a potential book club in hogwarts? more likely than you think .
Popular to contrary beliefs slytherins and gryffindors did get along with each other. When Remus had a screaming match at siri, no Black, and snape witnessed it he surprisingly listened quietly. Sure when lupin later approached snape , snape did tell lupin a) to fuck himself , and b) that he has heard less complicated relationships within the royal family. When it is ravenclaws vs hufflepuffs during quidditch there suddenly exists a common hatred. When hagrid always said how he shouldn't have told a secret that did alter their brain chemistry , when dumbledore told how voldemort died in the process of committing a dark spell. To the both sides, sure theres still politics but not a civil war, the power vacuum created now seemed less daunting than joining a cult or a secret army.
Snape knew that despite Evans no longer talking to him , that she felt the same in this regard. To Remus as he watched the ex friends look at each other immediately after the news, he knew that the friendship had reached its end, and both sides were at peace, reconciliation was not in the cards at the moment for the both of them; so James and Blacks persistence on Snape potentially being a 'threat ' was slim to none.
With everything going on of Remus Lupin did not infact want to hear that james "accidentally" kissed regulus black, and snape did in-fact wish the werewolf did the job when regulus screamed at him in the empty common room, and now he wishes james literally told him to kill himself for his life debt; as his version of hell now happens to be a posher sirius black doing wild hand placements reenacting on how how potters hands (gross) felt on his hair (he now is planning on actually dying because christ) and his back (potion takes times, snape has decided that he's going to stab himself with a butter knife).
Which is why snape had decided that maybe spending some time in the room of requirement would be more peaceful that hearing the " potential illicit affair" the younger black brother has now started with the man who wishes he was dead but saved his life. Yes, doing some heavy reading for the never ending transfiguration and runes homework and maybe finding a book that supports his situation which is now : how to show support to the gay community but remain homophobic to your gay friends choice of partner.
Though he could not find that exact book, he found one titled 'Navigating complicated intrapersonal relationships within the LGBT Community'. Snape has 0 interest in maintaining a 'interpersonal relationship', but also knows this is going to end in a disaster. The next day when when he catches the pair stare at each other across the hall like a couple returning from the war, he begins to brew alcohol more potent than the legal requirement.
-x-
Two months had passed by, and Peter Pettigrew was tasked with keeping a secret , James Potter kissed the one and only Lilly Evans , it was next to the portrait where there were a bunch of birds and bees , James made a joke about euphemisms and she snorted , but kissed him nevertheless. james said he knew what it now meant to be magical. They want to be with each other, together for certain , but its too early to tell. When Peter asked Lilly two weeks later after prongs confession , the only thing he remembered was "he's funny and makes me laugh. i don't know if its enough forever , but it's enough for now."
And now here he is guarding something so precious. James and Peter meet when they are pushing sirius and remus in a room with marlene and dorcas. Everyone in the common room knows things are tense , but no one knows the full story. He acts as a third wheel between James and Lilly , and sure sometimes its ridiculous how much they are in love but he doesn't hate it. Lilly still regards him sometimes more as a person than james and Sirius did when they were younger, and strangely James had acknowledged that and apologized , it felt weird but a good weird.
At the beginning peter would glance at Snape in his animagus form , sometimes he'd catch him staring at lilly and it was a good vindication , that maybe snape is hurt in the process. Now it feels odd, snape stares at her but with now zero recognition , he's still the weird kid in class but things are strangely less tense , he seems to talk a lot to Sirius Black brother but usually its hurling insults at him something about not caring about regulus "secret lovers latest conquest" black.
Sure the common room has had its theories on who regulus is with, but Sirius is strangely quiet about it, maybe its because this was a relationship he didn't know enough about. But peter had a bad feeling who-ever broke his brothers heart will absolutely face Sirius Blacks wrath.
-x-
It was a good day thought Ria , its a perfect day even to get reading done. She knew that maybe maybe re-reading the trilogy in one sitting will be difficult but hey , the letters were not so tiny, and she had little interest to the plot. There was a specific area within the room of requirement, somewhat like a secret stairs, in her ideal room its concealed upper area where there's a comfy canopy bed , warm light but somewhat always cool. There was a trip to hogsmeade and somewhat of a fairmarket on the pitch. The professors had let them be unsupervised for a full weekend ( merlin let there be peace and mercy on their soul).
She reached her destination and had jumped on the bed excitedly, time to get the show on the road and get this party of one to a party of fun ! She cringed internally this is why you will die alone , with no pets even. The indoor cat you adopted will take its chances on the streets. 100 % and she snorted out loud when the voice of reasoning sounded like the voice of her best friend. But despite doing absolutely nothing and only reading 30 pages and damn things were about to get interesting , she still fell asleep.
