Story Title: Petunia the Petulant

Chapter Title: Heat

Author's Note: The first new chapter of the year! Since it's part old and part new, it may be a bit choppy. I'll revisit when the whole story is finished.

Heat

Severus was cold. He was always cold.

From the earliest he could remember, when he read a children's book and saw the last illustration showing a warm hug as a boy was tucked into bed by his smiling parents, and Severus went to sleep to the sound of his own house's silent hatred knowing he would never know what it was like to be tucked in with a hug like that boy, he had drawn blankets, sweaters and cloaks around himself. It rained where he grew up, perpetually, hovering in the air and in the gray of the sky even when droplets never fell.

Rain soaked the landscape, living in his skin, oiling the machines of the factories that belched black smoke over the streets, dampening the sidewalks, dribbling along the gutters or lying stagnant with pools of petroleum creating rainbow swirls of sludge. The rain drizzled throughout the days and nights, dampening conversation, laughter, and thought. The rain hugged everything and everyone, and people rarely hugged each other, so busy were they hugging themselves to keep out the constant chill of the rain.

You're so passionate, Lily said to him once, during one of their more honest and authentic conversations, which had become rarer as they entered the high school years.

"That's what I like about you, Severus. You get interested in something, and it just makes you come alive. And because you're excited about it, you make me excited about it, too."

He had been telling her about the history of House Slytherin's founder, and how pureblood mania had come to be such a part of its unofficial legacy. He knew, even at the time, that Lily was being generous, as his increasing fascination with bloodlines generally made her uncomfortable, and was the source of the awkward tension that had been growing between them. But he couldn't help himself. When he found himself talking about it, he couldn't seem to stop himself. Not even knowing that sometimes, he was hurting her.

Looking back on this memory, which he did often, his face burned with embarrassment. He could always see so clearly now, in his adulthood, how he had pushed her away, how he had sealed his fate, practically shoving her into the arms of James Potter, and forever made it impossible for her to love him. It was his fault. There was simply no one else to blame, and no one knew it better than he.

He remembered how her observation surprised him, how this uncharacteristically flattering view of himself gave him pleasure, and for a moment, he was speechless as he considered it. Passionate? He? He had loved to think of himself as coldly intellectual, because this was what separated him from all the others...he was a thinker, he was smart. He didn't let the baser human emotions and impulses drive his decisions and actions. Unlike James and Sirius. Unlike most of the wizards and witches he had ever met. Unlike his father.

But when she said it, he knew for a brief moment that it was true...something burned in him, always had. A yearning for knowledge, but more than that...for a glimpse of understanding, of putting the pieces of the universe together, making it all make sense-and that's what drove his exploration. That she saw that in him, poet more than philosopher, pleased him. Lily made him feel alive, made the fire burn that he kept covered under layers and layers of dirt to protect him from the pain of his love-less upbringing, saw him for all he truly was. Lily saw the best in him, all that he wished his parents had seen. It was the only time he could feel warm.

Over the years, the heat had become a ritual.

Like any other boy, Severus was only too aware of the changes his body was going through, and how being close to Lily would make his heart race if she touched him, bring a flush to his cheeks when she looked into his eyes or smiled. He gazed at the curve of her body in profile when he thought she wouldn't notice, and memorized it, recalling it later in his room at night. But the hunger he felt for her made him ashamed, because he knew that other boys felt it...boys like Potter. He heard the comments they would make, trying to impress each other with their crudeness, as they commented on the girls who passed them in the hallway, the ones who had grown breasts and looked more and more like women every day.

He was not like them. His love for Lily was pure and true, and when-if, he ever had an opportunity to show her, ever held her shivering in his arms, her eyes wide with growing ecstasy, she would know, she would feel it, his worship, and how it was different, how it was like no other love she would find from any common lover because it was soul deep, and was for her alone.

When the longing became unbearable and the distraction enough of an annoyance, he would plan the ritual. That night, he would go home and be her lover, if only in his imagination. He would give himself pleasure, because he couldn't help it, and living with the frustration was much, much worse, but it would be for her...only for her. As the house grew quiet, he would put aside the book he was trying to read. Without rushing, he pulled down the bookmark ribbon, and placed the book on the pile of others on his nightstand. Then he would stand, and reverently, humbly, he would peel off the layers of clothes, one by one. He would fold them carefully and drape them over his chair. Then, when in his skin, he would turn off the light and slide under the covers, sometimes already weeping.

He ran his hands over his body.

