𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍

" soup "

✤ ✾ ✤

. . . JANUARY, 1976

AS SOON as Maeve was gone, James launched out of his seat and into his spiel.

"I told you she was a terrible choice," James accused, pacing back and forth in the middle of the room. "If we want any hope of becoming Animagi by the end of the term, we need to stop wasting time. She clearly isn't taking this seriously." He rounded on Sirius now. "You spent so long trying to convince her–"

"For good reason!" Sirius interjected with a wry laugh. He knew he would take the fall for the decision to involve Maeve should anything go wrong, but he had never felt more sure it had been the right one. "She's already on her way to solving the hawkmoth issue, and if you hadn't opened your big mouth, she might have fixed the mandrake leaf problem, too!"

"Oh, so now you're defending her?" James shot back.

"James, you could have just apologised to her," Sirius sighed.

"I will not!"

"What is your deal with her, anyway?" Peter asked James rather innocently. He was the only person who ever got away with questions of this sort.

James crossed his arms and haughtily said, "She's the enemy."

Sirius scoffed. "Are you really going to let a ridiculous Quidditch rivalry stand in the way of helping Remus?"

"It isn't just that," James sighed, coming down from the high of his anger. He flopped back down on the sofa. "I'm friends with Sorcha, Sirius. I have to see her nearly every day for Quidditch practice. I don't like this idea of making her life hell."

"Sorcha is kind of, well, out of her mind, isn't she?" Peter prodded.

James shrugged. He raked a hand through his messy head of dark hair. "Maybe she's a little hot headed. So what?"

"She tried to kill Maeve on the Quidditch pitch in front of the whole school," Sirius deadpanned. "She isn't even subtle about it anymore."

"Maeve deserved it after the Halloween party," James tried, but even he didn't sound convinced.

"And Sorcha almost got Maeve expelled last year, don't you remember?" Peter added. "All of those accusations about the illegal potions."

"And to think it was for Remus the entire time," Sirius reminded James.

"I guess, but–"

Peter shifted in his seat. "I heard Lily Evans talking about her."

James whirled around. "When? Whatdidshesay?" he demanded in one breath.

"It was before the holidays," Peter told him. Sirius couldn't tell if it was true or not, but what mattered was that it had an effect on James. He was hooked like a trout at the mere mention of Lily. "It sounded like they were friends from the way Lily was talking about her."

"Blast it all," James said, falling onto the couch. "Now Maeve's going to tell Lily even more terrible things about me than she already thinks on her own."

"Not if you apologise to Maeve," Sirius said, slyly high-fiving Peter once James had closed his eyes in contemplation.

"I'll consider it," James told them, but Sirius knew the deal was done.

Back in Gryffindor tower, the night was only beginning. Even for the first Tuesday back after the holidays, the common room was bustling with activity. All of the good sofas in front of the fire were taken; nearly every area of the room was packed. First years were comparing Defense Against the Dark Arts notes. A group of thirds years were playing Exploding Snap. There was a small cluster of girls who had begun to stare at the three of them as soon as they passed through the portrait hole. Sirius winked, sending them into a fit of excited whispers.

Sometimes, it was too easy.

Only the far corner of the room was relatively empty. Remus was already in one of the high-backed chairs, and Sorcha Byrne sat on the double sofa next to him. By the looks of it, they were already working on the Potions essay that Sirius planned on avoiding until strictly necessary.

"And where have you three been?" Remus asked without looking up.

James gave a mischievous laugh. "If you weren't a Prefect, maybe I'd tell you." James was already craning his neck, looking around the room to find Lily. She was nowhere to be seen.

Sorcha looked up, smiling. Every time Sirius saw her, she looked less and less like Maeve. There was a time when he sometimes mistook them for each other out of the corner of his eye, but now he didn't know how he had ever made the error. "Riley was lookin' for you, James," Sorcha said.

James winced at the mention of Gryffindor's captain. "Already? We haven't even started practices yet."

"He has big ambitions. If we beat Hufflepuff by enough points, we can still win the Quidditch Cup."

"Ravenclaw's quite far ahead, aren't they?" Remus remarked.

Sirius sucked in a sharp breath as he watched both Sorcha and James's expressions darken to something reminiscent of murderous. "They play Hufflepuff in the last game of the term. The Hufflepuff team's quite good this year, so with any luck we'll be able to pull it off," Sirius said, trying to keep the peace.

"Or perhaps Sorcha will pick a target on the Hufflepuff team to maim as well," Remus laughed. And normally, Sirius would have laughed with him. But tonight, he was trying every form of legilimency he didn't know to get Remus to stop talking about Quidditch.

