The Snape Incident

Chapter 2

“Where are James and Lily?”

“Charms classroom — what’d I tell you, Pete? Having a good snog, I’m sure.”

“Honestly! They’re Prefects!” objected Peter, as Sirius rolled up the Map and began to clomp down the stairs.

“And all that means is that if they get caught, they can claim they were patrolling,” Remus said mildly, following Peter into the common room.

“Belle! Everyone’s here?” asked Sirius. The blonde girl nodded, indicating the full common room with a wave of her hand. Remus’s eyes inadvertently followed that hand as it described an arc in the air, then came to rest upon her hip. He jerked his attention back to Sirius has he clambered up onto a table and cleared his throat.

“Ahem. Everyone? Hi there.” A few fourth-year girls giggled; Remus supposed they fancied Sirius. “I’m sure you all know Lily Evans and James Potter, our two sixth-year Prefects?” He paused as a nod and murmur of explanation traversed the common room. “Well, next Thursday is Lily’s seventeenth birthday — a very important birthday, I’m sure you all agree —”

“Why?” asked a particularly plucky Muggle-born first year.

“Because,” replied Margaret, “a witch or wizard is considered to be of-age when they turn seventeen.”

“And so we’d like to do a little something for her,” resumed Sirius. “A surprise party!”

An excited wall of sound rose to meet Sirius, still on the table. “Quiet, you lot! I’m not done!” The Gryffindors quieted obligingly — if he was going to plan a party, they would do what they could to assist. “So, on Thursday after supper, I’d like you all to come up here quickly ad hide somewhere so we can surprise Lily! If we need anyone’s assistance in particular, I’ll contact you personally. Thank you!” There was something of a hubbub as the Gryffindors all returned to their usual tasks and Sirius jumped off the table. Remus, Peter, Arabella, and Margaret gazed at him expectantly, and he had the audacity to look right back. “So, what next?” he asked, to the shock and dismay of the other sixth-years.

“How should we know, Sirius? You’re the Idea Man,” Peter told him.

“Yeah, but James is the Work-Everthing-Out-Detail-By-Meticulous-Detail Man!” protested Sirius.

Margaret shook her head. “Well, he’s off snogging Birthday Girl in the Charms Classroom, I’m sure, so I’ll have to step in for Detail Man.” All heads turned to her expectantly. “Well, okay... we’ll need someone to smuggle food up here from the kitchens — I mean, since it’s to be a party...”

“We can do that,” Sirius said.

Arabella regarded him with a “well, duh” sort of look. “After all, you have been since second year — Meg and I certainly aren’t about to start smuggling food instead.”

“And decorations. We’ll have to have, I don’t know, streamers or coloured lights or something,” Margaret continued.

“You and Belle do that — you’re the best at charms,” Peter interjected.

“And music — does anyone here have a wireless?” Margaret resumed after a nod to Peter.

“Pete does, don't you, Pete?” Arabella volunteered.

“Birthday present from Gran in May — spoils me, that woman does; not that I’m complaining...”

“And that leaves presents, which I assume will be handled on an individual basis,” Margaret concluded.

“And James will, I presume, detain Lily after supper Thursday,” added Remus. It was Saturday: the second of September.

“Of course.”

“Then that’s that,” said Arabella with a grin. “I’m sure you boys have some scheme or other to concoct, and Meg and I still haven’t finished catching up —” she seized Margaret’s hand and began tugging her up to the girls’ dormitories.

“So much gossiping to do,” Margaret agreed with a wry smile. She didn’t particularly enjoy gossip, and made that well-known.

“You will tell me if there’s something interesting about me, won’t you? I hate not knowing about my life — especially after that business with Amy O’Flaherty — !” Sirius called after them. His elaborately fabricated romance with Amanda O’Flaherty, a Hufflepuff, had been conducted entirely without his knowledge, and had given Severus Snape altogether too much insult material — so much that for a while he’d abandoned the usual sufferers of his torment (Peter and Remus) for Sirius — that is, until Sirius hung him from the ceiling of the Great Hall in the middle of the night.

“Of course, luv!” Arabella called back over her shoulder. Remus studiously watched the fire until she was around the corner and out of sight. Sirius smirked.

***

Remus was contemplating the crescent moon from the window of the dormitory. It was a beautiful thing to behold for so many people, especially those of the romantic, poetic persuasion. And yet he, the most romantic, poetic of them all, was cursed to live his life hating, fearing the moon. It was cruelly ironic.

Peter snorted in his sleep and rolled over, then continued to snore.

