Chapter 7

Sirius was bored. Since arriving at Valhalla two days ago he had gotten his assignments for three classes done and even read a history book in the Snape library. He had only spoken to Severus when absolutely necessary, and even though they shared a bed there hadn't been a repeat of the closet incident. Though he had received letters from James, Remus, and Peter he couldn't bring himself to reply. If he did he feared he would blurt out his confusion over what was happening.

Even though he didn't like it, he would be walking down the aisle with Severus in less than a year. There was physical attraction between them, at least on Sirius' part, and they didn't fight the way they did at Hogwarts, but it wasn't enough. Sirius wanted sparks to fly; that's what being in Gryffindor had taught him about marriage and relationships in general. Unfortunately, he doubted time would remedy the situation.

Giovanni, Lucia, and their families had left the day before with plenty of hugs and kisses to go around. If Sirius had been marrying anyone else he would have thought himself lucky to be a part of a family that loved each other so much. He had only known them for a few weeks, but the Snapes, with the possible exclusion of Sylvia, had accepted him with arms wide open. Unlike his own family they didn't ostracize him for being a Gryffindor nor did they make degrading comments about people who were different. He could hardly believe his parents could get along with people like them.

With a sigh, Sirius decided it was time to try to talk to his fiancé. The only human contact he had had since he got to Valhalla was with the whole family at meal times; otherwise, he just stayed on his own in the room. Severus had said something earlier about going to the gym, and although the boy had never finished giving him a tour he knew the room was somewhere on the fifth floor.

The Snape family home was actually a fourteenth century fortress used by the English during the Second war of Scottish Independence. One of Eileen's ancestors had bought the building and the land in the early 1800s, but the house hadn't been renovated until about fifty years ago. Severus' grandparents had been the first people to live in it; Vito and Eileen were responsible for turning it into what it was today.

As much as he admired the mansion for its history and art, Severus would not be inheriting it unless Francesco passed away without an heir. Instead, as per the marriage agreement, the Black and Snape parents would be finding the couple a home before the wedding.

Reluctantly, Sirius got up and went to look for his fiancé. After fifteen minutes of running from room to room on the fifth floor he finally found the gym. It was filled with typical muggle gym equipment, since Vito didn't believe in using magic to enhance oneself. Severus was running on a treadmill, with some rock music blasting from the radio.

Sirius took a few moments to observe his future husband at peace. Severus's hair was loosely tied up, but tendrils of it had fallen out to frame his face; he wasn't wearing contacts again, and his cheeks had a slight flush to them. He was running rather fast and had barely broken a sweat. Sirius didn't realize how long he had been standing there watching until the radio stopped and Severus turned around.

"What is it?" he asked Sirius.

"I—nothing," he replied, shaken out of his own mind, "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Were you staring at my ass again?"

"No!"

"My legs then? You've really got to stop doing that, people are starting to notice."

"I'm telling you the truth, I just want to talk," Sirius tried explaining.

"Meaning you want to have sex."

"I—what? No!"

Severus gave him the infamous look, "With you 'Let's get along' always leads to your tongue down my throat."

"So stay on the other side of the room. Besides, I wouldn't want to make out with you anyway," he lied, "you're all sweaty and gross."

Severus opened his mouth to respond, paused, and looked Sirius in the eye. "Liar," he said dryly.

"OK, so maybe I do kind of want to kiss you," Sirius admitted, "but that's just 'cause I haven't done it with a girl since school let out."

"And I was ready to make out with you to get you to leave," Severus muttered. Sirius wasn't sure whether he had been meant to hear that or not. "For the last time, this engagement changes nothing. We still hate each other as much as we do at Hogwarts; I don't get why you can't see that."

"Because everything has changed!" Sirius shouted. "You can't just ignore me for the next ten years and you can't hate me!"

"Why not!" Severus shouted back, "You've treated me like shit for the past six years; I'm not going to magically forget that. And here's a newsflash for you: this is an arranged marriage! All I have to do is carry out my parents' end of the deal!"

"So you're just going to lie on your back for the next ten years? Just to get some of daddy's money?"

"Take that back," Severus warned. His eyes were dark now, and he was breathing heavily, but Sirius looked the same.

"No! Here's a newsflash for you: we're going to have to communicate at some point! We're going to have to have sex, and a kid! This isn't just about us; we have to be good parents!"

"What do you know about being a good parent? You're just going to leave after ten years anyway, it's best for our child to know you don't care about him from the beginning. And don't even pretend that that's not true!"

Sirius inhaled sharply. It was true; he did want to start his life anew once the contract was filled. But hearing it put that way made it sound like a monster. Severus was going to make everyone think he was a horrible human being, and there was nothing he could do to make people see his point if that happened.

