That damn handkerchief
Lily walked towards the library with a skip in her step and a smile on her face as she thought about the year so far.
She had told her parents all about Hogwarts over Christmas holiday and even though Tuney acted indifferent Lily could tell that she was interested.
When her letter came it gave her a feeling of relief. It explained why all those weird things were happening! When Patty’s hair turned green or when she was able to make her drawings come to life on the pages. She wasn’t some freak of nature but a witch! There was a whole society of wizards and witches.
And Sev was one of them too!
They had all gone to Diagon Alley together to get their supplies for school and Sev had shown them all around. Mrs. Snape also went along, and Lily couldn’t remember a time when the woman had smiled so brightly as she did that day. Sev told her all about Hogwarts and what to expect.
There were four houses!
Well not literal houses, more like clans really. But they all lived together and were represented by different animals. Sev had gotten her this really big book called Hogwarts: A History and insisted that she read it before they went off to school. But to also not take everything in the book seriously because it apparently portrayed Slytherins in a bad light.
Lily didn’t know if the book was really lying or Sev was biased so she took everything with a grain of salt and waited to actually go to Hogwarts before making her final opinion.
She was glad that she did wait.
The two of them had shared a compartment on the Hogwarts Express after narrowly avoiding a big group of first years who were all clambered around each other. They had all loudly introduced themselves, or most of them did. One of them barely whispered his greeting and another could only do it without looking at her and with his face flushed red. Lily didn’t know what that was about but ignored it.
She chalked it up to a weird boy thing.
The last person to be introduced from that group was Sirius Black.
Lily didn’t know the name but apparently everyone else did as he certainly got a reaction. Some of the kids straight up left their group while others seemed to gravitate towards him. She and Sev had used that moment for their escape and found a quiet compartment for the rest of the ride.
When they got to Hogwarts, they rode magical boats being led by a giant. Lily and Sev shared a boat with the boy who was apparently always flushed red, James Potter, and Sirius Black. Black always seemed to be smirking at something and would whisper something to Potter occasionally. Potter meanwhile tried to start a conversation with her but would always stumble over his words and just turn even redder. She gave him a sympathetic smile (that she would later regret) for his efforts.
Lily was also fairly certain she heard something about pranks but fortunately (or unfortunately) didn’t hear anything else as they were rounded up by a stern looking lady with a pointy hat and led into the Great Hall.
It was only after entering the Great Hall, she realized that Hogwarts houses weren’t really literal houses. She was a little disappointed by that fact but the fact that they were in a magical castle made up for it.
She was knocked out of her thoughts by a singing hat on a little stool. It sang about the four houses that Hogwarts had but she didn’t really pay attention to it. She had already read about it in the book that Sev had all but shoved on her and was too busy looking around at all the other people.
She could easily spot the four different houses.
Sev had said that he would be a Slytherin, and it only took a moment of looking before she found them. The Slytherins were on the right by the wall and looked the most collected. They all looked really calm and sat with their backs straight and weren’t even looking at the hat. Most of them also had really nice-looking clothes on. Even from the distance Lily could tell that her robes weren’t as good as some of the older Slytherins.
Lily didn’t really know why Sev was sure he would be a Slytherin but wished him well either way.
The hat had finally stopped singing and the stern lady (Professor McGonagall), started to read out names. Lily didn’t recognize any of them until she got to-
“Black, Sirius!”
As one the entire hall sat up straight and looked towards the boy in question. Lily really didn’t understand why he was so important. He seemed like an okay kid for all of the two times she met him, even if he was clearly a prankster in the making. But she wasn’t confident enough to ask why he was important so kept her mouth shut and watched with the rest of apparently everyone for this particular sorting.
It had taken a couple minutes and Lily was almost positive that she saw both the hat and Black argue about the sorting before the hat screamed-
“GRYFFINDOR!”
The Great Hall had gone silent at that. Lily didn’t know why, and she was starting to get a little mad about being left out of something that was apparently really important. Did the hat make a mistake? Black’s tie changed into one of red and gold and he made his way to the Gryffindor table no problem. Lily was stumped and she almost turned around to ask the girl behind her what was going on when she was interrupted.
