As She Likes It

As She Likes It

For God's sake, Black. If you really must challenge a busy man over some misplaced romantic notion, you could at least observe duelling etiquette and arrive timely, I should think. Besides, I do feel obliged to point out it seems most unwise for an unbalanced ex-convict, who for the past year supped mostly off rats, to challenge a Death Eater who knows all the tricks and enjoys reasonable health - but then again, idiocy is what we have all come to expect of you. I understand your lycanthropic friend has once again failed to team up with you against me. Pity; I would almost have respected him for it, after I had him removed from his job. But it seems he will always be a coward and so, Potter being unfortunately and permanently incapacitated, you will for once in your life have to fight me on your own. It will be interesting to see what you are worth.

I don't suppose you ever expected to find in me a serious rival for a woman's favours. You did not think I would stand a chance once you decided to pit your strength against mine. Was it with the intention of humiliating me once more that you first made a pass at her? It was a base thing to do, but how like you. You must have thought she would be fair game - a plain, unpopular girl, sought out by the dashing Sirius Black, at whose feet the lovesick maidens swooned in bunches. You may have reasoned that she only kept my company because beggars can't be choosers. But had you been any more familiar with the internal affairs of Slytherin House, had you been able to listen in on common room conversations, you would have known she was in fact very particular about whom she befriended. She still is.

Women have always found you attractive, haven't they? It will please you to know that she is no exception. I remember very well how puzzled she was when you first asked her out to Hogsmeade. She actually felt flattered. She didn't show it to you, of course, she pretended to be indifferent, and she rejected you. That was something of a surprise, was it not? It must have been. The irresistible Sirius Black, heartthrob of Hogwarts, turned away by the ugliest girl in Slytherin House? Her girlfriends were green with envy when you asked her, and yet she said no to you. You probably thought that only ever happened to James Potter, or to the likes of me, though obviously not for the same reasons.

I suppose her unwillingness strengthened your resolve. You certainly began to chase her with your trademark ardour, and you never realised that drove her further away. She feared your advances were the prelude to some infamous prank, that you were bent on embarrassing her, as was your habit with Slytherins. She knew it was all a joke to you - school, girls, life in general. You never seemed to think beyond the moment. You would play around, have some fun at another's expense, and move on merrily. But she had no desire of being trifled with. She had her pride, and would not give in to the first bidder just because there might not be a second. She couldn't believe for one minute that you were in earnest. But you were, weren't you? You had fallen in love with her, as is prone to happen to Casanovas when they encounter much resistance.

I will not pretend that her lack of response had anything to do with me. We were close then, but not sweethearts. We never even considered that an option; I guess the word 'sweet' and all its connotations just made our stomachs turn. We shared a passion for Dark Arts, not for each other, though we got along singularly well. I am not sure I ever noticed the colour of her eyes; but I could tell you she had an elder wood wand measuring ten inches with a core of dragon heartstring, and was exceptionally gifted in every kind of magic that connects to the will, and had a great fascination with the uses of Lobalug poison, and her favourite spell book was Practical Uses for Dark Charms, the third and enlarged edition, banned in 1794. We understood each other. Apart from Toby Wilkes - God rest his soul - I never had a more intimate friend.

Oh, I know you will come up with that old story - that I forfeited any possible claim on her and betrayed her friendship when they sent her away from Hogwarts. It is true that I never attempted contact, while you tracked her down, sniffed her out like a faithful dog, and appeared on her doorstep during school holidays when you should have been at home or wherever you were living then; and that later, when she went to university like the more fortunate Muggles do, you would wait for her to finish class and take her for a ride on that ridiculous flying motorbike.

No, I did not go looking for her. What good would it have done? She was no longer part of the wizarding world. She was no longer to practise magic. What use was I to her, and she to me? We no longer shared the same concerns, no longer struggled with the same problems. We could no longer assist each other. Our alliance had lost its relevance for the time being. We could not pretend it was not so. She was temporarily lost and that was it.

To you, of course, it was only the beginning. You still had not caught your prey and you were not about to give up on it. You thought she must be vulnerable in her misery - far away from her family who loved her so much that they had spoiled her rotten; from her friends who seemed despicable to you but to whose company she had grown accustomed; from the magic that had been the true passion of her life; from Quidditch and the racing brooms she cherished; from the marvels of Hogwarts and the cosiness of Hogsmeade; from cauldron cakes and chocolate frogs and fizzing whizzbees and you; from all that made a young witch's life worth living.

She was miserable. She tells me so. She behaved impossibly towards her foster parents and sister, even though they cared and meant well. She was unhappy at school. She found she had fallen behind on her Muggle peers, having spent five years studying Charms and Potions and Transfiguration and the lot instead of Maths and Chemistry and English and whatnot. Suddenly she was a stranger in her own country, and she stood out, and instead of bright she appeared dim. You know that she is proud; she found it all hard to swallow.

