A Toilet and a Pumpkin Pastry

Chapter One

"See ya, Snivellus!"

Sticks and stones and all that, but Severus had a feeling that he would indeed be seeing those boys again, and perhaps then they would be capable of actually hurting him. He was quite right.

It developed into a form of personal vendetta, the kind that could (and probably would) go on for years. It wasn't so bad a first, with only James and Sirius to worry about, but it didn't take very long before Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew joined the club. They were only too happy to go after the sullen, solitary Slytherin that must obviously be a really nasty type since their friends didn't like him, and somewhere around there a line was crossed. What had begun as mere exchanges of snide remarks and perhaps the occasional tripping now became a matter of conjuring up 'better' and 'funnier' so-called 'pranks.'

Severus looked it up in a dictionary. A prank is defined as 'a trick that is intended to be amusing but not to cause harm or damage.'

Now that was rather amusing, or would have been if he hadn't been so sore from all the burns caused by them adding something in his kettle during Potions class, causing the whole thing to spurt like a geyser all over him. He'd managed to get through the day, though, without giving them the satisfaction of seeing him cry. However, when his bladder informed him that it was time to go, he simply couldn't stop the tears from falling as soon as he'd locked the door, and that was why he ran away in panic when his tormenters thought of the spiffy idea to practise the newly learned alohomora spell on the cubicle door with a cheering crowd behind them.

History is made by strange things. Falling apples, timeturners, love or a toilet cubicle. Anything has the potential to change the world (yes, even you) and in this case, History would take a different path partly because a stupid toilet door opened at alohomora even though it ought to have been charmed not to, but mostly because of remorse felt by an eleven years old boy.

Sirius hadn't known what they'd see once they'd opened the door - then again, there are only so many things one can occupy oneself with inside a toilet cubicle, except for the obvious. He hadn't counted on finding Snape crying. What he had counted on was that it was going to be hysterically funny, and was both shocked and horrified to find that it wasn't. It was just sad and awkward, and it made him feel like the worst kind of bastard.

And he couldn't forget about it. That night, he tossed and turned in his bed for several hours before managing to drift into sleep and confused dreams about running from toilet to toilet without ever finding on that was vacant, and everyone was standing around, laughing...

The day after, he kept throwing guilty looks at Snape's empty seat all through breakfast, and when the skinny Slytherin turned up ten minutes late for Charms, spent most of his time at the furthest corner of the classroom, and excused himself five minutes before class ended, Sirius couldn't take it anymore. As soon as class was over he went in search for the other boy.

Snape was sitting under a tree by the lake, for all the world reading a book. Closer examination revealed that his eyes weren't moving, and in any case it would have been a difficult task turning page even if he'd wanted to, since his hands were frozen stiff by the bone-chilling autumn wind.

Sirius approached with warily, unsure of what to say or do. Apologising wasn't something e was good at, and he hadn't made much effort to improve by practising. It shook him, though, to see how he'd affected Snape.

"Um... Sni... I mean, Snape?"

Snape's head snapped up, his eyes widening, and a heartbeat later he was scrambling clumsily to his feet while apparently trying to back away, and not having much luck seeing as the tree was still very much there.

"Wuh-what?! What d-do you want?" It could, of course, be that Snape was shaking with cold, or that he'd always had a small stutter, or that he'd been startled by Sirius' sudden appearance... or, of course, it could be that he was more or less scared stiff of the other boy. Sirius had to concede that the latter alternative sounded like the most likely one.

"Nothing! That is, I'm not going to do anything. To you, I mean. Er... That is... I wanted to say... uh... that I'm sort of... reallysorrywedidthattoyouokay?"

Severus was stunned, and definitively not sure he'd heard it right. "Y...you what?"

Sirius was on the verge of saying something along the lines of, 'You mean I have to say it again?', but realised in time that this would probably not be the best way of appealing to Snape's sense of forgiveness. Instead, he hung his head, glad for an opportunity to avert his eyes, and repeated his apology in a somewhat more coherent manner.

Severus had no idea to react, and thus opted for the 'blank stare' approach.

Sirius shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "Look... I... I know it's mostly us that have been... uhm... but if I promise that we'll stop, couldn't we just...?"

"You know you guys are bastards, right? Why should I forgive you?" The words flew out of Severus, liberated by Sirius willingness to negotiate a truce. A blush immediately bloomed on his cheeks and he sidled away along the tree's trunk, expecting a punch or... something.

