Severus padded quietly down the aisle of the train, Hogwarts Express. Totally unoriginal, he'd thought to himself the first time he read the name. He'd used his trademark word then, the one word anyone that knew him from school would use to describe him: seriously. Now the train was abandoned in its station at King Cross. No students rushing in, hurrying to preferred compartments, waving goodbye to parents, chattering nonstop to friends. None of that anymore, even though it was the first of September and outside the wind toyed around with loose paper and the leaves were changing colors. Even though Voldemort was gone . . .
Everyone had thought everything would be better after the war, that everything would go back to being normal. No one expected the war to be so devastating, no one except the one person who'd seen all sides and seen just how determined each and every soldier was. And no one had believed him. Oh the irony!
Severus sighed, sliding open a compartment door, leaning in the doorway so as to keep the door from sliding shut. Here was the compartment he'd first sat in, alone after Lily left him for a group of giggling girls. He sighed. That was the second time he'd said seriously since entering Platform 9 ¾. The third time, not long after he'd found the last compartment on the right was when two boys, snot-nosed and rich the both of them, decided they could kick him out of the compartment. Boy, were they wrong. Severus, unlike them, it seemed, had read a little of his school books for a pass time, and he had them running with their tails between their legs. Until another guy came up and defended him. A pity that guy had more time to read up before school. At least Severus kept his original compartment.
He glanced across the train at the other compartment, the compartment the three boys had settled on. Most of the more childish, harmless pranks they'd invented had been cooked up in that compartment, no doubt. Along with all the failed attempts to woo his friend, Lily. He remembered the first time a couple of first years had dared to claim that compartment. Severus had blasted the crap out of those three boys and their latest companion (a useless boy – turned out to be a traitor) in defense of the terrified first years. It was the first time Severus had used his 'feral smile' on the group. Scared the first years so bad one of the actually pissed on another. It was hilarious. Severus smiled at the memory.
The compartment he was standing in had far less enjoyable memories as compared to the one next to it, he was sure. This compartment held countless meetings growing from harmless musings to fully blown Death Eater meetings. And Severus had partook in every single one of them, even aided the Dark Lord indirectly from his very first year. And he had thought he'd been doing something worthwhile. Severus sighed and padded out of the doorway, letting the door slam shut behind him. He shuffled up the aisle, towards the front of the train, musing on the various pranks he'd found himself in at different parts of the train. Several he managed to disable before they were sprung. Some he didn't and other students sprung. A few he sprung himself, much to his humiliation. However, he got his own back.
How innocent it had been, when they were all so much younger! Now they were all dead.
James Potter, Lily Evans, Regulus Black, Sirius Black, Nymphadora Tonks, Peter Pettigrew, Lucius Malfoy, Alecto Carrow, Bellatrix Black, Narcissa Black, Amycus Carrow, Rodolphus Lestrange, Fenrir Greyback, Remus Lupin . . .
Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Sibyll Trelawney, Filius Flitwick, Poppy Pomphrey, Argus Filch, Horace Slughorn, Pomona Sprout . . .
Cedric Diggory, Padma Patil, Parvati Patil, Alicia Spinnet, Marcus Flint, Zacharias Smith, Blaise Zabini, Lavender Brown, Pansy Parkinson, Oliver Wood, Cho Chang, Lee Jordan, Terence Higgs, Seamus Finnigan, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Daphne Greengrass, Marietta Edgecombe, Katie Bell, Gregory Goyle, Rodger Davies, Millicent Bulstrode, Ronald Weasley, Susan Bones, Penelope Clearwater, Ginny Weasley, Vincent Crabbe, Terry Boot, Theodore Nott, Hannah Abbot, Harry Potter . . .
So many dead . . . So few left to fight . . . Oh, the Death Eaters were gone for good, as was Voldemort, but at what cost? Severus sighed, pausing at the compartment Lily had usually sat in with her friends when she wasn't in the prefects' compartment. The friends Lily had left him for. She'd always known he blended in to defend himself, and when he couldn't, he retaliated violently, and yet she blamed him for joining the Death Eaters. Was she so blind to see that it was purely panic that had led him to such a decision, panic and ignorance? Was she so blind . . . ?
