24

Chapter 24 Sinful Articulation

Lily continued to spend her time sitting next to Severus as they both recovered. The worst of it was over, or so the healers said. Lily's blisters were bursting open and drying out, but there were a couple remedies available that should reduce any scarring. No 100% guarantee, however the marks that did result should fade over time. The healing potions had to be on the mild side, unless the patient was willing to suffer noticeable lasting pockmarks, if healing was performed too quickly without taking the intermediate precautionary steps.

Lily felt it was all a load of tosh. This was magic wasn't it?

Severus was taking longer to clear up. There was still material periodically being removed from his throat, mouth and nose, and his eyes were still closed as those pustules were still openly oozing that dried into flaky crust. Salve was frequently applied to protect his eyes, along with another greasy substance that was used over the rest of his body. Steadily, Lily had been seeing more green become exposed, but the skin had a pitted appearance. It was only a stage of recovery, but she was worried about the extent of his scarring.

He was awake for short periods during the day. Lily would hold his hand and read class notes aloud for courses they had in common. No more than once a day, she'd give him a brief kiss. Severus didn't object, even if he could only do it silently. It had been just over three weeks since she had heard her friend's voice. She missed it, even if those who insulted him said it was whiny and snivelly. His voice could be different due to scarring in his throat, and there was still the question of whether his eyesight was affected. For now, she settled for him being alive.

Abraxas Malfoy was alive and well, and despite his superior breeding and manners, he was pissed.

The third Malfoy house elf in as many weeks had dropped dead. His wife's favorite had the ill grace to expire in front of her within her boudoir about ten minutes ago. The continued caterwauling drove Abraxas out of his own bedroom and down to the library with its layers of silencing spells.

Lucius was in there dealing with all his mama's blubbering. If there was one thing that made his son weak, it was his unnatural attachment to his mother, who was only a Malfoy by marriage. When she wanted something of him, her son would knock on the gates of hell itself to get it for her.

While he was in the library, Abraxas decided to do some research with the month's batch of offers to become his son's wife. Although that would cut the cord, Lucius was still a Malfoy and couldn't just be thrown to any witch from a respectable family. Additionally, Abraxas still had plenty more years of life to enjoy, and he didn't want to have to be burdened with the company of just anyone during family events.

Greengrass could offer a whole room full of galleons, this lass was too plain looking to birth the next Malfoy. Abraxas didn't bother researching her family, and just threw that letter aside to write a tactful rejection.

Some frenchie had written about his half-veela daughter. Her photograph was what he would expect with that parentage. Abraxas cringed at the foreign part, but her generous dowry included two house elves. It might warrant an introduction. If Lucius was too weak-willed to her charms, that would be the end of it.

And the last of this month's candidates was Miss Narcissa Black. Her older sister, Bellatrix, was quite the spectacle at times. Considering she married Rabastan Lestrange, quite a coup for the Blacks, she should be spending her time performing her primary duty and whelping the next Lestrange. Her sister could be just as irresponsible. There was another sister, Andromeda … married a mudblood. Black was going to have to come up with a lot more gold for Abraxas to even consider this proposal.

Why was this being so difficult? Where were the beautiful witches from good British families that loved their daughters enough to make an offer backed with the wealth worthy of both their houses?

Abraxas was idly flipping through the self-updating tome when something outside the library caused the ground floor of Malfoy Manor to vibrate. Riddle and his followers … killing his house elves, and now causing a disturbance in his home by upsetting his wife. He had been willing to stand aside when first approached, the group had a worthy goal, but the methods and who would lead were simply offensive. A Malfoy was a valued ally, not a follower.

Who was this Riddle anyway? Riddle was not a wizarding name, and the listing of his parents in the directory was of no help because Abraxas had never recalled meeting either one in society. No worries, that's what a Malfoy had well-paid lackeys to do – find out who Tom Riddle is and where he came from. Public knowledge of where this supposed friend of purebloods came from might get him distracted long enough for Abraxas to swoop in and exact some revenge. Certainly not today, or even this week, but he had waited for years to extract his satisfaction before, and that was when it was sweetest, when the enemy did not even know it was coming.

Lily felt her appearance was getting closer to presentable. She was green, and there was a spatter of pockmarks on her face, but not as bad as the front of her right thigh. Lily was positive she had not scratched there. Willing to trust Healer Pye and Healer Spleen, the marks would fade over time, and maybe even disappear. The loo wasn't so big, but when she stepped back from the mirror, the ones on her face weren't as noticeable when she backed up to the far wall.

