Boy-Snape

Severus pushed his toast around on his plate as Sirius and Joan said goodbye to Remus, who had classes he had to attend. That Sirius should be attending too, but had been exempted from for at least today. Maybe tomorrow too, depending on what Madam Pomfrey thought best. Severus hoped Sirius would be allowed to stay in the infirmary as long as Severus had to. He didn't fancy the idea of being alone in it. Though, he supposed he wouldn't be. Joan would stay with him. But still… He wanted Sirius close to him until he was old again. He knew Hogwarts and the people here in ways Joan just couldn't.

Only Sirius would know who to protect him from and how.

He shook his head and put away those thoughts for later. He still hadn't finished his breakfast and that was a problem that needed to be dealt with well before Sirius's potential absence. Severus pursed his lips and stared at his half-full plate. He'd eaten half of the apple like Sirius thought he should and drank the potion and most of his milk. Surely that meant he didn't have to eat this piece of toast? Looking up through his lashes at Sirius, who was begging for his mate to bring him notes to study later, Severus decided he should at least look like he attempted to eat the toast. He didn't want Sirius to be too cross with him if he didn't agree with Severus's assumption.

He bit into the toast and slowly chewed the cardboard-like food down to mush and then used the rest of his glass of milk to swallow it down. He pushed away his breakfast tray after that, completely done with even trying to sort of fulfill Sirius's request. Severus had a far more pressing matter to confront anyway. The first step was finding Madam Pomfrey. The nurse had disappeared into her office a little bit after dropping off all of their breakfasts. If Remus was leaving for class, Dad had to have left or be leaving for work now too. Slipping out of his bed, he reached for the chocolate card frog he'd won from his bedside table and put it in the little pocket the front of his jimjams had. While he knew it was probably no more valuable than the comics found on the wrappers of that one kind of bubblegum, but Severus adored it all the same. It was the only little bit of magic that was truly and only his. Mum may have let him look at a few of the old school books she'd managed to keep Dad from burning in the fireplace when he was but a baby when Dad wasn't home, however they weren't his for keeps. Not like the chocolate frog card.

Padding over to the office, he hesitated. The door was cracked open, but he was well aware that didn't necessarily mean he was allowed inside. He rubbed a phantom pain out of eye; Dad had taught him that. Severus reached up and knocked on the door. A moment later, he heard Madam Pomfrey call, "Come in."

Severus pushed the door all of the way open and walked in to see the nurse was sat at her small, rather messy desk. She was scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment and a filing cabinet was open behind her. Curious, Severus approached and stood on his toes to look over the desk's knick-knacks and at what Madam Pomfrey was writing. He wasn't very good at reading upside down just yet— Though, he was going to be before he went to Hogwarts. He was going to be Slytherin and they were cunning and sneaky. If he got good at it as he wanted, Severus would be able to read more than expected before someone could hide their writing away and, in turn, be privy to more than he ought to be.

The nurse appeared to know just what he was doing as she put her arm over the top of the paper, effectively blocking Severus from reading any of it. Still curious and feeling a little bold, he asked, "What are you writing?"

"I'm writing reports on your and Mr. Black's states last night," she explained. "I have to write a report for every time a student visits my halls." She sighed and put aside her quill. Her eyes were part sad, part exasperated as she muttered, "You two have even larger files than Mr. Lupin and he visits me every month after his transformation."

Severus pursed his lips. He wondered what they did that had them in her healing hall so often? Were they sickly? Or… Sirius said they were rivals and Severus had concluded they were something worse than that before they agreed to be mates. Did they used to send each other to the infirmary often? They must have for them both to have such large files. "Does anyone else have larger files than us?" he questioned.

"No," she answered, "and thank Merlin for that!"

He had nothing to say in response. For a beat after, he was silent. Then, he told the nurse, "Remus has left for his classes."

"Oh?" she replied, going back to her report. "That's good to hear. Some days after the moon he doesn't have the energy to return to student-life until after lunch."

