Disclaimer: Rowlings is great and created Severus Snape. I wish I had done
it, but she obviously came first. As I love the character, thank you for
making him this way.
I own my runaways. Even, when I don't take good care of them. Still, I love them and hope you enjoy reading this. This chapter hurt to write and this is NOT a cliché.
My thanks to Megan Potter the Chaser (I hope you keep liking.); Queen Shirley (The same.); Atheis and Aeris Gainsborough (yes, I do love you, what can I say). And of course, thank you to Nyarth Kyukon, my wonderful beta reader.
This is for you
Javier
"I'll say this only once!" Severus yelled at Jen's back. "I'm sorry."
"Go to hell!" She screamed, never turning and never halting.
Severus could hear her crying.
"Jennifer, Stop!"
"Go to hell!"
"I'll let you go away!"
"Go to hell!"
"I apologise!"
"Go to."
"I won't go anywhere!" He cut in and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"I don't want to speak to you!" She screamed back.
"I know."
She leaned on his shirt and cried into it.
"Hey!" Severus instinct was to push her away, but he willed himself to stay put. "Jen, please stop crying. Jen!! Don't blow your nose on me!"
"I'm not blowing my nose!" She complained annoyed.
"Good girl."
"Git."
"Are you feeling better?"
"No."
"Me, neither."
"You're right." She kept crying with the front of his shirt clutched in her hands. "It's all my fault."
"There is no use."
"I should have told."
"You should have. Now is too late though."
She paused crying and raised her head, to look at Severus with red-rimed eyes.
"Maybe not."
"What do you mean? I can't watch Javier all the time."
"I'm going to talk with my parents."
"Now? Do you know what time is it? You'll get yourself in a boarding school for this one."
"Maybe reform school, even. I guess I deserve it."
"Miss 'Positive' is showing a dramatic streak, I see." Severus pointed.
"Aren't we all?"
"Point taken. I'll take you home. Wait for the morning to speak with your parents. I don't think they'll feel like helping now."
"What about Javier?"
"I'll look after him, when I see you back at home."
"You're a true gentleman." She said, drying her tears at his shirt.
"You'll ruin my reputation."
"We don't want that." She teased.
"Of course not."
They were quiet after that and went all the way to Jen's home in silence. There were no spoken farewells. They hardly looked at each other and Jen opened the door with as much noise as she had done when leaving.
Severus saw her closing it and waited some minutes to be sure she had gone to bed unnoticed by her parents. No light in the house was switched on, and after some time, he willed himself to relax. He walked to 'Card Manor' hopping to find Javier, sullen but safe, inside.
He got his wish. Javier was there and was mad at him.
"Don't you even think about it, you hijo puta!"
Severus froze where he was. "What?"
"You won't get inside."
"But. Javier!!!"
"Get out of my sight, capulho!"
Johnny and Beef were awoken by his shouts
"What's the matter?" Asked Beef.
"It's none of your business." Snapped Javier. "Go to sleep."
"We WERE sleeping!" Complained Johnny. "You woke us up!"
"Shut up, gillipolhas!"
"You're the one who's shouting!"
"Shut up!" Javier threatened Johnny with a fist. The younger boy closed his mouth, but Beef asked again;
"What IS going on?"
"Javier is kicking me out." Severus informed them in a soft voice.
"How come?" Beef asked Javier.
"None of you business! And you." He pointed Severus. ".Can drop dead! You're trying to divide us!"
"I'm not. And you're still kicking me out."
"And I'll start kicking you, if you don't get the fuck out of here!"
Severus had been trying to keep a cool head, but this threat ruined his efforts.
"You just try!" He was shorter than Javier, but he still grabbed him by his collar. "What do you think I'll do to you then?! I had a lousy night! I just had to save your bloody arse and almost got caught for it! And do you care? No!! I was almost grabbed by a furious drug dealer because of you! And do you care? NO!! He saw you at his window! And they've seen you snooping around them, everywhere! No mistake there! And I almost stopped talking to my best friend because of you! You fucking prick!" He shoved the older boy. "We've been all worried sick because of you! You bastard! Do you care? NO!!" Severus pushed Javier against the cardboard boxes, destroying their refuge. "Well YOU can drop dead, for all I care!" He roared.
"Go away!" Screamed Javier.
