I like replying to reviews the old fashioned way. Just because, I said so:

ClementineTangerine- You know what makes me full of happy? Clementines. And Tangerines. And eating both of them at the same time. Thanks for the review.

Euripides- Wow, thanks! I hope you like this chapter as much as the last one. This is going to be as canon compliant as I can make it, to answer your question. I wasn't planning an AU or 'what-if' story (but I tend to think they're going to 'end up together' anyway, it's just not going to be a happy ending- Ss/Jp's hard like that). I'm glad you enjoyed the restaurant scene as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks for such a thorough review!

What?- I. Don't. Know. Nuh-uh, you're way cool :).

Pikaf- Hey, hey, hey! What do you know? You're getting to be my most frequent reviewer :). I appreciate your support. You know who else is some kind of cool? You.

MistressCoCoLoVeR- You know. I'm glad you say that. It's tough to make James/Severus fics and have them act naturally. I guess I just had to stick them in a drug fest to do it Oo.

ladynarutochan- Well, since you asked for more so nicely, here you go.is a sucker for pup eyes

Excessivelyperky- Let showers of dark chocolate rain down from the sky onto your lovely and wonderful head. Thank you for such a detailed review. I'm glad you picked up on my effort to avoid clichés.

CHAPTER TWO: THE MILL

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My entire weekend is full of clock-staring. My mother threatens to bop me on the head with a frying pan if I check my watch at the dinner table again. Empty threat. Sunday dinner is full of questions about Lily, which I don't answer, and taunts from Sirius, which just annoy me.

I keep on thinking about Tuesday, Snape, and the Mill. I've always been an impatient person; I hate waiting. Time craws when I am waiting. Even in school I used to fidget and whimper for the end of class. Some people spend their entire lives waiting… waiting for five o'clock when the can go home from work, waiting for the weekend, waiting to have children, to get older… waiting to die. I could never spend my life waiting, feeling so angry, impatient and empty…

These past few days have been the longest I have ever had to endure. Even when I go to sleep, I dream about Snape. His derisive laugh echoes throughout my head and he tells me to never see him again.

I try not to think about Lily at all. She hasn't given me an answer yet, and if she won't be thinking about me I won't be thinking about her. It's much easier to not think about her than I thought it would be, especially as I apparate to Spinner's End after work.

It's a tame sort of place, much more than I expected. A woman in the corner is singing on her guitar, a soft, calm version of I Get a Kick Out of You. Sharp, crystal glasses filled with scotch and zambuka are clutched in the meaty hands of suit-wearing muggles. There are no tapestries here, no buddhas or drugs. Just a few nude portraits and pictures of swans, just a television with the local news, just the tops popping off of various forms of alcohol…

The brown-hair buck-teethed woman sings her rendition, strumming a guitar that has seen better days:

"I get no kick from champagne,

Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all

So tell me why should it be true

That baby, I get a kick out of you?"

I watch as one gentleman is poured a glass of expensive-looking red wine. He swirls the glass, studying the robe carefully, sniffs it with a French nose, and takes the smallest, immeasurable sip. He then nods to the bartender, who stalks off to help other customers.

I realize then that it's Severus.

If I thought he looked good last Friday… it was nothing compared to this. The sweaty, ragged black clothes have been replaced by a white shirt and black apron. He holds his back straight, the air of the most professional of bartenders.

I take a seat at the bar. He's mixing something else now. A bloody mary for the woman in green. This job seems to suit him, just as potions always suited him… his hands are gentle but quick on the glass, his selection perfected by his critical eye, his slightly upturned Roman nose, his expressionless mouth. He moves with the grace of an unnoticed alley cat. He wipes the dirtied glass on his extra rag, white fingers swift, and he puts it off to the side.

He's almost nothing like the other day. Hansom, regal features of a civilized man compared to the wheezing, laughing, debauched smoker from the other day.

"Some they may go for cocaine,

I'm sure if I took even one sniff

It would bore me terrifically too.