She woke up abruptly to the sound of muffled voices , she covered herself with the blankets . When she peaked through and slowly made her way to the stairs concealing herself she saw two slytherins. Regulus Black and the guy in potions who only stays in for 20 minutes and leaves. Snape she recalled that had to be the name; and now felt so grateful that they duo cant see her wearing a t-shirt that said 'BODMAS these tits' and a black sweatpants.
"woah this place is amazing how come you never bought me here ?" asked regulus with a look of awe on his face.
"to protect my peace" replied snape monotone as ever , "now what seems to be the problem or .." he said doing a vague hand gesture , which Regulus snorts at .
"Oh you want an update at my secret relationship with maybe someone i found a meaningful connection with , ever since my brother left ? its going great by the way. We are taking things slow." he says excitedly.
"you know i don't approve of this madness right ?" Snape looks at him with a disturbed but pitiful look at him.
"look i know that things are moving very fast , even faster than i expected it to go. But i'll take what i can get." he says in a almost calm and accepting tone.
"why ? , honestly regulus screaming at the stars to change the fate for divination seems more sane " snape says sounding more exasperated and concerned by the minute.
" Because , it's the only way i will have him. " Regulus irritatedly, " James potter is significant, he has changed my life , for better or for worse. I know i won't be 'the love of his life' , i know there is no happy ending , but i'll take it , and i believe it's better to have loved someone and to be in love than to never fall in love. Severus i dont know if the next person will love me the way he has and i don't know maybe its the cruel fate that being a pureblood means having to be in a loveless marriage, but if i can have this ? this will lighten my soul forever " he says now pleadingly .
Ria stands there still as a rock and checks immediately if the charms are in pace , yeah okay the soundproofing charms and the invisibility charms are in place ; after the immediate triple check she screams out loud "HOLY FUCKING SHIT THEY ARE SLEEPING WITH EACH OTHER?! BUT I THOUGHT EVANS WAS THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE". And before she can scream again or hear Snapes reply she watched regulus push Snape to the floor and conceal him immediately.
"hey" says none other than James Potter staring at Regulus , with this playful look in him , like as if they have always done this, never in the open though she thinks to herself.
"hi" says Regulus breathlessly. Its sweet ria thinks. A moment passes by , before Remus Lupin enters breaking the trance , " oh shit hi regulus black , i didn't know we were all meeting here." he says bashfully.
"Oh no actually i just found this place today" regulus says honestly " wait you knew this place before james? " he says hurt.
" yeah i found out last week he says , its what i wanted to show you this weekend actually , but you being so clever found it earlier " he smiles widely .
"oh shut up and lupin i apologize for him" he says playfully, " don't worry i get reparations in the form of 5 galleons to buy hot chocolate from him every week. Speaking of which i wanted us to talk about." he nudges James , who now broken from the trance which is the softest part of regulus neck replies " oh yeah , we have something to talk about in private , something about common room business and our parents doing this joint thing, you can hear it if you want but it will be like the owl incident" he says teasingly fully grinning ear to ear , to which regulus looks horrified before replying " absolutely not, i refuse to be part of any scheme i cant lie to any one or cover for you , i am leaving"
Before regulus walks to the door , James holds his arm, pulling him close immediately and kisses him fiercely. Regulus now fully dazed and face red as the gryffindor tie tries his best to maintain his composure. "hey, Take the left passageway " james finally says almost indifferently like he doesn't know that regulus holds on to every word " it's safer" he looks at him.
From the birds eye view above Ria can watch snape pull a butter knife out and pinpointing areas to stab himself throughout the interaction, An audience and a show she laughs to that thought. They all watch him leave , and snape fully now charms himself to be invisible.
"so what did you want to really talk to me about" remus asks james already annoyed .
" do you know how i said i am taking things slow with evans to maybe persue things with regulus" james said
" absolutely it was a tough call and it was really hard for you"
" yeah that never happened"
" what do you mean" asks remus , snape and ria outloud. Snape immediately detects another magical presence but figures it's any of the old enchanted items.
"that never happened" james says again
"what do you mean " asks remus again not registering anything just like snape, Ria eyes widened in realization that the forbidden plot line has ascended in scotland : a love triangle.
"im seeing the both of them and none of them know about it , and i feel really bad remus" says james quickly
"but lily is not serious" asked remus.
james nods his head " it isnt like we are dating dating Remus. I haven't. broken up. with either one of them." he says
WIth that Ria immediately cackles so loudly , this is a coping mechanism she thinks to herself to calm her down , and prays that on judgement day she can recall her reasoning or she is so going to hell.
