Boy-Snape

Sirius was bored. The first day in the forest, he'd been focused on finding him and Severus water to drink and a river to follow to civilization. Yesterday, he'd been intent on covering as much ground as they could and thinking out the logistics of what would happen if they didn't come across a village that day. Sirius was still aiming to find other people before the day was over, but he also wasn't trying to juggle his worries about what they'd do if they didn't find anybody like before. He knew what they'd do, he'd stop them right before nightfall, build them a bed of leaves and brush between some logs or trees and have Severus go to sleep before he turned into Padfoot to sleep with the kid and keep them both warm through the night's chill.

Absently, he rubbed his stomach. Maybe tonight he'd try looking for some dinner for them. He'd been doing okay on just the rabbit and squirrel, he was still quite hungry most of the day, but not to a crippling degree. Severus had yet to complain about being hungry, which, honestly, surprised Sirius a lot. If it'd been him at eight lost in a forest, he was pretty sure he'd be whinging every hour or so about how he was starving. Did the kid not typically eat much? Maybe. He was kind of small for eight, Sirius thought.

He looked over his shoulder at said eight-year-old then and saw boy-Snape was trailing behind him, eyes focused on the branches and leaves above them. They'd noticeably thinned since they found themselves in the forest. Not enough to give them a clear view of the sky, but more light was shining down on them than it had previously. Mildly amused by what he was seeing and a little concerned the kid would trip if he looked up that way much longer, Sirius asked, "See anything interesting up there?"

"The sky's turning cloudy," Severus informed him, small face grim.

Sirius gasped with fake shock and slapped his hands over his cheeks. "Oh no!" he exclaimed, "whatever will we do?"

Unimpressed, boy-Snape stopped and crossed his good arm over his bad one. "It might rain."

"That's Britain for you, kid."

Severus's scowl only deepened at his lackadaisical tone. "What will we do when it's time to sleep and all of the leaves and everything is all wet?"

Sirius shifted from foot to foot. Honestly, there wouldn't be anything to do if it rained. They'd just have to suffer through it. Unless, of course, they found some Goddamn people. "Who's to say we'll still be in this bloody forest then?" he returned.

The kid bit his lip. "We have been the last two days…"

"Which means we have to be getting close to a town or something!" Sirius argued, whirling around to face boy-Snape. "Britain isn't that big! I hear there are states in America bigger than England, Scotland, and Wales combined!"

Severus shrank in on himself and turned his gaze to his toes. "Okay," he mumbled.

Sirius sighed. This was becoming too strange. Every time he rowed with the kid, once he started raising his voice just the slightest bit, Severus went meek and agreeable. Where was the bastard he knew? Gentling his tone, Sirius called, "Hey."

After a moment, the kid looked up at Sirius. He said nothing, though. Severus just watched him with large eyes that didn't bother to hide they were watching every inch of him.

"I'm not cross with you," he said.

Severus didn't relax, but some of the suspicion in his gaze did lessen. "Okay," he replied.

Sirius pursed his lips. "I mean it. I'm not cross."

"Yes, Sirius," the kid said with no small amount of indulgence.

He frowned at Severus. "But I'm starting to feel cross," he told him. "You could at least pretend you believe me when I say something."

Severus returned his attention to his toes and mumbled, "At home, the only time anyone yells is when Mum's upset or Dad's feeling mean."

Sirius's stomach flipped with painful recognition. Well, shit. That explained a lot of the kid's behavior. Sirius turned his head away from the kid and began to run a hand through his hair, only to have it catch on a snarl. As he began to work on the tangle with his fingers, an unwanted revelation was forced upon Sirius. Severus and his childhoods weren't too different when it came down to it. His mother and father screamed and screeched a lot at him when he was a kid too. Mostly whenever he wasn't living up to their (often unspoken) expectations of what a Black heir should be. But other times it'd been for being impish and playing practical jokes on Kreacher or Regulus. Sirius had learned quite early he could take some control of the reprimands by yelling back at his parents and really earn what they were directed at him. He usually ended up with a stinging hex to the bum for his insolence and an afternoon spent in his room, but he'd felt better for it. As if he really deserved to be in his room then and not just because he'd broken some invisible rule no one ever bothered to explain to him.

It seemed to Sirius Severus hadn't quite come into his own yet in the same way when faced with an angry adult. Maybe he never had. Never would. Sirius didn't have a lot to compare to. All of his mates got on relatively well with their parents. Remus was maybe the closest with how he didn't like to spend too much time with his dad. Mostly because the man could quickly fall into lectures about being careful and not standing out too much from the crowd because of Remus's… condition, but even Remus admitted his father's sternness came from a good, if guilt-laden, place. If Sirius really dug, he could think of one other who had faced the same kind of childhood he and Severus had. That person was his brother.

Regulus had always been quieter, meeker. He'd often asked Sirius why he couldn't just accept his punishments like a good son and apologize for misbehaving (it shouldn't matter he often didn't know what he'd even done wrong!). Maybe boy-Snape took an approach similar to Regulus and took what came his way without complaint. Yet… That seemed so wrong. Snape had never taken anything from him or James or anyone else lying down. Why would he do the same with his parents? What made them so different? Just because they were supposedly authority figures he let them belittle and hurt him for no good reason? That didn't sound right. Sometimes, even with the professors, Severus would row with them over detentions and lost points.

