"It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep." -Benito Mussolini
My edgy, quavering fingers nursed a dull, pulsing ache that beat at my temple like a goddamn drum. The mid-morning light beaming through the stony, gothic windows of Hogwarts shot daggers straight into the back of my skull and the cheap, gas station sunglasses I wore did little to hamper it. My body felt as if I had spent last night driving a dump-truck through a nitroglycerin plant and truth be told I might have been better off if that were the case.
Strangers in the night, exchanging glances.
Wondering in the night, what were the chances?
I still heard Little Barty crooning over an audience so gripped by suspense and anticipation that none dared to even breathe. It was the last thing I took in before Rookwood, in his ever typical fashion, did the cheapest thing possible and hook me before the fight had begun. He may have taken the first shot, but God be damned if I didn't take the last...
I took down the corridor in long, quick strides hoping no one would stop to offer me meaningless words and mindless small-talk. I had nearly reached the threshold of my dungeon office when out from around the corner, like a pair of vermin, I spied Deter Farnsworth, manager of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and Francis Benson, team Seeker, trotting faithfully by his side, making a swift bee-line for me. I froze in panic and immediately drew my keys from my cloak pocket, but it was as if they became an ancient riddle artifact, like a Roman dodecahedron, within my cupped hands. The tiny silver and brass objects lost all meaning as I fumbled and fumbled, looking for the key to my office, but I had become all thumbs.
I could feel their foul mouth breathing pervade my airspace and I knew that all hope was lost.
"Professor Snape! Excuse me, pardon me, Professor Snape!", Deter called out despite the fact he was about an arms' length from me. Years of Quidditch had erased all concept of an 'indoor voice' for him.
"What! What do you want?", I spat at them. My head was pounding too hard to even think of a sarcastic remark.
He began aggressively waving a fist full of rolled papers toward the indifferent heavens, waving and shouting to an absent and uncaring God. "This practice schedule is absolute bollocks, I tell you! McGonagall has Gryffindor completely monopolizing the pitch during prime hours. Why should we have to freeze our balls off in the dark while those clowns get to practice at midday-"
I roughly grabbed the papers from his hand so I wouldn't have to suffer any more of his screeching. I palm slapped them open against the wall and saw that indeed McGonagall had Gryffindor bogarting the pitch harder than a pack of smokes in a Turkish prison. Nonetheless, it was first class of the day, old Dumbles' had stuck a new student in with the third years I taught at this hour, and I had the shrieking nerve-endings of my every throbbing, torn muscle to contend with.
"I'll talk to her sometime this evening, Deter. Get to class"
"But Sir! The Quidditch Semi-finals are next week-"
"DETER!", I snapped so sharply the whining boychild almost physically jumped back. "You're the Slytherin team manager, are you not?"
"Y-yes.", he quavered.
"Then manage!", I growled at him through grit teeth, shoving the papers back his way.
With a thoroughly blanched face, he swallowed hard and bowed his head shakily.
"Yes sir, of course, sir. Come on Francis, we still have all that equipment to check and that new order of uniforms is coming in today."
Francis shot a nervous look to me before he followed his halfwit buddy down the hallway. With a heavy sigh I chugged down the coffee in my hand I had all but forgotten about, chucked the styrofoam cup in the trash, and walked through the dungeon door to another classroom full dunderheads that in a perfect world would have wound up no more than stains on their parents bedsheets. My eyes fell upon acne-pockmarked face over acne-pockmarked face, each one expressing more misery and stress than the last until I turned my attention to the roll-call sheet.
If only they knew I hated this just as much as they do.
…...
The cold plywood surface of a schooldesk began to imprint itself on Severus Snape's face as he rest his cheek upon it within his folded, outstretched arms. On the edge of his hearing, the tobacco scratched voice of a middle aged woman droned on about fancy bread and hearts and heads; the usual useless drivel that the tax payers of Spinner's End pissed their money away on for kids to learn. Above the door, a clock ticked by the last 5 minutes, which always seemed to turn to hours at this time, until dismissal.
Not that there was anything to be excited about, of course, considering after class he would be heading straight to a goddamn prance-about lesson. Another one of his vapid moron mother's bright ideas of 'parenting.' If there was anyone who needed a hobby in their family it was her. At least Dad had a job, Mandarys had pranking and gambling, and Viserus had Quidditch, as imbecilic of a sport as it was (though still leagues ahead of goddamn gymnastics). Mom mostly occupied her time popping Quaaludes, talking on the phone, watching television and pondering the 34 years of wrong life choices she's made.