Something inside Sirius snapped; he stepped forward and pushed Severus as hard as he could. He had forgotten how little his fiancé weighed compared to himself. Severus went flying backwards, crashing into a piece of gym equipment and landing in a heap on the floor. He had let out a quick shout of pain when making contact with the chunk of metal. Now he just stayed on the floor, breathing heavily and glaring at Sirius with all the hatred in the world.

Sirius had frozen as soon as he had realized what he did. He has watched with horror as Severus fell to the floor. He could barely process that he had struck the boy—his fiancé. Even though his parents encompassed all that was evil they had always taught him to never hit someone he was expected to care about.

"Severus...I—" he stammered. He couldn't think let alone speak coherently at the moment.

"You what?" Severus spat. "Are you sorry? You've been shoving me into walls and hexing me at every given opportunity. Am I supposed to believe you suddenly developed a conscience?"

Sirius just stood still, his mouth hanging open and his eyes glazed as he replayed the scene, and Severus' words, over and over again.

"Face it; you just let yourself go back to being the person you always have been. Like I said: nothing has changed."

Sirius took a step backwards and attempted to say something, but all that came out was a garbled sound. He couldn't stand being in the room anymore. He wasn't aware of turning away, but he knew he was racing towards the door. As he reached it he glanced back at Severus, who was slowly standing up. Without any further hesitation he ran back to their room and slammed the door behind him.

He threw himself on the bed, but couldn't stay still. He started pacing the length of the room, but couldn't handle moving around either. Sirius let out a shout of frustration. He still couldn't believe what he had done. Worse, Severus seemed to have expected it of him.

I just became a worse husband than my father ever was, he thought, I just became a worse husband than any Slytherin has ever been. What are my friends going to think? They can't find out about this. What about my parents? What about Vito and Eileen?

Contrary to what he had originally thought, he actually valued the other Snapes as future family members. To have them against him would be painful, especially since he would be married to their son for the next ten years.

As he was freaking out he alternated between sitting on the chair, lying on the bed, and running around the room: willingly slamming himself into walls, banging his head on the desk, and even pulling his hair. This had resulted in quite a large mess, and when Sirius' breathing had returned to its normal rate he realized that the least he could do was clean up after himself. Doing manual labor, no matter how small the task, might even help him to clear his head.

Clothing, CDs, books, and various memorabilia had fallen from the walls and other surfaces in the room. He was working as fast as possible to pick up the numerous items from the floor when it struck him that this was the most he had ever learned about Severus. Picking up his fiancé's things had filled him in on the fact that the other boy enjoyed both rock and classical music, was trying to learn Spanish and Greek, had amazing talent as an artist, and was happy when surrounded by friends. The pictures that he had never looked at before showed a completely different side of Severus than he was used to. There were pictures of the boy dancing, striking ridiculous poses, and generally doing things that Sirius considered completely normal for himself to do but had never imagined his fiancé doing.

He had finished cleaning most of the room when there was a knock on the door.

"Sirius?" Vito's voice called, "Can I come in?" The man was speaking softly and didn't sound angry even though Sirius had manhandled his youngest son.

Sirius considered telling him to go away, but it didn't seem like the right thing to do after what happened earlier. Plus, this house belonged to the man anyway, so it wouldn't do any good to deny him entry. "Yes," he called, silently praying that Vito wouldn't be too mad.

His future father-in-law strolled in and sat on the bed, patting the spot next to him as a hint. Sirius joined him, apprehensive of being so close to the man after what he had done. They sat in silence for a minute or two while Vito appeared to be choosing his words.

"I'm not angry with you," the man said finally. "I am a little mad that you could have seriously hurt my son, and disappointed that you would even consider acting the way you did, but I want you to know that I understand." Sirius' confusion must have been apparent because he continued. "I understand that this is hard for you; on Severus' last day of school we got a letter saying the two of you had tried to duel in the Great Hall, and now the two of you are engaged and expected to get along perfectly.

"I want you to know that Eileen and I don't think you're going to become best friends all of a sudden, or even lovers for that matter." Sirius' face was slightly pink at this point. "This is a big adjustment in itself, and having to marry someone you never got along with before makes it even harder. I am honestly sorry that you have to go through this right now, but your parents and I really do believe it's for the best."

"My parents hate me," Sirius muttered under his breath. He had forgotten that Vito was close enough to hear him.

"They don't actually," he said with a sad smile. "You're just being a typical petulant teenager who thinks their parents are out to get them. All of my children except Julia have gone through that phase. I've spoken to Orion and Walburga on numerous occasions, and even though they don't agree with some of the things you've done they really do want the best for you. And that includes you being happy."

