Chapter Text
The Black Lake glittered in the sun. It was a beautiful day; temperate, with a soft breeze. Students could be seen relaxing on the grass, outer robes laid out as blankets, sleeves rolled up and shoes tossed aside. Giggles and shrieks rang out from a group of first- and second-year girls who were standing knee-deep in the lake, taking turns splashing each other.
“You’d think with voices that can reach such unimaginable pitch that they’d take care to mind their volume,” muttered Sevessa Snape to the redheaded girl sat beside her.
“You’d think that with exams finally over, you’d have relaxed a bit,” Lily teased.
Sevessa rolled her eyes.
“I am relaxed,” she said stiffly, arms crossed over her chest. “This is me at my most serene.”
Lily laughed, tipping her head back so the sunlight caught in her hair—bright copper catching fire. Her freckles stood out starkly against her pale skin, and her socks were mismatched, one already damp from where she'd dipped her toes in the water earlier.
“Yes, you look like a portrait of peace,” Lily said dryly, poking Sevessa’s boot with her own bare foot.
Sevessa, by contrast, was all sharp lines and cool tones. Black hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail, boots polished, sleeves buttoned to the wrist despite the heat. She sat as if the grass might bite, her expression somewhere between disdain and contemplation. Only the faintest crease between her brows betrayed how closely she was listening—to the shrieks, the wind, the lake.
“Besides,” Lily added, brushing a bug from her skirt, “they’re just kids. Let them have a bit of joy.”
Sevessa didn’t answer right away. Her gaze lingered on the group in the water—one girl had slipped and was now dripping—laughing harder than ever—her friends squealing in delight. Sevessa’s lips twitched, just slightly.
“I don’t remember being that loud,” she said at last.
“Oh, you weren’t,” Lily said, smiling. “You were far too busy reading to participate in any ‘mundane and nonsensical activities.’”
“What’s that?” yelled a tall, lean boy with messy black hair as he strutted toward them. “Snape’s not a fan of fun? My god, that’s really shocking news, that is!”
Sevessa groaned, turning to glare lightly at Lily.
This boy was a menace.
She had first met James Fleamont Potter on the Hogwarts Express. He was then, as he is now, an absolute troublemaker. Loud-mouthed and opinionated, he had strutted into the carriage she and Lily had secured and plopped himself down opposite them. Introductions had been quick; the boy was movement personified. If his mouth wasn’t moving, then his hands were—and if they were bound, he would pace. Sevessa was pretty certain she’d even seen him wiggle his ears once to release some of that voracious energy after being told by a professor for the forty-seventh time to “Sit still!”
His exit from the carriage had been just as quick when he’d learned she expected—and hoped—to be placed in Slytherin. A house that, in his mind, had all the redeeming qualities of a slug.
Sevessa had, of course, been sorted as expected. Potter had ended up in Gryffindor, along with his merry band of misfits that he’d managed to collate after departing from her and Lily. Lily had also ended up in Gryffindor, to no one’s surprise—and Sevessa’s slight disappointment.
Following behind him were the aforementioned misfits: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.
Sirius Black was James’s shadow and mirror—equally loud, equally maddening, but with an edge sharper and darker than James’s boyish charm. Sirius didn’t strut so much as prowl, all sharp angles and a kind of careless grace that made people turn to look whether they meant to or not. His black curls spilled past his shoulders, glossy and untamed, catching the sunlight like raven feathers. A single silver hoop glinted in his left ear—strictly against uniform, but no one seemed persistent enough to make him take it out.
Where Potter was mischief dressed in red and gold, Sirius was rebellion in a school tie. He wore his uniform like a joke—shirt half-unbuttoned, tie hanging on for dear life, black combat boots peeking out beneath his robes as if daring someone to comment.
