The Embittering of Severus Snape

Chapter 5 ~ Pranks, Retribution, and Forgiveness

"I thought he was very nice!" Muriel couldn't believe that Severus wanted to argue about Maverick, here in the library of all places. She crossed her arms and pressed her lips together.

He rolled his eyes, but didn't look up from his book. "Mur, he set us up, tested us, and then dropped his last name to scare us. He's a prat!" He thumbed through several more pages as she scowled at him from across the table. "Here it is!" he said suddenly.

She leaned forward, their disagreement forgotten, as he put the book on the table. The potion wasn't very complex, after all, it was in a practical joke book. He tore out the page when Madam Pince turned her back and returned the book to the shelf, still amazed that they'd even had it. He had been afraid he'd have to owl home for his own copy, and if his father had gotten the owl, there would have been all kinds of trouble.

It was late, but they wanted to start the potion right away, now that they had the ingredients. Mur knew they couldn't make it in the Ravenclaw common room. The older students usually turned a blind eye to her antics, but nightshade was easily recognizable, and that would lead to some awkward questions. The Slytherin common room was off-limits too. Most of them wouldn't actually hex her anymore, but they would certainly love a chance to turn her in. More importantly, Avery might be there, and she'd been taking special care to avoid him.

They stood warily outside the mirror on the fourth floor that Malfoy had mentioned to Severus, trying to determine how to open it. Severus tried every password he could think of. It wasn't until Muriel tapped it with her own wand and said, "Aperto," that they finally heard a click.

Severus smiled. Italian passwords in an English castle? Only at Hogwarts.

They looked around the crude room carefully. At the other end there was a tunnel, but they had no time for exploring tonight. Severus ran back down to the Slytherin dormitory for his cauldron, while Mur conjured candles and a fire. The potion was supposed to take two days to brew. What if the marauders used this tunnel too? Surely they would notice the cauldron over a fire in the corner.

When Severus returned, she asked him about it. "We'll just have to make sure they aren't in any condition to run around the castle," he said wickedly, smirking. She shook her head.

"One prank at a time, Sev. Let's spend some time figuring out how we're going to get them to drink it!" She propped herself against the wall to watch him as he began the potion, and promptly fell asleep.

Severus shook her awake around two in the morning. "Come on, we need to get back!" The potion was as close to ready as it was going to get, now it just had to simmer.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Potions class was particularly tense after Christmas. Their crowd of friends was annoyed that they hadn't come to the annual Christmas party. Severus and Muriel had nearly finished when something slimy flew in from the hallway and hit the edge of their cauldron before slopping messily into their potion. It made a nice high fountain that brought Professor Warrington over immediately. Avery had apparently taken Muriel's absence as a personal affront.

The professor was in a very bad mood indeed when he found that their potion, supposed to be a pale green color, was in fact an almost incandescent, florescent blue. Several people had seen what happened, but no one had seen who was in the hallway. As Professor Warrington questioned the rest of the class, Severus filled a small vial with the florescent liquid, winked at Mur, and put it into his pocket. He definitely wanted to know what had gotten into their potion. He could test it later.

They met Wednesday night behind the mirror, and found their potion undisturbed. "Well, what color would you like them to be?" Muriel asked lightly.

Severus had come up with the perfect idea. "Well, our blue potion is an awfully nice color, don't you think?" he asked, pulling the half-filled vial out of his robes. Muriel looked at it warily.

"But what about all the other ingredients we added to that? Are you sure none of them will react and make this potion dangerous?"

Severus waved a hand impatiently. "Of course not. There wasn't anything dangerous in it!" Muriel raised an eyebrow before nodding.

"Alright. It is a funny color!"

Severus extinguished the charmed flame under the cauldron, stirred it several times, and poured in the vial's contents. The potion hissed and spit before turning a shocking shade of blue.

"Now, how do we get them to drink it?" Severus asked.

