"Heh, I bet even you're too chicken to go there at night, Snivellus!" Sirius's barking laugh echoed in the entrance hall.
"I refuse to stupidly endanger myself for the novelty of buffoons such as you and your idiotic friends," Snape sneered, though doubt flickered on his face briefly.
"Yeah, Sirius, Snivellus here isn't a total idiot. He knows that all dark places and creaky doors are sure signs of death. He did really well in Divination, remember?" James shot a smirk towards Snape, directly referencing the one time - one time - that Snape had passed out in Divination class after supposedly seeing the Grim in his tea leaves.
"Shut up! If you're so intent on proving your idiocy, then fine, I'll meet you outside the Shrieking Shack tomorrow before dawn and we'll see if you imbeciles can handle your own stupidity," Snape spat furiously, glaring at the grinning pair.
"Fine, I guess we'll see you there, you-" Sirius began, only to be interrupted.
"What's going on here?" Remus jogged out of the Great Hall and slowed to a stop, seeing the apparent confrontation between his friends and their favorite punchbag.
"Nothing, Remus. It's just that Snape here wanted to ask me out on a date, and I graciously accepted!" Sirius said grandly as James sniggered in the background. Scowling furiously, Snape shot dirty looks at James and Sirius before marching off, leaving a confused Remus in his wake.
"No, seriously, guys, what just happened?" Lupin asked, looking Sirius dead in the eye until he stopped laughing.
"Nothing, I swear, it was just a pointless argument," James stated loudly, seeing small signs of guilt show up on Sirius's face and diverting Remus's attention before he noticed it.
"Y-yeah!" Sirius added with false bravado, earning a suspicious glare from Remus before he walked away, muttering something about getting some rest tonight.
"Um, James, are you sure this was the best idea?" Sirius asked nervously.
"It'll be fine, Paddy! Look, we're gonna be there, Wormtail's gonna be there, and you can never quote me on this but - Snivellus knows his way with a wand," James said, flashing Sirius a reassuring grin. Sirius looked pensive for a moment before his face melted into a devious smirk.
"So, you know how well Snape gets around with a wand, eh?" Sirius grinned and waggled his eyebrows at James, earning him a smack on the shoulder and a pair of rolling eyes as James began making his way up the staircase to the Gryffindor dorms.
"Hey, you still haven't exactly said no!" Sirius called and hurried up the stairs behind him.
"Uh, um, guys? Are you sure about this?" Peter muttered nervously as he, James, and Sirius quietly made their way towards the whomping willow, shivering in the cold despite the cover of James' invisibility cloak.
"Hell fucking yeah we're sure! Who doesn't wanna see baby Snivellus wet his pants?" Sirius whispered excitedly, and James grinned, albeit slightly lopsided. He thought that perhaps Sirius was a little too pumped up about this.
"I see you dimwits had the nerve to show up," came a slimy voice from the darkness. The trio whipped their cloak off and turned to look at Snape curiously. How could he possibly have known that we were there- Sirius thought before being cut off by James' imperious voice.
"Glad to see you showed up too, Grease Lord," James smirked, his previous anxiety seemingly gone. "But how the hell did you-"
"You see, you three prats are too big to fool anyone by hiding under that invisibility cloak. And yes, I know that's what it is. Anyways, anyone could see your feet from beneath the bottom flaps of the cloak. Additionally, you three aren't exactly quiet, and your footprints could be see clear as day from several yards away," Snape smirked at them before turning around. "Now, why did you ask me to come to this godforsaken tree instead of going to Hogsmeade. How are we going to get into the Shrieking Shack from here?" He inquired, somehow still managing to look down his nose at them despite being a good four inches shorter than Sirius and James.
"Watch and learn, Snivellus" Sirius said, and suddenly Pettigrew had vanished. Snape blinked and glanced around where they were standing, looking baffled.
"Take a look over there, smartarse," James jibed as he gestured towards the small knot at the base of the Whomping Willow. Snape thought he saw a flash of movement in the aforementioned area before suddenly the tree stilled.
"What the bloody hell-" Snape exclaimed in alarm when he spotted the large opening
near the base of the tree. Wormtail also suddenly reappeared from behind the tree, dusting his clothes out and looking a bit worse for wear, but otherwise unharmed.
"Be my guest, your Sliminess," James said sarcastically as he gestured towards the entrance. Snape tentatively stepped closer and peered in, and Wormtail darted around him to James' side. "Go on, Snivellus. Or are you scared?" James' voice jeered and within moments Snape had disappeared within the hole.
"Well, are any of your dimwits going to join me?" Snape's voice mocked from inside the passageway, but a careful ear might have heard the quiver in his voice as he spoke.
"I'll join your saggy arse, Snivellus!" Sirius said, grinning, as he slipped into the passageway. "James, you and Wormtail keep watch. Well, Wormtail should keep watch, and James, take care of Wormtail, eh?" James gave him a half grin and with a curt nod he turned around, keeping a keen eye on the darkness.
The pair within the tunnel began trudging their way through in the darkness, feeling their way around by holding onto the passage walls before Snape bumped into Sirius and belatedly realized he could have cast a Lumos long before.
