Notes: Sorry for the delay! Many thanks to Shoebox Project for Sirius's dubious grammar.
CHAPTER 10: SUMMER WITH JAMES AND LILY
"Lily!" the girl shouted. "One of your freak friends is here!"
Severus did his best not to gape.
He'd thought he'd got the wrong address when he'd rung the bell, expecting the vibrant red hair and shining eyes of his Evans. This girl who had answered, with her lank blonde hair and mouth like a horse, was as similar to Evans as a grindylow to a unicorn.
He had little time to ponder this conundrum though, as there came a sudden pounding of feet on the stairs. "Sev!"
At this Severus did gape, for Evans was wearing a pair of cream coloured trousers, and as often as he'd contemplated her legs, he'd never actually thought of them as two separate, separable objects, having only seen them from beneath their usual covering of robes.
It was not a terribly reassuring revelation.
"Come in, come in, I can't believe you actually came!" she beamed, looking about to pull him inside. "I'm so excited! Mary's in Transylvania, and I was resigned to having to spend the entirety of my holiday alone with Petunia!"
The horse-girl, evidently Petunia, made a snorting noise and tossed her hair over her shoulder as though it were a poorly-groomed mane.
Once inside, Evans turned to close the door, and Severus felt his face heat at the sight of her trouser-clad backside. "Women in trousers," he muttered, perturbed. "What will they think of next?"
Evans laughed. "You look funny in yours, too. My father has an old pair just like that. You think this is the first time the world has ever seen a Slytherin in Muggle clothes, you know, volunarily? Oh but come to the kitchen, you must be thirsty from the walk-- it's so warm outside, and your face is all red..."
Following her into the kitchen, having torn his eyes forcibly from her trousers, he couldn't help but notice how new the house looked. It was so light and clean and pretty, with portraits of smiling people on the walls in shiny silver frames and white lace doilies on the end tables. The open windows were large and bordered by embroidered draperies, there were plush, gold coloured rugs on the floor, and the chairs looked as though they'd rarely been sat in.
Severus sat down at the little shiny-topped table beneath the window. Its curtain was loose and tickled his neck, blowing in the sweet-smelling breeze from outdoors.
"Oh, let me get that," Evans offered, reaching behind him to tie the fabric back. Her side brushed his shoulder, and he was reminded of that night by the lake, and pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top, and the insanity of it all.
For a moment it was nearly too much, culture shock of a sort, and he wished desperately for a paper bag into which he might hyperventilate with his head between his knees and Evan's hand on his back. But she sat a cool glass of water onto the table before him, and touching it somehow centred him, and he managed to drink without blacking out.
"Does father know you have a boy in the house?"
Petunia was scowling down at Severus, her arms crossed and lips pursed. She looked like a brooding mare.
"Were you adopted?" Severus asked her, still a little dizzy.
Evans laughed and slid down into the chair across from him, taking a sip of her own water. "You are easily the most charming man I have ever met, Severus."
Looming malevolently above them, Petunia made a disgruntled snort of a noise.
"Well, that explains why you're so very deeply in love with me," Severus told her, raising his glass in a mock toast.
This comment was apparently more amusing than he'd thought, as Evans nearly choked on her water, spitting it all down her front.
Dabbing at her blouse with a towel whilst Evans wiped away tears of mirth, maybe a bit hysterical, Petunia glared at him. "I know who you are," she said. "You're that Snape boy. You live down Spinner's End by the river," she said, and it was evident from her tone that she considered the address a poor recommendation.
Not that Severus blamed her.
"Congratulations," he drawled, "you win the prize. Is there something you hope to accomplish by informing me of this? Did you suppose I'd forgotten?"
Petunia sniffed, tossing the towel down onto the table. "I'm telling father. You're not allowed boys in the house, and you know it!"
Evans rolled her eyes. "No Petunia, you're the one who's not allowed boys in the house. Father's never mentioned it to me because I've never done. And besides, though he may not seem it, unlike the boys you bring home, Severus is a perfect gentleman."
Petunia spluttered as though she had no idea which boys Evans might be referring to and was highly offended that anyone might think she would consider being in the presence of such questionable individuals.
"Oh stop," said Evans with another eye roll. "We're going to revise Arithmancy and practice Charms, not snog. Is that all you think about?"
With an indefinable noise that suggested it just might be, the other girl turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.
Severus stared down into his half-empty glass of water. "What's her problem? Other than the obvious bitterness from being constantly overshadowed by her more beautiful and talented younger sister."
Evans snorted-- rather more prettily than her sister-- and looked pleased with herself. "She's convinced she'll never find a decent husband because Father wouldn't allow her to attend finishing school. She's been blubbering about it since last year, how she's already nineteen and it's a disgrace she's not engaged yet. I told her she's finished enough, stop whinging."
Severus was impressed. "Where's that oft-touted Gryffindor magnanimity, Evans?"
"I do not tout my Gryffindor magnanimity." She smiled over the rim of her glass, her lips quirking in amusement. "I am not a touter."
Severus smirked. "Touché."
It turned out to be a pleasant day, indeed.
It felt odd being able to do magic outside of school. He was so used to locking his wand in the secret compartment in his dresser every summer, Severus felt as if it might be whisked out of his hand at any moment and broken in half over a disapproving Ministry Official's knee.
It was odder still sitting one dreary Thursday on a modern Muggle sofa with a Charms book in his lap and wand in his hand, attempting to grow chrysanthemums from the coffee table.
"Why do I keep ending up with violets?" Evans asked, swishing her wand unnecessarily at the unwanted flowers. "This is really disturbing."
Severus gave his own, dead-looking posies a sideways glare but said nothing.
Yanking her violets out by the roots, Evans tried the spell again, and this time her violets were yellow.