No one ever touched him; it felt nice to touch those parts, that skin that hardly felt anything other than rough fabric and cold moisture day after day. He touched lightly the hair on his chest, imagining Lily tracing it with her fingers, imagining showing it to her, his man's body, which only she would see. Perhaps it would surprise her. Surely it would...he was pale, but his chest had filled out...he wasn't very athletic, but still, he wasn't in such bad shape.

Down from his chest she would trace her fingers along his thighs, noticing that they were powerful, a man's thighs and not the skinny thighs of his boyhood. The hair on his legs. She might lay her head on his chest then, and inhale him...smell the faintest scent of his sweat. She would close her eyes, her brown eyelashes resting on her cheek, and he would look down at her face, one arm holding her waist and caressing her, the other behind his head, and see the flush of her cheeks as his smell aroused her.

Slowly, he would watch the realization that he was a man transform her demeanor, draw from her the quietest moan of appreciation as she pressed her nose to his chest and drank him in, her movements slowing, become more writhing, animal-like. He would watch her realization that he could give her what she needed-only he. As his own hands would wander down between his thighs, his own face flushed and the heat grew, spreading throughout his body to all its extremities.

It had been hard when she died...when he could bring himself to do it again, half of the time his release was accompanied by a downpour of tears. Over the years, it took on a bitter flavor, as the constant reminder of Harry Potter fed his resentment of Lily so that, while he'd never admit it, he almost hated her as much as he'd loved her. But now, seeing Petunia Dursley, he had a new reminder of Lily and their ill-fated history that cut his wounds wide open again. Before James and his posse of sycophants, there had been Lily's devotion to her sister, threatening to render him irrelevant in those early years when he had felt the first hope of human connection he could ever remember.

He would never again feel warmth. The embers of the heat had gradually gone out, leaving only the trailing hint that there had ever been fire.

And now, he watched this woman, this icicle in the shape of a person, as stiff and cold, ruthless and tragic, as he. They were two of a kind, and he was colder than ever.

He wrapped his cloak around himself, and shivered.


"Again!"

"I need a rest."

"After. Again!"

"We've been at it for hours! Can't I please rest for just a moment?"

"Hours, and nothing to show for it!"

"Ah!" Petunia yelled in frustration, burying her hands in her hair and shaking

her head. Severus answered with an angry snarl, tossed his wand curtly onto the desk and fell

into his armchair. Petunia, after a moment, sat down, spent, on the floor and stared vacantly.

Out of the corner of his eye Severus watched her, trying to stifle the rising hatred so that it would not be betrayed in his body or voice.

He was three weeks into his instruction of Petunia Dursley. For the first two, the research completely consumed him. It had been some time since he last remembered being so caught up in something that all passage of time seemed irrelevant; he forgot all about the war, about Dumbledore, his guilt, Lily...as if he were, again, the Half-Blood Prince, but this time he was older, more assured of himself, and gone were the raging emotions and angry, desperate daydreams from his miserable youth. He was onto something now, solving a mystery. The project was just what he'd needed.

Perhaps that's why he was not initially discouraged as earlier successes of their lessons waned and Petunia began to reach a plateau. But now that the novelty of those first experiments had worn off, and he had run out of leads for further research, growing frustration made him once again sullen. He was slowly coming back to the present, and realizing that he was still the same old Severus Snape, all his dreams of glory still only dreams, his temporary escape threatened to become yet another reinforcement of his prison of memory.

Remember why you're doing this, he thought, his inner voice calm, focused, quiet. Think of what it could mean. It will all be worth it, he told himself, still breathing heavily.

He glanced at her again. Petunia's head rested on her knees and her wand dangled from her hand; she was the picture of despair. He should pity her, he thought, as if this would simply be a logical response, but he did not. He could not. How could he, when she was Lily's revenge, her final mockery?

Will the torture never end? How long will you punish me?

"What?"

Had he hissed that last thought out loud? Perhaps he had. He muttered something about talking to himself. He did not look at her, but saw her shift uncomfortably from her corner in the floor.

"Have you been taking your flower essences," he asked finally, his voice weary.

"Yes. Religiously. I've followed your instructions to the letter."

"What about rest?"

"My sleep has been as I've told you. Sometimes restless, with strange, airy dreams. But it's gotten better."

Severus rubbed his temples. He thought of something Lupin had said to him the other day.

"What do you do without thinking?"

"Huh?!" Petunia sounded as if she were preparing to be defensive.

"No," he said, lifting his head and closing his eyes. "I mean, what do you do, what do you engage in, in your everyday life, that comes easily to you, requires little concentration, and feels...natural, somehow? As if you could never do it wrong?"