But baby, I get a kick out of you."

I smile into the crystal ashtray, and decide to say loudly, "How about a bourbon?"

Severus, who had been aligning shot glasses, his pale frame tip-toe on a stool, looks up.

I smile nervously. Perhaps he won't care that we had a late dinner, cheesy fries and milkshakes together last week. Perhaps he still hates me. Perhaps he didn't remember anything.

"Plain bourbon?" he asks.

"Please." I say this with the quietness and intensity of a rabbit that wants a carrot.

He slowly steps down off of the stool, "How about Old Kentucky bourbon?" He takes out an ugly bottle, pours into a glass, and slides it down the table like in all of the old westerns I've seen. "Strong stuff. I'm beginning to think that you have quite a fascination with Americans…"

I smile, at least now he's acknowledged that he knows me personally. "Sure, but you're the one that likes 'burgers and 'shakes."

"I get a kick every time I see you

Standing there, before me.

I get a kick, though it's clear to see,

You obviously do not adore me."

He rolls his eyes at me, pours another man a refill of Guiness on tap, and then slumps against the bar. "That's only when I'm…" he rolls his eyes to the other people in the bar, and grins. "But anyway, how are you, Potter? Still chasing after Sirius and his husband?"

"Husband?" My eyebrows pinch. "I… no. Actually. I…" I cough awkwardly. "I actually found out something about him the other day." My eyes focus on the tip of his black tie, mostly hidden by the apron, and the bob of his adam's apple as he swallows.

"And?"

"Well… you were…" The James Potter in me refuses to let myself say ' you were right' but the man in me says, "He came out. To me, anyway."

"Oh really?" He leans one elbow on the bar and his fist beneath his chin. "Was it… Unexpected?"

"It might have been," I swallow some of the stale drink. "Had you not said anything… before… about the blond. Turns out the blond was a guy."

"Glad I could be of service. Any time you need the assistance of my gayocity radar let me know. Though I think Remus likes…"

I had been burning down some of the foul liquid, when I felt it gag in my throat. I couldn't help bursting with spit in surprise, luckily it missed Snape by a few feet away. "Remus?"

He winks, and glides away to the next customer. He gives me secretive grins from across the bar as he shakes and pours his martini.

"I get no kick on a plane

Flying too high with some guy in the sky

is my idea of nothing to do.

But I get a kick, baby I get a kick out of you!"

"When's your next break?" I ask him. For a moment he is so immersed in the apple martini that I think he's ignoring me. I'm surprised that this annoys me as much as it does.

"I get off in twenty minutes," he says.

"Want to get something to eat?"

"Sounds good."

He looks busy- everyone at the bar either wants a drink or a refill. He makes three new martinis and discusses the wine list with an wrinkled lady with too much jewelry on. He reaches by me and whispers, "Wait for me, will you? I have to wait for the other bartender to come in…" I nod, and begin to amuse myself by playing tic-tac-toe with spare peanuts and mints.

Finally, minutes later a young blond woman is taking his apron, and giving me an upturned eyebrow. She must think I'm going out with him¸ I think to myself. But I feel no need whatsoever to correct her.

"So, Prince James, where do you want to eat?"

"Prince?"

"I'm joking with you, idiot."

"Are you calling me spoiled or something?"

"Do shut up and pick a restaurant."

We're bickering! "Em… I don't know what's around here."

"Well," he explains, "there's a little shack near the river that sells the best fish-and-chips you will ever have in your life. Em… there are a few Indian places… if you still want an American kick there's a steakhouse…"

"Or we could just go to my place."

The awkwardness that arose from that sentence could be read just from his eyes.

I suddenly feel the urge to clarify, "And I could have my parents cook for you."

"You live with your parents? Still?"

I bristle, though someone my age not being out of the house is not common. "It's not like that. I don't have my mother serve me cheese sandwiches on a silver platter all the time. My parents are getting old. They need taking care of. My mother has a bad hip and my father forgets things all the time," I explain.

