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Sirius’ plan to murder Snape was not an impulse.
Unlike his past acts of violence, which were born from the rapid fire of neurons urging him to act without thinking, this was different — the plan, and the urge to carry it out, bridged slowly between his neurons, seeping into the rest of his body until he felt the need to kill with his whole being. He no longer had an identity; he no longer felt the hollow carved into his insides by his family. Instead, he felt a violent, hungry desire that ached through him completely.
It had begun with the seed of his birth, growing within an environment that made him brittle and dry while others, like James, bloomed and thrived in sunlight. Sirius, however, remained in darkness, deprived of everything he needed to flourish himself. Yet this new urge felt as though it could bring him sunlight, renew him into full bloom. His urge to kill, to hurt, may have been inherent to his existence, but his environment had only catalysed it. Watching his family indulge their own violent impulses, killing others with such ease, had normalised the act for Sirius. But had the urge consumed them as completely as it had consumed him?
However, Sirius’ desire to kill was not as simple as his family's. The Death Eaters targeted muggle-borns and "blood traitors"; Sirius wanted to kill, most specifically, "bad" people, a difficult concept, given its subjectivity. He remembered a conversation he had had with James earlier that year regarding this very subject.
"But if we kill them," Sirius said, confidence dripping from every word, "there won't be any more Death Eaters or bad people, will there? If evil people are eradicated from this world, only good will remain, and no one will have to be hurt anymore."
Sirius spoke as though it were the simplest idea imaginable — a simple solution to all the world's problems.
James looked at him from across the Gryffindor common room with unmistakable unease. He leaned forward, sighing, absent-mindedly tugging at his bottom lip as he searched for an answer.
"But then what would differentiate you from them? The scale between good and evil is completely subjective, and if you're talking about killing these people because they commit acts as cruel as murder, wouldn't that place you on the very same place on the scale as them?"
"But the intention is different, isn't it, James?" Sirius scoffed, feeling deeply misunderstood. "Death Eaters are killing people purely over blood status. The people they murder may be good or bad themselves, but the Death Eaters are doing it with the intention of erasing an entire group from existence and elevating themselves into a position of superiority. But us? If we kill them, our intention is to create a better world where kinder ideologies prevail."
"What about perspective? The Death Eaters believe they're the ones doing good, that muggle-borns are the evil ones who must be eradicated. Your example isn't exactly valid—"
"It is," Sirius interrupted, rolling his eyes and folding his arms across his chest.
"Listen to me." James' voice hardened. "It isn't valid because you'd be validating their murders as well."
Sirius disagreed with James' opinion, but he didn't want to push the argument too far for fear James would begin to see him as just another member of his family — a defender and advocate of murder.
Sirius felt as though he were standing trial, being investigated and interrogated by James. His hands were clean, but his mind was rotten with fantasies of murder. He was confessing his guilt, yet in his mind he was silently begging:
Stop me. Prove me wrong before these fantasies consume me and I do something you'll resent me for forever.
Sirius tapped his foot nervously against the soft carpet. Instead of attempting to defend himself, he asked, "then what would you suggest, huh, James? What can we possibly do to stop this— this genocide?"
"Work with the law," James answered without hesitation.
James' beliefs aligned with the social systems built to protect society. Sirius', meanwhile, did not. His ideals worked against human nature itself, slowly shaping him into something inhuman — something monstrous.
"And you think the law will work? The law has existed for centuries, yet crime remains— it even grows. What does prison do? Keep criminals locked in cold cells until they're released and commit crimes again, taking even more innocent lives?"
James opened his mouth to answer, but Sirius cut him off.
"And then what if the law fails? A murderer, or a rapist, is found innocent because there's not enough evidence," he spat, disgust coating every word. "Wouldn't the cycle be broken if there were a death penalty?"
"But who gets to decide who deserves that death penalty?"
James had moved closer to Sirius as the conversation intensified. The boys glared at one another, their voices rising in anger — an anger laced with sorrow for the injustice unfolding around them.
