The Snape Incident

Chapter 3

Lily let out a shriek of laughter and ducked toward the portrait hole. “James! Don’t you have Arithmancy work you need to do — instead of tickling me?”

“There’s nothing I would rather be doing, Lily!” James crowed in reply, lunging toward her.

“Mandrake nannies,” Lily gasped, and the chortling Fat Lady swung away from the wall. “James, please don’t! I mean it!” She swatted his hands from her sides and twisted away.

“Surprise!” shouted the better part of Gryffindor House, springing from hiding places as soon as Lily and James had set foot in the common room.

“Oh!” Lily exclaimed in delight. Somehow, she never remembered the annual Gryffindor start-of-term party that was her birthday until after everyone shouted “surprise!” Of course, it was not just because of her birthday — James and Sirius, and most of the other Gryffindors as well, would use any excuse to have a party.

The party lasted long into the night, though not all the students did. Eventually Lily couldn’t control her yawns, and the last of them clomped up to the dorm rooms.

“So.” Sirius flopped onto the floor at the foot of his bed. “This seems like the perfect time to plan for the full moon — it is in just a week.”

“We’re cutting it a little close, then,” Peter commented.

“But we have to start the year off with a bang!” James exclaimed.

“Right. Bang.” Remus yawned, and gathered himself to his feet. “I’m sorry, but I think I ought to sit this brain dump out — the floor isn’t exactly the most comfy place to fall asleep, and that’s what I’m about to do.”

“But Moony!” Sirius cried, looking scandalized. “You’re the key part of the adventures! You’re the alpha wolf! You can’t sit it out!”

But Remus was already curled in his bed and quite asleep.

Peter frowned. “Has he seemed a bit off-colour lately?”

“You mean more than usual?” James smirked. Remus usually became a bit unpredictable as the full moon drew near and the wolf’s mind grew stronger.

“Actually, he has,” Sirius said thoughtfully.

“I wonder why? He doesn’t have school problems, he doesn’t have girl problems, he doesn’t have roommate problems, and in five years he’s never really been ill.” Peter studied the drawn hangings around the werewolf’s bed and tapped a fingernail against his teeth. I’m sure he has loads of problems, Sirius thought. He just doesn’t let anyone know.

James shrugged. “Well, there are first times for everything. Maybe he’s just tired. We do need to start planning, though, with or without Moony.”

Sirius looked like he still had misgivings, but after a moment he rummaged in Remus’s trunk and pulled out a parchment.

James grinned and pulled out his wand. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he intoned, placing the tip of his wand at the center of the parchment. Lines traced themselves across the paper.

The Marauder’s Map.

It had been their project for the better part of the previous year; they had elected for Remus to be its keeper during school, because he was least likely to get searched — the teachers all adored him, except for Brindle who did not adore anyone. Remus was also the best with a quill and had drawn the painstakingly accurate map, while James and Sirius devised the enchantments and snuck about under the Invisibility Cloak, and Pete had infiltrated the staff wing and the other Houses as a rat. The three friends all leaned over the map.

“I was thinking maybe we ought to take it easy and have a little romp in the forest this month, get Moony accustomed to having a pack again —”

“Prongs, you know you’re a beta at the full — the wolf will do what he wants, nothing a stag can do to stop him —”

“It’s the first moon of the year, d’you think Pomfrey or Dumbledore will be checking on him?”

“How about this glade here —?”

“That lake there is —”

“If we ever get caught, we’re so —”

***

Remus, however, heard none of this; he had taught himself a soundproofing charm first year cast it around his bed at school because Peter snored, and James tossed and turned and made the bed creak. The charm also kept the others from hearing him have nightmares about the night he was bitten. Somehow he suppressed that memory while he was conscious, but it tortured him in his sleep, though he couldn’t remember it for the life of him after he woke.

The charm was dependent on the hangings being closed, so he kept his alarm clock beneath his pillow instead of on the bedside table. It told not only the time, but the phase of the moon (as though he might forget) and occasionally carried messages such as “Rise and shine, lazybones!”, “Unfashionably late”, and “Go to sleep, Remus, whatever you’re doing isn’t that important.” It had been given to him by his mother, who fretted about him constantly. She always felt terrible that her health prevented her from doing normal mother-son things with him when he was at home, and worried terribly (his father informed him) when he was away, especially at full moons. At the moment, the clock read, “Sleep tight, pup,” as Remus drifted into dreams of scents and fur and night air.

***

At breakfast, yawns abounded at the Gryffindor table. “Oh, last night was so much fun!” Lily enthused. “Thank you so much, all of you...”

“It was —” James yawned hugely, neglecting to cover his mouth — “no problem, Lily.” There were nods of agreement all around.

“But still,” insisted Lily, “it was lovely.” She kissed James on the cheek.

“Ooh, do we get kisses as well?” asked Sirius hopefully.

(“I’ll pass —” Margaret interjected hastily.)

“I should think not,” James snorted. “You only get a kiss if you're her boyfriend, which you most certainly are not, Sirius.” The taller boy looked crestfallen.

“I’m sorry, Sirius, but you know him — he gets terribly jealous,” Lily murmured, patting his hand in a motherly fashion.

“Especially when you and Remus revise for exams together,” Margaret commented, recalling the preparation for O.W.L.s the previous year.

“For hours on end,” added Peter.

“Well, if any of you bothered to study —” Lily began. O.W.L.’s were a rather sore subject still.

“I study!” Margaret exclaimed.

“Yeah — with your Ravenclaw bookworm.” Arabella snorted, though she was guilty of ‘studying’ with Snape quite often.

