A Matter of Black and White

DISCLAIMER: This story is based upon the works of JK Rowling. Anything you recognize is hers. I’m making no money off of this. I’m just having some fun adding my own little corner to the amazing world she has already created.

I'm not quite sure how to change the summary details on the contents page, but I thought I'd note that this story includes lemons as well as limes. Hmm, I think there's one coming up now...

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CHAPTER 23—IT STINKS TO BE A SLYTHERIN

Despite his admonitions for Aurora to put an end to the late nights, Snape himself was late to bed on Tuesday. Unlike Aurora, however, Snape hadn’t been depriving himself from sleep for a bit of frivolous entertainment. In fact, crushing porcupine quills with his bare hands would have been more entertaining than the activities that had kept Snape from his bed. He had gone to a Death Eater meeting in which he had had to report on some potions experiments that the Dark Lord had assigned to him, and Bellatrix had made certain to point out that Snape’s progress was slow at best. The Dark Lord had agreed and delivered Snape a round of Crucio as incentive to speed up the pace. Weary and aching, the pain of torture still ringing through his bones, Snape hadn’t fallen into bed until 3 a.m.

Ordinarily, Snape woke up at precisely 6:30 a.m. He was not one of those weak souls who required an alarm clock; he rose on sheer willpower alone. Wednesday morning, however, was one of those rare occasions in which his body got the better of his willpower, and he didn’t open an eye until some time after 7:00, when he heard his Slytherins rattling around in the hallway on their way to breakfast. Had the aftermath not entailed a lot of dreary paperwork, Snape would have happily cursed out the vocal chords of each and every one of the little blighters who had forgotten how to use their inside voices. Instead, he pressed a pillow over his head and decided to indulge himself with an extra-long lie-in throughout breakfast and his open first period.

Snape had no sooner muffled the sounds of Slytherins tramping up the steps to the Great Hall than he slipped into a fitful dream. In his sleep, he was a young Death Eater exuberated by one of his first revels. The Dark Lord had been kind and had sent him on an assignment to ransack an ancient church, knowing full well how the young man would relish the chance to defile the sacred symbols from his youth. He leaned against a monument in the churchyard, dizzy from the heady rush of magic that had shattered glass and torn tapestries and made him feel like a fallen Lucifer—damned and depraved but somehow still elevated by his audacity to defy God.

“Do you always exert yourself so quickly?” These words came from a fuller, less pale, pre-Azkaban Bellatrix Lestrange.

“I never knew it could be so…so…intense,” the young man breathed.

“Just wait, boy, there are things even better.”

“There are?” the young man breathed.

From behind her mask, Bellatrix’s eyes flashed like a leopardess’ in the night. “Yes, if you know what you want.”

The wizard considered the possibilities. “I…I want success. I want respect. I want…power.”

Bellatrix stepped closer to him. “Isn’t there anything else you want?” She bent her head to remove her mask. Under dark lashes, her black eyes slowly raised to capture his gaze.

Snape flushed but put forth a youthful bravado. “I think those things will buy me anything else I desire.”

Bellatrix’s laughter came in deep shades of crimson and maroon which matched her painted lips. “And until then?” she asked. “What will you do to fulfill your desires?”

This time, the inexperienced Death Eater had nothing to say.

The raven-haired witch reached a gloss-nailed hand to his face and removed his mask. His eyes fluttered as if they had been exposed to an unexpected light.

“I know you’ve always desired my sister,” she breathed into the young wizard’s ear, “but perhaps you’d be willing to scratch the itch of one more willing?”

“I’ve known Lucius for years…,” the young wizard faltered, more horror-struck by the truth of her first accusation than attune to the proposition in the second half of her statement.

Bellatrix smiled wryly. “Which is exactly the reason my brother-in-law would be shocked to hear you’ve been coveting his wife.” She tapped a finger against his pale lips. “Don’t worry, Severus, I won’t tell a soul. My lips…,” she kissed him, “…are sealed.”

This time Snape could not fail to take heed of her advance, and he lost himself in the in the foreign richness of her kiss. He knew he should be thinking about the woman’s husband, Rodolphus, but at the moment a lustful mist was clouding his brain. What did it matter if she was married? She was a Pureblood, and he was…pure enough. The Dark Lord overlooked such things amongst his own followers, after all. How, in this exhilarating moment, could Snape think about what would happen if Rodolphus discovered he’d been made a cuckold? What did that matter when right now, in this heady moment of physicality, Snape was the one doing the cuckolding?

Bellatrix’s hot tongue thrust between his lips, parting them roughly. For a moment, the young wizard regretted his garlicky dinner, but he forgot this thought at the more immediate and exotic taste of Bellatrix in his mouth. He was trying to discern the precise makeup of her flavor when she withdrew her tongue and started forging a path of kisses up his jawbone. She pushed back his hair like an explorer laying back weeds and uncovered the prize of his flushed ear. This she claimed by enveloping the flushed flesh in her mouth. Snape shivered as her tongue discovered the hidden terrain behind his ear and her hands started exploring the more southern parts of his anatomy. She had the touch of a conquering queen as she blazed a trail like fire that ran down the front of his thighs, then back and around to his buttocks, then circled back around in triumph to the swell at his crotch.

