CHAPTER 17

SUCH A COWARD

Drinks were poured, glasses were emptied, only to be refilled, again and again, as discussions burred on, unnerving, late into the night at number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

The plates with snacks, on the other hand, were still untouched, almost, with nobody quite having the stomach for eating — not after the unscrupulous arrangements for the fate of Robert Marcan.

Nobody except Moody, that was.

The brazen Auror leaned over the table, grabbed another piece of shortbread, stuffed half of it in his mouth, crumbs drizzling down his chin and chest and belly, as his magical eye turned from Tonks to Arthur — Molly — Remus — skipped Sirius.

"You're reluctant to do it now, with Marcan, but when the next attack happens, you'll be glad we didn't let him walk free," said Moody, popping the remaining half of shortbread in his mouth.

The truth was, Sirius cared nothing for the fate of Robert Marcan. Sirius had screwed up, and Remus now had to mop up the mess in Longmoon; that was all he could think of.

Werewolf or not, it would be dangerous. Who knew how many Death Eaters Voldemort would send waiting for him in the forest?

Sirius glanced across the table at the other end. Right. Snape knew. But he wasn't saying anything.

Did he ever?

"We need to know the situation in Longmoon before Remus returns there… Snape," Sirius said tentatively, "do you know anything?"

Sirius' earnest request was met, after a long moments' delay, with Snape's disinterested reply.

"No, not really."

Right. Why had Sirius come to hope otherwise?

"Did You-Know-Who send men back to Longmoon?" asked Shacklebolt.

"Not that I'm aware of."

"To patrol the forest… search for clues maybe?"

"Have you not just asked precisely that already?"

Shacklebolt nodded pensively, and Sirius found himself twitching as Snape's elusive replies were stacking up.

"Snape, it's not a game," Sirius said. He was trying to be rational; he really was. "You know as well as anyone else, we can't afford to mess up again in Longmoon."

"Mess up again…" Snape retorted. "Come again, who messed up in the first place? I must have missed that part."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You hardly need me to spell it out."

"Severus," Arthur interfered carefully, "and Sirius, it's leading nowhere. My children used to quarrel like you — when they were sixteen."

"And there's plenty of time before my mission," Remus agreed. "We'll clarify the details in the coming weeks."

"Yes, and we need to start now." Sirius leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, stared into Snape's arrogant face. "Whatever Voldemort's plan is, it was surely discussed after the assault."

"It must have been," Shacklebolt supported. "Will they pursue the Pearl Beak? Snape…?"

"I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

"The meeting was long, and I... left before it ended. I was otherwise engaged."

"That's awfully convenient," Sirius chuckled grimly.

"Is it not?" replied Snape, just as grim. "Discussions weren't on the agenda."

"What was on the agenda?"

A flash of anger twisted Snape's face, and he scowled. "You, Black." He looked livid. "You. Lucky you — some idiot screwed up and took your place in the ring."

Yes, they've quite established that. Snape's answers were spinning them in circles, driving Sirius insane.

"Voldemort didn't ask about the Beak?" Sirius pushed their discussion back on track. "He must have at least brought it up."

Snape stared him down murderously. If glares could kill, Sirius would be dead by now, three times over, he had no doubt. Lastly, Snape turned to Remus, the anger slowly fading from his face.

Yes, it's him you're setting up, not me.

If anything, Remus had never done a thing to deserve this.

"Well…?"

Snape took a moment to find his answer, dark eyes drifting hazily through his web of lies. It must have been quite some web, because he took quite some time finding his answer there.

"He did," Snape replied eventually. "I told him you wouldn't pursue it."

"You did?" Sirius cocked an eyebrow at that. "How convincingly?"

In retrospect, had Snape's answer not been a lie, Sirius' retort had been rather uncalled for. But by this point, Sirius' tired head was reeling high — furious with Snape's barely-answers and the danger into which Rem was pushed to walk.

Surprisingly, Snape did not shoot back.

He was regarding Sirius, coldly. He was no longer scowling or sneering. If anything, he looked distracted... as though the earlier incursion in his web of lies had caused him to lose interest in their conversation.

He was letting Remus walk into a trap without as much as batting an eye.

In the end, Snape answered quietly, to Remus.

"I couldn't say."

Of course he couldn't.

"It's already enough," Remus assured.

"There's not much you can say, is there, Snape?" Sirius snapped. "Quite a game you're playing here."

"Yes, Black, I assure you: It's quite a game."

"You're enjoying it too, aren't you? Laughing in our faces, never divulging anything of any real use."

"Sirius, let's just—"

"Want to feel more involved, Black?" Snape cut Remus off. "Do you want to know everything?"

"I want to. I want to know everything and all about it: how you calculate your every step, and every word, every single one to make sure" — Sirius raised his voice to cover Remus, who still imagined he could broker peace — "to make absolutely sure, your nests stay warm on both sides of this war. So you can hop off, anytime, to whichever camp's most comfortable."

