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12 Grimmauld Place sat shrouded in festering decline. It gave off a pungent perfume of dust, mold, and damp rot. One could never call it silent though. It crawled with muffled skittering, gnawing, and scraping of all sorts of bugs, critters, and vermin feasting on the decay. Portraits snored, muttered and ranted unintelligibly in hushed tones. Only a small corner of the kitchens and the third floor west wing showed any signs of being inhabited by the living since the turn of the century. Luckily the two men held up there looked close to death themselves so as to not throw off the extensively curated display of neglect.
From an interior bedroom, Snape let out a guttural moan as he climaxed. He did his best to endure Black's desperate thrusting to seek his own pleasure in his overstimulated state. Black too came with a horse cry and his face thrown up to the ceiling. He fell bonelessly upon the potioneer once spent. Their hot, sweaty skin and heavy panting seemed to float down a long dark tunnel until they winked out of consciousness. What felt like years later, Snape came to with burning hacking coughs he could feel from his scalp to his groin.
"Shite! Your coughing blood!" Black yelled as he immediately jumped into triage mode. He applied gauze to his neck, pulled out of Snape, and rifled through the various salves, applying them all. He forced numerous healing and cough suppressant potions down the former professor's throat between his hacking fits. There was a staggering array of medical supplies organized neatly around Snape's bed that Black deftly worked from. He didn't seem to take a breath until the potioneer's neck had a fresh dressing and he had stopped coughing up globs of blood.
As he sighed in relief, he noticed that the half blood seemed to be convulsing uncontrollably. "Snape!?" He grabbed his face to check if his pupils were dilated from a potion overdose. He hadn't given him anything in about 6 hours but perhaps it was too much at once. His pupils were fine, but the potioneer seemed to be squeezing his eyes shut and tearing up. Oh fuck. Was he crying?! Had he finally made the twisted bastard cry?
He cradled the skinny waif up to his chest. He didn't feel feverish or overly clammy. Full panic mode set in when Snape seemed to shudder more violently against him. I fucking broke him. I broke Severus Snape. I'm going to be sent back to Azkaban to die. "Are you bloody laughing!?!?!"
Black dropped the death eater as if burned. "YOU BLOODY CUNT! I THOUGHT I'D FINALLY BROKEN YOU!!!"
"Bawhawha! Your face! It was like a fucking porno. You were practically performing surgery before pulling out! My paragon of voluptuous heroism!"
"You were coughing blood you sick fuck!"
"Imagine the papers! Hated death eater finally kicks the can with Sirius Black balls deep in his ass."
"I would have gone back to Azkaban for that shite!"
"You would have gotten a God damn Merlin's First Order. And now we present Sirius Black a lifetime achievement award for always remaining on the side of the light. After serving 12 years in Azkaban falsely convicted and 2 years behind the veil, he still managed to find cracks of evil and plug them up."
"Did you just make a bloody innuendo?"
"The great Sirius Black was willing to go deep in the name of good for all of mankind."
"You're fucking losing it. You really did just need to get laid."
"He fought a long hard fight to bring light to all the dark places."
"Are you quite finished, you slimy git?"
"Actually, I can still feel traces of evil on my person. I'm going to need you to give me a sponge bath while naked… for the greater good and all. Save me, Healer Black!"
"I'm making you cold turnips for dinner for your shite."
"I let you come in my ass. I think I deserve lukewarm turnips."
30 minutes later, Black stomped up the stairs, slammed the door open, and knocked around the room with a large tray. He helped Snape into a sitting position, served him soup with a tray on his lap, and sat down to a bowl himself at a tiny dinette near the bed.
"Warm soup with meat?! It must have been a long time since you engaged in carnal acts as well,” muttered the professor from a pile of pillows.
Black shrugged. "I'm getting tired of vegetarian healthy shite. Don't worry. Yours is a rat I found in the bins," he mumbled around mouths of stew. "Oi. Almost forgot." He pulled out a tiny basket from his pocket, enlarged it with a tap of his wand, and revealed a warm loaf of crusty bread, a tiny carafe of red wine, and a bottle of ale.
"Wine! I really am spoiled." Snape tipped his glass to Black before drinking deeply.
