Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Episode two, and I'm officially bringing my pairing out of the closet. Treat them kindly, please; they're new and tender. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a full-length fic with these two before, which I think is a crying shame, because I am utterly and totally in LOVE with them. There's even enough canon support to make it (halfway) believable, and I hope you'll all give them a chance...
*phew* Insecure author's rant over. And, to reward you for putting up with that, I've got two chapters in a row for you this week, and a shiny new feature: teaser lines at the end of every chapter. So, here goes...
Disclaimer (forgot this last time, because I am disorganized): I don't own anything. Except my laptop. And a very, very oversized imagination.
Petunia Dursley did not run. Ever. When absolutely necessary, she did Pilates. And running in public was undignified, and leaving her husband and her shopping in the middle of the street to go sprinting off after a barely-glimpsed profile doubly so, and yet…
"Sev?!" Adrenaline and the heat and the fact of what she was doing there (Petunia Dursley did not run) caught up with her all in a second, because it was him after all. It was him, staring down at the hand on his arm as if he expected her to hit him, as if he were afraid of her, and she was swaying slightly and gasping and feeling ten years old all over again.
"Tuney?" He said incredulously. "Tuney Evans?"
He was wearing a suit. What was he doing, here in the middle of London, in the bizarrely unseasonable sun, wearing a Muggle suit? He was as incongruous as she was…
"What are you doing here?"
Unable to think of an answer, Petunia fell back on the only possible, the only rational explanation.
"I don't want any of your kind coming near my family," she sniffed, shaking away his arm as if he was the one who had put it there. He blinked at her. "My name," she snapped, "is Petunia. Petunia Dursley."
Abruptly, and predictably, his face flipped into amusement.
" 'Dursley'?" His eyes raked her, and she bristled – the way that man looked at people, as if he could see through their clothes – "Petunia Dursley…"
"Petunia!" Vernon Dursley's voice echoed like a bellow from behind her, and she jumped. "Who's this?"
"He's-" A wizard.
But Petunia Dursley did not run after wizards on the street…
"Your…wife…and I," said Snape, looking Vernon Dursley over with obvious amusement, "knew each other as children."
"Really?" A light seemed to flicker behind the beady eyes, and Vernon Dursley's tone changed, in the space of a second, from its customary rudeness to an almost (Petunia winced) servile amiability. "And what brings such a distinguished person as you to the area, Mr…"
"Snape. Severus Snape. My…I own a house near here…"
"Yes, yes, of course." Mr. Dursley was eyeing Snape's suit (it was a ludicrously good suit, Petuina noticed with disgust. What the man must have done to get his hands on it, she didn't like to think…), with one of his Business Smiles (Friendly, Number 4), and Petunia felt the air constrict around her as she saw all too clearly where this was going …
"I'd no idea Petunia had any friends around the neighborhood! We're – well, the flat is really only temporary – only until things-"
He stopped and attempted to backtrack, puce-faced, with some mutterings about the economy. Snape was reminded distinctly of the time (six years ago, or five) he'd asked Lucius Malfoy where his house-elf had gone, and found out a year later it was working for Albus at Hogwarts.
Petunia pulled at her husband's sleeve. "Vernon-"
Vernon Dursley brushed her away with a look of annoyance that clearly indicated that if anyone was responsible for this embarrassment, it certainly hadn't been him, and redirected his attention.
"You can be sure we'd have looked you up much sooner if I'd know someone like you would be in the neighborhood, Mr. Snape, but then" (Jovial Chuckle Number 7) "you know women, eh? Poor wife forgets her own name, half the time, don't know what she'd do without me…"
Petunia closed her eyes in abject horror. "Vernon-"
"Anyway, Mr. Snape," he said brightly, apparently entirely misinterpreting his wife's frantic tugging on his arm, "As you're in the neighborhood – old friends and all – what do you say to coming 'round to dinner sometime? How about tonight? We'd love to have you-"
"That sounds…interesting," said Severus Snape, with some small measure of surprise, "I think I will…"
Teaser: a high-heel came slamming down on Snape's foot. He'd had enough experience with bone-breaking, to know exactly what the crunching noise was. Damn it, he'd been hoping to save the last of that skele-gro…