Muriel giggled, and produced a forged note from Madam Pomfrey. She'd been careful to curse all the boys, even Remus, with a hex that she and Severus had come up with when they were younger. It had given each of them a noisy ringing in their ears that they'd been putting up with all day, but when they'd gone to Madam Pomfrey, she couldn't help them. After all, no one had ever heard of that particular hex before. It was designed to wear off after 2 or 3 days.

Boys,

I am sending up this potion with a house elf. It should help with your ears. There may be a small side effect, but the ringing should go away in 2 days or so.

~Madam Pomfrey

"Bloody Brilliant!" Severus exclaimed. Muriel beamed. Compliments from Severus were a rare treat indeed. They snuck down to the kitchens. Malfoy had taught Severus how to get in last year, so he wouldn't have to go for food himself. The house elves were more than happy to take the potions to Gryffindor tower to "help out the marauders. "

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Remus awoke first, and blinked several times. The curtains above his bed were blue. They had been up very late sitting in the common room talking and he wasn't sure that his eyes could be trusted. He closed them and opened them again.

No, his bed hangings were definitely blue. In fact -

"JAMES! SIRIUS! PETER! Get up mates, we're in trouble!" Remus threw back his curtains to see that all the beds were blue. He went to the dresser to get something to wear, but when his hand touched the handle, the entire dresser turned blue. He swore loudly.

By now the other boys were awake too. Peter was looking from his own bright blue hands to Remus' blue face and back again. James was looking at the pile of blue robes on the floor. They had been black yesterday, he knew.

Sirius jumped up and grabbed the note from Madam Pomfrey, which promptly turned blue in his hand. His face was twisted into a snarl. "They got us again!" he spat, throwing the parchment away from him in disgust.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Why are their robes blue?" Muriel, like the rest of the great hall, was laughing hysterically as the marauders stomped to their table and sat down. The laughing stopped abruptly, however, when James reached for a glass of water, which promptly turned blue when he touched it.

Sirius threw a stack of blue books heavily down on the table beside him and looked for Muriel. He KNEW that this was her fault somehow. James was gazing intently at Severus, since it had to have been he who brewed the potion. They were all furious. Muriel was really looking forward to Defense Against The Dark Arts today.

Marisa prodded her as she ate, and she turned to her. "Sirius is staring at you," she whispered.

Muriel stifled her laugh. "Can you blame him?" she asked quietly. Marisa couldn't help but laugh, and turned back to look at the marauders. Their silverware, plates and drinks were all blue. They were whispering furiously among themselves. Suddenly Sirius stood up, his fist pounding the table with a loud 'thunk'. Every Gryffindor gasped as the entire table turned blue. Sirius threw one last angry glance at Muriel before he stomped out of the hall.

Muriel couldn't help but laugh, even though she knew that James and the others were still watching her. She met up with Severus in the hallway on her way to class. "You didn't say that it would turn everything they TOUCHED blue too," she hissed, still giggling in spite of herself.

He looked abashed. "I didn't think it would. Mur, what if it doesn't wear off like it's supposed to?" He sounded really worried.

Muriel stopped laughing abruptly. She didn't bother to ask him why he hadn't thought of that before. "Then I guess we'd better come up with an antidote," she whispered back. He left her outside the Dark Arts classroom, and heard her chuckle again, presumably because the marauder's desks were already blue.

Mur sat close to the door, in case she needed to make a quick get away. Unfortunately the boys had already hatched a plan. Only a few minutes before the bell, Peter faked a swoon and fell to the floor. Sirius had his hand in the air and James had laid his head on the desk tiredly. "Yes, Mr. Black?"

"Sir, we aren't feeling very well. Whatever was in that potion Madam Pomfrey gave us is...is..." he trailed off, letting his eyes droop. Remus watched as a worried expression crept over Muriel's face and tried not to smirk. It had definitely been her.

Professor Warrington excused them to go to the Hospital ward. Deesia was closest to the door, so he sent her along to levitate Peter, reminding them not to touch anything on the way. No sooner had the door closed behind them than Sirius, James and Remus dropped the act and grabbed Muriel from all sides. Sirius put a hand on her face, Remus grabbed her hand, and James made sure her robes were blue as well.

