It all started with one command, though one could argue it had been building up for weeks now, maybe even months.

The first link in the massive chain of events that led to Sirius Black's destruction was three words uttered from the mouth of none other than Severus Snape.

Sirius had been ordered by Professor Slughorn to pass Snape the lacewing, after Sirius had repeatedly ignored the snivelly little shit's commands. Sirius glared at Snape from under his long ebony fringe as he reluctantly tossed over the bottle of ingredient, and Snape had snagged it from the air with a smug smile and a muttered "Good boy Black."

James had raised an eyebrow and silently flipped off Snape's hunched shoulders, whilst Remus had rolled his eyes and continued to add lacewing to his own potion. But for some reason, the comment filled Sirius with anger, and three minutes later he found his shaking hands clenched around his wand as he pointed it straight at the back of Snape's greasy hair. James had grabbed his hand and forced him to lower it, shooting him a confused and slightly concerned look, but Sirius had just huffed in annoyance, instead grabbing a knife and forcefully slicing his dittany, imagining the little green stem as being Snape's neck. And that was enough for Sirius then.

Throughout the next two weeks, Snape continued to poke sly little comments of such a manner at Sirius, and each time, he got more and more angry. He finally reached breaking point seventeen days later, in Transfiguration. He'd been so distracted trying to catch Marlene McKinnon's eye that he'd lost focus on the spell they were attempting to master. Much to the annoyance of the rest of the class, McGonnogal had kept them there an extra seven minutes until Sirius managed to successfully turn his owl into a pair of opera glasses. When the class was let out, Sirius had been subjected to a long, sarcastic round of applause from all the Slytherins, started, predictably, by none other than Severus Snape. Well, Sirius snapped, whipped out his wand, and before anyone could stop him, successfully manifested a half-couldron of Stink Sap above Snape's head, pouring all over him.

James had fell about laughing when he found out, but Sirius was less satisfied, and spent the two month's weekend detention with a very unamused Professor McGonnogal quietly contemplating why Snape was trying to fuck with his head as he scrubbed trophies with a Muggle toothbrush. He was a horrible little git, that was obvious, but lately, he'd gone from resentful mutterings and glares to condescending little remarks that somehow managed to worm their way into Sirius' head every time and burrow there.

After his first detention, which ended at 11pm, Sirius returned to the dormitory on a Sunday night to a tired-looking James, a half-asleep Remus and an unconscious Peter, and pulled out his History of Magic essay, attempting to focus on bullshitting ten inches whilst James talked his ear off.

"What is up between you and Snivelly? Why's he getting to you so much?"

"I dunno." Sirius shrugged, blinking blearily and trying to re-focus on the blurry parchment in front of him.

"There must be some reason he's getting such a reaction. I mean, you poured Stink-Sap over his head, for Merlin's sake! Probably the closest he's ever gotten to shampoo but still. Don't tell me that was just a clever ploy to get the little git to take a shower. What's the problem?" He persisted.

"I dunno James! He's just being Snivelly, I guess. Moony, where the hell is your essay I need help with this."

"If I let you copy me, how will you learn?" Remus yawned.

"If you don't let me copy you, then I'm gonna land another month of detention and you'll never see me again at the weekend. Also, I'll be stuck doing so much detention that I won't have time to do any homework, and it'll be an endless cycle, so really, it's in both your and my best interests to let me copy your homework." Sirius retorted, scowling down at his parchment and scratching out the last two sentences.

"Fiiine." Remus groaned, digging through the stack of paper sat next to him and pulling out a particularly neat ten inches of filled parchment. "But this is the last time, I swear!"

Sirius grinned.

"That's what you always say, Moony my dear."

A week later and Sirius was already beginning to feel the effects of both his long-winded detention and his intense procrastination. He'd hardly slept in the last two days, desperately trying to catch up on all of his homework with no help from an unforgiving Remus. At the current moment in time it was four in the morning, and they had to be up at seven, so Sirius had decided against sleep, as it would only make him more tired, and had made several secretive trips to the kitchen for coffee. He was sat straight up in his bed, clutching the warm beverage and listening to the peaceful sounds of his best friends sleeping. He heard a light snort come from Remus, and a small smile played around his mouth.

His friends knew he was bisexual, without him having to tell them, naturally. Sirius didn't really label himself. He flirted with pretty much everyone, especially the girls who hardly ever got any attention, because he enjoyed the way their faces lit up. Of course, he'd never talk to said girls after he'd slept with them and either thrown them out or snuck back to his dormitory, but Sirius liked to think of himself as a rather good person, if not somewhat of a whore. The fact didn't really bother Sirius, after all, he was a teenager, an extremely good looking one if he did say so himself, and he fully intended on settling down with someone one day, so in his mind, there wasn't anything wrong with sleeping around right now. But recently, he'd been feeling overly affectionate towards the scrawny, brown-haired lyncanthrope snoring in the bed over from him. It didn't bother Sirius, but he had failed to mention it to any of his friends, preferring instead to privately enjoy the moments he spent with his Moony. He was a rather private person, and preferred to keep things to himself.

Three days later, James and Sirius snuck out of the castle, Sirius clutching a small, silver package to his chest. They managed to get out undetected, and chose to reside by the side of the lake, in perfect view of the half-moon. Sirius anxiously tore the cellophane from the package off with his teeth, pulled off the top rather than just bending it forward, and ripped out the silver foil. Grinning, both Sirius and James reached forward and took one of the items contained in the box, put them in their mouths, held their wands aloft, and both muttered simultaneously "Incendio!"

Small flames rose from both of their wands, and they lit the cigarettes and extinguished the flames.

James began coughing immediately after he inhaled a huge drag of smoke without any oxygen, and Sirius let out a bark-like laugh, before demonstrating to his best friend how properly to take back the smoke. The two boys lay back in the somewhat damp grass, smoking their first cigarettes together.

"So, whatcha think?" Sirius asked, lazily pecking out the finished cigarette and tossing it into the lake.

"Er, I dunno. It was alright, I guess. Kinda smoky."

Sirius began to laugh.

"Really James? A cigarette is smoky? Never would have guessed."

"Shuddup." James muttered, his ears turning red. Sirius continued to laugh.

And for a few more days, it was fine. Sirius continued to enjoy time with his friends, and learned to partially tune out Snape. Life was good.

Until it wasn't.