The Decoding of the Heart

WARNING: This chapter is R-rated for Mindful Violence and dash of Slash. Those of you who thought I was this tasteful, refined writer (worst crimes: snobby referencing but mistakes in Latin) are about to be disillusioned. Second warning: this scene ran off on its own very bizarre logic.

J.L. Matthews and Riley (of "Slytherin Rising" and "Pawn to Queen" respectively – go and read them if you haven’t already) are responsible for stopping me from taking this episode to its worst possible conclusion. Lilith Morgana (of "No Angel" – go and read it) accepts responsibility for convincing me I was right to make Sirius a wanker. Sirius fans should note, though, that this is almost all his POV, and he doesn’t come that badly.

As usual, I am not as far into the ‘plot’ as I expected (no Salomé yet – she WILL BE in the next Chapter, I promise) but the section seemed to come to a convenient endpoint, and I thought it better to post half an intended chapter than none.

Reference notes at the end.

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Victory Over Apollyon

(Quite early in his Pilgrimmage, Christian does battle with the fiend Apollyon, the Destroyer, and defeats him. The fight proper is preceded by a lengthy verbal combat in which Apollyon tries to dissuade Christian from his quest in a somewhat nihilist fashion.)
 

Sirius pulled the first punch. It was a good minute before he delivered it, but the spell proved a more devious opponent than your average Imperius curse. It is one thing to resist the commands of an external authority, quite another to fight the demands of your own desires. Rationalised contempt for Severus wore thin and burst under pressure of the visceral loathing that was its real motor. Yet he held off ; he fought the spell hard.

Severus chuckled. " We’ll discount that one shall we? Hardly a fair exchange for your first year in hell. "

Sirius closed his eyes. Perhaps if he did not look at that detested face - all the more galling for its odd tranquillity - he could quel the urge to grind it endlessly in the dust.

That proved to be a mistake: reality was dislodged by imagination - and memory ; both were accompanied by Snape’s taunts slithering in his ear.

" You lost everything: friends, reputation, liberty. I walked free, with a second chance and a very comfortable living. You had nothing to call your own but the rats in your cell... Poor old Black... "

The fist found its target with little trouble.

* * * * *

The ‘children’ pressed up against the dome.

" Try your glasses ‘Mione - can you see anything? "

" I am! There’s nothing! I can’t hear them either. "

Harry whispered Sirius’ name over and over and over again.

"He’ll kill him. He has the wands."

" Sirius is stronger, " Ron ventured.

" Snape’s faster. And he ‘s got his shrieking-shack look."

Harry sank to the ground. He was going to lose the only parent he’d ever known. Hermione marched round and gripped his shoulders.

" No Harry, he hasn’t. I don’t know what Snape’s up to, but it isn’t in his interest to do Sirius criminal harm, and he won’t fight dirty with an innocent man.

Ron snorted.

"It’s just the blokey punch-up they’ve wanted to have for years. Snape only took the wands to set it up. We’ve got to stay calm. We need to get help. I can reach Diagon Alley by train. London Bridge to Charing Cross only takes ten minutes, then it’s just a stop on the tube. I’ll wait for someone to come along with their wand and tap the entrance and ask them to double-Apparate me back here "

" And do what? They won’t know how to break a spell like this either. Anyway, you’re right, and I don’t want Sirius getting into trouble if this gets about. "

" What shall we do then? " asked Ron.

" Nothing, " said Harry, heaving himself onto a pile of scaffolding planks.
 

* * * * *

There is limited gratification in a punch. The second (which admittedly had Snape sprawling) left Sirius feeling short-changed. The third year in Azkeban was therefore reimbursed by the Slimy Bastard’s reception of ten rapidly delivered kicks to the stomach and groin, generously counted as a single item. It took a while for Slimy Bastard to stagger to his feet and ask Sirius whether he had a variation for year four.

He had, but tried to stop himself from executing it. From some distant place, high above the dome’s ceiling perhaps, Sirius’ conscience was assessing his handiwork in rational horror.

Perhaps he could combat this through sheer force of will.

Or perhaps not. Desire was stronger than will.

A sudden-released spring landed him on Snape. Turning the Slytherin face-down in the dust, his (surprisingly undaunted) hands grasped the man’s hair. He pulled up the head and smashed it into the rubble. Then, as the potter wedges plastic clay, he repeatedly slammed and kneaded the face in the dirt.

He only stopped when he became aware that Snape had lost consciousness. He paused, feeling his blood race, and watched beads of his own sweat drop onto the back of Snape’s oh-so-well-cut jacket.

Let’s see you smirk now.

He turned the man over. For a moment, he liked what he saw.