"This is a very dodgy table, Evans," Severus told her. "I don't trust it."
She frowned. "At least it's not spewing stinkweed. Or roses, I've hated those ever since fourth year when Black serenaded me on his broomstick and tried to shove them in through my dormitory window. A shame he didn't fall and break his neck. Are you hungry?"
She was always asking if he was hungry. It was evidently some sort of womanly instinct, this irreconcilable compulsion to feed people. He supposed it was a good thing, since her father was in London often on business and left her to fend for herself. He did some sort of trading, though Severus didn't quite understand what he traded or why anyone would want to trade things in the first place.
Arriving every morning at a house without a parent was pleasant, if a little strange, and it led to another question:
"Where's your mother?" Severus asked one afternoon over her Ancient Runes text, which he was borrowing, as he'd neglected to pack his own. The pages were snowy white, and her loopy cursive looked elegant in the margins.
Evans frowned. "She got sick."
"And what, ran off with another man?" Severus said with a snort.
"And died!" Evans said, looking insulted. "Third year!"
"Well don't snap at me," Severus snapped, feeling horrible. "I didn't kill her!"
"I didn't say you--" she sighed and shut the antiquated Herbology guide he'd brought over. "She just got sick. And before the doctors figured out what was wrong... would you like some pudding?"
The only bad thing about the food was that Petunia seemed to always be in the kitchen, and her neighs of disgust at anything related to magic were highly unappetising. After a week or so, Severus arrived early and caught her complaining to Evans about him over breakfast.
"--most disagreeable, ugliest boy I've ever met. Honestly, Lily, what do you see in him?" Severus heard her demand sharply from the front walk.
He paused beside the open window, just out of sight, to catch the rest.
"He's brilliant, Petunia," Evans replied, much to Severus's complete agreement and distinct pleasure. "He's disagreeable because he can be. Remember how I told you about the different houses--"
"Stop!" Petunia ordered. "Stop, I don't want to hear it! All of your preposterous magical--"
"He's brilliant and I like him," Evans told her, with a tone of finality. "Besides, he'd as soon touch me as hex his own fingers off, so you needn't worry. He has this whole idea of scholarly abstinence, or so he says. Personally, I think he's bent."
"I am most certainly not!" Severus announced, glaring in through the window.
Evans gasped and Petunia let loose a startled shriek. He ignored it and proceeded to let himself in with an offhanded Alohomora. "If you're going to gossip, you might want to close the window," he counselled the girls upon entering the kitchen.
Petunia looked horrified with herself, but Evans just shrugged. "I'd've told you to your face."
"My ugly, disagreeable face," Severus clarified.
"I call it like it see it," she told him flatly, looking unconcerned.
His witty comeback was cut short by a fluttering near the window screen. Petunia clapped a hand over her mouth and pointed, a horror-struck look on her face.
"Owl post? I bet it's from Mary!" Evans declared, and shot toward the window with obvious delight. Petunia screamed when the owl swooped into the room, and ran out of the kitchen.
The letter had Severus's name scrawled across the front though, and Evans handed it over in disappointment.
Dear Severus
I am going to kill myself. Now I know what you're going to say, I'm being melodramatic but I am NOT JOKING. My life is such a wreched repulsive stinking pile of dung I can't stand it anymore. I am going to Avada Kedavra myself right in the brainpan and hide the body in a tragic locale so that all shall see my woeful demise and morn my passing with all the loud sobbing and runnynosedness that is my unfortunate due.
I know that by now you are terribly concerned Severus as you should be, and let me tell you your concern is not misplaced. After spending mere days surounded by the delights of Hogwarts, all the chicken I can eat flying my broom through the halls and hanging the cristal Divination balls from the ceiling in the Great Hall (also free access to the restricted section, I know you're jelous I found a book on Vampires you'd have wet dreams over) I am morn to tell you I'm being forced to leave quite against my will.
This is all those bloody Gryffindors fault AGAIN and they are set on ruining MY LIFE all accept Moony of course who is delicious and nutricious and all other things benefical. But of course Dumbledore being the most Gryffindor of them all he's gone and packed me off to Courage and Rightousness Training Camp mainly I HAVE TO LIVE WITH POTTER THIS SUMMER.
I know I shouldn't have just gone right out and said it like that I'm sure you're appalled and in fits, because you are so delicate but I'll probably have to sit for twelve hours a day with his great great great grandfather around the fire and listen to old war stories or look at baby pictures or something and I am going to KILL MYSELF.
Please morn me by making Reguluses life a living Hell. Also if you feel the need to comfort my Moony in his greif at my loss I have been putting some serious though to the issue and feel I would be COMPLETELY ALRIGHT WITH THIS.
Sirius
The only reason Severus actually managed to make it through the entirety of such an utterly appalling correspondence was because of his unbelievable horror that someone could actually compose such a disaster. He stared down at the messy signature at the bottom of the parchment with a sort of disgusted awe.
"He'd better kill himself before he goes or they'll both end up dead," Evans observed from over his shoulder.
"Do you mind?" Severus asked, snatching the letter away.
"No, I'm rather looking forward to it, actually. You know how sick I am of James constantly pestering me about going out with him," she told him.
"Oh, the woes of the rich and beautiful." Severus rolled his eyes and snatched up a quill to respond to Sirius's horrific excuse for a letter. He let Evans read it.
Sirius
What appals me even more than the fact that you are spending the summer with a Gryffindor (which is, it is obvious, a fate worse than death) is the fact that although you have spent six long years at the finest Wizarding school in the world, you have yet to master even the most basic use of the comma. I have a very hard time drumming up even a modicum of sympathy for someone who writes letters with punctuation that makes my eyes burn. Additionally, you spelled at least ten things wrong, including your own bloody brother's name. For the record, it is clearly impossible to hide your own dead body, you cannot BE mourn over something (note the spelling), I am assuredly NOT delicate and you had better not die, as I have no intention of comforting anyone, much less someone who has the poor taste to snog a man as grammatically challenged as yourself.
