Into the Fold

THE POTIONS PROJECT

Spring, 1976

By booting Severus out of Remus Lupin's study group, Potter and Black did exactly the opposite of making Severus lose interest in Remus Lupin.

They shouldn't have applied the overkill. They shouldn't have cornered Severus in a corridor and threatened to hex him, demanding to know why he wanted to know what was wrong with Lupin's mother.

Why shouldn't he want to know? Didn't Potter realise that Severus wasn't the only one who wondered what ailed Mrs Lupin? Hadn't he overheard the other students talking about it, murmuring baffled and uneasy questions to one another?

Severus had. And he was convinced that if Potter ever wanted to claim he hadn't, he'd be telling a lie.

Potter and Black's overreaction to Severus's curiosity had only piqued it further. Since their confrontation at the end of December, Severus had made it his business to learn all he could about Remus Lupin's disappearances.

He started with the assumption that nothing Lupin had told him was true. Why not, when Lupin and his friends did all they could to prevent anyone from verifying their story? Thus, as of that moment--early Thursday evening on the twenty-fifth of March--Severus could not have said where Lupin went when he left the school. As far as he knew, no one had ever seen Lupin at the Hogsmeade station around the time of his absences, getting on or off the Hogwarts Express.

What Severus did know were the dates of Lupin's absences since the beginning of the spring term. Lupin had been gone on the eighteenth and nineteenth of January, the sixteenth and seventeenth of February and the seventeenth and eighteenth of March. Each pair of dates followed the pair before by approximately one month.

Did the span of time between each pair of dates only approximate one month? Or was it exactly one month? It depended on whether you used the Gregorian or the lunar calendar.

If he counted the time before Christmas, Severus had been pondering the conundrum of Remus Lupin for six months. Now, sitting on his bed in the dormitory, on Thursday evening, the twenty-fifth of March, the question of the timing of Remus Lupin's absences sent Severus to the appendices of his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook.

It was a used book, so the lunar calendars in the back, spanning three years, were out-of-date. But as all the schoolbooks Mother had bought Severus were used, she had taught him long ago how to deal with problems like outdated calendars. A wave of his wand over the lunar calendar for 1954-55 updated it to 1975-76. The numbers shimmered and changed. The tiny pictures of the phases of the moon skittered over the page.

Severus was not at all surprised to see where the pictures of the full moons landed in the lunar calendar for 1975-76. He eyed the smiling faces of the men in the moons with grim satisfaction. The January full moon perched in the square belonging to the seventeenth of that month. In the month of February, the full moon's face beamed cheerfully over the number fifteen. In March, the full moon stopped on the date of the sixteenth.

Severus looked before January, into 1975. He found his suspicions supported. The full moon fell on 18 December--and hadn't Lupin been absent the week before Christmas? That November day in Potions, when Severus had helped Lily Evans brew a perfect Draught of Living Death--hadn't that also been around the eighteenth?

Lupin hadn't attended that class. And on the calendar for 1975, a full moon smiled up at Severus above the date of 18 November.

Severus snapped his book shut and leaned back against the bed cushions. It was all too abundantly clear. The disease that Remus Lupin's mother suffered from was lycanthropy.

He wondered that he hadn't worked it out before this. Or was it so very wonderful? How many people went to school with someone whose mother was a werewolf?

Whether it should have been before or not, it was painfully obvious now. Lupin's entire family were at odds with the law. Lupin's father, his mother, Lupin himself--they were all conspiring to hide Mrs Lupin's condition from the authorities.

The Werewolf Registry couldn't have Mrs Lupin in their records, or they would have reported on her to Dumbledore and the Governors of Hogwarts. Severus couldn't speak for the Governors. But he would have bet money that Albus Dumbledore didn't know Lupin's mother was a werewolf.

It wasn't that Dumbledore would have minded having the son of a werewolf at Hogwarts. Severus could easily imagine the headmaster's delight in manoeuvring the Board of Governors to accept another one of his pet outcasts. But neither Dumbledore nor the teachers would want a pupil to miss several days of class each month to tend a mother whose illness posed no real danger to her life. And that was leaving aside the risk that Lupin's mother might infect him while he cared for her. No, Severus thought. Not even Dumbledore could fancy a werewolf loose in the halls of Hogwarts.