The sound of the bell was a relief all the same, as he badly needed a change of scenery from white walls and his wrinkle-faced teacher. He slung his backpack over one shoulder and made a beeline for the door. As he took long strides past rows upon rows of lockers and wove his way through students pouring out of their classrooms, Ricardo Gonzales hailed him down.
"Ayyy, Sev!", he greeted, "You wanna come down with me and Tuco to the 7/11? We're gonna 'hey mister' for some smokes."
As tempting as the invitation was, he had to reply "No. I'm...busy."
"Busy doing what?", Ricardo asked, innocently enough.
"Doing...Stuff!", Severus snapped defensively. "What are you, my Dad?", he joked.
"Si solamente! Then I could get between the sheets with that sweet MILF of yours!", He shouted amicably with a toothy grin.
"Why don't you try it? She's probably too high at any given time to notice.", he quipped back.
"Ayyyyy! You're alright Sev man! You're alright!", he waved a pointed finger to the air and took off on his own way.
Without further interruption Severus pushed open the glass front door and stepped out into another pewter-skied Spinner's End afternoon. The air carried an odor upon it that was 5 parts smog, 2 parts car exhaust, 3 parts sewage, 1 part marijuana smoke, and just a smattering of radioactive waste. To Severus, however, it was just the smell of home.
He made his way from Cokeworth County Elementary and hung a left on Cedar street, in the direction of Seniore Jappepi's Gymnastics Studio. A damp chill bit needles into his face and made his finger bones sore while a parade of ramshackle Buicks, Chevy Cavaliers, Fords and all manner of dirt-cheap cars passed him by. On the corner, a man who looked like he'd been using meth since the Eisenhower administration performed a shaky, spastic dance for spare change. He waved to Severus as he passed and he returned the gesture with a curt nod.
He continued down the road, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of the urban decay surrounding him, wondering what his first Gymnastics lesson would entail. How much of a freak could this Jappepi guy be? Instructing kids to tumblesault about all day didn't seem like a job that would attract the loonies (though Spinner's End had no shortage of them.) Either way, how challenging could the first day even be?
He was snapped out of his thoughts when he suddenly heard the sound of glass crashing against the pavement and a young man shrieking. It was coming from an alleyway about half a block in front of him. Curious, he quickly walked over, nearly colliding with Mandarys as she darted out from it.
"YOU BITCH! YOU FAT ASSED CHEATING BITCH! THAT WAS MY ENTIRE LIFE SAVINGS!", a boy was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Severus peered in the narrow opening, 4 pre-teen boys were sitting indian-syle around a game of cards.
"You're 11, Dalton. I think you'll be able to rebuild.", She told him mockingly, holding back a chuckle.
"You're a card counter! A bloody card counter! I know you are, you filthy scamming whore!"
"Speculation is not admissible in court, Dalton. And what do you take me for? The goddamn Rain Man? Next you'll be telling me I can read your mind.", She punctuated the statement with a sudden burst of laughter, though Severus didn't see what was quite so funny.
"I don't give half a shit, Mandarys! You're banned from this game! Do you hear me!? BANNED!", tears were beginning to well in the hysterical boy's eyes while his friends on either side of him looked on in awkward discomfort. "If you ever come back here, you'll be sent home in a bodybag!", he threatened. "You hear me!? A bodybag!"
Mandarys merely rolled her eyes. "Oy vey, Dalton, you're a loser at games and a loser at life. You already dress the part of a broke-ass chump, now you can play the part as well. Seriously, your shirt looks like a dishrag."
"GET OUT OF HERE!", he screeched so loud his voice was cracking. "JUST GET OUT OF HERE AND DON'T COME BACK!", In his rage he picked up another empty bottle and hurled it in Mandarys' direction, though it missed its mark and shattered in the street.
Mandarys flashed a malicious grin at him. "It's no sweat off my back! I've been kicked out of better places than this!"
"Alright, that's enough.", Severus seized his sister by the hand and dragged her away before they decided to full on jump her. She resisted at first, then after whatever Mandarys' version of better judgment was took over, she followed willingly.
Severus released her hand when they were a safe enough distance away from the boy who was now having a full blown, sobbing, screaming meltdown. "You really never know when to quit, do you?", he chided.
