The Middle Zero

Severus Snape is in the Muggle world, passing quite well as a muggle man. His form is a lucid fixture as he sits between realms so close and so familiar to the other. On his hip, a small revolver is attached to a black leather belt. A dark brown leather wrap holds his wand to his right forearm securely and he'll choose one or the other only when appropriate, but he will choose accordingly every time. He will not flash a gun at magic, nor magic at a muggle threat.

It's just the way things have to be.

It's raining, but that isn't strange though it is something he knows she doesn't like.

She, is something entirely different from his everyday. For one, she doesn't live here, she lives in America where the sky is all sun instead of all water and clouds. She says she's luckier and he agrees, but he's adjusted to the English weather because it's been his entire life. The times he's gone to her, the air was hot and made him feel as though he was a hardening sponge. It was very dry and rather uncomfortable... Still… Clear skies were far better than constant dampness, and warmth was better than snow. She was luckier in this aspect of life though he would never live where she is if given the chance.

He sits alone in a black leather seat that's mounted into a chrome colored frame with a table before him and an empty matching booth in front of him. A midnight diner with a name that doesn't even matter enough to change the lightbulbs regularly on the front sign. Set in a silver tube with large windows and red trim, he looks to one side; out the window he sits beside and watches running city street that continues with a pulse day and night with only a few hours of slowness in between. That slow time is not now, now, there are clubs open and Severus is not alone though knows none of the other patrons around him. It's the opposite setting of what he would choose. If given the option he would have chosen a more unknown diner much later into the night. But he didn't choose. She did. He had argued, though obviously not well enough because here he was. Alone. Glancing out the window at the damp, nightlife city of passing cars, flashing road signs, laughing people and everything else a club center would entail. A younger crowd, a crowd of his age. Very early 20's.

He's a cocky young man, though a recluse even now. His straight black hair hangs down over his face in layers and falls past his shirt collar in spiky strands. He'd dressed far too proper for this setting and only now does he realize it. She won't be dressed like this… Like a… Malfoy….

Suddenly repulsed, he looks away from the window where his eyes have focused on his reflection and he begins his move from his seat and towards the restroom. A change with magic would be easy, but not something he could do here out in the open, nor something he would want her catching him doing.

He's up and as he travels down the laminated tile floor to the left he passes many other booths like his and to his right, he passes a bar that overlooks the kitchen. The booths and twirly seats are mainly occupied but as he arrives at the restroom door that's past it all and around a corner, he's both relieved that the room is empty and that as far as he could see, she had yet to arrive through the front doors.

He'd stand in the full-length mirror that hangs against the far wall and he unbuttons his shirt cuff with ease before slipping out his wand. He looks himself over. Waxed leather shoes, pinstripe trousers and an overcoat over his form fit and buttoned vest and tie… He looked like a Malfoy which he never had an issue with unless he was in these moments. He starts with his head and moves the tip of the wand down. Layers, layers that stuck up, layers that were green and layers of hair that dropped to the middle of his neck. His wand uncovers a tattoo on his face that he hides nearly every other day of his life day and will be more than ever in the months to come. It's a small tattoo of a small black x under his right eye by his nose. It's a line that means little to the those who don't know it's significance, but in the drug and club scene, it's a marking of power and influence. He doesn't regret the tattoo, he hides it because it's easier than exposing himself and that world no one else needs to know about. This entire suit was paid for by that tattoo which was also very Malfoy of him indeed.

She has an X tattoo too in the same spot, but she wears hers proudly wherever she goes which is why they meet where and how they do.

Next, he turns his wears from flashy to function. The cloth trench coat turns to leather, the fabric of the trousers are now heavy jeans with an extra set of pockets on the legs. The black button down shirt with the tightly held cuffs whisps away to a dark green and black plaid button down shirt, and the vest to a black zipper up hoodie whose hood he immediately pulls over his head. The hood has the image of a skull spray painted to either side and the trenchcoat hangs open and down to his calves. Swapping waxed shoes for combat boots, and a watch and rings to fingerless cotton gloves, a side of Severus emerges that he has worked hard to kept up as a total secret. Pulling the torn cuff of his sweater up from inside his jacket, he looks himself over again before exiting the bathroom, very pleased with what he sees.

The booth is still empty when he enters into the only dining space, and although he stares at the booth he came from, he will experience a few looks from those he passes because although he he clearly changed, there was no bag in sight. Silly muggles, he'd smirk as he made his way back to his seat. If only they knew what they missed every single day because they were never driven past their own thoughts.

If only they knew.

To one side is the large window that leads to the city, but that is outside the glass. The table is connected to the window and against the widow sit the condiments, napkins, silverware, his cup of hot chocolate, and a sole little music box that one would put a coin into, move through the small pages of bands and songs and then would use the keyboard below to type in the assigned series of numbers and letters. There was one song he knew was on the box but he dare not press the buttons yet. Severus tries very hard to stay away from such washes of warm memories but somehow, washes of memory always find him.

