Chapter Text
Severus sat hunched on the floor of their room, double-knotting his shoelaces and listening to Potter and Sirius continue in their squabble.
“We could try to stop the girls before they leave,” Potter half-heartedly suggested as he shook out the crumbs from his Invisibility Cloak. There’d been little opportunity to use it in the past few weeks and it was stored in the same trunk as the snacks.
“What, like, stop them physically?” Sirius scoffed. “No way.”
“Are there any girls you aren’t afraid of?” Potter shot back.
On their way back from dinner, Remus had split off and gone directly to Professor Coffey’s office for the purposes of being covertly escorted to the Whomping Willow. Severus glanced over at the window with its perfect view of the mad tree, wondering if he’d catch the telltale shimmer of a Disillusionment spell near the trunk if he squinted hard enough.
“First off, Bellatrix is a Dementor in girl clothing, so, not a girl,” Sirius said as he messed about with the complicated clasp of his non-invisible yet still very posh cloak. There was no telling how long they’d have to wait in the chilly spring night during their stakeout plan. “And second, have you seen the nails on McKinnon? I’d prefer not to be clawed across the face, thanks.”
“We’ll fetch you a sack to wear,” Severus said briskly. “It’d be a massive improvement.” He put his arms through his own heavy cloak, the one Lily had given him the moment she’d realized he wouldn’t have anything warm to wear outside once winter came. It didn’t fit him so well now, the hem hitting an inch shorter than it should. Over Sirius’ indignant noises, Severus added, “The girls aren’t changing their minds about the Gryffindor Gloom and we already have a plan besides.”
He’d almost felt halfway guilty for informing Professor McGonagall what the girls were up to, but ultimately, it was for their own good and knowing now she’d been the one who’d taken the letter from his mum, he wouldn’t mind terribly if Lily wound up in detention with Filch for a few weeks. While there was the smallest of chances she’d elect to stay behind in Gryffindor Tower, their fight from earlier had undoubtedly made her more determined than ever to stand with her back to the Forbidden Forest.
Severus just hoped Professor McGonagall didn’t dock too many House points, as he would be tangentially responsible for it and he’d lost enough of them as it was.
Near the door, an already half-disappeared Potter beckoningly held open the Invisibility Cloak.
“A couple of first-years against a werewolf,” Sirius said faintly as Severus slipped under the cloak. “Brilliant plan, Smellverus.”
“Are you coming, Sirius? Or are you staying behind like a turnip?” Potter asked.
Sirius sighed but reluctantly ducked his head to join them all the same.
They made impressively good time through the castle. Sirius only once nearly ruined things when he muttered beneath his breath how this was all a tremendously stupid idea, consequently startling a Hufflepuff Prefect who was coming out of the Prefect bathroom with a towel wrapped around her dripping hair. And he even showed remarkable self-control when they heard the sharp staccato of Professor McGonagall’s heels moments before she came marching past with a recalcitrant Dorcas, Salma, and Marlene in tow.
The boys pressed their backs against the wall as though they were a singular, six-legged entity.
“But everyone’s doing it, Professor,” Marlene protested as the girls were led past. “It’s even named after Godric Gryffindor.”
“We have to do it,” Salma added. “Our reputations—”
“We can’t be the only ones who haven’t,” Dorcas said. “We just can’t. We’ll look like frightened little first-year babies otherwise. Even the boys have done the Gryffindor Gloom.”
The other two made noises of deep disgust at the mention of the boys.
“Merlin, help me,” Professor McGonagall said with an impatient sigh. “Like lemmings to the sea…”
Once they’d gone, Sirius seemed ready to crow about the girls’ misfortune but Potter cut him off with a jerk of his chin and they were off again.
Seeing his traitorous tale come to fruition made Severus all the more assured about his plan. He’d intended for Professor McGonagall to catch the girls out of bounds, thereby stopping them from potentially encountering a werewolf, and so she had. A good sign for what yet laid ahead.
And it seemed that Lily and also Margaret had chosen to stay behind. All the better. Possibly Lily had actually listened to him this time, like she used to back in co*keworth when she trusted him to know what was best.
Severus’ inflating confidence was punctured, however, the moment they rounded the last corner near-ish the Great Hall and the main entrance out of the castle. Peeves was practicing his swan dive through a suit of armor, a perfectly normal Wednesday night activity. Severus supposed poltergeists probably didn’t require sleep and got bored when students weren’t around. Summers must have been dreadful.
The three of them waited several, agonizingly long minutes. Severus scrubbed at his nose, trying to shake off an annoying itch. Sirius gestured back the way they’d came, growing impatient to set off, and Potter furiously shook his head and mouthed, “He will leave.”
And Peeves might have done, if Severus had not sneezed.
Peeves froze mid-dive and came to balance like a maniacal top on the suit of armor’s lance tip. “Who goes sneaking in the dark?” He sniffed the air, presumably for dramatic effect. “Hiding from wee Peevsie, are we? But I wouldn’t even hurt a midge.”
From behind, Sirius wrapped his arm around Severus’ face like a python, roughly pinching his nose to stop him from sneezing again. He knew Severus had the tendency to double-sneeze.
The poltergeist grotesquely tilted his head to the side, further than any living person could have, and a smile twisted across his face. “You know, when a question is asked, it’s rude not to answer.”
There was a growing burn in the back of Severus’ nostrils as the muscles in his face wound up to sneeze again.
“Admoveo!” Potter whispered, wand moving beneath the cloak.
Before Peeves could respond, the spear where he’d been perched shot upwards, nearly impaling him to the ceiling.
“Nice one!” Sirius congratulated Potter as they took off back in the direction they’d came, their feet pounding in unison against Peeves’ enraged, echoing shrieks.
Potter was less enthusiastic. “Snape?”
“We’ll go around and take the exit through the courtyard,” Severus replied through partially gritted teeth.
It would be fine. They’d still make it in time. But they were now forced to take a much more circuitous path back through the castle, one that would lead them precariously close to the site of Sirius’ ongoing obsession. Perhaps if no one brought it up…
“You know, Coffey won’t be around tonight to guard the statue,” Sirius said into the back of Severus’ head, as though reading the thoughts inside it. “This is Bella’s chance. She’ll take it if we don’t do something.”
“Focus,” Potter said ahead of him. He didn’t break pace and so they were forced to march in step to prevent the cloak from slipping. “We’re running late now thanks to Snape’s nose.”
“Look, I like Remus, but we all know he’s getting out,” Sirius said, picking up the old argument as easily as if it were bludger bat.
Potter swiveled on his heels and Severus nearly knocked into him. “And whose fault is it that people are running round on full moons in the first place?” he demanded. “Couldn’t shut your gob for two bloody seconds about the stupid Gryffindor Gloom, could you?”
They’d stopped to bicker at the bottom of a staircase that would lead up the third floor corridor and only a few classrooms down from the one-eyed witch statue. Severus, who was fully stuck in the middle, futilely told them both to shut up, but they were already beyond where sensible words might reach.
“It’s time to pack it in over Snuffles, James,” Sirius argued over Severus’ shoulder. “Bella we can do something about. Voldemort we can do something about.”
“The Ministry is handling him,” Potter said testily. “We’re first-years. And if you think I’m about to trade Remus for your blood-purist cousin, you’re as mad as she is.”
Severus strained to hear for any approaching teachers or Prefects but it was impossible to hear anything over their escalating bickering. Sirius had a few choice swears for Potter that were particularly colorful. But now that they’d been forced to backtrack because of Peeves, the girls getting caught by Professor McGonagall seemed more like an ominous warning than a sign that the evening was destined for success.
“We need to stick to Snape’s plan,” Potter urged Sirius who was clenching and his fists as though trying to take physical hold of his own swirling emotions. Potter didn’t seem to notice. “And once that’s done, I promise we’ll deal with Bellatrix.”
“You’re always choosing his ideas over mine!” Sirius shouted.
The betrayal in his voice range like a bell so clearly that even Potter couldn’t ignore it.
