A Chance You Only Get Once

Chapter Twenty Eight
The Erinyes' Fury

A flash of blue-white light erupted from the wands of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black. For a moment, Peter was frozen in midair, his small body for twisting madly. Ronald Weasley yelled as the rat fell and hit the floor. There was another blinding flash of light.

Then Peter began to sprout, his head shooting upward from the ground; limbs popping out. Then the man that Remus had thought dead for so many long years, whose death he had mourned as the final cruel blow in the end of the War, the man that was responsible for the twelve years of darkness and despair that Sirius had suffered, the man who had betrayed him and given him the strength to escape Azkaban itself, was before them again. Of all the things that could have been going through their minds as their old friend, their betrayer, leapt into their lives again, the only thought that popped into both of their minds was that Peter had changed as much as they.

But he was still up to his old tricks. He was already sniffing for the exits. "Well, hello, Peter," Remus said pleasantly. "Long time no see." Sirius wondered if Marissa would have spoken to Peter that way. Remus wouldn't have been able to do it before he started dating her. He had only really started taking on some of her mannerisms since her death.

"S-Sirius ... R-Remus," for his first words in twelve years, it was rather disappointing. Considering the dire nature of the situation, he really should have tried to do better. "My friends ... my old friends..." That was considerably worse. Sirius raised his wand, and Remus had to hold him back. Remus gave him a stern look, the same one that Peter had used to turn his friend's against him years ago.

His voice was calm and pleasant as if he were doing nothing more personal than teaching a history lesson, "We've been having a little chat, Peter, about what happened the night Lily and James died. You might have missed the finer points while you were squeaking around down there on the bed -"

Remus was going to make him squirm. He was going to watch him squirm and squeak about fearfully. His vendetta was all the years of being alone and having to wait. He would make Peter be all alone as the world crashed down upon him. Sirius just wanted to blast him apart. Remus wanted to torture him slowly.

“Remus,” Peter gasped, unused to using his voice after all of these years. “You don’t believe him, do you ... he tried to kill me, Remus...” Words did not flow as easily now. It had been too long since he had last used them. If he could just think in words again, his ability to talk his way out of anything would have returned. It might even have been enough (he had, after all, convinced far more demanding audiences than three thirteen year old wizards), but he could not summon that gift now. He didn’t have to convince Remus. He only had to convince Harry and Ron and Hermione. Remus could argue to them all he wanted if Peter could just convince them. Even Sirius wouldn’t harm Peter if those three took a stand for him. But words would not return. Everything he said fell into logic traps that he could have avoided without even so much as blinking twelve years ago. He had been good at lying and getting away with it. The skill, however, was woefully out of practice.

“No one’s going to try and kill you until we’ve sorted a few things out,” Remus said, staring at Peter as if he knew what he had done to Marissa. Remus was looking at him calmly, and his voice was steady, but his eyes burned into him with such hate as if he already knew that Peter had destroyed his world not once but twice. Would he ask?

If he would only ask, then Peter could derail the discussion and get it back on his terms, with him firmly in control of the situation. After all, Black and Remus would still be thrown by talk of Marissa. They rollicked in guilt about Lily and James, but they could not be shaken. They were ready for him with every single line of discussion he tried to provoke concerning the Potters. If only he could get them to mention Marissa, they would be thrown enough that he could take control of the situation, or better yet transform and get the hell out of there.

“Sorted things out?” he squealed. “I knew he’d come after me! I knew he’d be back for me! I’ve been waiting for this for twelve years!”

Remus was ready on that argument, and Peter’s reply about Dark powers produced the most frightening sound yet. Sirius Black laughed darkly. It sounded like Regulus’s victorious cackle of laughter. Peter flinched to hear it.

As the discussion continued, Peter considered telling them the truth. He nearly immediately dismissed the idea. The knowledge that he sent someone else to Azkaban would scarcely calm Sirius now. It didn’t even really matter anymore why he had done what he had done. Sirius went on about why he thought Peter had joined them in the first place – as if Voldemort were a protector! As if Voldemort had been trying to help him! As if he wouldn’t have had a much better time on Dumbledore’s side even if he did end up dead by the end of it! He caught himself mumbling about the lunacy of Sirius’s pathetic, ignorant theories out loud.

And as for Sirius thinking that he would want to rejoin Voldemort if given the chance, Peter was looking out for that. The thing was, he was looking out for that in fear. Yes, he was scared of Voldemort’s old supporters, but because they could always control him. He was on the lookout for Voldemort himself so that he would know how to come back to him in a way that wouldn’t get him killed on the spot. He was afraid that Voldemort would come back. He knew that, if he did, he had to be ready for it.

Then Sirius was explaining how he escaped. Peter was somewhat impressed that he had figured out his plan. He hadn’t originally intended it, of course. He had been Ron’s brother’s rat originally. It was pure dumb luck that he ended up in the same room as Harry three years ago. But Peter could improvise. If he could do that, then he would have a place on the winning side when they rose again. He would save his last, ultimate betrayal, however, for when he would be honored for it rather than killed. Why do it when Albus Dumbledore would find him and kill him? Why not wait until Voldemort would reward him? Why not wait until Dumbledore had bigger fish to fry?

“Believe me,” croaked Black. “Believe me. I never betrayed James and Lily. I would have died before I betrayed them.” This was all that Sirius had wanted for twelve years, Peter knew. He wanted the forgiveness of a Potter. He wanted to be believed. That was what he craved above all.

The last remaining Potter nodded. Peter shrieked. How he longed to be forgiven even longer than Sirius, and he would never be granted it. He would never receive that swift nod of forgiveness and belief and trust. “Sirius - it’s me … it’s Peter … your friend … you wouldn’t …” But Peter knew that Sirius would even before he kicked out at him. He knew that Sirius would go through with killing him, that he wouldn’t back out, when he had spoken about his “prank” on Snape so coldly a few minutes ago. He still believed just as strongly as he had then that someone who had caused the death of someone else (in his mind) should die painfully. He didn’t regret trying to kill Snape all these years later.

“There’s filth enough on my robes without you touching them,” Black snarled at him. Peter heard that cruel Death Eater’s voice out of his memory of so long ago. Terrible thing to do to a child, but what can you do with them once they're already warped?

“Remus!” Peter cried imploringly, reaching out for his last lousy string to pull. “You don’t believe this … Wouldn’t Sirius have told you if they’d changed the plan?” That had been his plan if it ever came to his word against Sirius’s – Remus’s estrangement would save his neck yet again.

But not this time. “Not if he thought I was the spy, Peter,” Lupin said calmly. He had truly learned to keep his inner demons under control. Then again, werewolves had to master this. They had so much practice as well. “I assume that’s why you didn’t tell me, Sirius?” He looked casually over his head. It was the same flippant tone that that horrible Death Eater had used years ago. Who can tell? One minute the world is happy and gay, and the next it is bleak and gray. Oh, well I guess you know that now, Petey boy, don't you?

“Forgive me, Remus,” said Black.

“Not at all, Padfoot, old friend,” said Lupin as he rolled up his sleeves. It pained Peter how easily that forgiveness had been given when he would never have any in the rest of his (probably short) life. “And you will, in turn, forgive me for believing you were the spy?”

“Of course,” said Black, the ghost of a grin on his face. Was it so easy then for him to go back? So easy to reclaim something of what he had lost? Why could Peter not regain the smallest piece? “Shall we kill him together?”

“Yes, I think so,” Remus said seriously.

“Ron, haven’t I been a good friend … a good pet? You won’t let them kill me, Ron, will you … you’re on my side, aren’t you?” Oh, let him have one friend left in the world, even it was only a boy that had thought him a rat all these years.

“I let you sleep in my bed!” he cried in revulsion. Everyone will think you a killer. You will deserve your fate to them. Then they will forget you entirely.