The next time he looks up, just a minute later, she's coming through the door looking just the same as she always had. She finds him quickly with sharp grey eyes and the woman who approaches, approaches with confidence and a cocky swagger. A shoulder strap bag hangs across her chest and over the studded and spiked denim jacket she decorated herself. Over her heart and jacket breast pocket, a sew on patch reads the single word, Quill.

Quill.

The only name he knows her by so it might as well be her real name. Everyone he had ever seen near her had called her, Quill. Lucius, called her, Quill and so had he from the start. Her name is Quill, because of a dedication to amajous magic that spanned to before than she'd been at school. By year one, she could produce the soft quills of the porcupine she wished to become but unlike the rest, she stopped there. Quill had stopped her change half way and worked on her midform, a distinct practice of it's own mastery. Her halfling form was that of a bipedal humanoid with a blanket of thick, sharp black and white quills that covered her back, over her arms, legs, head, and even a tail. By the time he met her, she could use these quills as ranged weapons, shooting them off with a stabbing force. She was terrifying as she was beautiful. She uses quills to keep her multicolored hair in a bun, and there are rips in her clothing she's patched many times. Her hood is also drawn and this masks her collection of ear piercings, but he still sees her nose hoop and set of lip rings that were fashioned as what she called a, snake bite set. He notices that the weather has brought her to look rather disgruntled as she travels in magically drying clothing and that some messy and curly strands have fallen over her face only add to her usual grungy appearance. She didn't have a lot of hair though, as the sides were shaved bald but it was her smile that always caught him. Bright, white, and always behind a purple and black smokey shade. Purple is power. Purple was her color. Everything was purple as were the shades around it. Purple, pink, blues, all dark, they all reflect her with a shadow perspective. Thin chains hang from around her vest gingle lightly as she slipped fluidly into the seat across from him.

She wasn't a Malfoy, he examines her as she takes her shoulder bag off and drops it aside her with a heavy sigh. She was nothing like them.

"Quill." He passes a glance towards her as she settles, his own frame straightening up, though he kept with his forearms on the table and his hands cupped together.

"M." She reaches for his cup of hot chocolate and quickly took a sip.

Hot chocolate wasn't his drink, it was hers. He was more of a coffee man and when the waitress returns to the new arrival at the table, she'll order a coffee that she knows will meet his specifications.

"Severus." She finally smiles and addressing him as she places the mug down.

Lucius was pose, Lucius was sophisticated, Narcissa was charismatic and alluring, the Malfoys were swift, sharp and precise and while Quill would meet a few of these traits, she was simply not the type.

"I hate, England." She sighs as she looks out the window. "I feel like a fish."

He smirks as he watches her take one of the few side stacked, red boarded, laminated menus from next to the sound box. Her eyes holds of the sprawling red and silver cube as if she forgot it was there. Distracted, she's in her pocket, but he's already ready and with a coin, he holds between thin fingers. She sees him but can not protest in time as he pushes the coin through and simply presses the proper keys without looking away from her. He presses the red button and they wait for the current song to finish.

"If you pay for me again….."

"I didn't pay last time."

He did. He knows he did, and he had gotten away with it just as he would this time; when she wasn't paying attention.

"Lier."

He smirks as he watches her flip through the few pages before landing on something to eat.

"I'm paying this time. I'm serious, Severus."

His eyes flash a harsh stare that makes her look away, over his shoulder towards the kitchen to be exact.

"Don't do that." He whispers.

In a twist of fate and storybook setting the waitress is approaching and lands by the table. The conversation is paused and as Quill orders, he thinks to himself.

She knows about Sirius, but she doesn't know enough to understand why even though the words were different, serious and Sirius was something that if landed next to his name was something that irked him quite a bit. She was an Ilvermorny, lass. An American who though shared his school years through time and age, had not shared his school expenerice at all.

"So! Oh my god! Your new job!" She coughs as the waitress walks away.

Suddenly she's rather loud again... They all were when they got excited… Not women, Americans… He raises his eyebrow and wonders what he sees in her and what he's seen in her all these years.

"Hogwarts!" Her hands hand heavily on the table, palms flat.

"Yes..." He nods his head.

She waits a moment, then her eyebrows meet the middle and she twitches her head as if she were telling him to continue, but he'd wait just to annoy her.

Americans are impatient, and he enjoyed doing these things to her and did so because he knew there was a reputation to uphold. He had to be this, dark and mysterious British friend. He had to be the storybook, darkness with a hissing accent. She had never said it aloud, but he knew she liked it. Especially around her friends. She liked the Malfoy appeal and he wouldn't blame her for that. After all, he did too.

