"Hold on to the moment when there's something brewing in the sky
Come on, there's too much distance separating you and I
But there's no real reason to take what you cant get, she's never asking why
Now, I know that's treason
I'm shakin' and I'm movin' and it's all because of you"
"Fort Knox" – Goldfish
Snape and Hermione passed the rest of the evening amiably. They clinked the necks of their bottles, and observed, with rather amusing commentary provided by Snape, the exploits of Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby and Sergeant Gavin Troy.
"So, what is that supposed to be on your shirt, anyhow?" Hermione asked eventually, after they'd both made it onto their second beverage. He glanced down at her, amused.
"Demons, of course."
"No, but I've never seen one that looks like that," she smirked and reached over to tap the odd furry creature that scowled out from the center of his chest. He tried to ignore the slight shiver than ran through him at the feel of her touching him there.
He gave a sort of small wry smile in response. "I believe our artist claimed it was inspired by some evil thing he observed in a Hans Memling painting—The Last Judgement, if I'm not mistaken—but I don't buy it."
"You don't?"
"No. I've seen Callum's dog. He's obsessed with the thing. I'm far more convinced it's an ode to his shih tzu." He smirked. Hermione giggled into her cider, and he had to repress the urge to smile, knowing he'd elicited her laughter.
"So, he's a little demon is he?"
"She. And she is a bit of a prissy bitch, yes. She certainly is under the impression that she runs their household, and knowing Callum, she's probably not wrong."
"How do you know so much about this bloke's dog, anyway?" she asked, turning her body on the sofa toward him.
"He brings her into the office with him. In a baby carrier." Snape's said, his voice deadpan.
"You're joking!"
"I never joke," he snapped, though his mouth was twitching as if it was threatening to break into a tiny grin. "But alright, maybe he doesn't bring her in a baby carrier. He does carry her like a baby, however. Cradled in his arms, laying on her back. Sort of a 'It puts the lotion on its skin' kind of thing going on if you ask me."
Hermione giggled in spite of herself. His imitation of Buffalo Bill had been a bit too on the nose and creepy. "So, you suspect your coworker of being a serial killer?"
"No, not that bit. I mean the whole thing about his weird obsession with his toy breed dog. He even named her 'Precious,' just like the movie."
Hermione brightened, "There's a book too, you know—If I'm not mistaken Precious is in the novel."
Snape merely shrugged in acknowledgement, as if to say that whether or not that was the case was hardly his concern. "I'd only seen the film."
"I have a copy I can lend you, though it's a bit bent out of shape—it's a paperback." Hermione smiled at him softly. "And your coworker's Precious? She looks just like that?" she asked, pointing again at the fuzzy-faced devil on his t-shirt.
"Just so. She makes the most horrifying faces and if you don't give her what she wants, she'll sit by you and cry endlessly."
Hermione felt herself melting a bit, imagining the dog to be something like her dear, misunderstood Crookshanks, himself no looker. "Well, what does she want? Poor thing—"
Snape scoffed, "If she's not being held, or played with, or petted every single moment she'll yowl—trust me, she's completely spoilt. I'm probably the only one in the office who doesn't let her on my lap whenever she demands it."
"So you do let her on your lap sometimes," Hermione pressed, her grin cat-like.
Snape didn't deign to answer, but he did flash her an aggrieved grimace.
They spent a rather long evening engaged thus: periodic light conversation breaking through the intrigues that were playing out before them in the fictitious county Midsomer. By the time Hermione found the will-power to excuse herself home for the evening, Snape was facing the strange inability to settle.
He was plainly tired, having made his way through three bottles of cider (to Hermione's one and a half), and yet he felt curiously energized. Rather than laying back on the settee to sleep for the night, he flipped off the telly and made his way back to his work in the kitchen.
Having company... hell... just talking to someone for a few hours had seemed to have reminded him how it was to be creative. Or perhaps that was the alcohol... either way, he found himself filling in dialogue fields, and feeling satisfied with the results, for the first time in so many weeks.
He kept himself from naming whomever it was that was talking—it didn't yet matter, he told himself.
The character that was emerging was perky, a bit of an odd duck. He or she was effusive with praise for the player, yet withholding of his or her background. Sometimes pedantic, and yet not dry or boring.
He had just gotten to the point where the new NPC was to be captured by a faction of occultists when he was stopped by a yawn that made his jaw ache. Snape finally checked the time and was surprised to find that it was slightly past four in the morning.
It was by no means his first late night. Some of his best work had been done when forgoing sleep altogether and forcing himself to remain awake throughout the whole of the evening and well into the next day—yet he felt peculiarly restful. It felt like a kind of release, being able to commit to something. It was a relief to know that he had picked a direction and had made headway therein.
In that spirit, he stumbled into the sitting room and expanded the sofa to suit his height, before falling into the cushions and descending into a black and dreamless existence.
...Well, perhaps it was so in the beginning...
Snape could smell the manure. It was a bright morning, along a sun-dappled, dirt road. He knew where he was. A short jaunt from the cobbler and blacksmith, and just past a farm. His thin-soled shoes did little to protect the bottoms of his feet from the pebbles on the road, but he continued on, heedless of any pain it might have caused. After all—what else might he have compared it to? This was all he knew.
He had a vague notion that he was meant to fetch a tome of some sort—that it had been promised to him in exchange for the various sundries he had spilling out of his pockets. He patted them down again just to be sure, suddenly aware that he had collected fistfuls of purpling-red berries from the nearby forest. Some of them had burst and were now staining the rough-spun wool of his trousers.
There was a bookseller up ahead. A traveling booth that usually had little in the way of variety, but that made rounds from the citadel to the abbey. It was known to collect the works of scholars and monks in exchange for goods that weren't produced elsewhere. These berries were a poor offering, he knew, yet somehow, he was also sure that the trade was all but guaranteed. A one-time offer made either out of the goodness of the book-seller's heart or out of the desperation for something otherwise unattainable.
Severus approached with none of his usual caution. It was a shorter person manning the stall this morning, and with a womanly figure: slight of stature, her head covered by a raw-wool shawl, her small hands occupied cutting edges of pages for some unnamed volume with a tiny blade.
She glanced up at him as he approached and bestowed upon him a smile—broad enough that her two front teeth crested her lower lip in her delight.
"Do you have the berries for me, traveler?"