“Kind boy … kind master … you won’t let them do it … I was your rat … I was a good pet …”

“If you made a better rat than human, it’s not much to boast about, Peter,” Sirius said harshly. What did he know about it? Ron yanked his broken leg out of his grasp. Sirius had said it himself, emotions were less intense in his animal form. Rats were never faced with impossible choices. They were never given a choice between a life you would hate and a fate worse than death. It was easy to be a good rat. Life was simple as a rat. As a rat, he had never been given an impossible choice. You see, Petey boy, no one ever joins the Dark Lord under coercion. It's always a choice. They always have a way out. Azkaban is yours, and that little knife. So, we're all waiting. What will it be, Wormtail? We're waiting with bated breath for your decision.

“Sweet girl … clever girl … you – you won’t let them … help me …” he said, pulling on the hem of the girl Hermione’s robes. She was the one with sense. She was the one in their group most like him. Sensible, cool-headed. She would know better than to kill him. But she pulled her robes out of his reach and turned toward the wall. They will despise you, hate you, wish that they had never let you into their circle. All of them. They will stop fighting for you.

There was nothing left for it. “Harry … Harry … you look just like your father … just like him…” Peter didn’t care how low it was anymore. There was nothing else to be done and no more tricks up his sleeve. He didn’t care if it made him vermin to use James to save his skin when he had sacrificed James for his own. He had known eighteen years ago that he could never be forgiven. He had known when Marissa died. He was vermin. There was no scrap of honor left. There was no going back.

“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO HARRY?” Sirius roared at him. “HOW DARE YOU FACE HIM? HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT JAMES IN FRONT OF HIM?”

“Harry,” he whispered carefully, shuffling towards him as humbly as possible. “Harry, James wouldn’t have wanted me killed … James would have understood, Harry … he would have shown mercy…” But he was being yanked back and dragged backwards along the floor by his two former friends. And do you know, Wormtail, what you will see even more often? The look on your friends faces. They will change, you know.

“You sold Lily and James to Voldemort,” Sirius demanded, wanting to hear him say it. “Do you deny it?” First it will be disbelief, horror that this could happen to you. Then the horror becomes not your dilemma but you yourself.

Peter burst into tears. He felt the truth rising up within him. He wanted to tell them before he died. “Sirius, Sirius, what could I have done? The Dark Lord … you have no idea … he has weapons you can’t imagine … I was scared, Sirius, I was never brave like you and Remus and James. I never meant it to happen … He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named forced me-“

But Black would hear none of it. He would not wait to hear that if Peter hadn’t joined them the Death Eaters would have killed his mother. He did not want to hear that Peter had been fifteen and terrified and Confunded. “DON’T LIE! YOU’D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!” Despite the terrible situation, Peter could help feeling a flickering of pride that he had fooled them so well even now. They thought that it had only been a year? As if he could be far gone enough to kill Lily and James after just one year!

Then panic overwhelmed him again. “He – he was taking over everywhere! Wh-what was to be gained by refusing him?” Is that to be the rest of your life, Wormtail? Dementors and lost friends and no one left to love or care for you? No one will ever know the noble thing you did. No one will ever believe it. You will be a monster to them. Or will you become the monster and let them think you the angel? Will you spy and serve the Dark Lord or let everyone think that you did anyway while you rot in Azkaban and relive this moment and the others to come until your life is worthless even to you?

“What was there to be gained by fighting the most evil wizard who has ever existed?” Sirius cried in disbelief and fury, the same murderous fury that had nearly killed Severus Snape eighteen years ago in this very place. “Only innocent lives, Peter!” You would never know if we let your mother live after all you went through to save her.

“You don’t understand!” Peter whined desperately. “He would have killed me, Sirius!”

“THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE DIED!” Sirius roared over him. “DIED RATHER THAN BETRAY YOUR FRIENDS, AS WE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR YOU!”

Tell me, would your friends want you to be noble? I suppose you could be thinking that now.

“You should have realized,” Remus said quietly, “If Voldemort didn’t kill you, we would. Goodbye, Peter.”

So it was to be Remus Lupin’s voice that was the last thing that he heard. And the last thing that he thought was the voice of that Death Eater and that choice that had led him to this end. You would live doubting and wondering and torturing yourself and in a prison of your memory of this moment and this choice. And do you know, Wormtail, what you will see even more often? The look on your friends faces. In this terrible moment that he thought was his last, Peter realized that this curse would have been his future no matter what choice he had made.

“NO!” Harry suddenly yelled. “You can’t kill him.”

Peter couldn’t even see anymore. “Harry, this piece of vermin is the reason that you have no parents! This cringing bit of filth would have seen you die too, without turning a hair. You heard him. His own stinking skin meant more to him than your whole family!” Loyalty, that's what really matters in the end. It's the difference between a monster and just an enemy. The highest virtue and the hardest thing to get back if you've lost it. This was a very different voice in his head. Marissa Fletcher. That was almost more unbearable.

“I know, we’ll take him up to the castle. We’ll hand him over to the Dementors. He can go to Azkaban … just don’t kill him.” If you choose your mother's hands, then you will join us. Only fair, as we have saved you from Azkaban.

The next thing that really penetrated his tortured mind were the words of Harry Potter, “He can go to Azkaban. If anyone deserves that place, he does.” You will deserve your fate to them. Then it was that Peter finally, at last, understood the great trick of the Dark Lord. He finally understood the great deception that had been practiced on him. They had threatened him with everyone thinking that he was worthy of Azkaban, that he deserved it. Now, years down the road with his soul damned to hell and everything that had once been good about him gone, he really did deserve it. His friends were all looking at him in the way that he had feared all those year ago. And the worst part was, that he finally, at last, deserved Azkaban after all.

He was finally utterly alone. Surely you don't believe that no one loves you. You must never believe that, Wormtail. Marissa’s voice in his head was torture because her words could not be more untrue. He was alone, and he deserved to go to Azkaban, the fate that he had damned himself to avoid.

* * *

The Marauders and Lily entered the train and sat down quietly in a compartment. They were all forcefully reminded of the last time that they had all been piled onto the train at the beginning of the year. They had all be silent then too. Pressed down by memories they didn’t want to face and losses from which they were reeling. They had all had their own, personal burdens then. Now, they knew exactly what demon was torturing Remus Lupin behind his haunted eyes and what was the cause of the deep circles under Lily Evans’s. They knew why James Potter’s hair was in a messy halo around his head even worse than usual. They knew what torment kept Sirius Black silent. It was the same one that festered and burned within them. As for Peter Pettigrew, he was destroyed.

It was the end of more than Marissa Fletcher. It was the beginning of the end of Peter Pettigrew. Her death was the end of Wormtail the Marauder and the beginning of Wormtail the Spy. Wormtail the False. Wormtail the Betrayer. Marissa Fletcher, who seemed to have figured it out, had been his last hope of salvation. He still could have gone to Dumbledore and been forgiven. His friends may have helped him, but he knew that they would still have turned away from him when they knew that he had caused the death of their angel. Everything that had made him good had been disappearing ever since that fateful day this summer. Marissa had still been able to see the evaporating good in him, knowing everything. He had seen that in her eyes. Now she was gone, and no one else would be able to see it if it was still there. No one else would be able to find it. Least of all Peter.

When the train jerked into motion, Remus rose slowly. “Prefect meeting,” he mumbled in response to their questioning looks. They let him go. He walked out of the compartment and into the corridor. He made it down two cars toward the front of the train before he stopped dead in his tracks.

There was Severus Snape, standing in the hall as cool as you please. At least, that was how he looked to everyone else. Marissa Fletcher would have been able to instantly see that his hair really hadn’t been washed for days and that his skin was so pale now that it almost seemed possible to see through it to his innards. No one else was equipped to realize this, and he did, after all, have to maintain the illusion that he had not cared for the girl.