Their group of four tended to split down the middle the same way every time: Sirius and Potter on one side, Severus and Remus on the other. When alliances sliced differently or the scales tipped, it was like rubbing a cat’s fur the wrong direction and there was a strong possibility someone would end up with claw marks across their skin.
“Sirius, think about it,” Severus broke in. On either side, Potter and Sirius started as though they’d just remembered Severus was there, despite having argued round him for the past five minutes. “There’s no reason to assume she’s going to use the tunnel tonight. How would she even know Professor Coffey isn’t here?”
“She sees everything,” Sirius said.
Severus rolled his eyes. “She’s not Santa Claus.”
“Who?” the other two asked, momentarily in synch again.
“Ugh, forget it.” Severus loathed when he let a Muggle reference slip. “I’m only saying that she’s not all-knowing. She’s probably in Slytherin right now, dissecting a bunny rabbit or something, while we waste our time standing here like gits.”
The air simmered in a toxic stew between them, no one wanting to budge from their mountaintop. Severus believed Sirius when he’d said that he liked Remus, that it wasn’t anything personal, but he also believed that, despite everything, Sirius would never give up on his family. And he certainly wasn’t about to pick a werewolf over them. So what was the point of trying to convince him otherwise? Severus picked Remus. That was all that mattered. And time was not on their side.
“Sirius, if your cousin is that important, feel free,” Severus continued, “Potter and I can carry on without you.”
Sirius’ glare flickered like a shoddy lightbulb. He was stuck fast between wanting to follow his instincts about Bellatrix and wanting to be part of a dangerous, rule-breaking adventure, especially one with James Potter.
Just when Severus thought he saw something in Sirius relent, Potter said tiredly, “Sirius, just go.”
Hurt passed through Sirius’ features before ugly indignation settled in its place. Without another word, Sirius slipped out from underneath the Invisibility Cloak and angrily strode off into the shadows.
Neither of them said another word to each other but instead, set off again. And without a third person whinging and slowing them down, Severus and Potter were much stealthier as they moved through the castle, their footsteps falling in perfect calibration.
They cut a path through the Great Hall, the enchanted ceiling’s full moon casting silvery light across the four long rows of empty tables. Severus grit his teeth at their tardiness but told himself it would take another half-hour for a transformed Remus to potentially make his way back to Hogsmeade and through the tunnel. There was still time to break into the Quidditch shed, steal a pair of broomsticks, prevent any other students form trying to summon the rubbish Gryffindor Gloom and —
Potter stopped them near the end of the Ravenclaw table, frantically grabbing Severus by the forearm though he needn’t have done because Severus saw her, too.
Bellatrix Black, swift as a hungry spider, slipping across the Great Hall from the opposite side, surely coming direct from Slytherin, then disappearing into the dark again in the direction Potter and Severus had just come from.
Severus’ stomach dropped. Sirius and Bellatrix would find each other tonight. The last time that had happened, it had been Hallowe’en and Sirius had been brought to the floor, writhing his way through waves of Cruciatus. But even with that memory presumably just as top of mind for Sirius as it was for Severus, if not more so, he’d still charged off into the dark to try to stop his horrible cousin from throwing herself in with Voldemort’s followers.
Once Severus was sure Bellatrix was well and fully gone and out of earshot, he muttered, “Is there anyone in this school not breaking curfew? Bloody hell.”
His mind was already whirring as it tried to sort out if there was anything they could do, any alteration to his plans they could make that would allow them to help both Remus and Sirius simultaneously.
Potter beat him to the inevitable conclusion.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “I can take it from here.”
“What d’you mean, Potter?”
“You’re better off staying in the castle with your feet on the ground,” Potter said. “You can stop Sirius from doing something daft. Maybe he’ll listen to you if I’m not there.”
Severus stared, waiting for Potter to say he was having him on. After all the arguing with Sirius, Severus had even briefly thought maybe Potter would just leave Sirius to have at it.
There were few things Sirius kept walled off from his best mate but as far as he knew, Sirius had never told Potter that Bellatrix had tortured him with the Cruciatus Curse, at Hogwarts and at home. He wondered if Potter suspected something anyway and that was why he wanted someone to provide Sirius some sort of back-up.
Severus wasn’t sure what good he’d be. Last time, he’d ended up with a broken ankle and stuck in a missing stair.
“I don’t think—” he began.
“I’ve seen you on a broomstick, Snape,” Potter said. “And I would really, really like to never witness it again.” Before Severus could stop him, Potter was pulling off the Invisibility Cloak and Severus fumbled to do the same even though being visible again left him feeling oddly exposed in the cavernous hall.
“Sirius could be right,” he said peevishly in the face of Potter’s sudden calm. “Snuffles might be out there and my plan is—”
“Incredibly stupid,” Potter finished for him but he shoved the Invisibility Cloak back into Severus’ hands anyway.
“Won’t you need this?” He marveled at the flowing fabric in his hands and tried his utmost to pretend he wasn’t still awestruck by it.
Potter lifted then dropped one shoulder in an insouciant half-shrug and smiled, all ease and good nature, like he was letting Severus take the last lemon square instead of lending him his most precious possession. “You go look after my idiot and I’ll look after yours.”
Severus ran his thumb over the bunched cloak fabric to delay having to respond. Not far from where they stood was the exact spot where the Sorting Hat had slipped down past his eyes and Severus had changed his path forever.
His entire future, the one where he met the right people and made real the emerald-and-silver-laced dreams his mother had faithfully conjured for him time and again back at Spinner’s End when things were at their bleakest, all of it had gone up into the atmosphere like so much smoke. And for someone who came to Hogwarts with nothing, there’d been a specificity to the horror of his Sorting swerve — like he’d been handed a heavy bag of Galleons and immediately poured it all down a sewer grate.
But so much had happened since then. Severus Snape walking to the Gryffindor table as though walking to the gallows on September the first would never have guessed in a thousand centuries that he’d be working alongside James Potter in the dead of night to try to help their friends at great risk to themselves.
Potter pointed up at the full moon as it glowed ominously down from the ceiling. “Best be getting on with it, eh?”
“Fine.” Severus pulled the cloak over his head, the relief and safety of being invisible making it much easier to form the words he wanted to say next. “…And good luck, James. Try not to get killed?”
The other boy couldn’t see him anymore and so, was looking at a point past Severus’ right shoulder, but one corner of his mouth curled up in quiet, warm surprise. “Same to you, Sev.”
They speedily parted ways, leaving the emotionally earnest moment behind in the Great Hall where Severus suspected it would stay and, God-willing, never be repeated again.
When he arrived at the third floor corridor, he found the statue of Gunhilda undisturbed. If either Sirius or Bellatrix had already gone down the tunnel, the hump had closed behind them. With his promise to Professor Coffey that he wouldn’t open the passageway again present in his mind, Severus tapped the stone hump with a Dissendium.
“Sirius! Hey Sirius, you prat!” he half-whispered into the foreboding dark behind the hump. “Are you down there?”
If he was, he either couldn’t hear Severus or, more likely, had little interest in responding. Severus paused, his fingers curled over the lip of the passageway. This felt like proper rule-breaking with consequences far worse than a few detentions cleaning toilets and exactly why he’d not wanted to go on the initial excursion to Honeyduke’s with the others.
The sharp click-click-click of Professor McGonagall’s steps echoed in the distance. She was coming back from Gryffindor after hauling Dorcas, Salma, and Marlene there to reprimand.
Severus jerked away from the statue and pressed himself invisible against the nearest wall, the passageway closing as he did so. But as he waited for her to pass, a softer, more frantic tread was coming up much faster, rubber-soled trainers hammering against the stone floor. His own heart pounded in near-matching rhythm because he recognized that footfall.
Out of the shadows, Lily Evans skidded to a stop.
