Chapter 4 - Black as Pitch

NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That one word echoed through Severus Snape's mind as his body hit the dark water with a crack. He winced at the impact and then felt himself sinking.

Sinking.

He would drown.

And then –

Something within made him raise his arms and then pull them down sharply. Perhaps it was an atavistic memory from Professor McGonagall's brief transformation, or it was –

No I will NOT drown --!

Something else. The boy had tapped into his boundless anger, and his body instinctively reacted to preserve his life. Storm-bands of rage coursed through his being in shockwaves of empowerment.

Yes

Yes, I like this.

I feel – powerful.

Severus felt his body stream upward, the cold water smooth against his body, and felt his face break the surface.

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It was only a minute later that Severus Snape burst through the doors of the Great Hall, eyes burning with deadly fire and fury pulsing through his thin frame.

In the split second before he located Sirius Black, Severus realized that he was comfortable feeling this way. Very comfortable. And why not? If his guardian and mentor wanted him to become a Death Eater, then he'd better learn to take a Death Eater's revenge.

He went right for Black. Sirius had just sat there watching him come with a clueless expression on his handsome face. The few times that Snivelly actually had the stones to hit him back, the Gryffindor had pounded him right into the Hospital Wing. Before Remus Lupin even had a chance to warn him Severus had Sirius by the throat, throttling him with a force of accumulated humiliation and shame. Both students crashed to the floor and the fight was on.

The Headmaster stood up, ready because his own Dark magic detectors had sounded shortly before the Slytherin boy's arrival in the Great Hall.

The assembled students stood or craned their necks to see. They had all seen the "greasy git" angry before, but not like this. The poisonous swirls of Dark magic sliding off the Slytherin boy like tendrils of black ink in water made several of the more sensitive pupils throw up what they'd just eaten.

Sirius Black did his best to fight back, but found his own spells confounded by those thrown by Snape. The Slytherin enjoyed feeling the curses bubble up from deep from within, shimmering their way from his soul into his fingertips and wand. Snivelly was Dark, all right.

He was black, in fact. Black as pitch. Severus giggled at the ironic turn of phrase.

"SEVERUS!" pulsed a voice inside his head.

It was Father.

"Child! Listen to me!"

Ignore it. Fight.

"SEVERUS, YOU MUST STOP!"

He would not! He was not a coward!

"YOU MUST NOT PRACTICE THE DARK ARTS HERE AT THE SCHOOL!"

Sev would not back down, and to prove it he cast a particularly vicious maiming charm that sent Sirius Black into mindless screaming within seconds. If he could only remember the one that twisted its victim's intestines into knots –!

Severus felt two hands on his shoulders. Instinctively, he dropped down to his heels and twisted his body like he had when escaping from his father. The two hands merely lowered along with him, remaining gently yet firmly on his bony shoulders.

Easy, child

No

You must stop

NO!

Incantatus Wakefield, the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, came on the run from the Head Table, followed by Rubeus Hagrid. Before they could reach them, Albus cast an invisibility spell around the two boys and then immobilized them.

NO FATHER

Yes

WANT TO KILL HIM!

Easy

LET ME GO!

Calm down Son

Visible now, both boys felt themselves being pushed beyond the double doors of the Great Hall and outside. Within moments, Sirius was freed from Snape's hexes and was sent hurrying with Hagrid to the Infirmary. Professor Wakefield stood swollen with disapproval, his lip curling at the lunatic student now held immobilized by the Headmaster.

Albus raised his head. "Run along, won't you, Professor? You can finish your dessert and tea while I talk with Mr. Snape."

His eyes widening at the perceived insult – after all, it should be the D.A.D.A. teacher who should go about reversing the boy's Dark enchantments – the teacher whirled on his heel, leaving Albus and Severus still crouched on the ground at the bottom of the cold marble steps.

Professor Wakefield re-entered the Great Hall and noted the greater calm almost immediately. Without a spectacle to distract them from their mutton chops and twice-baked potatoes, the students had gone back to eating, the room filling once more with the persistent murmur of a thousand children talking all at once.

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Within moments, Severus found himself in the Headmaster's study.

Reminding himself to ask Dumbledore just how he'd pulled that off despite the ban on Apparation at Hogwarts, the boy sat quietly a moment before he spoke. "Don't scold me, Father," Severus said. "I was only taking advantage of the latest opportunity to appear more vengeful than ever against the Maraudiots. It was just the latest link of a chain I'll forge to convince everyone that I hate everything Gryffindor enough to go over to Voldemort."

