Mirror, Mirror

“Just get on with it. I have better things to be doing,” Sirius said with derision.

This was the last place Severus wanted to be but in case things went sideways Remus was at least competent in potions. Poppy would be his first choice, but she was loyal to Dumbledore. Finding out the old wizard was pulling the strings on all their lives shouldn’t have been surprising. Dumbledore wasn’t evil, that title was on the Dark Lord. But Dumbledore didn’t know half of what he should according to Percy Weasley. He didn’t want to be a spy anymore and if he could end the second wizarding war before it begins, then better for them.

“Right. If the potion works as expected, nothing will happen to me. If that happens, we can move to stage two and administer on the Longbottoms. I’ve spoken to Augusta Longbottom; she is willing for us to try on Frank first but only if there is no adverse effects then Alice. Something about her son not wanting harm to come to his wife.”

“Frank was a good man and a strong fighter,” Sirius said with fire in his eyes.

“You speak of him as if he were dead,” Severus said.

“Death would be better than what happened to him and Alice. You shouldn’t be giving Augusta false hope.”

“It’s not false. Did you not hear me before? I told you after Snape’s vault was released and sold, the potion was given to several patients at St. Mungo’s, they all healed,” Percy said, carrying baby Lucy into the room.

Since he gave him permission to use his chambers to come and go as he pleased, he thought the boy was using it a lot. Because of his own experience having a baby while still in school. There wasn’t any way he could keep his child, but Percy could. Percy also wasn’t really a fifteen-year-old.

“Fine. Go on and take it,” Sirius said waving his hand in the direction of the vials. Severus brought two in case one broke.

“Why don’t you both take it?” Remus said casually.

“Why would I take it?” Sirius demanded.

“This way we know for sure it’s safe.”

“I don’t trust him,” Sirius growled out, sounding very much like his Animagus form.

“I’ll do it then,” Remus said, holding out his hand.

“I can’t be sure it’s safe for you,” Severus said truthfully.

“What does that mean?” Sirius snarled.

“It means he can’t be sure it’s safe because my DNA isn’t that of a normal wizard,” Remus answered for him.

“The potion interferes with the mind, since once a month Remus’s mind shifts into a werewolf it’s not safe to test. It’s all on the mind, because you keep your wizard mind when you shift into your Animagus form, it won’t have adverse effects. I can do more research after finding out if this works.”

“I’ll take it,” Percy volunteered.

“It can’t be you either. I’m already risking a trial by the Wizengamot just by testing on myself. If it gets out, I experimented on an underage wizard, I might as well take myself to Azkaban.”

“I’ll take it. If it can help Frank and Alice, I’ll do it,” Sirius finally relented.

Severus handed him the extra potion and took his own in his hand. Sirius lifted his vial up in a cheers gesture before knocking it back like it was butterbeer. Severus was more dignified as he drank his.

He expected nothing to happen, but his head started to pound, and colors started flashing in his vision. Hearing Sirius start groaning, he knew he had messed the potion up somehow. The pain in his head got worse and worse. Then finally, it stopped completely.

The letter dropped from his hand. It couldn’t be happening; she was getting better when he got on the Hogwarts Express just weeks ago. It was his third year, and he was able to take more classes, she had been so excited for him.

“What are you doing here all alone, Snivellus?” a familiar voice said. He was too upset to even argue with the Gryffindor. “Aren’t you going to say anything? Try and hex me? Anything?” Severus continued to ignore him, looking at the key in his hand. It was a Gringotts key, he hadn’t even known his mother had a vault. Spinning it in his hand, he felt empty. “Are you crying?” Sirius sounded confused now.

“Just go away, Black,” he said, balling the key up in his hand and wiping the tears away with his fist.

Instead of leaving, Sirius bent down and picked up the letter. Severus didn’t even have it in him to take the letter back. He just wanted the world to swallow him.

“Your mum died?”

“Please, can you not let me have one day to mourn before you start in on me?”