Snape stopped in front of the woman, towering over her by a head. "I might. You're not the person I struck a deal with yesterday—"
"My father has other business to attend to this morning." She said, her voice brisk but not unkind. "He bartered those berries for me, anyway," she continued, reaching down to retrieve an empty pail from underneath the stall. "I believe the agreement was two pints," she marked the half-way point of the pail with her finger. "Up to here."
Snape began ferrying handfuls of berries into the bucket, and for all he was concerned he'd not have enough, his pockets seemed strangely deep and unending. Below the berries he was sure he could feel additional items that he couldn't readily identify.
Initially, he'd been concerned that he'd barely fill the bottom, but by the end it was well above the line she'd marked with her slight finger.
"That'll do!" The woman smiled brightly again and lowered the bucket behind the stall, fingering the shawl wrapped about her face enough to cause it to fall from covering her thick crown of hair. "I'm grateful to you—It's vain, I know, but I thought it'd be a welcome change to be able to dye something for once."
She withdrew a slim book from a trunk that seemed to be filled with hay and various other items of indeterminate value. "I believe my father promised you this," she said, handing it to him without fanfare.
Snape turned the book over in his hands, his gloved finger ghosting over the pebbled leather of the cover. He either couldn't make out the name of the volume or it simply didn't matter much, for no matter how hard he stared—it refused to reveal the nature of the text to him. Instead, he decided to flip through, finding that the pages had been opened—it either wasn't a new book or the woman had opened the pages with her knife herself.
Curious. There were things written, but none of them made much sense at that moment. It was all but immaterial to why he felt like he was there. Yet after a moment it didn't matter that he couldn't read the book—his attention was drawn away down the alley where a crowd was being drawn like moths to a flame.
Three strangely-attired persons were running at a breakneck pace toward himself and the book stand, the ruckus they were causing attracting the attention of the whole village.
Their suits were made of shiny dragon scale—swirled black and deepest green like polished malachite—and heavy hobnail boots beat the ground beneath them as they approached, loud as hoofbeats might have been. Behind them whipped the black wool of their robes, which they wore draped about their head and shoulders like shrouds: the hoods were heavy enough to obscure any identifying features.
As they drew closer, he realized it hardly mattered, for each of them wore a red-lacquered mask over the top portion of their faces, moulded to resemble the face of death.
With a sudden jolt he put a name to the nameless and faceless. It came to him as a distant echo, as if from another life...
Death Eaters.
Snape awoke with a start, only to wince as the sunlight hit his eyes. He tossed to the side in order to avoid the rays coming in through the front window.
"Up finally?" Eileen asked, bustling into the sitting room, an apron tied about her thin frame, "Good—tend to the eggs," she commanded imperiously, thrusting a spatula in front of his dazed face.
"Mam, give me a minute—" Snape groused, blinking like an owl. He grabbed the spatula and sat up, using his other hand to rub what felt like grains of sand out of his bloodshot eyes. His mother had made her way back to the kitchen from where he heard the wireless broadcasting the news and could vaguely smell the aroma of toast.
He joined her in short order, taking over the eggs which were already frying in a cast-iron skillet.
"You look as if you've had a fun night," his mother sniped, her voice droll.
Snape only gave a grunt in response, trying not to rise to the bait.
His mother sniffed, haughty as you like, her own black eyes sparkling with some unnamed emotion. "Be sure to clean up the bottles after breakfast, Severus."
His thin lips twitched before he managed a measured response. "Alright." That was as neutral as he could manage. The woman was clearly trying to get at something, but he wasn't sure whether or not his mother was upset or merely amused.
Really—it was none of her business, he told himself. He was nearing fifty. He could enjoy something heartier than tea or butterbeer now and again.
He finished up portioning out their breakfast and sat down across the table, feigning interest in the spill of his yolk across the bread, for all the world looking as if the answers to the universe could be found in the dregs of his morning coffee.
Hell, according to his erstwhile Divination professor colleague, they possibly could have been.
"You must have tied one on last night." Came the bitter observation. He raised his eyes to meet Eileen's. Black against black. "Five ciders, Severus?"
"Three."
Clearly, this took the old woman by some surprise. She blinked at him, as if not quite sure what to do with the information. "You had company...?"
Snape snorted softly. "Who else, Mam? Granger didn't leave until a bit later. Rest assured, I'm not such a dunce as to invite strange people over to your abode. No one in this world knows about me excepting yourself and the know-it-all."
His mother gave him a somewhat nasty and calculating smirk. "Oh yes, she did mention that you called her that," Eileen tittered a bit behind a thin hand.
Severus felt his eyes narrowing and his hackles raising in response. "And so? What if I do?"
"Nothing," his mother said, her voice at once disingenuous and somewhat tart. She gave a slight, gallic shrug of her shoulders as if to deny her obvious interest in the subject. "And so, nothing at all, I'm sure."
Snape merely snarled at his toast and took a vicious bite, wishing he had a copy of the morning paper to hide his face behind.
Conversation stalled for several moments while they both ate their breakfasts in silence, and all that passed in the air were the quiet sounds coming from the wireless news programme, too low volume to be discerned.
Finally, his mother seemed to have had enough, after having eaten roughly half of her egg and toast. She wiped her hands on her napkin delicately. "I take it you'll be getting the girl a gift then,"
"What?" Snape choked out around a mouthful of coffee.
"For Christmas, Severus. We're spending it together. I expect you to get something for Hermione—"
"Why the hell do you care—?"
Eileen slammed one of her hands down on the tabletop, palm open. "I wanted a proper Christmas," she snarled, "And you're here with me because of Ms. Granger. So, think carefully on what you gift the girl—"
In truth, Snape had already had a mind to get something for the infuriating woman, but he didn't appreciate his mother bossing him around in the matter. He decided instead to try and play dumb, as if he hadn't already purchased all of the gifts he was going to distribute a week earlier at the shopping centre in Nottingham.
"What do you suggest?" he drawled, his voice sardonic.
Eileen shrugged again, as if to say it didn't matter to her in the least, though the fact that they were having the discussion at all proved that to be a falsehood. "She likes books,"
"Granger likes books," Severus mocked, with an amused smirk, one eyebrow canted above the other. "Oh, this is news to me, mother, I'd have never known—not with how she used to regurgitate the textbook to me in class for six years or carry half the library around with her in a bag that looked ripe to rip open—"
"Don't be an ass." Eileen sighed, seeming to finally tire of his mockery. "Just get her something. That's all." She said it with absolute finality that Severus recognized from his childhood, in the same way she might have directed him to clean his room, or draw the curtains, or to finish his summer homework. She rose from the table, seeming to want to retire back to the sitting room with her knitting for the morning.