Sirius also flinched away, blushing, and for an observer it would probably have looked rather comical. Thankfully, no observer was present, because for a moment Sirius really did want to hit Snape, and had there been anyone there to witness his humiliation... As it was, he glared at the other boy for a few seconds, before letting loose of a resigned sigh. "I know, okay? I know we've been scum. That's why I wanted to apologise. Because... because I don't want to be... someone who makes others... uh... sad."

"Oh... well... alright then." Yes, it was sudden, but Severus was a Slytherin after all, and what would be gained if he gryffindorishly stuck to his pride? Sure he wanted to, but he was alone and their name was Legion, for they were many.

There was an awkward silence. Actually, awkward didn't quite cover it, but Sirius was at a moment a bit stumped for words, and in any case had other things to try to figure out that were more urgent. Like, what the hell to say next.

After staring very productively at his shoes, he finally fished a squashed and rather soggy pumpkin pastry out of his pocket, clumsily unwrapping the sticky paper. "Uhm... want some?" he ventured, offering the crumbling pastry to the other boy.

Understanding dawned in Severus' eyes. "Oh, I get it, you were sent here to pretend to apologise just so you could give me that. You've probably hexed it, or put dog poo in it or...whatever!"

"No! That's not at all..." Sirius looked positively horrified. It hadn't even occurred to him that Snape would take it that way. He considered getting angry, but when he thought about it, that was exactly the sort of thing he and his friends might've come up with, so who was to blame Snape for being suspicious? "Look, I understand why you'd think... But here, wait, I'll have some of it..." He took a rather healthy bite from one corner of the pastry. "Shee," he said, spraying crumbs, "I didn't do anything to it."

Still looking suspicious, Severus accepted what must be though of as the peace offering and took a bite. A small bite. He hated pumpkin in all forms.

Sirius smiled encouragingly. "See? Isn't this a lot better? It was all so silly, don't you think? Being enemies and all that. Yeah, I know, it was mostly our fault, but that will change now! I'll talk to the others. I'm sure they'll agree that it's better if we just..." He prattled on cheerfully, and Severus wondered if Black would always be this talkative, because then he wasn't sure if things were really about to improve.

***

"Hey James, stop that, will you?"

James looked up in surprise and lowered the chosen projectile - a potato - that he'd been on his way to sling at the back of Snape's head. "What?"

"Just... stop it, right. I don't want to... I don't want us to do that anymore."

James frowned. "But... why?"

"Because... look, yesterday when we... when we opened that toilet door and he... He was crying, James. I mean, I don't want to make people cry. It's something mean, horrible... Slytherins do. And besides, he's a nice Slytherin. I didn't know that there were any, but I talked to him and he wasn't that bad at all. I don't want to be mean to someone like that."

James' frown didn't let up. Something was obviously wrong. And the he figured it out. "He put a spell on you! Oh, I'll get that nasty little..." He raised the potato once more, with a lot of feeling.

"No! No, don't!" Sirius actually grabbed his arm this time, and Remus and Peter - both hurriedly doing their homework for the next class - looked up in surprise at his raised voice. "No, please don't," Sirius added a bit quieter, as the two other boys leaned in to listen. "He's not put a spell on me at all, I just feel... really bad for making him cry, and I don't want to do it anymore." At this point, Sirius decided that calling for reinforcements was a good idea. It might be a low blow, but he was sure it was going to work. "That's right, isn't it, Remus? You shouldn't make people cry, right?"

"Um... no," Remus said, more to his homework than Sirius. A blush was creeping all over his face, because what kind of Gryffindor went around without saying something when your best friends were doing something you thought was wrong, like he'd been doing?

"See! You agree too, don't you, Peter?" Without waiting for an answer, Sirius turned back to James. "Can't we just forget about this? He's not really that bad, really. I mean, we don't have to be friends with him or anything."

"Er... okay, fine," James said, shrugging, "if it's that important to you."

And that's when Sirius realised that James didn't even hate Snape. He'd just done it because it was fun. But then again, so had Sirius. They'd all done it just because they had nothing better to do, and they all could've stopped it at any point, because honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal. And it had gone so far that they had made him cry, simply because none of them could be bothered to call a halt, even though they'd all known that it was wrong.

Feeling rather ill, Sirius pushed his plate away. James, beside him, had hurled his potato down the table, probably because, well, you couldn't eat it now anyway, could you? And now he was loading more gravy onto his plate. Remus was also looking a bit ill, and he blushed when he met Sirius' gaze. Peter was staring down at his homework with a stony look on his face. Sirius would remember that, later...