Luckily, Sorcha laughed too, though it was far more hollow. "I think I've had my fill of lectures from McGonagall, thanks," she said. Sirius bit his inner cheek to keep from making a comment about the ridiculousness of that being her only concern.

"Are you two seriously working on that Potions essay?" James realised, finally pulling the subject away from Quidditch. "Slughorn only assigned it yesterday."

"He's bound to assign another one at the end of the week," Sorcha told him, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "And I'm sure McGonagall will have something for us tomorrow."

"Killjoy," James muttered.

"I'm not being a killjoy," Sorcha defended with a haughty hand on her chest. She had already made clear her ambitions to receive O's in all subjects. It was likely she was second in their class, right behind Lily Evans. "I'm just being realistic. This is how the rest of the term is going to be. There's no sense in getting behind."

"Fancy a game of Wizard's Chess?" Remus asked her, rolling up his parchment for the evening.

"You're finished already?" Sorcha said.

"No, but I'm tired of this," Remus told her. "I can only write about wormwood for so long."

Sorcha looked torn. "Yeah, alright." If there was one thing that could distract her, it would be chess. "But only one game."

Five matches later, it was half eleven and Remus and Sorcha were still locked in deep concentration. He should have gone off to bed with James and Peter, but there was something comforting about half-dozing while Remus and Sorcha bantered back and forth. The fireplace was warmer here than it ever was at home.

The book that Maeve had mentioned, A Comprehensive Study of Magical Insects and Their Life Cycles, was one that Sirius was actually familiar with. He had learned somewhere that it was essential reading for witches and wizards interested in Potions and their ingredients. It was the reason Sirius had bought it as a gift for Regulus when he turned 11. Back then, their relationship was not so strained. Regulus had yet to walk the halls of Hogwarts. He hadn't yet been sorted into Slytherin. Their mother's punishments for both of them were harsh but not so dastardly as they were now. Sirius wondered if Regulus still had the book, or if he had gotten rid of it in an attempt to cleanse his very life of anything Sirius had once touched.

When Sorcha finally said goodnight and went off to bed, it left Sirius and Remus alone in the silence of the common room. As Remus collected his chessmen, he grinned to himself. "Sorcha was telling me about a Christmas gift she received."

Sirius pleaded ignorance. Sitting up sleepily, he said, "Oh?"

"Apparently, that ex-boyfriend of hers, Eli, sent her a rather cleverly concealed Filibuster Firework. Of course, she only thinks it was Eli. The package was anonymous."

"Remus, if you really think I'd go to all of that effort and not take credit, you're mad."

He settled back onto the sofa. "I suppose you're right."

Sirius hated keeping things from Remus. It ate him alive to keep their plans for the Animagus potion a secret. They had done it for years now, but it never got any easier. What was even more infuriating was the knowledge that with Remus's help, they would be Animagi by now. But Remus would never help with such a thing. He would never allow them to risk so much.

"You still haven't told me anything about your holidays," Remus prodded. "Your letters were almost blank parchment."

"They were not."

"I've read children's books with more detail."

"Hilarious," Sirius huffed. "The holidays weren't anything I wanted to write down."

"Ah," Remus said knowingly. He ran a tired hand through his sandy brown hair. The scars on his hands glowed like silver cobwebs in the light of the fireplace. "Another terrible Christmas party?"

"Actually, no," Sirius told him. It was odd to have such a fond memory attached to being home. "The party this year was fun."

"Fun?" Remus laughed. "Sirius Black, calling the Black Family Christmas Party fun?"

"We had party crashers this year," Sirius smiled. He had hell to pay the next day when he returned to find that Regulus had told his mother he had snuck out. "Andromeda invited her best mate, Aoife."

"Aoife Byrne?"

"So you knew about this sister?"

Remus looked at him strangely. As if this were a piece of common knowledge that only Sirius hadn't heard. "Sorcha talks about her every so often. They aren't very close, Sorcha doesn't seem to think highly of her."

Sirius frowned, calling to mind the image of Aoife laughing in the snow with Andromeda. "Maeve was there, too."

"And we all know what Sorcha thinks of Maeve."

"Do you agree with her?" Sirius found himself asking.

This had never mattered to him before. They all knew Sorcha could be manipulative; it was a laughing matter. She had never done anything to hurt any of them, so what was the harm? But now that he had seen the other side of the story, the behaviour seemed dangerous to discount.

"It's difficult to believe Sorcha when she pulls stunts like hitting a Bludger after the whistle and crying in front of McGonagall just to get her way," Remus muttered, staring at the spot where Sorcha had been seated. "And sometimes I do feel like she's gotten worse."

