"Ar'you gobba tell McGobagall?" Potter asks as they move up the stairs, and Lucius presses his handkerchief to the boy's hand, which he immediately brings up to his nose. He hisses in pain, but Lucius is concentrated on the Lupin boy, who is breathing rather heavily, and who stumbles on the stair.
"Lupin, can you see at all?" Lucius asks.
"If I open my eyes, maybe," Lupin mutters. "But this stuff is quick dry, and it doesn't half smart."
"I'm going to carry you," Lucius decides, and before Lupin can object, he bends and takes the boy up on his shoulder, one arm braced against the back of his legs to keep him in place; his other hand is settled on the scruff of Potter's robe, keeping him in line. The boy is very light despite how tall he is, his frame just as lanky as it looks, and he lets out a surprised noise, but doesn't struggle as Lucius hurries them each up the stairs.
"Idn't he heaby?" Potter asks, looking up at him with apparent surprise on his face.
"Not especially heavy, no."
"I'm going to get ink in your hair," Lupin says miserably.
"You already got blood on one of my First Years," Lucius says darkly, and Lupin shuts his mouth. Beside him, Potter scoffs, then lets out a low whimper of pain. It's more than undignified, for a group of proper young wizards to be caught fist-fighting and scuffling like a pack of Muggles, but there is the slightest bit of—
Satisfaction.
Four boys had surrounded Severus, disarmed him, and not only had Severus not panicked, not screamed or screamed or caused a scene, but he had held his own. More than held his own – he had easily incapacitated three out of four of his foes, and Lucius is certain that he watched for a minute longer, he would have made quick work of Black, too. It had been so curious to watch him: an ugly little thing, bat-like and of odd proportion, and yet so well-practised in this arena, plainly used to boys larger than himself attempting to tousle with him… If they can channel that aggressive energy into duelling, why, he will be more than a force to be reckoned with: the boy will be a terror.
"He starded it," Potter mutters.
"Did he indeed? And how did Severus start it, Potter?"
"He tried to hex Peder," Potter says. Lucius can see the way the blood is eking into the silver of his handkerchief, but as much as he knows the House Elves at Hogwarts are inferior to those at Malfoy Manor, they ought be able to deal with the stain. Curious, that Potter should lie to him so readily – Lucius had witnessed the whole tousle, as the children had hardly been overzealous in looking about themselves for witnesses, but he is curious to see exactly where this path of deception should lead.
"Why?" Lucius asks.
"Because Peter's the easiest target, isn't he?" Lupin asks. "Can you take house points off us?"
"I can," Lucius says. "Most of the prefects aren't able to, but you will find that I or Reetha Lanjwani, the Head Girl, might do so if it suits us. As it stands, I shall take you to the infirmary." This statement rings in the silence as they move up into the corridor and begin to walk to the Hospital Wing.
"You going to tell Pomfrey what happened?" Lupin asks, but Lucius is already pushing open the doors to the infirmary, and he snaps his fingers and points to a bed.
"You, Potter, there."
"Mr Malfoy!" Madam Pomfrey says. "I was just on my way down to dinner."
"You and I both, Madam Pomfrey," Lucius says, and he carefully sets Lupin down on the bed across from Potter's. "Quick dry ink in the eyes," he says, gesturing to Lupin, and Pomfrey lets out a low clucking sound, immediately moving to have a look at him. As she works on Lupin, Lucius moves toward Potter, who looks at him uncertainly, his eyes shifting as he takes in Lucius' expression. "Put the handkerchief down."
Potter hesitates, but then he obeys the instruction, and Lucius draws out his wand, performing a delicate wand movement and saying, "Episkey." He hears the quiet crack of Potter's nose shifting back into place, and hears a relieved noise and a sigh, and he walks away, taking up a wet cloth from the side and returning to carefully clean some of the blood away from the boy's mouth and nose.
"If you could do that, why are we in the infirmary?"
"Because a crack on the nose like that one can cause brain damage," Lucius says, concentrating on gripping the boy's chin and keeping him still as he cleans the blood away. A little of it stains his cuff, but it will come away with the right charm. "Besides, that spell is good for superficial injuries, but nothing further into the skull, so you might have a little cartilage or bone in the wrong place, obstructing your airway."
"Oh," Potter says. There is a long pause, and then he says, "Thank you." Manners. Why, blood truly does out.
"You are quite welcome," Lucius murmurs, and he walks away, setting the wet cloth into the bowl and watching as the bowl cleans the blood away, a little steam rising from the water. "Wait there, Potter." He moves to the other bed, and he watches as Madam Pomfrey works, carefully using an instrument with which Lucius is unfamiliar to wash water into one of Lupin's eyes and then the other, working with a great delicacy.
