Blood and jealousy.
The summer rolls around and before they know it they’re going back to Hogwarts. In their compartment there are three people, just not the same three as always.
Severus sends anxious looks to the door from time to time.
“If I’m here I don’t think she will show up” Regulus says, looking at his Biology book. Then he stands up with a solemn expression. Harry distractedly pulls him down to sit again.
“She was not going to show up anyway” Severus sighs.
“How were things in the summer?” Harry asks Regulus “Your letters barely had information”
“Things are…tense with Sirius and my mother. Father mostly keeps to himself”
“Sirius is kind of a wild card, right?”
He nods. “While I somewhat appreciate his straightforwardness, my brother does not pick his fights right. He is always antagonizing Mother. And she’s not patient with him. He is also ignoring me.” he frowns “It was obvious I was going to end up in Slytherin but he is still mad I didn’t follow him to Gryffindor”
“Then he’s a dumbfuck. Slytherin is great.”
“Harry!”
“Yes, yes, mister proper.”
The first time they properly see Lily is in the library. She has a complicated look and seems about to tell them something, before her eyes lay on Regulus. Then she narrows her eyes and pouts. Harry pouts harder and they go separate ways.
“I don’t think you are making thing easier with her” Regulus whispers to him
“That’s too bad. I’m not changing my mind which means she’s going to have to change her’s”
“That will take years” Severus sighs. He looks resigned and takes out his book in potions. He has been making annotations that differ with the instructions Slughorn gives them, but are more likely to get a better result.
In Potions, Severus expectantly looks at Lily. She side eyes them and the place they have left for her in their work table. She gives a step before she sees Harry’s lifted eyebrows and sulkily and deliberately goes to the other half of the classroom, where she sits with Remus and Sirius. Harry scrunches his nose at her.
“Well be a pair.” he sinsongs to Severus “We’re going to make the best potions ever”
“Lord help me”
Every time Lily sees them with Regulus she makes a scrunched up face, as if she was smelling something foul. And he can’t help it. He really, really tries, but he is just human. So he smiles meanly at her and laughs at something Severus says that was definitely not funny. When she leaves with her constipated expression, he stops laughing.
“One may think I have leprosy with how she stares daggers into me”
“Maybe not leprosy but you could have an extra toe or two, with your parents being cousins and all”
“I’m not letting an off color copy of Potter defame in that way”
“Oi!” Harry nudges him “I’m way more handsome than Potter! I’m the better version!”
“The pocket one you mean” says Severus under his breath.
“Le petit Price” Regulus agrees.
“I’m not that short!”
Severus cracks his neck “Just talk to him and stop the longing gazes” he says and bites into his chocolate pastry.
“Disgusting. And I do not look at my brother in that way”
Sirius is in the stands, along with the complete marauder entourage. The Slytherin tryouts are sort of public, in the sense that on school property, anyone can be anywhere that’s non restricted. It’s an usual practice among Quidditch players to scout for strengths and weaknesses in the other teams.
“You look at your brother in that way but not in that way. Not even Blacks-”
“Stop. The try outs are going to begin”
“I just want to tell you” Severus starts, with a serious look “That whatever happens or whoever gets the seeker position, I’m not continuing to be your friend if you ridicule yourselves”
Harry ‘aaawes’ and hugs him tight.
Then he looks into Regulus eyes “I’m going to crush you Reggie,” he says, with a boyish smile “Are you ready?”
Harry and Regulus are trying for both seeker and chaser positions, but Wood knows that the real fight is for the team’s seeker. Positions are not set and every year a person can contest for them. There’s the possibility of Harry being a chaser this year, along with James Potter.
“That should be interesting” Regulus responds.
“That seems delicious. Can I have one?”
“No” Severus responds, before even eyeing the other boy.
“Ah, Severus, I thought we were on friendlier terms”
“And who told you that?”
Remus sits to his side, smiling indulgently. Dorcas sits to the other side.
“Give me one, sugar”
He frowns and passes the bag of pastries to her “Don’t call me sugar”
“Why did you give one to her and not to me?”
“I like her better”
He stays there, in the middle, watching carefully at his friends. Both are good players, but Regulus is ruthless and Harry is insane, so the possibility of bodily harm is high. He caves in and passes the bag to Remus. He finds that he should feel strange, like an intruder, sitting between these two that he’s sure are involved. But instead, he finds himself at ease, feeling Dorcas barely lean into him and Remus devouring his chocolate pastry. Is not the same as being with Harry and Regulus, but it’s different in a way he can’t still discern.