"Oh…" Severus's judgment was withheld. He was looking at me as though I had grown a whole new dimension. "I'm sorry…"

"How about something Italian? Pasta? Wine?"

"James, you are a Prince."

"I want pasta."

"Well, fine," says Snape. "But there are mostly high prices…"

"Don't worry."

"Well, er… how about Manjano's? It's my favorite. I'll take you there."

We set off. Severus dragged me on something called a subway… a sort of metal train that goes underground. I bat at the metal handle hanging from the ceiling like a cat at a yarn ball and then stumble backwards when the train starts to move. He laughs at me, grabbing me round the middle with one arm so that I don't fall into some poor old muggle and her knitting. We stand like that for a moment. Warmth radiates off of my cheeks, his wide shoulders and chest are pressed against my back. I can feel his pounding heart beating between my shoulder blades, his single bony arm around me. He whispers somewhere by my right check, his unnaturally minty breath on my stubbly chin, "Already sloshed after just one bourbon, Potter? And here I thought you'd be good at drinking."

I grab at a metal-thing and dangle off of it, like he had been. "Mm not sloshed. I'm just not used to this. Are we supposed to be sitting down?"

"Sure you can… but you don't have to."

"No… no… sheet pelts on these, then?"

"No seat belts, No. Doesn't really go fast enough. And accidents are really rare, so…" He shrugs towards the windows, where a concrete tunnel is whisking by like a never-ending ring of smoke.

"Seat belts. Right," I smile at him. "Trying to catch up on muggle-speak. Lily's family hasn't taken a liking to me, actually. They think I'm a bit odd."

Severus stiffens at the sound of Lily Evan's name. His face remains the same, but his heels click together like a soldier at boot camp, and suddenly he is standing a little more straight, nose in the air. "'Tis to be expected," he mumbles, "you are a bit odd." He swings on the metal a bit. "Bet it's tough like a pureblood like you to relate to them. It's hard to understand it all. This world is so…so..." He leans in to me, whispering conspiratorially so that the granny next to him won't overhear. "Most wizards think that muggles are so simpleminded and innocent and naïve… but they're really complicated. Always somethin' to do. Always in a rush. Some of them are even more judgmental than Barty Crouch. More dangerous than Grindewald. Some are…" but he stops and shakes his head, apparently trying not to be rude.

"Go on," I say.

"I know this is a horrible think to say… but I've really come to believe… James, Muggles-don't-like-magic!" Severus eyes gleam in their Cheshire-cat way. "They just don't like it. They hate the idea of someone waving a stick and lifting a gigantic stone out of the ground. It's like they find it insulting. Especially the older ones- of course they find you odd, James. I mean you're a full-blown wizard and all…"

"Lily's a full-blown witch," I say indignantly.

"Yes… y-yes but…" Severus stutters ashamedly, apparently realizing that he was being prejudiced. "I'm sure she tones it done a bit when she's home."

I know this is a cover-up, but I change the subject all the same. "I get what you're saying, though. Lily's little sister, Petunia… her mum told me that when Lily got her letter and Petunia didn't, Petunia cried for days and days. 'Why can't I be a witch too? Aren't I good enough?' Well... She won't even talk to Lily now. Quite bitter about magic. I suppose being told fairy tales about witches and wizards and fairies and dragons as a child, and then being told that it's all not real, is quite tough to handle."

Severus opens his mouth to reply, but a shrilly female voice rings, "I fink you've hit the nail on the head, dear." The old lady, who had now looked up from her knitting, is staring warmly up at the two of us. "Issnot that bitterness is bred into muggles. It's that damn Statute of Secrecy fing that's had England up in a rage for four-hundred years. You know, in the Second World War ministry of magic people were running around oblivaten everyfin' in sight. I says te them, I says, 'Put out some fires fer crying out loud! We're about to be invaded and yer worried about Amanda Shunpike who was carrying a wand around?'"