"Given today, you need to have more vices to contribute to your untimely death besides me. Drinking, eating arsenic-laced rat soup, snake fight club, etc. There needs to be a myriad of probable causes."
"How very bourgeois of you. An untold magnitude of pure blood wealth and you choose to poison me with rats and cheap wine. This is way too good. There is no way you made this."
"I'm not rich anymore. Everything went to Harry when I fell behind the veil. I don't even own this hell hole anymore. That being said, I splurged on Hogs Head stew. I let Ambleford know one was for you though so eat around the phlegm."
"I'm sure Harry would happily give you back this cesspit and honorable Black blood money. I also wasn't the one caught getting blow jobs in the Hogs Head bathrooms."
"The key word there is caught. You just were never caught." Black shoved a huge slice of bread in his mouth and continued to talk while chewing. "No one wants this shite hole but I want Harry to keep my inheritance. After saving the bloody world he ought to have the ability to live how he chooses. Besides, it'll be years before the ministry recognizes me as alive, much less innocent and worthy of legal rights."
They continued to eat in not uncomfortable silence. The clink of spoons against bowls and glasses against tables seemed to keep the quiet at bay. Each starred in the distance, lost in their thoughts.
"How are you going to support yourself? You were worthless before and now you've been out of society for 15 years."
Black paused before answering. "I was thinking about offering George a hand at reopening the joke shop. It sounds as if he could use some help getting his business back up and it was my money that started it all up to begin with. I plan to guilt him into giving me a job."
"Not a bad idea. I can't see you being gainfully employed without some form of blackmail." The potioneer continued to take small spoonfuls of broth with a slow shaking grasp.
"And what about you, eh? I imagine you'll need a stick to beat down all of the attractive job offers knocking at your door. Going to live off your posh headmaster pension? Got your death eater bounty for Dumbledore hid somewhere?"
"I'll be lucky if they'll let me keep my pathetic savings from teaching imbeciles all those years. I didn't deserve to survive the snake but I am due every last coin I earned not strangling thankless children!" He drank deeply and spoke into his goblet. "I suppose either way I'll have to brew for a living. There are plenty of seedy backwater apothecaries willing to overlook who brews the potions as long as they work."
"The Ministry will want to pile as much blame on you as soon as humanly possible. I'm surprised they haven't already dragged you to the courtroom with snake venom pouring out of the hole in your neck."
"Never underestimate the misguided obsession of The Boy Who Lived. He's got the media and spies on the inside ensuring that I don't see the inside of a courtroom until I'm fully recovered and under his guardianship. It's like he doesn't remember that I've been a forsaken terror since before he was born."
"You have no bloody idea. Oh Merlin, Sirius, I'm so glad you somehow cheated death to be shat out of the veil an emaciated corpse. I need you to use your second chance at life to return to the hellscape of your youth and nurse your arch nemesis back to health. Thank you ever so much!"
"You tending to me here as the first thing I saw when I came to... I truly believed not only in the existence of hell but my deliverance to its inner sanctum."
"Harry gave me a bloody lecture about not killing, disfiguring, hurting, discomforting, or mildly annoying a single hair on your slimy head. Oh and by the by, Snape murdered Dumbledore while you were gone but that shouldn't impact your role as the most gracious of hosts."
"He gave me the same scolding. Sirius has just returned from the dead so don't do anything to upset him. All of your energy must go towards healing. I'm horrified to imagine what next atrocity I'm healing for to commit."
"Turns out the last Horcrux can only be destroyed by the two of us being crucified naked next to Her Majesty's Biscuit Shop. They'll spear my side with Salazar Slytherin's butt plug and take lots on who gets to cast fiendfyre on dear mum's portrait."
"You've missed some convoluted element of placing dangerous items in the hands of children. Said butt plug must be pulled from the rectum of a Norwegian Ridgeback hidden behind an unlocked door within the ministry's orphanage. Children simply don't open doors they've been specifically told not to."
"Somehow that sounds more believable than us playing house together. Are you quite sure this isn't the inner ring of hell?"
"I'm not sure of shite at the moment. Voldemort has been defeated, the war is over, random half-wits have returned from the grave, fucking Potter is championing my pardon, and I let you fuck me for Merlin's sake! Clearly, I have no reference for what seems like reality."
