Chapter 42: Snape, I Want You to Serve Me
Remus Lupin was the first to notice Regulus Black.
He felt it at once, a prickling shift in the air that made his spine tighten. His expression changed by a fraction as he turned and spotted Regulus standing quietly at the far end of the corridor. Without a word, Lupin jabbed James Potter in the ribs with his elbow.
Regulus lifted an eyebrow.
A beastlike instinct?
James followed Lupin's line of sight. The grin froze on his face. His fingers tightened around his wand on reflex, alarm flashing through the forced hostility in his eyes.
Peter Pettigrew made a small sound and immediately shuffled behind Lupin as though Lupin were a shield.
Sirius Black looked over as well.
Two pairs of grey eyes met, and the sharp, mocking smile on Sirius's face slowly disappeared.
For a moment, the corridor held its breath. Malicious laughter still hung in the air like smoke, but the sound had lost its warmth. The brothers stared at each other from a dozen feet apart, and something old and complicated stirred in the space between them.
Sirius's thoughts slid, unbidden, into memory.
He remembered James earlier, swearing he would vent his frustration and teach Regulus a lesson, only to return looking as if someone had scooped the life out of him with a spoon.
He remembered Remus describing that "lesson" in a low voice afterwards, describing a fight so brief it bordered on despair.
He remembered childhood, too. Regulus, quiet at their mother's side, polite and watchful, and yet always capable of things Sirius had clawed for with effort.
And he remembered the past weeks at school. Glimpses of Regulus hurrying through the library, cutting down corridors, moving between classes with thick books hugged to his chest. Always alone. Always studying, or on his way to study.
Sirius had always thought it looked dull. Rigid. Another sign of the family's chains.
But standing here, feeling the pressure Regulus exuded simply by existing, Sirius's perspective shifted.
Had the gap become this wide without him noticing?
Not just a gap in raw magic, suffocating as it was, but a gap in choices. In direction. In the willingness to commit.
"Seen enough of the show?" Sirius said at last.
His voice was drier than usual, carrying that stubborn refusal to bend, but his eyes did not meet Regulus's directly. They slid aside to the stone wall, as if looking away cost less than looking down.
Only then did Regulus move.
His footsteps rang clearly against the stone as he approached, steady and unhurried. He did not spare James, Snape, or anyone else more than a glance. He stopped between the two groups and looked at Sirius as though Sirius were the only person who mattered.
"Bullying someone who is alone is how you prove your courage and find fun?" Regulus's voice was calm. "If that is the case, then Gryffindor courage is far too cheap."
James opened his mouth, ready to bite back.
Then he remembered.
The cold warning. The humiliation he still could not scrub out of his bones.
The words lodged in his throat.
Not yet, he told himself, angry and tight. I am not ready.
Regulus kept his gaze on Sirius. His tone remained level, almost indifferent.
"You waste time and energy on this, and it will do you no good. The world will not keep making room for jokes and games."
He let that settle, then continued.
"If you do not want to find yourself one day without even the ability to protect yourself, or the people you want to protect, you should start thinking seriously about what your magic is for."
He spoke like someone stating a fact, not like someone offering a sermon.
"And you should think about how to make it useful."
Sirius heard the words, and what unsettled him most was that he did not hear gloating in them. He heard something else. A warning shaped by knowledge. Advice given because blood still mattered, no matter how loudly Sirius swore it did not.
His chest tightened as though something invisible had hooked under his ribs.
He wanted to snap back, loud and scathing. To say he did not need guidance from a Slytherin. From this brother who had chosen their family's house and carried their name like a blade.
He wanted to say he lived freely, and he would protect the people he loved in his own way.
But Regulus's words struck like ice.
Sirius thought of the way the air at home had changed. The careful wording in his parents' letters. The names that were mentioned and the names that were not. Cousin Bellatrix, growing more feverish by the month, as if she had found religion and decided to become its knife.