"Except they want me to be happy doing what they want me to do," Sirius argued.

Vito thought about that for a moment. "That's true, but did you ever consider they don't understand the things you want? It's very different now than when they were your age; they simply can't see that things considered wrong twenty years ago are perfectly acceptable now."

"That still doesn't explain why they're making me marry Severus, no offense to you. I've always hated him and they know it."

"Sometimes parents see things that their kids don't. Sometimes you've just got to accept their decisions and try to make the best of it."

"I did!" Sirius shouted. Shouting brought back memories of the fight. "I tried to like Severus," he said more softly, "he just wouldn't give me a chance."

"Perhaps that's because you weren't actually interested in him," Vito explained. "You just considered him your fiancé, not an actual person."

Sirius mulled over that for a moment. Vito was right. He had only been interesting in making the next decade bearable, but didn't care about Severus beyond that. "I don't want to get married," he exclaimed suddenly, "never have and I don't think I ever will."

Vito chuckled at that, "I was the same way. Even after I met Eileen I thought I wanted to be single forever."

"Then what changed?"

"I realized that being single didn't have as many benefits. Eileen made me happy, even when I wasn't standing right next to her. She was there for me whenever I needed someone and I wanted to be there for her."

"Yeah, but you two fell in love. This is an arranged marriage."

"Given time, I'm sure you and Severus will learn to get along. I actually think you two are perfect for each other, if you would give it a chance."

"Is that why you decided to create the marriage contract?" Sirius asked. Finally, he thought he would get some answers.

"That was one of the reasons," Vito admitted. "But there were many others. I'm afraid I can't tell you the others."

"Why not?" Sirius hated to sound so demanding, but he needed to know why he was being forced to give up his life and his dreams.

"They're not mine to share," Vito explained. "You should ask Severus what he knows about this though." Sirius was about to argue when his future father-in-law stood up. "I'll leave you alone now," he said, "you should probably take care of the mess or Severus will have another reason to be mad at you."

Sirius walked with him to the door and hesitated before shutting him out. "Thank you," he finally said, "for everything."

"Anytime," Vito said, "you're family now, you're going to get my advice whether you want it or not." He walked down the hall and Sirius pondered over all he had said before shutting the door and turning back to the remaining mess.

All he had to do was put the books back on the shelves. There weren't that many of them, since most books were in the library; these were just the ones Severus read most frequently. They were mostly Shakespearean age plays, collections of poems, and eighteenth century literature. He knew Severus organized his books by author, so he was relatively sure no one would notice they had been moved.

He was doing well until he came to a book with no title or author on the cover. The book was smaller than the others, and had a plain blue cover. Despite his feeling of foreboding Sirius opened it. Instead of print, like he had expected, there was writing on all of the pages.

This was Severus' diary.

Sirius knew he should shut the book, leave it on the shelf, and hope his fiancé didn't think he had read any of it. But he wanted so badly to know what was going on behind those beautiful and mysterious eyes. He checked to make sure the door was locked, and then leaned against the wall and began to read.

December 22

I swear Julia and Luca are going to drive me insane! They've been pestering me about Christmas gifts for the better part of a week now. Whatever happened to children believing in Santa Claus?

I have to admit that I'm glad to be home. As much as it pains me to say it, I absolutely love my family. Not that I'd ever admit it to their face. Coming to Italy is the highlight of my vacations. Even though I don't get to see my friends from school I do get to visit all the people I've met in Florence over the years. The museums are a plus too.

It's so different here! I wonder what I would think of Britain if I had been raised here…

Sirius skipped a few pages, looking at the dates. It seemed Severus didn't write in the journal every day. Sirius didn't want to admit it, but he was looking for an entry that mentioned him. He finally found one that had occurred sometime in February.

The self-proclaimed Marauders are at it again. It seems I can't go a month without them harassing me. I know they're hypocritical Slytherin haters, but I don't understand why they focus on me when there are so many other victims available to them.

To tell the truth, they don't really bother me that much anymore. I'm not sure if I've gotten used to it or if it's just because I have other things going on in my life right now.

Derrick is acting weird again. I just don't get it, sometimes he's the nicest guy in the world, but other times, like now, he treats me like a waste of space. Actually, you don't take your anger out on a waste of space, it's more like—

Sirius didn't get to read what "Derrick" was like because he heard someone fumbling with the door knob. He hastily threw the diary and other books back onto the shelf and ran to the other side of the room. Less than ten seconds later Severus entered, key in hand.

"You can't just lock me out of my own room you know," he said nastily. He looked around and saw the haphazardly stacked books. "Dad warned me you made a mess. Should I trust you didn't cause any actual damage to the books?"