"you can process this however you wanna process this, if you want to talk this out or sit in silence" says james calmly.
"which one are you seeing" remus finally asks.
"both" james replies still panicked.
"why? cant you choose just one partner , james your a beautiful boy who is bisexual , not a beautiful boy who now is buried bi the willows because one of them killed you in righteous anger " Remus says fully panicked , is this how he dies he thinks by his second worst nightmare miscommunication and incompetence ?
"thank you remus i appreciate you and the pun " he says , when remus glares at him he answers "but i cant i love them both"
"you cant have both partners james" remus says like a parent scolding a child , to Rias amusement he starts folding the blankets laying around in perfect triangles almost like a stress response.
"what was i supposed to do ? " says james guilty
"what you think you can have a bunch of magical folks for your picking ? you got one partner! thats the way the world works! " remus now says equally panicked with his voice raising
"WHY?" james snapped
"i dont know." he says calmly " what are you gonna do James ?"
"im gonna wait for it to calm down thats what." he says fully confident like he is 12 and this is stealing biscuits from mcgonagall," oh fucking hell James. JAMES" . Remus snaps now hand pinching the bridge of the nose " how DID this happen you are smarter than this James?"
" the day i kissed regulus was the same day lilly and i nearly had our first moment where i saw her , like i fully understood her and i knew that's exactly what i wanted. And that I'm willing to give my whole soul away just to spend seconds with her , that maybe my soul will always search for her. While the day regulus and i had our first fight the scary one ? yeah was the same day i kissed first kissed lily." james says.
"I wish i could explain how all of my important moments coincided with each other moony. At the start it was calm you know all of us were figuring things out , i had no idea if this 'peace' dumbledore will be forever so living every moment like it counted was the strategy , and now ? Now its like i have a shot. a shot of actually raising a family without going into hiding , now a shot of loving someone openly. There were no compromises anymore. its what all of wanted, hell even fucking snape probably " he rambles exasperated; snape upon hearing his name immediately panics shows a wild hand gesture that the universal for dont drag me into this mess thats on you dumbass.
" why do you have to bring him in this conversation he literally doesn't matter anymore" remus says confused.
"yeah i know lilly said so , buts its the principle of it all. He can leave this place forever. he can do whatever he wants hogwarts means nothing to his future and everything for his past.But to me " hands pointing to his chest ," its different , its who i am , who i love , who i grew to love. Thats. built. on. this. place. this will change sure , but it still matters to me Remus." he says the last part softly.
The audience takes this revelation silently, outside there are first years of different houses screaming playfully the war is over after all and something about a strong inter house unity seems now a cruel joke.
"fuck what about peter ? shit what about sirius ? " remus asks now grabbing james shoulders flailing him, hoping common sense could get reactivated to avoid this disaster.
"i cant tell them now . Remus please dont tell them now i will figure it out." quickly replies James horrified for the first time that maybe this could ruin everything.
"okay. okay. this is fine this is absolutely fine" says remus calming himself down. " heres what we are gonna do , im going to talk about the new brass cups my mom got out loud you will only talk about the the cups you broke when you are five. we." he stresses , "are going to have this conversation later".
"yes i know , remus thank you i owe you one " says james
"im mad at you , but fuck james we gotta go now petes looking for us."
Ria and snape stare in shock of the revelation , once certain the duo have left snape immediately screams out loud " oh. my .fucking. god. " , While ria proceeds to resume cackling immediately at snapes now somewhat panicked state. In that moment of familiar magic snape immediately casts the revelio spell, the magic immediately makes visible a circle stairway and a female voice of a continuous loud cackle . wand in hand he he is ready to confront the intruder. almost ready to hex with dark magic.
When he's confronted with a scene even he cant think of , a girl in a canopy bed wearing a graphic tea on her back kicking her feet repeatedly in the air, and cackling so loudly that snape cant help but twitch a smile at the absurdity of the situation, before a moment of rationale and horror arrives.
a girl. who concealed herself wearing a shirt saying BODMAS these tits. heard everything.
When ria felt him looking at her she immediately hexed him to the wall now wand in his throat. and snape finally got a good look at her, brown hair, feral brown eyes and warm skin. she smelled like eucalyptus and felt warm to touch . Snape felt her magic , protective and powerful and lethal. This was someone who despite her miniature size was not someone to be trifled with. He looked around and to defend himself only found a cover of a book that he saw once, wait a minute-
" I'm sorry were you reading monster porn" he looks at her exasperatedly immediately disappointed and now grossed.
shit ria thinks to herself , there goes her fun time.