Falling down is the easiest thing in the world. After the first few times, it barely hurts at all. No, the hard part is always, always, always to start again.
featuring
Just because a decision hurts, doesn't mean it was the wrong decision.
Victoria hadn't distant herself. They couldn't call it that, as the girl was still physically present. No, but she wasn't their Victoria in that time.
She still smiled, the usual brightness yet missing from it. Her laughter was still being heard, but - it wasn't how she would be in any normal state. Her best friends knew that, their worry growing with every faked smile. But what could they do when it was that girl who had always mastered in making everything appear perfect and all right.
It was hard for her, especially now. Unlived feelings made every ritual more persistent, taking up way to much energy from her - the more she tried on just doing it right. O.W.L's took up a whole new role in that, the lack of sleep just adding to everything. It hadn't mattered that she had learned way too much over the whole year. O.W.L's were her priority at that moment, feelings could come after that. Like most students, she spent that time learning and more learning. Way more than the usual enormous amount she had on her plate. Along with the quidditch practice for their upcoming last game and the prefect duties, the stress on her face seemed to be more visible than ever.
But as that time continued, it wasn't the girl on the focus.
defense against the dark arts — ordinary wizarding level
The words were clearly visible in front of everyone in the great hall.
"Five more minutes! , "the voice of Professor Flitwick was heard around the hall, the half-goblin wandering around the hall, inspecting each student with a particular stern gaze. James yawned hugely and rumpled up his hair, making it even messier than it had been. Then, with a glance toward professor Flitwick, he turned in his seat and grinned at a boy sitting four seats behind him, Sirius returning the natural forming grin with the same aura of mischief surrounding him. Each one of them turned back to their paper for a final look, where it was more James redrawing over a line of the snitch he drew with the letters V.A. written neatly in the middle of it, silly drawn hearts surrounding it in the most cliche way.
"Quills down, please!" squeaked Professor Flitwick. "That means you too, McKinnon! Please remain seated while I collect your parchment! Accio!" More than a hundred rolls of parchment zoomed into the air and into Professor Flitwick's outstretched arms, knocking him backward off his feet. Several people laughed as a couple of students, alongside Victoria, at the frontdesks got up, took hold of Professor Flitwick beneath the elbows, and lifted him onto his feet again.
"Thank you . . . thank you," panted Professor Flitwick. "Very well, everybody, you're free to go!"
"Did you like question ten, Moony?" asked Sirius as they emerged into the entrance hall. "Loved it," said Lupin briskly. " 'Give five signs that identify the werewolf.' Excellent question." "D'you think you managed to get all the signs?" said James in tones of mock concern.
"Think I did," said Lupin seriously, as they joined the crowd thronging around the front doors eager to get out into the sunlit grounds. "One: He's sitting on my chair. Two: He's wearing my clothes. Three: His name's Remus Lupin . . ."
Wormtail was the only one who didn't laugh.
"I got the snout shape, the pupils of the eyes, and the tufted tail,"he said anxiously, "but I couldn't think what else —" "How thick are you, Wormtail?" said James impatiently. "You run around with a werewolf once a month —"
"Keep your voice down," implored Lupin, yet the only nearby group was the one a specific blond held herself next to her friends. James had already his gaze focused on the girl, when she excused herself from the group of girls, claiming that she had to practice Quidditch, and even if it was the truth, she needed more the moment of slight relieve for the times of this level of intense learning getting more near towards the finishing line. He still tried to approach her with already a cocky grin on his face, but was just flicked of with a specific finger directed towards him.
The boy and his three friends strode off down the lawn toward the lake, Snape followed, still poring over the paper and apparently with no fixed idea of where he was going."Well, I thought that paper was a piece of cake," Sirius declared. "I'll be surprised if I don't get Outstanding on it at least." They stopped in the shade of the very same beech tree on the edge of the lake, each one falling down into a sitting position as if they had finished carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. The sunlight was dazzling on the smooth surface of the lake, on the bank of which the group of laughing girls who had just left the Great Hall was sitting with shoes and socks off, cooling their feet in the water. Lupin had pulled out a book and was reading. Sirius stared around at the students milling over the grass, looking rather haughty and bored, but very handsomely so.
James was still playing with the snitch, letting it zoom farther and farther away, almost escaping but always grabbed at the last second, each time mumbling a quiet 'Impressed Victoria?' Wormtail was watching him with his mouth open.
