Put A Knife In My Back, Shot An Arrow At Me

The rest of the holidays passed, and Severus was back at Hogwarts as quickly as he left. He had to get used to sleeping alone again: The lack of warmth from James made the Slytherin quarters seem that much colder. The NEWTs were less than five months away, and that meant that more people were approaching Severus for help. Most of these people usually never gave Severus the time of day, not that he cared. He had a certain reputation for being amongst the highest achievers, and these people always seemed to come out of the woodworks around examination time. In the past, he turned them away, except for Mary in their sixth year.

A large amount of people that were seeking tutoring this year seemed to be girls. Severus mentioned how odd it was to James one day in early January, and all James said was, "Would you rather it be boys then?"

Severus hastily denied.

"I don't know what you've been saying to people," Severus said when he asked James about it again on the first day of February, "but contrary to popular belief, I don't want to spend my free time attempting to tutor whoever you send my way."

"In all honesty, it was more Sirius' idea. He said you seemed too caught up in your own work and you needed an outlet. Leave it to him to suggest women as a solution to that," James laughed. Part of James was happy to see that Severus didn't particularly enjoy the company of whichever woman James and Sirius sent his way. He told himself it was because he didn't want to see Severus less than he already did. James gave it no further thought.

Meanwhile, Severus was internally fuming. Leave it to James to use his connections to try to find the Slytherin some "company". Undesired company, mind you. Severus was far too busy with his own studies to worry about Claire in Hufflepuff who still couldn't distinguish between powdered Asphodel root and crushed Iris petals. Not to mention her myriad of friends with similar academic quandaries.

One person who approached Severus was Mary. Of course Severus knew this wasn't some ploy James and Sirius had set up to help him find a girlfriend, or whatever they thought they were doing. She was genuinely hopeless at Defence Against the Dark Arts. Severus was surprised she was accepted at a NEWT level for the class.

"So that's the correct technique for casting nonverbal spells?" Mary asked, looking up from her textbook and meeting Severus' eyes. They were sitting next to each other at a desk in the library. It was mid February, the climate was beginning to warm up into an early Spring.

"That's all there is to it," Severus confirmed. He couldn't believe Mary was still struggling with nonverbal spells. Everyone else had mastered them by the end of their sixth year.

"Thank you for helping me understand how it works better, you must think I'm an idiot," Mary said with a gentle smile. Severus didn't want to be overly rude to her: She was still James' girlfriend, she could easily tell James if Severus was being a git. Nonetheless, Severus silently agreed.

"It's fine, and for what it's worth, James believes in you too. He never shuts up about you when we're together, says you're destined for great things," Severus replied. It wasn't overtly true, but that wasn't to say that James didn't love Mary. He clearly did, Severus just wanted to boost Mary's confidence so she wouldn't seek him out so often.

What he didn't expect was for Mary to slide an arm around his neck and pull him into a kiss. As quickly as it happened, Severus pushed her away and jumped up out of his chair, knocking his books to the floor in the process. His blood ran cold.

"What are you doing?" Severus exclaimed in a hushed voice. He looked around to see if anyone had seen them. Luckily, the library was mostly empty, save for the first years in the next row over. That didn't stop Severus' face from burning though.

"Oh come on, you and I both know there's something between us!" Mary rolled her eyes. She reached out to grab Severus' arm but he batted her hand away.

"Friendship! You're my friend's girlfriend," Severus scowled. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed angrily, when had he given her that impression? "Let me clear something up for you: This," Severus gestured to the space between them, "is never going to happen."

Mary stood in a stunned silence for a moment, her eyes trained on his face.

"Now leave!" Severus demanded, backing away from Mary. When she didn't move straight away, Severus said, "Go!"

"Fine, make it weird," Mary huffed as she gathered her belongings. She left without looking back, leaving Severus standing there with a hand over his mouth, breathing deeply.

That was not how he expected his first kiss to go.

***

"She kissed you?" Lily asked. That certainly explained his jittery movements, Severus was usually so composed.

"Yeah, she started saying all this strange stuff about how there's 'something between us'. I didn't buy it and I still don't, she's up to something," Severus huffed. They were in the courtyard a few hours after the incident in the library. Severus had been pondering over what to do until he decided that he'd need Lily's advice.

"I can't believe she'd do that to James, if I were with him I'd never-"

"Lily," Severus warned.

"Right, not the time. Only trying to ease the tension," Lily explained. Clearly Sirius had been rubbing off on her too much.

"I don't know what to do," Severus sighed, resting his head in his hands.

"Sev, what do you think you should do?" Lily asked.

"Well, I need to tell James. He shouldn't be with someone who would go behind his back like that. I'm just worried he's going to get the wrong idea and think that I wanted all this to happen," Severus said. Lily rested a hand on his arm and offered him an easy smile.

"Hey, you know James, he's not going to do that. If you're really worried about talking to him, just write it down in a letter," Lily suggested.

