Harry Potter 1. Day One

A/N: This is probably the longest story I've ever written (which is not necessarily a good thing, mind:), seven parts in total. I owe a mountain of gratitude to Fluffyllama for the beta and to Trobadora for all her help and advice - I love you both dearly:)

* * *

**Day One**

The warmth rushed through his lungs into every corner of his body like a bolt of lightning, forcing his back to arch and his hands to clutch onto something soft underneath them.

"Fucking hell!"

"Of course," said the familiar voice somewhere nearby. "What suitable first words to be uttered by such a brute."

The overformal tone, the unmistakable sneer in the voice, and the reference to him as an animal left Sirius no doubt as to whom he was speaking with.

"Where am I?"

"In my bedroom."

"And why would that be?"

"That would be because I brought you here."

"Brought?"

"To bring, past tense. Do try to concentrate, Black."

His head spinning like a Sneakoscope, Sirius rubbed his eyes and saw the little stars, shining above his head. He knew something was not right about that, but his mind was unable to stay on the subject long enough for him to determine what it was.

"Brought?"

"Evidently this will take longer than I anticipated."

The dark figure of Snape floated over him, blocking the stars from his sight, and placing something in his hand.

"Just drink this."

"What is it?"

Sirius forced himself to sit up, which only made him dizzier, and nearly threw up after sniffing at the goblet he was holding.

"It will make you feel better. Trust me."

"That's a laugh."

"Just drink it, Black."

"Aww, it's disgusting!"

"All of it."

"There, happy now?"

"Not particularly."

The room was starting to take shape, and Sirius could make out the shabby canopy of the bed above his head, pierced with tears and holes, which gave tiny glimpses of the sunlit ceiling. With effort, he pushed himself up and stared fixedly at the cloud of golden dust which glittered in the ray of light streaming through the window. It had been a while since he had seen the sun rise - and that was when he realised another thing wrong with the picture.

"Let's get back to that part about you bringing me here," he said, getting up on his shaky legs. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't I dead?"

"Very much so, I should think."

"Remarkably close to living, this death thing."

"Only if interfered with."

"And why would anybody interfere with my death?"

"Perhaps not all were satisfied with you merely dying."

As much as Sirius would have liked to think he had simply heard him wrong, the sneer on Snape's lips was unmistakable.

"You've brought me back from the dead only to make me suffer some _more_?" Sirius exclaimed in disbelief. "Is that what you want, you bloody bastard?"

"Can you not tell what I want?" Snape asked, the sneer turning into a half smile.

"Well, several things leap to mind, the biggest one being, of course, even half a brain!" Sirius tried to take a step towards him, but his legs appearing to think otherwise, he had to cling to the bedpost just to stay on his feet. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, meddling with my death!"

"I want justice."

"I think the word you're looking for is revenge."

"I prefer to call it justice."

Sirius sat back down on the bed where he had just woken up. Quickly he counted his options, measured the distance to the door, and planned which of the few pieces of furniture he could use to aid his escape. But Snape was standing firmly between him and the door, and the only thing Sirius could think of throwing at him was a chair that looked rotten enough to fall into pieces at a mere touch.

"How did you do it anyway?" he asked, turning his eyes back to Snape. "How the hell did you bring me back?"

"All is possible if one turns a little further from the Light," Snape said, evidently pleased with himself.

"Ah, the Dark Arts, your favourite." Abruptly Sirius looked down at his feet, only now noticing that something was missing. In an instant, his hands shot down to cover his private parts. "Didn't manage to bring the clothes along, did you?"

"A minor flaw in the Exmortuis Spell," Snape said, sounding not the least bit sorry. "But after all, it is to bring people back from the dead, not to conjure them clothes; that is what the Vestitus Spell is for."

"Which you're not going to use, are you?"

"No, I think not."

Glaring at Snape, Sirius lifted his hand to his neck, where he had felt something that had not been there the last time he checked.

"Possibly not precisely the kind you are used to," Snape said before he could ask, "but every dog needs a collar, don't you think?"

No matter how hard Sirius tried to pull at the band around his throat, the thick leather would not give an inch. He traced his hand all around it, but found neither a buckle nor any seam whatsoever; the collar was completely smooth.

"Take this thing off me this instant, or I'll..." Ignoring his nakedness, Sirius jumped to his feet and staggered to Snape with both hands curled into fists, ready to beat the living daylights out of him.

He did not get far, however, before he felt the collar suddenly tighten around his neck, pressing deeper and deeper into his skin until it completely cut off his supply of air. Frantically he tried to get his fingers underneath it, but the more he struggled, the firmer its hold seemed to become. Sirius felt the wave of panic hit over him, the desperate realisation that there was nothing he could do to stop the collar from choking him to death. Finally his legs gave in, and he fell face down on the floor, right at Snape's feet.

"I was just about to come to this," Snape's voice said faintly, as if coming from somewhere far away. "You see, as I am the one who brought you back, I am now in charge of you, so to speak. That nifty little collar is to prevent you from doing anything nasty, such as attacking me or otherwise disobeying my orders. Such a clever bonus attached to the spell, don't you find?"

As the voice drifted further and further away, taking the light with it, Sirius felt himself sinking deeper into something cold, yet very familiar. All strength had left his limbs, and even though he knew he was lying on the floor, he could not feel it underneath him any more. His eyes were still open, but a dark veil was now covering them, distancing him from the rest of the world.

"Come now, Black," said Snape, more audibly than before. "You can't be in such a hurry to repeat that experience. There will be plenty more chances for you to die later."

The hands took hold of Sirius and pulled him up. All of sudden the collar seemed looser again, and with relief he gasped for air.

"What the fuck was that!"

"Were you not paying any attention to what I just said?" Snape heaved a weary sigh. "I am your master, and therefore you are not to do anything against my will. As you just demonstrated, any attempt to cross me will result in your death."

"But I'm already dead!"

Snape smiled wryly as he took hold of Sirius' arm and led him out of the room into a dark corridor.

"Precisely."

Sirius stared in disbelief at the man walking beside him. He was dead, and surely he could not die again, hence if every violation of Snape's wishes lead to being choked to death, Sirius would keep experiencing the agony of dying over and over again! There was not much he would not put past Snape, but that was utterly insane even for him.

"You call this justice!" he shouted at Snape as they walked down the stairs. "This is how you get off, is it, you sick bastard, watching me die!"

"Must I repeat this again," Snape said in a tired voice. "As long as you do as you're told, the collar will not harm you and you can quite happily carry on with your life - or rather, death." He stopped by a door and pushed it open. "Now, I would like one three-minute egg. Make sure it's nice and runny, for I can't stand hardboiled eggs. And then..."

"Why the fuck are you telling me all this?"

"So that you will know what to prepare for me for breakfast. It is nearly nine o'clock, and I haven't had so much as a..."

"That's the bloody house-elf's job!"

"You do know that we will never get this over with if you keep interrupting me?" Snape said impatiently. "Of course, it is difficult for you to understand that not all of us have been fortunate enough to be born into a family with a luxury such as a house-elf..."

"Luxury?" Sirius cut in. "A treacherous arsehole, more like."

"Still a bit sour over what's-his-name, are we?" Snape said, grinning. "Be that as it may, I now have you to take care of such tiresome chores for me. So, unless you have some twisted perversion for dying repeatedly, you will get my breakfast started without delay. You may call me Master if it helps you to get into character."

Snape gave him a little shove, and Sirius found himself standing in the middle of the kitchen. The only window revealed the rising sun, shedding its light over the barren moors. As far as Sirius could see, there was not another house for miles.

Taking a deep breath, he did his best to clear his mind and to sum up his situation. He was held prisoner by a curse-happy madman, whose only objective in life was to revenge himself on Sirius for things done years ago. In addition to this, he was also naked as the day he came into the world, although long since departed from it. Even if he should manage to run out into the moors before dying again, there would be no one there to help a naked man being strangled by a leather collar around his neck. In a nutshell, things were not good.

"Any chance you might conjure me some clothing any time soon?" Sirius ventured to ask.

Snape glared at him as if he had asked for at least the hand of his daughter and half the kingdom instead of a simple Vestitus spell.

"Unless, of course," Sirius continued, "you prefer your eggs served with a couple of pubic hairs, in which case I'm more than happy to be of assistance."

"There," Snape said quickly, taking a tea towel from the counter and throwing it at Sirius. "The proper attire of a house-elf."

At first Sirius merely clenched the tiny piece of cloth in his hand, ready to shove it up Snape's arse and be done with it. Then reason kicked in, and he began arranging it against his naked body, only to discover that it covered no more than his groin and required one hand to hold the towel in place at all times.

"Now, as I was telling you: one runny egg, some toast with honey, and good, strong coffee, black. I shall have it in the dining room, through that door there," Snape concluded, pointing at a door at the other end of the kitchen. "And do wash your hands before touching the food. Death leaves such a bitter aftertaste."

He turned on his heel and slammed the door shut behind him.

For a while, all Sirius could do was stare at the row of blackened kettles and pans, waiting for the blissful moment when he would wake up from his insane nightmare. But no matter how hard he concentrated, the kitchen seemed reluctant to disappear.

Finally resigning himself to the absurdity of the situation, and hoping to dream the bad dream away, Sirius decided to rectify at least one wrong. After a bit of a search through the cupboards, he found another tea towel, and by knotting the two together on one side, he was able to make a sort of a loincloth for himself that covered hardly anything but at least left both of his hands free.

"Right," he said to himself. "Let's make the bastard some breakfast."

* * *

"You may clear the table now," Snape said, wiping his mouth on a napkin. "Oh, do get up already. There's no time for you to loiter around."

With effort, Sirius pushed himself up from the dining room floor, his head still pounding from the lack of air. The collar had strangled him in a matter of seconds, and even when he came to the panic was still rushing through him, his whole body trembling from the struggle.

"I trust you will be more attentive to my instructions in the future, for I clearly said one three-minute egg and not the other way around."

Sirius bit his tongue and resisted the temptation of telling the man that he had heard him right the first time.

"I shall leave you now," Snape said and got up from the table. "While I'm out, here is your list of tasks, and I trust I need not remind you what neglecting to carry them out will mean."

He placed a piece of parchment on the table and straightened his robes, preparing to leave.

"Oh, and before I go," he said with a curious smile on his lips, "I should point out that you are not to leave this house, nor are you to use any magic. Should you happen to forget these orders, the collar will not hesitate to remind you."

In one loud crack, Snape Disapparated.

Sirius picked up the list from the table and skimmed it through: dusting, polishing, sweeping, washing, ironing... What the fuck was ironing? Sirius hoped it had something to do with sticking metal wires up a certain person's arse.

"And dinner is to be served at five o'clock sharp," he read from the list and grimaced. "Well, fuck me."

The parchment was quickly crumpled up and on its way into the fireplace. If Snape honestly thought Sirius was going to do all that, the man was more seriously disturbed than he had given him credit for.

"No, this has gone far enough," he said to the empty room. "I think it's high time that I leave this hellhole."

* * *

How many times he had died that day, Sirius could not tell any more.

As far as he could remember, the first death had occurred by the front door. Opening it had proved easy, giving Sirius the false hope that he would simply be able to walk through it. However, as soon as his foot had touched the doorstep, the leather band had tightened around his neck and he had collapsed to the floor, being choked to death by that accursed device.

After that, it was all only a string of flashes to him: reaching for the box of Floo Powder and suffocating in front of the fireplace, opening the window and waking up on the floor with a bump and a headache, edging a knife underneath the collar and nearly slitting his throat before being strangled to death.

In the end, Sirius had merely lain on the floor of the kitchen, wondering whether cutting his own throat would actually kill him and send him back to where he belonged, or if he would just continue his half of a life, drained dry of blood and a bit paler.

The kitchen floor was where Snape had found him hours later and ordered him to prepare his dinner, which Sirius had naturally refused to do, and which had naturally led to another dying experience.

The dinner had consisted mainly of badly burnt sausages and even more badly burnt eggs, accompanied by mash. Originally Sirius had intended to make chips, but the potatoes had never quite made it into the pan before the flames had forced him to abandon the idea of boiling anything in oil ever again.

He was in the middle of clearing up the mess he had made in the kitchen when Snape appeared in the doorway.

"I have a little job for you," he said tersely. "Come to the upstairs bathroom as soon as you've restored this room to what it once was."

"Once? You mean a century or two ago?" Sirius asked, pointing at the chipped china and the missing cupboard doors, but Snape had already swept away.

* * *

When he reached the door to the bathroom, Sirius halted and took a deep breath, preparing to face his Master. He would most likely spend the night scrubbing mould off the floor tiles with his bare hands, even though the same could be accomplished with one simple wave of a wand and the wonderful word 'Scourgify'. Without knocking, as he could not remember Kreacher ever doing so, Sirius entered the bathroom.

Of all the horrid things he had expected to find, the sight of Snape lying naked in the tub caught him completely by surprise.

"Good, you are here," Snape said, pushing himself to sit up in the tub. "Hopefully I shan't be made to wait that long again."

He stared at Sirius, obviously waiting for some kind of reply, but Sirius was utterly speechless. All he could do was stare at the pale chest rising from the water like a corpse floated ashore. Snape's black hair was dripping wet, and locks of it clung to his face, striping the white with black. This was certainly a Snape Sirius had never seen before. To be honest, Sirius had never thought the man even _had_ a body under those black robes, merely some immaterial concentration of evil, held together by sheer viciousness.

Slowly, Sirius' gaze moved down the chest, the skin turning even whiter under the water, until it stopped at the sight of something much darker, almost black, in the middle of which...

"Here," Snape said and shoved something into Sirius' hand. "You may start with the back."

Tearing his eyes away from the naked body in the tub, Sirius glanced at the sponge and the bar of soap in his hand.

"I may what?"

"Start with the back," Snape repeated as he leant forward. "And do make sure not to miss a spot."

As if in a trance, Sirius rubbed some soap on the sponge, bent down and started to wash Snape's back. He found himself waiting for the skin to fall off in the wake of the sponge and for scales to come into view.

After the back was finished, he moved to the sides and to the arms, and finally to the front. Cautiously he let the sponge slide down Snape's neck and over his chest, avoiding looking at the man, yet sensing the complacent smile on his lips. As everything above the waterline was washed, Sirius straightened up, thinking the job was done; but Snape's voice stopped him.

"Now the legs."

Clenching his teeth, Sirius bent down again and began to rub the sponge against the pale and skinny leg which Snape had lifted out of the water.

At first, Sirius thought it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. The second time, he convinced himself that it was the water that had created the illusion of movement. However, the third time it happened, he knew the hand covering Snape's private parts was not just resting there.

"Fucking hell!" he cried out and threw the sponge into the tub with a loud splash.

"What the devil is the meaning of this!" Snape demanded, taking hold of the sides of the tub as if to stand up, but stopping halfway.

"No, this has gone far enough!" Sirius shouted and turned to leave. "I'm not going to wash your feet while you wank off!"

"Oh, what rubbish," Snape said without managing to sound too convincing, and sat back down in the tub. "Come now, I'm not finished yet."

"I really don't give a fuck!" Sirius reached for the door and flung it open. "You may bloody well wank all by..."

The rest of the words were caught in his throat as the collar started to tighten around it. Sirius tried to tell himself that there was nothing to worry about, that it would soon be over, but panic won once more. Struggling feverishly to tear the collar off, he fell to the floor.

* * *

"Next time you _will_ finish me, Black," said Snape's voice somewhere over Sirius' head. "Washing one's own hair is so tiring for the arms."

Still a bit dazed, Sirius stared at the pair of black slippers in front of his face.

"Never would've thought you even bothered with that," he mumbled.

"Well, I won't have to from now on, will I?"

Sirius forced himself back to his feet and met Snape's dark eyes.

"Quite a treat, is it, to have somebody touching you?" Sirius said, grinning. "Got you all excited, didn't it?"

The line of Snape's lips could not possibly have been any straighter.

"Quiet."

"What a sorry twat you are, Snivellus." Sirius shook his head. "Forcing some poor sod like me to touch you and then wanking off."

"Believe me," Snape hissed under his breath, his eyes blazing. "I find nothing even remotely exciting in such a sad excuse for a dog."

He threw his towel at Sirius' feet and strode out of the bathroom.

"Tell you what?" Sirius shouted after him. "The next time I'll run the bath for you, and I'll make damn sure there's enough water for you to drown yourself!"

* * *

Sirius lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling, or at least in the direction he assumed it to be. His stub of a candle had burnt out long before, leaving him in the dark, but after seeing the cellar once, he was confident he was not missing much. Of course, he could simply go and fetch another candle from upstairs; Snape was bound to be asleep by now, and surely even house-elves were entitled to some form of lighting. However, there was something quite soothing in the darkness, and not being able to see the walls made the small space between the boxes and whatnots seem a little bit roomier.

When Snape had first opened the door to the cellar, Sirius had been certain it would be only a matter of minutes before he found himself hanging upside down in chains. But evidently the man had decided to keep his servant alive and fully functional for a little while longer, and had just left him there, not even bothering to lock the door. However, giving Sirius a blanket in which to wrap himself on the cold floor would have been far too decent for him.

After the day he had had, Sirius had been sure he would fall asleep instantly, yet it must have been hours since Snape had left and he was still wide awake. Come to think of it, Sirius could not remember being either hungry or thirsty all day. Surely economical, being dead. In fact, he had no objections about being dead, at least not any more; it was the continuous repetition of the moment of death that he had a serious problem with.

One would have thought the sensation would grow weaker over time, and the knowledge that he would most certainly survive the strangulation would help eliminate the fear. However, that day had clearly demonstrated the truth to be quite the opposite. Every time the collar had started to tighten, the same panic had come over him, the same sensation of losing control; the awareness that he would regain it in a matter of minutes had been of no use whatsoever. Experience and knowledge did nothing to change the basic reaction of every living creature to being suffocated.

In the darkness of the cellar, Sirius swore he would not go through another death unless he could be absolutely certain never to wake up again.

* * *

To be continued... 


	2. Day Two

****

Day Two

Sirius opened his eyes, but instead of the ceiling he had expected to find, he saw the bottom of the dining room table and the hem of the black robes.

"If you are quite done, I would like my coffee now. And this time without any of your digestive juices."

Gasping for air, Sirius got up from the floor, picked up the coffee cup that lay untouched in front of Snape, and tottered back into the kitchen. He had been so certain one little spit in the coffee would go unnoticed, but as soon as he had placed the cup on the table, Sirius had known the spell had outsmarted him once more. Evidently it did not even need a direct order from Snape to sense when its wearer was up to no good and act accordingly.

He poured another cup of coffee, looked at the black liquid and swallowed down the temptation, then carried it into the dining room for his waiting Master.

"I fear I have no time for coffee any more," Snape said, as he pushed the cup aside, and Sirius could see the corner of his mouth twitch. "Follow me."

Snape swept through the hall and up the stairs with Sirius at his heels. Even though he had already searched every room for a chance to escape the day before, this was the first time Sirius had paid any attention to the house itself and he could not help but see certain similarities with his own home in Grimmauld Place.

The Snapes had apparently shared his parents' liking for grimness when it came to decorating, although lacking the financial means to achieve the noble darkness of the House of Black. Everything looked a century or more past its prime, although most likely not much older than Sirius. The walls were striped with a number of different wallpapers, offering glimpses of the house at various times in history, each more hideous than the last. Evidently most of the furniture had either been sold or had disintegrated, which had left the place with a hollow echo of death that made Sirius wonder whether he had, indeed, been brought into the land of the living at all.

The whole house had a feel of neglect, of abandonment, which was scarcely surprising if the Snapes had been living there without a house-elf, and especially as their only son and heir had spent the better part of the last sixteen years at Hogwarts.

Snape stopped at a door at the end of the upstairs corridor. Sirius remembered that he had already tried to open it but, unlike all the others, this one had been locked. Snape turned the key in the lock and pushed it wide open.

"Get inside."

The number of bottles and jars on the shelves was quite astounding. They were all glimmering in different colours and some of their contents appeared to be moving. Sirius reached for the nearest jar, full of bright orange liquid with something quite quick and purple whizzing around in it.

"Do not touch!" Snape exclaimed and shoved him away from the shelves.

At the far end of the room stood a large desk, covered in books and parchments. Snape bent over it to examine something, grunted a few times and then strode to the fireplace, where a large cauldron was slowly simmering, wafting a curious smell into the room. Carefully he scooped out the slightly smoking potion and poured it into a goblet.

"Drink," he said, handing it to Sirius.

"No, thank you," Sirius said with a wave of the hand. "I'm not thirsty. Apparently dead people don't eat or drink."

"How economical," Snape drawled in a low voice, "but I believe I must insist that you drink this."

"Why? We've already established that I can't be killed again, so you'll just be wasting good poison on me."

"This is not poison," Snape said as he forced the goblet towards Sirius' lips. "This is the only thing keeping you in this world after the Exmortuis Spell. Call it your Aqua Vitae, if you wish."

Sirius took a few steps back, looking him straight in the eye. He had completely forgotten about the potion Snape had forced him to drink right after his arrival in that house. And what had brought him back to life, might easily offer a chance to depart from it, as well.

"And what if I refuse to take it?" Sirius asked, unable to hide the hopeful tone in his voice. "That would mess up your grand scheme pretty thoroughly, wouldn't it?"

But Snape merely sneered at him, shaking his head slowly.

"No, Black. Refusing to take it would not only result in another death scene, but also leave you, shall we say, 'in between'. You would be neither dead nor alive."

