Arc III — The Sorting / Chapter 69: Two Tables
By the final weeks before examinations, lunch stopped being lunch.
It became revision with food nearby.
The change happened without anyone deciding it.
At first there had only been books appearing beside plates. One Charms text propped against a goblet. A History of Magic timeline lying too close to gravy. Someone reciting definitions while chewing.
Then whole sections of the Great Hall began reorganizing themselves around examinations.
Students carried parchment to meals.
Questions crossed House tables more often than conversation did.
People arrived early to claim places beside whoever understood the thing they did not.
By Wednesday, Severus had seen a Ravenclaw reading while walking, eating an apple and nearly entering the wrong staircase all at once.
He thought this deserved whatever consequence followed.
At the Slytherin table, three first-years had turned the space between breakfast plates into an argument about antidotes.
Severus was not part of it.
Not initially.
He sat two places away, cutting toast into smaller pieces because the edge had gone hard and because listening required less effort when his hands had something to do.
"The bezoar answer is obvious," one boy said.
"It isn't if he asks preparation."
"He won't."
"How do you know?"
"Because Slughorn said—"
"Slughorn says lots of things."
"Exactly."
Severus looked up.
Both boys were staring at the same page.
One had written something in the margin.
Wrongly.
He looked away.
He lasted six seconds.
"The bezoar wouldn't be prepared."
The conversation stopped.
The boy nearest him frowned.
"What?"
"You said preparation."
"Yes."
"For a bezoar."
"Yes."
"You don't prepare it."
The other boy leaned over the book.
"It's an ingredient."
"It isn't an ingredient either," Severus said.
Now both looked at him.
He put the knife down.
"It's used directly."
The first boy pointed at the text.
"It says antidotal agent."
"That doesn't make it an ingredient."
"What does it make it?"
"A bezoar."
Silence.
Then the second boy laughed.
The first did not.
Severus went back to his toast.
"That's not helpful."
"It's correct."
"Those aren't the same thing."
Severus looked at him.
The boy stared back for a moment.
Then pushed the book across the table.
"Fine. Explain it."
Severus's hand stopped.
He looked at the book.
Then at the boy.
"You want me to explain it?"
"Obviously."
It was not obvious.
Not to Severus.
People asked questions when teachers required them to.
They asked Lily because she answered quickly and without making them feel slow.
They asked older students because older students had already survived whatever lesson came next.
They did not usually push books toward Severus and expect him to make something clearer.
The boy tapped the page.
"Well?"
Severus pulled the book closer.
Across the Hall, Lily was laughing.
He saw it only because he looked up at the wrong moment.
She sat halfway down the Gryffindor table with Mary Macdonald and two other students, one of them the boy Severus had seen balancing a spoon on his nose at breakfast earlier that month.
The spoon was not present now.
Books were.
Lily had three open in front of her.
Mary was saying something with both hands.
Lily bent forward over the table, red hair falling across one shoulder, then laughed hard enough that she covered her mouth because she was still chewing.
Severus looked down again.
The Slytherin beside him had not noticed.
"So?"
Severus frowned.
"So what?"
"The bezoar."
"Oh."
He turned the page.
"The point is that it doesn't behave like a normal potion ingredient. You don't process it into the mixture. If you're using it properly, you're using it because the potion has already failed to matter."
The boy looked blank.
Severus tried again.
"It's the answer after the poison."
That worked.
"Oh."
He looked at the text.
"So if Slughorn asks when you'd use one—"
"You need to know what sort of poison."
"And if it doesn't work?"
"Then you need something else."
"That's reassuring."
"It isn't meant to be."
The other boy laughed.
This time the first one did too.
Severus looked back at the book.
When he glanced across the Hall again, Lily was writing.
Mary leaned against her shoulder to see the page.
Lily moved over automatically.
Enough room for both.
Severus looked away before either of them could happen to look back.
Their usual meetings had become less usual.
No one had decided that either.
That was the difficult part.
There had been a time when meeting Lily required almost no planning.
Spinner's End had contained only so many places.
The street.
The river.
The library.
Her house.
His.
If one of them wanted the other, there were only a handful of possibilities to search.
Hogwarts had too much space.
And too many people living inside it.
At first they had fought this by making habits.
Tuesday library.
Thursday after supper.
Sometimes Saturday morning if neither had anything else.
The habits had worked.
Mostly.
Then revision began.
Schedules shifted.
Professors kept students longer.
Study groups appeared.
Housemates asked for help.
Meals stretched into work.