So that's what Severus did. The next day, just after their Potions lesson ended, Severus tried to slip the letter into James' book bag without him noticing. He had left his bag unattended in the hallway while he went back into the class to speak to Slughorn. Just as Severus got the zipper open, James came back out of the classroom. He eyed the letter in his hand.

"Did you write me a love note?" James asked with a smile. Now that James had caught him red handed, Severus lost his nerve for telling him what happened.

"Oh, hey James," Severus said and stood back up, the letter still in his hand.

"What is that?" James asked as he picked his bag up off the ground.

"You know what, maybe later-," Severus started, hiding the letter behind his back. James tried to grab it.

"Let me see it," James asked.

"No, it's- it's nothing," Severus really didn't want to be around when James read that letter.

"Give it-"

"It's nothing, it's really nothing." James grabbed it but Severus refused to let go.

"I want to read nothing, I love nothing," James chuckled as he finally snatched the letter from his grasp. He began to read it and his face quickly fell.

"I was going to tell you in person but I couldn't, so I wrote it, obviously," Severus weakly explained as James continued to read the letter. He didn't say anything for a moment.

"You and Mary kissed?" James asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"No, no, she kissed me," Severus cleared up quickly. James didn't look up from the letter as anger began to mar his face.

"That asshole," James fumed.

"I know," Severus acknowledged. He didn't know what to do. "Do you want to go talk about it?"

James straightened up and his face became unreadable. He folded the letter and put it into his bag.

"Nope," he pursed his lips and looked at Severus, "I just need time to think." James turned to walk away.

"Sorry...I'm not good at this," Severus said. He didn't want James to leave on that note. James turned back around, eyes downcast.

"Yeah," James replied softly. He walked away, leaving Severus standing alone in the cold dungeons.

***

Severus didn't see James again until the following day at breakfast. He spotted him across the room in the Great Hall, but when Severus caught his gaze, James pointedly looked away.

Almost half the day had passed without another sign from James. Severus had looked for him all over the castle, but they didn't have a shared class until Transfiguration in the late afternoon. Suddenly, he remembered what James had mentioned the previous week: James organised extra Quidditch training with his team now that the season was heating up.

Severus made his way down to the Quidditch pitch, hoping that he hadn't missed the Gryffindor's midday practice. Sure enough, there he was with his windswept hair and ruby Quidditch uniform shining in the sun. Weaving through the air towards the far end of the pitch, he threw the Quaffle through the bottom left hoop and scored. He could hear Sirius whooping in the air from where he stood.

Severus watched the rest of their practice from the ground, staying out of sight. His eyes never left James and his fluttering robes. Eventually, the practice ended and the team landed. James spoke briefly to the group, and then they made their way towards the changing rooms. Severus followed them, and located James quickly.

"Hey, I've been looking all over for you," Severus said. James looked up from the Quidditch gear he was taking off and stumbled back a bit in shock. He readjusted himself and held his chin high in the air. James said nothing and went back to changing.

"Is everything ok?" Severus frowned when James stayed silent and kept on working at his buttons.

"Yep," James replied bluntly.

"Did you break up with Mary?" Severus asked after an awkward pause.

"No," James stated.

"No?" Severus repeated.

"That's what I said," James reiterated. He turned to face the rest of his team, but Severus pulled him back around by his shoulder. They were in a secluded corner of the room, and the rest of the team were loud enough that they wouldn't be overheard.

"James, what's wrong?" James finally met Severus' dark eyes after hearing the severity of his tone.

"I asked Mary about what happened. She said you kissed her," James explained as he pulled his grey blazer over his head.

"What? But I didn't- that isn't true," Severus said. He knew Mary was going to spin the story.

"I don't know what to believe," James said sheepishly, eyeing Severus up and down with a look of suspicion.

"Believe me," Severus stated. He didn't know how else to prove his innocence to James. It was his word against Mary's.

"I've known her longer, she's my girlfriend. Besides I've seen you two together, I just thought you liked the attention," James countered, pulling the strap of his book bag up onto his shoulder. What was that supposed to mean? Severus tried to hide his offence.

"James, I didn't do anything," Severus tried to keep his voice down and his anger at bay, but it was getting harder to do so.

"That's not what she said," James said with a note of finality, but Severus wasn't ready to give up.

"What? No-, I-," Severus stammered and his cheeks flushed.

"Just, back off Snape," James said, slowly shaking his head as he spoke. He gathered his Quidditch gear and rejoined Sirius, who was by the door speaking to the team's keeper.

"Snape? What happened to Severus?" Severus called out after him. Going back to a last-name basis stung Severus, way more than he was willing to admit. It brought back too many memories from their previous years. James ignored him and disappeared through the doors.

Severus left the changing rooms after he levelled his breathing, and stalked back up to the castle. His mind was a mess, and he was trying to keep his building anxiety at bay. Fuck, Mary had spoken to James and blatantly lied to his face. It was only just hitting him, James didn't want to speak to him again. He truly believed Severus had done whatever awful things Mary had told him. A small part of Severus was telling him that James was done with him for good, that they'd never recover from this.

He knew this friendship was too good to be true.