Contrary to common sense, Lily wished her healing blisters would slow down. Severus was now awake much of the day, his eyes were open and he haltingly talked. His eyes looked fine, but there were now medicated eye drops to work on eradicating the blurriness caused by residual problems from his corneal blisters. Severus's voice sounded deeper to Lily and for now, he couldn't speak at length without starting to cough on remaining materials that loosened in his throat as he talked.

They had worked out a system to do their work together peacefully. Lily wheeled her table over to Sev's bed, and they put them side by side to have plenty of room, while they sat together and worked on each subject with Lily reading aloud till Severus's eyes got better. He could still write fairly well, but couldn't read it back. It worked fine until whoever on the right got tired of getting jostled, and then they'd switch sides, with Lily getting up while Sev slid over. It would be ideal if one of them was left-handed.

There were still breaks in between while Severus got assistance and medicated from healers. Lily offered to help to hurry things up so they could get back to working, but the only thing Sev would accept help with from her was brushing his teeth, since he still wasn't allowed up to use the loo.

Some of their professors were going easy on them, and others just offered to catch them up once they returned. Lily was happy she didn't need to read any Arithmancy or Ancient Runes to Severus, since she'd probably make a total hash of it, especially if she had to describe any weird characters from some foreign alphabet. Prof. Kettleburn just asked her to read the textbook.

For Divination, Lily had to explain a recent dream and interpret it. They covered dreams in earlier years, why revisit it? Being in St. Mungo's sick with dragonpox was not conducive to happy dreams. Lily dreamed about Severus a lot. Either dead, dying, her not being able to help him, his not recovering from some aspect of his nastiest case of dragonpox ever, and an overwhelming sense of loss if any of this came true.

She tried to get Severus to tell her one of his dreams, but he claimed not to remember any since he was still knocked out each night on sleeping potions. Lily even tried to get him to share by confessing she dreamed that James Potter flew off his card, put her on the back of her broom, and then she was stuck on the card with him while no one could find her anywhere, and not a single person looked at the card to see her on the back of Potter's broom. He was amused. When Lily had first shown him that card, he meant to laugh, but ending up choking for over a minute. That didn't diminish her friend's sense of humor since he played around with Black's card when Lily said the dog must be the person that loved Black most. When Sev had shook his head 'no', Lily guessed at others, and repeated Pettigrew multiple times, till he told her that Sirius Black loved Sirius Black most. She found it a little funny, but it was kind of sad that in her eyes, Sirius Black really was that conceited.

"So you still aren't going to help me, and let me write about your dreams instead of being swept off by Potter, Sev?"

He inclined his head, then called her, "Mrs. Toerag."

No surprise since that was Lily's favorite name for Potter, but the honorific reminded Lily of another bad dream here that she had wanted to forget. It was all Petunia's fault … however, it was sure to be in her dream text, Lily thought as she jumped off the foot of Sev's bed, where she had been sitting while talking to him, and dashed over to her trunk. This sounded good, Lily thought, as she read the interpretation.

Not that Severus was the least bit interested in her Divination homework, but he was sitting across the room waiting for some explanation for why she just left him after what he thought was the mildest of insults. Lily made a face. If she told him about the dream without explanation, it would sound really weird. Fortunately, it involved something she had been meaning to talk to him about. She still hadn't told Sev about her fight with Petunia. Lily had meant to, but had forgotten. All her letters to her sister went unanswered, and her mother didn't comment on it. With a sigh, she got her stuff together, and headed back over with the pillow from her bed and the bed next to hers.

Lily positioned the two pillows so she could comfortably lounge at the foot of his bed, while looking at Severus. She even pulled the blankets out from the bottom, so she could put her feet and legs under the covers outside his. Happy that Lily returned, Severus patted her feet fondly where they rested next to his thighs now.

"Do you remember how I told you before we got on the train that I had a fight with Petunia, Sev?"

Severus did not care for Petunia, but knowing Lily for years, he knew that Lily loved her sister no matter what. If Petunia was important to Lily, then Petunia had to be important to him too. He gave a slight nod, urging her to continue, in spite of the way he really felt.

Drawing a deep breath, Lily just said it. "Petunia said you are going to get me pregnant."

His face scrunched in painful thought, and then he asked, "Now? Or after we're married?"

