A/N: Hi All! I'm so, so sorry that I have taken so long to update. I was
thrown out of the routine by a family death and a few problems at work. But
here is chapter eight anyway – longer than usual chapter - and chapter nine
is half written and will be posted soon. Thank you so much for all your
reviews – (To those who pointed out a couple of mistakes in my fics thank
you also – as this is useful info!)
***********************
The kitchen had had its blackcurrant juice confiscated, the Firewhisky had found its way into a needy Slytherin's clutches, and Sirius Black was down to his last few Muggle fags. These were potentially big issues at that stage in the party, but they paled in comparison to a slightly larger one, in checked shirt and jeans slumped on a low stool in the Potter's kitchen.
The cowboy had gone and successfully mounted his high horse of drunkenness, to great amusement of the partygoers, but now was rapidly slipping off the saddle into drunken paranoia. Which – if you have ever been around a drunk- turned paranoid at a party isn't very funny – at all. But bear with me.
"Truth it is then," muttered Sharpe. "Might as well, anyway. My confession is -" he tailed off.
"Go ahead then," smiled Perks (who, due to some bizarre game was currently wearing the Stetson.) "Out with the smut. Can't be any worse than what Mark's just said!"
"My confession-" repeated the rather melancholy Ravenclaw – "is that I have known the agonisingly unbearable pangs of unrequited love."
"Pah!" Sirius snorted. "What in Merlin, Sharpe? That's not a revelation! Everyone knew that back at school!"
The Ravenclaw curled his lip. "No they didn't Black. No they absolutely did not. They made assumptions – but they never bothered to ask for the proper truth!"
Sirius flicked his ash derisively. "And so? Who gives a Harpy shit if some poor boy you saw in the Quidditch shower room didn't fancy bending over-"
"Oh what's the use!" ejaculated Sharpe dramatically, flinging out his arms and sending most of the contents of his glass splattering up the kitchen cabinet and wall behind him. "What is the use of going on with life? What is the point of putting up with this flipping prejudiced attitude every day? I might just kill myself, actually. Yes - if I killed myself, would it make you happy? Would it?!"
A confused frown appeared between Sirius's eyebrows. "What?"
Wormtail tittered.
"See! This is the rub," slurred Sharpe, still waving the near empty glass about, his voice full of drink-induced woe. "You don't understand. You don't understand me - no you don't. You just don't realise what it was like - keeping it all inside. Six years I tried to keep it to myself. Thinking there was something wrong with me for f-for. Six years! And now, and now I can't – I just c-cannoo-oooww-w-wha- a-a-Ahhh!"
Sharpe reached for the tea towel on the hanger next to him, crumpled it up to his face and let out a long grizzly howl.
Black crossed over to Sharpe, who was now rocking back and forth on his stool. "Hey – you know I was joking, yeah," he replied gruffly. "Just a bit of fun – a party, you know? Mad drunk people?"
"Six years Black," came the tea towel muffled sob. "Six years, and all I hope to get is the same tired, pathetic joke about soap and showers? It cheapens it – cheapens, sullies, besmirches the purity, pollutes the - you know what it makes me feel like doing sometimes? Do you?" he gabbled, lowering his hands to gesture wildly. He sniffed several times and began to twist the tea towel roughly around, scowling. "OH! One of these days I might just, do this to them – and THIS, and then - uuh-Ooh!"
There was a clang and a clatter as Sharpe twisted too enthusiastically and skidded clumsily off his stool to land in a heap on the beer-soaked floor. Falling hard on the floor didn't seem to bother him one bit though, (Perhaps due to his being a Quidditch player) and he continued to moan and wring the towel as if nothing had happened.
"Er, right," Black looked awkwardly round at Wormtail, who was staring gormlessly at Sharpe, before casting a quick look at Perks, who seemed to be caught in that terrible mouth-twitching dilemma in choosing between having a good snigger, or remaining dour faced.
"Perhaps you have just had one shot too many, Spence. Maybe it would be better if we took you upstairs to sleep it off?"
Sharpe sighed bitterly, a faraway look in his eye. "You know Black, from that very first day he let me borrow some of his Spick's Broomstick Wax, I knew I was different. I just didn't understand then. It drove me mad – his being so - so sweet-"
Sirius decided it was probably nigh time to do the needed thing, and bent over getting a hand under Sharpe's armpit, before gesturing to Perks, and pointing in the direction of the stairs. A few moments later they had him standing, albeit rather unsteadily.
