Corrupt me (Severus and his corrupter)

[Severus Snape]

Severus sat in thought over a scroll of parchment, his small cramped writing filled half of the scroll. It wasn't the work that occupied his thoughts, but rather just the sound of the crackling fire. He could of finished the assignment half an hour ago, he just hadn't wanted too. He felt his life moving toward a direction he couldn't define. Where he came from and where he was going, it seemed like he was at a time where he could make choices on who he was going to be. It left him feeling afraid and unsure and with that feeling he started to write again, the scratching of his quill seemingly loud in the common room.

[Thaddeus Avery]

Avery (he despised the name Thaddeus and was known to hit people who used it) was sitting in a far, dark corner of the common room. He'd caught a small rat earlier and was now taunting it with a lump of moldy cheese that he kept lowering into the rat's cage on a string, then pulling it away just as the rat was about to eat it. This game, however, was starting to lose its appeal, and he was looking for something else fun to do. He was about to go looking for Dolores Umbridge's floofy white cat to see if he could taunt it with the rat, but instead his eyes fell on the form of Severus Snape.

A slow smirk spread across Avery's face. The second year was a source of consternation among the other Slytherins. He was odd and twitchy, and he spent a lot of time around that strange Ravenclaw girl. But whenever he'd been pushed, he showed some potential for darkness. Maybe the guy just needed some more Slytherin friends.

Shrugging to himself, Avery tossed the cheese into the rat's cage, then walked over to Snape's side of the room. He pretended for a moment, to be more interested in the fire, pausing to warm his hands for a moment. Then, slowly, he turned to look at Snape. He seemed to be rather engrossed in his work--whether or not he actually was, Avery couldn't know, but he was certainly putting a good deal more effort into it than Avery ever did.

He sat down across from the second year. "You know, if you wrote a little bigger, you could fill that parchment a lot faster," he commented.

[Severus Snape]

Severus broke his gaze from his parchment. he gave Avery a polite but empty smile and dotted the end of his sentence. "I like complete thoughts in my essays." he replied smoothly as he wrote another sentence and punctuated as he went. he paused to blow at a spot of ink. It dried and he rolled up his assignment.

"What do you need Avery?" he asked because he had the barest inkling that Avery and his like were not the type to waste time on too much idle chatter." He tried to remain business like with most of his peers, until one proved to give him an advantage he could use.

[Thaddeus Avery]

Avery laughed, and even his laugh sounded mean-spirited. "Oooh, burn," he said, putting a hand over his chest in the vague vicinity of his heart (if he had one). "I had that one coming, didn't I?"

He wasn't the best student, and he didn't see any point in pretending otherwise. He wasn't some loser Ravenclaw with his nose in the books all the time. That was what Julia was for... not only was she hot, but she was smart. He could coax her into giving him the answers on homework and letting him copy off of her in tests.

"I don't need anything," he said casually, leaning back in his chair. "I just saw you sitting over here and thought maybe we should get to know each other."

[Severus Snape]

"So get to know me." Severus answered snottily. He was starting some remedial Transfiguration, his most hated subject, he didn't look forward to the reading or the work as he pulled his book out of a bag he had at his feet.
"I enjoy walks along the black lake and treacle tart after dinner."
He paused as he opened his book in a flourish of pages to the chapter he was working on.
" I do not enjoy wasting my time, and dealing with insufferable know-it-alls." He paused and gave Avery an unpleasant smile. "Is that what you wanted to know about me?" his eyes went to the book that he perched on the edge of the low table he was sitting at.
He started to read about the fundamentals of transfiguration and how the basic laws that governed the magic were used in every wrist movement and verbal spell.
How trite!

[Thaddeus Avery]

Avery laughed again. "You sound like a bio from the Gentlewizard's Quarterly that I found under my dad's mattress," he snorted. "They're all like 'she enjoys long walks on the beach and watching sunsets...' stupid crap like that."

He was not stupid, though sometimes it seemed like it. He was fully aware of the fact that Severus wanted him to go away. He also didn't care. He wasn't going to be easily put off... in fact, the more snide comments Snape made, the more determined Avery was.

"Are you calling me an insufferable know it all?" he asked lightly. "Because if you are, you'd be wrong. I'm a bloody idiot. But at least I can admit it."

[Severus Snape]

Severus felt his neck grow a little warm, He had been joking about the walks along the lake and the tarts, he didn't know there were biographies in those types of periodicals. He could very well guess what the rest of it held.

"You are far from a Know-it-all, however it doesn't change the fact they are an infuriating group of people" He paused to take out a new sheet of parchment to take a few notes.
Severus thought maybe if he tried to ignore Avery, he could finish his notes and turn a toothpick into a sewing needle.

"was there anything in particular you want, that is since you don't need anything..." he trailed off his question, letting it hang like an offer. He wanted to see if Avery would bite.

[Thaddeus Avery]

Avery just watch Severus for a minute. No matter who the kid liked to hang out with when he wasn't in the common room, Severus had an attitude that was distinctly Slytherin. He was sardonic, even downright snippy. Avery could appreciate that. They just needed to work on keeping him away from the Undesirable elements, namely, a certain odd little Ravenclaw girl. Unless of course, he was using the girl for homework help, but that didn't seem to be the case here.

