As soon as the car stopped he scrambled out and ran - where, he didn't know. As far away from him as possible, though he could hear him shouting after him.
"Hey, Severus!" somebody else shouted. He stopped running for a second, turned round to see Lucius Malfoy.
"Lucius!" he addressed his only friend gladly, "help, I need somewhere to hide. My father's after me!"
"Quick, in here!" Lucius pushed Severus through a hole in some bushes he hadn't noticed before. Lucius scrambled in afterwards. "So, um, what? How come your dad's after you?"
"We were in Diagon Alley and he told me to stay where I was and I didn't" Severus sounded bored, but he was simply tired.
"Shit, your dad's fucking-" Lucius broke off and put a finger to his lips. Severus held his breath and hoped his loudly beating heart wouldn't give him away. The two boys watched Severus' father's feet walk past, stop. Severus trembled violently inside the bush, willing his father not to notice the gap. After what seemed like an age, he walked off, muttering. Severus let the breath out, feeling dizzy.
"Put your head between your knees" whispered Lucius.
"Why?" Severus whispered back
"To stop you fainting. You've gone all pale."
"Oh" as he was feeling light-headed, Severus did as Lucius suggested. After a while he looked up. "Thanks."
"For the head-between-your-legs thing? Or the hiding place?" Lucius' smile was gently twisted.
"The hiding place. I'd be so dead now."
"Won't you be so dead when you get home anyway?"
"Oh. Shit, yeah. I hadn't thought of that."
"Why don't I ask if you can stay at mine tonight?"
"You can try..." Severus was doubtful.
"Okay, come on then"
"Now? I thought we were going to wait till it got dark or something."
"In fucking July? You mental?" Lucius crawled out of the hedge. Severus followed,. They walked up to Malfoy manor together and let themselves in.
"Hello, Lucius. Nice walk? Oh, hello, Severus! Will you be wanting tea then?"
"Yes please" mumbled Severus. Lucius didn't answer his mother.
"No problem. It'll be ready about seven, I'll call you boys down."
"Alright, mum" said Lucius, already halfway out of the kitchen. They both climbed the stairs to Lucius' room, where Severus sat down on the bed. Something made a rustling noise. He stood up and removed a magazine from where he had been sitting. "Hey, give me that!" Lucius went red as he snatched the magazine back. Severus stared, wondering why he had a magazine full of naked women.
"You know all those times I fell down the stairs?" asked Severus suddenly.
"Yes..." answered Lucius, faltering.
"Well, I didn't. That's just what father told me to say. The only time I ever fell down the stairs was when he kicked me down them once." Severus looked bitterly at the floor, fiddling with a loose thread in his T-shirt. Lucius was silent for a moment. Then-
"I know. I knew all along. Why did you tell me the truth?"
"I don't know," Severus shrugged, "You're... you're like the brother I never had. I always wanted a brother. How'd you know, anyway? About my father I mean."
"Just put two and two together, I guess. You know, I always kind of thought of you like a brother, too."
"Really?" Severus stopped fiddling with his shirt and met Lucius' eyes. He nodded. The two boys sat in silence for a moment or two, until Lucius broke the silence.
"Tell you what," he said.
"What?"
"We can be blood brothers!" there was an excited sort of light dancing in Lucius' eyes which Severus had seen before.
"What's that?" he asked, warily.
"Blood brothers. I'll show you." Severus was still cautious. He had eleven years' worth of bad memories of Lucius 'showing him' things. His suspicions were further aroused when Lucius, rummaging around in a drawer, extracted a small, battered and blunt-looking penknife from it.
"What are you going to do?"
"Don't worry! I'm just going to make a little cut in your thumb. If I can get this bloody knife to cut." He added, looking bad-temperedly at the knife. "It's blunt! Fucking blunt! Hey-" he remembered Severus had been to Diagon Alley. "You got your wand yet?"
"Yeah" said Severus. "It's here- wait, what are you going to do?"
"Not me, stupid. You. I'm not allowed to do magic... but there's no rules against you doing it that I know of! Right. Point your wand at the knife and say 'Vervicius'"
"Vervicius" Severus repeated obediently. He pointed his wand at the knife. "Vervicius!" Lucius picked up the knife and tried cutting some parchment with it. It worked.
"Bonus!" murmured Lucius. "And no owl yet... they would, if he wasn't..."
"What are you on about?" asked Severus.
"It worked. And, there's no owl from the ministry of magic! So I reckon you're free of that restriction."
"What restriction?" Lucius rolled his eyes.
"The restriction of under-age wizardry, of course!"
"Oh" said Severus. Lucius took Severus' hand and pierced the knife blade into his thumb. "Ow!" he complained while watching Lucius stab the knife into his own thumb.
"Ew, don't suck it, you vampire! Let the blood flow a bit." He clenched his fist and Severus saw the blood well up in a little scarlet bead. He did the same. Lucius then pressed his thumb onto Severus', letting their blood mingle.
"What's this for?" asked Severus.
"We share the same blood now. Better hope you haven't got AIDS or something." Lucius grinned. "So, we're like brothers now. We share a blood bond. If one of us gets in trouble, the other helps him out. Simple."
"Alright" said Severus, removing his thumb from Lucius'.

He had never felt less alone.