Her ginger hair was slipping out of its braid and her usually pale cheeks were warmed to pink. Having given up on outrunning their Head of House, she assessed the one-eyed witch statue for hiding spot potential. The better option, of course, was to spring ahead to the stairs tucked behind a tapestry of Gregor the Glorious but perhaps she wasn’t aware of its existence. If Severus remembered right, that had been a discovery courtesy of Sirius.
Severus held his breath as Lily wedged herself into the bottom corer of the statue, trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible. Unknowingly, of course, she’d chosen to squat down so close to where Severus stood that she could have reached a hand out and touched the worn laces of his trainers.
Professor McGonagall was getting closer and Lily was within moments of being spotted. Severus’ instinct was to stay hidden beneath the Invisibility Cloak and let it happen. It served her right for not listening to him about the Gryffindor Gloom —and for reading the letter from his mother, which she had yet to return. His face went hot just imagining her reading it to the other girls, everyone cackling with laughter or shaking their head in second-hand embarrassment. A more intimately shameful version of Sirius’ Howler from his mum.
Professor McGonagall’s footsteps paused, like she was reconsidering her path, and then there were the staccato clicks again, getting louder as they charged down the third floor corridor.
This was a fantastic turn of events, really. Maybe Lily would get detention for what remained of term. One hundred House points gone in a blink. Maybe more.
Lily had drawn her legs up to her chest and buried her face in her knees, as though if she couldn’t see Professor McGonagall, maybe Professor McGonagall wouldn’t see her. Despite being scrunched up, Lily was able to frenetically twist her grandfather’s wedding ring on her thumb, an attempt to soothe her anxieties.
He remembered last August when Lily first told him about the relentless grief of losing him — a sharp, devouring pain that never really went away. It had been the first time in Severus’ life where someone had trusted him with a private feeling.
Thinking on it now, he’d never quite reciprocated.
Even as he slid down against the wall to join Lily on the floor, he could recall the precise sensation of cold soaking through his ribs as she’d recited part of his mother’s letter back to him. It was a horrible shock that Lily would wield the letter against him like a blade, but with even this bit of distance, he could also consider the extent at which he’d been clutching to the barest hope his mum would understand.
He didn’t know what the rest of the letter said, infuriatingly, but he could guess. His mum had blamed Lily for Severus’ Sorting, as though he’d been too thick to decide for himself.
Over a stupid little Mudblood who wouldn’t think about you twice. That’s what the letter had said.
But he’d also never really chosen Slytherin for himself, had he? That had been her, telling him to want it, assuming that of course he would, wanting him to want it. And his mother’s reasoning was sound. Slytherin, even with Bellatrix and the rest, was impressively alluring. But he’d found things in Gryffindor that were valuable, too.
So if Gryffindor was indeed a mistake, let it be his mistake.
“Lily,” he whispered and her eyes went wide as saucers. “Don’t scream.”
There was no time to explain. He grabbed the edges of the Invisibility Cloak, scooted a bit closer, and pulled it over her, cocooning her in safety with him just as Professor McGonagall strode past. Her steely gaze fell precisely where they were huddled together next to the statue’s base and lingered a moment before she briskly moved on in her pursuit of more curfew-breakers.
Beneath the Invisibility Cloak, neither of them could quite figure out what to say to each other first. The last time they’d exchanged words had been earlier that morning in the Potions dungeons when they’d started taking apart their friendship brick by brick until Professor Slughorn had interrupted them.
Lily gestured at the soft cloak surrounding them. “Sev, what is this? Are we—?”
“Er, yeah,” he said sheepishly. “It’s Potter’s Invisibility Cloak.”
“His what?!” She slapped her hands over her mouth but the clicking of Professor McGonagall’s heels did not return. To be safe, she repeated in a whisper, “Sorry, his what? Did you say Invisibility Cloak?”
Severus nodded while Lily extended a slender arm out in wonder. It was disorienting, Severus knew, how at close-range beneath the cloak things were perfectly visible but if you could see past to where your arms or fee should be, there was nothing.
Lily had the same dazed look as when they’d followed the freshly Sorted first-year Gryffindors after the Welcome Feast and seen Nearly Headless Nick for the first time.
“Ghosts, Sev! Real live ghosts!”
“Do Potter’s parents know he has this?” Lily asked. “Are Invisibility Cloaks even allowed at Hogwarts? I’d think McGonagall would have an absolute fit.”
Her questions were near-identical to those he’d had when James first showed him the cloak on a previous curfew-breaking evening. A smile tugged at his lips over their shared indignation that rules, once again, did not seem to apply to James Potter. But then he remembered the theft of his mother’s letter and the fondness washed away.
“I told you not to do the Gryffindor Gloom,” he landed on in answer.
“I’m not—”
“Then what are you doing here?” he volleyed back before she could even finish. Arguing was what felt most familiar between them now and it was a groove Severus easily dropped the needle into. “You could get three years’ detention with Filch. Or expelled.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “I could ask you the same thing.” She gestured at his winter cloak. “Planning on going somewhere? The Gryffindor Gloom again?”
“No,” Severus said peevishly but he was, indeed, starting to feel a bit over-warm. “It’s different. I’m looking for Sirius.”
“Well, I’m looking for Margaret.”
They glared at each other for a beat but Lily’s shoulders were set as firmly as the stone statue beside them.
“Where’s Margaret gone, then?” Severus finally asked, flicking the question at her as though he was the Whomping Willow whipping away a bird that had dared land in its branches. If he could convince her to go back to Gryffindor, then he could cast Dissendium on the witch’s hump and continue his search for Sirius.
“Peter Pettigrew asked if Margaret would go on a walk after dinner. Dorcas told her not to but…” She bit her lip briefly, as though forcing herself through something painful, then continued, “I told Margaret that she should. The other girls left to do the Gloom nonsense and I waited behind for Margaret in the Common Room. She never came back, though, so I left to find her.” She looked down at her hands, twisting her grandfather’s silver ring again. “I’m being a nutter about it, I know.”
If Margaret was getting pressure from the girls to stay away from Pettigrew, Severus could only imagine the conversations happening on the other side of things in Slytherin. Pettigrew didn’t seem the sort to do well beneath the focused gaze of negative attention.
It’s what would likely happened if Severus had gone to Slytherin. He shuddered at the thought of having to explain himself to the likes of Avery and Mulciber.
So maybe even without the existence of a stolen letter and the Sorting-into-Gryffindor business, there would have been this growing distance between him and Lily anyway, ever widening year over year until they left Hogwarts and never spoke again.
Perhaps this was what they’d always been destined for: stumbling into each other’s lives then stumbling back out with only the bruises to show for it.
“Did Pettigrew or Margaret say anything before they left?” Severus asked.
“He said he wanted to show her something he found out about the castle that she’d really like,” Lily said, almost in a rush of relief at discussing this with an outside party. Clearly it was an ongoing debate in her friend group, much like Snuffles was in Severus’. “Margaret says Pettigrew’s got a nose for finding hidden passages and things.”
He glanced past her to the one-eyed witch statue. There was a not altogether tiny possibility that Sirius was already halfway to Hogsmeade and in trouble or soon about to be. James had gone out into the night on his own to steal a broomstick and fly circles over a violent werewolf who was also their friend and roommate and who would never forgive himself if he were to hurt someone. And here was Severus sitting on the floor with Lily under the safety of the Invisibility Cloak, overheating from still being in his winter cloak.
“Maybe Margaret’s already gone back to Gryffindor,” he said delicately, hoping this point might compel Lily to double-back to the tower and stay there.
“She’s not,” she replied. “I know she’s not.” She tilted her head closer towards Severus to confess, “I saw Bellatrix Black near that tucked-away corridor on the second floor. The one with the huge painting of foggy Big Ben? I can’t leave Margaret out here on her own. Not with her stalking around.”
