Story notes: This fic is complete at 20,000 words & will be posted in nine chapters over the next week. Books play a big part in the story, and if you're wondering about any of the references I can tell you that there'll be a complete list of all the (muggle) books read at the end of the final chapter, together with sources for some of the muggle folk traditions I've drawn on.
Severus puts a cigarette to his lips, takes deep drags that spread a slow, curling warmth through his chest. Hardly as good as a charm, but sufficient. It is a filthy habit, of course, but he finds this to be part of the appeal. Inhaling the smell of smoke is the next best thing to falling into a Pensieve: a sense-memory that swallows him whole, his father's long fingers that curl around a pint-glass, the deeply scratched varnish of the table, felt rather than seen in the dark corner of the pub. The murmuring rise and fall of voices around them, owners indistinct in the haze of smoke. The hard curve of a wooden chair, all the wrong shape, digging into his spine just below the shoulderblades.
There was a time when the bar of the Nelson was an exotic place. Shall we take a trip to the zoo and look at the Muggles, dear?—His mother never could help herself, could she. Although he supposes, in her defence, that it must have been something of a trial to have to fetch one's thoroughly pickled husband from that place an average of five days a week. One may have one's little joke, although a six-year-old may not be the perfect audience.
(And don't you know all about inappropriate audiences, Severus.)
These days there are apparently laws about an amazing variety of things, and he is reduced to attempting to give himself Muggle diseases in the alley behind the pub, beside the fire-exit from the toilets that is not, despite advertisement, alarmed. One arm wrapped tight around himself, elbows tucked in hard to his sides as he smokes, shoulders very straight in defiance of the late October chill and the too-thin fabric of his dress.
In these surreal Muggle days there are revelations to be had. For example, that opportunities exist, if one is not picky—Severus is not picky, not in this. A man's hand around his cock in a bathroom stall, more rarely the rough press of bodies in the dark corner of an underpass by the train station. There are specific places; one can learn them. It's enough like hurried wartime encounters to let him relax into them, a pattern his body knows, can accept—although there was never very much sex then. There was, after all, too much to lose. But this, here, is perfect.
One need not be socially graceful.
Nor need one ever take off one's clothes.
A half-stranger can say, oh, fuck, that's good. Can say, suck me, and he can do it or not, counter with his own demands, and it is a game—but it is a small game, no grand scheme behind it all. The stakes are limited to his own person: small calculated risks taken for a small reward. No worlds will fall. In that way it is almost like relaxation, even the uncertainty of it.
It is on these nights, when he haunts meeting-places, that he likes, sometimes, to wear dresses. Something inappropriate, unsuitable. Provocative, certainly. The tips of his lank hair brush against the smooth fabric that covers his shoulders, and he lets them be; his hair may hang how it likes. He will never be graceful, does not dream of it. Has no aspiration to beauty, and not the faintest interest in passing—as if he ever could. But he is—himself. More himself than at any other time, all his peculiarity made explicit. To apply lipstick is an advanced lesson in dark humour, something he indulges in only rarely, an obscene smear of red that turns his mouth into a wound. It is not particularly necessary, either, for his purpose. But dresses place him in between. It is almost like being a part of two worlds at once.
During the days he brews, distils, infuses. There are many uses for herbs, with or without a wand: henbane for visions, which he does not personally want or need; valerian for sleep, which he does. It would not do, though, to sell potions, despite his visual suitability for the role of hedgewitch. He won't have it, does not touch that sort of thing. There are other ways.
The flowers of St John's Wort are yellow, but infused in alcohol give a deep red colour to the liquid. Wormwood is powerfully bitter and amber yellow, elderflower more delicate. These are traditions from his childhood, not entirely correct here, now, but pleasingly exotic to the British Muggle.
In the damp cellar bottles line the walls, meticulously labelled by hand. Copper pipes curl, gently gleaming, between bulbs full of liquid, some carefully heated, others cool, drops of condensation gathering and sliding along their curves. Strictly speaking they are entirely mundane, but there may perhaps be, on occasion, a certain spillover effect; his magic, unused and as far as possible ignored, crackles in him. Becomes demanding at odd moments. But it is never very much, and he could not stop it if he tried. (He has tried.)
He has nothing like a shop, an official business. Certainly not a license, Muggle or magical. All the same, there are customers. Mrs Baker, one of the few other remaining inhabitants of Spinner's End, is dedicated; she chooses powerful flavours, and doesn't talk a great deal, which he considers a point in her favour. Archibald Linton has proven trustworthy enough to be allowed to keep an open tab. Draco Malfoy placed an order once—by owl, because respecting other people's wishes is apparently less important than being as persistently and irritatingly pure-blooded as possible. Severus does not care to know how he got word, much less what may have prompted him to buy illegal alcohol from the likes of Severus; he is not, though, the only wizard whose name is noted in Severus' ledgers.
