The Seven Deadly Sins

Quae Nocent Docent

by
Scaranda

‘I am not asking this for myself, Severus,’ Dumbledore said, ‘but for the good of the Order… and indeed wizardkind as a whole.’

It seemed to Severus that that was always the way Dumbledore justified the impossible, when it was something he wanted Snape to do anyway. ‘Why me?’ he asked, as he usually did, when faced with the fact that he always seemed to be Dumbledore’s choice to do the impossible. ‘I am a wizard, but contrary to the reputation I have earned, not unjustly I may add, I do not perform miracles.’

‘I should not have thought that such a simple, and if I may also point out, innocuous task, beyond your capabilities,’ the old man countered, not at all put off.

‘I am a disciplined man, Headmaster,’ Severus replied. ‘I could not… I have standards to maintain,’ he said.

‘Exactly,’ Dumbledore replied, pointing at Snape with the index fingers of both hands, as though his own argument had been so well put that one finger wouldn’t do. ‘And what simpler than for you to apply your standards? Use those very disciplines you speak of to…’

‘Have you seen that place?’ Severus asked, cutting off the Headmaster’s ludicrous line of reasoning, hating the beseeching tone that had crept into his own voice. He knew it was quite useless anyway, in view of the fact that he’d already heard the rat trap spring shut. It wasn’t as though he were even going to get a bit of cheese as a reward, he thought sourly, not unless hell froze over too.

*****

Sirius dragged his head up from where he had fallen asleep over what passed for a kitchen table in Grimmauld Place. To be fair it once had been a kitchen table, and a very fine one at that, in the days when someone had actually cared about the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, the real house that was, not the figurative one. He squinted at the clock: ten past three, so that meant about quarter to one; that wasn’t much help though. He could see it was daytime; he could see that much through the grimy windows, so it must have been the afternoon, but what day was it? What the fuck use was a clock if it didn’t pinpoint time a bit more accurately? The sodding thing only had one function in life, and it couldn’t even do that properly.

He hauled himself to his feet, almost blacking out as his monumental hangover ambushed him, making him slump back down again, shivering and sweating like the piece of human wreckage he was.

He had never felt his head pound so badly; it was so severe he could almost hear it through the nauseating pain, then he realised he did hear it. He panicked for a moment; it had never been this bad before, in fact he hadn’t known that you could hear a pounding head, it was almost a relief when he finally understood the noise was coming from the hall. Some ungracious bastard was knocking his door; there would be all sorts of hell to pay if his mother woke up. He was astonished at people’s manners sometimes, their way of intruding, the way they saw fit to inflict their good intentions on him; what kind of selfish moron called in the middle of the after-fucking-noon anyway? That apart, the house was unplottable; what was the point of having an un-fucking-plottable house, if everyone and his next door neighbour woke you up at lunchtime?

The pounding began again, inside and out, and he felt quite at a loss as to how to deal with it. Maybe it was carol singers; maybe they’d get bored and go away, he thought, without much in the way of hope, but he had a feeling it was August or so, and he didn’t think they called in August. He looked at the clock again. Fucking useless piece of shit, he snarled to himself; not only did it not tell him the day, it didn’t even tell him what month it was.

*****

That was it; he’d tried, he could go back and tell Dumbledore that Black wasn’t at home, and wash his hands of the ridiculous business. He’d begun to turn away, filled with an odd mixture of relief and disappointment; in fact Severus had turned, and was halfway down the front steps when he heard him.

‘Go a-fucking-way.’

Severus closed his eyes briefly, disciplining himself the way he had schooled himself for so long that it was almost second nature… almost. He thought of Dumbledore saying “I’m not asking this for myself”, and raised his wand to the door. ‘I’m not doing this for you anyway, old man,’ he muttered. ‘Just for once I’m doing it for me.’

The door sprang open in an impressive shower of blue and yellow sparks, which lit the dingy hall for a mercifully brief few moments. Severus took a deep breath and stepped inside; Walburga Black took a deep breath and began shrieking, and the door slammed shut.

‘What putrid half-blooded scum comes to soil the house of my fathers?’ she screeched, in a voice like a nail being drawn down a blackboard. ‘Out, out, scabrous slimy disgrace to the House of Salazar Slytherin.’

‘Shut up you ill-mannered guttersnipe,’ Severus snarled, lighting the cavernous windowless entrance hall by his wand, more so that he didn’t slip on anything nasty that might be lurking around the floor, than to admire the hideous décor. Then he turned his wand on the portrait, leaving the hapless Walburga Black mouthing off her obscenities in silence.

‘Don’t tell me… I died and went to hell, and nobody even fucking bothered to let me know,’ Sirius muttered, from where he clung onto the lintel of the kitchen door.

Severus looked around the hall slowly, extending his wand as though to check the uppermost corners through the thick cobwebs that hung from them. He moved the thin shaft of light along the grotesquely ornate cornicing, that was adorned here and there with fat-bottomed cherubs and bare-breasted angels, in what someone at one time seemed to have mistaken for good taste. He let the wand light wander to the broad staircase, with its Spanish mahogany banisters, decorated with the heads of long dead house-elves, now polished only by Sirius’s hands as he stumbled either up or down the stairs. At last he turned to where Black stood.

‘It would seem indeed that you have arrived in hell, Black,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately for both of us, so have I.’ Severus smiled thinly at the man clinging to the door lintel, like a drowning man clutching a straw. He hoped he hid the exaltation he felt, and added a sneer just in case.

‘Go away,’ Black said in way of reply, as though he couldn’t be bothered to dredge up a decent retort, or as was more likely, didn’t see the need, in view of the fact that he didn’t have an audience of impressionable Gryffindors.