“What’re you doing faffing about with him anyway? He’s a —”

“— Nice guy,” Margaret finished loudly, glaring at Sirius out of deep brown eyes.

He shrugged back. “If you say so, Meg.”

“Oy, Remus, you all right?” Peter asked, poking him in the ribs. Remus started and glanced up from his toast inquiringly. “You looked like History of Magic — didn’t you sleep well?”

“I did,” answered Remus uncertainly, “but I didn’t wake very well.”

“I don’t think you’ve woken at all yet,” Sirius informed him; he flitted between conversations like a hummingbird between flowers, or a dog between Frisbees.

“And you didn’t even stay up with us last night!” James commented, spearing more toast with his fork.

“What were you boys doing last night?” asked Arabella. “Having another orgy?” She smirked evilly at James, who spluttered and turned red. “I think your boyfriend needs a tune-up, Lily.”

Lily smiled. “He was fine last night. Perhaps it was their little post-party orgy that’s thrown him off.” James, who had recovered somewhat, now choked on his toast, much to everyone’s amusement. Sirius pounded on his back and James coughed the toast into his napkin, looking reproachfully at Lily as though she had betrayed him.

***

Their first class that day was History of Magic with Professor Binns and the Ravenclaws, and every single Gryffindor fell asleep. Remus managed to keep himself awake for the first half of the class by taking notes, but eventually that failed, as it always did (he had five years’ worth of notes on the first halves of Binns’s lectures) and he dropped off, much to the dismay of the prim Ravenclaw girl who sat in the next desk over, and always ended up blots of ink from Remus’s quill on the left sleeve of her robe; apparently, when he sprawled across his desk, his right hand landed right at her elbow. She was also in his Ancient Runes class, and liked him far better when he was awake and not drawing on her clothing.

After History of Magic came Defense Against the Dark Arts, taught by Lester Wilkes to the younger students and Amanita Sontuoso to the fifth year students and older. They were a retired Auror team, and both were very intense teachers; the Gryffindors supposed that it was a good thing they had napped in Binns’s class, as they were more recovered from their late night and better able to withstand Professor Sontuoso’s very hands-on methods.

Lunchtime saw a group of rather sore Gryffindors emerge from the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and trudge downstairs (or, in Sirius’s case, slide down the banister).

“Sometimes I think that woman is madder than Professor Kettleburn,” Peter remarked. Kettleburn taught Care of Magical Creatures, and was indeed rather insane: he was missing an arm, two fingers, and wore an eye patch over a disfigured socket, and still he cooed at hippogriffs and got starry-eyed over dragons — and he had nicknamed the giant squid in the lake “Trixie” and spoke to it every morning. He was a brilliant and beloved teacher, though, and they always went eagerly to his lessons.

After lunch, they took a few moments to steel themselves before venturing into the Potions Dungeon. Today they would be testing the Regeris Potion they had begun to brew on Monday. For the first time, Remus was quite glad to be paired with Snape, as each student’s potion would be administered to his or her partner; the boy was an insufferable git, but he knew Potions, and wouldn’t mess this up. There would be no unforeseen side effects of Snape’s brew. However, Remus was also nervous about Potions — eventually, they would have to use aconite in something. Brindle could not keep making exceptions for him. What then? A teaspoon of it could kill him.

Happily, the experiment with the Regeris Potion went well enough. The sensation, Remus decided, was quite unlike being under the Imperius Curse, which he had experienced with Sontuoso the previous year. Regeris actually made him desire immensely to shine Snape’s shoes; it was nothing like the drifting, dreaming feeling of Imperius.

Most of the Slytherins were rather uncreative, and had their partners clucking, barking, braying, and crawling around on all fours (when their potions had any effect at all), but others were considerably nastier. Arabella was made to French kiss pug-faced Alec Parkinson (Remus was quite sure from Snape’s livid expression that there would be hell to pay in the Slytherin dorms that night), and Margaret slapped Lily and called her a “puke-faced whore.” Poor Peter had to hop in circles on one foot with his finger on his nose and his tongue on his elbow, which he couldn’t quite achieve. Sirius and James wouldn’t say what they would have been made to do (probably something like mooning the entire classroom), except Crabbe and Goyle were tremendously stupid and their draughts had no effect whatsoever. Professor Brindle seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, observing the humiliation of his students with something approximating a horrible smile stretching his mouth open and revealing yellowing teeth.

The Gryffindors, however, gave as good as they got. Crabbe and Goyle first danced a tango, then seized Brindle by the arms and did a kick line, finishing by kissing Brindle on the cheek (Brindle glared daggers at James and Sirius, who were collapsing with laughter). Alec Parkinson got partway through a striptease (nothing indecent) before the effects of the potion wore off; Helena Strewick repeated, “For a good time, owl Lucius Malfoy,” at the top of her voice (graffiti in one of the girls’ toilets); Taylor Zabini begged James for sex (Arabella was, once again, trying to embarrass the Prefect). Peter’s potion, predictably, had no effect on Lysander Bulstrode.

And Remus certainly took advantage of his dominion over Snape. By the time the draught wore off, the Slytherin had snogged Drucilla Avery (Arabella pursed her lips in annoyance), conjured a beach ball and balanced it on the tip of his prominent, beaky nose while singing the soprano line of the Kyrie from the Mozart Requiem, and informed the class that he was a smarmy git who never washed his hair.

After all this new mayhem, Professor Brindle was quite vexed; he assigned an essay (“On Interchanging Aconite and Dogwood”) and shooed them out of the classroom early. The sixth year Gryffindors went their separate ways — Lily and Margaret to the library, Arabella off somewhere secluded with Snape, and the boys up to Gryffindor tower to continue planning.