ONLY SKIN DEEP
Chapter One: Reeling In the Years
Author's Note: For those who have not read Harry Potter and the Naked Lunch For Two, there will be spoilers. For those who are not interested in same, but curious, read The Unbearable Lightness of Being Severus Snape. It'll give you a good idea of what's going on. For those who are still not interested, just dig in. You'll catch on.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1996
I: Snape
Wreathed in a bluish halo of cigarette smoke, an exhausted Severus Snape made his way to his dungeon, thinking only of a shower and his bed.
He was a man who rarely slept, but on Wednesdays, he slept like the dead.
Normally, he would have been glad to see Potter parked in front of the telly and staying out of trouble, but this wasn't normal, this was Wednesday, and Wednesday was something Snape didn't want to discuss with anyone.
Especially not Potter.
"Potter, what the fucking hell are you doing in here at this hour of the night?"
Harry paused, the can of Coke halfway to his mouth, and suppressed a chuckle.
"Well, I love you too, Pops! I'm just watching some telly. Merlin's beard, what's that smell? It smells like Professor Trelwaney's tower. Is that you?"
Harry turned the sound down, and turned away from the telly.
"Fucking hell, Snape! I mean the gods only know, on a scale of one to ten, I've fucked some minus fives, but, Professor Trelawney? Has Hermione got the curse? Or are you just a lot more merciful than I ever gave you credit for?"
Snape gave him an extremely dirty look, which made Harry back off a little.
Maybe it was one of those things, nostalgia, or something.
"I mean, I've heard she was hot stuff when you lot were in school, together, but…"
"For your information, Potter, your old man does have some pride. I may be an ugly, manky, greasy old git, but I won't just shag any witch who crooks her finger at me. Sibyl isn't what she seems."
"What, you mean she purposefully makes herself look ugly with and she's secretly still hot stuff?"
"Very perceptive, Potter. But she's not interested in having any new partners on her dance card, so you just take me word for it. Now, I have to go wash all this bleedin' scent of meself."
"Is that where you were last Wednesday, as well?"
"Potter, do I ask you where you practise your gynecology?"
"No."
"Then keep schtum about mine."
"Snape, why does she do it? Pretend to be a daffy old cow?"
"Sibyl isn't pretending to be daffy. She's just not an old cow. Despite what you little bastards think, she is a skilled prophetess and medium and a good teacher. But she's daffy, and flighty, and dingy, and absentminded and all the rest. That she's not putting on. That's the reason she can't tell a genuine prophecy from a flight of fancy. She was always like that. But, yunno, if a woman's good-looking, people find that shit endearing. Just like if I was a handsome man I wouldn't be crabby, snarky, manky old Snape. They'd say I had a strong personality. And if people knew Sibyl was still a fucking knockout, they'd say she was cute and bubbly and eccentric, instead of calling her a silly old cow." Snape explained.
Harry knew what he meant.
He always thought he got away with half the things he got away with because he was Harry Potter, and the other half because he wasn't a bad-looking bloke.
People were like that.
"Why does she do it, then?"
"Because of your godfather. I lost everything when I lost your mother. Sibyl lost everything when Sirius went to Azkaban."
"But you still had Wednesdays, and each other? That's kind of nice, Snape."
"It wasn't just Wednesdays, then. Look, Potter, you are going to keep schtum about this, aren't you?"
"Me? Me lips are sealed. I don't get it. Why don't she and Sirius get back together?"
"Fear, I imagine."
Harry snorted, derisively.
"Fear? What the fuck are they waiting for? Voldemort to kill us all?"
"That's the way I see it, Potter. But they're both sold on all that romantic slosh, so they've had to agonise and dance around each other, and all that."
"Seems like a big fucking waste of time to me. Have we any more Twix?"
"I'll split the last one with you. Turn up the telly, will you, then?"
II: Sirius
Chief Justice Sirius Black was a man with many weighty matters on his mind.
He had spent 13 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, then a year or two in exile, another year trapped in a mirror world, and, of late, he was a leading member of the Wizarding government-in-exile, which was now, depending on who you spoke to, the government-in-charge.
He had a godson in the first stages of recovery from a drugs and drinking habit that nearly killed him, who may or may not have sussed out that Snape, the manky Scouser git who was sponsoring him at WAND and tutoring him in his studies, was none other than his flesh and blood father.