‘Not on the menu, Black,’ Snape replied. ‘I have been given the unenviable, not to say impossible task, of… let me think how my esteemed Headmaster put it…’ He trailed off for a moment, watching the man opposite him, as both gathered their wits from where they had allowed the other to scatter them. ‘Yes, yes… I recall now. I have been charged with “sorting you out”,’ he finished, disciplining his own mind more quickly than Black.

‘Piss off,’ Sirius replied, reverting to his accustomed way of speaking to Snape.

‘Would that I could, Black.’

‘Tell you what… you bugger off, and I’ll pretend I’m sorted… that way everyone’s happy,’ Sirius said, seeming to think that made some sense. He had to turn as he spoke though, a tricky task, given how drunk he was, as Severus had already moved into the kitchen.

‘Where’s the elf?’ Snape asked, clearing the debris from one chair, and conjuring a damp cloth to give it a good wipe down before he sat on it.

‘How the fuck do I know?’ Sirius muttered, still trying to stagger through the vicious fog in his brain to see if he could work out why Severus was there. Maybe he was hallucinating; he’d heard that you could see monsters if you drank too much. Then again, he mused to himself, his canine senses kicking in where his human ones couldn’t quite manage, he didn’t think monsters would smell as sexually aroused as the man sitting at his kitchen table. Interesting, he thought to himself, hardly noticing that he was beginning to sober up, not even noticing his mind was weaving through the possibilities of bringing the arrogant fuck opposite him down a peg or two, and getting a little fun for himself at the same time.

Sirius knew what was hidden under Snape’s cloak of arrogant virginal hostility, at least he thought he knew; he had a strong suspicion that beneath the aura of abstinence fuelled discipline lurked a closet homosexual. The arousal he had sensed had satisfactorily answered the question Sirius had asked himself many times over the years, and raised his pulse rate. He doubted Snape even admitted the fact to himself. Sad really, he mused, as his mind cleared. Sirius was quite happy to bat for either team himself, on the odd occasion that his libido managed to drag itself through the crap he swallowed, and had never seen fit to make a secret of the fact. He pushed the thought away, alarmed to find that his cock had seen fit to remind him that blood could still flow to it, in what he saw as the most inappropriate time to have his first sexual stirring since… well, he wasn’t quite sure when. It was about then that he realised that it was the business end of Snape’s wand that had brought about his sobriety.

‘Go and have a bath, Black,’ Snape said, lowering his wand. ‘You stink.’

‘I can’t… Kreacher’s hidden the bathroom,’ Sirius replied rather sullenly. ‘I suppose it’s easier than trying to clean it.’

The elf had slunk out from below the mouldering old rags he slept on under the sink, as he heard his name. ‘My master calls?’ he asked. ‘His every whim is my fervent desire,’ he added, twisting his thin lips, as though that were needed to emphasise the fact that every word had reeked of insincerity.

‘Where’s the bathroom, elf?’ Snape demanded.

Kreacher turned his long neck to peer over his shoulder, before looking back to Sirius. ‘A half-blood has entered the house of my mistress. I have a bucket of rancid scraps under the sink. Shall I feed it?’

Snape lifted the elf by his shoulders, and drew aside the ragged cloth that served as a curtain to hide his under-sink domain. He shoved the elf back, plunging him headfirst into the bucket of scraps. ‘I’m not hungry, thank you,’ he said. ‘You may have it.’ He drew the curtain across again, leaving the elf’s feet pattering in the air.

‘Hey, who’s going to do the cleaning now?’ Sirius asked, as an unwholesome sucking noise came from under the sink, which was likely the elf’s head resurfacing.

‘Cleaning?’ Snape enquired, looking around the kitchen. ‘Have you seen this place? Anyway, Black, you are.’

‘Me?’ Sirius blinked. ‘I can’t clean.’

‘That much is evident,’ Snape replied. ‘You are just about to learn though, and I, may Merlin help us both, have been elected your reluctant teacher.’ He flung the kitchen door open again. ‘Now let us find a bathroom; there must be one somewhere,’ he reasoned, refusing to imagine just what Sirius had been using as a substitute, or for how long.

‘Oh, all right,’ Black snarled. ‘There’s one over there, and a couple upstairs somewhere,’ he said, pointing vaguely to what could have been any one of the three ominous looking black doors on the opposite wall.

‘Which door?’

Black sighed. ‘I’m not sure,’ he admitted. ‘It keeps changing… fucking disastrous to make a mistake in this house too.’

‘After you then,’ Snape said, sidestepping to allow Sirius to run whatever gauntlet might be waiting. That aside, Black had gone a very odd colour of green, Severus thought, wincing slightly as he remembered, somewhat belatedly, the unfortunate physical effects of speeding up sobriety in one so drunk.

‘It might be this one,’ Sirius said, giving the middle door a tentative push, one that it seemed to resist, almost as though something or someone were standing at the other side, pushing back. Black moved to the next door. ‘Fuck,’ he groaned, and even in the dim hall Snape could see the sweat roll down his face. ‘It had better be this one.’ He gave a hefty shove, another groan, and bolted across to the old-fashioned toilet bowl, with its high level cistern and iron pull chain, to throw up the whisky.

Severus watched him with what he pretended to himself was detachment mingled with disgust. When he supposed Black had purged the lot, he took a fistful of his hair and dragged him to his feet, before pulling the long iron chain. The cistern seemed to cough, then it gurgled reluctantly, before sending a veritable flood of water through the plumbing at such a rate that, for a nervous moment, Severus thought the whole mess was going to wash over the floor.

‘Ouch… that’s sore,’ Black groaned.