So neither the Ministry nor the Hogwarts authorities knew that Remus Lupin's mother was a werewolf. But Severus was willing to lay another wager on who did know.

Peter Pettigrew. Sirius Black. And James Potter.

At some point, they had discovered Lupin's secret and instead of turning him over to Dumbledore had decided to join in the deception. It was just the sort of thing Potter and Black would consider fun. Never mind that the concealment of a werewolf was a crime. Why, that only made it more exciting.

The more Severus thought about it, the more he was convinced. Their awful shared secret explained why the four Gryffindors were such a tight band. It explained why they treated every question, every approach as an attack and responded accordingly. It even gave Potter and Black a reason (beyond overbearing arrogance and a love of showing off) for hexing everyone in sight. Nobody would give Lupin much trouble if they were afraid of the thugs surrounding him.

It all fit--especially when Severus thought of Lupin's terror and the belligerence of his friends whenever the subject of Mrs Lupin's illness came up.

What to do about it, then? Should he go to Professor Slughorn? Should he try to get in to see the headmaster? With what? Three sets of dates from the back of his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook?

No, that surely wasn't enough. Severus could see Slughorn and Dumbledore dismissing the dates as coincidences. They'd dismiss Severus's discovery and, looking upon him as an embittered tattletale who wasn't in the Slug Club like Potter, who wasn't a prefect like Lupin, they'd dismiss him.

Severus did not intend to be dismissed. If and when he went to the teachers, it would be with enough evidence to make dismissal impossible.

And so, putting aside his Defence Against the Dark Arts textbook for the time being, Severus sought his evidence in the only way he knew how: by eavesdropping on Potter and his gang. He tried it physically, by creeping up on them while they were whispering together. He never heard anything important and got nothing for his pains but a series of hexes, each more uncomfortable and embarrassing than the last. He tried eavesdropping on them magically, using a spell called Exauditur. He'd seen it in a book with thick, bristly hair growing out of its spine, which Ruskin had shown to him.

"I picked it up in Knockturn Alley, at Black Books," Ruskin had said, stroking the book's fur. "The shop owner told me you're supposed to give it a haircut every three weeks."

Severus hoped Ruskin hadn't paid much for the book, for the spell he'd got out of it had done him no good whatsoever. Hiding behind a pillar in one of the school hallways, he'd cast Exauditur at Potter's gang as they'd huddled together, talking in whispers. But Potter had sensed the spell coming, deflected it and jinxed Severus with something that had made his ears grow as huge and bulbously warty as cauliflowers and turned them as red as beetroots.

"Why do you bother with it?" Ruskin asked Severus one April evening, after he and Lestrange had pulled chairs up to the table where Severus was doing his homework. That morning, Ruskin, Lestrange, Mulciber and Rosier had narrowly saved Severus from a rain of hexes Potter's gang had poured on him when they'd caught him hiding behind a tree near the lake, trying to listen to their conversation. "You even got Lupin stirred up. But what do you expect from a bloke when you're always on about his mother?"

Severus set his quill in the inkwell. "Do you know what's wrong with her?" he asked.

"No, and I don't care. Why should I?" said Ruskin. "It's nothing deep, dark and dastardly, or why would the teachers let Lupin go home whenever he's called? Can't blame you for wanting to get Potter and his friends into trouble," he added, grinning, "but that's not going to do it, I'm afraid."

"It'll get you into trouble, more like," said Lestrange. "And that will bring trouble to the rest of us."

"Oh, stop it, Rabby," said Ruskin. "You're being paranoid again."

"Am I?" said Lestrange. "Weren't you paying attention in Defence Against the Dark Arts yesterday? When Bones was giving another one of her lectures about the Death Eaters, with her eye on the Slytherin corner of the room?"

Ruskin laughed. "We are Salazar Slytherin's own!" he said, his voice rumbling theatrically. "The exile's children, the House of Dark Wizards!"

Lestrange looked distinctly unamused. "Exactly. And if you ask me, they're more suspicious of us than ever."