"A ghost?"

"Not even that," Snape said coldly. "Rather what some might call 'damned'."

"A day with you gives rather a nice ring to 'damned'."

"Am I to understand that you refuse to take the potion?"

"Yep."

"I see."

Snape turned around and, to Sirius' surprise, sat down in a comfortable-looking armchair.

"Very well," he said, leaning back in the chair and crossing his legs.

In the next instant, Sirius was gasping for air. The leather band around his throat was choking him so hard he thought his eyes would pop out, but still he remained standing, desperate to show Snape that he would endure it. Again, however, as his strength began to drain from his body, Sirius felt the same panic, the same lust for life and fear of death, and struggling furiously he fell to the floor, and died.

When the first breath of air jolted his body back to life, Sirius found his Master still seated in his chair, looking rather amused.

"Ready for the second round, are we?" he asked, again offering the goblet to Sirius. "Drink it."

"Fuck off," Sirius managed to whisper before the wave of panic returned.

Four times he died that morning in Snape's study; three would have been enough if it had not been for the applause Snape gave him after the third.

"I must say I enjoyed watching such an excellent performance," Snape said as Sirius finally gulped down the disgusting liquid. "I do believe you have an aptitude for this sort of thing."

The empty goblet flew across the room and smashed through the glass door of one of the cabinets.

Quite calmly, Snape pointed his wand at it and muttered, "_Vitrum Reparo_." He bent down to pick up the goblet, wiping it on his sleeve. "However, this might get a bit tiresome if you were to put on such a show every morning. From now on, I suggest that you will do as I say without any unnecessary fuss."

"Care to know where you may shove your suggestion?" Sirius asked, still out of breath.

"No, I have something called imagination, you may have heard of it." Snape gave him a sharp kick in his side. "Now get out. You are a waste of perfectly good space."

Amazingly, Sirius managed to find the door and stagger out of the study with only a few scratches from the doorframe.

* * *

He did not hear Snape Disapparate, but for the rest of the day, he saw no sign of the man anywhere in the house.

As his dying quota seemed to have been met for the day, Sirius decided to postpone any plans of escape till the next day and started the dusting in the library. It was a boring yet relatively painless job and gave him something to think about beside the stickiness of his current situation.

He did not get far, however, before having the quite questionable pleasure of meeting one of Snape's ancestors, one Gengulphus Snape, whose portrait hung above the fireplace in the library and who after taking just one look at him yelled "My word! A giant house-elf!" and burst into hysterical laughter. Sirius tried to talk back at him and pointed out, among other things, Gengulphus' rather poor attempt at covering his bald head with a few strands of hair that were not fooling anybody, but his comments were drowned by the shouts of "Tea towels!" and "A giant duster!"

As if that had not been enough to humiliate Sirius, he soon noticed that wherever he went, Gengulphus followed him, from picture to picture, and along with him came the laughter. At first, Sirius tried to lose him by running zigzag from one room to the next, but somehow the sniggering bastard managed to find him every time, and after a few minutes of dusting the bark "Giant elf!" drove Sirius back on the run.

Finally he saw no other choice but to barricade himself in the cellar, the only place he was certain held no bloody pictures, and there he sat, plucking out the feathers of the duster and listening closely for the smallest of chuckles, which would signal that the maniac had found him. And when the door opened hours later, there was a part of him that expected to see Gengulphus' face, grinning.

Snape had not been particularly pleased to find his cellar looking rather like the residence of a moulting owl, and so Sirius had been ordered to clean up the mess before dinner, which was also supposed to be his task. After gathering the feathers in one large pile, which he hid beneath the stairs, Sirius dragged his feet up the stairs to burn something new for his Master.

Getting information out of Snape was not the easiest task in the world. In fact, it took Sirius the whole of dinner to force the man to tell him how the battle in the Ministry had ended, and more importantly, how Harry was. Naturally Sirius knew his godson to be still alive; otherwise he would have already run across the lad on the other side of the veil. In a few words, Snape assured him that the "brat" was perfectly well and safe with those Muggle relatives of his, which was only a small comfort to Sirius.

On the darker side, though, he learnt that the Death Eaters captured that night in the Ministry had all escaped from Azkaban in a matter of days. That was the first moment during this second life of his that Sirius actually felt the urge to continue with it, to exploit the opportunity to return the favour to his dear cousin. The thought of duelling Bellatrix filled him with warmth, and the little bonus of not having to worry about dying in the process was almost too much to grasp.

Still, in the short time he had been dead Sirius had already grown quite attached to the world behind the veil. As much as he had enjoyed being alive, the opposite had its own odd appeal, and at that point, he would have done anything to return to the dead. Besides, there was a certain chess game he was eager to get back to; in his absence, James was bound to cheat.

* * *

"Look at yourself, you are simply repulsive," Snape said as he stepped out of the bathtub and took the robe Sirius was holding out for him.

There was nothing Sirius could say to that, as he knew what a mess he was. Nearly two days' worth of rolling on the floor and dying, in addition to the night spent in the cellar and the attempted dusting had certainly left their mark on him.

"I had intended to give you the opportunity to cleanse yourself properly, but after the poor job you did, first with the dinner and now with that sponge, I don't think you deserve to have any water wasted on you," Snape said, the familiar sneer on his lips. "Nevertheless, I have left _my_ bathwater for you to bathe in. Enjoy."

Snape wheeled around and walked out of the bathroom, leaving Sirius alone with a tub full of soapy, turbid bathwater. It looked far from tempting, but one glance at the mirror told him that it was still cleaner than him. So, taking a deep breath, Sirius stepped into the tub and let out a curse as he plunged into the cold water.

He did not dare to use the sponge for fear of drowning, so he took off the two tea towels that had served as his loincloth and turned them into a washcloth. The shampoo labelled 'for oily hair' made him wonder whether it in fact meant 'to _achieve_ oily hair', but nevertheless, Sirius resisted the temptation of using it. As quickly as he could, he washed his hair with the soap, knowing he would never run his fingers through it again after that, and climbed out of the tub before the hypothermia could kick in.

Without thinking, he took one of the white towels off the rack and soon stood holding the rather grey towel in his hands, imagining the hours he would spend turning it white again. He had once heard that the Muggles used something called 'bleak' on their whites, which also sounded just about right to describe his immediate future.

Sirius walked to the small window and looked at the falling darkness outside.

It could not go on for much longer. The servitude was humiliating enough as it was, but what he had seen Snape do in the tub again had been the last straw. Snape had tried to hide it, and the foam had covered most of it, but there was no question that the man had been stroking himself all the while Sirius had been washing him. There would be nothing he could do to stop him, should Snape suddenly decide that he was not quite that repulsive after all and that, in the absence of anyone else, he would have to do. Snape could make him do just about anything his evil mind desired, and if Sirius refused, nothing would prevent him from taking what he wanted while he lay dead at his feet.

There was only one solution and that was to escape, yet Sirius knew from painful experience that there was no way out of the house. Pressing his head against the windowpane, he cursed Severus bloody Snape and the Exmortuis bloody Spell and that whole bloody house and Gengulphus, the bloody portrait - and that was when he saw it.

Sirius knew there had been something missing from the house, but until then he had not been able to put his finger on it. Yet now that he looked at the backyard and the little shack not far from the house, he felt simultaneously incredibly stupid and incredibly cheerful.

* * *

The tea towels were still quite wet, so Sirius wrapped the greyish bath towel around his waist and headed to the kitchen to prepare his master's late dinner. But just as he strode across the hall, Snape's voice stopped him.

"Get in here, Black."

Sirius entered the library and found Snape seated in an armchair with a book on his lap.

"The fire is not lit."

Sirius' gaze turned from Snape to the wand on the table next to his chair and back again.

"You do know that you'll actually have to lift the wand to Incendio?"

"No, I want you to light the fire," Snape said with a wry smile. "It's much more entertaining that way."

"You bloody bastard..." Sirius started but managed to bite his tongue. He now had a plan and the plan entailed that he was not supposed to waste his energy by dying unnecessarily. "Do you expect me to rub two sticks together, or what?"

"Nothing quite as primitive." Snape threw a little box at him. "Authentic Muggle matches."

Grudgingly Sirius got down on his knees in front of the fireplace and started lighting the matches.

"What is that you're wearing?" Snape asked abruptly. "Is that one of my towels?"

"Maybe if you had let me use clean water, it might have been spared," Sirius muttered, not turning from the fireplace.

"Take it off this instant!"

"And what am I supposed to wear instead? The tea towels you so graciously gave me are still soaking wet."

"They will dry off soon enough in front of the fire."

"But there is no fire!"

"You had better get it started then, hadn't you?"

Only now did Sirius turn to glare at Snape and biting off what seemed like a huge chunk of his tongue, he tore the towel off and threw it on the floor.

"Even more entertaining," Snape said quietly and crossed his legs.

Breathing heavily and trying very hard to forget that he was naked, Sirius returned to his task. It proved quite a challenge to get the logs burning without the use of magic, especially as there were only far too heavy logs and no lighters whatsoever. A couple of times he came pretty close but in his excitement he piled too many logs around the slightly smoking one, and what might have been soon died down. In the end, Sirius merely sat on the floor, scratching the matches and throwing them aimlessly at the logs.

When the fire finally lit, all the logs suddenly bursting into flames, Sirius nearly screamed in triumph, but as he turned around to gloat at Snape, he found the man sitting with the wand in his hand.

"I was just about to get it started," Sirius grunted. "That second log on the left was definitely beginning to blacken."

"It was rotting." Snape leant forward in his chair and traced his lips with the tip of his wand. "Come here."

Sirius made to get up, but Snape stopped him.

"No, I want you to crawl here, on your hands and knees."

Again Sirius had to sacrifice a part of his tongue and taste the blood in his mouth, to keep him from charging at the bastard in his chair. He must not die, he must think of the plan, he must not die, he must escape.

"What Master wants, Master gets," he mumbled and began crawling towards Snape.

When working with the fire, Sirius had nearly managed to ignore the thought of Snape watching his naked body, but as he made his way across the floor, he could feel Snape's eyes on his skin, studying every inch of it.

"So, had enough of the master and dog game already?" Sirius asked when reaching the armchair and stopping in front of it. "Can I get up now?"

The look on Snape's face sent shivers down Sirius' spine.

"Am I to understand that you are not enjoying this game?" Snape asked and let the tip of his wand run slowly down Sirius' cheek. "Doesn't Sirius Black like being at the mercy of others, so helpless, so insignificant? It is not easy to take orders from people you despise, is it?"

"I suspect we are still talking about me, aren't we?"

"You are nothing but a pawn," Snape said leaning back and letting his legs drift apart, so that Sirius' head was left between his knees. "A mere pawn. You go where I tell you, you do as I tell you." An evil grin spread over his face, as he continued, "And if I was to order you to move one step forward and eat the king, you would have to obey, wouldn't you?"

For a few seconds Sirius kept telling himself that the chess reference had no sexual innuendo whatsoever, but as the smile stayed on Snape's lips, he knew the moment he had been fretting about had come sooner than anticipated. He glanced at Snape's lap: the man was still in his bathrobe and if he was not mistaken, there was a definite bulge in the front of the black robe. Sirius felt sick.

"You do know that if you make me eat the king, he will be gone for good."

"I rather doubt you would have the time before giving one of your shows again."

"Oh, I know I would end up dead," Sirius said casually, "but I'd wake up with a big part of the king in my mouth. Now, I don't think there's a spell to restore a half-eaten cock."

Snape's eyes flashed as he leant forward, clenching the wand in his hand.

"In that case," he hissed between his teeth, "turn around."

"Pawns don't move backwards, it's against the rules."

"Have you learnt nothing yet?" Snape snarled, his eyes narrowing. "It is I who makes the rules around here - turn!"

Slowly Sirius turned on his hands and knees to face the fireplace. He could suddenly hear every crack of the logs as the fire took hold of them and every squeak of the old house as it lived around them. His fingers dug into the carpet as he waited for the sounds that were bound to come.

First came the creak of the floorboards telling him that Snape had stood up, then the scratching of the chair being pushed aside, then the quiet rustle of his bathrobe. Sirius held his breath, knowing that the next sound would be that of Snape kneeling down behind him.

He must not die, he must get through this. He would simply have to grin and bear it, for fighting it would only lead to suffocation, and that he could not afford if he was to go through with his plan.

He heard Snape move behind him and closed his eyes, waiting for the first touch.

However, it was not the sort of touch he had been expecting. When Snape's foot landed squarely on his arse, sending him face down to the floor, Sirius scarcely even noticed the pain from the relief.

"Go and prepare my dinner, you sorry git," Snape said coldly. "And be quick about it, it's late enough as it is."

In an instant, Sirius was up on his feet and, after gathering the towels off the floor, out of the door. Panting heavily, he hurried across the hall, not wanting even to think how close he had been to being raped. What had made the man change his mind was a mystery, but Sirius was certain his sentence had only been postponed.

As he passed though the parlour, he heard the familiar voice snigger, and did not need to turn to know who it was that had followed him from the library.

"The giant house-elf got a kick in the arse!"

Sirius slammed the kitchen door shut hard enough for the pictures on the walls to rattle for a good while after him.

* * *

The house actually looked better at night, when one could not see the holes in the tapestries and the chunks of paint missing from the walls. The age of the floorboards, however, was only more clearly underlined, and the sound of Sirius creeping through the hall would have wakened the dead.

At last he reached the library and stood in the doorway for a good while, listening carefully. But evidently Snape slept soundly in his coffin, and so Sirius ventured into the library.

Once inside, he headed straight for the desk on the opposite wall. If he was to go through with his plan, certain things would be needed, and Sirius was fairly sure he would find them there. He did not dare to light a candle, so he had to poke around the table in the dark, taking every item in his hand in order to identify what they were. He had just wrapped his fingers around something smooth and cold, when all of a sudden the logs in the fireplace burst into flames.

"Explain yourself," came Snape's cold voice from behind him, and a dark figure emerged from the darkness.

"I... I couldn't sleep," Sirius stuttered. "I mean, I can't sleep, at all. You know, the dead don't sleep and all that rubbish."

"And how is that letter-opener helping you with your insomnia?"

Sirius looked down at his hands. The long, thin blade glowed in the light of the fire. Although forgetting to breathe, Sirius told his oxygen-deprived brain to think of something and fast.

"What's all this racket?" asked a sleepy voice. "It can't be morning just yet for I know perfectly well... I say, if it isn't the giant elf!"

One look at Gengulphus and Sirius' mind was made up.

"That bloody portrait is driving me mad!" he shouted and waved the letter-opener at the picture. "All day he kept calling me that! I came here to tear him to shreds!"

"Why, I never!" Gengulphus exclaimed, and looked to Snape for help. "You certainly need to teach your house-elf better manners! In my day..."

"Oh, shut it." Snape strode past the portrait to Sirius and took the letter-opener from him. "As much as I would like to see that damn picture in shreds myself..."

"Severus! That is no way to speak of your elders!"

"I always said that blasted artist made him just a tad too lifelike," Snape muttered, rubbing his wand against his palm.

"Well, I'm certainly more intelligent than the rest of the portraits in this house put together," Gengulphus said proudly. "I'm just the man I was when I was still alive!"

"Yes, " Snape drawled. "Unfortunately."

"I beg your pardon!"

"Nevertheless," Snape continued, obviously doing his best to ignore Gengulphus altogether, "I can't have you demolishing my ancestral home." His face was uncomfortably close to Sirius' as he pressed the cold metal of the letter-opener against his cheek. "Now, I know you were never one to take orders, Black, but with this," - he ran the sharp tip of the blade along the collar - "you are perhaps more likely to remember that from now on, you are not to touch another knife in this house."

"Including the kitchen knives?" Sirius asked, staring him straight in the eye. "Won't that make cooking a bit of a challenge?"

"You will simply have to be rather more resourceful, won't you?"

"The giant elf chopping carrots with a spoon! Oh, I simply cannot wait to..."

In a swoosh of black robes, Snape spun around and out of his wand shot a yellow spark, which burnt a small, circular hole in the canvas right below Gengulphus' feet.

"Watch it!" the portrait screamed. "You could have taken an eye out with that!"

"And that I will, if you can't keep your mouth shut!" Snape snapped at him. Then, turning back to Sirius, he said, "Back to your cellar, Black. You have a big day ahead of you."

"That I do," Sirius muttered as he made for the door, safe in the knowledge that all that he needed would be waiting for him right there in that room.

Not a peep came out of Gengulphus as they passed him, and it was only now that Sirius noticed the numerous small, circular holes, spread all over the canvas, and he felt a sudden warmth towards his Master.

* * *

To be continued... 


	3. Day Three

****

Day Three

The night had lasted for a week, and Snape's breakfast took at least another day or two. Sirius paced back and forth in the kitchen, waiting for the order to clear the table; his signal that Snape was leaving at last and that his plan might commence.

Finally the call sounded from the dining room, and after being told off for breaking yet another plate and spilling coffee on the tablecloth, Sirius was left alone with a pile of dirty dishes and without the slightest intention of washing them up. Not knowing how long Snape would stay away, he wasted no time with such trivialities and hurried straight to the library.

The quills, ink and paper were right where he had left them the night before, and hastily Sirius scribbled a short note.

_"Snape has brought me back from the dead and is holding me prisoner in his house. Sounds mad, I know, but that's Snape for you. Please hurry, I'm afraid for my life. Or rather, my death. Not to mention my bottom. Just hurry.  
- Sirius Black"_

"Severus is out, I take it," said a voice behind Sirius' back, startling him and making him curse as a large ink stain appeared right next to his signature. "It must be hard for him to have such an important role in the Order."

"Bugger off, Gengulphus," Sirius hissed without turning his head to the portrait.

But he should have already known better than to encourage the battiest of the Snapes.

"What need would a giant elf have for a quill?" Gengulphus asked, and Sirius could only admire him for his eyesight. "They teach you to read and write nowadays, do they? Such liberal rubbish, if you ask me..."

"Tell me, Gengulphus," Sirius said, finally turning around and smiling forcibly at the portrait. "Has anybody _ever_ asked your opinion on anything? You see, I doubt anybody could possibly give a toss about anything you have to say."

For a second Gengulphus seemed dumbstruck, but it did not take him to long to collect himself.

"You insolent twit!" he growled, his whole face turning a deep shade of red. "Once Severus returns I will make certain he is informed of your behaviour! And I can assure you he will not look too kindly upon his house-elf writing letters!"

"Well, I don't look kindly upon his disturbing my death," Sirius spat, feeling the anger build up inside him. "It was going perfectly well, I was just beginning to adjust to the thought of staying in that state for quite some time, and then _he_ had to come and mess it all up!" He was walking towards the picture as he spoke, still clenching the quill in his hand. "I'm sick and tired of this, of him, and of you! I won't dust and I won't cook and I won't do anything in this house ever again! By tomorrow, I'm out of here, and there's not a damn thing you or your precious grandson can do about it!"

"_Great_-grandson," Gengulphus was quick to correct, but not quick enough to flee before Sirius jabbed the quill into the canvas - right between the old man's legs. Gengulphus let out an outraged scream, and hurling a few select curses at Sirius, he disappeared from the portrait.

Smiling to himself, Sirius returned to the desk and to his letter. He folded the paper carefully and, taking another quill and dipping it into ink, he addressed it to Albus Dumbledore. Then, with the letter in his hand, he ran through the house to the back door and flung it open.

For a while, Sirius just stared at the yard. The sun had begun to climb in the sky and it was turning into a beautiful late summer day. There, right by the only tree in the yard, stood the small shack that he had seen through the bathroom window the night before. Shaking his head, Sirius thought what an idiot he had been, not realising what had been missing from the house the whole time. Where there were wizards, there were owls, and yet there was not so much as a feather, let alone a birdcage, inside the house.

The distance to the shack was not much in yards, but to Sirius it meant at least half a dozen slow and painful deaths by suffocation. Still he knew he would have to do it, for there was no other choice. He would have to crawl as much as he possibly could between the deaths and hope that both he and the day would last long enough.

Taking one last deep breath, Sirius charged through the door and down the steps. Even before he landed on the ground, he felt the collar tightening around his neck and right on the tail of it came the panic. No matter how many times he had pictured it in his cellar, the sensation was just as terrifying as before, and Sirius could not prevent his hands from grabbing the collar and his legs from kicking the dirt around him as he died slowly yet inevitably.

When he woke up again, the sun was already high up and the air was burning hot. Sirius reached to wipe the sweat off his forehead, but strangely enough, found it quite dry. With effort he got back up on his feet. He knew the first move away from the house would bring the pain back, and there was a part of him that was quite willing to call it a day and return to the house without further ado. Nevertheless, with the letter clenched tightly in his fist, Sirius exerted himself and managed to take two whole steps before collapsing to the ground again.

* * *

The sun was nowhere to be seen, and yet the air was even hotter than before. Sirius had already lost count of how many times he had died that day, but now there would only be need for one more and then he would have reached the shack. He knew at least one owl was there, as he had seen it through the tiny window, sitting half-asleep on its perch. Again Sirius' hand reached for his forehead, and this time the skin was definitely moist. Surprised, he stared at his hand, his tired mind working far over its capacity. It was only when the raindrops started to pour down harder that Sirius realised what was happening.

He pushed himself up and bent his head backwards, letting the rain wash away the dirt from his face. The day had turned out more tiring than he had anticipated, but he knew he would have to continue. He had no sense of time, and now that the clouds had covered the sun, he had no way of knowing how long he still had before Snape returned. The shack was only a few feet away from him, but the further he had advanced, the shorter the distance between his deaths had become.