Before Sirius could reply, though he struggled to form anything more than the faintest outline of an answer, Remus and Peter descended from their dormitory into the common room, and the conversation was abandoned.
Sirius never forgot it.
It became a subject he endlessly ruminated over, his thoughts arguing against themselves from both sides until, eventually, James' reasoning was drowned beneath Sirius' murderous urges and the violent fury he felt towards the world's injustices.
From then on, revelation after revelation only fed that rage.
The murders and disappearances of Muggles and muggle-borns.
The casual bullying that echoed through the corridors of Hogwarts.
The monthly reminders of the man— no, the monster—who had bitten Remus and condemned him to a lifetime of suffering.
Him, especially, Sirius wanted to kill.
He had imagined it in countless ways: how he would torture the man as repayment for the endless torture he had inflicted upon Remus, before finally delivering him to a violent death.
Some would say Sirius' love for Remus had blinded him to his morals.
Sirius, however, would argue that anyone who had ever truly loved would willingly abandon their own morals to spare their beloved from suffering—or avenge those who had caused it.
If not, was it even love?
Love.
Love.
Love.
He loved Remus.
That was why he had to murder Snape.
But he didn't want to do it alone. No — where was the satisfaction in that? He imagined luring Snape to the Shack, letting Remus' beastly form loose upon him, before joining in himself.
Together they would kill him.
Together they would rid the world of one more source of suffering.
Snape's death — a testament to their love.
After years of Snape tormenting the group of friends and other students, Sirius had lost his patience, which, he believed, he had been taming remarkably well. The day before the full moon, Snape, alongside Avery and Mulciber, had attacked a group of muggle-borns in the schoolyard, using magic to place curses on them and etch slurs into their skin, blood dripping down their robes while they were trapped in place, bound by spells. The marauders had confronted the boys, and Snape especially had been brutal towards Remus, injuring him significantly and leaving him in pain for hours afterwards.
Remus laid in bed, whimpering softly in pain. Sirius sat beside him, gently running his hand through the brunette's hair, absent-mindedly twirling strands between his fingers. In the sunlight streaming through the window, the brown sometimes appeared almost golden. Remus hummed in contentment at the gentle affection.
"You're okay, my love. Everything will be okay," Sirius would whisper to him, peppering kisses across his face, Remus basking in the affection and smiling despite the pain.
Snape had hurt Remus.
That action alone more than warranted murder.
Thus emerged his plan — Sirius had let Snape know how to get past the Whomping Willow and into the Shack, although, of course, he had not let him know that a werewolf would be waiting for him on the other side.
Would Remus hate him? No, no, of course not. He would understand. He loved Sirius too. Maybe James couldn't understand his perspective, but surely Remus would. They were perfect for each other. They were soulmates.
As the full moon rose above the skyline, heralding Remus' transformation, the boys waited patiently inside the Shack, each spread across the room, Sirius standing on the opposite side of the entrance, eager to see Snape arrive.
"Sirius," a voice called to him. It was James, staring at him intently, worry etched across his face. "Are you alright?"
He hadn't noticed how much he was shaking, but he couldn't distinguish between nervousness and excitement; the two had become hopelessly interwoven.
"Yeah, yeah," Sirius nodded, a little too eagerly for it to seem natural.
Remus began grunting softly as he rolled his head in different directions, signalling the beginning of his transformation. Sirius moved farther away from him, edging closer to the door, his eyes moving rapidly between Remus and the entrance.
Remus' bones began cracking, each snap expanding and reshaping a part of his body into that of a werewolf. His skin grew hairier, his legs stretched unnaturally, yet his screams still sounded human. Despite the grotesque transformation of his body, Remus' distinct screams reminded Sirius that he was still a part of the creature.
At the same time, he heard footsteps growing louder from the entrance, followed by a horrified gasp.
"Snape?" James said, terror filling his voice. Sirius didn't think he had ever seen James wear the expression he had at that moment.