"We don't have to be married, Sev." He rolled his eyes at her. "And no, Petunia meant now with me coming home from school crying to my parents."

His eyes narrowed because it seemed odd to him that Lily would think this was even a possibility. If she thought babies came from kissing, why did she start kissing him? Severus intentionally cleared his throat so he could attempt an entire sentence without interruption. "Kissing does not cause pregnancy."

"I know that, Sev," Lily responded in annoyance.

"Why was ..." Severus grimaced through a cough, then continued, "... there a fight then?"

"Petunia accused me of horrible things, and it really hurt." Severus rubbed one of Lily's feet, and she continued, "It hurt. I don't know if it hurt more because Petunia could think such things of me, or the way she said them."

"Could she ..." Severus stopped for a moment, made a bit of noise in his throat, then continued, "have a fake fight to get rid of you?"

Lily knew Severus had to conserve his words, but didn't understand. "Fake a fight?"

"Be unreasonable so you don't try."

"Try what?"

After a coughing sigh, he said, "You want to be sisters with Petunia."

"We'll always be sisters," Lily replied, wondering if she should give Sev a piece of parchment.

"Close sisters. You want. She doesn't?"

"She wouldn't need to make something up, Sev. There's always magic to fight about. You know how she doesn't like how I'm different."

"Not working." After a noticeable shaking indrawn breath, he added, "You keep coming back."

Lily didn't think Severus would be so mature and insightful if he knew how Petunia referred to him, and to them together. "So she picks a fight with me over something so insane that I will think our love is beyond salvaging?"

He nodded.

"Maybe. Nothing started the fight. You were asleep, mum was in the bath, and it all poured out of her mouth."

Shrugging, Severus suggested with a finger pointing to his own chest, "I write Tuney?"

Lily replied, "No. She said I was lying about us, and would think anything you said or wrote a lie too."

Good, he thought. He didn't want to write Petunia Evans, but if he offered, Lily would know he supported her in this worthless cause.

"That's why this must have been in my mind when I dreamed someone secretly slipped me a potion that got me pregnant."

Severus immediately made a face of disgust.

Lily pulled out the booklet, and insisted, "Really. It's in this." She leaned forward to give Severus the book.

"I know. Ingredients," he replied, and then stuck out his tongue.

"That's not in here."

Severus took the large pamphlet, since she was stubbornly leaning on his legs. "Male seed. Egg too unless …" he grunted, then finished, "you are other parent." Looking at the cover of a brochure that claimed to be all about conceiving a child, he asked, "Why have this?"

Lily couldn't wait till Severus was back to being his eloquent self. Well, maybe on some other subject than making babies. She shrugged nonchalantly and said, "I only knew the muggle way."

He didn't open the literature, but held it out for her to take back, and asked, "Us?"

His one track mind involving them made it difficult to have general conversations, chafed Lily as she thought of what to say in return with more grace than she turned down his first marriage proposal. Not that this was a proposal, but with Sev limited to how many words he could get out, this might be as close as it got.

"I overheard Healer Pye, but I didn't want to get her in trouble so I asked for all sorts of things."

"Pye?"

"About all the pain you were in," Lily looked purposely at his covered lap. "I didn't know the terms she was using."

He frowned at her.

"You're still on pain potion, Sev."

Not wanting to discuss it, Severus remained quiet.

Leaning forward, Lily asked, "Can you show me?"

"Not appropriate."

"Why not? I know you're green. So am I."

He shook his head 'no' as he roughly cleared his throat.

"Sev, I saw it all when Black vanished all your clothes. And you did urinate in front of me."

"Angry at you. Covered then."

"Please."

"Mine. Till married."

Lily grimaced. Had her mum and dad gotten to Sev? "Just to look. How do I know I want it?"

"Saw it all," he replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe I want to see it because I think about it all the time."

Severus looked horrified.

"Just kidding," Lily said exasperatedly. She kicked him in the leg to emphasize her joking when he continued to give her a dirty look.

He got a serious look and pointed at the baby booklet, "After married. With proper house."

It was Lily's turn to frown as she gathered up her materials in frustration at Sev's stubbornness. She could write about her dream later after dinner once Sev was fed, cleaned and put to sleep.

Prof. Abstractus finally found a Potions Master that was willing to look at some of his student's work. He had tracked this fellow's name down through a friend of a friend as a Master who was not set in his ways, like so many of them were.