Sirius concentrated, took a deep breath and jumped forward. Clutching at the collar with both hands, he fell straight through the door, and amidst the droppings and the feathers on the floor of the shack, he suffocated to death.

The first things he noticed when he came back to his senses were the howling wind and the rain, drumming against the roof of the shack. There were two owls sitting on their perches, both clearly nervous on account of the weather. Muttering something calming, Sirius reached for the nearest owl and handed it the letter.

"Now, I know I'm not your owner, but this is very important. It's for Dumbledore and no one else, understand?"

The dark brown bird made no attempt to answer, and for a while Sirius feared that it would not take orders from anybody but Snape. But then, rather reluctantly, the owl took the letter in its beak, spread its wings and disappeared through the window into the stormy sky.

Sirius made for the door, hopeful that the return journey would go rather less painfully. Just as he was about to step out, there was a loud crack, coming from somewhere quite near the shack, and then a scratching sound right above his head. For a split second he thought it was Snape, Apparating right there on the roof of the shack, which made no bloody sense at all and which was proved wrong with just one look up.

"Fuck me."

There was a large branch sticking through the roof, telling him that what he had heard could only have been lightning striking the tree right next to the shack. And judging by the curious creaking sounds, the roof would not be able to hold the weight of the branch for much longer.

"Out! Get out of here!" he screamed, motioning wildly at the grey owl still glued to its perch. "Fly away, you stupid bloody bird, before this whole thing falls apart!"

The owl let out an angry screech and zoomed past Sirius and out of the door. But the moment the bird disappeared, another crack sounded over the thunder and before Sirius even realised what was happening, the whole roof caved in, burying him underneath it.

* * *

"Black!"

The rain was pouring down so hard that Sirius had to turn his head to one side before opening his eyes. The whole house was lit up, candles flickering in every window, but the shout had not come from there. It was difficult to see anything through the rain, but at last Sirius caught a hint of light quite far from the house, moving further still.

He opened his mouth to shout at Snape, but after gaining only a mouthful of water, he closed it again. Seriously, what was the point? He might just as well stay right where he was instead of spending the rest of his life, or rather the rest of Snape's life, in servitude. The more he thought about it, the more appealing the prospect of lying trapped under a collapsed garden shack, soaking wet and covered in owl droppings, began to look. There was, of course, the question of becoming 'damned', as Snape had threatened, but what was one more haunted shack among the many others?

Although, surely the man could not help but notice the poor state of his owlery, and sooner rather than later he was bound to find Sirius. Then, the word 'damned' would not even begin to describe the horrors he would be put through.

"Oh, for fuck's sake..." he muttered, and trying to beat the still raging thunder, he called out, "Here! I'm over here, you bloody bastard!"

The light halted in the distance, and Sirius repeated his cry for help. Then, bouncing unevenly through the pitch-black night, the light moved closer, until Sirius could see the man holding the wand, running towards him over the muddy ground.

"I'm under here!" Sirius shouted, waving his free hand in the air. "I can't move!"

Without so much as a word to Sirius, Snape turned off the light at the tip of his wand, pointed it at the shack and shouted, "_Wingardium leviosa_!"

Sirius felt the weight being lifted off him and watched the shack hover above him for an instant before the wind got hold of it and whisked it out of his sight. His first thought was to stand up, but that soon proved a bit too ambitious. His right shoulder hurt like hell and he found himself unable to move his right leg, in addition to which mere breathing was agony.

"I don't think I can walk!" Sirius yelled as Snape kneeled down next to him.

But either his voice was lost in the thunder or the man was simply not listening. Snape's hands ran quickly down his body, stopping first at his shoulder, then going over his aching side and finally poking painfully at his leg. Sirius was surprised he could see anything from the rain and the mud, but evidently Snape had the rare gift of finding a person's sore spots.

"I can't get up!" Sirius repeated. "You'll have to conjure a stretcher!"

Again there was no answer. Instead, Snape grabbed a hold of his still working arm and started to pull him up with force. It took a good while to get him up on his feet, or rather foot, as he could not even place the other one on the ground, let alone put any weight on it. Leaning heavily on Snape, he was able to hop on one leg, and partly hopping, partly dragged, he made his way through the storm and back to the house.

As soon as they were inside, Snape slammed the door shut and Sirius against the wall. Only now was he able to take a good look at the man and in the light of the kitchen, Snape looked positively dreadful. He was soaking wet and the mud on his cloak was evidence enough that Sirius had not been the only one to roll around in the dirt that day. The black, dripping wet hair covered most of his face, except for the two fiery eyes that appeared to be burning in spite of all the water around them.

"You damn fool!" Snape yelled, taking Sirius' face in his hand and squeezing it so hard Sirius thought his jaw would crumble to bits. "What the devil were you thinking? Have you any grasp of what you did? You stupid bloody fool! You're by far the biggest twit I have ever..."

"Oi!" Sirius interrupted, turning to the offence. "I could say the same about you, although that's not the four-letter-word I'd use! Why the fuck couldn't you at least conjure a stretcher for me?"

Sirius' head banged against the wall hard enough to make him see tiny stars all around him.

"Have you some urgent business on the moors?" Snape asked, his eyes burning more furious than ever. "Since that's where you would've ended up the minute that wind had got hold of the stretcher! That is almost as idiotic an idea as going out there in the first place!"

Snape's hold on his face only tightened, making it increasingly difficult for him to speak.

"I only did what every prisoner's supposed to do!"

"Yet you are not every prisoner!" Snape was panting, his hand starting to shake from the strain but still not letting go of Sirius' face. "You could have disfigured yourself beyond the help of magic!"

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know slaves needed to be easy on the eye as well. But of course you wouldn't want your every need to be satisfied by a one-legged hunchback, would you now?"

And then it happened. He had no time to react as Snape pressed his mouth on his, sucking his lips almost violently. All Sirius could take in was Snape's skin, cold and damp against his, and the smell of his hair, which resembled quite uncannily that of a wet dog. Instinctively he clenched his teeth together, but there was no tongue trying to enter his mouth. Snape's lips stayed on his, while his hands moved to Sirius' hair, pulling and tearing at it as if desperate to touch every inch of it and to pull him even closer to his lips.

In the next instant the mouth was gone, and Sirius was left wondering what, if anything, had happened.

"What were you doing out there?" Snape asked, out of breath.

"Just taking a nice little stroll around the grounds," Sirius muttered, rubbing his lips, which were still burning from the imaginary kiss.

"Where is the letter?"

"What letter?"

"I strongly suggest that you do not toy with me, Black," Snape said, his voice dropping to a whisper and his hold on Sirius' face tightening again. "Did you send out one of my owls?"

Sirius weighed his options for a split second, only to find that he had none.

"Tried to," he said, pretending annoyance, which was not all that difficult at that moment. "Your bloody owl refused to take it and then the lightning struck and they both flew away and I got buried under a very shoddily built shack."

"And where is it, then?"

"I suspect the shack's right where you levitated it," Sirius said, grinning. However, after seeing the look on Snape's face, he continued, "The wind took the letter. It's probably the wonder of some rabbit burrow by now."

Snape's eyes seemed to be piercing right through him, but Sirius stared back at him without blinking, and as Snape turned his eyes away, he knew he had won.

"You are spreading mud all over the floor," Snape spat and without waiting for Sirius to move on his own, he seized him by the arm and pulled him to his side. "Follow me."

With one leg completely useless and the other only barely moving, Sirius had no choice but to hang on to Snape as he swept through the house. When they reached the hall, Sirius made to turn to the door leading down to the cellar, but Snape tore him past it and up the stairs. Swallowing his moans of pain, Sirius staggered with him to the second floor and into the bathroom.

"Get in the tub," Snape said shortly and opened the cold-water tab.

"It's freezing!"

"You want those cuts to heal or you want to be drained dry of blood?"

Sirius was tempted to ask what the latter scenario would mean exactly, but thought it best to leave it to another time. Grudgingly he got into the tub and nearly screamed from the cold, but managed to hold it back, determined not to show any sign of weakness in front of Snape.

As the water washed away the mud, he could see how much damage the shack had caused. His chest was covered in small cuts and bruises, but his biggest worry were the ones on his shoulder and on his leg, both of which were still bleeding and aching like hell. Cautiously he tried to move them and quite soon discovered that one was dislocated and the other broken.

"You might feel slight discomfort," said Snape, who had stepped behind him and was now taking a firm hold of his right arm.

One sharp pull, one surprised scream, and the shoulder was back in place.

"You bastard!" Sirius shouted, tearing his arm away from him. "There are other ways of doing that, you know!"

"I'm well aware of that," Snape said with a wry smile, "but I rather prefer this."

* * *

After the cold bath, Sirius towelled himself dry, heaving a sigh as he watched the towel turn an even darker shade of grey than the previous one, and this time with a touch of blood, which he would never be able to get out. He sat still on the edge of the tub, while Snape dressed the biggest wounds and splintered his leg. Then he was forced to hop on one leg again, down the corridor and into a room that he quickly recognised as the one in which he had woken up only two days before. Snape pushed him quite harshly down on the bed, and without a word, he was gone.

Sirius lay on his back, looking up at the shabby and raggedy canopy above him. In spite of all the pain and stress, he could not help but feel rather cheerful. After all, the most important thing was that his letter was well on its way to Dumbledore, and with any luck, his imprisonment would not last for much longer. Naturally the storm would hinder the message to some degree, but he was certain it would be in Dumbledore's hands no later than the next day, and then he would be free to carry on with his death.

The price had been high, though; his day had proved even more agonising than he had known to expect, involving slightly more pain and panic, what with the whole bloody shack collapsing on top of him. That had been a bit of a shock, to say the least, and yet it had been nothing compared to the one Snape had given him against the kitchen wall. In fact, the only thing worrying him at the moment was the kiss. Snape was already pretty pissed off by his little outing, and Sirius was convinced that the time when he would act on his impulses was drawing near. That kiss had been certain proof that Snape wanted more services from him than mere cooking and cleaning, and Sirius would be utterly defenceless against him.

One night, that was all, and then Dumbledore would come to his rescue and it would all be over. But spending the night in Snape's bed was certainly not the best way to guard one's sorry arse.

With effort, Sirius pushed himself up, and propping himself against the bedpost, he tried to stand. If he could only drag himself downstairs and into the cellar; Snape was hardly likely to follow him there for a shag, no matter how deranged he was.

Snape slammed the door shut behind him and scared Sirius half to death.

"One would think that even an imbecile such as yourself would have sense enough not to move a broken leg."

He strode to the bed in his black bathrobe, the mud washed away but his hair still dripping wet.

"I've just grown quite attached to my cellar," Sirius said quickly. "No need for me to rob you of your bed."

"Sit."

There was a nasty burning sensation in Sirius' throat.

"Really, I'll be fine in the cellar, more comfortable for you that way, don't you think?"

"Sit!"

Swallowing hard to make the burning go away, Sirius slumped on the edge of the bed.

"Drink this," Snape said, offering him a smoking goblet.

"What is it?"

"Must we go through this again? Just drink it."

Warily Sirius took the goblet and sniffed at the contents.

"Aww, it's even more disgusting than the Good Morning Potion!"

Nevertheless, he emptied the goblet and handed it back to Snape.

"So, what was it?" he asked, falling on his back.

"Restitutor Potion, to mend broken bones," Snape replied, checking that the goblet was indeed empty before placing it on the bedside table. "Much more efficient than any silly incantations."

Snape leant over Sirius, with a small jar in his hand.

"Phoenix Tear Ointment for the cuts," he said. "Before you ask."

Carefully Snape went through every cut and bruise on Sirius' chest, arms, and legs. The salve felt nice and cool, and Sirius actually found himself relaxing in his care.

"Now, to whom did you send that owl?" Snape asked quite casually as he applied the ointment on Sirius' scratched elbow.

"Dumbledore," Sirius answered without hesitation. "Bloody hell!"

The sense of relaxation was suddenly gone, and instead, he was boiling with anger.

"You bastard! That was Veritaserum, wasn't it?"

"Only a few drops to add some flavour," Snape said with a wry smile. "So, you did send an owl, what a surprise. Incidentally, which owl did you use?"

"The dark one," Sirius said before he could stop himself.

"Black?"

"More like dark brown, I think. And what does it matter anyway?"

"Oh, I'm merely being curious," Snape said lightly, but there was an odd sort of grin dancing on his lips.

"The other one got away, as well, before the roof came down. Just in case you're interested."

"Did he now? How nice." There was not a trace of concern in Snape's voice. "I believe I'm done with this side." The wand appeared in his hand from the pocket of his bathrobe. "_Vertus_!"

Before Sirius realised what was happening, he was flung up in the air, twirled quickly around and then dropped face down on the bed.

"Fucking hell, Snape!" he growled, the pain throbbing in his leg. "Didn't you just say I'm not supposed to move!"

"Yes, I did, didn't I?" Snape said, the evil grin audible in his voice.

His hands moved down Sirius' back, applying the ointment here and there, and finally stopping right on the rim of the tea towel.

"Um, I don't think there are any bruises down there," Sirius hurried to say. "Except the one that stings on my left buttock when I sit... Oh, bollocks!"

Cursing the dim-witted bastard who had thought a potion that forced people to tell the truth might be rather a clever idea, Sirius lay still as the tea towel, his only shield and protection, was pulled aside and Snape ran his fingers over his arse.

"Yes, you are quite right," he muttered to himself. "There is a nasty cut there, right across the left cheek."

Sirius waited for the coolness of the ointment, but still, it stayed away. Instead, he could feel Snape's hand brushing over his buttocks for the second and the third time, evidently in no hurry to leave.

"Um, I don't think there's more than that one," Sirius said warily.

At last, the Phoenix Tear Ointment hit his skin with a splash, and Snape rubbed it into the wound without any of the gentleness he had shown with the other ones. When he was done, he simply stood up and walked around the bed.

"You couldn't flip me again, could you?" Sirius asked, after trying to push himself up and finding it impossible. "My broken ribs aren't exactly thrilled by this position."

As Snape did not answer, Sirius turned his head towards the sound of the footsteps and gasped.

There was Snape, standing by the rotten chair and taking off his bathrobe, underneath which there was nothing. The paleness of his skin made him look almost ghost-like in the candlelight.

"What the fuck are you doing!" Sirius exclaimed, staring at his naked behind.

Snape gave him a curious look over his shoulder, and then sighed.

"The world is so much more challenging for the intellectually deprived, isn't it? Even the simplest of things, such as getting ready to go to bed, presents a mystery beyond comprehension."

"If you're even thinking of sleeping in this bed, then I'm out of here!"

Again Sirius made to get up, but the pain took his breath away and he was left lying right where he had started from, blinking away the tears.

"You will do nothing of the kind," Snape said shortly. "I need to monitor your condition over the night, and if you think I'm going to sleep on the floor of that cellar, you are sadly mistaken."

With horror, Sirius watched the pale body slip under the covers next to him.

How characteristic it was of Snape to wait until he was at his most vulnerable, covered in bandages and barely able to move, before the bastard took advantage of him. Judging by the rather draughty feeling, Sirius figured that the tea towel was still rolled up around his waist and his arse fully exposed. Quickly he reached to pull it down, but found not much comfort in the thin linen. It was only a matter of time before Snape forced himself on him and in him.

"So, this is it then?" he asked, swallowing hard.

"This is what?"

"Oh, you know perfectly well."

"Yes, a great many things, but unfortunately not this particular one."

"This is when it happens, right?"

"What happens?" The tone of Snape's voice was getting tenser. "This is when we sleep. Yet another difficult term, is it, Black?"

A deep sigh of relief was all that came out of Sirius' mouth.

"You sound disappointed." The bed rocked as Snape moved closer, his hand moving down Sirius' bare back. "Tell me, what was it that you were expecting to happen?"

Trying very hard to concentrate on a few simple words, such as 'nothing' and 'forget it', Sirius opened his mouth and instantly wished he had not.

"I expected you to rape me." Sirius pressed his face against the pillow and screamed in frustration. "That bloody serum!"

When he finally lifted his face from the pillow to breathe, he did not dare to turn towards Snape again. His hand, which had been resting on Sirius' lower back, had moved away in an instant, and now Sirius heard him reach for something on the bedside table.

"_Vertus_!"

With a thump, Sirius landed on his back, yet again moaning in pain. He found Snape sitting up next to him, tapping his lips with the tip of his wand.

"And what might make you think that?" Snape asked, his voice barely more than a whisper.

Nothing, nothing, nothing... How hard could it be to form just that one word?

"I've seen the way you look at me," Sirius blurted out. "And now, if you'll excuse me, there's going to be some blood, as I'm about to bite off my tongue. Of course, I'm just saying that because I'm much too big a coward to actually do it... That bloody buggery serum!"

"Perhaps you have mistaken my contempt for lust," Snape suggested. "I always knew you had no eye for subtlety."

Sirius knew he should just leave it at that and continue no further.

"You were hardly subtle yesterday, when you very bloody nearly shoved your cock in my mouth!"

Snape let out a little laugh, which scared Sirius even more than the wand in his hand.

"Now, you cannot honestly believe that I would ever allow your filthy mouth to touch even the sole of my shoe?"

"Didn't seem to think it was so filthy when you snogged me downstairs!"

"I did no such thing!"

"Oh, that's just a load of bollocks and you know it! I'm under the Verita-bloody-serum, for fuck's sake! You know I can't lie!"

"You were most likely simply hallucinating, which was hardly unexpected after the dying spree..."

"You snogged me!" Sirius was practically roaring by now. "And this might come as a shock to you, but where I come from, that usually means that you fancy somebody!"

"I can assure you that I find nothing even remotely attractive in you."

"Why did you snog me then?"

"For the last time, I did not... _do_ that!" Snape snapped. "I have no interest in you whatsoever."

"Well, likewise." Again Sirius tried to push himself up, but evidently the Restitutor Potion was rather slow to take effect. "I'm not gay, but even if I were, you would be the last person I'd shag. So, if you consider satisfying your perverted desires to be the job of the house-elf, then you're bloody well going to have to shag a corpse, because I intend to fight you to the last."

"Strictly speaking, aren't you a corpse no matter what?"

"Oh, piss off, Snape," Sirius snarled. "You know what I mean."

"But evidently you do not," Snape said slowly and leant over him. "I wouldn't have your arse even if you offered it to me simply because I find you utterly repulsive. Here, allow me to demonstrate."

For the second time that day, Sirius was struck speechless, as Snape pressed his lips hard on his, sucking them briefly and then backing away, as if to get merely the first taste before returning for the actual kiss. Entirely stunned, Sirius lifted his hand to push the man off of him, but his weak attempt seemed to have no impact on Snape. Instead, he buried his fingers in Sirius' wet hair and forced his head back until it was impossible for Sirius to keep his lips together, allowing Snape to devour his mouth with even more force.

The kiss lasted only for a few seconds, but when Sirius felt Snape pull away, the numbness of his lips convinced him that hours must have passed. For a while, all he could do was try to get his breath back and stare at Snape in disbelief, trying to anticipate his next move and failing.

"I do believe that settles it," Snape said as he lifted his blanket and glanced underneath it. "That had absolutely no effect on me whatsoever. So you may sleep in peace, for I seem to lack the weapon with which to ravish you."

With that, he lay down and turned his back to Sirius, and in a matter of minutes, the sound of his steady breathing took over the room.

Although knowing full well he could not sleep, Sirius closed his eyes and began to wait for the potion to do its thing, determined to limp downstairs and to the safety of his cellar as soon as his leg was strong enough to carry his weight. And while he waited, he found himself tracing his lips slowly with the tip of his finger.

* * *

To be continued... 


	4. Day Four

****

Day Four

It had taken Sirius a bit longer than he had expected to get out of the bed, and when he finally put his weight on both of his legs, the night was already turning into morning. Judging by the total absence of pain, he knew he could have left long before that. Yet the night had passed listening to Snape's snoring, starting at every move he made, and counting the strikes of the downstairs clock. For some reason, the thought of the cellar had sounded less tempting with each passing hour, until it had seemed merely stupid to leave the warm and comfortable bed.

Snape was still fast asleep, curled up right on the edge of the bed. Looking at him, Sirius saw nothing but grizzle and bones, wrapped in sallow skin. For the death of him, he could not figure out why he had spent most of the night thinking about those long, white fingers in his hair and those thin lips, pressing hard against his own.

With a shudder, Sirius turned his back to the sleeping figure.

Even more baffling than his nocturnal insanity, however, had been the way Snape had acted: first denying the snog in the kitchen, and then kissing him again, so as to prove that he had no interest in him. Yet Sirius was certain the man had been playing with the idea of rape since day one, dangling it in front of him with the sole intention of showing him that should he want to do it, he could. It was all about power to him, and Sirius was well aware of that. Just how far Snape was prepared to take this charade, he could only fear.

Sirius had just reached the bedroom door when he heard the knocking echo through the empty house. It took him only an instant to realise where it was coming from, and with a bright smile on his face, he shouted from the top of his lungs.

"Here! I'm up here!"

That was all he could manage before the collar tightened around his neck, and Sirius fell to his knees in the doorway. From the corner of his eye, he saw Snape get out of bed and hurry to the window.

"That blasted owl was quicker than I expected." Pulling on his robes, Snape walked to the door and stepped over Sirius. "Get up, Black, this isn't the time to loiter around."