Please review this letter, taking careful note of my spelling and multiple and correctly placed commas, before you respond back with your suicide notice. Will me your socks, or heads shall roll.
Severus
Evans made a sort of amused snorting noise as he hooked the note to the owl's leg. "What is it with you two?"
"He used to be rich. I thought I might get something out of the deal," he told her with a shrug. "As for him-- being such an obvious poof that he even gives his roommates a bad name-- ever since he was eleven, his sole aim has clearly been to get into my--"
He almost said pants, before he remembered the incident in which she saw his, hanging upside down and helpless, and caught himself, blushing furiously.
"Your notes?" Evans offered, grinning.
"I'll have you know my notes are fantastic, Evans," he told her with a dark look.
"I'm sure they are. Rather fond of them myself," she responded coyly, which wasn't fair play at all and made Severus's blush darken. "I'll never understand what Remus has to do with any of this, though. I thought you two liked him."
"I respect his intelligence," Severus told her. "One of the only Gryffindors I've ever met who actually possesses any, despite his rather more disturbing lupine tendencies. Sirius, on the other hand, respects his… notes. And also his shabby jumperiness. Cardigans drive him wild with lust, you see."
"You're out of your skull," Evans informed him with a roll of her eyes.
"Don't claim I never told you," Severus ordered, quite certain she would and thus assuring himself the right to call her on it. "Or be a dunderhead like Potter and act like there's something wrong with them. I mean, there are obviously any number of things wrong with them both, but who cares if they snog in random broom closets? You can't legitimately pick on someone for something like that. It's too easy."
"You're ridiculous," Evans informed him. "Now are we going to revise the magical properties of the number 42, or not?"
On the second week the temperatures skyrocketed, the neighbours were out of town, and Evans decided to break into their pool.
"Come on, no one will catch us, I do it all the time," she urged. "We'll just take a quick dip. It'll be fun."
Severus, failing to see any way in which removing any part of his clothing in Evans's presence might be considered fun, stared at her, appalled. She put her hand on her hip, raised her eyebrows, and he ducked his head.
"Fun like drowning in a pool of my own bodily fluids, perhaps," he muttered at his shoes, feeling intensely jealous of Sirius, whose body was sleek and swimming pool-worthy. He hoped he was completely and utterly miserable at Potter's.
"I'm putting on my bathing suit," Evans announced.
If Severus had grasped the enormity of this phrase, he would've decided to lock himself up before she came back wearing it.
"Bathing suit" was a misnomer. What she had on was a quarter of a bathing suit, a tenth of one that covered no more than underclothes would, likely less, baring her long legs, pale, smooth stomach and the delicious looking curve of her breasts. Held up on the top by a single, weak looking string tied around her neck, it would be so simple to slip his hand over her shoulder, beneath her hair and take the end of that fabric in his fingers--
"Do you like it?" she asked with an innocent smile. "It's new."
Severus gaped, cheeks flaming. "And you wear this in public? You're actually going to-- I can see your-- does your father know you-- PETUNIA!"
Evans blinked. "What're you--?"
"Scandalous!" Severus shouted, body thrumming with desire. "Immoral! Wicked! Depraved!"
"Oh, Lily!" Petunia gasped, appearing in the room. "You can't seriously be planning to--"
"It's a bathing suit!" Evans exclaimed, looking baffled and tugging on one of the skimpy straps. "Father picked it out with me!"
"You look like you should be standing on a street corner!" Petunia shrieked, horrified.
"Have you no shame? Merlin's sake!" Severus exclaimed, and stamped off past Petunia to the bathroom to hide his own, very obvious, shame.
"You're both loony tunes!" he heard Evans exclaim. "I'm going for a bloody swim!"
Severus's nice, calming stay in the bathroom was interrupted, of course, by another owl from Sirius, because the boy very obviously lived to pester him.
Severus
Merlin's beard, I am going to KILL myself! Mostly because I am still pleasantly tipsy and parading about semi nude near open windows. I am, however, NOT tipsy enough to ever again underestimate the value of the common comma, a fault which also earned me Moony's eternal scorn and lack of sultry exclamations at my manly physique.
Potter's family are the BEST EVER. His Mum lets us drink and stay up all night and explode things in the bath tub, or maybe she just doesn't realize because she's about a billion years old and probably seanile. That bloke you saw with him, the great grandfather old type is Potter's FATHER! At first of course, I was disgusted and appalled and comprehensively sickened, but then I figured, I hope I can still get it up when I'm eleventy-eight or whatever, that takes SKILL, and I'm okay now so you can relax.
Also they have this Muggle thing called a Telly Vijin, it's got these little metal demon ears on it and a weird tail Potter calls a "plug" and it's got Muggles trapped inside it that dance and talk and say the news when you poke at its buttons. It's BRILLIANT! Potter is of course, a blathering idiot as usual, but we've only been to St Mungo's once to reverse the hexes. Do you have any idea what it's like to have eyebrows that droop down to your knees? Not on, Severus, not on!
Write me back imediately and tell me how appalled you are.
Sirius
Severus debated ripping the letter to shreds, burning it, or writing a seven page essay complete with footnoted references in response. Eventually, he opted for the middle ground: he wrote INDESCRIBABLY at the bottom of the parchment and sent the owl on its way with it. Leave it to Sirius Black to actually enjoy himself in exile with Potter whilst Severus was in continual presence of the most amazing girl on the planet, and he could do nothing but lock himself in bathrooms.
Everyone on the planet had a better life than Severus, and this proved it.