“You,” Remus snarled softly. The few other people in the corridor turned and looked back and forth between them nervously. Though Snape was usually the one to watch in these encounters, they found their eyes drawn to the gaunt, pale and positively viciously looking Remus Lupin who stood looking at Severus Snape with a look of utmost hatred that no one could remember ever seeing on his face. “How dare you come here!” he shouted at him.

“It’s the school train, Lupin, you do not own it,” Snape snapped. He did not want to have this conversation. He was a gifted Occlumens, but he did not wish to test it prematurely. Until he knew that he could hide her, Severus Snape did not want to test talking about her.

Luckily, Remus Lupin did not want him to talk. “Shut up, you little snake!” Remus yelled at him. “How dare you come near this school? How dare you come where she walked? YOU KILLED HER!” The entire train probably heard Remus Lupin’s feral yell.

“Would you accept my alibi?” Snape asked coldly.

But Remus Lupin had already come barreling toward him with a roar of rage. The next instant, he was pinned up against the wall by a force that felt too powerful to be a mere punch from the sickly Remus Lupin. Then Lupin’s hands were curled around his throat, and he was being held up by his neck, several feet off of the ground. Snape’s eyes went wild, and his ever-present guarded expression vanished.

“Just knowing you killed her! She was killed because she felt sorry for you!” Remus shouted in his face as he searched his slimy skin for his windpipe, not caring about anything but that in this moment. James and Sirius yanked his arms back and dragged him forcefully back further away from Severus Snape who sank to the floor with a flop. “YOU KILLED HER! YOU KILLED HER! MURDERER! MURDERER!” he screamed as he jerked wildly to get free of his friends. “Knowing you killed her! She died because of you! MURDERER! Behold the murderer of Marissa Fletcher! KILLER! YOU WERE THE DEATH OF HER!”

“REMUS!” the voice was at once a sharp reprimand and a desperate plea. Remus’s heart stopped at the similarity to the voice that he had thought he would never hear again. He had never noticed before how very similar Lily Evans and Marissa Fletcher sounded. It almost felt like Marissa’s voice yelling over him to stop his madness. But it was not Marissa’s sparkling crystal blue eyes but Lily’s large, strong green ones that swam into view a second later. They did, however, penetrate his enraged haze. He became aware of her hands on either side of his face. She was holding it still with all of her strength, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Remus, stop it. Stop it.”

The feral, furious expression broke and fell off of his face. He had never looked more lost than in that moment when his rage fled from him, leaving him very much alone. He sagged and collapsed onto Lily Evans’s shoulder, sobbing and unable to stop himself. Lily held him, looking up at the other three boys with tears in her own eyes. One fell into the messy hair of Remus Lupin as she tried to calm him, not sure that it would be a mercy.

“Get us a compartment,” she said simply. James understood first. He went to the nearest door, threw it open, and barked at the first years to get out. Because it was James Potter, they did. Without a backward glance at the students that he had inconvenienced, James held the door open for Lily to drag the helplessly sobbing Remus into the compartment. They collapsed back onto one of the benches.

They sat there with James, Sirius and Peter looking uncomfortably on for what felt like hours. Lily whispered comforting but meaningless words to him. Remus cried and clutched at her. Finally, James sat down next to them and put a comforting hand on Lily’s shoulder when he realized that tears were streaming down her face as well. Sirius fell back onto the opposite bench, burying his face in one of his hands. He did not shed any tears, but the broken look on his face was almost worse. Peter Pettigrew simply stood there and watched, accustoming himself to the torture of pretending but never again being a part of this group. It was easier than he had originally imagined. They were a fractured group now.

At least, that was what Peter Pettigrew thought as he looked on. What he did not understand, turned toward the self-centered view of the universe that was essential for a follower of Voldemort, was that however shattered and torn they were individually, they had finally been bound together in a way that nothing could break. They knew the same terrible, unspeakable pain. They shared it together. They bore it with their combined strength for with only their individual it would have felt impossible. It would have taken an irreversible toll on them. Together, they could survive and retain what they were before the shattering power of the death that had rocked their lives.

Shared tears weren’t capture the flag, but they would do.

In the end, it had the same effect. They were still the Marauders. Mr. Moony, Mr. Wormtail, Mr. Padfoot, and Mr. and Mrs. Prongs. Life would go on for them. They had always loved life in their group, none more than Marissa Fletcher. She would have been livid if they hadn’t lived theirs to the fullest as she had given up years to be able to do herself.

* * *

The thestral-drawn carriages were so terrible that Lily considered refusing to board them. She could not even see the horrors that burned memories into the eyes of Sirius and Remus who could. They all climbed into it, eventually, squeezing in together and not even minding how overcrowded the carriage was. They took comfort in the closeness.

Lily didn’t bristle at having to sit squashed up against James Potter. Sirius and James, for their part, were perfectly silent. So much more had changed since the last overcrowded ride up to the castle last year that these differences in seating order and talkativeness seemed insignificant. One thing was the same, however. They left a seat “empty” in the carriage even though they didn’t have enough room to seat themselves comfortably. A year ago it had been Mundungus under the Invisibility Cloak to whom they gave the place of honor as Marissa’s “unseen protector” from Sirius Black. Now, Marissa herself was given the place of honor - “sitting” between Remus and Peter. It was her ghost riding with them up to the castle.

When they left the carriage, she did not follow. Remus was the last to leave it. She was already gone when he took one last look around the inside of the carriage.

He turned around and took his place in the straight line facing the castle that his friends had formed. They were all looking up at the entrance that all of the rest of the students were streaming calmly through. They wordlessly stood looking up at this Castle, this haven, this home that they had come to love. They looked up at the home that was now without one of its integral parts, at least in their minds. This castle was the natural habitat of Marissa Fletcher. She was as much a part of this place as it had become a part of her and them.

Now, would the halls be empty? Or would they see echoes of her everywhere? Would they see shadows and reflections and lingering traces of her?

In unspoken consent, they all strode forward together through the great wooden doors that were the gateway to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

They sat down at their regulars seats at the Gryffindor table, the fourth years on the left and second years on their right making up for the space that Marissa had formerly taken up. Lily sat next to Remus with James, Sirius and Peter on the other side. They stared at the golden plates and were silent as the chatter ranged all around them.

Dumbledore stood up eventually. "You may have noticed the decorations throughout the Great Hall," the Headmaster said quietly in the silence that immediately fell. The Marauders and Lily looked up and around in surprise, realizing that they hadn't even glanced at the black drapes that hung all over the hall. "For those of you who do not know, they are in honor of Marissa Fletcher who was murdered by Lord Voldemort over the Christmas holidays. The Dark Mark was found over her home. They are also in honor of Regulus Black who is no longer with us."

Gasps ran through the Great Hall. Face swiveled to look at her friends. Eyes scanned the table, looking for the smiling face of Marissa Fletcher as if unable to believe that it wasn't a joke. Most already knew. They calmed the ones who hadn't, whispering a confirmation to them. The hissing throughout the Hall was all saying the same thing.

"Marissa Fletcher was always a very large presence in Hogwarts Castle. She was a prefect for her house and brought it a great deal of honor. She was an embodiment of the virtues of Gryffindor. She braved many a detention to bring a smile to the faces of many in this castle. She had a deep sense of honor that kept her from using her influence to harm anyone. She was loyal to her friends and to her younger brother beyond all limits. She died fighting against those who would kill her family and protected her brother from the men who killed her. She was a unique spirit that Hogwarts will be a sadder place without.

