See disclaimers on chapter 9.

A/N: This entire chapter is another of Snape's flashbacks. I decided not to use the italics this time as there is no need to distinguish between the flashbacks and the present day, and besides, I personally find italics difficult to read on the web sometimes.

Chapter 10

Marinall found him several hours later, curled up in the winged armchair in his father's darkened study. He had retired there after completing his survey of the house, seeking what little comfort he could from the memories of his father that still lingered in this place despite the changes time had wrought since Dunstan's death. The room was almost completely different now. Avis had purchased all new furniture, and most of Dunstan's belongings were gone – only one of his favorite paintings and a few of the smaller sculptures remained. But there was still something about the atmosphere there that made it possible to imagine Dunstan had simply stepped into another room and would be returning again at any moment.

When he heard the soft shushing of the door trailing along the carpet as it opened, he froze in place, unconsciously slipping into the game he had played as a young child – if you sit very still, the monsters won't see you and they will leave you alone. She was the last person he wanted to see right now. It infuriated him that she dared to intrude on his misery, especially in this place that he considered his exclusive territory.

But the trick did not work. Her eyes were too sharp. "There you are, Severus," she said quietly in her faintly accented English. "I've been looking for you."

"Go away," he replied sullenly. "I don't have anything to say to you."

She crossed the room on small, silent feet. "I know," she sighed. "I don't want to intrude. It's just that… Severus, I – I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am about what happened to Sirius."

Severus glanced up at her suspiciously. He had never quite been able to trust her since that day long ago when she accidentally smashed the mirror in his parents' bedroom and tried to lay the blame on him. Dunstan had been furious with him until he repaired the mirror and it told him who the true culprit was. Even then Severus had been punished because they were playing in the room without his father's permission – no chocolate frogs for two whole weeks! – while Marinall got nothing more than a stern warning "not to do that again."

But the expression on her face now was one of sincere contrition. "I never thought Daddy would do it," she said, her mouth tugging downward at the corners. "I would never have told him about Sirius nipping at Tabitha if I did."

How could you not have guessed? he thought bitterly. It was completely in character for Benjamin to do what he had done. Was she really that blind to her father's sadistic nature? Did her removal to Beauxbatons mean she did not know how he had been tormenting Severus over the past few years? Or did she just not care?

How fortunate she was never to have felt the brunt of her father's anger. For a moment Severus was willing to give up everything he owned just to know that feeling – that lack of fear, that promise of security, regardless of what he said or did. Why should she, through an accident of birth, be permitted to flourish while he, through an accident of friendship, was forced to endure? His gut twisted with the injustice of it.

"Yeah, right," he replied, turning his head away.

"No, I mean it." She crouched down next to his chair and placed one hand lightly on his forearm. "Listen, would you like me to ask Daddy to speak to Mr. Malfoy? Maybe he can get Lucius to leave you alone."

He looked at her again, lips curled into an incredulous sneer. "Oh, sure. I bet he'd love to do that for me."

"He would if I asked him to," she insisted, squeezing his arm to emphasize her words.

That much was true. Benjamin would do anything to make Marinall happy. He had certainly proven that time and time again. And if anyone could call Lucius off, it was Diablo. Benjamin was one of Diablo's closest friends as well as his largest customer – surely, the elder Malfoy couldn't afford to ignore a request from such an important business contact. He felt a sudden glimmer of hope. What a relief it would be to return to Hogwarts without the specter of Lucius's vengeance hanging over his head. Everything would be all right again if Malfoy decided – or was told – to leave him alone.

A flicker of gratitude warmed his chest, and he very nearly smiled at his stepsister. Luckily, he caught himself before the desire translated itself to his lips. It wouldn't do to let her know how thankful he was for her offer. No, never that. Forgiveness had always been granted her far too easily in the past. This time she would have to earn it.

"Do whatever you want," he grunted ungraciously, cutting his eyes toward her so she got the real meaning behind his words.