Grabbing the half-conscious Sirius by the arm, Snape started dragging him down the stairs. Gasping for air, Sirius did his best to break free and crawl to open the front door, but Snape's hold merely tightened along with that of the collar.

"Will you kindly stop fidgeting?" Snape snarled at him. "You don't honestly think I would let you open any more doors after yesterday's fiasco, do you?"

When they reached the foot of the steps, he twirled Sirius around and, not too unexpectedly, guided him away from the knocking. They came to a sudden halt in front of the solid wall under the stairs. One light tap on the panels, and a door opened where there had been none before.

"Get in. And try not to exhaust yourself by screaming - I can tell you that it's an utter waste of time and energy."

And with that, he shoved Sirius onto the floor of the hidden cupboard and slammed the door shut.

As soon as Snape was gone, the collar loosened, and Sirius could fill his lungs again, only to empty them in a frantic scream.

"Help! Here! I'm in here!"

Sirius paused, trying hard to listen to what was happening on the other side of the door.

"Headmaster, what brings you here at such an early hour?" he heard Snape ask.

The door creaked a little as it was closed, and two sets of footsteps sounded in the hall.

"I do apologise for the hour, Severus," said Dumbledore's voice. "But I'm afraid I was woken quite early this morning as well, and by one of your owls, no less."

"I'm here! Albus! In here!"

Sirius was shouting and banging his fists against the door of the cupboard, and yet the men standing not more than ten feet away appeared to hear nothing. It was beginning to dawn upon him what Snape had meant by wasting time and energy.

"But I haven't sent an owl."

"I know you haven't, Severus," Dumbledore said calmly. "This one was carrying the most peculiar message - from Sirius Black."

Sirius heard Snape make a strange sort of noise, which resembled quite uncannily the snort of a Hippogriff, but which he interpreted as laughter.

"That is news, indeed, for I was under the impression that Black is in no position to send owls, least of all mine. Surely this is some poor creature's notion of humour."

"Yet I fail to find anything amusing in this," said Dumbledore, his footsteps sounding in the hall. "So, you understand why I needed to see you."

Sirius' eyes had adapted to the darkness and he could only just make out the outline of the door. Into that tiny crack around it he pushed his face and cried out once more in despair.

"I'm right here! Albus!"

But the two voices had already grown fainter, indicating that they had left the hall.

Disappointed, Sirius sat down on the floor of the cupboard and stared into the darkness. Dumbledore had received his letter, he had come to the house, and yet there was nothing Sirius could do to make his presence known to him.

"You bastard!" he yelled to the one responsible. "You complete and utter bastard!"

Why the hell did Snape even have such a room in the first place? It was hardly the habit of Death Eaters to lock their victims in silenced cupboards and wait for them to break. Wondering whether Snape used the space for some entirely different and even more perverted purpose, Sirius leant his head against the wall and traced the outline of the door with his finger.

In the tiny stream of light, coming in through the crack, Sirius noticed something carved in the doorframe. At first he thought they were just two short, curvy lines, nothing more than scratches, a cat's perhaps, but the closer he looked, the more of those lines he saw, running down the frame. He felt around the walls and found variations of those markings carved in them all around him. Some were a pair of parallel waves, some more like two bolts of lightning, and some... Some were simply two distinct letters 'SS'.

Continuing further away from the door, Sirius' fingers came across much larger engravings, whole pictures of what seemed to be the interests of a young child: broomsticks, Quidditch hoops, flames and some kinds of explosions - the last of which Sirius found slightly disturbing. Higher up on the wall there were also quite a few snakes, although most of them seemed to be missing their bodies and were merely heads with only a short part of the body carved below them. Then his hand stopped on what seemed to be two stickmen, drawn very close together, one considerably smaller than the other, and with a short, horizontal line running from the middle of the larger figure straight to the head of the smaller one.

With sudden disgust, Sirius jumped away from the wall.

Till then, he had merely thought that his mother must not have been the only one to have rather strict methods of raising children, but at least in the house of Black it had not entailed sexual abuse. It made him sick to think that Snape's father had done such monstrous things to his own son, a small defenceless child.

However, all of the warm sentiments he had just developed for Snape were soon wiped away as he heard the two men walk back into the hall.

"...And to punish the half-witted creature who is behind this macabre prank," said Snape's voice, growing louder as they drew nearer. "Only then will we be able put this unfortunate incident behind us. Still, I cannot fathom how this prankster got hold of my owl, but I assure you that I do not appreciate my name being associated with something as vulgar as this."

Grabbing the first thing that his hand happened to find, Sirius started banging on the door, screaming like a madman. He was perfectly aware that it was meaningless, and yet he had to do something, to know that he had at least tried.

"Albus!" he shouted from the top of his lungs. "I'm in here!"

"I don't believe we'll have any trouble finding the culprit in this matter, Severus."

"Really?"

Instantly, Sirius stopped the banging, holding his breath.

"Oh, I'm quite certain I already know who sent that letter," Dumbledore said pleasantly. "I came here only to ascertain that things were just as I thought and to settle my poor nerves. I trust you don't think too ill of the one behind all this? I'm sure he only did what he thought was..."

"Humorous?"

"Right," Dumbledore said, but the tone of his voice gave the impression that he was just finishing his sentence rather than agreeing with Snape.

The door creaked again and the warm breeze reached even the hidden cupboard.

"It is a dangerous thing to meddle with death," Dumbledore said in a deep voice, the one Sirius had only heard him use in the most serious matters. Then he added softer, "Even for the best of reasons."

"I agree," Snape replied rigidly. "That is precisely why I think this prank shows such poor taste."

Dumbledore sighed loud enough for even Sirius to hear.

"I do hope I'm right about this," he said. "But I trust you, Severus, and I'm certain you will be worthy of that trust."

"Thank you, Headmaster."

"Well, I must be off. There's so much to do these days, far too much for an old man like me." Dumbledore's voice moved further away, and Sirius could barely hear him any more. All he could make out was, "...the sooner this fuss is behind us, the better..." and "...remember what I've said, Severus."

"No!" Sirius screamed in panic. "Albus!"

But with a heavy thump, the door closed.

It did not take long for the other one to open, though.

"Get out," Snape snarled and pulled Sirius into the dazzling brightness of the hall. "So, I'm mad, am I?"

"I wrote it and I stand firmly behind every word of it." Sirius was clenching his teeth hard enough to hear them grind, putting every effort into forgetting any sympathy for that devil the engravings in the cupboard had aroused in him.

"You utter bastard!" Snape growled and shoved Sirius against the wall. He grabbed hold of Sirius' face, squeezing his jaw between his fingers as if intending to break it into pieces. "Did you honestly think that the great Dumbledore would believe a word of that ludicrous letter and come to your rescue?"

"Well, yes," Sirius muttered with difficulty, staring Snape straight in the eye. "As a matter of fact I did, and I wasn't too far off, either, was I?"

"Apart from the fact that he thought the letter was just some poor sod's attempt at humour, you mean."

"Fuck off, Snape," Sirius spat, trembling with anger. He knew it was a pathetic thing to say to one's captor, especially after the captive's only hope of escape had just been stamped out. "Just fuck off and die."

To his surprise, Snape obeyed and let go of him, but the gesture had more of the feel of throwing away something quite repugnant. Breathing heavily, he watched Snape walk away from him, and tried his best to imagine that the man had once been but a small, frightened child, locked in a cupboard under the stairs with nothing better to do than to carve his initials into the doorframe.

When reaching the first step of the staircase, Snape halted and turned his expressionless eyes to Sirius.

"I nearly forgot. As you are obviously fit enough to move again, there are a few things I want done today. I shall have the list for you after breakfast."

Watching him ascend the stairs, Sirius was certain the child within him must have died a slow and gruesome death.

* * *

Cursing Messrs Muscle, Ajax and Persil to the lowest circles of hell, Sirius fished the two grey towels out of the tub and hurled them to the floor. He had emptied every bloody bottle of those Muggle potions that Snape had presented him with, and yet the towels were no nearer to being white than they had been an hour ago. If anything, Sirius was fairly sure the greyness had only deepened, as if the two towels were combining their strengths to create the most permanent stain known in the history of washing.

Where was Mrs Scower when one needed her? None of the Muggle cleansers could compare with her wonderful, although admittedly rather smelly, Magical Mess Remover. He was particularly disappointed at Mr Muscle who had, after all, promised to love the jobs he hated, and by Paracelsus, Sirius did hate washing.

The mountain of dishes he had already done away with and the stack of robes he had ironed - the smell of burning flesh constantly around him - had been nothing compared to the agonies those two innocent-looking towels had put him through. If he had not been dead to begin with, he was certain the vapours from the detergents, with which he had been filling his lungs for quite some time, would have been enough to send him behind the veil. And yet the towels refused to turn any whiter.

"Right," Sirius said to himself. "It's time to bring in the big boys. Persil, Ajax, Muscle - meet Super Chloride, the restorer of all things white."

Turning his head away, Sirius opened the bottle he had only sniffed before and instantly decided Snape had placed it there with the sole intension of knocking him unconscious. He poured the whole bottle into the tub and threw in the towels. The smell was nauseating, but Sirius kept stirring the towels round and round, making sure the Super Chloride was spread over them evenly. To his surprise and ultimate joy, the towels were beginning to look lighter and lighter, until finally he could quite clearly tell them apart from the grey water around them.

Smiling happily, Sirius reached down to pull the plug and opened the tab to rinse them out. Only now did he happen to glance down at his hands and screamed in shock.

There was hardly any skin left on either of them, only pink flesh and blisters from the wrists down. He had felt the burning on them when washing the towels but had simply pinned it down on the hot water and thought nothing more of it. But the water would have to have been boiling to cause that much damage, and there was no such luxury in Snape's house.

"You did this to me!" he shouted at the empty bottle of chloride. "What the fuck do they think they're doing, putting toxins in innocent looking packages! Those bloody Muggles! And that bastard Snape… Snape!" he yelled, storming out of the bathroom. "For fuck's sake, Snape! Where are you?"

Sirius got halfway down the corridor before Snape's dark figure appeared in the doorway of his study.

"What's all this shouting about?" he asked, clearly annoyed, but Sirius could not have cared less about what delicate potion brewing session he had interrupted. "And I would prefer it if you called me Master."

"I don't have time for your bloody domination fantasies! Look at my hands!" he shouted at him, shoving his hands an inch away from his face. "Look what those Muggle potions did to me!"

Snape said nothing and merely examined the burnt skin.

"It was that Super-bloody-whatsit! You put it there on purpose, didn't you, you sick bastard?"

"Of course I put it there on purpose," Snape said coldly, turning around and pulling Sirius by the arm to follow him. "However, I did make the wild assumption that you would only use it on the garments and not on yourself, but clearly I misjudged you. _Quelle surprise_."

As soon as they were inside the study, Snape halted and left Sirius standing by the door.

"Stay."

Snape strode across the room to the desk, which was laden with a number of bottles and jars, most likely containing rather suspicious if not highly illegal ingredients. There was the same smell in the room as before, clearly coming from the large cauldron which simmered quietly in the fireplace. Snape had evidently been in the middle of preparing more of that delicious potion Sirius had been forced to drink each morning, and he was not too happy to have been interrupted.

"You could've mentioned something about that stuff being toxic," Sirius grunted, looking down at his poor hands.

"It does say so on the bottle, had you cared to read it first," came Snape's voice from somewhere inside the huge cabinet he was rummaging about in.

"Oh, this is my fault now, is it?"

"Entirely," Snape said, returning with a smoking bowl in his hand. "Put them in here."

Sirius shoved his hands into the purple liquid and screamed.

"Bloody hell! It stings!"

"It's basic wound-cleaning potion; it's supposed to sting, you imbecile."

Biting his lip, Sirius stood quietly while Snape pulled his hands from the potion and applied the most foul-smelling balm imaginable over them. He worked slowly, almost tenderly, evidently trying to avoid touching the repulsive remains of Sirius' hands any more than was necessary.

Sirius was suddenly very aware of Snape's presence: the touch of his black robes as they swept against his skin, the sound of his heavy breathing as he concentrated on applying the balm. It reminded him of the previous night when Snape had rescued him from underneath the collapsed shack, and how he had treated his wounds with such care that, had it been anybody else, it would have almost had the air of compassion.

Thinking about the night before, Sirius caught himself raising his hand to his lips, but luckily the smell of the balm stopped him in time.

There was yet again a burning sensation, then a stomach-turning sizzling sound, and under Sirius' very eyes, his hands were healed in a matter of seconds.

"Are there any more of those?" Snape asked in a voice Sirius was not particularly keen on. "Perhaps, somewhere else on your body?"

"No, that was all," Sirius said quickly, turning to leave. "I didn't actually bathe in the stuff, if that's what you mean."

But Snape grabbed a tight hold of his arm, refusing to let him go just yet.

"You know, " he said slowly, as he swirled Sirius around and pressed himself against his back, "I've been thinking about last night. About what you said."

This was precisely the turn Sirius had not wanted the conversation to take.

"Before that," Snape whispered, his lips nearly touching Sirius' ear, "it had never even occurred to me to do the things you were so afraid I would do."

"Bollocks."

"I know you'll find it hard to believe" - Snape's hands travelled down Sirius' chest and stopped on his hips, pulling him closer - "but not all of us are fascinated by your posterior."

Sirius could feel his insides nearing boiling point. Dumbledore's visit had already robbed him of any hope of escape, in addition to which he had nearly lost his hands to some Muggle potions. All in all, it was pretty safe to say that the day had been tiring enough as it was without Snape making yet another speech about how repulsive he found him.

"Fine. Couldn't be happier. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I hear the towels calling me."

"However," Snape carried on, undeterred, "one cannot help but wonder what is the origin of these fears you appear to have." He pressed himself against Sirius hard enough for him to feel something rubbing against his arse. "Perhaps they are not fears at all," he drawled, as his hand travelled down Sirius' stomach, "but rather, hidden desires."

That was it. Sirius had already suffered days of abuse and humiliation from Snape, but enough was enough, and that was where he drew the line. He was not gay, and even if he were, there were broomsticks more attractive than Snape!

"Are you taking the piss?"

"By no means," Snape answered, pressing himself even closer to Sirius' back.

His fingers were already dangerously close to the tea towel and soon they would find their way underneath it. Swiftly Sirius grabbed hold of his hands and managed to slip free from his hold.

"Oh, I see!" he exclaimed with a broad smile as he turned to face him. "I simply imagined the little wank you had in the bathtub, just like I imagined the innuendo about the pawn eating the king! And of course you never snogged me, right? No, it's all just in my head!"

"Calm yourself, Black."

"No, no... " Sirius backed further away from his, shaking his head. "It's so obvious that I fancy you! How could have I missed it? Luckily I have you here to tell me what I want, even when I'm too thick to realise it! So, why don't we just get it over with? Right here, right now."

"Stop it," Snape said quietly, but Sirius had already hurried to the fireplace.

"Perhaps here, in front of the fire, on all fours?" he said, stopping by the steaming cauldron. "That would be nice, wouldn't it? You could even burn some nasty mark on my skin, brand me as your personal property. What fun!"

"Shut up, Black."

"Then there is, of course, the chair," he said, going round and round the big armchair with Snape after him. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Just sitting back while I suck your smelly cock. The pawn eating the king, eh?"

"Quiet!"

"Or maybe you'd prefer the table," he said, rushing to the desk before Snape could get hold of him. "You could tie my hands behind my back, in case you wanted to underline the fact that you're fucking me against my will, which isn't true, of course, but we can pretend that I still don't know anything about my 'hidden desires'."

"I said, quiet!" Snape shouted, finally catching up with him and squeezing his arm tightly.

"What?" Sirius spat in his face. "That is what you want, isn't it?"

"Shut up!"

"I'm not spoiling all the fun for you, am I?" Sirius barked with laughter. "Tell you what - I promise to put up a bit of a fight, beg for mercy and all that, just to get you in the mood. How's that sound? Ready to give me a good one?"

The smile was soon wiped off Sirius' face. Snape took hold of his head with both hands, and before Sirius could realise what was happening, he had shut his mouth with his own. It was the third time Snape had kissed him, yet it never ceased to shock him. Snape's lips stayed longer on his than the first time, but there was the same feeling of urgency and awkwardness, both of which had been absent the second time. Sirius felt paralysed, only barely able to stay upright and leaning heavily against the desk behind him. He knew he should do something to fight the man off, but all he could think about were the warm waves, emanating from his mouth and sweeping over his dead body.

Without much thought, Sirius' hands wandered onto Snape's waist, but instead of pushing him away, he found himself pulling the man even closer to him. Snape opened his eyes, clearly as surprised by his reaction as Sirius himself, and for a brief moment, their eyes locked, both waiting for the other one to make the next move. It took Sirius only a fraction of a second to make up his mind and press his lips against Snape's, sucking them almost violently. His whole body seemed to revolve around his mouth, leaving the rest of him in its shade, because at that very moment, there was nothing more important to him than kissing Snape's lips.

However, when Snape pulled back, Sirius' reason was quick to find him again, bringing his anger on its tail.

"Warming up, eh?" he said, glaring at Snape, who was wiping his mouth in haste. "Then I better get my arse in place for the main event." He turned to the desk, shaking his head. "Now, this just needs a bit of clearing up before..."

"No, Black, do not-"

With one sweep of hand, all the jars, bottles, parchments and books were wiped off the table. The sound of breaking glass filled the room and odd-coloured smoke began to rise from the floor, as all the different ingredients mixed together.

"You fool!" Snape cried out, kneeling down to save what there still was to be saved. "That was meant for your potion, you bloody nitwit!"

But Sirius could hardly hear him any more. The moment his hand had touched the desk, the collar had started choking him, and gasping for air, he had fallen facedown on the table. He pulled and struggled, trying to tear the collar off, but as before, his failure was inevitable.

When air surged through his lungs again, Sirius' initial reaction was to reach behind him but his hand met nothing but air. He pushed himself up and found Snape standing by the desk, looking down at the remains of his potion ingredients.

"_Evanesco_," he muttered and the colourful stain on the carpet vanished, along with the shards of glass. "That applies to you too, Black."

For the first time genuinely glad to obey Snape's order, Sirius stumbled out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He only managed to take a few steps down the corridor, though, before his knees gave in and he collapsed to the floor. His heart was beating far too fast and his breathing showed no signs of slowing down, but somehow Sirius was certain it had nothing to do with his little performance in the study. He knew he should have considered himself lucky to have escaped from Snape's clutches once more, yet the pounding in his chest seemed to indicate something quite different.

"I don't fancy him," he whispered to the empty corridor. "I don't even like him."

"Then you really shouldn't have kissed him, dear," answered a soft female voice.

* * *

Darkness had already fallen over the moors when Sirius began climbing up the stairs. The collar had never before felt as much like a noose around his neck. He would have much rather headed down to the cellar, but an order was an order.

Dinner had been eaten in silence. Not even the roast - or rather, charred - beef had raised a comment from Snape, and Sirius had watched him patiently scrape off the thick, black crust until the striped meat had looked quite uncannily like a roasted zebra.

He had been in the middle of clearing the table when Snape had ordered him to spend the night in his room and made him break yet another plate to pieces. Naturally Sirius had tried to tell him that he did not even sleep and would only keep the man awake with his fidgeting, but Snape's half-smile had indicated quite clearly that the man saw this merely as a bonus.

Halfway up the stairs, Sirius stopped, certain that he had heard something nearby. The hall below seemed as empty as ever, and there was no reason to think Snape was anywhere but in his bed, waiting for him. Still Sirius had a definite feeling of being watched, and more importantly, laughed at.

"Going up there to finish what you started earlier, giant elf?" said the voice right by his ear, and nearly made Sirius fall down the stairs as he jumped away from the portrait.

"Bugger off, Gengulphus."

"Still haven't learnt how to address your betters, I see. And from what I hear, you've been rather a naughty house-elf in other respects as well, haven't you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, sending that owl, for one," Gengulphus said innocently, as if not wanting to brag with his knowledge. "Which one did you use, by the way?"

"Why is everybody so interested in which bloody owl I used?" Sirius exclaimed. "The dark brown one, all right? What's it to you?"

"Oh, nothing. Just being curious."

The quick grin did not escape Sirius and reminded him disturbingly much of Gengulphus' offspring.

"And then there was the incident of trashing your master's study," the portrait continued.

"Evidently you already know everything there is to know, so why not just leave me alone," Sirius grunted. "Bloody hell, there aren't even pictures in the study!"

"Yes, but luckily my Aunt Dahlia's portrait is outside in the hall, right opposite the door, and well... People do tend to forget to close the doors when they are in a hurry."

Till then, Sirius had been certain he had merely imagined the voice in the corridor, so he was relieved to find that his insanity had not yet reached the voice-hearing stage.

"So, she saw us," he said, stopping and turning towards the nuisance. "Why do you care?"

A rather wicked smile grew on Gengulphus' face as he sat down in a chair, whose owner he had evidently ejected to some other portrait.

"Well, according to Dahlia, you two had an argument, and something happened which she was too much of a prude to describe but which I can easily guess."

Gengulphus looked as happy as a man who had just done his wife in.

Lowering his voice, as if to tell Sirius a secret, he continued, "But what dear Dahlia didn't quite grasp - for she isn't exactly the sharpest quill in the shop - was why you kept offering your behind to Severus and he kept chasing you around the room. Poor creature thought it was some sort of a game."

Sirius thought for a moment, then said, "Maybe it was. If only I knew on whose side I'm playing."

"Well, there's scarcely any doubt about that after today." With a sneer, Gengulphus looked Sirius up and down. "What ever the attraction in you is, though, I shall never know."

