Author's Note:
Semi Finals: Angsty Fluff or Fluffy Angst
Team: Pride of Portree
Position: Beater 2
Prompt: an angsty story using the prompt '"Don't Worry Be Happy" – Guy Sebastian' (song)
Prompts used:
3. (location) Leaky Cauldron
7. (dialogue) "You really told him/her, didn't you?"
15. (phrase) stabbed in the back
Word Count: _2255_ excluding Author's Note
Author's Note: This story takes place about two years after the war and is slightly AU as Severus Snape survived the war. The song is used as an overall theme, mainly the idea that life is not that bad and one should be happy with what they have.
I'd like to also thank my beta Story Please and I dedicate this story to Queen of Darkness.
Rejoice, the War is Over!
Tracey Davis was not drunk. She knew this because she could still hold her wand without her hand shaking. She also knew she was not drunk because she could still hear the dying screams of her friends every damn time she closed her eyes. Tracey stared irritably at her empty firewhiskey glass, then tapped her fingernails against the chipped wooden table and looked up, hoping to catch the eye of old Tom standing behind the bar.
Across from her, Severus Snape practically sneered audibly. "Is that really what you want to do? Sit there and drink?"
"Pretty much, yes." Tracey attempted a smile but it was wasted on the sour-faced headmaster.
"I expected better from you."
"Yeah well, people expected you not to kill the previous headmaster either, and look how that turned out."
Tom finally looked at her and she motioned with her glass for another drink.
Snape was staring at her with mild horror and disgust on his face and she sighed. "Oh don't look so miserable. So you killed the most famous headmaster in Hogwarts history, big whoop. Here, let me buy you a drink!" She fumbled with her wallet and withdrew a few coins as Tom approached.
"Another please, and one for my friend as well."
"I think you've had enough." stated Snape dryly.
"Well, I don't. I am having a swell evening and I don't intend to finish it now."
Tom was back in a moment with their drinks and Tracey picked one up quickly before the headmaster could make it disappear.
Snape hesitated, then picked up the other one and took a single sip. Her drink of choice turned out to be something similar to jet fuel. It burned all the way down and Snape felt like if he were to light a cigarette near his lips, it would set off an explosion.
Across from him, Tracey had drowned the glass and put her head on the table and smiled, the firewhiskey's buzz finally drowning out the sound of Vincent Crabbe falling victim to fiendfyre.
"Why are you here, Headmaster? You enjoy accosting your drunk students at pubs?"
No, Snape definitely didn't enjoy that but Draco had nearly talked his ear off about how Tracey had started to self-destruct. Since it had been the Malfoy family of all people who had spent the last of their fortune for his hospital bed and even allowed him a stay at their manor while he healed, he wasn't really in the position to decline.
Unfortunately, playing therapist had never been one of his strong suits. Usually he'd just offered the little snakes tea and waited patiently for them to cry themselves empty, then he'd go and try to quietly solve their problem. Snape wondered if maybe he could just slip Tracey some Dreamless Sleep and some pain potions and—but he'd promised to make a serious effort. With a sigh and another sip he looked at his former student, worry in his eyes.
"How are you really, Miss Davis?"
Tracey shrugged, her cheek resting on the cold table. "I…am…swell. Just…swell!" She smiled at the two Snapes in front of her, then her eyes landed on the scars on the necks of both men and she made a wheezing noise with her throat as a memory of a giant snake tried to creep into her mind.
"Mister Malfoy doesn't think you're fine."
"Yeah, well, Mister Malfoy can go to—" She realized she was in the company of a professor, "—somewhere else for all I care." She pushed herself up off the table to look at the man properly. If she focused really hard, she could make the two Snapes meld into one again, though the downside of that was that the buzzing also quieted. She really hated the quiet. She'd rather be alone with anything but her own thoughts.
Snape sighed. As much as he hated to admit, he had felt something similar after the war. He thought he recognized the emptiness within her eyes. He'd seen it in the faces of the students and at St. Mungo's. Unfortunately pumping her full of potions really didn't seem like a long-term solution. "I can give you the name of an old friend. He can help you."
"That is great! Better yet, though, why don't you bugger off? I don't need your help." She moved the glasses around on the table in front of him, searching for at least a drop in any of them. "Because I am happy and doing great."
"Miss Davis, there is no shame in asking for help."
"Except there is!" She tried to reach for the glass where she spied at least three more drops and knocked over two on the way. Her sleeve got stuck on a nail and Snape caught a glance of a nasty scar on her right forearm. He couldn't tell if it was self-inflicted, but for one horrible moment he imagined her holding a razorblade.
"—because everything is fine. The war is over. Everyone is rejoicing and partying and rebuilding. So I'm happy." Tracey finished whatever little speech Snape had just accidently tuned out. She stared at the man for a few seconds before examining her glass.
There was no firewhiskey in it. Must have been a play of light. Maybe she was seeing things. Tom was ignoring her and being serious was too sobering. She really wished the headmaster would go away and leave her in peace. Things really weren't that bad. As long as she still had money for firewhiskey, life could have been much worse. "Draco worries too much. You've been here and you've already ascertained that I am not going to slit my own throat. Can't you just go? Or, you know, not worry? Maybe you could even be happy. If you're physically capable of that."
Snape opened his mouth to reply, possibly with a quip about how inconvenient slitting one's own throat would be, after all, he would definitely know about slit or torn throats, but Tracey wasn't finished. "Don't worry. Be happy. Don't worry, be happy. Don't一I seem to have lost track of my thoughts." She smiled sheepishly and made the empty glass spin on the table.