On the side of the Order, the only ones to participate in the final battle were Aberforth, Argus, Poppy, Filius, Pomona, Sibyll, Rubeus, Alastor, Arthur, Kingsley, Rodolphus, Remus, Fred, George, Neville, Hermione, Terry, Theodore, Luna, Hannah, Draco, Harry, and himself. The Death Eaters left were Peter, Rabastan, Lucius, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Avery, Alecto, Amycus, Fenrir, and of course, Voldemort himself.
The only ones to live of that bunch were Rabastan, Fenrir, Aberforth, Rubeus, Alastor, Arthur, Kingsley, Fred, George, Draco, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and himself. Depressing, no?
Severus sighed yet again, squeezing his eyes shut, leaning against a wall. He let his head fall back in defeat as he let the memories wash over him.
o
Severus looked up as the compartment door slid open, revealing two boys about his age, though well-fed as compared to his 'strawberry of the week'. The one opening the door was shorter and had messy black hair (though who was he to judge?) and a pair of circular glasses obscuring hazel eyes, his glasses near falling off his chisel nose as he laughed. The other one had long, straight dark brown hair and deep blue eyes, like the sky at twilight, although his nose looked as if it had been broken more than a few times, much like Severus' own. They'd almost sat down before they noticed a thin, wispy sort of boy staring at them in an odd mixture of contempt, interest, and disgust. (The disgust was due to the half-eaten chocolate frog falling out of the first boy's pocket.) When they'd finally deemed Severus worth noticing, the first thing out of the second boy's mouth was, "Get out, this is our compartment."
Severus bent his head down and to the right ever so slightly, cocking an eyebrow as he did so, giving the boy a mocking look. "Seriously?" he asked, the question rhetorical.
The other boy at least gave Severus half a chance. "He was here first, Sirius."
Severus gave them a wry smile. "I don't see how this compartment can belong to either of you, as obviously neither of you happens to be any older than myself."
"Why don't you speak so's the rest o' us can understand you?" Sirius spat. Perhaps this boy had grown up in a ghetto as well, though he was far too . . . intact for such an assumption to be true.
"I said this compartment can't belong to you. It doesn't have your name on it, and you can' be old enough to have been on this train before."
"Yeah, well it does now, so you can just get your greasy arse outta here!"
"That wasn't very nice, you know. He probably comes from a family stuck in poverty. He's less fortunate than us." The reasonable tone in the first boy's voice infuriated Severus to no end.
"I'm no less fortunate than you because I lack an old wizarding name and gold out my –"
"Woah! Calm down! I didn't mean it like that!"
"Codswallop," Severus hissed.
"See, James, he ain't gonna be friendly, so can we please just kick his greasy arse out?"
James turned to glare at Sirius, and Severus, seeing his opportunity, tried out a new spell he'd read while at Flourish and Blotts. "Incarcerous," he whispered, aiming his ebony wand at the chosen victim. The spell produced the desired effect: thin, snakelike cords shot out from Severus' wand and bound Sirius so he'd only be able to move by hopping, a very humiliating mode of travel, Severus had learned.
Not giving his opponents a chance to retaliate, in case one of them knew the counter-curse, he hissed, "Silenecio," at James.
Louder, Severus said, "I'd appreciate it greatly if the two of you would do me a monstrous favor a leave me be. I am aware that the compartment next to this one is available." Sirius and James glared daggers at him and the compartment door slid open revealing a shy boy, thin and frail like Severus, with a mop of neck-length golden brown hair and amber eyes awkwardly holding a stack of books, hand-me-down like Severus' own.
"What's going on here?" the boy asked, looking from Sirius, to James, to Severus (rinse, lather, and repeat as necessary).
"This jackass did something to me and I can't move and he silenced James!" Sirius shouted, struggling furiously. The boy chuckled and said the counter-curse loudly and clearly, so's all three boys could hear it. Sirius' bonds fell lifeless in a circle around him.
"I'm Remus," he said, muttering the counter-curse to James' ailment as well.
"I'm Sirius, that's James, and you don't need to know that greasy git over there," Sirius grinned. Severus cast a Bat-Bogey hex at the prick. Remus laughed, as well as James.
"Severus," he whispered, though none of the three heard him.