The bits of gravel stuck to Snape’s eyelids shifted as they flickered open and quickly shut again. He began to choke, then abruptly spat.

Thank Merlin, he’s going to fight back.

But Snape had merely ejected a bloodied fragment of tooth.

" Four ".

Sirius recoiled from him.

" Call off the spell, Snape. I’ve got the message. "

" I don’t think so, not yet. " A whistle in the voice.

The urge to hit, hit and hit again welled up in Sirius. There had to be a way out.

It’s a Slytherin’s spell. Fight it sideways, like a Slytherin.

Decency was too distant to be of use. He needed a feeling, a strong gut feeling, to outmatch the desire to hurt.

Why DON’T I want to hurt him ?

General compassion had also fled, but, with a strenous effort at reflection, he considered the situationfrom all angles.

Harry would despise me.

I WON’T be seen as a murderer after years proving I’m not one.

He revolts me and I don’t want to touch him, but I’ ve no weapon.

I don’t want him to be right about me. (Better, better.)

I resent being manipulated by him.

Damned if I’ll be Snape’s puppet!

Yes, resentment. I have my pride.

It worked for a bit. Muttering tactics, Sirius circled the fallen wizard – which served only to rewind the spring. Severus propped himself up on his elbows and regarded him languidly, eyes still almost closed. He was perfectly aware that this supine posture would infuriate Black.

" Very clever; but why are you bothering to resist ? We don’t get out of here ‘til you deliver the twelfth blow. "

Sirius turned his back, and tried to focus on the nebulous walls of their prison.

" No-one would blame you. No-one would know. Why do you think I took the wands? "

Self Defence. Not violence.. Self Defence. Self. Self. Hold onto Self

" What the HELL do you want Snape ? "

He faced him again. The voice on its own was worse than the sight.

" Whatever makes these odds all even.  Then, Indifference."

Severus let his head drop back and gazed into overhanging fog as if it were a pretty sky.

" Of course, " he continued " this isn’t about what I want. "

He laughed. Sirius watched his throat ripple. A long, thin, exquisite throat - asking to be throttled.

He flexed his fingers.Happily, Snape’s head jerked forward again.

"Doesn’t this remind you of something ? Somewhere ? "

Sirius kept his mouth shut, but recalled a dark and bounded space, guarded by a hemisphere of leaves.

"Only now you have to act by yourself. You can’t hide behind Remus playing the beast for you. "

From his feet right though to the hairs on his head, Sirius’ skin prickled.

We all know what you can do without a wand.

He had survived Azkaban without a wand. He remembered exactly how. It was a very peculiar thing to experience a rush of panic and be relieved at doing so.

Say something, say anything. Words to keep centred on the head.

" Stop this Snape. For all the gods’ sakes – for your own sake – stop. You don’t know what I can do, you don’t know - even you can’t know – what horrors drive me. My memories are - sick - as anything Voldemort made you witness - or suffer.  I don’t - want - to kill you. I – never - wanted - to kill you. "

Even as he spoke, though, the hair on his legs thickened into fur, his skin absorbed his clothes, and he felt his arms pulling him down to the dust.

Stand up ! Stand up like a man. Stay upright, look up not down. Up to the sky. Up.

To prevent his arms becoming legs, he grasped his own hair – or tried to, for paws cannot grip as hands do.

I am not like Moony. I control my tranformations. I am still human in animal form. Control. I WILL NOT (but he knew how much stronger his animal form made him.)

" I think we both know exactly what you want."

Severus’ eyes travelled over his opponent’s body, noticing without surprise that it proffered its own weapon.

Now, surely, we are at the centre of the labyrinth: Severus faces the canine minotaur. To each it seems a logical conclusion to their strange history. The long-displaced encounter has returned, on target.

Sirius claws at his last thread of reason, which must guide him out. He keeps talking (even though it is all nonsense and his voice deepens) while his mind searches for the miraculous path.

"Eight more blows. Eight more appropriate blows. Remember Azkaban."

He has his clue. The level of violence is not exactly the issue. It is the significance, the symbolism,of the blows that Snape counts: he wants to receive poetic justice. Sirius must find an orderly substitute forthe messy reality of what he wants to do.

That’s it. A substitute. He feels fingers in his hair. With his hands returned and a clear thread to follow, he can arrest his transformation at the half-way point.

Don’t remember Azkaban. Block the memories, they’re too precise..

There is limited gratification in attacking with your mere body. What he needs is a weapon – a cold, exacting, weapon - to substitute for the one between his legs.

Don’t remember those Azkaban deaths.