She smiled. Message received and understood. "Done," she said as she stood up. "Consider it my Christmas gift to you."

His spirits lifted a bit as the door clicked shut behind her. The unyielding reality of death still pulsed around him, but somehow it seemed to have lost some of its sting. For a moment he imagined he could hear the scratching of Dunstan's quill at the desk behind him, the hollow thunk of Sirius's tail on the hearth rug before him, and the illusion made him feel sadly content. They were still here. He was the one who would be leaving. The one who had already left.

Just a few more days and he would be back in paradise. His troubles were over.

***

Lucius left him alone.

In fact, all of Slytherin House did. Whatever shortcomings Lucius may have had as a wizard, he possessed one quality that Severus did not – charisma. Though his grades were too poor to allow for his elevation to the status of an "official" house leader, most of Slytherin was far more likely to follow his lead than that of any prefect. It was hardly surprising that when Lucius started ignoring Severus, the sheep were quick to fall into line behind him. His housemates talked around him in the Great Hall, talked over him in the classroom and talked across him in the common room, until he began to get the surreal feeling that he actually was not there. The only time this pattern varied was at the beginning of each new school year, when a few of the incoming crop of nervous first years would invariably try to engage Severus in conversation. But even these tentative attempts at friendship would be aborted once they wised up to the house pecking order. Slytherins are noted for their ambition, and everyone was betting that association with Lucius Malfoy would be far more advantageous in the long run than association with the odd, dark boy who never smiled.

Whether this was out of respect for Lucius himself or fear of those with whom his family was connected was unclear. Severus privately believed it had to be the latter, as he saw absolutely nothing in Malfoy himself that merited anything other than utter contempt. Still, Voldemort was swiftly gaining power, and the Malfoys' favor with the Dark Lord was well known among the clannish group of Slytherin families whose youngest members were now being educated at Hogwarts. The writing was on the wall in four-foot high, bright orange letters, and the pressure to befriend Lucius was sharp from parents on both sides of the fence. Those already within Voldemort's circle hoped to use the friendship to further their own positions, while those without prayed that such a connection would help them gain the Dark Lord's mercy if – the gods forbid! – the need for it should ever arise.

In any case, his ongoing, unspoken feud with Lucius made life in the common room an uncomfortable ordeal for Severus. Being shunned was difficult enough; being whispered about behind the shield of open textbooks propped up on the table – or worse yet, being openly discussed without regard to his presence in the room – was intolerable. He tried to shrug it off and carry on as though none of it mattered, but he eventually became so sensitive to it that his stomach cramped with impotent anger whenever he saw two or more of his housemates with their heads together. Finally he decided the best course of action would be to remove himself from the situation altogether and do the majority of his studying in the library. It was a lonely existence, but eventually he grew accustomed to it, even began to enjoy it. He had always been something of a loner anyway, and the opportunity to spend vast stretches of uninterrupted time devoting himself to academia helped shape an exceptional student from one who might otherwise have only been above average.

He loved books. Loved to learn. Loved the feeling of being over his head when confronted with a new challenge and knowing that the only way out was through. He felt cheated when the answers came too easily, relishing the process of figuring something out almost as much as arriving at the correct solution. But his mastery of the difficult, while thrilling and surprising to his professors, only served to isolate Severus even further from his classmates. Now that he finally had something to feel superior about he grew arrogant in his successes, and his attitude did little to endear him to the students whose failures became fodder for his ongoing litany of contemptuous remarks.

Dunderheads, the lot of them, Severus thought derisively. With Malfoy at the head of the pack. If this was the pool from which Voldemort was to draw his next generation of followers, the wizarding world was sure to be safe as houses for many years to come. An image of Lucius in Death Eater's robes, stumbling about with a broken wand shooting streams of impotent white sparks from its tip flashed through his mind, and he snorted into his book. Nope. Nothing to worry about there.