Petunia was silent for a moment.

"Gardening...gardening is like that for me."

"Hmph." Severus sat up, leaning on his knees. "That's not good enough. I think."

"Well I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, something like that, but with a little more...what am I trying to say? How did he put it..." Severus muttered, forgetting she was there for a moment. Then he thought he had it. He stood up. "Have you ever done something that you felt channeled your whole body and soul? Something that, if you could not speak, might almost serve as your voice? Think of something that channels great emotion. Remember what I told you about the Patronus."

Petunia, still sitting on the floor, knit her eyebrows, thinking hard. She seemed to Severus to disappear for a while, perhaps in some old memory. He waited, patient, poised. When she came out of her trance, it was slowly, and her lips barely moved when she said it: "Dancing."

"Dancing? Tell me more."

Almost as if she were embarrassed to even speak the word, she spoke slowly, and her face softened as she remembered.

"When we were children, Lily and I-were put in a ballet class. We were very young, perhaps six or seven. Our mother wanted us to do it; neither of us asked or had an interest before. At first, we were a little bored and didn't care for the other girls. But after a while, I took to it rather quickly, and when I became interested, Lily enjoyed it more, too. After about three years, I was the better dancer, by far. But..." she faltered, and seemed as if she did not want to say more.

"Please, go on," Severus nudged, with a gentleness that surprised him.

"Well it's just...I suppose I never quite felt this was acknowledged."

"Lily was the one who received the attention," Severus guessed with a nod. Petunia's face fell the slightest bit, and her eyes dimmed.

"She was. She was always more outgoing, of course, but she was also...I think I felt they liked her because they thought she was prettier."

Severus said nothing to this, waiting.

"Anyway, maybe she looked more like what they thought a ballerina should look like, but at home, everyone knew I was the dancer. I practiced for hours...as we got older, I would run home after school so I could practice choreography I imagined during the day." She fell silent.

"It took you some time to think of it. Are you no longer dancing?"

"No. We stopped around the preteen years, Lily first, then I."

"What happened?"

She shrugged. "Outgrew it, I guess."

Severus doubted that was all to the story, but his curiosity pulled him one way, and his eagerness to continue the experiment, another. The second impulse one.

"Yet you say this is something you feel you could do, at any time, without thinking?"

"Yes...with a little bit of warming up, probably. But I haven't really tried in a long time."

"Show me. Dance," he commanded.

Petunia looked at him with an expression that was a mix of incredulity, excitement, and terror. He knew she was considering refusal, but instead stammered that she would not be able to without any music.

"If I were not here, you could probably hear it in your head, or you would sing it, would you not?"

"Probably, but..." she started, timidly, "wouldn't it be easier to simply conjure it for me to dance to?"

"Certainly."

When she realized, to his satisfaction, that he had no intention of doing anything of the sort, or anything else to make this task easy, for that matter, she stood up and slipped off her shoes. As she stretched her legs and arches, Severus thought her feet were rather small and delicate, almost fragile looking. Comparing this to the rest of her frame, it occurred to him that he had never noticed how petite and graceful her bearing. Well, you've always judged her in the shadow of Lily, haven't you? That calm, knowledgeable voice told him, unbidden. And in spite of himself, he was now very curious indeed to see another side to this woman revealed.

But after a few stretches and fumbles as Petunia attempted to remember the positions, it was clear he would have to wait. She wobbled through three pirouttes, and on the third one, landed where she'd started, almost in perfect position. The delight was evident on her face. Severus stood up.

"Well, that's the closest you're going to get. I have no idea if it will work for you; you might break your neck before we find out. But...practice it. It might be just the thing. We'll see." It seemed like a foolish waste of time, and far out of his comfort zone when it came to instruction, but, Remus might have a point. He knew himself that there were sublties to magic that could not be learned, only understood. It was as much in the body as it was in the mind, and Petunia needed to sharpen both. Clearly, they'd been long under-utilized. He sighed, tired.

"Make sure you get some rest tonight. Maybe another day as well."

Petunia looked a mixture of disappointed and conflicted. But Severus was tired and needed to clear his mind before he returned to trying to make progress with this exhausting, uninteresting woman. He left her in the room by herself, without so much as a "good evening," but this was not any different than every day preceding. He wandered slowly along the dungeon hall, and slipped into the secret passageway that led to his quarters. The green glow of the lake above gave him an eerie tint, as he sauntered along, lost in thought.

He was curious, to see her dance again...