I Loved You More

Chapter #16

The Diary of Snivellus Snape

"Peeves has taken the liberty to visit Professor Alenas' classroom and vandalize the desks, not to mention set off several dungbombs. She will be supervising while you four scrub the desks to get the writing off," said McGonagall curtly as they approached the door of the Arithmancy classroom for their detention.

She led them inside where Alenas was sitting at her desk, cautiously adding another playing card to the top of a tower she was building. The desks were all scribbled on in black ink and Lily's nose was overcome with the strong fume of dung.

"Minerva! I see you have brought my next victims!" she said in a strange, nasal voice, laughing heartily at her little joke. "Sorry if I sound a bit off. I put a Clogging Charm on my nose because of the smell."

McGonagall forced a smile on her face and nodded. "Yes, they're here to serve their detentions. I'll leave you to deal with them." With that, she swept out of the room.

"Hello, dears," said Professor Alenas smiling. "You're going to be getting these dreadful words off my desk...I'll conjure up some soap and rags...if only I could find my wand..." she felt around her desktop looking for it, carefully avoiding her card castle. Then she placed a hand on her head in exasperation when she didn't find it. "Where in the name of- Aha! Here it is!"

Her face lit up as she yanked her wand from the bun on her head, letting her hair fall loose on her shoulders. Lily and Summer exchanged looks of concealed amusement.

"Silly me!" Alenas laughed. "Now-" she waved her newly found wand and a bucket of sudsy water and four rags appeared on a desk in front of Lily, Summer, James, and Sirius. "There you are!"

Braving the smell, they all picked up a rag and dipped it into the bucket, mentally preparing for a long, dull session of silent scrubbing. But again, Alenas began talking.

"So, I heard about what you did to earn yourselves detention," she whispered conspiratorially as though it were some dangerous secret. "It's never wise to get caught, you know. You may not believe it from the look of me but I had my fair share of similar trouble back when I was a student. I had loads of male friends if you know what I mean..."

Lily glanced up from the desk she was scouring to look at the prattling teacher. Her dark, graying hair was frizzing out in all directions now that it had been set free from its knot around her wand. Her eyes were wide with wistful reminiscence behind purple thick-rimmed glasses that tilted crookedly on her pointed nose. Her overall appearance suggested that she was mentally unstable. No, Lily did not believe from the look of her that Alenas had gotten into trouble with her "male friends."

"But even though I understand the wild hormones of you young people, I will not have any lovemaking while you're here," Alenas concluded, gazing at them solemnly.

Lily turned her head and caught James' eye. His lips were white from the effort of restraining a laugh and the light in his eyes was dancing.

Lily quickly bent back down over the desk to keep from smirking.

"Got it, Professor...no lovemaking," said Sirius gravely. "We'll do our best to contain our wild hormones."

Lily very much wanted to kick him but he was three desks away. Next to her, Summer was venomously rubbing the word "FANNY," her face all screwed up as though she were in pain.

"That's right," Alenas went on sternly. "Classrooms are not the most appropriate places for such goings on, let me tell you. Personally, I've had better experience with broom closets but behind the Quidditch pitch is probably your best bet."

Lily clenched her mouth shut for fear of allowing a giggle to escape and was forced to breathe though her nose which was very unpleasant due to the foul smell. She wished she could close her ears as well to block out the professor's voice.

"That was probably your trouble. Next time, go for a broom closet. There's a nice big one on the fifth floor below the Owlery," she sighed happily. "Many good times in there..."

James began coughing violently. Summer let out an odd squeak but Sirius looked seriously up at Professor Alenas who was still busily constructing her tower of cards.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind," he said without even a shadow of a grin.

Alenas smiled at him approvingly. "Of course the boys tend to favor the bushes near the Quidditch pitch...but that can be rather uncomfortable." The tower suddenly exploded in her face, covering Alenas with dust and making her appear even more insane. "But ladies, be sure to put your foot down once in awhile. Especially in the winter," she persisted earnestly, addressing Lily and Summer.

On and on it went...Lily felt as though she were being tortured mercilessly. It was the worst detention she could imagine. Professor Alenas seemed to have endless advice on lovemaking and she babbled on intently while they washed away the remnants of Peeves' rude handiwork.

Lily, Summer, and James struggled forcefully to fight back the laughs that were erupting inside of them but somehow, Sirius kept a composed, solemn demeanor throughout the whole thing, embellishing the humor of Alenas' lecture with his own comments.