Severus felt a pang at Lily unknowingly referencing the Muggle Studies corridor behind the painting of Victorian London. That was one Hogwarts secret he’d always meant to share (at Remus’ suggestion) but he’d been too preoccupied with other things — the map, Bellatrix, keeping Remus’ secret and then keeping him at Hogwarts…
Perhaps sharing the Muggle Studies corridor could have helped turn the tide between them, but of course, brilliant as ever, Severus had gone and given the thoughtful gesture away to Peter Pettigrew of all people in exchange for Dissendium which had really only been useful for James and Sirius in their illicit Honeyduke’s adventure and— and —
Oh. Oh no.
With a clarity that made him woozy, Severus said faintly, “I know where they’ve gone. Margaret, Pettigrew, Sirius—”
“And Bellatrix?” Lily finished, expression grim but determined.
Severus nodded. “I’ll explain on the way,” he said as he got to his feet and pulled her up to standing as well. He barely glanced at the statue of Gunhilda except to shove his winter cloak behind her hump, right up against where the passageway lay hidden. Despite what remained ahead, without the wool cloak, he felt much lighter.
Lily raised an eyebrow, so he simply said, “I won’t be needing it after all.”
There was no further time to waste. He and Lily took off at a near-run Severus holding fast to one of Lily’s wrists to help them stay together beneath the Invisibility Cloak. As with James, it was as though he and Lily hit a shared rhythm and it was relatively easy to move as one, as though they were just a pair of Hogwarts ghosts gliding unseen through the castle.
Pettigrew couldn’t impress on his own, but that didn’t mean he had nothing of value to offer. He could get important people what they wanted. Severus couldn’t think of a more useful quality in Slytherin than that.
They raced down a winding, half-forgotten staircase, shoving a tapestry aside at the bottom as they emerged on the second floor — near enough to the Muggle Studies corridor that they could slow to a half-walk, half-jog and Severus could breathlessly tell Lily why everything was about to collide in rooms devoted to electric tea kettles, typewriters, and 8-tracks.
Bellatrix had found her key out of the castle and it wasn’t dark magic at all but something much more straightforward. And like Lily had said, Pettigrew had a knack for finding hidden passageways.
It had been weeks ago that Severus had told Pettigrew where the entrance to the Muggle Studies corridor was. If there was a secret path away from Hogwarts grounds beneath the Whomping Willow and behind a one-eyed witch statue, why wouldn’t there be another one? Perhaps there were even more beyond that.
As for Pettigrew, maybe he knew all along there was something in Muggle Studies he could uncover or maybe it was simply his instinct telling him as much, but getting in, that was a secret he hadn’t been able to solve on his own until Severus told him how.
It was like step-by-step potion instructions, all of it unfolding as though written in neat lines by Professor Slughorn on a classroom chalkboard. There was a logic to it. A way out of Hogwarts that wasn’t a cramped passageway through a witch’s hump, the existence of which was known by at least one teacher and one Argus Filch.
Severus clutched his free hand tight to his side, a painful stitch wedged between his ribs, as he breathlessly told Lily this unfurling of events in his mind. Remus showing Severus the Muggle Studies corridor, Severus telling Pettigrew about it in exchange for the password for the Gunhilda statue (“Wait, so that’s why you were standing around there invisible just now?”), Pettigrew wanting to win points with Margaret but also, more importantly, Bellatrix — and that Sirius was quite certain Bellatrix was trying to leave Hogwarts early to join Voldemort and his Death Eaters and would do anything possible to stop her.
“Ooh, she is evil,” Lily seethed as he caught his breath beside her. They’d finally reached the painting of foggy Muggle London. This tucked-away bit of the second floor wasn’t a part of the castle Severus often went to and judging by the tarnish on a nearby coat of arms display, it wasn’t one Filch bothered with much either.
“How can someone be that impatient to murder people?” Lily continued beside him. “As if terrorizing us between classes isn’t jolly enough for her.”
As far as Severus knew, Lily was having a perfectly lovely time at Hogwarts, but she spoke as though she’d been fighting an ongoing war in the hallways. However, Lily’s day-to-day concerns and worries rarely reached him these days. He’d known for months she was upset about something, but hadn’t bothered trying to figure it out. Not really.
I’ve been busy, he told himself. But it did little to assuage the niggling guilt. He’d known for months there was something he wasn’t seeing but he’d let himself ignore it.
Before he could ask Lily about her past dealings with Bellatrix, she’d frozen like a deer in the forest sensing danger and pointed.
A small ball of wand light bobbed further down the length of corridor, but it was impossible to make out who it was from where they were standing. However, Severus would have recognized that agitated pacing anywhere.
“Oi!” he called out as he tugged off the Invisibility Cloak, much to Lily’s horror.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“It’s fine,” he reassured her. “I know who it is.” Then more loudly, “Oi, Sirius!”
The moving speck of light halted, then came swiftly towards them, the Lumos spell illuminating the sharp contours of Sirius’ cheekbones. Amusem*nt at the unexpected sight of Severus and Lily lit briefly like an ember in his dark eyes before being snuffed out again.
“I thought you were off with James,” Sirius said to him, to which Lily only raised her eyebrows at Severus as if to say that this was highly chummy behavior to have with someone who had not yet been mentioned to her that evening.
“He was concerned for you,” Severus said smoothly in a way he homed Sirius would understand to mean shut up about James Potter in Lily’s presence. He’d let her think he was only out past curfew to find Sirius and haul him back to Gryffindor. If she knew he’d been running about with James, that would invite more questions that could lead to Remus. Severus continued, “I tried telling Potter you’d made it this far in life acting a colossal git without getting yourself killed for it but here I am anyway.”
“What about you, Evans?”
“I’m looking for Margaret who went off with Peter Pettigrew,” she said. “And Sev thinks it’s all got something to do with you cousin wanting to sneak out of Hogwarts and join the Death Eaters…?” She briefly glanced past Sirius as though expecting Belaltrix to spring forth out of the shadows.
Sirius scowled, accusation thick in his voice as he said to Severus, “You told her?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Severus snapped back. “Pretend like all of us—” He began ticking off his fingers, “You, me, Lily, Potter, Margaret, Pettigrew, Bellatrix — are running round in the dead of night on coincidence alone?”
“Well, you and James have your special, separate priority, haven’t you,” Sirius said darkly and Severus silently berated himself for inviting the topic of James again. Sirius noticed the change in Lily’s attention, as though she were a cat with its ears perked, and blessedly changed the subject. “Anyway, I’m too late. I was following Bella but she’s gone and disappeared. And I haven’t seen hair of Margaret or Pettigrew. How’s that for your theory, Smellverus?”
“Pettigrew took Margaret to the Muggle Studies corridor and you are literally standing next to its entrance,” Severus said smugly. Then, a beat too late to be truly satisfying, added, “Idiot.”
“What d’you mean?” Sirius swiveled on the spot and gestured vaguely at their surroundings.
Severus nodded at the large oil painting of London, the smog from Victorian gas lamps partially obscuring Big Ben’s clock face. “Behind the London painting.”
“I don’t—” Sirius squinted unseeing, reminding Severus unfavorably of James trying to read chalkboard instructions in Potions class. “Wait a tic. Blimey.” He widened then narrowed his eyes again, like a camera lens readjusting. “I’d swear that wasn’t there before.”
Lily tentatively reached out to grip the lower corner of the gilded frame, testing to see if it would give at her touch. It swung open readily, another silent hallway waiting ahead but at least this one had the comforting glow of electric sconces on the walls.
“There used to be a password,” Severus said, remembering what Remus had said when he’d first brought him here. At the time, Severus had thought the lack of password meant the Muggle Studies hallway was accessible to everyone at Hogwarts, just another part of the castle.
Who’d care enough about telephones and Charles Dickens novels to harm any of it? At best, Muggle Studies seemed a terrible bore of a subject. Even Remus himself had implied that the password business had been done away with because the amount of people displeased by the mere existence of a dedicated Muggle Studies space were so few and far between.
“A password can be shared with anyone,” Lily said, unknowingly correcting him. “It’s gotten better protection now. It’s had to.”