"They didn't…" says Severus in shock.

"They did," the old woman says. "It's rubbish. All o' it. You make a lovely couple," And she stalks off of the platform.

Severus and I share a brief glance. Couple? I wonder to myself.

"Dotty, that one," Severus grins.

I grin back.

"Next stop," he says, predicting my question before I even ask it. We talk about the Statute of Secrecy for a few more minutes until we have to stop because there is a large party of muggles coming onto the train. It would seem that Severus continues to find muggles irritable, annoying, untrustworthy, greedy creatures. I wonder aloud why he has such an animosity towards muggles. He shrugs at me.

His black curtain of hair envelopes his face, and for a moment he looks as sad and as sweet as a cat left out in the rain. "Bad experiences, I guess."

He turns from me, his white shirt sticking to his shoulders. Suddenly I feel like I have super powers, powers to make time go slower. He fans his hair and I catch sight of every single feather strand as it rises and falls. The slight trickle of sweat at his temple, it drips all the way down to his chin, and for some reason I have the strange, resolute urge to lick it off… I painfully watch as the seconds turn into hours as that little drop falls. Severus wipes his forehead.

"Hang on," I say to him. "Wasn't your father a muggle?"

He looks at me, eyelids drooping. "Y-yes. I… well. My mom was a great witch. I was born out of wedlock. Then my grandfather- bless him, I don't remember him at all- put his wand to my father's head and told him if he didn't marry his daughter he would turn him into a newt for the rest of his life. They married, but I don't think that they were very happy together. My father insisted that she shouldn't use magic, and that I should be taught 'rubbish like that' until I went to Hogwarts. My mum taught me potions secretly, though. My mom nagged my father horribly…"

"Are they divorced now?" I ask tentatively. "Your parents?"

"No. They're still married. Out of habit, I think." Snape sighs. "My dad doesn't really like magic. My grandparents on his side don't talk to me." The left side of his neck is now deliciously exposed, his smooth Adam's apple quivering. He whispers, "Strange, isn't it? Your parents are far too old and mine were far too young…"

I grasp his shoulder lightly, trying to keep my balance as I did so. "Bet it was tough, as a kid, I mean…"

"No, my dad… he's a good guy. He just… doesn't understand me. He was forced into his situation. I guess that's why I think muggles and wizards shouldn't interfere with each other, as it's not really fair to any of us, and nothing good comes out of it…"

"But…" I sputter. "But your mother and father had you… so there is something good that came out of it."

Snape stares at me suddenly, as if he had never even thought of it that way. Then, his eyes start to glitter strangely. And I realize then that I just gave Snape, in some lame form, a complement. This tiny little boost in esteem changes his features. His slumping shoulders stand straight, as if a giant weight had been lifted. His pupils continue to twinkle in a so-Dumbledorian way. He is no longer screwing up his face in disgust or disdain or worry or pain or loneliness… in fact there's the beginning of a smile on his lips. Oh dear, I worry, I've said something sweet!

Had nobody told him that he was a good lad? No one told him that he was worth it? And, my imagination strays, even (besides the tight-lipped whisperings from his mother as a child) that they loved him? The difference in his face was startling.

He's now more handsome than his bartender-self, more at peace with the world than when he was smoking dope in the rooftops of London. His face shown with silent appreciation and thanks, but apparently I've rendered him speechless.

"It's all right," I mutter, "Don't let it go to your head."

I secretively, tenderly, cautiously, gracefully rest my arm around his shoulders. Thankfully, he doesn't tense up at this gesture. In fact, my arm seems to belong there, like the sweat on his neck. I breath. Slowly, one by one, first my thumb, then my first finger, my hand grasps his shoulder.

There's a bloke a few seats back giving me a very nasty stare.

Severus doesn't push me away, but he grabs my hand in his and pulls it away from his shoulder. My arm is rapped around his neck like a very expensive fur scarf.

This close proximity dies when the subway pulls to a stop.