Into the Woods

            The next morning, after a marvelously filling breakfast of acorn-flour cakes and dried fish, James Transfigured the centaurs’ pack, transforming the bark and wood into lightweight synthetic materials. He glanced into the Forest while he did this, feeling irrationally guilty; it seemed churlish, almost ungrateful, to Transfigure the centaurs’ pack like this, when they had gone to the trouble of making the pack and gifting it to the boys. But the pack was much lighter and easier to carry like this, and he swung it onto his back with a grin.

            Severus, for his part, settled his satchel over his shoulder. He hadn’t taken a painkiller that morning, so James assumed the centaur’s poultice was working. He found he couldn’t broach the topic directly, however. It felt as painful and sensitive as one of Severus’s bruises. “Ready to go, Snape?” he asked instead.

            Severus straightened his satchel strap and shook out his clothes, stiff with dirt. His own uniform wasn’t much better, James thought with a mental sigh. They were going to have to throw their clothes away once they got back to castle, as there was probably no spell in the world that could restore them. And once they were back at school, James was definitely going to take a shower. Maybe for several hours. And brush his teeth about a hundred times.

            “I’m ready,” said Severus. “Let’s go.”

            They set off down the path, much faster and more energetic than yesterday. They were filled with energy from the last two meals they’d eaten, and walking along the path was indeed a hundred times easier than cutting across the Forest. James felt almost like he was flying as he led the way, striding along the trail, the birds of the Forest singing around them. Despite the centaurs’ ominous warnings of the “great evil”, despite his grubby clothes and the feeling that his teeth would never be clean again, he felt his spirits rise. They’d be back at school in no time.

            Behind him, Severus stumbled and let out a tiny huff. James bit his lip. Severus might be in less pain now, but he clearly wasn’t completely healed. The downside of eating well and following the trail, he reflected, was that it gave him too much time and energy to think. And he was thinking some very uncomfortable thoughts.

            “You should go to Madam Pomfrey,” he said at last, voice ringing clear in the quiet Forest. “When we get back. You should go see Madam Pomfrey and get those wounds healed.”

            “No,” said Severus shortly.

            “Why not?” James glanced back at the other boy. Severus was staring at the ground, face burning.

            “I don’t want anyone to know,” Severus mumbled. “It’s better like this.”

            “For who?” James stopped, turning around on the trail. “Severus, if your dad’s beating you up, you need to get help!”

            “From who?” Severus glowered at James. “In case you haven’t noticed, Potter, Dumbledore isn’t usually all that anxious to help out Slytherins! And no one in Slytherin will help me either,” he added bitterly.

            James felt the old spiteful, childish words rise to his lips—Yeah, because you have no friends, Snivellus! But he didn’t say them. He didn’t want to say them. For perhaps the first time ever, James realized that such words were cruel and stupid, that they served no purpose but to give a bullying pleasure in hurting someone else. Severus Snape was in enough pain as it was; adding to it would not solve their problems. It would not make James clever or funny. It would just put him on the same level as Severus’s father, with his cruel fists, or the Slytherins who saw Severus’s pain and did nothing.

            Instead, James said quietly, “Does Evans know?”

            Severus sighed, his gaze still fixed on the ground. “I think she suspects,” he said. “But…I can’t face telling her.” He looked up, then, eyes full of pleading. “Don’t tell her, Potter. Please.”

            “I won’t,” said James after a moment. He could see how much it cost Severus, to have to beg. “I swear I won’t. Unless you say I can, Severus.”

            Severus nodded slowly, and James saw that the other boy believed him despite himself. “Thank you, James.”

            James nodded and shouldered the Transfigured backpack. They kept going, walking easily along the path. Around them, light shifted and puzzled itself on the forest floor. The path crossed a stream, the earthen trail transferring smoothly into a bridge of logs. James wondered if it was the same stream as before, and shuddered at the thought of following that meandering waterway all the way back to the castle.

