A/N: Love to reviewers and Countess Black

A close friend of mine (who reads the story) is having a serious family emergency. Any prayers, kind thoughts, good intentions, etc would be greatly appreciated.

For those of you who like the Sirius/Snape conversation, I suggest reading the fabulous essays written by Whitehound about the same subjects. She has enormous insight into Snape's character, and reading some of the things she suggested might be true helped me to see things from a more nuanced (dare I say Slytherin?) perspective.

As we all know, only a very Slytherin perspective would gain Snape's approval. Who was I to refuse?

Rita Skeeter was, as Draco had observed, indeed miserable, today especially. She finished her article, capped her inkwell, and rose, sticking her feet back into her pumps (electric blue manticore hide, to match her robes), picking up her copy to bring the editor.

He smiled. 'Well, Ree, what've we got?'

'It was quite a good interview, Nigel. That Mr. Goyle is quite an interesting bloke.'

'I've that impression. You're sure everything is set up for tonight, now?'

She nodded, her stomach feeling like it was being squeezed, a ball of wax in the hands of a giant. 'I'm to meet Phidippedes Limpkin at four thirty. He'll take me to the meeting place.'

'Where is that, again?'

'The townhouse. They'll all be there.'

Nigel nodded. 'You did a bang-up job in January with them, you know.'

'It was a good assignment.' She'd said variations on it so often, it almost seemed true sometimes. Nigel looked away from her, seeming to find the carpet absorbing for a few seconds.

'Yes, well, don't worry too much about the deadline, all right? We can always run it Sunday, rather than Friday.'

'Thanks, Nigel. I need to go and get changed, all right?'

Nigel nodded. 'Say hello to Travers for me.'

'I will. See you tomorrow.'

The flat was quiet. She kicked off her shoes and started shedding clothing. One thing one could see for Metellus, his elf was a dream. She appeared at once and took everything to the hamper, silently efficient. Rita was glad; the last she wanted right now was to confront another thinking being.

She took a hot bath, did her hair, and dressed in dark, conservative robes. She knew she should dress in something very slightly slutty-she had her disguises, and they their expectations-but she couldn't.

Swiping on some lipstick, she picked up her bag and started to the door. It opened, and Metellus grinned at her, clearly surprised to have found her at home. 'Well, hello, love.'

'Hello, Metellus. How was your day?'

'Fine. Off to do the interview, are you?'

'I am.'

'Good, good. Say, how would you feel about dinner at the Unicorn tonight? Late, I mean, the Lestranges'll offer you something, I'm sure.'

Why was he being so generous and expansive? She made herself smile. 'Sounds lovely. Is today my birthday?'

'No, but it might well be mine.'

She raised an expensively, professionally arched brow and he beamed like a child with a secret. 'His Lordship has given me special charge of a project.'

'Oh?'

'This is my chance, Ree, you'll see. Great things are happening, I tell you. Great things.' He grinned a trifle moonily and pecked her cheek. He smelt of too much cologne and whatever he'd had for lunch. She forced herself to kiss him back.

'Ten o'clock?'

'Sounds good. Make sure not to let on, Rita. This is strictly between you and me.'

'Quite so, love.'

Rita donned her silver fox fur and went to the meeting place, wondering what Travers was up to, and whether he was as abominably stupid as he acted.

Limpkin's mild, mousy face, mostly hidden behind his huge spectacles, lit up on seeing her. She let him kiss her hand, biting back a shiver. He'd been dismembering number thirteen when they caught him. Rita suspected he was picturing how her limbs would look strewn about the boarding-house where he lived.

'Madam, Lestrange asks you permit me to Apparate you directly. As you know, the safety of the Lord Protector and Vicereine, Lestrange's beloved daughter, is the most important consideration.'

'Naturally.' Rita also knew that aurors periodically found gruesomely cut up bits, and did nothing, so long as they weren't people who'd be missed. If she had to guess, she'd put his current score in the triple digits.