***

The appeal of being alone with his beloved books began to wane when Severus came to the eye-opening realization that half the population of Hogwarts was comprised of members of the opposite sex. Hormones began to – quite literally – kick him in the balls during the summer between his third and fourth years, and when he returned to school in September he was suddenly aware that the corridors and classrooms were crawling with girls. How had he never noticed it before? The soft rustle of skirts beneath robes, the lilting timbre of feminine voices, the gentle swell of young breasts filling house sweaters that were larger now than a year ago… his head was turned in every direction as he drank in the thrilling changes his female classmates were undergoing.

Most of them were still nothing more than gawky adolescents, graceless and self-conscious and struggling to come to grips with their burgeoning sexuality. But Severus was self-aware enough to recognize that he was no prize, either, and being surrounded by such a tantalizing array of almost-women distracted him from his studies to such an extent that Professor Eldridge kept him after class one day to ask if anything was wrong. Blushing furiously, he promised to try harder and willed himself back to his former study habits. Problem was, the thoughts he sublimated during the daytime forced their way out at night, and he frequently woke up bathed in sweat and wrapped in sticky sheets, the tendrils of an erotic dream still curled around his brain. It was especially frustrating to watch his classmates form romantic attachments – everyone seemed to be walking around in pairs these days! – and begin to experiment with the things he had been dreaming about, knowing the chances of doing so himself were slim to none.

The caustic tongue with which he had been immolating his classmates was now coming back to haunt him. He had really grown quite nasty over the past few years, he had to admit to himself. It was such fun to watch their faces darken into glowers or flush red with anger and embarrassment when he flayed them with his words – even to see tears spring to the eyes of the more delicate ones – but it did make him rather the odd man out in the dating game. No one ever thought of him in anything close to a romantic way, and he retaliated for their indifference by becoming even more hateful, lacing his comments with liberal dollops of sarcasm on top of the malice.

By the end of his fourth year at Hogwarts, the only girl willing to give him the time of day was his potions partner, a red-haired, emerald-eyed Gryffindor prefect called Lily Evans. She alone bore his insults with good humor, and since she turned out to be fairly adept at potion making, she alone also earned Severus's respect. She was the type of girl who could talk to anyone about anything with casual ease, and from the first time Severus tried to taunt her with a cutting remark she answered in kind, giving as good as she got. Their time together in class quickly escalated into a battle of witticisms until it became a sort of dysfunctional flirtation between them. Severus soon found himself spending a great deal of time thinking about her. He also shagged her senseless on a regular basis… though unfortunately, it was only in his head. She provided more than enough fuel to keep his masturbatory fires burning bright and hot, but he knew that was as close as he would ever get to her. She had been dating James Potter for over a year now.

James fucking Potter. "Jims," Lily called him while they walked hand in hand from class to class, making Severus's throat tighten with envy and disgust. Star Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Top student. Obnoxious prat. And leader of the Feckless Four, as Severus had privately dubbed Potter and his band of low-life friends.

The Four had gone out of their way to make Severus's life hell since their first year at Hogwarts. Thank the gods they had finally outgrown the childish habit of sticking their feet out whenever Severus walked by, hoping to trip him up, though last year's ongoing prank of magicking frog entrails and Mooncalf dung into his book bag, his bed and even onto his dinner plate was hardly better. Black, especially, had earned a special place in hell as far as Severus was concerned. Pettigrew and Lupin were almost bearable – Pettigrew was a harmless dolt and Lupin… well… there was definitely something not quite right about Lupin, but Severus sometimes thought that under different circumstances, the two of them might have become friends.

But Black was a wanker of the first order. The wrong Sirius is dead, Severus often thought as he watched Black laughing and talking with his friends. Black never missed an opportunity to humiliate Severus by making him the butt of a joke, and on the few occasions that he bested Severus academically, he crowed about it endlessly until the Slytherin's wand hand cramped with the denial of hexing the sodding bastard into oblivion. One incident in particular finally pushed Severus over the edge and set in motion a chain of events that solidified his hatred of the raven-haired Gryffindor for all time.