“Who do you think will be the next seeker?”
He hums.
“Harry is really good, but it doesn’t seem friendship will stop Regulus from taking what he wants”
He bristles “Do not believe everything your dog friend tells you about Regg- Regulus! He would never-” but he definitely would hurt Harry. Not on purpose, though!
“Prickly” Remus laughs. “I like how you defend your friends”
“That’s why you’re so sweet, under that sour look you’re giving me” Dorcas nudged him.
“Harry has good reflexes, but Regulus is good too, and he has a better broom” he responds to the previous question. “I would say the stakes are even”
That would have been a sore point if he had been in the position of having the worst broom. But Harry laughed knowing that Regulus was not ashamed of taking all the opportunities he had at hand. If anything, he would be delighted with the idea of beating Regulus with a regular broom.
An hour passes and Wood still can’t decide who the next seeker will be.
A seeker game follows, with both of them catching the snitch two times each. The next one would be the decisive one. That’s when it all goes to shit, he thinks.
The snitch suddenly descends accelerating into a blur and both boys go chasing after it, approximating to the ground almost side by side in a nerve wracking way that has Severus clawing at Remus' knee.
“Ouch”
“Shut up”
Harry is closer to the snitch and stretches himself, but Regulus close behind is gaining ground, pressing his room to go faster and faster. He sees the moment Regulus loses control on his broom, and Harry, just about to close his hand on the snitch, grabs his robe by the scruff instead. Severus stands up to do something, anything, when he sees the two boys stand still for a second, before falling in a heap of intertwined limbs. The snitch flies far away.
He comes down running and sees the pained way Harry heaves
“Your bloody boney elbow, Reggie”
“Was that the bloody Braking Charm?” he asks. That a NEWT level charm and Harry did it wandlessly and most likely wordlessly. He has to start reviewing at once.
He coughs “Does it look like I know?”
Wood comes running to them. “Pheeeeew, I’m glad to see you boys are doing fine! What a feat of accidental magic Price, how did you do it?”
“I guess that I accidentally didn’t want to become a pancake”
“I lost.” Regulus says, somber.
“I didn’t catch the snitch, we’re still 2-2”
“You caught me, duncehead. You would have caught the snitch if you hadn’t been stopping my fall”
Regulus seems resigned but also as if he is struggling to not be mad about it.
“Well then I hope you’re a sore loser because I will definitely be sore tomorrow”
That seems to wane his bad humor so he smiles and helps Harry stand up. “I can’t believe I lost to a mini me version of James Potter”
“I told you I’m not that short!”
Everyone feels scared and excited in the same measure. Everyone but Severus. If anything, facing a Boggart was the part of the third year’s curriculum that he looked forward to the least. This year is the first one since he started at Hogwarts that he would go home for the yule break, to spend the holidays with his mum. His father has not bothered them again and his mother had gotten a job in a suspicious looking store at the edges between Diagon and Knockturn alley, and although his nightmares were not anymore plagued by visions of his abusive father, he still knew that anything related to him was among his worst fears.
It doesn’t help that this one too, is a shared class with Gryffindor, so the red and gold clawed students are being a particularly loud nuisance today. Lily is there, tense. She looks at him and at that moment, he knows that he has her first friend back. She nods to him with a thin lipped smile and steps his way.
“It's okay Sevvie” she whispers.
“You know the spell” Harry is at his side. Maybe he can. Maybe he can face his father.
What he can’t face is the laying corpse of her mother, beaten and blue and dead. The Riddikulus falls flat on his tongue, while Professor Marycombe tries to urge him. He can’t. He can’t. How could he possibly have thought that he could?
The Boggart changes again and instead of his father and mother now he sees Lily and then Harry and then Regulus in quick succession. They all say they don’t want to be friends anymore.
“Why would I ever be friends with a deatheater?” the faux Lily says.
“Enough!” Harry steps in front of him while he tries to suck in air.
He is not prepared to see himself, bleeding
“You didn’t save me” his false copy says, with a flat tone that has the whole classroom in utter silence.
“You can do it mister Price. Remember the spell!”
“You let him kill me. I hate you. I hate you”
It changes to Lily. “I will never be your family. I’m going to die again because of you”
It changes.
“You didn’t change anything” a copy of Regulus spouts, with water coming in labored breaths of his mouth. “I drowned again”
He gets his wits back and yells “Stop it!”