Limpkin seized her hand and she gripped him. His hands were dry and soft. He smelt of cloves, like tooth-ache remedy. And something underneath, metallic, old, salty. She'd sick up if she had to touch him a second longer, she'd-

Her shoes clattered on the entryway of the house. She pulled back, feigning light-headedness. Limpkin gently righted her and waited silently for Llewellyn Rice to come to them. Rice had risen in the world thanks to Lestrange's patronage, Rita knew; where did he and the Snatchers stand now that Lestrange was in bad standing? Were they still his men, or the Dark Lord's? Or some unknown third party?

Rice was shorter than Limpkin, and not as mild. His handsome, unreliable face was fixed in a mask of bland courtesy. She'd once paid an auror an obscene amount for photos of his work. She blinked the image of staring, blood-shot eyes in swollen purple faces from her mind and let him make his manners.

'Madam, it is a pleasure. I will need your purse and shoes, as always.'

She let him scan both and then slipped back into her shoes. Limpkin was watching with eyes as big and brown as a cow's. She could see a fleck of blood under one of his nails. Oh, God, God.

They received her in the Master bedroom, as before. This time they showed her into the dressing room, where several chairs had been conveniently placed for their use. Aside from the lad and the Lestrange girl, Bellatrix was there, curled catlike in her chair. Her sister, too, and the sister's son, Malfoy's heir.

'Madam Skeeter, how good to see you.'

'And yourself, Vicereine. Lord Protector, how are you?'

'Vell, Madam. Qvite vrested, after such a good holiday.' He smiled slightly, rough-hewn face twisting to make him seem nearly handsome. The Malfoy lad was quiet, watching her intently.

The door opened and a boy she remembered to be either Anu Tamm or Tamm Anu something came in. He wore an eyepatch and a suspicious look, and was leading Snape's huge mongrel. He took up a seat next to Malfoy Jr, hands in his lap.

'The people of Wizarding Britain are so grateful you've taken the time to speak to me. How are you enjoying your stay? I regret how awful the weather's been.'

'It's a pleasant change for us. Bulgaria's having quite a hot spring.'

'Is it?'

The Lord Protector smiled wryly. 'Believe it or not, ve do have the sun in Bulgaria.'

'My lord, really. Madam Skeeter's seen it herself.' The girl was smiling, and he smiled back, nodding to agree. Rita had to admit, if they didn't adore one another, it was a damned good show.

'Of course, but ve cannot convince the vorld our country is not all ice and snow.'

'That's certainly true.'

'Madam, you know Anu Tamm, don't you?'

'Of course. *Mr. Tamm, how good to see you again.*'

'*And yourself, Madam Skeeter.*'

'*Professor Slughorn says you're quite the cleverest student he's ever had.*' Slughorn was Metellus's great-uncle, and she had to endure the occasional interminable dinner with him.

'*Surely he's being polite, madam.*'

Malfoy or whoever had taught the kid well, but there was something creepily at odds between his conventionally polite remarks and his hard, one-eyed stare. He might be small, but she wagered he would be someone to fear in a few decades. Then again, if he was part of these people, he was someone to fear right now.

She nodded, still smiling, and moved into the rest of the interview. She couldn't have cared less about any of it. She wished she could ask them the real questions, the ones that had been brewing in her mind for months.

Do you see them die as you sleep? You sent them to their deaths, even as I did. So do you? Do you see them burn, girl? Do you see your wolves swarming their walls and ripping them to sheds? Your dogs savaging them? Scabior looting the bodies?

Because I do. Every time I close my eyes, I see those aurors I helped kill. Every time he kisses me, it tastes of corpses.

But of course she couldn't say that, and so she asked about fashions and frolics, just as the readers wanted.

At Hogwarts, Snape was grinding his teeth. Hard, almost audibly. He made himself relax his jaw. 'But my lord, it would be so gracious of you.'

'We shan't receive him, Severus. Our mind is quite made up. We need to go to Wales like it is, and Feathering displeased Us most grievously when he permitted British students to join that fool's crusade.'

'He knows it, my lord, and craves most humbly a chance to regain your lordship's grace and favour. His dear wife confided to Narcissa she prays nightly you'll deign to name their new baby.'

Ego flattered, the Dark Lord turned from the window. 'Does she?'

'She does, my lord. Madam Feathering couldn't feel more bereft about this.'

'Feathering himself?'

'Even worse. He wants so much to serve your lordship.'