Every time James made a particularly difficult catch, Wormtail gasped and applauded, James seemed to be enjoying the attention each time, even if he rather wished it was from the blond girl who walked along the lake, a broom in her hand as in the other one she carried a piece of parchment, containing the notes she had used partly to learn.
"Put that away, will you?" said Sirius finally, as James made a fine catch and Wormtail let out a cheer. "Before Wormtail wets himself from excitement." Wormtail turned slightly pink but James grinned.
"If it bothers you," he said, stuffing the Snitch back in his pocket.
"I'm bored," said Sirius. "Wish it was full moon."
"You might," said Lupin darkly from behind his book, reminded that it was only a couple of days till it was actually time, his emotions getting stronger and more uncontrolled. "We've still got Transfiguration, if you're bored you could test me. . . . Here." He held out his book, resulting in Sirius snorting.
"I don't need to look at that rubbish, I know it all."
"This'll liven you up, Padfoot," said James quietly. "Look who it is. . . ." Sirius's head turned. He had become very still, like a dog that has scented a rabbit.
"Excellent," he said softly. "Snivellus."
And exactly that boy was on his feet again and was stowing the O.W.L. paper in his bag. As he emerged from the shadows of the bushes and set off across the grass, Sirius and James stood up. Lupin and Wormtail remained sitting: Lupin was still staring down at his book, though hiseyes were not moving and a faint frown line had appeared between his eyebrows. Wormtail was looking from Sirius and James to Snape with a look of avid anticipation on his face.
"All right, Snivellus?" said James loudly. Snape reacted so fast it was as though he had been expecting an attack: Dropping his bag, he plunged his hand inside his robes, and hiswand was halfway into the air when James shouted, "Expelliarmus!" Snape's wand flew twelve feet into the air and fell with a little thud in the grass behind him. Sirius let out a bark of laughter.
"Impedimenta!" he said, pointing his wand at Snape, who was knocked off his feet, halfway through a dive toward his own fallen wand. Students all around had turned to watch. Some of them had gotten to their feet and were edging nearer to watch. Some looked apprehensive, others entertained.
Snape lay panting on the ground. James and Sirius advanced on him, wands up, James glancing over his shoulder at the girls at the water's edge as he went. Wormtail was on his feet now, watching hungrily, edging around Lupin to get a clearer view. "How'd the exam go, Snivelly?" said James.
"I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment," said Sirius viciously. "There'll be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word." Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular. Wormtail sniggered shrilly. Snape was trying to get up, but the jinx was still operating on him; he was struggling, as though bound by invisible ropes.
"You — wait," he panted, staring up at James with an expression of purest loathing. "You — wait. . . ." "Wait for what?" said Sirius coolly. "What're you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?" Snape let out a stream of mixed swearwords and hexes, but his wand being ten feet away nothing happened. "Wash out your mouth," said James coldly. "Scourgify!" Pink soap bubbles streamed from Snape's mouth at once; the froth was covering his lips, making him gag, choking him —
"Leave him ALONE!" The voice of Lily Evans boomed through the air, all Marauders quirking their gaze towards the girl, a specific werewolf especially, his eyes glimming with something as he watched the girl, who stormed over angry at the group. "All right, Evans?"
"Leave him alone," Lily repeated. She was looking at James with every sign of great dislike. "What's he done to you?"
"Well," said James, appearing to deliberate the point, "it's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean. . . ." Many of the surrounding watchers laughed, Sirius and Wormtail included, but Lupin, suppressed his own one, watching the girl with his eyes looking over the book, hoping that the situation would soon find a calm end.
"You think you're funny," she said coldly. "But you're just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone."
"If you make Vicotria go out with me, "said James quickly, as if he had just the idea of the century. "...We both know you could make it possible. Make my lovely Atkinson darling go out with me and I'll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again." Behind him, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off. Snape was beginning to inch toward his fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled.
" I would never leave any of my friends in that horrible misery in going out with you! Now put him down." Only then did the Slytherin achieve something; Snape had directed his wand straight at James - there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James's face, spattering his robes with blood. James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Snape was hanging upside down in the air, his robes falling over his head to reveal skinny, pallid legs and a pair of graying underpants.
Many people in the small crowd watching cheered. Sirius, James, and Wormtail roared with laughter while Remus tried on lightly telling his friends to stop the mess. Lily, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though she was going to smile, said, "Let him down!" "Certainly," said James and he jerked his wand upward. Snape fell into a crumpled heap on the ground. Disentangling himself from his robes, he got quickly to his feet, wand up, but Sirius said, "Petrificus Totalus!" and Snape keeled over again at once, rigid as a board.
