The Embittering of Severus Snape

****Insert memory from Snape's Pensieve, Order of the Phoenix****

As Lily stomped away from James, who was still holding Snape in the air at wand point, a sly grin crossed her face. She stopped as the petite brunette ran past her, and turned to watch. This was going to be fun.

"James, let him down." Muriel was out of breath, having run all the way from the castle the moment she spotted the trouble. James glanced at her and made a face, failing to notice the dangerous tone of her voice.

"Or what? Going to give him detention?" Sirius laughed shortly, but Muriel could feel worry radiating from them both. She didn't bother to speak another word. If Lily hadn't been able to make James stop then nothing she could say would have any effect either, except -

"Wingardium leviosa." James flew into the air as Severus fell. "All right, Severus?" she asked calmly. She saw out of the corner of her eye that Remus was on his feet and Peter was already heading this way. The laughing and carrying on had ceased all across the lawn and she could feel the tension like muddy water around her. 'Muddy water,' she thought to herself suddenly and grinned. With a few more whispered words James was streaking headlong through the air toward the lake. There was a terrific splash, and she turned to look for Severus. She saw he was already back to the castle doors and hurried after him, but was stopped as Sirius suddenly appeared in front of her.

He was so angry he couldn't even speak. His wand was already pointing at her, and his free hand was clenching and unclenching at his side. Muriel stifled the arrogant grin that was threatening to creep over her face again. A very angry Sirius Black was an entirely different story from Potter, and she'd better not start by making him angrier.

"Sirius," she said cautiously, by way of greeting. She couldn't remember ever actually calling him by his first name before, but if she'd hoped it would calm him, she was disappointed. If he'd been a dog his hackles would have been up and he'd have been growling. He WAS growling, she realized with a start. She almost laughed, but stopped herself as Sirius brought his wand sharply to his face, then bowed.

Muriel swore under her breath. All she wanted to do just now was check on Severus and make sure he was all right. But he was already gone, and obviously she wasn't getting passed Sirius without a fight. She returned his bow, then turned on her heel and walked a few paces. She couldn't go very far because a tight circle of other Gryffindor and Ravenclaw 5th years had surrounded them. She winked at one of the Ravenclaw boys, whose name she couldn't remember, then turned to face Sirius. His wand was already raised.

She was far enough away to miss what he was muttering, but she guessed he was counting, and prepared her first shield to bounce his spell back to him. It was such a bright day that he didn't notice the shield charm until he'd already cast his spell. He only just dodged his own curse in time, but Muriel had already cast her first hex, and it caught his right shoulder, which immediately grew great lengths of dark hair. He swung the arm up to meet her as the crowd laughed. The hair was long and fine like his own, and covered his entire arm and his wand. Before he had a chance to cast another spell, she'd performed the counter spell and the hair disappeared. She barely had time to get another shield charm in place, as his wand jabbed toward her again.

She wasn't prepared to redirect his curse to him, and it spun away over her head instead. She whispered her curses and shielded herself from most of his attacks, dodging the few hexes that he managed to cast too quickly for her. She laughed out loud each time one of her spells hit, fueling his anger as nothing else could. Sirius Black didn't know how to block her curses, and the surprise on his face was comical. Muriel found time to perform the counter curse to almost everything she did to him, though. It wasn't as though anyone else would know how to, since she'd designed all these curses herself.

Muriel could see Sirius gritting his teeth as yet another curse shattered the only deflecting spell he seemed to know. He knew she was playing with him, and she could feel his frustration mounting. He'd been expecting her to take this a little more seriously, but she kept her curses and hexes polite. 'Nothing painful,' she thought to herself as she decided on her next hex. She let Sirius stand again before she cast.

"Vertigoni spiralius," her voice was stronger now. Sirius, holding his wand as tightly as he could, closed his eyes briefly as he began to spin. His feet left the ground and he spun faster, his long black hair coming loose from his ponytail and flying out from his head. He couldn't focus on her long enough to cast anything. If he tried, he'd likely hit someone in the crowd. He was up above their heads now, and his face was turning purple in anger. He caught a glimpse of a very wet and bedraggled James standing behind Lily, who was laughing. It finally occurred to him that this had been a very, very bad idea. Of course James was fine. Mur wouldn't have really hurt him.

