-1"So what are your views on life after death?" "Nothing." "Great, take this and if you'll excuse me I have to go."
Prologue
The train ride is abnormally smooth considering its age, after all his own mother rode this very same train. It's probably the magic in it since this is the Hogwarts Express. The Hogwarts Express taking him one Severus Snape 10 year old prodigy and a hoard of others to the premier wizard academy. At least that's how an adult might put it, but Severus Snape would call himself fairly average. Oh, he's more than gifted in matters of intelligence and yes his strength and control are quite impressive. His home life is a horror show and he's rather poor and of course he's a fucking wizard; yeah. Other then that he's more then normal enough, nothing to write home about by any means - not 'til now anyway.
It had been odd to say the least when he stood on the Hogwarts platform. So many "freaks" as his father called wizards and their familiars and whatever. His mother couldn't see him off, not with her jaw wired shut and her eye maybe blind this time. So he had to make his own way to the station and through the divide only to now be alone and dazed. Then that strange girl spoke to him… It had been hard to listen when all he wanted to do was stare. Such a pretty black girl with back-length white dreadlocks. Her eyes had been like prisms changing colors as she spoke. And then she slid the Note into his hands and he'd been so shocked by the feel. Like something alive and obviously the most magic he'd ever felt.
He couldn't stop stroking it fingers so tight around it the Devil himself couldn't have pulled it from his grasp. So of course her words had meant nothing as she help him on board with his Trunk and his Salamander. Nothing even after he'd read the instructions. Coming back to the present in his lonely compartment he once again strokes long, white fingers over the glossy black cover with something like a wistful awe. He cannot read the beautiful kanji, but he knows what they mean: Death Note. A small, non-descript book with the power to puppeteer, to punish, and to murder. All he needed was a name, a face, and the wits not to get caught. The instructions within the text had been more then clear enough until he requested the book return to its native tongue. Now only he would know its secrets and everything he placed in it would be unintelligible to any who found it.
Unless of course they knew a good translation spell or such, but then if the book is as great as it seems then surely - "Hey what are you moaning about, huh?" Without looking up Severus recognizes the tone - bullies. Apparently the wizarding world isn't as different as mother painted it. Then again the people on the platform had been bastards gossiping about him and snickering. Worse had been those two boys… "What's that - your diary?" The two boys whose voices it appears are taunting him now. Boots shined to a mirror appear at the edge of his lowered vision as a sick smile curves across his thin, pallid face. He flips the book open to the blue section and carefully uncaps his pen. Such a helpful thing even providing a pen or was that the girl?
Sirius is totally unnerved by the bright, innocent eyes that peer up at him from beneath the curtain of lank, oily hair. The high, whispering voice destroys his remaining equilibrium "What's your name?" From a mile away he hears his own voice and sees the bright, awkward smile - 'he's cute'. And then there is pain. Allowing his face to morph into horror Severus is inwardly gleeful that at least part of his book's worth is real. 'The person whose name is written in the blue section will suffer significantly whether a specific torment is written or not.' As his friend and another boy panic Sirius Black continues to writhe on the floor as though on fire, feeling as though a pack of electric eels is gnawing their way out of him. His screams are attracting attention as seen when a seventh year opens the sliding door. She's pushed out of the way by a woman concern sprawled across her face. Assigning the seventh year to moving the other students away she goes for aid and that is Snape's signal to carefully pen 'stop'.
Gradually Black stills even as more adult voices travel down the train appearing to collect him and his frazzled friends. As always it seems like Severus will be ignored which is generally something he welcomes. One of the crew a youngish woman with bed head and secondhand robes seems to have different ideas. Speaking softly she gives him a chocolate frog hand carding his nasty hair and then - then he is alone again. The compartment seems lonelier now that the activity is done. He lowers his head hiding behind his hair with a smile. Who needs people when you have such a friend as the Death note? Flipping back to the beginning of the slender tome he carefully begins to write out a detailed account of one Tobias Snape's death. His pen flashes across the dun page.
End Prologue