Sirius ignored his comments. "We need to talk," he said.

"I thought we went through this already," Severus replied, "remember? You threw me into a rowing machine and left like the coward you are?"

"I'm sorry," Sirius told him ruefully, "If I could take everything back I would. But we need to come up with a plan."

"A plan?"

"To get through the next ten years, at least," Sirius explained. "It would help if we actually liked each other. From what I've seen so far, I may have misjudged you."

"You saw the Slytherin crest on my robes and decided I wasn't worth anything, I'd say you definitely misjudged me."

"And I'd like to make up for that now," Sirius pleaded.

"How?"

"By getting to know you. You have an army of family members and friends who think you're amazing, and I'd like to see that too."

Severus thought about it for a moment. "I don't know. Nothing you can do will erase the past six years—"

"I know. But ten years is more than six, and maybe they can change our minds about wanting to stay together."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I realized how much of an idiot I've been," Sirius told him. "I realized that you were right about me not being able to suddenly change how I felt about you. But I also realized that you are so much more than a Slytherin."

"And it took bruising me to figure that out?"

"It—did I really bruise you?" Sirius asked. If his actions had caused any marks on that beautiful body he didn't think he could stand himself. Not that Sirius thought Severus was beautiful, he was just slightly good-looking.

Severus had reached behind his back and pulled up his T-shirt. Sure enough, there entire right side of his back was starting to turn purple.

"I am so sorry," Sirius told him again.

"It's not like I wasn't expecting it," Severus reminded him.

"That's no excuse!" Sirius exclaimed, "I shouldn't have done that, and I promise that I'll never do it again. We can ask our parents to work it into the contract."

"The contract has already been written and can't be revised."

"Then I can just give you my promise. I know that doesn't mean much to you right now, but in the future I hope it will."

Severus looked him over. "Something's different about you," he said.

"You're father said we could make a great couple," Sirius admitted, "I want to find out if that's true."

"So this isn't about me at all?"

"No—I mean yes—I mean—" Sirius let out a frustrated sigh. "This has everything to do with you. We've already established that I'm attracted to you physically, so all that's left is an emotional bond. Like you said, I've never thought about you as anything other than a Slytherin. I still have trouble seeing you as more than that, but if we both work together I think we could become friends at the very least."

"Alright," Severus told him, "I'll agree to that for now."

"Thank you. But do you think we'll make a good couple?"

"I don't know," Severus thought for a moment. "When my parents first decided I needed to get married they didn't have my best interests in mind. That part came later."

"Why did they decide to marry you off?" Sirius asked. He thought this would be a good start to getting the answers Vito refused to give.

"I can't tell you that." After a second of hesitation he added, "Maybe when I get to know you better. Until then I'd like to keep this to myself."

Sirius decided he could deal with that, especially since he planned on gaining his trust pretty soon. "How about we continue our game?"

"What game?" In that moment Sirius decided that his fiancé looked adorable when he was confused.

"Twenty questions. It's your turn."

Severus thought for a moment. "There were plenty of other Slytherins, why did you single me out? And why did you tell people I was gay?"

"That counts as two questions," Sirius told him. "The second one is easier to answer: it was an accident. I was just making a joke and someone overheard me. You know Hogwarts; if someone has a secret the rest of the school will know by lunch."

"I still want an answer to the first one."

"Well I don't really know. I guess we were just looking for an easy victim and you were the first person we found. After that we just kept coming back because you were the only one that ever put up a fight."

"I see," Severus didn't really look satisfied with the answers. In fact, he looked like he had just tasted something bitter, which was another expression Sirius found endearing. He supposed every expression would look nice on a boy whose expression was set in stone for ten months of the year though. "It's your turn," Severus reminded him.

"Are you really gay?" Sirius blurted out without thinking. He needed to know because—well, he just needed to know.

"Kind of," Severus told him, "I'm bisexual."

"Is that why you took the rumor so hard?"

"Yes, because I couldn't deny it. If I could I would have, and then people wouldn't have acted the way they did."

"I'm sorry."

"You said that already," Severus told him. He had no humor in his voice, but his eyes were sparkling for the first time in days.

Sirius was about to tell his fiancé how thankful he was for this opportunity, but was interrupted by an overeager house elf telling them it was time for lunch. That was probably a good thing, because Sirius wasn't so sure Severus could take so many niceties in an hour.

"Shall we?" he asked instead, offering his arm out.

Severus rolled his eyes and left the room.

This treaty doesn't seem like it'll last long, Sirius thought, before running after his fiancé. He really didn't want to get lost on the way to the dining room again.