"Come on mate, let's get you upstairs."
"He was different to any other friend that would help you with Arithmancy or such, you know," remarked Sharpe wistfully as they got him to stumble up a step at a time.
"Really?" answered Perks politely.
Sharpe nodded and half smiled. "He was my special Quidditch person. He was a brilliant, brilliant specialist with brooms, knew what exactly what wax to use on what wood. He would always bring his Spicks, and you know, he always could tell when my broom needed waxing by the way I used it in practice."
Sirius coughed and felt himself go slightly red in the face. "Er, right."
****
"Sons of bloody Hags! I hate blasted werewolves, mutts, Gryffindors and all random Muggle dunderheads!"
Snape growled as three pairs of clumsy, drunk wizard feet thudded directly above him – causing bits of dust to float down like large bits of dandruff and stick rather unbecomingly onto his dog-slobbered robe.
Yes, you might have guessed it Reader, Snape was hiding under the Potters' stairs. Not a very original move, but it wasn't an intentional one either. Initially he had gone to put the vacuum cleaner away; not because he was one of those housekeeping "New Wizards" so loathfully drooled over in drivelsome publications like Witch Weekly, oh no, but because he was on the pilfer, it was a charm-expert's vacuum cleaner – and he was a scheming little grass snake.
Anyway, he had opened the cupboard door, cast a nonchalant eye in it before throwing the cleaner in and had then slammed it shut.
And then he had blinked and paused as curiosity got its subtle and inevitably toothy hold of him. Either he was hallucinating, or had he just seen a vacuum cleaner disappear through the cupboard wall?
And since when did dingy little cupboards under the stairs have cave-like echos?
Opening the door again he had stuck an arm in to confirm what the first glance had hinted – there was indeed a false wall at the back of the cupboard. He then stuck his head through it and stared. To say the Potter's cupboard was roomy would be an understatement. It was near the size of a bloody squash court!! (Please no questions – I have no idea either why Severus Snape would hold a secret cache of knowledge about Muggle racquet and ball games. But the important fact here is that the cupboard was about the size of a squash court, including the height.)
Snape stooped down to get through the low door and in one step had passed completely through the wall.
He blinked and looked around dazedly at plain whitewashed walls, then straight upwards at a high ceiling criss-crossed with exposed wooden beams draped in old cobwebs. In the middle of the dusty floor was a long wooden bench table with rows of stools on each side. The place was pretty gloomy - in fact, if it wasn't for the lone low wattage light bulb glowing on the opposite wall the place would be completely pitch black.
The place was windowless, chill, gloomy, and rather busy with spiders, just like the dungeons in this respect. Snape smirked; yes most of Potter's house was horrible, but this room, well, he had to begrudgingly note that he rather liked it.
As for what the hell Potter was hiding down here, well that was anybody's guess. Wizards often had secret walls and invisible caches. It might be a secret meeting room, perhaps?
Still with his precious cargo of ice cream and whiskey, Snape crept across to the other side of the room (Not-so-accidentally aiming a vicious kick to the vacuum on the way) and settled himself on a stool.
He felt slightly light headed, and had to admit that the room was going around a little more than it was a few moments ago. He had decided that he would allow himself to get as drunk as humanely possible before taking the pepper-up, thus getting maximum use out of Potter's unintended "hospitality."
As he banged the bowl down on the table a spider skittered across it. For a second eight glittering black eyes met two glinting black ones.
Snape took a mouthful of ice cream and peered lazily down his nose at the spider, which was, as he noted, a large, and well-fed Tegenaria gigantea - female. A spot of arachnid torturing certainly wouldn't go amiss – if he had a wand.
That idea foiled, he flicked the spider off the table and scowled into his ice cream – those vile, vile dogs!
It was all Potter's fault, naturally. If Potter hadn't been such a dickhead at school then he would have left he, Snape, alone. If Potter hadn't been such a dickhead, he wouldn't have befriended the idiot Black, he, Snape would never have been drooled on by a werewolf, and Evans would never have had to step in to "save" their long line of unfortunate victims, causing them additional angst, torture and prompting yet another biased Dumbledore dealing.
And - if Potter hadn't been such a dickhead he wouldn't have married Evans, wouldn't have got a family-size dog, and they wouldn't ever have thrown this ridiculous party which had been so kind as to have given him an almighty bruise on his leg, a broken nose, crushed ribs, raised blood pressure and a completely ruined cloak.