"Now who would I be if I was a quitter, dear brother?", she responded coolly.
"You'd be out of trouble, for one thing. You can't just go around pissing off everyone and have it not come back to you."
"You know, the pot called. It told me to tell you you're about as black as the shit they dump in the river.", She told him with a chuckle. No matter what he tried to tell her, she always had a comeback.
"Hold the phone now, I am nowhere near the same as you. For starters, I'm-"
"A boy.", She interrupted. "That would explain your ever so narrow worldview."
It would probably behoove him more to talk to the time and weather-worn brick and stone around him than try to actually get through to his sister, so he decided to change the subject. "So did you even bother showing up to school today?"
She smiled. "Education is certainly a noble pursuit, sweet Sev, but I find it to be so...unprofitable.", as she spoke the words she flashed the wadded-up bills in her hand and tucked them into her training bra.
He sighed. "So, out of curiosity, were you actually cheating?", he asked her, though he didn't see how it was possible. Mandarys couldn't even read, let alone count cards.
She dropped her eyes from his and looked straight ahead, as if searching for an answer. After a moment she turned back to him and smirked. "If you have to ask, you'll never know. Enjoy your dancing lesson, I'm off." With a wave and a grin she took off down the street as fast as her short, chubby legs could carry her, off to find some more trouble. Severus spent the rest of his commute to Seniore Jappepi's pondering what those words meant, but came up with nothing.
When he reached the entryway to the gymnastics studio he found it to be smaller than he expected. Before him was a simple, dark doorway tucked into a small strip of mostly abandoned shops on an out-of-the-way side street. In fact, the more he looked at the place the more things he noticed that were just...off. There were no trophies or medals or even photos on display as any place of this nature was bound to have, not even a photo of the owner himself. All there was to designate what the place was was a simple, plain-faced type sign above the door that read 'gymnastics.' From what he could see through the small windows was that there was little to no light inside, the place was dark as sin. For a brief moment his heart leaped in hope that the place was closed or had gone out of business, but when he tried the door, it was open.
He slowly stepped over the threshold into the darkness of the studio, which he discovered was only lit with a few candles spread about. From what he could make out, the floor was completely carpeted in plush mats of black and white that were arranged in a checkerboard pattern. There was equipment such as balance beams, bars, and rings, things you would typically find in any run of the mill gymnastics place, except for the fact that it was all but pitch black in here and appeared to be uninhabited.
"Hello!", he called out. "My name is Severus Snape. I'm here for my lesson. Is there anyone here?"
He was startled as about 8 feet in front of him, the shadows came to life.
What appeared to be moving darkness itself was, in fact, a man. He stood about 6-foot-2 and was wearing a long, flowing, black cloak that almost gave him the appearance of an overgrown bat. When he stepped into the candlelight Severus could see that he was in his mid to late 50s with well groomed yet rough features. He wore what was left of his dark brown hair slicked back, out of his olive-skinned face. His mouth was framed above by a pencil-thin mustache that was waxed to stand upward and curled, and below by a long, narrow beard. For a moment, Severus simply stood there in uncomfortable silence as the cloaked stranger eyed him up and down, sizing him up.
"Ah, yes.", he finally spoke. "You are the rude boy. Your mother told me.", He spoke in curt sentences that absolutely dripped Italian accent. "I am Seniore Giovanni Jappepi, and in this room..", he gestured an open-palmed hand to the space around him, "You will call me 'sir'.", he laid a threatening stress on the word 'sir' as he stroked his thin beard.
He was beginning to see why this place was so infrequently visited. "Um, yeah, listen Jappepi, here's the deal: I appreciate your business here and all, but, this is more of a mandatory thing for me, not so much a voluntary thing. I don't want to be here, and I'm sure you'd like to get back to...whatever it is you do. So, why don't you do us both a favor and call up my mother and tell her I was here, we did the whole tumbler thing, and then we both go our separate ways?"
He tried to put on his best negotiator face and flashed Seniore Jappepi a smile, but it was not returned. The tall man stared him down for another moment and then curiously folded his hand, leaving only his middle and index fingers protruding outward.
Severus felt it long before he saw it.
Seniore Jappepi, not jumped, but more so lifted off the ground and flew high into the air, doing an elegant combination of a corkscrew twist and flip, and when he came back down to earth Severus was on the ground, not breathing. Seniore Jappepi had jabbed his throat so hard with his fingers that at first Severus swore it was a bullet, yet he did not hear a gun. The blow crushed his windpipe inward and he struggled prone on his stomach for air on the cold floor.