“You’ve got it bad, Moony.” Sirius’s voice rang clearly in the cool air coming in the window. He moved to Remus’s side and sat in the patch of starlight that the other boy yielded to him.

“Arabella? I know. I can’t help it, though.” He sensed Sirius’s icy blue eyes probing his face, but kept his gaze trained on the sky. “Look,” Remus pointed, “your namesake.”

Sirius glanced idly up at the Dog Star. “I could help you, you know.” He was now watching Remus’s deft, slender hands as they lay on the stone floor. He would have much preferred looking at Remus’s eyes.

They were expressive eyes, but what fascinated him was the way their colour changed with the phases of the moon. At the new moon, for perhaps a day, they were a very clear grey; Sirius imagined that this was the colour of Remus’s eyes before he had been bitten. They began to take on a greenish cast with the waxing crescent, and were fully hazel by the first quarter. By the waxing gibbous, the hazel had begun to lighten, and had become amber by the full. And when he was a wolf, they were an intelligent, canine yellow. After the full moon, his eyes seemed flatter, somehow, for they had lost the red tinge of blood lust that Sirius somehow never seemed to notice during the waxing fortnight. He always noticed its absence, however, when the moon was on the wane and his friend was weak and exhausted.

Remus didn’t answer Sirius. He simply stared out at the moon, his arms wrapped around his legs and his knees pulled to his chin. Sirius finally stood and crossed to his bed.

“Cripes, Moony, I don’t know how you can get such high marks on so little sleep,” he remarked, and pulled the blood red hangings closed.

The werewolf seemed not to have heard. He sat unmoving, watching the night pass.

He would not answer Sirius for a long time.

***

That Monday was the first day of classes, and the sixth-year Gryffindors were understandably horrified to find that their first subject Monday mornings was to be Double Potions with the Slytherins. They were, if possible, even more distraught when they discovered that it was also to be their send off on Friday afternoons. The only one of them not too displeased was Arabella, as she was seeing Severus Snape.

Remus had his own reasons for disliking Potions — he was fairly competent, but some of the ingredients smelled so foul to his heightened senses that it was nauseating, and as a werewolf, he had claustrophobic tendencies that the Potions dungeon always roused. And Professor Brindle really didn’t like him — or any other Gryffindor.

Professor Brindle was the Potions Master and head of Slytherin House, and he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in baiting Gryffindors. He was ancient, and would probably retire in a few years. Brindle was short and thin and bald with bushy black eyebrows, and wore a perpetual frown. His classroom was kept immaculately neat and clean, though quite cold and damp, and Brindle had developed a phlegmmy-sounding cough over the many years he had been teaching. His best student in any year was easily Severus Snape, though he was by no means Brindle’s favourite — the professor discouraged inter-house fraternization in general, and with Gryffindors in particular, and frowned fiercely upon Snape’s relationship with Arabella (Brindle had discovered them snogging in the dungeons more than once).

Brindle was waiting for them when they crept into the classroom, and smiled unpleasantly when the bell chimed, signaling that they were his.

“If you will all remain standing — I will now place you into pairs.” This ritual had marked the beginning of the term in Potions for the last five years. Brindle took especial care to pair the most hostile Slytherins with Gryffindors — though he did not believe in cooperation, he certainly promoted the legendary rivalry between the houses and made sure his pairs weren’t about to get along. Brindle had learned very quickly, as a Potions Master ought, which combinations were most volatile. However, the sixth year Slytherin class was quite a bit larger than the sixth year Gryffindor class, and there weren’t nearly enough Gryffindors to go around. Remus had the unbelievable bad luck to be paired with Snape (this had not occurred since first year, before Sirius and James had conspired to make Snape’s cauldron explode in the middle of class, and Sirius and Snape had had to be pulled off of each other, fists swinging). Sirius and James had the misfortune to be paired with resident Really Thick Guys, Victor Crabbe and Gordon Goyle, while Peter was stuck with cunning Lysander Bulstrode. Lily was glaring reproachfully at Alec Parkinson; and Arabella (and Snape) seethed at Taylor Zabini, who had snapped her bra. Margaret was looking mutinous as she approached a table with simpering Helena Strewick.

The other Slytherins were paired with members of their own House, due to the lack of Gryffindors, but were hardly more likely to get along — the highly ambitious nature of Slytherins was also quite fractious, and made for ruthless competition. Sneers, snarls, and smirks were exchanged freely across the dungeon, and the Gryffindors sent each other looks of sympathy.