"In the world we live in now, hers is a choice that you will all eventually have to face. You will have to choose if you will fight to protect those you love from unspeakable evil or if you will join it. When you leave these hallowed halls, you will be thrown into a world that is being torn apart by a war that builds on terror and the suffering of others. Marissa Fletcher was a young woman who stood for laughter and to giving hope to those who love her.

"Make no mistake, Lord Voldemort is evil. He has no respect for life even for those who serve him as Regulus Black did. He shows no mercy. He cannot build. He can only destroy. If you ever doubt Voldemort's true intentions, remember Regulus Black.

"When you are faced with this choice between what would save you danger and trouble and what is right, think about the choice that Marissa Fletcher made. She chose to fight rather than beg for mercy. She chose to stand rather than to give in to fear. She chose to die rather than turn on what she knew was right. She chose as you will be asked to choose. She was asked younger than most of you will be, but she rose to the challenge. If you ever doubt that you will be able to make the right choice, and if you ever doubt if you have the courage and strength to stand up to evil, remember Marissa Fletcher. If you ever think that this war is only for the Aurors to fight, remember the girl who was the farthest thing from a warrior but did not shrink from battle. She found the strength in herself to face down that evil. Remember her sacrifice to save one that she loved. If you ever think that the War does not need your help to win, remember the difference that one person can make. Remember Marissa Fletcher."

All of the teachers rose first with their glasses raised. Then the Gryffindor Table rose of one accord. The Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables rose less uniformly but just as solemnly. The Slytherin table rose as well. There were those who were conspicuous by their refusal to rise, but they were not the ones that most people would have thought. Severus Snape, Igor Karkaroff, and Tirone Quirrell all stood with glasses raised. Alexia Parkinson and Valerie Malfoy did so as well. All of the prefects and sixth years were on their feet. In fact, nearly all the older years stood. It was only the younger ones, and not all of them, who thought that they could afford to not stand. They were the only ones who did not want to honor Marissa Fletcher, even if they disagreed with the side that she had chosen.

"Marissa Fletcher," the Great Hall whispered as one. Tears fell freely down Lily's face, and she was not the only one who cried.

* * *

Lily paused at the stairs to her dormitory. James and Sirius watched her warily. Peter had already taken Remus upstairs. She looked back at them for a moment for strength. They could only look back at her helplessly. She turned back and began to climb the stairs.

She pushed the door open, not daring to pause outside it where she had first cried for Marissa. She beheld the sight again that had broken her heart and her world apart. It was just as hard to see as the first time, perhaps worse, because she had known it was coming.

Lily staggered under the blow, but she entered the room and stepped inside. The boxes had been removed and sent with Mundungus to the Muggle orphanage that he had been sent to when James's parents had been denied their adoption petition. Apparently not sending the child that they had already adopted (James) to school (in the Muggle world) did not help a couple gain custody of a new one.

Lily walked to her bed. She looked at the closer window. The room was shaped differently now that it didn't have to accommodate Marissa's four-poster and vanity. Lily's trunk was already at the foot of her bed. She changed quickly and slid into her bed. She drew the curtains around her. The rest of the room and the world vanished behind them, leaving her in darkness.

That, at least, was not different. Lily fell asleep pretending that nothing else had changed either.

* * *

Two weeks after term began, James Potter sat in Arithmancy staring morosely at the board without paying attention. Lily was taking such a dramatic amount of notes that he scarcely needed to anyway. There were things besides Arithmancy problems to trouble him these days. Lily and Sirius weren't sleeping. Remus and Peter were hardly doing anything besides sleeping. James got up earlier than he used to and flew around the Quidditch pitch every morning, going to bed earlier in the evening to compensate. Everyone else felt tired just looking at them. Circles were under all of their eyes. Lily and Peter picked at their food. Sirius and Remus ate as if they would never be able to eat again. James usually just grabbed a quick bite before heading back out of the Great Hall.

They all talked occasionally, but there was less laughter. They didn't plot or plan. Sirius was often out of the Tower. He told them that he was tracking down a riddle. No one cared to press the issue. Peter said almost nothing, but always looked as if his thoughts were running a mile a minute. Lily had thrown herself into school work. She answered nearly every question in class. James had always been happier on a broomstick, but now those hours and hours that he spent on the Quidditch pitch were what he lived for.

As for Remus, he walked around like a man in a trance. His eyes were always glazed over as if he were looking at something a hundred miles away. What he was seeing, however, was even further away. He was looking back through time. He was reliving old memories, often ones that were half-forgotten the moment after they happened but now precious.

The strain on all of them was showing, James knew. He wondered if anyone would intervene to help them. He wondered if there was anything that anyone could do. Maybe he would have to do it, but he didn't know how.

They were never all together anymore. He was running off to fly. Sirius was off on whatever mad scavenger hunt was helping to distract him. Lily was up in her room studying. Once she had overcome her aversion to it, she had spent a great deal of time there. Perhaps it was that the room was different. Everything else in the castle looked so deceptively the same.

Who knew where Peter was going when he wasn't passed out somewhere? Remus was nearly impossible to drag out of bed for anything.

What was happening to them and would it ever go away?

That idiot Skeeter woman's article in the Daily Prophet today hadn't helped matters. The woman had written an inspirational story based on the reconstruction of the fight between Marissa and the Death Eaters that the Aurors Mrs. Lupin insisted on had uncovered in their research. It was wartime rhetoric designed to stir up the masses. It was clear from the very first sentence that Rita Skeeter had never met Marissa Fletcher and had no idea what really made her special. Skeeter focused on Marissa disabling one of them and escaping from the house intact.

What said more about Marissa was her protecting her younger brother so thoroughly and the unique touch of sending one of her attackers head first into a roasting turkey.

James smiled slightly at that, but it fell off of his face. They had been doing a lot of that lately.

* * *

As James Potter was sitting and wandering these unanswerable questions morosely, Dumbledore and one of the finest young Aurors in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement were wandering about the unanswered questions surrounding the death of Marissa Fletcher.

"You say that several students received these letters?" the young man said, turning the black notes over in his hands. "Who were they?"

"Xavier Nott, Hestia Jones, Regulus Black, who was also killed over Christmas, and Dedalus Diggle," Dumbledore replied sadly. "Our caretaker as well, Benjamin Fenwick."

"Is there any connection between these people and Marrisa?"

"Not that my eyes can see," Professor Dumbledore replied sadly.

"I would like to speak with a few of the students who knew her. Where would you suggest that I start?"

"I suggest that you begin with whom you would be most comfortable," Dumbledore replied simply. "And I am certain that Mr. Black would like an excuse to leave his Divination lesson." The Auror's lips twitched briefly in a smile. Then he nodded solemnly. "I will send for him. You may interview him here. A word of caution, if I may, however. Do not press them too hard. Miss Fletcher is still a very delicate and painful subject for them."

"I imagine that she always will be for her friends," he said with a nod.

Sirius Black was, indeed, very much elated to get out of Divination. Even if it came with a summons to the Headmaster's office. He supposed that this was about the whole trying to break into the Girls' Dormitory thing. Sirius just couldn't let Marissa's last challenge to him go unanswered. He had never backed down from that girl's challenges, however ridiculous or odd. He wasn't about to start now.

"I can explain, Headmaster - " Sirius began automatically as he breezed into the room in a fair imitation of his former self. He stopped when he saw that Dumbledore was not, in fact, the one waiting for him in the Headmaster's office. "Ted!" he cried in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Still up to the same tricks, eh Sirius?" Ted Tonks laughed, standing and greeting Sirius with an affectionate slap on the back. "Sit down, you rascal. This certainly brings back memories. There never were more troublesome first years for any Head Boy before me."

"It was mostly to annoy Andromeda," Sirius laughed. Then he winced. Ted didn't. He smiled, but Sirius still felt like a jerk for having mentioned Andromeda. She had, after all, dumped him for another chump husband.