"No permanent damage, I take it?" Lucius asks.
"No," Pomfrey says, shaking her head. "Although I suspect Mr Lupin will be more wary of ink bottles in future. What happened?" A long pause sounds as Lupin opens his mouth, then closes it, and Lucius meets Potter's gaze as it lands on Lucius, seeming to take him in, searching for some sign, perhaps, of what he might say. As if Lucius is going to say a thing.
"We were wrestling," Potter says, finally. "In the dormitory. Not fighting, just playing, roughhousing. It was my fault – I knocked Remus into Peter's end table, and the ink bottle was open, so it just scattered in Remus' eyes and the bottle hit the floor. He caught my nose when he lashed out to try and grab something, 'cause he couldn't see."
"Everyone else had already gone to dinner," Lupin says seamlessly, and then adds, "James was gonna just support me up the stairs, but he didn't know where the infirmary was, but then Malfoy saw us and brought us up. Carried me, and lead James."
"You carried him, Mr Malfoy?" Pomfrey asks, seeming amused.
"I thought it better than allowing him to tumble to his death from one of the staircases," Lucius says casually. "Why, was I wrong?"
"Mr Malfoy," Pomfrey scolds him, and Lucius feels his lip twitch. "Five points to Slytherin, I think – you've went somewhat beyond your Head Boy duties this evening, I think; and five points from each of you boys." Pomfrey presses something into Lucius' hand. "Hold this to his eyes for the next five minutes, would you?"
Lucius cups the back of the Lupin boy's head, and he holds the compress against his eyes, feeling him shiver slightly, but he doesn't drag away, doesn't complain. He has the air that many sickly boys have, wherein he takes medical attention with exhausted exasperation, knowing that struggling will do him no good. He just sits very still, his hands loosely settled between his knobbly knees, and Lucius watches as Pomfrey checks Potter out, ensuring he's alright. There is, from what Lucius can gather, no permanent damage, but the boys…
Lying like that, so easily. From what he knows, Lupin and Potter have only just met this September 1st, and yet they've fallen into step, so easily, so readily, lying with such a plain fluidity… It really is something, but not a positive something. Merlin knows Gryffindors banding together with this sort of alacrity is the sign of trouble on the horizon, and Lucius really can't be bothered with dealing with it.
This year hardly lays claim to the first time he's brought a child into the infirmary: part and parcel of one's position as prefect seems to be in bullying the younger children to see a Healer when they need to, although this is certainly the first time he's had to carry one. By the time the boys are quite healed, Lucius takes a moment to walk with Pomfrey, and she offers him a small, knowing smile.
"Rough-housing in their Common Room," Pomfrey murmurs, pulling the infirmary doors closed behind them and letting them lock with a click. "The things they expect one to believe."
ϟ ~ THE INKBLOT ~ ϟ
Severus watches as Lucius sweeps into the Great Hall some forty minutes into dinner, his robes flowing artfully behind him as he moves forward, and showing the green silk lining of his outer robe. Madam Pomfrey had come in a few moments ago, flanking a quite-healed Potter and Lupin, but to Lucius… There's an easy grace to the way he moves, like iceskaters on the telly, and Severus wishes he could move like that, all with that confidence and breezy movements.
He's sick with anxiety, and he's barely touched anything on his plate, sitting in silence beside the other First Years, who occasionally try to make conversation with him, but he feels brittle and uncertain, doesn't really want to be spoken to right now. He hasn't been able to ignore the twisting discomfort in his belly, and when Lucius comes in, he almost hopes he'll come right up to Severus, so that they can get this over with now, but he doesn't.
He sits down across from a handsome boy with nut-brown skin and grey eyes, who says something casually to him, that makes Lucius laugh. It's an airy sound, casual and easy, as if he isn't thinking of Severus Snape a few rows up the table, and Severus fidgets.
He just wants it… done.
He can take someone shouting at him, he can take a beating, he can even take a nasty jinx if it has to be that way, but what he hates is the waiting, the anticipation that builds up to the inevitable conclusion, even if it takes days upon days of slow stewing, just to leave him on edge…
Christ, he hopes it won't take days.
"Severus, are you finished?" Prefect Crowley says when people begin to filter from the room and Severus stands to go, frowning at him, and he shrugs his shoulders. "Well, alright…"
He steps out from the bench, walking between the wall and the table, and as he passes behind Lucius, the older boy's hand whips out behind him, stopping Severus from passing. Severus stops short, glancing down at Lucius' hand, the palm facing away from Severus and keeping him in his place, and then he glances at the back of Lucius' head.
