Silvanna Snape {Marauders}

Chapter One-Hundred-and-One

These chapter names are really about to become paragraphs :)

It had been a normal day. Well, normal so-to-speak. Remus had been struggling with nausea because of the moon, but there was nothing anyone could do about that. In the afternoon they'd had their usual study session in the library - what with it being only a week until OWLs - and then retired to the common room for the evening. Remus had gone to find Madame Pomfrey. Lily had gone upstairs with Louisa to find Mary and Marlene. The boys were nowhere to be found, but that was usual by now. The common room was almost empty, save for herself, a pair of seventh years, and a lone first year.

Until Sirius Black came barrelling in.

Silvanna looked up right away, because she could hear the heavy thuds of his booted footsteps as he bounded towards her, hair flying and chest heaving for breath. He was pale and clammy, and looked very much like the time they'd got back from the summer in third year. Silvanna's first thought was that some Slytherins had cornered him like they had Mary, that they'd done to him what his parents did.

But there was panic, and regret. There was no sign of any injury other than the stitch in his side he was clutching. Silvanna tried to sit him down, but he shook his head and pursed his lips, instead pulling her from the room like he had that evening in first year. Except this time it was night, and there was no one around except them.

"Sirius!" Silvanna hissed as he clutched her hand tightly. It was very sweaty. "Sirius - it's dangerous-!"

"I did something," he said, turning to face her so quickly she almost walked into him. "I did something really bad. Really bad."

"You've done lots of bad things-" Silvanna began with a small, joking smile. He but his lip and shook his head. He was a complete wreck.

"I told your brother," he began. "I told Snivellus about Moon - Remus."

"What-?" asked Silvanna with a puzzled frown. "Sirius, you're not making any sense-"

"To - to get to him, you go under the Whomping Willow," Sirius explained. "And you have to press this knot thing on it - and I told him - I told Snivellus - so that...so that..."

"So that Remus's werewolf would bite him," Silvanna finished for Sirius. "Understandable."

"It isn't funny!" said Sirius, eyes widening.

"Am I laughing?" Silvanna challenged raising her eyebrows. "I'm just saying, Severus probably won't survive it. And I'm OK with that."

"You're fucked up," said Sirius. Silvanna nodded seriously in agreement. "But - Remus would have killed him."

"No," said Silvanna firmly. "He wouldn't."

"Me then?"

"No one!" exclaimed Silvanna. "Except my brother's own, dumb nosiness, and some random creature under a tree."

"But Remus wouldn't think that," said Sirius quietly. So that's what he was so scared of. Remus. And Silvanna didn't blame him.

"I'm going to get him," she said firmly.

"No - wait - James is already going-!" said Sirius, starting after her as she reached the nearest window.

"I'll be quicker," she assured him.

"He went ages ago," he admitted, a hand on her elbow. "I only came to you because - I didn't know where else to go..."

Silvanna hesitated a moment and then got down from the ledge, her shoes clapping on the stone floor. "C'mere then," she said, embracing him without a second thought. He stiffened for a moment, before relaxing into their hug, resting his head on her shoulder. "It'll be alright," she promised.

"No it won't," he said. "Remus'll never forgive me."

"He will," Silvanna said. "He adores you."

"Really?" asked Sirius, a hint of hope in his voice.

"Really," Silvanna replied. Although after this, she wasn't sure how much truth was in her words.

*****

Silvanna had to be the one to tell Remus, even though she still didn't know the exact details of what had happened. She'd sat by his bed practically all morning, waiting for him to wake up. Sirius was with either McGonagall or Dumbledore. Severus was almost certainly with Dumbledore. And James and Peter had been told by Madame Pomfrey they weren't allowed in. Something about creating a stressful environment. Silvanna felt both a lot of honour and pressure that this hadn't applied to her.

Remus began to stir, and Silvanna squeezed his hand to hurry the process along, and let him know she was there, and only she. He blinked lazily a few times, before frowning and pulling himself upright. "What happened?" he asked, grabbing some water for his dry-sounding throat. "Something happened."

"What d'you mean?" asked Silvanna, also frowning. She thought Remus couldn't remember his transformations.

"It felt - different," he said. "I don't know - did nothing happen then?"

"Not quite," Silvanna said. And so she briefly explained what had happened, and where everyone was now, and what she thought might happen next. By the end of it, Remus looked like a mixture of frustration, horror, and disgust.

"I could've killed your brother," he whispered to her. Silvanna didn't know why he was whispering.

"Not really a loss though is it?" Not the time, Silvanna! "And I don't know why you'd say that, because it'd hardly be your fault." Better.

"You're right," said Remus, his face turning steely. "It'd be Sirius's."

"No," Silvanna said quickly. "No, no - why would it be his fault?"

"Because he told Severus-!"

"Well personally, I can understand it," Silvanna said firmly. "And if you don't that's your problem."

"How - how can you say that?" asked Remus in disbelief. Silvanna suspected this was far more stressful than anything James or Peter could come up with. Last time Pomfrey trusts me.

"You don't get it, so let me explain," said Silvanna gently. "Where we've grown up - well, you know - our parents are bullies. Really bad ones, but when it comes down to it that's all they are. But the worst part about the bullying isn't the hitting, or the screaming, or the threats. It's the fact that there's fuck all we can do about it.

"Tell someone? Either we get in more trouble or risk never seeing our family again. And for a child, that's a big deal because it's all we have. We could leave, but where would we go? We could fight back, or stick up for ourselves, but it only ever makes it worse."

"Silvanna-"

"No," she said. "No, you need to listen, because you need to understand. You know how it feels to be belittled, and threatened by my brother. To have hexes thrown at you in the corridor, for no reason other than pure distaste. And my brother, like my dad, and like Sirius's parents, is a bully.

"So think about how it made Sirius feel when he realised there was something he could do this time. Think about how it felt, knowing that there wasn't a complete power imbalance. And Severus was quite literally asking for it. He was literally asking where you went. So Sirius told him.

"Now, I'm not saying it justifies what he did. He knows it was wrong and so do I. But it certainly explains why he did it. So don't treat this like a personal attack on you, because it wasn't."

Remus nodded a few times, jaw set and eyebrows creased. Eventually, he came to his conclusion.

"Get out."