Trailing behind him, trying to keep up with their pace, was Peter Pettigrew. He was shorter, round-faced, and perpetually wide-eyed. Many found him out of place in the quartet, only understanding his Marauder status after learning he and James were childhood friends. But he made more sense when you watched closely. He was physically the least impressive of the lot, but he was smarter than most gave him credit for. While he was positively dismal at potions, his charms knowledge was something to admire.
And then there was Remus Lupin. Quieter, always. He lingered a few steps behind the rest, hands in the pockets of his cardigan, shoulders slightly hunched as if he’d been caught somewhere between a book and a nap and was still deciding which one to return to. His hair was light brown and a little too long, and there was always a tiredness about him that didn’t seem to match his age.
He was a contradiction. Thoughtful but evasive, gentle but closed off. Of all the Gryffindor boys, he was the only one Sevessa didn’t have an immediate and visceral dislike for. He was also the only one she’d spent more than two minutes in the presence of. Around the end of second year, Lily had struck up a friendship with the boy and he had become the tentative third member of their little study group. You could say they were friends—until one of the boys wanted something.
“Did you hear that, Sirius?” James yelled again. “Hogwarts’ very own Snivessa Snape—not a fan of fun.” He mockingly sounded out the last phrase, feigning shock.
“I can’t believe it, James, I really can’t believe it,” Sirius mocked back. “I suppose that means we need to convince her it’s worthwhile then, don’t we, James?”
“Indeed we do, my good Padfoot. Indeed we do.”
Lily stood up from her spot under the tree, arms folded. “Oh, would you two shut up and leave us bloody well alone?!”
Sevessa stood as well—not eager to be a sitting duck for their impending attack.
All four boys had made their way over and were now only a few meters away. Lupin, still hanging at the back, looked hesitant and regretful.
“Guys!” he called. “Is this really how we want to celebrate finishing our OWLs? Can we not just… go steal some whiskey from Filch’s office instead?”
“Oh no no no, Moony,” said Sirius, spinning on his heel to look at him, mock-shocked. “This is our civic duty! We are the Marauders—we must convince all the untapped potential of fun!”
James nodded solemnly. “It’s a public service, really.”
Not in the mood for their nonsense, Sevessa grabbed Lily’s hand and turned to walk away.
She’d taken three steps when she heard James mutter, “Levicorpus!”
There was a sudden whoosh of magic, and Sevessa found herself wrenched violently off the ground, the world flipping as her ankles were yanked skyward. Her robe fell around her face as she dangled helplessly, suspended midair by an invisible force. Her polished boots pointed indignantly toward the sky.
“Oh brilliant,” Sirius crowed, clapping his hands like a child at a fireworks show. “That’s exactly the posture of someone having the time of their life.”
James grinned up at her, proud as anything. “See? Isn’t this fun, Snivessa? You’re swinging! Just like the first years on the jungle gyms!”
“PUT. ME. DOWN.” Sevessa’s voice was low and cold, which would’ve been more effective if she hadn’t been twirling slowly in midair like an angry, upside-down chandelier.
“Oh, don’t be so uptight,” James called. “You’re finally seeing the world from a different angle! It's character building!”
“Character assassination is more like it,” Lily snapped, face flushed as she pointed her wand at him. “Finite incantatem!”
With a sickening swoop, Sevessa dropped. She landed hard on the grass with a dull thud, robes askew and hair tumbling from its tight ponytail. She was silent for a beat—dangerously silent.
Lily knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”
Sevessa sat up slowly, brushing her hair back with a trembling hand. Her eyes locked on James with a look that could have melted cauldrons. Then she stood, slowly, deliberately, and looked down at her now grass-stained sleeves.
“Oh, you absolute cretin.”
“Hey, no permanent harm done!” James offered, backing up a step, grinning nervously now.
“Speak for yourself,” Sevessa muttered. She turned her wand in her fingers like she was weighing its capacity for homicide.
“Right,” said Lupin from the back, scrubbing a hand down his face. “And this is the part where we regret all our life choices.”
Peter was already nervously edging away, sensing the incoming storm.