"She says hello and don't get caught, by the way," Ted said. "She misses you."

"You - you stay in contact?" Sirius cried in surprise before he could stop himself. "You're still friends after everything?"

Ted Tonks looked both highly amused and highly confused, "Well, what we've been through together hasn't really been all that bad, Sirius. I have certainly always hoped that I would at the very least be able to stay in contact with my wife."

"Your what?" Sirius demanded incredulously.

"You didn't know?" Ted asked in surprise. "We figured when you didn't attend that your mother didn't tell you about the invitation we sent you, but you really didn't know after all this time?"

"No," Sirius answered simply. "Mum and Bellatrix suddenly started crowing about Andromeda being married and pregnant and I just thought that for them to be so happy about it she must have married someone really slimy ... sorry."

"Not at all," Ted said with a small smile. "Andie was a bit crushed when you didn't show up to the wedding, but I'm sure that she'll forgive you if you visit. In fact, I rather hope you'll come and spend your Easter Holidays with us. Andie said to try to invite you. She was positively glowing with pride when rumor of your flight reached us."

Sirius was blown away. It was like an empty chamber in his heart was suddenly filled. His soul felt like it was back on solid ground. It was possible for a Black to turn out well. Andromeda hadn't gone back to the enemy. He had his family back. "Why were Mum and Trix so excited about it then?"

"Well, they could have been laughing at us fumbling around with our little Metamorphagus Nymphadora," Ted said affectionately. "Or it could have been that they did hurt Andie very badly. You see, it was Trix's last little joke. When we married, we expected our names to be mud with anyone that might hire us. Hers was. Mine wasn't. We thought it was an oversight or that Barty Crouch was outside of their influence. Then Andie realized their little joke. She had told them how she would be a useful member of society instead of a trophy wife like the rest of them. So they arranged it so that her husband could work and she couldn't."

"That sounds like the Blacks all right," Sirius muttered. They were silent a moment. "So what are you doing here?"

"I'm investigating the murder of Marissa Fletcher," Ted replied after a minute.

The bubble of happiness that Sirius had felt at learning that Andromeda hadn't betrayed him burst. That wonderful feeling of family, however, was still there. It was just buried under the crushing grief of losing the friend who had comforted him when he first thought he lost Andie. "What do you know?"

"Precious little," Ted admitted sadly. "It was planned and ordered, not a sport killing by the Death Eaters who did the job. In fact, it may have been common knowledge among many of the pureblood families. There was one person who found out who tried to warn her. This was found on her body by the second wave of Aurors who investigated."

At this, Ted Tonks extended a note for Sirius to see. He took it. It was written in a hurried handwriting that felt vaguely familiar. Marissa, run. Now. They are coming for you. "As you can see, nothing very specific, but still a warning. Do you any theories about who might have sent this note?"

Sirius felt the crushing grief replaced by another, even darker, emotion that consumed him even more thoroughly. "I think that I do," he said in a voice that held cold fury.

Remus had been right. Snape. She had been killed because of Snape. She had been trying to save him, so they had killed her. It didn't matter to Sirius, because he was a Marauder half-mad with grief already, that Snape had apparently tried to save her. He had failed. He had known and he hadn't done enough. He had known because Marissa had had to die because of him. It was his fault.

And Sirius would make sure that he would pay for that.

* * *

Sirius said nothing to the others. Remus needed no other burden. As much of the hate that he could have spilled on Snape had already been spent on the train. Lily's hate could not be diverted from Voldemort himself and the Death Eaters who had acted on his orders. James would want to fight Snape. Snape did not deserve that. Had Marissa been given a straight fight? Warning? A fair duel? No, they had ambushed her in her home in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. Because of Severus Snape.

As for Peter Pettigrew, he was too distracted. Besides Sirius's meeting with Ted Tonks, Peter's was easily the most eventful. James and Lily were happy to see Ted again after so long and congratulated him and Andromeda of the baby. They talked of Marissa, even the painful things, almost eagerly. They were happy that someone had finally asked; they were relieved that someone had finally made them talk about her again. They were tired of people understanding that it was hard. They were tired of not talking about her to avoid the subject.

Remus, for his part, was pained the entire time, but it was natural to pour out the running monologue that ran through his head. Little of what he said helped Ted Tonks, but it helped Remus Lupin a great deal to talk. Remus did not make Sirius's connection. James and Lily wouldn't have recognized Snape’s handwriting on the note if he had signed his name at the bottom of it.

Peter didn't glance at the note from Snape. Ted Tonks handed all of them two letters. Sirius dwelled on one and ignored the other. The others largely ignored them both. Peter Pettigrew had no use for the second note after he saw what happened to the black letter when it touched his hand.

Marissa had been right. She had said that that letter wasn't a warning for her. It was a warning for someone else. She was right. That pure black letter with no writing was for Peter. He just hadn't known. The glowing green letter that snaked along the letter, visible to only his eyes, told him just what he had feared since he received the news that Marissa had been murdered.

The letter was warning him not to tell her, to betray her, or to see her die. He hadn't known until that moment it really was his fault. He had suspected. He had feared. He had tortured himself with doubt. Now he knew. That was far worse.

That was the end of Peter Pettigrew. He had been disappearing ever since that day this summer, burrowing deeper and deeper within until he was hardly visible even to those who knew how to look into the deepest places in his heart. He had thought a thousand times that he had lost everything that was good about him. He had thought a thousand times since this summer that he had passed the point of no return. He had been wrong.

This was it. This was where everything evaporated into shadows and mist in his mind. This was the moment when his conscience finally, after a hard-fought battle, grew tired of screaming and fell silent. It never spoke again. After all, it had no argument to counter the one inescapable fact: by trying to turn his back on evil, he had killed the best person that he knew. There was no black and white or good and evil for Peter Pettigrew anymore.

Conscience-less men are called sociopaths and worse names. Sadists. Psychopaths. Terrorists. Voldemort was such a man.

Men who had given up on their conscience have no specific names. It rarely happens in history. Even the evilest men rationalize or simply define morals differently. Those who know exactly what they do and do it anyway, they are far more common than should be in the human race. The only comparable phenomenon to what happened to Peter Pettigrew in that moment is the creation of split personalities when something terrible happens to someone who can't handle it.

Having your conscience give up is rare, but that was what happened to Peter Pettigrew. That was what happened to a person who did not have the strength to choose either side of an inescapable dilemma that he was presented with. He did not have the courage to defy Voldemort or to join him. So he passed away to make room for someone who did.

The boy Peter Pettigrew died and never returned. The one who took his place called himself by the same name, had the same memories, laughed at the same jokes, spoke in the same voice, thought the same way, but he was no more Peter Pettigrew than Lucius Malfoy or Cornelius Fudge or Sirius Black were. He was a different person entirely.

The resemblance fooled everyone. Peter was gone. Wormtail took his place. No one noticed. Not even Ted Tonks, who witnessed the moment when doubt vanished and he went with it. Occasionally, Peter's ghost would resurface just to torture the miserable wretch that had taken his place. The one that took Peter's place suffered even more greatly than Peter himself had, but he was strong enough to carry on anyway where Peter hadn't been. He was strong enough to know something was evil and do it anyway.

* * *

There was one argument that could have convinced Severus Snape to end permanently his attachment to Marissa Fletcher. Having effing Karkaroff of all people Obliviate part of his memory might have done it too, but no one will ever know for sure as Snape can't remember it - for obvious reasons. What he could not forget was the annoyingly nearly constant presence of her little friends. They had gone from benign nuisances to actual threats. Of all the things in his association with Marissa Fletcher that he had hated himself for, the fear he had felt when he saw the feral, murderous look in Remus Lupin's eyes as he began to calmly choke the life out of him was the worst.

