Dear Readers:

Here is the latest chapter, and I hope that it meets with your approval. Thanks for the reviews, as well. I love to hear what you are thinking!

Sincerely,

Chaos

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Like Cats and Dogs

Chapter 2

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The library was cool and silent; no students disturbed the book dust suspended in golden light of the late summer sun.

Sirius Black had come to the library more out of a need for refuge than anything else. Lupin was still furious with him and with Snape the Snake. It would take some time for the normally gentle man to get over his mad, and after sincere apologies over causing Remus distress - and less sincere apologies over his attack on Severus - Sirius had retreated for a time.

Wandering the halls of Hogwarts was a surreal experience for him. Sometimes he could almost swear that James would be just around the next corner, dressed in his Quidditch robes and vowing that they'd hammer Slytherin into the pitch this time. Maybe Lupin would be walking along with Peter tagging at his heels, both of them talking about some fascinating new spell. Maybe Sirius could even run into himself, and remember what it was like to believe that the world could be now as it was then - safe, innocent, with no worries greater than planning the next Marauder's adventure.

"But then I'd have to put up with seeing a lot more of Whisp than I do now." Sirius muttered.

Severus hated that nickname almost as much as he hated Sirius - not only because Sirius had been the one to give it to him, but because it had stuck.

"Well, he was a little thing." Sirius muttered to the bust of Olaf the Odd.

Indeed, eleven year-old Severus Snape had been 'no bigger than a whisper.' Sirius had teased the intense-looking, quiet boy the whole way up on the Hogwarts Express. By the time they had been sorted into their houses Severus Snape had been 'Whisper' Snape - later to be called 'Whisp' when he managed to get some height but could not manage to be anything but slender. 

A wry smile crossed Sirius' face as he remembered Whisp's reaction - Sirius had been hit with more hexes in his first month at the school than he at any point in his life before or since. Boils, rashes, itching in places that one could not scratch, rude gastric disturbances, acne that no amount of bubotuber pus could allay, and more - and it was only because James caught Snape in the act that Sirius ever knew. It was funny the things that you thought of so many years later. In fact Sirius remembered the initial battle in the war...

"LET ME GO!" For a little thing, Severus had a set of lungs on him. Cornered between classes near the greenhouses by James, Sirius, Remus and Peter - the smaller boy had fought back viciously when the four had ambushed him.

The situation had gone from bad to worse to completely out of control and they'd had to tie Whisp up in his own robes. With black eyes glittering dangerously, brows drawn into a tight scowl, and his nose dripping blood from an accidental encounter with Sirius' foot, the pint-sized dark wizard was literally vibrating with sheer fury. James and Remus held the smaller boy off the ground, Lupin with his lip puffed to the size of a sausage and James with an eye that was swelling shut under a purple-black bruise. Unmarked Peter kept a nervous lookout, while Sirius glared at the their defiant captive.

"Happy to. Just remove the hex and you can slither off to your dungeons." James spoke sensibly. "If you'd been reasonable in the first place..."

The little punk then had the effrontery to sneer at them. "If I'd been reasonable? What about him?" The arrogant and lazy drawl that characterized the speech of so many pure-bloods was gone, replaced with a quick, snapping manner.

Sirius looked down at Severus - the act of doing so impaired by a massive, red, glaring zit right on the end of Sirius' nose.

Remus spoke gently. "Be that as it may, Severus, he's not the one tossing hexes left and right."

"Try living with a nickname like 'Whisper' and then we'll talk." A thin slash appeared between the black eyebrows. "Until then, bugger off."

"We are talking, Whisp." Sirius advanced threateningly. "You're just not listening."

Severus seemed to draw in on himself and Sirius was forcibly reminded of Kali - his mother's feline familiar - just before she engaged in violent and destructive mayhem.

"Come on now, Severus, take it off him." Lupin cajoled. "You've both been awful. If you both apologize and ignore each other -"

"It doesn't change a thing." Severus finished the sentence with jaw jutting stubbornly. "Now LET ME G-!"

Sirius slammed his right hand over Severus' mouth, cupping his left behind the boy's head. "What we have here, Whisper, you slimy little git, is a failure to communicate. I - YEEOW!"

Bright pain slammed up his arm as sharp teeth broke skin and he felt slick warmth in the palm of his hand. With a roar of outrage Sirius slammed his free hand into Severus' head. Remus dropped his grip on the boy to pull Sirius away, yelling that Sirius had lost his bloody mind and what was he doing? James' breath whooshed out of his body and then he was curled into a ball on the ground with hands cupped between his legs - dropped by a swing of a pale and oddly delicate-looking fist. Severus ran for freedom, blowing past Peter with a quick hex that pitched the plump boy face first into the mud.

From out of control, the situation spun right into potential disaster. Sirius and Remus gave chase, stunned at how fast the agile little bastard could run. Soon, Remus - frail even then - dropped back, leaving Sirius to close the distance.

Sirius landed on Whisp, smashing the breath out of him and sending his wand skittering across the stone of the walkway.

All hell broke loose. The tiny, pale boy fought like a dragon, seemingly heedless of the damage he might sustain as long as he was landing some of it back on Sirius. Sirius wondered just what he'd gotten himself into; how had lightly-meant teasing blown into such a firestorm?

