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The lawns beside the Black Lake were loud with late-afternoon heat and the reckless relief of students who had survived their O.W.L.s.
Sunlight poured over the green like liquid gold, catching on the windows of the castle and turning the water beyond into a trembling mirror. Fifth-years sprawled across the grass in careless constellations, robes discarded, ties loosened. Fourth-years lingered nearer the courtyard arches, half in shade, half in sunlight, loud and bright and still young enough to believe the world could not yet bruise them.
James Potter lay on his back in the grass as if he owned the sky. His glasses glinted. His tie was missing. His laugh rose easily, constantly, the sound of a boy certain the world would always laugh with him.
Sirius Black reclined beside him like a fallen king, dark hair bright in the sun, long limbs arranged with deliberate indifference. Remus Lupin sat cross-legged with a book open in his lap, pretending to read and very clearly listening to everything. Peter Pettigrew hovered near James’s shoulder, eager and breathless and always just slightly behind the joke.
Lily Evans sat with Mary Macdonald and Marlene McKinnon, their shoes abandoned in a heap, their stockings grass-stained. Alice Fortescue and Frank Longbottom argued amicably about whether the O.W.L. Defence paper had been unfair, Fabian and Gideon Prewett chiming in with loud, theatrical groans.
“Unfair?” Fabian barked. “Frank, you could duel a Hungarian Horntail and apologise to it after.”
“I apologised to a Cornish pixie once,” Frank said earnestly.
“You apologise to everyone,” Gideon said, grinning.
“Except James,” Lily muttered dryly.
James propped himself up on his elbows. “That hurts, Evans.”
“It’s true,” Mary said. “You haven’t apologised for a single thing since first year.”
Sirius smirked lazily. “Why start now?”
Their laughter rose again — loud, careless, unbothered by consequence.
It was Lily who saw him first.
Her smile flickered, just slightly.
“Look,” she said.
Under a broad oak tree not far from the lake sat Severus Snape.
He was alone.
Of course he was alone.
His robes were still immaculate despite the heat, black fabric swallowing sunlight. His hair hung in his eyes as he bent over a stack of parchment — O.W.L. answers returned and heavily annotated in red ink. He wasn’t looking at anyone. He wasn’t listening. He wasn’t reacting.
He simply existed.
James’s eyes sharpened immediately.
“Well,” he said softly, already sitting up straighter. “If it isn’t Snivellus.”
Remus’s hand stilled on the page.
“James,” Lily warned.
Peter was already grinning.
Sirius rolled onto his stomach, chin in his palm. “Look at him. Revising his revisions.”
“Leave him alone,” Remus said quietly.
But James was already on his feet.
“C’mon,” he said, light and bright and already electric with the thrill of it. “It’s tradition.”
“It’s bullying,” Lily snapped.
James shot her a grin. “It’s character building.”
“For you, maybe.”
Sirius stood as well, stretching like a cat. “Don’t look so scandalised, Evans. He loves the attention.”
“He doesn’t—”
But they were already moving.
Peter scrambled up to follow. Remus hesitated.
Just for a moment.
Then he sighed and rose as well.
Across the lawn, fourth-years clustered near the courtyard arches — Regulus Black among them.
He stood with his friends in a loose semicircle: Barty Crouch Jr. animated and sharp; Evan Rosier lounging with aristocratic disdain; Pandora Rosier watching the lake like it whispered secrets; Dorcas Meadowes leaning against the stone with her arms crossed, observant and steady.
Regulus’s hair gleamed in the sun — darker than Sirius’s, neater. His posture was rigid in a way that never relaxed. He wore control like a second skin.
And when James Potter began walking toward Severus Snape with a wand already twirling between his fingers, Regulus noticed.
James called out, voice bright and cutting.
“Oy, Snivellus!”
Snape didn’t look up.
Sirius flanked James’s right side, Peter his left. Remus hung back, jaw tight.
“Bit antisocial today, are we?” James continued. “Celebrating your exam marks alone?”
Snape’s fingers tightened on his parchment.
“Go away, Potter.”
There was no tremor in his voice.
James looked delighted.
“Touchy,” Sirius said lightly.
Snape finally looked up, black eyes flat. “Don’t you have someone else to harass?”
Peter snickered.
“Expelliarmus!” James said lazily.
Snape’s wand shot from his hand before he could reach for it.
Gasps and laughter erupted from the surrounding students. People shifted closer. A circle formed as naturally as breath.
Snape stood abruptly, face flushing. “Give it back.”
Sirius flicked his wand. “Impedimenta.”
Snape stumbled backward, caught himself against the tree trunk.
