A/N: Next chapter I'm upping the rating to M for good measure. Just so you know.
Hey there, how are you? Thank you for waiting so patiently for this chapter (I made it a little extra long just for you!). Finals got in the way of everything, and this chapter gave me problems- I hope that doesn't show… Tell me your thoughts in a review. You can send me flames, or tell me how angry you are at me for not updating, or just tell me what is your favorite ice cream. I love reviews. Seriously. There is a dance involved, the squee-I've-got-a-review dance. Thank you to all the lovely reviewers that make me dance. Props to Pikaf, Erica, Pervert Bitch, My site, Original Monkey Girl and all the other super-cool reviewers not mentioned. You are all certifiably awesome.
Chapter Nine: Scarlet Bugler
Severus woke up with the word Coward ringing in his ears again and tears on his pillow. He rubbed his still leaking eyes. It hadn't been since he was a child that he cried in his sleep. He didn't even know why he had been crying…
He padded to the bathroom barefoot, mulling over the dream. It was the same as the last dream, only this time he had been overcome with emotion for some reason. Suddenly his heart ached and spilled into his sleeping eyes. All of his worries overwhelmed him, if his mother was ok, if his father would stop drinking, if Lily loved him, if James…
…James… He sighed into his toothbrush, wondering if he was all right. Why on earth would someone so popular and so loved want to kill himself? Lily doesn't love me, Life is stupid right now… For some unknown reason Severus felt a stab of guilt when he thought about him. He touched his previously-kissed lips and stared at himself in the mirror. Did Lily really love James and she was just toying around with Severus? Or did she really love Severus and she was just playing James for a fool? Why did it make Severus somehow guilty if it was the latter? Feelings throbbed around the boy. The memory of his warm calloused hand in his own only added to the confusion. Love, hate, admiration, respect, disgust, loathing… everything… his stomach churned whenever he thought about him.
Nothing had really changed… ever since they had first met.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
He remembered himself as a little boy, with puggy lips and a rare smile. He stood in front of the class, too tall for his age, feet larger than normal. Short lanky hair hung in his face, the rest in a feminine ponytail. Boys and girls giggled at his graying, smelly clothes. He wanted to run and hide behind his mother's leg, but his mother wasn't there now. His eyes watered with the knowledge that his mother had left him with these strange new "playmates" and his five-year-old self almost began to cry. Until, "Hello, My name is James Potter. What's yours?" said another little boy who but ran to him and protruded a stubby hand.
"Se'vrus Snape," mumbled Severus to his feet.
"Whatsat?" said the little boy with glasses.
Severus blushed, stuttering in front of the smart-looking boy, "Severus Snape."
"Really?" James asked enthusiastically. "That's a funny name. I like it though." He grabbed his arm and ran with him into the playground, blabbering to him all the while. "Can I call you Sev'rus? My mom tells me to call people by their last names, but I like calling them by their first names. She says it makes me sound like a Merican. Your hand is real skinny. Will you call me James?" he said at top speed.
"Kay," he whispered.
"I like you!" He smiled, his glasses slipped down his nose and he scooped them up the brim. "Severus! Will you be my friend? Let's play Kings and Robbers!" He brought him to the edge of the playground and picked up two sticks. "Or maybe Robin and Sheriff of Notinghum…"
Severus smiled, hardly believing his luck that he had found a playmate so quickly. Grabbing his stick he said, "How about Pirates and Sailors?"
"Yeah!" gasped James. "Yeah! I'll be the king's navy! And you be the bad pirate!"
"Arrh!" said Severus, collapsing into giggles.
They stole costumes from the teacher's special stash (by which Severus skillfully coveted a hat, an eyepatch, and a soldiers tunic to Jame's admiration). Though they should have been inside, taking naptime and listening to Teacher-lady read stories, they tussled outside, frolicking across the grass with their wooden sticks, whacking each other and scrapping their knees. They fenced back and forth until until their green little sea became dark.
Until that point, Severus Snape had not felt so alive.
When he was too tired he fell to the ground with a thud, his hat lost in the lawn somewhere. James fell on top of him and they wrestled for a half an hour or so… breath heaving, James pinned him to the ground. T'was then that Severus received a very chaste, a very small… kiss on the lips. "I like you a lot, Sev'rus," said James again.
"I like you too," said he. His friend leaned in close; he could feel the soft hair on his forehead. "What shall we play tomorrow?"
"I dunno… will you be my friend again?"
"Of course!"
"Everyday?"
Severus smiled up into his big brown eyes, "Yes."