The last stretch of reasoning didn't exactly work, but a Snape with ice cream was beyond caring. It was all quite surreal – either the Firewhiskey was gaining hold, or the roof beams were beginning to move of their own accord (Which in the wizarding world, was also quite plausible.)
He actually began to feel quite relaxed for the first time that evening - until his eyes focused on a piece of cord hanging from the ceiling near the false wall, that was.
Now – Muggles and their things had always annoyed him, but that wasn't to say that they didn't ever pique his interest. With their strange little inventions it was obvious they had tried quite hard to make up for their obvious deficiencies. That said – backwards or not Muggles always seemed to have a sensible reason to dangle things like a piece of thread from the ceiling.
It was white piece of cord, around five feet long with a little plastic weight on the end of it. It was this simple little unassuming piece of nylon weave that was bothering him now. In fact it wasn't just bothering him – it was practically singing "Pull! Pull!" at him in an incredibly annoying falsetto strain.
Now that last bit had to be the whiskey talking.
What if he went over there and pulled it? What would happen?
"Don't be a complete troll, Severus," he snarled to himself. This is Potter's house – it would be complete madness for a Slytherin to go poking and prying around in it! What if it was a trap? What was a thing like that doing in a wizard's house anyway?
He focused his attention back on the ice cream, but was completely unable to get the cord out of his mind.
Pull me, pull me.
Oh pull me. Pull me, puuulll -
Right! He could stand it no longer! Storming across to it, he stared closely at it before making the first move.
Upon discovering that it did nothing but sway gently when he poked it or tapped it with a finger several times, Snape took a gentle hold on it and gave a very light pull.
Nothing.
Encouraged by this, Snape smirked slightly, raised his arm a little and gave a harder tug.
Click.
Snape blinked. Had he gone blind, or had the room gone completely black? He reached for his wand, before realising that it was in the dog.
Blast.
And then it dawned on him. Of course. How could he be so bloody stupid and let such a prehistoric bit of moronic Muggle technology catch him out? This cord had to be a simple type of light switch of course! The nox and lumos of their little insect-like society!
So – Muggle indeed.
With a stroppy snarl Snape clenched the cord and give it another tug to turn the light on again. Except for that this tug was quite a bit more vicious than the previous one.
Ping - SNAP!
Darkness.
Snape was NOT having a good evening.
***********************
The kitchen had had its blackcurrant juice confiscated, the Firewhisky had found its way into a needy Slytherin's clutches, and Sirius Black was down to his last few Muggle fags. These were potentially big issues at that stage in the party, but they paled in comparison to a slightly larger one, in checked shirt and jeans slumped on a low stool in the Potter's kitchen.
The cowboy had gone and successfully mounted his high horse of drunkenness, to great amusement of the partygoers, but now was rapidly slipping off the saddle into drunken paranoia. Which – if you have ever been around a drunk- turned paranoid at a party isn't very funny – at all. But bear with me.
"Truth it is then," muttered Sharpe. "Might as well, anyway. My confession is -" he tailed off.
"Go ahead then," smiled Perks (who, due to some bizarre game was currently wearing the Stetson.) "Out with the smut. Can't be any worse than what Mark's just said!"
"My confession-" repeated the rather melancholy Ravenclaw – "is that I have known the agonisingly unbearable pangs of unrequited love."
"Pah!" Sirius snorted. "What in Merlin, Sharpe? That's not a revelation! Everyone knew that back at school!"
The Ravenclaw curled his lip. "No they didn't Black. No they absolutely did not. They made assumptions – but they never bothered to ask for the proper truth!"
Sirius flicked his ash derisively. "And so? Who gives a Harpy shit if some poor boy you saw in the Quidditch shower room didn't fancy bending over-"
"Oh what's the use!" ejaculated Sharpe dramatically, flinging out his arms and sending most of the contents of his glass splattering up the kitchen cabinet and wall behind him. "What is the use of going on with life? What is the point of putting up with this flipping prejudiced attitude every day? I might just kill myself, actually. Yes - if I killed myself, would it make you happy? Would it?!"
A confused frown appeared between Sirius's eyebrows. "What?"
Wormtail tittered.