For some unknowable reason, after the Great Swimsuit Debacle, Petunia decided she and Severus were allies. She stopped all her pointless horse-snorts, asked him how he liked his eggs, and even conceded that "at least Spinner's End isn't someplace magic."
Severus was wary of this change of heart, but Petunia did make excellent eggs, and a Muggle was hardly a decent challenge for him, anyway.
"I was so worried about the sort of boy she might bring home, spending her formative years in a place like that," she told him in the kitchen a few mornings later when Evans was getting the post. She was washing dishes in the sink, scrubbing at them with something soapy and green, having adamantly refused Evans's kind offer of cleaning charms. "I'm so glad she found a reasonable, modest one with her best interests in mind."
Though Severus had to admit the girl had better taste than he'd thought, he took issue with her phrasing. "She did not bring me home," he clarified, shifting in his chair, drumming on the table with his fingers now that he no longer had breakfast to pick at. "I'm here to revise and study for next year, and nick free food, not in a bringing home capacity. We're not even friends. We're from different Houses, we despise each other by nature."
"Well, I still think she's made a very wise choice," Petunia stated, sniffing and scrubbing harder at a large skillet.
Severus was about to tell her exactly what he thought about her thoughts on her sister's choices that weren't actual choices at all (or maybe they were, but not the ones Petunia thought they were) when Evans walked back in, tossing a stack of bills onto the table. She was wearing a skirt today, her calves bare, but after having seen her bellybutton (oh MERLIN, her bellybutton!), Severus felt he could handle almost anything and didn't even wince more than once or twice.
"I'm bored," Evans announced, sliding into the chair opposite him. "Aren't you bored? Let's do something. D'you play poker?"
Severus blinked.
Evans beamed. "I have the perfect idea," she declared, and tugged him out the back door.
The perfect idea turned out to be the two of them sneaking onto her neighbour's patio and playing cards under the cover of a large yellow sun umbrella. It was warm beside the large swimming pool, the morning sun reflecting off the concrete that circled it, and Severus unbuttoned and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt (though only halfway up his forearms, as heat was no excuse for impropriety). Evans laughed and smiled and did all those things he couldn't get enough of, twirling her long red hair around her fingertips all the while.
She was wretched at poker.
After some time, Petunia came out to scold Evans with a tray of sandwiches and sliced fruit, telling her sister it was a good thing Severus was there to look after her. It was a pleasant and friendly meal once Evans had chased her sister off, and she amused herself by flicking grapes at Severus's forehead whenever he looked down at his plate.
"This ceased to be amusing approximately ten seconds before it started," Severus informed her.
"Ten seconds?" Evans asked, sucking rather indecently on a piece of melon. "Not twelve? Or nine? I think it's more like nine. Eleven? You're no fun."
"Yes, Sirius, but what have you done with Lily Evans?" he asked, and rolled his eyes. She laughed, and he picked up a delicately-cut sandwich quarter and fought back the urge to throw it at her. Turning it over in his hand, he pondered the amalgamation of random animal parts this misguided society dubbed "lunchmeat," a sickly sort of brown colour against the white of the bread, and suddenly missed Sirius something awful.
It wasn't that Sirius particularly liked sandwiches or was sickly, or lunchmeat-like in any way, so it didn't make logical sense in the least, but he very desperately hoped that Sirius and that imbecile Potter were truly getting along as well as Sirius had made them out to be. He wasn't sure how he could live with himself if they weren't.
"Sometimes I wish I knew what you were thinking," Evans said with a snicker as another grape plunked off Severus's forehead.
Severus scowled and poked at his Sirius-meat, squishing a corner of it between his fingers. Disgusting. "It's called Legilimency," he mumbled.
Evans sighed. "Most boys I wish I knew less about because all they think of is cars or girls or Quidditch, or the best way to hex their arch rival's head down a toilet or something. You're… different. What's Legilimency?"
"I think of Quidditch," Severus countered, feeling put-out for no good reason. Though the grape that nearly hit him in the eye probably hadn't helped. Giving up on the sandwich, he plopped it down and ate the grapes rolling around on his plate instead.
"No, seriously, from the Latin... it's mind reading, isn't it? Tell me!" Evans insisted. When he said nothing, the cool squish of the grape filling his mouth, she added, "You know, I think I dropped that one before I threw it at you."
For a moment, he was sorely tempted to spit the grape at her, but he decided not to, mostly because he'd have likely spat it all over himself instead. He wasn't in the habit of random expectoration like some people he knew, people who were not eating dirty grapes and missing their idiot dormitory mates who completely didn't deserve it. He swallowed, glared, and said, "It's not mind reading, Evans. The mind is not a book to be opened and examined at will. The art of Legilimency allows its user to delve into the mind of a victim, and with proper training, to correctly interpret the findings," he informed her, which he decided was a fairly good explanation considering he'd never actually tried it.
"Sounds like mind reading to me," Evans told him with a shrug, twirling a soft looking strand of her hair around her fingers. "Do we learn that next year?"
Severus attempted to roll his eyes but failed to look away from those fingers. "Yes, because it's a terribly wise idea to teach schoolchildren to read each others' minds."
"But you can do it, right?" Evans prompted, a smirk twisting on her lips. "It sounds like a Dark Art, and if anyone knows Dark Arts, it's you."
Severus should've seen through this a mile away. Evans was a Gryffindor and always thought she knew more than everyone else in the universe, and admitting Severus knew something she didn't-- and sounding impressed about it-- was a sure sign of trouble. Severus should've known not to mention that he'd a volume on the subject at home (Sirius had nicked it from the restricted section for him some time ago). He should've known and kept his idiot mouth shut.
