Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Harry Potter characters. They are the creation of J.K. Rowling and are copyrighted by people who aren't me. I'm not making any money from this.
No Strings Attached
Did you ever have one of those days where everything seemed to go wrong for you? Where you woke up and from the minute you got out of bed something frustrating or bad happened?
Well, if you have had one of those days, you'll know exactly how Sirius felt the day the whole deal started.
At Lupin's was where he was. He had just woken up because of the most irritating noise in the world.
Tapping.
There was an owl at the window, tapping away madly. It was clearly for him, because if it had been for Remus the owl would be at the house's only bedroom window, irritating the hell out of Remus instead of him. But the owl wasn't for Remus and it was tapping at the Living Room window. Sirius sighed and with his back aching, because of sleeping on a run down sofa for too many days in a row, he made his way over to the insistent tapping.
Sirius tore the letter open while absentmindedly looking for an owl treat for the large official looking bird.
Hogwarts seal... must be Dumbledore waking me up in these ungodly hours.
Yawning he put some water on the kettle and rummaged through the cupboards looking for tea leaves or the like.
Sirius-
I must ask you to Apparate to the address below where you will receive more information. I can't say too much for I fear the owl will be intercepted.
Your friend
Albus Dumbledore
Sirius didn't recognise the address he was supposed to Apparate to, but gathered it was a London address. He frowned as he realised that no time had been specified.
That probably means I should go right now.
Thinking that no one would really notice if he had a cup of tea first, he continued to search for the tea leaves, settling finally on tea bags. Remus appeared just when Sirius was contemplating having another cup of tea, thus ruining his plans.
"Is that a letter from Albus?" Remus asked as he moved sluggishly towards the kettle of hot water.
"No, it's a letter from Fudge. He wants me to come to some sort of party." Sirius picked the letter up and waved it about mockingly before adding, "Of course, he calls the party an execution, but me, I say there's just no difference."
"So it's from Albus then." Remus stated.
Sirius rolled his eyes, if they had still been at Hogwarts, Remus would have humoured him and laughed. But of course, if they had still been at school he wouldn't have had any reason to tell that joke. In fact, it wouldn't have been a joke at all. Just an incredibly odd sounding sentence.
"What does he want then?" Remus didn't wait for an answer but picked up the letter and read it himself.
"Do you know this address, it's in London isn't it?" Remus questioned, sleepiness forgotten for now.
Sirius on the other hand was still very tired, so instead of using his voice to reply he simply shook his head at the appropriate time.
After stalling for too much time he finally managed to Apparate to the correct address.
*
"You."
"Indeed."
"Where you sent here as well?"
"No, I happen to live here."
"Oh."
"What, did you assume I spent all year in the Hogwarts dungeons?"
"Of course not."
There was a pause. Why on earth would Albus send him to Snape's flat?
"So, uh, do you know what I'm doing here?" He asked after the silence threatened to maim him.
"Yes." Snape didn't explain further. He kept glancing at a closed door though. Sirius followed Snape's gaze back and forth several times.
"What's in there?" Sirius finally asked. Why did Snape insist on acting so sadistic and mysterious all the time? Couldn't he just make this easy on both of them and tell him why he was there so he could move on?
"It's the bathroom." Snape simply answered and stopped looking.
Why would Snape keep looking towards the bathroom door? Did he have to go or something? Sirius looked at Snape. Snape looked back. That man disturbed him. There was just something very twisted about him.
"Do you think maybe, you could perhaps, tell me why I'm here?" Sirius asked hesitantly. He wondered why Snape didn't just tell him. Maybe he didn't know after all. And why the hell was he letting that bastard intimidate him? It wasn't as if he was frightened of him or anything.
"No. Albus should be here within moments. He'll inform you." Snape said curtly.
Sirius wished he knew what was going on inside the other man's head. He was staring at the bathroom door now. It occurred to Sirius to listen instead of staring dumbly at a door. He could hear the sound of running water. Someone was in the bathroom. Someone was showering in Snape's bathroom.