Snape chuckled bitterly at that.

"Comfortable? Oh, you have no idea, Black. No—idea!" There was an unhinged glint in his eyes. "But then, how could you know? All you do is sit in your mother's house."

"My house — No, Remus, stay out of this — And you, Snape, where are you sitting? Two fronts? Cosy seat on each side, watching everything unfold without ever lifting a finger. You're right I have no idea. So do tell me" — Sirius squared his shoulders, heard Arthur interpose, leaned forward against the table — "how does it feel to be such a coward?"

For a long second, Snape was silent.

"Coward, you call me?" he said quietly, "You — of all people? You?"

"Why shouldn't I? …of all people?"

By now, Remus' hand was clutching Sirius' thigh under the table, tugging at him to back down.

"You want your answers, Black? To everything you've asked. Do you want to know?"

Sirius nodded, his heart throbbing madly, angry with Snape and angry with... something more, was it?

"I do," answered Sirius.

The words of Arthur, spoken loudly, were getting lost in the air between the two of them. Neither paid heed.

Snape's feverish gaze fixed Sirius, fiercely intense, and Sirius, with his heart thumping madly and his blood boiling in rage, found himself surprised with how tired Snape's eyes glistened. He looked spent in every way. So much that it almost took the edge off of Sirius' rage. Almost.

Snape scoffed, and Sirius was certain he had just been told, privately, to go fuck himself.

"Tell me again, Black," Snape said in a low voice, the tension ebbing out from his face. "What was your grand achievement last night? Shouldn't you have retrieved the Pearl Beak? Forgive me for asking — Where is it?"

Sirius' hand twitched to pull out his wand. No one spoke to him like this!

It was the truth, though, wasn't it? Snape was the first to speak it out loud tonight. Sirius wanted to hex Snape's head off his shoulders and, at the same time, had this ridiculously irrational impulse to take back his own words — the earlier ones, about the coward.

It made no sense. No sense whatsoever.

He was too tired for this shit, Sirius concluded, rubbing a hand over his forehead. His exhausted brain was contriving incongruous messages just for the fun of it, much like Dumbledore had done earlier in the night.

Snape, for his part, having smelled blood — did not press any further. Astoundingly.

The meeting carried on for long, with discussing Bill's mission in Peru and Dumbledore's leave, on which no one actually had any information — save that it was important, potentially pivotal in the course of the war — and a dozen other things.

Sirius found himself dropping in and out of the conversation, unable to focus on much of anything. The exchange with Snape had tired him more than he cared to admit.

More so, it left him with a queasy feeling, like he had kicked someone who was already on their knees. Which was ludicrous and stupid and absolutely outrageous. No one had been on their knees. Snape had very much sat comfortably in his chair, delivering insults and half-baked lies.

Sirius truly was too tired for this.

"If Brinston had done his job properly, he wouldn't have landed himself in that rabbit hole, to begin with," Snape said at one point, and Moody's glare flashed furiously.

"You mind repeating that?"

"I think you heard me very well."

"He risked everything he had in that mission!" Moody snarled. "Don't you dare—"

"Yes, he risked," Snape said. "A great deal of good that did him. Or anyone else. Did it?"

"Don't you speak of him like that!" Moody slammed his fist on the table, and Snape sat briskly straighter, scowling in condescending disgust.

"The Ministry," Snape said in a low voice, "would do well to instruct its Aurors on table manners before letting you loose in public behaving like this."

He nudged his head in the direction of Moody's fist that still rested clenched on the table. Moody sneered, amused by that.

"What's the matter, Snape? Am I a bit too much for you? Is it only me, or did you just… flinch at a flick of my hand?"

Moody burst into laughter, rowdy and unkind, making Snape blink with a start.

A trace of an expression flitted over Snape's face, so briefly it was impossible to grasp what it entailed. He had no answer for Moody, that much was sure.

Satisfied with his small win, Moody turned to Shacklebolt and Bill, diving into conversation again.

Snape, sitting stiffly in his chair, was glancing warily around the table, checking reactions as if he was expecting someone to join Moody's earlier bout of laughter. Nobody did, of course; the discussion had moved on already — they were all adults in the room, after all, not teens holding each other up to ridicule.

Sure enough, last time Sirius had seen Snape this nervous, they were sixteen and hexing one another blindly.

Snape turned his gaze to Sirius, strikingly intense — dark eyes glittering feverishly — and Sirius almost looked away.

He didn't, though. He held Snape's gaze and couldn't fathom what the hell was going on.

Something about Moody's mocking laughter, Sirius thought, or his remark on the flinching at a flick of a hand had hit below the belt. Snape looked rather unstrung and, for the moment, not really all right.