"What does it matter?" Ruskin said carelessly. "You and I will be out of here in a few months, and gainfully employed to boot. I went to the interview last weekend that Slughorn set up for me with Martin Davies in Magical Games and Sports. Davies didn't care what house I was in."

"Well, that's you," said Lestrange.

"Why not you too, Rabastan? I thought you were going to work in your father's firm?"

Ruskin, Lestrange and Severus all turned at the sound of Regulus Black's voice. He had approached the table without a sound.

"So why should it matter what house you're in?" asked Regulus.

"Tell that to the Ministry!" snapped Rabastan. "Tell that to the Aurors who came round to Dad's office, asking Rodolphus who he met at the party he and Bella went to last week. As if he could remember them all! There were over fifty people there! It's because Rodolphus was a Slytherin. Our whole family were Slytherin. That's the same as being a Dark wizard to them. No use trying to deny it."

"Sometimes being a Slytherin is a hindrance," Regulus said. "And sometimes it can be a help."

"He's right, you know," said Ruskin. "When I was in London, I heard about more than the duties of a junior minister on the Quaffle Regulatory Board. The times are changing. Just be patient, Rabby. You'll see."

"So you've said," said Lestrange. "I'm still waiting."

The others didn't reply. Just then, a third-year walked into the common room. Ruskin, Lestrange and Black turned to look at him.

The third-year stopped short. There was no one else in the room and no one closer to his year than the fifth-year Regulus Black. "Erm...I came to do my homework?" Diffidently, he held up a textbook. "Transfiguration. You know how McGonagall gets if you're late handing it in."

Ruskin smiled genially and his blue eyes twinkled. He looked like Dumbledore at his best.

"No problem, Bletchley," he said. "We'll get out of your way. Or I will, anyway. I'm exhausted, so I'm turning in."

But Ruskin had said "we," and Lestrange, Regulus and Severus took the hint: their conversation was over for the night. Severus followed Ruskin and the others through the door by which the third-year had entered and followed the winding corridor to his dormitory and his bed.

****

Ruskin's dissuasion did not keep Severus off Lupin's trail for long. The reason for this was that, although Ruskin had discouraged Severus from his course in the privacy of the Slytherin common room, he never failed to come to Severus's defence against Potter, no matter what the reason for Potter's attack. And since, as undisputed leader of Slytherin House, he always had a band of boys at his beck and call, Potter got the worst of it as often as not.

It was worth it just to see the frustration of all of them--Potter, Black, Pettigrew and Lupin--as they realised there was nothing they could do to distract Severus from the hunt.

That didn't stop them trying. They continued to inflict humiliation and injury on Severus whenever they could. But they couldn't as much as they wanted to, thanks to Ruskin. And when they could, Severus found it didn't anger him as much--or, at least, it didn't goad him into a blind rage. He had a purpose now in enduring it. If he was right about Lupin's mother and could prove it, what Potter, Black and the others could do to him was nothing compared to what he would be able to do to them.

Potter had one way of stopping Severus. Temporarily, Severus told himself. But whenever Lily Evans was around--and, because Potter had not given up his pursuit of her, she was often around--Severus's own pursuit of Lupin's secret was stopped in its tracks.

It wasn't entirely true that Potter could no longer drive Severus into a blind rage. He could not have borne Potter humiliating him in front of Lily Evans as he had done by the lake the year before.

But nearly a year had passed since then, so there was more to it than that. As winter unfolded into the bright, long days of spring, Severus became less and less willing to deny to himself that Lily liked him again. He found also that he did not want to disabuse her of the notion she still had, that he had been trying to help Lupin catch up with his studies over the Christmas holiday. Perhaps that was understandable, for Lily liked Lupin. But even though she disliked Potter, Severus did not want her to have the slightest inkling that he was trying to get Potter into the kind of trouble that might get the latter expelled.

Of course, Severus didn't want anyone he didn't trust finding that out, but with Lily it was different. He knew she wouldn't understand. Even if Lily'd had enemies, which she didn't, she wasn't the kind of person who would try to get them thrown out of school.

They might be friends: as the term wore on, Severus slowly allowed himself to hope so. Best friends? He forbade himself that hope. But she was herself around him again. She treated him with the ease he remembered from the playground, the shady river bank, the cosy sitting-room of the Evans house.