"Eronia Excavay," Muriel said, her wand still pointing at Sirius. He felt the world stop abruptly as he was thrown backward out of the air to land several feet outside the circle of his classmates. Somehow Muriel reached him first. Before anyone else arrived, she'd whispered something again, but he couldn't hear what it was. He was on all fours now, trying to pull himself to his feet, but he felt like he was going to be sick.

"Miss Deesia what is the meaning of this!" It was Professor McGonagall, and she looked very angry. She pulled Muriel's wand arm away from Sirius. He looked up at the Professor weakly. Muriel was silent. Everyone was silent. He swallowed hard.

"It was my fault," he whispered. His hand flew to his mouth, but he continued. "I started it." Professor McGonagall looked from Muriel's defiant face to Sirius, who was staring at the grass again, his hand still over his mouth. Sirius Black had never before willingly admitted that ANYTHING was his fault. At least, not until he'd endured a good hour of the Headmaster's interrogation tactics.

"You will both serve detention the moment you get back next year." She was bristling, but she let go of Muriel and helped Sirius up. "Come on, Mr. Black, I'll take you to Madam Pomfrey." Her voice was resigned. This boy had spent almost as much time in the hospital wing as he had in detention, which was really saying something.

---

Sirius was still very angry. Madam Pomfrey had given him something to settle his stomach, but wouldn't let him go down to the feast. James, Remus and Peter had been up before dinner to check on him, and he'd heard them chatting and laughing as they left to go down to the Great Hall.

Sirius was not used to losing, especially to a GIRL who used a bunch of harmless curses and made him look like an idiot. 'She might as well have dueled a first year!' he thought furiously to himself. He hadn't hit her with a single curse. He hung his head, ignoring the plate of food that Madam Pomfrey had placed on his table.

"You should eat something. If your stomach has stopped spinning, that is." He looked up quickly to see Muriel standing at the foot of his bed. He reached toward the bedside table, his eyes still on her. "I've already taken the liberty of picking that up for you." She pulled his wand out of the pocket of her robes and handed it to him. She was smiling, now, but he narrowed his eyes.

"Get lost, or I'll call Madam Pomfrey!" he snapped.

"She won't hear. I've put a privacy charm around us both." She paused, then walked around to the side of his bed and put her hand gently on his stomach. He sat up a little straighter, his eyes widening. What was she going to do to him now? "Feels like your stomach's calmed down a bit. You should be able to eat now." She pulled the table over and poured him some pumpkin juice from the flask Madam Pomfrey had left. He took the glass, staring at her. She could feel his confusion. His very thoughts seemed to be stuttering and tumbling over each other, so she smiled at him again, and sat down to explain.

"Couldn't you tell by my choice of hexes that I had no intention of hurting you?" she asked gently. "I just needed the duel to be over quickly, so I could go make sure Severus was alright. Not that I found him," she added sullenly. "He disappeared so well that I doubt I'll see him again until we get home." She looked at her hands, and for a moment Sirius felt something like shame, but he shook it off.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" he said, his voice still harsh.

"Just checking to see that I didn't do any permanent damage, Black," she replied mildly, her gentle demeanor disappearing. She wished he'd straighten out his thoughts, they were shooting out of his head like poorly aimed arrows, and she couldn't make any sense of them. "I heard that you did the same for me during the holiday and -" She cut off abruptly, as running footsteps approached from the hallway.

Muriel smiled again. "That will be the marauders, I suppose. I'll be going now. This would be a bad time, I think, to see James." She took out her own wand, winked at Sirius and whispered something softly so he couldn't hear. He let out a gasp as she disappeared, and about jumped out of his skin a moment later when she whispered in his ear. "Glad you're alright. See you next year."