Severus let go of the long chestnut hair he’d quite forgotten he’d still been holding. ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘Quae nocent docent.’

‘Don’t spew your cryptic Greek bullshit at me, Snape,’ Sirius growled.

‘Latin,’ Severus replied absently. ‘Now, stay right here, Black. I shall be back in a moment.’

*****

Time and again Severus shook his head at Sirius’s suppositions that just because the floor had been wet and wiped, that it was also clean, and time after time Sirius bent his head and his aching back to the task. It was four hours later when Snape permitted Sirius to stand up; in that time he had managed to clean only the floor, although to be fair that had been quite a feat. Much to the surprise of both men, the floor, below what appeared to have been several centuries worth of grime, was emerald green and silver mosaics, woven in a pattern of women in barely concealed sexual poses.

‘I bet my mother didn’t know that was there,’ Black snorted, rubbing the small of his back with hands that now resembled five-fingered red prunes from their time spent in the water.

Snape thought he detected some sort of pride in his completed task. He pretended he wasn’t listening though, and raised his wand and waved his hand negligently, drawing out the word “Scourgify”, and seemingly at the same time muttering something else under his breath, something that sounded like “incontaminatus”. Every now and again he had glanced at Black as he scrubbed at his thankless task, wondering why he had complied so easily, wondering if he were acting out some sordid little fantasy, and urging himself to caution.

‘I tried that,’ Sirius snapped as the layers of dirt in the rest of the bathroom peeled away, and it restored itself to its former less-than-tasteful glory. ‘It didn’t work for me… Anyway, why didn’t you just do that before I scrubbed the ruddy floor for hours?’

‘You are about to find out, Black, that being forced to work will breed in you temperance and self-control, and a cheerfulness the idle could never seek to achieve.’

‘Cheerfulness? Like you?’ Sirius snapped back.

‘You may have a bath now, Black,’ Snape said in way of reply, nodding to the huge white bath with its hideously ornate silver snakehead taps, where it sat in the corner, gleaming in hostility, like an animal reluctantly stripped of its winter coat.

*****

Sirius lay back in the steamy heat for what felt like hours, soaking his aching back and his strained calves, musing to himself about the various ways in which he could try to get Snape to turn whatever sexual fantasy he seemed to be acting out, into some sort of reality. He turned the gleaming silver snakehead tap with his toe, groaning in pleasure as the water warmed up yet again within a few seconds. He idly stroked his cock, the way he would give it some absent attention whilst reading the “Sunday Prophet”, in his odd days of sobriety. He began to fantasise about the dark snake, and what he had read in his mind. Nobody knew that Sirius Black was both a fairly competent Occlumens and Legilimens; he hadn’t even realised it himself until quite recently, but like some wizards or witches were born Animagi, and others were capable of learning how to do the change, the same held true for Occlumency and Legilimency. He sat up with a start, splashing water onto the floor he had spent four hours scrubbing, as something struck him; it must have been hours since he’d had a drink.

*****

Severus sat with his feet up on the kitchen table, trying to work out his next move, something that was proving rather difficult in view of the fact that he hadn’t quite confessed to himself what his goal was. Every now and again he had cast his mind to the bathroom, just to make sure that Black hadn’t fallen asleep, always finding the soft wavering wall of a lazy Occlumens. He hadn’t known Black was an Occlumens, and it had quite taken him aback to find he was Legilimens too, though of limited skill. He had taken the daring step, by his own cautious standards, of allowing Black access to certain thoughts, in the hope that maybe he would lead where Severus feared to go, not that he admitted any of that to himself, of course. He started out of his rather pleasant reverie, and vanished his whisky glass and his cigarette, as the kitchen door opened.

He avoided giving Black the cool up and down look he would expect, turning instead to where a rather sullen but industrious Kreacher was ladling something that looked as though it might be edible onto a plate. ‘Dinner, Black,’ Snape said, nodding to where the elf laid the plate on the table. ‘Then you may retire. You have a lot to do tomorrow.’

‘Like what?’ Sirius said around a first mouthful.

‘You think that the pitiful effort you put in this evening is sufficient?’ Snape asked, raising his eyebrow in his Slytherin fashion.

‘I worked damn hard,’ Sirius objected, looking at the glass of water that stood beside his plate. ‘Where’s my whisky? I need a drink.’

Snape nodded to the glass of water. ‘If you are thirsty, there is plenty more where that came from.’

‘It’s a drink I want. I’ve already had a bath,’ Sirius replied. ‘Anyway, why aren’t you eating?’

‘The elf prepared your repast, Black,’ Snape replied, as though that were all the explanation he required to make. ‘Where shall I sleep?’ he asked, slipping the question in, pleased that he had achieved just the right degree of nonchalance.

‘That depends on whether you want a rest or a fuck,’ Sirius replied, watching carefully for the other man’s reaction. ‘It was a joke, Snape,’ he went on, backing off quickly as Severus bridled visibly. The last thing he wanted was for Severus to clam up any more tightly than he already was; he suspected he knew just how fragile his ego was. ‘I’m sure there must be a room somewhere in this house; after all, enough people used to live here.’

He finished the rest of his meal in silence, refusing to look to where Snape sat, pretending to read a book at the other end of the table. Sirius knew he hadn’t turned a page, and wondered just what was going through his mind. He didn’t try to find out though; he had a feeling Snape would be able to tell if he tried that one too often, anyway, he seemed to have closed it down rather tightly. He pushed his chair away from the table and stood up, and Snape looked up at last too.

‘Haven’t you forgotten something, Black?’ he asked, as Sirius moved to the door.

‘Like what?’

‘I have been sent here to…’

‘Yeah, yeah, sort me out. So you said,’ Sirius finished for him.