"See! This is the rub," slurred Sharpe, still waving the near empty glass about, his voice full of drink-induced woe. "You don't understand. You don't understand me - no you don't. You just don't realise what it was like - keeping it all inside. Six years I tried to keep it to myself. Thinking there was something wrong with me for f-for. Six years! And now, and now I can't – I just c-cannoo-oooww-w-wha- a-a-Ahhh!"
Sharpe reached for the tea towel on the hanger next to him, crumpled it up to his face and let out a long grizzly howl.
Black crossed over to Sharpe, who was now rocking back and forth on his stool. "Hey – you know I was joking, yeah," he replied gruffly. "Just a bit of fun – a party, you know? Mad drunk people?"
"Six years Black," came the tea towel muffled sob. "Six years, and all I hope to get is the same tired, pathetic joke about soap and showers? It cheapens it – cheapens, sullies, besmirches the purity, pollutes the - you know what it makes me feel like doing sometimes? Do you?" he gabbled, lowering his hands to gesture wildly. He sniffed several times and began to twist the tea towel roughly around, scowling. "OH! One of these days I might just, do this to them – and THIS, and then - uuh-Ooh!"
There was a clang and a clatter as Sharpe twisted too enthusiastically and skidded clumsily off his stool to land in a heap on the beer-soaked floor. Falling hard on the floor didn't seem to bother him one bit though, (Perhaps due to his being a Quidditch player) and he continued to moan and wring the towel as if nothing had happened.
"Er, right," Black looked awkwardly round at Wormtail, who was staring gormlessly at Sharpe, before casting a quick look at Perks, who seemed to be caught in that terrible mouth-twitching dilemma in choosing between having a good snigger, or remaining dour faced.
"Perhaps you have just had one shot too many, Spence. Maybe it would be better if we took you upstairs to sleep it off?"
Sharpe sighed bitterly, a faraway look in his eye. "You know Black, from that very first day he let me borrow some of his Spick's Broomstick Wax, I knew I was different. I just didn't understand then. It drove me mad – his being so - so sweet-"
Sirius decided it was probably nigh time to do the needed thing, and bent over getting a hand under Sharpe's armpit, before gesturing to Perks, and pointing in the direction of the stairs. A few moments later they had him standing, albeit rather unsteadily.
"Come on mate, let's get you upstairs."
"He was different to any other friend that would help you with Arithmancy or such, you know," remarked Sharpe wistfully as they got him to stumble up a step at a time.
"Really?" answered Perks politely.
Sharpe nodded and half smiled. "He was my special Quidditch person. He was a brilliant, brilliant specialist with brooms, knew what exactly what wax to use on what wood. He would always bring his Spicks, and you know, he always could tell when my broom needed waxing by the way I used it in practice."
Sirius coughed and felt himself go slightly red in the face. "Er, right."
****
"Sons of bloody Hags! I hate blasted werewolves, mutts, Gryffindors and all random Muggle dunderheads!"
Snape growled as three pairs of clumsy, drunk wizard feet thudded directly above him – causing bits of dust to float down like large bits of dandruff and stick rather unbecomingly onto his dog-slobbered robe.
Yes, you might have guessed it Reader, Snape was hiding under the Potters' stairs. Not a very original move, but it wasn't an intentional one either. Initially he had gone to put the vacuum cleaner away; not because he was one of those housekeeping "New Wizards" so loathfully drooled over in drivelsome publications like Witch Weekly, oh no, but because he was on the pilfer, it was a charm-expert's vacuum cleaner – and he was a scheming little grass snake.
Anyway, he had opened the cupboard door, cast a nonchalant eye in it before throwing the cleaner in and had then slammed it shut.
And then he had blinked and paused as curiosity got its subtle and inevitably toothy hold of him. Either he was hallucinating, or had he just seen a vacuum cleaner disappear through the cupboard wall?
And since when did dingy little cupboards under the stairs have cave-like echos?
Opening the door again he had stuck an arm in to confirm what the first glance had hinted – there was indeed a false wall at the back of the cupboard. He then stuck his head through it and stared. To say the Potter's cupboard was roomy would be an understatement. It was near the size of a bloody squash court!! (Please no questions – I have no idea either why Severus Snape would hold a secret cache of knowledge about Muggle racquet and ball games. But the important fact here is that the cupboard was about the size of a squash court, including the height.)
Snape stooped down to get through the low door and in one step had passed completely through the wall.