And he truly wanted to. A whole day is a very long time for a five-year-old, and Severus wanted to be James' friend forever. And ever.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
An older Severus dressed in his school robes and gathered his books. He was fixing his green tie below his chin when he realized something important.
Today was Saturday.
He hissed a sigh slowly through his teeth in the mirror. It was way too early on a Saturday to be up already. He would have to find something worthwhile to do for the entire day. This only reminded him that he had no friends to hang around with. In the back of his mind he was thinking about James. If he was Lily-hunting or still ill. He was probably sleeping still… he could just wander in… and ask Madam Pomphrey if he was ok. Even though he was James Potter, the asshole-jerk-popular-puppet-jock Potter, he didn't want him to be sick. In the back of his mind, behind the bitterness of a fist against his mouth, in between the cobwebs of neglect and the guilt of hatred, he could almost find it in him to help him if he could.
After all, he knew what it felt like to be forgotten.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
The second day at preschool they played knights and peasants. Severus was the peasant. Only James was allowed to have a sword.
"I need you to make a moote, peasant," said James, sporting a cardboard box that served as armor.
"What's a moote?"
"You know… a hole… thingy… a ditch! A ditch around the castle," he pointed at the swing set and Severus supposed this was their castle.
"I don't wanna," sniffed Severus. "Daddy will yell at me if I get too dirty."
"DO IT!" He ordered, poking him with his sword/stick.
"Nooooo…"
"Doooooooo…it!"
"I don't want to, James."
"That's Sir James to you, peasant, I am a knight after all." He stuck out his cardboard chest.
Severus frowned into the dirt. This day was ending up to be a lot less fun than yesterday. James had been ordering him around all morning. Not to mention he was tired because his daddy had been mean all night. "I don't want to play, anymore." He started back toward the schoolhouse they had "stuck out" of (really the teacher had had her eye on them the whole time).
"Don't be a party pooper! Hey wait!" James grabbed his arm tight and fast.
Young Snape sent out a wail of pain, arching his back. The screech echoed across the schoolyard. James' eyes widened in fright, but he didn't let go of the arm, which made Severus only wail louder. "Let go!" he yelled. Finally realizing himself, James obeyed.
Severus ran his small fingers up and down the side of his arm, glaring at him like an old cat that had its tail pulled by some drooling baby. "Why didn't you let go?" But the other boy didn't even acknowledge the question. He lifted the taller boy's shirt to find a bouquet of black and blue flowers against his skin. Small bruises that dotted his side like little pinpricks of ink… huge bruises that revealed spiderweb capillaries if you looked closely… medium sized, but deep, bruises that were the most distasteful purple. There was one just before his shoulder where the skin had turned almost black. James placed his cold hand on the taller boy's chest. "What are you doing? Stop it!" whined Severus. James shushed him. He spread his fingers and hummed a tune his mother sang to him, a church melody that she sang whenever he was ill.
Severus suddenly felt warmth that contrasted from the coolness of James' fingers. A spiny tingling sensation, like blood was suddenly moving where it should and muscles were rearranging. His heart pounded softly.
When the hand pulled away, the bruises were gone. "Y-you…" Severus stuttered. "You c-can do magic things too?"
James smiled.
"Are you a fairy?"
James laughed; it rang and sang, sending Severus into shivers.
Severus swallowed, deciding he should explain. "My dad calls me a fairy when I do magic things. Are you a fairy too?"
James' smile was wide and tender. "No," he wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes, "You're not a fairy. You're a wizard. I'm a wizard too. My dad's a wizard and my mom's a witch."
He probably should have been more surprised than he was, but that's how the world works when you're five. He nodded feverishly, making the connections in his mind. "My daddy sometimes calls Mommy a witch, but I thought that was just cause he's mean… and… and… and… I though wizards were supposed to have long beards!"
"No… just Dumbledore," said James.
"Whose Dumbledore?"
But then Teacher-Lady was running toward them, huffing softly from the exertion. The hair in a bun was now askew, "Are you alright? I heard one of you cry out! Severus, was it you?"
"I fell down, but I'm better now," he said. He pointed towards his friend. "James is a wizard," he explained.
James nervously began to open his mouth to tell Snape that that was supposed to be a secret when Teacher-Lady gave a wide grin. "Oooh," she said raising her eyebrows to encourage their make-believe. "Is that so?" she smiled.
"Yeah, and I'm one too."
She laughed. "Well, what's a wizard without his wand?" she asked, and she pulled out of one of her many pockets a plastic stick with a star at the end.