He could hear James and Remus coming closer, shouting unintelligibly and Peter screaming, "Sirius, RUN!"

Severus suddenly went very, very still. "Oh... no." The sheer dread in Severus' voice was enough to rivet Sirius' attention; he found himself looking at a pair of impeccably polished black oxfords attached to likewise impeccably tailored grey wool trousers. Eyes traveling farther up he found - much to his growing dismay - a prefect's badge pinned to the fine black robe.

And right next to the prefect's badge was the Slytherin House crest.

Though he knew whom it was standing over him, Sirius forced his gaze higher. Pale skin, shoulder length white-blond hair that girls would kill for and cold silver-grey eyes - all stacked up to equal Lucius Malfoy.

"Well." Malfoy's mouth lengthened into a smile as cold as his voice. "What have we here? A strapping Gryffindor beating the snot out of a much smaller Slytherin?" His eyes raised and swept over the three boys behind him. "Perhaps it would be a group effort? How very brave of you, Gryffindors, to attack such a threat!"

James spoke from behind Sirius, "I know what this looks like, but that's not how it is!"

Malfoy had mended Snape's broken nose with a simple "Rescariossus." However, the hex the boy had placed on Sirius stood. Lucius pointed out that whatever the provocation, that four Gryffindors has assaulted a very small Slytherin and that Peter, Sirius, James and Remus were just bloody lucky that Professor McGonagall had not caught them - otherwise they'd be missing points and adding detention.

In retrospect, Sirius thought glumly, they could have just wrapped Severus Snape up in ribbons and handed him to Voldemort. Lucius Malfoy had added Severus immediately to his little garden of followers – and if one listened to rumor, to his bed before Severus was legally of age. The whole little clique had made much of the dark arts prodigy in their midst. They praised the boy and encouraged him, showering him with attention and affection – given such a heady draught, the child Severus had been had never stood a chance.

Severus' dorm mates boasted about him and his abilities to anyone who would listen. Harold Avery - a rank and sniveling coward - bragged about Severus hexing his feet back to front when Harold hit him with a water balloon. Evan Rosier - called 'Rosie,' to his everlasting dismay - was a dab hand with Charms and had often been Severus' partner in mayhem. Charles Wilkes could be counted on to aide, abet and offer airtight alibis. Abelard LeStrange, a scary character if ever there was one, often acted as bodyguard and all-purpose muscle.

Every last one of them became a Death Eater. Rosier and Wilkes were dead, LeStrange in Azbakan, Avery was hiding under a desk at the Ministry and Severus had apparently turned spy for Dumbledore at some point - for what reason, Albus refused to say.

Sirius prowled the stacks restlessly. He wanted to put aside his feud with Whisp, as Albus Dumbledore had asked, but found the old enmity seeping to the surface no matter how he tried to keep it down. McGonagall was right; no matter what had happened or how much time had passed, Sirius and Severus fought like cats and dogs – they always had.

Yes, Sirius wished wholeheartedly for a return to that innocent time, where all they had to worry about was losing house points and detention. Why was it that youth always seemed like a peculiar type of torment when one was young and a golden age when one was older?

With a shake of his head for the vagaries of time, Sirius turned his attention to the stacks. If he had to lie low for a bit, at least he could do it in a well-stocked library. He smiled as he saw a familiar title, 'A History of the Animagus in Modern Times,' which had given him and James the idea to attempt the transformation in the first place. The book was as heavy as he remembered when he pulled it off the shelf, and was easily as thick as Sirius' hand was wide.

Something made Sirius stop short and peer into the stack. Being on the run had honed his instinct for the out of place and there was something definitely out of place.

A small triangle of green was poking up out of a space between the ancient oak of the shelf and the stone of the wall. Carefully – for some books had some very vigorous protection spells on them – he reached into the space with a finger and brushed the object.

Nothing.

Carefully, Sirius grasped the triangle with his thumb and forefinger, teasing it out of its hiding place.

It was a small book, and very old, no doubt about that; but though the green leather cover was cracked and dry, the silver embossing tarnished, the title was perfectly readable.

"A Historie of Very Bad Thinges – A Compendium and Commentaries Upon All Manner of Dirty Trickes, by Geoffrey Archimedes Ladywell," Sirius murmured and opened a page at random.

'... and thenn did Gwynn waxe wroth and hurl a visious hex at the Dutchman, instantly transposing his haire for his bottockes.'

Well.

Sirius repaired to a far corner of the library with his books. Settling in a corner, he slipped the small green book into the massive history book and began  to read. Some entries prompted smiles, others snickers and snorts, but a few of the chronicles made him bite his lips to keep in outright belly laughs. Oh, just for a chance to use some of this!

The sun changed its angle, moving from morning to afternoon as Sirius read. His demeanor changing as he began to page back and forth within the book.

"Thee Spelle of Revealation is one that maye be used to ascertaine thy Opponent's Animagus Forme. Even if the Talent is dormant, you shall know theyr shape, and with the Enchantemente of Converto Animagus Preoccupo ye maye..."

Boomslang skin, three hairs from the head of one's opponent, silver, graphorn hide... Sirius found himself wriggling in a most canine anticipation. Oh, this was too good to pass up!