But Evans had this pink polish on her fingernails. She'd been wearing it for three days now, and it was chipping off her right index finger, just the bit at the tip, and it looked horrible next to her red hair, yet perfect all the same, and all Severus could think of that moment was whether he could chip the rest of it off with his teeth.
He hated when his mind did these terrible things to him. It seemed as though a block of time were somehow missing from recollection, wrapped up in pink fingertips, red hair and deep green eyes, and the next thing he knew, they were going to his bloody house to get the bloody book.
Merlin, why didn't he just Avada Kedavra himself in the brainpan already?
The doorknob on the front door wiggled, and even with magic you could never get it open the first try. Evans stood by his side as he fussed with it, arms crossed in front of her, looking curiously down the street. When he'd finally worked door open, he held it for her, wishing in vain it would smell better inside than out.
Severus should be angry that she'd connived her way into a visit, or ill because his home was the worst place on the planet, or nervous because she'd never want to speak to him again afterwards. But he couldn't.
He only felt numb.
Mother was at the kitchen table huddled over one of her Gobstones books, hair hanging limp in front of her face. When she caught sight of Evans, she swung an arm over to cover the moving illustration and scowled. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"I--" Evans started, but Severus stopped her.
"A classmate of mine, from Hogwarts. Lily--"
"What're you doing here?" Mother asked through the curtain of her hair, brow creased above her nose and lips pressed together in a firm, hard line as she glared at Evans.
"We're just getting something, she won't be a bother at all," Severus told her. "Go back to your reading, Mother, please."
Evans looked uncomfortable, her gaze flicking from the cracked window above the washbasin to the spotted vegetables on the dented old sideboard to Mother's rough, nervous hands rubbing at the ink smudged page of her book.
"Hurry up, then!" Mother snapped, whipping her head down to her book, her hair falling around the pages like a shroud.
"Sorry," Evans murmured as they turned toward the sitting room.
"Don't wake your father, boy!" Mother shrieked after them. It was the only sign she acknowledged his presence, and Evans winced.
Father was passed out on the threadbare old couch, his mouth hanging open, snoring from the back of his throat, and stinking worse than a brewery. He wouldn't have woken if the Express had run through the hall.
"My room's upstairs," Severus told Evans, nodding his head toward the chipped banister and worn, uneven steps.
"Could I, ah," she began, regarding the staircase with apprehension. "The bathroom. Sorry, I…"
"Out back," Severus told her.
She looked at him oddly, and he sighed and led her through the kitchen to the back door.
Mother glared up at her accusingly from the pages of her book but said nothing, merely shifting her feet in their stained house slippers.
The back door never closed properly, sagging on its loose hinges, and Severus let it hang open as he led her to the toilets. An old woman was filling a basin with water at the pump, her faded dress hanging limply about her thin frame and cheap shoes fraying at the toes. A teenaged girl with stringy brown hair was leaning up against the building near her, back against the cool brick, smoking a fag. She looked about seven months gone.
"Mind where you step," Severus advised, motioning toward the flaking blue paint of the door.
Evans chewed at her bottom lip, threw him an unreadable look, and pressed the door open.
Severus sighed, ran his hand through his dirty hair, and wondered if Sirius were thinking of him. Which was stupid. If there were any one thing Sirius Black was NOT doing at this moment, it was assuredly thinking. Unless of course it was about new and fantastic methods of snogging Remus Lupin silly, or a spell to shoot chewing gum up first years' noses or something. That was pretty much his limit, thinking-wise.
But then, no one ever thought of Severus if they had anything better to do.
He couldn't blame them.
Evans came back out looking flushed, and a voice told him, "Pretty girl, Severus."
He blinked and looked to the side of the building where the pregnant girl was standing. "Too pretty for a place like this," she told him, sounding hard and worn and much too old for someone who couldn't have been much older than Severus himself.
"I'm sorry," he said, voice cold as he pressed a hand against Evans's back to lead her away, "do I know you?"
The girl laughed and took one last drag before throwing the dog-end down and grinding it into the ground with the toe of her dusty shoe. "Funny," she told him, and he thought maybe he did remember her at that, a cute little girl with dimples who laughed at his jokes and made him mud pies in the stagnant summer puddles so many years ago, but he couldn't be sure. Everyone around here ended up looking the same in the end. She could've been anyone.
Back in the house after Severus set the door properly into place with a sharp jerk, he Accio-ed the bloody book and handed it to Evans. Legilimency for the Close-minded: How to Open Your Mind to Others' Minds shone in gold lettering on the front cover.
"Hope you're happy now," he told her.
She blinked down at the book, and then back up at him, speechless.
"I don't want to see your face around here again, you hear me?" Mother demanded of Evans as Severus fumbled with the front door handle. "You keep your pretty, pampered little nose out of our business, little girl!"
Evans said nothing, chin to her chest and eyes on her toes.
Severus finally wrenched the door open and grabbed Evans by the forearm. "Goodbye, Mother," he said.
She glared not at Severus but at the open doorway, which was infinitely more important to her than her own son, her cold sneer and the still purplish blossom of colour around her blackened left eye visible through the greasy strands of her hair.
Severus shut the door against the image.
"You could stay here tonight," Evans offered. "Honestly, it'd be no trouble."
She'd already baked him two cakes, scrambled him a half dozen eggs and made him three Sirius-meat sandwiches with olives and cheese. She had not mentioned their visit to Spinner's End, and Legilimency for the Close-Minded sat unopened on the coffee table. After a silent moment, she added, "We'd be able to start revising straight away. NEWTs are not even three hundred days away, and don't tell me you haven't been keeping track. I'll bet you've got it down to the minute."
It wasn't obvious whether she pitied him now, or looked down on him, but she must, and he didn't want to contemplate it because he felt terribly drained and doubted he could do it with proper rancour. What he did want to do was accuse her of attempting to take advantage of his virginal innocence in his sleep, but he felt it would come out flat.