'He has not asked for Our input on the curriculum of Durmstrang.'

'Their governors are not advanced enough to understand the greatness of your lordship's thought. He did what he could with Krum and Malfoy Jr.'

'Of course. Malfoy Jr is doing his part as well?'

'Every day. That Albanian practically worships him.'

'As he ought to. Still, better an Albanian cripple than another filthy Slav.'

'Exactly so, my lord.'

'We will consider it. In the meantime, it would please Us to test their loyalty.'

'How so, my lord?'

'Nagini, you will accompany Snape to Grimmauld Place and stay whilst We are gone. Nagini, as faithful as she is to Us, will attract too much attention in Wales.'

'Wales, my lord?'

'We've decided that if Krum is to have an army of savages, it is only meet that We access what We have in that direction. If he should try to threaten Us, we will meet him on the field of battle, claw to claw, as it were.'

'And triumph, surely, my lord.'

'Triumph, yes. Be sure the lout knows that, Severus.'

'With every fibre of his being, my lord.'

'Excellent. And We've been looking into making sure of things. A sort of ultimate weapon.'

'I do not follow, my lord.'

'It is enough you trust Us, Severus.'

'Of course, my lord. Does your lordship's snake understand English?'

'Enough.'

'Might I impose on your lordship to ask her not to eat Madam Krum's cat? Or the boy's dog? They're fond of them.'

'You've some mongrel dog, haven't you, Snape? Your familiar?'

'I have, my lord. Salazar.'

'Cheeky of you, naming him after our honoured ancestor. Very well.' He hissed at the snake, and the snake hissed back.

'The pets are quite safe. Do see she eats, Severus. She might not be able to restrain herself if she does not.'

'I will, my lord. My lord, another favour?'

'What is it?'

'It might behove us all if we were able to monitor what magic Bellatrix and Rodolphus teach the girl. By your lordship's leave, I would borrow some books from the Restricted Section. My theory is not equal to theirs.'

'Take anything you'd like, Severus. Have they taught the girl much?'

'No, my lord, but I doubt Bellatrix will be able to control herself much longer.'

'Quite. Make sure Slughorn knows to keep track. We would know what they know.'

'I will tell Horace directly, my lord.'

'Excellent. Thank you, Severus.' Snape bowed himself out, having been dismissed.

He supplemented the books with some from the false-Mulciber, and so it was some hours later, having delivered the snake to Grimmauld Place and retrieved Black (the snake could sniff him out, else) the two of them retired to the attic in order to start looking for anything that might be of help.

The attic looked like a sterile potions laboratory. Every surface was shielded or charmed to prevent Dark magic seeping into it. The men donned heavy smocks, gloves of thin, tough dragon's hide and goggles charmed to prevent the magic from entering their brains via the eyes.

Mippy set down the parcel false-Mulciber had sent them. It was seven, fittingly, all bound innocuously in leather. Snape's skin was burning, but burning with cold. He could see his breath in the room, and he had a painful erection, one that spoke more of agony than any sort of erotic pleasure.

'Ready, Black?'

'Ready. Are you?'

'No.'

Snape opened the book he'd selected and started to read. He almost felt sorry about having to expose Black-who was faintly green in the face-to all this. Almost. Still, needs must is needs must. He started in, feeling his body breathing in the Dark. And liking it. He forced himself not to embrace the feeling. You must not fall, he chanted to himself, you must not fall.

Hours later, Sirius was curled up on the divan, head on paws. He felt dirty. His head hurt, even with the strong pain potion Snape had dosed him with. The thought of eating made him want to his sensitive dog's nose, the whole house stank abominably of something rotten and horribly, vitally alive.

Snape came back in, shedding his wellingtons and handing the dirt caked plants to the elf to clean. 'Change back, I'll have what you need soon enough.'

Sirius did. He sat up, feeling transparent, known to the eyes of the world and filthy for it, stained soul on display. Mippy was shirring softly as he brought out a large mug of tisane.

'Drink it, Black. All of it.'

It tasted noxious, but as it entered him, it helped. The cold feeling faded, replaced by numb warmth. Nothing mattered. It was all so far away now...