It was on a Tuesday morning late in their fourth year, when the Slytherins and Gryffindors met in the dungeon for their weekly potions lesson. As usual, Lily was already in the classroom when he arrived and he slid into place at the lab table next to her, tucking his book bag neatly under his chair. She looked particularly pretty that morning, her luxurious mane of red hair falling around her ears in a newly-fashioned cap of thick waves.

"Nice hair, Evans," he sneered. "Did you comb it with an eggbeater this morning?"

"And good morning to you, Severus," she replied good naturedly. "Why don't you try something new with your hair, too – like washing it?"

He smothered a grin as Professor Eldridge strode to the front of the room and cleared his throat to begin the lesson. She really was great fun to be around.

"Today we will be preparing a medicinal fungicide serum," Eldridge informed them. "You will find the recipe on page 258 in your textbooks. I will be coming around to your stations with vials of streeler venom. You should have the rest of the ingredients you need in your potion kits."

The room filled with the sound of shuffling pages as the class opened their books to the specified page. Severus scanned the recipe quickly, noting with some satisfaction that it was a difficult preparation and would therefore be a worthwhile test of his skills.

Professor Eldridge moved from table to table with a tray of stoppered glass vials, each filled with clear liquid. "Please wear your gloves while you are handling the venom," he instructed, thunking a vial down on the table in front of Potter and Black. "It will produce quite a bad burn if it comes into contact with your skin."

"Ah, finally something nasty to work with," Lily said under her breath. "That's just what you've been waiting for, eh Severus?"

"Nothing new," he replied. "I work with you every week, do I not?"

She bit back a laugh as the professor deposited the venom at their workstation. When he had swept past them to go onto the next pair, she licked the tip of her index finger and drew an invisible line in the air in front of her. "Score one for you," she whispered, grinning hugely. But Severus was too distracted at the sight of her pink, pointed tongue laving her fingertip to be overly pleased with his small victory. The image was sure to play a starring role in his daydreams for weeks to come.

They worked steadily for most of the period, carefully chopping roots and measuring powders. Severus worked meticulously, mesmerized as always by the sharp tap of metal knives on stone cutting boards, the soft bloop of viscous liquids coming to a slow boil. He watched as Lily skillfully adjusted the flame under the cauldron until it licked the pewter underside at precisely the right height, then used a dropper to infuse five drops of the streeler venom into their serum. The smell of the potion was vile but Severus barely noticed, so enthralled was he by the magic taking shape under his hands.

Eldridge leaned over their station and peered down into the cauldron. "Excellent work, Mr. Snape, Miss Evans," he intoned, wrinkling his nose in a combination of appreciation and disgust as the pungent wisps of steam curled up into his face. "Keep stirring that, now. You'll want to be sure it is heated evenly throughout."

Lily and Severus dutifully took turns stirring the contents of their cauldron – three turns clockwise, three turns counterclockwise, wait exactly thirty seconds, repeat. When the potion turned a sickly shade of yellowish green, Severus doused the flames and quickly ladled the finished product into an opaque glass bottle, fitting the top with a cork stopper. One by one the teams around them were also finishing up their preparations, and the room came to life with sound and movement as students began walking their cauldrons and other tools to the gargoyle to scrub them clean, talking and joking as they worked.

Severus was busily rearranging the contents of his potions kit when Black sidled up to their table. "All right, Lils?" the other boy asked. "How'd your potion turn out? I hope Snape didn't screw it up too badly."

Severus looked up to see Black grinning at him wickedly. The Gryffindor's forearms were still encased in his worn dragonhide gloves, and he held a vial of streeler venom in one hand. "Bugger off, Black," he snarled. His dislike of Black aside, any inference that his potion-making skills were less than stellar always infuriated him.

"Sirius," Lily said in a tone that clearly held a warning. "Leave us be, please."

