Author's Notes: Set during OotP. Occurs directly after Snape walks out after telling Harry about his Occlumency lessons.

"Why do you always treat him that way, Snape? What'd he ever do to you?"

I rolled my eyes, dropping the hand that was reaching for the front door. It had happened the same way each time I'd visited Grimmauld Place. We would both be somewhat civil while the other members of the Order were around. Everyone knew that we were acting, and not even well. But the rest of them were happy as long as we weren't shooting hexes around the room or clawing angrily at each other's faces.

But then I would depart on my own, heading for the perimeter of the house – from which I could Apparate – and he would start on my heels not a minute later (just long enough, I supposed, to make his excuses). And each time he caught me right beside the door, just before I could escape. Then we fought, barely stopping short of hexes, but often not bothering to keep our voices down or even to keep the fists from flying.

I'd thought that today, having already drawn our wands on each other not two minutes before – in Potter's presence, no less – that we would have been able to skip this tradition just the once. But it would appear that even when I made the effort to be far more mature than he was by walking away from our potential fights, he still couldn't resist following me. The mangy mutt was too desperate for any and all human contact to let anyone walk away from him like that, I supposed. Though why he should chose the company of a man who had hated him as long as he'd known him over that of Potter, his own godson, and a room full of high-spirited Weasleys was anybody's guess. I certainly didn't claim to understand the minds of lunatics.

"What are you whining about now, Black?" I responded derisively.

Sirius Black glowered, and I couldn't help thinking that that particular look had seemed much more impressive on his face before he went to Azkaban – before his face and body had become so haggard that it seemed he could be knocked over by a light breeze. "I'm talking about Harry. Where do get off treating him as if he's one of the more disgusting ingredients that you use in your little Potions experiments? He's just a kid. He hasn't done anything to you."

I sneered. "I don't have time for your melodramatics today, Black. If you want to complain about the way I treat one of my students, then I suggest you go to the Headmaster with it. He'd certainly be far more willing to humour you than I am."

I tried to pull the door open and leave, only to find Black's hand flat against the wooden surface, impeding my escape. I turned to face him and his dull eyes met mine.

"You're going to listen to me, Snape, whether you like it or not," Black hissed. "I don't care that you talk about me like I'm useless. Trust me, I think even less of you than you do of me. But I won't allow you to keep treating Harry the way you have been. If he's going to have to have these lessons with you, then you'll damn well treat him like a human being!"

I wanted to hit him so very badly, but I refrained from doing so. I didn't want to stoop to his level of immaturity this time. I was superior to him in all ways, and I would prove it. But Merlin he made me angry!

"Do you think that I want to play 'private tutor' for a little Gryffindor wretch like him?" I asked. "Do you think I'm going to get anything beyond maybe a splitting headache as reward for my efforts?"

"What you'll get," Sirius growled, "is full access to Harry mind, and his memories. Don't think for one second that I believe you won't use that to your advantage. And if you do…"

"You'll what?" I exclaimed. "Yell obscenities all the way from your hiding place here? Complain to anyone who'll listen to you go on and on – which probably is limited to Lupin, by the way, and even he will tire of hearing you speak if it goes on long enough. I'm quaking in fear, Black, I'm sure."

"This is my house, Snivellus. I can kick you out whenever I like."

I smirked. "By all means! 'Kick me out'! You'll notice, Black, that it isn't I who is holding the door closed."

He growled once again in frustration. "Just tell me why you hate him so much!"

"If you need me to tell you that," I answered scathingly, "then you're even dimmer than I thought."

Black frowned. "You mean to say that it really is just because he's James's son? That's pathetic, Snape."

I reared up to my full height in a way that I knew would terrify even the bravest of my students back at Hogwarts (possibly even Potter himself, come to that). Black reached for his wand, but he had always been a very predictable man, so I was ready for him. When he moved his body in my direction, I grabbed his arm and used his forward momentum to fling him into the battered door. He groaned as he slumped to the floor, still very much conscious but also very much in pain.

"I 'mean to say', Black, that I hate him because he is the offspring of you and Lupin and Pettigrew as much as he is the son of Potter Senior."

Black looked up at me, his eyes unfocused. "Harry isn't like James, and he certainly isn't like me. I'm only beginning to understand that myself, but it is true."

I waved my hand dismissively. "You're delusional, Black. But it doesn't really matter either way, does it? James Potter was a bastard to me right up until the moment he died. And I never got to properly revenge myself against him. So the sins of the father, Black, become the sins of his son. And doubly so when it's the sins of the still-alive godfather."

Black's eyes were wide all of a sudden. "So Harry…"

"Is nothing to me but a tool in my war against your little group of 'Marauders', yes. Hate is stronger than the grave, and I think you're beginning to understand that now."

"You can't be serious!"

I snorted. "Deadly. And I must say that I actually hate him a great deal more than I hated his father, because James Potter at least did me the favour of just dying rather than requiring me to repeatedly save his worthless life."

Black clenched his teeth and lunged at me, but I was ready for him. I side-stepped slightly and used his momentum to push him to the ground, his arm wrenched painfully behind his back and my knee jutting into his tailbone.

"And you might consider, Black," I hissed into his ear, "that it's as much your fault that I make the boy's life as miserable as possible as it is his father's. And it's entirely your fault that his childhood was miserable. You were too selfish to not go after Pettigrew, weren't you. You couldn't spare a thought for the fact that you would be imprisoned for killing him regardless of whether you succeeded or not, thus leaving your godson to his Muggle relatives. You might reconsider, based on the facts, at whom you should really be directing your anger."

Bare seconds later I was out the door and past the anti-Apparition boundary, leaving Black alone in the doorway, his jaw slack with shock.

I thought about the fact that I might just have added a little to Black's self-inflicted misery and smirked.

~FIN~