He had briefs to review, opinions to write, cases to try, strategies to plan, and his home to remodel, so the past, and the love affairs of same should have been the last thing on his mind.
It was the first.
He was walking again, towards the Divination Tower, and when the door at the top opened and out came that Lavender Brown, tall and blond and long-legged, with her tinkling laugh and something gauzy fluttering along her robe, it made him think of a witch he once knew, once loved.
No, still loved.
All the years he was imprisoned, he had thought of Sibyl almost every night.
Beautiful Sibyl with her beautiful soul; she had been everything the decade that spawned her hoped it would be in its highest ideals.
Still was.
He was a man with so many regrets.
He regretted the deaths of his two best friends, and even though he and Snape were mortal enemies, he regretted that the man lost the woman he loved, and his son, all in one fell swoop.
A fell swoop than included betrayal by one of Sirius' oldest friends such that Harry couldn't even have grown up with his godfather; he had to be sent off to Lily's sour sister, in the dreary Muggle suburbs.
But, it was with the heaviest heart that he regretted losing Sibyl, losing the life they would have had together, losing her love.
Then, after he had only been in Azkaban one week, the letters began to come.
Who knew that ditzy, daffy, flighty Sibyl Trelawney had the hidden strength of ten witches, plus two?
She wrote to him at least twice a week, sometimes more, and sent him one package per week.
Every week, for the entire time he was at Azkaban.
She put money by from her own pay to send him food and cigarettes and money; she wanted to come visit him but he wouldn't let her.
Sibyl never believed he was guilty, even before he told her he was innocent, she never believed he was guilty.
It was Sibyl's idea that he should study magical law, and she was his cheering section and link with the outside world all through the years of his studies.
She was the only person he got word to that he was still alive while in exile.
The packages and letters continued; he didn't have to tell Sibyl where he was, she just knew.
And the year of his freedom was so hectic, it passed him so quickly.
Then, his death, and she was fired from Hogwarts, and her relapse followed.
He had only revealed that he was still alive about a month after the students came back to Hogwarts.
Sibyl came to Dumbledore's office while he was there.
She hugged him, and she'd cried, and he cried, too.
Snape had warned him of her transformation, but he was so shocked and appalled that but he just blurted it out.
It was the wrong thing to say at the wrong time, he supposed because she had ran from the office and in the months that passed he hadn't the nerve to go see her, again.
"Great Mother, Sibyl, why are you dressed like the gypsy in the old Muggle werewolf movies? Are you in there somewhere?"
Lavender Brown gave him an alluring look, and as they passed, she and the Patil twins looked at him and giggled.
Sirius continued to the tower.
Patchouli and lavender and sandalwood; she had never changed her scents.
He closed the door.
"Sibyl?"
She came fluttering into view, in her conglomeration of boxy skirts, drapey shirts, heavy vest, boxy cardigan, ugly scarves, cheap necklaces, odd hair adornments, and thick glasses.
Layers upon layers of cheap clanking jewellery and ugly clothes and those awful thick glasses even though she'd never had a problem with her eyesight a day in her life.
When she was a young woman, Sibyl had been beautiful, a hippie Earth mother for whom free love was real love, but she had a real love for Sirius Black.
She dressed herself as a mockery of what she once was, but Sirius looked at her and saw that his Sibyl was still there, under her guise as a dotty old bag; if he believed in nothing else, he believed in second chances.
Women who were plain could make themselves look more beautiful; so why couldn't a woman who was beautiful maker herself look plain?
Ugly, even.
"Oh, well, hello Judge Black. I didn't see you there…"
"Sibyl…"
She fluttered to and fro, her cheap jewellery clanking together, like a flustered butterfly.
She couldn't help it, she still moved on her long legs with grace, fluttering about like a frightened bird.
"…I haven't any more classes today, so if it's a reading you wanted, Judge Black…"
"…Sibyl…"
"I might just have the time to…"
Finally he caught her by the wrist, impeding her flight.