***

Remus was sitting in a windowsill, leaning his head against one of the cold glass panes and looking out over the castle grounds. His eyes locked on to a random student hurrying off to Quidditch practise and he let them follow the girl while his thoughts turned over and over the dilemma he'd been forced to face up to during lunch. How could it be right to let someone get hurt over and over again just to prevent that the same thing happened to you? It wasn't right. He knew it, and right there he made a decision to change. It was time to stop being paralyzed by fear. A lot of people had secrets and still spoke their mind. So would he.

***

The downside of the truce, Severus realised, was that once he'd agreed to it, it was absolutely impossible to get rid of Black. He turned up everywhere, chattering mercilessly and, it seemed, hell-bent on being his friend. As far as Severus knew, he'd never agreed to that. As far as Severus knew, if fact, 'No, I don't mind you not kicking the shit out of me, and if it's forgiveness you want, then fine', was not synonymous with 'Be my new best friend!'. But apparently, no one had told Sirius.

And to make it all worse, Lily was encouraging him! She thought that it was an excellent idea, and was really happy to see that Black had come to his senses, and really proud to see that some Gryffindors would live as they learned, and so on, and so forth. Sometimes, for all that he worshipped the ground she walked upon, Lily could really get on his nerves.

However, he still had the sneaking suspicion that should he put some effort in it he probably could get rid of the other boy. Unfortunately, that would mean upsetting Sirius, and consequentially his friends. Should that happen they would all be back on square one and he'd get kicked around again, and this time they'd be sure he deserved it, since not wanting to become friends with your repentant bullies was obviously a very mean thing to do.

And so he reluctantly accepted the other boy's persistent attempts at friendliness, and it appeared that this was all the encouragement Sirius needed. And even though Severus dreaded the prospect of seven years at Hogwarts with the maddening Black heir in tow, at least it made Lily happy, and he had to admit that the utterly befuddled and somewhat jealous look on Potter's face every time Black skipped off to join the Slytherin table was at least a small consolation.

***

Sirius was determined never ever to be mean to anyone ever again. Over the course of just two weeks, determination actually evolved to obsession.

"Traitor!" a random Slytherin girl he didn't know and had never had any kind of contact with before screamed after him. It was a normal enough taunt, he had betrayed his blood by becoming a Gryffindor after all. His reaction was instinctive, and his mouth opened to throw a searing remark back at her. But before the words flew, they got caught in his throat by the so newly acquired and fearsomely armed thought police.

Wait, what if she's just mean because the other Slytherins have bullied her to say nasty things to me? What if I'll make her sad, maybe she's really sensitive and starts crying for every little thing you say? What if she gets so sad that she'll never be happy again? It'll probably not happen, but what if?

And he just turned around and decided to take a detour to get to Herbology.

He was alone, which was rather unusual, and surprisingly pleasant in his own right. It wasn't often he was separated from the others.

Peter often is, though.

He didn't know where the thought came from, but he was immediately struck by the truth of it. Peter was often left out, and neither of them did anything about it. It was like they all thought 'Hey, he should just be happy he gets to hang out with us,' and that was enough.

He was certain now that it wasn't and vowed in his impulsive way to make sure that Peter would never have to feel lonely or left out again.

Sirius had another motive for this new course of action, though, but one he was barely aware of himself. Namely: He was feeling a bit lonely. For while it was true that Severus was his friend now - he had to be, after all; they spent time together every day - he wasn't as close a friend as James w... well, had been. James, confused by Sirius new strange habits and feeling rather neglected, now preferred to spend more time with Remus, who had also changed, but into a person James could understand better. And so, being more friendly towards and interested in Peter - who, contrary to Severus, wasn't as much hard work - also meant curing his loneliness somewhat.

***

When class ended, James and Remus watched in astonishment as Sirius pulled Peter off to the side, and after a whispered conversation the two told their bewildered friends that they were going to the library to study together. If James and Remus wanted to they could of course come with them.

Both boys shook their heads, not feeling very studious at all for the moment. They'd been planning a to pull a glorious prank on that uptight third year Ravenclaw who'd dared to tell them to quiet down the day before when they had felt like going to the library. They'd been staging a spontaneous performance of 'Why Slytherins are so nasty', a play they'd written the previous night, and the silly twat had the nerve not to appreciate it. He obviously needed to be punished.

James crossed his arms, radiating annoyance. "Huh. What's up with that?"

"What?" Remus said, looking rather taken aback.

"That! Him." James gestured at the door Sirius had just left through. "We've been planning that prank all day, and then he just takes off like that. And he took Peter with him."

Remus shrugged. "I guess they don't feel like it anymore. C'mon, it's not that big of a deal. I mean, we can do something else instead."

