciber snickered, and suddenly from the dark came McNair and Avery.

“I like’em kickin’,” snickered McNair.

Severus grew quite pale.

Lily drew her wand.

Mulciber laughed,“What do you say, Severus?”

The darkest, most horrid depths of Severus Snape hesitated… the dark places where he wanted Lily Evans at any cost whispered she won’t remember, it won’t hurt her any, she never has to know. But his stomach sickened at the thought of it. His gut twisted, his heart broke. An echo of Sirius Black - if you loved her you’d want her to be happy -- she was not happy.

Mucliber stepped ‘round Severus and took hold of Lily’s arm, “The prefect’s toilet’s right up the hall here…”

“Guys --” Severus murmured, unsure how to stop them without getting himself into trouble with them…

Lily turned, hitting Mulciber’s outstretched hand with a stinging spell - the one James used. She looked at Severus, “Fat lot of good your protection does me, Severus.”

And, because McNair, Avery, and Severus stood in her way for the dungeons stairs, she turned to the Potions room and pushed her way in, slamming the door behind her, breathless.

Slughorn looked up from the desk he sat behind. “Lily Evans?” he asked.

She started to sob.