Lily’s mother had sent the letter, she promised to check in on his mum while his dad was gone. His mum had given her the key and told her to send it to him.

“I’m sorry about your mum.” Black actually sounded genuine. “Was she sick long?”

“Since I was little, she’s never been what you call healthy. But I thought she was getting better over summer. She was smiling, she never smiled, no reason for it.”

He thought he felt a hand on his shoulder but when he looked up Sirius was gone. His mind must have been playing tricks on him.

The pain in Sirius’s head eased causing him to almost fall. Just as he was about to tell Remus’s he was fine; memories flooded his mind.

“Where are you off to? Got some pretty Ravenclaw waiting in the wings again?” James asked.

Sirius gave James a cheeky smile before he left the common room without another word. He didn’t like lying to his best friends, but they wouldn’t understand, he barely did. It started so innocently, Severus was grieving his dead mother and Sirius saw through the illusion that he kept up.

It had been two months since Severus’s mother died and six weeks since they had started an unusual friendship. There was no way the other Marauders could find out. The library was the best place to find Severus. They always ran the risk of running into Remus, but it was coming up on a full moon, he wasn’t feeling well enough to study.

As expected, he found Severus with a stack of books on the table, his nose buried in one.

“You’re already first in your class…all your classes.”

Severus didn’t even look up. “Do you think being first in the class is my goal?” Sirius and James were both very talented, they just had problems remembering to do their work, so they depended on Remus more than they should.

“What is your goal?” he asked, knowing it was to work for Voldemort.

“It’s not about goals. Did you know that I have to study twice as hard as you and your friends because I have to be the best? Only because if I’m not, purebloods think that every half-blood or muggle born shouldn’t be here. Did you know that Lily studies from sunup to sundown just to keep her head above water? You take for granted what you learned just by being in a wizard family.”

“Your kind are the ones that are so obsessed with purebloods.”

“Half-bloods?”

“Don’t be stupid, you know I mean Slytherins.”

“Why are you even here. You and James had me labeled a dark wizard when I was eleven. All I wanted to do was be in the same house my mother was in, the only witch I had ever known. She taught me the very basics of Hogwarts. She didn’t hate muggles; she loved my muggle father. He hated us but she didn’t even consider leaving him. No matter how many times he hurt us. Want to know why I’m so good at potions? I watched my mother make bone mending potions when he broke my bones. I helped her make them when he broke hers.”

His parents were horrible, but they had never laid a hand on him or his brother. It wasn’t something rich purebloods did, that’s what they had house elves for.

“Sorry.”

“It’s over, she’s dead.”

“But you have to go back to your father.”

“Because she’s not around anymore I’ll stay out longer. Wait until he’s passed out and get up before he comes around.”

“That’s no life to live.”

“It’s my life.” Severus stood up and shut the book he had been reading. For the first time he saw Severus, really saw him. His hair wasn’t dirty, it was greasy looking most of the time but not now. It was probably from potions; he knew after double potions his was always a bit greasy. His black eyes weren’t voids as much as they were pools. His nose was long but not terribly, it was crooked but now Sirius thought it was because of it had been broken many times by his father.

It was no wonder why Severus had two moods when being confronted by them. One was to fight back, even if the odds were against him. But the other was complete avoidance and if that failed, he shut down. Now it made sense to Sirius. The Slytherin was stronger than they ever given him credit for. Not only that, he was attractive, in an odd sort of way.

Before he could stop himself, he leaned in and kissed the other boy. Severus pulled back looking shocked, not as much as him.

“What are you playing at?” Severus demanded.

“I like you. You have fire. I know we’re from different houses, but I think it could work.”

“Probably as well as Romeo and Juliet.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a muggle play. It ends badly just like whatever this is would. Best to stop it before it starts.” Picking up the stack of books, Severus turned to leave.

“I do love a good chase,” he called out, laughing when Severus showed how much of a half-blood, he was with a very muggle vulgar hand gesture. “What would the Headmaster say?” Maybe they were more alike than he thought.