Work crossed into meals.
On Thursday Severus went to the library at the time they usually met.
Lily was not there.
He chose their usual table.
Not because it was theirs.
There were no assigned tables.
But the one near the narrow western window received enough light to read by without attracting the louder groups that liked the central tables, and Lily preferred the chair facing outward because she claimed studying with her back to the room made her feel trapped.
Severus preferred the opposite chair.
He could see the entrance.
The arrangement had formed itself months ago.
He put down his books.
Opened Transfiguration.
Read.
The first ten minutes were ordinary.
At fifteen he looked toward the entrance.
Not because Lily was late.
Because the door had opened.
A pair of Ravenclaws came in.
He returned to the page.
Five minutes later the door opened again.
A third-year Hufflepuff.
Then Madam Pince crossed the room carrying three books and glared at someone for breathing too noisily.
Severus wrote a correction in the margin.
The clock moved.
He did not watch it.
He knew the time anyway.
At twenty-seven minutes late, he stopped pretending the paragraph was difficult.
It wasn't.
He had read it four times.
The library door opened.
Lily came through so quickly that Madam Pince looked up before she had made it six steps.
"Sorry," Lily mouthed.
Madam Pince's eyes narrowed.
Lily slowed.
Then saw Severus.
Her expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Recognition.
Then memory.
"Oh."
Severus looked back at his book.
She reached the table and put down her satchel.
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine."
"I forgot."
He turned a page.
"I know."
The words came before he examined them.
Lily stopped pulling out her chair.
"You know?"
"You weren't here."
"That's not what I meant."
He looked up.
She had gone slightly pink in the face from hurrying.
A strand of hair was stuck near her cheek.
There was ink on the side of one hand.
"I was with Mary and Caroline," she said. "We were doing Charms and then Peter said there was a practice room empty and—"
"Who?"
"Peter."
Severus said nothing.
Lily blinked.
"Oh. Pettigrew."
The surname helped only slightly.
"Gryffindor."
"Yes."
Of course.
She sat.
"We were doing levitation and I didn't notice the time."
"It's fine."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it is."
Lily watched him.
Severus looked back at the page.
The letters had become irritatingly sharp.
"You're cross."
"No."
"You are."
"I'm reading."
"That isn't an answer."
"It is."
Lily sat very still.
He could feel her looking at him.
That was worse than if she had argued.
After a few seconds she opened her bag.
Parchment.
Quill.
Charms book.
No Transfiguration.
She had already revised that elsewhere, apparently.
Severus turned another page.
A sentence entered his head in Petunia's voice.
Not accurately.
Memory never preserved voices accurately forever.
But enough.
She'll outgrow you.
His fingers stopped at the bottom of the page.
He had not thought of Petunia in weeks.
Not properly.
There had been no reason.
The sentence had waited anyway.
He pressed his thumb against the paper until the edge bent slightly.
Then stopped.
Lily said, "What?"
"Nothing."
She looked at the page.
"You nearly tore it."
"I didn't."
"You nearly did."
"Then there's no problem."
Her mouth tightened.
He knew that expression.
Not anger.
The moment before she decided whether something was worth pushing.
He waited.
She didn't.
Instead she dipped her quill.
"Flitwick says wand movement might be part of the practical."
"It will be."
"How do you know?"
"It always is."
"That's not knowing."
"Then why did you tell me what Flitwick said?"
Lily opened her mouth.
Stopped.
Then gave him an annoyed look.
Severus almost smiled.
Almost.
The sentence in Petunia's voice remained.
Quieter now.
Still there.
Twenty minutes later they were arguing about Switching.
This helped.
Lily's position was wrong.
Not completely.
Enough to be useful.
"You can't treat the first form as irrelevant just because the second form is what gets marked."
"I'm not treating it as irrelevant."
"You said it doesn't matter."
"I said it doesn't matter once the transformation is stable."
"That's different."
"That's what I meant."
"Then say that."
"I just did."
"You didn't the first time."
"Severus."
"What?"
Lily stared at him.
Then, suddenly, laughed.
He frowned.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You were laughing."
"Yes."
"At what?"
"You."
"Why?"
"Because you've spent ten minutes arguing with something I didn't mean."
"You said it."
"I said it badly."
"Then the argument was correct."
That made her laugh again.
Quietly this time.
Madam Pince looked over.
Lily put one hand over her mouth.
Severus lowered his eyes before Madam Pince could decide he was responsible too.
The space between them returned to normal by degrees.
Not repaired.
Nothing had broken.