Once his mother had withdrawn from the kitchen and he'd set the dishes to rights, he went ahead and extracted the present he'd already purchased for Hermione Granger out of the small hold-all he'd brought with him for his stay.
It required some preparation, though he didn't care to share that with anyone, least of all his nosy mother.
Snape set about tinkering with the small object to his satisfaction and left it to sit, idle and innocuous, next to his laptop keyboard. Cracking his fingers, he scrolled to where he'd begun to write the previous evening and reread all that he'd come up with.
No wonder he'd dreamed of Galdrvale. Severus chuckled to himself softly. He'd filled up ten pages of dialogue and, in his sleepy wanderings, had relived the starting quest where the player was obliged to barter for his first skillbook.
He could scarcely remember all the details of the rapidly fading dream, but he knew that much. It had been the starting area.
The rest of the morning was spent typing into his 'little black box,' as Eileen liked to call it. She only interrupted him once or twice when she would steal into the kitchen for something to drink, but otherwise he was left to his own devices. It was around three in the afternoon by the time Severus felt he should take a break. He was more than half-way there now, and no longer worried that he'd have nothing to present to Declan at the party cum meeting the next night.
He had Iron Maiden playing on his cassette player, and was thoroughly engrossed in his work still, even as he sat, and had long since abandoned his typing in order to sketch a bit on the plain paper pad he'd brought. His fingertips were blackened by his charcoal pencil, and he'd inadvertently marked up his own face as he would alternatively lean against his hand or rub at his cheek.
The page in front of him had filled up almost without his noticing: sketches of the denizens of the yet unnamed village, a small representation of the skillbook he'd earned in his dream, a gloved hand surrounded by an aura denoting magic, Granger—
Fuck... what?
Severus coughed violently and smashed the button on the cassette player to stop the music. Staring up at him off the page was a representation of the bookseller from his dream the night before, her innocent face lighted by a soft and appealing expression of serenity... and it was unmistakably the face of Hermione Granger.
He couldn't tear his eyes away, his fingers clenching around the charcoal pencil reflexively as his mouth moved in mute stupefaction. Yet the more he tried to make sense of it, the better he remembered: the woman in his dream, the yet unnamed NPC, had clearly been the same annoying know-it-all that had haunted his waking nightmares as he'd been forced to grade her inexcusably long essays for years, and the same young woman he'd shared an enjoyable evening with the very night before.
He flipped the drawing pad closed with a snap, not wanting to stare any longer or think any harder about what that might mean.
He couldn't account for the comfort he felt looking at her slight smile. There was nothing that could explain the warmth he'd basked in the night before when he'd been enjoying her companionship, nor the feeling of emptiness when she'd left to go home. How could Snape rationalize, even to himself, why she'd appeared then in his dream, and why, when the Death Eaters had appeared, his first concern was that they'd come for her...
Severus worked up the courage to sneak another peek, lifting only the corner of the pad's cover and catching the barest glance of her features this time.
He felt his heart lurch and a cold sweat break out across the back of his neck in response.
The pad closed with a tad more finality that time.
This was bad. Very bad...
A deep groan came from somewhere. Snape was so out of sorts in that moment that it took him a full beat to realize that it had issued from his own throat. He stared then, with dumbfounded fascination, at the gift he'd decided on for the sweet harridan harbinger of his own personal apocalypse (for she would be the end of him, he was sure).
He didn't know what he'd been thinking. It was an expensive gift... and while he didn't resent that in the least—he had not even noticed it in his haste to procure the tiny thing for her. He'd thoughtlessly gone into the store knowing he had to gift it to her... because, well... because nothing else could suit as well.
If he was being honest with himself, he was positively excited over the prospect. Severus certainly didn't hold out any illusions that the girl would gift him anything half as good. Hell, he imagined she'd not get him anything at all—but on the chance that she opened this and was able to really truly enjoy it the way he knew she could—it was well worth the several hundred pounds he'd paid the clerk at the massive, whitewashed behemoth of a store.
Christmas morning was only days away, falling that year on a Monday. It was already Thursday, and he'd spent some time compiling the second part of his gift—having made several trips to the muggle library for provisions in the interim. He'd spent hours compiling a proper catalogue for her...
How was it that it had escaped his notice that this gift, the giving of it rather, meant so very much to him? Or, more importantly still, that the witch he was gifting it to meant so very much to him.
It sat, innocently enough, against his large palm, finally complete and ready. Snape tucked it back away within its packaging until he could wrap it.
What was he going to do when he saw her that evening? Or for the rest of their time with his mother? Keep antagonizing her as he had been doing? She'd nearly bitten his head off for it the evening before, and worse yet: he had felt genuine remorse for the flash of hurt he'd detected in her eyes.
His head fell into the cradle of his hands, elbows braced on his knees. Why on earth was he so fucking bad at this? Why couldn't he just control his damn mouth around a beautiful woman, even once, so that they wouldn't turn away from him in disgust or anger?
'It didn't end like that,' a rebellious voice piped up, distant in his consciousness. 'She seemed like she was having a good time watching murder mysteries with you.'
Snape huffed, his shoulders sloping. Was it too much to hope that maybe she didn't hate him? Maybe she even had enjoyed spending time with him... and perhaps not because she was obliged to for the sake of their agreement with his mother?
'Nothing said she had to stay and drink with you after Mam went to bed,' the voice reminded him, rather unhelpfully. 'Or touch your chest... or laugh at your jokes...'
Snape shook his dark head in a violent motion. It was dangerous, dangerously stupid, to entertain any ideas that Hermione had spent time with him because she'd simply wanted to.
In all likelihood she was simply too kind to tell him to bugger off, he decided with a frown.
He refused to think about the fact that they'd watched almost three episodes of the ninety-minute show and that she'd insisted on staying at the end of the first two.
By the time Hermione did make her nightly appearance at Eileen's house, Snape had been able to resolve nothing. If anything, sitting at the kitchen table and stewing over it had created such a state of anxiety that he could barely remember ever suffering in quite such a way, at least, not since he'd been a spotty teen obsessed with catching a glimpse of Lily at any given opportunity, whether in the halls of Hogwarts or on the streets of Cokeworth.
He felt almost like a dog waiting eagerly for its master to come home, and it left him distinctly disgruntled and wrong-footed.