Especially when, after all she'd just put him through, he was now imagining her in her nightgown. So he merely grunted and poked at a rubbery yellow chunk of egg.
Evans sighed, leaning up against the stove with an apron wound round her middle and a spatula in one hand. "I'm sorry," she said.
"It's hardly your fault," he told her, eyeing with suspicion the way her fingers wrapped around the spatula handle. "I should've mentioned I like them sunny side up. How were you to know my long standing relationship with half cooked egg yolk?"
"I'm not talking about the eggs," she said. "Though you could've said something before I used them all."
"I know what you're talking about," he told her, and smashed the egg through the tines of his fork. "And I wish you wouldn't."
"Well, what am I supposed to do, forget it happened?" she asked. "Act like nothing's changed?"
"That would be splendid," he told her. "Don't you know any spells to unscramble eggs? And you call yourself a cook? What good are you?" He glared at the mess of his fork, egg stuck in clumps between the tines and one largish glob plopping back down onto his plate, because all he could think of was her chipped nail polish and its place within the soft circle of fingers wrapped around the length of that ubiquitous kitchen implement.
Merlin, what was wrong with him?
"I don't disrespect you, you know," she said. "I mean, the opposite really, I… I had an idea, you know, of what it might be like, but seeing it just made me feel--"
Severus looked up from his eggy mess, startled. "Is this talk going to involve feelings?" he demanded. "Because I am not in the mood to discuss feelings with you. Or anyone. Ever."
"Sev--"
"No feelings!" he declared. "And for the love of Merlin, put down that bloody spatula!"
Evans sighed and shook her head, glancing at the spatula and tossing it into the sink. "I guess this means you're not spending the night."
"I was never spending the night," Severus informed her, "even before you humiliated me."
"But I didn't mean--"
"And what did you think would happen? What did you think you would see?" he demanded. "Had you no idea the sort of place it was?"
"I didn't…" Evans sighed. "I didn't think."
"I'm shocked," he said. "And by shocked, I mean--"
"Sev--"
"I'm sorry, alright?" he spat. "I'm sorry I'm poor and my house is old and my family are awful, and I'm ugly and cruel and don't like to acknowledge my feelings! I'm sorry you're rich and pampered and out of touch with reality and more concerned with how you look in your bathing suit than how other people feel about you wearing it, and most of all I'm sorry I'm not James bloody fucking Potter!"
He didn't quite know where it came from. He wasn't angry, and he didn't want to hurt her, or himself. Habit maybe. Probably. But honestly, James Potter? What was he thinking?
Evans didn't take it right, either. She should've slapped him. In her place, he would've slapped him. But instead, she stood there looking distraught, her eyes large and bottom lip trembling like Sirius had that one time in third year when he'd eaten eight chocolate frogs, two boxes of Bertie Bott's, six jelly doughnuts, seventeen Fizzing Whizbees, and drank seven glasses of pumpkin juice all within the space of forty minutes.
"Stop it!" he snapped.
Evans's nose went pink but she didn't stop. She looked open, innocent and hurt, and Severus wanted very suddenly and urgently to kiss her.
It was likely the worst moment of his life.
"Sirius would've raised an eyebrow and asked if I were finished!" he announced because there seemed no alternative, and stormed out the door.
Severus spent the next four days sulking in his bedroom in an utterly rotten mood, avoiding all thoughts of Evans, and Avada Kedavra-ing flies to kill time. And, of course, flies.
His room was sweltering, and his hair stuck to his forehead in greasy clumps, wand slippery in his sweaty hand. It was a fitting punishment though, for being so stupidly hormonal. He was never thinking of kissing again, and he swore this to himself-- No kissing!-- three dozen times per day.
Possibly four.
He finally decided he'd had enough-- enough of what, he wasn't entirely sure, but even the Killing Curse could get old after a time-- and cleaned himself up and made his now accustomed trek to the respectable part of town.
As he let himself into the kitchen, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he was greeted by a man sitting at the table reading the paper. He was tall and dressed in a well tailored blue suit, with ginger hair and a bristly moustache. "Might I be of assistance?" he asked pleasantly.
Severus blinked.
"Dad, would you like me to fix you a-- oh." Evans stood in the doorway with her Charms text in her hands and a look on her face that would've been quite at home on Narcissa Black. Fortunately, whatever she'd been feeling the other day that had given him the crazy idea to press his lips against hers had subsided.
Good, he thought. No kissing. "Have you finished the book?" he asked.
Evans blinked. "You scream at me and storm out the door and don't come back for nearly a week, and you're asking me--"
"I assumed it would've given you enough time, but if not," he offered with a shrug.
"Would you like to introduce me to your friend, Lils?" her father asked.
"I don't even know if he is my friend," Evans answered.
Severus was appalled. "Of course I'm not your friend! Whatever would give you such a preposterous idea? I don't have friends!"
"Right, no feelings, no friends. Fine. Perfect! What about Sirius Black?" she demanded. "You've been talking about him practically non-stop all summer. He's not your friend?"
"Sirius Black is an idiot of the highest order and requires my assistance for the simplest of tasks. You should know this, he once offered you dancing gnomes in pink rompers as a display of his unending love," he told her.
"Perhaps I'll just wait in the sitting room," Mr Evans offered with a agreeable smile and nod toward Severus.
"What is wrong with you?" Evans asked when the door shut behind her father. She looked oddly imperious with her hands on her hips, Charms text folded in against her forearm, wearing a shiny yellow shirt and blue jeans with belled ankles. They must be new because he hadn't seen them before, and Severus gaped at how the fabric tightened at the knee, sweeping up in slick lines of denim to the vee between her thighs.
"Hello, my face is up here," she announced.