Without so much as the sound of a footstep, the man was on him again, pinning him down on the mat with his knee. Just when a harrowing trickle of air began to seep into Severus' lungs, he seized a handful of his hair and brutally yanked his head upward, the position causing his throat to constrict again. The more frantically he struggled, the more pressure Seniore Jappepi would inflict on his back, but what else could he do? He was clearly at the mercy of a lunatic and thought for sure that this cold, dark chamber was going to become his grave if he didn't do something. Through his panic and agony he could hear Seniore Jappepi begin to speak.
"A rude boy presumes to tell a grown man what to do.", he stated as calmly as one would at a tea party. "This will not stand here. Also, I told you that you are to call me 'sir'."
Sir...It was the last word that echoed through Severus' mind as the candlelight blurred and dimmed and the darkness overcame him.
…...
Eileen Prince lay prone on the threadbare living room sofa nursing a headache and wishing her damn quaalude would kick in. The late afternoon sun beamed rays of light through the shaded windows, highlighting the unsightly layer of dust that coated almost everything. She intended to get at least some housework done before Tobias came home, but for now she way enjoying some Eileen-time to recollect her sanity. Each channel she flipped through on the television showed mindless program after mindless program. Nothing but dumb game shows, vapid soap operas, infomercials, and movies shot on shit-eo. No-substance Muggle nonsense, all of it. She wondered why they even had cable at all.
With a sigh, she turned to channel 4 and a half, in hopes that she could catch a bit of World Wide Wizard News. When the picture tuned in, a bright red BREAKING NEWS banner scrolling across the top of the screen instantly caught her attention. The live feed showed an RV on what looked like an African plain that had been absolutely ravaged by some kind of wild animals. The windows were shattered, deep gashes had been carved into its metal body by what looked like terribly huge claws, and from what she could see of the inside of it, dark crimson smears all but covered the floor.
The feed flashed back to the studio where a blonde anchorwoman turned to the camera with a solemn expression.
"For those just tuning in, today is a sobering day for the Wizarding World as tragedy has struck on the Serengeti. Renowned and beloved wildlife journalists Alexander and Rosella Dolohov were found dead in their trailer this morning by local authorities. The couple were in the process of filming a documentary on predators of the African plains. The whereabouts of their young child that was traveling with them is still unknown. We have correspondent Maxwell Madison reporting live on the scene. Back to you Madison."
The picture flashed back to a young, handsome reporter standing outside the absolutely savaged RV. "Thank you, Melanie. Well, as you can see behind me, it is an absolutely gruesome sight over here. Kenyan Conservationists have speculated that it may have been a gorilla troop that came upon the young family while they slept that are behind the vicious attack that took the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Dolohov. The only glimmer of hope that we can glean from this utter disaster is that their young son, Antonin Dolohov, is not amongst the dead, as there was no body found on the scene. We have Ministry of Magic authorities grid searching everything in a hundred-mile radius, but as of yet Antonin Dolohov remains miss-"
She was startled out of her trance by the phone ringing. Muting the television, she reached over to the coffee table and picked it up.
"Hello?", she breathed into the phone, finding her head in a pleasant state of swiminess from the pills.
She was met with a much more urgent tone. "H-Hello, Eileen?"
"Yes..."
"It's Alexis. I-I need to tell you something.", A voice on the edge of weeping quavered.
"Why sure, Alexis. We haven't spoken in a dog's age. What is it? You sound terrible..."
"Eileen, something terrible has happened.", She all but whispered. She could hear a man sobbing in the background.
"I know, I saw it on the news, it's awful."
"No, not that...", she trailed off.
"Then what?"
"It's our daughter.", Alexis could not hold back her tears any longer. "She's been...She's been..."
…...
Now look at them yo-yos, that's the way you do it.
You play the guitar on the MTV.
The streetlamps and the vague, dull light of the moon through the layers of smog that blanketed Spinner's End were shining by the time Mandarys decided to head home. She counted her money as she walked, the grand total coming to 53 pounds.
T hat ain't workin', that's the way you do it.
Money for nothing and your chicks for free.