Snape's cold, bony hand closed on the back of his neck, shaking briskly. 'No. Fight it.'

'All right.' His head was clearing. Sirius handed the mug back to Mippy, the room swimming into something like normal focus as Snape took up his usual place in the chair nearest the fire.

'Well, Black, how did you like your first real taste of Dark magic?'

'How-I-why did you start with this? You're smarter than that.'

Snape shrugged. 'It's not about intelligence, Black. Smart people often make stupid choices.'

'Don't give me that. I'm not Hermione.'

'No, she's got manners.'

'And the Black hair, poor kid. Really, why did you?'

'Why did you?'

'Why did I what?'

'Fall in with a loathsome swot like Potter and that fawning little toady Pettigrew and Lupin the wolf?'

Sirius blinked. 'They weren't Death Eaters! They never did that!'

'Except Pettigrew, perhaps.'

'He's not that smart.'

'True. Tell me, Black, is what I did at that age really any worse than what you were doing?'

'You were a baby Death Eater, Snape. That-those things-' Sirius gestured upstairs and Snape shook his head, mouth twisted.

'That's one part of it. Tell me, Black, when Crouch said aurors could use Unforgivables, did you go and protest it?'

'No. No, of course not. By then they were playing for keeps, Snape.'

'And you were not? None of your people ever escalated the conflict for no reason? Never used deadly force where something less would have done?'

'I didn't say that.'

'You've still not answered me, Black. What attracted you to Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew?'

Sirius thought. 'James could be a lot of fun. He was smart, too. He knew things. And Remus was good at lessons. Peter...'

'Yes?'

'He just wouldn't leave us alone. We sort of adopted him as a mascot, I suppose.'

'Bollocks. You tormented him and tormented him, and finally he started to do what you asked of him so you'd leave him alone. Admit it, Black.'

'Fine, all right? Fine! We were little bastards, I've said as much before, but dammit, Snape, we never...never...'

'Donned robes and a mask, Black. That's the difference.'

'It's not either. Don't lecture me about being disingenuous when you're doing it too.'

'What I am being disingenuous about?'

'Look at what these people have done and tell me it was what I was doing.'

'All right. I allied myself to a monster, that is true. I did it for power, and acceptance, and because I wanted what he could give me. He's done terrible things, to be sure. I've never denied that.'

'Nor do I deny having been complicit in the atrocities committed by those closest to me. I was fully aware that the Lestranges meant to take Lucullus Brown in order to avenge Evan and did nothing to stop it. I was present at better than fifty revels, the centrepiece of which was the torture of muggles or captives, and did nothing to help, even if I did not wield the wand myself.'

'I did not know they meant to attack the Longbottoms, and if I had, I cannot say I might have tried to prevent that, either. I like to think I would-I was growing disenchanted by it all then-but who can say with certainty what our past selves might have done?'

'I also directly invented, or helped to invent, spells and potions classified as illegal and proscribed by the Ministry that was. Evan and I created the brain embolism hex, the spine melting jinx, the heart attack hex, and several dozen others that maimed or killed God knows how many.'

'On top of that, I have ruthlessly, and in full knowledge of what I was doing, sacrificed human beings to further my ends. Some of them were children, or non-combatants, or innocents, but many were not. I taught the girl to do the same and do it well, and I sleep at night the sleep of the just, which I have not earnt in the slightest. This is what I have done.'

'You, Black, opted to join with people who did much the same whilst wearing a mask of righteousness. Albus Dumbledore was my friend, but he was also a manipulative, scheming man who happily ignored or condoned things he felt were not worth his time to stop.'

'He gave Potter to those muggles, knowing full well what they were and how they'd felt about Lily, God rest her. He chose to keep employing Slughorn in the knowledge he was a dangerous predator with means, motive and opportunity to indulge. He favoured his own students to the degree that he did not so much as scold the three of you-I exclude the werewolf because even I must needs acknowledge he was not in control of his facilities when he and I met that night- despite the fact you would have killed two students, Lupin and myself, with your little prank.'

'Crouch Sr was a grasping opportunist who used the aurors in the Ministry's employ to his own ends. In his desire to seem hard on crime, he deliberately encouraged fanatics like Mad Eye and glory-seekers like Brown to use as much force as possible, which caused a relatively low key, wizard only conflict to explode into a civil war that killed how many innocent people, including his own?'