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Lily shouted. She had her own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily. "Ah, Evans, don't make me hex you," said James earnestly. "Take the curse off him, then!" James sighed deeply, then turned to Snape and muttered the countercurse. "There you go," he said, as Snape struggled to his feet again, "you're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus —"
"I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!" Lily blinked, mainly the tears away as she stood there, looking at the boy in front of her.
"APOLOGIZE!" Remus had helf himself out till then, but as he heard such words making their way towards specific teary ginger, the boy was fully in rage, roaring that word at the boy. "I don't want you to make him apologize," Lily snapped at him.
"You are just as bad as he is! Just because you're not the one aiming the wand, doesn't mean you're righteous. Smiling innocently, while planning everything, looking away each time your friends do such horrible things. You're not better than they are or as he is!"
She didn't give him time to even say anything against the truth she just spoke up, but hat do watch her hopefully look back at her friend, just to have the Slytherin look between Lily and Remus, huffing before striking away.
•••
What Victoria hadn't expected, from entering the Gryffindor tower by a secret passage and upon that entering her dorm, was finding her best friend, tears running down her face while the rest of her dormmates were scattered around her and comforted the redhead. Marlene sat next to her on her bed, mumbling words of comfort, while Dorcas and Mary sat at her feet, waiting for a moment in which they could aid to needed help.
With a shocked facial expression, the girl looked bewildered at her dormmates, letting go of her broom in an instant, and fleeing over to the girl.
"What happened? "she asked sincere, having sat down next to Lily, in full worry looking at her. Neither girl gave answered, fully avoiding her gaze. Lily's silent tears had slowly started to come to an end. Still, there was no one having words leave their mouth, so the girl tried on mustering a smile, but as it could have been expected, couldn't even reach the ones her friend was able to do.
"It's nothing, it's just-"
"Snape called her a mudblood."
Marlene wouldn't talk around it, and she looked exactly like that at Lily as the girl looked somewhat shocked at her friend. The latina didn't need that, having to protect the Slytherin, just because an infatuation he had towards the blond who looked like her world just broke together. This had nothing to do with her not liking the boy, but with her blond friend lying to herself of how her friend had changed.
A wall built out of glass - that's what Victoria had built around the idea, which seemed to her like reality, that the little boy who had been her first friend was still so innocent with his love for potions and bright smile. Building it higher and higher, with every rumor going around and every fact hitting her like an unforgivable curse straight in the heart.
Furiously she shook her head "What, no he wouldn't, he-" "The Marauders were hanging him upside down near the black lake. Lily helped him, and he called her the M word. Vi, you know he would."
And that's what hurt her the most - that something, a big part of her, just knew. But there was still the little boy ;the first friend she made in her entire life. No, not Lily. The girl was born to the muggle world, barely knowing anything from the wizarding world, and Victoria was born there, knowing nothing about muggles. That's what gave it a rough start, especially hardened by the girl who couldn't admit that out loud to them.
So it was the dark-eyed boy who was the first one in her life, who she could call a friend. Exactly those dark eyes that had always shined when she was around, and exactly those who made her now feel like everything was spinning and just she was standing still, in the most unpleasant way someone could have imagined.
She barely found her words back, or even could sort her thought to form a decent one, still, she was surprised by proper words left her mouth, even if it was in the most delicate way possible, "Where is he?" She avoided anyone's gaze this time, nodding as Mary brought out a mere 'Waiting for you in front of the portrait'.
Her hand was already touching the handle, "He did something to Mary." The Asian looked so lost at the blond who had stood up, a determinate expression on her face, as she couldn't bear it anymore. The Frenchs brown-green eyes turned around, having softened at what she could have filtered out of the tone in which her friend spoke.
"What?"
"Dorcas-"
"No, she needs to hear that. I'm not going to see you keep that anymore to yourself and I will definitely not see her, kill herself in the process of keeping that friendship alive...He used an unforgivable curse on her, along with Avery and Mucliber. ," she vocalized the thoughts that she had wanted to admit to her friend for way too long.
Throwing a last empathizing look at the brunette, she turned to Victoria, almost drowning from the waves of hurt that swam in her eyes. "Like the rest of the girls, Vi, I love you more than anything else, but I can't watch you break yourself in that friendship, just because you hold on so tight to the idea that he still is the little boy you meet at the train six years ago."
Victoria wanted the words to be lies. Each one of them, leaving her friends mouth in a failed attempt to get her distant to the boy, just because they didn't like Severus, but it wasn't. She couldn't even talk herself into that.