Arithmancy was more fluid than Potions, where many thought if it was not a recipe cited in a text over a century old then it was rubbish. That was Slughorn's argument to Dumbledore, when Abstractus tried to go over his head. Any substitutions were worthless because there were already valid recipes. Most of Snape's work was eliminating the need for animal parts and hard-to-come-by plants.

The length of time for the correspondence to travel to the Americas would mean this would be slow going, if Abstractus's suspicions were right and these calculations would actually produce favorable results. He still needed to talk to Snape about publishing rights, since this fellow wanted to share credit for doing the hands-on experimentation as long as common, inexpensive ingredients were used so he did not incur an unreasonable expense.

Lily stayed up late with her Divination. She was still aggravated with Severus so doubted she could sleep. After allowing him one ale with lunch and dinner once he started eating solids again, Lily was sure he would reciprocate, but then turned down her simple request. After the busy book-reader did one of her nightly checks on him, Lily would go peek anyway.

This dream, while disturbing, was actually ideal for interpretation, especially since it could apply to different areas of her life. The pregnancy symbolized an aspect of her personal life that was developing or growing. It could also mean a new direction or goal. Returning to Hogwarts after suffering from dragonpox would certainly have changes occur in her life. Lily would be green and unattractive. That led to the potion being in the dream. That indicated negative results or misfortune, and the text advised heavily against trying to alter this outcome. Since the only way she could think of avoiding Hogwarts was to spend the rest of the year sequestered in her bedroom at home, obviously it would be inadvisable. Besides, Lily was a Gryffindor. She was brave enough to take whatever her fellow students could dish out.

Lily was midway through her clean copy of the assignment when her least favorite healer arrived to check on Severus. She hoped they would start giving him a lesser sleeping potion soon. He was so dead to the world on this one that he didn't wake for eye drops, getting gunk cleaned out of his respiratory track, or for the application of the oily potion to his entire body behind that closed curtain.

When the healer left to return to her book, Lily took another minute to finish her essay and put everything away, before sticking her head out the door to scope out the healer was where she expected before sneaking over to Severus.

His snoring was back to its regular volume so she'd have some warning of him waking. Lily folded the covers down tidily so she could get everything back in place. She frowned as she viewed his pajama trousers. Was that it? Although Sev was in bed all day, she had not noticed this big lump before. Were these trousers a smaller size? Hers were quite loose.

Nervously listening for footsteps in the corridor, or for Sev's snoring to stop, Lily untied the waist and loosened the drawstring. Swallowing hard, she pulled the fabric downwards. It was no flobberworm, and was thicker than a wand. She was mesmerized as it rose up once it was no longer confined. She wouldn't have stopped, but his trousers would go no lower unless Lily raised his bum off the bed.

Normally, it would not be green, but it still didn't look like the illustration. Wasn't this pointed in the wrong direction? Hesitantly, Lily put her hand on it to push it the right way. The just applied potion's oiliness did not disguise the fleshy surface overlaying a hard core, resisting Lily's guidance. Considering Severus was on both sleeping and pain medication, Lily attempted to force it because it was in entirely the incorrect position to allow her to get his trousers back up. It did not cooperate, being as stubborn as the rest of the body to which it was attached.

The snoring stopped and Lily looked at Sev's face, afraid she was about to be caught. His eyes remained closed while he inhaled deeply, and after a long exhale, clearly said, "Lily," in that new deeper voice.

Lily held her breath while waiting for Severus to either burst out laughing or start yelling. Nothing changed about his face, but she was surprised when she felt it twitch in her hand. Was it supposed to do that? While staring back down at that, his snoring began again. Not ready to find out what else this was capable of on its own, Lily did her best to pull the trousers back up while pressing it against his abdomen in order to get the trouser waist to the reach the correct place. Let him figure out why it was facing this way when he woke up.

Lily was tired when she arose. She had spent too much time thinking about what should have been a quick peek to keep her curiosity satisfied. It didn't look like the book. Was Sev keeping it hidden from her because he knew it was different? It was a relief that he thought he was capable of fathering children, and that he would want a house first, rather than getting by on just five galleons. In June, some made rude comments about it comparing it to his house's animal, but if it was truly unusual, at the very least, Lily could always count on the Marauders to say something. They wouldn't allow any chance to mock Sev to pass.

She removed the ale from his breakfast tray, and stashed them in the bedside table for the bed next to his. Her original hiding place was full.