"You've got a point there. They probably don't allow you to have mind-blowing sex in Tartarus no matter how depraved."
Snape eyed Black incredulously. He returned the look with a toothy, lupine grin. "Wanna fool around?"
"... Yeah. Ok."
Exactly a week later, Harry came by 12 Grimmauld Place to make sure both men were still alive.
"Sirius. Professor Snape?" He called in the kitchen and up the stairs. He began the long climb up when he didn't get a response. After living at the Burrow, the dilapidated house seemed even more quiet, damp, dark, and gloomy than usual.
Harry always tried to get a report from his godfather before he spoke to Snape on his visits. He liked to know what his old professor would demand from him before Sirius or Snape got too worked up arguing. "No, you may not keep Sirius chained to the tree in the back garden. Yes, you can have your wand back if you promise not to Cruciatus Sirius any time he passes gas in your presence. No, your hunger strike over tea brands will not be tolerated."
"Sirius! Professor!" I had better not find them smoking pot again. I should have never left them alone together for so long. They're like the Weasley twins using every last resource to cock shit up! Honestly!
"Sirius! Professor!" They'll be frantically trying to destroy whatever evidence of their latest hair-brained scheme, mark my words.
At the door to the spy's room, Harry called and knocked, but stopped abruptly when he heard what sounded like a struggle and a muffled yet. Merlin, don't tell me they're brawling again.
"Professor!" Harry opened the door to Sirius' naked back astride Snapes' bed rhythmically heaving and grunting.
"Oh… Uh Sorry." So not fighting then. Just fucking.
"YOU DIDN'T LOCK THE BLOODY DOOR?!" Snape bellowed.
Sirius turned around at this point catching Harry fleeing before slamming the door shut.
"Oi! He'd been living at the Weasleys. How'd I know it'd be time for our parole visit?"
"Go deal with him. If he fucking interrogates me about this I'm going to my grave with the story that you drugged and raped me. Cruciatus and veritaserum will not sway me."
"HARRY! …Can you imagine the street cred that story would gain me in prison?" Black threw on his clothes and bolted out of the room.
Black stopped to adjust his clothes at the top of the stairs and gradually meandered down to the kitchen. Harry had put the kettle on and awkwardly stood waiting for it to boil avoiding his Godfather's gaze.
"Hello Harry. Look, I can explain. I-"
"I'm going to stop you right there. We're all adults and I really don't want to ever talk about this. EVER. I'll be sure to owl before I stop by and announce myself before barging in. I'm sorry about that."
"No, I'm sorry. Should have locked the damn door…Anyways, … how are the Weasleys?"
"They're doing better... Arthur recently had a promotion and is swamped... Um…Percy's been round to check up on George and Molly a lot. We're still working on how to fix Hermione's parents... How has Professor Snape's been?"
"He coughed up blood last week but other than that, he's mending well enough… I'll sick the bastard on what to do about Hermione's parents. He needs a project."
Their eyes met briefly at this and while Harry looked away quickly, Black flashed a self satisfied grin.
"Fuck… I think I'll be off then." Harry mumbled while darting for the fireplace.
"You sure you don't have time for a spot of tea and biscuits?" Black called in a voice dripping with sarcastic sweetness. He barked a laugh when he received a green flash of floo powder in response. The convict made up a tea tray and brought it up to the room with him.
"Well old girl, it appears we have our marching orders. Figure out a way to reverse the memory alteration Hermione put on her parents."
"And what exactly do we have to offer that the golden trio doesn't already have? Certainly not the adoration of Wizarding Britain that can be cajoled into favors."
"Time. Time and the willingness to use the dark arts. Shite, I've forgotten the chocolate biscuits."
"Dark arts? Speak for yourself."
Black summoned additional biscuits with a flick of his wand. "Oh I am. The last fucks I gave about right and wrong are still behind the veil. I'd murder the Minister right now if he wasn't laying out the red carpet for Harry. I told him so myself. About two weeks ago... Coincidentally about when we stopped getting The Prophet… Damn it!"
Snape gave Black an exasperated eye roll above his tea cup.