Around five thirty that evening she finally came, bundled up to her cheeks and almost slamming the door behind her in her haste to close it against the howling wind. Eileen tutted from her position on the sofa.
"Such noise—"
"Sorry, it's beastly out there." Hermione returned, though she didn't sound sorry in the least. She began to unwrap herself, layer by layer, from the veritable cocoon of protective clothing she wore, finishing by wrenching a felted wool beret off of her locks. Her hair followed the hat, the static electricity causing it to not want to be parted.
In all truth, she looked rather a mess.
Snape, who had observed her return from just outside the doorway to the kitchen was in the process of thinking of something snide to say to her about it when something in the pinch of her features stilled his tongue.
Her eyes were red and a bit swollen, as if she'd been crying. It didn't seem that his mother had noticed, as she nattered on the same as she ever might have done, but Severus' curiosity was piqued.
It wasn't concern. It categorically was not.
He swallowed thickly.
"Granger—come help me with dinner," he demanded.
Eileen huffed, indignant. "Severus, you know it's your turn, let the poor girl sit for a while—"
"I need an extra pair of hands," he fibbed, his eyes holding Hermione's defiant, yet sad, gaze for a moment.
No sooner than she had crossed over the threshold to the kitchen had he cast a discreet Muffliato, checking behind the short witch to make sure that his mother was well occupied.
Taking her shoulders, an action which evidently surprised her, if the way she drew in a sudden breath was any indication, he pressed her, with some force but no less gently, into the chair he'd occupied since that morning.
Her mouth twitched in bemusement, and she gave a small sniff—though whether this was because she'd been crying or because she had been out in the cold was anyone's guess. "I thought you needed me to help with dinner—"
"Don't be daft, woman," he sneered. His tone, however belied his true meaning, for it was mild. "I can make Bolognese in my sleep."
The witch sniffed again, but she did offer a wan smile, even if it was directed toward the floor. "Dare I ask why you insisted I participate?"
He had since turned to begin dicing ingredients and adding them to the bottom of a pot. It was easier to deal with her upset when he wasn't staring at her, wanting to bring down heaven itself just to perk her back up again. So, he shrugged with his back turned to her, feeling uncomfortable with the fact that she was likely watching him.
"I didn't think my mother would be the best company for you after you'd evidently bawled your eyes out—"
"I did not," she was quick to retort.
He turned, just enough so he could observe her out of the corner of his eye. There was that defiance. She had crossed her arms and was glowering at his back. "What would you call it then?"
"You didn't even see me—"
"I didn't have to. I'm not as easy to fool as my mother. The signs are all there, Granger." He tried to keep his voice light, even though it was a sort of accusation all the same. "Regretting your promise to spend Christmas here?"
She sighed, and he heard a short scuff, where he imagined she may have sat back in her chair. "Not at all, Severus." It was soft, and worryingly enough, it sounded as if she were trying to reassure him. He felt his shoulders tense.
Hermione had been watching his cagey behaviour for the past several moments, trying to get a read on just why it was seemingly so important that she had cried that day before coming to see the Snapes. She now had something of a suspicion that Snape was behaving as if he were being defensive of something, or very sensitive...
It took her a moment to consider that it might have been because of how they'd spent the evening before: talking and laughing in each other's company with ciders and a shared bowl of popcorn between them.
Could he think that was the reason? She couldn't imagine why it would have been, but Snape was a bit high-strung like that, she supposed. With his line of questioning about whether she regretted her time with himself and her mother, it sounded as if he were trying to gauge whether or not she'd regretted her night spent with him.
Whatever it was, she decided, it could most easily be solved with the simple truth.
"One of my clients passed away. It was expected... but that doesn't really make it any better, you know?"
"Oh..." she saw his shoulders relax marginally. He rested his palms against the counter but didn't seem like he could think of anything else to say to her.
"She's been at the end for some time—and truthfully, I won't miss her... I suppose that's a terrible thing to say, isn't it? That I won't miss her? But she'd never been very kind to me—her husband on the other hand, is devastated, and I feel awful, because he holds me as partially responsible for why he wasn't able to be there with her when she went..." Hermione knew she was rambling, but it felt good to tell someone, even if she doubted that Snape really cared all that much.
However, when he turned to her, leaning with his hips resting back against the countertop and his brows drawn, crossing his arms as he regarded her in silence, she felt almost sure she could read concern on his notoriously inscrutable features.
The loss of his occlumency really had done a number on the man, as far as his desire to maintain his famously flat and disinterested affect... but she'd found it to be incredibly useful for her own purposes of reading his moods.
"That all sounds... unfortunate." He offered, his voice very nearly sympathetic.
Hermione merely nodded. "I don't know if Martin will ever forgive me. In the end though... I can't really feel sorry. I recommended Mary for hospital because I was concerned for his safety in the event that she lost control of her magic—and in the end, that was precisely how she went."
"Perhaps he wishes he went with her." Snape said, his eyes downcast.
Hermione regarded him for a few silent moments, not sure what to say, but feeling certain that the origin of this commiseration between Severus and a man he didn't know harkened back to how Severus felt he had lost Lily Evans.
She cleared her throat and rose, making her way to stand beside him and then taking up stirring the garlic and onions at the bottom of the pot, lest he let them burn. "Perhaps," she agreed softly. "In that case I may have done him a disservice. However, I had a duty of care."
Her elbow nudged his side, and he turned his face to stare down at her, their eyes meeting for long enough that Hermione noticed for the first time that the reason they appeared black and so very cold was not because they were such a dark brown, but rather that they were an impenetrable, fathomless shade of deep navy blue. "Yet, Martin is old," she continued, her voice as low and slow as she could make it, hoping he understood her clearly. "but you weren't. You had a life to live, after that—"
"Some fucking life—" he growled.
"I'll bet you wished you'd died in the shack too?"
He looked away then, his features tense.
"Perhaps you don't know." She said softly. "After all, you saved yourself. You had a life after all that as well, as unpleasant as those twenty years were—"
"Forty." He grumbled. "All forty were unpleasant."
"Perhaps so." Hermione agreed with a nod. "And here you are."
The witch swallowed, nervous to ask her next question, yet feeling she was already so deep into this intimate conversation that she may as well go for broke. "Is it worth it now, do you think? To have fought for your life?"
She saw a flash of ire in his eyes and considered for a moment that she had overstepped her bounds, but then he settled once more and appeared pensive. He seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheek as he considered his answer.