"Oi, keep your hands to yourself, Snape. You can look but you can't touch," Sirius turned and grinned at Snape mockingly, only to be smacked in the head with Snape's lit wand.
"Shut up, you buffoon," Snape replied in a hushed tone, his voice tinged with fear.
"Aw, is widdle Snapey-wapey getting cold feet? Wanna hold onto a furry friend?" And with that, Sirius transformed into a large, fluffy black dog.
With a yelp, Snape jumped away and pointed his wand towards the dog. "S-Sirius?" he questioned briefly, glancing around in the empty tunnel. Then his eyes settled on the dog and suddenly everything clicked. "Buggering hell, I knew it! I know all you idiots were up to something, and you fucking were! If all four of you are unregistered Animagi, I can only imagine the kind of trouble you'd get in if I told the headmaster tomorrow," Snape leered triumphantly, and Sirius changed back.
"Nothing will happen to us if you tell Dumbledore or McGonagall, Snivellus," Sirius retorted, a grin dancing on his lips. "They already know, and they're basically cool with it."
"Ha, you expect me to believe that, Black? Is that the best you could come up with?" Snape muttered before pushing past Sirius and trudging on.
"Fine, believe what you want, but have fun being brushed aside," Sirius replied before quickly shapeshifting into his Animagus form again, bounding forward and leading the way. Suddenly he began slowing down and barked at the darkness in front of them.
"What happened, Black? You getting cold feet now?" Snap muttered as he stomped past Sirius who was transforming back into his human self.
"Wait!" he said sharply, causing Snape to turn around quickly and look at him suspiciously.
"What? What's wrong?" he asked curtly before glancing behind him once again.
"We have to be careful now," Sirius's tone had become more serious as he crept past Snape. The latter followed closely behind, only to realize that a panel of wood blocked their path after a couple of steps. Their journey was over; the Shrieking Shack lay on the other side of the wooden trapdoor.
In the few moments of suspenseful silence before Sirius opened the door, Snape heard bizarre sounds akin to the sound of scratching and...was that whimpering? Growling, even? Shaking his head and giving himself a mental note to stop freaking himself out, Snape whispered, "Well, get along with it then. Open the trapdoor."
"A-actually I'm not so sure this is the best idea," Sirius looked more serious than ever, his voice grim and tone solemn.
"Oh, get aside, Black, I'll do it," Snape muttered hastily and irritatedly shoved past Sirius, who fell over in the process. Pushing the wood gently, Snape pushed various parts until something clicked and the door swung open. Climbing through, he took a sweeping look of his surroundings.
The ceiling was broken in several places, and the table was caked with dust. However, the floor seemed to be dusted clean in some areas; and the furniture, while covered in dust in some places, was torn to shreds in others. If he hadn't known any better, Sirius would have guessed that a pack of wild dogs was in residence.
Sirius crashed through the passageway behind them, splintering the wood in the process.
"Ow…" he muttered under his breath as he too took notice of the room around him. Snape waited a moment before slowly walking over towards the kitchen.
"S-so what, exactly, are we looking for her-" Snape's voice cut off suddenly mid-sentence, making Sirius look up in alarm. Transforming into an animagus, he bounded over to where Snape stood, his jaw agape and his eyes wide in horror.
There was a werewolf in the dilapidated kitchen.
Snape whipped out his wand and pointed it menacingly at the creature who currently seemed unaware that it had company.
"Black, you go back to the passageway, and make sure your hands are steady. I'll count until 10 after you've left, and we can both preten-" Sirius cut him off with a bark, which caught the werewolf's attention.
It turned around slowly, intimidatingly, like in a horror movie, and it was all Snape could do to avoid passing out. Sirius quickly turned back into a human, and stood between them.
"Snape, calm down. Everything will be okay. You see, this here is Remus," Sirius said calmly. Meanwhile, Snape's eyes bugged out of his head as he registered the words that Sirius had said while simultaneously noting that that werewolf was drawing closer and closer to Sirius.
"That's why we learned to become Animagi," Sirius explained quietly, "so we could keep Remus company and make sure he didn't attack anyone or anything."
"Then why the buggering hell did you bring me down here?" Snape whispered angrily, his presence of mind returning as he replied while concurrently scanning the room for possible escape routes should they become necessary.
"We just wanted to take the piss out of you, rattle your bones a bit," Sirius replied, quirking his teeth up in that awful grin. "Worked, didn't it, eh?"
"Did you guys even consider the possibility that it would be more dangerous with a non-Animagus with you?" Snape's voice grew slightly shrill as he began slowly backing away. "What about what the school will think when I tell everyone that my suspicions were right, that Lupin is in fact a bloody werewolf?"
"Nobody would believe you, and those that would would complain to the teachers, and guess what?" Sirius responded as cooly as one might in such a situation. Without waiting for a reply, he plowed on, "They all already know. That's why they're let the fact that we're Animagi slide, since we only completed the necessary magic this year and we'll be 17 in a few months anyways."