After about 3 weeks of constant attention from Black and a weekly visit from a St. Mungo healer, the bite in Snape's neck finally began to stop weeping snake venom and close up. The former professor was able to stumble to the lavatory and back to bed on his own without Black finding him passed out in his own filth on the floor.
The anamingus did still enjoy bursting into the bedroom unannounced and at random intervals in hopes of catching the death eater in embarrassing moments. One occasion found Snape sweaty and gasping against the edge of the bed.
"What's this? What's got you all hot and bothered here? Am I interrupting something grossly indecent?," Black asked while sneering hopefully down at Snape while leering uncomfortably close.
"If you must know, I'm too exhausted to get the fuck back in bed. Help me before I decide to just give up on using toilets."
"Bloody hell Snape! A whole day without being such a sorry invalid that you need nappies!" Black unceremoniously dumped him back in bed. "I almost want to go out and give the world the ultimate bird and rub it in their faces that we're both still alive. Nice try killing us bitches!"
"Yes. Too bad we would be immediately lynched by cheery mobs." Snape remained breathless in a tangled mess of robes and blankets while he caught his breath. "Everyone educated in Britain for the past two decades would avata kadava me on the spot and you still look like the psychotic skeleton on your wanted posters. How fitting that you'd rather never frequent the same establishment twice than just get a trim. Hoping to be approached by freaks with prison fetishes by not grooming for the last 14 years?"
"Seems to be doing the trick for you… Perhaps as a celebratory outing we can dive bomb Hogwarts in my motorbike and piss on the faculty. Maybe leave a shite in the trophy room they can remember us by."
Snape arranged himself more comfortably sitting up in bed with painfully deliberate trembling movements and frequent breaks. "I will never step foot near that nightmare again. We could always stop in for visitor's day at Azkaban. I'm sure they'll love to see their favorite traitor and wannabe traitor to reminisce about having lost the war to witless children."
Black sneered in amusement at the potioneer's sweaty, wheezing, fumblings. "As much fun as it would be to fuck with the Malfoys, I think we would both earn a sloppy wet one from the dementors. Honestly, I'm just crawling the walls waiting to show George my ideas for his shop. But Harry won't let me talk to a Weasley until after the wedding."
"It's not worth the risk. Voldemort would have won the war if he had Molly conniving ways to push her agenda and annoy everyone to death. Merlin, that woman is a relentless nag!"
"Oh I don't know about all that. She's got a charming personality for someone trying to stay abreast of an army of hellions. You know how absolutely delightful my mother was and she only had me to contend with."
"To be fair, you are far more evil than all of the Weasley spawn combined. You might want to keep that in mind when presenting all manner of depravity to George under the guise of ideas."
"It doesn't particularly help that I only have you to talk to."
"Yes, well…I always wanted a device that could evenly spray an undetectable sleeping drought with the precise quantity for an entire class to pass out for exactly one hour and wake up simultaneously feeling as if it had only been asleep a few moments. That way I could douse them, get silent peaceful bliss, and then slam a book down in exactly one hour with the threat that if I caught them sleeping in my class again they could just not bother to attend…Do you have something for that?"
Black began rubbing his hands together beaming with the very same psychotic grin found on many of his wanted posters.
Within a week Snape grew strong enough to venture around the cavernous house but was still too weak to go much farther. Without the need to tend to the potioneer so frequently, Black chafed at having only the removal of hazardous materials from his home to occupy his time and his limited ability to venture into public. All of his acquaintances were too busy rounding up the last death eaters, rebuilding Wizarding Britain, or planning weddings. Instead he invented new ways to harass Snape.
On one such Thursday afternoon, Snape found himself face to face with a huge dog patronus at the foot of his bed. "Professor Snape," the dog breathed in Black's voice. "There's been an accident at the Burrow. Your help is required immediately!"
Without looking up from the book he was reading, the death eater wordlessly flicked a red spark from his wand causing a loud crash and grunt from the hallway. The potioneer finished the chapter he was on, marked his place and began the labored process of getting out of bed.