Sirius looked at Snape. Snape looked at the door. Silence reigned. The water stopped running. Sirius listened hard, he could make out the sound of someone walking around in there. He felt for Remus' wand which he'd borrowed. He tried to signal for Snape to draw his wand as well. But Snape didn't seem threatened.
"Who's in there?" Sirius finally asked, feeling silly for not asking before.
"None of your business." Snape answered shortly. He quit trying to burn a hole on the door and looked at an ancient looking clock on the wall.
"Albus should be here by now." He muttered to himself and glanced at the bathroom door again.
Sirius gave up trying to guess who was in there. Though he had a few interesting ideas. Lucius Malfoy, Minister Fudge and McNair being only few.
When he was about to burst out laughing he got distracted by Albus' head in the fireplace.
"Ah, Sirius you're here. That's good." Albus proceeded to tell him and Snape all about the latest developments at the Ministry. Sirius asked why Albus didn't simply contact him at Remus' place, Albus answered cryptically and Sirius just got confused. It wouldn't have been too bad to get confused if Snape hadn't been there to smirk obnoxiously at him. Finally the exchange of information was over. (Sirius was still very suspicious of Snape and hated the thought of the dark man being valuable to the cause.)
Sirius prepared the Apparate back and felt increasingly annoyed with what happened. Albus hadn't said anything he could understand properly, he hadn't had any news of Harry and he still didn't know who the hell was in Snape's bathroom.
That last problem was solved just before he would have Apparated.
The door opened and girl walked out. She was fully dressed and was in the process of combing her hair. She couldn't have been much older than seventeen or eighteen. Sirius blinked.
"Who...?" Sirius trailed off, Snape had disappeared.
"Rannveig." The girl said as if that should explain everything.
"What?" He noticed he was sounding increasingly stupid, and he was getting more frustrated by the second. Where had Snape gone?
"My name is Rannveig." She said the words slowly and as if she were talking to a two year old with brain damage.
Sirius tried repeating her name but failed. The way she pronounced the 'r' was impossible.
"What sort of name is that?" He asked, realising too late that he sounded very patronizing.
"It's an Icelandic name. Don't worry, Severus is the only English person so far to pronounce it correctly. But he's a genius so he doesn't really count." She spoke with a harsh accent it sounded very odd and it hurt his ears how she said some of the words. The word 'genius' was particularly hard to swallow.
"How do you know Snape?" please don't be his girlfriend, please don't be his girlfriend... you're too young for starters...
"Oh, he owns the flat. He's hardly ever here though, he teaches in some private school in Scotland for nine months out of the year. I live here by myself most of the time but he's around in the summer." There is a god! They aren't doing obscene things...
She had finished brushing her hair and was now making herself a sandwich in the kitchen.
"So you two aren't..." He had to make sure.
"fucking?" She finished flippantly. "That's none of your business. Who are you anyway?"
He did what any other man in his position would have done. He fled.
*
"Severus?" Rannveig called, she wasn't allowed in his study but he hadn't forbidden her to yell.
"What?" He answered in an annoyed tone.
She hoped he wasn't in a very bad mood, she hated when he was in a bad mood. He'd been fine before she showered and now he was so irritated. He usually locked himself in his study when he was irritated or in a bad mood or brooding or... just in any mood that didn't tolerate her.
"Who was that?" She asked referring of course to that odd man who had disappeared into thin air in front of her. Severus did that sometimes as well. She usually just shrugged it off but it was different when it was someone she didn't know at all.
"You mean Black?" He had emerged and didn't seem too annoyed anymore.
"Is that his name? Well, I suppose I mean him." The two obviously weren't on first name basis, so why was 'Black' at Severus' flat? She hoped Severus would give her some answers instead of changing the subject like he did far to often for her liking.
"He's just someone I'm unfortunate enough to work with on occasion." Severus went over to the book case and after a moment picked an old tome off one of the numerous shelves.
"Poor you... you know, he disappeared into thin air after I asked him who he was."