Sirius ran his fingertips beneath the lower edge of the gilded frame, as though testing the solidity of a thing that had been invisible to him five seconds ago. “It’s a cool bit of magic, isn’t it? Purebloods must only be able to see if when we’re with you lot.” At Severus’ confused expression, he added, “Muggle-borns and half-bloods.”
It always came back to that, didn’t it? Severus wished he could be impressed by this new demonstration of the castle’s magic as the others, but his organs felt as though they were being squeezed.
In the library, Pettigrew had told him that he hadn’t seen a painting of Victorian London in this part of the castle. But after talking to Severus, he would have put it together, wouldn’t he? He understood the castle in a way that was somewhere between instinct and intellect. Maybe he’d immediately realized what Severus hadn’t and had gone to find a Slytherin with a Muggle parent or grandparent who could help him test his theory.
While Severus was tying more threads together in his mind, Lily had stepped through the entrance hidden by the painting, and he and Sirius were left with no choice but to follow.
Sirius stared openly at the wall sconces as they walked down the corridor, even going so far as to touch one of them. Severus wondered if they lit Victorian-era gas lamps or something at the Black family mansion. He could tell Sirius was forcing himself to stick close and not wander off into the adjoining classrooms to investigate more Muggle objects.
Although Severus hadn’t returned to this place since he’d been here with Remus, as far as he could tell, everything was untouched and seemingly normal, including the statue of a short, Muggle-born boy wizard at the end of the hall, the one that had reminded him of James because of the confident line of his shoulders, like the world would unfold before him simply because he wished it.
They gathered round the statue and Lily bent to read the plaque out loud, though Severus already knew what it said from having been here before: Bancroft Fletcher — Hogwart’s first Muggle-born student.
Well, mostly. There was the Latin-y bit at the end.
“What does semper hic fumuis mean?” Lily asked Sirius, the only one of the three of them forced to take Latin lessons as a child.
Sirius, who had gotten distracted by a nearby quartet of nonmoving Muggle photos on the wall, circled back to read it for himself. “It says: We have always been here.”
“But that can’t be right,” Severus corrected. “The year on the plaque is 990 A.D.” He’d read enough Hogwarts, A History to have such things committed to memory.
“And?” Sirius said.
“Bancroft Fletcher couldn’t have been here then. That’s the year Hogwarts was founded and—” He didn’t meet Lily’s eyes, even though it wasn’t like he was to blame. He hadn’t been directly involved with Hogwarts school policy hundreds of years ago. “They didn’t let Muggle-borns in straight off.”
Lily scoffed. “Big surprise there.”
“People’s minds changed,” Severus said, put on the defensive and then annoyed at having been forced to do so. “Even Salazar Slytherin eventually agreed to enroll Muggle-borns.”
“Then why is the Muggle Studies corridor impossible for purebloods to find?”
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“I thought you knew everything, Sev.”
“Oi, this looks like blood here,” Sirius broke in between them, seemingly unaffected by and unquestioning of the rolling boil of their arguing. Severus suspected that, like himself, Sirius grew up in a household where there was a constant, virulent conflict happening in the background at all times.
Severus and Lily leaned in, shoulder to shoulder, to assess the distressingly red streak of what was surely blood at the center of Bancroft Fletcher’s open, stony palm. It wasn’t quite the same as the shock of the dead stag in January, but it forcibly reminded Severus of what Sirius had said about the Rosier side of Bellatrix’s family practicing blood magic.
Lily had gone several degrees paler than usual and Severus thought he might be ill as his thoughts jumped to what seemed obvious conclusions. But it was Sirius, who could never let a silent moment drag on, who said what they all were thinking.
“If it’s Margaret’s — and it probably is — then Bella has been here, too,” he said. He immediately ran his hand down Bancroft Fletcher’s upper back, as though there might be an invisible hump there hiding a secret passageway, too.
“It’s a dead-end, Sirius,” Severus said as Sirius tapped his wand against Bancroft Fletcher’s right temple.
“She’s found another way out. There’s something here —there’s got to be. …Sev, happen to know any blood-letting spells?”
This was mental. He grabbed Sirius’ wand arm. “If you think we’re about to do illegal blood magic to take a secret passageway out of the castle while also breaking curfew—”
“We can’t let Bella get away!”
“Then it’s time we got a damn professor!” Severus shouted back. He’d found Sirius, as he’d promised James, and it was time to get him safe back to Gryffindor and away from Bellatrix. Up until now, there’d been a part of him that wanted to see this midnight adventure through to the end, but the swipe of blood on the statue had officially made the danger real. “We saw Professor McGonagall on our way here,” he continued with forced calm. “And Professor Coffey’s around tonight, too. Though at this rate, we should probably go straight to Dumbledore.”
“But Margaret’s in danger now,” Lily argued. “By the time we get a professor or Dumbledore, who knows what Sirius’ mad cousin will have done.”
Severus just barely stopped himself from saying he didn’t care about Margaret nearly as much as he did about the two people in front of him. And well, Bellatrix wouldn’t actually murder anyone, would she? She was just a teenager.
“We have two options,” Severus pointed out. “We either stand here like gits and waste our time trying to open the same secret passageway Bellatrix did or we find a teacher. What else is there to do?” He gestured at the statue. “Should we cut our own hands open and see if Bancroft approves and lets us through?”
“That’s exactly what we do,” Lily said with such ferocious determination that Severus was quite glad she wasn’t presently holding a switchblade.
“Evans, come on,” Sirius said. “I was joking about the blood-letting spell before. A first-year can’t do that kind of magic. Especially a first-year Muggle-born.”
“We’re in the Muggle Studies corridor, Sirius Black,” Lily said. “There’s a statue of a Muggle-born student. There’s something here we’re supposed to do and I’m probably the only one here who can do it.”
“You know illegal blood magic? I must have missed that class,” Sirius said.
“Just help me find something sharp,” she muttered.
The boys watched as Lily ducked into one of the adjoining rooms, the one with the piano.
“What d’you reckon there being any girls at Hogwarts who aren’t completely barking?” Sirius said while Severus checked his watch. It was past midnight now and the full moon surely risen. James would be on watch for an escaped and transformed Remus and Bellatrix had spirited herself and Margaret away through stone and timber.
“If you’re here,” Sirius said slowly, “James must be out there. On his own.”
There was no time to assuage Sirius’ guilt or anxieties when his own were threatening to drown him, so Severus said, “Sirius, I know you want to protect your cousin, but…”
“We need to find a professor,” Sirius grimly finished. It was the most responsible thing Severus had ever heard leave his mouth. “Don’t look so gobsmacked, Smellverus. Innocent people are involved now.”
Severus glanced back down the corridor into which depths Lily had disappeared. “What about Lily?”
“Whatever she’s thinking, it won’t work,” Sirius said. “And whatever you say to her, that won’t work, because she’s never going to agree with you.” He wasn’t pacing anymore but was continuing to tap the end of his wand on the statue instead, green sparks staccatoing out with each impact. “…I could stay and stop her from slitting her hand open. James lent you the cloak. You could use it to find McGonagall again. She’s probably still on the prowl out there.”
Severus’ hand reached for the flap of his bag where he’d stuffed the Invisibility Cloak and just as he was about to agree, a startled shriek came from the piano room.
“SEV! Sirius! Get in here!” shouted Lily.
They did as one, bursting into the room with their wands at the ready as though they were a trained fighting force and not simply armed with the meager list of spells all Hogwarts first-years knew and a few they definitely shouldn’t.
“Evans!” Sirius said, scanning for danger. “What the hell is—“
They drew up short at the sight of Peter Pettigrew slumped against a low shelf of albums. The Slytherin first-year was conscious, but bearing the marks of having recently been Stunned. Rather impressively, it seemed, given the matching pair of black eyes.
Lily was crouched down next to him and at first, Severus thought she was checking to make sure he was all right, but then he saw that she hadn’t lowered her wand.
“Where have they gone?” she demanded.
Pettigrew’s watery eyes, now swollen, made Severus think of two soft-boiled eggs that had been sat on. A thread of clear snot leaked from one nostril. “I was getting help,” Pettigrew sniveled.