That was the point.
Lily leaned across the table a little later and turned his book because he had copied the wrong page number.
He told her not to touch it.
She ignored him.
He corrected the number.
When they packed, she asked:
"Tomorrow?"
Severus put his quill away.
"What?"
"After supper."
He looked at her.
"You're revising with Mary."
"In the afternoon."
"And Pettigrew?"
Lily's expression changed.
Only enough.
"What about him?"
"Nothing."
There it was again.
He hated that word when she used it.
Apparently he used it more.
"After supper," she repeated.
"All right."
She smiled.
Not broadly.
Only enough to settle the arrangement.
Then they left the library together and separated at the staircase.
Lily went up.
Severus went down.
For several steps he could still hear her shoes above him.
Then the stair moved.
The sound disappeared.
The Slytherin common room had become almost entirely parchment.
It covered tables.
Chairs.
One corner of the floor where two second-years had decided sitting cross-legged improved memory.
Someone had drawn a list of likely examination questions on the back of an old essay and pinned it to the noticeboard.
Another person had crossed three of them out and written WRONG beside a fourth.
Severus had barely sat before someone said his name.
"Snape."
He looked up.
The first-year from breakfast stood beside the table holding his Potions notes.
"Do you know what Slughorn means by stabilization?"
"Yes."
The boy waited.
Severus waited back.
"Could you explain it?"
Again.
It happened quickly enough this time that Severus did not stare.
He moved one book aside.
The boy sat.
"Show me."
The notes were terrible.
Not inaccurate.
Worse.
Disorganized.
Definitions mixed with examples.
Examples mixed with ingredient lists.
Two arrows pointed to nothing.
Severus stared at them.
"What?"
"What are these?"
The boy looked.
"Connections."
"Between what?"
He leaned closer.
"Oh."
Severus waited.
"I don't remember."
"Then they aren't connections."
"That's helpful."
"You keep saying that when you mean the opposite."
The boy grinned.
"See? You're learning."
Severus looked at him.
The grin disappeared.
"Right. Stabilization."
Severus turned the parchment.
"You're thinking of it as one step."
"It is one step."
"No."
He took the quill.
Stopped.
Looked at the boy.
"Can I?"
"Yes."
He drew a line between two stages.
"You're trying to memorize the instruction instead of what the potion is doing."
The boy leaned in.
Severus explained.
Not quickly.
He discovered quickly did not work.
If he said everything at the speed it occurred to him, the other boy's expression went blank by the third sentence.
So he slowed down.
Asked questions.
Waited.
Made the boy say what happened next instead of providing it.
When the answer was wrong, Severus corrected it.
When it was nearly right, he made him finish.
Ten minutes passed.
Then fifteen.
Another first-year came over.
"What are you doing?"
"Potions."
"Can I listen?"
The first boy shrugged.
Severus did not.
Apparently that counted as yes.
The second sat.
A third joined later with a question about antidotes.
By then Severus had stopped noticing how strange the arrangement was.
He had a clean sheet in front of him.
Three headings.
Two diagrams.
Someone had brought over an extra inkpot without being asked.
Questions came.
Severus answered.
Sometimes he said he didn't know.
That surprised them more than anything else.
"You don't know?"
"No."
"But you're good at Potions."
"That doesn't mean I know everything."
"I thought you did."
Severus stared at him.
The boy smiled.
Severus realized, eventually, that it had been a joke.
He returned to the notes.
"Ask Slughorn."
"I'd rather not."
"Then don't know."
"You're terrible at this."
"Then leave."
The boy did not leave.
None of them did.
Something about that sat strangely beneath Severus's ribs.
Not warmth.
Not exactly.
There was a shape to the table now.
Their books.
His explanations.
Questions arriving toward him.
He knew why he was there.
That was unusual enough to feel almost physical.
Across the common room, older students were doing their own work.
One of them glanced toward Severus's table.
Then back down.
No mockery.
No interest.
Nothing.
That helped too.
The group eventually broke because one boy remembered an unfinished Charms essay and swore loudly enough for a prefect to tell him to watch his mouth.
Books disappeared.
Parchment gathered.
Chairs scraped back.
The first boy remained long enough to collect his notes.
"Thanks."
Severus looked up.
"For what?"
The boy held the parchment.
"This."
"You asked."
"Yes."
Severus waited for something else.
Nothing came.
The boy left.
Severus looked at the empty chair.
Then at his own notes.
He had lost nearly an hour.
His Transfiguration revision remained unfinished.