"What do we do?" Peter stuttered meekly, shrinking into a corner of the room while James tried to process the situation, glancing desperately at Sirius for help.
Sirius did not want to help.
Remus had fully transformed, and the werewolf sprinted towards Snape's position. James pulled Snape aside just in time for the werewolf to miss him and crash into the wall beside the door, where the decaying boards splintered apart. Jagged splinters lodged themselves into the wolf's head, blood streaming down through its fur.
James quickly transformed into his Animagus form, a stag, and attempted to guide Snape out of the Shack while the wolf was still recovering from the impact. However, Sirius rapidly took on his dog form, slipped past James, positioned himself behind Snape, and forced him back into the Shack against James' efforts.
They were playing a grotesque game of tug-of-war, the outcome determining a human's life or death.
The werewolf's movements became audible once more, signalling its recovery, which alarmed James and caused him to push harder against Snape, ultimately driving one of his antlers into Snape's body and wrenching a painful scream from his throat. James withdrew from his position, and Sirius continued forcing Snape deeper into the Shack.
Peter, in his rat form, tried desperately to bite the werewolf in order to give James and Sirius more time to continue their struggle, but it was ultimately futile, as the werewolf flung him away with terrifying force.
Snape was now in the middle of the room, sobs clawing their way from his throat as he cried, clear tears bleeding into the crimson, turning the heavy gore into a weeping pink glaze.
And then it happened.
Nobody moved.
The werewolf grabbed the boy by his limbs and bit into his stomach, tearing violently until his intestines spilled from his body.
Snape was still screaming.
Then it stopped.
The werewolf tore open Snape's ribcage with its claws, the sound of cracking bones ricocheting against the walls of the silent Shack, before feasting ravenously upon the exposed organs, blood and tissue framing the wolf's mouth and covering its fur in a crimson tint.
The scene almost resembled a Bacchanalian rite.
Sirius felt almost like a God, having held control over someone's life-condemning them to death, deciding their fate with his own hands, severing the threads of their future possibilities beneath the blade of a guillotine.
An execution.
He felt almost ecstatic. Blood overflowed from the dismembered corpse, resembling celebratory wine.
The Animagi circled around the feast, frozen in their positions, watching the scene before them. It resembled a Goya painting — Saturn Devouring His Son.
It was a rite.
Sirius' first movement was to turn his head towards James and Peter, who were both retching onto the floor. Peter was crying, curled into the corner, unable to look at the werewolf any longer.
"We have to–" James' words were interrupted by another wave of vomit. "We have to get a professor. Contact the Aurors. This.... I…” James' voice trembled. He tried to continue speaking, but only broken whimpers escaped instead.
Through the gaps in the Shack's walls, Sirius watched the full moon sink below the skyline. The werewolf stopped feeding, its bones beginning to twist inwards once more as a human shape slowly took form.
"No. No, no, I don't want to go to Azkaban– I can't! I haven't done anything!" Peter's voice echoed through the room as he remained curled into himself, facing the corner.
"We hide the body," Sirius said firmly.
James opened his mouth to reply, but Remus' voice interrupted him.
"What's..." he began weakly. "What's happening?"
Panic seeped into his voice as he pushed himself upright and began breathing heavily. Each breath came faster than the last until Remus caught sight of Snape's dismembered corpse and screamed. Sirius immediately rushed forward and wrapped him in an embrace.
Remus continued wailing against Sirius' chest, but Sirius only tightened his grip around him and combed his fingers through his blood-matted hair, just as he always did to comfort him.
"It's okay. It's okay, Moony." Sirius rocked him back and forth, gently shushing him in an attempt to calm his sobs. Meanwhile, he could hear Peter continuing to retch and James pacing back and forth across the room.
“How the fuck did Snape know how to enter the Shack?” James shouted, glaring at each boy in turn with undeniable rage.
