A/N: Fans of the Marauders should not read this. Those who believe James and Lily were fated for each other should not read this. Snape haters should not read this. Those who think Dark Magic is too serious to laugh at should not read this. Those who think that prejudice is black and white should not read this. Those who think innocents do not get killed in war should not read this. And while we're at it, decent human beings shouldn't read this either.

As canon portrays her, Bellatrix is a bigoted mad psychopath. But what she wasn't always? What if she was able to escape the madness?

Severus Snape was naked.

It wasn't a particularly pleasant sight. His mother would have shrieked, if she'd been the shrieking type. And the living type.

His body was covered with scars and bruises. The latest additions were a small one on his right cheek, a large one on his left chest, and a horrible blackening contusion on his right shoulder. Courtesy of Pettigrew, Potter, and Black, respectively.

He was rather embarassed about the one on his cheek. He didn't deserve to be hit by a cowardly dalopheron like Pettigrew. Even if he was being held by Black and Potter at the time.

He'd applied a thick healing potion - one he'd learnt to brew when he was eight, though he'd improved it since - on his cheek and chest. The shoulder, now, that was tricky.

He found a dirty sponge in the back of his cupboard, Scourgified it, loaded it with potion, levitated it in the air in a vertical circular motion, and moved so that it applied itself to his shoulder.

At least he'd managed to crack one of Black's ribs at the end of it. He supposed McGonagall would be giving him detention for that soon enough, once the mutt had finished whinging to Pomfrey about it. For that was the way things worked at Hogwarts - Gryffindors attack Snape, Snape gets punished. That incident with Lupin's beastly self last month was only an extreme example of the tradition. Sirius Black tries to kill Snape, Snape ends up with a life debt to Potter.

He'd kept track, once, of how many times his own ribs had been fractured. That was a couple of years ago.

He sighed.

It was a tough life being a half-blood in Slytherin. No-one in the House felt it worth allying with you because you were a halfie. No-one outside the House felt it was worth allying with you because you were a snake.

He'd had a friend, once. Up until six months ago.

She was called Lily.

He called her, once, what everyone else in his house called her. She wasn't his friend any more. He'd apologized. She told him to piss off. She told him he had bad friends.

He'd blinked at that.

Where was he supposed to get good friends from?

They didn't just come knocking on his door.

...

There was a knock on his door.

He blinked.

He flicked his wand to get his shirt, trousers, and robes on, and then opened the door.

The stern visage of Bellatrix Black met his stern gaze. His gaze quailed.

So much for the Good Friends bit. Bella had no friends. Then again, neither did he. But she had allies, minions. He wondered if he would ever get a minion.

"Black. Would you like to come in?"

He didn't expect her to say yes. His room in the Slytherin dorms - everyone above third year got their own room - was that of a poverty-stricken student. Plain. Clean. No teddy bears in sight. Books everywhere. Standard Hogwarts furniture instead of the luxurious fittings brought in by established Pureblood scions.

Scions like Bellatrix Black.

Her entry into the room - and especially her obvious avoidance of turning her nose up at it - meant that she was here to request assistance.

He offered her a chair. The chair.

She actually sat down on it. Without flinching or casting a cleaning charm first.

Must be serious assistance.

"I find myself in need of a Potions expert."

That made sense, he supposed. He was the best Potioneer in the school, no matter what Slughorn might say of his Gryffindor friend. Ex-friend.

Now he just had to hear what she wanted.

"In return, I won't Hex your balls off."

He considered this. He supposed it was a fair trade. She'd Hexed other boys' balls off before - it was a temporary loss, but a damn painful one. He liked his balls. He was quite attached to them, really.

"Have you a sample?" he asked the raven-haired witch, who handed it over. He looked carefully at the vial. It had the Black Family crest on it. It was bright pink and had small bubbles. Its meniscus was tinged with green. He frowned. He opened it, and sniffed it. Lemon, snotgrass, sulphur - he closed it quickly and proceeded to frown again.

"Did you ingest this?" he asked Bella, rudely.

"I am not certain," she replied. She seemed apprehensive, which was most unusual for her.

"Come with me," he said, stepping towards the door and holding it out for her. "If you are free now," he added, suddenly remembering that (a) she was a lady, (b) she was a year his senior, (c) she was a world above him in social status, and (d) his testicles were at stake.

"I am." She stepped out of the room, and followed him. He had a long and steady gait. Fortunately, so did she.

There were several wide-eyed stares at them as the pair marched side by side through the Slytherin Common Room. He realized that this would probably give him a week or two of protection from the rest of his house, before they worked out that he wasn't actually under her social aegis.

