Chapter 1: Hogwarts Express

Warning: This story may contain traces of: spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, rambling author notes and minor character bashing. Engage at your discretion.

THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently very busy and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.

Enjoy


He's finally here, he was finally here! There was only a dozen minutes left until he could lose this pathetic excuse of a family and get to the only haven he deemed safe when he first heard about the castle in the night. There would only be a minimal amount of politics for him to digest, he could just relax and forget all about those pure-blood bigots for at least 9 months.

On September 1st, 1971, Sirius Orion Black was a very happy little boy.

He nodded to his father once last time that morning, briefly hugged his mother, promised to be sorted into Slytherin (not really), patted Regulus on the head and told him he would try to send his little brother a Hogwarts Toilet seat as a birthday present, promised to be sorted into Slytherin again (inwardly, he promised to every god listening to him that he would never step foot inside Slytherin even if he's threatened at wandpoint), and clambered onto the scarlet engine.

Most of the compartments were full, filled with screeching owls and croaking toads, one ginger cat tried to rip his eye right out of his sockets and make cookies with it, so he kept walking.

When he finally came across a compartment with only a thin boy ready, he gratefully knocked and asked if he could come in and sit down.

The other boy's black eyes met his for a second, his pupils narrowed slightly then he nodded. Sirius sighed in relief, gracelessly squeezed through the sliding doors, shoved his heavy trunk underneath his seat and finally had a good look around.

The compartment he found himself sitting were small in comparison to the others he had walked past on his way here. Probably only 4 people or maybe 5, if you stretch it, could manage to fit in. He flitted a glance at the boy opposite him and wondered.

The boy's eyes were black, like ominous dark tunnels that muggles always assumed haunted. He gave an air of freezing coldness, as if getting close to him could burn your skin right off from your bones. Not particularly handsome, but has a certain attractive and noble look about it, pleasant looking if you will. Paler than white skin and long elegant fingers that expertly turned another page in his very thick book. High cheekbones and very thin stature.

"What is your name?" The boy asked, voice like silk.

"I'm Sirius Black," the boy raised an eyebrow and black eyes turned to stare at him through the spine of the thick book and his slightly greasy and very long hair, obviously heard of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black and obviously very surprised at the lack of chest puffing and arrogance following the introduction of the name.

"And yours?" Sirius said, couldn't help but feeling curious.

"Severus Snape," he replied, there is a flash of anger and hurt in his black eyes before he stamped it shut, attention falling back onto his book.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, mirroring Severus' early reaction, mind already preparing for the inevitable speech of stupid muggles, "Half-Blood?" Severus nodded. Sirius sighed and prepared for the worst, "Family?"

"My mother was Eileen Prince, my father is a drunken bastard that loves to beat his wife and child every chance he got. What is it to you anyway?" Severus snapped, black eyes suddenly blazing with fury and unspoken hurt.

Sirius swallowed and looked away, suddenly finding the window of the compartment a wonderful piece of fabulous art. His parents had never been abusive before. There's only the occasional swat here and there, usually accompanied by a gigantic verbal thrashing. Walburga and Orion expected him to do exactly what they wanted, if he didn't, punishment follows, like cleaning up the attic or the back storeroom in the library. He once had gotten lung infection from inhaling too much 'stuff' and Orion had refused to treat him until he started coughing up blood by the cupful.

Sirius caught sight of an angry red lash across Severus' shoulder blades from the window's reflection when he shifted in his seat, disturbing his jumper slightly. Sirius could fell his eyes widen, what kind of parent beat their child like that, assuring that mark is not the only mark. His parents had never gone that far.

"My father hates magic. The mere word send him on a smashing parade around the house. Things got better when I moved to my grandparent's house, but whenever I visit, I would always get a thrashing." Severus cackled bitterly, his long fingers slighting crunching up the page he's currently reading.

Sirius mirrored the cackle, startling Severus out of his reverie, "Welcome to the Bad Parents Club Severus, I had to cough up a bucket full of blood for my father to deem I am unhealthy enough to stop listening to my tutor droning on and on about how stupid a muggle is.

"At least you have a tutor to teach you something. I have to go and nick school books from the trash bins of the wealthy kids living on the east side that have more money than they could want."

"At least you can go out and nick books. My days at home actually have a schedule and at least a page and a half of things I should and should not do."

"You have books to read and don't have to hide even in you house."

"Pretty much all of the books I'm allowed to read are all My Mother Approved. Besides, there is not a place I could hide where my parents couldn't find me."

"Well, you don't..."

This kind of conversation continued on until the trolley had come and gone. Sirius pleasantly discovered that you can eat, read and insult everything in your general vicinity all at once while also storing information. He also realized Severus Snape is the epitome of Slytherin, as was required of him, if he wants to survive in the house hold named Spinner's End.