"Sibyl, you wrote to me in prison at least once a week for 13 years. You were the only person in the Wizarding world besides Albus who didn't either forget or condemn me. You gave me a reason to go on living, in the bowels of Azkaban, and I would lie there, every night, and at the very least I'd be thinking of you. I used to keep your letters sewed up in my pillow, because they smelled like all your oils and scents that reminded me of you. I dreamed and prayed and hoped for this moment all these many, lonely, miserable years. You continued to support me in exile, although the gods only know how you knew where I was. I've ben trying for months to screw up the courage to come here and see you, after the way I made you cary and run for the hills in Albus' office. Why the fuck are you calling me Judge Black? "
Fright filled her eyes, making them look even larger.
"What are you afraid of?"
"You can't be here, now, Sirius. Not during the day."
"Why the fucking hell not?"
"I can't explain. I'm just…not myself, during the day."
She got out of his grasp, and fluttered towards the door.
"I haven't the time. You really must go. You understand, don't you? I thought you would. Go talk to Toby. He'll tell you. Please, Sirius. You can't be here, now, and see me like this. I won't have it. I can't bear it.
And, somehow, Sirius was out the door, again.
Toby?
Oh, right.
Sibyl always called Snape by his middle name, because she couldn't say his first name without giggling hysterically.
Snape's cocked eyebrow spoke a thousand words.
"Look, Snape, it's not as if this is a subject I want to dredge up. I mean, those were the days when you and I came close to killing each other. I have scars from some of those fights. And so do you. But I know that you and Sibyl, well, let's face it, everybody and Sibyl…but you and she have worked and lived her together many years. I'm not an idiot. I know what used to go on between the two of you, and the other members of the Order of the Satyr. I don't want to dredge all that up, or get in some scrap with you. I just want to know what the hell is going on? What was she on about? Has she gone around the bend?"
Snape looked into his teacup, and then back at Sirius.
"You caught her at the wrong time." He said, thoughtfully.
"What?"
"Look, Sirius, for anyone else, I would say, yes, she's gone potty, right round the twist. But you know Sibyl. On her best day she makes that Luna Lovegood look like, well a Justice of the Wizarding High Court. Sibyl has buried herself in the drag of a dotty old gypsy from a B monster movie, and occasionally, in vats of sherry because of you. She never thought you were guilty, and I never had the heart to explain to her how incredibly fucking guilty you were. I held my tongue for years while she wrote to you, and spent her own money to make you more comfortable, because, as much as I hated you, I knew the way Tom Riddle could twist a man's guts; I thought you deserved the hell you were in, but I can't say I didn't know how you could have gotten in it. The point is, I knew what she was up to, And Albus knew, of course Albus knew the whole thing, as usual, but if anyone else had found out that Professor Trelwney was still in contact with Sirius Black, mass murderer, Death Eater, and spy, what do you think her job would have been worth? Sibyl's smarter than people give her credit for. She knew that nobody pays a damn bit of attention to what an ugly woman does, and as long as she was a daffy, ugly, flighty cow of a woman no one would pay her any mind, no matterw hat she did. Of course, she may have other reasons, but those were private. She knows I would never understand. The upshot of it is, Sibyl is only herself in the witching hours. The rest of the time she's that mockery of herself that everyone made fun of for seventeen years while she alone held the candle for Sirius Black. So, you caught her at the wrong time."
Sirius sat back in his chair.
"What should I do?"he asked,
Snape rolled his eyes, impatiently.
"Go and see her, you berk! Tonight. At midnight. Tell her what you need to, tell her what you like, just make sure you tell it to her, nicely. And keep going to see her, no matter how stupid you think it is for her to carry on this charade long after you're the fair-haired boy, again. You'll want to draw her out, slowly. She's been hiding in the dark for Harry's entire lifetime. If you drag her into the light of day, it'll be too much for her. I know it's fucking mad, but, everyone has their own ways of coping with their entire lives turning to shit. ,Have a smashing evening. Now, if you'll excuse me, Granger's alone in the lab."
"Snape?"
"Don't fucking ask me."
"I don't have to ask you. I know you too well. Did she ever consider me? Hermione?"
Snape grinned, evilly.
"Probably. But you're not her type."
III: Sibyl
Just because she spent most of her nights frustrated and alone, Sibyl saw no reason not to treat herself like she was really a woman.
The witching hours between midnight and dawn were the only hours she had, to be herself.