But James wasn't prepared to let it go. He followed Remus down the corridor, wildly gesticulating while he spoke. "But it's not just this, Remus! He's been like... like... I don't know what he's been like lately, but I don't like it. He's all squeamish about stuff we used to do before, and he keeps hanging out with Slytherins!"

"Um, Slytherins?"

"Well, one Slytherin at least. But it's not just any old Slytherin, it's Sniv-"

"We promised Sirius we wouldn't call him that anymore," Remus pointed out patiently.

"Oh, fine then. Snape. There, happy? But I don't get it. One day, we're all agreed that we hate his slimy guts, the next day, suddenly he's Sirius' new best friend." He spat out the last three words, as if they had a foul taste.

Remus eyes fell to the floor. Sure he knew that Sirius had always been the one closest to James, but it still stung to have his own company so recklessly dismissed as second-rate, even though he was pretty sure James didn't do it on purpose. "Well... Maybe he's trying to make up for us being so shitty towards him for so long." He swallowed, knowing that James didn't like it much when you disagreed with him. "I mean, we never go after anyone like we used to go after him."

James scowled, but said nothing. He couldn't really disagree, and for some reason he was suddenly feeling embarrassed. He snuck a glance at Remus, finding that his friend was looking just as uncomfortable as he was feeling, and decided that this was a good time to leave the subject. "Come on," he said, forcing himself to grin as he slung an arm around Remus' shoulders, "let's go nick some food from the kitchens."

Sirius and Peter entered the library chatting comfortably, more similar then they'd imagined and different enough to be interesting. Sirius was in the middle of a vivid description of that one time when he'd gone swimming with his family and a leech had gotten into his pants when he suddenly broke off in mid sentence.

"Hey, look over there, Lily and Severus! Let's go sit with them."

Peter nodded hesitantly, for while it was true that Snape seemed to accept Sirius - although to Peter it seemed like he tolerated him more than anything else - the same didn't appear to apply to Sirius' friends. But Lily was kind even if she was a bit highly strung, and he supposed that it would be okay while she and Sirius were around.

"Hi, can we sit here?" Sirius was smiling in a way that positively radiated anxious well-will.

Severus wanted so badly to say no, but a warning look from Lily made it clear that she would be very, very cross with him if he did, and he never wanted to make her angry. "I suppose so," he therefore replied with a voice that he tried to keep neutral. It still ended up more in the vicinity of hostile than most people would consider as polite, but Sirius never seemed to notice subtleties like that anyway.

Peter did, and flinched a bit before sitting down as far from the black-haired Slytherin as possible, while Sirius plunked down next to Snape and started chatting amiably about all the homework he hadn't done when he should and just how cross McGonagall was going to be with him, in a tone of voice that suggested that this didn't bother him at all. Lily smiled, shook her head at him and called him an idiot, but still in a rather kind voice. Severus tried - and failed - to ignore him and focus on his own homework. Peter fidgeted.

"So, what are you doing?" he asked unsteadily, wanting Sirius to stop talking so that Snape would stop trying to glare a hole in his notebook.

"We're just preparing for the next Potions class, Severus is helping me understand the tricky bits," Lily replied with a smile.

Peter opened his mouth to ask a question about the tricky bits himself, but one look at Snape's hostile face made him change his mind. Sirius grinned and nudged the boy sitting next to him in a friendly and familiar way that seemed to take Snape totally aback. "I don't know how you manage to figure those things out. It's all mumbo-jumbo to me."

"Maybe, if you actually paid attention in class, it wouldn't be," Severus said, inching away a little from Sirius.

Sirius pouted. "But I do. Or at least, I try to. But... well, sometimes I just can't." He shrugged. "I suppose I'm not really clever enough."

'Shoot me. Now,' Severus thought, but the filthy look he received from Lily prevented him from agreeing. "Of course you're clever enough!" she trilled, as always eager to be nice and perhaps overdoing it that crucial tad that could make you sound like you were talking out of your ass.

Sirius beamed at her, and then shot Severus a slightly hurt look before bending over his homework with an expression of almost comical helplessness. Peter, uncomfortable with the whole situation, looked away and wondered when, if ever, Sirius was going to tire of this. Or would Snape be the one to cut away first? And if that happened, would Sirius change back to his old self?

He hoped not.

***

Small things can have monumental effects. Sirius's decision to follow Severus left him changed, perhaps more than he realised himself. In effect, everyone around him was forced to take different paths than the one they'd been following. For some, the view didn't change much, and others set out on a trail that would sooner or later lead them to a steep cliff that might look like an end, but only would be if they were too scared to take a leap of faith.