Lily could not have been more relieved to find the last hour of their detention coming to an end.

"Don't forget- the broom closet on the fifth floor..."

Sirius nodded appreciatively and waved to her before grabbing the doorknob of the classroom door and swinging it around them.

The second it shut, sealing their escape into the corridor, they all collapsed helplessly onto the floor.

Many minutes passed before they could breathe properly again in which a number of other students had walked by and upon seeing them in such a state of madness, ran away in alarm.

"I will never be the same again," gasped James, slumped against the wall.

"Me neither! Those were useful tips she gave us!" agreed Sirius.

"Don't tell me you're going to use them!" exclaimed Summer in horror.

"Why not? You don't expect me to be thick enough to throw away such good advice!" defended Sirius in mock surprise.

"Think about the images you'll get," said James and he, Lily, and Summer all moaned in repulsion. "No, actually...don't."

"Oh, Prongs, don't act like you weren't pleased to hear all that," scoffed Sirius, lying flat on his back.

"Please, mate! Enough!" cried James pleadingly. "I've already had an overload of trauma for one night."

They sat in the corridor for a while longer, laughing absurdly until Sirius said out of the blue, "Filch is coming. We should probably get up."

"How do you know?' asked Lily as they stood up. As far as she could tell, there was no sign of anyone around at the moment.

Sirius simply nodded toward one end of the corridor. Lily turned around in time to see Filch limping around the corner.

"Black! Potter!" he snarled at once. "What are you doing just standing there? Get back to your dormitories!"

Lily, Summer, James and Sirius walked by Filch who was glaring suspiciously at them and headed back to the Gryffindor Tower.

"How'd you do that? How did you know he was coming?" Lily asked Sirius again as they entered the fourth floor corridor.

"Don't you know? I'm just gifted," said Sirius nonchalantly. "I have unheard of powers far beyond you ordinary wizard folk."

"Uh huh," said Lily, rolling her eyes. "Really?"

"Yes...and I have the Marauders Map."

"You found it?" asked James quickly.

"I did indeed and do you reckon who had it?" said Sirius, his voice growing lower as he slipped a hand inside his robe and pulled out the worn piece of parchment.

"Who?" James asked immediately.

"Snivellus," growled Sirius. "That bag of slime. I doubt he figured out how to use it but he certainly knows it's more than a scrap of parchment."

"How did that greaseball get a hold of it?" James raged.

"I don't know," said Sirius quietly. "But we will get back at him."

"What are you nutters on about?" snapped Lily, snatching the parchment and examining it. "Who would want this rubbish?"

James and Sirius exchanged looks.

"Maybe another time we'll reveal to you its wonder and glory, Evans," said Sirius slowly, picking the parchment out of her hand.

"When we feel you're ready," added James, smirking wryly. "For now, we have a lesson to plan."

"A lesson?" asked Summer skeptically.

"To teach Snivelly not to meddle in other people's business. We're doing him a favor really," replied Sirius.

Summer snorted. "You have to be certified to teach, you know."

"Never stopped us before," Sirius shrugged.

"Password?" said the Fat Lady as they approached her portrait.

"Snidget," they said in unison and crawled in one-by-one.

Summer went to join Tara and a few other girls studying around a table and Sirius shoved two second-years off a couch and plopped down onto it, stretching lazily. James had started to follow him but Lily seized his arm. He turned his head, giving her a quizzical look and running a hand through his hair, rumpling it.

"Does Snape know...about Remus?" whispered Lily.

James sighed.

"No."

"Then why was he saying all that stuff in the corridor?" she pressed.

"Because he's a nosy old sod...He knows something is going on with Moony and he's always trying to find out," explained James, getting angry at the thought. "He's a right pain in the arse."

"Oh," said Lily, standing there awkwardly for a moment. "Er, what are you going to do to him?"

James looked at her closely then he grinned faintly. "Nothing permanently damaging...if he's lucky."

"You shouldn't- you're a prefect..." said Lily.

"All the more reason to do the right thing and set him right," retorted James indifferently. "Are you going to try and stop us?"

As a dutiful prefect, Lily knew what her answer should be but something stopped her from saying it. Perhaps Snape deserved it, who was she to stop it...right?

Lily settled with shrugging her shoulders in response and walked away to join Summer and Tara.

* * *

Over the next two days, Lily traveled from class to class, focusing completely on her lessons and stretching every minute to fit in as much studying as possible. She made every effort to avoid thinking about anything else.

