The Snake Pit
By orangepenguin
Summary: A fifteen-year-old Severus Snape attempts to survive adolescence and the complicated politics of Slytherin, not to mention his involvement with members of the House of Black, through caustic observations and cold detachment.
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I do not own anything related to the Harry Potter franchise.
Chapter One
Prologue
Even years later, the word I most associate with the Bellatrix I knew in school is "joy". Perhaps it is an odd choice, but it holds true nonetheless. After all, joy is not a passive emotion. A person may merely be filled with happiness, but one must be consumed by joy. She was joyous, in her passions. She was passionate about everything. Bellatrix lived in a world of black and white, and was enchanted by darkness. Even when she murdered that wretched cousin of hers, she was maniacally smiling.
When we were in school, she was not yet insane. Occasionally, yes, madness would take her—but for the most part, although she was volatile, competitive, in love, she was still sane. Rodolphus did not bring on the madness. That credit belongs to the Dark Lord and Azkaban, a combination that has brought down some of the most brilliant wizards of my generation.
It may seem as though I am fixated on Bellatrix, but back in the school days she was not the Black sister who most captivated me. That honor belonged to her older sister, Andromeda. I'd always thought that if I had only been born two years earlier we would have gone well together. Maybe things would have turned out differently for me if I had been influenced by the light seeker of the family, rather than the chaser of shadows.
Perhaps it is to my misfortune that I spend such a portion of my formative years in the company of Bellatrix Black. Perhaps it is my greater misfortune that I ever involved myself in that twisted family at all.
Hogwarts
There she sits: Andromeda—Andy, I've heard some of her friends call her. I'm sitting here in the common room, seemingly absorbed by a History of Magic textbook, but truly watching her. It is not unusual: among Slytherins, one is rarely so bold as to be what they seem.
In an ornate armchair by the fire, her eyes are bright, though most people around her are beginning to tire. Since I first met her, at a party thrown by her parents years ago, I've wondered how she happened. What happy or hellish sequence of events could have created her oxymoronical existence?
In the world of Slytherin shadows, she favors the light. In even our muted common room, she dares to laugh out loud. She can make shy sullen Severus Snape wax poetic. Truly, wonders will never cease.
I suppose this fixation is what others students my age call a crush—it's strange, because I am always interested in people, many different people, but never to this frightening degree. It is also strange, because I have never seemed to share any connection with people my own age. I know that part of the intrigue stems from my having all of her family, an entire lineage of Blacks, to compare her with.
In my own year is her sister, Bellatrix. I suppose you could call us friends, but it would be misleading. Friendship, at least how I understand the term, implies pleasure in shared company. Pleasure we are lacking, but for our mutual gain we remain close.
I am under her protection, I suppose. She keeps the powers that be—Rodolphus Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy and such, from questioning my heritage. It is true, my mother is a muggleborn, a mudblood, and thus, so am I. The Black family is so pure as to be above question, and thus I am protected by Bellatrix's presumably good judgment. In me, she finds an intelligent study partner, I suppose. A diligent student who sees things that others do not.
For example, the tensions that have been growing within the Black family, even possibly the sisters themselves, over their bastard of a cousin, Sirius. Five years ago he mildly disgraced their entire family by being the first ever to be sorted into Gryffindor.
In the beginning, it seemed like a joke. Sirius Black, our pureblood childhood companion, albeit rarely for me the halfblood, but still…A person who I had been aware of, attended events with, for my entire life—could be called a lion. It even seemed like a trick, as if the snakes were rising from the dungeons and infiltrating the highest tower, the lion's den itself.
But then, it seemed like he was changing, in small but alarming ways. To most, it quickly became clear that he was becoming a blood traitor, and the issue should have been dismissed. He should have become a forgotten person, ignored by all Slytherin. He could have joined the ranks of the liberal purebloods, like that damned Potter, with only minor scandal and a few sighs for the wasted heir potential.
But such a clean separation was not to be, all because of the sisters Black: Andromeda and Bellatrix specifically—I've never heard the little blonde one, Narcissa, voice an opinion about anything more important than the cooking ability of the Hogwarts house elves.
I think that Bellatrix has always loved Sirius. They used to be of one mind on many things, and shared the same patterns of flaming anger, over compensated affection, and a perverted, dark, sense of humor in general.
As for Andromeda, she too loves Sirius. In fact, over the years she has said a few surprising, even blasphemous, things about agreeing with his new ideas. I've heard her say, for all to hear that the family being whole is more important than it being pure. This is confusing to me, for it I feel both admiration and contempt. To say such things is to compromise, which snakes never do, unless it's in their favor. How could the alienation of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black possibly in her favor?
Well, enough of such musings. I could stare at her all night, but it's getting late, and now it's time for sleep.
A/N: This was pretty much just character development and setting the situation. Next chapter the story really starts: Severus overhears something he shouldn't, and some lovely teenage awkwardness ensues.