delphinium - remus lupin ¹

nine | consequences pt.II

Dear diary,

Sophie Slytherin is falling lower and lower in my rankings every day. She is the reason that Lily is falsely accusing me of breaking her trust. She is the reason the only physical evidence of my apparent talent is gone. And she is the reason that I can't prove any of this to Lily.

She's been on a 'Young Aspiring Aurors' training course since the day I figured it all out. Of course, the perfect timing made it so that she left before I could speak to her again. But she's back any moment and I need to take my chance to get her to confess to the prank in front of Lily...

"So, Nelly, what's been going on between you and Lily?" Sirius let himself fall back onto the sofa, taking up all of the space and forcing everyone but Penelope and Peter to sit on the floor.

"Just a small argument. It'll be over soon." In approximately three minutes and twenty seconds if everything goes according to plan.

"Are you sure? It's been like two weeks and you haven't talked to each other for more than thirty seconds." Remus lifted his head to look at the girl sitting behind him, as he was leaning on her chair.

Penelope reached down to his hair and sent him a soft smile, trying to plait the fluffy brown strands into tiny braids. "I'm sure, I just need-"

Sophie walked in through the doors of the common room, sitting on Sirius' legs so that he would stop taking up the entire sofa. She ignored his pained groans as he moved out of the way, allowing her to sit down properly.

"Sophie." Penelope pointed at the girl, finishing off her sentence with a smile as the girl was exactly on time.

"Oh, Merlin, are you going to quiz me about that sleeping draught again because-"

What a perfect topic change.

"No, I just-"

"Wait, sleeping draught?" Sirius sat up properly as Lily walked through the door in clear earshot of the conversation. "Sleeping draught like the one from the prank the other day?"

Lily slowed her pace to listen to the conversation but kept her head low in her book.

"Yeah. I took it out of Penelope's box of random treasures- Which I'm still sorry about by the way." Sophie looked towards the girl again, but only saw her looking at something over her own head.

Lily was staring back at Penelope, the book dropped to her side and her mouth parted slightly. "It really wasn't you?" Her voice was concerned, but it was hard to tell because of the quiet manner she had talked in.

Penelope shook her head lightly, and everyone else stared at them in curiosity.

"Wait, what wasn't Penny?" Peter leaned forward in his chair.

"He lied to me." Lily shook her head too. "Severus lied to me." James jumped at the chance to put down Snape, practically running around the sofa to Lily's side. "He told me he saw you there with the potion." She looked up again to find Penelope's eyes unmoving.

"Girls! Fill us in! Snivellous lied about what?"

James looked between the two of them frantically.

"Severus told Lily that I was the one who played the prank the other day. Lily believed him and we got into an argument over it. When in reality Sophie was the one who pulled the prank, not me, as you guys all know." Penelope stood up to comfort Lily too, seeing that James' efforts to console her weren't going very well. "But, Snape lied to Lily and told her he saw me in the prank so that she wouldn't believe me when I said it wasn't me."