Could I have eased her pain? No. I would not have known how. I had nothing to contribute to her new life.

You, not surprisingly, were of a different opinion. You thought you'd attempt to console her. I suppose you reasoned that now she was alone, she would be more susceptible to your charms. She had no one else who knew the straits she was in, who knew where she came from and how and why she made weird things happen all around her.

I saw the photo, the one you had taken in 1979, with the two of you on that preposterous motorcycle. You are trying hard to pass for a Muggle, wearing shiny leather boots and faded jeans and a t-shirt saying that your body is in danger - I am rather inclined to say that hers was, judging by the disgusting grin on your face and that greedy hand on her thigh - and she, looking her spiky pale self in a grey dress, is all smiles as she flings her arms around you, behind you on that stupid chrome monster. Maybe you did give her a few moments of happiness. She has, after all, a predilection for fast conveniences, be they brooms or bikes or that showy motorcar she drives now, and maybe the kick of speed made her forget her troubles for a while. Yes, I suppose you made her happy, in a way. She kept the photo on the mantelpiece even after you had disappeared to Azkaban without a word to her. She is still fond of you, I daresay.

She tells me you proposed to her then. Have you ever wondered why she said no, once again, despite all your efforts to please her, and despite her obvious affection for you? You did not understand then, and I doubt you understand now. Ask yourself why you proposed to her in the first place. 1979 - Is not that the year your precious friend Potter made Lily Evans his wife? Why, it is. Your merry little band was breaking apart, its leader forsaking the role of Chief Prankster in favour of that of Benedick the Married Man, and his followers dispersed. Nothing is the same once a woman enters the stage. She assumes prime importance, becomes the centre of the universe, and before you know it, your good friend has sown his wild oats. He settles down into suburban bliss, keeps a garden, fosters an heir, that sort of thing. And where does that leave you? From now on, you will be a trespasser, an intruder, no matter how much the little wife may like you and insist that you are always welcome.

In 1979, you were suddenly alone. Lupin and Pettigrew were there, but it just wasn't the same without Potter; besides, they too were courting, no doubt. How ironic that you should have been the one left behind. Your thoughts wandered back towards Brynhild, who still hadn't given you what you wanted and, by keeping you dangling, had only increased your appetite. I am sure that before you left the house that day you appraised yourself in the mirror and said, 'Who can resist this visible personification of absolute perfection? Am I not handsome, charming and good-humoured, and affluent to boot? Even the wilful Miss Bromley cannot deny that this is true.' Indeed she could not; but she rejected your offer anyway.

Do you still not know why? Ah, Black. I almost pity you. You do not understand her at all. She is still a mystery to you.

Know this: she was nothing like Evans. No beauty, no charm and no wealth were ever going to convince Brynhild Bromley to give up building her own life and instead to start breeding at the tender age of nineteen. She was studying, you dolt. She wanted to be someone. If she was barred from witching, she would make it the Muggle way. All she thought about was proving herself - showing the wizarding world exactly who it had rejected. She wanted to shine. Your offer was to lock her away. It didn't appeal to her for one second, no matter how devoted a husband you would have been. Marriage, a household, babies - all they would do was break her progress, and the honour of being Mrs Black counted for little compared to the brilliant career that certainly lay in store for her.

You may have hoped to sway her decision by offering her physical pleasure. Maybe if you kissed her expertly enough and touched her in all the right places, she might acquire a taste for it and bind herself to you, if only to have you always near to address her needs. But you miscalculated. She was not interested. She was not ready. Not everyone matures at the same pace. What seemed near to you was still far away for her. She let you kiss her because you seemed to like it, but there she wisely drew the line. If you had savoured her further, you would have found her sour, and she in turn would not have enjoyed you.

A popular saying has it that opposites attract. I do not wish to deny it; in her case and yours it appears to be true. But I do argue that opposition rarely leads to success, and that the attraction wears off as the differences gain more prominence. When it comes to the crunch, you are undeniably incompatible with each other. You have different wants and different priorities. You jar.

Yet I will agree that the wheels could have run more smoothly once you had figured out how to make the cogs catch, but that required patience of a kind you never possessed. If, however, you had allowed her to do it, at her own time - well, your story might have been different. But being who you are, it did not occur to you that she had qualities that you lacked and which she would gladly have put to your use. She would have reasoned for you. She would have plotted for you. She would have steered you, and directed that wild energy in you towards a target. She would have reined you in. You could have avoided the Pettigrew fiasco if you had come to her first instead of hot-headedly rushing after the little rat.