Remus exhaled sharply. “That’s enough.”
“Relax,” James said, eyes bright. “We’re just playing.”
Snape lunged forward, grabbing for his wand midair — and caught it.
The crowd made an appreciative noise.
Snape’s wand was up instantly.
“Langlock!” he snapped.
Peter gagged as his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Laughter exploded.
James’s smile vanished.
“Oh, that’s how it is?”
Four wands rose in unison.
“Levicorpus!”
Snape jerked violently as invisible force yanked him upside down into the air.
His parchments scattered like white birds.
His satchel split open. Ink spilled across the grass.
The crowd roared.
Snape dangled, robes falling toward his chest, hair hanging in his eyes. He twisted, trying to aim his wand properly, but Sirius disarmed him again with vicious precision.
“Let me down!” Snape shouted, face red with blood and fury.
“Aw,” James cooed mockingly. “You look better this way, Snivellus. Improves the view.”
Peter wheezed with laughter.
“Flip him,” Sirius suggested casually.
James grinned.
Snape thrashed — and James flicked his wand again.
Snape’s trousers slid down to his ankles.
There was a half-second of stunned silence.
Then the courtyard erupted.
Students pointed. Some howled. Others covered their mouths. A few turned away.
Snape hung there in his underpants, pale legs exposed, shirt fallen toward his face, dignity shredded in open air.
Lily pressed her hand to her mouth.
A small, involuntary sound escaped her — half shock, half disbelieving laugh.
Snape saw it.
Something inside him cracked.
The laughter grew louder.
“Put him down,” someone muttered weakly.
But no one stepped forward.
Except—
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
The voice cut through the noise like a blade.
The crowd parted instinctively.
Regulus Black strode through it like a storm contained in human shape.
His face was white with fury. His grey eyes burned.
Behind him came Barty, Evan, Pandora, Dorcas — already pushing through toward Snape.
James blinked.
Then his expression melted.
“Reg,” he breathed.
He lowered his wand slightly, smile turning soft and adoring in a way that made several students exchange startled looks.
“Hey,” James said gently. “It’s fine. We’re just—”
“Put. Him. Down.”
Regulus’s voice shook.
Not with weakness.
With rage.
Sirius stared at his brother. “Reg, calm down.”
James flicked his wand and lowered Snape abruptly, but not before one last ripple of laughter moved through the crowd.
Snape collapsed to his knees, scrambling to yank his trousers up, face blazing with humiliation.
Dorcas knelt immediately, shielding him with her body. Pandora gathered his scattered parchments. Evan muttered a cleaning charm over the ink-stained grass. Barty retrieved Snape’s satchel and shoved it back into his hands without comment.
Regulus never looked at Snape.
He looked at James.
“What,” Regulus asked, voice shaking, “do you think you’re doing?”
James blinked, confused by the tone.
“It’s Snape,” he said carefully. “He started it.”
“He was sitting.”
“He hexed Peter.”
“After you disarmed him.”
James’s brow furrowed. “It’s just a prank.”
“Prank?” Regulus echoed, incredulous. “You stripped him in front of half the school.”
Sirius stepped forward. “Don’t exaggerate.”
Regulus rounded on him. “You think this is funny?”
Sirius hesitated.
James moved closer, lowering his wand fully now, voice softening.
“Reg,” he murmured, reaching out. “Hey. Look at me. It’s fine. It’s not that serious.”
Regulus recoiled from his touch like it burned.
“Not that serious?”
“Don’t make it into something it’s not,” James said, almost pleading now. “We’re not into him. Merlin, he’s—”
He made a face.
“—it’s not like that.”
Regulus stared.
“You think that makes it better?” he demanded.
James faltered.
“You think it isn’t assault because you don’t fancy him?”
The word hit like a curse.
A ripple went through the watching students.
James went very still.
“That’s not—” he began.
“If someone did that to me,” Regulus said, voice dropping, sharp as glass, “would it be funny?”
James froze.
His mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The horror on his face was instant and absolute.
“I would never—” he stammered.
“But if they did.”
Silence.
Sirius stepped in quickly. “Regulus, that’s different.”
Regulus rounded on him.
“How?”
Sirius faltered for once in his life.
“It just is.”
“You’re disgusting,” Regulus spat.
The word struck Sirius like a physical blow.
James stepped forward again, desperate now. “Reg, don’t do this. Please. You know I’d never let anyone— I adore you. I—”
“Adore?” Regulus laughed harshly. “You adore me but you think this is acceptable?”
“It’s Snape!”
“That doesn’t matter!”
James’s voice cracked. “He hates you.”
“I don’t care.”