“From the floor?” Sirius inquired innocently.
“Didn’t know your cousin was going to bloody Stun me, did I?” he yelled back, still some fire in him yet. “She’d said Margaret wouldn’t get hurt.”
Severus winced. Much like with the Trophy Room last October, Pettigrew had been an integral piece in making something vital happen but disposable once had nothing further to offer.
Severus stood alongside Sirius, towering over Pettigrew, but where Sirius held his wand like a threatening saber, ready to separate Pettigrew’s head from his body, Severus allowed his wand hand to drop to his side. Pettigrew noticed this as well and looked up at him beseechingly.
“Margaret and I are friends,” he pleaded. “Like you and her.”
Severus didn’t need to ask who he was referring to. Lily’s wand twitched but she otherwise made no comment.
“Are you going to tell us where my cousin is or do I need to practice my Entomorphis jinx?” Sirius threatened, though Severus was pretty sure he didn’t actually know to do the seventh-year spell.
“I— She— Her business isn’t any of yours,” Pettigrew said like he was reciting a line from a script.
“She Stunned you!”
Pettigrew’s mouth gasped open and shut like a fish on a dock, but he managed to say, “It was a surprise.”
“Yeah and probably the greatest honor of your life,” Sirius sneered.
Was this what Severus had been like when he’d arrived at Hogwarts? Someone who would have ultimately cared most for the company of people who didn’t particularly care for him? Probably so. And God, wasn’t that breathtakingly sad?
“Professor McGonagall is doing curfew rounds tonight,” Lily said. “If you don’t tell us where Margaret and Bellatrix went, we’ll drag you out of here and you can explain everything to her instead.”
“Severus, please,” Pettigrew said, doing his best to ignore the others. “I told you how the one-eyed witch statue works, didn’t I? And I took credit for cursing Black.” Lily raised her eyebrows at that. “You didn’t even get in trouble.”
Quid pro quo. Severus could understand that and he suddenly thought of James, who didn’t operate in that way at all. He was too good of heart and assume other people would also do the right thing for free. It was, in many ways, a good thing they’d chosen to split up in the Great Hall.
“Tell us how the statue opens, Pettigrew,” Severus said, “In exchange, we’ll rescue Margaret while you slither back to Slytherin. We won’t tell anyone you were here.”
“Not even a professor?”
Next to him, Lily scoffed in disbelief. It wasn’t enough that they would face down Bellatrix by themselves to fix this mess. Pettigrew wanted to save his own skin, too. Sirius’ face was set in a disgusted scowl. This was exactly the sort of Slytherin instinct he loathed.
But Severus suspected there may come a day when they needed something from Pettigrew again — better to give him a good deal now and collect later.
“It’ll be our secret,” Severus confirmed. He waited a moment for the others to argue with him on this point. They didn’t. “Now,” Severus continued. “Tell us about the statue.”
According to Peter Pettigrew, Bancroft Fletcher was, despite being Muggle-born, part of the first class of students Hogwarts ever admitted and, indeed, the first Muggle-born to receive a Hogwarts invitation.
Only, he hadn’t come through the front door.
He’d never even stepped into the Great Hall. The Founders, most of them anyway, had taught Bancroft Fletcher and later more Muggle-borns magic, separately and secretly. But they’d taught them all the same.
And then the schism rotted through the foundations some years later and Salazar Slytherin left to start his own school for purebloods. Presumably he had discovered that Muggle-borns were being admitted and covertly taught under his nose.
“They learned magic here?” Lily asked, glancing at their surroundings. Severus could guess what she was thinking — it was hard to imagine being at Hogwarts but never having a meal under the Great Hall’s enchanted ceiling or studying in the cozy, yet elegant library. He realized with a start that there weren’t windows in any of the Muggle Studies rooms. Those first students wouldn’t have even been able to look out over the grounds.
Severus wondered where they’d done their Sorting ceremonies. If it was in one of these rooms or out in the corridor that connected them.
Pettigrew nodded. “They lived here, too. They couldn’t go to other parts of the castle. Wasn’t safe for them. But there are other ways.”
“Mudbloods crawling in the walls,” Sirius murmured and Severus had an immediate flashback to Bellatrix muttering something similar in the girls’ toilet, back when he’d unintentionally spied her and Narcissa.
Lily was looking at Sirius, too, but for a different reason. “What?” he said defensively under her glare. “It’s just something my family has always said about Hogwarts.” He gestured at the statue of Bancroft Fletcher. “And apparently it was true!”
Severus had never thought about why there were so many secret passageways and moving staircases and things throughout the castle, but if the Founders had wanted to create spaces for Muggle-borns in the in-between, well, it was certainly one way to go about it. And Hogwarts’ caretakers were doing the same now in present day, just with a Whomping Willow and a different sort of undesirable.
There was something bothering him about this Hogwarts origin tale, though. It didn’t match with Hogwarts, A History, the authoritative text as far as Severus was concerned.
“How did you learn about this stuff?” he asked.
Pettigrew answered with a sniff. “A book. About the castle.”
“Is this really that important?” Sirius interrupted but Severus ignored him. He’d done months of research on Hogwarts, yet somehow Pettigrew knew more about the castle and its history than he did.
“I’ve read Hogwarts, A History back to front and then some and I’ve never seen anything about Muggle-borns being admitted to Hogwarts straight-away. It says the opposite, in fact,” Severus argued.
“Not that book. Couldn’t get it. It’s always checked out by someone,” Pettigrew said pointedly. “I had to read some barmy version. You had it with you before.”
Hogwarts, A Complete and Unbiased History by Mona Lovegood. It was the book Severus had given to Pettigrew to write in when they’d talked in the library. Pettigrew must have seen the title and gone to find the library copy and of course it had been available, because who wanted to read a mental book filled with nonsense and rubbish? Severus had only read bits and pieces of it for a laugh before he knew Remus was the one checking out Hogwarts, A History all the time.
“Is that the book I gave you?” Lily asked and Severus nodded, mystified. He wasn’t sure how much of this recounting to believe, given its source, but he had to admit, it made a certain amount of sense. And there was a statue here with Bancroft Fletcher written on the plaque with dates that wouldn’t work if he hadn’t been at Hogwarts from the start.
“This was their way out,” Pettigrew continued, nodding at the statue. “In case the Mud— Muggleborns ever needed it.”
Lily didn’t take her gaze off the confident, admittedly handsome face of the statue. Sirius, meanwhile, was uncharacteristically quiet, studying Pettigrew as though he’d never seen him before. Severus supposed up until now, in Sirius’ mind Pettigrew was a spineless worm, not someone collecting castle secrets at as fast as pace as their Gryffindor team of mapmakers.
“But it wouldn’t work for Bellatrix. Had to force her way through w-with Margaret,” Pettigrew said, watery blue eyes cast down again. “The passageway, the castle didn’t intend it for her. It wouldn’t open the normal way.”
Because it’s for us,” Lily said softly. “Me and Margaret. The other Muggle-borns. Bancroft knew Margaret didn’t want to go.”
If a statue could know such things. But Pettigrew nodded, seemingly relieved. Severus suspected he was a person often questioned and rarely understood. “Unbiased History says the statue is enchanted to recognize names,” Pettigrew said. ‘There’s a book in the castle somewhere of them.”
Severus had heard his mother talk about a book at Hogwarts where the name of every magical child in Wizarding Britain appeared the moment they showed any signs of magic. She’d been thrilled the first time he’d accidentally made his father’s Ovaltine coffee drink transfigure and thicken into algae. His father, less so. But it had meant that a future Hogwarts letter would arrive bearing his name and that was the only thing that mattered.
“The Book of Admittance,” Sirius acknowledged. He’d gone to pace a short distance away, unable to simply stand there another moment, walking to the midpoint of the corridor then back again. “Muggle-born names have always appeared since the book was created. My grandfather complained about that one frequently. He says it was purposeful undermining of pureblood wizard families from the start.”