"Look, why don't we just leave him alone and go to that other compartment I saw across from here – there's only this boy our age in there and he seems pretty nice," Remus suggested, still fighting off giggles.
"I agree. Go there and leave me in peace." Sirius glared at him and slipped out of the compartment, Remus magicking off the hex Severus had cast as they left.
Not moments later did the compartment open again and Severus lifted his head and the insult died on the tip of his tongue: the intruders this time were not the same ones as last time and were most certainly older than himself. A tall young man with long white-blonde hair swept into the room, carrying a majestic air with him. He stared down his long chisel nose at him in contempt as a beautiful young woman stepped into the compartment. She had long golden blonde hair with curls at the ends. Behind her came a slightly taller young woman with a mass of black curls gathering around her shoulders and cold black eyes that seemed to pierce Severus' walled-off heart with an icy dagger. She, too, was beautiful, but dangerous and sadistic. Another young man filed in after her. He was about the first girl's height and had short black hair and a malevolent aura about him, an evil grin plastered on his tanned face.
"Look, Rodolphus!" said the first young man, "a first year in our compartment. Isn't that sweet?" As he spoke, he leaned in toward Severus.
"Now, Lucius," the blonde girl said calmly, "Just because he's a first year doesn't mean he isn't worth our interest!" Severus watched warily, already formulating plans to get himself out of the mess he appeared to have gotten himself into.
"Hey, kid!" the other girl said, ignoring her companions. "Know any good curses?"
"My name is not 'kid', and that all depends on you view on 'good curses'."
"I like the way this one talks, Lucius," said Rodolphus, sizing Severus up.
Ignoring the shorter boy, Lucius peered at Severus, "She means do you know any dark arts?"
Obligingly, Severus listed off every single Dark Art spell he knew of and even a few of the ones he'd invented himself, keeping the more dangerous invented spells to himself. The shorter girl whistled low and long. "That boy knows more curses than I do, 'Cissa. Heck, he knows some I've never even heard of before."
Mumbling quietly, "I invented some of them."
"Inventing too! Oh, Lucius, we've just got to keep him!"
"I'm not a pet," Severus growled, clenching his wand. The girl laughed.
"Of course not," Lucius said. "Bellatrix just has a different view on life than the rest of us. Anyway, I think we've been rather impolite. I'm Lucius, Rodolphus is the midget, Bellatrix is out Dark Arts fanatic, and Narcissa's in the family."
"So what's your name, kid?" Rodolphus asked, jeeringly.
"I believe I've already explained that it isn't 'kid'."
"Of course," Lucius said. "Rodolphus is just impatient."
"It's Severus."
"Well, Severus, welcome to our little group," Narcissa smiled warmly at him.
o
Severus stopped pacing the Slytherin common room abruptly. He turned the upper half of his body almost all the way around, causing the owner of the voice to wince at the sickening sight. Severus bent his head down and to the right ever so slightly, cocking an eyebrow as he did so, giving Bellatrix a mocking look. "Seriously?" he asked. "Do you seriously think I'm worried about finals?"
"It was just a question," Bella grinned. "You know, to get your attention?"
Severus pulled a sour face at her, letting the lower half of his body follow the top half. "Well, you've got it now," he said irritably, crossing his arms. Though Bellatrix and the other three Slytherins that had met him on the train last year were several years above him, they respected him for his magical prowess and in turn that made other students respect (and fear) him as well.
"Just why are you pacing?" she asked.
"I'm thinking up a new potion, one to hone one's eyesight to such a degree as to allow perfect vision at a total distance of five hundred kilometers in pitch darkness as well as daylight and to allow one to see through objects if the drinker so chose."
"And how do you think this is possible?" an older Slytherin asked.
"He's already invented a potion to perfect his sense of smell, Avery," said Narcissa, "so why not perfect his vision while he's at it?"
"Say, will that potion wear off?" Rodolphus asked, eyeing Bella and earning a harsh whack upside the head for his efforts.
"It'll be permanent," Severus said, snatching up his notebook and falling to the floor, crossing his legs as he did so. He summoned his quill and ink pot, which was running low, and scrawled out notes, muttering about various ingredients and how to counter the effects of certain items to produce the desired effect.
o
"Severus!" He winced as his name was called. The one thing he did not wish to do was face a boggart.
