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Two Birds, One Stone


James thundered down the stairs from the boys dormitories so fast that he tripped on his own two feet and staggered across the common room upon landing, making several heads turn to look at him. He flushed as a couple of the guys in the room gave him a thumbs-up. Ali was sitting by the fire, leaning forward, talking to Meg and Annalee, and she stared at James with wide, excited eyes, biting her lips when she saw him.

“Heyyyyy… Alice…” James said, approaching her, “I um, I’m looking for Evans, you seen her?”

“You mean your girlfriend?” sing-songed Ali, her eyes twinkling.

“Shhh, shh, don’t say that,” James pleaded.

Ali smirked knowingly just the same.

James flushed, “Look, I dunno what exactly you heard, but whatever it is --”

“I heard you two slept together on the library floor,” Annalee said, leaning forward to look up at James’s eyes. “Is it true?”

James’s face burned even hotter than before. “We slept - as in literal, actual sleeping - together. It wasn’t… like that,” he added, “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

Meg said, “You were certainly making out with her like she was last night.”

James said, firmly, “Look, Meg, we snogged, alright, Evans and I snogged but --”

“So it really is true then! At least part of it! I never thought it would happen!” Ali looked perplexed. “Oh Frank and I were hoping it was - he went to go talk to you, did you talk to him? James, we can double-date. Next Hogsmeade’s weekend. You and Lily and Frank and I - butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks!” She smiled brightly.

James didn’t know how to reply. (”Sure maybe if she’s talked to Odair by then, why not?” didn’t seem quite right.) James said, “Have you seen Lily?”

“Sure, she went downstairs to dinner, just a few minutes before Annalee came up to tell us about the news!” Ali answered. She smiled fondly, “James, she was so happy when I spoke to her this morning. Now I know why. She’s so in love with you! This is fabulous!”

James said, “Yeah, thanks,” and hurriedly turned away, flinging himself at the portrait hole and leaping through into the corridor, dashing down the hall as the Fat Lady yapped after him not to be running in the hallway. But James didn’t slow down. He bolted along, his trainers skidding over the carpet, leaping down the steps, hanging onto the bannisters, leaping the gap when he nearly missed the moving flight of stairs and tripping over a trick step. He was frantically asking anyone he passed if they’d seen Lily Evans.

People were giving him thumbs-up and slapping him on the back, telling him way to go, Potter and various motivational phrases…

Each one made the pit in his stomach grow all the deeper.

He came running down the stairs to the entrance hall, trainers squeaking on the stone… and there in the hall below was Lily Evans, and his heart leaped into his mouth when he saw her… and he ran all the faster, and it wasn’t until he had rounded the corner and skid to a halt that he realized she was talking to Severus Snape.

Snape’s gaze rose from Lily, looking over her shoulder at James and he reached out, pulling her into his chest protectively, his eyes narrowing… and Lily, seeing the expression on Severus Snape’s face change, turned about to look at James, her eyes red-rimmed and wet, her face flushed and tear stained.

She looked positively gutted.

“Lily,” James said, ignoring the sneer to Snape’s face “I need to talk to you, it’s important, it’s --”

But Severus Snape stepped between them, blocking her off from him. He spread his arms protectively and glowered at James, his pale face framed by thick curtains of greasy black hair. “How could you, Potter?” he demanded.

“Step off, Severus, I need to talk to Evans,” James said, trying to dodge around Snape.

Snape moved to block James again. “No, Potter,” he said heavily, an iron gate. His back to Lily, his eyes glowed merrily at James, his lips curving in a taunting manner. “She’s not yours to have.”

James clenched his jaw. “Evans, c’mon, listen to me. I didn’t tell anyone what happened. I haven’t told even Sirius. I’ve been in my dorm since we said goodbye in the common room. You can ask any one of the Marauders and they’ll tell you, I was upstairs with them all day.”

Lily stared over Severus’s shoulder at him, her eyes filling with tears all over again.

“Of course your little friends would back you up,” Severus said, “They would whether it was true or not, wouldn’t they? Very good at keeping secrets of a terrible nature, aren’t they?” he added.

James scowled. “Bugger off, Snivellus.”

“Don’t call him that!” Lily cried from behind Snape’s back.

“Evans. Please. Listen to me,” James begged and he tried again to dodge Snape, “I would never do anything to hurt you on purpose, Lily. I dunno how this all got out - I don’t know. I didn’t do it, though. I didn’t, I swear to you. I give you my word.”

“As if your word is worth anything!” Severus scoffed.

“Better than yours is, you great greasy-headed git!” James snapped. “Probably bleeding started it yourself!”

Severus stared at James, “Don’t be ridiculous,” he drawled… but his lips twitched upward and a nasty gleam came into his eyes.

James reached for his wand, “You dirty, lying, selfish son of a bitch!”

“JAMES CHARLUS POTTER!” Lily shouted, “YOU PUT THAT WAND AWAY!”

But he ignored her, and he grabbed onto Severus and slammed him into the wall and within seconds James’s wand tip was pressed into Severus Snape’s neck. “Tell her. Tell her what you’ve done, you dirty pile of beetle dung.”

Lily’s tears rained even harder, “James, please, you’re making it worse.”

He looked at her, “Lily, he is the one who told everyone, not me, him. He’s lying to you now, just like he lied ot you about me attacking him over holiday.”