He blinked and looked around dazedly at plain whitewashed walls, then straight upwards at a high ceiling criss-crossed with exposed wooden beams draped in old cobwebs. In the middle of the dusty floor was a long wooden bench table with rows of stools on each side. The place was pretty gloomy - in fact, if it wasn't for the lone low wattage light bulb glowing on the opposite wall the place would be completely pitch black.
The place was windowless, chill, gloomy, and rather busy with spiders, just like the dungeons in this respect. Snape smirked; yes most of Potter's house was horrible, but this room, well, he had to begrudgingly note that he rather liked it.
As for what the hell Potter was hiding down here, well that was anybody's guess. Wizards often had secret walls and invisible caches. It might be a secret meeting room, perhaps?
Still with his precious cargo of ice cream and whiskey, Snape crept across to the other side of the room (Not-so-accidentally aiming a vicious kick to the vacuum on the way) and settled himself on a stool.
He felt slightly light headed, and had to admit that the room was going around a little more than it was a few moments ago. He had decided that he would allow himself to get as drunk as humanely possible before taking the pepper-up, thus getting maximum use out of Potter's unintended "hospitality."
As he banged the bowl down on the table a spider skittered across it. For a second eight glittering black eyes met two glinting black ones.
Snape took a mouthful of ice cream and peered lazily down his nose at the spider, which was, as he noted, a large, and well-fed Tegenaria gigantea - female. A spot of arachnid torturing certainly wouldn't go amiss – if he had a wand.
That idea foiled, he flicked the spider off the table and scowled into his ice cream – those vile, vile dogs!
It was all Potter's fault, naturally. If Potter hadn't been such a dickhead at school then he would have left he, Snape, alone. If Potter hadn't been such a dickhead, he wouldn't have befriended the idiot Black, he, Snape would never have been drooled on by a werewolf, and Evans would never have had to step in to "save" their long line of unfortunate victims, causing them additional angst, torture and prompting yet another biased Dumbledore dealing.
And - if Potter hadn't been such a dickhead he wouldn't have married Evans, wouldn't have got a family-size dog, and they wouldn't ever have thrown this ridiculous party which had been so kind as to have given him an almighty bruise on his leg, a broken nose, crushed ribs, raised blood pressure and a completely ruined cloak.
The last stretch of reasoning didn't exactly work, but a Snape with ice cream was beyond caring. It was all quite surreal – either the Firewhiskey was gaining hold, or the roof beams were beginning to move of their own accord (Which in the wizarding world, was also quite plausible.)
He actually began to feel quite relaxed for the first time that evening - until his eyes focused on a piece of cord hanging from the ceiling near the false wall, that was.
Now – Muggles and their things had always annoyed him, but that wasn't to say that they didn't ever pique his interest. With their strange little inventions it was obvious they had tried quite hard to make up for their obvious deficiencies. That said – backwards or not Muggles always seemed to have a sensible reason to dangle things like a piece of thread from the ceiling.
It was white piece of cord, around five feet long with a little plastic weight on the end of it. It was this simple little unassuming piece of nylon weave that was bothering him now. In fact it wasn't just bothering him – it was practically singing "Pull! Pull!" at him in an incredibly annoying falsetto strain.
Now that last bit had to be the whiskey talking.
What if he went over there and pulled it? What would happen?
"Don't be a complete troll, Severus," he snarled to himself. This is Potter's house – it would be complete madness for a Slytherin to go poking and prying around in it! What if it was a trap? What was a thing like that doing in a wizard's house anyway?
He focused his attention back on the ice cream, but was completely unable to get the cord out of his mind.
Pull me, pull me.
Oh pull me. Pull me, puuulll -
Right! He could stand it no longer! Storming across to it, he stared closely at it before making the first move.
Upon discovering that it did nothing but sway gently when he poked it or tapped it with a finger several times, Snape took a gentle hold on it and gave a very light pull.
Nothing.
Encouraged by this, Snape smirked slightly, raised his arm a little and gave a harder tug.
Click.
Snape blinked. Had he gone blind, or had the room gone completely black? He reached for his wand, before realising that it was in the dog.
Blast.
And then it dawned on him. Of course. How could he be so bloody stupid and let such a prehistoric bit of moronic Muggle technology catch him out? This cord had to be a simple type of light switch of course! The nox and lumos of their little insect-like society!
So – Muggle indeed.
With a stroppy snarl Snape clenched the cord and give it another tug to turn the light on again. Except for that this tug was quite a bit more vicious than the previous one.
Ping - SNAP!
Darkness.
Snape was NOT having a good evening.