There was really only the neck injury with lingering venom, but it still caused him to be overcome with pain and nausea when he moved about. As a result, he moved like a geriatric statue. There was truly nothing like the additional burn and nausea caused by the stomach acid in your own sick up mixing into a venom laced open wound in your neck.
As he turned the corner into the hallway outside the room, Snape weakly kicked Black's prone body before releasing him from his petrified state. Black stretched into a lounged pose on the floor like a grotesque pinup model and smiled up at the potioneer.
"I'm out here now, Black. What do you want?"
"Just checking your super spy senses. You can crawl back now."
Black received another swift kick.
"Oof. Oi! Wait! Actually you have to see how I've redecorated my room. I promise I didn't use inflatable pricks this time…or troll porn."
"Oh well that just about covers every perversion you would want to get off to. Why can't you just allow me to exercise as prescribed by the healer of my own volition?"
"And what fun would that be? Go on, have a look. I know you're dying to have something new on me to bitch about."
Snape let out a long suffering sigh and made his way to Black's bedroom at glacial speed. He threw open the door from against the wall and peered in as if he was expecting to be attacked from within.
"Ah yes. Because I enjoyed being your nursemaid so much that I decided to set you back to bed pans just for the hell of it. Just look already, you ugly git."
"If the tables were turned, I would find ways for you to horrifically kill yourself on accident as the first order of business." Snape shuffled in with obvious unease. "You have cleaned out all of the garbage minus the scantily clad muggle posters of women in compromising positions. Congratulations... What sort of perverted shite is this?!? Is that my face on all these tarts?"
"Bwahaha! Isn't it great? I blended and modified their hair and skin color so that it looks original. The real trick was getting the lighting and angle of your face just right to match the muggle posters. Now you have the knockers to match your monstrosity of a nose. My favorite is this one of you washing the car in a white TShirt."
"...You clearly spent hours on the most childish, asinine, and idiotic shite. What is wrong with you?"
"I'm just perfecting my craft for trying my hand at wizard photography. Can you imagine how great it will be to add your face to moving porno mags? Blokes would spend a fortune to put their mates in their favorite dirty mag as a gag gift. A perfect stag night tradition. Or perverts adding the face of their latest stalk victims to the real kinky shit. Either way, if it works it could be real gold."
"...You never stop amazing me with the lengths you are willing to go to to be a total scumbag, Black."
"I simply live to serve, Snape. Oi! Wait!! Before you hex me into next week, I'll let you pick the dirty mag I put you in. You can get one of those German ones with the whips and chains and I can be the bloke you're fucking up. Don't tell me you aren't into that shite. It can be a birthday present."
"You have no idea when my birthday is."
"That's your only qualm, you randy goat? That I don't know your birthday? Fine, it'll be a congrats for still being able to get it up gift."
"I'm going to crawl back to bed to die now."
"That's the spirit! I'll expect you up and about further each day until Harry's wedding. Any slacking off and I'll get Molly on your case. If you aren't up to walking at the ceremony, she might need to serve as your keeper in case you need anything. Don't want a famous guest to feel under served or to hurt themselves do we?"
"You wouldn't fucking dare!"
"Just watch me. She needs a distraction from mad spitting arguments with Ginny. Badgering you into something you don't want to do should require about the same effort…Where are you slinking off to now?!?!"
"I plan to take these stairs until I break my neck."
"Whatever. I'll put you to bed when you sick up or it's 9 o'clock. Whichever comes first."
"FUCK. YOU!"
"Yeah alright. I'll bugger you too if you're not too gross after."
Snape sent a wordless flash of red at Black behind him that harmlessly cracked into the wall. Black aparated away just in time with a loud pop and his cackle could be heard from the kitchen below.
On the night before Harry's wedding, the surviving Weasleys, Order of the Phoenix members, and Dumbledore's Army soldiers gathered around a huge table in one of Grimwald Places' enormous grand rooms. Every corner of the ancient home was lit with dancing candlelight. Sounds of rowdy revelry seemed to shock the deranged portraits into silent abject horror.
The grand room was illuminated by the soft candlelight of simple wooden chandeliers. Decadent wood paneling and molding of the great hall framed the simply arranged table. The monstrosity of a table was laden with mounds of food. There was roast chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, crusty bread, and roasted root vegetables all fragranting the room with an enticing butter and rosemary aroma. The whole affair threatened to be smited on the spot for having the audacity to present guests with only three utensils at every place setting.