The Gravedigger's Arms is a place for relics. It is not Canal Street or Hurst Street or Vauxhall. It is a dingy pub on the corner of a dingy street, windows dimmed not by design but by neglect. It fits seamlessly into the Cokeworth of Severus' childhood memories in a way that the clubs which cluster on the edge of the city centre, where Westgate meets New Town Road, never can. It appeals to him specifically because it is so entirely unappealing, and also because its regulars are unlikely to balk at a spot of peculiarity.
He himself may be counted a regular, and a pleasingly insignificant one. He may live five streets away, but he is quite perfectly anonymous in all the ways that count. An ageing man with a bad temper, who enjoys sex, even if only in a furtive sort of way that is laced with the stubborn remnants of puritanical guilt. Who might be persuaded to part with a bottle of something or other—really good stuff, you know. But better not ask where it comes from.
It is, finally, after years of internal negotiation, almost comfortable. Predictable, too, in its way—and the comfort of predictability is something Severus has learnt never to underestimate. Among people who know nothing about him he can kneel without bending and fuck without giving any part of himself away. He has every intention of going on like this until he drops dead, or until the pub gets torn down to make way for something new and clean and profitable – whichever happens first. Somewhere there is another world and war trauma that's barely scabbed over. There are parties and grand speeches and elections, again and again and again. There is a school and there is Harry Potter, presumably sweeping all before him. And finally, blessedly, none of it has anything to do with him at all.
These are the things that Severus is thinking about. It is a Tuesday night, quiet, and he drifts between the bar and the alley, smokes irritably and doesn't know why he is irritable. He is feeling restless, and though he would very much like to get sucked off he rather doubts that tonight is the night. Tomorrow it will be Halloween, and there is magic under his skin, so present that it is strange to look at his own hands and not see it physically represented there, twisting dark below the surface, visible to the barman and the little huddle of men considering the tatty pool table with inexplicable suspicion. He should go home. He may as well climb the walls there as anywhere else, can at least do something with a little of his power, siphon it stealthily off into bottles and jars and let it become something new; not work magic, not as such, but allow for the suggestion of magic. He has almost decided—but he is too slow, ought to have known better than to think about the war, about power. There is a weight to thoughts on days like this; they can shift the world on its axis in peculiar, unpredictable ways. Speak of trolls and they stand in the hall. Name the devil—
When he turns to leave, Harry Potter is standing in the doorway, dressed in scruffy jeans and a faded old t-shirt, a worn brown jacket. He has a bag slung over one shoulder and a puzzled expression on his face.
"Oh," Harry Potter says.
For perhaps a second Severus can do nothing but stare. It cannot be real. Harry Potter in the doorway of a seedy pub in a bad part of Cokeworth. Quite as ridiculous as the idea of Severus Snape in a dress.
"You," Harry Potter says, shockingly soft, a little exclamation of pure astonishment.
Severus collects himself, gathers up all the pieces with deliberate mental effort, wishing, for the first time in years, for his wand. "Me," he says, lets his voice snap a little, sneers. There are some people it is always a pleasure to be sharp with. "What's the matter, Potter? Never seen a man in a dress before?"
Potter does not flush or flinch or draw back. He just says, "Of course I have," mild, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly, and then, as though they were about to shake hands at a Ministry function, "Nice to see you, by the way. It's been a while. Professor."
It's been years. This is the first time since the hearing, since Potter gave his speeches with his mind already moving on to some distant future where there wasn't going to be any war. There will, of course, always be a war.
"Not nearly long enough," Severus snarls. "Of all the—"
The man actually laughs at him. Or—laughs. Potter, Severus is convinced, is meant to hang his thoughts out like banners; he is near-terminally open and devoid of the capacity for successful pretence. It is disconcerting, then, to not know what he is amused by. Let it be Severus—his appearance, his habits, his pathetic damn life. Let it be something that will give an excuse for true vitriol.
"I can't decide," Potter says, finally taking a step forward, letting the door close behind him, "if this is exactly how I thought it would go if we ever ran into each other again or if we're already miles off script. Let me get you a drink or something?"
Certainly, he could let Potter buy him a drink. Reminisce about every awful thing that he's ever done, which ought to take until throwing out time next Saturday. Then maybe Potter will give him that blowjob that he's obviously not getting from anyone else tonight, just to round off the bizarreness of the entire evening.
Severus holds himself very straight, looks down at Potter with all the disdain he can summon. "I can't imagine why you would think I'd accept. Apparently age doesn't bring insight."
He leaves, controlled steps, not a hint of hurry because he is not running away; it is Potter who is the intruder here. He pictures Potter staring after him—imagines that he can feel it, eyes following him—but cannot decide what emotion might be on the man's face, doesn't care to look back and see.
The house is too quiet, but he cannot very well leave again—thank you, Potter. He should do something. He should—make something. Destroy something. Go out again and fuck someone, to hell with Potter, to hell with hiding away, to hell with magic.