Sometimes masks are the best sort of protection after all.

Severus was a very intelligent young man, as Sirius soon realized, after they had deviated from the topic of making your sucky home life worse than another person's also sucky home life to Hogwarts houses, to ghosts, to creatures and somehow animagus transformation. Sirius' black and white view had grudgingly opened up enough space for the grey to make itself comfortable.

Just when they are debating/discussing/arguing over their patronus and animagus forms and their sweets allocations, there is a timid knock on their compartment door and it opened for the second time in the journey and the two black haired boys turned their heads at the newcomer.

He had a head of sandy colored hair and tan skin. Amber eyes reflecting off the sunlight that filtered through the train's windows. Intelligent eyes that are quite like Sirius', with an amount of hurt that spoke of a painful past, much like Severus'. Scars crisscrossing over his youthful face, shabby robes and a tentative smile.

"Hello, may I sit here with you? A group of boys kicked me out of my compartment, saying I was too bookworm-y," slightly timid voice, but with a heavy undercoat of intelligence beneath the question and short explanation.

Severus shrugged, and turned back to his book, while Sirius welcomed the boy, who hastily introduced himself as Remus Lupin, with open arms.

So began a heated discussion on the fascinating subject of brooms, muggle sports, dragons and Polyjuice potions. With Sirius exclaiming at the top of his lungs of developments of broomstick pranks, Remus contributing slabs and slabs of lecture on the weaknesses of dragons and Severus' intelligent sarcastic sentences about the uses and misuses of earwigs, the time flew by quickly.

After the initial awkwardness over sweets and money, the three of them quickly settled into each other's company without further ado, with the hilarious face of watching Sirius taste a sock and swamp flavored Every Flavored Bean and suffocate on a Pumpkin Pasty at Remus' shocked expression at the sight of a laughing Severus Snape, being the only incident.

But that atmosphere of good company was quickly shattered at the rude entry of one James Potter.

The compartment door slammed open, causing Remus to almost tumble out of his seat, Sirius choked on thin air and Severus calmly raised an eyebrow, marked his book and closed it, before folding his hands across his lap and waiting for the intruder to speak up and subsequently receive a well earned reprimand on the Art of Knocking.

"Hello Potter," Sirius half spat. He had met James Potter at a social gala when he was 9, the memory of an arrogant git with messy hair and no regard to the authority of adults stuck clearly into his mind. It was only with Potter senior's threat of confiscation Potter junior's broom for the whole month that finally got the boy to shut up.

"Hello Black, what do we have here?" the boy drawled, a malevolent glint in his hazel eyes. Severus' other eyebrow shot up, Remus scowled slightly and Sirius casually fingered his wand, all the while wishing this conversation could be over so they can get some peace and quiet.

"Remus, meet the pompous majestic idiot that is James Potter. Severus, James Potter, feel free to tear his ego to shreds. And I do believe we have met before," Sirius ran an extremely brief introduction for the four of them, waving an arm at each person's general direction, hoping for something more productive and interesting could interrupt this conversation.

James nodded to Remus when the sandy haired boy's name was introduced, but it was Potter's reaction to Severus name that was the most surprising of them all.

Sirius had expected insults, disrespect, the best would be ignorance. The Potter family had come from a long line of prejudiced Gryffindors, and Severus was behaving like a standard Slytherin the moment words came out of his mouth. A standard Slytherin with the Art of Sarcasm and Dry Humor mastered very thoroughly.

But, "I'm sorry about your mother," was definitely not what Sirius had expected.

Severus shot them a look that practically screamed 'later' before he allowed himself a sad little smile to grace his pale lips. His black eyes lighting up with something akin to regret and sadness, and a lot of pain, underneath it all.

Severus turned to James Potter, his lifeless hair falling away from his face as he gazed up at the still standing form of the boy with the hazel eyes, giving him one of his rare smiles that was finally genuine.

"Thank you, I appreciate that," there were tears swimming in his black eyes now, tears Sirius somehow knew were never allowed to be shed.

But if James-bloody-Potter could garner Severus Snape's genuine thanks, Sirius and Remus shared a small smile when they thought no body was looking, then James could not be that big of a self centered arrogant prick.

The pleasant atmosphere in the compartment resumed once more after an interruption, only this time, there was the start of something new, something wonderful, something unstoppable.

Much to the chagrins of Filth, later on in this very year.


This is an idea I had recently. I absolutely despises Wormtail and wish I could be the one that boils him in a pit of hell-fire and poke sharp scythes down his watery eyes and scratchy throat for all eternity and all the time onward. So this is a fic of my creation and I want to fit my favorite character to my favorite band of raiders.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this first chapter. Review please!

Updates will be soon.

Len