"WAIT!" he said, but she didn't appear or speak again. The door to the hospital ward burst open and James and Remus appeared, followed by Peter. Sirius noticed the door didn't shut quite as quickly as usual.

"Wormtail!" Sirius barked, "Run back out into the hallway and read this out loud." He was scribbling furiously on a scrap of napkin. Peter squeaked as Sirius thrust the napkin at him, and did as he was told. James and Remus exchanged a confused glance.

Muriel was surprised when Peter came stumbling into the hallway. She had been hurrying as fast as she could. Holding the invisibility spell was difficult and she didn't turn around when she heard him stuttering. "C-can Sirius come and v-visit you this summer?" She ran around the corner and dropped the spell, breathing heavily.

She didn't answer at first. Peter looked around warily, wondering if they would all be laughing at him when he went back in. Finally he turned around and opened the door, just as Muriel stuck her head around the corner. "I don't know, can he?" she asked sarcastically. Peter jumped, and turned around. Not seeing anyone, he went to join his friends, and Muriel headed back to the Ravenclaw common room by way of the kitchens. She was starving!

---

After spending most of the train ride pretending to listen to her dorm mates' summer plans, Muriel finally found Severus sitting in the very last compartment of the train, alone. His things weren't even in the compartment, just him with his head leaning against the window, watching the world rush by backwards. He hadn't been there the last time she'd looked. "Sev, can I talk to you about something?" He pulled his head away from the glass and swiveled to look at her, as if he barely had the energy.

"I'd prefer not to discuss it," he replied shortly, turning his face away from her again. His eyes were very cold, and seemed to be reprimanding her for bringing it up. But she couldn't be SURE that's what his eyes were saying. That was why she had to talk to him.

"Not that," she said. "I'd just as soon forget that too. Look, Sev, we've been friends a long time and you've put up with a lot from me, especially with the Legilimens spell and all, but - " she trailed off, wondering how to say what she was thinking. She decided that the direct approach would be best. "But you've been closing your mind off from me, bit by bit, and I'm having trouble understanding why."

Now she had his full attention. She knew she sounded like a pleading girlfriend, and maybe that's what she was. It was certainly what their parents wanted, and up until this year, she'd thought she wanted it too. But the closeness that they had always shared was slipping away. He was hiding something from her, and he'd never done that before, as far as she knew. Whatever it was, it was big.

"What exactly were you hoping to find in my mind anyway?" he asked scathingly, standing and moving toward her. "WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE IN MY HEAD POKING AROUND?" He was shouting now, and Muriel could feel the tears coming, but she didn't back away.

"I haven't been poking around in your head, Sev, but even just the usual emotions that I've always been able to feel are gone. You are either blocking them from me, or -" she didn't want to say the 'or', but he said it for her.

"Or maybe they just aren't there anymore? Is that what you think?" He'd lowered his voice, and was passing a hand over his eyes as he sat back down. It was at this moment that the door was wrenched open, and Remus Lupin stuck his head inside. Severus shot him a furious glance. "What do you want, Lupin?" he asked in a dangerously low voice. Muriel kept her back to the door, wiping at the tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Just making sure there isn't any trouble. Awfully noisy in here." Remus said evenly. Muriel spun suddenly and pushed past Remus, nearly knocking him over. She slammed the compartment door behind her and locked it with three separate spells, a grim look of triumph on her tear-streaked face. She noticed with satisfaction that Remus, leaning against the far wall, looked rather ruffled for once. She turned toward the front of the train, intending to find some friends from her own house, but collided with Sirius, who'd come to see what was taking Remus so long. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her and looked down with a smile.

"Are you okay?" he asked. His smile faltered when he saw that she'd been crying.

"I'm fine." Muriel wasn't sure exactly what she'd felt when their eyes met, but she looked away quickly. "Excuse me." She made to push past him, but he still had a grip on her arms. He pulled her gently back around.