Brindle cleared his throat. “Who can tell me what the Regeris Potion does?” he mused, without preamble. They had all learned that he did not want students to volunteer answers, much preferring to call on people at random and put them on the spot. And call he did. “Evans!”

Lily’s eyes widened, and she cast her mind back to her Potions text. “It — that is to say, the person who takes it has authority over those around him for a short amount of time. They will be — compelled to do his bidding, but it only works with direct orders or requests.”

“And the main ingredient? Lochley!”

Eliza Lochley blanched, but Remus could not bring himself to feel too sorry for her. While a Slytherin who was terrible in Potions was atypical, she was still as malicious as the rest. “Er — er — boomslang skin?” she guessed helplessly.

Brindle looked scornful. “Hardly. Avery!”

“Essence of mistletoe, Professor,” Drucilla Avery answered smoothly. She flipped her dark hair and glanced at Snape, who was still busy glaring at Zabini.

“Another primary ingredient — Potter!”

James seemed to panic slightly and glance at Lily. “A — aconite?” he said after a moment. Remus flinched.

Brindle narrowed his eyes. “Also known as?”

“Monkshood and wolfsbane,” James answered dutifully. The implications of this seemed to strike him then, and he shot another panicky look at Sirius and Peter, avoiding Remus’s gaze.

“Which can be replaced, if need be, with — ? Snape!”

Snape had been watching James answer with great interest. “Dogwood, sir,” he answered, “but it can be unpredictable, causing the effectiveness to be erratic, or the duration to decrease.”

Brindle’s lips thinned. “Five points for doing your research, Snape. Today you will all brew the Regeris Potion using dogwood, as it would be quite elementary with aconite; anyone who compensates correctly for the drawbacks will receive ten points. Regeris works for a very short time indeed, but requires several days’ simmering. It should be finished by Friday and we will test it then.”

Remus somehow managed to conceal the profound relief he felt at the knowledge that there would be no aconite used, but it showed plainly on the faces of his friends. James glanced meaningfully at him, and picked up his quill — writing a note, Remus was sure. James usually did in Potions (perhaps the reason it was his worst subject), and Brindle caught him twice weekly, but had given up on punishment. It never occurred to James to stop; he merely enchanted the parchment so only the proper recipient could read it and to anyone else it appeared to be lecture notes, so Brindle had no evidence to hold against him.

Snape had been doing complex calculations across the table, filling scrap parchment with numbers and half-formed thoughts in his cramped, upright hand. Remus glanced disinterestedly at the parchment, then opened his textbook to the appropriate page and began to study the ingredients and method. He preferred to work the bulk of a problem out inside his mind; it annoyed his arithmetic teachers to no end when he was younger, and even now at the Muggle summer school his parents insisted he attend. He was not taking Arithmancy, but imagined that the professor would have similar qualms about showing work.

A loud explosion jolted the class from whatever thoughts (or lack thereof) they might have been entertaining, and there was smoke rising from the vicinity of a very singed Victor Crabbe. Sirius, on the other side of the workbench, was trying to look shocked (and hold in his laughter). Crabbe apparently had not been up to contemplating dogwood and Sirius had taken advantage of his distraction to do — something. Remus was quite sure he would hear about it soon enough.

Crabbe was still looking disoriented, and very soon several students had dissolved in giggles. Snape was glaring alternately at Sirius, the cause of the distraction, and Remus, because he was the nearest Gryffindor and guilty by association. Brindle gave Sirius a detention for that evening and took ten points from Gryffindor, then sent Crabbe off to the infirmary with Goyle to escort him.

After what was positively an eternity, the bell chimed again to signal the end of class, and the sixth years gathered their belongings impatiently. Arabella crossed to the workbench at which Remus and Snape were still sitting, as both of them had held off packing up until class was actually over. She smiled brightly.

“Severus, I was wondering if we might have a bit of a chat?” Snape did not quite smile, but his entire demeanor softened as he looked at her.

Remus tossed his quill and parchment haphazardly into his bag and stood abruptly. Arabella’s eyes flicked to him and she nodded, but her attention was focused once again on Snape before he could return the gesture, and he left as quickly as possible. Sirius was waiting for his friend outside the Potions classroom, and wordlessly forced Remus to unclench his fists.

“C’mon, Moony — everyone’s already gone.”

Remus allowed Sirius to lead him out to the greenhouses while he concentrated on unclenching his jaw.

Arabella dashed up to the amassed students seconds before the class started, and straightened her skirt self-consciously. Lily made certain to frown disapprovingly at her as Professor Sprout, the plump, youngish Herbology teacher, appeared.