"You do realize that that is a song of blind optimism while one's life goes to hell, Miss Davis?"
Without answering, Tracey stood up and walked over to the bar. "Hello, Tom, may I have another drink, please?"
Before the bartender could reply, another woman turned in her chair near the bar. Snape recognized her as Ellis Diggory, Cedric's mother. "I didn't know you served Death Eater scum here, Tom. Maybe we should find ourselves another bar to drink in, if that's the company we must keep."
Snape felt his hand reaching for his wand in a sudden unexpected surge of anger. He stood and walked over to where Tracey was staring at Ellis, her eyes wide and hazy. When Tracey saw him approaching, her eyes flashed with alarm and she took a hasty step forward. "I apologize if my presence here has ruined your evening. I can assure you that we have a common interest in me being less present and I will do whatever I can to make that happen! Even if I have to drink away all my money!" She reached for her glass, dropped a coin on the bar and walked back to the table, her feet only a little unsteady.
Snape followed her, giving Ellis a scowl. "Well, you really told her, didn't you?"
"Told her what?" Tracey glared at Snape. He wasn't going to leave her alone. He wasn't going to let her wallow in her misery. She didn't mean to say anything, but once she'd opened her mouth, she found herself unable to stop. "She lost her only child to Death Eaters. And I'm okay. Because the war is over and I am fine and who cares if my father got evicted because Slytherin equals Death Eater. Or that I miss Crabbe because he might have been a Death Eater but he was also the boy who beat up two Ravenclaw bullies who called me a stupid mouse. Or that Parvati hasn't spoken with me in three years because I chose survival to open resistance and I didn't help her in the fight against the Carrows. Or that Blaise called off our engagement so he could marry some muggleborn French bitch who is good for his image. Or that I got stabbed in the back by Pansy. And I don't mean in the she-stole-my-boyfriend kind of way. I mean with an actual knife in the blood and guts and gore kind of way cause she didn't like me being too passive and not enjoying my year with Amycus and his pet troll. But I'm alive and not in Azkaban and the war is over and all my limbs are more or less intact and things could definitely be much-much worse so I. AM. FINE!" The glass shattered between her fingers, shards cutting through skin. Tracey collapsed back into the chair, put a hand to her head and turned her face away, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Then abruptly she looked up, hid the injured hand behind her back and smiled as if nothing had happened. "See? You can walk away!" He'd have believed her too if it weren't for the spectacle he'd just witnessed.
Without a word Snape downed his own firewhiskey as well and ordered another one.
Tracey eyed him from half-closed lids. "You're not going to do that, are you? What was it in my fine speech that did not convince you?"
"Oh it was thoroughly convincing." Snape sighed and took a sip of the new glass Tom had brought over. The alcohol tasted like a foreboding prophecy of the hangover he'd have the next morning. "Look, Miss Davis, after I got kicked out of St. Mungo's, as soon as they'd fulfilled their oath to do no harm and could in good conscience leave me on the streets…I was fine too. I—" He hesitated and cursed Draco Malfoy because he was about to bare his soul in a bar to a girl he could barely tolerate. "I got drunk. I might have slept with a witch whose name I don't remember. I picked a fight with an Auror. I spent a night in a Ministry holding cell and forced Lucius to come bail me out. But I was fine."
"Yeah, I'm not nearly drunk enough to hear about your sex life, Headmaster." She stood up and smiled, then nearly fell over and had to reach out her uninjured hand to steady herself. "I'm gonna go now. Thanks for stopping by. Have a nice rest of your life! Or whatever."
"So you'll just run away from your problems, then?" Snape's voice conveyed disdain that somehow still managed to cut deep into her soul.
"Didn't you?" she fired back, not wanting to be lectured by her former professor. She looked around for her coat but could not find it.
"At first. Then I got an earful from Lucius about how he only saved me because of what I did for Draco and he was not going to scrape me off the sidewalk every night." He turned to look at the girl. "You think you're the only one who's hurting but you're not. We started the war, but the young ones bear the most scars. Or do I have to send Potter to deliver his very own inspirational speech?"
"Potter?"
"He was a mess after the war but if he could get better, why can't you?" Snape coaxed. On his way to find peace, Potter had even come banging on his door. He'd sneered then but in hindsight he understood. Who can you go to, when everyone thinks you should be happy with what you have. "What has he got that you haven't? Besides good hair?"
Tracey snorted. "He does have great hair, doesn't he? That's why you hated him all these years?"
Snape frowned, having not meant to add that last part, and glanced down at his drink. Had she slipped him truth serum? Maybe it was just that he hadn't had any strong alcohol in such a long time and his tolerance had severely lessened. Still, it seemed to have worked at least a little in getting the girl to pause and think.
Tracey stared at the door and knew she couldn't go back. Not to her lonely bed in that cheap Muggle dump where the walls were too thin and the cold seemed to seep into her bones and where Crabbe's screams mixed with memories of Blaises' Parvati and Pansy wore the same face and Ellis Diggory stared with two accusatory eyes. "Ah give me the damn card, will you."
Snape watched her disappear into the dark night, her coat on backwards but the card safely in her pocket as she staggered and wobbled out. He didn't know if she'd ever call the therapist. Or if they'd find her with her throat slit someday. He tried to not think of it much more. Maybe she was already dead inside. Snape left a few coins for the bartender and headed home too, but in Horizont Alley he stopped with a sigh. Perhaps he couldn't help Miss Davis as much as he'd have liked, but he could have a discreet word with Miss Parkinson about stabbing her friends. For whatever that was worth.