][ Note: this started in my head as a (very) silly preamble to lifeofapottedplant's webcomic with a deaging potion, but then I jumped it back four years in time. whoops ][
Severus Snape did most things alone.
He woke alone. Drank alone. Worked alone as often as he was able. Retired alone at the end of the day. Most things he preferred to do alone. Some things he necessarily did alone.
Occasionally, however there was something to be said for company.
"It would not be a death in vain." Severus pointed out, although the anger in his voice was already quietly fading into a morose resignation. "And I'm not just speaking of my own benefit, or how fewer threats on my life there would be."
"I am not unsympathetic, Severus."
Albus sat, leaning back against the other end of the settee and so if Severus focused avidly on the low table before him he could ignore the twinkle of those blue eyes and pretend the empathy was sincere.
"However," The Headmaster continued, and Severus preemptively scoffed, sinking backwards in an indolent slump. "I really cannot condone your desiccation of any of the students, least of all a thirteen year old. He's just a child. Surely he will grow up and out of this, ah, explosion phase. Have patience."
"Dunderhead spleen can be put to a surprising number of uses."
"I have complete faith in your ability to find a more ethical ingredient to substitute."
Severus glared, but there was very little heat left in it. Slouching forward he fussed at the table, untangling the long hoses out from among the tea service with more attention than it really required. He placed the hookah's silver mouth piece between his lips and inhaled long and slow.
"That boy is going to kill me, Headmaster. Once you might have at least feigned concern on my behalf."
The taste of apple and smooth curls of smoke drifted out and around his head. He could almost feel his blood pressure dropping. Beside Severus's own thin and shapeless cloud, Albus was blowing perfect little smoke rings that stacked and intersected prettily. "Must everything be a display with you?" He huffed, though he already knew the answer was an obvious yes.
He half suspected Albus Dumbledore was not so much a wizard of flesh and bone but rather a yet-to-be-authenticated creation of Gaudi. Tall, strange, and so vividly overdecorated that it sometime hurt to look.
Fascinating.
Seated on the floor in a pile of cushions in hyper saturated colors, leaning comfortably back against the settee, the Headmaster was like a living breathing Casa Batlló. Severus rolled his eyes as he caught himself on the verge of staring too long.
"I do not, nor have I ever feigned concern for you." The Headmaster protested, and Severus found that he believed him.
Blame the hashish for that. He was always much more willing to take something at face value if there was a cloud of drugged smoke separating it from him.
"Severus." Albus sounded scolding. Or perhaps hurt, though that seemed much less likely. "Tell me you don't really think that of me. Look at me."
Severus did, and a spike of something startled through his veins at the intensity of those too-knowing eyes. He suddenly felt like he was being cross sectioned. That all his insides were being quietly lain out for perusal. Interestingly, he found it was not an altogether unpleasant sensation.
"Your safety is on my mind constantly." Albus continued sternly, never once breaking their locked eyes. Not even pausing to twinkle. "Your happiness is on my mind. I want only good things for you, my boy."
His throat felt tight.
"I do know that." He muttered after too long of a pause, profoundly uncomfortable and attempting to hide it by turning his attention to the pipe. With a pair of small silver tongs in one hand and wand in the other, he lifted the grate from the bowl and vanished what remained inside. "I think that one was more shisha than kief, but the double apple is almost entirely burnt out anyway." He observed, simply wanting to fill the silence with something that couldn't be used as a trap against him. He reached for the small jars of assorted flavors. "Do you have a preference?"
"I'm sure I will enjoy whatever you choose."
Severus nodded, relieved to hear the lightness in the voice of his companion and eager to let that tense moment pass without any further scrutiny. After he had replaced the grate and placed a new charcoal lit with a silent Inscendio Severus sat back into his own pile of cushions and watched Albus pull several long inhales, finally beginning to relax again. It was difficult not to, under the circumstances.