He looks about him. His hands are itching to inflict punishment. They are drawn towards the ground, to which he can’t help stooping, for there he has seen exactly what he wants.

He siezes it. His grasp is secure. He stands up now, very tall, and steps back with an outstretched arm. Severus meets his gaze with deadened eyes.

Then, with swift movements and surefire aim, Sirius Black (being almost without sin) cast the first stone.

* * * * *

For Harry, Ron and Hermione, the twenty minutes that had elapsed since their elders disappeared into the dust nudged them from anxiety to a kind of hysteria. They fretted, they debated getting help again, they argued, they waited, they resorted to flippancy. They surmised the pair had tired themselves out, or finished each other off, all the while aware that the scene that would eventually come to light might well cut their laughter. Ron went off to get cold drinks. They gulped them down with desperate playfulness.
 
 
 

"Seven"

The three blows had been delivered to the cheek, shin and back of the neck (once Severus had made it to his feet.) Yes. Yess. Yesss. Part of the game was that Snape would never quite know from where and when the next stone was coming.

It slammed him straight in the teeth. He spluttered out another fragment.

"More. Again."

What irritated Sirius was that he couldn’t get him to cry out. It was as if the blows weren’t registering.

Well if he couldn’t hear their effects, he could at least see them.

"Take off your jacket."

Snape obeyed.

"And the shirt."

Sirius eyed the spindly body with contempt.

He cast the next stone, a hefty, sharp-edged lump of reinforced concrete. He saw blood and an incipient bruise around the region of Snape’s heart. It was, strangely, a second or two before Snape crumpled to the ground, on his knees, his neck bowed, but never begging for mercy, damn him.

"Again."

Only three to go. Sirius was overcome with sudden disappointment. Only three to go, and gratification from the powerful blows had already worn off. His desire was no longer appeased by its displaced expression, but goaded into greater intensity.

This could never be the equivalent of twelve years in Azkaban.

He recalled the Azkaban deaths. The special ones, the ones they turned into a spectacle, making their cell doors transparent so that they could all watch. (He’d learnt to anticipate such moments and transform back.)

The Ministry had never known.

And Sirius had never told - about the sexuality of Azkaban. It went without saying that prisoners could not relieve their instincts in the usual way prisoners do: that created a little feast for the Dementors to gorge on, and the strength of the despair that followed such snatched ecstasies made a poor bargain. After a few such attempts to get through the day, most prisoners resigned themselves to frustration, scarcely realising the force of what they’d pushed out of consciousness.

The Dementors would select unequally-matched men. What happened in the women’s section he didn’t know. The two cell doors would simply be opened, and the pair led out into the corridor. People in the farther cells could watch via the round security mirrors that routinely appeared whenever Ministry staff visited. What followed was inevitable and always the same: the stronger man would bugger the weaker one to death. The Dementors would feast on the survivor’s pleasure, which was excessive enough to drain the rapist completely. He was usually dead within hours.

The deathtoll tended to rise in the days that followed, the witnesses having been excited by the display. Sirius had known better than to look. He was rightly proud of his circumvention of Azkaban’s psychological snares.

Severus watched his opponent back away, hands again clutching hair.

"No slur on your identity I’m sure. It’s the violence that turns you on, not (he almost snorted) me."

Sirius appraised the curled-up figure. Nasty little queer (he was certain) He’d deserve it.

Now he knew all was completely lost; unless Snape had the sense to stop the spell; or fight back.

Or unless he could get ridof this pulsating urge to stab, so there was nothing left to restrain. It’s a Slytherin’s spell, attack it from behind.

So to speak.

He would have to knock Snape out.

Stab, rupture, stab again. Quickly, hurry. He calculated the blow carefully with his worn thread of reason: to the forehead, between the eyes. Ten.

Snape lay still. Sirius kept well away from him, but knelt on the man’s jacket and shirt. For this to work, it had to be as exact a substitution as possible.

He would keep talking, to stay focussed on the head, and this side of transforming. Whether the unconscious figure registered it or not, he would be told the worst that Azkaban brought out in you.

His hand trailed to his hind legs. He gave a precise account of how he - this - could fuck Snape lifeless, all the while carrying out the operation from which, through twelve years’ imprisonment, he’d wisely witheld.

It was the most satisfying climax he’d ever had.

In the slow-clearing light, Sirius saw his clothes reappear. Fur returned to skin. He’d won. He checked Snape’s garments for stains. None – he’d over-shot them onto the stony ground.

Snape was still lying in the same position, but Sirius heard him breathing unevenly. He went and turned him on his side. Snape choked. Sirius opened the mouth and carefully removed residues of gravel and bone. To his dismay, Snape met his eyes with the ghost of a knowing smile:

"Eleven".

