There are junior death eaters in the class of '78, and Quidditch looks very different depending whether it's you or your best friend dodging the bludgers.

Warnings for language. And hormonal teenagers. Nothing Ginny wasn't up to at that age. At least, not on camera. Personally, I wouldn't trust Wilkes as far as I could throw her nighty wrapped around a half-brick.

Props to duj for identifying Nero as the fire-and fury fiddler of Rome (and for being a prolific Snape-author). I, er, have seen and read I, Clavdivs so many times I forgot other muggles might not instantly know that, sorry... n,n;;; As to why Lucius knows him, anyone who wants to get into politics is well advised to familiarize themselves with the Roman Republic and early Empire (Dan Carlin's podcast Hardcore History cannot be recommended highly enough). Cutthroat, man, cutthroat... A bit more on that, and who Lucius's personal hero really is, in The Wicket Gate.

To answer the question of a most flattering Guest—OH HELL NO Severus doesn't let the kids get up to this BS when he's in charge! Slughorn is a gentleman from a gentlemanly era who thinks 'boys will be boys, hohoho, how much trouble could they get into really.' Severus knows kids are evil, risk-courting, sneaky, mean, sadistic, advantage-seeking, judgment-impaired, irrational, horny little bastards, from personal experience.

He keeps sweets and hard cider and lemonade and books with advanced-but-not-really-dangerous spells and potions in his office behind age-appropriate wards, though. Gotta give Slytherins something safe to be sneaky and smug about, or they'll get into real trouble. Case in point: Harry.

November, 1974: Fourth year

"—and who ever asked you to 'stick up for me' with a filthy little mudblood anyway?"

Evan closed his eyes and tried to think of a silencing charm.

"You shouldn't even be talking to trash like that," Mulciber went on. He and Severus were hissing intently at each other. To give them credit where due, they probably meant to be quiet. "I know you mucked about with her when you were kids and didn't know any better, but—"

"Don't be so pureblooded you forget to be Slytherin!" Severus shot back derisively. "You think I try to smooth things out with her for my health? Because it makes her look at me adoringly? Because I think," even his tone curled, "you stone-blind morons will be grateful? Please. She's popular! People don't just like her, they think highly of her. Her opinion matters. She's one of the voices shaping opinion in this school."

"Nothing in her pathetic life will ever matter," Mulciber said contemptuously. "And the sooner you realize that, Naj…"

"People follow her lead," Severus stressed. "And who's she led by? Twittering romantic bodice-ripper-readers—"

"I read bodice rippers," Wilkes noted. She really shouldn't have been in their room, but she and Avery were snogging these days. Evan was pro-snogging on principle, but he wished Flitwick would teach them all some privacy spells. Wilkes had a talent for artful, but Avery's slobbery grunting noises were fairly repulsive. Evan assumed she was either entranced with her own power or starting a course of personal study on an easy note.

"You read them because they're soft porn," Severus said, waving a dismissive hand at her argument. "You don't take them as an instructional guide to life."

"Not to life," she agreed coyly. Avery shot her a greedy look, but she just said, "Finish my toenails, minion!" and he bent back to the little paint-bottle with a sigh. "See?" she winked at Severus.

"Perfectly," he said dryly. Back to Mulciber, "Evans's friends are less twisted and less sensible than Wilkes—"

"Too right!"

"—And they're feeding her all sorts of rot about what a dark and nasty lot we are, and when you do this sort of thing you don't help!"

"It doesn't—"

"It does matter!" Spike railed. "I'm telling you, people listen to her!"

"Good! They should learn a little respect!"

"You're not getting respect, you're getting revulsion!"

"Only because you keep trying to whitewash us! That's what Dark without power gets! Get off the damn defensive, will you? This is Slytherin! If I teach some uppity blood traitor her place, I don't want it passed off as a joke, Snape, I want her to learn her damn place!"

"For pity's sake, when I have to tell someone to work out what discretion's for—"

"Go ahead and say 'god's' sake, mudblood, everyone knows you want to!"

"God, Hecate, Salazar, Merlin, Circe, and the damned Giant Squid if you like! The fact remains—"

Evan closed his book. He didn't slam his book closed. He just closed it, with finality.