For certain stresses Severus would have simply turned to Firewhiskey and have holed up in his own rooms for a bit of solitary contemplation. But when it came to exploding cauldrons and students he could happily imagine himself strangling, an accelerant was hardly what he needed. A day like today called for something a bit more sedative but, to be perfectly frank, he did not like the idea of himself high and left to his own devices. God himself could hardly predict what sudden brilliant ideas might come to him down in the dungeons with nothing but his own questionable moral compass to guide him.
No. Much better to have a second set of sensibilities (however equally impaired) to hedge his bets with. And so he saved the hashish for the Headmaster's den, and for nights like this when the students had truly worn him down past his last nerve.
Once or twice he and Albus had ventured from the rooms while under the influence, but thankfully it was never in a mad rush to confront a student, nor wander under-dressed through the corridors. Mostly the two men just sat and talked, and if Severus smiled freely or perhaps laughed at regular intervals, there was no one but they two to know about it.
"Of course it's more than likely that adding bits of Longbottom, spleen or otherwise, to any potion would result in cataclysmic disaster." He mused, voicing the tail end of his own mental process between pulls on the hookah. "Best to not involve him at all. Even as ingredients."
Expecting a reprimand, Severus couldn't help the twitch of a smile at his lips when the Headmaster rumbled out a deep and appreciative chuckle.
"Yes, he does seem to have an almost unbelievable affinity for destruction in your particular subject. Not that you could ever expect the students to match your own personal standards, Severus, but Mr. Longbottom is a whole new level of catastrophe."
Pleased to be agreed with, Severus merely shrugged. The bitterness and stress had all but melted away into the smoke.
"I once had a student accidentally Transfigure herself into a desk," Albus said, calling upon a long forgotten moment from his own time in front of the classroom. "It was a shocking feat. So badly done I found it impossible to not be impressed. It took us hours to change her back.
"Students will never remain safely within our expectations, I'm afraid."
"Oh I don't know. I find I always expect disaster. It's the details that sometimes surprise, but over all one idiot with a wand is much similar to any other idiot with a wand."
"How flattering."
Heat rushed into Severus's face. Inexplicable.
Now Albus was laughing. Truly laughing, and he felt himself pulled along into it. He hiccuped on his next hit, snorting mint scented smoke up into his sinuses and coughing inelegantly, all the while laughing. He hadn't thought to include Albus under the heading on idiots, and the man was infuriatingly far from predictable.
"You're at least sill capable of being occasionally surprised." Albus insisted, and Severus raised his brows with an odd sort of smile.
"By you? Most assuredly."
Long fingers reached out and brushed through the stringy fall of his hair and Severus, more than half stoned and feeling rather expansive, leaned into the touch.
"You needn't look so pleased with yourself. You know that we've all learned to brace ourselves for nonsense and mystery from you."
Albus made a thoughtful humming noise, leaning back so that his head tilted onto the seat behind them, eyes half lidded while still threading fingers repeatedly through black hair. Abruptly, Severus wondered if he had hurt the Headmaster's feelings. Though surely that would be an absurd impossibility. As if his opinion, however vitriolic, could affect a man like Albus Dumbledore. Oh yes, they were friends of a kind. And he trusted Albus implicitly. Even cared for him, though there were few he would admit it to. But none of those things amounted to having an real affect on the man. Albus had a way of making Severus feel two inches tall with only a few simple words. Conversely, he seemed to slough Severus's criticisms off like water from a kelpie scale.
"Albus, I hope you are not pouting." Severus's voice was languid and as deliberately nonchalant as he could manage when he was this far from sober. "As if you need more assurances that everyone adores you."
"Everyone?" Albus chuckled, his eyes now fully closed as his fingers drifted against Severus's scalp with gentle pressure. "Even you, Severus?"
"Especially me." He returned, without thought. Pulling the hookah hose toward himself and inhaling a deep breath of smoke, He stretched his legs to their full length beneath the table. It was not until he glanced over and saw Albus, his eyes wide and focused so keenly on him that he realized what he had said.
