Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
The boy lay on his bed in a darkened room, staring blankly at the ceiling. Large, fat black flies crawled over it.
The flies that represented his enemies.
Mother, Father.
Potter, Black.
Lupin, Pettigrew.
Marlene, Henry.
Evans, Malfoy.
There were reasons, he reasured himself. Perfectly good reasons.
He just couldn't remember them.
Nevertheless...Pale fingers gripped the wand. He would do it. He was strong enough.
He could prove that he was not weak and cowardly, snivelling and grovelling. They had no rights the crawl upon his ceiling, to buzz aroung his head. Snape let go of the wand, then curled his fingers back around it in a spellcasting position.
"Goodbye Mother! Goodbye Father!" He exclaimed with forced cheeriness.
The wand came up. The spell was spoken. The two flies on the lampshade came to a fast and sticky end.
"Now Pettigrew!" He called, aiming at one of the smallest, most jittery flies. Then he stopped and took a long drag from a dark green bottle, which had, a few hours previously, been full to the brim.
It was now only two-thirds full.
"D'you know something, Pettigrew? I used to like you, for a bit. Then-" he waved one hand expansively, "-You fell in with the wrong group. But of course, Pettigrew, you had to start whining. I do not like whining, Peter. You snivelled too much. It was unfair, really, that you hung around Potter so much, but he didn't actually notice it on you. He noticed it on me. Not that I ever snivelled. It was, you understand, unjust.
So you will die." Peter was moving about on the ceiling now, making it hard to aim. "Damn it you stupid fly!" Severus roared. "You made me kill Henry!" Attempting to leap to his feet, but instead ending up on the floor, Snape pulled himself up by means of the wardrobe and punched the ceiling where Peter was, leaving a dark smudge on the white paint
And a dent.
Biting his lip in order to distract himself from the pain, the boy looked cautiously at his left hand. It was unblemished.
He then remembered that the fist he had struck the ceiling with was his right hand, and looked at it.
It was swelling up already, and a deep gash along his knuckles was welling up with blood.
"Oh dear." Severus Snape remarked dryly.
-
"Oh dear!" Remus Lupin exclaimed, looking around desperately for a table to put his dripping mug of hot chocolate on. Nothing presented itself. Wrinkling his brow in frustration, he opted for simply putting it on the floor and hoping Padfoot wouldn't try to drink it before it cooled down. Then he looked sadly at the book he had been holding. It was soaked.
"What's up, Moony?" James called from the doorway.
"The book! Look at the poor book!" Remus wailed, feeling helpless.
"Oh. Look mate, you can probably put it in the laundry cupboard and hope it'll dry out without sticking together. Will that help?"
"No!" Remus snapped, trying to prise apart some of the more unruly pages, which were already clinging to each other. "Look, I'm sorry, but it's so near full moon and the book-"
"It'll be fine. Look, I'll buy you a new one if you want." Seeing Remus brighten up a bit, he pressed on. "Anyway, Padfoot's been all over that one. It's all covered in Padfooty-ness." The book, was, indeed, a bit stained and worn, with bits of food and dirty marks all over it.
"I suppose so." Moony didn't feel like metioning it was, in actual fact, his diary. Luckily, Sirius had encountered it in dog form, and, after trampling all over it he had moved on and forgotten about it. And anyway, since boys did not keep diaries, he could always just hope James would forget his offer and let Remus bury it deep in the dustbin.
"Hallo!" Sirius bounded into the room, holding something tightly in his hands.
"What is that?"
"Oh, it's a hamster Muggles keep them as pets. They're really fluffy and they run around like lunatics."
"Okay." Remus said, looking at Sirius' hands with one eyebrow raised.
-
"Okay." Severus said later, glaring at the flies. "Lupin." The Lupin-Fly dropped from it's position on the bookshelf. "Black." The Black-Fly also dropped, from it's high and lordly position upside-down on the ceiling. "Malfoy. Marlene. I still can't believe you ran off with Malfoy, little sister." Both flies fell from where they had been sitting together on the bed. "Evans. For pitying me. I do not need pity."
Perhaps it was the mention of the always-forgiving Evans, or something else, but Snape looked at the last fly with something like regret etched on his face. "James." The fly was buzzing around in a panic, having seen what had happened to it's comrades.
"James, for some absurd reason I don't want to kill you. You may be the worst of the lot but-" The boy faltered. "And anyway," He added, smiling now, partly in relief, "I can repay you now. A life for a life!" He declared and opened the window. The fly buzzed out quickly and Snape sat on the bed, feeling happy and elated.
-
Years later, when Harry Potter arrived at Hogwarts, and Snape was sober, he realised he had not really repayed the debt.
-
A/N: This is one-shot, and may not make sense. Constructive critisism is welcomed. Thank you for reading.