Far from being surprised, she stood there and let them do it. She looked hard into Sirius Black's now blue eyes. "It'll wear off soon enough anyway, boys," she said condescendingly, hoping she was right. She grabbed Sirius wrist and threw it back at him angrily. Peter was still levitating nearby, so she flicked her wand, making him fall hard to the ground. She noticed that her wand had not turned blue. Well, that was some consolation.

A week later found her in a bed in the Harmless Hex ward. "Actually, Mur, I don't think it will wear off." Severus was standing several feet from her while Professor Warrington looked on, enraged, but silent. "Well," he clarified quickly, "THEY will go back to their original color, but anything they touched won't." His voice was very low.

"Severus, you will find an antidote for this, and you will find it NOW!" Muriel was shaking with rage.

"I'm working on it!" he exclaimed irritably. "It's just that Avery won't tell me what he threw into our cauldron." He clapped a hand over his mouth and turned to look at Professor Warrington.

"It was Avery, eh?" The professor swept out, and Muriel and Severus exchanged a glance.

"Do you think he'll be able to make him talk?" she whispered. Severus felt awful as he shrugged and sat down in the nearest chair. This was all his fault. He should never have used that potion when he didn't know what was in it.

Three days later, Professor Warrington had finished the potion. Avery had been helping him during detention each night, and stood sullenly in the Harmless Hex ward as Muriel drank it. It took nearly an hour for her skin to return to its normal color. She spent the entire hour glaring at Avery.

When Professor Warrington was satisfied that his potion had worked correctly, he and Avery left a very perturbed Muriel alone with her thoughts. As she gathered up her homework from the table beside the bed, she swore that this was going to be the end of the pranks. She'd learned her lesson. She was going to leave those boys alone. They always managed to get back at her just a little better than she got back at them.

She fumed all the way back to her dorm and threw herself into her homework with a passion. It was nearly Valentine's day before she even THOUGHT about hexing the marauders again. They, too, seemed to want something of a truce. Sure, she'd gotten a set of house elf ears in the hallway once since then, but one hex in over a month was nothing. She hadn't even tried to find out which one of them had done it.

On February 14^th, a huge black owl she didn't recognize landed in front of her at breakfast, followed quickly by a smaller, tawny owl. Both dropped bright blue envelopes in front of her before flying off. The smaller owl picked up a grape from her plate and hooted happily as it followed the first. By the end of breakfast, two more owls had dropped blue envelopes in front of her, and her dorm mates were giggling annoyingly. She had pushed away her food, and stared at the offensively colored objects, refusing to lift her eyes to the Gryffindor table. "The great prats!" she exclaimed. She shoved the letters into her bag and stormed out, heading straight for the History of Magic classroom.

She opened the first envelope, holding it out away from her in case it had a hex in it, but nothing happened. There was only one word written on the parchment, "Facio," she whispered. She wasn't very good at Latin, though she spoke Italian fluently. She was sure it meant to cause, or something like that.

The second letter only said, "Noceo." She whispered this as well, shaking her head. She had no idea what that meant.

She opened the next one. "Sero. That means 'late', doesn't it?" she said to herself. It didn't make any sense.

When she opened the final envelope, it blew an obnoxious raspberry at her before all four envelopes caught fire on her desk. In a moment they were gone, and she wiped the ashes away hastily as Professor Binns entered through the blackboard and several students appeared in the doorway. What in the world could they have meant?

She found out late that night, when she awoke with a horrible ache in every muscle she had, and many she hadn't been aware of. The soft sheets of her bed chaffed against her skin, and when she reached for the doorknob, panicking, to get to the hospital wing, the cold metal seemed to burn her. Everything she touched caused agony.

She stood still in the hospital ward, shivering in her thin nightgown, as Madam Pomfrey looked up counter charms. Muriel had written the words down for her, although the quill had pinched her fingers horribly.

The nurse cast spell after spell, but nothing seemed to do the trick. Finally, she sent for the Headmaster.