"Our first match is tomorrow," he said mildly into the sudden silence. "They keep telling me Hufflepuff's a piece of cake, but I still want to make sure I get a good night's sleep. My first game for points and all. Think I'll catch some air. Spike, care to come help me get some last-minute practice?"

"Love to," Severus said civilly, looking cold murder at Mulciber, and fairly slithered to his feet. He stood there for just a moment, looking every inch the hood-flaring cobra for all his lackluster hair, and preceded Evan out the door.

They walked in silence until they were out of the castle, and then Evan said, "Ambassador's not really the job I would have picked for you."

Severus sighed, and scrubbed his hands down his face. "She keeps asking me whether I think his little ego trips down Bully Lane are acceptable behavior. I can't exactly tell her I don't; she'd go trumpeting my excellent attitude to Lupin and Potter and all her girl friends as proof positive they're wrong about me, and then I'd get it in the teeth from half our House. Telling her he's got a vile sense of humor and changing the subject fast's the best I can do."

"Probably," Evan agreed. "But how long do you think you can keep this up?" Severus didn't answer.

When they were halfway to the broomshed, they heard a howl coming from the Forbidden Forest. "Wrong night for werewolves," Evan commented.

"It's just a dog," Severus said. "I've seen it about. Rather Grim-like, but it has a collar. Probably belongs to a townie who can't enchant a strong enough fence."

"Sounds like a big dog."

"Very." They'd reached the broom shed now. Severus said, his voice all laced about with black humor, "I keep thinking of chewing gum when you stretch it too far."

"Most of the House thinks you'll go on a psychotic killing spree when you snap," Evan noted.

"Charming."

"I suspect it'd be a lot uglier than that. Try not to, will you?"

"Just for you, Ev," he drawled.

"Whatever works," Evan said lazily, and summoned his broom and the box of balls.

"Whatever works," Severus repeated, ironically, like a toast.

Getting a broom for him took longer. He didn't have one of his own, so they had to sort through all the school's to find one of the ones that was still relatively aerodynamic. The flying instructor did his best, but the school brooms took a lot of abuse.

Since Evan really did want to practice, Severus obligingly took up the Beater's bat. It was a waste of his brain, with only two players. There probably wasn't a faster way for him to work off his temper before they went back to the dungeons, though, and if they wanted to make it back before curfew—

Oh, wait. It had already been dark when they'd left. Oops.

Evan shrugged the realization off and dodged a Bludger. Beater might not be Severus's strongest position, but he still had a lot of checked aggression to unleash, and a nasty talent for aiming where Evan was going instead of where he was. Whether that would hold for someone he knew less well, Ev didn't know.

He waved Severus a time-to-stop wave, and they captured the balls and landed.

"Nice flying," said Montague, annoyed. She was their lead prefect this year. Evan hadn't seen her coming up. "Pity you had to do it after hours. Suppose I'd been someone else's prefect, or a teacher?"

"It was worth the risk. I had to get him and Mulciber away from each other," Evan said, opting for the bare truth. Montague liked plain dealing. "They were well on the way to homicidal and so was I."

Montague promptly whomped Severus upside the head with a large book.

"Ow," he commented, sounding mildly offended.

"Snape, what is it that every single prefect has told every single drakelet since the House was founded?"

"'Anyone who makes trouble and interferes with my NEWT revision is cold meat,'" he parroted meekly.

"Remember it another time," she instructed.

"That's why we left," Severus protested.

"Remember it sooner."

"How's Greengrass?" Evan asked her as they put the brooms away and headed back for the castle. "Have you drowned him in flower arrangements and color swatches yet?"

"It won't be right away!" she laughed. "Maybe if I'd graduated first, but someone has to do the planning and I—"

"Have NEWT revision," Severus finished approvingly. "Priorities, Rosier." While Evan was still shaking his head sadly at him, he asked, "Montague, can you point us at any privacy charms? Avery's discovered his right hand and there's only so much of Rosier threatening to throw up I can take."

"I did not," Evan said, a little miffed.