He could feel the blood rushing to his sallow cheeks.
"I, that is . . . rather, I-"
And here was another reason he so seldom allowed himself to smoke. The distance between his brain and mouth had become all but non existent. Or perhaps, even worse, his mouth had taken the lead and rushed on in front of all thought.
This was the moment he should feel the crushing weight of mortification and flee. Preferably after spitting an insult that would cut his previous statement down at the knees. Were he of sound mind, he would have done exactly that. Instead, he pulled another deep inhale and then set his silver nozzle down beside him on the floor, smiling like the fool he was starting to suspect he was.
"It is mostly for your sake that I haven't pickled any of my students."
"Severus..." His voice was soft, but Severus just shook his head gently. Albus's fingers went still but did not retreat as Severus turned sideways and regarded him. 'Adore' had been a funny word to use he realized now, but fitting enough. He had always held the Headmaster in awe, though whether that awe was tinged with more fear or more admiration had altered over the years. And now- now he owed the man his life. Albus had saved him from imprisonment. From death. From himself. And if as they made their peace with one another over the years Severus's feelings had shifted around a bit and grown in certain ways, was that so very surprising?
"Don't, Albus." He said, with a dismissive motion of one hand. "Don't pick apart every word I say like a Gryffindor with a bone, if you can possibly help it."
The other man laughed again, then nodded. His fingers moved once more, pressing that dark head gently nearer and Severus, senses heightened under the influence of the kief, gladly followed their lead. He felt utterly relaxed, yet not soporifically so. His eyes fell half closed as Albus brought his second hand up to touch Severus's jaw bone lightly.
Chest feeling tight, Severus curled his lip ruefully and moved closer. Hip to hip now
"I'm not sure I can help it." Albus admitted with obvious ease. "But I will strive to at least keep my thoughts on the subject to myself."
Of course he would, Severus thought derisively. Yet another mystery to tug against Severus's thoughts, not insistent but neither ever fully put to rest. But now was not the time for picking apart puzzles much less trying to solve them.
"See that you do." He returned as he reached up to lace his fingers loosely through Albus's, bringing their joined hands down to rest between them. The pipe would begin to loose it's heat soon, but the scent of still smoldering keif and minty shisha curled up and around them. The smoke the only possible rational for how utterly at ease he felt. His head tilted slightly to the side. He hadn't the height for their bodies to properly align like this, and so settled for his temple pressing somewhere in the vicinity of the headmaster's jawline.
"I'm afraid that I am being painfully reminded of my age, Severus." Albus said, shifting slightly beside him, their rings clacking faintly against one another in their joined grip. Severus couldn't help but tense slightly, his foggy brain going into an inefficient sprint through possible implications. "Men my age are not suited for extended floor sitting."
Drawing back slightly, Severus couldn't have kept himself from scoffing if he'd wanted to. And he very much did not want to. "Oh yes, of course. You can run half the Wizarding World and keep the Minister for Magic dancing to your tune, but a bit of time without a proper chair under your arse? Merlin forfend. Please allow me to fetch your litter, sir. I'll make sure you're taken safely back to your care home forthwith."
More regretful than he cared to admit, Severus unlaced their fingers. He grunted, pushing himself up to stand in the narrow space between the settee and the table. He did not for one single moment think that something as mundane as a stone floor could stop Albus Dumbledore for even an instant. Still, though. He turned and held out both his hands and gave the man a thoroughly impatient look. With an offensively surprised expression, Albus reached out and gripped him, accepting the help up to his feet.
He made quite a spectacle of testing his weight on his knees, and Severus rolled his eyes and sternly reminded himself that what he was feeling was irritated and not fond. Not in the least bit fond.
"Feeling better?"
Albus smiled and the unaccountable warmth of it scorched away all that carefully cultivated irritation in an instant. Reaching out, he cupped Severus's face in both hands and simply held him for a moment.
"Much."