"Tell me about the job you, numbknuckle."

Numbknuckle. American magic slang for someone who can't pull up any energy or hold their wand securely. Someone who was weak. His lip twitches in irritation but in his favor, his coffee had arrived as did her milkshake. She'd drink both because, to him, she just never make sense like that. But, she'll be quiet for the bit and he'd use that time to talk about the job she wants to know about.

"It's for potions master."

"M. You get your own office and shit, yeah?" She twirls the straw of the milkshake before taking another sip.

She swears like a street child or the alcoholics in all the bars and broken homes but here it doesn't annoy him, though he doesn't often participate these days.

"You're going to teach eleven year olds?"

She sounds doubtful and slightly impressed. She was doubtful because he's an introverted hermit with a firecracker temper and a slight alcohol addiction. She's impressed because he was convicted of illegal brewing. But she didn't understand and she wouldn't because even though she knew of the Dark Lord from newspapers, she didn't know his part in it at all. In front of Quill, he's not himself. He's not the Severus Snape they all know while being that same man at the same time. He's not the Half-Blood Prince. He's not a death eater. He was not just a man who recently got out of jail. She didn't know about the Order. She didn't know about more than what she could find in the papers from across the sea. She knew rather little of the world outside her own country but in this case that was a good thing. He feels something within him slide into place. Like a rotation of a wall and the switch between two rooms. Here, their song turns on and he is in a space he hasn't been in, in a long enough time.

His eyes close as a breath escapes him as his mind plays along with the starting words. She watches, a small smile playing on her lips. She knew he was a drug dealer and manufacturer. But that wasn't strange for a girl like her, who ran in a scene like the one she lived in; and within this he found comfort. She knew he lost his most loved in more ways than one. She knows this all lead to his own heavy addition stint. And she knew he'd mourn her death for a long time and into the years to come. But, she didn't know the inner workings of it all because although he vented his hatred of the Marauders every now and then as they grew up, she really didn't know any more than he did about her.

He knew she lived in the city apartments in San Francisco. He knows she loves his products and works as a city pathologist of both magic and muggle deceased. She knows death, but death doesn't know her which is just the way she likes it. She makes a decent paycheck that pays for her rent, her dog and the concerts she travels too. She's doing what she loved, in a world where the sun always shines. He's always wanted to ask what the department thought of the X tattoo she claimed she never covered, but somehow it had never been asked. Maybe it would tonight… maybe not. He understands and had learned a long time ago why it was probably just better not to ask of such things at all.

Her style mimics what he is now. Tightly wrapped, front ripped and patched pants, combat boots with frayed shoelaces, fishnets sleeves, a black, band logo belly shirt and a navel ring that glistens when she lifts her arms up. Layered belts, spikes, and chains. The epitome of punk and the opposite of aristocratic ties. On the back of her jacket is a large N.S.P.S patch; the mark of the Second Salemers. She wears this ironically of course. She herself is a pureblood from a family that just never ended up with anyone outside their own. Like, The Weasleys, he thinks to himself before quickly pushing that life away. Yes, it was Britain, yes this was his turf. But no. He would not connect the two; his world with Quill would be, for as long as he could keep it, kept completely apart.

8 years ago they met at the Quittach world cup. America vs. Britan and Lucius latched onto immediately, though, would throw her away just as quickly. While purebred, she was a mutt, he'd call her just based on the looks that never changed. Still, she was pure pureblood and that was something Lucius would always remember.

He takes a sip of coffee even though he doesn't need to be awake. He's clear for a night of early sleep but the food has just arrived and he knows she won't eat until he takes from something around him. It's subtle, something he's not sure even she notices. But he had, so, he drinks first and as expected, the fork is lifted and she starts eating.

We all have our traumas and so does she, but that's not a story for now. Now, he starts talking.

"No concerts, no drinking, no sales." His eyes flicker up at her for this part.

Quill liked what he made as much as she liked what he sold which she bought in quantity she'd sell across the pond easily.. Magic induced acid style tablets, hallucinogens, uppers... All that. "It's a position that will keep me at the school and under watch."

"I can't wait to hear all about this." She chuckles as she eats her bacon with her fingers after slathering it in syrup as butter melts on her pancakes. "Severus is growing up."

It's nearing midnight and she's eating a full breakfast.

"Pancakes aren't for dinner." He mentions the words of his mother. Something he rarely ever did.

"No one asked you."

He shrugs and goes back to his coffee. She's right. She didn't ask him, instead, she insisted she'd pay for it all. It was a nice thought, respectful gesture, but something that wouldn't.. and had yet to happen between the two.

"Maybe I can get that tour." She winked at him but there was an honest interest in her tone.

