A Past History, A Present Future

Thank you so much, karisma! It makes me so excited to see that someone is enjoying this, especially when I've written so little!!! I'm starting off slowly, as I am normally a prose writer and have fairly bad luck with short stories. I will do my best to keep up the continuity and I will try to update on a "regular" basis. Thank you so much for your encouragement :) This chapter is made possible by YOU!
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It was our second class of potions in our Third Year. I noticed I was paired with Severus again, for the third time running. James, Sirius and Peter had gotten used to us being split up but often teased me for the match Slughorn had made for me. I personally had gotten used to the match, and found myself quite enjoying it. Though my fellow Marauders taunted me, I did my best to conceal that it did actually bother me by acting as indifferent about it as possible, or occasionally just join in and called him their favourite names, like Snivvilus... only when he wasn’t in ear shot.

As my companionship got more and more intimate with the Marauders, James and Sirius, the clever bastards, eventually found out my secret. The reason why I disappeared for a few days every month, around the same time so many of our female classmates. They of course, at first, suspected me of being a lass in men’s clothing but knew it was a moot cause not worthy of investigating, simply due to the masculine ways about me- growing hair in odd places, my voice deepening and thickening, and of course, the sleeping quarters- also I'd be the ugliest girl in the school. James was not only charismatic and attractive; he was smart as hell, too. When they found me out, they avoided me for a while, out of suspicion and fear. They would purposely sit far away from me during meal times, surrounding themselves with their quickly growing harem of fans, leaving me to my own devices. Bless them for never sharing their suspicions with other students. When they finally approached me about it, it was an awkward confrontation, and Peter looked nearly scared out of his wits about it- I knew they only told him out of necessity. You could nearly see the pitifully tired hamster running in its wheel of eternal hell.

James was never scared of anything though, and this was just one more thing to prove his bravery. They pried out of me my secret hiding place during my few days of torture, the Shrieking Shack. They once hid themselves under James’ carefully guarded and well-kept secret cloak and watched my brutal transformation, just to see how it was done, what damage I could inflict, and indeed, to see if I could sense them. After a few close calls, they quickly high-tailed it back to the castle and began their research on animangus- still with help from James’ cloak and the tempting Restricted Section of the Library.

Even with the Marauders keeping such close eye on me, to see how I dealt with my transformations, how I dealt with hiding fresh scars and still kept on top of my homework, I was able to form a bit of a kinship with my lab partner, Severus.

Though the tension still rose between us, he never did ask me why I didn’t defend him, and he never made the assumption that we were friends. It was during our third year that we were allowed to go to Hogsmead for the first time, but as the full moon was approaching I was feeling a bit under the weather. Sitting in Potions the day before the very first trip, Severus asked me if I’d be going. I told him that my parent’s hadn’t signed the permission form and I was still waiting for them to owl me back with the signed form. I told him that as the signed and roughly crumpled form sat at the bottom of my bag, collecting ink stains and crumbs of various biscuits and lollies I would snack on between meals and classes. He told me he wasn’t going either, and if I would like to ‘hang out’. Looking at my other options, since James, Sirius and Peter were going, I told him that it sounded like a great idea.