The first laugh came from around the corner.
Severus heard it before he saw anyone.
Not unusual.
Hogwarts had become louder as examinations approached, not quieter. Students laughed at things that were not funny because they were tired. Arguments began over page numbers. Someone had shouted in the library that morning because a bookmark had gone missing and then discovered it behind his own ear.
June had done something peculiar to everyone.
Severus carried three books against his chest and a roll of parchment under one arm as he climbed toward the second floor.
The parchment did not belong entirely to him.
That still felt strange.
One of the other Slytherin first-years had asked him to look over a Potions diagram before supper. Another had added two questions in the margin. Severus had corrected both and then, because the diagram was still badly arranged, redrawn half of it.
The original owner had objected.
Then admitted the new version was better.
Severus had kept the sheet because the boy wanted it back later.
Useful.
The word had begun attaching itself to things.
Someone asking.
Someone waiting.
A place at a table that remained open because people expected him to sit there.
He had not decided what he thought about any of this yet.
The laugh came again.
James Potter.
Severus recognized it now.
He slowed.
Only slightly.
The corridor ahead bent around a stone pillar. Voices carried from the other side.
"Again."
"That one nearly took his ear off."
"It did not."
"It absolutely did."
"That's because he ducked."
"People generally do when metal comes at their head."
Sirius Black.
Severus reached the corner.
The explanation stood against the opposite wall.
A suit of armour.
One of the older ones, dull silver with a narrow helmet and a shield scratched by generations of passing students.
James stood beside it with his wand out.
Sirius leaned against the wall.
A third Gryffindor boy Severus recognized only after a second—Peter Pettigrew—stood several feet away with the expression of someone who had already seen something funny and expected it to happen again.
The armour's right arm was raised.
Not naturally.
Its gauntlet hovered at forehead height in an exaggerated salute.
James flicked his wand.
The gauntlet dropped.
Then snapped upward again.
Metal struck metal with a loud clang.
Peter laughed.
Sirius said, "Still too fast."
"It's meant to be fast."
"It's meant to salute."
"It is saluting."
"It's threatening people."
"More memorable."
James noticed Severus.
His mouth changed immediately.
Recognition.
Not hostility.
Not yet.
"Snape."
Severus stopped.
There was enough corridor to go around them.
He considered doing exactly that.
James turned back to the armour.
"Watch."
"I don't want to."
"You haven't seen it."
"I can see it."
"No, you can see the armour."
Sirius looked at Severus.
That same assessing look from the staircase.
Severus disliked it.
Peter moved nearer the wall as two older girls approached from the opposite direction.
James straightened.
"Right."
One of the girls saw his wand.
"Potter, don't."
James looked offended.
"I haven't done anything."
The girls passed.
The armour remained still.
Then, exactly as they went beyond it, the gauntlet snapped up in an enormous formal salute.
Both girls jumped.
One swore.
James bent nearly double laughing.
Even Sirius laughed this time.
The older girl turned around.
"Idiots."
"Thank you," James called.
She made a rude gesture.
Peter laughed harder.
Severus continued walking.
There was no reason to stop.
No reason to say anything.
The prank was stupid.
That did not make it his problem.
He shifted the books higher against his chest.
Three steps.
Two.
He saw the armour's fingers twitch.
Severus stopped.
James's head came up.
"Oh."
The gauntlet moved.
Too early.
Not upward this time.
Sideways.
Fast.
Metal caught the strap of Severus's satchel near his shoulder.
The force was not enough to hurt.
Enough to jerk him half around.
His books slipped.
He caught one.
Lost two.
The roll of parchment fell open across the floor.
His satchel came loose.
An ink bottle inside struck stone.
There was a small, unmistakable crack.
Black spread through the open flap.
For one second Severus heard nothing.
Then James laughed.
It was not a cruel laugh.
That was almost worse.
It came automatically.
The whole arrangement was ridiculous from outside: Severus half turned, the armour frozen with its hand still extended, books on the floor, parchment rolling toward Peter's shoes.
James put a hand over his mouth.
It did not help.
"Sorry."
He was still laughing.
Severus looked at him.
Something in the corridor became very still.
Not the corridor itself.
Students continued moving behind them.
Someone passed the far end.
A portrait muttered from its frame.
But Severus's attention narrowed.
Metal hand.
Broken bottle.
Ink.
James Potter laughing.
There had been evenings when a glass fell at home and every person in the kitchen knew, before it hit the floor, that the sound after would matter more than the breaking.
His fingers went cold.
He put the remaining book down.
Carefully.
James's laughter faded.