Finally, Sirius returned his gaze to Severus. The kid was frowning a little, eyes wary, and leaning away from him like he wasn't sure what to expect out of Sirius after such a prolonged bout of silence. Sirius was crushed with guilt. The kid probably didn't see him as much better than his parents after the last couple of days with the way he flipped between almost kindness and being annoyed with him to the point he was threatening to leave him for werewolves. Merlin, where had his head been these past couple of days? To threaten that. Sirius always prided himself on being better than his parents, yet menacing a kid with abandonment to deadly creatures was all them.

Sirius dropped to his knees. Meeting boy-Snape's gaze head-on, he told him, "I'm sorry, Severus. I've been royally buggering everything with you the last couple of days. I shouldn't have been yelling at you so much or threatening to leave you for werewolves to eat." He laughed a little at himself. "It's no wonder you don't believe what I say half of the time, huh? I haven't done much of anything to show I'm trustworthy. For all you know, I could be leading you right to a werewolf."

Severus's eyes fluttered with panic at that.

Immediately realizing his mistake, Sirius threw up his hands. "No, no!" he said, "I'm not! I just realize it could look like I'm not helping you get back to your mother like I said I am!" he brought one of his hand to his mouth and wheezed, "Merlin, Morgana, and Mordred, I can't even give a proper apology without buggering it, can I?"

The kid was still a little pale after that fright, but a shaky smirk started at the corners of his mouth as he said to Sirius, eyes shining with mischief, "It's okay. If there's one thing I learned about you from this, ah, adventure you put your foot in it a lot."

Sirius gaped at boy-Snape's teasing. Then, he laughed and reached over to pull the kid against his side. Severus didn't resist him, though, he was stiff as Sirius giggled, "Oh, kid, you're a riot."

Severus relaxed at that moment and said, "You're kind of funny too, sometimes."

Sirius laughed a little more before he let the kid go and got to his feet. Hands on his hips as he looked down at boy-Snape, he said, "Okay, I think we've wasted enough time. Let's start moving and we can find out who'll be right today. You or me."

The kid nodded, taking up the spot next to Sirius. "What's the winner get?" Severus asked.

Sirius turned his eyes to the tree canopy. "Uhh…" he felt over his pockets. He'd checked them days ago now for anything useful and knew there wasn't anything, but he did know one had something of interest to a kid. He grinned when he found the chocolate frog card he had from the frog he ate before they ended up here. It featured Jocunda Sykes, the first witch, or rather, first anyone, to fly across Atlantic ocean on just a broom. He handed it down to Severus. "Winner gets this chocolate frog card."

Boy-Snape awed over it in ways Sirius had seen only Muggle-borns do before. "Mum's told me about these," he told Sirius. "But I've never seen one before."

Sirius felt his chest twinge. That was right, the kid's father hated his mother using her wand. He probably had just as little regard for something as innocuous as a chocolate frog card. Sirius never thought he'd say it, but he felt sorry for Severus. The kid had grown up being made to deny half of himself. No wonder he was so keen to hang around Death Eater wannabes. He'd experienced oppression from his own father for being magic. He knew better than most of Slytherin's Pureblood goons just how much of a danger Muggles could be to the wizarding world. As much as Sirius didn't agree with the Death Eaters and the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's ideology, he was starting to see why someone else might.

He found himself repulsed. Was he going to be some sort of Death Eater apologist when this was all said and done? Sirius shook his head. No, he couldn't be. They were wrong. Horrifically, stupidly wrong. He'd have to find a way to make the friendship he made with this boy-Snape stick and pull him over to the right side of things when they were the same age. Maybe Severus had a problem with Muggles, but Sirius knew he didn't with Muggle-borns. He'd been mates with Lily, hadn't he? They could fix him. Introduce him to nice Muggles like Remus's mother and show him that they were the ones with the right idea, not You-Know-Who.

Sirius was pulled from his plotting by Severus tugging on his sleeve. He looked down to see the kid was offering him the chocolate card. "I don't want us to have to be stuck here in the forest again," he said, "but I really want the card."

He smiled at the kid and gently pushed away his hand. "You can keep it till we know who's going to be right."

Severus gave him an almost giddy grin. "Really? Even though it's yours?"

He ruffled boy-Snape's hair. "Yeah, kid. I'm sure I'll be the winner and we'll be out of the forest before nightfall, but you can hold onto it."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," a gruff voice from behind them boomed.

They spun around to see that a couple of yards behind them was two men, a woman, and teenage-girl. Severus stepped closer to Sirius in fear as his own heart began to bang against his ribcage. He didn't recognize most of the group, but Sirius sure as Hell knew who the big, mangy man stood next to the girl was. He was the man that haunted Remus's nightmares and had been described to him in excruciating detail by both Remus and his parents in case he ever came back to try and steal his mate away.

It was Fenrir Greyback, the most vicious werewolf alive.

Your thoughts on what's to come? One Sirius's earlier musings?

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