Helen's letter was more of the same. Potter and Quidditch, and Helen made Pettigrew and Black sound like they were on a crusade. The first match was Gryffindor versus Slytherin in a couple weeks. She had mentioned it before, surely to amuse Lily, but continued her update regarding the battle of the sexes within Gryffindor. There was now a neutral area at their table in the Great Hall to allow dating couples to dine together. Things at Hogwarts must be boring if Mary and Helen had to make up such juvenile tales to tell her.

Lily also received a wrapped tupperware from her mother late in the morning, after Sev was up and they were finishing their current assignments. Although they were not made by Petunia, these sandwiches were made by Lily's mother who taught Petunia how to slice bread and cucumbers that thin. There was also a note of apology that the bread may have become damp since Mrs. Evans was putting them together in advance for shipping. No egg sandwiches due to mayonnaise possibly going off.

Since she could cast a freshness charm to keep them till later, Lily asked, "Would you like tea this afternoon, Sev? My mother sent sandwiches."

A light shone in Severus's eyes, but he calmly responded, "When you want. Won't drink their tea."

Making a face, Lily cast the charm. He could wait then. She put the container on top of her trunk after she stored her completed work and texts. She suggested more parchment and pen word games, now that Sev sometimes forgot the letters between games and couldn't see well enough to be reminded. It helped when Lily kept talking non-stop about anything but the game while playing.

At lunchtime, Severus asked, "Save second ale for later?"

Lily nodded. Ale and cucumber sandwiches? Ugh. If the sandwiches weren't a special treat for Sev, definitely not. She had tasted one of his second bottles, and if this was supposed to be sweeter, Lily did not want to try the regular version.

They spent the afternoon, in between healer visits, like most of their summer holiday. Talking about nothing in particular and looking into the other's eyes. Sev said he could see the green of Lily's clear enough, against the different shade of her skin. Lily even spent some time listening to his chest, as she did when he was unconscious, but now she was looking towards his face, rather than the foot of the bed. He also rested his hand on her shoulder.

When tea was brought round by St. Mungo's, Lily went to retrieve the sandwiches to share with Severus. Unlike the boys of Gryffindor, her friend was able to appreciate restraint which was absolutely necessary when dining on light food such as this. Some oaf could probably inhale the entire lot in minutes.

Lily opened the container and placed it on his table and then set about fixing her tea. Rather than grabbing one, Severus took time to admire these sandwiches, even if they were not presented ideally, carefully arranged on a plate. Once Lily was seated next to him with her tea and took her own sandwich, he selected the one on top nearest to him.

When Severus took his first bite, he found it to be absolutely perfect.

Her friend was a nutter. Severus trembled slightly as he ate, and closed his eyes in worship of her mother's simple sandwich of white bread, cucumber and butter with a dash of lemon juice and salt. He better not be proposing marriage under the delusion that Lily would be bothered slaving over getting cucumbers sliced so thinly that he could read The Daily Prophet through them.

He enjoyed the sandwiches immensely, and didn't bother opening his saved ale till after he and Lily had devoured every bite. While he sipped it, Severus reminded Lily that they had not written letters yet today. She was surprised at Sev. Usually she had to force him to write someone … anyone.

After finishing her correspondence, Lily was disappointed to find that Severus had tricked her when he handed her a note already sealed addressed to her mother. "What are you writing about to my mum?"

"Thank you," he replied with an annoyed shrug. What would Lily think he was writing to her mother?

Lily didn't trust Severus. What if it contained some nonsense about marriage and children? What if it contained details about the seriousness of dragonpox that Lily neglected to tell her mum? It was light, one sheet probably. She could always claim that Severus came down with fever and delusions while in hospital.

Madam Pomfrey frowned at the letter from Healer Agnes Pye. She was perfectly capable of follow-up care for students recovering from dragonpox. This healer obviously did not understand how many doses of the dragonpox cure that she had to schedule and administer to the entire school. That's the only reason that Miss Evans was at St. Mungo's. She may have sent Mr. Snape there anyway because she didn't have time to deal with requests for pillow fluffing every time she turned her back.

Either the two patients would floo to St. Mungo's weekly till declared completely cured, or this healer or one of her colleagues would examine the patients here in the Hogwarts Infirmary, Pomfrey's exclusive domain.