"Not out loud. I have eyes."

"Ah," she said wistfully, "the Holy Grail. Sorry, Lance," she said to Evan. "Unless you can get him to do a silencio on himself… the bedrooms are decidedly anti-privacy spells for exactly that reason. Well, nearly that reason," she amended, smirking a little.

"Inconsiderate," Evan lamented. "But really, what's Greengrass up to?"

They chatted about her fiancé until Montague ushered them into their room. At this point, she told Mulciber, "Your turn," and whapped him with the book, too. Then she grabbed and yanked a startled Wilkes by the ankle, and then the belt, and then the collar. "Quite a large right hand," she said drolly to Severus, and escorted the younger witch firmly out.

"Well, I tried. At least she was still dressed," Severus opined philosophically over Avery's startled, woebegone, "Lucy? Lucy? Lucy, where'd you go?"

"My turn, was it?" asked Mulciber, whose temper also seemed to have cooled off.

Severus rubbed his head, saying, "I'd say it must have been 1001 Magical Herbs and Fungi, but her hands aren't that big."

"Her knockers are," Mulciber mentioned, perfectly appeased by the assurance he hadn't been thrown under the Knight Bus alone. After all, either power or her engagement had turned Montague surprisingly reasonable, as long as you didn't argue with her.

"Oh, yeah," Avery agreed lustfully from behind his curtain. Evan shuddered quietly (at Avery, not Montague; she was indeed very nicely built), Severus gagged loudly, and Mulciber laughed.

Evan wondered whether other players found their positions as much a metaphor for life as he did. You did your best to stay aloof from the scrum, taking in the players and who which spectators were giving their energy to, dodging inconvenient missiles and keeping your eyes peeled for that one glint of beauty against the mud. And then you made sure you got to it first. Not actually easy, but simple.

Or, put another way, simple, but not actually easy. Even the practices where the lead and reserve teams played each other was only a pale substitute for the real thing, where there was an audience and it mattered and the other team wouldn't be able to get to you at night if you played dirty. Hufflepuffs, it turned out, not only hit hard but had a firm grasp of multiplayer tactics.

When the whistle blew and the House surrounded him with delight and cheering, with back-slaps and hugs for all the players and unwise amounts of Severus's very immature and overpowering cider and mead, Evan thought he was going to have a good night.

After all, he'd done a good job and to good effect. He'd played mouse-and-cat, distracting Macmillan and the Hufflepuff beaters until Avery, Reggie, and Rackharrow had worked out the aforementioned tactics and gotten the score back under control. By the time he'd seen the snitch for real, Slytherin had already been winning by a tidy margin. He was pleased, Gamp (their captain) was pleased, the team was pleased, Montague and the other prefects were pleased, Slughorn was in a transport of delight, the stadium was roaring, surely there was no bad here.

Only there was, because neither Severus nor Narcissa was a sports fan. Severus liked playing, but he didn't follow and he didn't care, and Narcissa thought it was all brutish and unpleasantly sweaty. They came to Slytherin matches, because it was what one did, but dutifully, without enthusiasm, and they'd been known to bring their homework. So when Evan and Reggie turned giddily to them to share the thrill, Evan was brought down to earth much harder than he ought to have been, had he remembered to think clearly.

Narcissa had completely shredded her handkerchief, and also Severus's sleeve. This was very strong evidence that she'd lost her mind, because he only had one spare robe and she was going to have to be the one to fix it.

His other sleeve was rumpled, too, because Wilkes was a sadistic (if largely harmless) ass who never lost an opportunity to hang on him. She, however, was a fan. Her liberal disbursement of kisses proved that she was as thrilled as the rest of the House and had been far too excited for worry to intrude, just like all the sane people.

His cousin's wide, horrified blue eyes made Evan aware of the lipstick on his face, but it was the unreadable black pair that made him want to wipe it off. They were also what made him realize he was bruised all over and his every muscle was screaming at him. He was getting shrieked at, Aunt Walburga style, by bits of his body he hadn't actually been aware of before.

It would have been more polite if they'd introduced themselves first.