People continued to stare and whisper about her everywhere she went though the effects of the rumor were beginning to slowly wear off. Some, on the other hand, -girls in particular- would not let up and always jumped at the chance to openly spit insults at her. They were actually worse than before because Lily was keeping away from James. With him around her, they had been afraid to taunt Lily and had primarily left her alone. That changed as soon as the spiteful girls saw Lily with only Summer and Tara as accompaniers, walking with her head bent over the load of books in her arms.

Naturally, Lily didn't enjoy having the words "tramp" and "tart" barked at her as she went to her classes but she had no choice but to endure it. Though she didn't exactly know why, she felt it was necessary to be around James...or any of the Marauders...as little as possible. All the events of the past week had loaded more strain and pressure onto her shoulders than she could handle.

Mainly, however, she didn't want to deal with all the chaotic uncertainty that came with James. Lily didn't realize precisely how but she knew he was bringing changes upon her and she wasn't sure how she felt about them. Once she had been so positive of what she thought of James Potter, of what she thought of everything.

Now somehow all that seemed like a lie, like she had been living it all wrong. The things that had once been fulfilling and normal were suddenly turning grey and uninteresting. Ever since she had allowed her resistance against James down, her world of straight, precautious lines had begun to spin, slowly gaining more and more speed until it had become a blur before Lily had noticed. The night after her first detention when she discovered the Marauders' innermost secret had brought it to her attention. Lily was inflicted with the fear of never being able to stop the spinning that was moving too fast for her comfort.

Helping James with his wound then arguing with him and then sharing a laugh at Professor Alenas...It was all jumbling up her feelings and she wanted the confusion to end. Lily was instinctively afraid of her new, tornado of a life but, though not deliberately, she recognized this fear as James and with the desire to avoid it, she avoided James.

That is, when she could.

There was the fact that they shared all the same classes, Quidditch team, house, and they were in detention together all week. Yet despite all these overbearing factors, Lily managed to pull it off quite effectively. She did her best to steer clear of James until Friday evening while they served their final detention when James made it so that she simply couldn't ignore him.

"We're leaving."

Summer twisted around to send a skeptically curious look toward Sirius who had made the abrupt announcement.

The four of them, Lily, Summer, James, and Sirius, were in the corner of the library sorting endless stacks of books onto shelves. Lily was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a pile of tattered looking volumes, going through it, looking at dates to arrange them in chronological order. Summer was kneeling by a nearby bookcase and dusting off the bottom shelf.

Sirius and James had been carrying countless boxes jammed with assorted books from the librarian's office to the bookcases but as James straightened from the bent position of setting down the last box, Sirius made this declaration of departure.

"What are you talking about?" asked Summer while Lily continued reading the dates of the books.

"We're leaving," repeated Sirius.

"You can't just leave! We're in detention," said Summer impatiently.

"So?"

"So? You can't leave!" snapped Summer, obviously getting angry at having to explain this.

"We're going to," shrugged Sirius.

"Why?"

Sirius turned briefly to look at James.

"To get Snape back," said James shortly.

Lily finally looked up at the dispute.

"You don't have to do that now. Start helping me dust these shelves already...I don't know what you're trying to pull," admonished Summer dismissively.

"No, we have to do it when everyone's coming back from dinner," said Sirius slowly.

"Why?" asked Summer again.

"You'll see."

"What do you want to get him back for?" asked Summer doubtfully.

"For prying in on our business," replied James. "See you later."

"Wait- NO! We need help here!" spoke up Lily furiously.

"Use your wand, you witch," Sirius said imperturbably.

"The librarian might see us!" exclaimed Lily. "You are not leaving us!"

James pretended to contemplate it.

"Er...no, actually we are," he said smoothly.

"No! I can't believe you two! You can't just do whatever you want! YOU ARE NOT LEAVING!" Lily was on her feet now and her temper was blazing hotly as though it had been waiting a long time for the chance to spark.

"Blimey, Evans, don't have a bloody tantrum," James said. "We're leaving to give Snivelly what he deserves and that's that."

"I'll tell McGonagall!" shrieked Lily.

"Go ahead. She'll find out sooner or later. You think we care about getting in trouble?" sneered James before turning. "Goodbye, Evans."

"Potter! Stop this! We need your help here," Lily switched to a pleading tone.

James turned back around to face her and said quietly, "Oh? So now you need me?"

Lily's anger became dampened with confusion.

"You certainly needed me that night after Hagrid's but didn't feel the need to look at me the past few days," he continued in a stony undertone. "Only when it's convenient for you, eh?"