He sits at home and drinks, hunched in his battered armchair, facing the window with its curtains thrown back; watches the silent, abandoned street and slowly wastes the night.
He feels some resistance to the idea of going to the pub again after that. He doesn't know or care what Potter may have been doing there, doubts he can have found it so thrilling that he'll be making repeat visits, but there's something jarring about the collision of that particular past with this particular present—the feeling of the world having shifted persists. It doesn't matter if he never sees Potter again; Potter has still seen him. Knows.
Severus allows himself Halloween, shuts himself away in his basement and draws on folklore that is not but could easily become magic and, inevitably, remembers. For the rest of the week he deals with his disconcertion aggressively—he will not let Potter dictate the terms of his existence. It is a relief not to be asked about their rather public conversation—which goes to show that having a reputation for being a bastard isn't without its uses. There is only the usual: quiet, empty conversation. Covert eye contact that more accurately conveys intent. The alcohol is still bad.
"Yours is better," Richard says, on Thursday. "I'll pick some more up tomorrow, OK?" Richard's flatmate apparently thinks it's the best stuff ever, like getting high; absinthe hasn't got shit on it, Severus is told. But this dubious conversation is in itself a cover for the substance of the matter, already known to both of them, which is that Richard enjoys being fucked by men in dresses, for preference bent over a sink so that he can watch in the mirror.
Severus' own preferences run to a definite absence of mirrors, on the whole, and his idea of fucking only rarely involves penetration, especially in a bloody pub toilet. But he has been persuaded once or twice before and, because he has a point to prove to no-one in particular and because he really does rather dislike Richard and that makes it entirely safe, he allows himself to be persuaded again. Muggle condom and Muggle lubricant and Richard's tatty jeans pushed down to his knees, Severus leaning in against him; hair sticking to his face, hands grasping hard at Richard's hips. He is torn between closing his eyes or staring at himself, at his awkwardly skinny chest covered in deep blue synthetic silk—reminding himself again and again of his own unattractiveness, the harsh lines of his body, skirt rucked up around his hips, already ugly face unevenly flushed with effort, perverse arousal. This is still something that someone else can get off to; a bizarre fact, some unaccountable quirk of the universe. But there isn't much time to think about it; most of it is just quick fumbling, get it in and get off before anyone can come in and throw them out. Close to perfect in its messy awkwardness.
He dislikes Friday nights. There are too many people, too much happening at once. But he makes an exception and, head hazier with alcohol than he usually allows, sucks the cock of a perfect stranger in the darkest corner of the alley behind the Gravedigger's. On his knees, eyes closed, he could be with almost anyone. He doesn't get off that time, though it's enjoyable enough, rough hands in his hair and a thick cock stretching his jaw; but later there's another man in a toilet cubicle who he presses up against the wall and rubs himself off against and never looks in the eye.
He does not think of Potter then—that thought only comes later, accompanies a memory of the events rather than the events themselves, and it is only a hypothetical. Potter who has, of course, seen a man in a dress before. Who, on finding Severus Snape in a meeting-place for gay men, asks if he can buy him a drink.
But it has to be enough at some point; he is not a person who goes out every night, is certainly too old and too tired to fuck all the time. Saturday is a haze of exhaustion and comes, to his irritation, complete with a mild hangover. He spends the day at his desk, catching up on bookkeeping, making neat notations in heavy, rather un-Muggle volumes that rest on the small clear space in front of his chair, surrounded by unstable mountains of scrap paper, novels, annotated articles which he will never actually use for anything, and the crossword pages pulled from several months' worth of editions of the local paper. Eats as an afterthought, and loses hours in the basement, adjusting concentrations and taking care of what look to be some of the last of the year's fresh ingredients.
In this house all sounds grow. His footsteps on the elderly wooden staircase creak their way through every room, the clink of glass could wake ghosts. And it is only wizards who become ghosts, of course, but Tobias Snape sleeps uneasily in the walls all the same, haunts every space left too long unused. Eileen couldn't wait to leave.
Silence also grows, becomes dense and textured, especially as autumn deepens and shifts and begins to consider the sharp smell of frost; on occasion he has done everything he can to break it, slammed doors and played music he doesn't care for and let the radio chatter. But by now it has become comfortable, wrapped around him like a winter duvet. He breathes carefully, moves softly, steadies doors with his hand as he closes them and handles ingredients with quiet reverence. Parsley, improbably enough, which can with a little encouragement give alcohol fortifying properties: give it to a person in secret and they will discover secrets. Perhaps. There is mugwort against poison, a little bottle filled with extract created four months past, waiting to be mixed with unflavoured spirits. Tomorrow he must collect juniper berries, he realises, before the birds have made off with everything worth having. And perhaps sloes – tonight may be cold enough to freeze, which is at least good for something.
Despite the tiredness of the day he goes to bed late, having hardly considered Potter at all.