Fifth Year
Lily and Severus are ecstatic after finding out that they are Prefects in their Hogwarts letters. Upon arriving at school they meet up with the other prefects on the train, and Lily is glad to find that Remus is her partner from Gryffindor, while Severus looks on sourly, holding in comments about the inappropriateness of having animals in a position of power.
Snape’s partner, Ursula Flint, comments with disgust that the standards for prefects are falling. How could they appoint a Mudblood? Severus offers her a tight smile, but does not refute this comment.
Lily goes on her first date with Amulius MacMillan the first Hogsmeade weekend of the year.
He was a Hufflepuff, but she felt she didn’t know him well enough to turn him down. Sometimes, Lily’s kindness was to her detriment.
Both James and Severus spent a little too much time observing her while they were there. It was quite possibly the first time Snape had ever attended a Hogsmeade weekend without being accompanied by Lily herself.
The date goes terribly. Amulius never lets her speak, and he constantly prattles on about school subjects and thing related to Pureblood society, and Lily is bored to tears. She’s rescued by Benjy Fenwick, another Gryffindor in their year that she had worked with on occasion in Herbology.
“Lily! Thank Merlin. We’ve got a bit of a situation with our Herbology project.”
“What?” Lily doesn’t understand at first.
Amulius is looking at the menu on the wall outside Madame Puddifoot’s and Benjy gestures to him not-so-subtly with his head. Lily catches on.
“Oh, no! Amulius!” He turns, surprised to hear her voice. “I have to go. Something’s happened with our Herbology project. I told you not to work on it without me! What if you’ve killed them?”
She bemoans Benjy’s skills for dramatic effect. He gives her a sharp look, and she smiles wickedly.
“I’m so sorry to cut this short, but my grade is on the line!”
“Never fear, fair Lily. You can make it up to me some other day.”
He goes in towards her face, and Lily panics, grabbing him up in a hug instead.
“Goodbye!”
She drags Benjy off by the hand, not stopping her mad dash until they are well out of Amulius’ sight. They are both breathing a little harder at this point and Benjy drops to the ground in an alley, leaning against the wall. They look at each other for a moment, and Benjy begins to laugh. Lily looks affronted for only a moment before joining in. She sits across from him as they laugh, the tensions from the previous situation evaporating.
“I wasn’t aware you lacked such confidence in my Herbological skills, Miss Evans.” Benjy tries for offended, failing miserably.
“Oh, Benjy, thank you so much! I thought my brain was going to melt out of my ears.”
Lily reaches across the alley to pat his hand as she says this, before flopping back against the wall as they giggle some more.
“Well, Evans, there’s only one thing left to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Plan how you’re going to ‘make it up’ to me.” He lowers his voice suggestively as he says it, rubbing a hand over his chest in a lewd gesture, and she tosses her bag at him.
“Oh, stop it. I thought I was going to pass out when he said that. How am I supposed to stop him?”
“You could, I dunno, say no, maybe?” Benjy says it as though it was the obvious thing in the world, which it maybe should be, Lily has to concede, but she just can’t think of it that way.
“It’s not that easy. He’s really never been anything but nice to me.”
“Doesn’t mean you have to marry the bloke! Merlin, Evans, I thought you were intelligent.” Lily is riled at this, snatching back her bag by its strap and rising, dusting herself off.
“Well, if that’s how you feel, then—”
He cuts her off, standing as well and waving his hand. “Nah, forget it, You’re too nice for your own good.”
“I resent that statement.” She says it very matter-of-factly, and he grins, his boyish features so jolly she can’t help but smile back.
“You’ll get used to it, Evs.”
He reaches up to throw his arm around her shoulder and they head back up to the castle, joking all the way.
They are striking together— strikingly odd. Benjy is short and compact, with sandy hair and very tan skin, dimpled cheeks and eyes a little too wide. He dresses very sharply, hair combed and shirt tucked, not a fold out of place, while Lily flows everywhere. From the curls in her long hair to her billowing blouse and flared jeans, she is free and feminine. They are absolutely nothing alike.
Potter and Snape both burn with jealousy as they go, not able to appreciate the comic value of the pair as they stagger, badly mismatched, up the path. This is the beginning of a friendship that would last for the rest of their short lives.
On the first night, after the prank during the feast at which the teachers turned red, gold, and blue, James shows the others his stag form that he had managed to perfect over the summer.
Sirius is a bit petulant, as he was unable to practice under the cruelly watchful eye of his mother over the summer, but he warms to the idea as he takes in the odd look of James’ antlers, not yet fully developed. He comments “Nice rack”, earning him a head-butt from James.
“They look like fuzzy fork prongs. You molting, James?”
The stag charges. Sirius jumps and dances away, laughing.
“Calm yourself, Prongsy, no need to fuss.” He barks a laugh as James rears. “Prongs! Like Moony.”
Within the next week, Padfoot is born. They decide to do their first trial night without Peter, who has yet to gain his full form, but the day of, a rat comes scampering in on James and Sirius as they make plans for sneaking out. Sirius groans when he sees it, pulling out his wand to eradicate it, but it squeaks frantically, running from side to side and shooting off towards Peter’s bed.