"Honestly, I didn't mean—"
Severus crouched.
Ink had soaked through the satchel lining.
One corner of his Potions notes was already black.
The borrowed diagram had landed partly beneath the bag.
Ink touched the edge.
Not much.
Enough.
Peter bent to pick up one of the books.
"Don't."
The word came sharper than Severus intended.
Peter froze.
His hand withdrew.
James's expression changed.
Only a fraction.
"He's trying to help."
"I didn't ask him."
Peter straightened.
Sirius stopped leaning against the wall.
James looked at the armour.
Then back at Severus.
"It wasn't meant for you."
Severus pulled the parchment away from the spreading ink.
"Then who was it meant for?"
"No one."
James smiled again, smaller now.
"That's the point."
Severus looked up.
"Then you're worse at this than I thought."
Peter made a sound that might have been a laugh and immediately disguised it as a cough.
James heard.
His eyebrows rose.
"Excuse me?"
"You put a charm on a suit of armour in a corridor."
"Yes."
"Where people walk."
"That's generally what corridors are for."
Sirius's mouth twitched.
Severus stood.
"You've almost understood the problem."
This time Peter definitely laughed.
James turned his head.
"Whose side are you on?"
Peter looked alarmed.
"I haven't got a side."
"You laughed."
"I coughed."
"You've never coughed like that in your life."
Severus ignored them.
He examined the armour.
The charm was crude.
Not badly done.
That irritated him too.
The gauntlet had been tied to movement passing within a particular distance. Whatever James and Sirius had attempted, they had anchored the effect too broadly.
That explained the girls.
And him.
James watched.
"What are you doing?"
"Fixing it."
"It doesn't need fixing."
The gauntlet twitched again.
Severus looked at him.
James conceded, "All right. Slightly."
Severus took out his wand.
Sirius's attention sharpened.
Not fear.
Readiness.
Severus noticed.
Of course he did.
"I wouldn't," Sirius said.
Severus looked at him.
"I wasn't speaking to you."
"No."
Sirius pushed away from the wall.
"But you're pointing a wand beside James."
James glanced between them.
"Oh, don't be dramatic."
"I'm not."
"You are."
Severus turned his wand toward the armour's shoulder joint.
Sirius's eyes followed the movement.
The spell was sitting there.
Not literally visible.
But its effect was.
A slight tremor in the metal before the arm moved.
A delay.
An uneven pull from shoulder to elbow.
James had enchanted the plate above the joint instead of the joint itself.
Severus pointed his wand at the shoulder plate.
"Finite Incantatem."
The charm did not vanish cleanly.
The gauntlet snapped upward.
James ducked.
It missed his hair by an inch.
Peter barked a laugh.
Then the entire arm shuddered once and dropped with a heavy metallic clang against the armour's side.
Still.
James stared.
Severus lowered his wand.
"You anchored it wrong."
Silence.
James looked at the armour.
Then at Severus.
"I did not."
"You did."
"It worked."
"It hit me."
"That proves it worked."
"It proves something moved."
Sirius was smiling now.
Not at Severus.
Not entirely at James either.
James noticed.
"Oh, shut up."
"I didn't say anything."
"You've got a face."
"So do you."
"Unfortunately."
Peter laughed again.
For half a second the scene almost returned to what it had been.
Four boys in a corridor.
A stupid charm.
A suit of armour.
Something that could have become nothing.
Then James looked at the ink seeping through Severus's satchel.
His expression shifted.
"Look."
He bent toward one of the fallen books.
Severus moved first.
"I said don't."
James stopped.
There it was.
The line.
Small.
Visible now.
James straightened slowly.
"I was going to pick it up."
"I can pick up my own books."
"Clearly."
The word arrived too quickly.
James heard it after he said it.
So did Severus.
Sirius's eyes moved between them.
Peter stopped smiling.
James's face altered.
A little colour came into it.
"That wasn't—"
"Funny?"
Severus asked.
James closed his mouth.
The corridor had gained an audience without Severus noticing.
Not a crowd.
Three students by the stairs.
Two second-years slowing as they passed.
Enough.
Enough people seeing his books on the floor.
His bag stained.
James standing there.
The old heat moved beneath the cold in his hands.
He hated that more.
Heat was less useful.
He crouched again and gathered the parchment.
James said, "I said sorry."
"You were laughing."
"So?"
Severus's hands stopped.
James seemed genuinely confused.
That mattered.
He was not pretending not to understand.
He actually did not.
"It was funny," James said.
Sirius looked at him.
James noticed.
"What?"
Sirius shrugged.