Next to him, Reggie was faltering, too. Noticing, Narcissa pulled herself together and rallied magnificently for their cousin. She scolded him for a long time to relieve her feelings, but made it sound lighthearted and proud and let him puff up and chatter at her and pull her over to the food.

Their desertion left Evan and Severus in a little pool of silence. After a time, Severus asked quietly, "Not hurt so badly you need the Infirmary?"

Evan shook his head. He tried to unhinge his jaw to say something, but it wouldn't. Severus's dark eyes were grave and heavy on him, an almost solid weight.

"Come on," Severus said, and led him silently through the hall and to his bed. "Strip," he said, very low. "Put on fresh pants."

Evan tried again to say something, but it still just wasn't happening. He fumbled at his clothes as Severus turned away, coming back with a jar of slightly purple goo that smelled of pineapples and lavender and something sharper, more pungent. "Lie down," Severus said, still with that unnatural calm.

Instead of asking questions, Evan did. Severus turned him onto his face, gentle and inexorable, and then goo-covered hands were skating over his back, his every inch, and then they were digging in.

He realized, distantly, that it shouldn't have been a surprise that Severus had strong hands. All the brewing he did, all the ingredient preparation for Slughorn, it was only natural. The precision of his pressure shouldn't have been a surprise, either, the way he bore down into muscles and stopped just short of torture. It should have been the careful build of that pressure, the way every touch was so slow and warm Evan could relax into it, turning the pain blissful, that was unexpected.

That was the last coherent thought he had until Severus steered him into a warm shower with the nearly empty jar and the muttered expectation that he could handle the last bits himself.

He did.

Returning to his bed washed, dry, ache-free, and smelling of pineapple, he felt almost drugged. Cleaning his hair had taken a lot of shampoo, and he could still feel the ghosts of Severus's hands tingling on his scalp. Everywhere, really. Even, almost, where they hadn't been.

Severus was still sitting on Evan's bed, back against the headboard, his eyes down and his mouth tight. Sitting next to him, Evan found that the blankets had been cleaned, too, and warmed. "You'll ruin all my work if you tense up overnight," Severus said shortly.

Evan leaned against him, and thought he might just fall asleep like that. He could feel Severus's heart against his back, though, hammering. Swallowing to force his sluggish tongue to cooperate, he asked, "Scared you?"

"It's not like practice," Severus said woodenly.

"You've seen games before."

"No one of interest was playing."

Evan nodded. He turned and curled, resting his face on Severus's shoulder, coiled nearly in his lap. A hand crept over his back, feather-light at first and then tight, and then the other. "I'd say sorry," Evan said drowsily into his neck, "but it's Quidditch."

He could feel the deep, slow sigh. "Not good odds of my convincing you to quit, then."

"Nonexistent," Evan confirmed, winding an arm around Severus's back. He might have been more comfortable than this as a baby, when his mum was holding him (she had more padding), but he didn't remember it.

"Just because nobody's died recently doesn't mean no one will," Severus said, but he sounded resigned.

"Cheer up, Naj," he drowsed, curling closer. "We won."

"Hurrah," Severus said bitterly. But by then Evan was, for all intents and purposes, asleep.

In the weeks that followed, Evan felt he'd fallen unexpectedly into someone else's life. Apparently winning at Quidditch meant a lot of people wanted to snog you and touch you and take you to Hogsmeade. He told himself firmly that it was fine to enjoy it while it lasted, but not to be surprised when everyone got their heads turned again by the winners of the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw match.

Hufflepuff had an excellent team this year, there was no denying it. Longbottom, their captain, was a gentle sort who tended to look as though dandelion fluff might float between his ears unimpeded. Too, Houses other than Slytherin expected Ravenclaw to be good at tactics. Neither of these things seemed to be true, at least not this year. Longbottom had a ferocious little Gryffie girlfriend, but there was still plenty of team for the adoration to turn to.

The loss of the school's attention was something of a let-down, even though Ev had expected it. Even though it was also a bit of a relief. It had certainly been nice to be petted and get to know so many people better. He'd learned a lot, and made a lot of useful connections, and his mum was very pleased with the observations he'd sent home.

