The Marauders and the House of Black

Chapter Ten: Stirring the Pot

Friday's lessons were Lily Evan's favorite because she found herself finishing the day off with potions and then having free time to hang out with her best friend. Professor Slughorn's class today in particular was dragging on as they worked on a new brew, but it did not seem to bother Lily in the slightest. For the most part, Severus did the work in Potions between the two of them. It was partly because he was a control freak and partially because he was just much better at it than Lily was. Despite that fact, however, Lily liked to help where she could; preparing ingredients and sometimes ignoring book instructions in favor of Severus's "method" just to make things easier on herself.

When today's class ended, they headed toward the Great Lake, books in hand ready to study and hang out until lunch. They had settled in a patch of sunlight which meant the grass was no longer damp with morning dew. Today, Severus was busy making annotations in his personal copy of an advanced potions book– it was not even the one they needed for the second year, but rather for the sixth years. Lily, on the other hand, was reading the latest novel sent by her parents, entitled I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by a muggle author from America.

She found herself quite enjoying it, the perils and pitfalls of Ms. Angelou at the hand of prejudice had her thinking about the blood status in the wizarding world. She herself had been at the hand of the occasional nasty comment and even some bias from teachers. It was almost like Lily Evans needed to work twice as hard to be acknowledged as a woman and a muggle-born. She honestly made herself sick thinking about it all, and the worst part is Marlene was virtually her only confidant– largely because Severus held his own bias from his house-mates, though he never outwardly expressed it. Resolving to speak to Marlene before dinner, Lily collected her stuff and told her friend of her plans.

"Sev, I think I'm gonna go find Marlene for a bit and catch up, I'll see you later, yeah?"

"I'll walk you there," Severus insisted. "That way if you don't find her we could head up to the library or something."

"Alright," Lily smiled. "I think she's out in the courtyard, that is her usual hang-out spot."

Once they had arrived in the courtyard with its overly-green grass and worn cobblestone walkways, Lily had no trouble spotting Marlene beneath a tree. Waving goodbye to Severus, she went to detail her woes to her dorm-mate.

"What's wrong?" Marlene asked with a concerned look.

"I don't know, Marlene. I'm just angry."

"You're always angry, Lils."

"That is so not true!" Lily said heatedly, proving her friend's point but not willingly admitting it. "Well anyway, I'm reading this new book and it's about an American woman who faces all of this persecution and hatred just because of her skin tone."

"That's horrid."

"I know, and it got me thinking about blood status and purity and it just seems so unfair when I look at the words this author writes."

"I get it," Marlene conceded. "Some wizards are very set in their way of thinking."

"But someone needs to change that!" Lily said.

"I'm sure it will all fade away one day, but I doubt the older folks will be willing to listen to a load of twelve-year-olds."

"But the thing is, people keep teaching their blood purity bias to their kids, I mean that's what happened to Severus," Lily said looking over at where he was sitting, but stopping her conversation once she had. Over by the walkways, showed Severus knocked to the ground and the Gryffindor boys standing around them. Lily was already on her feet with Marlene hot on her tracks.

"Exactly what is going on here?" Lily shouted incredulously.

"Nothing at all, Evans," James replied.

"What he said," Sirius affirms. "We're just having some good-old-fashioned fun."

Lily pulled Severus off the ground and stood slightly in front of him, "Who is this fun for?", when Sirius opened his mouth she continued, "Don't answer that. You four are absolutely awful, you find new ways to disgust me all the time."

Not that she would admit it, but Lily was tearing up. Remus took a step forward, "Lily, we didn't-"

"Stop, Remus. You've done nothing to stop them, you're no better." She turned quickly and walked towards the castle with Marlene chasing her.

"Lily! Where are you going?"

"To the dorms, I'm not very hungry anymore."

"Can I go with you?" Marlene pleaded.

"Nothing's stopping you, but I'm fine. I just want some time alone," Lily stated. Marlene took that as a win and walked the long way up to Gryffindor tower with her fiery friend. Once they'd entered the solace of their dorm, they realized they were alone. "Really Marlene, you should go grab dinner."

"Nah, I can get the guys to grab me something after hours."

"You're not seriously talking about them to me right now."

"Lily, hear me out. They're not bad people, any of them! Trust me, they act like boys sometimes, but spending the break at Hogwarts really showed me a different side to each of them." Lily scoffed. "Oh come on, it's not as if they're evil, just immature. They'll learn one day."

"They better learn quickly because I'm losing my patience with the lot of them," Lily said with a dry laugh.

"Take tonight as a test run, I'll have them get us food later and we can see how they act when they're alone and don't feel they need to put on the manly show."

That night, after all of the Marauders, had returned Marlene cornered them in the common room. "Alright guys, I need a favor."

"Why would we do you a favor?" Sirius mused.

"Shove it, you're doing me a favor so just listen, okay?" Marlene laughed. When they all sat in silence she took it as her chance to continue, "Lily skipped lunch, and I was with her, so can you grab some snacks from the kitchen."

"What if we get caught?"

"Oh please, with the stuff you get away with, you can manage. And if you are caught, blame it on me, I don't particularly mind detention."

"Fine," James said. "I'll go, tell Evans to meet down here in fifteen minutes seeing as none of us can walk up the girls' stairs."

"Deal!" Marlene said, running up the stairs to tell Lily. In precisely fifteen minutes, Lily emerged from her dorm with Marlene just in time to see James clambering through the portrait hole with food and drinks.

"Here you go, ladies!" James announced. "Not exactly a feast, but I did grab two butterbeers to make up for it."

"Thank you," Lily says hesitantly. "That's very considerate of you."

"No problem, Evans, and sorry about earlier, by the way, didn't mean to upset you."

Lily was not sure if she was entirely ready to forgive him, but she thanked him for the apology nonetheless. Then she took her collection of food and cold butterbeer back up to her room to cool off. Perhaps, the boys were not so bad, at the very least they were not actively participating in blood prejudice. For the first time, she had hope for a future friendship with James and maybe even Sirius.