After several failed spells, read out of a huge and dusty tome, Dumbledore came up with the correct counter curse, and Muriel stopped shivering abruptly and began to shake with fury instead.

Her head cleared enough that she could think. But the only thought that popped into her head was, 'Of all the rotten things to do, tricking me into hexing myself had to be the worst.' She wondered if the horrible prats had had the guts to sneak out in that cloak of theirs to see how much they'd hurt her. She concentrated on their images as she left the hospital ward, a blanket of Madam Pomfrey's wrapped around her. Sure enough, she could feel them nearby, though she was surprised at all the conflicting emotions. At least SOMEONE among them felt bad about it.

'Good,' she thought angrily. She knew she could easily make them all feel sorry for it, and as soon as she was sure Madam Pomfrey and Professor Dumbledore hadn't followed her into the corridor, she sat down next to the wall, wrapped her arms around her knees and cried for all she was worth.

It was quite a bit later when she realized that the marauders had long since slipped away, and she was crying for herself instead of for them. Why did they hate her so much? Most of her pranks had been harmless enough. She'd only been teasing, after all.

She looked up, suddenly angry again. Well, all that was going to change. If they could cause her this much pain, then there was no reason why she couldn't do the same to them. She picked herself up and marched back to her dormitory, the tears drying on her face. "Just wait," she whispered quietly to herself as she climbed the stairs. "You're all going to regret this."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Severus found himself staring at Muriel again as they studied together in the library. For months now he'd noticed that just under her calm surface was a boiling rage that was nearly tangible, though she wouldn't tell him why.

What really surprised him was that the marauders had stopped hexing her almost entirely. Of course, they still tried to hex him daily. He'd been to the Harmless Hex ward at least twice each week, and he had yet another detention tomorrow, because he'd been caught trying to get back at them. Unluckily, but justly, Professor McGonagal had noticed that Potter had hexed him first, and now he would have to sit through detention with the egotistical prat. He hoped Professor McGonagal would just let them study. With year-end exams coming up, he was starting to get antsy about some of his classes.

He took his books with him to detention, just in case. When he arrived, Potter was already sitting at the back of the classroom, so Severus took a seat in the front. He was unpleasantly surprised when Lupin came in a moment later. He narrowed his eyes. Lupin had nearly let Muriel die at the end of last year because he hadn't NOTICED that she was practically falling over. He really didn't like Lupin.

Remus noticed Severus' angry look and headed toward James, biting back the question he'd hoped to ask. Sirius had tracked down one of Mur's dorm mates once when Muriel had skipped dinner, to ask how she was. She had turned her eyes to him innocently and replied, "angry," in a tone of voice that told him he'd best not ask further.

Remus had approached her on only one occasion and found himself bound and gagged before he'd finished his apology. She'd left him in a passageway he hadn't ever seen before, somewhere down near the Slytherin dungeons. The Slytherin prefect, Lucius Malfoy, had found him and taken points from Gryffindor, though Remus hadn't actually done anything wrong. He looked later, but never found that passageway again.

In all, the student body of Hogwarts was breathing a sigh of relief. For all intents and purposes, it appeared the feud was over. But the marauders knew better.

"I wish there was some way we could tell her that we never meant for it to be that bad," Remus said quietly as they sat in the common room one Saturday afternoon. They had finished most of their end-of-year tests, and none of them felt like studying. Peter nodded morosely. Sirius just stared hard into the fire.

James rolled his eyes. He still wasn't convinced that it HAD been that bad. His friends were all acting as if they'd put her life in danger. Even Peter seemed to feel guilty. "Come on! She's hexed us hundreds of times. She even knocked Peter down and gave him a black eye in that scuffle last term."

Peter, never sure who to agree with when his friends fought, nodded again. Remus spared him an annoyed glance. "I think she was just in a hurry, and you two paid her back well enough for that. We should have found out more about the spell before we used it."

Peter nodded at this statement as well, and James prodded his leg with his foot. "Shut up, Peter!" he exclaimed, though the boy hadn't said anything. "What do you think, Sirius? Should we be in here worrying about Deesia, or outside tossing the quaffle around?" The whole thing had been Sirius' idea in the first place, and James was sure his best mate would back him up.