"Nothing."
"You think it was funny."
"The armour was."
"Exactly."
Severus stood with the damaged parchment in one hand.
"The armour didn't laugh."
James stared.
A voice came from behind them.
"What happened?"
Lily.
Severus knew it before turning.
Of course.
Of all corridors.
Of all times.
She approached with Mary beside her, both carrying Charms books.
Lily's eyes moved first to Severus.
Then the floor.
Then the ink.
Then James.
The sequence was fast.
"James."
James threw up one hand.
"Why does everyone say my name like that?"
"Because you keep doing things."
"I didn't do this."
Sirius looked at the armour.
James corrected himself.
"I did some of this."
Mary came closer.
"What happened to the bag?"
Peter pointed at the armour.
"It saluted him."
Mary looked at the ink.
"Violently?"
Peter's mouth opened.
Closed.
Lily looked at James.
"You charmed it?"
"It was supposed to salute people."
Sirius said, "Threaten people."
James turned.
"You're very supportive today."
Lily crouched beside Severus.
"Is the bottle broken?"
"Yes."
"All over everything?"
"No."
She reached toward the satchel.
Stopped.
Looked at him.
Severus gave the smallest nod.
She opened the flap.
The bottle had cracked near the bottom.
Ink coated one side of the lining and two loose sheets inside.
Lily made a face.
"That's awful."
"It's ink."
"Yes, Severus. I know."
James stepped nearer.
"I'll replace it."
Severus looked up.
"No."
James frowned.
"Why not?"
"I don't need you to."
"I broke it."
"The armour broke it."
James stared at him.
"You're impossible."
"So I've been told."
Lily pulled the damaged pages free.
James looked at her.
"I said I'd replace it."
"And he said no."
"That's stupid."
Severus stood.
"Then you'll understand it."
James's face hardened.
Not much.
Enough.
Lily rose too.
"The joke wasn't funny."
James turned to her.
"It wasn't aimed at him."
"That doesn't make it funny."
"You laughed at the armour last week."
"When?"
"When it tried to bow to Professor Binns and nearly fell through him."
Mary made a suspicious choking sound.
Lily's mouth twitched.
James saw.
"See?"
"That was different."
"How?"
"No one's things got ruined."
James looked at the satchel.
Some of the argument left him.
Only some.
"It was an accident."
Lily nodded.
"Yes."
James blinked.
He had apparently expected resistance.
"But you still laughed," she said.
James's mouth opened.
Then closed.
Severus watched Lily.
She was not standing in front of him.
Not defending him as though he could not speak.
She was simply looking at James and waiting for him to understand something he had not understood on his own.
James rubbed the back of his neck.
His hair became worse.
"Fine."
The word came out badly.
He looked at Severus.
"Sorry."
No laugh this time.
Severus said nothing.
James waited.
"What?"
Severus frowned.
"What?"
"I apologized."
"I heard you."
"Then?"
"Then what?"
James stared at him.
Sirius laughed once.
Quietly.
James swung toward him.
"What now?"
"Nothing."
"Stop saying nothing."
Severus almost looked at Lily.
Did not.
James exhaled hard.
"Come on."
He turned away.
Peter went immediately.
Sirius stayed half a second longer.
His eyes moved to Severus's wand.
Then to the armour's now-motionless arm.
Then Severus.
No smile this time.
Only that same measuring look.
Severus held it.
Sirius turned.
"James."
"What?"
"You did anchor it wrong."
There was a beat.
Then James's voice came from farther down the corridor.
"Oh, go to hell."
Peter laughed.
Sirius followed.
Mary waited until they were around the corner.
Then she said, "I thought it was a good charm."
Lily looked at her.
Mary added quickly, "Before the ink."
Severus gathered the final book.
"It wasn't."
"The salute was funny."
"It wasn't a salute."
Mary glanced at the armour.
"What was it?"
"A badly controlled movement charm."
"That sounds less funny when you say it."
"It was less funny."
Mary smiled despite herself.
Lily gave her a look.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Mary's smile widened.
Then she apparently remembered she had been heading somewhere before finding the corridor occupied by damaged stationery and Gryffindor stupidity.
"I told Caroline we'd meet her."
Lily looked at Severus.
He knew that look too.
Go?
Stay?
The fact that she asked without speaking made something in him loosen.
Very slightly.
"Go," he said.
Mary shifted her books.
Lily did not.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"You've got ink on your sleeve."
Severus looked down.
A black streak ran from the cuff almost to his wrist.
He had not noticed.
"It'll wash."
"It might not."
"Then it won't."