How quickly he relaxed into the old ways, as if nothing had ever come between them. As if he had never called her Mudblood, never waited vainly before the Fat Lady's portrait for her to come to him, to speak to him, to forgive him. She had come, true; she had spoken, but she had not forgiven.

"It's too late.... You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."

But that was then. Nearly a year had passed. Winter was a memory. The earth spun toward spring, the days were bright and long again, and again Lily Evans treated Severus like a friend. Did that mean she had finally forgiven him? He did not dare to ask her that.

But he looked forward now to Potions for more than the subject matter. Not only was it a pleasure to work with Lily--Slughorn was right, Severus had to admit, to call her a "dab hand at Potions"--it was a pleasure to be with her, to talk with her, to laugh.

Yes, to laugh. It reminded him of the old days, before the lake, before the cold corridor outside Gryffindor Tower, to laugh in Potions with Lily. It couldn't be the same, Severus kept trying to tell himself, even though it sounded the same when, with Lily, he laughed. It sounded exactly the same.

He laughed at her, for she invited it with the many times she laughed at herself. He laughed with her, over things like the absurd accidents that happened in Potions all the time--the sorts of accidents that used to anger him, because they meant he wouldn't be among the first to finish his potion. Sometimes he even laughed at himself, which he could never do without Lily at his side, laughing with him.

"See, Severus?" she said after one of the Potions accidents. "It doesn't hurt to have a laugh once in a while."

She then scooped a handful of blue goo from the front of his robe, the upshot of the explosion of their Fire Protection Potion, formed it into a ball with a flick of her wand and bounced the ball on the floor beside their desk. Severus dissolved again into spluttering laughter, loud enough this time to draw Slughorn's attention.

Slughorn stared at Severus through several moments of astonished silence before he could collect himself enough to deliver a reproof.

To laugh together as they'd used to do, to have fun as before--could it mean that Severus and Lily might be friends?

"I thought we were supposed to be friends? Best friends?"

He would never say that again. After the cold corridor, after watching Lily turn her back on him and disappear through the portrait hole, it would sound too much like begging. Severus refused to beg.

"Best friends?"

If Lily wanted that, let her ask for it. Let her say the words.

Severus wouldn't hold out for it. He knew Lily didn't need his friendship. She had always had many friends besides him at Hogwarts. This year was no different. He had seen Lily come in to Defence Against the Dark Arts whispering and giggling with Alice Aylsworth and Mary Macdonald. He'd seen her laughing with Sloper, Keeper for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, in the hallway outside of the Charms classroom. He'd even seen her laughing with Potter--spluttering, as if, like Severus in Potions, she had tried but failed to hold back her laugh.

Potter had taken it as encouragement, of course, and had immediately asked Lily out. She'd said no.

That in itself was a delight, to watch Lily Evans thwart James Potter, when so little in Potter's life had ever thwarted him before. She did see through Potter, even if no one else in the school did, through the glittering, Quidditch-hero veneer to Potter's spoiled-rotten core. She'd see through Severus too, through the hexed loser spewing soap bubbles and filthy names to--to--

To what I really am, thought Severus. To my true self. Like she's always done.

As he had seen through her, from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her at the playground. He had known she was a witch and that she would never let that shrill Muggle sister of hers hold her back.

So they could work together, and Severus could call it cooperation if he liked, as if they were friends, instead of mutual use, as if they were only each other's tools. Together he and Lily cleaned up the mess they had made with the Fire Protection Potion; together they worked out a speedier recipe than Borage's and still finished their potion ahead of Potter and Black.

They'd earned full marks for it too. "No professional potioner could have made a better save," Slughorn had said, beaming.

For once the earning of those marks hadn't been a scrabbling competition for Severus, a duel with the other students, the teacher and himself. He had relaxed. He'd had fun. He'd laughed.

It couldn't have happened with anybody other than Lily. But he couldn't assume they were friends. So he didn't presume to sit by Lily in their other N.E.W.T.s lessons or share anything in particular with her outside of Potions. He watched her sometimes, though, moving her wand through a set of spell-figures as she learned a new charm, her hand as quick and graceful as a bird in flight. He watched her strange eyes fixed on the various professors as they lectured: almond-shaped eyes, as green as emeralds or basilisk's skin. He saw the curve of her back as she bent over her books, watched her hair streaming over that curve like a river of red fire, sparking gold where the light touched it.