They all fell silent as several feet clattered down the stairs from the girls' dormitory. Lily and three of her dorm mates were headed outside to enjoy the warm spring weather. James looked back at his friends. "Er...I'll be outside," he said, distracted. None of his friends had any doubt as to why. James followed Lily every chance he got.

After a moment, Peter left too. Sirius sat, still gazing into the fire. He'd found the spell in one of his father's old books years ago, and he knew he should have gone back and researched it before they'd sent it to her. He was trying desperately to think of some way to get things back the way they had been. Life at Hogwarts was pretty boring now that Muriel wasn't playing pranks on them anymore. He was also a little worried about what she would choose when she DID decide to get back at them. If she was as angry as everyone said, it would probably be pretty bad.

"I think I'll head to the library," Sirius said finally. Remus nodded and watched his friend leave the common room without his books. None of them had tried to talk to Muriel since Malfoy had found Remus in the dungeon passageway. That had been two weeks ago, and it was probably time to try again. Remus didn't offer to go with him.

But it didn't matter, because neither she nor Severus was in the library. Of course, Sirius wouldn't have bothered to ask Snape anyway. They had learned right off the bat that the quickest way to get hexed was to mention Muriel to Snape.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"These words, what do they mean?" Maverick was looking at the parchment Muriel had brought to show him. She'd sneaked into the forest at dawn without Severus, since he hadn't seemed too keen to visit Maverick.

"I looked it up. Roughly translated, it means 'to make hurt late.' What the curse does is to cause the person who speaks it a great deal of pain at midnight." She spoke quietly, her eyes on his. The fireplace crackled merrily behind her, but she didn't feel merry at all. She sipped her tea. "Madam Pomfrey said that it would have happened every night for the rest of my life until Professor Dumbledore found the right counter curse." She shuddered. It wasn't exactly the Cruciatus Curse, but it hadn't been pleasant either.

The young man had trimmed his red-streaked brown hair until it was above his ears and eyes, and Muriel decided she liked it better, even if it did remind her a little of Remus. She had thought that at least HE had some common decency. But each of the boys had sent a letter, so she knew he'd been involved.

"You're something of an empath, aren't you?" Maverick asked suddenly, setting down the paper. He had suddenly felt a wave of anger that he was pretty sure wasn't his own.

Muriel sighed. "I'm a natural Legilimens. I can usually tell what people are thinking and feeling if I'm in the room with them." She felt his mind close slightly and smirked a bit before continuing. "And if I'm feeling a strong emotion, just about anyone near me can feel it too. It's really amazing that more people haven't caught on by now." She smiled at him properly.

"The really neat part is that I can cast the Legilimens curse from a distance. I could read Severus' mind right now, even though he's all the way back at the castle." Maverick was looking at her in surprise. So far as he knew, no one could do that.

"On the record, it hasn't ever been done before," she added. She could catch the gist of his thoughts even as he tried to keep her out. He obviously hadn't practiced Occlumency.

"But that's not what I came to talk about. I've spent the last few months trying to decide how I'm going to get back at them. I'm looking for something that will make sure they never DARE to do that again."

Maverick smiled, wondering what she could possibly hope he would provide her with. He didn't have long to wait before she explained.

"I want to know how you did that illusion with the werewolves. I know at least one of them is deathly afraid of them, and they all will be, when they think they've forgotten which day is the full moon."

If Maverick caught the implication, he didn't let on. "So you want to scare them?" he said quietly. He thought it strange that the girl had been through a curse as powerful as the one on the parchment and all she wanted to do was scare the people responsible.

Her face took on a rather grim look. "I borrowed one of the Arithmancy books from the restricted section and came up with the perfect spell to get back at them. It's a combination of a tongue swallowing spell, and a transfiguration spell that turns a tongue into flesh eating maggots." She noticed the look of horror on his face and changed her tone when she continued. "But I really don't want to end up in Azkaban for killing them, so I'll settle for scaring them instead," she finished lightly.