In the mist of his rage Severus could see the goggled eyes of the boys. They were scared. What was worst, they were scared of him. They were looking at him as if they didn't know him and he was the scariest thing they had ever seen.
He wanted to calm down and say he was just their friend. Just Pup. He wanted to go back in time and get his friends back. But he was so angry, he could hardly breath. He couldn't talk now.
"Go away!" Javier screamed again, in a mesh of rage and fear.
Severus growled and moved away into the cold night.
They would get cold too. He knew it. He wasn't there to do a heating spell. He'd never do it again and they might freeze, for all he cared. They had never noticed his help, anyway. He had never let them notice any thing out of the ordinary.
Severus stopped.
He didn't want them to die. They were family, if anyone was. As he inhaled deeply, he noticed he hadn't been breathing at all for some minutes. He didn't know he could do that.
What weird thing am I? Severus thought in despair.
He noticed his reflection in a glass window; His eyes were blood shot, with stark, black, angry irises. He was paler than ever. So pale he was almost transparent and could see his veins under the skin, at his forehead and over his nose and chin. It went hideously with his black hair. He WAS hideous. It was scary.
Severus swallowed. He could have run away again in that moment. He didn't have the guts to show his face to his Marauders again.
Severus started to laugh wildly, with no humour, knowing he was on the verge of hysterics. 'His Marauders'!
Not his anymore. Not after them seeing him this way. He sat on the floor, his mind burning with thoughts. What would he do? Where would he go? How could he make things right? Most important; how could things change so drastically? How could he have been allowed to be so happy, just to see every thing crumble? It had been some time since Severus had last cried. He did it this time.
In the next three days, Severus wandered through London, trying to decide where to go. Finally he made up his mind and decided to put himself at the Marauders' mercy.
He went looking after them, but they were nowhere to be found.
'Card Manor' was gone. It was not the first time they had changed location though. He went to look at the other places they had been before. To no avail.
Severus decided to look for Jen then. He knew where her school was. He sat all morning in front of it, waiting for the students to leave the old building.
At lunchtime, they did.
He saw several girls dressed in school uniform, chatting in happy tones with each other.
In the middle of them, like a piece that didn't fit, was a blond, shorthaired girl so sad, in a world of her own.
Severus approached her.
"Jen."
The girl looked at him.
"Pup." She hugged him in there, in front of the other girls, who started a collective tease.
Severus shielded her from the other girls with his back and moved away with her.
"I can't go!" She complained. "My mother will call home to check if I'm there!" She was talking in a high-pitched tone. "They'll never trust me again. I know it!"
"Oh, Jen." Severus was feeling so guilty and seeing her this way wasn't helping at all. "Don't fret. I'll just keep you company 'till you get home. Then I'll go. I promise."
She seemed able to cope with that proposal.
"What happened?" Severus asked softly.
"I told my parents." She said in a whisper. "They got mad at me. I've never seen my dad so angry. Then he drove us to the card boxes. Johnny and beef were there. You and Javier were nowhere to be seen. Dad has been there every day since, trying to find Javier."
"What happened to Beef and Johnny?" Severus was almost afraid to hear the answer.
"Dad took them to the orphanage. They accepted them back there. They were totally freaked out, Johnny and Beef. Mum and Dad found Johnny cute. I heard them talking in the kitchen about adopting. They don't seem interested in adopting Beef. What happened?"
"Hum?"
"I didn't tell my parents about you, but Johnny and Beef were so scared, they wouldn't shut up. They told me you looked."
Severus looked at his shoes.
"They said you were scary." She chose to say.
"Did you tell them? About me being."
"No. I couldn't make things worse. What happened? Do you know where Javier is?"
"No. When I left he was with Johnny and Beef."
"They said he left after you. But they don't know where. Why did you scare them?"
"It was not on purpose. I was mad at Javier. He was mad at us. At me. I just snapped and started to scream. I was MAD. I didn't know I could get this. I'm definitely a vampire."
"What? Did you bite them?"
"Of course not! But I was looking like."
"Where can Javier be?" Jen whispered. "He has to be around here somewhere." She started to cry. "I'll never forgive myself, if something happened to him."
"Don't say that! I'm sure he is fine." He desperately wanted to believe that.
Jen would have none of it.
"Don't bullshit me! You know as well as I do what he was up to. For all we know." She was crying openly now and couldn't speak any more.