"And here I thought you'd agree with just about anything that came out of Sorcha Byrne's mouth." It was mostly a joke. Sorcha had a crush on Remus in first year and though she said it was a thing of the past, Sirius knew better. He knew well that Remus was simply too kind to tell Sorcha to bugger off. And to an extent, he enjoyed spending time with her. But to do that meant turning a blind eye to everything else.

Remus flushed. "That isn't true."

"It might as well be."

"Just because I try to keep the peace doesn't mean I agree with her," Remus said with conviction. "And while we're on the topic of the Byrne sisters, what is with your sudden fascination with Maeve? Don't tell me you're friends with her."

"Jealous?"

"Surprised," Remus shot back. "Sorcha isn't the only one with a bad word for Maeve. You've said your fair share." Remus raised a brow and was about to make another comment, but he was interrupted by the sound of angry footsteps thundered down the spiral staircase that led up to the girl's dormitories. Sorcha appeared again, this time with lank, damp hair that was a fiery shade of pink.

"Sirius Black! I know you had something to do with this!" She shouted.

Sirius shot up from his comfortable place on the sofa and sprinted up the staircase before she could retaliate. He just barely caught the amused grin that lit up Remus's face.

✤

THE afternoon air smelled of leaves and fresh tilled earth. Outside the humidity of greenhouse number four, the world was covered with heavy snowdrifts. Inside, the Ravenclaws were repotting belladonna plants and talking about Sorcha's new choice in hair color.

When Sorcha had walked into the Great Hall that morning with pink hair, Maeve's jaw had nearly dropped to her Mary Janes. It was uncharacteristic for Sorcha to strive to be anything other than the centre of attention. But that morning, she looked like she wanted to disappear. Irritation cut through her features, clear enough that Maeve had seen it from all the way across the tables.

"Do you think it's some sort of act of rebellion?" Avanti reasoned, briefly setting down her spade. She wiped the sweat off her brow. "My brother Yuvan cut all of his hair off with safety scissors when he turned eleven and didn't get a Hogwarts letter."

"Could be," Maeve mused, though she knew the truth. Sorcha's pink hair was far from intentional. It meant that even though Maeve had stormed off the previous night, the deal was still on.

But she still wasn't helping them again until James Potter apologised.

"I think it suits her," Mimi said. She dumped a significant amount of soil into their terracotta pot. Maeve scooped some of it back out. "What was that for?"

"You're going to suffocate it," Maeve told her, staring at the shining black berries on the deadly plant. "The dirt is supposed to be five centimetres less than level."

"Six," Avanti corrected.

"Why not five and a half?" Mimi muttered testily, setting her spade down with resignation.

"Are we still studying in the library on Friday?" Elara asked. She had a book balanced on her lap and was reading it while Professor Sprout was on the other side of the greenhouse.

"Yes," Mimi sighed. She brushed back a dark coil of hair. "I can't believe we already have so much homework! That Potions essay from Slughorn was not what I needed this week."

"Someone better alert Slughorn his assignments aren't working for your schedule," Avanti snorted.

"Or tell that insufferable Head Girl that we don't need to have a Prefect's meeting the first week of classes," Mimi huffed. She moved her hand so aggressively to make her point, she ripped a leaf off their plant.

"Careful there, Miss Green!" Sprout said as she bustled over. "Any tampering with the belladonna plant can render its usefulness in potions obsolete." The woman moved her hands to her hips. "Miss Harvey, I certainly hope that reading pertains to Herbology."

Elara snapped her copy of Gulliver's Travels shut. Her cheeks turned strawberry red. "Sorry, Professor."

"Five points from Ravenclaw," Sprout sighed tiredly. Then she bustled off to focus on the Ravenclaw boys who were daring each other to each the poisonous berries.

"It isn't my fault that I don't quite care about the plants," Elara said, flicking the nearest leaf to her.

Avanti batted her hand away. "Don't hurt it!"

Mimi snickered. "Why don't you name the plant if you love it so much?"

"I already did," Avanti smiled satisfactorily. "Bella."

"How creative," Maeve told her wryly. "Why not Donna?"

"Don't encourage her or we're going to have poisonous plants growing in our dormitory," Mimi warned.

"How do you know there aren't some already?"

Mimi stared at her. "You promised they were all safe!"

"Maybe if you lot paid more attention in Herbology, you'd be able to check for yourselves."

Later that evening, Maeve sat at the end of the Ravenclaw table in the Great Hall. The dinner dishes had long since been cleared, and only a smattering of students remained. Mimi and Avanti were practising for Transfiguration on a plate of assorted fruits a few seats down. Elara had gone to bed early. Maeve sat largely alone, enraptured by the book in front of her.