Severus saw all this and looked away, because he and Lily Evans weren't friends.

****

And yet, on the first Monday in May, when Professor Slughorn called upon the class to divide into pairs and Lily slid into the seat next to him, Severus felt that peculiar lightness in his chest which meant that he was happy.

"Very good, then!" Slughorn beamed. "I hope you've all chosen well, for you'll be with your partner for the rest of the term, and he or she will be the one who helps you determine your final mark!"

At that, a few of the students, looking sheepishly around, traded the boy they wanted to impress or the girl they thought was pretty for, presumably, more reliable partners. Lily smiled at Severus. He had no doubt that she was thinking what he was thinking: We've got it made, then. We've had top marks all year.

As Slughorn turned to the blackboard and Lily opened her notebook, Severus looked around at Potter and his friends. They had not divided into their usual pairs. Instead of Black, Potter had taken Lupin for his partner. Black had paired up with Pettigrew.

His round back to the class, Slughorn wrote Potions categories on the blackboard: Physics, Poisons and Antidotes, Transfigurants and Mind, Mood and Magic Alterants. Then he turned and spoke. "The times being what they are, the headmaster is encouraging all the teachers to cultivate more in the way of independent thinking in our pupils. I couldn't agree more with his aims and am delighted to offer you the opportunity to stretch yourselves a bit with an independent Potions project."

Though Lily looked interested, Severus could tell by the apprehensive murmuring rippling through the rest of the classroom that few of the other students shared Slughorn's delight.

"Come, where are your sporting instincts?" Slughorn rallied them. "This will be fun!" He gestured at the board. "You choose a potion from one of the categories--"

"But those are the hardest ones to brew!" Pettigrew piped up. He looked so doleful that everyone laughed, including Slughorn.

"Well, that's the point, isn't it, Mr Pettigrew?" said Slughorn. "We are in a N.E.W.T.S class! To continue with the description of our assignment, you and your partner will brew from start to finish the potion you've selected from one of these four categories. By start to finish, I don't mean you'll put together a potion from ingredients you'll take from the classroom cupboard after I've written the recipe on the board. I must also disqualify any recipe you find in a school textbook, even a seventh-year N.E.W.T.s book."

More uneasy muttering arose.

"Yes, as Mr Pettigrew implied, these will not be easy potions," Slughorn continued. "You will be able to begin in the school library, but I doubt that Hogwarts makes available to students all the information you will need to brew your potion successfully--though of course, if you feel it would be helpful, you may apply to me for a note to admit you into the Restricted Section.

"Once you have your recipe, you will then collect your ingredients in the wild or purchase them from an apothecary with funds the headmaster has been so good as to set aside for our use. Then you will brew your potion as best you can, using your recipe, the ingredients you have obtained and whatever wit and determination you may have at your disposal.

"The deadline for your projects will be 23rd June. On or before that date, you will present me with a sample of your potion and a parchment detailing the reasoning behind each step you took to bring your potion to its finished form."

Slughorn smiled then, as if nothing pleased him more than the stunned looks some of the students were giving him and the mutinous mutterings of others.

"No, it's not easy," he said cheerfully. "Independent work rarely is. But here's a bit of an incentive: those of you who achieve full marks will be allowed to skip the final exam."

"Gosh, thanks," Avery muttered behind Severus. "Like I'll ever get anywhere near full marks."

"Shall we begin, then?" said Slughorn, and the murmuring died down. "Raise your hands, and when I call on you, name your poison--that is, a potion from one of the four categories. I'll let you know whether your choice is suitable for the project. If it isn't, you'll have to pick another potion."

Hands began shooting up into the air before Slughorn was finished. As Slughorn called on students, who named their choices, Severus turned to Lily. "How would you like top marks in this class and the most glowing recommendation possible from Slughorn when you apply to the Healers' Programme next year?"

"I'd like it quite a lot, as you know very well," she said, looking wary. "Why?"

"Let me choose the potion, then," said Severus, ignoring her question, which only made Lily look more suspicious than ever.

