Chapter 1 : 12 Grimmauld Place

BREATHE; close those shit eyes of yours and let go of your clammy wits.

This is befouling. Anxiety leeches a faint pink from my skin like an infection, turns my stomach to a stone knot. I was not built for social occasions, and New Year's Eve Balls have never presented a compromise to this. I had also graciously never heard of the Black family tradition of fine drink and wizard crackers that is, I am told, the ball of every year. However, because of Bellatrix Black, I am… unnerved.

I am standing in the middle of her Aunt and Uncle's London home, 'properly' celebrating the first moments of 1979. I am standing in his home…., surrounded by forty or so of his family's closest, assuredly purest friends in cocktail dresses and fine robes. Mine are on loan.

Bloody brilliant, Bellatrix. How could you not expect me to make an ass of myself? Our relationship being a few months old, I don't think I've been trained for this yet. Here, of all places in this godforsaken city.

Sirius Black isn't real. He's a thought, gaudy with venery… hope without hydration…

Bellatrix Black is a pimple on my bum. I can't sit down without her being a constant, festering pain. And she never stops.

Sirius lives here, somewhere. Inhaling is impossible without getting a hint of that faint deep musk… Bella offers a drink, her dark curls loose with laughter but it's more than plain with her edge to the goblet that I've already showed myself as uncouth, stupefied over the rich ornate interior of the Black home.

"Severus, come and sit next to me and Lucius," says Bellatrix, her French accent a dangling lure. I snap to attention, the wine slipping a drop on my robe as I manage the ambivalent seating between the two. Lucius is younger than Bella, but still almost a decade older than myself, with the coloring and personality of burnt ice.

"Yes, Bella," I say, spilling my words oddly over the dim background music. Shit. This has been a colossal mistake. Foremost, this is my Christmas holiday, and while anything's better than 'home', this vileness only serves to confirm my lack manhood toward Bellatrix. In front of her very scary, very fundamentalist family. All of whom have regressed to a slower speech around me, as if I'm nothing more than a rotten oyster muddying their porcelain dinnerware.

Who are they to discredit me? As if I'm not was devout to them? When they bleat I hear none but sheep, and I know what I'm talking about. I've had ringing in my ears the same arguments in favor of Service that I have for the past seven years, since I was sorted into Slytherin my first year at Hogwarts. They're quite dull. The dark lord is of less concern to me right now than the wrath of Bella, under whose influence I am here, complaisantly agreeing with his wholesale manslaughter. Not that I don't agree, in most respects… the few muggles I've met deserve to be locked up for all the good they do. And I would admit that wizards without due respect to the heritage that has made us strong, separate and above are unpardonable.

"And if those damned muggles don't burn down Moscow again, we may actually have a chance. Don't you agree Severus?"

"Er-," This loathsome chamber music has my words dulled. The only thought rising above the sawmill choir is how inane the regal Blacks look in cheap colored paper hats. Although that doesn't qualify as a remark; then Bella would savage me, razing me more efficiently than her sex. Think, or it all goes to hell…

"Where's the loo?"

Damn Bella and her cold snaking eyes rolling to my direction… I am going to hear about this later.

"Upstairs to the left. And don't forget about that spot of wine".

Alright, simple, upstairs and to the left…

"Your other left, Severus," adds Lucius.

Damn.

And damn this stupid world where left and right are left and right and black and white are black and white. Damn the world where Bellatrix Black is right. And how did it happen that I end up with Bellatrix Black! Although 'with' isn't a fair description, she treats me as if I'm a naughty child.

A quiet place to think… The first door off the landing looks peaceful enough.

"Alohomora."

Miserable shit. I lean my full weight against it, unimpressive except for the fact that it is equally spread through all 6 feet and 4 inches I comprise. The door gives under me; bowing to my unlikely height, unlike everyone else to whom my height announces itself only as a sort of prescient shadow. A sapient shadow of gloom, grease, and melancholy.

It was a small dark room, hidden away from the usual sleek bustle of the impeccable Black house. A tall, grimy window had been left a centimeter or so ajar, letting an icy draft and streetlight seep in. The latter lit up stale dust floating in the air, a shady oak frame bed and …. wait… this is a bedroom. There's the trunks, and posters, and dark looking cloths strewn everywhere… it has to be….

Should I leave? I should run. Should I sit down? Just sit down. My legs are weakening to collapse as I think. He's not here…. Unless he's under the bed, and no he's not, it's cluttered with teenage mutiny, no possible sign of life. He's not here, but there's every sign of him, and it's more than I can maintain to do anything for a few minutes other than sit on the floor- his floor-and take it all in.

It's not as though I can pull myself away from… the source of it all.

What a pathetic pariah I am. If he catches me here, there will never be rest from the abuse riding our classes. And the scar from the willow the night he tried to kill me will stand as nothing in comparison, an unheeded warning, as deep and vulgar as he is. As true as how he sees me: greasy spindly old Snivellus.

But he's the rebel Black, complete with those droopy dark graying eyes, and he doesn't give a damn. I can't help it. Ever since I first saw him, there has never been comparison… I've wanted him.