It would have been 80 if the dice game at the Pemberly boys hadn't gone so sour, She lamented. Had she just quit while she was ahead she would have had nearly double in her pocket right now. You really never know when to quit, do you?, Her brother's voice echoed in her mind, to her annoyance. Besides, games of pure chance were not her thing. However, it was the only game the Pemberly boys would welcome her to.
Now that ain't workin', that's the way you do it.
Let me tell you, them guys ain't dumb.
Dalton's poker crew was the last crew in all of Cokeworth that she wasn't banned from and now she didn't know where to go. If she was going to continue running her game, she would have to find new players, make it more believable...lose more. But, if there was one thing Mandarys Snape could not abide, it was losing.
Maybe get a blister on your little finger,
Maybe get a blister on your thumb.
She pulled the front of her overcoat over her nose and mouth as the air grew more bitter with the evening, and took a moment to collect her thoughts. Even if she did find a new crew, muggle brats around here were chumps and never had too much cash to play with in the first place. On her best day she only raked in about 150. No matter what, it would still only amount to pocket money, and she wanted so much more than that.
We gotta install microwave ovens,
Custom kitchen deliveries.
We gotta move these refrigerators,
We gotta move these color TV's.
A new angle was needed. A different idea entirely. A way to change the game. It was then that her thoughts shifted back to the 'Sins of the Puppet Master.' The words in its pages had been tugging at her mind all day. Severus had been right, it was all bullshit conspiratorial pseudoscience.
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it,
You play the guitar on the MTV.
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it.
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free.
Money for nothin' and chicks for free.
Yet those words had stuck with her like nothing else. Why? What was it? It made her feel emotions she could not quite put her finger on. There was something to the Puppet Master, and the more she thought about it, the more she discovered that there might just be a way for it to be...used. But how? She would just have to wait for Severus to read her more of the book.
Easy easy money.
I want my, I want my, I want my MTV.
Money for nothing.
Humming along to the music blaring from her headphones, she took the porch steps two at a time. On the thick, intricate spiderwebs that surrounded the porch light, a brown recluse spider devoured a moth. When she stepped inside her senses were pleasantly assaulted by the salty fragrance of beef stew. After removing her jacket, headphones, and boots she made her way to the kitchen. To her surprise however, she only found Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumbshit at the dinner table. Mom was cackling like a hen over the phone and Severus was nowhere to be found.
"And where were you?", her father inquired over mouthfuls of meat.
"Up your ass and around the corner.", she told him causally, taking a generous helping of stew for herself.
Dad pounded the table with his fist. "I swear to Christ, girl, I will end you..." He growled at her over a trembling, pointed finger.
"Don't you two even start! Can't you see I'm on the phone!", Mom hollered from the living room.
Dad lowered his eyes and Mandarys savagely dug into the stew.
"So", Viserus spoke up, "Dinner seems to be unusually less brooding and creepy tonight. Where's Severus?"
Dad shrugged. "Dunno, he was s'pose to be home hours ago."
"I guess gymnastics proved to be too much for him.", Viserus said with all the 5th grade swagger he could muster, chuckling at his own joke.
"You know, I'm sure Freud would have a lot to say about a dude who rides a pole around all day catching balls.", Mandarys raised an eyebrow at him.
"Of course you'd snub Quidditch. I'll bet if you even tried riding a broom your fat ass would snap it right in half."
"And I'll bet you enjoy riding around on that thing so much because it compensates for everything you don't have.", She smiled at him mockingly.
Before Viserus could reply with a half-assed comeback, Mom swiftly strode into the room, sitting down and opting for a cigarette instead of a meal.
"Alright everyone, I have some good news and some bad news.", she took a deep drag on her cigarette and brushed her fingers through her hair. "The good news is, I've finally managed to find people to rent the apartment upstairs to." Tobias tilted an eyebrow in her direction. "The bad news is, the Scanlon's-Toby you remember them don't you? I was in Slytherin house with them."
"Mmm.", he grunted.
"Well I just got off the phone with Alexis. Their daughter, Rita was murdered."
Dad raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Well, that's heavy."
…...
The air came to him as a teasing harrow at first as he remembered how to breathe. For a white-hot nerve frying moment he thought he had gone blind, until he spied the living shadow cloaking himself in the very darkness of this old, half-condemned strip mall.
"Hmm.", Seniore Jappepi remarked casually, examining his gloved hands. "You're a strong boy. Most would be out for a good 20 minutes or so after a blow like that, yet you awaken in 10. A rude boy, to be sure, but a strong one..." He trailed off, his assailant appraising him like a horse he was about to mate with his mare.
