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Hexes and Honesty


The Divination room was hot from the sun, even though outside the window there was snow falling across the window and collecting on the sill’s edges. Sirius was exhausted and struggling to keep awake in the heat and low lighting of the room.

He was so tired thanks to the fact that he had lain awake long into the night after Remus had fallen asleep, just thinking, listening to Remus’s oddly unsteady heartbeat. He had been trying to remember everything he’d overheard the Centaurs saying back at the start of term and how the prophetic words they’d spoken about Veigler and the Hunter and the mystery Boy had gone. He still was, even now, in class. It was as though his brain couldn’t turn off, ever since Veigler had started teaching them ways to destroy werewolves, all but confessing to them he was one himself, Sirius had been spinning the thoughts ‘round and ‘round, desperate to make sense of it all. But it was still just as vague as it had been when he’d started. Possibly even vaguer.

Peter was talking to him across the little table, but Sirius wasn’t really listening, he just nodded and shifted on his cushion.

“You have to try at this, Severus, if you want to get a good grade,” Remus’s voice was low and angry. Sirius glanced over his shoulder at the table where Remus and Severus Snape sat now. Remus was leaned closer to the table, looking at Severus’s greasy face with an expression of imploring desperation. “Maybe you don’t care about your grade in this class, but I do, and we’re graded as a team and…”

“Look I have enough problems getting bullied around this school without being paired with the queer kid,” Severus snapped.

Remus looked like he’d been slapped and he sat back. “I’m -- I -- that -- that doesn’t have anything to do with Divination!” he stammered, taken aback. “Even if I was queer, it doesn’t change whether you need to do your homework or not.”

“Make up something to interpret, like I had to do for half a month while you were injured,” Severus said quietly.

“I was at St. Mungo’s, and I kept up with my homework,” Remus hissed, “You’re just being a prat. Besides, it’s not as though your little bullying mates are going to call you a puffer fish and whatever else they’ve come up with for me behind my back.”

“Bit of the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?” Severus whispered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Remus demanded.

“You and your little friends, the Marauders, you lot are the biggest bullies in this school!” Severus replied, rolling his eyes.

Remus snorted, “Have you met the Slytherins you hang about with? Evan Rosier?”

Severus said, “James Potter? Sirius Black?”

“Don’t talk about Sirius Black,” muttered Remus. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“I know he’s the most selfish bastard that ever walked these halls,” Severus Snape growled, “And yes, bastard is the word for him. The Black family would be better off if he’d never even been born.”

“Rich seeing as you’ve been blasted off Mother’s family tree longer than I have been,” Sirius said, standing up and stepping into the conversation, unable to take anymore of what Severus had to say. Remus groaned and covered his face. “Best get your facts straight, halfblood.”

Several people in the cushions around them had turned to look up at them.

Severus sneered, “Better a loyal halfblood than a traitor like yourself with the friends you keep.”

“Funny, I’m pretty sure we have a few of the same friends…” Sirius said, glancing Lily’s way. He leaned closer, “Whatever would Lily think if she knew you thought she was filthy?”

“Keep Lily out of this,” Severus snarled.

“She doesn’t like you,” Sirius said, “Because you treat her like a thing to be owned instead of a person. Is that because of her blood status you treat her like an object?”

Severus’s face turned quite red. “Go back to your own bloody table, Black.”

“Stop harassing my mate, Snape,” retorted Sirius.

Their eyes locked. “At least you’ve manned up enough to call him your mate.”

Sirius raised his wand and before anyone could’ve stopped him, he’d thrown the bat-bogey hex at Severus, who’d met Sirius’s hex with one of his own - “Levicorpus!” Sirius was instantly upended, hanging by his ankle from the ceiling. His shirt he wore over his cut-at-the-knee jeans hung up ‘round his armpits and his hair dangled nearly to the floor as flying boogers soared out of Severus’s nose.

“NOT IN THIS CLASSROOM!” cried Cassandra Vablatsky, “There will be no hexing in this classroom! Finite incantantum!” Severus’s boogers fell to the floor - as did Sirius. “Detention, both of you.”

“Grand,” Sirius said, rubbing the spot on his head where he was most certainly going to get a bump.

Severus glowered.

Remus still hadn’t uncovered his eyes.




“Do you think I treat you like an object?”

Lily Evans had been stopped short in the hall after Divination as Severus Snape grabbed onto her elbow and roughly pulled her into an empty classroom, where they wouldn’t be disturbed. She straightened her cardigan, agitated, and looked up at Severus with a slightly annoyed expression. The agitation from spending an hour listening to James go on and on and on about how grand he was at Quidditch was still lingering in her voice. “What are you talking about?”

Severus’s voice was a rumbling whisper, “Before… out on the grounds that day… the first day it snowed… I said some stuff… and you got upset and you left…”

Lily smoothed her hair uncomfortably.

“Is the reason you don’t love me back because you think I treat you like an object?” Severus asked again.

Lily sighed. “I dunno,” she said, then, shaking her head, “No. No, I mean you’re Severus Snape and --”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked defensively.

“I mean you’re my Severus,” Lily said. “You’re my friend. You’re… you’re you.”

I’m not good enough for you?” he asked in disbelief. “The pure-blood’s not good enough for the --” he caught himself before he said the wrong word. “The muggle-born?”