Though she had said she wouldn't help until James apologised, it hadn't stopped her mind from working overtime. Carrying a mandrake leaf in one's mouth for a month was supposed to show dedication to the task. But there had to be a way around the difficulty of it, at least partly. Molecular gastronomy, which had seemed ridiculous at first, might be her answer. It wasn't a popular branch of the Muggle sciences; it barely existed at all and most people thought it a ridiculous waste of time. As such, there were only a few beginning studies on sodium alginate and its use as a protective film. It would never hold on its own for a month, but with the assistance of magic, it just might work.

I could bridge the gap between the two worlds in a way that others couldn't. Katerina might have had a point.

"What on earth are you reading?"

Maeve looked up to see Lily Evans staring at her. Today, she wore a white scarf in her long red hair. Her tie was remarkably straight for this late in the day, and her Prefect badge gleamed in the candlelight.

"It's a book about molecular gastronomy." Maeve marked her spot and closed the book. She glanced to her left, but Mimi and Avanti were still consumed with their fruit transfiguring. So far, it looked as if they had turned an apple back into a branch with a white blossom. "Are you sure a Gryffindor Prefect should be seen over on this side of the hall?"

Lily waved a dismissive hand and plopped down on the bench across from Maeve. "Dinner is over. Anyway, I need to ask for your advice."

"My advice?" Maeve repeated dumbly. Lily had already done her so many favors; it was impossible to think she could ever repay them. "I dunno if there's anythin' I can help you with."

"I think you might be surprised," Lily told her quietly. "It's about Severus."

Maeve sucked in a sharp breath. "I see."

"It's difficult to talk about this with any of the Gryffindors. They're all remarkably quick to judge someone that's in Slytherin, as I'm sure you've heard. But the issue is, I'm worried they might be right."

Maeve nodded knowingly.  "I asked Aoife about him over the holidays, just to see what she had heard.  She isn't a gossip, but she almost always knows everything about everyone, and she had a few things to say about Severus Snape.  She didn't have a good word for him.  I'm sorry, Lily."

 After Sorcha's comment at Slughorn's party about Mulciber, which Maeve hadn't heard about, she decided it was necessary to poke around. Aoife had told her all about the gang of Slytherin boys–Snape, Mulciber, Avery, Rosier, and even Regulus Black–who were likely already pledged to the Dark Lord. Aoife spoke about them as if they were a growing blight.

She sat back a little and nodded sadly. "I was afraid you might say that." Though Maeve had only known her for a short time, she had seen this particular issue weigh heavier and heavier on the red-haired girl. "He always tries to make an exception for me. Whenever he begins to say something about blood purity, he'll look at me as if I don't count. Like I'm a clean Muggleborn."

"But thinking that way at all is a problem.  He's a Halfblood, isn't he?  It's strange that he would be so severe on Muggles."

"I know, and I can't keep defending him. I don't anymore, really. But he still seeks me out."

"I can take care of him."

"Christ, Maeve, I didn't come over here to hire a hitman," Lily told her with a soft laugh.

"Sorcha isn't the only one who can hit a Bludger. Accidents happen, as we've seen."

"Speaking of Sorcha, apparently Sirius is the one who charmed her shampoo. She's up in the tower right now, wailing in the bath. She's going to strip her head of hair before she gets the pink out."

Maeve sighed happily. "I don't know what's better. Sorcha with pink hair or Sorcha bald."

Lily grinned. "Do you have any idea why Sirius has suddenly turned on her? James is friends with her, and it's rather odd. Not that anything with those boys is explainable," Lily muttered.

"I wish I knew," Maeve told her. If there was anything being twins with Sorcha had made her, it was an excellent liar. "If I did, then maybe I could help him."

✤

HER APOLOGY from James came on Friday.

Defence Against the Dark Arts had just let out for the Ravenclaws and Slytherins. It had been an exhausting class. Everytime the Professor Thomasin had mentioned the Killing Curse during the lecture, it was like ice had been staked through her chest. So when she saw James Potter hanging around the door awkwardly, as if waiting for her, she walked right past him.

"Byrne!" he called, jogging to catch up with her. His voice echoed obnoxiously against the stone walls. "Maeve, c'mon."

She slowed her pace slightly. "What d'ya want, James?"

"To," he began slowly, as if the words were bitter, "apologise."

"For?"

"For being an arse and defending Sorcha. She shouldn't have hit that Bludger."

"And?"

"And?" he repeated with a huff. "What more could you possibly want?"

She stopped walking and turned to face him. "Admit that Ravenclaw beat Gryffindor, fair and square."