He had feared Remus Lupin. It was little comfort that the pure rage in his eyes would have terrified anyone - especially if the owner of those eyes had them by the throat.

It didn't help that Remus had since shrunk back down to his mousey self and even become a more pathetic wreck trying to pass for a human being. It was embarrassing to see and humiliating to think that he had feared that useless mess of a person.

The glint in Sirius Black's eyes, on the other hand, was a more understandable worry. Who knew what Black was capable of in anger? After all, he had always been far more prone to emotional outbursts than even Potter. From the reports, his attempted recruitment (Snape could have told them he was too stupid and principled to agree) had resulted in nothing but a giant temper-tantrum that not even the Cruciatus Curse could halt. Almost admirable how hard it was to break him of his bratty overdramatic fits.

If Remus Lupin could be capable of attacking him, Snape was a little surprised that he hadn't had to expend conscious effort to stay alive before now.

Truthfully, Snape's life could be threatened on several fronts. Karkaroff doubted his loyalty - that could be fatal if he was believed. Who knew what Black was concocting behind his menacing stare? Not to mention that Marissa might have told someone about his Mark before her death.

It was a true testament to Snape's skill that he did not have dark circles under his eyes. He stood upright. He walked at the same pace. The only detectable change was that his hair was less oily as he took extra pains to look presentable. It was his only visible sign of grieving. For a sixteen year old student, it wasn't a bad showing.

Sirius Black was not nearly so good at hiding his exploding malice for Severus Snape. The only reason that his plan did not fail was because everyone, even Snape, underestimated him. They thought that when Sirius provoked a duel in the middle of the Great Hall that that was his worst. However crippling the curses he fired at Snape, however powerful and terrible the magic that he fired at his eternal enemy, it was not the catharsis that would soothe the soul of Sirius Black.

Especially because Professors McGonagall, Flitwick and Delacour broke them up after only ten minutes of solid combat. The three professors had many different ideas about how to punish them (severely) for dueling in the middle of the Great Hall even though, beneath their anger, they understood the emotions raging through both boys looking for a way to escape.

Professor McGonagall wanted to sentence them to two months of detentions. Professor Flitwick thought that extra work and projects might help take their minds off of the situation and serve as an adequate punishment in the eyes of the rest of the school. Professor Delacour thought that they should shut them up in a room and force them to talk to each other. That was what she had been wanting to do with all of the sixth year Gryffindors when they started withdrawing into themselves.

Professor Flitwick thought that it was too dangerous to leave them alone together but was overruled when Professor McGonagall added that they would confiscate their wands and have them doing something useful while they glared at each other. So it was that Sirius Black and Severus Snape were stuck in a room without any magical devices unless you counted the several barrels of lacewing flies they had to de-wing. This was a stupid job to give them as it required a delicate hand and both boys were positively livid.

"Argh!" Sirius cried, letting loose a stream of other curse words as he hurled yet another lacewing fly he had handled too roughly across the room. It smacked into the wall with an unsatisfying squish.

"Another one, Black?" Snape sneered. "You really aren't anything but a brute, are you?"

"I see your damaged pile getting bigger and bigger all the time, Snivellus," Sirius sneered right back at him. "I wouldn't get on my high horse just yet if I were you."

Snape delicately lifted the wing from the lacewing fly and carefully placed it in the jar provided. It was not very full for all they had been working steadily at this for an hour. Snape cocked his head at Sirius pointedly. "Let's see you do that again," Sirius told him with a scowl.

Snape began. Just as he took a wing in one hand, Sirius said, "You do know you killed her, right?" and Snape tore the insect in half. Snape glared at him.

There was venom in his voice as he said, "I did not kill Marissa Fletcher."

"Not personally," Sirius clarified. "Knowing you killed her. She was killed because of you. You knew that she was going to die," he accused with a glare that would have struck terror into the heart of Voldemort himself if he had seen Albus Dumbledore use it. "You didn't stop it."

This would have enraged Snape even if he didn't know that it was probably true. Karkaroff's memory charm had left him most of his memory of that terrible Christmas evening. Only the true reason for the murder had been withheld. "All just because she felt sorry for you," Sirius added.

"Marissa did not feel sorry for me," Snape hissed furiously. "Someone like you could never understand what was between Marissa and myself, Black." He was very sensitive about his last name, Snape had noticed. It was an idiotic thing to be sensitive about.

"Try me," Sirius challenged, half rising from the chair he was sitting in.

"You think for one minute that I would tell you anything about something like that?" Snape looked up at him with pure hatred on his face. There was a moment's silence, then Snape added, "I am about as likely to reveal that information as you are to tell Dumbledore where you lot disappear to every month. Oh, did you think I hadn't noticed? Just how do you know, for sure, that that's not what got Marissa killed? She didn't even tell you that she was sick, did she?"

Both boys were near the breaking point now. Blows would be thrown very soon. "I'll tell you what, Snivellus, let's make a deal. Poke the knot on the trunk of the Whomping Willow and go through passage at the bottom the next time that you notice that none of us are at dinner. If you are satisfied, you tell me why you sent Marissa a warning that she was going to die."

Everyone would think that Sirius Black did it out of unspeakable anger in the midst of a verbal brawl. Dumbledore would call it a crime of passion. So would his friends. Snape would always think and say what it really was, but only Sirius Black would ever know that he had been capable of cold-blooded murder. He had carefully orchestrated that conversation. He had gotten Snape angry enough that he knew he would bite.

Not even Wormtail would ever know for sure that Sirius Black was capable of murder when not in the heat of passion, but it wouldn't stop him from betting his life on it only a few years later.

* * *

Two weeks after Ted Tonks' visit, things had not improved and were, in some ways, far worse. The Marauders and Lily had gotten marginally better at hiding the visible signs of grieving but not much else. They went to class more willingly and participated again. They made jokes and laughed at them, but not nearly as many as before. It could not all be contributed to the lack of comical asides from Marissa.

The vacuum left behind was much larger than it would have been if she were merely called out of school for some errand.

Lily stayed up in the Common Room far later than she had beforehand. It was not only because she couldn't sleep. She was having more trouble than she would admit facing the room that she had once shared with Marissa. James was worried about her stability. Lily was the strongest girl that James knew, even stronger in some ways that Marissa and often even more stubborn, but staying in that diminished room all alone was cruel and unusual punishment.

So when Sirius pointedly reminded James that they had to head down to the Whomping Willow that afternoon to get everything ready (for what he wouldn't say as they didn't have anything planned this month for obvious reasons), he immediately worried about the wisdom of leaving Lily all alone in Gryffindor Tower. Lily didn't have many close friends outside of Marissa. Oh, everyone in Gryffindor and nearly everyone outside of it liked and respected her, but she didn't have any confidants. She could have sat down with any group in the Common Room and been happily accepted for the evening, but she wouldn't. She didn't like the idea of thrusting her company on other people and would think that she was only tolerated because everyone felt sorry for her.

James felt the dueling loyalties pulling at him. A month ago, he would have laughed off the fact that Lily would want him with her. But a month ago, she hadn't need him. Marissa had whispered to him on her birthday something that he hadn't understood at the time. "Lily will need you soon. Don't leave her alone. Don't push her, but be there." She had gone on to make him promise not to take advantage of their new friendship.

Now James knew that she had been talking about Lily's certain grief at the death of her best friend. James intended to keep his promise to Marissa. He wouldn't push her, he wouldn't try to take advantage of the fact that Lily looked to him for comfort now that she had no one else at Hogwarts in whom to confide.