Slow clapping pierced through the silence like thunder, and everyone turned towards its source. Lily couldn’t really see who it was but apparently it was also someone important (Lily was going to need a list if this kept going) and watched as the person clapped slowly with a grin on his face. So, the sorting wasn’t a mistake? He was clearly happy about it or looked happy at least.
Everyone else slowly started clapping as well but Lily could tell that it was stilted and awkward.
Professor McGonagall quickly continued with the sorting and Lily had been surprised by the apparently mind reading hat. She asked to be placed into Slytherin because she wanted to be with Sev, but the hat didn’t agree. It had taken all of two seconds before it outright refused her, talking about the timeline?
She tried to argue further but was shot down at every turn and after a while the hat screamed Gryffindor.
Lily was disappointed and looked towards Sev for his reaction. He gave her a small smile and didn’t seem surprised by the sorting. Her mood didn’t lift enough, and she was still mad at the hat for the rest of the sorting. She didn’t even bother to pay attention to the rest, only doing so for Sev who of course got into Slytherin within thirty seconds of getting the hat on.
She vowed to get back at the hat on that day.
Her parents had found that particular part of the retelling funny and Lily did her best scowl at them. It backfired and only made them laugh harder, even Tuney was laughing.
She told them all about her first semester and how even though Gryffindor and Slytherin students supposedly had an intense rivalry they did have a lot of classes together. One of the prefects had said that it was Headmaster Dumbledore’s attempt at fostering more interhouse unity. Though the effort was clearly not working as the first year Gryffindors were warned to never trust a Slytherin and Sev had told her that first year Slytherins were told to never trust a Gryffindor.
The both of them had agreed to ignore that rule.
They were also told something about “neutral ground” being the Ravenclaw table. None of them had understood what that meant, and the prefect had just waved off any more questions about it and just said to come to them if there was a problem.
Apparently the Slytherin prefects explained it in more detail. If there was a disagreement between two parties from two different houses that couldn’t be solved within a day, they were to involve the prefects of their respective houses.
If they still couldn’t come to a solution, they went to neutral ground. One of the Ravenclaw upperclassmen was to act as a witness and a neutral third opinion. Apparently the Ravenclaw students were really good at solving disagreements and most of the time disagreements ended at the Ravenclaw table.
Only if the neutral ground solution wasn’t effective were they then to involve the professors. It seemed that the entire student body agreed to this method of problem-solving and Lily had to admit it was nice. She was curious as to why this wasn’t mentioned in Hogwarts: A History and Sev had told her that the system was apparently only eight years old.
Sev had also told her rumors of a smuggling ring and Lily didn’t know what to think about that.
She left that last part out of her retelling and quickly moved onto her classes.
They were expected to write with quills on parchment for every single class and Lily had quickly learned to hate it. Why couldn’t they just use pencils and pens, or actual paper? Her handwriting with a quill was atrocious and when Sev had first seen it he had laughed out loud.
She scowled at him and demanded an apology. He had only wiped away the tears and offered to teach her.
They called it even.
Lily was pulled out of her thoughts when someone bumped into her shoulder. Her bag fell and when she looked to see who bumped into her, she was met with a sneer. It was an older Ravenclaw girl, who continued walking away without stopping to help while muttering under her breath.
Lily didn’t know why the girl was mad at her and talking about mud. It probably wasn’t a good idea to ask her about it, so Lily just gathered her things and hurried to the library.
Severus was supposed to be doing his potions homework.
It was his favorite subject! But every time he looked back at the textbook; he found his thoughts drifting away. Drifting to the empty seat across from him. They were supposed to be studying together but Lily was late.
Now it wasn’t uncommon for her to be late by a couple minutes. But that was ten minutes ago. Severus was starting to think that she forgot that they were supposed to study together when a bag was thrown onto the table and Lily plopped down into the once empty seat.
“Sorry Sev, Black and Potter pulled a prank and all the first years had to help clean out the common room.”