"No, I trust you would not, you degenerate oaf," said a voice at the top of the stairs.

The look on Snape's face was left in the shadow of the candle he was holding, but the tone of his voice was clear enough. Gengulphus, on the other hand, did not seem to sense the danger.

"How dare you call me degenerate!" he bellowed, jumping up from his chair and striding right to the edge of the picture frame. "It is one thing for a house-elf to have such tendencies, but _you_!"

"Oi!" Sirius cut in but was drowned by the shouting portrait.

"I swear that it is not from my side of the family you've inherited those disgusting perversions of yours!" Gengulphus roared, his bald head shining bright red. "One might have hoped that you would at least get a shred of the pride we Snapes are noted for and keep your twisted preferences to yourself, but evidently that trait has completely passed you by! You are a disgrace! And with a house-elf, no less..."

Sirius felt rather grateful to see the yellow string shoot across the air and burn yet another hole in the canvas, putting an end to Gengulphus' babbling.

"One more word from you and we shall see whether your precious pride will put down flames, as well." The draught in the house seemed to have increased, for the candle in Snape's hand shook quite uncontrollably. "Black. Follow me."

* * *

By far the worst were the minutes right after he had slipped under the covers, next to Snape's naked body. Lying rigid as a broomstick, Sirius stared at the canopy above him and waited for the first touch. When the order to turn his back to him came, he found himself almost relieved, thinking that it would all be over soon enough. Snape pressed his cold body against his back, his breathing burning by his ear, and his hand wandering across Sirius' chest for a good while before settling down on his waist.

It was not the hand, however, that worried Sirius, but the hardened cock, forcing its way between his buttocks.

"I thought you said that you had no interest in my arse," Sirius whispered.

"I meant what I said," Snape muttered, his mouth brushing against Sirius' shoulder. "How could I possibly be interested in something so..."

"Let me guess," Sirius cut in. "Repulsive?"

"Quite."

Snape pushed his face into Sirius' hair, and to his amazement, Sirius heard him sniff at it.

"All you have to do is to lie still and keep your mouth shut," he said, sending shivers down Sirius' spine. "That shouldn't be too hard, even for you."

"And then what?"

"Evidently it is too hard." Snape sighed theatrically. "Simply do as I say and you will be fine."

Deciding to make the effort to hold his tongue this once, Sirius pushed his hands under the pillow and pressed it on his mouth. There was no escape, only dying, and he had just about had enough of that already.

Snape's head rested against Sirius' back, his steady breathing swept over his neck, his arm still wrapped around his stiff body - and that was when it began.

First came the twitch that made Sirius' heart miss a beat; then the hand on his waist began to slide down, in rhythm with his breathing, until it stopped over the tea towel. The heavier Snape's breathing became, the longer the brushes against Sirius' groin grew, and to his horror, he soon noticed that there was movement under the tea towel as well. He kept telling himself to calm down and ignore what was happening, but as so often before, his knob appeared reluctant to listen to anything he had to say. It was amazing how a part of him could be so excited while the rest of him was utterly terrified.

Sirius closed his eyes and prepared for the pain. It could hardly be worse than dying, and judging by the rather quiet social life Snape appeared to have, it would probably be over in a matter of seconds. If only the man would not notice Sirius' erection and interpret is as something other than just a physical reaction to pressure. Which it is was. Of course it was. Sirius' fingers dug deeper into the pillow.

Snape twitched again, suddenly enough to make Sirius jump and nearly fall out of the bed. And then the snoring began.

* * *

To be continued...


	5. Day Five

****

Day Five

"Here."

"Is this a game?"

"No, you nitwit. This is the library."

"You see, that's pretty much why I asked - because I know this is the bloody library!"

"Splendid. And how about the alphabet?"

"What about it?"

"Do you know it?"

"Bloody hell, Snape! Can't you just say what the fuck you want me to do?"

"It is perfectly simple. I want you to put these books in alphabetical order. By title rather than by author as I'm quite hopeless with names."

Sirius swirled around, measuring the length of the shelves with his gaze. Every wall of the library was covered with books all the way up to the ceiling, and a ladder was leaning against the shelves, without which it would have been impossible to reach the ones higher up. Apparently those books were the only items of any value left from the once glorious Snapes.

"There must be hundreds of books in here!"

"Thousands would be more accurate, I should think."

"It'll take me ages to arrange all these!"

"No, just till dinnertime."

Of all the utterly mad orders Snape had given him, this was by far the most ridiculous, the most unnecessary and the most Snape-ish. It might take Sirius weeks, months even, to put the books in order, and here was Snape, telling him to have it done in a matter of hours. At least his idea of justice was finally becoming clear to Sirius: Snape wanted to make him as insane as he was.

"Because of the visit Dumbledore paid us yesterday," Snape continued, straightening the cloak on his arm, "I'd rather not leave you alone in here for a second. However, thanks to you and your little outburst in my study, I am forced to waste the day" - he coughed, then swallowed hard - "_shopping_. Therefore I thought it only fitting that you should spend your day doing something equally tiresome."

"Arranging a few thousand books equals one trip to the shops in your mind?"

"Oh, I daresay it does." Snape pulled on his cloak. "And until I give you permission, you are not to leave this room. Enjoy."

With a loud crack and an evil grin, Snape Disapparated from the room.

For a while Sirius merely stared at the endless rows of books, not knowing whether to laugh or laugh hysterically. The job was simply too mad for him to grasp.

"Oh, bollocks!"

Sirius burst into laughter and ran to the nearest shelves. Still chuckling, he pulled out the first books of the row, then pushed his hand behind the rest and swept them all to the floor.

"Order out of chaos, wasn't it?" he muttered between the laughter and proceeded to the next shelf, and then the next, pulling down every book he could reach. Soon the floor was barely visible any more, with scarcely any room to tread on without stepping on some book or other.

Panting, Sirius sat down on a large pile of books and tried his best to calm down.

"Tsk, tsk," said a voice and startled Sirius.

"Snape?" he asked, glancing around the empty room.

"That wasn't exactly wise, was it? How will you ever get them sorted now?"

Sirius' gaze stopped at the fireplace, over which hung the portrait he hated the most in that wretched house. He had completely forgotten that the library was the home of that evil, which meant that Snape's charming little task would present an even bigger challenge on his nerves than he had initially thought.

"Can't you just piss off?" Sirius asked tiredly.

"Come now, that is no way for a house-elf to speak to his Master."

"You're not my Master!"

"Oh, but of course I am!" said the portrait cheerfully. "To serve one Snape is to serve us all."

"How many times do I have to say this?" Sirius hissed, looking down at his knuckles, which were turning whiter by the second. "I'm not a bloody house-elf and Snape's not my Master! I'm a prisoner, for fuck's sake!"

"A prisoner dressed as a house-elf, doing the job of a house-elf?" Gengulphus shook his head. "Denial really gets you nowhere, giant elf."

"I'm not speaking to you any more," Sirius said and turned his back to the picture.

"But you must finish your task or otherwise..." Gengulphus said reproachfully. "Well, you know what happens to disobedient house-elves, and judging by your appearance, I don't think you are in need of any more discipline. I suspect your _Master_ made you do some foul and unnatural things last night..."

"Shut your gob!"

Sirius certainly did not need a reminder of what had happened in Snape's bed. It was all he had been able to think about while lying there, next to the sleeping man, through those long hours of the night.

At first, when the snoring had started, he had nearly felt stupid and even embarrassed that he had actually believed Snape had been about to shag him. Then he had remembered the hardened organ against his arse, clearly indicating that the man really did have some interest in him. Why Snape had not acted on it, Sirius had not been able to figure out, but every time he had thought about it, a disturbingly warm sensation had come over him. That had naturally led him to consider his own reaction to it, the unwanted movement under the tea towel, but like Snape's motives, his own body had remained one annoying mystery to him.

Even now, surrounded by books the bastard had ordered him to arrange, all Sirius could remember from last night was Snape's warm body against his.

Shaking his head, he got up and started to go through the pile he had been sitting on. He needed to do something, anything, to clear his head.

"Right. A's, where the fuck are you?"

"Oh, I see one!" Gengulphus exclaimed. "An _ass_ begins with an A, doesn't it?"

Sirius glared at him, ready to pick up a book and hurl it at the portrait.

"But an _arsehole_ comes before that," he said, grinding his teeth.

"What luck! I also see an _ape_!"

"Funny, 'cause all I see is a bloody _annoyance_!"

"_Abomination_!"

"_Arsewipe_!"

"You said that already!"

"No, I said arse_hole_ and I'm quite willing to teach you the difference!"

However, Sirius had only taken a couple of steps towards the portrait before Gengulphus escaped into another picture and his laughter echoed from somewhere in the upstairs corridor.

* * *

Sirius was just in the middle of convincing Arsenius Jigger's _Magical Drafts and Potions_ that it did indeed belong under the letter A, when there was a sharp knock on the door that made him jump and stumble over a pile of books.

"What was that?" Gengulphus asked from the wall, where he had returned a couple of hours before. Evidently the rest of the house was dull enough for him to risk being sliced to shreds by Sirius.

"That is the sound of my freedom!" Sirius exclaimed and kicked a pitifully moaning book out of his way.

Ploughing through the mess of books, he hurried to the doorway and waited. Perhaps he had merely imagined it, or perhaps it had been that bloody portrait putting one over on him again.

The second time the knocking sounded through the whole house, and there was no longer any doubt that somebody was on the other side of the door and eager to get in.

"Help!" Sirius screamed as loud as he could. "I'm here, Albus! In the library! I can't come to the door!"

There was a loud crack right behind him that nearly knocked him off balance. But when he spun around, already smiling with relief, he found himself face to face with someone quite other than Dumbledore.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Sirius Black," Malfoy said, stepping over some books to take a better look at him. "And in the flesh, I might add. Do correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you supposed to be dead?"

Sirius glared at the blond man, shocked by his sudden appearance. One would have thought that dying had been the absolute pits, but evidently his luck was only getting worse.

"I would like to be, yes," he said shortly and backed out of Malfoy's reach. "Snape's not here, so if you don't mind..."

"Yes, so I gather," Malfoy cut in, glancing around him. "I shall have to wait. However, the more important question is, why are you here?"

"That's between Snape and myself."

"Oh, I'm sure it is." Malfoy took another step closer, his lips curving into a nasty smile. "Alive and locked in this house, not to mention dressed like a savage and with a collar like a dog. He has made a little plaything for himself, hasn't he? Why, Severus, you old necrophile!"

"I'm not anyone's plaything!" Sirius yelled and took yet another step back. "I'm nothing but a bloody house-elf!"

From above the fireplace, Sirius could hear Gengulphus' muffled yet triumphant laughter.

"Oh, come now," Malfoy said, running his hand down Sirius' cheek. "Surely Severus has had his fun with you?"

Sirius opened his mouth to say something sharp and witty, but still backing away, he tripped over a pile of books and fell on his back on top of them.

Malfoy's smile broadened as he leant over Sirius.

"Isn't it the duty of a house-elf to entertain his master's guests?" he asked pleasantly as he grabbed Sirius by the collar and held him still.

"Don't touch me," Sirius hissed, trying to sound as defiant as possible while struggling hard to get up and out of Malfoy's reach.

"You don't seem to understand," Malfoy continued in the same, sweet voice. "Severus and I have a sort of an understanding, and therefore what is his, is mine and what is mine... Well, there it is, really."

Sirius had managed to get back on his feet and stood face to face with the bastard still holding on to the collar.

"I'm not his," he hissed and spat in Malfoy's face.

Malfoy gave the collar a sharp jerk that sent Sirius down on his knees in front of him.

"Be that as it may," Malfoy carried on, wiping his face rather calmly and sitting down in the armchair next to him, the only piece of furniture not buried in books, "I'm certain we can come up with something for you to do while I wait."

With one hand still tightly on Sirius' collar, the other disappeared inside his robes and pulled out his half-erect cock.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" Sirius shouted, staring at the cock only inches from his face.

"No, I don't believe I shall." Malfoy's gaze travelled down Sirius' body and a distasteful look swept over his face. "You are absolutely filthy, aren't you? I wonder what sordid things he's done to you."

"Nothing!" Sirius snarled in a voice he did not recognise as his own. "He's done nothing to me."

For a brief moment Malfoy and the books and the room seemed to become blurred, and Sirius' mind was filled with images of the past few days: waking up in Snape's bed; crawling on hands and knees in the library; lying half-dead, half-alive on the floor of practically every room in the house; and finally, spending two whole nights next to Snape. He had had all those opportunities, and yet Sirius could still say that he had done nothing to him. Apart from the excessive dying, of course.

"At least you're not as greasy as him," Malfoy said, pushing his hand into Sirius' hair and pulling him back into reality.

All of a sudden, it dawned upon Sirius that he did not have to do anything Malfoy would have him do - he was not his Master and the collar would not react to any of his orders. He was almost angry with himself for not realising it sooner, but he was all the more determined to make up for the lost time.

"Fuck off, Malfoy!" Sirius yelled and tore himself free of his hold. "You keep that thing away from me!" He stood up as fast as he could and turned to leave.

However, he did not get far.

"_Crucio_."

Screaming and convulsing, Sirius fell down on top of the books. The pain blackened the world in his eyes and took his breath away, his body shaking uncontrollably.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself lying at Malfoy's feet.

"Ready to suck me off now?" Malfoy asked lightly, leaning back in the armchair, his wand in one hand and his now fully erect prick in the other.

"No!"

"You're quite right, it's rather more entertaining this way. _Crucio_."

Again Sirius felt the excruciating pain surging through his body and he curled up on the floor. After what seemed like forever, the spasms eased, and he lay still, panting heavily. But before he knew it, he felt a pull at his collar and was forced up on his knees.

"Suck it," said Malfoy's voice, as the slightly curved cock appeared in front of him. "Lick it, unless you want to suffer the Cruciatus for the third time."

"I'll take the curse, if you don't mind," Sirius whispered weakly.

Malfoy, however, did not seem to be willing to give up that easily. He shoved his cock straight onto Sirius' lips and began smearing them with the leaking semen.

"Open up, you dead piece of scum!"

Sirius tried to pull away and saw Malfoy lift his wand again. However, this time it was not the Cruciatus Curse he uttered.

"_Incarcerous_!"

The ropes spurted out of the wand and Sirius soon found his arms tied to his sides, rendering him completely helpless.

"Open your mouth!"

Suddenly Sirius had a recollection of a similar situation, which had taken place at that very spot not more than three days ago. Then, he had threatened to bite Snape's cock off, and now he had the opportunity to have Malfoy go through the rest of his life without the use of his member. It was simply too good to pass up.

Slowly Sirius opened his mouth, and swallowed the throbbing prick.

"There's a good boy," Malfoy breathed and grabbed hold of Sirius' hair again. "Now, suck it."

But Sirius was still waiting, taking the cock further and further in until it was touching the back of his throat. He was just preparing to bite his teeth together and cut off Malfoy's filthy cock for good when it started.

It had happened so many times before that Sirius knew from the first movement of the collar that his death would be swift. However, this time the panic hit even harder, as he was far more helpless than before, with his hands tied behind his back and with Malfoy holding onto his hair, keeping his head in place. It seemed that the man did not even notice what was happening, and he merely pushed his prick deeper into Sirius' mouth. Twitching and shaking, Sirius tried to concentrate on the most important thing, but his muscles were no longer responding and he simply could not bite his teeth together.

The last thing Sirius saw was the dark figure of Snape standing in the doorway, and then, with Malfoy's cock still in his mouth, he died.

* * *

As always, the first breath of air startled Sirius and for a while he just lay there, gasping in shock. The ropes seemed to have disappeared along with the cock, both of which he considered to be quite an improvement. He could see the feet of two men, standing close by, but after the Cruciatus and the dying, he was still too weak to get up and run. Not that it would have made much of a difference and would have only led to another dying spree, but staying put was not much of an option, either, when there were two men in the room that hated his guts.

"I'm afraid it happens quite at random, Lucius."

"Rather inconvenient. It was quite a shock to find a corpse hanging from one's member."

"Yes, and I do apologise for that. Black was supposed to be merely a test, but as you can see, it has sadly failed."

"You are certain there's no way around that collar?"

"I have done everything in my power - to no avail."

"Such a pity, Severus. That spell would certainly have been useful in our fight for the Dark Lord. There are several among the dead that I would have gladly seen back in our number."

"That was my intention, but the Exmortuis Spell has proved utterly useless, as you can see for yourself. Black is of no use to anyone in that state. Not that he ever was."

Sirius pushed himself up and glared at Snape but thought it best not to protest too loudly.

"Shall we go then?" Malfoy asked with a hint of impatience in his voice.

"Naturally."

Snape gestured him towards the door, but before leaving himself, he turned to Sirius and snarled, "What have you done to my library, you dim-witted nuisance? I don't want to see you before this job is done!"

Sirius did not know what to say but had no time to say it anyway, before Snape had already swept out of the room and after Malfoy.

* * *

"Bloody hell!"

_A Darker Side to the Dark Side_ flew in a perfect arch across the room and landed somewhere behind a mountain of books, naturally knocking all of them over in the process.

"It begins with an A, doesn't it? Stupid bloody book."

Sirius had spent hours in the library, supposedly arranging the books, but in fact mostly just kicking and tossing them from one pile to the next. It now seemed doubtful that his strategy of going through every stack of books in search of one letter had been the wisest of choices. For one, it had taken him hours to find all the A's, not to mention a lot of convincing, as there still seemed to be plenty of books that thought they knew better under which letter they belonged. In three hours, he had succeeded in filling only one single shelf with books starting more or less with the letter A, whereas the rest of the room was in just as much chaos as it had been before Malfoy's arrival.

The sun was already setting, but Snape and Malfoy were still upstairs, doing what ever it was they were doing. After much deliberation Sirius had come to the conclusion that there were three alternatives.

Firstly, Snape might be having quite a friendly conversation with Malfoy only to find out some possibly valuable piece of information in the interest of the Order. However, the opposite might just as well be true, which would mean that the old Death Eater in Snape had lifted its ugly head again, and he was conniving some evil plot to wipe out the Order once and for all.

The third option was the one Sirius wanted to think about the least of all and might well be included in either of the first two. It was the nature of the 'entertainment' that Malfoy had did his best to force him into, that had led him to believe the man was there after something quite different from either a foe or an ally.

Sirius had thought about going up there to ask about dinner, which was already well overdue, but as Snape still had not given him permission to leave the library, he had had no choice but to stay put. Also, he had no desire to see for himself which of the three scenarios was true. For some reason, Sirius found it far too distressing to picture what might be happening between those two Death Eaters, and every attempt at it only ended up with another book being taught how to fly.

Bending over once more, he picked up _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ - from which the word 'Fall' had been scratched away - and prepared to throw it over his shoulder.

"Black."

Sirius' hand stopped in midair, holding the book high over his head. The sound had been very faint, barely more than a whisper, and in all likelihood it had merely been Gengulphus, defying his threats of clawing the portrait to shreds if he made another sound.

"Black!"

The shout was louder now, and Sirius followed it to the door. He would have to be certain that Snape was in fact calling for him, because otherwise he would only end up dead as soon as he stepped out of the room.

"Black!"

The urgency in Snape's voice was clear enough, hurrying Sirius over the threshold and up the stairs, two steps at a time. He headed straight for the study, but just as he was passing the bedroom, there was another shout, which left no doubt in his mind as to where it was coming from.

He pushed the door to the bedroom open and froze on the doorstep. There was Snape, lying completely naked on his stomach, tied to the four bedposts by his wrists and ankles. His white skin glowed against the black of the sheets as he struggled furiously in the ropes. Malfoy was nowhere to be seen, and Sirius wondered how long it had been since he had Disapparated.

He stumbled over the bundle of clothes and walked closer, his heart beating faster than when he was still alive. All he could think was that while he had been downstairs arranging books in alphabetical order, Malfoy had been up there, fucking his Master.

"Black. Let me go," Snape panted, his face flushed from the evidently vigorous attempts to free himself.

"That bastard," Sirius muttered, still in shock. "That bloody bastard. What the fuck did he do to you?"

Trying to vanquish the picture of Malfoy forcing himself on Snape from his mind, Sirius hurried to tear the ropes off that instant. But Snape's words stopped him by the foot of the bed.

"What I do and with whom is hardly your concern."

Sirius looked down at his naked body, suddenly feeling sick.

"You mean to tell me that you wanted this?" he asked in disbelief.

"Lucius and I have an understanding which goes far beyond your comprehension."

The picture in Sirius' mind was slowly changing: he could now see the pleasure on Snape's face when Malfoy conjured the ropes and tied him to the bed; he could hear him moan as his lover took out that filthy cock of his, which only moments before had been in Sirius' mouth, and shoved it up his arse.

"I'm ordering you to untie me at once, and I don't think I need to tell you what will happen if you refuse!"

"What will happen is that I'll kick the bucket again and you'll still be right there in those ropes." Sirius said between his clenched teeth. "And that's not what you want, is it?"

He waited for the collar to start tightening, but it stayed as inanimate as it ever was.

"I didn't think so," Sirius said scornfully. "You see, it really doesn't matter what kind of a bloody death feast you put me through. I honestly don't care any more."

A ball of anger had started to build up inside of him, twisting his stomach and making it impossible for him to think straight. He had enough reason to hate Snape for bringing him back from the dead, for humiliating and punishing him for something that had happened years ago, and he had been quite willing to make him join the ranks of the dead for that Super-bloody-Chloride alone. Yet it was none of those reasons that was causing his rage to burst.