Severus held her tight, wishing he could make her stop crying. As if that would make things all right.
He didn't say a word though. He stayed put, helplessly allowing her to give voice to her pain. He couldn't do the same now. He had to know what had happened to the stubborn Spanish boy.
When they got in front of her house, she asked if he would like to go inside. Her eyes were pleading him not to accept.
"No. I have to go." He left her then, without another word.
He was going through that street for the twentieth time.
"Pup."
He turned and saw the man; Jen's father.
"You're Pup, aren't you?" He asked.
"Actually that's not my birth name." He regretted his wisecrack answer at the moment he said it. "Yes I'm Pup." He admitted in an apologising tone.
"You lied to me the other time, Pup." The man accused.
"I was trying to help. Yes I did. I'm sorry."
"Did you runaway from the orphanage too, or the part about your parents was the truth?"
"I Didn't run from the orphanage." Was all the answer he gave.
"What are you doing here? Why are you not at school?"
"I'm searching for Javier."
"Don't you know where he is?"
This angered Severus. Would he be searching for Javier if he knew his whereabouts? Then he calm down. He had lied to the man before, so he was entitled to be suspicious about him.
"I don't know where he is. I just want to be sure he is okay."
Jen's father looked at him for some moments.
"Me too." He said.
"You're a good person."
"Go home, Pup."
"I have to find Javier."
"The police are searching for him. I'm looking for him. Social Services are looking for him. You're just a boy." He said, not unkindly. "Let adults do adult work."
"You don't understand. I have to find him. He's my friend and I let him down."
"So you had a fight. It happens. Your friendship will survive that." The man's speech was abruptly cut off. He was looking off somewhere over Severus' shoulder, at a pile of rubbish bins nearby. Quickly, he strode towards them.
Severus was confused by this behaviour but followed him anyway.
As the man stopped and confirmed what he had saw. He warned Severus; "Pup, stay there! Don't come closer."
Severus couldn't care less about the warning. Those were Javier's boots he was seeing. Severus had stolen them himself.
"Pup, NO!" Jen's father tried to block his view, but Severus was quicker. He rounded the man and met the most horrible sight he had seen in his young life. Javier's broken body lay, twisted in the garbage and half his head was gone.
I own my runaways. Even, when I don't take good care of them. Still, I love them and hope you enjoy reading this. This chapter hurt to write and this is NOT a cliché.
My thanks to Megan Potter the Chaser (I hope you keep liking.); Queen Shirley (The same.); Atheis and Aeris Gainsborough (yes, I do love you, what can I say). And of course, thank you to Nyarth Kyukon, my wonderful beta reader.
This is for you
Javier
"I'll say this only once!" Severus yelled at Jen's back. "I'm sorry."
"Go to hell!" She screamed, never turning and never halting.
Severus could hear her crying.
"Jennifer, Stop!"
"Go to hell!"
"I'll let you go away!"
"Go to hell!"
"I apologise!"
"Go to."
"I won't go anywhere!" He cut in and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"I don't want to speak to you!" She screamed back.
"I know."
She leaned on his shirt and cried into it.
"Hey!" Severus instinct was to push her away, but he willed himself to stay put. "Jen, please stop crying. Jen!! Don't blow your nose on me!"
"I'm not blowing my nose!" She complained annoyed.
"Good girl."
"Git."
"Are you feeling better?"
"No."
"Me, neither."
"You're right." She kept crying with the front of his shirt clutched in her hands. "It's all my fault."
"There is no use."
"I should have told."
"You should have. Now is too late though."
She paused crying and raised her head, to look at Severus with red-rimed eyes.
"Maybe not."
"What do you mean? I can't watch Javier all the time."
"I'm going to talk with my parents."
"Now? Do you know what time is it? You'll get yourself in a boarding school for this one."
"Maybe reform school, even. I guess I deserve it."
"Miss 'Positive' is showing a dramatic streak, I see." Severus pointed.
"Aren't we all?"
"Point taken. I'll take you home. Wait for the morning to speak with your parents. I don't think they'll feel like helping now."
"What about Javier?"
"I'll look after him, when I see you back at home."
"You're a true gentleman." She said, drying her tears at his shirt.
"You'll ruin my reputation."
"We don't want that." She teased.
"Of course not."