Somewhere Bellatrix happened. I go with Lucius to one secret meeting for the dark lord two summers ago; then all of a sudden she wants to be my girlfriend? Well… in truth, one day she decided I was her boyfriend. But I still had a choice. Conceivably. In this life, no one says no to Bellatrix Black. No one who wants to see the sun rise.

SHIT SHIT SHIT MERLINS PANTS! HIDE!

"Thank you, Dear, sir, Potter, for a delight*hik*ful evening"

"Padfoot, get your drunk ass back in your god-damned house!" A voice like Potters rose up, stifled somewhere outside the window.

FORGET BLACK, FOR HELL'S SAKE, HIDE. But there's nowhere to hide that not filled with his things, his…., just… be still, and maybe, if for once fortune agrees, he won't notice.

"Hullo Mr. Bed! *Hik* nice to meet you again!"

Just wait for him to fall a…

"What the…? Who is ….that? Snape? What the fuck are you *hik* doing in my room?"

"Er, well, I was ah, trying to find the loo?"

If I was someone else, like my cousin Effemie, this would be a different game altogether. She would bat her lush innocence and waver her sweet composure, stroking his ego. Sirius would eat her with the starved hunger of a virgin, without a seconds thought.

"It's across the hall… so piss off…."

I stay, riveted to the floorboards. He might not be able to muster looking at me, but he's not reaching for his wand to curse me away. His misted demeanor……

"Stop staring at me like that, pervert." His head bobs unsteadily, drunkenly unaware of gravity and the strangeness of the situation. He stretched his broad, divine shoulders in question.

Does he know? How the hell could he know? Merlin, how can he seem to hold onto me with all his strength, even when he's too out of his own control? But this is Sirius; he would never try to, not for you. Sex is something he can't turn off. Leave. Go back to Bella, and pretend the wine stain was too much for you to magic away. Go be her lapdog. It's better than being his.

"You're not man enough for me anyways," says Sirius; the bullet hits me, a free-spoken shot in the night.

What?

The words seep to my bone, rational thought fades…. This is… this is…..IS. He's lying on the bed, take him. Who could believe groveling backhanded Snape had the nerve?

I can't go back, and pretend to revel in the New Year. This one's not quite over yet. Slowly stepping out of the shadows of his room I stand before Sirius, his thick burly frame faltering, trying to sit still. Before I can live regret I take the nape of his neck in hand; his black, thick hair warm and damp.

The kiss, awkwardly placed on his disconnected conscious ignites my heart with this doggerel taste, the grue was love and enough to revive me to a waking reality.

That was it. I don't have the nerve to try anything more and that obviously did not have the intended effect. Get out while can find your pride. Run and hide.

I turn to the door… but find myself caught by the wrist. Sirius has me in his hand, not wanting me to go. His senses bring me closer, level. He can see me, hands moving with the sight of a man blinded by near darkness.

My heart is pounding so loudly it's a wonder he can't hear it, and secretly I know he can. Sirius drags me down onto the bed for another, longer, kiss on haughty lips that lasts.

His touch is pure arrogance and I am lifeless for more.

I couldn't have dreamt this… this craving and reward all knotted together, uncontainable. I'm getting ahead of myself, getting lost in those pathetically ravishing eyes, and I can't stop myself.

That dog, that mangy, ruthless brute is mine tonight. And I love him so. His lips are a constant pressure on mine as we, both intoxicated, fumble in near darkness.

The moon is now rising to where I can see it clearly out of Sirius's window, casting a pale ghostly gala over the room. The glories of my life have all become mere incandescent memories in the presence of such a consuming vacuum.

But he pauses, sitting up in his four-poster bed, and light streaking his face enables witness to subtle change. His back is against the wall and he's started running his hand through his hair. He may be coming to his senses, but I'll be damned if tonight ends in him hexing me. Unless he's into that. He may have been my inconstant tormentor for so many years, but I know my true colors, and I go what I'm after. I turn to face him. I command him.

"Take your trousers off."

"What?" Sirius hasn't caught up, and for a moment I see the pure shock in his eye that I'd addressed him, a God, as such, but then a shy smirk replaces the confusion and I can feel his hot breath in my ear as he leans in once more.

"You greasy little bastard"

"Do I need to tell you twice? Dog, take off your pants."

Sirius paused, sin in a new touch.

"Aren't you going to do that for me?"

He might have been holding a starting pistol.

I run my lips into his. Then, without daring to question, I tear his trousers off leaving a loose white dress shirt and mangled tie. An animal at last unleashed from tether he pins me back against the wall, holding me without strenuous effort.

His arrogance begins unbuttoning my robes, and soon I find myself bare-chested. His face is oh so close to mine and I can almost taste, again, the salt of his skin. He moves further, and his lion's nose was then just touching the end of mine. He looked down to me and said what he knew I wanted to hear:

"Well fuck me already Severus."

The pants come off in a last attempt and are added to the pile on the floor.

He pushes me down onto the bed…

I love him.

NOTE: I am working on MAJOR revisions for the next chapters, they are only up now as placeholders, sorry :(