5 breaths in and Severus found the strength to stand through rage alone. "YOU!? What the Christ is wrong with you! I come here to learn gymnastics and you bloody wail on me like a rabid dog!"
"I believe it was you who was behaving like a rabid dog. Flailing about your arms in random directions, practically stumbling over your own big feet, leaving yourself wide open in about twelve different places...you move like a crippled ox." he droned on.
"You'll be the cripple when the cops come in here and I tell them that you beat on a kid, you wop psychopath!", Severus shouted in the most commanding voice he could muster up through his sore, throbbing throat. "I'm not letting you get away with this!" His eyes scrambled the room to try and catch a glimpse of anything resembling a phone. He froze in place like a fox as he spied a hair-sliver of light coming from a toll-booth sized room that must have served Jappepi as some kind of office. He closed the distance between himself and the door so quickly he couldn't have told you in a thousand years how he did it, his body simply did all the thinking. He tore the door open with such animalistic force the hinges nearly broke off, flooding the entire run-down gymnastics studio with fluorescent light. He lunged for the old, red rotary phone he spied sitting on the small desk area, wrapping his entire body around it as he rolled onto the desk.
When he regained sense of which way was up he grasped for the dial, fumbling at first as no one in the goddamned civilized world had these bricks of junk anymore. His eyes glanced defensively upward at Jappepi who was just...simply standing there, his tall, perfectly still, dark frame cutting through the light of the office as a stone cut through the sea. It was then Severus realized just how old the man was. His olive-skinned face was marred in several places by savage-looking scars. Between the scars, his frown lines cut deep, while his beard, mustache and hair were all dusted with gray. Shrouded in the darkness of his studio he could pass for 50, but the light revealed him to be well into his 60s.
The tall, Italian man simply stood in the light of the doorway unphased though, and it was pissing him off. He had the upper-hand here. He'd call the cops and tell them some foreign and probably undocumented creep was beating on a kid and INS would haul him away screaming. He looked at him again before he did anything else, though, his dark, scarred features still cool as a cucumber. Was this so daily routine with this strange man? His carnal need to show him that he had given the business to the wrong kid today took precedent over his need to breathe. "You've really gone and done it now, you Guinea! Once I make this phone call they'll take you away!" He shouted authoritatively to Jappepi.
Without missing a beat, Seniore Jappepi chimed in "Do you always have other people handle your problems for you, rude boy?"
This man knew how to push Sev's buttons as easy as if he were wearing them on his sleeves in flashing neon lights. Severus had actually frozen with rage, staying glued to his spot, eyes wide, like a cornered black cat. Upon seeing his smug visage lurking in the doorway, Severus hurled the old-style rotary phone receiver straight at Japeppi's grinning face. The old man deftly cut through the air with the ease of a fish darting through the sea. He moved not only with the grace and lightness of shadow but the haste and accuracy of fluid.
Within the span of a breath he closed the distance between him and Severus, fully exposed in the fluorescent white light of the small office yet so quick he remained to be intangible. He circled Severus like the vulture his long, black cloak made him out to be. "So, that's all you have then, rude boy?" he softly inquired. "Flailing around like a little girl with a wasp under her dress and throwing the phone at me with all the deadly force of Jeremy Guthrie? Mama-mia, it's no wonder your mother thought you to ill-fit for Quidditch.", he spoke lazily as he pulled a pack of Marlboros from the pocket of his cloak. Severus was so berserk with fury that for a moment the sentence did not register with him.
"What? What did you say?", Sev asked him, half heaving, half hissing. He found himself wiping his own spit from his mouth. He always had an unfortunate habit of spitting when he became unhinged. A trait that reminded him uncomfortably of his father.
"I said you throw like more of a bitch than the Royals.", Jappepi drawled casually over his cupped hands as he lit a cigarette.
"No. After that."
"That I suggested to your mother that she aught to opt to enroll you in some kind of Quidditch program instead, but she didn't think you were fit for it.", he smiled sadistically.
For once, Severus let the insult roll off of him. "You're a-"
"A Wizard?" Japeppi interjected. "What? You think you're the only Magic User in Spinner's End?"
Severus simply stood with his back to a filing cabinet, mouth open, head reeling.