He can smell it on my hand.

"And now the last blow."

"Never." Sirius replied. "It’s over Snape. I don’t need to."

"Twelve years, twelve penances."

"I won’t hit you again. We’ve settled."

"No".

"The lesson’s learnt Professor."

"Being?"

Ever the teacher. Sirius paused.

"That I’ve hated you beyond and without reason."

"Very Good. Ten points to Gryffindor."

Sirius actually smiled, but Snape’s dead gaze arrested him.

"And that some people, Severus, are their own Dementors."

Still the empty stare. How badly was Snape injured?

"Then you will understand if I insist on the twelfth penance."

Sirius would have exploded if he hadn’t been so satiated.

"Snape – Severus – you have my indifference. Enough. I could have killed you!"

"No, " Snape replied. "You couldn’t."

He fell silent, then seemed to gather strength to speak again.

"Some people Gryffindors especially with obvious exceptions are fundamentallyinstinctively decent. They don’t need rules. You preferred to humiliate yourself in my presence."

I stoned him half to death and he’s calling me decent.

"I deduced, I didn’t witness," Snape added. Sirius was convinced he was lying, but didn’t push it.

Snape’s injuries were showing up. His nose was more hooked than ever from the fourth round. The smoky walls were definitely thinning.

"Get the wands Snape, quickly. You’re badly hurt, I need to heal you and get us cleaned up before the kids see. "

"Can’t. We just let the charm wear off."

Dust was slipping down the walls now. Something in Snape’s expression made Sirius think he was hiding something else.

Hermione’s wand clattered to the ground. Sirius tried it. Nothing. He’d have to wait for his own. He tried to brush the dirt away from Snape’s injuries, but it was impossible with the ever-heavier fall of dust. Ron’s wand came down. Damn.

"You’ve forgotton the twelfth penance."

Sirus shook his head. "Drop it, you crazy bastard. I’m just going wait for your charm to wear off. I should have guessed all I had to do was wait it out."

He was startled to find his arm gripped by Snape’s skeletel fingers, and even more startled to see the hard, jet-like eyes take on the quality of ink about to spill.

I can’t handle this. He retreated behind a softened version of the usual persona he adopted with Snape.

"All right, all right. You’ll accept a penance, not a blow?"

Snape nodded. Something of Sirius’ schoolboy glee danced about his face.

This was going to be humiliating.

"Then, what I want you do is get a life."

Severus sank back, despairing.

"A defined task one I can complete and prove I’ve done within a given time."

There was no mistaking it now. Sirius the joker was back, and playing with him, but Severus was beyond loathing him for it.

"You know what I always hate most about you?"

" I’m a Slytherin Death Eater and got forgiven."

Sirius grinned.

"You flatter me. Nothing so profound. No, what I can’t stand is the sight of you. That’s all. Just the sight of you. "

Another wand landed in a cloud of dust. Harry’s.

"Now I could insist you get a nose-job, given it’s got to be reset anyway "

Snape could not have looked more horrified if he’d been facing a bout of Crucio.

" but, as your first step to getting a life, I’ll settle for a haircut."

"A haircut?"

"A haircut."

"Don’t mess with me, Black."

"Why not? It’s what I like to do. And you won’t get any other penance from me."

A pause.

"What proof do you want - before and after photos?"

Sirius chuckled. The Sneer returns; good.

"No – you’d cheat. Arrange to meet me when the deed is done."

Snape did not respond. His eyes had lost their focus, but he was trying to raise himself up. Sirius stopped him.

"Keep lying on your side."

"I want to see the sky."

A patch of blue had indeed appeared above them.

Alarm swept through Sirius again. Don’t go dying on me. Severus was clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. His nose had stopped bleeding, and there was little more than a trail of dried blood on his chest: surely it took more than six stones to kill a man? Somewhat gingerly, Sirius put his arms about Snape’s shoulders and propped him up.

* * * * *

* * * * *

 
 
 

Sirius saw three prowling shadows and his own wand descending. He caught it, repelled the dust at once and applied a cleansing spell to his victim.

Perhaps it wasn’t too bad, if there was no internal bleeding. He moved the wand around Snape’s body, murmuring healing charms.

Nothing happened.

He tried again. He kept the wand longer on a particularly nasty bruise showing through a tear in Snape’s trousers.

"You’re wasting your time."

"I don’t understand "

"The Dark Mark it made us immune to healing spells. Worse than immune. Had to use Dark cures, Muggle stuff or nothing. Pomfrey tried to use the Dark tricks, but I wouldn’t let her."

Sirius could well imagine.