"Why don't you join Remus and me? We're bored because James went to track down Lily." Sirius knew he'd said the right thing. Muriel nodded silently, but it seemed to him that she was grateful in spite of her body language. Remus caught his eye and raised an eyebrow, but Sirius just shrugged and headed back to their compartment.

"Where's Peter?" Muriel asked suddenly, as she sat down in the empty compartment. Sirius and Remus looked slyly at one another, but didn't answer. To their utter surprise, Muriel's eyes turned in the one direction no one expected: to the floor. She caught the chubby little rat neatly in one hand and held him up to her face. Raising her eyes to see the shocked look on the boys' faces, she laughed a bit, and whispered, "Ah, here he is!"

She placed the rat beside her on the bench, and it promptly became Peter. Muriel laughed even more to see that the new arrival had the same look on his face as both Sirius and Remus. "This explains everything!" she exclaimed, "Wormtail, Moony, and Padfoot. That means James must be Prongs!" The boys looked hopelessly at one another. Remus slipped quietly onto the bench.

"Severus must have told her." His eyes were on Sirius, who returned Remus' woeful expression.

Muriel turned to Peter. "Why don't you go hang out with Potter? I have something rather personal to explain to these two." Peter looked startled, but didn't move. "I'll send Remus along in a bit," she added encouragingly, forcing herself not to look at Sirius as she spoke. Why had she offered to send only Remus? Peter left, closing the door behind him, and Sirius took his place next to Muriel.

She waited until the sound of his footsteps receded. "First, Remus, you should know that Severus wouldn't have mentioned it if I hadn't already known." Remus took his head out of his hands and stared at her, shocked. "We sat in the same boat on our way to the castle our first year, do you remember?" He shook his head slightly, then changed his mind and nodded. "Well, we did, and you sat there the entire time thinking, 'Please don't let anyone find out.' The picture of yourself as a werewolf was so ingrained in your head that I probably could have done a drawing of it. Naturally I didn't tell anyone, especially not Severus. He's got an unnatural aversion to such things."

"How could you possibly have seen an image of me that I was thinking about?" Remus sounded shocked, and Sirius looked it. She knew she'd better wrap it up. With her luck, James would be here any minute, and she'd have to go.

"You've heard of the Legilimens spell, haven't you?" They looked at her blankly for a moment, then something clicked behind Sirius' eyes.

"Let's you force entry into someone's mind."

"Right. So if you cast it on me right now, you'd be able to see images of certain events in my life."

"It's useful for interrogation, but you have to be in the room with someone to cast it." Sirius remembered now. He'd read about it in one of the dusty old books in his father's attic. "But it's considered a Dark Art these days. It isn't exactly an illegal curse, but the ministry tends to frown on that sort of thing."

Muriel was quiet for a minute, trying to decide if she really wanted to tell them this. But if they were going to spend the rest of the train ride together, she figured she'd better. Otherwise they would all be very uncomfortable. "How useful would it be if you didn't have to cast the spell at all? What if you heard the conversations other people have with themselves behind their eyes? What if you saw the things that haunted your friends' minds? What if every emotion in a 20 mile radius hit you like it was your own?" She hadn't meant to sound so bitter, but she recognized the feeling for what it was.

"Worse yet: What if everything YOU feel is projected out from you like sunlight. Everyone in all directions knows when you're happy or sad and you can't hide it, no matter how hard you try." She was crying again now, and cursing herself for it. Sirius had put an arm around her and she leaned into him, not noticing that he was staring at Remus as if to beg for help.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I was supposed to be explaining how I found out about your animagus abilities." She kept her voice low so it wouldn't break. The tears were gone as suddenly as they'd begun, but she stared at the floor as she continued. "I knew you were trying when you asked me about the duck incident. Then yesterday you growled at me." She laughed a little. "It was Remus who gave you away. He sort of laughed and I concentrated on him. I couldn't help but hear what he was thinking." She looked up at Sirius, but didn't pull away. He was chuckling softly and shaking his head. "Once I figured that out, it wasn't hard to match you all up to your nicknames: Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail and Prongs. You've called each other by those names all year."