He doubled over as more memories came to him, all of them. Severus and him meeting up secretly. Severus telling him that he was being recruited by Malfoy and didn’t know what would happen if he denied him. Sirius telling him that he just had to wait it out until they are older, that he would protect him. Sirius begging Severus to go to Dumbledore but the other boy not wanting to put a bigger target on his back.

The night that Severus gave himself to him. It hadn’t been anything like he thought before. It wasn’t hate sex like he remembered, it was gentle because he didn’t want to hurt Severus. Severus had been hurt too many times before he wanted it to be good. He knew Severus thought he was much more experienced than him but besides some heavy snogging that wasn’t true. They were each other’s first.

“I-I have to go,” Severus said as he fled the house, Sirius went after him but as soon as he was out the door, he disapparated.

“What was that about?” Remus asked.

“Someone’s been messing with our memories.” For the first time since they made the Weasleys memory of Lucy disappear he felt guilty.

Appararing in Hogsmeade, he felt like he could breathe again. There was no way he could stay in there while his memories assaulted him. Two years of memories taken by someone. Just knowing how they had been before made the things Sirius did to him all the worse. He tried to send him to his death. He would’ve been successful if it wasn’t for Potter. Even Potter had known it was a terrible thing to do but Sirius thought it was deserved. His death was deserved when his biggest crime at the time was a few leg lock jinxes on some other students. Detention worthy yes, death sentence no. Since then, he’s done terrible things but at the time he was innocent of dark magic. It had been so easy to join the Dark Lord after that. After his near death was when he created Sectumsempra, his first real move into the dark arts.

But now finding out two years had been a lie. There was only one person that could have obliviated him. Sirius must have changed his mind after they were together that night. Deciding he didn’t want to tell his friends. Severus shook off his descending thoughts, he was no longer a love-struck teenager. It mattered not to him that Sirius lied to him when they were children. It was on Severus for believing the lies, which wouldn’t happen again.

“We need to find the Horcruxes,” Hermione reading through Percy’s diary for the tenth time.

Harry had heard Percy and Terence speaking, Remus and Sirius also had voices that carry. Three names kept repeating in the diary. Hermione Granger. Ron Weasley. Neville Longbottom. Neville’s wasn’t that much but there was something about him killing a snake that was a Horcrux.

Because of that when they had all found themselves in the same compartment on the train, he told them what was going on. They had been less than keen in the beginning, not believing him. But once he pulled the diary out, Ron said there was no way it wasn’t true. Something about Percy never lying and unable to joke. The younger redhead had been upset to find out he had a niece, and his brother had their memories wiped. But he said if someone were trying to take his child he probably would too.

Hermione has been going over the diary, trying to figure out their first move. It was decided because in the diary Percy spoke about Dumbledore’s manipulations. He had overheard Remus and Sirius talk about the older man’s penchant for dramatics. It was decided that they would do what they could to stay out of Gryffindor, knowing that Dumbledore favored it. It was Hermione’s idea to see if the hat would let them choose Slytherin. Since she was the first of them to be sorted, she put in the work to convince it. The hat told him when he put it on that all of them had very Slytherin traits. But as Hermione said in the beginning of this that all students have some traits for every house.

“But Percy only knew two of them,” Neville pointed out.

“That helps us, right?” Ron asked.

“No, we only know one way to destroy them and I’m not looking forward to confronting a Basilisk. The diary says that we had a lot of help from Dumbledore. If we’re not doing that, we need to find a different way,” Harry told them.

While he expected Sirius, Remus, Percy, and Terence to destroy some of the Horcruxes it wouldn’t hurt for them to do it too. The faster the things are gone. Percy’s diary wasn’t something they wanted to happen again. Ron’s brother Fred killed in the final battle along with Remus and his wife.

“I think we’re avoiding the main issue,” Hermione said, still reading the diary again.

“What’s that?” Ron asked.

“What do we do about Quirrell?” she asked, raising her eyebrow.