"Life now is... not unpleasant."
The answer was so surprising, so unexpected, that she turned to look at him, almost beaming. One of her hands reached out, before she even noticed it really, and squeezed his bicep, her thumb sweeping it in the barest of encouraging caresses, before she withdrew, feeling a blush threatening to stain her cheeks a ruddy crimson.
'Jesus, Hermione, what are you thinking!?' Her brain shrieked at her, as she avoided his eyes. She didn't want to know what expression he was making after she'd grabbed his arm. 'You can't just manhandle him like you would anyone else—he's going to bite your head off...'
Yet Snape hadn't moved a muscle. If anything, out of the corner of her eye, it appeared to her that he'd turned to marble in the aftermath, rigid and unyielding.
Another part of her brain piped up, quite uninvited. 'He feels nice.'
Mutiny! She wanted to snarl at it and quash it down like she might do to an overfull trash bin.
She was wrenched out of her self-recriminations when he moved, quick as a flash, to snatch the wooden spoon back from her. "Go—sit." He directed. "I told you I'd take care of it this evening." He had carefully avoided looking into her face, she noticed.
Yet, as she sat where he had indicated, she felt herself smile, in spite of his dictatorial manner with her, and spent the next fifteen minutes surreptitiously watching him as he moved, in a smooth and practiced fashion, about the small kitchen.
That evening, the three supped together with light, but unforced conversation, and a distinct lack of awkwardness, their family dinners having become a well-practiced and comforting routine by that point.
Severus watched her leave that evening, feeling for all the world as though all the light had gone out of the house with her.
When it had stopped being enough to spend time with his mother again, he wasn't entirely sure. What he knew now, told him that he wanted Hermione there with them as badly as he'd wanted his mother to accept him again after he'd made his second major screw up with the woman.
Granger would be back the next evening, she'd even assured them of this (though it had, in an odd sense, seemed that she took especial care in letting him know she'd be back). It didn't really matter though. He'd had to inform her that he'd likely be out the door well before she made an appearance, his attendance having been required at the Galdrvale Christmas party.
When he slept that evening, it was to a horrid continuation of his dream from the night before, though at this point, the Death Eaters had managed to abduct the Bookseller, and low level as he was, he was ill-equipped to follow them.
He'd awoken to a feeling of unease which seemed to taint his entire morning, yet it did inspire him to find a way to resolve the quest with the occultists. He had to know that Hermione, or rather, the Bookseller, could be saved, even by a beginner. In the end, he managed to plot out a rather daring, if Gryffindorish, rescue, but he thought the players would likely appreciate it.
It was close to the time he'd have to leave for headquarters when he finally shut his laptop.
"Mam," he called, as he packed away his belongings. "I'm for Nottingham, I'll be back late."
His announcement was followed by a shuffling from the other room as his mother removed herself from the sofa, where she'd been knitting yet another unnamable pile of wool something-or-other, and stood to see him off.
Eileen frowned when she came to stand before him, giving him a piercing look. "You're not wearing that, are you?"
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" He asked, feigning ignorance. A quick glance down his torso told him that it wasn't anything out of the ordinary: his normal black jeans, cuffed around his normal black boots. A threadbare buttoned-up jumper to keep the cold out of his bones, given the season. One could barely see the logo of the old Galdrvale tee underneath...
"A party for your employer, and you're going to go in looking like some dodgy street tough!"
Snape stifled a grin, knowing his mother unlikely to understand his work culture. "I won't be the worst dressed person there, trust me."
Eileen huffed, her fists bracing against her slight hips. "Better than the worst is nothing to aspire to, Severus!"
He merely shrugged, hoping to rile her up further. "My position is guaranteed, I have nothing to prove."
His mother let loose an aggravated growl. "How you expect to get anywhere in life, or to meet anyone for that matter, with your attitude—"
"And pray tell, whom do you expect me to be meeting, Mother?" he sneered with a roll of his eyes. He lifted his small hold-all onto his shoulder and made for the front door, the slight older woman following at his heels.
"A nice woman perhaps?" She continued, nagging at his elbow. "Or if that's not enough to inspire you, someone higher up, with a better position—"
Snape stopped a foot short of the door, his eyes incredulous. "You haven't the faintest idea of what I do for my company, and you expect me to lobby for a promotion?" He nearly laughed.
"Well, it couldn't hurt—"
"It wouldn't help, Mam," he chuckled dryly, though his eyes were warm. One of the corners of his mouth quirked up as he looked down on her with fondness evident in his gaze. "I'm as high as I can go and as high as I'd like to be—there's far more to my job than meets the eye."
Eileen embraced him in a parting gesture as he went to open the door for himself. "I just don't want you struggling as we did, Severus—"
He knew she was talking about his father and herself. Snape sighed wearily and returned the embrace with one arm around her shoulders. "I'm not hard up, Mam. Quite the opposite. I didn't think I'd need to say so to you, but I'll be just fine."
She didn't loosen her grip on him when he tried to extract himself. "I don't want to see you unhappy either,"
"I am not unhappy." He growled, finally edging his way out the door. "I'll see you later tonight."
The door shut behind him, but before he could fully extract himself from the elderly witch, he could swear that he heard her shout through the door at his departing back. "The right woman would make you happier!"
At long last he was standing alone on the frigid porch, in the crisp silence of the winter twilight. Severus drew a weary hand down his long face, "Jesus fuck."
Then in a crack, he had apparated from the outskirts of London far afield to the north.
The alley that ran alongside his decrepit brick building materialized around him, and though on another occasion he may have been tempted to venture inside, even for a moment, to get his bearings, he felt little sense of compulsion to enter the freezing cold of his abode. Even the warmer residential loft above felt frozen for lack of company.
He'd left the warmth as soon as he'd gone away from Waldweirness.
Instead, he sloshed through the slurry of mud and melted snow that constituted the ground of the filthy alleyway, resolutely trying to avoid thinking about how he'd not get to spend the evening with his mother. With Granger.
On the street which he emerged onto, he approached the sole car parked for hundreds of meters—his own. A black Jaguar S-Type sedan he'd purchased new in 2002. He rarely found use for it, and had likely put less than 10,000 miles on it, if that, yet it served his purposes. Namely: convincing his coworkers that he was, in fact, a normal bloke that still had to drive to get places. He used it for company parties, largely so he could check in with the attendants at the car park, where they usually checked the credentials on his lanyard in order to tick guests off of a pre-approved list.
