A while ago two of my friends challenged me to write something risqué, since that wasn't happening I wrote this instead.
M: I hope you enjoy your story at last!
He's everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I constantly expect to see his shadow as I turn the corner, to hear his voice echoing in this mausoleum, for the stale air to retain his unique aroma, lingering even as he leaves. And yet he is never here, avoiding me? Or perhaps that is simply my arrogance speaking and my past assumptions that I would always be at the centre of any gathering, me and my best friends.
Suddenly a black, shrouded figure sweeps in, robes billowing, signature sneer revealed as he turns; disturbed from my reverie, I stand.
I move into the limp light, he doesn't seem yet to have noticed me, at last someone to take my frustration out on, or at least I could try.
"Look what the cat dragged in! Why Snivellus, you look as wholesome as ever, have you finally given in and become a vampire so you have an excuse not to use a mirror?"
"Black, you don't seem to have aged a fraction since your puerile teenage years. While we are on the subject of appearances, it would be better for you to cease from allowing your house elf to choose out your clothing for you."
With our opening exchange over, he sweeps down the corridor to the kitchen, leaving me behind. Each time I will myself not to react, not to acknowledge him or give him the satisfaction, to go to the kitchen rather than waiting for him to arrive, maybe the only explanation is that I am a closet masochist. Glowering I make my way to the kitchen in his wake, the scent of old herbs, lemongrass and something else, intangible even now, after so long.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Another meeting, another interminable evening, an exercise in the inept led by the delusional. Black is not lurking in the uninspiring hallway when I arrive this time, it must be later than I judged that even he is where he should be. I go directly to the kitchen rather than waste time removing my cloak.
"Thank you for joining us at last, Severus, I hope that we aren't pulling you away from anything too pressing." Black's obnoxious voice is as unpleasant as ever.
"Use your imagination Black, I suppose the two of you have become well acquainted recently, especially in light of your particular situation." The pause I leave before choosing my adjective would have annoyed him more than the words.
It has the intended effect; his cheeks flush slightly, the blood rushing to the surface betraying his anger, reddening further at my smirk.
Albus resumes the meeting and it continues in the typical fashion, indistinguishable from any other of the dozens of evenings spent in Black's kitchen, flickering light from the fire illuminating faces with hope fading further with each gathering.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It's over and until the next time my house is occupied I will be alone, how pathetic do I have to be for an evening of being ignored to be the highlight of my world? I leave my musing as the people begin to leave, Kingsley nods as he hurries away with the Tonks and the other aurors following him, Remus grimaces at me, I wonder if that was his attempt at a smile. People filter out slowly and now it's just me, the Weasleys and Snape. The whys of his continued presence in my kitchen do not occur to me, I only feel the anger and frustration of being abandoned and left alone in this echoing monument to my family's hubris bubbling up from my stomach.
"Get out of my kitchen." I almost don't recognise my voice, I sound hard and cold, unbending.
I see faces turn to me but there is only one I am looking at.
He stands languidly, all feline grace and dark malevolence.
"Perhaps you should have considered what offering your house up to the Order would mean when you did so. Although I am unsurprised that you didn't, after all thinking certainly isn't your strong point."
"Are you as dense as you look, Snivellus? You clearly haven't learnt not to ignore what your betters tell you. Get out."
"Are you claiming to be my better, Black?"
"Are you challenging it, Snape?"
"I am simply astounded that there is yet more evidence of your overweening pride and utter arrogance."
His words mirror my earlier thoughts, I pause, shaken.
"Get out." I bite the words off, "I may have allowed Albus to use my house but it is no longer Order time and it remains my property. Remove yourself."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
His eyes are glittering, for a moment he looks young again, angry and passionate, demanding and imperious; the bully of my school years.
"Believe me Black, I am attempting to leave, however you yourself seem to be preventing me from doing so. Is there something you want to say to me? Some hidden secret that no one will stick around to hear so you need to trap people in this crypt to unburden your soul?"
He looks surprised for a moment, as though he had genuinely been unaware that he was in fact standing in front of the kitchen door, blocking it so that the Weasleys and I were unable to reach the hall and so escape this oppressing and dank atmosphere.
He moves aside, allowing the Weasleys to leave from the opposite side of the kitchen. Before he can move I go to push past him, not wanting to facilitate his juvenile actions which I could imagine would involve taking up more of my precious and rare free evening.
He had begun to move away from the door so that I in turn could leave, although this was a pleasant surprise, my back became rather too familiar with the door frame as I was caught between him and the wood. My breath left my lungs in a rush.
I look up and our eyes meet, for the first time in years there is no hatred, no recrimination, no blame, only openness and a glimmer of surprise at our current situation.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
His eyes are still brown, so dark that to the casual observer they seem a flat black and emotionless, such a deceptive appearance.
All at once memories flood back, almost overwhelming in their intensity.
Half remembered shy glances across crowded classrooms when no one is looking at us, suspicious at first but gradually warming, then heating us in an unexplainable fashion.
Angry confrontations where our hearts would race with emotion and our faces heat up as blood rushed to the surface, giving away the depths of our whirling emotions.
Pushes and shoves, punching one another until we were pulled apart, not using wands but resorting to physical violence, it may have been a betrayal of my heritage but when he was standing there and taunting me all I wanted to do was to be on top of him, making those words stop coming out of his mouth and sometimes it worked, other times I was on the receiving end.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The nights themselves are what I remember most clearly: the summer heat, the pollen, the deep and heavy air. The silence was deep and broken only by gasps and moans, half smothered gasps and whimpers filling the corridors and rooms we staggered into.
His mouth hot, burning its path down my neck and chest, travelling over my body like he wanted to memorise everything about it, all my flaws and imperfections. His hands were so big and could hold both of my wrists when he wanted, the feeling of being powerless was heady and addictive, it would seem that the old saying is true: foreshadowing really is everywhere.
He was always warm and although it was summer it was a pleasant change from the pervasive chill of the dungeons, by the end he was practically a furnace, his sweat dripping down onto my body as I panted, pinned by him.
He is still warm, even in this frigid tomb of a house. His eyes are the same blue; I don't know why this reassures me, after all eye colour doesn't simply change with the passing of a few decades, a comforting constant.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The sensation of being pressed against him is so familiar, so right and easy that it seems almost inevitable. I lean forward, still holding his gaze and press my mouth to his, he tenses and I throw caution to the wind, caught in the power of the memories, I lean in further moving my lips over his, trying to elicit a response. He finally relaxes and seems almost to melt against me.
The need for air finally forces us to part and the moment is broken. I move away and he walks down the hall and out of the door into the night. Before he left he looked back and what I saw in his eyes wasn't so open as forgiveness or the prospect of redemption for either of us, nor so commonplace as lust or desire. It was the faintest flicker of hope, more fragile and precious than anything else.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In light of this evening's events, the next meeting may not be so unendurable as previous experience would suggest.
Maybe there is such a thing as hope in this ever bleaker world, or maybe we are all damned and this is just a way to stave off the encroaching and desolate future.