Severus reacted instantly to this statement. "What? That bloody idiot, I wonder if he's thought at all in his life." He ranted on like this for a while before frowning and striding into his study, carrying his book, and slamming the door behind him.
Rannveig did what she always did in this situation. She accepted that he didn't want to tell her and added the mystery to her ever growing collection of riddles with no answers.
She had made herself comfortable with her sandwich and a newspaper when Severus suddenly came back out of his study. She wondered what he wanted and looked at him questioningly.
"Did he say anything to you?" He asked in an interrogational tone.
"he wanted to know if we were fucking." She replied, startled be the sudden questioning.
"You didn't tell him, did you?" Severus asked, but he didn't seem surprised that 'Black' would want to know something like that.
"I told him it wasn't any of his business." She said and shrugged.
"Damn. That equals a confession." Severus muttered and glared at her. "It never should have happened anyway. I knew it would come back and haunt me." Those words were followed by a string of muttered curse words.
"I'm glad it was so special to you." She replied feeling deeply offended by his behavior. He talked about her as if she didn't have any feelings. But then again, he always did that. It wasn't really the fact that he was treating her as an emotionless being that was getting to her, it was the fact that sleeping with her was such a big mistake to him. He certainly hadn't been complaining at the time.
He completely ignored her sarcastic comment and went back into his study, she could almost see the storm cloud above his head, signifying his pissed off mood.
She remembered it quite well, it wasn't something she regretted doing and she wished he wouldn't either.
When he had returned from teaching in Scotland last summer it had been in the middle of the night and she had just returned from a night on the town with her friends (celebrating her nineteenth birthday) they had run into each other on the way up and though she hadn't been drinking she remembered being very dizzy for some reason. She had been leaning on him for support and he hadn't really had his guard up and one thing just led to another. It had certainly been a very good birthday.
Hadn't it meant anything at all to him? She didn't want some deep emotional bond with him and she certainly didn't want love. It had been strictly 'no strings attached'. She just didn't want him to regret it. Was that too much to ask? She realised her cheek was wet and wiped her tears away, mentally scolding herself. She hated how emotional she was about everything. She was the type who always cried at weddings. She didn't love him or anything... maybe a little, but not enough to cry over him. She barely knew him. Well she knew him a lot on some level, but there were all these unexplainable things... like the titles on some of those old volumes. 'Most Potente Potions' What was that? A cook book or something?
*
Rannveig lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. She had her own room in the flat. There was one other bedroom that she just kept closed while Severus wasn't living in it. Her mind wandered back to her earlier thoughts. Sleeping with Severus had been very good... and she kept remembering exactly how good. Twice had she gotten out of bed in order to walk into his room and demand more, twice had she returned to bed before reaching the door.
The third time she went she was successful. Though she never reached his door. There was simply no need for her to do so, Severus was in the kitchen.
She wondered what he was doing there, he never went in there, he usually asked her to get stuff for him as he was 'completely useless in the kitchen'. (Or so he said, she suspected him of laziness.)
He didn't notice her, but she saw what he was doing. He had some sort of wooden stick and he was muttering nonsense and waving it about. She rubbed her eyes with vigor before admitting that parts of a sandwich were indeed arranging themselves on the counter before him.
"How do you do that?" She asked before she could stop herself. It was just unbelievable. Was he some sort of magician? Was that why he could sometimes disappear? Maybe she was dreaming? She closed her eyes tightly and opened them again. She nearly cried out in surprise when Severus was standing three inches away from her with a very odd look in his eyes. She looked at the kitchen counter and saw not a trace of sandwich. She had probably imagined it. Sleep deprived. That was it.
Then suddenly, out of the blue, he kissed her. She was quick to respond and soon their clothes were discarded and somehow they managed to end up in bed. He was even better than she remembered.
Afterwards, she lay awake beside him, listening to him sleep. Wondering, wondering...
Will he regret this night next summer?
Author Note: Comments? Any typos? I spell-checked but I can't notice everything... Anyway, leave a review if you can spare a few seconds of your busy lives in order to make an author happy (or sad, but preferably happy).