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TITLE: Tricks
AUTHOR: Relala
BETA: lady of scarlet
FANDOM STATUS: Fanon
Sirius Black is dead.
It's vaguely amusing how Severus cannot cease repeating that line inside his head. He says it within his thoughts over and over again, letting the words roll temptingly on the ball of his tongue, yet never allowing them to escape his lips into reality.
Sirius Black is dead.
There had always been so very much loathing and fury between the two men. So much obscure understanding. They had known each other in a way which most people never experienced in their entire lifetimes. Within one single glance Severus could say I abhor you for your connection to her and Sirius could reply with the proper comment for that thought without words. Indeed, what other reason was there for hating a person so utterly? No one honestly wants to understand all the sorrow and hatred of another soul when they have enough for two in their very own. Understanding someone creates chains and chains only tie you down.
Yet they had meant something to each other. They had been pillars, each man dependent upon the other, expecting each other to keep the world steady when it was crumbling under their feet. They had kept up a steady stream of insults, petty jokes and random hexes...each of them aware that such things were the only anchor they had to the past.
They were very much aware that the only consistent thing they had these days was the constant loathing for each other. Somewhere along the line Severus had started to need that.
But Sirius Black is dead now and Severus Snape is an anchorless boat adrift in a bottomless sea of painful memories and half-recalled insults.
He cannot quite wrap his head around the concept of love for Sirius Black, but somewhere deep within his tattered heart there is a fresh wound which aches more than he would ever care to admit. Something is missing from him. A little piece of himself has died with Sirius Black and he will never know what it was.
He remains the loser, overcome by a man already more than twenty feet deep in a grave which doesn't actually exist. Somehow that thought makes him smile.
Even from beyond the grave Padfoot is still playing his tricks and death cannot break whatever twisted bond they have created.
THE END
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