James looked lost.
Regulus’s eyes were bright — not with tears, but with something fiercer.
“You don’t get to decide who deserves humiliation,” Regulus said. “You don’t get to decide that because you think someone is ugly or unpleasant or beneath you.”
James shook his head. “I didn’t mean—”
“You never mean it,” Regulus snapped. “That’s the problem.”
The silence pressed in.
James reached for him again.
“Reg, please.”
Regulus stepped back.
“Don’t touch me.”
The words were quiet.
Final.
James went pale.
“You’re overreacting.”
Regulus’s expression changed then.
Something closed.
“Am I?”
James swallowed.
“Reg—”
“We’re done.”
It wasn’t loud.
It didn’t need to be.
James stared as if he hadn’t understood the language.
Sirius inhaled sharply. “Regulus—”
“Stay away from me,” Regulus said without looking at him.
He turned.
Barty and Evan were already flanking him. Pandora slipped in beside Dorcas, who had helped Snape to his feet.
Snape looked shaken. Furious. Humiliated.
But he also looked at Regulus with something unreadable.
Regulus didn’t look back.
He walked.
His friends followed.
Snape hesitated only once — then followed too.
The crowd parted again.
No one laughed now.
James stood in the grass, wand limp at his side, as if something essential had just been torn from him.
Peter looked at him helplessly.
Remus closed his book.
Sirius watched his brother’s retreating back and, for the first time in a long time, did not know what to say.
The sun still shone.
The lake still glittered.
But something irreversible had shifted shape on the grass that afternoon.
And everyone felt it.
The lawn did not resume its laughter.
It could not.
James Potter stood exactly where Regulus had left him — as though the earth had shifted and he had not yet caught up to the motion. The noise of the lake felt distant. The crowd, suddenly aware of itself, began to dissolve in awkward fragments.
Peter hovered near James, wringing his hands. “Prongs…?”
James didn’t answer.
His eyes were still fixed on the path Regulus had taken. As if he expected him to turn around. To laugh. To say it was dramatic nonsense.
He didn’t.
Sirius remained rooted too, but differently — not hollowed out, but stunned. As though someone had just struck him across the face and he was still deciding whether it hurt.
Remus was the first to speak.
“That,” he said quietly, “went too far.”
James flinched like he’d been hit.
“I didn’t—” His voice broke.
He swallowed hard and dragged a hand through his hair, yanking at it. “I didn’t think—”
“That’s the problem,” Lily said.
Her voice wasn’t sharp now. It was tired.
James finally looked at her. His expression crumpled.
“He broke up with me,” he said, like a child who didn’t understand how a toy had shattered in his hands. “He— he just—”
His breath stuttered.
Peter’s face went white. “He didn’t mean it.”
“He did,” Remus murmured.
James laughed — a broken, hysterical sound. “Over Snape?”
Lily’s jaw tightened. “Over what you did.”
James’s eyes filled abruptly, violently, as if the realization had only just caught up to him.
“I would never let anyone touch him,” he said hoarsely. “I’d kill them.”
Sirius shut his eyes.
James sank down into the grass.
Actually sank.
His knees hit first, then his hands, like something inside him had simply given way.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Peter knelt beside him instantly. “Prongs, he knows you— he knows you didn’t mean—”
“But I did it,” James choked.
The words seemed to shock even him.
Sirius stared at the ground where Regulus had stood.
“You’re disgusting.”
His baby brother’s voice echoed with merciless clarity.
Sirius had been called many things in his life — arrogant, reckless, traitor, blood traitor, disappointment.
But never that.
Not by Regulus.
He swallowed, hard.
“I thought it was just…” Sirius started, then stopped.
What had it been?
Funny.
Normal.
Deserved.
The image of Snape dangling upside down flashed in his mind — the roar of laughter, the humiliation carved into sharp, public spectacle.
He exhaled shakily.
Remus closed his book and stood.
“We need to fix this.”
“How?” James demanded hoarsely, looking up with red-rimmed eyes. “He won’t even look at me.”
Sirius ran a hand over his face.
“He meant it,” Sirius said quietly.
The words felt foreign in his mouth.
James’s breath hitched.
Across the courtyard, Regulus did not look back.
—
They didn’t stop walking until they were halfway along the shaded path that curved behind the greenhouses.
Only then did Regulus halt abruptly.
Dorcas steadied Snape without comment. Pandora handed him the last of his parchments. Evan finished repairing the tear in his satchel with a muttered charm.
Snape stood stiffly among them, trousers properly fastened now, hair pushed back from his face with trembling fingers.
He did not speak.
Neither did Regulus.