Severus's cheeks flushed, but he held his ground. "I'm not looking at your face. Can't you tell? You really do need that Legilimency book."
Evans sighed and turned, leaving Severus to stare at the gold stitching on the pockets across her backside. He shook his head and looked away.
"You know, sometimes I really can't stand you, Severus Snape. Would you like some bloody eggs?" Evans demanded.
"I thought you'd never ask," Severus told her with a sigh of relief, and slouched down into his seat at the table, back where he belonged once more.
The birds were chirping, the sun was shining, Evans was humming a Beetles tune, and Severus had his sleeves rolled up again on the neighbours' patio as he waded uncertainly through the murky shallows of another of Sirius's letters.
Darling Severus
I haven't written lately for fear any further stories involving Potter's stupid git face and ridiculous hair should send you into ireconcilable fits of fury and straight to Azkaban for lighting some poor old woman's wig on fire or maybe her panties, the huge white ones that pull up halfway to her tits, and for this I was extremely remiss. Proper communication in a relationship is worth a pair of singed panties, I know this now. I could go on and on about my summer, especially Moony's new found appreciation for my highly provocative use of punctuation, but I fear you would burn this letter in all your pyromaniacal ways if I were even to mention his sultry estimation of my--
--Severus gagged and skipped down a good half page just to be entirely sure he never discovered the subject of Remus's sultry estimation--
--and so I'll get straight to the point: it should've been you. I've put in a protest with Dumbledip because he's obviously got himself distracted from actual reality by all the potatos he's growing in his beard. I'd guess they've grown very large by now and quite heavy. So I'm sorry, but my hands are tied and not in the fun sort of way against a headboard that Moony--
--Severus skipped several more lines--
--swear I'll make it up to you Severus, in any way within my power and several probably quite without.
All my love be it ever so gooey, Sirius
"Oh my god," Evans said.
"Appalling, isn't it?" Severus said, glaring down at the parchment. "If only reasonable individuals sat in office in the Ministry, there would be laws against it, perhaps an entire committee upon the proper use of punctuation and decorum in--"
"Oh my god!" Evans squealed, and Severus blinked and looked up, worried that she'd maybe read the parts he'd skipped, as they were surely unfit for human consumption. She was staring down at her own parchment though, delivered by an owl at nearly the same time as Severus's, hands shaking and eyes wide.
Severus's heart made an odd little jump in his chest.
"I can't believe this," Evans said, breathless.
Taking a deep breath to calm his overly reactive organs, Severus peered over her shoulder at the letter she was tremulously grasping. Something shiny glittered up at him from the bottom of the parchment, the sun's rays catching its corners, and he gently lowered Evans's wrist to get a better look.
It was a badge, expensive and gold. Across it were engraved the words HEAD GIRL.
"I can't believe it," she whispered.
"Stop kidding yourself," he wanted to tell her, but was suddenly invaded by a most disturbing sensation, stomach wrenching and full of dread.
He looked down at Sirius's letter, now crushed in his fist, and swore. Further stories involving Potter's stupid git face, Sirius had said, and I'll make it up to you Severus, and it was obvious without an instant's further thought what he'd meant. "I am going to KILL that Potter!" he hissed.
"Oh, don't say that name!" Evans cried, looking thoroughly distraught. "Oh please, please, please don't say that! I just had a very, very bad thought about--"
Severus hadn't thought about it, having been far too concerned with revising and Legilimency and his irreconcilable teenaged hormones, but it was clear the worst had happened: the entirety of Hogwarts had been put under the control of a pair of over privileged, do-gooder Gryffindors.
"Oh god," he said. "We're all doomed."
"Please do not tell me that letter says James is Head Boy, Severus. Because if you do," she started.
"Doomed," Severus repeated, voice flat. "Someone kill me now."
"Me first," Evans insisted with an anguished sigh. "My life is such a farce."
"Well, that makes two of us," Severus conceded, feeling ill. Here and he'd begun to think Seventh Year might be tolerable. Why had he bothered?
The morning of September first was bright and cheery, and the crowd at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters were all sunny dispositioned and happy to be alive, see their friends and be off to school again. All except Severus, of course, who'd been lying in bed the past few days sweating in the heat and clutching his new DADA text to his chest like a life-jacket.
He regretted it now though because he and Evans were back to being enemies in public, of course, and seeing her and pretending he didn't know her would be a terrible ordeal, especially considering they had nearly every class together this year. And who knew if she'd have time for their potions room. He should've got his time in with her when he could.
And of course Sirius was nowhere to be found, and seeing him after hols was always nerve wracking, even when the boy hadn't been exchanging sultry punctuation with marginally feral jumper wearers all summer. He'd probably forgotten all about Severus, just like Severus should've forgotten about him but couldn't seem to manage.
Maybe if he could just find a quiet compartment and cast a few locking spells on the door, Severus could make it to Hogwarts with minimal mental trauma, instead of--
"Severus!"
Severus winced at Sirius's voice, wishing he'd planned things out beforehand so as not to have been caught so easily. "You should know better by now than to disturb me when I'm brooding, Black."
"But then I'd never be able to talk to you, and I know how much you'd hate that!" Sirius exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear.
Severus's jaw dropped at the sight of him. Not only was he noticeably taller than he was the last time Severus saw him, but his hair was longer and softer looking than Evans's and he was wearing a brand new set of unconscionably expensive robes. Severus gaped at a shiny gold object on his chest, pinned just to the left of his Slytherin tie.
"Have you been out in the sun?" Sirius asked, looking perplexed.
"That's the Head Boy pin," Severus said stupidly.
"You're olive complected and all, so you should tan well, but you've really gone this sort of orangeish colour," Sirius continued, wrinkling his nose. "It's a very unfortunate shade, Severus, I don't think--"
"You're wearing the Head Boy pin," Severus repeated, gobsmacked. "You're Head Boy."