In an attempt to shake off the disturbing chill, Sirius squared his shoulders and straightened his back. He tried and couldn't find satisfaction in any of this. And that truly was weird.

"What's your take on Kingsley's proposal?" asked Moody. "Are you willing to support, Snape?"

Sirius, too enthralled in his own thoughts and in Snape's unnerving gaze, had missed the context of Moody's question, and by the awkward lack of a reply, so had Snape.

"Well…" Moody invited an answer, while Snape regarded him stupidly as if he had not yet recovered enough to work his way out — or to work out anything at all.

"You know, I was thinking, Alastor," Sirius said before he could credit his course of action, "since you brought up the Auror Office — it crossed my mind — maybe you could spare a man to escort Bill on his journey."

Moody silenced, resting his gaze on the table, in ostentatious disregard of Sirius and his proposal. Yes, he was making the point that their dissensus over Marcan was not yet forgotten.

Sirius couldn't care less.

"That's not a bad idea," Remus supported. "They wouldn't even need to know the full purpose of the journey."

Bill interjected something to that; Molly did, too; Moody replied, and the discussion carried on from there further.

Try as he might, Sirius couldn't fathom why he'd changed topics. The night was weird. Snape was weird. And Sirius, by all means, was acting weirder than both.

Snape didn't say much else for the rest of the night, and neither did Sirius.

Despite his best efforts to stay with the discussions, Sirius found the train of conversations was getting lost in the fatigue and the nagging pain of his broken ribs that chipped out his awareness.

By the time people began sitting up from their chairs and gathering into groups of two or three to exchange last words before leaving, Sirius was bemused he hadn't yet fallen asleep. Or maybe he had at some point, and no one had cared to hint that to him.

"Could I take some potions from you?" asked Bill, who had come to stand by Sirius' chair, looking mildly amusing as he fought to swallow down a yawn. "Is that alright?"

"Sure," Sirius said, glancing around the room to find that the only people still seated were him and, at the other end of the table, Snape.

Sirius pressed his palms against the table and got to his feet, gritting his teeth against the prodding ache in his ribcage.

"Thanks!" Bill said, admitting defeat in his fight with the yawn. That was a huge yawn. "I only need a few potions, just for good measure in Peru. We've quite passed the med-kit back and forth between us. Haven't we?"

Sirius smiled back wearily. They quite had.

"It's in the cabinet. I'll be right with you."

He glanced at the clock — five minutes past midnight. The meeting had dragged on for quite a while.

"I'm tearing off yesterday's page, Sirius," Molly said, leaning over the counter to reach the tear-off calendar on the wall. "It's the sixteenth today — just so you know."

Sirius nodded, thanking Molly and wondering where she found the stamina to still mind such things. To each his own, he concluded, turning to Remus, who was caught in conversation with Tonks, so deeply that he didn't register Sirius calling his name, twice.

"Rem," Sirius insisted and patted his shoulder.

At some point, Remus did turn to him. His otherwise pallid face was flushed a comical shade of pink, and he was looking a bit flustered by Sirius' presence.

"Rem, I'll see you a bit later, all right? Don't leave?" Sirius asked.

"Of course."

Sirius was about to turn for the door when a commotion caught his attention over the indistinct chatter in the kitchen.

"Yes, it is important; otherwise, we wouldn't ask this of you," Moody said loudly to Snape, who, still comfortably seated at the table, looked more interested in the door leading out of the kitchen than in Moody and anything he had to say. "But you never seem to have time, do you?"

Glaring up at Moody and the imposing Shacklebolt behind him, then again at the door, Snape seemed to be declining Moody's graceless invitation to a private talk.

"If Kingsley can take the time, and I can take the time, I don't see why you couldn't, Snape," Moody said, his scarred face twisting in an unkind scowl. "Or are there other, more pressing engagements you must see to at this hour?"

Snape shook his head exasperated and mumbled something that read of disgust and defeat, to which Moody and Shacklebolt proceeded to sit down at the table, with another scowl from Moody and a cordial "thank you" from Kingsley.

Well, that was something.

"Looks like we're having after-hours company from Snivellus," Sirius said. But Remus was already dipped in another close exchange with Tonks, all the while, arranging and rearranging, almost neurotically, the shabby collar of his shirt.

She's too young for you, you rusty old coot, Sirius thought as he turned around and walked stiffly out of the kitchen, doing his best to ignore the pain in his ribs and the feeling that he might fall asleep on his feet.

AUTHOR NOTE

Writing tempers heating up apparently isn't my thing. So if you spot what's missing, what's off, what whatever, just let me know - I'd be grateful for that.

Writing spirits calming back down and giving glimpses behind Sirius' hot-headed brazenness, on the other hand, was a delight! Happy to hear your thoughts (positive, negative and all the grey stuff).