            It seemed a good place to stop and have lunch. There were more raspberries growing by the water, and Severus picked a good pile of them, supplementing the provisions James took from the pack. They sat by the stream munching, watching the stream, almost as if they were at a picnic. Moths and flies fluttered in the shafts of sunlight over the glistening water, and birds swooped down to splash in the shallows.

            “Look.” James pointed off into the trees.

            Severus looked up to see the stag that had just emerged from a stand of holly bushes. It was still young, with only two prongs on its antlers. But it was still a magnificent creature, with a glossy brown coat and shiny hooves. It watched the boys with great dark eyes a moment before turning and disappearing into the Forest, melting away among the shadows.

            The boys stared after it. “Beautiful,” said Severus quietly.

            “Yeah.” James found himself turning to Severus again. Something about sharing that small, silent moment had emboldened him. “But seriously, Severus, how do you know Dumbledore won’t help if you don’t ask?”

            Severus lowered his face into his hands. “Give it up, James! Why do you care?”

            “Because what’s happening to you is wrong,” said James fiercely.

            “That’s never stopped you before.” Severus looked up to glare at James with deep resentment. “You never thought it was wrong to bully me and beat me up, James!”

            “That was before—” James cut himself off, unsure how to finish that sentence. That was before I threw the both of us into the Forest through a stupid curse. That was before I saw the bruises. Before I realized what your father was doing to you. Before I heard you recite Shakespeare and saw how beautiful it made you. Before I realized what I was doing was wrong… “When did you start calling me James?” he blurted out, then felt like a complete idiot.

            Severus blinked, as though he’d just realized it himself. “When you started calling me Severus, I guess.”

            They stared at each other, confounded by their mutual realization. James suddenly knew that he was never going to call Severus anything else again. Not Snape, certainly not Snivellus.

            “You have to let somebody know, Severus,” he said at last. He thought of Severus’s painkillers, soaked in a potion Severus had invented himself. He must have done it before leaving school last term, James realized. And that meant Severus had gone home expecting to get hurt. This was far from an isolated incident. “You can’t keep going home to…that.”

            Severus let out a long, defeated sigh. “James, even if I told Dumbledore, even if he believed me and wanted to help, what could he do? My father’s a Muggle. And wizarding law doesn’t really apply to Muggles. They don’t even really exist in the magical legal system. If Dumbledore went back to Cokeworth and cast a curse on my father to make him stop, or even just threatened him, he’d be guilty of assaulting a defenseless Muggle.” Bitter irony edged those words. “Wizarding law assumes that Muggles are always defenseless,” he said. “That they’re always helpless against wizards, no matter what. But that’s not true. Muggles can hurt wizards plenty, especially kids. That’s why I—” He cut himself off.

            “That’s why you want to join the Dark Lord?” James was careful not to sound judgmental. “Because he’ll change things?”

            Severus nodded, not meeting James’s eye. “Things have to change. There are lots of wizarding kids like me, who go home to relatives who hate and fear them. Who hurt them. If the Dark Lord comes to power…maybe we’ll be safe. Maybe all wizards will be safe at last. We won’t have to live in fear and secrecy anymore. Muggles won’t be able to hurt us.”

            James tried to picture himself in Severus’s shoes. Going home every holiday to a father who hated him and beat him, and a mother, apparently, who didn’t care enough to stop him. Enduring their abuse, only to return to a school where he was rejected by his peers, a lonely outcast constantly expecting an attack from the Marauders and the other Gryffindors. How would James feel, in Severus’s place? Would he find Voldemort’s vision just as seductive? James had an awful feeling that he knew the answer.

