Severus fought the tears trying to fall from his eyes as he looked at his lost friend in front of him.
He knew...
If he did this, he sealed their fate...
"I'm sorry." He choked out to her. "It's got to be now."
He gripped the wand in his hand tigh...
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February 1974
Severus and Mason had hit a plateau in their research.
It didn't help that Mason had been enamored in a set of works written by a man named Horace. She'd been annoying Severus with multiple quotes a day from a varying degree of his many 'Odes'.
(She'd pestered him enough he'd eventually given in and read them through to the point he understood all her random 'quote of the days'.)
Fourth year wasn't without its fault though.
No, Severus' fourth year brought to light the knowledge Mason was being bullied.
Severus was no stranger to bullying himself, but Mason was light where he was darkness.
And where the pranks and names Severus was called were cruel, the bullying Mason experienced was different.
Severus would often find her hiding in the Second floor girls bathroom, bruised and hexed, late into the evenings.
The bullying escalated every time.
Just before Christmas, Severus had sprinted through the halls looking for her.
What he found as he rounded the corner, were two older Ravenclaw boys and the Lion Lupin standing over them with blood splattered on his robes and fists.
Severus would have loved to get a teacher at that moment and gotten the Gryffindor a punishment he deserved, but his eyes caught sight of Mason standing behind him.
Her body still trembling and her fists clenched.
Severus fetched Mason quickly and got her as far away from the scene as possible, he never once uttered 'thank you' to the other boy.
They spent the evening practicing healing charms to expend the magical buildup.
Mason started teaching Severus Sign Language to help calm her mind.
There was only 1 other occurrence that year of Mason getting bullied, and Severus always felt a pit in his stomach at the memory he hadn't been able to save her from it....
Christmas Holiday had come and gone by then, the new term had already started back up again.
It was late February when it happened.
Severus had been in potions, one of his better subjects, working on the wiggenweld potion for probably the hundredth time, with Lily Evans as his partner.
Severus had always enjoyed these quite moments Lily and he would occasionally get. He had been feeling particularly guilty neither he nor Mason had been spending as much time with Lily as of late. The two had been spending so much time trying to help the younger girl, they had waylaid their friendships outside of each other.