Lily suddenly felt a knot in her throat as though she had swallowed a rock. She fought to maintain her equanimity as she looked down at her feet.

"James...I..." she began after a moment but when she looked up he and Sirius were gone.

She threw a helpless glance down at Summer who appeared rather bewildered. Lily looked away quickly and dropped back down to the floor, trying to concentrate on sorting the books. She heard Summer return to her dusting after a short silence.

*~*~*~*

Dinner was ending and packs of black-robed students were drifting out of the Great Hall feeling full and with the delightful prospect of the whole weekend ahead of them.

However, when they saw what was outside the Great Hall, they stopped and stared.

Levitating in the center of the Entrance Hall was a leather-bound book. It was enlarged so that it was approximately the size of an ordinary door with the words, "Diary of Snivellus Snape" imprinted in silver on the cover.

As the students stepped closer with interest, the book opened and the pages slowly began flicking so that they were able to catch glimpses of each scrawled entry. Then an enormous stack of pamphlets appeared on the floor underneath the book. The students hurried forward to pick one up and saw that every pamphlet was a copy of the magnified diary. Everyone began dashing forward and they browsed through the pages, laughing and reading select passages aloud to their friends.

The Entrance Hall was in a complete uproar when Severus Snape, who always went to dinner alone after most of his classmates, came slouching down the marble staircase. There were some who went silent as they watched him descend with anticipation but many broke into uncontrolled laughter, waving and pointing openly.

Snape looked up and appeared confused when he saw the back cover of his stolen diary. His pallid eyes quickly took in the pamphlets that were causing the pandemonium and he suddenly strode furiously around to look at the front of the book.

His pale face froze over with white rage. Several people were shouting taunts and quotes from the entries at him but he ignored them and whipped out his wand.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"

Professor McGonagall was thundering at the top of her voice over the laughter as she pushed her way through from the rear of the crowd.

"Snape, what is going on? Who did this?" she demanded. "It must have been a seventh year...the magic is quite advanced-"

"POTTER AND BLACK DID IT!" he shrieked without hesitance.

All of the onlookers fell silent to turn their full attention to the scene in front of them.

"Do you have any proof of that, Snape? They are currently in detention...You cannot jump to conclusions and simply point fingers at anyone," said McGonagall severely.

"It was them! I know-!" began Snape, shaking violently with fury.

"Yes, professor, we admit it," said an amused voice loudly.

James Potter and Sirius Black unexpectedly strolled into view, seeming to have appeared out of nowhere. They were looking very cheerful and pleased with themselves.

McGonagall turned to stare at them, taken aback.

"What are you saying, Potter?" she asked after a moment of speechlessness.

"We did it," said James simply and Sirius gestured proudly at the hovering diary. "It was us."

Many students gasped in awe of his boldness, others merely gaped in shock, McGonagall included.

"See?!" screamed Snape. "What are you waiting for?! EXPEL THEM!"

McGonagall shook out of her state of astonishment to look back at Snape.

"Do not speak to me in such a manner, Snape," she said icily. "I will handle my own students as I choose to. Fifteen points from Slytherin."

James and Sirius looked ready to dance for joy. McGonagall heatedly shrunk the diary to its normal size with a brandish of her wand.

"Potter, Black...get up to my office this instant. I will be up as soon as I tend to this," she commanded.

The two boys grinned and waved pompously at the mass of students, many of who were laughing and waving in return.

"Now!" barked McGonagall.

They hurried up the stairs with one final bow.

*~*~*~*

Hours later, Lily was aching and her neck was stiff but the last of the books had been sorted and placed on the clean shelves. They hadn't spoken much during the detention. Summer had questioned Lily about what James had meant during their row but Lily evaded answering and Summer had dropped it.

Beside this, they had worked in silence for the most part in which Lily hadn't come to any conclusion of how she was feeling toward James. Her mind felt like a painter's palette with the combination of the colors, guilt, fury, and a whole slew of other emotions mixed recklessly to formulate an unidentifiable color. Because she knew nothing about this new color, she didn't know how to use it on the canvas.

As they left the library, Lily thought she should be feeling much more relieved, having finally finished a week of detentions but an odd feeling of emptiness spilled onto the palette, joining the mixture and leaving her at even more of a loss at how to read herself.

Lily and Summer went their separate ways at an intersection of two corridors, Lily gripping to the one sure feeling she had; that of starvation. Summer headed to the Gryffindor Tower as Lily wandered toward the Great Hall with the goal of satisfying her gnawing hunger.