            “Look, Severus,” he sat at last, “I—I think I understand your feelings. As much as I’m able. Which, I’ll admit, might not be much.” He took a deep breath. “But Severus, even if the Dark Lord comes to power and changes things…it won’t be for the better. Haven’t you heard his message? He’s preaching pureblood supremacy. That’s not you, Severus. You’re not a pureblood. If the Dark Lord has his way, you’ll be a second-class citizen all your life, subordinated to purebloods. Purebloods like me.” He gave Severus a shrewd glance. “I suppose you think you’ll get revenge on me and Sirius once you’re a Death Eater?”

             Severus didn’t reply, but the blood rushing to his face confirmed James’s suspicions. He nodded grimly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Well, that wouldn’t happen, you know. The Dark Lord loves purebloods. He’d automatically set my family and Sirius’s above yours, and you’d have to kowtow to us forever. You’ll always be a half-blood, and the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters won’t ever let you forget it.”

             “That’s not true,” Severus whispered, but James saw from his stricken face that his words had hit home.

             James kept going. “And you know how you love William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe? All those Muggle writers? Well, you’d have to hide that forever, because the Dark Lord hates all Muggles and everything to do with them. Even their plays and books, I bet. He’d probably forbid all wizards from ever reading Muggle literature again. Think about it: you’d never get to read Shakespeare ever again, all because this one wizard hates Muggles. And like I said, you’ll always be a half-blood. If the Dark Lord comes to power, you won’t be safe. You’ll just be afraid of the Dark Lord instead of your father. And what makes you think the Dark Lord will help half-bloods and Muggle-born kids? He’s more likely to say they aren’t real wizards because they aren’t purebloods. He’d probably order all Muggle-borns killed. Including Lily Evans!”

              “Stop it!” Severus lurched to his feet, drawing his wand. James jumped up too but didn’t draw his own. He just stood and stared at the shaking, white-faced boy before him. “Stop it, James!”

              “Stop what? Telling you the truth?” James hardly recognized the voice issuing from his own mouth. “Because it is true, you know. Lily Evans would have no place in the Dark Lord’s regime, and you’d just be a slave. Hell, once the Death Eaters realize what a genius you are with potions, they’d probably lock you away in a dungeon somewhere and force you to brew potions for them, forever!”

               “And so?” Severus’s wand trembled in his hand, as hard as his voice. “And so? Why do you care, James?”

               “Because you deserve better than the Dark Lord!” James shouted. “You and Evans, you both deserve better!”

               At this, Severus fell utterly still, his trembling ceasing. He stared at James, blinking in astonishment, as though he’d never seen the other boy before.

               “What?” he said at last.

               “You deserve better than the Dark Lord, Severus.” James spoke gruffly, but with conviction. “Just like you deserve better than your father. You—you’re a genius, Severus. You’re amazing with potions, you can recite all this poetry off your heart, you’re great with magic…And—and you’re not a bad person, Severus. You shouldn’t have to crawl to Death Eaters. You shouldn’t have to hope that the Dark Lord gives you some kind of future when you know he won’t.” James took a deep breath. “And…and I know you care for Evans, Severus. I don’t think you want to see what the Dark Lord would do to her.”

              Silence, then. The stream babbled on, chuckling and singing around rocks and sticks. Overhead, the birds sang and a squirrel ran, chattering, from branch to branch. Severus stood like a statue, with his wand still out, but all anger drained from his face, expression open and vulnerable.

               “You…you really think I deserve better?” Severus sounded as astonished as he looked.

               “I know you do.” James nodded emphatically.

               “But—but you hate me. You and your friends, you…”

               James flushed, so hard it hurt. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I was…we were stupid, okay? Stupid and cruel. You didn’t deserve that. And we won’t do it again.”

               “I don’t believe you.” But Severus sounded uncertain. “Nobody changes that much, James. Not in just a few days.”

               A smile tugged at James’s mouth. “Not even these few days?”

               Severus fought down his own smile. Then he lost the fight, just as James lost his, and the pair stood laughing by the stream. James and Severus. Laughing together.