“Is it true,” she asked throatily, “that Half-bloods have extra-long dicks?”

The young Snape flushed at her forwardness. The part of him to which she was referring, the part that wanted to promise her that he was endowed like a giant, was being silenced by the part of him that had always waited until odd hours to shower in the Slytherin dormitory so as not to see or be seen. It was the part of him in which his father’s sermons about the sins of the flesh still echoed and combined with the memories of the Marauders jeering at his awkward, scrawny teenage body. He wasn’t sure how he compared to the rest of the wizard population, and he was both eager and frightened to find out.

Bellatrix pushed him back onto the raised granite cover slab of one of the graves. The stone was cold and hard against his back, but he paid little heed to the discomfort there because of the wonderful sensations he was experiencing at his front. Snape watched, wide-eyed and feeling like he was viewing a Pensieve memory from afar, as Bellatrix unbuttoned his robes with confident efficiency. He finally surrendered to the moment, though, when she started breathing a hot, sultry trail down his chest. He closed his eyes and let his sensitized skin do the seeing as she explored lowered and lower. Snape inhaled deeply as his imagination fast-forwarded to the moment when she would reach the waistband of his trousers and hopefully delve even lower.

The sensations of her hands pressing against his chest, her breath warming his skin, and the wisps of her hair brushing along his sides was too much to process. Distantly, he thought that there was something he must do, some pleasure he could return to her, but he could not think of what that magic might be. He couldn’t think at all.

Then fantasy became reality, and Bellatrix found the buttons of his trousers. Snape wanted to watch her release each silver disc from its notch, but his anxiety about her reaction to what she would find made him keep his eyes firmly shut. She released the last of the buttons and parted the fabric, and Snape could feel his hardening erection saluting her in the cool night air.

“Yes,” he heard her say. “You are definitely a Half-blood.”

Snape opened his eyes in time to find Bellatrix descending upon him, her lips parted in anticipation as they drew toward his shaft. She had the look of a predator, and for an instant he panicked at the realization that he was the prey, but then she caught him in her mouth, and he decided he would happily be devoured. He leaned back his head and surrendered to his fate.

But when Snape leaned back, he was met by another ominous presence—the forlorn visage of an angel. Its marble eyes stared down upon him like a pair of messengers from God. New thoughts flashed through the young man’s mind. What would his father say—what would he do if he knew his son was doing this in this hallowed place? Snape knew what Tobias would do. He would flay every trace of sin out of him. Somehow, this knowledge made the young man more brazen, and, in an awkward shuffle, he took his destiny and his soul into his own hands and managed to straddle Bellatrix.

The dark-haired witch beneath him smirked. “So the young Death Eater isn’t so shy after all?”

The next part of the dream was less clear and consisted of fragments of blurred nightmare and unforgettable memory, the absurd and the real fused into one. In one moment he was plunging into her; in the next he was descending into a sweltering hell. Bellatrix’s nails were digging into his skin; then a thousand fiends were clawing at him, and just when his body could take no more, there was a moment of unexpected release and bliss, followed by the hollow feeling that his soul had flown from him forever.

The young man rolled back onto the stone slab, breathless, exhilarated, and overwhelmed by his first coupling. Bellatrix was already seated at the edge of their makeshift bed and was refastening her robes.

“Thank you, Severus.”

Snape reached out a hand to her. If anything, he should be thanking her, this darkly stunning witch.

“That should do Rodolphus nicely.”

Snape withdrew his hand. “What are you talking about?”

“Hadn’t you heard?” Bellatrix asked off-handedly. “My husband screwed a Mudblood tart last week before killing her. Of course, I could tell the Dark Lord that Rodolphus has been letting his principles slip, but then I’d probably have a eunuch for a husband. Don’t you prefer my method of revenge?”

The young wizard stared open-mouthed at Bellatrix. Suddenly, the night air seemed much colder, and he wished for his clothes that lay in a heap at the foot of the grave.

“Of course,” the witch went on, “Rodolphus still one-upped me by fucking something without an ounce of magic in her slutty little body, but I refuse to sink that low. Besides, screwing a Half-blood is almost as good.”

Snape’s body went rigid. “You used me? To get revenge on your husband?”

“Well, I didn’t use you for your stellar sexual prowess, did I? What were you, the only Slytherin to make it out of Hogwarts without getting laid?”

Snape flushed and made a rush for his clothes.

Bellatrix charmed her tussled hair back into a glossy sheet of ebony and stood up. “Cissy will be glad to know she isn’t missing out on anything,” she said, turning offhandedly back to Snape. “She and Lucius had been considering a little seduction of their own with you, you see. You do amuse them so.”

Snape’s world started to close in around him. He was the laughing stock of the Malfoys, of Bellatrix, maybe even of all of the Death Eaters. His night of unchecked freedom, first with the Death Eater revel, then with his sexual foray and rebellion from his father, was now smothering him. He felt stifled by the nighttime smell of moldering wood, by the heavy stench of rotting flowers over the graves of rotting bodies, by the pungent chemical scent of something burning….