I don't know what you were thinking of when you started courting her. Why pick a woman like that if you were going to leave her excellent scheming brain idle? Can it really be that you were only interested in getting into her knickers? Did you really find her attractive, when she is all that you have scorned in others: skinny, lank, messy-haired and large-nosed, a Slytherin and a Dark sorceress at heart? You have given me reason enough to believe such a constitution is revolting to you, but for her you make an exception. That is what they call a crush, I suppose. I can't say I know what that must be like. I make it a point to think with my head.

Still, however blind and clumsy you were, you sowed something. You somehow won her over, convinced her of your good intentions and, she tells me, she was not entirely averse to the idea of being yours someday. Only, even before the harvesting time had come, you had got yourself shipped off to Azkaban through your own sheer stupidity. When she was finally ready for you, you weren't there anymore. She waited - she did not know what had happened, she lived among Muggles.

Years later, she heard of your escape on the television news. For two years you roamed Britain and remoter corners of the earth, without a word to her. Did you try and fail to find her, or were you too preoccupied with the Potter boy to bother? I cannot say I cared. The principal thing was that you left her alone.

You didn't for long. I should have made the connection earlier. I had noticed a shaggy black stray hanging around the neighbourhood where she lived and sniffing the garbage cans. But I little imagined the scent it was looking for was hers. Then, of course, came that fateful day the Dark Lord returned and Dumbledore in his peacemaker mode urged the two of us to shake hands in the hospital wing. You bounded in as a dog.

Yes, so you are here now. Unfortunately your timing is a little off. It usually is - that is one of the reasons why you are a lamentable potions maker. Back then you were too early. Today you are too late. Another has taken the place that you left vacant.

This duel, Black, is absolutely pointless. Even in the unlikely case that you could curse me to a pulp, she will not take you back, and not just because she will be angered at your treatment of her best friend. You ruined your chances fourteen years ago. Whatever looks or lure you once possessed have long been eroded by Azkaban. Contemplate yourself for a moment: what woman in her right mind would want to tie her fate to yours? You are a pathetic, wasted, useless, half-mad shadow of the man you once were. You have forsaken your family's heritage. You have failed to build one of your own. All you retain of the Blacks is their undeniable cretinism, their doom, their decline. Nothing ever came of all the promise you showed, the qualities that invariably put you ahead of me in the world's esteem when we were younger. You neglected the gifts that were yours and accomplished nothing at all.

This alone is unforgivable in itself. It was your duty to put your talents to use. You are, at the end of the day, a wastrel and a prodigal. The best you can hope for is that she will pity you and not cast you aside in your hour of need; but you cannot expect her to invest her life in a venture already lost. She is not a charitable institution. She has herself to think of.

You have thrown your life away for a cause that was hopeless from the outset - Potter and Evans were already dead, no action of yours could bring them back. Your awkward attempt at taking revenge for them collapsed on your own head. The result of your rashness, of your blockheaded, foolhardy behaviour, is that you are a fugitive, internationally signalled as a mass murderer. How can you be so deluded as to imagine she might want to take your name? It is irrevocably stained. Scandal lends interest to a man only when he gets away with it. If he gets caught, he is merely pitiful.

Whether you are guilty or not is a matter of no consequence. She would not mind the crimes. She certainly does not mind mine. But she does not feel called upon to try and save a sinking ship. The difference between you and me is that I will survive where you will not. Whatever pit I am buried in, I will crawl out. What is the merit of a proud family tree like yours if it can so easily be cut down? It is better to be an ineradicable weed that keeps pushing up despite all efforts to exterminate it. I made sure my name was cleared and I walked free despite all I have done; you damned yourself, and your name was tarnished and you imprisoned for all you have not done. It is your own fault. Unlike you, I know my limits. I realised in time that I would need help in order to keep myself from drowning, and I appealed to Albus Dumbledore, the single most impressive champion anyone could wish for. He would have been at your beck and call if you had deigned to trust him. But you, and Potter too - in all your misplaced pride you spurned his help from the first. It was all a game to you, wasn't it, Black? Well, you played and lost - everything. You have had your bit of fun. You paid it dearly, but you had your pick. Don't come whining now.

In the meantime I have taken your place. And what of it? You were not there to claim it. As soon as I saw her again, that night in London, I knew she and I were looking for the same thing and had found it at the same time. We have always been parallel beings; we understand each other's needs. Some minds are tuned in to one another. Hers and mine are. The gap caused by years of separation was bridged in mere minutes; despite different experiences, we were who had always been. We talked, nothing more, and it was natural and easy.

I realised at once that she was a godsend and that I must not let her go. If there is one thing of which you and I have the same understanding, it must be the preciousness of solid friendship. I had friends, a long time ago, much like you had Potter and Lupin and Pettigrew. They all died of unnatural causes or proved unreliable, and so for years I fought my battles on my own. True, there was Hogwarts, and some of my colleagues there became more than just acquaintances, but none of them shared my mindset, my love of Darkness and my fascination with all that is twisted. They were - they are - too conventional, too good, too soft, too nice. Sometimes they just bored me to death, and I would almost wish for the company of a few Death Eaters who were less easily shocked.