Boisterous conversation petered out when Black stood up, cleared his throat loudly, and banged a serving spoon on a pewter tankard of Butterbeer.
"I want to thank you all for coming here to celebrate a meal with us before Harry and Ginny's big day. It's customary for the father of the groom to throw a feast for the wedding party the night before the ceremony. As Harry's Godfather, I further diverged from tradition and decided to just invite the whole lot of you here to my home. I hope, to those of you who've been here before, this place is simply unrecognizable. To those who haven't been here before, I hope you aren't able to detect any traces of lingering evil. You see, this is the ancestral home of the noble, ancient, and inbred Black family. As such, it was a living monument to pure blood bigotry…I tried my best to completely gut this place and turn it into the best of both the Muggle and Wizarding World. It's my small tribute to everything that Harry, Ginny, and their friends have done for us decrepit farts. With Voldemort gone, (loud gasps, groans, and shifting was audible amongst the guests) … we are now free to gather the rubble of our war torn lives and choose to either despair or make something new and beautiful. Please join me in celebrating Harry and Ginny's new happy life and ours as well with the best of what is comfortable and familiar and what is new and a tad frightening. With that in mind, enjoy some of my favorites and please tuck in!"
Sirius went through the motions of sitting down, piling food on his plate, passing platters and pitchers, and decorously accepting praise for the meal, the gathering, his speech, and the extensive renovations of his home. It took about 15 minutes before guests left him to touch his meal and the rushing noise from his nerves to clear from his ears. He had purposefully placed himself between Snape and Neville Longbottom to save himself from having to keep up with eloquent conversation the entire evening. Luckily, Neville was deep in conversation with his friends on his other side and the former professor preferred silence anyways.
"That was an uncharacteristically chaste, coherent, and boring declamation for you. And you aren't even pissed a half hour into an event. Are you under the Imperius Curse?" The potioneer looked especially unapproachable tonight sporting the gruesome new scar crawling up from under his collar.
"I was awake all night worrying about that fucking speech. I still can't decide if I pissed or shat myself."
"You smell better than you normally do so you must have had an empty bladder and bowels beforehand. The veil must have really addled your two remaining brain cells if you put that much stock in a 1 minute spiel."
"I wanted to give them my gratitude, make it about them, and not embarrass them." The host hissed back, hoping to not be overheard.
"Well Black, it was a piss poor toast, but it accomplished your goals."
"Oh yeah? Fuck you Snape. You know what? Make a better one. Tonight. Think you're so much better than me? Prove it."
Snape began laughing and brushing him off but was immediately cut off.
"Quit your feeble hubris. Do it or continue to prove that I'm not only better than you, but that YOU'RE. A. COWARD." Black's scowl gradually grew into a maniacal grin. The potioneer returned it with a piercing glower.
While Black was later able to take part in spirited conversation around him, Snape stared at space in front of his plate with dead eyes and mechanically picked at his food. The festivities and his neighbor's obvious discomfort helped to lift Black's dark hostile mood and he was soon back to his amiable self. He made the rounds shaking hands, kissing cheeks, and thanked each person for coming. He easily moved in and out of conversations, joked, and put everyone at ease with his unassuming grace. He was the image of a perfectly courtious patriarch. After what felt like hours, he had made it back around to his seat and was still riding the adrenaline high of such easy happy colloquy.
As soon as Black plopped down with a self satisfied sigh, Snape shot up from his seat, cleared his throat loudly, and clinked his spoon against his glass. All Black could do was stare up open mouthed at him like a beached fish in total disbelief. Most others glanced around nervously when they saw who was trying to speak.
"I wish to share a few words for the happy couple. Yes, it is I, Severus Snape, speaking before the wedding of the one who lived. Look, I'm just as appalled to be here, much less alive, as you are. Murderer, spy, nasty person. Even among the death eaters I was disliked. If you were to think of one death eater to still be alive, it wouldn't be me. Maybe a grotesquely rich Avery hiding on a private island outside of Fiji. We could all imagine one of those deranged Lestranges as part of the rebel stronghold in Ossetia. They were wildly unhinged enough to still be held up there.