"I agree with you," he is saying. "I merely think that in the event of a revolt by the Dementors that Azkaban is as much a liability as a boon." Severus opens his mouth, but the conversation moves too quickly, both parties not acknowledging his presence, except for Lucius' hand stopping him from moving. He could side step him, of course, and walk anyway, but something tells him it is best to bite the bullet and linger.
"But what else could we do with them?" the handsome boy says, spreading his hands. "Lucius, this is our treaty with the Dementors: had they not Azkaban, we would have nothing with which to bargain with, and the would roam freely once more. There is no known method to kill a Dementor."
"I hardly believe that," Lucius murmurs, stepping up from the table without looking at Severus, without even glancing back at him, and Severus feels a little colour rise high in his cheeks, heating the skin. "Who is to say what goes on in the Department of Mysteries?"
"Conspiracy theorist," says the handsome boy, with a kind of filthy tone that Severus doesn't like.
"Conspirator," Lucius replies, jabbing a playful finger in his direction, and he laughs, leaning back. His eyes, which are the colour of flint, flit to examine Severus, and then he glances back to Lucius. "Good evening, Conrad."
"Good evening, Lucius," Conrad says, and Severus starts walking again only when Lucius' hand touches between his shoulders, pushing for him to move. Severus puts his hands into his sleeves, wishing he had proper trouser pockets to put them in, and he walks out of the Great Hall with Lucius behind him, expecting some snap, but none comes.
"Common Room," Lucius says quietly, and Severus sets his jaw, not letting himself speak as they walk in ringing silence down toward the dungeons. Severus' footsteps, which echo loudly on the stone floor, make him stiffen and feel stupid and clumsy; Lucius' are quiet and graceful, and the sound of them is clean, like the sound of all of them has been carefully clipped into being separate from one another. This is awful. This is horrid. Severus has had this once or twice before, when he was younger, having to walk home with Dad from the working men's club after Severus had been sent to get him to come home, knowing that he'd snap at him once they were in the house, or worse, at Mum.
When they get into the Common Room, Lucius walks ahead of him, opening a door into an anteroom Severus hadn't noticed before and gesturing for him to step inside. It's a little lounge, and like the ceilings in the bedrooms, you can see the lake outside, but the window is right in the middle of where the merpeople are, and when Severus looks up, he can see them all flitting past, around some great palace.
"Look at me," Lucius says, and Severus holds himself stiff and straight, closing his eyes tightly when Lucius' fingers touch his chin, delicately turning his head one way, and then the other. "Did they hurt you?"
"No," Severus says.
"Good," Lucius says. "Sit down." Severus sits down slowly on a low couch, and Lucius sits down across from him. The movement is fluid, one smooth shift of one long leg over the other as Lucius leans back slightly in the chair, his shoulders loose, and he just looks… Powerful. Severus wishes he could look like that, wishes he could look so controlled, so put together. For a long minute or so, they sit in silence, Lucius' blue-grey eyes focused on Severus as he does his best not to fidget, or squirm. Finally, he says, "Well?"
"Well what?" Severus asks.
"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" Lucius asks, in the tone of somebody expecting that you do have something to say for yourself, and that it'd better be damned good.
"Not really," Severus says.
"Explain," Lucius says.
"Well, Filch stopped me before I could go in the Great Hall, and he gave me back an ink bottle I'd dropped the last day, but then when he walked away, Potter and his friends came and had me like… They made fun of my nose, and called me Snivellus, and when James asked if I wanted a broken nose, I asked if he did."
"And you gave him one," Lucius says mildly.
"S'not like Madam Pomfrey couldn't fix it."
"And you threw ink in Lupin's eyes."
"Well, he said Filch was gonna try and shag me."
"You elbowed Pettigrew in the belly. What did he say?"
"Nothing. He was just there." Lucius crosses his arms very tightly over his broad chest, leaning back just slightly, and he stares at Severus like he's trying to see his bones under his robes and his skin, and see what's wrong with them, to make him this way. "Well, what was I meant to do? There was four of 'em, and Black had my wand because they ganged up on me, so it's not like I could use any jinxes or that." Lucius arches one graceful, silver-blond brow.
"Do you know any jinxes?"