Perhaps Regulus was right.
And that realisation made Sirius more irritable, not less.
"My business is none of yours," Sirius snapped.
He turned sharply to James and the others, refusing to let Regulus see anything else on his face.
"Come on. This is boring."
James hesitated, still stung, still hungry to strike back, but Lupin's hand caught his sleeve with a gentle, firm tug.
They followed Sirius down the corridor, retreating with a speed that did not match their earlier swagger. Their backs looked rushed, as if the castle itself had become too narrow.
When they were gone, only Regulus and Severus Snape remained.
Snape moved quickly, wand in hand. A cleaning charm stripped the slime from his robes in a few sharp flicks. He dragged his wand over his soaked hair next, forcing it into something less pathetic, though the damp still clung stubbornly near his temples.
His face remained dark, but the look he threw at Regulus was sharper than anger alone. Vigilance. Suspicion. And a raw edge of shame at being seen like this.
"I do not need your help, Black," Snape rasped. "I do not need charity from any pure blood young master."
Regulus did not look surprised.
Severus Snape was brilliant. His aptitude for Potions was obvious even to people who did not want to admit it, and his interest in darker branches of magic ran deep.
He was also dangerously sensitive, pride and resentment knotted together by years of being looked down on. He craved power, recognition, and a place among those who had always treated him as less. Yet he distrusted any hand offered from that world, convinced it must be holding a chain.
To Regulus, that made Snape valuable.
A future Potions master, a student with genuine depth in Dark Arts theory, meticulous and stubborn enough to endure what would break others.
Handled correctly, Snape's value exceeded Avery's, and perhaps even Hermes's.
"Charity?" Regulus repeated. His voice stayed flat. "Do you think I stood here to enjoy your misery, or to savour the feeling of rescuing you?"
Snape's mouth tightened. He said nothing, but his eyes answered clearly.
"You are wrong," Regulus said. "I was passing through. They were blocking my way. As for you…"
His gaze swept Snape once, clinical rather than mocking.
"Your talent in Potions is praised even by Professor Slughorn. Your understanding of Defence Against the Dark Arts, or rather certain specific fields of magic, also exceeds most of your peers. What you have is more valuable than the noisy ones who can only recite their family trees."
Snape's shoulders tensed. The words hit the most contradictory place in him. He hated pure blood arrogance, but he still wanted to be seen, truly seen, by the people who had always acted as though he were unworthy of air.
Regulus let the moment breathe, then his tone cooled again.
"However, if you keep wasting yourself on childish confrontations with Potter and his friends, or if you are satisfied with nothing beyond school texts, then you will always be reacting. Always defending. Your talent will be buried."
Snape's eyes narrowed, suspicion sharpening into something more dangerous.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
Regulus took one step closer and lowered his voice so only Snape could hear.
"It is simple. Accepting help is not shameful, Snape. You cannot rely only on yourself, not when the knowledge you want is monopolised by certain people."
He held Snape's gaze.
"I can provide channels. Opportunities. Access to books you would not otherwise touch, and limited exchange in certain fields. In return, I will want your insights in Potions, and in your more obscure lines of study."
Regulus did not over explain. He kept the offer precise, the terms vague enough to be safe, tempting enough to sting.
"You can take time to think," he said.
Then he turned and left, footsteps fading as he rounded the corner and disappeared.
Snape stood alone in the corridor, his mind churning.
Regulus Black's words echoed like a curse.
The humiliation still burned, but the impact of those sentences burned hotter.
Black had seen his talent.
Black might even know he was studying darker magic on his own.
Was the offer real, or was it a trap?
Was Black recruiting him, or simply planning to use him?
Yet, however much Snape mistrusted the world, he could not deny the truth in one point.
What did fighting Potter and the others earn him, besides filth on his robes, laughter in his ears, and time he would never get back?
School lessons were not enough. Not enough to give him real power. Not enough to change his life. Not enough to make him worthy of Lily.