              At last, they stopped, giggling to a halt. They stood eyeing one another. For the first time ever, James saw some warmth in Severus’s gaze, and he knew Severus saw the same in his own eyes.

              “Look, Severus, how about this?” he said. “If you promise to tell Dumbledore or Slughorn or somebody about what your father’s doing to you, I will personally make sure that no Gryffindor ever bullies you or beats you up ever again. If even Sirius tries anything, he will answer to me. And, no matter what, I will stop messing with you. Deal?”

               After a long moment, Severus nodded. “All right. It’s a deal. I promise when we get back…I’ll tell Dumbledore. And you’ll call off the Gryffindors.”

               “Sounds good!” James went to scoop up the backpack and rub out the last remnants of their lunch. “Let’s keep going. We’re wasting daylight.”

              He and Severus crossed the bridge, striding easily down the path. Neither one said so, but they both felt a lightness they hadn’t felt before, a sense of something heavy and onerous lifting away. James marveled at how much easier it was to travel with someone when there was no animosity between them, the grudges and resentments slowly easing away.

              “I meant what I said before,” he said to Severus. “You deserve better than the Dark Lord.”

              Severus gave him an odd, considering look, but said nothing. They kept going a while longer, a cool afternoon breeze blowing into their faces.

              Suddenly, Severus came to a halt. “What?” James looked around in sudden wariness, his hand closing on his wand.

              “James.” Severus’s eyes were fixed on a shelf fungus growing on a nearby tree. “Hold still.”

              “Why? What…?” James trailed off as Severus eased off his satchel, eyes still fixed on the fungus. James peered at the fungus himself. There was something odd about it, he realized. There were veins running through it, veins glowing with a strange blue light.

               Severus took out an empty plastic bag from his satchel. Pointing at his own face, he murmured a quick shield charm, a transparent magical screen spreading over his face. He did the same for his hands. Then he stepped off the path, approaching the fungus like it was a potentially deadly reptile.

              “Severus, what…?” James broke off when Severus raised a hand. James watched as the other boy opened the plastic bag, then used a cutting charm to slice the fungus off the tree and levitate it into the bag. He sealed the bag immediately, muttering a spell over that too.

              Severus held up the fungus, safely sealed inside the bag. His face was bright with relief and triumph. “There,” he said with satisfaction. “Should be safe now.”

              “What’s safe now?” James demanded in exasperation.

              “Honestly, James, don’t you pay any attention in Herbology?” Severus demanded with some of his old scorn. “This—” He held up the fungus. “—Is blue dream shelf fungus! It’s the most powerful sedative in the world, one gram of it capable of putting hundreds of people to sleep. Brewed in the right potion, it produces dreams so vivid, so complex, that the dreamer is unable to escape them. They just keep dreaming forever!” He beamed at his find.

              James eyed it askance. “That doesn’t sound safe, Severus.”

              “Of course it’s not safe!” James hadn’t heard Severus sound so enthusiastic since he’d expounded on Shakespeare. “It’s powerful! And really rare. What a find!”

              “Right.” James edged away. “Well, if you have to bring it along, keep it in your bag.”

              “Oh, I will.” Severus tucked the blue dream fungus into an outer pocket of his satchel and shrugged it onto his shoulder. “If Juliet had ingested this,” he said happily, “she never would have worried about Romeo again!”

            “Juliet? Who’s Juliet? And what kind of a name is Romeo?”

            Severus winced. “All right, James, that’s it.” He stepped back onto the path, a new, determined light in his eyes. “You’re getting a Shakespeare lesson, right now.”

            James let out an involuntary moan. “Oh, no, can’t I have some blue dream instead?”

            “No, you can’t.” Severus started down the path, James at his side. “Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. It starts with the opening lines, Two households, both alike in dignity / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…Verona’s a town in Italy, by the way.”

            “I know where Verona is!” The boy’s voices rose and faded away as they rounded the next bend, continuing on their way through the Forest.