His eyes narrowed behind his round glasses. "Fine. Ravenclaw won, and I know you didn't cheat."

"Grand," Maeve smiled satisfactorily.

"We got the mandrake leaves last night. We'll be behind the tapestry at seven. If you show up, you're in for good. No more storming off."

"I'm in it for as long as I please," Maeve reminded him. "And you might want to make it eight o'clock," she said, handing him a piece of parchment. "This is a list of everything I'm going to need."

He snatched it up and read through everything she had neatly written down the previous night. "Glycerol? How the hell am I supposed to get that?"

"Madam Pomfrey keeps it in the Hospital Wing for salves," Maeve told him. She had noticed it during the hours she had spent laying in bed, bored out of her mind while she rested after the Bludger. "I'd get it myself, but I don't have an invisibility cloak. But if you'd let me borrow it–"

"No!" he said quickly. "No, I'll take care of it." With genuine concern, he asked, "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

In his eyes, she saw through to his heart. He wanted this just as badly as Sirius did. James too would go to impossible lengths for the slim chance at helping his friend. "I do, James. I wouldn't lie to you about this."

And though he still looked skeptical, he nodded. "Alright. I'll see you at eight."

✤

THE entire room smelled of fire and salt.

A pewter cauldron set atop a burning flame in the centre of the room. Peter had rolled all of the rugs away and pushed the furniture to touch the wall, just to be safe. So far, they had already managed to add a sizable stain to the floor from an accidental spill.

"What's next?" James asked. Maeve had instructed him to continue to stir the boiling cauldron of her Sodium Alginate solution. It was going on five minutes now.

Maeve herself looked like a madwoman. Her hair was pulled back in a sweat-slicked bun and she was wearing a tank top that said RAVENCLAW QUIDDITCH in bold bronze letters. "Is it dissolved?"

All four of them peered over the cauldron. Sirius coughed from the sheer amount of smoke it was emitting. "Yeah, I think that'll do it."

"Okay, then it's ready for the Essence of Murtlap," she announced.

Sirius grabbed the bottle up and gave it to her. They had stolen it from the Potions storage mere hours ago. "What does this do, again?"

Maeve scrunched her nose in concentration, carefully adding three drops of the amber colored liquid to the pot. "It's a pH stabiliser. It'll prevent any unwanted reactions between the ingredients."

James froze. "Are we talking unwanted reactions of the explosive variety?"

"No," she told him. It sounded like a lie. "Don't stop stirring!"

James muttered curses under his breath, but still obeyed.

"So, where did you find this recipe?" Peter asked from where he sat cross-legged on the floor.

Maeve bit her fingernail, which was covered in chipped blue polish. "I didn't. I made it up."

"Bloody hell, Maeve!" James groaned, stopping his stirring yet again. "Made it up?"

"Do you honestly think there was just a recipe for this lying around?"

"No, but–"

"Keep stirring!"

James grunted. "My arm is going to fall off!"

The task that the potion would fulfil was relatively simple. Maeve's idea was to create a sort of coating around the mandrake leaf that would last for the full month and would mould to the roof of their mouths to keep it from moving about.

Sirius watched her as she poured a carefully measured amount of the glycerol into the cauldron. It bubbled up for a moment, and then subsided. "How do you know this is going to work?" Sirius asked her.

"I don't," she told him honestly. He realised it was not within her power to give him anything but the truth. Sometimes it was brutal, but most of the time it almost felt reassuring. "But we'll know after it's done settling. The calcium chloride solution won't take if anything in the first part of the solution was done incorrectly, anyways."

"How long does it take to settle?"

"I'd say a week, to be safe."

"A week!" James lamented, dramatically throwing up his hands and falling flat back onto the ground. The wooden spoon drifted aimlessly in the cauldron while he stared up at the ceiling. "What happened to moving quickly?"

"If you want this done right, you'll just have to be patient," Maeve told him, lifting out the spoon and tapping it on the rim. She pulled her wand out of her back pocket. "Stabilitas," she said, pointing it at the mandrake soup. "There. Now we wait."

✤ ✾ ✤

a/n sometimes the memes just fit so perfectly. Maeve a woman in stem and james a boy with a spoon.

I feel like a big theme of this story has become truth and lies and the various perspectives that make up a singular event.  It's so interesting to me to explore the two sides/versions of Sorcha and Maeve because of how differently they're perceived by their friends as opposed to the other's friends.  This is something that will continue to mutate and change as the story goes on!!  None of the dynamics are static and they're all going to change drastically by the end of this story.

More drama to come!  because if you'll recall, it's Friday, and Maeve promised she'd be in the library with the girls on Friday.........