Snape popped the crystal vial open, and a strange, curling scent began to rise from the mouth of the bottle—sweet, elusive, stirring.
"Smell it," he said softly, holding the bottle directly under Sirius's nose.
Sirius wrinkled his brow and recoiled slightly, taking a cautious step back, irritation flickering in his expression. But he couldn't resist inhaling, just a little.
"Love potion?" he asked, tone clipped with suspicion.
"That's right," Snape nodded. "What do you smell?"
"That's none of your business," Sirius snapped, refusing to answer. But the scent triggered a vivid memory. It was the same scent he'd caught faintly once in Slughorn's classroom at the start of term—soothing, mysterious, and dangerously intimate. It conjured the Forbidden Forest in misty midnight rain and the fresh-cut grass of the Quidditch pitch.
James had asked him the same question then. He had dodged it with a laugh.
He'd always believed he and James would be best mates forever. And as his friend, it was his duty to support James in finding his happiness.
"Who's it for?" Sirius asked warily.
"Just borrowing a hair," Snape said, flicking a stray strand from Sirius's shoulder and dropping it delicately into the potion. He swirled the bottle. "Now, it's attuned specifically to you."
The potion shimmered, turning completely transparent. The scent vanished.
Sirius took another step back, eyes wary. "I don't need that. I don't need help getting anyone's attention."
"You've never had trouble with girls, no," Snape agreed, watching him closely. "But who said it was for a girl?"
In Snape's opinion, the danger of Amortentia—the infamous potion of obsession—was woefully underestimated. Canon might've shown mostly girls dosing boys, but the magic didn't care about gender. Love potions were indiscriminate and volatile.
Poor old Tom Riddle Senior had once lived a fine life, courting a beautiful witch named Cecilia. But one careless sip of water, passed to him by the wrong witch, and he woke with a namesake son, no memory of how it happened, and nothing left to salvage.
Worse still, years later, love potions were being sold openly at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, with owl-order delivery straight into Hogwarts.
Snape, seeing that Sirius refused to take the vial, continued. "James hasn't left the Gryffindor Tower in days, has he? He missed today's Quidditch match. Do you think he's going to bounce back from this?"
"Don't glare at me like that," Snape said calmly. "What's done is done. Just like when you lot hung me upside-down in front of the entire school. We all have to live with the consequences."
Sirius stayed silent, his jaw clenched. But Snape saw the way his eyes narrowed, the way he already knew what was being implied.
"James must've told you he fancied Lily," Snape said. "But think about it—if you were Lily, would you be interested in someone who flashed his arse in front of the whole school?"
Sirius's wand was in his hand again, his eyes sparking.
"Relax," Snape said, shrugging. "I'm not here to provoke you. I'm trying to offer a solution. If James keeps spiralling like this, you're going to lose your best friend."
"I know you care about him. Sometimes, all it takes is one small push. A positive disruption. Something to snap him out of it."
Snape pressed the bottle into Sirius's hand. His voice dropped to a near-whisper.
"Keep it. Use it or don't. But remember—this is for him."
The wind blew damp and cold through the branches of the beech tree, whistling low.
Snape turned and walked back toward the castle. As he reached the stone steps, he glanced back. Sirius was still standing beneath the tree's shadow, staring after him.
Snape didn't know if he would use the potion. But he knew one thing: Sirius Black's world revolved around James Potter.
When he stepped into the Entrance Hall, Snape saw Filch hunched over beside Madam Pince, the two of them whispering fervently about something.
Curious, Snape sat at the outermost bench, craning his neck, trying to eavesdrop.
If only he had one of the twins' Extendable Ears.
"Yes… found her in the village," Pince was murmuring. "Her mother abandoned her. Too frail…"
"Can I see her?" Filch asked gruffly. "Poor thing… Let me look after her, Irma. I'll take care of her."
Snape was leaning so far he nearly fell off the bench.
"Sit up straight!" Filch barked suddenly, appearing right beside him, startling Snape half to death. "If you're not hungry, you can sit in my office!"
Then he wandered off humming, carrying bits of roast chicken and beef on a napkin.
The next time he appeared in the Great Hall, he wasn't alone.
A kitten trailed behind him—small, grey-furred, with watchful eyes. He named her Mrs Norris.
February blurred into March. The weather stayed foul: damp, windy, unforgiving.
And sometimes, when nobody was looking, Snape and his small group could be seen huddling together in a quiet corner, joined now and then by a pale, straw-haired boy with a careful smile—Barty Crouch Jr.
Among them, especially Abraxas, praise for Barty flowed freely. Abraxas even tried to shove his quill into Barty's hand more than once. Without him, their Defence Against the Dark Arts essay on how to repel Dementors might never have been finished.
One afternoon in the library, Barty hesitated, then nonchalantly balled up a piece of parchment and dropped it by Snape's foot.
Snape pretended to fumble his book, crouching to retrieve it—and the paper—before slipping both into his sleeve.
But when he looked up, Madam Pince's vulture-like face loomed above him.
"What did you do to that book, you wicked child?" she shrieked.
"Defilement! Desecration!" Her face went red with fury. She looked ready to keel over.
Snape grabbed his things and bolted from the library.
In the safety of a deserted corridor, he unfolded the parchment.
Written in neat, deliberate script were just a few words:
They want us to join now.
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New translation : Naruto : I Got "Return by Death" Kind Of Cheat
New story translated ! This one is interesting, give it a try !