The hold-all he tossed into the passenger seat, before he pulled out, driving the short distance across town to reach the far-cleaner district in which the company headquarters was located.
By the time he was obliged to roll his window down and show his I.D. his overlarge nose was red from cold and on the verge of dripping. It wasn't even a long enough drive for the car to properly heat up. 'And fuck me for choosing leather seats.' He frowned, arching his back to avoid contact with the frigid surface.
"It doesn't say here what you do—" the guard hedged, examining the laminated card Snape had presented.
"It isn't meant to." Snape snapped, his patience short. "Am I on the list or not?"
The man shifted, his shoulders huddled up against the cold as he spoke, almost inaudibly, into the muffler covering the lower part of his face. "Well, yeah—I s'ppose—"
Snape jerked back on the cord, pulling the credentials out of the guard's mitten covered hands, "Then check me off, for God's sake, or is that not precisely what you're here for?"
"It is, sir," the guard hastened to make his stiff fingers operate the pen he used to scratch out names, "I just thought I'd met all the employees is all, and that ain't a guest pass—"
Snape snorted with impatience. "Are we through? Can I go now?"
"Yes, Mr. Snape..." The man grimaced, his face sheepish. He reminded Severus rather a lot of a student he might have told off in the halls of Hogwarts years before. A particularly thick one. Perhaps Crabbe or Goyle...
Snape grunted rather than properly acknowledging the attendant as he rolled his window back up and proceeded to an empty space to park. Once he emerged from his, finally warm, Jaguar, he had to huddle his shoulders against the wind, raging as it was. He'd made a serious miscalculation in not donning his overcoat before he'd left his mother's, but there was nothing for it. The woman had distracted him and he'd wanted nothing more than to leave and get this over with.
It was only a few steps to the heavy, red utility door on the side of the building that most of the employees entered through—he anticipated he could avoid the congestion in the lobby by not entering through the front door and instead using the interior stairwell to make it up to the administrative offices where he knew that Declan and the team were waiting.
As he ascended, he could hear, and even feel, the distant thump of some sort of music coming from each floor. Usually there was a band hired to perform, and, before and after their set, a DJ that could fill the remaining hours with entertainment.
None of the event planners seemed to share his taste in music however, so it had been years of suffering through the DJ queuing up songs from the Spice Girls and the likes of Kylie Minogue.
The performers varied from year to year, his favourite act having been a few years ago when they'd managed to book Massive Attack (no one else had seemed as excited over the prospect as he had. It was a rather subdued party that year, likely because of the droning quality of their music). That was, perhaps, the last time Severus remembered enjoying one of the company parties.
Since then, the acts had been increasingly popular and expensive bookings, given the resounding success of the game itself. This year, if his emails were to be believed, they'd found some whiny tosser named James Flunt (or something to that effect) to perform. Evidently it was an enormous coup for the company to have managed to book him: he was more expensive than they'd wanted, but had agreed to play for far less because he was a fan of the game. Declan had offered him a personal tour of Headquarters.
Snape had investigated the man's music—naturally, he was curious. Perhaps, for the first time, they might have hired a suitable act—but no. Upon hearing the very first saccharine verse of "You're Beautiful," he'd had to turn it off. Navel gazing nonsense.
In fact, the history of the musical decisions seemed to indicate that they were geared toward suiting the tastes of the guests—particularly the attractive female ones—that another developer, Charlie, made sure to invite nearly every year.
"The photos are made public, Snape. We look good if our guests look good—" Charlie had said when confronted over the guest list.
It was no coincidence that Charlie also oversaw the event team and the list itself. Snape had only had some, rather marginal, success in attempting to have Charlie invite actual gaming journos or even extending invitations to certain players through an in-game lottery system. Yet every year, it seemed as though these were outnumbered, and to a noticeable degree, by attractive birds of every conceivable nature of feather.
Snape was quite certain that none of them had any interest in the game itself.
Yet he was the only one that put up a fuss. Declan wasn't opposed to an evening of flirting with the fairer sex, and though he'd imagined Terry might have objected, he'd been disabused of this notion rather strongly.
Though few, if any, of the women that Charlie found to furnish the guest list were likely interested in short, greying women in their sixties, they seemed to enjoy flirting outrageously with her too. Hell, they practically fawned over the tough old broad—perhaps finding her outrageously adorable in her bawdy, brash, forwardness.
No. It seemed that Severus was rather alone with his distaste for the painted peacocks that festooned the office party each year.
Worse yet, the other three knew, and thought it was great fun to force him, in one way or another, to endure an hour or two each year of the festivities.
Even the Dark Lord hadn't made him put up with that kind of tedium.
He'd finally reached the fifth floor, where he stood for a breath or two before the door. He usually didn't need extra time to prepare himself, and he knew that the rowdier, more drunk guests were likely being entertained on the floors below, but that didn't mean that a few hadn't wandered up the stairs at any point to imbibe with more discretion behind the privacy of their own personal cubicle.
At least it was likely only other employees that ventured this far up: the guards made some token attempts at dissuading non-personnel from passing the floor where the musical act was engaged, but it wasn't always effective when an employee themselves wished to snog or shack up with one of the guests in an upper-floor locale.
When he'd finally gathered his wits about him like the shroud it often felt like and ventured forth into the office space, he counted himself as lucky that he only had to avoid one such couple—apparently a rather enthusiastic young code-writer and some paramour he'd likely only met that very evening.
The night was still young.
"Sev! Howdy—" a slightly gruff feminine voice hailed him before he made it all the way to the conference room.
Terry stood before him, grinning around the butt of her cigarette (prohibited on the premises, but with her position no one would take her to task for it).
Terry Trumbell was as diminutive a woman as one could expect to find. Slight of frame, but sturdy of stature and character, she barked and commanded as easily and effectively as Severus himself, though was perhaps more prone to having her feelings trodden on. She had a small, grizzled face, and her silver hair was always groomed into a no-nonsense high-and-tight haircut. Her eyes were small and hard to see from their deep set and the creased skin which surrounded them, though they often sparkled with a sense of mischief, which was borne out by the incredibly deep laugh lines which bracketed her thin-lipped mouth and tiny nose.
Same as Severus himself, she took no pains to dress up for the occasion: wearing her everyday cargo pants, hooded sweatshirt and a loose pair of overlarge trainers which she scuffed at the floor before approaching him—the behavior idiosyncratic but highly characteristic of her. A tick perhaps, as if she were putting out a cigarette, but even she wouldn't be so bold as to do it in the hallway of the office building proper.