With the Divination Tower locked up and warded, she could shed her layers and layers of ugly, boxy clothes, and her scarves and stays and clanking cheap jewellery.
She walked over to her mirror with her brush, and looked in it.
"There I am. That's much better. I always feel so much better when I can put off that ugly woman and stick her in a drawer."
She sat down by her mirror and carefully brushed the tangles that she matted into her long yellow hair ever morning out.
It was nice to take off the glasses that distorted her looks and her vision and see her true self through her own eyes.
Sibyl had treated herself well these past 17 years; she never drank hard liquor, and ate mostly a vegetarian diet, with only a little chicken here and there to keep things interesting.
Her relapses into drink had only amounted to two, and then just sherry.
The years had been kind; out of her disguise, she looked not very different from the way she had when she first affected it, at 19, when Sirius went to prison.
She was reminded of the legend of Sir Gawaine and the Ugly Witch, in which gallant Gawaine married a supremely ugly woman who was hideous to the eyes of everyone who saw her in the daylight, but, at night, when they were alone together, she was able to retain her true form.
But, instead of Gawaine, she had her regular Wednesday night visits from Toby.
He was like a man under a spell, himself.
Sirius had always thought Toby was ugly; and a lot of the girls in their year couldn't understand what she wanted with "Snivellus" Snape, but she never saw him as ugly.
He wasn't pretty, but she liked his rough looks, and Sirius was such a straight arrow in those days.
Sibyl finished with brushing her hair, and went to take her nightly bath.
When Sirius was in jail and in exile, she used to write to him while she was in the tub, but lately she'd been doing her papers, and catching an extra hours of sleep in the afternoon.
That was how she'd done it.
All of her classes were always finished by two, and she had office hours with students until three, then took a nap before dinner.
After dinner, she'd go out to mail her letters and her packages to Sirius, and run whatever errands she had to for him, or for herself.
And at midnight, she locked and warded everything and put the old bag in a drawer and got to be herself, again.
Like she had been, when she was a girl.
Sibyl frowned at Harry Potter's homework.
Harry only took women seriously if they were tough as nails, smart as a whip, or pretty enough that he was interested in rubbing a little of his glory on them, and in his eyes, she was none of the above.
Professor Trelawney laughed a little.
If he knew the real me, he'd try a damn sight harder in my classes, wouldn't he?
But there were so few people who remembered her, anymore.
All of the Order members, presumably.
Sibyl bent her leg at the knee and her thigh slipped above the bathwater scented with jasmine and sandalwood, and she looked at the tattoo of the Satyr.
Was it so many years ago that Toby Snape founded the Order of the Satyr?
So many years ago that she cavorted under the round yellow moon with Luke, who had Elvish blood, and Moony, who was a bull werewolf, and Toby, who was the grandson of a half-satyr and a half-veela and whose father was a Muggle Scotsman?
In the end, Sirius had understood her, Sirius had forgiven her, not so much for her promiscuity, as a Sex Mage she was expected to be a little wild, but for the company she kept, for the drugs and the drinking and using magick as an excuse to be dissolute.
And after Lily was dead, and Sirius was in jail, these many years, she and Toby had been quite a comfort to one another.
Sibyl knew about him and Hermione Granger, although he never told her.
She was glad for him; Toby was a good man, and they were only in their thirties, her and Toby; he deserved a second chance at happiness and love.
Toby.
Toby was a far better man sober than he had been drunk and stoned; Sibyl wished it was Wednesday.
Then she wished that she could have had a drink.
She got her wand and summoned her tea tray, and put her papers and quill on the shelf underneath, and poured herself a cup.
Moony hadn't forgotten the old days, but then again, like her and Toby, he didn't exactly have members of the opposite sex beating down his door.
A man has needs; but a werewolf; he has compulsions.
When he had come to teach at the school, it took Moony all of a month to come crashing through her window in the middle of the night.
She came, in her nightie; Sibyl liked wearing sexy nighties for just these kinds of occasions, and found him brushing glass off of his robes.
It was a dramatic moment.
He came in soaked to the skin from a terrible thunderstorm, in the desperate grip of some fever that his werewolf blood brewed up in him, and he looked a her with madness in his eyes.
"I knew it, Sibyl. I knew you were hiding." He'd said.