On her turned back, Severus whispered to James, starring at the glitter on the star, "Fairy wand." And he threw it over his shoulder.
James then asked him what sort of magic Severus did. And he explained, with a plethora of "and"s and "um"'s, that sometimes when he was dreading to pick up a broken plate that his father had thrown he would look down to see it completely fixed, without even a scratch. He unraveled a pair of knitted mittens, and felt so bad that he ruined his mother's gift that under his gaze the mittens re-knitted themselves. And if he wished for the rats to go away he sometimes found them dead outside his room, but that was scary and he didn't like when that happened. "But I never ever… ever thought you could make bruises better!"
"I didn't get all-a-um dun," whispered James. "There's still some on your back. And arms."
Severus unabashedly took off his shirt and threw it in the grass. He felt James' cold fingers pinch his back, and whispered, "If you can make bruises better, why can't Mommy do it if she's a witch?"
When James didn't answer, he just assumed he didn't know. But this train of thought stopped abruptly when he felt a cold pair of lips on his arm. "Stop! Why are you kissing me?" Severus arched away from him again, but James continued to give butterfly kisses to the place he had grabbed so forcefully earlier.
"Sometimes it works better."
Severus shivered, unused to all of this undue attention. James' kisses fluttered over his back, and that warmth filled his bruises until they were gone. He sighed when James healed one of the larger bruises on his side that had been hurting him for a while. The black-haired boy sat next to him when he was finally finished, smiling. "Thanks, James," Severus whispered.
"No problem, Sev'rus. That's what a knights supposed to do for his peasants."
"I don't really want to be a peasant anymore, James."
"Ok, then you can be a damsel-in-stress."
"Alright… what's that mean?"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
James Potter yawned widely, looked at his watch, and rolled over. He stuffed his face into his pillow, blocking those happy streams of sunlight that were dancing through the high windows from his eyes. He whined as loudly and as gracefully as a mule. Why didn't they have blinds in an infirmary? Don't invalids need sleep? He tucked the stiff white sheets around him, now damp with his own sweat.
"You know you can leave now, Potter."
Madam Pomphrey eyed him down from the end of his bed.
"I have a headache."
Her hands were on her hips, her eyes unsympathetic. "You would."
James tried on his best, hungry-puppy-dog/kitten-in-the-rain face.
"Nothing I can do for you, I'm afraid."
Never was as good as Sirius at that, he thought. "What about that muggle stuff? Asayprin. As…pourin. As…"
"Aspirin?"
"Yes, that's it. What about that?"
She shook her head slowly, looking less angry and more earnest. "You've had enough of your own medicine, I'm afraid." He couldn't understand what she meant, and didn't have enough time to dwell on it because she was pulling the sheets from his feet. "Come, Potter, you need to go see Professor Dumbledore, straight away!"
"Hey, I'm sick! Aren't I supposed to sleep my disease away?"
"You'd be better off on your feet!"
Potter moaned and groaned. He moaned when he rolled out of bed. He moaned when he placed his glasses on the brim of his nose. He groaned when he had to bend over to put on his socks.
It was when one sock was still dangling on his big toe, and he was fixing his tie when Severus strolled in, hands in his trouser pockets, sniffing the air. James, after making sure his hair was neatly ruffled in the mirror, glanced at him from across the room, his stomach making a gurgling (but not altogether unpleasant) lurch. He shivered as he remembered his dream about running his fingers through that greasy hair.
Snape eyed him back, stopping as if a gun was fired. Like a cat arching its back, he put on his well-trained glare. His shoulders tightened, his mouth in a grimace. He focused on his adversary. The touchy-feely drunk was gone. Now this was James Potter.
"Snape."
"Potter…"
At a total loss for what to say or do next they just stared each other down, black eyes on brown ones. Severus set his face in a disinterested, uncaring expression. He set his jaw in a frown, and lifted his head haughtily. James glared at him, with an anger that he couldn't fathom or explain.
"You sent me to the hospital wing," He stated. The accusing edge to his voice was merely a bluff.
Snape just lifted his jaw even more. "Yes I did. A succinct and accurate summary of yesterday's activities." He wondered how much James would remember of all of this. With his luck, he probably didn't remember at all. With his luck, Potter's random, general statement was a guess. "Sent might be the wrong word though." Severus couldn't resist the need to play with him. "More like carried. Carried like a damsel in distress."
James' lip took a downward turn. "And why would you want to carry me?"
