I thought it would be fun to go more into the flashback scene, so here it is. The moment that is plaguing poor Severus through the rest of this story. Call this an epilogue/prequel, sort of thing, if you will.

Hope you enjoy, and please review.

Walking into the quiet room, Severus stopped, looking at the man he'd been following. Hunched in a chair by the fire, his expression brooding, was Lucius. His silver hair glowed in the dancing light of the flames. His eyes, dark and hard, stared unseeingly into the hearth.

"You've left your party."

Lucius looked up. "My party? It was Narcissa's idea. Only a woman would think to celebrate something as arbitrary as the first day of August."

Taking a few tentative steps forward, letting the door close behind him, blocking out most of the noises of glasses clinking and people in pretty clothes laughing, Severus replied, "Summer is worth celebrating."

Looking up for the first time, Lucius peered impatiently at the boy. "Did you want anything?"

Severus bit his lip for a moment, debating. Finally, he spit out the question he'd been longing to ask since he'd first arrived that evening. "Are you and Narcissa engaged?"

"Yes." The answer was cold and uneffected.

"You don't love her." There was pleading there, and Severus was ashamed of it. He stepped still closer to Lucius, stopping just beside the low, wingbacked chair.

With a note of decisive finality, the man replied, "She's the best. Who else would you have me marry?"

Injustice swelled in Severus's chest until he couldn't breathe. She didn't deserve him! She could never love him!

Angry passion swept Severus into a haze, distorting his thought and judgement. Before he could realize that it might not be wise, Severus leaned towards Lucius. Cold, thin lips met warm, full ones in a moment of surreal time. It was a moment that seemed, to both boys, to not really be happening at all. As if it were some story they had only heard about.

But it did happen, and when Severus pulled away, Lucius reacted the only way he could have.

A heavy blow fell across the boy's face. Staggering, Severus glared, hurt and hatred shining in his eyes. "I wanted you!" His breath came in angry gasps, the blood streaming down his face from a gash on his cheek. "All I ever wanted was you!"

Cold eyes stared back at him. "You always ask for things you cannot have. You stupid, little boy."

His fists clinched, the boy snarled, "You just don't like to admit that you're wrong!"

A low, amused snort. "I am never wrong. Now get away from me."

"I won't leave! I'm not a child!"

"You are more of a child now than you ever were. Nothing more than a silly, little boy playing at being a grownup."

"I'm not a child!" he repeated, his voice growing louder, threatening to carry into the next room where people were laughing and chattering.

"Yes, yell." There was a hiss of impatient longing behind the words. "Draw attention. Make them come. Let them all hear."

Silence. Softly; pointedly; calling the bluff: "I won't. If you want them to hear, you yell."

More silence as the two stared at each other.

The boy spoke again, evenly, his emotions finally under control: "I am not a child." He pulled back his cuff, revealing something that made the other flinch, as if he'd been slapped in return.

"Put that away."

"I'm not--"

"Away!" An unreadable expression. Thoughtfulness, maybe. Guilt. Just a hint of guilt in those grey eyes... "Severus, go back to your room and play with your toys."

"I did it for you!" Desperation.

Lucius's voice was tired. "Go away." He stood and walked out to the hall, rejoining the party, leaving the seventeen-year old boy standing alone in the middle of an empty room.

END PART ONE