Severus nodded to the dirty plates and cutlery at Sirius’s side of the table. ‘Washing up after you is, however, not part of my remit.’


*****

Severus had looked around the bedroom as the door closed behind him, at the sagging bed that promised backache, and the dubious pillows that hinted at more than he thought any man of his standards should be expected to tolerate. He cleared the whole sorry lot into a corner, and opted for the floor, summoning a couple of rugs and a thin flat pillow instead.

He lay awake for a long time, fidgeting and struggling like the insomniac he always had been. He wondered if he should slip down the stairs for the whisky; a few stiff drinks before retiring usually helped, and if not, they at least dulled the ache of loneliness. He finally let his thoughts slide to where they had longed to go, to the man across the hallway, and instead of his mind racing in the way that chased sleep away, he found himself oddly comforted. It was as though for once he were being, however covertly, proactive in his life, instead of blindly charging in the direction others needed him to take. He drifted off, still thinking about Black, and how to turn the tide to his advantage.

Sirius lay awake, but not in the fidgeting tired way an insomniac does. He lay quietly, musing to himself about the man across the hallway, planning his next moves, as he suspected Snape was planning his. Somehow he felt a lot better about himself than he had done for a very long time. He drifted off, not even longing for the whisky that he still hadn’t had since Snape had arrived.


*****

Sirius slumped down at the kitchen table, forgetting for a moment that it had been clean the night before, and looking at it with a puzzled frown, as though he didn’t recognise it without the dingy cloth, the overflowing ashtray, or the dirty glasses. He had to stand up again, as Snape seemed to have even tidied away the whisky again, for some reason he didn’t want to attempt to fathom out. He grabbed the half empty bottle from the shelf and poured a healthy measure, a kick start measure, one to still the ominous shaking of his hands; he didn’t drink for pleasure until afternoon, just out of necessity.

‘That’s not breakfast,’ Severus snapped, turning from where he was stirring something suspiciously bland smelling on the stove he had unearthed in the corner the day before, the one Kreacher had been using.

‘You’re right... it’s not a proper breakfast,’ Sirius said, as he dug into the pocket of his trousers and slapped a packet of Muggle cigarettes on the table. ‘But it is now.’

Snape had begun to ladle what looked like a greyish-white sticky mess into a bowl Sirius had never seen, before bringing it across to the table and setting it in front of him. ‘Eat up your porridge, Black,’ he said, smiling thinly. ‘That’s breakfast.’

Sirius lifted the whisky glass. ‘You have it,’ he said. ‘Cheers… to old animosity,’ he added in a mocking toast, tossing back what he assumed was the whisky, only to spray it across the table.

‘Is the tea too cold, Black? Or do you prefer milk?’

‘Where’s my whisky?’ Sirius demanded, jumping to his feet.

‘I poured it down the sink,’ Snape replied, as he bit into a slice of nicely browned toast with apparent satisfaction. ‘All of the bottles in this… house. Now, eat your porridge; you’re going to need your strength.’

*****

‘I’m sure your spell is much better at this that I am,’ Sirius snarled, as he swatted another Doxy. He missed it, and it flew at him, hissing like an angry snake, as he swatted wildly at it again before it roosted in his hair. ‘Fuck sake, Snape, get it off me.’

Severus raised his wand, and the Doxy dropped to the floor.

‘Can’t you just do that to all of them?’ Sirius asked. ‘Before they lay fucking eggs in my hair.’

‘Nothing that comes easily is valued, Black,’ Snape replied, sitting back down on the straight-backed chair he had placed in the middle of the floor. ‘If I were just to clear them all, I am quite sure that if I were ever, Merlin forbid, to come back to this house, they would be every bit as numerous as they are now.’

‘A simple “no” would have done.’

‘Get on with it,’ Snape replied. ‘I would like to have dinner before it becomes morning.’

Sirius spun as another of the eight-limbed little monsters buzzed out of the curtains. He swatted at the air again, this time catching the Doxy as it flew at him, before dropping his hands to his side, his shoulders slumped in misery. ‘I don’t want to do this any more,’ he said.

Snape wondered if he had pushed too hard. Black did indeed seem to be rather dejected; perhaps it had been unfair to take his wand away, and arm him only with the “Daily Prophet” and a couple of Quidditch magazines. He waited until Sirius turned as the curtains twitched, and six Doxies shot out in a remarkably professional looking pincer movement, two whizzing behind Black to cut off his escape. Snape raised his wand, taking out not only the six attackers, but all of the lurking back-ups from where they were hiding in the dusty drapes and rugs.

‘Enough, Severus,’ Sirius said, from where he stood somewhat forlornly in the middle of the floor. ‘No more today… please.’

Snape wasn’t sure what madness possessed him, whether it was the first time he had ever heard Black utter his given name, without twisting it into an insult; or maybe it was the seemingly wretched defencelessness of him, standing in the middle of the floor, with a tattered rolled up newspaper in his hand; then again, perhaps it was something quite different, but he found he had crossed the space between them. He seemed to watch his own hand, as though it belonged to someone else, as he drew his long white fingers across Black’s cheek. He pulled back quickly, confusion bubbling in his veins, as he could see it crossing Black’s eyes. ‘Whatever we hope to one day do with ease,’ he said coldly, marshalling his self-discipline. ‘We must first strive to do with diligence.’

‘Is that all there is?’ Black asked, grabbing his arm. ‘Is that all that holds your life together?’

‘Yes, Black,’ Snape replied, tugging himself free, unable to bear being in the same room any longer. ‘Better that than whisky.’