Emotion passed as briefly as a shadow across Severus' face. Surely Potter was conscious of the fact that he tried to kill himself, right? Was this some sort of trick question? Maybe Potter didn't believe that he was a good person, but he wouldn't let someone die in the middle of Hogwarts. He didn't hate Potter enough to let the man choke on his own vomit. Maybe that's what he meant by the question…
Underneath the layers, Severus saw the real question that was being asked, "Aren't you supposed to hate me?"
And he didn't know how to answer.
"Well, you wouldn't leave me alone, really," said Severus, somewhat truthfully. "Couldn't keep your pukey hands off of me, actually." He grinned.
James' eyebrow rose, "What are you talking about, Snape?" There was an unnatural sort of fear behind his eyes. The fears, anxieties, the anger that was absent yesterday was back now, taking over the calm James that held his hand. Severus could practically feel the homophobia that was electrifying Potter now, sending shockwaves off of him.
Snape tried to keep his cool. "Lets see," he took a tally with his forefinger and the fingers on his left hand, "You called me a pansy. Tried to snog me. Kept on hugging me. And… oh, yes… you accused Lily of being a Lesbian."
Slowly, James' face became more passive. He pointed at him, his eyes becoming wide.
"So, I took you to the infirmary."
James was grinning. "Your hair has changed back."
"Changed… what? Oh… back to black… yes…"
"It was red."
"Yes, you remembered. Good for you," Severus folded his arms.
James' brown eyes sparkled oddly. He chuckled into the back of his hand, and smiled.
"Why are you grinning like an idiot, Potter?"
"Because I just remembered calling you a pansy." James started laughing out loud, hee-hawing like an ass.
"Yes," Snape growled stiffly, "very funny."
A few more "heeheehee"'s and he began to calm down. "Jeez…I… Snape, I think you overreacted by taking me to the infirmary. It wasn't a big deal. I was just sloshed. I just needed to lie down. Now, I'm gonna get into trouble for drinking on the grounds."
"First of all," Snape pointed to his chest angrily. "I don't give a damn whether you get into trouble or not. You can have Filch spank you with a hot iron rod for all I care. That's none of my business." He lifted his chin again. "And second, you weren't just wasted as you most eloquently put it."
"What d'you mean?"
"I…" Severus began. "Well…" he stammered. "M-maybe you should talk to Dumbledore about that."
James growled, "What?" Underneath the layers he was screaming: What's wrong with me? Why did you help me? Am I that ill? "Did I come down with syphilis or something? What's the big deal?"
"You tried to… "Severus folded his arms again. "Look, I really shouldn't be the one to tell you this. Talk to Dumbledore. Talk to Lily. This is…" He ran his fingers through his hair, eyes going astray. "This is none of my business." He turned his back, beginning out of the infirmary.
"Snape…" James called after him.
Severus turned.
"I don't really understand what's going on," James played with his dirty robes. "But I suppose I should thank you."
Snape bit his lip. He then sighed and rolled his eyes, trying to stay like he's always been, trying to recover their old hatred. He wanted to redraw the line drawn in the sand between them, though the waves were constantly pushing them away, "Whatever."
James' gasp of annoyance falls on his ears even as he's passed through the door.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Snape sat. James wrapped his arm around his shoulders. Snape pushed him off. James laid his head on Severus' shoulder. Snape scooted away. James poked him in the stomach. Snape jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. James tried to bite his shoulder.
Snape hit him across the face.
"Ooooow!" yelped young Potter. "Wuhwusdatfor?"
"Stop hugging me," little Severus said, annoyed.
"But I…" he rubbed his long nose, "I… like hugging."
Severus lifted his chin.
James crosses his ankles and stared into the dirt. "Do you not like me anymore?"
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
"Snape!" the older James called. "Snape! Wait!"
Severus tried to run. His steps echoed across the stone halls. But then another pair of footsteps started to increase their tempo, and the hall was filled with cracking leather and stone. An arm from behind grabbed the fat of his left arm. His vision swung in the wind. James Potter's nose was inches away again. His breath heaved onto Severus' face, "What do you mean it's none of your business? What do you mean whatever?" When Snape only stared and the Gryffindor yanked him against the nearest stonewall. "You're hiding something. What do you mean what-fucking-ever, I mean what the fuck?"
"You tried to kill yourself!"
He didn't want to burst it out this way, but James had to keep prying him until he broke like a black balloon. "What?"
"You mixed alcohol with some drug on purpose. You were trying to kill yourself!"