Black held up one gloved hand in a mock gesture of conciliation. "Sorry, Lils," he replied. "Actually, I came over to ask your expert opinion on something, Snape."

Severus felt his eyes narrow in suspicion. This couldn't be good.

"Our potion didn't turn out quite right," Black continued, "and James thinks it might be because our venom has lost its potency. What do you think, Snape?" And with that, he quickly drew up a dropperful of the venom and squirted it directly into Severus's face.

It burned. Dear gods, how it burned! White-hot streaks of pain across his cheek and the bridge of his nose. It felt like it was boring its way through the skin and cartilage and eating into the bone itself. Severus gasped and covered his mouth and nose with his hands, sure that the skin was going to peel off in great blistering sheets any moment now. "You… you ruddy… bastard…" he spluttered, unable to form a complete thought.

"Sirius!" Lily shrieked. "What the fuck are you doing?!"

Black was nearly bent double with laughter. "Relax, Lils," he wheezed, barely able to choke out the words. "It's only hot water. Watch." He brought the vial to his lips and tipped the contents down his throat in a single gulp.

Severus dropped his hands and jumped to his feet, humiliation and rage overcoming the rapidly fading bite of the hot liquid on his face. He could feel his pulse pounding in every part of his body. He wanted to pound Black's face into the table until the blood poured from his eye sockets. He wanted to snap the Gryffindor's spine in half like a twig. He wanted to do anything and everything he could to punish the miserable prick, to make him suffer. To make him HURT.

He snatched his wand from its hiding place in the pocket of his robes and had it leveled between Black's eyes with a shaking hand when Professor Eldridge rushed up to the scene. "What's going on here?" the potions master demanded.

"Just a prank, Professor," Black replied, mischievous grin still firmly in place even as he stared down the shaft of Snape's wand. "Severus and I were just having a bit of fun."

Eldridge looked back and forth between the two boys, assessing the situation. "I see," he said slowly. "Mr. Snape, put your wand away. You boys know better than to act up like this in my classroom. Ten points will be deducted from each of your houses. And don't let it happen again."

"Sorry, sir," Black responded, turning away and heading back toward his workstation.

"That's not fair, sir!" Lily cried. "Severus wasn't…."


But Eldridge cut her off. "Mind your own business, Miss Evans," he ordered. "This doesn't concern you."

Severus's knees began to buckle with the shock of all that had occurred, and he shakily lowered himself into his chair again as Eldridge stalked off. "Are you all right, Severus?" Lily asked quietly, patting his shoulder uncertainly.

He shrugged off the touch. "Leave me alone," he hissed. "You and your despicable friends can go straight to hell."

"I'm sorry," she whispered miserably just as the bell signaling the end of the period rang. "Sirius is a real arsehole." Her voice hardened. "He will be hearing from me about this, I promise you."

Severus watched as she gathered up her books and marched out of the room without pausing at the door to wait for the Four as she usually did. Black, Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew left together in a whispering, snickering knot, and he could hear their laughter echoing down the hallway as they walked on to their next class.

Enough was enough. They had finally pushed him too far. They were always doing something to get into trouble, and it seemed no one had the guts to stand up to them and put a stop to it. No more. Severus resolved right then and there that he was going to keep a close eye on them – shadow their every move if necessary – until he had enough evidence of their wrongdoing to have them all expelled. They would pay for using him as their whipping boy. He would see to that.

"Do you plan on daydreaming the rest of your day away, Mr. Snape?" Eldridge's voice cut through his thoughts. "I believe you have another class to go to?"

"Yes sir," Severus replied tightly through clenched teeth. He snatched his book bag from beneath his chair and stormed out of the dungeon.

The last laugh would be his, and it would be sweet.

More A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to update. Work has become really REALLY busy all of a sudden (as I am self-employed, this is a *good* thing), and I don't currently have a lot of free time to write. This chapter was written two or three paragraphs at a time over the course of two weeks. I promise I will update again as soon as I can!

And thanks again to all who have reviewed. It keeps me inspired.