'On top of that, neither man was above letting one of his get destroyed rather than allow himself to seem merely human. How many people went to Azkaban because a trial might reveal some mistake Crouch had made? How many did Albus sacrifice to what he so grandly termed the Greater Good? Whose good, Black? Not yours. Not mine. Not Harry Potter's.'

Sirius listened, shocked and opened-mouth, to Snape's whole tirade. He finally brought his teeth together with a click, trying to wrap his brain about what Snape had said.

'You really believe that, don't you? That they're two sides of the same coin.'

'Because they are, Black. You don't want to see it because you had a privileged place in Dumbledore's Inner Circle, just as I have-had- in the other's.'

'But objectively speaking, surely you see a difference between what Dumbledore was doing and the things the other was-'

'A difference, Black? Can you explain how it's different when your side did than mine?'

'You admitted you were developing proscribed spells and potions.'

'Were we? Yes, of course. But those spells were disabling, not fatal. Not one hundred percent of the time, like an Avada is. Not with treatment. Except, of course, Crouch issues orders to leave the fallen to pursue fleeing Death Eaters, didn't he?'

'You're trying to tell me that a heart attack jinx is some sort of altrustic gesture?'

'Not at all. I'm saying, get off that Gryffindor high hippogriff of yours and see things as they really are.'

'He employs people like Walden Mcnair, for God's sake. Not to mention Greyback.'

'And your dear cousins? You might have all sorts of cuddly memories of the Lestranges and Lucius Malfoy, but you know damned well you're a minority of one.'

'Dumbledore never would have let people like those-'

'He didn't need to. He had the Ministry at his beck and call. I have nothing against Alastor Moody-I admire his skill deeply-but he was half mad even then, a dangerous fanatic of the first order. You know that because he was your friend.'

'Mad Eye? Yeah, he had his moments. But you can't honestly expect to compare Greyback to Alastor and expect the comparison to hold.'

'Why not? Everyone needs an axe-man, Black. The Dark Lord had the Lestranges, Lestrange has Lemuel Scabior and Albus had Mad Eye and his coterie of handpicked killers.'

'And you have me.'

'You aren't so much a hired wand as you are a nuisance, but yes, generally speaking. Krum has Malfoy Jr . Malfoy Jr has Tamm-or will when he's aged a bit- and Paavo Kask. The girl has Madam Scabior. And Scabior himself, if only she knew.'

Sirius let it all process. 'You have Moody now. Why would you employ someone you think is a dangerous fanatic?'

'That's exactly why. Azkaban tempered him, but when Moody devotes himself to a cause, he's in it until the end. Because he's a true believer who will do whatever's asked of him. And as I said, I esteem his skill greatly.'

'Dumbledore, though, he was trying to make things better. For everyone, not just his own group of people.'

'Everyone? Even those he didn't agree with?'

'He wouldn't have approved of the purges. The concentration camps. The secret police.'

'Not as such, no. But again, he had no need of it. He had the Ministry, Azkaban, and the Order to do those things.'

'The Order was not-'

'Articulate the difference, if you can. What precisely separated one from the other?'

'None of us was sworn to Dumbledore personally.'

'You needn't be. If Dumbledore had asked you all to fling yourselves off a cliff, you'd have fought to be the first. You were sworn to him in your hearts.'

'Maybe we were, but Snape, the other was going to let those kids die.'

'He was. That could just as easily be the effects of making so many Horcruxes, or simply an adolescent body housing an elderly brain. Do you think twenty years ago he would have made a choice like that?'

Sirius mulled it over. 'No. I never knew him like yourself, but he was cannier than that.'

'Damned right he was. So to answer you, Black, it's all those things. And none of them. At the end of the day, it was something I was good at.'

'You were good at loads of other things.'

'I was intelligent, yes. But nothing that got the approval of my peers the way my potions did, or the spells I made.'

'You did it to have friends?'

'More or less. If I spent the holidays with Avery, or the younger Mulciber, or Lucius, I didn't need to spend them here.'