"Don't see what that has to do with anything," Severus mutters. "S'not sportsmanlike, all of 'em trying to come at me at once. Besides, I'm half their size, especially Pettigrew and Lupin, so it's not my fault they're all Nancy boys who grew up with all that money and got no exercise, except swanning about on their brooms and running from their nannies." A beat passes, and Severus adds, "No offence."
"Why, pray, should I take offence to a statement like that?" Lucius asks wryly. Severus shrugs.
"If the boot fits."
"Severus, you look as if a stiff wind could kill you. I hardly think it will suit you well to disparage the health of any of your classmates."
"S'not my fault," Severus snaps, feeling the defensive burn of humiliation come up hot in his veins. "'Sides, I'd rather have a stiff wind kill me than have a silver spoon shoved up my arse!" Silence reigns.
Then, Lucius sighs, and he reaches up, touching his thumb and his forefinger to either side of the bridge of his nose, and then he reaches into his pocket and draws out Severus' wand, holding it out to him by the hilt. Severus all but snatches it back, shoving it back up his sleeve.
"Don't snatch, Severus," Lucius says tiredly.
"Sorry," Severus says, without feeling. "They tell McGonagall?"
"They did not," Lucius says mildly. "When I brought the both of them to the infirmary, they insisted they had been roughhousing with one another in the Gryffindor common room, and that when Lupin had knocked the bottle of ink off the desk and into his eyes, that he'd lashed out blindly and caught Potter's nose. They then said I had collected them from the stairwell, and led the way upstairs."
"D'you tell 'em to lie?"
"I did not." Severus watches Lucius for a moment, taking in his neutral expression with undisguised suspicion.
"Did you lie?" he asks. Lucius' lips shift, and he smirks.
"A good question, Severus," he murmurs, seemingly full of approval, and Severus isn't pleased, he isn't, and he sure as Hell won't smile or something equally ridiculous, just because Lucius looks pleased with him. "I did not. When Pomfrey asked me what I believed happened, I said I they had likely been fighting with another student or students, and did not wish to be held in detention on top of being the losing party. What I am curious to know, however, is why Potter and his gallant assistants have elected to take you up as their chosen target."
"We was sat in the same train compartment."
"Oh, all becomes clear," Lucius says, voice dripping with sarcasm. There's a momentary pause, and then Lucius says, a little impatiently, "Go on."
"And he didn't like me, that's all. Said I was gonna be a dark wizard, 'cause I wanted to be in Slytherin, and then they had a tantrum because I said Slytherin house does allow Muggleborns, and that they're rare, but not unheard of." And this is true – he knows it's true, because it says it in Hogwarts: A History and it says it in other books besides, but Lucius curls his lip just slightly, looking something like disgusted.
"Hardly wanted, though, are they?" Lucius asks. Severus feels an uncomfortable stab of uncertainty in his belly, as this was precisely what Potter and Lupin had said in the train compartment, but he elects to ignore it.
"And he said dark wizards are in Slytherin, and I said I'd rather be a dark wizard than die doing some stupid Gryffindor thing." Lucius looks at Severus for a long few moments, and Severus continues, "And then, they were making fun of me 'cause I got sick on the train, and then on the boats I was feeling really ill as well, but I was doing my best not to be, and they were making gagging noises as we were going across the lake, so me and Lily and the Zloty twins swung the boat back and forth 'til there was a swell, and when it hit their boat it knocked Pettigrew into the lake."
"You were sick on the train?" Lucius asks.
"No, just felt sick," Severus says, trying to keep the bulk of the defensiveness out of his tone. "What about it?"
"Motion sickness?" Lucius asks.
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you take a potion for it?" Severus had been almost expecting a blow from Lucius, when the other boy had taken him aside like this, but this is almost worse. He doesn't like the way Lucius needles at him and insists on picking everything apart, and acting like Severus is something that needs a detective working on him, acting like there's some weird mismatches in his person or the things he says even when there aren't any. And he'd asked for a potion, he had, but Mum'd said the ingredients were too expensive, and that it took too long, and that he was too old anyway, to be getting sick on trains and that, like a child, and that he needed to learn to swallow it.
"Din't have one," he says.
"Your mother is a potioneer, is she not?"
"Ingredients were too expensive," he mutters. Lucius' brow furrows.
"A basic anti-nausea potion is the work of twenty-five minutes, and requires nothing more exotic than kelp." Severus takes this in for a moment, and then he looks down at his knees instead of at Lucius. On some level, he supposes, he knows this – he doesn't know exactly how much things cost, because he's never had more than a few Muggle coins in his hand when running to the shop to get some drink or some fags for his dad, but he knows that his beginner's potions set had had all the ingredients for an anti-emetic.