James stays his hand, staring at the strange creature.
“Pete?”
Sirius scoffs.
“No way is that—” but the rat reappears, getting up on its hind legs.
“All right!” James is ecstatic. “Nice going, mate.”
They are examining Peter’s form, trying to think of a name, when Remus enters, tired and drawn, dropping off his books before heading to the Infirmary. He makes a sound of disgust when he sees Peter’s tail peeking out from behind his trunk. He mutters about worms and how it’s not sanitary to feed your pets in the dorms as he goes to pick it up… only to find a rat!
He drops Peter in shock, and the others stop him from cursing the rat as they roar with laughter. Remus shudders.
“A rat? That’s bollocks, Pete. Your tail looks like a bloody worm.”
The other boys are shocked at first— Remus very rarely uses foul language, although it does increase around the full moon. James recovers first.
“Worm-tail! That’s it! Moony, you’re a genius.”
And so the last of the Messrs was born.
Remus is ill, so Lily is doing rounds alone. She is attacked from behind by unknown Slytherins. Severus had been following her at a safe distance, aware that it was dangerous for her to patrol alone but not willing to try to stop her for fear of her temper. When he arrives, she is on the floor. Not knowing what exactly had been done to her, he rushes her to the infirmary, knocking on the door before casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself and backing into the shadows. He leaves when Madame Pomfrey locks the door after her with a mistrustful glance along the deceptively empty hallway.
Lily awakes, confused, to find Potter dozing in between her bed and Remus’. She tries to remember but happened, but cannot recall. Panicky, she calls for Madame Pomfrey, but Potter jerks awake instead. He explains what he knows. Lily is shocked, having not considered the idea that someone might hurt her. She had been Stunned, and “Mudblood” had been crudely cut into her left arm using magic. She looked at it, a white scar already where the cuts had been.
The next day, Avery and Mulciber are found mysteriously affixed to the Quidditch goal posts after lunch. James was notably absent from that meal. Lily never mentions it.
Lily has been growing frustrated as James’ behavior grows more and more contradictory. He has been saving first years from Slytherins, protecting the weak, and tutoring younger students— as well as pranking more, picking fights with Slytherins, and breaking hearts. She grudgingly admits a sort of admiration for him to Alice when she’d been teasing her about boys, trying to get her to confess to a crush.
Sirius has been growing darker and more distant. Always aloof, with something of a bad-boy reputation and persona, he has become more withdrawn and quicker to anger. His home life has deteriorated greatly and Regulus has pulled away completely.
Peter grows more pathetic— the aging and maturation of the others has thrown into sharp relief his mediocrity. He tries to compensate for this by egging them on in all that they do. Sirius often grows frustrated with him, always the lowest on patience.
Snape’s worst memories occur. Although he would later see her dead, nothing would compare to the knowledge that he had hurt her and she would never forgive him for it.
Lily is understandably miserable, despite the front she puts up in Snape’s presence.
She finds herself receiving comfort from a very unlikely quarter— Regulus Black. She is hiding out in the Astronomy Tower, playing with Severus’ owl, Archelirion, whose attachment to her is similar to that of its master. Unbeknownst to Lily, who has always called the owl Liri, this is the name of the subgenus of her favorite type of lily, the goldbanded lily.
She doesn’t notice the slight, dark boy until he speaks, a cold, detatched voice so different from that of his brother.
“Didn’t suppose he had it in him. Bella will be pleased that he has broken ties with you at last.”
After the initial shock, Lily reacts very little to his words. He has not said them in a taunting manner, and she is so very tired. She tells him dully to go away.
“You don’t understand, Mudblood.” His voice is sharper now, and the insult slips off of his lips as easily as if it were a name. Lily is roused slightly by this.
“What don’t I understand, Purist?” She almost spits the word in the way that he had not.
A smirk that recalls Sirius when being particularly naughty slips across his face before his gravity returns.
“He had no choice. You conform or you die, there is no other way.” Seeming to understand that he sounds sympathetic, he clarifies, making it clear that he is one of them. “We have been tolerant of his infatuation, but that is done. He is one of us now.”
Lily is growing upset, and chokes out a harsh, “I’m well aware!”
“Are you really?” Regulus looks at her speculatively. “I know he will try to return to you. If you ever cared for him at all, you will push him away. There is no going back, Mudblood. Not for us.”
Even though his words are harsh, final, the word holds no bite, no hate. It is just there, empty. Before Lily can come up with any suitable reply to his weighty statement he is gone, disappearing as quickly as he came, and her mind is made up.
As Lily is coping with this loss, another blow falls in the form of the death of her grandmother.
Her parents are away in Ireland, arranging things, so she is informed by Petunia. The letter is short and cold. The memorial service has already occurred and her inheritance will be sent “with one of those filthy birds”.