Snape awoke with a start and sat straight up in bed. Something was still burning. He tore out from under the covers, grabbed his wand and black dressing gown, and hastened through the parlor and into his office. The smell was much stronger out here, and he coughed reflexively. From under his door, wisps of green smoke were seeping into the room.

Covering his mouth with his sleeve, Snape opened the door and found himself engulfed in a heavy green fog that was coming from one of the Potions laboratories. The air was thick with an acidic stench that made Snape want to retch, but he pushed himself toward the source of the putrid smoke.

Inside Potions Classroom 3, the air was nearly opaque. He reached blindly in front of him and grabbed the collars to two students, whom he shoved out the door.

“Evidens Aeris,” he gasped through the thick green air.

From his wand issued a clear path between the desks so that Snape could see the source of the fire at a cauldron near the front. The sides of the container were being lapped by tall flames, and a thick, green Emetic Potion with the consistency of cornmeal was erupting from within. The substance was splattering all over the velvet robes of Horace Slughorn, who was shrinking back from the disaster with distain.

In an instant, Snape set a Containing Spell over the cauldron, halting the storm of goopy green substance and limiting the oxygen that was feeding the fire. After a minute, the flames died out, though the air remained thick with lingering smoke. Somewhere on the other side of the room, Snape could hear Slughorn ushering the remaining students out of the classroom. Seeing that he was left to attend to the mess and the still overwhelming stench from the fire, Snape tried to Vanish the green fog that hung in the air. The spell he had used to clear a path to the cauldron had merely displaced the smoke, and nothing he tried was able to send the putrid vapors into another realm. Finally, his throat burned too much to utter another incantation, and Snape retreated with Slughorn and the students from the classroom.

The hallway was filled with students who were alternating between coughing from the lingering smoke and retching from the stench of the vapors. The Weasley twins’ Puking Pastilles couldn’t have created a more revolting scene as third-year Slytherins and Gryffindors heaved the remains of their breakfasts onto the flagstones.

Infuriated by the damage being done to his dungeons, Snape pounced on Slughorn. “What idiot do I have to thank for this chaos?” he demanded.

Slughorn tapped some green stains on his robes with his wand. “Don’t be too hard on Mr. Pumbleford,” Slughorn answered.

“Pumbleford?” Snape scowled. Pumbleford was a Slytherin. He couldn’t even have the pleasure of blaming a Gryffindor for this incident.

“Yes, it was an innocent mistake. You see, he was telling me about his Aunt Isadora’s stable of racing Aethonans, and his fire got somewhat too hot.”

“Somewhat?” asked Snape, his face a deep puce. “An Emetic Potion would have to be twice its normal temperature to become that unstable. How could it have gone unnoticed?”

“These things do happen.”

“Not in my Potions classroom they didn’t.” Longbottom might have been able to melt a cauldron in two seconds flat, but he had never had the time to create this kind of mess. Snape was far too attentive for that. “You have a room full of teenagers. You have to stay on your toes.”

At that moment, Pumbleford came up to the two professors. “Sir?” the boy said to his Head. His face was color of watery paste. “I don’t feel so well. I think I’m going to….”

But Pumbleford didn’t complete his sentence. Instead, he doubled over and heaved at Snape’s bare feet.

Snape’s top lip twitched in disgust. “Get to the Infirmary, Pumbleford!” he barked.

Slughorn raised a handkerchief to his mouth as he stared at the mess that lay between him and Snape. Then his eyes fell upon Snape’s uncovered toes and traveled the rest of the way up his half-clad body. “Speaking of staying alert, my boy, did somebody miss their alarm this morning?”

Several students around them snickered. A few were pointing at their Defense teacher’s night clothes. Snape spun around, just missing the goopy puddle Pumbleford had left. “Anyone who isn’t out of my sight in ten seconds is going to spend the rest of the day cleaning up this mess,” he said menacingly.

The Gryffindors started scampering toward the stairwell, but the Slytherins looked hesitantly from one person to the next.

“Sir?” one brave third-year ventured

“What?” Snape snapped, testy that his own House was failing to follow his orders.

“It’s just that…well, when we got out of the classroom,” the boy explained, “some of us went straight to the Common Room…but the smoke was so thick, and, well, now it smells awful too.”

Down the hall, Snape heard peals of laughter echoing through the stairwell. “Guess it stinks to be a Slytherin!” one of the Gryffindors called in a sing-song voice.

Snape spun around, but the culprit had already darted up the steps. In the process, the Head of Slytherin House stepped square in the middle of Pumbleford’s breakfast. “Ten points from Gryffindor!” he cried to no one in particular, but even as he took a shred of solace in the knowledge that ten rubies had disappeared from his rival house’s hourglass, he couldn’t help but thinking that for once—just this once—the bloody Gryffindors weren’t all wrong. This morning, it definitely stank to be a Slytherin.


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AN: Thanks for your patience in getting this chapter. Work, school, guests, and life in general haven’t left me much time to sit at the computer. I hope Snape’s dream made it worth it. Ain’t Bellatrix truly the Witch Bitch?