All it took were a few tiny drops glistening on Snape's arse, the memento from Lucius Malfoy dripping out of him.

"An understanding, eh?" he said, climbing onto the bed between Snape's spread legs and fingering the rope around his ankle, but making no attempt to actually unfasten it. "Which is, of course, that he comes here whenever he's in the mood for a quick shag and you uncross your legs accordingly?"

"Shut it."

Without much thought, Sirius let his hand ran over the knot and slowly up Snape's thigh.

"You let him touch you with his filthy hands," he muttered, staring at the white skin as if to find Malfoy's fingerprints on it, "let him shove his dirty cock up your arse..."

"Quiet."

"Do you enjoy it?"

Sirius' hand had stopped on Snape's arse and he was rubbing it gently with his fingers.

"Just untie the ropes, Black."

"Do you enjoy it when he fucks your brains out?"

His fingers dug deeper into Snape's flesh, leaving red trails after them.

"The ropes!"

"Tell me!" Sirius demanded and slapped Snape on the arse. "Do you enjoy it!"

"Yes!" Snape shrieked. "I enjoy it, damn it! Now untie these blasted ropes!"

In an instant, Sirius had crawled on top of him and was pressing himself against the naked body. There were bite marks on his neck, and Malfoy's scent still lingered on his skin.

"Get off me!"

"So, this is how you get off?" Sirius whispered into his ear, rubbing his groin against his arse. "You like it when he ties you up and touches you and fucks you..."

"Apparently, so do you," Snape said wryly and made Sirius halt. "Or is that simply _rigor mortis_?"

Before then, Sirius had not even noticed his arousal from his anger. He had no idea what his body found so exciting in that situation; it was as if his rage was filling every part of him, including his extremities.

"Could happen to any dead man," he muttered.

A sudden urge to press his erection between Snape's buttocks came over him, and without much thinking, he jerked the tea towel aside, leaving nothing between their skins. The man flinched under his body as Sirius shoved his cock in his crack, but said nothing.

"Not too nice lying there, is it? Especially as it's now I who has 'the weapon with which to ravish you.' The tables have certainly been turned, eh?"

Snape stayed quiet, breathing heavily, and Sirius could feel his body grow more and more rigid underneath him.

"All this time you've made it clear that you could just take me, make me do whatever you wanted. Yet you never did. And why would you, when you have Lucius Malfoy to shag you!"

"Black..." Snape started but fell silent again.

"Just admit it," Sirius hissed into his ear. "You never had any intention of shagging me, did you?"

"No," Snape said quietly. "You're absolutely right, I didn't."

"No, you just let me think that! It was all part of your twisted mind-fucking!" Sirius' every muscle was so strained that he was starting to shake. "All you wanted was _his_ arse, not mine!"

"Stop this nonsense and untie me, Black." Snape's voice was barely audible any more. "You don't want to do this."

"How the fuck do you know that!" Sirius roared. "How do you know that this isn't exactly what I want! Maybe I want to do to you what you've been threatening to do to me ever since I got here, add my dead sperm to that of the Death Eater's!" He reached down and gripped his throbbing prick, rubbing it between Snape's buttocks. "Feel that? That's me, not him!"

"You will be dead the moment..."

But Sirius had already found Snape's hole, and with the help of Malfoy's sperm, he shoved his cock inside with one hard push. There was only a quiet gasp from Snape, whose whole body seemed to stiffen under Sirius, his buttocks clenched together and his fingers wrapped around the ropes binding him to the bed. For a while Sirius just lay still, waiting for something to happen but not quite knowing any more what it was supposed to be. But the tightness around his cock was too much for him, and so again he thrust into Snape, forcing out a low groan from Snape's throat as well as from his own. At that moment, he felt more alive than when still living.

All Sirius could sense any more was Snape's arse, his flesh so tight around his, the pleasure of it by far surpassing all the women he had ever shagged combined. Somewhere at the back of his mind was a voice saying that it was a _man_ under him, and what was more, the man had not exactly agreed to any of it. But the voice was quickly drowned by the feel of Snape's skin as Sirius let his hands travel along the naked body, touching anything and everything he could reach.

Burying his face into Snape's neck, he again smelled the foreign scent of the man that had come before him. Vigorously he rubbed his skin against Snape's, even reaching to touch his hands so as to cover every inch of the man's arms with his.

"My smell... not his..." he hissed as he pushed himself into Snape again and again, the warm body shivering slightly underneath him. "Mine... Not his... Mine..." Feeling his climax approaching, he took hold of Snape's hair to keep him still and banged against him faster and faster. "You... bloody... Death Eat!"

Before he could finish the last word, Sirius came inside Snape, and still opening and closing his mouth, he fell limp on top of him.

"Black?"

Snape's voice shook Sirius back to life.

"Yes?"

"Untie me."

"Oh. Right."

Feeling completely numb, Sirius pulled out of the man and jumped up to his feet. As quickly as he could, he untied Snape and watched him wrap himself in the black sheet.

Sirius was just about to slip out of the door when Snape suddenly sprang to his feet and strode to him. He grabbed hold of Sirius' head with both hands, dropping his sheet in the process, and pressed him against the wall. Sirius had time to catch a glimpse of his naked body before his head was forced back, and was immediately certain he had seen wrong.

"Damn you," Snape hissed between his teeth, his eyes burning like two black tar pits.

It was not the first time Sirius had seen that look in his eyes, but this time it was even fierier than it had been on that stormy night. But despite the flaming eyes, Sirius had the strangest feeling that the man was about to kiss him. Snape's gaze kept shifting from his eyes to his lips and back again, and yet the hold on Sirius' head only tightened. It almost seemed as if he was making every effort to hold himself back, his mouth clenched tightly shut, and his hands practically shaking on Sirius' cheeks. And as Snape pressed himself against him, he was sure he felt something brush against his thigh.

"Damn you to hell."

Once more he glanced at Sirius' mouth, and in the next instant he stepped back, picked up his sheet and wrapped it around him.

"I'll better get the dinner started," Sirius said awkwardly and made for the door.

"No," Snape said simply, his back turned to him. "No dinner."

Without another word, Sirius staggered out of the room.

It was only back in the library that the significance of what he had done hit him, and burying his face in his hands he collapsed down on a pile of books. It all seemed like a dream now, everything had happened far too fast for him to grasp it, and yet only one look under his tea towel was needed to prove that it had indeed been real.

A number of questions were flashing through his mind, none of them with much sense and all of them without an answer. No matter how hard he tried, he could not understand why the thought of Snape having it off with Malfoy had made him so furious in the first place, or why the hell his body had reacted the way it had to someone he absolutely despised. For over four days he had kept worrying about his own arse, and now he had forced himself into Snape's. How the hell could the tables have turned so quickly and so entirely without the rest of house tumbling down? None of it made any sense, which was, of course, something that had characterised the whole of his life-after-afterlife.

Thinking about the house reminded Sirius of the cupboard, and the cupboard reminded him of the engravings on its walls.

"Fucking hell," Sirius whispered to himself. "I just raped a victim of sexual abuse. People like me shouldn't be allowed to live."

That was when it hit him, and Sirius felt almost ashamed that it had not occurred to him sooner.

Yes, he had shagged Snape, that much was true, but what was rather more important was that he had done it without dying.

* * *

To be continued... 


	6. Day Six

**Day Six**

"I do believe that one starts with a 'D', not a 'B'."

"Who asked you?" Sirius snarled, but threw the book back to the floor just the same.

With a sigh, he fell down in a small clearing in the middle of the books and rubbed his eyes with his hands. The image of Snape lying tied to the bed, with Malfoy's sperm dripping out of him, was still vivid in his mind, but even worse was the memory of what Sirius himself had done to him after that. Thinking about it felt like he was watching a picture or a painting where some sick bastard was doing awful things to another, equally sick, bastard. It could not possibly have been him, forcing himself on Snape, fucking his white arse hard enough to make him scream...

Sirius lifted the largest book he saw, aimed it carefully, and dropped it straight on his foot. The pain took away any impure thoughts he had concerning last night, not to mention made him feel like a proper house-elf.

The only explanation for his actions was insanity, which was hardly farfetched after several days of being either humiliated to death or simply strangled. It was the channel his frustration had chosen that continued to baffle him, not to mention the disturbing fact that, in spite of his guilty conscience, the mere thought of Snape's arse still made him hard.

Sirius picked up the book again and calmly maimed his other foot with it.

Almost as big a mystery as what he had done was, of course, why Snape had not simply killed him off, and a night of pondering had shed no light on it whatsoever. Sirius had even played with the idea that perhaps Snape was sick enough to get a kick out of being shagged by somebody he absolutely despised. However, a more plausible explanation was that he had merely intended it as part of the mental torture he enjoyed putting Sirius through. If so, the plan had worked splendidly. Sirius felt like the lowest of the low; he was the man he had thought Snape to be.

"Come now," Gengulphus said amicably, "you have been here all night, rummaging through those blasted books. Do not giant house-elves need some rest, as well?"

"No, actually we don't, so keep your bloody mouth shut and let me get on with this!" Sirius growled, getting back to his feet and beginning to scan the titles for 'B's. He knew Gengulphus' only concern was the amount of sleep he had missed due to Sirius' intentionally noisy hunt for books and had no intention of letting him off that easily. If Sirius did not sleep, then why should that pest sleep either?

The portrait stayed silent for good five minutes. Yet it was a female voice that made Sirius raise his head from the books, speaking too softly for him to hear her words. Gengulphus' hurried reply, however, was audible enough.

"What a... lovely surprise!" he exclaimed in his most insincere voice. "I'm always delighted to see my favourite aunt!"

Sirius watched a large woman with a purple dress and silver hair take the seat Gengulphus was offering her. The resemblance between them was striking, apart from the apparently permanent frown on her face, as opposed to Gengulphus' frozen smile.

"In that case," she said, "you should have showed up at my sister Agatha's for that glass of port last night."

"I do apologise, dear aunt Dahlia, but you see I was rather busy at the time and..."

Judging by the look Dahlia cast him, one did not have to be the sharpest quill to figure out what Gengulphus had been doing.

"Had you been awake and where you were supposed to be," she continued, still glaring at him, "you would not have missed the spectacle Agatha and I were forced to witness. Even though you scarcely visit her," - the frown on her face deepened - "you might remember that she hangs not far from me in the upstairs corridor and from her picture one has a clear view of the master bedroom."

Dahlia glanced at Sirius, who was by now eavesdropping on them quite openly. Pulling Gengulphus close to her, she whispered something to him which she was evidently 'too much of a prude' to say out loud. Gengulphus, however, had no such difficulty.

"Severus had his way with the giant elf!" he shrieked and received a fair amount of hushing from Dahlia. "Oh, the shame of it! If he must practice this, this... _fornication_, then let it at least be with one's own kind!"

"Hey, I'm as much human as you are!" Sirius yelled at him, realising too late what he had just said.

"To think that our flesh and blood succumbed to a measly house-elf..." Gengulphus carried on, entirely ignoring the compliment Sirius had inadvertently paid him. "Could he not at least been the actual fornicator instead of having himself tethered like an animal and then have his elf... Oh, I can't even say it!"

"Oh, I know," Dahlia said affectionately. "Poor Agatha had nightmares of it all through the night - of Severus having his _unnatural_ way with goblins, and even a troll!"

She covered her mouth with a handkerchief in disgust.

"Oi!" Sirius cut in, stepping over the piles of books and stopping by the fireplace. "You two make it sound like _he_ had his way with me and not the other way around."

"Naturally," Gengulphus replied, his eyebrows rising all the way up to his comb-over. "How else could it have happened?"

Dahlia leant over to him and whispered, "Doesn't he know what that rather unattractive accessory around his neck is for?"

Letting out a deep sigh, Gengulphus turned to Sirius.

"You cannot do anything your Master doesn't want you to do, giant elf," he said in a most patronising tone. "Should you attempt to do otherwise, that collar..."

"...Will kill me, I know!" Sirius shouted at him, grabbing the collar with both hands. "Bloody hell, I've been in this house for five days and have certainly had my share of dying by this fucking thing!"

"Oh, dear," Dahlia said, the handkerchief now covering most of her face. "Now you've upset him, Gengulphus. You know how I dislike this sort of thing... Perhaps it would be best if I stayed with Agatha till this is sorted out?"

"Of course. Give her my best," Gengulphus said without turning his eyes from Sirius, not to mention bothering to see her off.

Sirius was trying very hard to digest the possibility that Snape might have let him do what he did for the simple reason that he had wanted it too. At least the portraits seemed unanimous about it and treated Snape as the 'fornicator', when the one to blame should clearly have been Sirius.

"So, that pervert finally did it - or rather, had you do it for him." Gengulphus strode around his chair, shaking his head. "This is truly a sad day to be a Snape."

"Apparently the fact that he also shagged Malfoy had no impact on you," Sirius grunted. "A pure-blood lover is always welcome, eh? Be he a pervert or just a bloody bastard."

Gengulphus let out a giggle Sirius had grown to detest.

"Ha! That is not love, that is survival!" he chuckled. "How else do you think he would have managed to stay on friendly terms with someone like Lucius Malfoy?"

"Define 'friendly'," Sirius muttered, remembering the ropes that had tied Snape to the bed.

"There are things one must do to survive, my dear giant elf."

"I have a name."

"Of course you do, giant elf," Gengulphus said pleasantly. "Have you honestly not realised why he brought you back?"

"Let's see..." Sirius drawled, tapping on his temple. "To humiliate me, to torture me, to pay me back for everything he hates me for - to name but a few."

"You are rather dim, aren't you?" laughed the portrait. "If that's what he wanted, then why not bring back that Potter chap? That was his biggest enemy, and I can tell you it was a joyous day in this house when the news of his death arrived."

Sirius stared at him in disbelief. It was almost embarrassing that the thought had not even occurred to him. Naturally it made no sense to bring him there to be punished, when James had so obviously been the one Snape had hated the most. And if the spell worked on one deceased, it would surely work on another.

"I've always known house-elves to be rather dumb creatures, but I guess the stupidity grows with the rest of you," Gengulphus carried on, shaking his head. "One would think the owl would have been a clear enough hint."

"Here we go again with the owl... What's so fascinating about one bloody owl?"

"You still have not realised it? I mean, seriously..." Gengulphus shook his head so vigorously that his comb-over fell out of place, revealing the shining scalp and leaving his hair rather lop-sided. He took a deep breath, and when he continued, he spoke in a slow, clear voice, so as to make certain Sirius understood every syllable of it. "He has two owls, the grey one is called Faustus and the darker one is called..."

Gengulphus looked at Sirius expectantly, clearly hoping that his brain would do at least some of the work on its own. It did not take long for Sirius to remember Snape's question about the colour of the owl he had used, which had seemed like such an odd thing to ask at a time like that.

"Fuck me."

"No, not quite."

Sirius glared at the portrait, wishing he, too, had a wand with which to throw Stinging Hexes at it.

"It's Black, isn't it?"

"Precisely!" Gengulphus applauded him rather theatrically. "And he did not name that bird after its colour, for it is quite clearly..."

"Dark brown."

"I think we are finally getting somewhere!" the portrait exclaimed. "So, you see, you are not here simply because he hates you, even though I am quite certain there is some truth in that as well."

"For instance, the fact that he made me into a bloody slave!"

Gengulphus had now noticed the few long strands of hair brushing against his neck and quickly put them back into place to cover what was not there.

"You see," he said calmly, smoothing his comb-over, "when one is obsessed with someone, it matters not whether that obsession is due to love or hate. It is a shifting line between those two as it is."

Sirius let out a laugh that startled the portrait.

"You honestly expect me to believe that Snape has more than one type of feelings for me?" he said with contempt. "Have you actually _met_ this fruit of your groin?"

"Kindly do not use such obscene language in my presence!" Gengulphus exclaimed, insulted.

Sirius thought for a moment, then said, "You do know what this means, don't you?"

"Of course I do, you silly git. It is Severus who is so utterly confused about the matters of the heart, not I."

"No, _baldie_," Sirius said, pronouncing the word with particular care. "It means that you do know my name after all."

* * *

Gengulphus' words still floating in his head, Sirius searched the downstairs for Snape. But the only sign of him was the very familiar goblet of potion, which had been left for him on the dining room table and which Sirius emptied with disgust. Still grimacing, he climbed the stairs and walked straight into the bedroom, only to find it as empty as the rest of the house. At the door to the study he hesitated, knocked and waited before barging in, but again in vain.

He even opened the door to the rooms he knew to be out of use and searched the dusty floors for any signs of somebody having been in there. But all were as deserted as before, except for one. The door to it was locked, but the rotten wood only needed a few good kicks to give in. As soon as he stepped in, he was greeted with a deafening mixture of screeches, followed closely by a cloud of feathers, which drove him down on the floor and amidst the bird droppings.

Sirius had completely forgotten about the owls, whose previous home still lay scattered across the back yard. The windows were wide open for the owls to zoom in and out as they pleased, and judging by the amount of rat carcasses on the floor, they had been doing so for days. Snape had taken quite a risk by keeping them there, but obviously he had estimated Sirius' capacity for thought accurately enough.

Wiping the owl droppings off his face, Sirius took a better look at the two angry birds, which he had just woken up: Faustus, the man wanting a soul, and Black, the soul wanting a man. How bloody poetic life could sometimes be.

Till then Sirius had tried to be as carefully optimistic as possible, since naming an owl after somebody could have a number of reasons beside the one Gengulphus had implied. Perhaps Snape had intended to torture that poor bird in the absence of the real thing, and had the Exmortuis Spell not worked, Black might well have ended up in a pot with some garlic and rosemary. And yet owls were of high value in the Wizarding World and usually stayed with their owners for many years, hence taking one solely for the purpose of torture and dinner seemed a bit odd. But then again, this was Snape he was talking about.

Another annoyed shriek from the owls made Sirius turn around and leave them to their nap.

As he walked down the corridor to the bathroom to wash away the owl droppings, he came to the conclusion that Snape must have Disapparated without so much as a spot of breakfast. Apparently the man had gone out of his way to avoid seeing his molester and succeeded.

But when Sirius opened the door to the bathroom, the sight nearly made him jump.

"What the devil is the meaning of this!" Snape snarled from the tub. "Have you not heard of knocking?"

Sirius was struck speechless, not having expected to find Snape in the bath at that time of the day, as he usually bathed in the evening.

"I was just..." he mumbled, not sure where to set his eyes. "I mean, I thought you were out."

"Well, I'm very much in, thank you." Snape picked up his wand from the edge of the tub and pointed it over his shoulder. "_Lavatio_."

All of a sudden there was something moving in the water, and as Sirius walked closer, he saw a sponge washing Snape's back on its own - yet another reminder of how easily his presence could have been replaced by a touch of magic.

"Isn't that supposed to be my job?"

"I've decided that I prefer to bathe alone, after all," Snape said rigidly.

"But you know, we giant house-elves have our reputation to uphold."

"Well, you and your reputation are a bit too late," Snape said, the strain now softer in his voice. "I've already washed everything except my hair."

"Then I am here to serve."

Swiftly Sirius snatched the sponge off his back and dropped it in the water, where it kept going round in circles until it slowly sank below the surface. Sirius reached for the shampoo and poured a generous amount of it into his hand.

"Now, when it says 'for oily hair'..." he began, as he applied the shampoo.

"No, it does not mean 'to achieve oily hair'," Snape said wearily. "You are not the first one to come up with that."

It was a reminder Sirius could have easily done without. The thought of Malfoy touching even a hair on Snape's head, let alone many, made him sick to his stomach. Trying to get his mind off it, Sirius lathered the shampoo into thick foam, his fingers running nervously through the greasy hair.

"Is there some place you need to be?" Snape asked. "Or are you just hurrying to get this over with?"

Taking a deep breath, Sirius tried his best to calm down. When he continued, he massaged the head in slow, circular motions, starting from the neck, going upwards over the top and all the way to the temples before returning behind the ears again. He could feel Snape relaxing underneath his fingers, his arms slipping from the edges of the tub and disappearing under the already foamy water.

Neither appeared willing to talk about what had happened the night before, but Sirius soon discovered the uncomfortable silence to be even more disturbing.

"I found the potion in the dining room," he said casually. "Didn't see you take it there, though."

"I... I Apparated."

Evidently Sirius' guess about not wanting to see him had been spot-on.

"Not that I'm complaining, but was there less of it than before?"

"There was enough." Snape said shortly, and Sirius left it at that.

Again his fingers slid down to Snape's neck and began another round. The shampoo had a scent of mint and grapefruit, which made Sirius feel suddenly sharper and more alert.

"Quite an unusual name you've given to your owl," he said in passing and felt Snape flinch. "Does it perhaps have a more personal meaning to you?" It was impossible to miss Snape's poorly hidden gasp. "Faustus, I mean. Isn't that the bloke who sold his soul to the devil?"

"How do you know the name of my owl?" Snape hissed, evidently ready to burst from anger.

"Oh, Gengulphus and I had a little chat this morning. Your great-grandfather, is he?"

"Great-_great_-grandfather and rather delirious," Snape corrected, the tone of his voice growing even more tense. "What else did that blasted portrait tell you?"

"Oh, not much," Sirius said, giving his temples a thorough massage. "Only that you were sweet enough to name the other owl after me."

This time Snape did not even bother to try to hide his gasp.

"I named it Black simply because of its colour."

"Which is dark brown, you mean."

"No, black."