Sirius watched him go, stifling the urge to rush after him in a way he knew would be disastrous. He breathed deeply to calm himself, and instead of going downstairs for dinner, went to his room to think.

Severus waited for what he was sure was hours, but Black didn’t come back downstairs. He poured himself yet another drink, hardly noticing he was becoming drunk, drunk and maudlin. He tossed it back, blaming the burn at the back of his throat on the fiery spirit, instead of the ache of defeated loneliness. He couldn’t do this; Dumbledore had gifted him the best opportunity he would ever have, and Severus Snape had blown it. He had just dropped his head to his hands in despair, when he realised he was being watched. He raised his head again, ready to blast the damned elf to Kingdom Come for daring to witness his weakness.

‘Can I have one?’ Black asked quietly, nodding to the almost empty bottle. ‘Just one.’

‘It would be churlish of me to refuse,’ Severus replied, caught short by Black’s unexpected appearance. ‘It is, after all, your whisky.’

Sirius sat down carefully. He shouldn’t have waited for so long; he knew that. Snape was drunk, and that would make him unpredictable. Then again, his defences seemed to be lower than usual; perhaps he could take advantage of that. He sipped at the whisky.

‘You should have something to eat,’ Snape said, standing slowly but steadily.

‘Don’t go,’ Sirius blurted out.

‘I… I was just going to get you something to eat,’ Snape replied, turning to the larder.

Sirius knew he was lying; he knew Severus had been going to leave the room, and he knew that his own words had stopped him. He took another small sip of the whisky, urging himself to caution; this was one very fragile man, perhaps more fragile than he was himself. The thought shocked him. He was just working out what to say, when Snape placed a plate of bread and cheese in front of him, along with a glass of milk.

‘Sleep well, Black,’ he said, turning to the door. ‘You have a busy day tomorrow.’

*****

It was his own fault he supposed, his own fault for laying down his spoon and refusing to eat his porridge, until Snape promised him there would be no more cleaning shit that day. He should have realised Snape’s ready agreement would herald something worse. Sirius rued his poor choice of words; he should have thought more before remarking that diligence was a good thing in small doses, but hanging about all day doing nothing beat the crap out of it. This hadn’t been quite what he’d had in mind.

Sirius tried to move his arms, but found he couldn’t; they were raised above his head, and seemed to be secured at the wrists to some point far above him. He couldn’t see where that was though, on account of the blindfold tied around his eyes. He couldn’t move his legs much either; they were held apart by what felt like a rigid steel rod, and he was unable to put his feet flat on the ground. He had been hung in a way that only his toes managed to skim the rough stone floor, so that they just teased at proper purchase. Despite the fact that he was naked, apart from a pair of black trousers, and had a sturdy cloth over his eyes, he found the sweat was still managing to find its way into his eyes, stinging them.

He felt a shift in the air and knew Severus was behind him; he could smell him too, smell the heightened sexual arousal, above the tang of orange blossom and cinnamon that always seemed to hang about him. Odd that, Sirius thought, as he realised the same scent had always hung about Snape, something that was almost feminine, yet on him denied that. He felt him come closer, a silent predator, and cursed his own traitor of a cock, as it rose in response in a way he felt sure Snape would notice. He almost gasped in shock when the blindfold was, not so much removed, as simply no longer there. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sooty glow of the wall sconces, and the blank black wall in front of him.

Snape made no comment on Sirius’s display of sexual arousal. Sirius wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that; then again, perhaps the randy old snake had his mind on his own.

‘Have you had enough hanging about and doing nothing yet, Black?’ Snape asked, a thin smirk twisting his otherwise mirthless mouth.

‘Yep… I think that’s enough,’ Sirius replied blithely, confused by the wash of disappointment that ran through him.

‘Good,’ Snape replied, making no move to release Sirius’s bonds. ‘Let us put the time to better use then, shall we?’

For a second Sirius thought that sounded better, but he found his momentary anticipation dashed, as he watched Severus raise his wand and begin writing in mid air, the sizzling letters transforming themselves to words of fire on the blackboard.

Diligence: An enthusiastic yet careful application to one’s way of life.

Sloth: Sirius Black.

Diligence: A decisive work ethic.

Sloth: Sirius Black.

Diligence: Careful use of one’s time, and guarding against laziness.

Sloth: Sirius Black.

Diligence: A clean and orderly home, body and mind.

Sloth: Sirius Black.

‘Very funny, Snape,’ Sirius snarled, trying to hide the fact that he was rather pleased that this might be more rewarding than it had promised a mere few moments before. ‘I always knew you could take the boy out of the classroom, but you couldn’t take the classroom out of the…’ His words trailed off as he watched Snape loom between him and the blackboard, no longer holding his wand. In its stead he held a long bullwhip; it was one that Sirius had seen before, hanging as it had done, like a trophy, in Argus Filch’s office.

‘Paying attention is another virtue, Black,’ Snape said lazily, as though his heart weren’t hammering in his chest, and he didn’t have to fight to keep his breathing even, and his balls weren’t aching with need, and his cock wasn’t straining with desire to be released from its confinement, much the way he refused to notice that Black’s was too. ‘I do have your attention, do I not?’ he asked over his shoulder, from where he stood slightly to the side, but between Sirius and the flaming blackboard.

‘Yeah… I’m riveted,’ Black replied, and Severus pretended not to notice the low tone, the one that suggested a little more than attention to what was written on the blackboard in front of him.

He raised the bullwhip, and cracked it through the air; the sound it made was shockingly loud in the charged atmosphere, almost loud enough to cover the gasp that had come not only from the man behind, but the one that had escaped from Snape’s own lips too. He drew in a deep breath to steady himself.

‘Begin reading, Black,’ he said, almost startled to find that his voice sounded quite its normal self.