Lily looked equally offended as he would’ve imagined she would have appeared if he’d actually said mudblood. “Since when do you say things like that?” she demanded.

Severus asked, “Since when am I not good enough for you?”

“Since right this moment, when you’d say a bloody thing like that!” Lily answered, “Ugh! Why’d you have to go and say that for?” She shook her head and turned for the door. “And you’re a half-blood, Sev. Don’t go overselling yourself!” She stepped into the corridor and would’ve slammed the door, except Severus leaped into the frame, keeping the door from shutting as hard as she would’ve liked.

“Wait,” he said, catching her again, whirling her around to face him, “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. Don’t go, not mad. Please. I always say idiot things and make you angry with me and alls I’m really trying to say is that I love you and I wish you’d give me a chance to prove to you that being with a Slytherin half-blood like me isn’t so bad and even though I haven’t got a whole lot to offer you, I - I do have my heart and it’s yours if you want it. All of it, the whole of it. Always.”

Lily struggled to pull her arm away from his grasp and she stared at him. “You’re right about one thing - you are a ruddy idiot!”

“I’ll do anything you ask of me, Lily.”

“Sev --”

“C’mon. You told Pandora Jenkins to give Xenophilius Lovegood a go, didn’t you?” Severus pressed.

Lily blinked in surprise, “How’d you know that?”

Severus turned red.

“You looked in my mind again.” She hooted in anger, “You bloody arse!” She turned and stormed down the hall. Severus ran after her. She could hear his footsteps behind her. “I’ve told you not to look at my mind and yet you insist on doing it anyway!”

Severus said, “Well when you won’t talk to me, you don’t give me any choices!”

“If I’m not talking to you about something it’s because it’s private, Sev!” Lily whined, “It’s not a choice for you to make whether it’s private or not - it’s my choice to make!” She stopped short. “So yes, I suppose that it is how you treat me that makes it hard for me to see you as anything more than a friend. You’ve got to let me make my own choices, even if they don’t include you.”

“But I want them to include me,” he begged.

Lily sighed. “I’m sorry, Sev.”

“LET ME IN, LILY!” he yelled. “LET ME LOVE YOU, I’LL BLOODY DO IT WELL!”

“LET ME MAKE MY OWN CHOICE!” she yelled back.

“I WOULD IF YOU’D CHOOSE RIGHT! BUT YOU WON’T!! YOU’LL CHOOSE ANYONE OVER ME! ANYONE!! EVEN BLOODY POTTER!”

“I’d NEVER choose Potter,” Lily snapped. “I hate Potter. And right about now, I hate you, too.” She looked around, there were a couple Ravenclaw girls snickering their direction from the corner by the stairs. When she turned back, it was to see his shell shocked face. She sighed, “I don’t hate you, really. I’m just angry. But -- honestly... Merlin, Severus, you can’t force me to love you either. Especially not by screaming at me in a bloody hallway.” She shook her head, “I’ll see you in Potions.” She hurried away before he could grab hold on her to stop her from leaving again.

But he hadn’t tried anyway. He just stood and let her go.

One of the Ravenclaw girls was smirking at him.

“Bugger off,” he snapped at her, and he started down the stairs to the Slytherin common room, clutching his Divination book in a huff. He slammed through the door and up to his dormitory, throwing down his books and bag angrily.

Evan Rosier was laying on his bed, balancing quill on his nose, making funny faces with his lips to help keep it there. “Evans pissing you off again?” he asked without even looking up at Severus.

“Shut up, Rosier,” Severus replied. He turned to his desk and threw his potions book onto the desktop roughly. The cover fell open.

Evan sat up. “Why do you let that mudblood get under your skin? There are plenty of lovely pureblood witches right here in Slytherin you could get with instead if you’d just get Lily Evans out of your damn head.”

Severus sighed, “Just shut the hell up, Roserier, or I’ll hex you,” he snarled.

Evan Rosier laughed and sat up, casting the quill aside. “I’ll leave you alone to mourn your pathetic obsession with the muggle filth alone,” he said, and he meandered out of the dormitory.

Severus threw his wand onto his desk with a clatter and sat down in the chair, swearing to himself, angry. If he could only know that Lily would be there for him, he’d be better able to leave behind everything that made him Slytherin. He pictured himself strong and brave enough to walk away from Voldemort and to protect Lily against any attacks the Dark Lord would throw their way. He pictured taking her and running away somewhere - somewhere they could be safe together.

How could he make her see that he was a good choice, that even though he was a bloody idiot here at the school, he could be so much more - for her, for Lily, he could be anything she wanted him to be. But she wouldn’t even give him a chance to try! He wanted nothing more than a way to force her to give him a try because if she did - if she’d just open her ruddy, beautiful emerald eyes - then she’d see...

He balled his fist and slammed it down on the table in frustration.

Pages of the potions book fell over one another.

In the midst of his frustration, his eyes landed on the title of the page and Severus reached for the book and pulled it closer. He shifted in his seat, biting his lower lip and glanced about, making certain he was absolutely and completely alone. He was.

Amortentia,” he whispered, “Ingredients… Ashwinder eggs, rose thorns… peppermint… powdered moonstone… pearl dust…” Severus reached for his potions kit to take an inventory.