They arrived at the Potions Labs soon enough. It was in the dungeons, not far from their Slytherin dormitories. The better senior students, including Severus, had access to a student lab with Ministry-approved ingredients.

A couple of Ravenclaws were the only ones present. They took one look at Severus' companion and decided to put their brews under stasis and take a long break.

Bella smirked.

Severus didn't seem to notice, but headed for his favourite table instead.

She sat on a desk while he threw a few ingredients into a cauldron. In a couple of minutes, it was smoking away. Really smoking. Worryingly smoking.

Severus wasn't worried, so she calmed down. Once she'd placed a shield charm on herself.

He looked at her suddenly.

"You might want to put a shield on yourself, Black. If you are lucky, the next step will make this explode."

She blinked. If she was lucky?

She added a couple more shield charms. And got off the desk to move further away. Really far away.

He nodded at her when she was at the other end of the room.

He carefully put a couple of drops of her potion into the cauldron and then hastily cast at least three wards on the cauldron. He didn't move away.

She hadn't known it was possible to cast wards that fast.

Impressive.

Perhaps she would keep him around longer.

Wait a minute.

Correction - they had waited a minute. And it hadn't exploded.

Snape looked uneasily at the cauldron. He looked over the warded cauldron, stepped back, removed the wards, and looked into it again.

"Fuck."

She'd never heard him swear. Not like that. His cussing was more refined, more Druid than Dockyard. Which was odd really, given his background. She'd always figured it was overcompensation.

"What is it?" she asked uneasily.

He looked at her, and then cast some silencing wards around them. She recognized a couple, and wondered if he'd tell her the others if she asked nicely. As she had no clue how to ask nicely, she gave up on that avenue of thought.

"It's a Obsequium potion. If you ingest enough of it, you'll be susceptible to the suggestions of someone else. That someone else's blood is brewed into the potion. Every time you try to fight against it, there will be nerve damage. You'd face a choice of enslavement or madness."

Bellatrix didn't scare easily.

She was terrified.

Her world was falling apart.

She'd only found the sample by accident, in a freak circumstance involving an overheard conversation, a drunk mother, a senile House Elf, and judicial use of a Confundo.

She was its target.

Her parents wanted her married off to that uncouth brute Lestrange. She'd refused, earlier, multiple times.

Evidently, after Andromeda had eloped with the Mudblood, they were taking no chances with their next daughter.

She didn't know how long she was there, lost in thought, staring into space, when she heard Snape's voice.

"Black."

She blinked, then found herself with her wand in his face. She didn't know how it had got there. Damn reflexes.

He didn't look particularly perturbed.

"I could brew you an antidote. But you may wish to invest in some research before ingesting potions from someone you have no reason to trust."

She nodded, still pale.

"Would you like me to accompany you back to the dorms?"

She turned to him and gave him a blank look.

He seemed to realize, for the first time, that things were Really Serious. And that Bellatrix walking around with a half-dazed expression would do serious damage to her reputation. And to his, since he was the one last seen in public with her.

He nodded at her, left a vial of Pepper-up and Calming Potion next to her, and returned to his brewing table. He had a permanent list in his head of Potion variants that had to be tried.

An hour later, he looked up and was immediately struck by a most ominous wave of apprehension.

She had recovered. She was eyeing him, in the way a cat eyes a mouse.

Clearly, Bellatrix Black had a Plan. And he was in it.

This could be really bad for his medical insurance premiums. (Not that he had any.)

"Snape," said the witch.

He kept stirring.

"Isn't the world a wonderful place, Snape? So large, so full of life, so much lovely Dark Magic!"

He added some fairy wings to the brew.

"We Brits don't get out much, do we, Snape? Our view of magic is so limited, so constrained by our lack of experience. Did you know that in Asante magic, all you have to do is kill two albino babies to make a potion that gives you an instant Animagus form?"

He was chopping swiffel root. He nearly chopped off his finger.

"Have you ever wanted a little brother, Snape?"

He shuddered. He'd wondered about that actually. Given the number of times his father assaulted his mother in that way, it was a miracle he didn't have one. No, he was very grateful he didn't have siblings. It was hard enough looking out for himself.

"I've always wanted a little brother, Severus. Little sisters are boring. They always want to play with their dollies and they kick you in the shin when you chop their dollies' heads off."

He felt a moment of sympathy for Narcissa Black, but it soon wore off. Playing with headless dollies was probably character building or something.

More importantly, her use of his first name spelled Trouble.

"You're going to be my little brother, Sevvy. And we're going to explore the world."

The potion exploded.