For a moment, only the wind in the leaves filled the space.
Then Snape said, quietly:
“Why?”
Regulus didn’t look at him. “Why what?”
“Why intervene?”
His tone was not mocking.
It was cautious.
Regulus exhaled slowly.
“Because that was wrong.”
Snape blinked.
“They do that all the time,” he said carefully. “You know that.”
“I know they mess with you,” Regulus replied. “They always say it’s nothing. A joke. Harmless.”
His jaw tightened.
“I suspected otherwise.”
Barty folded his arms, watching with interest.
“But today,” Regulus continued, “I saw it.”
Snape’s fingers tightened around his parchment.
“And you care?” he asked, unable to keep the disbelief from his voice.
Regulus finally turned to look at him.
Grey eyes, cool and steady.
“No one deserves that,” he said. “No matter who they are. Or what they are.”
Snape went very still.
Regulus’s voice did not soften.
“I don’t particularly like you.”
Evan coughed faintly to hide a smirk.
Regulus continued, blunt as ever. “You’re unpleasant. We’ve spoken perhaps three times. Each time you were argumentative.”
Snape flushed.
“But that has nothing to do with your appearance,” Regulus went on evenly. “Or your background. Or your family. Or whatever else they like to sneer at.”
Snape stared at him.
“I don’t hate you,” Regulus said. “I don’t dislike you. I simply haven’t had reason to form much of an opinion.”
He paused.
“But what they did was disgusting.”
The word hung in the air.
Snape swallowed.
“I see,” he said faintly.
“And I’m sorry,” Regulus added.
That did it.
Snape looked genuinely startled.
“You’re apologising,” he said slowly, as though testing the unfamiliar shape of it.
“Yes.”
“For what they did.”
“They’re your—”
“Not at the moment,” Regulus cut in.
There was something cold in the statement. Final.
Snape felt something shift in his chest — a small, fragile, impossible warmth.
No one had ever done that.
Not for him.
Not publicly.
Not at cost.
His voice came out quieter than intended. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know.”
A silence fell.
Snape became acutely aware of the fact that Regulus was shorter than him. Slimmer. Younger. But somehow steadier.
He cleared his throat.
“You were correct about the Defence paper,” he said abruptly.
Regulus blinked. “What?”
“You mentioned,” Snape said stiffly, “earlier this term, that the examiner’s question on counter-curses was flawed.”
Pandora’s lips twitched.
Regulus tilted his head slightly. “Yes.”
“You were right,” Snape said, almost grudgingly. “The theoretical framework was inconsistent.”
Regulus studied him.
Snape pressed on, determined, awkward. “If you’d like, I could show you the error. I… scored highly.”
Barty looked delighted.
Regulus shrugged. “All right.”
Snape blinked. “All right?”
“Yes.”
Snape faltered slightly.
“You may,” Regulus added, after a beat, “walk with us. If you’d like.”
Evan and Barty exchanged a glance.
Dorcas hid a smile.
Pandora outright beamed.
Snape straightened almost imperceptibly.
“I see,” he said carefully.
Then, a little too quickly, “I would not object.”
Regulus nodded once, already turning to resume walking.
Snape fell into step beside him.
A fraction too close.
Not enough to be obvious.
Just enough.
He was painfully aware of Regulus’s shoulder near his own. The quiet confidence in his stride. The fact that he had stood against Potter. Against Black.
For him.
Snape tried to arrange his face into neutrality.
Internally, something had latched on.
Regulus did not notice.
He was already speaking again, casual. “If you’re going to join us, you should know Barty cheats at Gobstones.”
“I do not,” Barty protested.
“You absolutely do,” Dorcas said.
Snape found himself glancing sideways at Regulus.
“You play Gobstones?” he asked.
“Occasionally,” Regulus replied. “It’s strategic.”
Snape nodded quickly. “I am… quite good at strategy.”
Evan snorted softly.
Snape ignored him, focusing instead on matching his pace precisely with Regulus’s.
“I also brew,” Snape added. “Advanced-level potions. Independently.”
Regulus hummed, mildly interested. “Useful.”
Snape’s heart did something unfamiliar and inconvenient.
“Yes,” he said. “It is.”
Pandora caught Barty’s eye over Regulus’s shoulder.
They both smirked.
Dorcas shook her head in silent amusement.
Evan leaned closer to Barty and murmured, just low enough:
“He’s imprinted.”
Barty’s grin sharpened. “Completely.”
Ahead of them, Regulus continued walking, oblivious.
Snape adjusted his grip on his satchel and edged half a step nearer.
Not enough to draw attention.
Just enough to ensure he would not be left behind again.