‘I don’t think so,’ Black replied.

‘You are not here to think, Black. In fact you are here because you are incapable of constructive thought, and it behoves me to instruct you…’

‘… Stop it, Severus,’ Sirius broke in, in a strangled voice. ‘My arms are sore, my back is sore… let me down.’

‘Quae nocent docent,’ Severus replied, cracking the bullwhip once again, unable now to stop himself rushing down the path to he knew not where… or maybe he did, maybe he at last understood the dark thing writhing inside him, the thing that needed to hurt. He understood now that it was not for the pitiful childhood he had endured, as he had told himself so often, or for the sneers and derision of his contemporaries, nor even for his time with the Death Eaters. Severus Snape needed to hurt for the pleasure of doing so; but more than that, he needed to hurt someone who wanted to be hurt for the pleasure it gave them, someone like the man behind him. He was glad his back was to Black, glad that Sirius wouldn’t see he had closed his eyes in final understanding of his darkest desires, glad that he could put it away before anyone else saw it either.

‘Tomorrow we go back to basics, Black, and do a little more cleaning,’ he said, much more smoothly than he felt, turning at last, pretending to himself he wasn’t gratified by the flash of disappointment that crossed Sirius’s eyes as his bonds loosened, and then dropped away, causing him to lose balance. Snape looked down on him. ‘We shall start with the sewer that passes for your mind.’

Sirius watched him turn on his heel and leave the room. He breathed a sigh of relief, not at having so narrowly missed a lashing from the bullwhip; he could have stood that, he suspected, even enjoyed it, but he doubted that Snape could have. Severus had been like a man standing at the edge of a precipice, unable to decide whether he should let himself fall, let himself be pushed, or walk away. Sirius understood now; he understood what was wrong, not only with Snape, but with himself too. They were too close; they had discovered things about one another far too quickly: too much of a leap to make in too stifling an atmosphere, in too short a time.

*****

Severus waited in his room until darkness had fallen. Then he waited until he heard Sirius come up the stairs and go into his own room, and even until he came out of his room, went to the bathroom, and went back into his room. Then he waited another few minutes, before opening his door cautiously. He was just about to go down the stairs, when Sirius slipped out of the shadows.

‘Why didn’t you come down for dinner?’ he asked.

Snape knew what he meant; he knew he was really asking him why he had seen fit to hide, and he had been hiding, from himself as much as from Black. ‘I wasn’t hungry,’ he replied, his words sounding as hollow as they felt. Another euphemism, he snorted to himself, a face-saving way of saying “I am a coward”. He turned away and began to walk down the stairs.

‘I could have stopped you, you know,’ Black called after him. ‘Had I wanted to, I could have stopped you at any time.’

‘You?’ Severus asked, turning on the stairs. He couldn’t let this go any further; he couldn’t let whatever feeble control he pretended he had over the situation he found himself in, slip any further from his grasp. He began to climb the stairs again, pleased to see Black draw back a little, as though he had not expected him to turn. ‘You? Stop me? I don’t think so, Black.’

‘If I had wanted to,’ Black said, a little more unsurely. ‘But I didn’t. Unlike you, Snape, I’m not frightened to admit to myself what I…’ He trailed off, gasping in a mixture of shock and anticipation as Severus grabbed his hair.

‘Want? What you want?’ Severus sneered down at him, from where he had forced Black to his knees with sheer brute strength. ‘Is this what you’ve been angling for, you cheap little slut?’

Sirius stared back up at him, open-mouthed, as Severus grasped his arm and hauled him to feet again, his free hand moving to the snakehead buckle on his black trousers. Sirius didn’t know when he realised he was naked, whether it was then, or as Snape shoved him through the door of his bedroom and pushed him over his bed, arse aloft, so his hands splayed on the once white counterpane.

He heard someone groan in agonised ecstasy as Severus drove into him from behind, and Sirius knew it must have been himself.

‘You should always make sure that what you want is what you really want, whore,’ the low voice growled in his ear, ‘just in case you get it.’

At some point Severus had turned him round, laid him on his back with a pillow stuffed under him; Sirius didn’t know when though, he was beyond thought. His wrists had been secured, and his legs had been slung up on Snape’s shoulders, leaving him spread like the wanton he was. He knew he couldn’t take much more of the relentless pounding of the dark fantasy above him, tearing him apart. Sirius’s breath was labouring, and his sweat was almost blinding him, and his balls felt as though they would explode as Snape finally released the restraints on his wrists. Sirius’s hand flashed to his cock, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have blacked out with the force of his first sexual release for so long that he couldn’t remember the time before, and didn’t care anyway.

Even before Severus drew back, his lips drawn across his teeth in a snarl, Sirius had known he was going to deny himself a climax. He watched without saying a word, his heart hammering and his chest heaving, not even noticing how vulnerable and exposed he felt, as Snape dressed quickly and threw the door open. He’d made a mess of this; Dumbledore had handed him, albeit unwittingly, the path to his boyhood fantasy, and Sirius Black had blown it.

Snape turned at the door. ‘Give myself to you?’ he asked, a thin smirk twisting his lip. ‘I think not.’

‘Severus,’ Sirius said, as Snape crossed the threshold. He knew he had to say something, something to stop him going down the stairs and out into Grimmauld Place. Sirius knew if he let him do that, if he let him leave believing he had somehow lost his advantage, he would never see him again.

Severus didn’t turn back, instead using all of his energy and mental strength to regain the upper hand. ‘Sleep well, Black,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘You have a lot to do tomorrow.’

‘All right, damn you,’ Sirius called back, pushing back his relief. ‘But no Doxies… I couldn’t do Doxies again.’