She did not care for the thinly veiled sarcasm in the notification. Pomfrey did not know how that nasty boy, Severus Snape, hoodwinked them at St. Mungo's, but she had the worth of him. Not a week passed without one of those poor Gryffindor lads coming to see her when that sneaky bit of filth hexed them. This September had been injury free for both helpless Peter Pettigrew and gentle Remus Lupin.

As Severus's health improved, Lily started feigning unwellness to avoid being separated from him. She did well keeping up with her schoolwork, and although Sev could now see large letters without difficulty, she didn't want to leave him here with a magnifying glass and bottles of ale for company.

The healers weren't fooled, but they could allow some leeway since it would be easier to return to school with a second green student, rather than going alone.

Prof. Slughorn finally sent them assignments. Lily rolled her eyes at the absurdity of them, but the joke was on him since she had access to the healers' library here at the hospital, and got permission to return books to their hospital room since Severus was still not allowed out of bed.

At first, Lily thought she was just bringing the wrong books back. There was a match on the ingredients or potions, but the answers to the specific questions wasn't in their text or any of these books. She grew more frustrated as Severus said it was fine, and kept working through the potions' assignments. He shared information with her and walked her through connections that she never heard of or read. He was not smug, and just stated the properties and resulting combination with procedure as matter of fact. His suggestion that Slughorn assigned these questions to intentionally score them low was not a balm, Lily felt she should be just as able to cope with this as Severus.

During Severus's mid-afternoon break for drops, medicine and assistance, Lily spent thirty minutes of torment not producing more than two words about the side effects of Babbling Beverage, other than the drinker spouting nonsense.

To test her theory about this worthless potion, she asked Healer Spleen as he opened Sev's curtain. He replied, "Who the heck cares about Babbling Beverage? The ingredients are too costly to make it for fun."

Lily raised her eyebrow. Spleen had fun? Maybe he was also having fun by not actually answering the question, she thought as she angrily threw her quill down.

Severus said, "We don't have to work on this today, Lily."

Holding her hands out, she replied, "We're not even a third of the way done with what Slughorn asked us to do."

He shrugged, commenting, "Say you were too sick to do it."

"That's lying."

Rather than responding, Severus cleared his throat slightly.

"Maybe I'm rubbish at this. You're answering all these for me."

"That's not true. Once I explain, you understand," he said, then choked out, "Not copying."

Lily got up and went over to Severus's bed. Doubting she was going to stay over here long, she sat in the middle and held his hand, rather than disturbing him completely by having him scoot over to slide in next to him.

"I wouldn't be able to answer these without you."

"You'd manage, Lily."

"Right, when Slughorn takes your work and accidentally erases your name, and writes Lily Evans on them for me."

"You scored Outstanding on your own."

"I did, but now it feels like I know nothing."

Severus sighed, then muttered, "Don't let Slughorn do this. We'll be back in regular class soon enough."

"At NEWT level, we need to brew individually. It's hardly any partner work."

Indignantly, he reminded her, "You can brew."

"But you won't be helping me. What if I blow the whole lab up?"

"That'll show Slughorn not to get you angry."

"I'm not kidding, Sev. Maybe what they say about Muggleborns is true. I might have gone as far as I can."

Exasperated, he flung out his free hand and asked, "What about all the other work we've been doing?"

"That's all easy because those professors are just giving us something to take our minds off things while we're in hospital. Slughorn's could be what we really should know."

Rolling his eyes, Severus said, "No. Whoever is in NEWT level was in our class last year. They," he stopped for a moment, looked uncomfortable, then continued, "are not any smarter now."

Letting her misery show on her face, Lily confessed, "It's not them that matters, Sev. It's you. When everyone realizes how brilliant you are, and that I've been getting by with your help, where does that leave me?"

"You are talking nonsense, Lily."

"I'm not. I'll be your … your … your Pettigrew."

Disgusted by the comparison, he reminded her, "You are not a mindless follower, Lily."

"Only because you humor me, Sev. You'd have lots of friends if it wasn't for me. I know the Slytherins think you are flawed because of your friendship with me."

"I don't need anyone else, Lily."

"Why would you choose one person, over a whole house that is supposed to be your 'real friends'?"

After a moment's consideration, Severus said, "Firmissima est inter parēs amīcitia."

An unexpected tingle ran through Lily's body. It wasn't a spell. When Severus spoke Latin with this deeper, sometimes silky voice, it was magical in a different way.

