Severus had not been having a pleasant week. The castle, already a cacophony of chatter and stupidity on the best of days, had descended into chaos with the arrival of the Triwizard Tournament. Students were twice as unbearable, shrieking in corridors, swapping half-baked theories about the tasks, attempting ridiculous hexes to impress visiting schools. Classrooms were left in disarray, cauldrons cracked and ruined, the dungeons reeking of burnt lacewing flies and scorched hair. Staff meetings were equally intolerable, Karkaroff dripping self-importance and Madame Maxime sweeping through the castle as though it belonged to her. Add to this the constant need to watch Potter stumble toward disaster, and the whispers of the Dark Lord’s return clawing at the back of his mind—Snape’s nerves were worn thin.

So it was all the more intolerable that he woke, again, with Black in his bed. The fourth time that week. Four nights of weakness, each more disgraceful than the last. Dawn’s gray light spilled through the curtains, catching on the outline of another body pressed against him. Disgust hit at once, sharp as bile.

Black slept sprawled, blankets discarded, chest bare, hair a disordered mess across the pillow. Even unconscious, he radiated arrogance, snoring with a faint, insufferable smile tugging at his mouth. His limbs claimed half the mattress as though it were his own, his ease offensive in its familiarity.

Severus sat up sharply, pulling himself free. His skin still burned with memory, every contact replaying in sickening clarity. He despised himself for allowing it, despised his body’s betrayal, despised Black most of all—for his ease, his carelessness, his grin. Sirius had always been a Casanova, a reckless hedonist flaunting his conquests through school and war alike. To be counted among them was humiliation beyond words.

And yet it continued. Again, and again.

He turned, glaring at the man beside him. Ridiculous, even in sleep, his mouth slack, his chest rising with a lazy rhythm as if the world existed solely to amuse him. Snape’s lip curled. A mutt, a lecher, a waste of breath. He shifted away, dragging the sheets back to himself with violent precision. Black rolled, exposing even more of himself to the air, shameless as ever.

The weekend’s pale sun climbed higher, offering the rare possibility of peace. But there would be no silence, not with Sirius Black sprawled in his bed like some mangy hound claiming stolen ground.

Snape’s voice cut the morning, low and venomous.

“Wake up, you filthy mutt.”