Sirius felt a kindling of guilt, not to be confused with remorse, born solely from his friends' anger. He did not want James to hate him, and seeing Remus panic made that kindling grow into a larger flame. Yet the flame flickered, because yes, he feared his friends' opinion of him, but at least Snape was dead.
Snape was dead, but the world did not seem to change.
Maybe James was right.
“I did,” Sirius answered, avoiding James' gaze.
At that, Remus quickly detached himself from Sirius' embrace.
Oh.
James strode towards Sirius, each footstep heavy with purpose, and punched him square in the face. Blood dripped from Sirius' nose onto the floor, mixing with Snape's.
“What the fuck is your problem?” James bent down, grabbing Sirius by the hair and forcing his head upwards until their eyes met.
“You've witnessed what he's done. He's a racist bigot who harms innocent students and causes suffering, so I offered a solution.”
“Your solution was to send him to the slaughter?” James scoffed, disbelief written plainly across his face.
“Well…” Sirius glanced towards the corpse before looking back at James. “Obviously.”
“This isn't a joke, Black.”
James spat the last word like it was venom.
Black.
The name struck him harder than the punch ever could.
In an instant, every identity he had spent years building crumbled beneath it. He was no longer Sirius, no longer a Gryffindor, no longer James' best friend, Remus' lover, or Peter's companion. He was simply a Black — another branch of the same poisoned family tree, another blood-soaked heir destined to inherit violence as though it were a birthright. Perhaps the Sorting Hat had been wrong all along. Perhaps blood truly did outweigh choice.
He figured now that no matter what choices he made throughout his life — becoming friends with the marauders, being sorted into Gryffindor, running away from home — he would always end up like his family. His blood was inescapable. It was his nature.
He watched Snape's blood-drained corpse, all the crimson pooled around it, and felt a fleeting stab of envy.
Tears began spilling from Sirius' eyes as the realisation finally settled over him.
“Oh— oh, what did I do?”
He was just like his family.
He was a Black — a sinner born carrying the weight of ancestral sins, a curse rooted so deeply within his bloodline that perhaps it had been growing inside him long before he was born.
No one comforted him now.
“I don't want to go to Azkaban,” Peter repeated from his corner, whispering the words to himself like a mantra.
“We won't,” James said quietly. “We'll... we'll dispose of the body.”
He spoke reluctantly. It was obvious from his expression that this was not how he wanted to resolve the situation. He would have insisted on contacting the authorities, but faced with his friends' panic, he chose what he believed would protect them instead.
“What?” Remus said weakly, staring at his blood-soaked hands, his eyes glazed and unfocused. “I need to be punished. I need to go to jail. I need to be punished. I—”
The words tumbled from his mouth without control, as though he had lost ownership of both his mind and body and was merely trying to imitate a human being.
“Remus. This wasn't your fault. You weren't aware during...” James gestured towards the mangled carcass. “...this. Don't punish yourself. You're not the one at fault.”
Sirius was.
Peter slowly rose from the corner and walked hesitantly towards James, carefully avoiding looking at Snape.
“How do we...?” he asked softly.
“I'll cast charms to clean the blood and get rid of the smell.”
The smell was putrid.
Sirius thought he would never forget it for the rest of his life. It was so overpowering, so nauseating, that it made his head spin.
“Then Sirius and I can take the body to the lake. Peter, stay with Remus.”
Peter nodded without protest.
James lifted his wand, though his hand trembled violently, and began cleaning away the blood and masking the smell. Although the Shack looked cleaner, the image remained burned into Sirius' mind with such clarity that it was almost as though nothing had changed. It followed him as he left the Shack beside James, who levitated Snape's dismembered body behind them.
They cast Disillusionment Charms over themselves to avoid being seen as they made their way towards the lake. They had to be as careful as possible.
Neither James nor Sirius spoke until they reached the water and lowered the remains into its depths.
“James... what are you thinking?” Sirius asked quietly.
Usually, he could always tell what James was thinking. It was as though they were telepathically connected. Now, it frightened him that he had no idea what was happening inside his best friend's mind.