Of course, she knew sober Remus well enough to know that this moment of madness would be brief and that he would very soon be apologising and leaving, so she had insisted he get out of his wet clothes, and then insisted he get under the covers with her so he wouldn't catch a chill.
She didn't have to do any more insisting.
Moony apologised in the morning, and she had only laughed, and given him a special password to use on Thursdays.
But, Moony was married, now.
And all her hours on every other day of the week but Wednesday and those occasional Thursdays, she had spent them on Sirius.
Writing to him, getting him what he needed in Azkaban, whether it was Bertie Botts Every Flavour Jelly Babies, or money or cigarettes or food or lawbooks.
And while he was in exile she had continued to support him.
And when she'd heard he was dead, she mourned him.
The light left the world when he was gone.
But all those hard times were past her, now.
Past both of them.
Sirius.
Sirius was an innocent man.
An innocent man, a prominent man, a man who could and did walk the hallways of Hogwarts with impunity, the fair-haired lad, again.
So to speak.
And the years had been kind to Sirius, as well.
Where he had been a boy, a brave but foolish boy, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune had made a man of him.
A tall, strong, handsome man, who, if his well-cut but often disorganised wardrobe did him justice, still had the body of one of Pan's own fauns.
That was one thing Sirius had over Toby and Moony, always had.
Toby was tall and rangy, broad-shouldered and lanky, and Moony was wiry and hairy, both of them heavily scarred and heavily tattooed, but Sirius was an athlete; he had the body of a young god.
He was muscled in all the right places and hairy in all the right places, and he was so handsome; he was the best-looking man she had ever known.
And now he was a man, a grown man, still a handsome man, and a free man.
Who had asked, in Albus' office, and come to her tower looking for someone who no longer existed.
At least, not during the day.
Sibyl got out of her bath, dried off, and put on one of her nighties.
She was carrying a glass jar with her bath oil in it, and when she got to her bedroom, she dropped it, the glass broke, and the scented oil splattered all over the floor.
Sirius had been sitting in a chair, but when he saw her, he stood up, abruptly.
"Gods, Sibyl! Great Mother of All!" he breathed, and it sounded like a prayer.
The prayer of a man who had spent man years of lonely nights in prison, thinking about the woman he had left behind, and finding that his dreams were not in vain.
"Sirius, how did you get…"
She was going to ask him how he got in here, but Sirius Black was across the room in two bounds; he was holding her tight against his body, he was kissing her; he was running his hands over the slippery surface of her filmy nightgown.
His hands were very hot.
"Sibyl…oh, Sibyl, you're still so beautiful." He gasped.
She clutched at his shoulders, felt the muscles of his back under his velour jacket; she was pushing it over his shoulders but he got his wand from his pocket and touched it to his coat.
"Divesto!"
Divesto, and Sirius was naked, and she was in his arms, or he was in hers, whichever.
Sibyl went on the boil, and started crawling all over him the same way he was crawling all over her.
"Oooo, Sirius, Gods, Sirius, you're the most beautiful man in the world…I've been waiting for you to come back to me for half of my life, but now that you're with me again, it might as well have been a day. I've waited for you so long…and I won't wait any longer."
For some unknown reason, he still had his y-fronts on, and when she tried to pull them off, he broke away from her.
"Please, Sibyl. Don't. Don't touch me cock." He panted.
"Why? I would ask you if prison took all that away from you, but it's very obvious it didn't."
"Because, if you touch me cock, I'll lose me mind. I'll have you right here on the floor, like a fucking madman."
"Really? Accio, wand!"
Sibyl summoned a nice pile of pillows and beanbags and cushions, lit some candles, sent her wand back to her desk, and reached down the front of Judge Black's blue y-fronts.
"I'm waiting." She said.
Sirius lit two cigarettes; he always did that for her, it was one of his dashing little Old World gestures that remained of his tattered nobility.
That was how Sybil had always thought of it; there was something very heroic about Sirius' wrinkled jackets and his family's past.
"Did you mean that, Sibyl?"
"Which?"
"Well, you did say you loved me. But I understand if it was just in the heat of the moment."
Sibyl didn't have to think before she spoke; she knew the answer.
"Sirius, I've loved you since I was 14. I believed in you when no one else did. I gave you everything but my blood, and if you needed it, you would have been welcome to it, as well. Why stop now? Of course I love you. You're my knight in rumpled velveteen."
