02 – Rusty
When the door closed back, Severus faintly curled up his lips.
The tea THAT IDIOT had just given him was utterly horrid, the teabag probably molded and the mug poorly chipped.
The worst part was that THAT IDIOT – oh, how bloody irritating it was, only Merlin knew, – had just picked up his favourite tea brew, yes please, green, no lemon, no sugar, no milk.
Sour, bitter, kind of unripe, if you want to know, thanks.
Just like Snape himself, maybe.
Anyway, he sipped the hot liquid, shivering a little again, from the head to the toes.
He had spent quite the horrible day, going back and for…
OH – NOT TO MENTION that THE IDIOT dared touching him on the shoulder with his hideous fingertips.
Like he could understand his actu…LIKE HELL he could, couldn't he?
He…HOW COULD HE…How could…?!
He shivered again and again, in waves of tiredness.
His bones were all aching, complaining about the extra night spent on reinforcing his own mind defenses while stealthily watching over the Potter boy.
Yes, that one.
The Golden Boy.
So tiresome…and still – so damned precious.
And damned also he was, wasn't him?
He snorted almost silently.
How ridiculous, now, going so very sentimental.
…for sure, bet it was the warm tea THE IDIOT offered him that started creating this awfully state of mind.
He felt fucking moody once in a lifetime and he couldn't bear with it.
He was Severus Snape.
He wasn't simply meant to be moody.
To be honest, he wasn't meant to be at all.
But this was another long story – he thought, striping his cynicism with the black delicious humor of his (the best potion of mind, if he had to admit it) - and the daylight was creeping up, so he had to savor his last few moments in peace before the despised sun would pop up and flicker everything with its yellowish intruding light.
Perhaps Snape wasn't meant to be in light too…
His body felt suddenly heavy and his mind went blank, releasing all the tension that had clumped up in his brain for more than three days.
For he felt he was a man with a very sharp mind, always paying attention to details and, actually, always obsessing over them, recording everything and everyone while passing for unobserved or at least mildly hated.
Funny how things had rolled back and forth as now as back then…Severus snapped his tongue again in disapproval: that wacky, OLD FOOL was going to ruin them all for sure!
And in a short lapse of time too, you can bet on it!
If only he could…
STUMP STUMP STUMP -
Severus lifted his head a little, upset by the sudden stomping noise.
Indeed, THAT IDIOT was again up to something strange.
Yes, none other than THAT freaking weirdo…
Nonetheless he didn't really care.
(yeah, why caring about THAT IDIOT, anyway? THAT ONE…)
He rested his slightly trembling forehead on the mug in his hands and closed his heavy-lidded eyes.
Resuming his temporary state of things, he knew there was no point of coming back – and to be truly honest, he had been knowing it from the very start.
Oh, no forgiveness for him, not at all, except in exchange for a bloody sacrifice – clap your hands, ladies and gentlemen, clap them hard!
So, in the end they were all intended to be THAT OLD FOOL guinea pigs, and the worst part (yes, Severus's best were always the "worst parts") was that he was being so very eager to fall in this trap by his own will.
Classily, he simply had come up with the noble idea of amend his own crimes.
Merely, he simply had his core torn by guilt and his brain fucked up by decades of disturbed, abnormal and dysfunctional affective relationships.
Let alone the twisted connection with THE OLD FOOL, who commanded him like a master with his lackluster puppet and, at the same time, who cared for him in a sort of unhinged sincere way.
Yet, seen through Snape's eyes, amongst all the freaks he had stumbled upon during his tormented life, the OLD FOOL was maybe the ODDEST of them all.
Sickening with love, one would say, overflowing with love, love for everything, love for everyone – so righteous, so eccentrically good, so mischievously shining, so crazily unbearable – and love even for Severus, for the discharged shade of a man he was.
And the OLD FOOL, most surprisingly, was also one of his last friends…well, to say it properly he has been his only friends in quite a while.
Fine, – Snape could not tolerate to lie to himself – maybe he had been his only true friend ever.
The more he got acquainted to this dismal idea, the better he could stop roaming around the same hazy and dull thoughts he was rummaging now…
Eventually, his brain just hushed.
The day forthcoming, the room was silent, filled only with the muffled sound of crackling fire flames.
Snape felt mysteriously cozy.
Those were, in fact, his only precious few hours at dawn in which he could slack off a bit.
His weariness growing day by day, some new (and partly unwanted) habits strangely guided him to rest on THAT old and worn-out couch, to stop by THAT silent and neglected house and to invariably meet THAT proud, pig-headed, useless master of the house.
Upstairs, as to tag along with Snape's silent conversation, the over-mentioned master of the house answered back – clearly an old habit of his – with a loud RUUUMBLE, a harsh rapping and a series of THUDS, followed by the familiar STUMP STUMP STUMP…
Severus snorted again, this time louder, rolling his eyes reluctantly to the ceiling.
Meanwhile Sirius Black let a series of really heavy objects fall to the ground, causing Snape's nerves to jump and his head to jerk, his early grudge by now converted to plain headache.
Severus felt he could strangle that cocky bastard anytime now…the tiniest signs of everything coming from THAT TWIT had the irritating intensity to bother him deeply like nothing else.