“I don't know.” James stared at the water. “I'm wondering how I could've prevented this. Maybe I should've spoken to you more about these impulses of yours. Helped you pull yourself away from that mentality. Maybe we should've been kinder to Snape. He could've changed. He could've genuinely become a better person.”
Then he turned towards Sirius.
“But you took that possibility away from him. You took his future, Sirius.”
Sirius remained silent.
“So maybe I can change yours,” James continued. “If you'll let me. I don't know what you're feeling right now, but I'm frightened by what you did... and by what you might do in the future, now that I know what you're capable of.”
“Then why don't you report me to the Aurors?”
“Because I care about you.” James answered without hesitation. “Because I don't want to take your future away, either. I know what I said about the law dealing with murderers and criminals, but...” He sighed. “I don't know where my morals stand anymore.”
“What would you have done, then? About Snape? Let him keep bullying everyone? Keep hurting people?”
“I wouldn't have murdered him, Sirius. Yes, he was a bad person. But he deserved a second chance. I...”
Sirius waited for him to continue, but James struggled to find the words. A dozen different emotions passed across his face before he finally released a weary sigh.
“I wasn't innocent either. I did... enjoy tormenting him. I felt guilty for it afterwards, for watching him cry after we'd jinxed him or pulled one of our pranks, but part of me enjoyed it. It gave me a strange sort of pleasure.” James swallowed. “Does that make me evil too? Would you murder me for that?”
“No.” Sirius barely hesitated. “You're my best friend.”
“Then you're drawing an impossibly biased line.”
Sirius looked defeated.
James turned away from the lake and began walking back towards the Shack.
The sun was setting across the water, orange ribbons of light shimmering over its surface. Sirius found a strange comfort in its return. The moon had witnessed his cruelty, the full extent of his rage, whilst the sun remained an oblivious celestial body, one that still knew only the boy who believed himself innocent.
The blood did not seem to scrub from Remus' hands, no matter how violently he held them beneath the dormitory bathroom tap. The bar of soap had worn down to a pebble, yet the blood continued to spill as his nails tore at his skin, scraping until they broke.
Out, damned spot.
His vision filled with crimson. Blood was everywhere — coating the bathroom in a thick red sheen, staining his body — but most of all, he could still feel it in his mouth, alongside the meaty taste of human flesh.
A memory returned to him as he slid down the bathroom wall, caving in on himself.
"The Devil is in you, son."
His mother had taken him to church the day after his first werewolf transformation. Lyall had left that morning to speak with the Ministry, abandoning them both, leaving Hope panicked and alone with a cursed child.
No — a monster.
Hope had instructed Remus to enter the confession booth and confess to the priest about the Devil inside him, to rid himself of his sins.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," Remus said nervously, twisting the rosary beads between his fingers, unsure whether to continue or wait for the priest to speak.
"How old are you, son?"
"I'm five years old."
A tense silence followed, which Remus understood as his cue to continue.
"My mum told me I need to confess. She says the Devil is in me. I am a sinner, she says. Not human. I am a monster. I hurt people." Sobs threatened to rise in his throat, but he forced them down. "It wasn't my choice. It's not who I want to be. I want my mummy and daddy to be happy. I wish the Devil would go away. I hurt my dad. He was bleeding: There is still blood on my hands: I didn't mean to. I don't remember."
He was pardoned.
It did not feel like a pardon.
No matter how many confessions he made, the Devil held firm within him, and he became certain he was damned regardless.
His mother taught him the Bible, often lingering on passages describing divine punishment in which humanity was condemned to consume itself as consequence for turning away from God.
"And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat."
Remus grew up desperately clinging to his faith, hoping God would cure him of his curse. Yet he also felt like a traitor, because beneath his devotion, he resented God for allowing it at all.