"Teresa. Hello," he intoned, low. Almost formal if not for the slight grin—
She fairly barreled into him in a hug and he gripped her about the shoulders in a one-armed embrace in return.
Next she surprised him by punching him lightly in the ribs,
"Don't go fucking calling me that—"
"Tit for tat," he growled removing her from his side, "My name's not 'Sev,'" he sneered, "no matter how much Declan wishes it were,"
"Well, if he had it his way," she shrugged with a grin. She led him into the conference chamber where they both chose their habitual chairs, across from one another.
Of the other three developers, Terry was the single person whom he found tolerable—even likable at times. She was old enough to be his mother, but was immature enough to have been his younger sister. She also happened to be a riot whenever he let his guard down enough to actually go drinking or cavorting with his colleagues. Declan and Charlie were far too hard up about chasing tail to be any fun.
For a few moments they contented themselves with the assorted biscuits that were laid out on the table between them, Snape piling up a cache of jammy shortbreads and rum balls onto a serviette while Terry had a small army of gingerbread men and a sizable slice of fruit cake.
The other reason he enjoyed the woman's company was that he generally didn't have to talk much: Terry would give an old fisherman a run for his money in tall tales. Snape merely had to nod along and act interested in order to keep her going. As a spy, he doubted that the woman could keep a single secret to herself, except for the fact that he was certain there was an element of compulsive lying to it—not a single thing she'd told him thus far seemed credible in the least—but it was highly entertaining.
"—and we raised those two wolf cubs, Severus. George and me, we brought them down from the mountain where we found them without their mother and I took one, and he took the other—I mean, you know how much I've always loved wolves, Severus,"
Snape nodded and made a non-committal "Mmhmmm" noise to keep her going, his mouth full of biscuit to hold off his desire to break down into laughter. Quite unlike him, but Terry's ridiculous stories generally had that effect.
"How did you get them down from the mountain? Did you carry them?" Snape asked, half expecting to hear that Terry had nursed the pups herself. He took a small swig from a miniature bottle of rum that the event planners had liberally dispersed around the building in large, festive baskets—the same as the baked treats.
"Oh no, we took them down in a helicopter," she insisted, her eyes earnest in a way that said she possibly believed her own story.
At this Snape couldn't control his snort, but he was lucky, for once, as in that moment Declan and Charlie finally ducked through the doorway, each laughing at something they'd been discussing on the way in.
"Sev! Terry! Fancy seeing you here—" Declan all but sang, he gave a knowing grin to Severus' scowl. He was well aware that under all but the most pressing circumstances, Snape would not have made an appearance of his own volition.
Both of the men seated themselves around the table and drew up their chairs, though Severus could tell that they didn't want to be here any more than he did—no, they'd rather be downstairs talking up the guests or schmoozing with the hired act.
He very nearly sighed. This entire contrivance was merely to make him come to this stupid party, and if he could manage it, he'd still avoid the event proper at all costs. Once the meeting was over they couldn't make him stay.
At least Lucius' Christmas soirees had a little more panache—the music (usually a string quintet or something) would play tolerable music, and he'd be allowed to drift to a far corner where he could sulk for an hour.
Then again, he thought, taking another mouthful of biscuit—the Galdrvale team furnished better sweets.
Declan passed around a sheet of paper to each of them with a small list of particulars that each of them had control over.
Terry was the main moderator of the game and was in charge of player experience. Under her assumed moniker of TyrantTerry, she was the single point of contact for most users, besides those who would call or contact the complaints team—over which she also presided.
Charlie worked mostly with the graphics developers and art department, acting as a liaison between the development leads and those who carried out the everyday particulars of whether an object ought to be red or green or periwinkle blue.
Declan himself was more business orientated, which explained why his first iteration of the game had lacked character and charm.
That was where Severus came in, naturally. The Scribe. The hidden oracle who foretold the events, who scripted the encounters, who conjured the characters, and who orchestrated the smiting of each, progressively more difficult boss.
There was also a small team of developers whom they worked with in order to set the more mundane details of gameplay: how experience was gained, how damage was stacked, whether there should be four to a party or eight: but this team usually had to have the plan set forth before they could proceed with their design, and so, there they were, days before Christmas, discussing specifics.
Unfortunately for Severus, the majority of this meeting would rest on him. Then again, he was the senior partner after Declan himself. Their financial backer notwithstanding, it was the two of them who had resurrected the game from the ashes of its previous self.
Without his scaffolding, there wasn't much to be done.
Therefore, he sat and listened as Terry gave her report on how the community was doing: which questions would need to be answered and how to present the new event log for players.
After this, all eyes turned to him, expectantly. He wanted to groan. Charlie couldn't do a thing without his direction on what, precisely, he had to create for the new event and quests, and Declan was counting on him for something good. Something compelling.
"I know we discussed the gloves a few days past, Declan— and the more I've thought on it, the more I like the idea,"
Declan nodded and Charlie interposed with his own addition. "We've already got the sprites for gloves—it should be easy enough."
"Good." Snape said, his voice short. "I've managed to map out the first set of quest objectives for Act I of this new Season," he continued, "And we're agreed that this is a new starting area, so I see no reason to trod over old territory," he withdrew his sketch pad and his written notes and began outlining the scenario he'd contrived in which the new player would arrive in the land of magic and adventure.
"There'll need to be a new Non-Playable Character to guide the players through this leg of the game, as, I'm sure I need not remind you, we killed off the last one—"
"Poor old Wulfric," Terry lamented, wistfully.
"Quite." Snape bit out, remembering how he'd had the character jettisoned from a tower in the end-game content the season prior.
He wasn't entirely sure whether he was purging his demons of feeding them with the plot, honestly.
Suddenly, Charlie leaned forward on his elbows, hunching over into Snape's space far more than he was comfortable with. "Wait a minute, who's that?" he demanded, jabbing his short, pudgy finger at the small portrait Severus had rendered of the Bookseller.
Snape wanted to smack his hand away from the drawing, feeling almost as if his colleague had dared to touch Hermione's person herself.
He wasn't the best artist in the world, no. But he'd managed a passing resemblance to Hermione in his sketch. He had, perhaps, exaggerated the scale of her hair to her small, heart shaped face, and he'd drawn her teeth to appealingly brush her lower lip. They were still larger than the others, her two forward-most incisors, but they were certainly not as prominent as they were in his drawing.