*~*~*~*

"All finished, professor!" said James chirpily.

He and Sirius had spent the past couple hours sitting in McGonagall's office copying lines and listening to McGonagall lecture them about how outrageous their prank was and how despicably wrong it was to skive off detention.

"Me too!" said Sirius, adding a period to the end of his hundredth sentence with a flourish of his quill.

"Good," replied McGonagall, collecting their rolls of parchment. "I'll expect you here every day next week to continue your punishment."

James was about to follow Sirius out the door but stopped short.

"Does that include next Friday, professor?" he asked tentatively.

"Everyday next week," repeated McGonagall, not looking up from grading her papers.

"Meaning Friday?"

"Yes, Potter, Friday!" snapped the professor.

"Could I perhaps move Friday's detention to tomorrow?" he asked.

"Absolutely not."

"But professor! That's the day before the match against Slytherin!" cried James.

"I don't see the problem," replied McGonagall indifferently.

"Don't see the problem?!" exclaimed James incredulously. "That practice will probably be the most important one we have all season! I'm captain! I have to be there!"

"Well, now, you should have had that in mind when you decided to try to weasel your way out of your detention to play an obnoxious prank," said McGonagall, looking up at James sternly.

"Please professor! What difference does it make when I serve detention as long as I serve it?!" pleaded James.

"It makes quite a big difference. When you do something wrong that deserves disciplining, you don't get to choose when it will take place so that it's convenient for you," explained McGonagall. "It would completely take away from the sole purpose."

"But we need practice! What if we don't win because of this?!" said James hysterically. "I'll make it up with a whole extra week!"

"I'm sorry, Potter. I would like Gryffindor to win as well. I'm also sorry that the team has a captain who doesn't think ahead of time before acting," McGonagall said firmly. "The answer is no. Continue pestering me and you'll be in detention till June."

James groaned and stomped bitterly out of the office, smashing the door shut behind him.

*~*~*~*

As Lily made her way to the Great Hall, she suddenly heard a door slam from somewhere nearby. She continued down the corridor which was heading in the direction of the noise that seemed to be coming from around the corner. Then she heard someone shouting angrily from the same area.

*~*~*~*

James plowed fervidly down the corridor when he heard something that immediately caught his attention. Two boys James knew as sixth-year Slytherins named Rab Lestrange and Clive Pritchard were talking as they walked by him.

"Yeah, that girl...Lily Evans...the one who slept with Potter and Black. She must be bloody good. Even if she is a mudblood I'd like to do some things to her-"

"IMPEDIMENTA!"

Rab, the one who had spoken, was knocked completely off his feet as James spun around roaring the curse. He slid across the floor and hit his head against the stone wall.

"What the-?" he began, bewildered.

"SHUT UP! Don't you ever talk that way about Lily Evans AGAIN!" yelled James, looking wildly murderous.

"You little-!" Clive started to say angrily but James whirled around and pounded him squarely in the jaw with his fist, a sickening crack following the motion.

"Potter!"

Lily had rounded the corner to see James viciously pummeling some boy in the face. James looked over his shoulder at a horrified Lily.

"Potter! What are you doing?!" she cried. "What did he do to you?"

James turned his head away from her and looked down at Clive who was lying on the floor with his face huddled in the crook of his arm.

"Nothing," murmured James quietly.

"What?" asked Lily, taking a few steps closer.

"Nothing!" he shouted, finally turning to face her.

Lily was appalled at his blatant cruelty.

"Then why would- why did...?" she stuttered, rushing over to Clive to kneel down next to him. He lifted his face off of his arm and Lily gasped when she saw him. His face was smothered in blood and there was something funny looking about his jawbone that made Lily's stomach do a flip. "Oh my...Potter! Look what you did!"

She took a clump of her own robes and pressed it to his mouth. It immediately soaked through with blood.

James looked down at the pitiful looking boy who Lily was so willingly sacrificing her clean robes for. He briefly put a hand to his neck with an unreadable expression on his face. Then he quickly dropped it.

"Of course," he said quietly with the air of final resign. He stared at Lily and shook his head rather maniacally, giving a hollow laugh. "OF COURSE!" He began to walk away but as he passed Rab who was still lying against the wall watching the spectacle, James gave him a swift kick in the stomach.

Rab recoiled and inhaled sharply in pain as James walked off, disappearing around the end of the corridor.