Chapter 1
Lily had been inside when it happened. She noticed that James and his friends were amping up the pranks more than usual after Sev had insulted her, and while she found it cute that they would think to ‘defend her honor’, she honestly thought they were being immature. Ever since first year, Sev had been fending them off, letting loose curses and hexes to defend himself only to be blamed for the ruckus they caused.
This year though, Sev looked more tired than usual. He was still acing all of his classes, and despite them not talking to each other they got all their pair work done fairly easily. What bothered her was that he seemed to not really care about anything anymore, and as she didn’t want to swallow her pride after he didn’t even apologize to her, she let him be.
Earlier in the year, James had saved him from getting mauled by Moony at the Shrieking Shack, and she yelled at all of them for their dangerous and stupid antics. Remus had distanced himself from the Marauders after that incident, finding company in a few Ravenclaws. Thankfully, Sev didn’t get bitten, but his leg was hurt pretty badly from trying to escape.
Now that he was better, James and Sirius were trying to get back at him again for ‘giving Sirius detention’. She spotted James’ shoes from under his invisibility cloak waiting for the perfect time to grab Sev and push him into the tunnel he was hiding in.
Lily could have turned a blind eye, but the gut-wrenching scream that was heard from the tunnel forced her to take a look. The other students at the courtyard were drawn to the noise as well, and soon, students from all four houses got up to see what was going on in the tunnel.
Sitting on a pile of ripped textbooks was a badly beaten, nearly naked Severus Snape, shaking and holding himself. His robes and trousers were discarded on the floor, and he was left in an extremely tattered sweater and scuffed up boxer shorts. He was breathing shallowly, as if the air around him had dissipated. A burst of fading magic could be felt in the air, and judging by Sirius’ position on the other side of the tunnel, it must have hit him. James was sporting what looked like a burnt hand, and his eyes widened in shock. Sev looked terrible. Blood was pouring out of his eyes and nose. He seemed to not realize that there were people staring, his eyes glassy and unaware. She locked eyes with him and she instantly knew what he must have been thinking of.
Without warning, she pushed past James, and Sirius, who was just starting to get up, both had the gall to look remorseful. How dare they do this to him? This was far beyond the tricks they pulled back then, and it’s time she put her foot down. She’ll deal with them later, but for now, Sev was her priority.
“Someone go get Madam Pomfrey!” she yelled at the crowd. “Everyone stay back!”
Thank Merlin the crowd had some sense. She saw a Ravenclaw run toward the Hospital Wing. She kneeled right next to him, letting him be aware of her presence but not initiating contact. He hadn’t had one of these episodes for years, so she doesn’t know what to expect.
“Sev? I need you to come back to us, alright?” She said quietly. “You’re at Hogwarts, I think you just came back from the greenhouses.”
He didn’t respond. Oh, this was bad. “Sev, please your magic-“
As if it could sense her words, the air in the tunnel dropped, forcing what remained of the crowd to disperse. James and Sirius were still standing by, waiting for something to happen.
Lily sighed. She didn’t know if this would work, but she was running out of options. She sat herself closer to him, and started to sing.
Lavender's green, dilly, dilly,
Lavender's blue,
If you love me, dilly, dilly,
I will love you
Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly,
And the lambs play
We shall be safe, dilly, dilly,
out of harm's way
“Lily?” A quiet voice asked.
“There you are.” She smiled at him.
He shakily held out a hand, and she took it. She grasped his frail looking hand, squeezing it to ground him even more.
“I’ll take it from here Miss Evans.” Thank Merlin for Madam Pomfrey. Lily nodded at her before coaxing Sev out of his holed-up position. Madam Pomfrey handed her a blanket and she wrapped it around him before standing up.
“I’ll see you later.” She whispered to him.
The Mediwitch motioned for the three of them to leave as she helped Sev up with a charm, and so Lily, James, and Sirius all left reluctantly. Lily wanted to come to the hospital wing, but she knew that Sev would want to be alone as much as he could after one of his episodes, so she focused his attention to the boys who were following her into the castle.
“Listen, Lily-“
Before James could finish his sentence, she slapped him across the face.
“You don’t get to talk to me after what you did! No! You listen to me! I’ve let all of you go for so long because we’re all just stupid kids but guess what? We aren’t kids anymore!”