"I dunno what you want me to say." Lucius thins his lips, looking at Severus very seriously for a long few moments. Maybe he's gonna suggest Severus' mum doesn't care enough about him, as if it's her fault she never has any money, or maybe he's gonna ask how she treats him. Both of these questions, he dreads.
Lucius asks neither.
"Do you know why Potter and Black dislike you, Severus?"
"Because I'm poor," Severus says, bluntly. The word tastes like ashes in his mouth, the plosive sound popping past his lips and immediately withering on the air between them.
"Yes," Lucius agrees.
"Can't do anything about that, can I?" Severus asks, lowly.
"Black and Potter – and potentially Lupin and Pettigrew – have advantages you do not," Lucius murmurs, seeming quietly contemplative as he takes a momentary pause, and then he says, "but the same might be said of you. Moreover, you might make better improvements upon your abilities, now that you're here at Hogwarts. You might take on some duelling proficiency, before the year is out."
"Would you teach me?" The question is directed at Severus' knees more than at Lucius, and he feels the thickness of the silence between them, the uncertainty therein, his uncertainty. Severus' mother has never so much as taught him as permitted him to be in the room whilst she'd worked on potions, lectured to the room at large in the irritable tone of somebody unused to being listened to, and Severus had read every book he could, taken in everything he could… And she loves him. She's told him that, many times, usually in the moments where Severus wants desperately to be left alone, and couldn't care less if anybody loves him or not. And Dad… Dad's taught him things too. Explained the offside rule, with the implication that he'd be worse off for not remembering it (despite the fact that his father had struggled to recall the particularities himself), or what order to have drinks in, that you not get too hungover.
Taught him to duck.
"I will assist you, with your independent studies, assuming your marks are appropriately high in your classes." This frustrates him, for some reason, the ease with which Lucius says it, and the— The propriety of it, like Severus doesn't have any choice in the matter.
"You're not my da," Severus mutters.
"Does your father give a whit as to what marks you earn in school? Would that Muggle brute even care if you lived or died?" Lucius asks, his voice clean and cutting through the air, and Severus feels his breath hitch in his throat. He feels a humiliated burn rise up in his cheeks again, and he crosses his arms tightly over his chest, leaning right back in his seat and giving Lucius a doleful look. "Mmm," Lucius hums, disapproving. "I am not your father, indeed."
"He'd care," Severus says. He isn't sure if he believes it – he'd care if Mum left, certainly, but an absence of Severus is a grey area. He'd not have somebody to run to the shops for him, Severus supposes, if he ran out of fags and didn't want to miss the match on the radio. Severus is more of an inconvenience than a matter of greater importance in the Snape household, and of this he has always been made grimly aware.
"If you run into problems with that Potter boy again, I do want you to be careful. The four of them are each good liars, I should expect, and they'll each corroborate what they say to one another. Do try to retain witnesses – prefects or staff, if possible, or your fellow Slytherins. Most of the staff won't think twice about ignoring what you say regardless." Severus digests this last statement, glancing up at Lucius' expression, which is as cool and neutral as the Queen's was in the commemorative china plate Mum had smashed earlier this year.
"'Cause I'm poor?" he asks, this time uncertain. He knows what it is, from the other boys – that's always been the case, and it was the case in Cokeworth too.
"It isn't just that," Lucius murmurs, his tone suddenly a lot more delicate, a lot less cruel.
"What is it, then? What'm I meant to do different?" Severus asks. "Because if I knew what to do different, I could just— do it. And it'd be fine." It sounds stupid as he says it: it sounds foolish, the idle mutterings of the child he's never really felt he is, and Lucius' expression softens as he looks at him, but Severus hates that. He hates how it softens, because people don't look at you with soft expressions when they have answers for you, when they can actually fix it. They do it when they can't do nothing, and have no advice at all.
"Differently," Lucius corrects, almost absently, and Severus sighs. "Go sit with the other First Years, Severus, or take yourself off to bed." With no small amount of reluctance, Severus drags himself off the couch, and plods out into the main Common Room, sitting silently beside some Third Years to watch them play a complicated board game that one of them – Alice Kissinger – occasionally starts trying to explain. She is winning by a longshot, but Severus isn't certain she understands the rules herself.
Lucius doesn't follow him. He stays in the little lounge, and when Conrad Applegate (Kissinger supplies his name when she sees Severus looking at him) steps inside, he closes the door shut behind him.
Severus' stomach is a nest of snakes, and he curls up more tightly on the sofa, watching the Third Years play.