"Probably going to be Lily angry at him," a Gryffindor snickered.
Severus bent his head down and to the right ever so slightly, cocking an eyebrow as he did so, giving the Gryffindor in question a mocking look. "Seriously?" he asked, before padding up to the desk at the front of the classroom. The boggart quickly transformed into a tall, burly man with ragged hair and a sadistic smile, his nose large and crooked, like Severus'. The boggart grinned maliciously and honed in on his prey, a shaking, terrified Severus. It's not him, it's not Tobias, he thought to himself, his obsidian eyes squeezed shut. "R-ridiculous!" he stammered, his wand pointed squarely at the boggart's chest. The man transformed into a harmless kitten, as Severus could think of nothing that would make Tobias laughable.
"Very good," the teacher said, calling up the next student. At the end of class, the teacher called him up to his desk. "Will you tell me who that man was?" the man asked, concerned. Severus recoiled, lashing out in fear and anger.
"No! I won't!" His teacher sighed and dismissed him, wondering how he could help a situation he knew nothing about.
o
Severus ducked his head, stepping warily into the torn-up room, presumably in the Shrieking Shack. He looked straight ahead at the monstrous, furry chest in front of him. Slowly he looked up and into the amber eyes of one furious werewolf. "Seriously?" he asked, eyes wide in awe. He knew he should be terrified, he knew he should run, but he couldn't move a muscle, he couldn't even breathe. After what seemed to him like a lifetime, a rough hand grabbed his shoulder and hazardously yanked him backward, into a chest bigger than his own.
"Idiot! What do you think you're doing? And who told you about Moony?" a wrathful voice hissed in his ear.
"Wondering what the bloody hell your sodding friend Sirius was talking about!" he growled, yanking himself away from James. A large claw reached out to nick him, but he pressed himself up against the dirt wall of the tunnel just before he was infected with lycanthropy. Severus glared at James before rushing out of the tunnel, shoving past a snickering Sirius as he did so, casting a body-binding charm on him.
"Hmm. Silverbells or Aconite? Both?" Severus mused, padding up to the castle and casting a silent invisibility charm on himself.
o
"Are you gay?" Regulus asked, pattering after him into the Slytherin common room. Severus stopped, shocked, disturbed, and most of all disturbed. He turned the upper half of his body almost completely around (even at seventeen he could still do it.)
Severus bent his head down and to the right ever so slightly, cocking an eyebrow as he did so, giving Regulus a mocking look. "Seriously?"
"You keep saying that," Regulus said, padding over to a table and grabbing a blank sheet of parchment and a quill. Severus followed his friend to the table. "You keep saying," he said, scrawling down 'seriously'. "But I keep hearing," he wrote 'siriusly' down below the word 'seriously.'
Severus snapped his eyes shut, a look that said purely 'I'm such a bloody idiot' covered his face.
"You're never going to say your word again, are you?" Regulus asked, a smile in his voice. Severus shook his head, unable to speak. Regulus sighed. "Knew I shouldn't have said anything." He padded off, up to the sixth year boys dormitory. After he'd left, Severus crumpled up the parchment with such incriminating evidence and stuffed it into his pocket and fled the common room, checking in the hallways for teachers or ghosts, or Peeves though he was on decent terms with Peeves now. Luckily he met no one on his trip down to the Forbidden Forest. Once he'd buried himself deep into the forest, he took out the wad of parchment, smoothed it out and read the two homophones. Seriously and siriusly. How could he have not noticed the likeness before? No matter. Severus crumpled the parchment into a ball once more and chucked it as far away from him as he possibly could, the thing landing behind a large rock. Satisfied that no one would find it, Severus turned and scrambled out of the forest and up to the castle.
o
He heard a quiet rustling nearby, but attributed it to a rat or something of the like. Quiet feet tiptoed closer to him. Curious but wary, Severus listened hard but did not open his eyes. What he heard next was not at all what he was expecting.
"Siriusly?" laughed a familiar voice; one he'd thought he'd never hear again. Severus' eyes snapped open. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone he'd never thought to see again. A tall man, thin from lack of food, with long, straight dark brown hair and eyes like the sky at twilight and a nose broken several times too many. A tall man grinning at him insanely.