“Lily-“
“SHUT UP! Don’t fucking interrupt me – the both of you will listen and apologize to Severus when he wakes up for letting him relive the worst fucking night of his life or so help me Merlin I will send you to Azkaban myself!”
“We didn’t think-“
“That’s right, you didn’t think! You always don’t think of the consequences of your actions because you get scot-free every fucking time and I’ve been complicit for so long to notice! Fuck you! Fuck this! I-“
“Language, Miss Evans.”
Lily paused. “Professor McGonagall! I-“
“I understand that you’re angry, but could you not have lost it where the entire school would be present?” McGonagall quipped.
Sure enough, the crowd from before had formed around the three of them as well.
Lily clenched her fists. “At least now everyone knows just what kind of people these two are.”
McGonagall sighed. “Alright, you three, my office. Now.”
-
“While I don’t condone what you did Miss Evans, I am more inclined to commend you for knocking some sense into these two.”
Lily blushed.
“However, you will all tell me what happened exactly – so I can determine just how long each of your detentions will be.”
Surprisingly, James spoke up first. “Sirius and I were waiting for him to come back from Herbology since he’s the only one who uses the tunnel to get back to school. We hexed him – I swear, that’s all we did! We hexed his robes to rip apart – and the next thing we knew, Snape screamed and some sort of magical force pushed Sirius backwards and burned my hand.”
“So I assume you hexed Mr. Snape’s robes apart to humiliate him?” questioned their professor.
Sirius and James suddenly found their shoes so interesting. Lily scoffed. Immature the lot of them were. “Well, that about sums it up, professor.” Sirius said.
“Miss Evans, while you may have a point to say that both of these gentlemen-“ McGonagall cleared her throat. “get scot-free every fucking time, as you may put it, I do think that the staff can handle this.”
Lily seethed. “If the staff could handle this, they should have put a stop to this years ago! Is it because Sev’s a Slytherin and is possibly consorting with the Dark Lord that all of you are turning a blind eye? Is it because Potter here is the fucking golden boy of Gryffindor? Why have none of you done anything? I’ve had to watch my friend suffer for years in this school, trusting the staff to notice but nothing happened!” She pounded her fist on McGonagall’s table and the fireplace went out.
Sirius, James, and Professor McGonagall looked at her dumbfounded. While Lily was a spitfire, she rarely got angry to the point of putting out a fireplace. “Miss Evans! Cease this behavior at once!”
Lily sat back down on her chair, feeling drained.
“I understand that you are upset, Miss Evans. However, Mr. Snape is not a part of my house so I cannot directly be involved with his affairs. I’ve brought all of your antics up to Professor Slughorn, his head of house, and he had assured me that Severus was doing fine enough. Perhaps this lapse in my judgment has caused him a great deal of pain, and I am very sorry for not doing anything sooner, my dear.” She looked at Lily apologetically.
“All of Slytherin hates him, and I bet they’re all pressuring him to join the Dark Lord.” Sirius mused. “My brother was the one who tipped us off of his whereabouts this morning, and he told me to give Sniv- Snape hell and taught me the hex we used on him.”
“Regulus? Isn’t he on good terms with Mr. Snape?”
“Reg hasn’t been hanging out with him after last year.”
McGonagall paused. Lily knew what she was thinking. The Death Eater sightings only started last year as well. Curious. Their professor turned toward James.
“You said that there was a burst of magic that made you stop the hex – where did it come from?”
“I’m not sure, professor.”
Lily spoke up. “It’s not what you’re thinking professor. It was Sev’s magic. He used to have these episodes when we were kids – it stopped his father from hurting him for a while, but after each episode he’d be too weak to do anything else and that was when his father… did things to him.”
McGonagall gasped. “Was he ever-“
“Yes. Yes, he was. Imagine having your robes ripped off of you when you’ve already gone through that.” Lily interrupted before she could say anything else.
McGonagall’s eyes flashed with anger and remorse. “The headmaster should do something about this. Miss Evans, thank you for all of this information. Had I known I would’ve- never mind. Potter, Black, both of you are off the Quidditch team until further notice and will be serving detention for the rest of term for your despicable actions against Mr. Snape. Now, get out of my office the lot of you!”