They were quiet after that and went all the way to Jen's home in silence. There were no spoken farewells. They hardly looked at each other and Jen opened the door with as much noise as she had done when leaving.
Severus saw her closing it and waited some minutes to be sure she had gone to bed unnoticed by her parents. No light in the house was switched on, and after some time, he willed himself to relax. He walked to 'Card Manor' hopping to find Javier, sullen but safe, inside.
He got his wish. Javier was there and was mad at him.
"Don't you even think about it, you hijo puta!"
Severus froze where he was. "What?"
"You won't get inside."
"But. Javier!!!"
"Get out of my sight, capulho!"
Johnny and Beef were awoken by his shouts
"What's the matter?" Asked Beef.
"It's none of your business." Snapped Javier. "Go to sleep."
"We WERE sleeping!" Complained Johnny. "You woke us up!"
"Shut up, gillipolhas!"
"You're the one who's shouting!"
"Shut up!" Javier threatened Johnny with a fist. The younger boy closed his mouth, but Beef asked again;
"What IS going on?"
"Javier is kicking me out." Severus informed them in a soft voice.
"How come?" Beef asked Javier.
"None of you business! And you." He pointed Severus. ".Can drop dead! You're trying to divide us!"
"I'm not. And you're still kicking me out."
"And I'll start kicking you, if you don't get the fuck out of here!"
Severus had been trying to keep a cool head, but this threat ruined his efforts.
"You just try!" He was shorter than Javier, but he still grabbed him by his collar. "What do you think I'll do to you then?! I had a lousy night! I just had to save your bloody arse and almost got caught for it! And do you care? No!! I was almost grabbed by a furious drug dealer because of you! And do you care? NO!! He saw you at his window! And they've seen you snooping around them, everywhere! No mistake there! And I almost stopped talking to my best friend because of you! You fucking prick!" He shoved the older boy. "We've been all worried sick because of you! You bastard! Do you care? NO!!" Severus pushed Javier against the cardboard boxes, destroying their refuge. "Well YOU can drop dead, for all I care!" He roared.
"Go away!" Screamed Javier.
In the mist of his rage Severus could see the goggled eyes of the boys. They were scared. What was worst, they were scared of him. They were looking at him as if they didn't know him and he was the scariest thing they had ever seen.
He wanted to calm down and say he was just their friend. Just Pup. He wanted to go back in time and get his friends back. But he was so angry, he could hardly breath. He couldn't talk now.
"Go away!" Javier screamed again, in a mesh of rage and fear.
Severus growled and moved away into the cold night.
They would get cold too. He knew it. He wasn't there to do a heating spell. He'd never do it again and they might freeze, for all he cared. They had never noticed his help, anyway. He had never let them notice any thing out of the ordinary.
Severus stopped.
He didn't want them to die. They were family, if anyone was. As he inhaled deeply, he noticed he hadn't been breathing at all for some minutes. He didn't know he could do that.
What weird thing am I? Severus thought in despair.
He noticed his reflection in a glass window; His eyes were blood shot, with stark, black, angry irises. He was paler than ever. So pale he was almost transparent and could see his veins under the skin, at his forehead and over his nose and chin. It went hideously with his black hair. He WAS hideous. It was scary.
Severus swallowed. He could have run away again in that moment. He didn't have the guts to show his face to his Marauders again.
Severus started to laugh wildly, with no humour, knowing he was on the verge of hysterics. 'His Marauders'!
Not his anymore. Not after them seeing him this way. He sat on the floor, his mind burning with thoughts. What would he do? Where would he go? How could he make things right? Most important; how could things change so drastically? How could he have been allowed to be so happy, just to see every thing crumble? It had been some time since Severus had last cried. He did it this time.
In the next three days, Severus wandered through London, trying to decide where to go. Finally he made up his mind and decided to put himself at the Marauders' mercy.
He went looking after them, but they were nowhere to be found.
'Card Manor' was gone. It was not the first time they had changed location though. He went to look at the other places they had been before. To no avail.
Severus decided to look for Jen then. He knew where her school was. He sat all morning in front of it, waiting for the students to leave the old building.
At lunchtime, they did.
He saw several girls dressed in school uniform, chatting in happy tones with each other.
In the middle of them, like a piece that didn't fit, was a blond, shorthaired girl so sad, in a world of her own.
Severus approached her.
"Jen."