Sirius blinked. "I told you that. In the letter."
Severus pointed at his chest with one hand and covered his mouth with the other. It was the only way to look as though it weren't hanging open still.
"Wow, was I that drunk when I wrote that?" Sirius asked, looking confused. He shrugged. "Anyway, what I meant to tell you was that you're about ten times more academic than I am, and much more deserving, and I wrote to Albus-- I can call him that now, you see, since he's picked me as his representative and says he has total confidence in my full ability to reach my potential--"
"I thought it was Potter," Severus said.
"I was that drunk?" Sirius asked.
"Oh fuck," Severus murmured. "Have you seen Evans?"
Sirius frowned. "Should I have? She's not asking for me now, is she, because my heart belongs to-- Oi, you look ill. When you're ill, you should say you're ill, and I can buy you things. They say money can't buy you happiness, but anything else you want, it's yours. My Uncle Alphard, when he heard about me making Head Boy and all-- I drunk owled my entire family, as was their due-- well, he wrote back and said he decided to throw in his lot with me, as we haven't had a Head Boy in the family for over a century and my sodding stupid brother turned up his nose at the gift Uncle got him last Christmas…"
Sirius's comfortingly irritating voice ushered him onto the Express, where the boy immediately stowed their luggage with Aubrey, located the snack cart and bought Severus an armful of pumpkin pasties. And then proceeded to buy something for everyone else in sight.
"One for you there, sweetie, here we are. Droobles? Alright, get yourself one, then. The least your new Head Boy can do is pack you full of sweets so you drive your Heads of House mad. Now if you ever need anything, anything at all," he advised the hungry masses, "you know who to come to. Help with your homework, tips for your Quidditch game, advice on your love life, I've got the answers for you!"
"Too bad they're not the right ones," Severus told him, shoving some of the pasties in his pockets so he could open one.
"Silence, you," Sirius chastised. "I am buying their love with sugary edibles. And speaking of love, if you happen upon any wayward jumpers, tell me right away, or I shall eviscerate you."
"Yes, dear," Severus said with a roll of his eyes and a lick of pasty filling. Remus was the least of his worries. Evans was going to kill him.
Though maybe not. Potter was the thicker of the two by far, not to mention that he tried to get people bloody killed by werewolves, and it wasn't as though Sirius was going to start propositioning her again. Severus had never once seen her wear a jumper.
"Come on then, I have places to go and people to do," Sirius urged, nudging his shoulder. Severus shook from his mind the image of Evans in an oversized green woollen jumper, the neck sliding down over her shoulder, and followed his new Head Boy down the corridor.
No kissing, he reminded himself.
Five minutes and two conversations with Fifth Years about the effects of dung bombs when set off inside antique china teapots later, and Severus and Sirius came upon the trio of Gryffindors.
"Fancy seeing you two here," Potter said, a look of intense annoyance crossing his features.
"Not so much, considering this is the train to Hogwarts, and we're both going there," Severus answered coolly. He'd had Sirius to himself all summer, and that was all he had? What a useless piece of nothing.
Potter made a noise and Pettigrew grasped his sleeve, rather like a small child trying to get its mother's attention. "I don't want that git to take points before we even get to school, James!" he hissed, throwing a worried look in Sirius's direction. "Can we please just go? Please, James?"
Sirius ignored them all, his eyes glued to Remus. The Gryffindor boy looked less jumpery than he might've, though his face was red clear to the tips of his ears.
"So how about those Wimbourne Wasps?" Severus offered with a roll of his eyes when the silence stretched.
"I fucking HATE YOU ALL," Potter announced.
Severus raised a brow, but Sirius was still staring at Remus, oblivious. "Moony," he murmured.
Potter threw his hands up in exasperation, tugging Pettigrew down the corridor and muttering that Sirius wouldn't rest until he'd bent the entire bloody world and they should just stay away or they'd wake up one morning bloody hunchbacks. As pleasing as it was to have the pair gone, this left Severus in the corridor alone with Sirius and Remus, who were still staring at each other quite distressingly.
Severus cleared his throat.
No one moved.
"Your rat stinks! Don't you ever bathe him?" a high pitched voice asked from further down the corridor, the sound of the rails filling the car as the door was opened.
"Does not!"
"Does too!"
"Look, are we going to stand here or find a bloody compartment?" Severus demanded. A passel of gaping First Years with smelly rats was all they needed right now.
Remus blinked and shook his head as though waking from a dream, and opened the door behind him. The compartment was empty, and Severus slid into a seat near the door, relieved he'd got safely in without running across Evans. Merlin, she was going to kill him.
Sirius, ever unconcerned for Severus's wellbeing, slid the door closed behind them. "Keep watch, would you?" he said, by all appearances about to devour Remus.
"Absolutely not!" Severus announced, appalled. "Have you entirely taken leave of your--"
"But Severus!" Sirius protested, pulling at his own hair and looking flush-cheeked and desperate. "I've spent all bloody summer staring at Potter's stupid face, not a single jumper in sight, and I swear I'm so pent up I'm about to--"
"Fine! Go ahead! Merlin's sake, you're such a bloody--"
But there was no point in finishing because Sirius had literally pounced on Remus, like some sort of a boy-cat, and pinned him back against the seat. He had his tongue so far down the Gryffindor's throat, it'd be a wonder if it didn't come back half digested. Remus, usually so reasonable, had his leg thrown around Sirius's hip and hands buried in Sirius's hair and was making odd noises, like rubbing a balloon around in your hands so it squeaked.
Settling back against his seat, Severus hoped his head popped.
Kissing was so disgusting.
Evans was going to kill him.
This year was going to be hell.