Natalie St. Clare was, reportedly, not a very good student. She had trouble paying attention in class, and more than once, she had randomly passed out in class. Rather, it seemed almost as though Severus was helping her, which was really unacceptable.

"I don't want anything," he answered mildly. "I mean, it's a free common room, isn't it? I can sit here if I want to."

[Severus Snape]

Severus gave Avery a deadpanned stare. "Then by all means, sit at your leisure."
He sat back on his chair and turned back to his book. He truly hated this subject. It wasn't because he didn't understand what he was reading, it wasn't because he had poor pronunciation or that he couldn't wave his wand, his other classes proved that to him, however, getting the coordination to do all three and believing that it would all work as it should that left his spellmanship lacking.

"How is it Avery, that it seems you have more time for yourself than any other Slytherin I know?" he asked, curious how what could be called a slacker, always seemed to float through classes with what seemed little effort.

[Thaddeus Avery]

Avery laughed then. Actually, there were a lot of Slytherins who had time to themselves. Many of the older students, like Brenda Blair, never did any work at all... but Brenda had other pursuits and spent very little time in the common room. The difference between them and Severus was that they had figured out how to avoid the hassles of homework.

"My work gets done," he said easily. "Just not by me. You see, Sev, doing your own homework is really not worth it. You need to learn to delegate. What else do you think Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are good for?"

[Severus Snape]

Severus sniffed "I prefer to actually be brilliant, it makes squashing a Ravenclaw's ego more satisfying when they know I can do better than them."
he made an underscore on his book for a term he was sure meant something other than what was implied by the reading. He felt a small worm of guilt at mentioning crushing a Ravenclaws' ego, Natalie was a Ravenclaw. He shook the thought of her out of his head, pretending to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. It seemed unfair that she was in Ravenclaw, and for a brief moment, he missed her.
"Have you ever wanted that satisfaction?" he asked turning a page idly not really finishing what he had been reading on the page. Avery was slowly and surely distracting him from his work, which sent a vague feeling of annoyance through him, but not as much as he thought he would be.

[Thaddeus Avery]

Avery appeared to ponder this as he leaned far back in his chair and put his feet up on the table, not far from Severus's books. "Yeah, I suppose there's something to that," he said carelessly. "But I already am superior to them, so I don't need to prove anything. I can just hex them. Or beat them up, whatever it takes. Most of the time it doesn't take more than threats."

Avery put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes for a minute, then opened them suddenly, peering curiously over at Severus. "Say, is that why you're always hanging 'round that mousy little Ravenclaw girl? So you can squash her ego?"

[Severus Snape]

Severus let his mouth twist in an cruel smile. "What did you think?" he asked, side stepping the question with another question, If there was one thing he had learned from his mother, it was how to avoid answering direct questions.
He set his book down on his stack and moved them toward his bag, putting away his parchments and a quill.
"My studying has nothing to do with me proving myself to anyone, I simply enjoy the satisfaction of beating most everyone's scores, it only punctuates how much I truly outshine them." Severus did sit up a little straighter in his seat. It was the only thing of which he was proud of, his own wit and cleverness, his swords edge against most anyone that would do anything too him.

[Thaddeus Avery]

Avery didn't answer for a minute. He just studied Severus quietly with a sort of smirk on his face. He had to admit, Severus made a fairly good point. When one was good at something, it was only natural to spotlight it. Severus was good at schoolwork, and there was no reason not to make sure everyone knew it.

Avery was not good at school work, but maybe that was just because he didn't care about it. He had other interests, other skills. Not that they were incredibly notable, but Avery knew what he was good at and stuck ot that, just as Severus did.

"OK," he said, shrugging. "That's fair. You're not half bad, Snape. Lucius was right about you. He always said you had great potential. We should hang out more."

[Severus Snape]

Severus did his very best not to preen at the compliment, he merely raised an eyebrow and said "I was unaware you were avoiding me." He took his school books away from Avery's feet and stuck them into his bag.

He cast a levitation charm on his bag, it was heavy with school books and stood up from the table. He made his way toward the dorms to put his bag in his trunk.

" How is Lucius anyway? It's been some time since he graduated hasn't it?" Severus was still curious about the older man, He always thought Lucius just oozed both arrogance and refinement, which just suited his looks, even when his hair was dyed pink. It still made Severus pleased to know that he managed to put one over on the older student.

[Thaddeus Avery]

"I wasn't avoiding you," Avery said, his tone still casual. "But you have to admit, we haven't exactly been pals, either. I think maybe that should change. Not that I want to go picking out china patterns or anything... but maybe we could hang out sometimes. I found this cool spot on the other side of the lake where there's a hollowed-out tree that's almost like a cave."

He had discovered the spot only a few weeks ago, and it was only accessible by walking across a fallen log. He had it in mind to make a crude raft so he could reach the spot easier, but he was too lazy to do it alone.

Seeing that Severus was getting up, Avery reluctantly swung his feet off the table and down to the floor. He stretched a minute before following the second year. "Ol' Lucius is doing fine," he replied, shrugging. "Planning to marry Narcissa, as far as I know. I actually just saw him this past Christmas. Father always invites the Malfoys to our Christmas parties."