James' face was only confused. The haughty Gryffindor. He must have been thinking: Me? Had to be somebody else. Couldn't have been me. I wouldn't do that. He blinked once or twice to try and remember. But the man was only becoming more focused on Severus' face. That electric rage was back, "Spreading rumors about me, Snape?"
Snape, the name was almost like dirt on his tongue.
"I haven't told anyone but Dumbledore!"
"Suppose it got you house points. Petty little Slytherin. Making up lies…"
"He hasn't given me anything, you bloody arse!" He tried to shake James off of him, but the grip on his arms was firm. "You're an ass."
"Am I supposed to believe that you saved me?" James laughed derisively, as if the idea was ludicrous. "Saving an enemy from an untimely death? Saint Snape?"
"Shut up!" Severus felt a heaviness in his chest. "I hate you! Ignorant jock!"
Snape pushed him off and James pushed back.
"I was just trying to…" Severus whimpered.
"Trying to what? Get me to like you? By fucking spreading lies about me?"
His voice was sounding feeble, his heart was pounding, he felt short of breath, "I'm not lying."
"Well I don't like you. I've never liked you."
"I… I didn't…"
"Gonna cry, Snape?"
The question was asked just as Severus felt he was going to burst into tears.
"Huh, Snivelus? Gonna cry? Wimp?"
"I HATE YOU!"
Snape was blinded with rage, he hit ever part of James he could reach. Never had he attempted so much muggle-style fighting. He kicked his shins, slammed his knuckles into his side, and punched his gut. He clawed into his face. He whispered a prayer of "I hate you"'s under his breath. James deflected his blows with ease, but only flailed when Snape sunk his nails into the flesh of his neck. "I HATE YOU SO MUCH!" he yelled. Wide-eyed, James watched as Snape punched him like a girl, one hand still pinning his neck to the wall. He wanted to destroy James Potter, to rip the heads off of china dolls, to smash stain-glass windows. "Ungrateful SHIT! Ungrateful BASTARD! NEVER AGAIN!" Each word was accompanied with a grunt as he punched James in the gut.
"MR. SNAPE!"
McGonagall's shrill voice reverberated across the hall.
Severus' fist hung lamely in the air. He continued to dig his fingers into James' neck, whose eyeglasses were askew and who looked like someone had killed his favorite cartoon character. He felt embarrassed, now that he slowly was backing away from him, that very little damaged had been done to the jock's lean frame. He had been hoping to break or sprain something, but it looked like the most he caused was a few minor bruises. In fact (he realized this and he was really embarrassed) James had been so shocked that Snape was fighting back that he hadn't even thought to go on the offensive, otherwise he would have obviously won… again.
Potter just wanted to see him snap. That monkey-in-the-cage feeling was back again.
"Mr. Snape! What is the meaning of trying to injure an invalid?"
Severus glanced at the Head of House. Invalid, he thought. If she knew that Potter was in the hospital wing then perhaps she knew why. Maybe she knew that he was the one who saved him! She surveyed him earnestly over her square spectacles.
"I… I…"
"It's alright, Severus. You can go back to your common room now."
"What?!" Potter bellowed. "Professor, he just tried to beat me into the wall!"
She tilted her pointed hat upright and gave him a once-over. She brushed his robes off, and grinned, "No harm done." Severus tried to not take that as a personal insult to his manhood.
"But Professor…"
"Well, maybe next time you shouldn't coax him quite so much, Mr. Potter. After all," She gave Snape a backward wave, as if to shoo him in the other direction, "If you coaxed me as much as you coax him, you would have about five detentions every day. Now, let's get you to the Headmaster."
As Snape looked over his shoulder, he saw James being yanked down the hallway by the arm by Professor McGonagall.
He supposed he wasn't so mad at her anymore.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
Young Severus pressed his hand against the cool car window, marking the ripples of the rain. Pearl-shaped raindrops slid down, and he followed them with his noses, his tears every now-and-then making pearls of their own against the glass. Elaine Snape warned him from the front of the car to stop crying or she'll turn the car around and send him to live with his father.
This only made Severus sob more.
He squished his forehead against the glass. He let out a harsh whine to tell his mother how angry he was at her. His young mind couldn't wrap around the idea that he would never see James again…
At that, she pulled over their Volkswagen into the mud off of the road, and pressed a hand to his knee. "We had to leave. You know why as well as I do. We're just taking a vacation. Do you really not want to see grandma?" Snape snuffed his snot onto his sleeve. "I'm sorry, honey. But this is what we have to do. You understand, don't you?"
Snape said nothing. But he didn't understand at all, and he never would. He never really understood why she made his life hell.