Sirius, still laughing, held up his hands. “Come on, Sevessa. You’ve got to admit, it was a little bit funny.”
“I will admit nothing,” she said icily. “Except maybe that one day, I’ll hex you all so thoroughly you’ll be coughing up slugs for a month.”
“Promises, promises,” Sirius said with a wink.
Sevessa turned sharply, grabbed Lily’s hand again, and stormed off toward the castle. Her boots squelched slightly from the patch of damp grass she'd landed in. She didn’t look back.
“I don’t understand,” Peter said once they were gone, “why do they never find us as funny as we do?”
Remus sighed. “Because we’re not, Wormtail.”
The girls’ bathroom on the second floor was, as usual, deserted. Sevessa burst through the door, dragging Lily behind her.
“I hate those bloody boys,” she snarled, already unlacing her boots. “How arrogant does a person have to be to think it's their civic duty to teach others about the value of fun? And I do have fun, thank you very much! Just because my version of fun doesn’t involve inconveniencing, demeaning, or injuring other people doesn’t mean I don’t know how to enjoy myself!”
As she ranted, Sevessa yanked off her boots and began scrubbing them in the sink. They were a sixteenth birthday present—the first proper, sturdy pair of shoes she’d ever owned—and now those bloody boys had gotten mud all over them.
Lily hovered at her side, slightly miffed at having been hauled across the castle—but mostly just angry on her friend’s behalf.
Without a word, Lily took the other boot and joined Sevessa at the sink. Sevessa shot her a sideways smile, pausing mid-rant.
“I just don’t understand why they feel the need to educate—educate, of all things—me.” Her voice rose again, thick with fury. “I’ve done bloody fucking nothing to deserve this.”
Lily placed a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Their behaviour has nothing to do with you,” she said gently. Then, turning Sevessa so they faced each other, she added, “But it might help if you didn’t retaliate. They target you because they know you’ll respond. Everyone else shrugs it off. You—” she softened— “you fight back like every hex is a crime against your soul.”
Sevessa blinked. Her expression shifted—first to shock, then anger, then something more like defeat. She looked away, jaw clenched.
“So I should just let them humiliate me?” she said quietly. “Let them toss mud, call me names, throw hexes—just so I can be one of the people who shrugs it off?” She scrubbed harder at the boot, fingers white-knuckled around the leather. “I don’t want to win. I don’t want to teach them a lesson. I just want them to leave me the hell alone.”
Lily stayed quiet. She knew Sevessa didn’t need comfort—at least, not the soft, surface kind. What she needed was for someone to stand beside her without trying to fix her.
“They think it’s funny,” Sevessa continued, voice low. “They look at me like I’m a character in a story they’re telling each other. I’m not a person to them. I’m—what? A challenge? A joke? Something to prod until it breaks?”
The tap squeaked as she turned it off. Water dripped from her hands. She stared down at the boot like it might suddenly dissolve in her grip.
“I fight back because it’s the only thing I can do,” she said. “I’m not going to let them turn me into something small. I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
She glanced at Lily, eyes a little watery but sharp as ever.
“So no, I’m not going to shrug it off. I’m not like everyone else. I don’t want to be.”
Lily nodded. “Do you want me to uninvite Remus to your gig this summer?” she asked. “I asked him a few days ago if he’d like to come and stay for a few days—in the spare room—so he could finally come and see the ‘secret’ we keep talking about.”
Sevessa hesitated. Lupin was tricky. She liked him on his own—calm, thoughtful, less performative than the others. But he was the optimal bystander: always quiet, always watching, never stepping in. And that had stung more than once.
“Despite his faults, he managed to rein in those delinquents a bit more this term. And…” she ran her fingers along the rim of the sink, “…he was really excited about finally being let in on everything.”
Lily smiled faintly.
“I think he’ll love it.”
“He better,” Sevessa muttered, “or I’m putting him to work hauling amps.”