At this point Snape was retreating faster and faster, and Sirius suddenly morphed back into a dog and barked at Lupin, causing the werewolf to pause in his steps. At the same time, Snape tripped over his feet and fell backwards, his wand shooting out a beam of fateful magic towards the ceiling, causing a huge section of the roof right above the three of them to cave in. The three screamed, but soon their voices were muffled in dust and rotting wood, and Snape passed out.
A few minutes passed, and Snape awoke to the smell of burning. The air was getting thicker and he found it difficult to breathe, though that may have been due to the immense weight on his chest. He blinked dust out of his eyes and tried to move, and his muscles groaned in protest.
Great. This was how he was going to die. He squinted around and looked for something, anything, that could help him move freely, when suddenly a weight lifted off his chest, quite literally, and someone or something picked him up and began making great strides towards the tunnel. As the creature moved, the air became clearer and it slowly became easier for Snape to breathe. Suddenly he found himself on cold, damp grass, the sky slowly lighting up with a hint of the sun just beyond the horizon.
He heard shouts and exclamations of fear and alarm, but he couldn't bring himself to pay attention to what exactly was being said. His mind was swimming in confusion, and only now did he notice a stabbing pain in his chest. Slowly, he sat up and noticed a whimpering Pettigrew curled up with his knees at his chins, slowly rocking back and forth, muttering to himself. Looking away from the unnerving sight, he noticed a huge fire blazing in the distance, burning down some long-forgotten relic, and wondered vaguely if that was where he had been mere minutes before. He heard a voice screaming, sobbing in the distance, but couldn't place his finger on who exactly it was, or what they were saying. Moments later, the pain was too much, and he passed out again.
When he awoke next, he found himself propped up against a tree. The sun had now partially risen, so he could see more clearly. Someone had hastily mended his broken ribs, as he only felt a dull ache in his chest and the prickling pain of burnt skin. He sat up as best he could and looked over to where the others seemed to have huddled. He slowly crawled over to them and noticed a worn out, severely charred Remus jogging towards them, with a bump the size of a baseball on his forehead and a small black, fur-covered body in his arms.
That's….that's Black, Snape thought absently. He's an Animagus.
Remus collapsed as soon as he reached James and Peter, but gently placed Sirius in the grass. Sirius' body slowly transformed from the furry black dog into his normal, human, self, and the damage was visibly severe. Potter began muttering spells immediately while Pettigrew merely hyperventilated, rubbing his hands nervously. Remus's eyes were closed, and he looked like he was about to cry. He simply sat on his knees, looking down and shaking his head.
Potter's voice grew more and more frantic as the sun rose in the sky, his spells growing dangerously close to ones that Snape had come across in his studies of the Dark Arts. How did Potter learn any of those? he pondered, as though he had not quite come to terms with what he was witnessing.
Finally Potter say back, solemn. The sun had well risen into the sky; the new day had officially begun. None of them spoke for a while. Then Potter looked up, directly at Remus.
"Why?" his voice rasped out, desperate, pained, full of hurt and betrayal. Remus merely continued to shake his head.
James got up and stepped over Sirius's body, and dragged Remus up to his feet.
"Why?" he asked again, louder, his voice filling with an anger that was previously bereft of anything but hollowness. "Why, how- How could you pick him, over, over S-Sirius?" James' voice crumbled as he gestured weakly at Snape, who suddenly felt a wave of guilt and nausea wash over him. It couldn't be possible…Had Black actually…?
"Come on, Remus, I need an answer. You loved him, I know you loved him, so how c-could you?" James' voice was furious, accusing. "Everyone could see it, how obsessed with each other you two were, but in the end, you couldn't even save him!?" Remus's head shook manically now, his fingers scraping across his own skull. Snape couldn't bear to watch, so he turned his gaze to the weak-hearted Pettigrew, who bizarrely looked more scared than sorrowful. Somehow that manage to disgust Snape even more, so he looked up at the castle, trying to process everything that had happened.
It was his fault. It was all his fault because he survived and Sirius didn't. It was his fault for tripping, for freaking out when Black said he had things under control. It was his fault for having his wand out, as if that would have done any good against a bloody werewolf. For once in his miserable, self-serving life, Snape felt true guilt, because these weren't his friends gathered around him in this moment, relieved at his survival. He knew that if they had it their way, they would trade him in for their beloved friend any day, and somehow even that knowledge didn't hurt as much as the mere knowledge that he survived and Black didn't. It gutted him; made him weak. A jumble of feelings were haphazardly thrown together and tossed towards him, and he was not equipped with the skills to make heads or toes of them. He looked up at James, who was still shaking in confusion, anger, and remorse. He glanced over at Remus who was boring holes into the ground with his eyes, muttering something that he couldn't quite hear. He looked down at Sirius' limp body, knowing that he would never hear the idiot call him "Snivellus" again, that he would never have the chance to make amends in any way, shape, or form. The crippling loneliness he felt in that moment had him wishing with all his heart that it was him, not Black, who was sacrificed. Which only made the now-audible words that Remus was muttering slice through Snape like paper thin daggers of morality:
"It's what he would have wanted."