"That's the second biggest problem with you, rude boy. You perceive yourself to be so high above everyone else. You walk through life on a high wire act, blindfolded...oblivious to just how easy you can be tripped up." With a move so smooth it was scarcely human he pulled a long, wooden stick from his cloak sleeve and clean swept it through Severus' ankles, sending him crashing to the floor, an ungraceful bundle of spider-like limbs flailing everywhere.
"The first problem of course, being how tragically uncoordinated you are.", Jappepi stood over him, appraising him like a Thrall being purchased over the black market.
Severus put out before him two hands that shook with rage. He laid them upon the ratty, brownish-green office carpet to steady himself and flew to his feet, tearing up bits of 70s carpet in his fingers as he did so. He turned to face Jappepi and looked him in his infuriatingly nonplussed eyes.
"What's your deal, old man?", Severus growled through panting breaths.
Jappepi smirked. "I bear you no ill will, truly. To me, you are nothing more than another worthless Spinner's End brat who has shown up to waste my time and patience. I doubt I'll even remember your face five minutes after you walk out my door for I have seen so many unremarkable, slack-jawed, limp-wristed, youth come in here. I will tell you this, though...after you leave here and cry to your mother or the police or whoever else you need to protect you because of your inability to do so yourself...I win. It's amusing, the way life works out. I will never think of you again the moment you leave here, but you will think of me. I know you will. A boy like you could never forget the face of a man who beat you."
Severus felt his blood turn to cold steel in his veins with incensed frustration. He knew it was true.
"There is another option here though.", he continued. "One that I think might ease your anger a bit. You can come back here tomorrow, and I can teach you how to use your body as a tool, as a weapon. I can teach you how to protect yourself as a man, and not some boy who needs to run to his mommy or the police like a frightened child. For a man who cannot even put up a half-decent fight, let alone protect himself and what he stands for is no man at all."
They simply looked each other in the eyes a moment, the young, round, onyx to the aged and hardened dark brown, until Severus drew in a deep breath and spoke.
"How is it that you know how to fight like that? You're...not like other people around here."
"Neither are you, rude boy."
"What do you mean?"
"You remind me of a man that I once knew. I see his face whenever I look at you.", He remarked with a tone of bemused, almost wistful nostalgia.
"Who?"
"It would only be wasted words if I never saw you again. The man I once knew would never turn down a fight, nor the opportunity to learn something knew.", he stated plainly.
"Then...", Severus knew he had been defeated once again, first physically and now psychologically, but still, this strange man, this style of fighting that he had never seen before, this man who he was reminded of, he knew he had stumbled upon a rabbit hole, and he longed to see how deep it went. I was decided. "Then I'll come back here tomorrow then."
Jappepi smiled slyly. "I knew you weren't just another piece of Spinner's End trash, Severus Prince."
Severus misheard the last part of his sentence. "What was that?"
"Nothing. Now go, it's late and I should be closed by now."
With that, Severus gathered his things and headed for the door. "I'll see you at 4 tomorrow then...sir." He grimaced, as if the word had physically left a bad aftertaste in his mouth, and then headed into the dark, damp chill of the evening, closing the door behind him.
…...
As Giovanni Jappepi set the magical locks upon the door to his studio, the only damn things that managed to keep the crack addicts from looting the place, he found himself doing something he never did: Thinking about one of his students after they left. For returning students were so far and few between that all their faces seemed to have melded into one in his mind. Yet the tall, skinny, onyx-eyed, loud-mouthed boy seemed to already be etched inside his memory, and he would not leave.
Is this whelp of some relation to you, old friend? He thought to himself. And how in Merlin's name did he get washed up into cesspool like this? His mind was spinning with questions that he would have to leave to his own imagination, for circumstances had taken him out of contact with that old friend of his so many years ago. But it was as if I saw you stand before me writ small tonight...
As he looked up to greet the sky he witnessed another seeming miracle. The stars were out tonight. It was ever a rare night that the dank cloud of toxic pollution hanging perpetually over the town parted to reveal the stars above. Yet there they were, lighting up a sky of crystal clear obsidian. When he walked the starlit path leading to his apartment a voice in the back of his head, one that he only listened to when he was feeling at his utmost superstitious would not shut up, repeating the same message to him over and over: Something's starting. Something's starting. Something's starting. What it was, he did not know, but while he reflected over the events of this strange night, a feeling in his gut told him it was something big.