History had not been touched.
He should have been irritated.
He was.
Mostly.
He pulled the Transfiguration book closer.
Read half a page.
Then looked at the abandoned diagram still lying near his elbow.
The boy had forgotten it.
Severus picked it up.
The handwriting across the top was not his.
The structure underneath was.
For some reason he folded the sheet and placed it beside the inkpot rather than throwing it away.
The next evening, Lily was late again.
Only six minutes.
That was not late enough to matter.
She arrived carrying two books and an apple.
"I remembered."
Severus looked at the clock.
"Eventually."
She narrowed her eyes.
"I was six minutes."
"I didn't say anything."
"You did with your face."
"My face didn't say anything."
"It says lots of things."
"That's ridiculous."
Lily sat opposite him.
Then noticed the parchment spread across his side of the table.
"What's all that?"
"Potions."
"I can see that."
She picked up one page.
Severus took it back.
"Those aren't yours."
"No."
"Whose?"
He put it down.
"Someone in Slytherin."
Lily looked at the notes.
"You were helping them?"
"Yes."
The answer seemed to surprise her.
That irritated him immediately.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"There."
"What?"
"You did it."
"Did what?"
"Nothing."
Lily stared.
Then understanding arrived and she smiled.
"Oh."
"It's annoying."
"I know."
"Then stop."
"No."
She took a bite of apple.
Severus opened his book.
Lily chewed.
Then:
"That's good."
He looked up.
"What is?"
"Helping them."
"They asked."
"Still."
He looked back at the text.
"They're terrible at organizing notes."
Lily smiled around another bite.
"Maybe that's why they asked you."
"They could organize them properly themselves."
"But they didn't."
"No."
"And you did."
Severus's eyes stayed on the page.
The words had stopped becoming information again.
He disliked when that happened.
Lily seemed to know not to continue.
They worked.
At some point Mary came into the library.
She spotted Lily and lifted a hand.
Lily lifted hers back.
Mary pointed toward another table where two Gryffindors sat surrounded by books.
Then pointed at Lily.
A question.
Lily shook her head and pointed at the chair.
Here.
Mary nodded and went away.
The exchange had taken perhaps three seconds.
Severus had understood all of it.
He looked down before Lily turned back.
She did not mention it.
Neither did he.
The pattern continued.
That was how patterns became dangerous.
Not because they arrived suddenly.
Because repetition made them ordinary before anyone decided whether ordinary was desirable.
At breakfast, someone asked Severus about Potions.
At lunch, Lily sat with Gryffindor because they were revising Charms.
After class, Severus explained a concept to another Slytherin.
In the library, Lily joined him later.
Sometimes she brought Mary.
Sometimes she didn't.
Sometimes Severus worked in the common room instead because three people had already asked whether he would.
Nothing had changed.
Everything had changed slightly.
One afternoon Severus entered the Great Hall and stopped near the doors.
Lily was already seated.
Mary beside her.
Two other Gryffindors opposite.
Books open.
A space remained beside Lily.
Not deliberately.
Probably.
She looked up.
Saw him.
Her face brightened.
Then she glanced toward the Slytherin table.
Severus followed the look.
The boy he had helped with stabilization was waving one sheet of parchment above his head.
Not subtly.
Severus frowned.
The boy waved harder.
Lily saw.
Her mouth moved.
Almost laughter.
She pointed toward the Slytherin table.
Not sending him away.
Acknowledging.
Severus stood between the two tables for one second longer than necessary.
Then went to Slytherin.
The boy shoved the parchment toward him before he had even sat.
"Tell him he's wrong."
Severus looked at the second boy.
"About what?"
"Neutralization."
"I'm not wrong."
"He says powdered moonstone—"
"Wait."
Severus put his bag down.
"Start from the beginning."
Across the Hall, Lily had already returned to her conversation.
Severus listened to the argument.
Corrected the mistake.
Then another.
Someone passed him bread without being asked.
He took it.
Halfway through the meal he looked toward Gryffindor again.
Lily was bent over Mary's parchment.
Mary said something.
Lily laughed.
The sound did not reach him across the Hall.
He knew what it would sound like anyway.
Petunia's sentence returned.
She'll outgrow you.
Severus tore the bread.
The first piece came away unevenly.
He looked down at it.
Then at the parchment beside his plate where someone had written:
Ask Snape — antidotes
The words were squeezed into the margin.
Small.
Practical.
Almost nothing.
He read them twice.
Then the boy beside him asked another question.
Severus answered.
End of Chapter 69