Lily is shell-shocked and rises from the table with her things, ignoring her friends as she strides towards the exit, eyes pricking with tears. A jeer and a trip jinx from Regulus send her running from the Hall and propel Sirius out of his seat in fury. James drags him from the Hall, trying to keep him calm. Sirius flings him off and stalks away, going to the lake, only to find a distraught Evans already there.
She’s sitting on the ground tossing stones into the water, at first skipping them, but as her pace increases, so do the force of her throws until she is scraping at the ground, flinging anything she can get her hands on with all her might. Perturbed, Sirius stops her, crouching at her side and forcing her hands still.
“What’s the matter, Evans?”
“Well, my grandmum is dead, my sister hates me, my best friend hates me, and oh, half the school wishes I was dead! I dunno, what could possibly be wrong!”
She is fierce and scathing, curls sticking to hear tear-tracked face, but Sirius is basically unsympathetic.
“Join the club.”
Sirius’ voice is bitterly matter-of-fact as he plops down next to her. When she is silent he sighs and begins to tell her about his family. By the time he finishes his arms, wrapped around his knees, are tense, fists clenched, and his head hangs down.
Lily lays a tentative hand on his back. He stiffens, but she doesn’t remove it. In an attempt to comfort him, she begins, haltingly, to tell him what Regulus said to her, and his head comes up as he whirls around, gray eyes blazing.
“That’s a lie! Cowards, the both of them! Look at me, Lily—hell, look at Andromeda! She was even in Slytherin and she made it out. There’s always a way, Evans, always. They just don’t care about us enough to find it.”
Suddenly Sirius seems less terrifying and strong and more like a lost little boy. Lily sees what she has never seen before— that beneath it all Sirius is a troubled, neglected young man who had once given love freely, to get none in return.
Tears slip down her face, not just for herself, but for that little boy that would never get what he deserved. She reaches out to him again, incapable of letting him hurt like this alone, heart aching to be there for that little boy, and covers his fist with a trembling white hand, squeezing gently before copying him to glare out at the Lake.
“I haven’t anyone left to care for.” Her voice is so quiet a normal person would not have heard, but his dog-ears catch it.
His voice surprises her when he speaks, gruff as it is. “You’ve a whole tower full of family, Evans. They not enough for you?”
Her face softens as she turns to look at him, the dullness in her eyes lessening somewhat as this idea sinks in. When the pleading note in his voice registers, her look turns almost maternal, as he asks for reassurance that the makeshift family he has found there is real.
“We have, haven’t we?” Her voice is full of tears, and he looks up at her inclusion of him. “But how can it replace— I mean, flesh and blood, or even years of— Severus, he—” she breaks off, a harsh breath revealing how close she is to tears. She turns to him, rising to her knees to question, feverish in her grief. “Does it ever go away?”
She doesn’t feel as though she has to elaborate, and he understands perfectly.
“I reckon not, Evans.”
Her face falls, and his harsh sigh scares away some birds on the shore.
“You’ll forget eventually. There’ll be others, worth more. Some bonds are deeper, some— some things are thicker than blood.”
She knows that he’s talking about James, and it fills her with a longing that brings a frown to her face even as she notes with vague amusement his knowledge of the Muggle phrase. She wants so badly to understand it, to feel what it is they share. It pains her to admit, but she’s not sure that’s what she and Severus had.
Maybe it was different, both being boys— after all, the knowledge that Severus had deeper feelings for her than she for him had been hanging over her head for a while. The sorrow she’s repressed that the loss of her far-off grandmother had brought up suddenly resurfaced, the grief welling up in a great wave that she thought would carry her away. But the tense boy at her side grounds her, and she simply puts her head down to her purple, freckled knees, socks and skirt fallen away, and cries. Sirius sits still as stone, silent and unobtrusive, but she is comforted, somewhat, by his presence.
The first week of summer break, Sirius’ parents are fed up with him, and Bellatrix tortures him. He runs away. James’ family takes him in and his uncle Alphard secretly gifts him with his bike, proud of his nephew. By August, Alphard is dead, Sirius is rich, and both of them have been blasted off the family tree.
The Marauders visit Remus for the full moon, unwilling to let him suffer it alone. He presents them with a blank map of Hogwarts as a thank you for all they’ve been for him.
The four spend all summer working to animate it. Lily is an inadvertent participant, assisting when Remus owls her for help. He wants to know if she knows of a locator spell they could use.
This makes her sad because her automatic response is to ask Severus, but they aren’t friends anymore. She gives them “homenum revelio” but says that it doesn’t give location. She mentions that “specialis revelio” and “informous” are related. She thinks that “informus nomen” or “nomen revelio” might give them names, while “locatus revelio” might give them specific locations, but that there would be no real way to know what the location was without something to view it with.
She’s very sure to say that all of this is speculation on her part— her Latin studies in Muggle school giving her ideas for creating spells. This too makes her long for Severus, and his spell-creating expertise.
Severus had tried to contact her several times over the summer, but she hid out in her house, not speaking to him. Both had an equally miserable summer. She is lonely, shut up in her house, her parents busy and Petunia always out. Alice, Marlene, and Emmeline owl her, worried about her safety with Severus so near.