Sirius smiled a little. It was not a friendly smile. 'Like I did with the Potters?'

'I suppose so, yes.'

'And you wanted to be with people who made you laugh, or could help you?'

'Sometimes. I was at disadvantage in many ways-Mother was a Prince but a woman could only know so much about the lives of Pureblood men-and they helped me. Lucius took me under his wing, so to speak.'

'Because you made potions for him.'

'It amused him to play Pygmalion. And he likes poisons, Lucius. We developed quite a catalogue of them.'

'How comforting. If they invite me to dinner, remind me to have something else to do that night.'

'I'd say stay in and wash your hair, but you haven't got any.'

'Ha bloody ha, Snape.'

Snape smirked at him a moment and then stopped. 'Have we bared our souls enough for one night, or shall we weep and embrace like old women?'

Sirius took a deep breath. 'For whatever it's worth to you-'

'It isn't.'

'We didn't mean for it to go as far as it did. We thought the howls would spook you. Or else old Bory-remember the village watchman, Boringer?-would catch you and march you back to school.'

'Did it not bother you to use Lupin that way? He depended on you to keep his secret.'

Sirius felt a guilty, yellowish squirming in his guts. 'I know. I mean, we knew that. But in fairness, if you got caught, it wouldn't have been an issue.'

'And if I had got in, and Lupin had savaged and infected me? Or eaten me, for that?'

Pain was washing over Sirius in waves. Perhaps it was time. Perhaps it was fair.

'We were teenagers. We didn't think.'

'No.'

'And I suppose we thought we'd live forever. And so would you, and Remus. And James.'

'Black' said Snape suddenly 'why did he hate me so? Potter Sr. I never did anything to him. At first.'

'No. James was...his parents were in their eighties when he was born, you know. A miracle baby. He'd always been the centre of things, and I think...you were smart, Snape. This greasy little guttersnipe-sorry-but everyone said how smart you were. And it made him angry.'

'No one said it to me.'

'Because you were an arse about it.'

'I was never.'

'Yes, Severus Snape would never act like a cunt about something, would he?'

Snape's mouth quirked. 'That's really rather your department, I daresay.'

'Oh, but when I say he's a virgin, he throws a strop.'

'I'm not.'

'As previously explained, Snape, your hand does not count.'

'Malfoy's annual Christmas party, the year you and I were sixteen.'

'Imagine that. I've always thought Lucius looked like a good cuddler. Is he?'

'No, you twat, it wasn't him.'

'He's quite a handsome fellow, if you like them tall and blond and vain.'

'I like them female. You know, nicely curved in the right places.'

'If Lucius put on some weight, I suppose...'

'It was a woman, Black.'

Sirius snorted. 'Like whom? Cissy?'

'Of course not. She and Malfoy adore one another. The correct family, however.'

'Andromeda?'

'She'd left by then.'

'Bellatrix?'

'I told you ages ago. When you asked me whether I'd fathered the girl.'

'I thought it was a joke!'

'You were wrong.'

'Rodolphus didn't kill you?'

'I expect the Da-the other told them it would please him. Perhaps he thought it would bind me to him. To them, I should say.'

Sirius shook his head. 'That's awful.'

'I was sixteen.'

'She's all bones.'

'Sixteen, Black. She might have had a face like a mermaid as long as the other parts were it working order.'

Sirius mock-shivered. 'Damn it, now dinner is going to be awkward.'

'Not at all. Just don't think about it.'

'Damn you, Snape.'

'Too late, Black.'

Sirius grinned. 'Marlene McKinnon, in the back room of James' parents' townhouse.'

'Showing appreciation to your hosts for their hospitality?'

'She was willing, and I was hard.'

'Really, Black.'

'It was fun. We were seeing one another, you know.'

'When she...'

'Yes.'

Sirius half thought Snape would make a remark but he didn't. Perhaps he understood what it was like.

A thump, and childish voices debating much too loudly about who would go and get the ball from crazy Snape's yard. Sirius got up and changed, went to the garden and scratched. Snape let him out.

'I had better not find any dismembered gnome bits in my bed this time, you manky bastard.'

Sirius changed back. 'No promises.' Then he padded out as Salazar, to scare the kids off for their own good.