"Why didn't you tell us? , "Victoria asked sincerely, her friend looking back with glossy eyes, her voice like the girl herself, quiet and soft.
"They knew. I - he meant - means too much to you. Dorcas and Marlene tried to, but-" She didn't need to continue, Victoria knew. Those weren't bad intentions. Her friends could never have those towards the blond, and the pureblood was too aware of that.
He meant too much to her. If someone said only lovers could break each others heart, they could have never been that wrong, because Victoria was sure in that moment, that hers was breaking into dozens of pieces.
Silence consumed the room, and before it could have been changed in any way, Victoria was out the door, through the empty common room and soon out of the tower itself.
It was true - the Slytherin was waiting for her outside the tower, visibly having sat there quite a while. Curfew was long forgotten by the boy, sitting on the ground next to the portrait, his tie loosened and his hair in an unusual mess from running his hand through it so much.
Like he would have done it every time for the past hours, he jumped up at the moment the sleeping portrait opened itself, this time for real revealing the girl who had slung her arms around herself as if to protect from every harsh reality that only now crushed down to her.
"Vi, I-"
"Is it true?"
He looked like a lost puppy as he searched for her gaze, but she remained them steady on the ground, just wanting it to end. Somehow he knew that she knew, not just with the redhead but from her other dormmate, "Wha-What do you mean?"
"What you did to Lily, what you did to Mary..."
No interrupting, fighting against the lies she had some hope left for being, but no. The world wouldn't grant her that. He saw the tornado of emotions in her eyes and practically felt every thought that flew in high speed through her mind.
"Vi, let me-," he stepped forwards, trying to lay a hand on her arm in a calm manner, but she was quick to move away from it as if his bare touch would burn her. "Why?" The half-blood had backed away a little, to that point looking questioning at the girl.
"What do you mean-"
"I mean why? Why do you did - do, that?"
He knew, that she implied the dark arts, a theme more complicated in his eyes. She really just wanted to understand, but the boy only wanted her to have her for himself, and right then, he found himself being thrown in the opposite direction. What made the wrong feelings come up, laid partly there, just like it partly layed in her eyes, the ones that seemed to change colors every couple of seconds because of the lightening and reminding him cruelly on the ones a specific messy haired cause of all of this.
"Why do you ev-" "Because I want to understand! I want to understand what made someone do such horrible things!"
Maybe that was her problem. That she tried to understand - searching for the beauty, inside every beast. An easy way to get you killed.
"Vi, I-" She didn't care that she had only interrupted him. Neither did she, that the volume of her voice had raised so much, that Filch was probably already on his way. She cared, that she was losing her best friend right then and there.
"I'm trying to understand. Just this one thing. Trying to bloody understand how someone could to that. To Mary! Why to her? I know, you're in love with her, so why Lily-"
Of course she was, obvious to his feelings. His own rage seemed to have risen at the mention, maybe a badly mixed sorrow and regret, most definitely a cloud of fog full of memories of the redhead and a specific green-eyed boy. And that leads him to the one point that he should have walked around from. James Potter, the boy who was everything Snape desired to be and, more important, the boy who would probably capture the heart of the girl who really thought he was in love with her best friend when it was her - always her.
"Stop - Stop! ," she baked away by the volum of his voice, more hurt filling her eyes. "Stop it! Stop acting as if you cared. ," the girl cared, she always would care, but anger mixed with jealousy had always been a horrible combination. "If you want to feel pity for someone then do it for yourself. How is it even possible that someone without an own character could feel such a thing - who always just did what her family said, like an emotionless thing!"
A curse would have hurt less - any spell would hurt less. But that luck wasn't granted for her. Victoria faintly acknowledged the realization in Severus' eyes, when he recognized his own words.
Lovely words, to someone whos own heart, has torn her apart for the last couple of days because in some way it was true what just had filled her ear. She couldn't cry for her own mother, neither had she ever not done what her family had said. If she was emotional compatible, there would probably tear clouding her vision, but it only was the returning numbness that she had got painfully familiar with in the last days. Even then, she was numb to the tears in the boys' eyes,
"Vi, I'm sorry, you have to un-" The girl ripped her hand away as he tried to take it, in a way of making her listen to what he was saying, but she just looked in his tear-filled eyes, her own not showing any kind of emotions right now, just like her voice.
"Why should I? Don't forget - you said it yourself. I am an emotionless thing. So why should I now try to understand you?"
She left him behind with that, along with every spare piece of glass that hadn't cut into her heart, and shattered from the broken idea of her Sev.