So James talked to Remus. He found that he couldn't look his friend in the eyes as he told him that he wouldn't be coming. Remus didn't seem to care. He barely seemed to hear. It hurt a great deal more than this indicated, but James did not always have the gift of seeing past Remus Lupin's very convincing masquerades. It had taken two years to discover the obvious, and then it had been mostly Sirius rather than James himself.

Sirius was furious, but when he glanced at his watch, he stopped arguing about it and yanked the Invisibility Cloak away from his best friend as Peter transformed and scuttled forward to trigger the knot.

Lily was sitting in the Common Room looking alone and lost as she stared into the fire when James returned to the Common Room after seeing his friends safely to the Willow. She didn't look up when he turned to stand behind her. He put a hand lightly on her shoulder, and she glanced up at him. It was worth the fight he would be having with Sirius in the morning to see the look on her face melt from melancholy and lonely to grateful.

Then something happened that had not occurred in a very long time. Lily Evans smiled at James Potter.

She stood up and nodded toward the Portrait Hole. "Let's go for a walk, I can't take another evening in here," she said simply.

Lily led him out of the Portrait Hole, but after that she let him take the lead. They wandered aimlessly down the halls. They eventually ended up near one of James's favorite spots. Impulsively, James pulled her out onto the window that would take them to it.

One of the things that James liked best was that you had to fly to reach it. So they had "borrowed" two old school brooms - Hooch had said she was going to dispose of them, honestly! - and placed them on the ledge so that they had easy access. James was slightly surprised when Lily immediately mounted the broom like an old pro and zoomed off leaving James to follow her into the air.

The rush of freezing cold wind took away all thoughts, froze his heart stiff and wiped out all grief. The thrill of flying when, by every instinctive natural law, you should be falling replaced all despair. What could not be done when you had conquered the air? With nothing but a broomstick, you could take to the skies like a bird.

Lily and James flew in circles, whooping occasionally and hollering excitedly for awhile. Finally, James waved at her to follow him and led her back to the spiral tower-top over which the brooms had been left. James swung off of his broom and grabbed onto a flagpole that rose out of the top of the curve. Lily landed nearly as gracefully a moment later on the other side. She was gripping the pole a great deal harder, but that was hard to tell by the light of the full moon shining down on them.

"The castle looks so beautiful from up here," Lily said breathlessly. "Wow." James couldn't help thinking the same thing, but he was looking instead at his companion, staring down at the scene before her so entranced. She looked down from a height that would make most people dizzy (and still made even Sirius nervous whenever her came up here with James) without a single trace of fear.

It was the first time in a long time that James Potter had really looked at Lily Evans. She was thinner than he remembered clearly, and pale. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her long red hair hung limp and unkempt, tied negligently in ponytail. The cold had brought a pink blush to her cheeks just discernible in the moonlight, however. Her green eyes were full of wonder and deep with emotion.

It had been a long time since James lost control of himself around Lily Evans, but he never consciously thought to reach over and kiss her. He kissed her tenderly on the cheek, not immediately pulling away even when the stupidity of his actions hit him.

Lily looked over at him in shock but did not appear immediately furious. James looked down in embarrassment, blushing as dark as Lily's hair. Looking down, he saw a tiny dark figure running toward the woods. James followed it with his eyes while Lily tried to formulate a response.

An image of Marissa suddenly flashed powerfully into his mind. GO! he heard her scream, her eyes wide with fright. Then she was gone and James could see what was happening far below him again.

A tree thrashed about too wildly for the mild wind for a moment, then stopped. "Oh, FRICK!"James yelled, leaning dangerously down as if he could stop whomever he knew had just gone into the Whomping Willow.

"James!" Lily cried, pulling him back upright by his arm. "Be careful!" she cried, looking at him in concern for his sanity. When he looked back at her, his eyes were wide and frightened. "What is it?" she whispered breathlessly.

"I have to go, Lily," he said with urgency and fear in his voice. He had seen Sirius and Peter go into the Willow with Remus already. The moon was out. They would have transformed. There was only one possibility. Somebody had figured out how to stop the Whomping Willow. They might even suspect the Marauders secret, but whoever they were, they were in danger.

Lily nodded, her face solemn with his sudden fear. "I'll go with you," she said seriously.

"NO!" James shouted, looking at her intensely. "Don't do that, Lily. You need to go get Dumbledore."

"I'm not going to let you go alone! You sound scared - I can't remember the last time that you sounded scared!" Lily argued. "I'm going!" She faced him, standing stubbornly and facing him.

"I don't have time for this!" James shouted in frustration.

"Then take me with you! There's nothing you can do to make me stay here!"

James stared at her for one second that couldn't be spared. "I'm so sorry, Lily," James said seriously. Then, before she could react, James had yanked the broom out of her hands and thrown it forcefully off the top of the tower and toward the ground.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lily screeched in disbelief. She pulled out her wand, "Accio broom!"

It began to zoom back up, but James was the Quidditch player of the two. He grabbed the broom and snatched her wand out of her surprised hand. He was off before she could do anything but clutch at the flagpole to regain her balance. "I'm so sorry, Lily!" he yelled back behind him as he pelted down to the ground in a suicide dive toward the Willow.

* * *

Severus Snape had had it. Marissa was dead. She wasn't there to protect her little friends anymore. There would be no consequences, no disappointed looks from her, no heartbroken blonde to deal with if they were expelled. There would be only blessed relief from their ridiculous and tedious accusations.

Black had been angry and stupid one too many times. He would pay for it now. He would pay for his carelessness.

* * *

Remus had already transformed or he would have been angry at the sound of footsteps coming down the passage. In his wolf form, he was furious and frenzied to bite, tear, kill. Even if he had tried, Sirius could barely have stopped his best friend from tearing through the trapdoor with his claws to reach the human flesh that he could smell with his heightened senses.

It wasn't until Sirius's heightened dog sense heard a crash come from the long, echoing passageway that he felt panic. James! he realized abruptly, recognizing the scent. I should have told James! He probably didn't realize it was Snape and came running in to save a hapless, overcurious first year! Sirius began to curse as he fought one best friend away from another.

* * *

Marissa had been right about James on Christmas Eve. He would have tried to fly down the chimney. This was made abundantly clear by the fact that he was pelting down the tunnel on his broom, flying in the dark, narrow, low passageway he knew so well on foot. He had to reach the person before Remus ... James didn't have room for those thoughts. He had to keep himself from getting killed long enough to warn...

"SNAPE!" James cried in shock, nearly falling off his broom and instead ramming it into the wall with a painful crash that sent him sprawling.

His rival reacted immediately, and the next thing that James knew, he was in the air hanging by his ankles. Snape slithered up to him slowly, a sneer curling on his lips. "You all had your little secrets, didn't you, Potter?" he said, enjoying his power over James as James tried to thrash out of it. They didn't have time for this. Any moment, Remus might figure out how to open that trapdoor. He had done it before. A werewolf was more dangerous than a wild one that way: he was far more cunning.

"The Mudblood and I figured out Marissa's," Snape said. "Now I'm about to find yours."

"Snape you have to get out of here now!" James yelled desperately.

"Or a horror that I cannot even imagine will befall me?" Snape sneered. "Threats won't work this time, Potter! You're in my power now! And I'll see you expelled for this! Your pathetic friend got all fired up and let part of your secret slip! You imbeciles are out now!"

Snape whirled around, leaving James hanging there with the tips of his fingers just out of reach of the ground. When James pictured his death, it had never been like this. He could see the trapdoor only a few feet away. Snape was almost at it, ready to emit a ravenous werewolf in to attack them.

"I know you didn't kill Marissa!" James yelled desperately. He had no idea what had made these words come flying out of his mouth, but he was immensely grateful for them a moment later when Snape's concentration was broken and he fell to the ground.

"SECTUMSEMPRA!" Snape shouted, spinning around with his wand out.