Remus crossed the compartment to sit on Muriel's other side and put his arm around her too. "You're one clever witch, you know that?" Even as he spoke she could feel his mind closing her off, like the slow lowering of a portcullis. She'd never met anyone who could shut her out so completely except Severus. Even Remus' emotions were swallowed up behind his eyes. She blinked at him and smiled a little before continuing.

"It isn't cleverness so much as luck. I was born with this 'gift' as Papa calls it. Trust me, I'd love to be able to block it out sometimes. Other times, though, I can't live without it." She was looking very sad again, and stood suddenly. "I should get going. I'm sure Severus is having a difficult time getting out of his compartment." They looked at her, and she could feel anger rising in Sirius again. Just the mention of Severus seemed to do that.

"Actually," Remus said quickly, "I've got to patrol the corridors again anyway. If you teach me the spell, I'll let him out." She taught him the spell, grateful not to have to face Severus again so soon, but nervous about sitting alone with Sirius. Remus left hurriedly to release Snape.

Sirius and Muriel sat quietly then. But she could hear the questions jumping around inside his head. 'I wonder which he'll ask first?' she thought to herself. 'He's still very angry.' The silence was just about stifling.

"That's what Snape was yelling at you about, then?" Sirius asked suddenly, surprising them both. Muriel wasn't surprised very often.

"Not exactly. Severus was defending himself. Growing up with me around has made him close off his mind. He's been doing it all year - making me guess what he thinks and feels about everything. We've been friends forever, and I know we always will be, but it doesn't make it any less hurtful for him to keep secrets like this. I called him on it. I should've left well enough alone."

The train pulled up to platform 9 ¾ at last and Sirius helped Muriel carry her trunk off the train before running back to get his own. He was feeling a bit hyper. He'd been able to talk with her without his wand in his hand for the first time in their lives. They'd decided that it would be best if Muriel visited him this summer rather than him visiting her. He was already drafting a letter to her father in his head as he pulled his trunk out onto the platform.

Muriel stood by her trunk, looking anxiously for her father, but he was nowhere to be seen. "Muriel, dear!" Someone was calling to her. She dragged her trunk over to the waving figure of Mrs. Snape. She could hear another trunk behind her and thought it must be Severus, though she couldn't feel his presence at all.

"There you are, dear! Your father asked me to pick you up as well. He had urgent business elsewhere. Come on now, let's get your things into the car." They left the platform in silence, Severus leading the way.

Muriel cast a glance over her shoulder to see Sirius watching her, an unreadable expression on his face. But for once his thoughts were clear enough for her to read. He didn't want her going home with Severus. It occurred to her suddenly that maybe she hadn't misread him at the Halloween dance after all. She smiled a little and waved with her free hand. He nodded in return before joining the Potter family. He'd mentioned that he was spending the first half of the summer with them.

With a sigh, Muriel grasped her trunk handle tightly and ran to catch up with Severus. When they got to the car, he sat in the front with his mother, leaving her alone in the back. Mrs. Snape kept looking at her in the rear view mirror. Finally, as the passengers knew she would, Mrs. Snape asked the question.

"Is something bothering you two?" She was looking shrewdly into the mirror as she said this and Muriel caught her eye.

"That's just what I was asking Severus on the train. It seems that something is bothering him, but he doesn't care to share it with me."

"There's nothing bothering me!" Severus snapped. He was angry that Remus had interrupted them on the train and he was angry that Muriel apparently wanted to discuss it now in front of his mother. They rode in silence for a while. Mrs. Snape's thoughts were flittering back to Muriel, who caught enough to piece a few things together. Occlumency lessons. So he WAS blocking her on purpose.

"Severus," she began sharply, "I'll be over to your house this evening to pick up my things. You can just leave them in the car. Mrs. Snape, thank you for picking me up, but I'm going home now." With an ear-splitting CRACK she was gone. Severus swore under his breath. Mrs. Snape looked over at him but didn't bother to correct him.