Lily stared at him.
Mary looked between them.
"I'll tell Caroline you're coming later."
Lily nodded.
Mary left.
Severus put the damaged parchment inside the least damaged book.
"You don't have to stay."
"I know."
He picked up the satchel.
Ink immediately touched his fingers through the fabric.
He put it down again.
Lily held out a hand.
"What?"
"Give me the broken bottle."
"I can carry it."
"You'll cut yourself."
"I won't."
"Severus."
He handed it to her.
She wrapped it in a spare sheet of parchment.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
The armour stood beside them.
Ordinary again.
As though it had not done anything.
Severus looked at it.
Lily followed his gaze.
"You fixed it quickly."
"The charm was wrong."
"James didn't think so."
"James doesn't think before doing most things."
Lily's mouth moved.
He saw.
Again.
The same almost-smile from the corridor days ago.
Something inside him tightened.
Lily caught his expression.
"What?"
"Nothing."
She looked at him.
"You're doing it again."
"What?"
"That."
"You haven't explained anything."
"The face."
"My face is just my face."
"No."
She took the wrapped ink bottle under one arm.
"You looked at him like you wanted to kill him."
Severus stopped.
The sentence was so disproportionate that for a second he thought she was joking.
She wasn't.
"I didn't."
Lily lifted her eyebrows.
"I didn't."
"You did a bit."
"I was looking at the spell."
"Not when James was talking."
Severus's fingers closed around the satchel strap.
"I wasn't going to do anything."
"I know."
That answer irritated him more than if she had argued.
"Then why say it?"
"Because you looked frightening."
He stared at her.
Lily immediately seemed to regret the word.
Not enough to withdraw it.
She adjusted the parchment around the broken bottle.
"I don't mean frightening frightening."
"That's very clear."
"You know what I mean."
"No."
"You went all—"
She stopped.
Her face tightened as she searched for something.
"Still."
Severus said nothing.
Lily continued, more carefully.
"Too still."
That was worse.
Not because it was wrong.
Because she had noticed.
The corridor seemed colder.
He looked away.
At the armour.
At the black mark on the floor where ink had splashed.
At his own damaged notes.
"It was stupid," he said.
"The charm?"
"All of it."
"Yes."
He bent and picked up the last loose sheet.
Lily watched.
Then said, "James is stupid sometimes."
Severus glanced at her.
"Sometimes?"
She smiled.
There it was.
Despite everything.
"Frequently."
He looked down.
She added, "But he did apologize."
"Eventually."
"Yes."
"Because you made him."
"I didn't make him."
"You stood there until he did."
"That's not the same."
"It is to him."
Lily frowned.
"He should've anyway."
Severus folded the ruined edge of parchment inward.
"It doesn't matter."
Lily went quiet.
He knew immediately that she did not believe him.
Neither did he.
That was irritating too.
At last she held out the wrapped bottle.
"I'll come with you to get another one."
"I have another."
"Of course you do."
Severus looked at her.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Normal people don't carry replacement ink."
"Normal people spill things."
"Yes. Then they complain."
"That's inefficient."
Lily laughed.
Quietly.
The sound changed the corridor.
Not enough.
But some.
Severus picked up the books.
They began walking.
At the turn, he looked back once.
The armour stood with both hands at its sides.
Its helmet faced forward.
Nothing about it suggested James Potter had ever touched it.
That evening, the ink stain refused to come out.
Severus tried water first.
Then soap.
Then more water.
The sleeve lightened from black to grey-blue.
That was worse somehow.
One of the Slytherin boys watched from the edge of his bed.
"What happened?"
"Ink."
"I can see that."
Severus continued rubbing the cloth.
"How?"
"Potter."
The boy made a sound.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
The name already carried enough now.
"What did he do?"
"Nothing useful."
The boy laughed.
Severus did not.
After a moment the laughter stopped.
He laid the robe across the back of a chair to dry.
The damaged Potions diagram sat on his bed.
The ink had reached only the lower corner.
None of the important information was lost.
He should have been satisfied.
Instead he took out a clean piece of parchment.
Copied the entire diagram again.
Every line.
Every heading.
Every correction.
The original remained beside him while he worked.
There was no need for that either.
When he finished, the new version was cleaner than the first.
He looked at both.
The damaged sheet.
The repaired one.
For a moment he heard James laughing again.
Not the apology.
Not Sirius saying the charm had been anchored wrong.
Not Lily saying James could be stupid.
The laugh.
That was what stayed.
Severus folded the ruined parchment once.
Then again.
He did not throw it away.
End of Chapter 70