Silvanna Snape {Marauders}

YEAR TWO - Chapter Twenty-Four

Slight TW again but J promise it's the last one (for now) :)

The small patch of light that the trip to Remus's had provided soon disappeared. Remus tried to arrange another visit, but his dad worked on weekdays, and his mum was a muggle, so couldn't apparate.

Silvanna made sure to spend her days outside, either at the playground or in the field, enjoying the fresh air and the hot summer sun. A few days the air became stuffy and hazy, and Silvanna would find herself close to falling asleep in the heat. Her evenings would always be the same. Get home in time for tea, get in trouble for something or other, and disappear to her room nursing new injuries while she did her homework or disappeared off to another fictional world.

A few times her dad would come in late at night, stinking of ale, and she or Severus would have to bear the brunt of that, but it was nothing a flick of a wand couldn't solve. She'd found that she didn't actually get in trouble for doing magic outside of school, so long as she didn't tell anyone. Maybe they couldn't detect it very well...

At the end of the fifth week, another letter came in the post, bringing with it the opportunity for another day out. Hogwarts letters. She consulted her book list to find that she only needed one new one, The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Two. She needed more quills and potions ingredients and things too, but her uniform still fit alright. They'd bought it big on purpose.

The trip to Diagon Alley was uneventful. She'd written to Remus to see if they could coordinate visits, but he'd already agreed to go with Potter and Pettigrew, so it was just Severus, Silvanna and their mum. Severus got the new second-hand textbook, with Silvanna agreeing to have her old one.

The next three weeks stretched out, feeling endless and slow. Silvanna frequently found herself nervously picking at her nails, wanting nothing more than for the first of September to just come already.

And then it did.

At quarter to eleven, Silvanna bid her mum goodbye, and pulled her trunk along the Hogwarts Express as quickly as she could, searching for a compartment. She found one, already occupied by Sirius Black, who she was surprised to see was not alone. "Hello, Snape," he said pleasantly as she entered, looking up from where he was thumbing absentmindedly through a book called Quidditch Through the Ages. "This is - uh - my brother. Regulus."

"Hi," she said to Regulus with a small smile, taking the seat opposite him and putting her feet up. He nodded at her before turning back to look out the window. She noticed they were sat as physically far apart as they could get, with Sirius sat by the door. "Good summer?" she asked Sirius, half joking.

He let out a laugh. "Good one!"

Regulus scowled. "Mother says you shouldn't say things like that," he scolded, making Silvanna screw her face up and try not to laugh.

"It's a coping mechanism," said Sirius with a shrug. "Anyway, liven up a bit. You're as sour as Snivellus." A sudden thought occurred to him, and he rummaged in his bag, pulling out a piece of parchment covered in bullet points and scribbles of notes.

"I thought mother confiscated that from you?" asked Regulus with a frown. Silvanna wondered what it was, but just shrugged, pulling The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Two, out of her bag. She'd already read half of it, but she had the whole journey to finish it.

"She thought she did," came Sirius's mischievous reply.

"You'll be in so much trouble," said Regulus.

"I'm always in trouble," said Sirius, shoving it back in his bag. "Moony!" he exclaimed, delighted, as Remus appeared. He was still quite freckled, and even taller than when Silvanna had last seen him. He smiled as Sirius introduced him to Regulus, before taking a seat by the door and pulling out his own book.

Peter came next, unchanged and smiling brightly with sunburnt cheeks. Sirius spent the next five minutes repeatedly making jokes about tomatoes until James arrived, also taller, taking a seat between Sirius and Silvanna and elbowing her to move up. She winced. "Sorry," he muttered with a small smile. Silvanna shrugged him off.

And off the train went, with Silvanna feeing as though she must be quite a bit more mature now that they were second years. No longer the annoying, slimy little first years they had been mere months ago.

It went rather smoothly. Silvanna went and got changed around lunchtime, and when she returned Regulus had gone, but Sirius seemed all the more cheerful for it. "Reckon your brother'll be in Slytherin?" asked Silvanna, peering out the window as they passed through an area lined with towering trees.

"Oh yeah," said Sirius, nodding his head. "He's just like the rest of them."

Silvanna didn't ask what he meant by that, instead shrugging. "You never know," she said, "I thought I was going to be in Slytherin. So did you."

"Nah, he will be," said Sirius with absolute certainty, before pulling his sheet of parchment out to show the other three. Silvanna just shook her head, turning back to her book.

*****

It turned out that Sirius knew his brother rather well, because, "Black, Regulus," was indeed sorted into Slytherin, who clapped and cheered as though they were welcoming a brother home. Silvanna saw Sirius roll his eyes and slump further down onto the table, rolling his eyes again at a snobby prefect who told him to sit up straight.

When she arrived to Gryffindor tower, she bid goodnight to the boys and headed up to her dorm, which now had a plaque that read, Second Years. She wasn't the first to arrive, but it was only Lily who had got there before here, and they smiled politely at each other before getting on with their own things.

After unpacking, the very first thing Silvanna did was take a shower. She used the same florally soap that she had used all of last year, relishing how she could take as long as she wanted. Well, sort of. The others would probably be waiting.

When she left the bathroom, she noticed Mary and Marlene had arrived and were already unpacking. Both of them had grown quite a bit taller, but Silvanna was still taller than Mary and Lily, and Mary had had a haircut so her brown hair hung just past her shoulders. They greeted her cheerfully, but when Marlene turned around from hanging her poster up, Silvanna had quite the shock.

Marlene McKinnon was wearing a bra. Silvanna could tell because her chest had quite a bit more structure than her own. She quickly looked away before she started staring, feeling panicky. Should she be wearing a bra? Maybe she should ask her mum at Christmas? Wouldn't it hurt her back with all her cuts and things?

Speaking of, she really needed to go and see Madame Pomfrey after lessons the next day. She'd taken to sleeping on her front, but she hated that, because it made it too hard to breathe.

The four girls spent the evening eating Mary and Marlene's sweets and playing rounds of gobstones and exploding snap. Lily had even brought a pack of muggle cards with her, and they taught Mary and Marlene how to play a game called Go Fish, which Silvanna won at. They went to bed very late and very sleepy, but Silvanna lay awake for quite a while, too excited to simply drift off. She was back.