In that moment he realized the depth of something he re-discovered everyday with pure disdained incredulity: he hated THAT scornful gaze – OH, how he hated it! –, his bright eyes always glistening over something; THAT snobbish (and ignominiously attracti – CRAP, Severus could not hide the thought, he had already well-formed it) display of his features ; THAT peculiar way he had to protrude his hard-lined lips – always full of blatant and ungraceful words – and to show his teeth , like a dominating male dog, just like he was not to be questioned, just like he was just to be followed or believed - ABSOLUTELY OBNOXIOUS…!
He couldn't stand Sirius Black, for a renowned number of very clear reasons that in that precise moment showered him in a bath of repressed and mostly unmotivated anger.
So nonchalant, so uncaring, so hatefully amiable and at ease, so adorably restless…yes, adorably, just as every bloody bullshit he did or said was acceptable, tolerable, even COOL…
He could effortlessly rule everybody, couldn't he?
Mpf..
It was so irritating he could shout for minutes…
And in that precise moment, ironically in time, Black slammed the kitchen door:
- What the…!- he exclaimed in a funny-sort of voice, noticing Snape's presence.
Snape slightly turned to him and prepared to some other mean words.
They didn't come.
He was warmed up and a bit scruffy due to a big lumpy sack he was now carrying into the room.
Long, waved curls stranded in his shoulders, the grey eyes scrutinizing and his big hands reddened by the effort.
The man crammed the sack on a corner, still panting a little for the hard work.
- What the heck are you doing here?-
Black stopped near the couch, the hand resting inquiringly on his hips, and Snape fixed back his curious clear eyes.
- None of your business, Black. -
Calm and frank at first, Black's look became instantly vibrant and scorching.
- Well, Snivellus, dear, since this shack belongs to the undersigned – his voice rose, it became malicious and ready to sting - I can say I want your horrible hooked nose out of my kitchen…you know, it could poison my eyesight… -
He sported a quick catlike expression.
Snape ignored him.
- Mpf. –
- So, how did you like huddling up next to the fireplace, little Snapey? Uh? Did you purred under the blanket? Do you need a hug?-
Severus erected his back, like an upset snake woken up by something very unpleasant.
Without showing his bothered self, he stood up and gathered his cloak.
He would definitely seal that insolent jabbering mouth.
- Yes, certainly this glorious shack is successfully saving the world, if this was what you were trying to remark. –
He almost hissed, staring up at Sirius, a bit taller, his shoulder a lot broader.
Sirius instantly shoved his teeth – as expected – and Snape exhibited a carefully chosen venom-smirk.
He knew he had subtly poked that weak point of his, in other words Black's incapability to forget that he was permanently stuck in Grimmauld Place, unable to do or move as he wished.
- Well, I must say – added Snape, showing off his superiority – you really are doing well as a coolie (he pointed cruelly the sack), so much that I should let you tidy up my office every now and then.-
Black literally growled to this and mechanically jolted tenaciously towards the other.
- And as you can see, yes, even you can understand something so easy, this is what's most suited to someone so remarkably unwitting and inadequate to do any other thing. You can leave the difficult and risky tasks to the others, don't take it as a private matter.-
Snape shoved the empty mug in Sirius' hands and adjusted the cloak on his shoulder.
- Yousonofa…-
- Now, since I certainly hardly ever desired to meet you so early in the morning, I shall go and leave this shabby place of yours. – finished Snape with a satisfied tone.
He surpassed Black and approached the ajar door.
- And I suggest you to learn how to serve a proper tea to your guest, if you want to become a good housewife.-
He went out and the door finally wobbled back to his place.
Once closed, Snape used it to rest upon with his back for a second or two.
He sighed and closed his tired eyes.
At the same moment, he heard the sound of a smashing mug over the wooden boards behind his shoulders.
He shouldn't have provoked him and he knew it.
If an enormous part of him now smirked nastily to his spiteful words, a tiny one was on the contrary pretty bewildered.
After all, within all the prejudices he had on THAT IDIOT, he was at first being polite.
Snape, however, had at once refused his "temporary-peace" offer, he had set himself ready for the battle, right away.
And, again - for Merlin's beard this was becoming an obsession – the worst part was that under everything he saw just his old, uneasy true self, just shielding from the unknown.
In fact, he simply wasn't used to share a room with Black all alone and this same old insecurity of his had led to their usual senseless behavioral pattern.
He was intended to be Snape, after all, and this could not be changed, not even by the dear OLD FOOL so in love with love…
But behind his childish act there was another unpleasant and unspoken truth – and the thought attached fiercely on in his tired mind for all the rest of the day (so much that he actually almost broke Longbottom's table due to the loss of his temper).
While Black strangely had seemed to be casual and even had disposed to show more politeness, he simply couldn't get to scratch the rusted surface of his own person, he could not speak truly, he could not behave not even once as he really desired.
For he was trapped, that's all, and that's the reason why he was sometimes waiting the bloody dawn on that horrible couch, that's the reason why he felt so closer than anyone to that grungy shack.
It's because there were ten or eleven seconds, during sun rising, it all felt a bit like a home.
And yes, crazy but true, it felt like he was actually part of it.
He Disapparated near Hogsmade and asked Rosmerta to pour him something very heavy and dry.
He felt shockingly awry.
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YUKI: ok, no time for comments now, I'll do them later. ONLY A THING: if you see grammar mistakes, please write me and I'll correct them as soon as possible. It's like I'm getting blind, I cannot see them anymore.
BYE!