Lions Inside¹ | James Potter

eleven

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(Werewolves//followtheriver)

11th of October, Thursday, 1973

In the following weeks, the boy's dorm could easily be mistaken for a war bunker. 

The plan for making Snape pay mostly happened behind their locked door away from Andrea. They'd been making his life miserable all of Monday, making him drop his books, smudging the ink of his notes, glares every chance they got, but they needed something big.

Something to shut him up and show him never to come after Andrea again. James was very proud of his friends and how they were going to defend Andrea, even if she didn't know it.

However, all Gryffindors were not proud of this.

"James Potter, you foul, arrogant, selfish, immature toerag! Do you enjoy being a bully?! Do you think it makes you look cool when you torture people just because you can?" Lily snapped at him as she approached the armchairs the boys were occupying in the common room, her friends trailing after her to see the throwdown.

"Lily-pad, darling. Has anyone ever told you you're adorable when you're angry?" he said with a cheesy smile. Marlene snorted from her spot behind Lily.

"Urgh, shut up James," Remus snapped from his chair, the moon making his patience wear a lot thinner than normal, which wasn't very thick, to begin with. 

Sirius pouted at the boy and started combing his hair gently which made him freeze, before calming down considerably and then pushing him off.

It was the night before the full moon and Sirius was the only one of the boys with enough patience to calm Remus down when he was being particularly snappy due to his wolfiness.

"You pick on people and make fun of them all for your own amusement. It's disgusting," she spat, ignoring Remus and Sirius.

The other boys knew James wasn't acting without a cause this time, or most times, so they all looked at him cautiously to see his reaction. James' smile disappeared and he stood up in front of Lily.

"For my own amusement, huh? That's the only reason I'm currently trying to make every waking moment of Snivellus' pathetic existence horrible?"

"Yes. But I guess I shouldn't have expected anything less from someone like you," she snarked, eyeing him in disgust. James crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Lily with a hard glare. "Oh, so it couldn't have anything to do with your precious 'Sev' attacking my best friend -"

"OY!"

"One of my best friends," James corrected himself as Sirius interrupted him. Lily's eyes went wide at that.

"What did Snape do to Andrea?" Mary asked, looking back and forth between the boys, guessing she was the one he was referring to. "Cursed her," Remus said quietly.

"Real nasty one too," Peter added, shuddering slightly as he remembered all the blood that had poured down Andrea's face.

"So you can give a message to your precious little Slytherin. And tell him this will continue until we all leave our seventh year, or he can make the decision to never touch Andrea again." James was staring Lily down by now. Fair enough, he fancied her, but friendship and loyalty came first.

"I don't - I don't understand. Why would he do that without any encouragement?" Lily asked, more to herself than anyone else.

"The encouragement was - he wanted to hurt James. So he went after his friend," Sirius said in a harsh tone, not caring for Lily's feelings right now even if she was a sweet girl. This wasn't about her anyways. She looked utterly conflicted. She turned around quickly and ran out of the common room again.