Albus wiped his forehead with a pocket-handkerchief. "Well," he sighed. "I suppose you're right, my boy. We won't know the final event that will turn you into a Death Eater until it happens, of course. But I must admit that your tearing into Sirius Black during dinner – sopping wet, your eyes flaming with hate, and immediately hitting him with a half-dozen Dark hexes – had the desired effect."

Sev looked up at Albus' face. "Can we just forget about it, then?"

"No, child," the Headmaster replied. "I need to give you some sort of egregiously unfair punishment now, don't I? To show my bias against Slytherin House in general and you in particular?"

Severus moaned. "I was hoping you'd forget about that part."

Dumbledore clapped his hands together once and a House Elf appeared.

"Is you hungry, Headmaster sir and little Silvery Snake?"

"Yes, thank you, Ilse. Why don't you bring us a tray of poppyseed cakes, some butterscotch fudge, and at least five different kinds of ice cream. Surprise us, won't you?"

With a happy nod of her head, the little mite Disapparated and was back in less than ten seconds.

"Well, at least you won't have the Heavy Hand of the Headmaster descending upon you like Doom without having a full stomach," Albus said to the smiling Slytherin boy. "Right?"

"As rain! I like this butterscotch stuff almost as much as the divinity!"

"You're a halfway decent actor too, child. Make sure everybody thinks you were all but tortured in here instead of lounging around stuffing your face with sweets."

"Mmmrph," Severus replied, stuffing two pieces of fudge into his mouth at once.

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The circumstances surrounding The Punishment of Severus Snape were the hot topic of the following morning's breakfast.

"I heard him yelling that he hated the Headmaster," a Ravenclaw solemnly declared to her friends. "He said he hated his guts and he didn't care if he was thrown out of Hogwarts because he had a better place to go anyway."

A nearby roommate leaned forward confidentially. "Durmstrang, you know," she hissed.

"Oh, really? Oooh! Snape really is going bad, isn't he?" said another.

"Well, he IS a Slytherin, after all."

"Thus spake the Clueless twins," growled Artemisia Vox, doing her best to quash the impulse to transfigure them into a pair of Tibetan yaks.

"Most of them go bad just because they – I don't have the right phrase for it – "

A Ravenclaw Seventh-Year boy leaned over and caught her attention.
"Because they have the propensity for it, you little goose."

"Oh, get stuffed, Malcolm," the girl replied, spreading butter on her muffin.

"Today should be interesting in the Defense Against the Dark Arts class

we share with Slytherin," Malcolm Coolidge continued, having caught everyone's ear. "I'll listen for any more juicy Snips tidbits. Maybe he'll go off on the teacher today and transfigure him into a Lethifold or something!"

"Maybe," yet another Ravenclaw commented. "Would you pass the pumpkin juice, please?"

"Or maybe something stronger so I can get this incessant whiny yammering out of my ears?" added Adonia Vox.

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The astonishing thing had happened later that day when Snape was in the library.

He had just returned from taking a hot shower; the cold waters of the lake had set a chill in his bones that was difficult to quell. The ends of his hair were still damp, in fact. He was concentrating on his Charms Seminar notes when Evan Ryper took the seat next to his, sliding his books along the tabletop until they rested against Snape's.

"Working hard or hardly working, Snips?" Evan asked with his usual grin when a Sixth-Year Gryffindor girl named Asenath Paroo suddenly got up from her seat and sprinted over to them. She grabbed Sev's face, tilted it up, and then kissed him full on the mouth. She then turned and raced down the Magickal World racks, giggling madly.

"What the Hells?" Evan gasped, not believing what he'd seen.

Severus, of course, sat in a pleasant fog that made him want to giggle madly himself. Could it be that the Gryffindor girl had overcome her shyness to show the object of her crush how irresistible he was?

Snape wondered if it was the fight with Black that impressed her; girls liked that sort of thing. After all, one couldn't have a girlfriend if one was a big sniveling baby. The thought cheered him. He felt a bit of a thrill racing through him and a smile appeared on his usually emotionless face.

The best he could hope for is that Sirius Black was sweet on her, and that her spontaneous show of affection for Snape was just another proverbial twist of the knife.

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Still panting from exertion, Asenath met the Marauders behind the Potions section.

"Five galleons, please," she whispered, holding out her palm.

"All right. I suppose you more than earned it," snickered Sirius Black, his left eye still as bruised as his pride.

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