Remus continued staring at his hands, soaked in the blood of a decade of full moons behind him — blood of his own and of others.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," he whispered. "The Devil remains within me. He has clung to my soul, rotting its pure surface into something violent and cruel. I have put people in danger, and I have killed a boy. It was not mine to decide his death, but God's. I have taken a precious life God once moulded, and I have consumed it. The taste is branded in my mouth — his flesh within me. I carry him as a reminder of my sins. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I did not know— I did not know this would happen." His face fell into his hands, and he cried into them. "He could have been a good person. He could have changed. Perhaps You destined him to be so, but I stole that future with my teeth. I tore into him, and piece by piece I stripped away every possible future he could have had."
Sirius had bitten the apple of temptation. He had surrendered to his cruel desires and led them all into sin.
And Remus had unknowingly been the serpent that led him there.
A knock interrupted his thoughts.
"Come in," he said, not bothering to stand.
Sirius entered and closed the door behind him, then slid down the wall to sit beside Remus, their shoulders touching.
Usually, that contact brought comfort. Now it scared him, like he might infect Sirius with his monstrosity through touch alone.
"Moony, I'm sorry," Sirius said, avoiding his gaze and staring instead at the floor between them. His eyes were painfully red; it was clear he had been crying through the night. Remus had heard him whispering with James behind the bed curtains until morning.
"I don't know what to say," Remus whispered.
"Then listen to me." Sirius turned to him, tilting his head just enough to catch his eyes. "I did something terrible. I know that. I should not have led Snape to the Shack knowing the werewolf would hurt him."
Remus appreciated that Sirius spoke of the werewolf as something separate from him. Most people did not, they collapsed wolf and man into a single monster, responsible for everything committed under the full moon.
But now he resented it.
Because even if the werewolf was separate from Remus, the consequences still belonged to him. And Sirius had used that separation like a weapon.
Sirius continued.
"Snape has done terrible things, but murder wasn't the way I should have dealt with it. I'm not like my family— I swear I'm not. I'm trying not to be, but everything I do feels stained by their name. As if being a Black means this was already decided for me— that I would cause suffering. But I want to change. I want to rewrite that. Be better. For myself... but also for you. Because I love you. And I don't want you to hate me."
Remus could hear the guilt in Sirius' voice.
But he could also hear something else.
Sirius was not only apologising— he was reaching for reassurance. His words were not just confession, but a plea: tell me I am still someone worth saving. Remus understood, distantly, that Sirius still believed on some level that what he had done could be justified. Not fully. Not cleanly. But enough that he had not yet let go of it. The apology was real, but so was the need to be forgiven without fully facing the weight of what forgiveness would require.
Remus, in turn, felt something equally conflicted: that accepting Sirius might be the only way to keep him from becoming what he feared.
"I don't hate you," Remus said gently, placing a hand over Sirius. "But I am angry at you. And I need space to process all of this."
He withdrew his hand.
Guilt twisted at Sirius' expression, but Remus forced himself to keep the distance.
"Okay," Sirius said quietly. "Yeah... I understand."
A pause.
"But you'll come back to me, right?"
Remus nodded.
Sirius gave him a small, strained smile.
They left the bathroom and went to breakfast.
——-------------------------------------
The group barely spoke that day.
Remus could not bring himself to eat. He tried to force down a pomegranate, but the seeds bursting against his tongue and the red staining his fingers made him think too vividly of what he had done.
Like Persephone, he had eaten the fruit that bound him to an underworld he could never leave. Except he had not been taken. He had eaten willingly, without understanding what it meant. And now there was no returning to the surface unchanged.
That day passed slowly. The boys moved through their usual routines as though nothing had happened, even as the memory of a boy torn apart lingered behind their eyes, as though the smell still clung to their lungs, as though guilt had settled into their stomachs and refused to leave.
As night fell, they wandered the castle corridors together.
There, they saw a ghost they had never seen before — a boy with slick, greasy hair and Slytherin robes standing too still, too pale. No one else seemed to notice him. He wasn't there for anyone but them.
He looked at the four boys.
And then he disappeared.
But not completely.
Because after that night, he kept returning, again and again, every full moon.