“I had the marks to prove what you’d done!” Snape gasped, the wand pressing to his jugular.

James snapped, “Because you hexed them on yourself, you sick little twatwaffle.”

Angrily Lily grabbed onto James’s arm, “Leave him be.”

James looked at her, “I want you to know the truth.”

“James, it doesn’t matter if you told or he told or whoever told, alright? I don’t give a damn!” She waved her palm at his wand, “That is why I won’t go out with you! Because you’re so damned immature that you have to come running down here like a hat out of hell to shove your wand into Severus Snape’s throat and call him names trying to force him to confess something that may or may not be true!” She held up her fingers in air quotations as she said this.

James lowered his wand.

“It’s so stupid, the way you two fight. It’s positively idiotic.” She glared at them each in turn. “You are both very nearly adults now and you’re still acting like wronged little boys on a school yard! It’s barbaric.” Lily shook her head.

James looked at his trainers as Snape rubbed his neck, massaging his throat, which had gone quite tight from James’s wand being pressed into it… Snape choked, “I’d get along fine with him if he didn’t do things like attack me.”

James’s eyes widened. “There he goes, lying again --”

“HONESTLY!” Lily cried, and she took a couple steps back, away from each of them. “Didn’t you hear a single word I’ve just said?”

James protested, “But Evans, he’s lying to you. He’s trying to turn you against me, just like I told you back at Christmas. Don’t you see it? Don’t you see how he’s turned you on me?”

Lily said, “You’re turning me on you by acting like this!”

James let out a frustrated sound and turned, pacing a couple steps quickly to let off some of the tension that was coursing through him. He turned back. “Evans, you saw the real me the last two days. You and me and the lads… I … I told you things I wouldn’t have told anybody else in this entire world. I opened up to you. I trusted you. The least you can do is trust me back.” He stared at her, pleading in his eyes.

“You can’t trust him, Lily,” Snape said quickly, “He protects werewolves.”

James froze - heart in his throat.

Lily stared at Snape, “Shut up.”

Snape pointed at James, “That’s the sort of filth he is.”

“Filth?” James looked at Severus. “Me? Filth for helping somebody?”

“For helping a half-breed like that Lupin boy in stealing a magical education that wasn’t meant for his kind,” Severus hissed.

Lily turned to look at Snape, her face red with anger, “His kind? Stealing a magical education?”

“He isn’t a true wizard,” Severus breathed.

“Remus Lupin is as true a wizard as you,” James hissed.

“His blood’s as dirty as any Mudblood’s!” Severus snarled without thinking.

Lily reached across and slapped him, “Don’t you ever say that word again, Severus Tobias Snape.”

Severus ran his hand over his jaw, which was smarting from her palm. “Lily,” his voice trembled. “What’d you do that for?”

“For saying the M-word,” Lily said, “That is the most offensive, derogatory word --”

Snape scowled, “I used it talking about a bloody werewolf. They are offensive, derogatory creatures themselves!”

“Wrong,” James said, “They’re human beings, misunderstood, and horribly misrepresented by a few idiots like yourself that don’t know and don’t give a damn enough to find out. And that’s not what that word means, anyway and you - above all people, you snake - you know it.”

Lily steamed, too, “Even if he was a muggle born, you still shouldn’t be running about calling people that! I’m a muggle born, don’t forget. It hurts, that word, like knives. It - it insinuates that you’re somehow better than me because of your blood. Is that what you think, Severus? That you’re better than me?”

“No,” he breathed.

“Then don’t ever use that word again.”

Snape glared as James’s hand flexed around the wand he still held at his side.

“And you’re wrong anyway,” James said, refusing to give up on protecting Remus’s secret, whatever Snape knew. He held onto the hope that Snape’s vision was vague enough that he might beileve he was mistaken if James held tightly enough to the denial.

Severus just stared at James, a knowing stare gleaming in his eyes, and he looked to Lily Evans. “Un. Trust. Worthy.”

“Amortentia! Half of third year!” James hissed.

“Amortentia - half the damned school,” Snape breathed.

“As a prank,” James snapped, “Not as a means to steal someone’s affection.”

“Which I have earned!” Snape growled. “I deserve her more than you!”

Lily looked at Snape with wide eyes, “Severus --” And she and James both shouted the next words at the same time, in unison: “That isn’t how love works!”

They both looked at each other in surprise.

Severus looked between them, surprised, too.

The three of them stood there, staring at one another, the words hanging between them… And Lily looked up… and on the stairs was Jasper Odair, standing on the steps, staring down at them, his face forlorn and blotchy. He paused for a long moment… and then turned around and started to leave.

“Wait, Jasper!” Lily pleaded, and she bolted after him, leaving Severus and James to fend for themselves as she chased after Odair.

James looked at Severus.

Severus stared at James.

James said, lowly, “I know why you’d do it to me… why you’d spread a rumor like that about me.” He paused. “But why would you do that to Evans?”

Severus dusted his robes off carefully, and when he looked up and James was still waiting for an answer. “Because.... Before I told everyone… you were the only one who knew… so it had to be you who told. And anything that would help to get that ape Odair away from her, well… Two birds, one stone, as they say, Potter.” And with that, Severus turned and stormed back into the dungeons, like a great, greasy black bat.