"Brown."

"Black!"

"Brown!"

"No, I mean you, you imbecile."

"Precisely!" Sirius exclaimed victoriously.

He continued to wash the hair, his hands working as if they had a will of their own and were not taking any silly orders from the rest of him. Evidently his mouth found their behaviour rather encouraging.

"I know neither of us feels comfortable talking about it," Sirius found himself saying, "but I couldn't help but notice the lack of death in your bedroom yesterday."

"Is that an extraordinarily roundabout way of asking why the collar didn't strangle you?"

"Yep."

Sirius was lathering the shampoo in ever quickening pace, splashing it all over Snape's face and on himself.

"Why, it must have been that I scarcely even realised what happened."

"Oh, come now, Snape," Sirius said impatiently. "I know I'm better endowed than that."

He knew full well that the hair was not going to get any cleaner than that, and yet Sirius' hands kept repeating the same motion faster and faster, as if attempting to drill through his skull.

"I just don't get you," he continued. "First you tell me that you find me unattractive - or 'repulsive', was it? - and yet you rock yourself to sleep with a bloody boner against my arse. Then you have me killed by this fucking collar just when I'm about to bite your shag's cock off, and you tell Malfoy that I drop dead quite at random, so that he won't get keen on me, but instead goes upstairs and fucks you senseless. And finally, I _don't_ die when I..."

Sirius snapped his mouth shut and concentrated on splattering the foam over the walls and the floor as well while he waited and fretted for the silence to end.

"You were about to bite it off?" Snape asked at last, and Sirius could see something of a smile curving the corners of his mouth.

"I bloody well wasn't going to suck him off, was I? Such a shame I never got to it."

"Damn shame," Snape said, the smile now clearly visible.

"Wouldn't that have inconvenienced your shagging a bit if I had?" Sirius could not help asking.

The smile disappeared in a blink of an eye, and Snape dived under the water. After that, Sirius was certain that Gengulphus had at least been right about one thing, and decided never to mention Malfoy's name again.

When Snape appeared above the water, Sirius leant over him, reaching out his hand to touch his face rather clumsily and almost poking his eye out. The opportunity had presented itself rather unexpectedly, but then again, that was often the way with opportunities. Before Snape could say anything that might make him change his mind, Sirius pressed his lips firmly onto his. There was a sudden rush of blood, first to his head and then somewhere considerably lower, and before he knew it, he was in the tub with Snape.

"Black, don't..." Snape muttered, pulling away from him but not getting very far.

"You wanted revenge, right?" Sirius said breathlessly.

"Justice, actually, but..."

"Then have your justice," Sirius interrupted him again. "Fuck me."

Without waiting for an answer, Sirius kissed Snape's lips again and pressed his body against him under the water. He could feel Snape's hands finding their way to his arse, and the man was certainly kissing him eagerly enough, yet there was still something holding him back.

"Just do it," Sirius whispered to him. "Just fuck me and we're even."

"No, I can't..." he muttered again, shaking his head and pushing Sirius off again. "It's too late... I can't... No!"

Staring into the black eyes, Sirius felt the collar dig into the skin of his neck. Gasping for air, he fell against Snape in the water and forced his fingers under the band.

"You bastard..."

That was all he could hiss before the feeling of asphyxiation took him over, sending him under the water in panic, and before long, he felt life running inevitably out of his body.

There was nothing but cold, wet floor around him when Sirius came to, and a white towel, spread over him like a blanket.

* * *

Sirius counted seven strikes of the clock, picked up the roasted chicken from the dining room table and carried it back into the kitchen. Two hours was more than enough to wait for somebody to show up for dinner, particularly when the cook had the patience of a dog.

The golden brown chicken flew across the kitchen, scattering grease on everything on its way, until it landed on the wall and crumbled to bits. The first time Sirius had been able to cook something without burning it, and the bastard was not even there to see it.

After the snog in the bathtub earlier that day, Sirius had actually been even more confused than before, which was something he would not have thought possible any more. It was enough to be hovering on the verge of madness even without the muddle of mixed messages Snape was sending him. Absolutely nothing in that house made sense. Gengulphus was clearly suggesting that Snape might have some deeper feelings for him, as evidenced by his odd choice of name for one brown owl. Yet Snape showed nothing but contempt and hatred towards him and clearly enjoyed watching him die immensely; enough so to kill him off right in the middle of snogging, in which he had only moments before been rather actively involved. And not more than a day had passed since Sirius had practically raped him and lived to feel guilty about it.

To top it all, Sirius still had not the foggiest idea what his own feelings for the man were. All he knew was that for days he had been afraid that Snape would take advantage of his position and force him into something nasty, but after seeing those drops of sperm on his arse, Lucius bloody Malfoy dripping out of him, all he had been able to think about was that it should have been him. And, of course, not long after it had indeed been him. No matter how hard he tried, he could not stop reliving what had happened in Snape's bedroom, and some of his thoughts were quite far from remorse.

Having no book to drop on his foot, he concentrated on the thought that perhaps those engravings in the cupboard under the stairs were not Snape's after all. It was not the first time Sirius had toyed with the idea that Snape was nothing but a paedophile, who had kidnapped his pupils and kept them in that cupboard while he sexually molested them. It was an unlikely scenario, but it gave Sirius an unconditional reason to hate him without any of the extenuating circumstances or mixed signals that tended to mess up his mind rather thoroughly. Particularly the image of Snape touching a certain brown-haired boy with spectacles seemed to do the trick.

A sudden movement outside the window caught Sirius' eye, and he walked closer to it to get a better view of the back yard. As far as he could see, everything looked as peaceful as ever, but the uneasy feeling he had refused to go away. He hurried to the back door and very carefully pushed it ajar.

The remains of the owlery lay on the ground about halfway between the house and the tree that had nearly cost Sirius his death a few nights ago. But the branch was still there, sticking through the roof of the shack, and on that branch sat Snape.

Sirius opened his mouth to shout at him for not bothering to come inside and eat the dinner he had been slaving over, but just as he was about to start with a sounding curse, he heard Snape mutter something to himself.

"Justice... All I wanted was justice..."

Why Snape had chosen to sit outside instead of coming in for his dinner was beyond Sirius. However, the answer was simple enough and firmly in Snape's hand. Sirius recognised the clink the moment it sounded in the air and watched Snape take a long sip from the bottle.

"All these years I've waited, and now..." Snape said, shaking his head slowly. "Why couldn't he have died long ago? Why couldn't those blasted Dementors do their jobs properly and suck out his soul?" The bottle made another journey to his lips and back again. "No, instead he just continued to be there, mocking me, annoying me, waiting to be killed by anybody but me. And now, when at long last I have him, he..."

Snape's voice drifted away as he buried his head in his hands. Had it been anybody else, Sirius would have sworn the man was crying.

"Why the devil did he do that?" Snape said, lifting his head up again for another sip from the bottle. "I should've stopped him, it would've been so simple, I should've... Damn fool!" Snape nearly shouted, obviously too drunk to care whether Sirius could hear him inside the house. "It's too late... There's no justice... I shall watch him die... Die!"

Seeing Snape push himself up from the branch and stagger towards the house, Sirius hurried to pull the door close and hide in the broom cupboard. He heard Snape come in, heard the glass breaking, and heard him stumble through the kitchen. Only when his heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs did Sirius come out of hiding. The empty bottle of whiskey lay shattered on the floor by the back door, right where Snape had kissed him for the first time.

For a while Sirius merely stared at the shards of glass and the dark yellow stain on the wall above them. It was enough. If he had for a moment allowed himself to believe that Snape had any humane feelings towards him, he had just been proven wrong. All Snape wanted was to see him dead, preferably by his hand. He simply refused to sit back and wait for Snape to kill him again and again just so that he could 'watch him die'. It would have to end, and there was only one way he could think of.

* * *

To be continued... 


	7. Day Seven

**Day Seven**

The frantic search through the mess formerly known as the library took ages, but at last Sirius found what he knew to be there. Clasping it in his hand, he crept upstairs and headed straight for the bedroom. It was well past midnight already, and Sirius had every reason to assume that Snape was already fast asleep. Carefully he opened the door and cursed as it squeaked like a dying rat.

He waited for a moment in the doorway, but as the figure in the bed did not seem to be moving, he ventured to walk closer. As slowly and quietly as he possibly could, Sirius climbed onto the large bed, where Snape was lying on his back, snoring steadily. The curtains had not been drawn and the moonlight dyed the whole room an eerie shade of blue, including the blade of the letter-opener in Sirius' hand.

His plan was equally simple and desperate. If he was quick enough, it would be possible to thrust the knife into Snape's heart before the collar had time to do him in. Surely with Snape gone, he would find some way of contacting Dumbledore and he, in turn, would find a way to lift the spell off him. This was the last thing he wanted to do, but Snape had certainly left him no other choice. One more day in the house of Snape, wondering whether his Master would shag him or kill him, and Sirius would go utterly mad, if he had not already.

He crawled closer to the sleeping figure and bent over him. The sweet smell of whiskey was still distinct in Snape's breath as it swept over Sirius' face. Both of his hands wrapped around the handle of the letter-opener, and he raised it high above his head, ready to thrust it straight into the man's chest. The time for hesitation was over, now was the time to act. One, two, th

"I knew I should have been more specific when forbidding you to touch _another_ knife in this house."

His hands shaking somewhere over his head, Sirius stared down at the pair of black eyes glowing up from the pillow. Little by little, he let the letter-opener drop until the sharp tip of it was pointing directly at Snape's throat.

"I could do it," Sirius said, trying to put some confidence in his words. "The collar's not fast enough."

"Yes, I'm quite aware of that," Snape said calmly. "Why do you think I let you get this far in the first place? So, go on, do it."

"What?"

"Do it. That is what you are here for, isn't it?"

For a moment Sirius' grip tightened around the handle, but the moment seemed reluctant to end.

"The throat is quite effective," Snape continued in a pensive voice, "and perhaps a tad more original than simply stabbing me in the chest. Of course, if you want me to suffer as much as possible, then the stomach is surely the optimum choice, although there is always the risk of missing all the vital organs..."

"Snape?"

"Yes?"

"Shut it."

Sirius looked down at the naked body next to him and saw the tiny drop of blood right where the blade touched the skin of Snape's neck. There was no hint of fear on the man's face; in fact the way he looked back at him was almost resigned.

"Why did you bring me here?" Sirius asked, the letter-opener trembling in his hand.

"You're a clever enough chap, Black, can't you tell?"

"You wanted revenge."

"Justice," Snape corrected. "But yes, I wanted to punish you, I wanted you to suffer, I wanted you to..."

"To do what?"

"Nothing, absolutely nothing," Snape sighed, closing his eyes.

The letter-opener slipped from Sirius' hand and landed on Snape's chest, where he quickly picked it up again. Sirius needed to believe that he had heard more than nothing in those words.

"However," Snape continued, keeping his eyes tightly shut, "I was soon to discover that there's no such thing as justice."

"You're not making this any easier for me, you know," Sirius said, feeling increasingly annoyed by Snape's attitude. "One day you let me shag you up the arse and the next you have me die for just one bloody snog!"

"There are things you are not aware of."

"I know that!" Sirius roared in a fit of despair. "For fuck's sake, Snape, that's why I'm asking!"

"It might be difficult for you to comprehend, but there are things best left untold." As Snape looked at him, Sirius could see the black eyes glisten even more distinctly in the darkness. "What happened here..." Snape paused and swallowed. "It was a mistake on my part, and I... I apologise for what I did."

Sirius stared at him, not knowing whether to stab him or slap him; either the man was taking the piss or Sirius' lunacy was contagious.

"Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it my cock up your arse and not the other way around? So I think the guilt trip is all on me, just like you intended it."

"I had no such intention." Snape frowned, looking surprised. "Is that what you thought?"

Sirius looked at him in disbelief. When he finally managed to open his mouth to ask the question that had haunted him since that evening, he was certain he would throw up from sheer excitement. "Then why didn't you stop me?"

"Because I'm weak." Snape closed his eyes again, as if looking at Sirius made him sick. Sirius wondered whether the night would end with two men spewing up side by side and then dying in a shared pool of sick. But Snape's serious voice dispelled all such notions, as he continued, "I allowed it to happen, and that is why I must apologise to you."

Now it was Sirius' turn to close his eyes. It was just too much to hear the man he was threatening to stab to death apologise to him - particularly when it was for something Sirius himself had done.

"Let me get this straight..." he said slowly, trying to take it all in. "You don't apologise for making me go through the agonies of death over and over again, or for torturing me with pointless house chores even though they nearly cost me my hands and my sanity, but you do apologise for what I did to you here, in this bed?" As Snape did not answer, Sirius took a deep breath and tried to regroup. "You are one seriously disturbed wizard, you know that?"

"Yes, I suppose I am," Snape replied calmly. "But that is scarcely surprising after the years of torture you've put me through." The black eyes burnt in the dark again. "So do excuse me if I consider the dying to have been only a justified retaliation for that."

For some reason, all Sirius could think about was that time in their fourth or fifth year when he had cornered Snivellus after their Care of Magical Creatures class and forced him into the bin with the blast-ended skrewts. He now knew what he had seen in Snape's eyes that day: panic in the face upcoming death. Perhaps they were now more even than Sirius had initially thought.

"However, what happened here, in this bed..." Snape continued uneasily, his gaze wondering around the dark room. "I knew I would never get what I wanted otherwise, so I used your anger for my own pleasure and I shouldn't have."

Sirius knew he should have paid more attention to what the man was saying, but all he could hear was that one word.

"Pleasure?"

Snape nodded slowly, still looking somewhere past Sirius.

"Pleasure," Sirius said, unable to hide the smile in his voice.

It was amazing to discover how that one word could wipe away all the horrid things Snape had done to him over the past six days. There was nothing more important than to hear that the naked man lying next to him, the man he had been determined to kill with a letter-opener, fancied him.

"Seriously, Black, must you repeat every single word I say for you to understand..." Snape's eyes turned back to him and grew wide with surprise. "You find something amusing in all of this?"

The letter-opener still pressed against Snape's throat, Sirius bent down and let his lips brush against his, then again, staying on them long enough for Snape to respond, and then pulling away.

"Does that answer your question?"

"I would have to say that that was the most comprehensive answer imaginable."

Sirius was already on his way back to Snape's mouth when he suddenly stopped and pulled back. A thought had entered his head, and a thought at a time like that was a dangerous thing to have.

"One more thing. It's about those engravings in that cupboard..." Sirius started, then paused. "They are yours, aren't they? I mean, you're not by any chance a paedophile in your spare time, are you?"

"Excuse me? What engravings?"

"In the cupboard, where you locked me when Dumbledore paid his visit. Those markings, they are yours, right?"

Snape kept opening and closing his mouth, evidently not certain whether he should shriek or bellow at Sirius.

"And you haven't ever touched Harry, have you?" Sirius continued quickly, knowing his voice was about to fail him. "You know, done things to him, or made him do things to you. Maybe while giving him the Occlumency lessons?"

"For the love of Circe!" Snape finally growled. "Let me make this simple enough even for you to grasp: I do not like children, in fact I rather dislike children, your godson in particular!"

"I can take that as a no, then?"

"Give me that blasted knife and I'll stick it through my throat myself!" Snape yelled and tried to tear the letter-opener from Sirius' hand. "Even death is better than having to listen your demented notions any further!"

"All right!" Sirius hurried to say, lifting the letter-opener out of Snape's reach. "I get it! You don't like children."

"I _loathe_ children."

Sirius waited for the man to get his breath back before lowering his hands.

"Ever thought that you might have made the wrong career move by becoming a teacher?"

"Many times."

The sullen face below him was making Sirius' heart race like he was being chased by a herd of Death Eaters - and yet there was only one. He wanted to make it up to him for having doubted him, for trying to murder him, even for all the things he had gone though as a child, locked in that cupboard.

"Let me put it this way..." Sirius pressed the letter-opener again on his throat. "I'll grant you a choice: either I stab you to death with this..."

"I trust the other option will be equally tempting."

"...Or I give you a good, hard shag." The blade was scratching Snape's skin as Sirius waited for him to answer. "So, which one is it going to be?"

Snape looked past him at the canopy, apparently deep in thought. After a while he lowered his gaze back to Sirius and asked quite seriously, "This stab, will it definitely be fatal?"

"You cheeky bastard!"

Sirius threw the letter-opener over his shoulder, heard it smash into something but there was no force strong enough to make him turn to see what it was.

He pressed his lips firmly against Snape's, not brushing them lightly as he had done before, but sucking them, biting them in the heat of passion. Snape's hands travelled down his back and grabbed his buttocks, squeezing them and rubbing them as if attempting to bruise them.

"You do know that I have absolutely no fucking idea what I'm supposed to do," Sirius whispered between kisses.

"Oh, I think you have already revealed some hidden talents," Snape groaned as Sirius nibbled the skin behind his ear.

"This much I know," Sirius mumbled as he kissed his way down the man's chest, the hair growing thicker and blacker the further down he went. "But what am I supposed to do with this?"

He wrapped his fingers around Snape's cock so hard he made him moan out loud. Slowly, teasingly he began stroking it, then paused.

"For the love of Merlin, don't stop!" Snape breathed.

"I thought," Sirius said, squeezing the cock harder and then letting go again, "that there might be something more I could try out. Perhaps something like this..."

This time it was not merely a moan but a scream of pleasure that escaped from Snape's lips as Sirius leant down and gave his cock one long, wet lick.

"You liked that?" he asked innocently. "Then how about if I do this..."

He let his tongue circle around the tip of Snape's cock while his hands reached under him and took a firm hold of his arse.

"Black-you-bloody-Black..."

"I take that as an encouragement, shall I? Then maybe it's time for..."

The cock slid slowly into Sirius' mouth, and he could feel Snape tremble as he swallowed his flesh. It was almost too much for him to realise that he actually had the man's cock in his mouth, that it was he who was making him moan like that, and that the mere touch of the sheets under him would soon be enough to make Sirius himself come.

"Wait," Snape said suddenly, pushing Sirius' head away from his groin. "There's something I must tell you before you, we... It's about Elderlyflowers."

"Elderflowers?"

"No, _Elderlyflowers_. It seems... It seems that Muggles don't particularly enjoy their scent, for dung doesn't appear to be popular among them, not any more at least, and those blasted Muggles simply wipe away whatever they don't care for, so there..." Snape stopped his babbling to catch his breath. "There's none left."

"Dung?"

"No, Elderlyflowers!"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I merely thought you should know."

"Well, cheers. Now will you just shut up and fuck me?"

With an evil grin, Snape crawled behind him and gave him a hard shove, which made him fall right on his face on the bed. Sirius reached for the bedside table, where he had seen a glimpse of Snape's wand, and handed it to the man behind him.

"I'm sure you have some nifty little spell for these types of things, don't you?"

"As a matter of fact..." Snape said, lifting his wand. "_Lubrificio_."

In an instant, something cool and wet was sliding down Sirius' crack. But just as he was about to start enjoying the feeling, Snape began rubbing the liquid between his cheeks, and the next thing he knew, Snape's finger was inside him, pushing and probing in a way Sirius had never known before.

"Do you want more?"

Sirius could only hope that the sound that came out of his mouth could be identified as 'yes-dear-sweet-whatsit-yes'. Trying to indicate his eagerness, he pushed himself up on his hands and knees, and pressed his arse harder against Snape's cock.

"You do want this, don't you?" Snape asked, and Sirius could hear the smile in his voice.

Again Sirius let out that strange sort of bark, signalling for him to get inside him that instant. At last Snape appeared to believe him and slowly he began pushing his cock into Sirius' hole. There was far more pain than Sirius had anticipated, but he kept his teeth clenched together, his fingers tearing the sheets off the bed, and his head buried in the pillow as Snape forced his way inside him bit by bit.

"Black?" said Snape's breathless voice.

"Don't you dare move!" Sirius managed to hiss between his teeth. "Stay there, just fucking stay there!"

Snape leant to kiss Sirius' back, running the tip of his tongue down his spine, while his hand found Sirius' cock and started stroking it slowly. The longer the man stayed inside him, the more the pain seemed to diminish, and after a while Sirius began pushing his arse cautiously towards him. He lifted his head from the pillows and propped himself up on his arms.

"Fuck me," he whispered and felt Snape come alive behind him.

The second push brought back the pain, but Sirius bit his lip and did not make a sound, so as not to scare Snape off. Then came the third one, still quite gentle, then the next and the next. With every push, Sirius noticed his attention slipping from the pain to his own knob, which Snape was now stroking harder and harder. As the pleasure crept upwards, taking over his entire body, Sirius found himself pushing back to Snape, making him use more and more force as he fucked him.

"You are not to come until I tell you to," Snape breathed. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, yes, yes..." Sirius repeated in rhythm with the thrusts. But even as he said those words, he could already feel the familiar tightening in his balls, telling him that his climax was near.

"Not yet," Snape groaned, pushing into him harder than ever, his hand trembling on Sirius' cock. "Not... yet..."

Snape squeezed his cock once more, long and hard, and Sirius could feel him starting to shake on top of him. But still the order to come had not come.

"I can't..." was all Sirius could say before the collar tightened around his neck, and as he exploded in Snape's hand, he screamed a silent scream of pleasure and died.

As the first breath of air shook him awake and he felt Snape's arms wrapped around him, all he could remember was the longest orgasm he had ever had.

* * *

Sirius was the first to jump awake at the sound of the knocking, followed closely by Snape, who leapt straight to the window. The room was bathed in sunlight, telling him that they had slept in, which was hardly surprising after the night they had had.