Yet, it is I that stands before you. But you really shouldn't be all that surprised. Is it the elegant lion, ferocious velociraptor, exotic bird of paradise, or beautiful butterfly that lives after the nuclear fallout? No. It's the annoying mosquito, the lowly cockroach, the disgusting slime mold that you find among the rubble.
As such, I've received an alarming amount of hate mail and death threats from both the general public and former colleagues now in Azkaban. They've been ever so helpful with suggestions as to what to do with myself now that the war is over. I'll share a few of them with you. I could be responsible for running a skill analysis on Dementors who wish to work at Azkaban. I could perfect techniques for collecting the honey of murder wasps without the use of magic. I could be lent out as a comfort bloke to bent trolls who fought for the light as a warm thank you. My personal favorite was that I could be used as a free human test subject for shampoo companies.
As wonderful as these ideas are, I actually have the muggles to thank for my own new quest. Muggle advertising and branding. You see, as frequently as I am attacked, spit on, and screamed at in Wizarding London, I'm stopped just as often by drunk muggles asking me about my sweet tat. I'm deadly serious. The young, inebriated muggles think that the dark mark is in vogue. Could you imagine a more fitting way to honor the Dark Lord than to make his mark a popular tag in the muggle world synonymous with butterflies on women's lower backs, barbed wire on men's upper arm, tinkerbells, and inaccurate Chinese characters? That is my new life goal.
Now to the matter of our young couple. I do not wish them love for one another for I can see that their love will outlast my spite. Like can recognize like after all. No. Instead I wish that they continue to treat every new day with one another as a small gift they never expected to have received. I wish that this feeling will last for the lovely newlyweds as long as there are cockroaches in back alleys, as long as they're tattoos idiots regret having received, and as long as there are Snapes in this world who can't take a hint and die already. To the beautiful couple's lasting happiness."
After a long uncomfortable silence, a few of the drunkest guests broke into dark laughter. "Here, here!" Shouted the rest of the gathering before erupting into cheers, applauds, and laughter.
Snape sat down with triumphant eyes for Black alone.
"Okay. You made your bloody soliloquy. Doesn't mean it was better," huffed Black.
"RONALD! RON WEASLEY. Ron. Please help us settle something. Whose toast was better?" Barked Snape down the table.
"Sorry mate, but Snape's was better. Snape not taking a hint to just die?! Bloody hilarious." Called Ron back up the table. Now it was Sirius' turn to glare piercingly and for Snape to sport a maniacal grin.
Harry and Ginny were married in an extremely simple, yet elegant affair in the fields surrounding the Burrow. It was a light and casual wedding that still left the guests breathlessly in awe after so much tragedy. Only intimately close friends and family were invited to the revelry.
After the beautiful ceremony joining the Potters in joyous matrimony, the feast, and revelry, Snape and Black found themselves at the edge of the gathering together, people watching. While Snape clearly was in his element sitting on the outskirts looking in, people kept giving Black sidelong glances for not inserting himself in the center of the merriment. For his part, Harry's Godfather seemed to be glaring a hole into the dance floor.
"The fuck you doing here with me Black? You're not incoherently drunk yet and every single woman over the age of 14 is looking to catch your eye and feel you up on the dance floor. For the first time in my life I've had to decline offers of delusional idiots who think getting me out there will force you out as well."
"I think you've ruined me. The reward of getting laid simply isn't worth the effort of being civil, pretending to be interested, and not saying the first thing that comes to mind the moment I think it. I've wanted to scream that they are all freeloading wankers that don't deserve the sacrifice the whole night." Black had bunched his fists and shoulders up and had a dark, angry glare at an unseen space in front of him.
"Merlin. You do need to get away from me." Said Snape eying Black suspiciously.
"The worst part is that I can't enjoy tonight without thinking about what's next," groaned Black. "We've been surviving until today, but now that it's here, what do I need to endure for?"