The teacher looks dumbfounded, unable to move, unable to act. He and Lily try to step in, but clash with an invisible barrier. A wandless Protego. The teacher soon moves and starts banging on the wall. “Mister Prince! mister Prince, use the spell!
Harry, from the other side of the barrier, plants his foot down and intones a Riddikulus .
Boggart-Regulus laughs. Harry heaves and-
And lets his wand fall to the ground.
He is hyperventilating.
Severus whips his wand and tells Lily to stand back. He ignores the useless professor.
“ Bombarda!”
The barrier falls and the recoil makes him almost fall over.
The Boggart changes one more time and to someone he could not have predicted.
It’s James Potter.
“You’re just a slimy snake and Voldemort will kill us all”
“ Sectumsempra!”
His spell lands on the creature, making slashes appear on his torso and face. The Boggart screeches and flies off to the chest that soon closes.
“Um, well, that was a wonderful display of-”
“He is still not breathing!” screams Lily and goes running to Harry, who is in the floor, still without his wand, trying to get air into his lungs.
“I’m sorry Harry, I’m so sorry”
“I never-” James starts from the other side of the room and Sirius stops him with a stern look.
Severus is cold an immobile for a split second, before picking Harry’s wand.
Lily makes a maneuver to get Harry on her back and lift him up in piggy back.
“Come on” she says to Severus.
“Infirmary” they yell at the stupid teacher.
“We’re going to the room” she tells him. “Harry, try to match your breath to mine”
He is still unresponsive. She runs, slowed by his weight and they get to the Room of Requirement, which has been converted into a bog dorm with a massive bead.
“Stay here” Lily goes again, running as if chased.
They don’t see it, but she interrupts a second year Potion’s class.
“Regulus, it’s Harry!”
They end up skipping classes for the rest of the day and stay to sleep, all together and mushed into the big bed.
“I’m sorry” she starts “I knew I was wrong from the beginning but I didn’t know how to talk to you guys. I felt like… well, I’m a minority on the castle. Everyone looks at muggleborns as if we stink. I forgot to see that, well, I’m not the only one who has issues. I wanted so bad to talk to you guys but then every time I saw you it was with Regulus and-”
“You were jealous of me?” he asks, astonished.
She gets flustered. “Well. A bit. We three were the Three Musketeers and then you came and I felt like I was no longer needed. You guys already have so much in common.”
“I was jealous too,” says Severus. “You already have so many friends in your house, I thought you no longer wanted to be with the gloomy and insane Slytherins.”
“And you cannot be replaced” Harry tells her “Nor you, and you are not a replacement” he says, this time to Regulus. “I love you all”
Severus snorts.
“Also…” she gets a complicated look before taking a book from her bag.
“I’m still scared of dark magic. Or what Professor Dumbledore would say it’s dark magic. But at the same time... I feel attracted to it”
Regulus whistles. “A book on Blood Arts. Wouldn’t have pegged you for one, Evans”
“How much of it have you read?” Severus asks.
“All of it. It’s the second time I’m reading it, actually”
“And where did you get it from?”
She flushes redder still.
“From the Prohibited section” she shamefully confesses.
“Sev, we have her back”
“I won’t have to badmouth you to you back anymore”
“So you were badmouthing me?”
“Well, you were being sort of a massive cunt”
They spend the night talking and playing exploding snap, which apparently Regulus sucks at.
Lily takes her camera and takes a picture of them four, sends it to Petunia with the aid of Merlin.
Just hours later they receive a note back.
‘Mum is going to kill you if she knows you spent the night with three boys’ she gets all fizzy about it.
“Now that we’re here, we should go check on Merlina!”
“Who is Merlina?” Severus asks, knowing he won’t like the answer.
“The Basilisk”
“Basilisk?! There’s a Basilisk in the castle?”
“Oh, that’s right, you don’t know about the Chamber of Secrets.”
“You found the Chamber and It has a Basilisk? Brill!”
The Yule break comes and goes, this time with Harry, Severus and Lily going home for the holidays.
“I’ll write to you!” Harry yells, elated and flushed.
Summer comes quickly, and the end of the third year for Lily, Harry and Severus and the second for Regulus.
Harry is writing to Regulus when Severus interrupts him “Do you remember how Marycombe called you Prince instead of Price that day with the Boggart?”
“Well, you’re practically joined at the hips and she didn’t seem too qualified for her job.” Lily says distractedly.
Severus gets a pensive look.