It felt like his face and chest were slashed open and the pain felt as if were twice as bad as if this had happened naturally. He was knocked to the ground, but James didn't notice any of it. He felt no pain. All he could think about was the blood spurting out of his chest and face. No. Damn you, Snape! Why couldn't you use any other curse! You've killed us both!

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO TELL ME I DIDN'T KILL HER, POTTER! I KNOW I DIDN'T KILL HER!" Snape roared at Potter who paid him no notice.

Only a few precious inches of insubstantial wood above them, the werewolf and the dog both smelled the blood - and lots of it - at once. Remus became enraged and dove at the handle to the trapdoor. He had it open before Sirius could compete with the superior wolf strength.

The tremendous snarl drew Snape's attention from his victim. He stared as the werewolf prepared to spring at him. A black dog tackled it to the side and he could hear a tremendous, fierce battle going on just out of sight.

James pushed himself up on shaking legs on pure adrenaline and slammed the trapdoor shut, magically locking it. Snape was staring in horror. James took advantage of this. "Petrificus Totalus!" he cried. Snape froze, horror on his face. "Mobilicorpus," James cried more quietly, drifting Snape ahead of him as he staggered back down the tunnel.

He never would have made it without picking up the broom. It had always been what metaphorically held him up and helped him make it through. Now his old friend literally supported him as he staggered, bleeding and weak, to bring his enemy out of harm's way.

When the burst out into the moonlight again, the Whomping Willow immediately knocked Snape to the ground with an almighty punch. James swiftly pressed the knot, but Snape was already free of the body-bind.

He did not seem to have recovered the power of movement so easily. "She knew," James could hear Snape whispering quietly. "She said she knew where you four went." Then Snape's voice went from incredulous to angry, "She chose a werewolf over me!"

"You assume it's Remus?" James asked, singing against the trunk of the tree.

"Don't make me laugh, Potter," Snape snarled.

"Don't have the energy for it at the moment, Snivellus," James said, bracing himself against the pain that he suddenly felt. The cold night air was seeping into his wounds, making him feel frozen.

"Curse you, Potter!" Snape said, yanking him painfully to his feet and dragging him up to the castle. They both collapsed in the Entrance Hall.

"What the hell - James? Severus?" Benjy Fenwick appeared before them half a second later.

"Get Dumbledore!" both boys cried in unison.

"No need, boys," said a calm, grave voice from the top of the stairs. Then Albus Dumbledore was running down the stairs and bending over James Potter. "Mr. Potter, were these wounds made by - "

"No," James said shortly, breathing deeply.

"What caused this injury, Mr. Snape?" Professor Dumbledore queried as if he were asking about the weather. This was not Dumbledore up to his usual tricks, however. When Professor Dumbledore lit his wand, his face was very serious indeed by its light.

"A curse," Snape answered. Dumbledore shot him a look, boring into him with his crystal blue eyes.

"A Dark Curse," Dumbledore said softly as he looked at him steadily. Snape stubbornly did not look away.

"The countercurse is -"

But Dumbledore said it without waiting. Snape stared at him. He was burning with the question of how Dumbledore could have possibly known the countercurse to a curse that he had just invented, but he didn't think that it was a good moment for him to point out the curse's originator.

The wounds closed seamlessly over Potter's face. There was not even a scar, but he looked terribly weak from loss of blood. "Both of you will tell me what occurred on the way to the hospital wing," Dumbledore said, lifting James to his feet and putting the boy's arm over his shoulder. In this way, Dumbledore supported James as they hurried through the castle.

"Snape found out how to ... freeze the Willow," Potter gasped. "Tried to find out ... where Remus ... had gone."

"And young Mr. Black and Mr. Pettigrew," Professor Dumbledore said mildly. James stared at him for a moment. Could he possibly know? "Whom did he find?"

"The werewolf that you've been keeping at Hogwarts!" Snape yelled suddenly.

Dumbledore calmly silenced him with his wand. Snape looked as if he wanted to hex Dumbledore but didn't dare. The Headmaster turned back to James almost calmly, "How did you come to see Mr. Snape run into such dreadful danger?"

"I was up on the roof - Merlin! LILY! I left her up there!"

* * *

After five minutes of standing in shock and another five minutes of cursing James into oblivion and imagining a thousands painful ways to make him suffer for this, Lily decided that she couldn't just stand here clinging to a flagpole. She would have to climb down.

This was a very bad plan, as simple as it was. She started as safely as she could. She slowly eased herself down into a crawling position and began to ease herself down the roof little by little, not letting any momentum build up by grasping onto the thick tiles of the roof.

Unfortunately, the tiles were not built for this. They were also a millennium old. So eventually, after several careful minutes of inching down very slowly, one of the tiles that Lily was clinging to broke.

Lily had no time to reflect that this whole thing had been a very bad idea as she slid right down the sloping roof. She barely managed to grab onto the edge of the end of the roof, holding herself up against an impossible fall only by her fingers.

She had no voice to scream and no mind to think. She was about to die.

She could feel the tile slipping even as her fingers did. Both of them would give soon. It was now only a question of which would give first.

It was the tile.

Lily was still grasping tightly to it when she dropped onto another sloping section of roof twenty feet below her which rolled her off another heart-stopping drop. This time, it was only two feet before she hit a stone rain gutter and, finally, stayed safely there for one moment as her heart started to beat once more.

Lily closed her eyes and wanted to cry and kiss the disgusting mess of twigs and leaves and solid, blessed, solid stone keeping her from another sickening fall.

When she dared to open her eyes again, Lily saw that ten feet away, there was a window. It wasn't open, but it was a window back into the Castle. Oh, the blessed, safe Castle!

Lily breathed deeply, shocked to find that it was her first in a while. She crawled more carefully than she ever had in her life, hugging the stone gargoyles that proved that she was as far as possible from the edge and death.

She reached the window and wanted to kiss it. It wouldn't open, and she wanted to curse it into oblivion. Instead, she took the large roof tile that she was still clutching convulsively and slammed it through the window. It broke and glass fell all around her. Lily didn't care about the glass cutting her.

She kicked the rest of the glass in with her boots and hopped through the window, falling to the glass-covered ground and sobbing with relief.

"Miss Evans!" the voice of Albus Dumbledore cried in surprise. Lily looked up to find herself in the office of the Headmaster who was staring at her in surprise. Lily couldn't remember ever seeing Albus Dumbledore look surprised before.

"James went to the Willow after someone," she said immediately, as if she hadn't just been in a life-threatening situation, as if she had simply been sent to deliver this message to Dumbledore, as if she didn't hate James Potter with everything in her at this moment.

Dumbledore paled. "Pinky, come please," Dumbledore said quietly. Lily wondered if she had gone crazy from the stress of the last few minutes. However, the next moment, a house elf appeared with a crack in front of Dumbledore.

"Please take Miss Evans to the hospital wing immediately and tell Madam Pomfrey to treat her for shock. Also tell her to be ready for a Willow-disaster."

"Yes, sir," the elf squeaked.

"I will speak with you shortly, Miss Evans," Professor Dumbledore said softly, then sprinted through the castle. He met the boys in the Entrance Hall prepared for the worst.

Pinky led a shell-shocked Lily Evans to Madam Pomfrey who put her into a Dreamless Sleep before the boys arrived.

* * *

James cried out loud and looked as if he would go to her when he saw Lily safe. "It would be unwise to wake her at the moment, Mr. Potter," Dumbledore said mildly.

"Headmaster!" Snape demanded angrily.

"When you are both treated, we will discuss everything, Severus, I assure you," Dumbledore said mildly. "Now, Madam Pomfrey, I give these boys into your care."

"I'm fine!" Snape snarled. "No thanks to Sirius Black!"

---

©KatyMulvaney6-5-2005