"Who is it?" Sirius asked, tying the tea towels in place out of old habit. For a brief moment he lost his concentration and simply stared at the pale body by the window, glowing even whiter in the bright sunlight, and wondered how he could ever have found it repulsive. "Don't tell me it's Malfoy."

"No, it's you and your blasted letter again," Snape snarled as he swept past Sirius, pulling on his robes. "I was fairly certain this would happen, but I did hope it wouldn't be until..." Glancing at Sirius, he swallowed the rest of the sentence. "We mustn't keep him waiting."

With an uneasy feeling in his stomach, Sirius followed him out of the room.

When they reached downstairs, Snape strode quickly towards the door, stopped only by Sirius' frantic scream.

"What the fuck are you doing? You can't let him see me!"

"Let's face facts, Black," Snape said resignedly. "It's over. I must open the door."

"Have you gone mad!" Sirius took hold of Snape's arm and dragged him where the cupboard under the stairs was supposed to be. "You open this door before even thinking about opening that other one!"

"Black, you don't understand..."

"Evidently more than you! Or do you actually want to give my regards to all my old mates in Azkaban?" Without waiting for him to answer, Sirius pulled out Snape's wand from his robes and handed it to him. "Just open the bloody door. He'll never find me in there."

The look in Snape's eyes was an odd mixture of despair and gratitude as he took the wand and tapped the wall with it. As soon as the door opened, Sirius hurried inside and slammed it shut after him.

Snape's footsteps sounded in the hall as he walked to open the front door.

"Headmaster. What a surprise. Again."

"My dearest Severus," said Dumbledore's voice. "You must know why I'm here."

"I confess that I do not."

There was a short pause, and Sirius could nearly hear the two men stare at each other.

"Where is he, Severus?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I do not have time for this!" Dumbledore said in a booming voice. "I have enough to worry about as it without all this silliness! I know I should have come sooner, but I did think that I had made myself clear the last time I was here." He walked swiftly across the hall, passing the cupboard only by a few feet. "Now, where is he?"

After a moment's silence a second pair of footsteps sounded in the hall, becoming louder by each step. Instinctively, Sirius pressed himself into the far corner of the cupboard, holding his breath. The tap on the door was barely audible, and in an instant, the little space was full of light, streaming in through the doorway. It hurt his eyes, which had only just adapted to the darkness, and so he shut them.

"Sirius? I trust that you are well?"

Still holding his breath, Sirius kept his eyes tightly shut, wishing he was a small child, since only small children were able to become invisible by closing their eyes.

"Severus," Dumbledore said reprovingly. "Please tell me you haven't kept him in here like this all the time, because this is truly unacceptable. The poor chap is like a frightened animal!"

"No!" Sirius hurried to answer, opening his eyes and seeing Dumbledore's head in the doorway. "I came in here only just now. Snape hasn't..."

The rest of the words stuck in Sirius' throat. Right next to Dumbledore's head, on either side of the doorframe, were the engravings he had discovered the last time. Only the slightest turn of his head would be needed for him to see them, and then Snape's most intimate secrets would be revealed.

"Headmaster," came Snape's voice from the outside, "I'm aware of my wrongdoings and take full responsibility for this."

"I know that, Severus, and I'm not here to pass judgment," Dumbledore said calmingly. "Although you could have given him at least something decent to wear. But do come out of there, Sirius, and we'll see what all this fuss is about."

"Really, I'm fine, Albus," Sirius said with a reassuring smile as he made towards him.

But when he reached the doorway, he stopped dead in his tracks and pressed his back against the frame, determined to cover as much as his scrawny body possibly could.

"I'd much rather discuss this while we're all in the same room," Dumbledore said, gesturing for him to step out of the cupboard, but stubbornly Sirius stayed put. "Sirius? Is there something wrong?"

"I... I don't know," he stuttered, still smiling like an idiot and knowing he must have looked rather deranged.

"What is it?" Dumbledore asked, pushing Sirius gently aside and stepping inside the cupboard. "_Lumos_."

With horror, Sirius watched his lit-up wand sweep the walls of the cupboard. When he reached the part Sirius had been guarding, the old man heaved a sigh.

"Not a pleasant man," he mumbled, running his hand over the engravings. "Not in the least."

"No, you don't understand!" Sirius shouted. "That's not him! He hasn't held any children prisoner and he's not a paedophile!"

Sirius glanced at Snape, who stood in the hall, suddenly looking like a decorative stone statue gone horribly wrong.

"Are you quite certain you are well, Sirius?" Dumbledore asked, casting him a concerned look before returning to study the pictures. "Oh, my. What is this I see down here, Severus?"

The man was pointing at the engraving right at the bottom of the wall; the one in which the larger figure was forcing something into the head of the smaller one. Sirius felt a cold shudder travel down his spine.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Yes, Legilimens," came Snape's voice quietly between his clenched teeth. "That was when my father was convinced that I had broken one of his precious bottles. The fact that I had not did nothing to lessen my punishment. I was in there for over six hours."

The black eyes were burning like two tar pits again, but this time all Sirius wanted to do was to wrap his arms around him and never let go.

"If only we could choose our parents," Dumbledore sighed and ran his hand up the wall. "Brooms, Quidditch, serpents and... Oh my." His hand had stopped at the snake that had no body. "I see a more mature Severus here."

"A hormone-driven teenager," Snape spat with contempt.

It was only now that Sirius realised why all the snakes he had found on those walls had been missing their bodies. Apparently Snape's sexual preferences had been a strong influence on his art.

"So, this is what you were trying to hide from me?" Dumbledore asked, turning to Sirius, who was utterly speechless. "Hardly anything to be ashamed of, is it, _Sirius_?"

The way in which Dumbledore pronouced his name made blood rush to Sirius' cheeks. How the devil did that man always know things even before the persons concerned had been able to figure them out? Still unable to form words, Sirius merely nodded to him and tried not to laugh out loud from sheer relief.

"Come now," Dumbledore said pleasantly.

Stepping out into the hall after Dumbledore, Sirius soon noticed that Snape was avoiding looking him in the eye. He could not understand why, though, since Dumbledore did not seem too cross about Snape's straying into the Dark Arts.

"I have been patient enough, Severus," Dumbledore began, and Snape nodded gravely. "This must stop."

"It will, Headmaster. Today."

"Good," Dumbledore said. "Otherwise I would have no choice but to inform the Ministry of this, and that is something I'd rather not do."

"No, you can't tell them!" Sirius shouted at him, stepping in front of Snape. "They'll send him to Azkaban!"

"Sirius..." Dumbledore began, but was not given enough time to finish.

"No! I won't let you turn him in!" Sirius pressed his back tighter against Snape, although fully aware that a supposedly dead man in a dog's collar and two tea towels was scarcely a figure of authority. "I know I sent you that bloody letter, and at the time I did want to go back there, behind the veil, but things have sort of changed since then, and I really won't mind if..."

"I see your time here has proved even more useful than I dared to hope," Dumbledore said softly, and Sirius could see the smile in his eyes. "Nevertheless, I've always felt that these matters should be sorted out while still alive and not left until death, for there's far too much going on behind the veil without such personal issues. When I found out what Severus had done, I trusted him not to harm you in any way and urged him to put this past him as soon as possible."

Sirius had already opened his mouth to defend Snape some more when he suddenly realised what Dumbledore was saying.

"You knew?" he asked in amazement. "You knew the letter was real and yet... yet you did nothing!"

Dumbledore bent his head down and looked at him over his glasses.

"Naturally I knew. Did you think I wouldn't recognise your handwriting?"

"And you just left me here!" Sirius growled. "For all you knew, he could've been whipping me to shreds in the cellar!"

The old eyes turned away from him and toward Snape.

"Please tell me you didn't."

"No!" Snape exclaimed, suddenly bursting into life again. "I only had him die. Several times."

Dumbledore looked puzzled, but Sirius was quick not to give him time to ask more about the dying bit.

"Let's not get into who killed who, or who raped who," he said, lowering his voice towards the end. "The important thing is that I sort of like this life-after-afterlife scenario and wouldn't mind continuing with it for a little while longer."

But as Dumbledore's eyes pierced through him, Sirius knew his end had come.

"This is not a negotiation, Sirius," Dumbledore said calmly but firmly. "We do not have a choice in front of death. You know I would like nothing better than to have you with us, but this is no longer where you belong."

"But..." Sirius tried.

"No, I only allowed this to continue because I was certain Severus had brought you here for a reason, to settle some unresolved issues" - he turned to cast Snape yet another angry glance - "which I certainly didn't expect to include any _dying_." The eyes turned back to Sirius before he could make another attempt at protest. "However, judging by your behaviour, those feelings have now been resolved, even quite happily, from what I gather. Now you must go back, Sirius."

"You have my word, Headmaster," Snape cut in, "that this will all be over by the end of the day."

Dumbledore patted him gently on the shoulder and made to leave.

"Don't I have any say in this!" Sirius yelled, grabbing him by the arm. "I don't want to be dead any more!"

"Think of this as a holiday," Dumbledore said, looking him straight in the eye. "Although, I know the beginning was perhaps not what one might expect from a holiday..." He thought for a moment, then said, "Unless one has been silly enough to book one's trip from the Goblin Tours Agency because it was a few knuts cheaper, and then ended up mining for gold for two weeks on the Isle of Man - which holds no gold, by the way. But I digress," he said, shaking his head. "Goodbye, my dear boy. We'll meet again soon enough."

All Sirius could do was shake the hand Dumbledore offered him. His whole body felt numb, as if it had simply decided to shut out everything it was not able to take in anyway. The two men exchanged a few more words, which included the hated name Malfoy and the Exmortuis Spell, followed closely by utter impossibilities, aged flowers and burnt parchments. Both seemed pleased in rather a temperate fashion, and then they, too, shook hands.

In one loud crack, Dumbledore was gone.

* * *

The library was a horror. Despite - and mostly because of - Sirius' relentless efforts to arrange the books alphabetically, one could barely find enough room to stand without stepping onto some book or other.

"I made a useless house-elf," Sirius said and kicked the nearest pile of books over.

"You most certainly did," answered the familiar voice from above the fireplace. "I understand that you are leaving?"

"Yep, you may put on your funny hat and pop open a bottle of something bubbly, because the news is that by the end of the day I'm out of here."

"Tell me, is there much demand for giant house-elves these days?"

"You bloody..."

But before Sirius could finish, there was a yellow surge that swept right over his shoulder and into the middle of the portrait, followed by Gengulphus' terrified cry. He spun around quick enough to find Snape standing in the doorway, hiding his wand inside his robes and muttering, "Sod off, you balding nuisance."

Snape walked to him and lifted his hand hesitantly, reaching to touch Sirius' face, but then let it drop down to his side.

"So, ready to do me in?"

"It's not a question of doing you in," Snape said in a low voice. "There's nothing I can do, in fact. It all happened days ago."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

There was an awkward look on Snape's face as he began pacing back and forth, leaping over piles of books.

"Can you recall that little tantrum you had in my study three days ago? Among the bottles that were broken was a small vial of Elderlyflower essence."

The name rang a bell, and in an instant Sirius remembered the weird conversation about elderlyflowers and dung that had taken place right in the middle of shagging.

"Rather smelly, this Elderlyflower, was it?"

"Yes," Snape nodded. "I believe in the vernacular, the plant is known as Old Fart."

"Sounds appropriate."

"More so than one would think," Snape said, his expression revealing a closer acquaintance with the plant in question. "Anyway, it appears that those were the last flowers in existence, thanks to Muggles and their eagerness to destroy everything they consider disagreeable."

A string of images was flashing before Sirius' eyes: the mixture of liquids on the floor; Snape shouting at him but never touching him; Snape going shopping the next day after making such a fuss about hating it; and finally Sirius himself, shagging Snape while he lay tied to the bed, and not dying in the process. The man must have already known at the time that Sirius would soon be gone for good and that might be his only chance to... anything. And the fact that a day later Sirius had died in the bathroom after kissing him now seemed hardly surprising. After all, what would have been the point of getting involved with somebody about to disappear behind the veil again?

"So, I brought this on myself." Sirius let his gaze sweep over the mountains of books. "And now you won't even have your personal slave here to help you with this lot."

"Oh, you need not worry about that," Snape said, lifting his wand. "_Ordinio Libros Alphabeticis_!"

In the next instant, the air was filled with books flying in all directions, followed by a booming rumble as each of them zoomed onto its place on the shelves and pressed tightly together with the others. Only a few seconds later, the floor was empty and the walls were covered with books, all in alphabetical order.

"Bloody hell," Sirius breathed, walking past the M section and distinctly sensing Arsenius Jigger's _Magical Drafts and Potions_ sneer at him. "Couldn't have done that a bit earlier, could you now?"

"As a matter of fact," Snape said, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, "I could not. The look on your face when I gave you this job was simply too precious to miss."

Sirius strolled around the room and past the portrait of Gengulphus, who pretended to be napping in his chair but was unable to resist a peek at them every once in a while.

"What about the 'damned' thing? A bit of a misunderstanding there or what?"

"A bit of a lie, actually. I was compelled to say something to make you take that potion. As enjoyable as watching you die was, I rather feared your stubbornness would have led to my being bored silly."

Somehow Sirius doubted that, but cast Snape an appreciative look anyway.

"So, what's it going to be?" he asked, rubbing his eyes. "I'll just be strangled to death again, only this time for good?"

"No, it should be quite painless. You will simply fall asleep and..." Snape swallowed loud enough for Sirius hear it. "Not wake up."

"I see. The only thing is that I don't sleep, remember?"

"You did last night, didn't you?"

Sirius stared at him, trying to bring back to mind all the hours he had been lying awake next to Snape but coming up with far too few. He remembered listening to his breathing, running a hand across his chest, pulling a strand of hair from his mouth, but as for the last couple of hours before they had been woken by the knocking, Sirius had no recollection. And the more he thought about it, the more tired he seemed to feel.

Ever since he first woke up in that house, all he had wanted was to die, die once and for all. There had been times when he had lain awake at night, thinking about the looks on everybody's faces if he just suddenly turned up at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. In his mind's eye he had seen Remus' concerned frown, Harry's bright smile and, a little later, Bellatrix's damned grin being wiped off by his wand. But as the days had passed and his relationship to Snape had grown more complicated and utterly bizarre, Sirius had found himself clinging to his new life ever more vigorously. And now, after the night he had spent with Snape, he was supposed to let all that go and simply roll over and die. Snape was right - there was no justice.

"Well, I'm still awake now," he said determinedly. "Come here."

As soon as the man reached him, Sirius pulled him in for a deep kiss. His lips tasted even better in the daylight, and Sirius enjoyed seeing the effect his touch had on the man.

When he felt the desired arousal against his own, he took Snape's hand and led him to the desk. Taking a moment to savour the surprise in the man's eyes, Sirius kissed him once more before turning him gently but assertively around and pressing him face down on the table.

"Black..."

"Do you honestly think we should waste more time talking?" Sirius asked, as he rolled up the hem of Snape's robes to uncover his arse. "I, for one, am going to make use of the time I have left."

"Are you now?" Snape breathed, his hands gripping the edge of the desk.

Sirius bent down to give his arse a soft kiss and enjoyed feeling the flesh shiver under his lips.

"Yes, but I'll need some help from you, so if you don't mind..."

Snape was already reaching for his wand, evidently no less eager to make the most of their time together. His hand trembling, he shoved the wand behind his back and between his cheeks.

"_Lubricio_!" The word was nearly a cry.

Just as Sirius pushed himself inside Snape, he turned to glance at the portrait above the fireplace. To his satisfaction, he caught a glimpse of a bald head with a bad comb-over, peeking from behind a chair. Closing his eyes to concentrate on the pleasure, he shagged Snape safe in the knowledge that they were being watched.

* * *

It felt right, just lying there on the carpet, the two naked bodies entwined. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, and every thought took ages to form in Sirius' tired mind. He still had no idea what he was doing there and why he had shagged Snape - again - but at that moment it hardly seemed relevant. Perhaps he was just as confused as Snape himself; perhaps that annoyance on canvas had been right from the start. There were rarely reasons for anything anyway. At this point, Sirius was more than satisfied with the simple fact that it felt right.

"Are you asleep?"

"No, you just wore me out," Sirius said, opening his eyes and grinning at the concerned face over him.

The smile was not returned, however, and Snape sat up on the floor next to him, looking as grim as ever.

"It won't be long now," he said quietly, turning his head away from Sirius.

"I know."

"I was speaking of myself. It won't be long before I shall follow you."

"Don't say that!" Sirius exclaimed, grabbing him by the arm. "Bloody hell, Snape! You are needed here! Who else is going to make my godson's life miserable if not you?"

"I thought you would be happy to know that you will not have to be alone on the other side for much longer. Or is there someone waiting for you there?"

Only with effort did Sirius manage to prop himself against his elbows and cast the man an offended glare.

"What am I, the slut of the afterlife?"

Snape's mouth was already twitching when he answered, "You must admit that it only took you six days to yield to me."

"Closer to four, actually, but who's counting," Sirius said, grinning back at him. "But it's nice to know you drooled after me for considerably longer, even named your feathered friend after me."

Snape's eyes flashed, but his lips curved into a smile.

"And how are you to know what I had planned for your namesake? Owl is, after all, in season."

There was nothing Sirius could do to stop the laughter from bursting out of him, and with tears in his eyes he reached to touch Snape's face. It was precisely that tiresome feeling of never knowing what the man was thinking that made him want to suck his lips until they bled and shag him until he screamed. But as he pressed his mouth against Snape's, he suddenly felt the arm he was propped up on give way, and he fell on his back to the floor.

"It's OK," he hurried to say as Snape's concerned face returned over him. "I was just thinking about having a little lie down. Nice ceiling you've got there. Needs a lick of paint, though."

"Are you quite comfortable?" Snape lay down next to him, pulling him closer to him before Sirius could even nod. "I could try to take that wretched thing off," he suggested, pointing at the collar.

"It scarcely matters any more." Sirius ran his hand over the leather band. "Unless you intend to put me through a dress rehearsal before the main event?"

"Not even if you held a knife at my throat," Snape said in a low voice, his dark eyes beginning to glisten.

"Or a letter-opener," Sirius added quickly, in an attempt to lighten the mood a bit.

Snape lay down next to him and pressed his head against Sirius' chest, his hand drawing circles on his belly.

"Please don't remind me. It's embarrassing enough that I didn't think to include that one when forbidding you to touch any of the knives."

"No need to be embarrassed, mate" Sirius said, fiddling with Snape's hair. "After all, it took me nearly a week to figure it out. I certainly could've used that thing with those bloody carrots."

A curious smile on his lips, Snape lifted his head to look at Sirius.

"I always meant to ask you how ever you managed to make the carrots look like that. It was almost as if they had been chewed into pieces..."

Sirius merely grimaced and turned his head to kiss the man, thinking that there really were some things best left untold.

Another thing, which definitely fell into that category, was the question of Malfoy. Judging by the fragments he had heard of the conversation between Snape and Dumbledore, Malfoy had evidently been left with neither the Exmortuis Spell nor the Good Morning Potion, and so would luckily not be raising an army of corpses with them. But the relationship between Snape and Malfoy would most likely remain one of mutual distrust and personal gain, which might include doing more of the thing Sirius could not bring himself to think about. He wanted to make Snape promise never to let that bastard touch him again, but at the same time he was well aware that that was not something Snape was bound to agree to, nor was it something Sirius wanted to spend his last moments arguing over.

For a little while, Sirius found himself wishing Snape had been right about following him behind the veil in the near future.

"Would you, perhaps," Snape said awkwardly, pulling Sirius back to the present, "like to listen to some music before... while we wait?"

"As long as it's not Death Eater Metal."

Snape gave him a quick kiss before reaching for his wand.

"_Accio Vectrola_!"

The gramophone came flying through the doorway and landed right next to Snape.

"My grandmother had a soft spot for anything Muggle-made," he said as he placed the needle carefully on the record. "And I must warn you that her taste in music was a bit on the soft side as well."

Sirius could barely keep his eyes open any more and could not have cared less about the choice of music as long as Snape was there, preferably quite close to him. With a deep sigh, he closed his eyes as he felt the warm body press against him.

A holiday. That was what it had been, and unlike Dumbledore's trip to the mines, Sirius did not regret one minute of it - except the most gruesome ones, of which there had been quite a few. Again he tried to pin down the exact moment when Snape had transformed from a concentration of evil into something so... human. Perhaps it had been the day Sirius had burnt his hands in the Super-whatsit, which had led to some foolish raging and to some amazing snogging. Or it might have been the night before that, when Snape had pulled him from under the collapsed shack and attended to his wounds in such a caring - though admittedly painful - manner. Or maybe it had already happened the day before that in the study, in front of a certain pain in the arse who simply would not shut up.

None of it mattered, though. Sirius was too tired to think any more and knew sleep would take him away any moment now. The important thing was that it all felt right, like it was proverbially 'meant to be', and there was nothing left for him to worry about. Even the Muggle music did not sound so bad with Snape there, arms wrapped around him, holding him tightly. Slowly Sirius let himself relax and be taken away with the sound of the dark female voice...

"_...Ev'ry time we say goodbye  
I die a little,  
ev'ry time we say goodbye  
I wonder why a little,  
why the gods above me  
who must be in the know  
think so little of me  
they allow you to go..._"

* * *

The End. 

(A/N: The song is, of course, by Cole Porter)


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Harry Potter