"You're right… We were just pulling through until the wedding and now that it's here we'll have to face the rest of our lives. Merlin, am I not looking forward to my trial. Getting to lay bare all of my actions, motivations, and mistakes to corrupt politicians. Getting to listen to my every move criticized and judged on top of my own crushing guilt. After all that revelry, if I somehow escape Azkaban, I'll need to start over with a job and a home that allows for as little interaction with others as humanly possible. Because regardless of the Boy Who Lived's best efforts, no one is going to fully forgive me for everything I have done. Most especially, myself. On an unrelated note, do your caregiving services also include assisted suicide?"
"I can't do it," ground out Black. "Every hint I've dropped to George has been ignored about the joke shop and I'm starting to worry that I have to look someplace else for work with no experience or skills to speak of. Plus I haven't been cleared yet as an escaped psychotic killer. I can't even go about without every third person giving me a deeply suspicious look." Black slumped further in his chair and brushed quivering hands through his dark wavy hair.
"I've spent every coin I earned by selling my family's evil crap on that party for Harry. I literally don't have two coins to rub together. I could sell the house but I don't even legally own it… Plus, as fucked up as it seems, now that I've gutted it, it feels like the only thing I've been able to accomplish in my MISERABLE ASS LIFE and I'm just not ready to part with it yet… FUCK... The idea of starting over AGAIN…" By the end of his lament, Black was pale, sweaty, teary eyed, and breathing much too quickly.
"Bloody hell. The great Sirius Black losing his shite. STOP!" Snape slapped the animangus' face with enough force to knock him out of his chair. The potioneer stood up, looming over Black, blocking the view of him from the rest of the party.
"CALM THE FUCK DOWN AND GET AHOLD OF YOURSELF. This is neither the time nor the place to have a bloody panic attack!" Snape hissed in a whisper.
The death eater put his hand out to Black. After gaping at him open mouthed and rubbing his cheek, Black seemed to gather himself. He took the offered hand, stood up and returned to his seat. The former professor remained standing over him and continued to speak in hushed tones.
"Look, we can live off my savings for a while until they forcibly take it from me. Consider it rent. I'll acquire a brewing job at a seedy Knockturn potion shop first thing tomorrow morning. They typically pay by commission. Let's go talk to Molly. Look at her worrying a hole in George's back over there. The woman has never looked so lost in her life. You know he's the reason she can't enjoy the wedding of her youngest spawn. I hear this is the first time he's left the house since Fred. She'll love having someone else on her side to badger George."
Snape grabbed Sirius by the forearm, pulled him up, and practically dragged him around the room towards the Weasleys.
"Merlin Black, you're such a narcissistic prick. My mission is accomplished and I have earned the right to just off myself! Now I'm bound to watch your sorry hide after that deplorable breakdown. Couldn't have saved it for Shacklebolt or some other poor unsuspecting sap?"
"Fuck you Snape. I'm the narcissist? Only you can take someone else's personal crisis and turn it into their raison d'etre," breathed Black without any real venom.
"Perhaps I was working myself up to a nervous breakdown when I was rudely interrupted by a needy idiot. Did you ever think about that?"
"Perhaps you shouldn't beat around the bush so much. You shouldn't waver and falter so much in your own self hatred. If you're going to have a personal crisis then you'd better hurry up and do it and decrease the inactivity of shrinks."
"Good evening Molly. Black here is dying to discuss the topic of reopening the Weasley joke shop with you. He wants a job and I have a feeling you are interested in having George helped out of his paralyzing grief. Any opportunities for an alliance on this matter?"
Snape shoved Black closer to Mrs. Weasley and then held him there with surprising strength.
Snape completely toned out the conversation but couldn't help but notice the increasingly hopeful and animated faces of the two he stood next to. He prayed for strength to survive this unholy union of dimwits.
He spent the remainder of the conversation imagining himself enjoying a vintage brandy in front of a fire in an admittedly tastefully reupholstered wingback chair in his favorite sitting room at Grimmauld Place. He was looking forward to reading the many ghastly and needlessly descriptive informational texts on how to torture blood traitors stored there. An excellent way to wind down after a stressful day for at least a month, perhaps more if the script became difficult to decipher under sprayed or smudged body fluids. At least he had something to look forward to. Well, perhaps he had something, or someone else, too, but he preferred not to acknowledge that even to himself.