"It's 'friendship is always firmest among equals'. If I admitted you were rubbish, then I'd be admitting the same about myself."

Sev's admission saddened Lily. People called her best friend worthless trash all the time. His father, Petunia, Hogwarts staff and students for years made no secret of how they felt about him, and said it proudly and loudly for all to hear. The volume was sure to increase with the remaining amount of pockmarks just on his face alone.

Lily threw her arms around Severus, shifting bodily to get closer to him. Although she had given him a kiss earlier, she kissed him a second time today, holding it for longer than their token daily liplock.

Prof. McGonagall volunteered to pick up the two students from St. Mungo's. She had visited frequently enough to know that Mr. Snape's dragonpox had been critical, and that he still had lingering infirmities that went beyond the visible green skin with pockmarks. However, if he and Miss Evans did not return to school now, they might be forced to wait until next September to start their sixth year.

She collected their work that they completed during their stay in the hospital. It was simpler to deliver it for her, rather than have them lug around what turned out to be even greater in volume then their holiday assignments. McGonagall frowned at the excessive amount some of her colleagues assigned.

Once she had the students back at Hogwarts, gave them their schedules and allowed them to return to their dormitories for the evening, she kept an after-dinner appointment that she had arranged with four members of Gryffindor.

Prof. McGonagall offered the four Marauders tea and ginger newts. This was intended to be a friendly and informational meeting.

"Gentlemen, congratulations on making it through one month of probation. There's been complaints regarding your opinion of the Gryffindor quidditch team, but everyone is entitled to an opinion if they are able to express themselves civilly," she said, giving them a knowing look.

Having already expressed their opinion loudly and clearly to their head of house, the boys chose to accept this with some grace, and remained silent. McGonagall didn't ask them here to talk about quidditch because she responded publicly to their complaints already.

"Your classmate, Miss Evans, has returned to the castle and will be attending classes starting tomorrow."

Although all looked pleased, James Potter enthusiastically volunteered, "I can walk her to all her classes and carry her books, Professor. It would be my pleasure."

Unable to contain themselves, the other Marauders laughed openly at Prongs's eager puppy dog act.

"I'm sure she'd appreciate the offer, Potter. She's in good health, and may not need much assistance. I also would not want you to be late to any of your classes, if hers are in the opposite direction."

Sirius thoughtfully added, "That might be why Slughorn moved all our seats around. I thought he was just being a pisshead breaking us apart, Prongs, but Evans could be in that empty corner seat next to you."

"Mr. Black," McGonagall said warningly.

"Of course," Potter exclaimed with a beaming smile. "After missing a month and with the holiday, Evans is sure to need a little help. And here we were thinking the worst of old Sluggy."

McGonagall continued, "Mr. Snape is also returned." Before they could interrupt, she held her hands out and said, "Now, I know you have not done anything wrong at school and wish you to continue to behave yourselves. You might feel the need to cheer up your classmate since he had a particularly nasty case of dragonpox, and if you do I am merely asking that you keep it mild. If you cannot control yourselves."

The Marauders all spoke at once denying any of them possibly starting some sort of altercation. Snape always started it by attacking them.

Raising her voice, McGonagall said, "Nevertheless gentlemen, I only wanted to have a word with you because you may not realize how ill he was, and how unwell he still is. I don't want to tempt you in any way by listing his current infirmities, but I want you aware that your actions may have a more serious result than you intended. That would be unfortunate for both him and all of you. Do we have an understanding?"

They agreed, but were full of incredulity as they walked back to Gryffindor tower.

Potter tried to hurry them along to see Evans, but he did stay with them as they discussed McGonagall.

"You think we were filthy Slytherins the way she talked to us," Sirius complained. "Since when have we ever attacked someone who had their back turned or while they were down?"

Remus scratched his head, and answered, "You do it all the time, Padfoot. You got a Hufflepuff at a urinal two days ago."

Peter defended that action, "He should have finished up and gotten out when we came in. Stupid shirt lifter hanging out in there, waiting to watch."

James didn't want to waste any time over Snape, and commented, "We know we won't, and now we know that McGonagall is watching us closely. If Snivelly keeps his greasy nose out of our business, then we'll let him pass."

"It's a great, big, green, greasy nose now, Prongs," Peter said with a laugh.

"Oh Merlin!" Sirius exclaimed in realization and laughed too. With any luck, Snivelly would hide out in the dungeons till he returned to merely being a greasy git.