She reached for him, but he was trying to get up out of the cushions.
"I love you too, Sibyl. And I hate to be unromantic, but these cushions are hell on my back. You are really going to have to scourgify 'em for your 'students. Where's the bathroom? Wait. I've found it. You know, Sibyl, I think you put my spine back into place. But I'm not sure, until I've had another go..."
He opened the bathroom door.
"Fucking hell! Look at this bathtub! It's as big as my cell in Azkaban was!"
Sibyl rearranged and scourgified the cushions, and then followed the sound of the running water.
"You know I like to take long baths."
"Yes. In scented oils. And sleep in a four poster bed, with velvet blankets and satin sheets. And all these cushions and candles and you swanning about at night in some gauzy nightie? Who do you do it for? Certainly not Snape. He's about as romantic as a toilet seat."
Sibyl poured in some of Madame Rosalie's Double Bubble Foam Bath, and got in the tub with him.
"Myself. Actually, both of us. I like beautiful things, Sirius, you know that. It makes me feel more like…me, in these precious few hours I get to be myself. But, for you, too. I always held hope against hope that you would be proven innocent. I had a feeling that was more than just wishful thinking, or a hunch. I wanted to make a beautiful place for you, a perfumed garden, where I could wave my wand and make all your years of adversity disappear."
"You've done that. This tower is like a place in a fairy tale. And you're like a princess. Beautiful Sibyl. Like a flower in the sun."
Sirius spoke lazily, watching the bubbles rise, popping one with his finger.
"You can come here every night, if you want to. Erm, except Wednesday. Every night between midnight and dawn."
"It is like a fairy tale, innit it?"
"Yes. It's meant to be. You never told me you had a bad back."
"Premature arthritis. From all those years in Azkaban. I tried every healter I could find, but there's this potion that Snape's mother and his grandfather make, at Prince's Potions that really does the trick. Still, if I sit on anything soft for any length of time, forget it. I'm sorry, Sibyl. I sound like an old man."
"Too much red meat, Sirius. Too much red meat, and salty snacks, and fried foods, and not enough exercise. Let me put you on a better diet, and show you a little yoga, and you'll feel much better."
She darted out of the bathtub, dripping all over the floor, and fluttered out of the room
"And that horrible draughty tomb you live in! Where did I put those aromatherapy oils? Have you been to see an acupuncturist? I know a good one…"
"Sibyl, I don't believe in any of that bullshit." he called to her.
"Would it kill you to try? Where's my yoga mat…there it is, now, I know I had another…you know I give Yoga classes here, on weekends, you should come…"
There was a great crashing, of a large pile of things falling down.
"Dammit!"
Sirius sat back in the water, laughing.
Same old Sibyl.
"Alright, Sibyl, what the hell, I'll give it a try."
Sirius fell asleep, later that night, but Sibyl was used to staying up all night, she sat up beside him in bed, making out his new diet.
After she sent off a few copies, she went back to wake him up.
"Sirius…wake up! You have to go, now?"
"Huh? What? Fuckin' hell, Sibyl, it's barely light out."
"I know, but I have to get dressed and ready for classes."
"Now?"
"Sirius, it's dawn. You have to go now. Nobody can know you've been here."
Sirius was about to protest, but Sibyl looked frantic, and he called Snape's words to mind.
Draw her out, slowly.
"All right, Sibyl. I'm going. But I'll be back, again, tonight. And tomorrow. And the night after that."
"I'll be looking forward to it."
She handed him a piece of parchment.
"This is your detoxification diet."
Sirius read the scroll in disbelief.
"I'm not a fucking rabbit! I can't eat this lot."
"Yes you can. I've owled a copy to Kreacher, and one to the house elves, here, and I took one to Poppy and she thinks it's a marvellous idea."
Sirius got dressed and put the scroll in his pocket.
"I'm not too sure about all that yoga bit. Me back hurts worse, now."
"It'll get better. How do you think I can still put my feet behind my head?" Sibyl replied.
Sirius grinned at her, evilly.
"Lots of practise? Of which you'll be getting much more."
He kissed her goodbye in as theatrical a fashion as he could.
"I'll see you at midnight."
"I'll be waiting."