His homework and art (of the sort not involving models) had gotten somewhat neglected, though. That was a problem—although admittedly it wouldn't matter how many NEWTs he got or how good his landscapes (or interiors, or exteriors, or animals, and certainly not his fantasies or abstracts) were if he couldn't paint bodies, hair, expressions, and clothes well by graduation.

Still, end of term exams were coming up, and Gamp didn't want them getting soft before the break. Especially since they were playing the first game after it. So even if he felt a bit lonely, it was a good thing to have the social crush diverted.

It took him nearly two weeks (to be fair, he was hitting the books hard, making up for lost time) to realize that feeling lonely wasn't something he was used to, and it wasn't only a result of having the Quidditch fans gone.

He just wasn't seeing as much of his friends as he used to. They'd been giving him room, probably. As soon as he noticed this, he started trying to fix the situation. None of them seemed to have much time, though.

Narcissa was the easiest catch. She and her roommates had started seriously on the business of Evaluating Their Future Prospects; it wasn't only Wilkes anymore. They were all always off at meetings of clubs or bundled up in their bedroom practicing clothing transfiguration and arcane cosmetic tricks and things, or having long, gaily lighthearted picnics with Slughorn in the greenhouses. It was easy enough to join her for studying or to do their correspondence together.

Even Severus could be nabbed for that, sometimes. He and Malfoy were having a conversation about the fall of the Roman Republic that, Evan felt, should more properly be called an independent study. He was saving illicit copies of their letters to see if he could get Severus some extra credit in History of Magic—or at least some credit with Slughorn, since there was more political maneuvering than magic in them.

Mostly, though, Severus seemed tired. He'd wheedled (read: alarmed) Slughorn into letting him and Evans take on the challenge of some extra-complicated potions, with a promise that if they succeeded they could start on an accelerated course of study after the hols. This was taking up a lot of his time, but it wasn't making him happy. Evans, Ev gathered (not from Severus, who would just tighten his mouth and change the subject with a brutal lack of craft when pressed), was turning into a right nag.

As a delightful bonus, his spending more time with her meant Potter and his gang were even hotter than usual to harass him. When he didn't have his nose in his books (Evan had suggested glasses, but his eyes were fine, except that he was easily distracted and unnerved by movement in his peripheral vision), he always seemed to be out 'flying it off.' Offers to keep him company were turned down, because, "Rumors of all the curses I surely know are ridiculous enough already."

Evan had to check with Narcissa to make sure he was right and that actually made no sense and gave him no information. Even if Severus was going about cursing things, it wasn't as if Evan would have told anyone. Except Narcissa, of course, but it would have stayed between the three of them.

He saw more of Reggie since they had practices together, but his cousin also seemed to have a lot on his plate. He was panicking about his own end of term exams, and his other roommates seemed to have decided that keeping Lockhart out of trouble was his job. Evan noticed that he and Severus seemed to often be gone at the same time.

This hurt his feelings a bit. On the other hand, Evan wasn't the one who'd have to spend the winter break cooped up with a Sirius whose mother would be yelling at him a lot. So, looking at it reasonably, if Reggie was getting extra defense tutoring, fair enough.

Evan was going to hope it was defense tutoring. If they were dating, Reggie wasn't going to be able to keep from taunting Sirius about it for long and then Severus would be absolutely dead. Or Sirius would. Depending on who was faster.

He was more inclined to think it was tutoring, though (thank Salazar). Their body language towards each other was normal, and there weren't any lingering or stolen glances that he could see. And he was really looking, very sneakily. Besides, Severus kept calling Reggie a little idiot, and Evan thought he'd have left off the 'little' if he thought of Reg as someone old enough to be snogged.

Art on AO3; link in profile
Evan wouldn't understand Severus's angst if it were explained it to him.
(warnings for shirtlessness and UST)

Comparatively few jocks are obsessed with chiaroscuro
OR: Wilkes is just in it to mess with Snape.

Next: Self-preservation is not high on Severus's list of priorities. Evan is a Taurus. And his mum's a Black. Vinegar, meet baking soda... or, er, was that bleach?