Severus might not have been listening that closely to Sirius and Remus's conversation, but he had managed to catch that Sirius wanted Remus to let their other friends know he was up for visitors and what all the headmaster had told them about Sirius and Severus's time being lost. "I think he wanted to let his and Sirius's other mates know Sirius is okay."

The nurse bobbed her head. "That sounds like Mr. Lupin," she replied.

"It must be nearly nine now," Severus remarked.

Madam Pomfrey paused in her writing again to look up at Severus. "Nearly," she agreed.

"Dad leaves for work when I leave for school," Severus informed her. "That was an hour ago if it's now nearly nine."

Madam Pomfrey waved her wand over her things with a soft murmur and it all started flying around. Reports into the filing cabinet behind her, other papers whisked themselves into drawers of her desks and the quill and its bottle of ink placed themselves in a little holder right in front of Severus's nose. "Mr. Snape," she started. Then, she paused, eyes turning dewy. "Severus."

He knew something awful was coming and he wanted to run from it, but his knees were locked and Severus couldn't move. Instead, he was forced to stand perfectly still as the nurse steepled her hands in front of her and took in a long, calming breath.

"Severus," she said, "Eileen… Your mother passed away last summer."

His knees suddenly turned into a tower of cards hit by a gust of wind from a careless person rushing past it. He fell to the floor of the nurse's office screaming, "No!" He yelled, "No! Not my Mum! No! I want Mum! I want my mummy! "

"Severus!" the nurse called, coming over to his side. She tried to touch his arm, but he batted her hand away from him and turned his shrieking to an even higher pitch as he cried for this old loss that was new to him. A moment later, he heard Joan and Sirius come into the room, demanding to know what had happened.

He didn't pay all the words being said around him any attention as he started to beat his fists into the stone floor beneath him, aching for them to shatter and break as his heart had inside of him. When he felt the strong, rough hand of Sirius on the back of his neck, he flipped himself away from the other and howled, "No! Don't touch me!" Opening his eyes wide, he focused all his hurt and fury on Sirius when their gazes met. "You said," he roared. "You said!"

Sirius stared at him, his eyes contrite and sad and scared, and utterly speechless. When another set of arms pulled at Severus around the middle, he only fought a little before they'd brought him close to settle in their lap. He turned into the body and sobbed into what he now knew to be Joan's chest as she petted his hair and whispered platitudes into his ear. He clung to her, crying and crying for what felt like ages when it was probably only the better part of an hour. When his tears finally started to let up and exhaustion started to make it difficult to wail, he felt Sirius put his hand on the back of his neck. Severus twisted his head to look up at the older boy. He realized then he was no longer furious, only disappointed with Sirius and completely gutted about everything. He croaked again, "You said I could see Mum."

Sirius's eyes now glassy, he whispered, "I know. I didn't know."

Severus sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve. Severus believed him. Even at eight, he knew there was no way he'd have told his hated rival his mum was dead. Still, it hurt to have been given false hope— Even if his friend hadn't meant to. All he wanted now was to be the right age with all the memories of Mum he should have and a year past this horrible pain. He breathed in and out before voicing this wish, "I wanna be your age again. When will I be old again?"

The older boy looked over the top of him and Joan— At Madam Pomfrey, he assumed. After a moment, Sirius returned his gaze to Severus. "She thinks tomorrow." He winced a little. "But I'm not promising it will be tomorrow."

That wasn't the answer he'd wanted, but at least it was honest. "Okay," he whispered. "Thanks, Sirius."

"Of course, mate," he replied, giving Severus's neck a squeeze before letting go altogether. "Want to head back into the hall? Try to get your mind off things a bit? I know a spot where a deck of Exploding Snaps is stashed. We can play it together, you, me, and Joan."

Severus nodded. He'd never played that game before, though Mum had told him about it. He'd always thought it sounded like a brilliant game. "Alright," he whispered. After all, it was better than thinking about how Mum was gone and not knowing how or that he'd never see her again.

Well, what did you think?

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