As though they were making introductions, Lily placed her pale hand atop Bancroft Fletcher’s outstretched one, Margaret’s dried blood on the stone palm.
She took an intake of breath, shoulders rising, then said, “Lily Evans.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, just to the right of the statue, a square panel in the center of the wall slid open, large enough for them to crouch through one by one. The light was dim but Severus thought from this particular angle, Bancroft Fletcher looked as though he were smiling slightly in recognition of one of his own.
Sirius nodded determinedly and disappeared into the dark tunnel without another moment of hesitation, glad for something to finally do.
“Thanks, Peter,” Lily said as she gently placed a hand on Pettigrew’s shoulder, causing him to flinch. Then she, too, went into the blackness.
As Severus followed, he heard Pettigrew quietly say, “Tell Margaret I’m sorry.”
The passageway was cramped and cold, the stone walls closing in around them. Pitch black was ahead and behind them, swallowing up the antiseptic Lumos light of their wands. They were forced to walk in painfully slow single-file, occasionally bumping into each other and the walls at unexpected hairpin turns.
“We’d move faster if we could see further,” Lily whispered though she needn’t have. Other than their own footsteps, it was deathly quiet and there’d been no sign of Bellatrix or Margaret as the passageway took them steadily away from the castle.
“What about your bubbles?” Sirius asked from the front of the line.
Severus, who was behind the both of them, didn’t have to see Lily’s face to know she was wrinkling her nose.
“Your what?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” Sirius said breezily from the front, as though they were out on a leisurely stroll together and would be heading back shortly for tea and sandwiches. “His Lily bubbles.”
That moniker made Lily actually glance over her shoulder at him, eyebrows raised high. Severus was quite sure murder carried a lengthy sentence in Azkaban but killing Sirius might be worth the bother.
“It was going to be a birthday present,” he mumbled. “But then we, er, got distracted.”
Meaning he and Lily had fought over him skipping her birthday party to attend to things with James that he couldn’t tell her about — that had been their first big fight. And they’d carried on like that over more things he couldn’t quite grasp.
Down here in the dark, the reasons and the volcanic feelings all seemed rather far away.
Maybe Lily was feeling the same, because she said sheepishly, “Well, all right. Let’s see these bubbles then.”
Glowing golden bubbles filled the space around them, warming up the passageway with their gentle light.
“Wow,” Lily breathed, pausing to see if one would land on top of her hand without bursting until Sirius scolded them to keep moving. If the situation wasn’t so dire, she would have rolled her eyes, but instead, she said to Severus, “You invented a spell for me?”
He shrugged but couldn’t fight his embarrassed pride. “It’s nothing. Just a simple charm.”
“Inventing an entire spell isn’t nothing, Sev,” she whispered. “It’s… I didn’t know people could do that.”
“Spells have to come from somewhere,” Sirius commented matter-of-factly as he took the next turn, briefly disappearing from view as the stone walls surrounding them turned to hard-packed dirt.
“Well, I think it’s brilliant,” Lily said to Severus but her expression changed when they both caught sight of an abandoned white Keds trainer that surely belonged to Margaret. Neither of them said anything but there was even more urgency in their shuffling footsteps.
At every turn in the passageway, Severus’ breath would tighten at the expectation of coming upon Bellatrix and Margaret, then immediately loosen at the sight of another stretch of empty tunnel. He hoped that they’d just find Margaret. Stunned perhaps with a bloodied hand but that Bellatrix would be long gone.
“We’ve got to be close to the end,” Severus said. They were getting further and further away from Hogwarts and Severus thought longingly for his winter cloak stashed behind Gunhilda on the third floor.
He checked his watch in the light of the bubbles. It was nearly one in the morning. By now, James would have witnessed if Remus was getting out of the Whomping Willow and stopped anyone else from trying the Gryffindor Gloom. There was a chance he was safely making his way back to Gryffindor at that very moment.
They were suddenly like dominoes. Severus winced as he accidentally trod on the backs of Lily’s heels — while Lily made a soft oomph sound as she bumped into Sirius who had put his wand arm out to stop them from going further. He raised a finger to his lips.
“The door won’t open, Mr. Dolohov,” Bellatrix was saying, voice raised but there was panic running through it. “And I’ve spilled too much of her blood already.”
There was a muffle voice of an adult man in response, but Severus couldn’t make out what he was saying, followed by a low, pitiful moan that was unmistakably Margaret’s.
“Shut up, mudblood,” Bellatrix snapped. “I need to think.”
Lily and Sirius waved frantically at Severus’ bag and he rushed to open the clasp. Between the three of them and with the Invisibility Cloak, they’d stand a chance. Maybe.
As the wondrous fabric pooled in his arms, Sirius’ hand shot out and grabbed Severus by the wrist, suddenly terror-stricken. Severus understood why in between his own heartbeats.
Because there was a pause just ahead of them, one laden with what Severus could only think of as some kind of jungle predator sensing prey. He hadn’t banished the Lily bubbles. They had continued to move down the passageway without them, floating round the corner and into Bellatrix’s notice.
Sirius moved first and he moved fast. Lily and Severus, who had tossed the cloak and bag to the side, moved a half-second behind. A cold determination coiled around his pounding heart. He was not letting Bellatrix get the better of them again.
“Expelliarmus!” “Stupefy!” “Petrificus Totalus!”
They were good spells — especially for first-years —but there’d been no time to coordinate and Bellatrix’s wand work was electric. Not bothering to even speak her counter spells out loud because it would have taken too much time, she flicked her wrist as though her wand was a whip and knocked them off their feet in a single motion. Then —
“Crucio.”
Obliteration was instant. Severus’ vision went white-hot, an atom splitting in his cortex. In the same instant, every nerve lit up, trillions of fires blazing through him, past him, radiating outward in an endless flood.
Then it all went away as instantaneously as it had begun and the world rushed back into technicolor. The agony had lasted a thousand years. It had lasted a single breath.
“Smarts, doesn’t it,” Bellatrix said from somewhere above their heads. “Stay down there in the dirt with the other mudblood and I won’t do it again.”
Next to him, Lily gasped softly as she came back from her own private torture.
“Bella,” Sirius said. He struggled to stand but his legs were too weak and he crashed to his knees. “Don’t do this.”
She scoffed while she paced back and forth in the exact rhythm Severus typically associated with Sirius. “Barely out of nappies but he’s the heir,” she said, twisting the word heir in her mouth so that it came out whining and derisive. Severus wasn’t sure if she was talking to the rest of them or to herself. “So he thinks he gets to boss me. Don’t make me puke.”
“It’s not about that,” Sirius argued but he only received a brief dose of Crucio in response. “I don’t even want it,” he choked into the ground once it was over. “I never wanted it.”
“Oh boo-hoo,” Bellatrix said. Then —“Don’t move another inch, mudblood.”
Lily had been edging towards Margaret. She was slumped over on the ground, presumably from the effects of having been Stunned. Her brown hair was a mess with her bangs matted to her forehead with dried blood and sweat, and she sported two black eyes worse than Pettigrew’s had been. Perhaps she had been Stunned more than once. Her shirt, darkened and wet at one side, was ripped at the sleeve and she was missing a shoe.
The Lily bubbles floated about in the dead-end passageway, casting a comically warm and cozy light on the horrible scene. Severus could just make out the drying trail of blood and painted nails on Margaret’s limp left hand. She’d chosen a soft pink for the polish.
“What’s happening in there?” came the voice of the man Bellatrix called Dolohov. Even muffled by the heavy wood door, his sharp irritation was clear. “The Dark Lord does not have unceasing patience, Bellatrix.”
She sprang back into action, redoubling her casting efforts at the door. “I’m trying, Mr. Dolohov!” She glanced briefly back at Margaret, considering spilling more blood. There were already odd marks and runes in blood on the door, seemingly done with Bellatrix’s fingers.