Distantly, he could remember a callous criticism he'd made of them—back when she'd been naught but an infuriatingly annoying schoolgirl. He regretted it now. How could he have ever thought they were anything but utterly charming?
No, he'd never have entertained thoughts of her the way he was coming to in the present day back when she was young, but now, as she was nearing thirty? She hadn't changed so much that she was a graceful swan, all of the sudden... but all of her grating habits and quirks of appearance and character had become curiously precious to him.
It would never pass for a proper portrait, yet... the light in her eyes he'd managed to capture with amazing clarity.
"Who's that?" Charlie asked again, his finger nearly smudging the drawing.
He had to think for a moment, not wanting to give her real identity.
"Lady Hermia—" he lied, his face set in a disinterested, glib, mask.
"It's not bad work—is she the new NPC?"
Snape swallowed. Could she be? Could he let her be? He hadn't managed to come up with anything else, but it felt unbearably personal, given the nature of his dream and the way in which his heart beat a vicious tattoo whenever he gave the witch any thought... before he could answer, however, the developers had taken his silence for tacit assent.
"Her design is decent," Charlie commented, "I need to know more for the art team, what does she wear? I can see the top—"
"I suppose a long skirt. The blouse should be pink. And knit-texture." Snape responded, his answer reluctant. He'd never once seen Hermione in a skirt besides at Hogwarts, she always wore jeans. Yet he could hardly answer that: jeans weren't a thing in Galdrvale. "Small white shoes... like Keds—"
"She can't wear Keds, Severus—that breaks lore," Terry chuckled. As she spent the most time in the game itself, she knew the lore almost as well as he himself did.
Snape growled. Though he'd seen Hermione in other shoes before, the impeccable white trainers were intrinsically tied to his image of her in his mind. Much like her jeans and her abundant nest of frizzy brown hair.
"Rubber boots then," he compromised.
"Wellies? On a 'Lady?'" Terry asked, making scare-quotes around the word Lady. "I mean, that's also a bit anachronistic..."
Snape shrugged, but held firm. "It'd be difficult to tell that they were rubber and not something else with the graphical limitations. Furthermore, she's a Lady by nature of her destiny and her purpose. Her character should be unassuming and... modest." He'd been about to say demure but realized that didn't represent Hermione Granger whatsoever. She could be an absolute hellcat. He had to work extremely hard to keep the smile from his face as he entertained that thought. "Very bossy though."
"You simply can't make a super likable main character, can you?" Declan chuckled, leafing through the pages. "That old fart you had originally never knew when to shut up, and you've now come up with another character meant to drive our players spare,"
Snape shrugged. "It's a talent."
"What about her colours?" Charlie interposed, now making notes on his paper, "I'm thinking blonde—"
"No." Snape snapped. His finger pointed to her hair and then to her eyes. "Brown and brown,"
"But that's boring," Charlie whinged. He was well known for preferring striking women with artificially coloured hair and jewel-toned eyes. Usually in shades of gold or platinum, sapphire and emerald.
Snape glowered at him. "She's my character, and that's how she looks. She's... she's plain—" he lied. It felt like such a betrayal to say so. Hermione was notplain... but they'd refuse to understand her character if he described her in any other way. Even though she wasn't in the room with them to be privy to his tepid assessment of her looks, he almost wished he could apologize to her over it.
Charlie sighed, exaggerating the action with unnecessary drama. "Leave it to you, Snape, to make our new heroine some random bird with no defining features and nothing exciting about her whatsoever—"
"Shut. It." Snape was growling now, one canine bared in a snarl. The other three were suddenly looking at him with a wariness that belied the true fear that his mercurial moods and fearsome face could still inspire.
"Well, I think she's grand Snape, just tops—" Terry broke in, trying, as ever, to be the voice of diplomacy. "I told you I thought the design was good—not many of our female NPCs have hair like this, or the teeth for that matter—I think it's distinctive."
"Yeah, distinctively ugly," Charlie muttered under his breath. Terry elbowed him, hard, in the ribs, causing him to double over a bit. "At least make her hair red or something—"
At this Snape looked absolutely murderous, enough so that Charlie abruptly sat back in his chair, appearing cowed.
"Shut your gob, Chuck," Terry growled, though somewhat unnecessarily. The deep lines by her mouth were twisted in disapproval.
Usually, if there was anyone at the company sticking up for Severus' ideas as he presented them, and without alterations, it was Terry.
"Brown—her hair is brown." He growled. "The colour of brandy, no lighter, no darker." He punctuated this with a bit of a snarl, feeling inordinately possessive over the new character.
"You let me change Wulfric around a bit—"
"That was different. If you want to use Hermia, you'll do as I say—otherwise I'll come up with something else," he asserted, rising from the table. "Am I still required at this meeting, Declan, or may I proceed with my evening elsewhere?" He inquired, his voice as snide as he could make it.
Declan merely surveyed him, the wariness evident on his face. He'd not even bothered to correct him on calling him 'Dec' as he so often insisted. "I think we have what we need, Severus. You know what we want from you as far as script goes for the code-writers—"
"I do." Snape affirmed. With supreme reluctance he tore the page out of his sketchbook and handed it to Charlie, with a gimlet eye trained on the younger man. "Don't forget what I expect, Charles."
"Yeah, yeah," the stocky blond grumbled.
"If that's all?" Severus asked, his tone rhetorical. He surveyed each of the three, nodding at last to Terry, with whom he'd at least somewhat enjoyed the evening before the other two had arrived. "You'll be hearing from me. Await my email."
"Right, Sev, will do," Declan dismissed him, his face showing his disappointment in his longsuffering expression. It was unfortunate. He knew that Dec, for some reason, really did enjoy spending time with him, no matter how insufferable Severus himself found the exercise in sociability. "You're sure you won't join us downstairs? We've got a bottle of rum and a Christmas pudding with your name on it—"
"Another time, perhaps." The wizard intoned, his back already to the table. He then let himself out of the room, and then the building itself, with as much haste as he could manage.
"Break in to the system, these walls between us are just way too high
Bend light in a prism, seven colours flashing in your eyes
You must try to escape it, boy you'll never ever see the lie
If you buy my story, I'll take you and I'll move you and I hope you think its true"
"Fort Knox" (reprise) – Goldfish
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, and for reading.
Terry is an homage to my husband's favorite aunt, who has unfortunately passed away. They used to play Runescape together when he was in highschool, and she's dearly missed.