Snape turned at last. ‘No, Black, no Doxies.’ He gave Sirius another twist of his humourless lips, feeling as though he were back in control again.

Sirius watched him go, feeling empty and used and cheap, and yet somehow he knew that had been what Snape had wanted, and somewhere dark, Sirius knew it was what he wanted too.

*****

The next day was spent in what seemed to each man to be the other’s sullen silence. Sirius raised no objections to the daunting task of cleaning the cavernous kitchen, once again without the use of his wand. To him the day seemed to fly by, and he hardly noticed that his hands were raw, or that his back was aching, or that the cleaner the kitchen became the dirtier and sweatier he got. His mind wandered constantly from his task to the man who sat in a straight-backed chair in the corner, once again pretending to read. Snape left the kitchen only once in the morning, and once in the afternoon, and each time Sirius felt the void of his absence, almost like a physical wrench. He wondered if he had the courage to do what he had decided to do. Quae nocent docent, he thought to himself.

Severus watched him work, watched the sweat of honest labour soak through his pale blue shirt, darkening it across his shoulders, the same sweat that had run so freely the night before. He caught himself quickly, before his breath shortened, before he let himself fantasise over what had happened. It had been a mistake; he knew that, and now he didn’t know how to find the way to the top of the path, so he could take the walk more slowly. But he had hardly admitted to himself where he had been going, and now it was too late he suspected. He’d lost the way.

It took him a moment to realise Black was standing watching him, holding a pail of water in one of his work-reddened hands, and a washing cloth in the other.

Severus felt quite at a loss as he pretended to look critically around the vast, ugly but clean kitchen. Black had turned away though, and was pouring the dirty water down the huge white china sink, even going as far as to rinse it with clean water and rinse out the washing cloth.

‘I’m going for a bath,’ Sirius said, as he turned from putting the pail under the sink.

Snape just nodded; he couldn’t think of anything to say. He waited until Sirius had left the kitchen, made himself a hasty cold meal, and was in his room before Sirius came out of the bathroom. He was doing what he did best, he snorted to himself in self derision: hiding, hiding from Black, hiding from everything and everyone, but Severus Snape knew from whom he really hid, the one person who always knew where to find him… himself.

*****

Severus lay awake for hours, then slept later than he had intended. He went downstairs, sniffing suspiciously at the smell of coffee and toast, neither of which seemed to be burnt. He pushed open the kitchen door and pushed down the scald of disappointment. Black was shaved, dressed, and judging by his still damp hair, clean too. The table was set, and there were neither cigarettes nor whisky in evidence.

‘What are you up to?’ he asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

‘Up to?’ Sirius asked, turning from where he had been poking at a frying pan, which was sizzling happily on top of the stove. ‘You just sit down and enjoy your breakfast.’ He slid a knife somewhat expertly under an egg, and then another, flipping them one after the other onto a clean plate, following them with three rashers of uncomfortably tasty looking bacon, two tomato halves and a few mushrooms. He laid the plate on the table in front of Snape. ‘Now that,’ he said, pointing at the plate, ‘is what I call breakfast.’ He didn’t even stoop to compare it to the sticky porridge Severus had virtually force-fed him for three mornings on the trot.

Snape didn’t like this; he didn’t like the one-upmanship, or the fact that the breakfast certainly looked and smelled much more appealing than his own admittedly frugal efforts, but most of all he didn’t like the fact that there was nothing to criticise. ‘Thank you,’ he snapped, with a grace that would have outshone Walburga Black.

‘No, no,’ Sirius replied, bringing over a teapot, complete with knitted cosy and pompom in green and silver, and a silver toast rack with perfectly browned toast. ‘It is I who thank you, Severus. I hadn’t even realised what joy could be found in working for pleasure.’

Snape gave Sirius a long hard look, and Sirius smiled what could only have been described as a sunny smile, one that Severus would have taken no small pleasure in wiping off his face… if he could only think of how to do that. He could hardly hex his balls off for preparing breakfast. He watched Black return to the table with a bowl of sticky white porridge, which he tucked into as though he were actually enjoying it.

‘You were right, Severus, I see that now,’ he said, smiling the damn stupid smile again. ‘Pride in myself isn’t a birthright… it can’t be bought, or made by magic… I understand that now. I understand it is a reward for my diligence,’ he went on, revelling inwardly at Snape’s incredulous look. ‘It’s not my only reward either,’ he added, now that he could see he had Snape by the short ones. ‘Lupin always said he would move in with me if I sorted myself out,’ he finished on what he hoped sounded like a high of righteous anticipation, as he saw Severus flinch. ‘I have you to thank for everything… don’t think that I don’t know that.’

‘How nice,’ Severus snapped. ‘That being the case, you hardly need me.’ He abandoned his breakfast and summoned his travelling cloak. He pulled it over his shoulders, as Walburga Black shrieked in delight, even over the Silencing Spell he had placed on her.

‘Severus?’ Sirius called into the hall as Snape put his hand on the front door. ‘You were right all along. Quae Nocent Docent... I even found out what it means… “things that hurt, teach”.’

Severus didn’t turn back. ‘Not always, Black,’ he murmured, as he closed the front door, squaring his shoulders from the slump they seemed to have adopted of their own accord. ‘Sometimes they just hurt.’

He stepped out into Grimmauld Place, wondering what had possessed him to try to change the uncouth, unkempt, unwashed, undeniably fuckable Sirius Black, what madness had caused to him wipe away the very trashiness of the man that had so attracted him in the first place. Hoist by mine own petard, he thought bitterly, as he waited until he saw the house disappear under its charm.