Hogwarts was beautiful and true, she had never been there. She had seen the castle from afar, he'd brought her to viewpoint locations, but had never brought her anywhere he'd think someone would recognize his punkish look. He's kept her away from his world, but the past few years, before his sentencing, she'd been pushing closer. It didn't matter though. He was a jailbreak professor about to be locked in the school from his childhood, teaching aside teachers that once taught him. Now, young children will learn from him which when he thought about, made an entire generation of students who will remember him. He never escapes his past because he's never given a chance to start new. He's trapped in Britain by the choices he has made.

"Maybe." He shrugs, and now she looks at him as he had looked at her; like she was trying to figure out why exactly she chose to be here.

That look has passed between them many times in the 8 or 9 years since they met, and had been passed 8 or 9 times over those first few days of the Quidditch world cup where they met. But, still, they meet and believe it or not, the time spent is enjoyed however far between those meetings are nowadays.

"Maybe?" She asks. "I get it, it's a job, but over a vacation or something.."

He looks up at her and nods. "I'll see what I can do."

She smiles a smile just for him and he looks away from the warmth and takes another sip of the steaming drink to replace its feeling.

"So, how do you feel about the job? Is the pay better?"

"I'm… indifferent... but no... The pay is not better." They exchange a glance. "But the work is honest, legal and will build my reputation to something better."

"Someone less fun." She huffs.

"Someone innocent."

That too is an important thing to be, and perhaps for Severus, this is what he needs. They both had happened into the "bad crowds" but Quill had never been institutionalized before this. Quill had never had a heavy addiction she couldn't kick, she never burdened him with her heartaches. But she was also a very dark person who used their position at the morgue to pass and gather information she shouldn't share but would. A lot like, Lucius, actually. But she's not.

"Maybe Sevy, needs a summer job."

"Maybe I do." He sighed irritably before finally leaning back into the backrest of the booth. "I know I'll need a summer break."

"We can go to Amsterdam." She suggests with a sly smile that's reciprocated.

"Can you get off work for it?"

"If you give me a few weeks in advance yeah.. Unless there's a mass murder." She'd chuckle.

"If there were you'd probably see me."

"With Lucius waving on your tailcoat?"

"Like always."

"He likes to know of massive or particular deaths…" Her tone falters and her hand twitches.

"What's wrong?" He almost sounds like he cares.

"I got a letter from him…" She said quietly going into her bag as he leaned forwards. "and... It's something I actually wanted to ask you about."

She won't explain what she doesn't have to and instead, she hands him the letter that he unfolds and reads.

Quill.

It is, Quill, right? Do you still go by the name? Well, it's Lucius Malfoy, and I suppose you remember me. After all, I know you still communicate with Severus, last I checked. There appears to be a change in winds and you can be of some help to me. If interested in a job, contact me.

Lucius.

That's it. That's all the letter says and he flips the page over and back again. The Dark Lord was dead, there wasn't a need for a man like Lucius to need work from an American like Quil unless it was related to her job and social standing.

He hands the note back folded and face down.

"What are you thinking?" He asks as she shifts in her seat.

"I've worked with him now… what? Twice?" She shrugged as she pulled the letter back and looked it over. "Both times... Pay was on time and immaculate…"

Lucius and Quill were not friends. They were not acquaintances. They hardly got along when they were together. Quill was a name in the back of Severus's address book that Lucius had taken a long time ago. Severus was at the Quidditch world cup on the invite of Lucius and his family, and the boy had been with Severus the day he met the rugged girl with the ripped pants and little poofy black dog. Lucius had caught his friend sneaking out that night to meet her, and again that next midnight. You could call it infatuation, but Severus had been, and still was young so, he'd call it foolishness. Lucius pays well for the private work he wants to be done, and he pays more for the silence it usually entails. Quill can get the job done and get it done quietly, and both other times had done so beautifully and undetected. Business is business and you don't need to be friends to trust someone if a bond is made elsewhere. That was their relationship.

"Then write him back if you have nothing holding you from his work." He says in a finishing tone. "Just… walk with caution and keep me informed." He'd finish offhandedly as the waitress came by asking for refills and complaints. There weren't any complaints, but he did order a refill on his drink.

She raised her hot chocolate cup in the air between them, to which he matched to cleared her throat and pushed the strands of rebellious hair from her face again,

"To, adulting." She proposed once the drinks were refilled and the waitress left.

"To… adulting."

The cups would touch and each would take from their own drink before lowering and picking up a lighter conversation of little nothings. Mostly questions and answers, but silence was relaxing too and Quill was no stranger to meetings like this with those who would rather say a lot in a little. At one point, a thick plastic bag is passed between them, from Severus to Quill with a promise it will be his last for a while. Then, he'd get up and leave where on his way out he would pay before she would, and leave before she'd have a chance to protest.