Lily caught Severus’ eye, her eyebrows lifting just slightly as she sent a significant glance at Bellatrix’s turned back. Like with James, he simply understood what she was saying without the need of always having to exchange literal words.
He nodded in agreement —better to grab Margaret and retreat now while Bellatrix was occupied. They could grab the Invisibility Cloak for extra coverage.
Lily bit her lip then mouthed, “Wands.”
Their wands had been flung into the air at the first Crucio and rolled away in disparate directions. But somehow the Lily bubbles charm continued to hold, and the Blackthorn wood of Severus’ wand gleamed and caught the light just so where it laid on the ground near Sirius.
Severus crawled over with painstaking slowness, shaking Sirius briefly on the shoulder to pull him out of his semi-catatonic incredulity at Bellatrix. There was some fundamental part of him that could not and would not believe anyone, even Bellatrix, would willingly leave Hogwarts to join Voldemort. He and James were similar that way —they couldn’t truly conceive how anyone could see what Voldemort was offering and think it was a better deal than what they currently had. Even when those reasons, as Bellatrix laid them out, were relatively straight forward.
“We can still do something,” Sirius whispered hoarsely, unheard by Bellatrix who was angrily trying a complicated spell over the lock on the door. “We can still stop her.”
“No, Sirius,” Severus hissed straight into Sirius’ ear, so close that Sirius’ hair tickled his nose. “It’s over. Can’t you see that?”
But unseen by Severus, Sirius had managed to keep hold of his wand from the start. Horrifying as it was to consider, Sirius had more practice withstanding the Cruciatus Curse. He drew it now, bellowing, “EXPELLIARMUS!”
Bellatrix was fast as a viper’s strike but for once not fast enough, and Sirius’ spell hit true. With a betrayed shriek, her wand sailed out of her hands and Lily, who was closest, immediately dove for it.
Neither of them were technically with wands and so, a vicious scramble ensued. Lily hunched protectively over Bellatrix’s wand while Bellatrix beat her sharp fists against Lily’s back, having seemingly lost her senses entirely. It would have almost been amusing, Bellatrix reduced to a schoolyard brawl, if her unbridled rage with no wand to channel it through wasn’t so disturbing to witness. Like a prize racehorse fallen on the track but unable to give up the race.
For her part, Lily’s head was safely tucked and one arm wrapped protectively over it. Severus would have bet everything he owned that the Evans sisters had more physical fights — more Muggle fights — as little kids than the Black sisters ever had. Unnoticed by Bellatrix, she was slowly wedging her arm underneath herself to grab the other girl’s wand.
Severus bent to grab his own, which was still on the ground, while Sirius hesitated to cast anything more, not wanting to hit Lily accidentally. Aim was quite a bit important when casting spells more serious in their effects than Expelliarmus.
But as it turned out, Lily needed help from neither of the boys. With the sort of timing and strategy that only came from years of skirmish practice with Petunia, Lily straightened at the perfect moment between blows and pointed Bellatrix’s own wand directly at her face.
“How dare you!” Bellatrix shrieked but Lily didn’t waver, not even to wipe away the blood streaming down her cheek from a deep scratch. Seeing this, Bellatrix made no move to continue beating on Lily. There’d be no point in it —Lily was ready to curse her into next week.
Lily stood up fully, reminding Severus of an illustration from a Muggle library book he’d once paged through of an ethereal warrior rising out of the sea. Bellatrix stayed on her knees and looked similarly to someone about to be decapitated by a sword.
“This isn’t your world, Bellatrix Black,” Lily said, ice in her voice. “It’s ours. It always has been. The Muggle-borns and the half-bloods and everyone else. And we get a say in who stays in it.”
Bellatrix glowered murderously at her, eyes glittering like beetles in the low light. If she’d had use of her wand, Severus knew she’d do a lot worse than the Cruciatus Curse against Lily in that moment. “We’ll see who gets the last word in the end, mudblood.”
“Petrificus Totalis.”
Bellatrix’s limbs went rigid and she fell painfully backwards into the dirt floor of the passageway with a surprisingly dense thud. Sirius immediately rushed over to his fallen cousin, whether out of concern or wanting to verify Lily’s full body-bind hex had worked, he couldn’t say.
He went to Lily, who was still staring poisoned daggers at Bellatrix’s frozen form, and gently tugged at her sleeve. “That was brilliant, Lily.”
“I should snap her wand for everything she’s done this year,” Lily said fiercely. And then her shoulders dropped, like a balloon deflating, and she flung her arms around him, burying her face into the side of his neck like she did so many months ago in a stairwell off the Great Hall. “It’s been a wretched time, Sev,” she whispered in a ragged voice, and he could tell she was holding back exhausted tears but only just. “I’ve been wretched.”
He squeezed her tightly for a moment, then pulled back enough to roughly wipe the dried blood off her cheek as she winced. “Let’s just grab Margaret and get out of here, all right?” he said. There was so much more to say, but at the moment, tired relief that it was over was threatening to subsume him entirely.
“What about Bellatrix?” she asked.
“She’ll find her own way back,” Severus said, not in the least bit concerned. Let her rot down here for all he cared.
“And her wand?”
“It’s not too late to break it in half,” he said. She smiled wryly at him but pitched it into the darkness, as far away from Bellatrix as she could.
Sirius shuffled over to them, a thankfully conscious but still injured Margaret leaning heavily against him. Severus was pretty sure the only way she was even standing upright was because Sirius was there to bear her weight.
“Hey,” Lily said gently, putting a hand out to Margaret’s arm. “You had me worried there.”
Margaret sniffled, the deep bruising beneath her eyes making her look extra hollowed out. As bad as their nights had been, Margaret’s had been much worse. “I was so stupid to trust him, Lil.”
“I think Peter just got… a bit mixed up in things,” Lily said. Sirius snorted, which earned him a glare. Knowing Lily, she likely agreed but didn’t want for Margaret to feel more foolish than she already did. “We’re taking you straight to Madam Pomfrey and then we’re telling Professor McGonagall what happened.”
“What?! We can’t!” Sirius protested. “They’ll expel Bella!”
“Are you joking, Black? She cast an Unforgivable. Twice. She could have killed Margaret. She probably would have done if we hadn’t gotten here.” At the mention of Margaret, Sirius looked guiltily away from the person leaning on him to remain upright. “She’s manipulated Pettigrew. Oh and she wants to join up with Voldemort.”
Sirius turned to Severus, looking for an ally, but Severus only said, “Let your cousin make her own decisions.” He didn’t add that making her own decisions was the one thing Bellatrix seemed to want anyway. Something she had in common with Sirius.
For his part, Sirius glanced back at the resolutely locked door that presumably opened to the night, Bellatrix still but conscious at the foot of it and hearing every word of their conversation. But the Lily bubbles had almost popped now and the passageway was folding into darkness.
“All right,” Sirius said softly, his stubbornness defeated at last. “Let’s get to the Hospital Wing. But can McGonagall wait until tomorrow morning? I’m completely knackered.”
There had been several times over the past few months when Severus had thought back to the Howler from Sirius’ mother and how she’d accused him of ruining their family reputation and tarnishing their legacy. She’d made it clear she thought Sirius didn’t care a whit about anyone else in the family but himself.
It was true that Sirius didn’t care for the dusting trappings of the Ancient House of Black, but he certainly cared about his family. Very much so. And Severus wished Sirius’ mother could see that even after multiple rounds of Crucio, even while in fundamental disagreement with his cousin, that he was still reluctant to leave her behind in the dark. That kind of loyalty was utterly insane —and exceedingly rare. Severus just hoped that one day it would stop getting Sirius Black into so much trouble.
“Lumos,” Lily said, lighting up the space between them. With the bright light casting even sharper shadows, Severus thought they all looked particularly ghoulish, Margaret in particular.
He hoped James was getting on all right. It would be good to regroup and hear how his night had gone.
Just as Severus was going to cast Lily bubbles for a bit of comfort, paces behind them, the door Bellatrix had been trying so desperately to unlock burst open in a blazing red light.