Sirius waited until he was sure that Snape wasn’t coming back. He slumped at the table, feeling just a little guilty. He hadn’t enjoyed hurting him, and wondered why he was surprised that he had. He thought for a moment, looking around the spotless, yet still ugly kitchen. He stood up and opened the cupboard above the sink, and lifted down a fresh whisky bottle. He uncorked it with a pop and poured a killer measure, wondering how long it would take to get everything back to the horrible mess it had been in. It wasn’t that he had liked it that way, far from it, but he knew Dumbledore was calling in to see him the day after tomorrow, and it wouldn’t do if he didn’t send Severus back to finish what he’d begun.

*****

It was late in the afternoon when Snape started from his maudlin thoughts, and glanced at the fireplace to see the one person he didn’t want to see.

‘Severus my boy?’ Dumbledore called across the room. ‘Argus said you were back. Come up to my office and tell me how you got on.’

Snape turned away and closed his eyes briefly, stifling the thoughts of Black, as he had tried to stifle them all day, first with disciplining his mind, and latterly with whisky. He hadn’t even had the dubious pleasure of becoming drunk; all it had done was to fill him with such a mixture of self-pity and self-loathing that it had neutralised the effects of the alcohol. He didn’t bother replying to Dumbledore. He just pushed his chair back, and left his room to go to the Headmaster’s office. When he got there, there were two more people than he had expected.

‘Ah, Severus.’ Dumbledore smiled over his glasses, and nodded to the seat Snape usually sat on. ‘Mission accomplished so quickly?’ he asked.

Snape turned to where Lupin sat in front of Dumbledore’s desk, at the opposite corner. ‘I am passing the task to one more suited,’ he said. ‘I have paved the way for you though, Lupin,’ he went on, addressing the clearly confused werewolf.

‘For me? For what?’ Lupin asked.

‘Ah, you don’t know yet,’ Dumbledore interrupted, seeming not to notice the two men before him talking at cross purposes. ‘Congratulations are in order to both Remus,’ he said, and turned to the young woman at Lupin’s side, ‘and to his lovely fiancée, the delightful Nymphadora. They just called to tell me the news, and,’ he said smiling the smile Snape loathed, ‘to ask me to officiate at their wedding.’

‘Wedding,’ Snape echoed. ‘To one another?’

‘You seem very strange, Severus,’ Lupin remarked. ‘Are you drunk?’

‘No,’ Snape replied. ‘However, I suspect Black will be, he is expecting you to move in with him.’

Lupin winced in a way that spoke of distaste at the very notion, as Tonks’s hair changed from blue to pink, and then to a very odd mustard colour. ‘Move in with him?’ Lupin said eventually. ‘With Sirius? Do I look insane?’

‘You didn’t promise to move in with Black, if he sorted himself out?’ Snape asked, beginning to rather enjoy the conversation, the fact that he had looked slightly foolish to begin with, notwithstanding. ‘I should have words with him then, if I were you. It’s the story he’s putting about.’

‘Move in with him?’ Tonks asked now. ‘As in… move in with him?’

‘It was his little euphemism for my work ethic being too much for him to bear,’ Severus replied, as though he had known as much all along.

‘Severus… why are you back here so soon?’ Dumbledore asked. ‘Surely even you have not managed to deal with the situation as quickly as three or four short days.’

‘What situation?’ Lupin asked, and Snape was quite relieved that it was all becoming somewhat complicated.

‘Not quite, Headmaster,’ he replied. ‘I have simply drawn back to remind Black of the alternatives he has,’ he lied smoothly now, as he felt the control he so needed slip back into his grasp… unless of course he had read Black wrongly the whole time he had been at Grimmauld Place, and not just the last morning.

*****

It took Sirius three days to understand he had made an error of judgement, a monumental one, even by his own standards. Dumbledore had sent him an owl, saying he wouldn’t be calling for another week; Lupin had sent him an owl to say that he had just got engaged to Nymphadora Tonks, not that Sirius hadn’t known that was about to happen; from Snape, he heard nothing.

Far from becoming the hideous mess it had always been, the House of Black got worse. The bathroom he had worked so hard on, instead of looking grimy and old as it had always done, now looked accusing, and he avoided it, staggering upstairs instead when the need arose. The kitchen table was littered with the debris of a bender, seeming much worse than usual for the soiling of what had so lately been clean.

Once or twice he considered going to Hogwarts and braving the dungeon, but what would he say? “Sorry, Severus, I was just winding you up to make you jealous, so you’d come back when you realised you wanted me,” or… he couldn‘t even think of an “or”. Maybe he would just beg. But Sirius knew what he would do; he would sink into the despair he had so nearly allowed himself to be rescued from, because in the long run it was less like hard work. He staggered to his feet, head pounding so hard that he could almost hear it… or was it?

Severus stood on the doorstep and took a deep breath; he wasn’t backing down, he told himself, even going as far to pretend to himself that giving of his time in this way was an act of charity. Of course, he didn’t believe any of the hogwash he had served himself over the last three days; he just hoped that Sirius had got so drunk that he was incapable of staggering to Hogwarts to beg him to come back.

The door sprang open in an impressive shower of blue and yellow sparks, and Severus could see that the hall they lit was every bit as dingy as it had been a week before.

He took another deep breath and stepped inside; Walburga Black took a deep breath and began shrieking, and the door slammed shut.

‘What lowborn whelp of an unwholesome whore comes to soil the house of my fathers?’ she screeched, in a voice like a nail being drawn down a blackboard. ‘Out, out, shameful sinner, corrupter of my son, lecherous…’ She didn’t get to finish.

‘I’ll just get my bucket then, shall I? Sirius said, from where he stood clutching the lintel of the kitchen door.

*****