The girl looked at him.
"Pup." She hugged him in there, in front of the other girls, who started a collective tease.
Severus shielded her from the other girls with his back and moved away with her.
"I can't go!" She complained. "My mother will call home to check if I'm there!" She was talking in a high-pitched tone. "They'll never trust me again. I know it!"
"Oh, Jen." Severus was feeling so guilty and seeing her this way wasn't helping at all. "Don't fret. I'll just keep you company 'till you get home. Then I'll go. I promise."
She seemed able to cope with that proposal.
"What happened?" Severus asked softly.
"I told my parents." She said in a whisper. "They got mad at me. I've never seen my dad so angry. Then he drove us to the card boxes. Johnny and beef were there. You and Javier were nowhere to be seen. Dad has been there every day since, trying to find Javier."
"What happened to Beef and Johnny?" Severus was almost afraid to hear the answer.
"Dad took them to the orphanage. They accepted them back there. They were totally freaked out, Johnny and Beef. Mum and Dad found Johnny cute. I heard them talking in the kitchen about adopting. They don't seem interested in adopting Beef. What happened?"
"Hum?"
"I didn't tell my parents about you, but Johnny and Beef were so scared, they wouldn't shut up. They told me you looked."
Severus looked at his shoes.
"They said you were scary." She chose to say.
"Did you tell them? About me being."
"No. I couldn't make things worse. What happened? Do you know where Javier is?"
"No. When I left he was with Johnny and Beef."
"They said he left after you. But they don't know where. Why did you scare them?"
"It was not on purpose. I was mad at Javier. He was mad at us. At me. I just snapped and started to scream. I was MAD. I didn't know I could get this. I'm definitely a vampire."
"What? Did you bite them?"
"Of course not! But I was looking like."
"Where can Javier be?" Jen whispered. "He has to be around here somewhere." She started to cry. "I'll never forgive myself, if something happened to him."
"Don't say that! I'm sure he is fine." He desperately wanted to believe that.
Jen would have none of it.
"Don't bullshit me! You know as well as I do what he was up to. For all we know." She was crying openly now and couldn't speak any more.
Severus held her tight, wishing he could make her stop crying. As if that would make things all right.
He didn't say a word though. He stayed put, helplessly allowing her to give voice to her pain. He couldn't do the same now. He had to know what had happened to the stubborn Spanish boy.
When they got in front of her house, she asked if he would like to go inside. Her eyes were pleading him not to accept.
"No. I have to go." He left her then, without another word.
He was going through that street for the twentieth time.
"Pup."
He turned and saw the man; Jen's father.
"You're Pup, aren't you?" He asked.
"Actually that's not my birth name." He regretted his wisecrack answer at the moment he said it. "Yes I'm Pup." He admitted in an apologising tone.
"You lied to me the other time, Pup." The man accused.
"I was trying to help. Yes I did. I'm sorry."
"Did you runaway from the orphanage too, or the part about your parents was the truth?"
"I Didn't run from the orphanage." Was all the answer he gave.
"What are you doing here? Why are you not at school?"
"I'm searching for Javier."
"Don't you know where he is?"
This angered Severus. Would he be searching for Javier if he knew his whereabouts? Then he calm down. He had lied to the man before, so he was entitled to be suspicious about him.
"I don't know where he is. I just want to be sure he is okay."
Jen's father looked at him for some moments.
"Me too." He said.
"You're a good person."
"Go home, Pup."
"I have to find Javier."
"The police are searching for him. I'm looking for him. Social Services are looking for him. You're just a boy." He said, not unkindly. "Let adults do adult work."
"You don't understand. I have to find him. He's my friend and I let him down."
"So you had a fight. It happens. Your friendship will survive that." The man's speech was abruptly cut off. He was looking off somewhere over Severus' shoulder, at a pile of rubbish bins nearby. Quickly, he strode towards them.
Severus was confused by this behaviour but followed him anyway.
As the man stopped and confirmed what he had saw. He warned Severus; "Pup, stay there! Don't come closer."
Severus couldn't care less about the warning. Those were Javier's boots he was seeing. Severus had stolen them himself.
"Pup, NO!" Jen's father tried to block his view, but Severus was quicker. He rounded the man and met the most horrible sight he had seen in his young life. Javier's broken body lay, twisted in the garbage and half his head was gone.