"What potion?" she demanded.

"Veritaserum."

Lily stared at him.

"Weightless Wash, Mr Black?" Slughorn said into her silence. "Very well, though you'll find mixing up a truly efficacious wash is no easy matter."

"Veritaserum," said Lily slowly. Severus could see the eagerness in her eyes. "If you think Slughorn will let us make it..."

"It's the use of Veritaserum that's regulated by the Ministry, not the brewing." Severus shrugged. "If he says no, we'll choose another."

Though Lily looked far from ready to argue, Severus shot his hand into the air before she could raise any objections.

"Ah, Severus," said Slughorn in an avuncular tone. Severus's successful partnership with his favourite pupil had softened Slughorn's attitude toward him. "You and Lily have made a choice?"

"Yes, Professor," said Severus. "We'd like to brew Veritaserum."

A hush fell over the classroom. "Veritaserum," Slughorn repeated.

Out of the corner of his eye, Severus caught sight of Potter. He could see a slight frown between Potter's brows and an array of emotions flitting through his eyes.

"It's in one of your categories, sir," said Lily. "It's a Mind, Mood and Magic Alterant."

Slughorn fixed his bullfrog gaze on her. "You want to do this project too, do you, Lily?"

"I wouldn't be partnering with Severus if I didn't."

"That does shed a different light on the matter," said Slughorn. "Well. This project presents us with certain complications. Veritaserum is a controlled potion, meaning that the Ministry of Magic has strictly regulated its use. But I know of no law against permitting a student to brew it. Under the proper supervision, of course. In fact, Veritaserum is something which those who have achieved a N.E.W.T. in Potions are expected to be able to make." Slughorn paused. "I'd have to keep your Veritaserum in my office while it matures. But if you two really think you're up to it--"

"You're not going to let Snape make Veritaserum, are you?" Black burst out.

Slughorn blinked. "I didn't know I was required to ask your permission, Mr Black."

Severus smiled. Several of the Slytherins around him tittered.

"However," Slughorn continued. "The headmaster will be made aware that Mr Snape and Miss Evans are brewing Veritaserum for their class project, and so I assure you, Mr Black--" he paused to allow for more giggling--"there will be plenty of eyes peeled to ward against its illicit use."

The latest round of laughter died down when Slughorn looked sharply at Severus. "Surprising, really, that no Dark magic is employed in brewing a potion so obviously coercive in its effects. I suppose that's why anybody's free to brew it who can show he won't step outside the law in using it." His gaze travelled over the rest of the class. "Six months in Azkaban if you do use it illicitly."

Severus hadn't really given it any thought, but.... He glanced at Lupin. Lupin was looking at Slughorn with calm interest. Beside him was his project partner, Potter, whose eyes were smouldering. Black, nearby, looked like a sleeping volcano on the verge of awakening.

That might not mean much. Neither of them would want Severus making Veritaserum, just on general principle. After all, it had only just occurred to Severus that a few drops of Veritaserum poured into the proper glass of pumpkin juice might give him everything he needed to get all four of them thrown out of school.

"Miss Aylsworth and Miss Clearwater, Murtlap Essence! Very good!" said Slughorn, continuing to canvass the students.

Pettigrew, looking sullenly suspicious, suddenly leaned across the aisle and whispered something to Lupin. Lupin looked directly at Severus and frowned. Severus looked away.

He couldn't hope, then, that Lupin didn't realise exactly how dangerous Severus and Lily's potion might be for him.

Ah, well. It was just as likely that everyone would be about to board the Hogwarts Express for home by the time the Veritaserum matured, so that, even if Severus could get hold of some, he wouldn't have time to use it. That didn't mean, however, that he wouldn't have an empty phial in his pocket when he and Lily went to Slughorn's office to hand in their final report. You never knew what sort of opportunities might turn up.

"Ah, excellent! A Mindful Mixture for Mr Avery and Mr Wilkes!" announced Slughorn. "That will do it, then! I think we all have enough to keep us busy until the end of term. Class dismissed!"

****

A/N: "I picked it up in Knockturn Alley, at Black Books," Ruskin had said, stroking the book's fur. "Black Books" is one of the funniest TV shows I've ever watched.