Severus didn’t need to ask which Black, at this point in the year he and probably the entire school knew which one was referred to in the context of “Black and Potter”. Those two had become as thick as thieves and along with the two smaller first years they dragged along they became an annoying little block.
Severus pitied Lily for having to be in the same house as those idiots. She would have done wonderfully in Ravenclaw or even Hufflepuff. He once thought the same thing of Slytherin, but that train of thought was quickly squashed.
His mother had occasionally told him about her time in Slytherin and along with the speech that the first years received by the fifth-year prefects, it was clear that “mudbloods” were tolerated at best but unacceptable for a place in Slytherin House.
As much as he wanted the two of them to be in the same house Severus didn’t want Lily to be an outcast for the next seven years.
“It’s okay, I haven’t got much done yet.”
He offered her a small smile which she returned and then focused on his potions homework. Or that’s what he would have done if he had not caught the sight of something pink from the corner of his eye.
The handkerchief.
That damn thing had taken Hogwarts by storm. Everyone was talking about it! Rumors were flying so fast that Severus had gave up on trying to make sense of it all. Every single meal was apparently the designated time to talk about it. In the last week he had to sit and listen to every single new take on the “Handkerchief situation” from his year mates.
Severus wanted to just tune it all out but couldn’t as he was dragged into every single conversation about it during meals.
Apparently being friends with Lily meant that he knew every single secret she had and all they could ask about was related to the “Handkerchief situation”.
Alexander Avery was especially interested in everything that was anything about it. Any class that Severus didn’t partner with Lily; Avery had jumped at the chance to sit next to him. Every third thing that came out of his mouth was about the damn handkerchief.
Why the hell was that kid so interested in it?
And it wasn’t even just the first years!
He’d been cornered by two third year girls on his way to Charms and they outright asked what he knew. Severus had ended up late to class that day and had to make up some excuse to Lily.
Severus looked up at Lily and found her focused on her arithmancy homework. At least she wasn’t getting hounded with questions at every opportune moment.
He looked back at his homework and just gave up. He had completely lost focus and it was Saturday anyway.
“Lily, I need to ask you a question.”
“Okay.” Lily said not looking up.
“It’s about the handkerchief.”
She did look up at that. Severus thought over how he was going to arrange the question, so it didn’t sound too invasive.
“I’m sure you’ve heard some of the things being said about it?”
“I have, and you don’t need to worry about it Sev. Corvus said he’ll take care of it.”
Severus was fairly sure his eye twitched at that. His mind was racing over what she just said. When had he become Corvus instead of Black? She had only one “tutoring session” as Lily called it. When did they even have time to get on a first name basis? Severus’ mind was whirling at the fresh fuel that would inevitable be thrown onto the forest fire that was the “Handkerchief situation”.
“Oh, don’t look so sad Sev, I asked Corvus, and he said you could join us next Thursday!”
Severus felt like he was going to get whiplash.
“He did?” His voice may have cracked at that.
“Yeah! Its going to be great!” Lily said with a smile. She probably took his voice cracking as something else.
All hopes (even if meager at best) of avoiding the entire situation were thrown out the window. Severus was going to be diving headfirst into this and there was no way out.
Severus had to go over everything he knew about Corvus Black.
He had heard from the other Slytherins that Corvus Black was a dangerous man. Apparently even more dangerous than Bellatrix Black. He was also considered the most insane of all the Black family. Severus hadn’t met any of the Slytherin Blacks yet and Sirius Black didn’t really count. But what he heard about them made him a little scared.
Severus had been there the night after the sorting. There were definitely some explosions in the common room after the first years had been sent to bed. Though the next morning there was nothing damaged to be found.
No one would tell the first years who caused the explosions, but Severus was sure it was Corvus Black.
He became even more sure as the weeks went by and the stories (and rumors) started to trickle their way down to the first years.
They were also warned to steer clear of Black when he got into one of his “moods”. There was no further explanation given and Severus was thankful that the man was graduating this year. He didn’t have to interact with him at all!
So of course, Lily would force him to accompany her to private tutoring sessions with the man in an enclosed space.
Shit.