Now she - she is even better than they ever were. She tells me she has made a career out of prosecuting people. She is vicious on the right side of the law - that is an art, verily. All around her is corruption and intrigue and dubiousness, and at times she has to struggle not to lose her footing, but she adores manoeuvring and takes pride in her skilfulness. She loves to talk about it, and it is a joy to listen to her mocking justice and its self-styled servants.

There is nothing as valuable as a good ally. I don't necessarily mean one of the powerful, Dumbledore kind. I mean an intellectual ally, someone at your wavelength, someone who will back you up regardless of right or wrong and purely for the sake of a beautiful plot. More than half the satisfaction of scheming derives from sharing it with a kindred spirit, a connoisseur who can admire your handiwork. Such people are rare. I had rediscovered her by chance and would spare no effort to cultivate her friendship. I can be pleasant, if I want, and in her company it is notably easier than in anyone else's.

She looks upon me as I look upon her: as someone stable, reliable and familiar, with whom there is no need for inhibition. There is nothing either of us could want that the other cannot give. What we do not have is not worth having. Between the two of us there can be no space for you. We fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and you have become entirely redundant. When she took up with you, it was by default of me. You have nothing to add, nothing to offer that could lure her from my side.

Love, you say?

Don't make me laugh. What is love but an unstable chemical reaction that burns briefly and then fizzles out? There is no rational basis for it. It cannot last. It is a trick of nature that draws two people to each other for the sole sake of procreative copulation, and by the time the spawn is reared, the chemistry has served its purpose and fades away, leaving boredom and resentment and broken lives in its wake. And that is your trump? Oh do give it up - you do not stand a chance. But if you still think you can win her, by all means try your luck. Be my guest, if you really fancy a cold morsel off my plate.

Oh yes.

Love is your weakness, Black. You are the slave of your emotions. You have handed me a knife. I simply had to twist it for you.

You will agree that no one person can be devoted to both of us. Neither of us could support the thought of sharing someone's affection with the other. One of us must back off. As far as I was concerned, that one must be you. I helped her make a choice. I have taken the liberty of stealing your thunder. Only yesterday when I received your challenge I offered her a small jewel, a ring of white gold, and to seal our contract, she - worshipped me with her body, which, believe me, is a very restrained way of putting it.

She was most eager - embraced, stroked, caressed, kissed every conceivable surface of this mortal coil you had destined to be werewolf bait. Every feature you have mocked she found pleasing and preferable to you. She aroused me with wanton words and touch and with the spectacle alone of her long naked body, stretched out invitingly before my eyes. I fondled her, stirred her, stimulated her senses until she thrilled with lust and delight and yearned for me even more. She drew me into the warm, moist softness of her sex; she moaned under my careful administrations; she clung to me as if for dear life, wrapping her arms and legs around me and pressing her thighs against my sides; and I could feel shudders of ecstasy run through her as she came.

Ah, the sight of Brynhild sated. There is a blush on her pale cheeks, her parted lips and her small breasts look fuller than before, and between her legs there blooms a voluptuous rose of pink flesh. But it is not for you to look upon. All this I have taken for my own.

She must have told you by now. Is that why you are late - because you want to face me dry-eyed?

Yes, my heart would bleed for your loss if I didn't hate you quite so much. As it is, your misery and outrage only give me exquisite satisfaction. This experience has been most rewarding on all fronts, and you will finally have to acknowledge my superiority. You have had your moment, Black; it is long past now, and this is mine. Accept it with all the dignity you can muster.

"Oh there you are then, Black - finally."

"Snivellus! You greasy, filthy - Petrificus To-!"

"- Protego! ... Well, I never expected it to be much."

V. Challenge Title: Black versus Snape

Summary: Severus Snape and Sirius Black, during their time at Hogwarts, find themselves falling for the same girl. What happens years later when Sirius gets sent to Azkaban, leaving the love of his life behind for a waiting and wanting Severus?

Rules:
1. The female character must be involved with and/or interested in Sirius.
2. The female character must also have a strong devotion to Severus.
3. Sirius Black has to be sent to Azkaban (per canon).
4. The female character and Snape must get together, or grow close, once Sirius is out of the picture.
5. Sirius must eventually escape from Azkaban (per canon).
6. Sirius must confront Severus, the female character, or both once he returns from Azkaban.

Notes:
1. The female character of Sirius and Severus's fancy can be either original or canon.
2. No Time-Turners. The female character has to be Marauders' era.
3. All standard SH rules and submission policies apply.