As she'd sat in the library each evening since February, she had come to the conclusion that the marauders had really felt bad about what happened. She was angry, but nothing like she'd been that night. Mostly, she just wanted things to go back to the way they had been, and she was sure that they were just waiting for another prank from her before everything went back to normal.

But it had to be something good. Something that would set the new upward boundary high enough to keep things interesting, but low enough that no one would get hurt anymore.

Maverick was still smiling. One minute the little girl in front of him was furious, and the next minute she thought something was funny. She obviously couldn't make up her mind how she felt about the situation. He felt obliged to try and guide her, even though he wasn't very good with kids. She was, after all, the only company he'd had for quite some time, and he'd never had a little sister.

"I don't think you should use werewolves," he said knowingly. She looked disappointed, but nodded.

"You're right, that would be too close to home for them. I'm crossing a different kind of line there." She didn't want to cause them, in this case specifically Remus and Sirius, enough emotional trauma that everything would stay tense.

Maverick talked her out of bothering the marauders again this year. He was certain that everything would go back to normal after the summer. Or at least he was sure that she would be level headed enough by then to come up with pranks that were truly harmless. He had a feeling that maybe she didn't hate those boys as much as she pretended. Much like his pretty unicorn, who'd spurned him and saved his life in the same day, only to spurn him again. He was starting to think that girls and unicorns weren't that very different.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sirius had searched the library and the grounds. He tried not to feel disappointed, since he had no idea what he'd planned to say if he found her. He'd already decided not to apologize. Blacks were never wrong. They just made mistakes sometimes.

Muriel swore softly to herself. Here, behind the greenhouses, was the only place where she could come out of the trees and not be seen from the castle. So of course, Sirius Black had to be sitting with his back against the greenhouse, staring into the wood.

She dismounted her broom and carried it warily out of the trees, carefully affecting disinterest as he scrambled up and pulled out his wand. She didn't have anything to say to him, so she just walked on by. She knew better than to turn her back on him when he had his wand out, but hoped that their unspoken cease fire would hold long enough for her to get back to the castle.

"Deesia!" he called, when he realized that she wasn't going to hex him.

She turned, disbelief written on her face. Was he really stupid enough to taunt her after what she'd done to Remus? She sneered at him but waited. He didn't move.

Finally she asked, "What do you want, Black? I have a test left to study for." Her voice was cold, but she didn't go for her wand. If he'd wanted to hex her he would have done it already. He didn't answer, so she turned around and headed back to the castle. Strangely enough, she didn't feel quite so angry anymore. She could tell plainly that he'd been looking for her, and there could only be one reason why. She wondered if he'd tell on her for being in the forest, but decided he probably wouldn't. Potter might have, but not Black.

Sirius followed her back to the castle. When she realized he was there, she threw him a sarcastic smile and jumped on her broom to fly the rest of the way. He smirked, feeling like everything was back to normal. He'd talk James into leaving her and Severus alone for the last few days of term, and next year, things could go back to the way they were. And he hadn't even had to apologize. Thank Merlin. If word ever got back to his mother that he'd apologized for something, he was sure to learn a new dark arts curse the hard way. Blacks didn't apologize to anyone.

Severus noticed a difference in Muriel as he worked beside her during their potions test on Monday. Her hands were steady, and she was able to concentrate for the first time in ages. She finished her potion not long after he did, corked a beaker full and took it up front. She graced him with a real smile when she got back to her seat to find that he'd cleaned up her cauldron. He always did in class, too, but she hadn't smiled at him for it in nearly two months.

He gave her a questioning look, but she only winked at him and put her things back into her cauldron to wait for Professor Warrington to tell them they could go.

They sat quietly out by the lake after their test, but instead of brooding, Muriel was writing a letter to her Aunt Rosa. Severus could only shake his head. Since he didn't know what had happened in the first place, he couldn't form the right questions to find out what had fixed it. In the end, he just accepted it gratefully. When Muriel spent the train ride home talking about the hexes she hoped to use on the marauders next year, Severus knew for sure that she was all right.