"But the Mark’s gone! "

"Pretty much. This is an improvement. One tear from Fawkes would have burnt a hole in me before."

"There’s a Muggle Hospital near London Bridge, we’ll take you there."

"For a few flesh wounds? Don’t be ridiculous."

And a broken nose, and smashed teeth Let his have his pride.

"Help me stand up. The children aren’t to know ANYTHING of this."

Sirius complied. Snape kept his balance.

"That leg looks pretty nasty. Won’t you let me –"

"Oh that" .

Snape was at his dismissive best.

"You hit an old wound, that’s all well, three...."

He staggered.

"Very conscientious guard dog answered to the name of Fluffy."

He hit the ground again.

There was scrambling across the rubble.

"Sirius! Sirius! "

"Harry he’s alive!"

"What happened?"

"Are you hurt?"

The youngsters were all over Sirius. Only one person had observed the fourth wand dropping out of the sky.

"I’m fine, I fine – but Snape isn’t. We’ve got to get him - "

He froze. They looked about them. The Potion Master’s crumpled Muggle jacket and shirt were there, but their owner had gone.

Sirius let rip a string of words he didn’t usually use in front of Harry and Co.

"Calm down Sirius. He hasn’t splinched, so he can’t be on his last legs."

"Don’t underestimate him," muttered Sirius, thinking that it was a shame Hermione had no tits.

He managed to swear inwardly, then pointed his wand at himself.

"Finite incantatem."

"How many times did he hex you?" asked Hermione.

"Just the once," said Sirius, wondering if Hermione’s legs made up for the

breasts, or lack thereof. "Er, you try. Your wands are lying around here somewhere."

They dug around for their wands. Three ‘finite incantatems’ followed.

"Bastard hard-codes his spells. Bugger! Sorry, Hermione."

" Maybe we could reverse it . What did he use exactly?."

"You don’t want to know". (But he did touch himself very discreetly with his wand and whisper "moderatio", with no discernable result).

Hermione looked at him. She was altogether too sharp to turn him on. He was confident he could last out awhile.

"A variant of the Imperius curse, I think. Not had it used on me before. Look, Snape’s obviously the only one who can undo it, and we need to find him. I suggest trying Hogwart’s first . I don’t want another one-on-one. Are you all up to Apparating that far? "

Of course they were. They were licenced, you know.

They gathered up their things. A few seconds later, they were outside Hogsmeade Station.

"We could hire some brooms from Rosmerta, or we could borrow one of the boats: James and I worked out how to de-anchor them."

Sometimes it paid to have broken the rules.

They decided on the boats, with a speed charm, and ran down what was known as "Hagrid’s shortcut".

Hermione suddenly stopped.

"Get the boat ready – won’t be half a minute."

She disappeared, and re-appeared at the London building-site. The forgotten items were still there.

She wouldn’t have bothered, usually, but she remembered that in their original form Professor Snape’s jacket and shirt they were probably rather expensive. They didn’t have the excessive trimming that failed to hide the mediocre cut of Madam Malkin’s efforts.

He had been quite nice to her today, after all.

She picked up the clothes – on examination, they didn’t look too damaged to re-transfigure.

On examination, they were covered in black hairs.

An unfortunate error in her second year had made Hermione rather good at distinguishing human hair from other kinds.

She picked off a hair and scrutinised it. There was no mistake.

She’d not eaten much at the Ministry’s do, but her stomach heaved. No wonder Sirius was unscathed – but how badly had he mauled Snape? For those few critical moments, she had been too caught up with the boys and Sirius to see what had happened to his opponent.

* * * * *

 

And that, dear readers, is how you get Severus to the hairdresser’s, and his teeth replaced, before he falls in love.

Notes:

The whole scene is based loosely on a duel in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".

The technicalities of the idea for the Azkaban deaths is from Will Self’s pair of novellas "Cock and Bull" (end of the first one).

"Strange histories" is from Jacques Ages of Man speech in "As You Like It".

There are many biblical references : "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (Jesus to the men about to punish the woman taken in adultery). In the Old Testament, God frequently does things ‘with an outstretched arm’. There is a parable about Seed falling on Stony Ground. A prayer said on the Jewish Day of Atonement: "As the potter moldeth plastic clay .So the hands of the Lord shape me". To ‘wedge’ clay is to get rid of the airbubbles that would expand and make the pot explode in the kiln. It is done exactly as described.

"Whatever makes these odds all even" – a misquote from Act 3 scene 1 of "Measure for Measure" – "What’s yet in this that bears the name of Life? Yet Death we fear, that makes these odds all even". Severus counts on Sirius not knowing the original.