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Chapter Text

In all the legends and stories he had heard, Heaven, Hell or the Afterlife had never been described quite like this to Severus. Certainly, light was supposed to exist in Heaven, in large quantities, and fire in Hell, also in large quantities, but not both at the same time; there was no such thing as being in both Heaven and Hell. Maybe, Severus thought, only vaguely aware that he had a brain that could process thoughts, he was being punished for all the horrible things he had done, whilst also being celebrated for those things that would be called ‘good’. That certainly seemed the sort of thing the universe would throw at him, even after he had been mauled by that snake. How lucky. 

Severus prised his eyes open as well as he could, deciding that he ought to face the afterlife head-on, rather than cower away. He was dead now, what else could hurt him, really? It was, however, absolutely no use to open his eyes; everything was just as bleary as it had been before, and the sounds seemed to merge together until something bounded, like nails on a chalkboard, out of the hubbub. 

“I don’t believe it! I think he’s waking up!” It sounded suspiciously like… Potter. 

This really must be Hell, then. 

“Excuse me!” Potter’s voice, for it was definitely Potter, hollered for someone else, and Severus was aware of a feeling that was akin to a number of elephants pounding over his forehead. He wished he was still asleep. 

“Awake? Are you sure, Mr. Potter?” That was not a voice he knew. 

“Yes, go and look! I was sitting by the bed, and then he started moving, and his eyes opened! He must be awake.”

Severus was vaguely aware of these words for a few seconds before something obstructed his vision of bright light - a blurry human face, peering down onto him like an interested cat. 

“Mr. Snape? Can you hear me?” The lips of the face were moving. Severus thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he ought to nod, or speak his assent, but nothing seemed to be working properly. It took him a great deal of effort to wrench his mouth open, and when he attempted to say the monosyllable, he felt nothing but fire in his throat, and a guttural rasp came out. 

The face receded. “Well, he certainly made some noise. I think he’ll have some trouble speaking at first, since the bite was at his neck. Still, Mr. Potter, you are right. He is awake, which is a very good sign.”

The next obstruction to his vision was just as distorted as the first, only Severus recognised it this time, even with his less-than-satisfactory vision. Round glasses, behind which sat striking green, and messy black hair. This was Potter, and he ought to have expected it. 

“Snape?” That was all the boy could muster, it seemed. Still arrogant, then. Severus had a few choice words that he would have fired back, only he did not fancy stirring up the flames in his throat.

It took a number of glasses of water, and at least an hour, before Severus felt anywhere close to being able to use his voice again, by which point the Healer had managed to prop him into a sitting position. Severus found his entire body to be completely useless in the pursuit of moving or holding itself up very well, and a dull ache had permeated it, starting at his neck, when he had regained more sharp consciousness and good vision. 

It was somewhere around this point that he accepted that he was not in Hell, or Heaven, or any sort of afterlife. This was, it transpired, St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, more specifically a room somewhere in the Creature-Induced Injuries department. It was not a bad room, Severus decided, except that it came with Harry Potter, who sat patiently, yes, patiently on a chair as three separate Healers came into the room to ensure that Severus was actually awake and not just a figment of their, or Potter’s, imagination, and to ask him a grand total of seventeen times if there was anything he needed. Severus would have liked to say, by the time he had received the question for the fifth time, that he would have liked some peace and quiet to come to terms with not being dead, but every time he croaked or rasped, he only got more water. It was not entirely awful, because the water did, if only momentarily, do something about his neck, but Severus would rather have stayed asleep. 

At long last, the Healers left, but unfortunately, Potter did not follow them. Instead, he stayed where he had sat all the while, looking at Severus with something that was a mixture of shock and sheepishness. Severus thought that Potter knew he would rather not be in company, and yet he did not seem to want to leave. 

“Is there a reason that you are here?” Severus asked, half-surprised that his voice worked. It was not as smooth as it had been, but he appreciated the cold and sardonic tone it retained. 

This comment of clear hostility did not cause a waver in Potter. Instead, he grinned. 

“Nobody else would want to visit you, would they?”

This was a perfectly good point. 

“Everyone thinks I’ve gone mad,” Potter went on. “Well, not so much now, but when I first explained about everything you’ve been doing during the war, they thought I was addled. Good thing you gave me those memories, I’ve convinced all the people who matter.”

Severus attempted to arch one of his eyebrows, and found that it would not work. “I think,” he started, his voice still not as strong as he would have liked, “that you need to be a little more specific.”

Potter nodded, still not wiping that insufferable grin from his face. “Right. Well, we won the war. The Order. Voldemort’s dead. It’s been about two months, though, but you’ve been unconscious.” He looked a shade guilty. “That’s probably my fault. Hermione found antivenom in your robes, but I wouldn’t let her do everything she could have done, so you didn’t get proper attention until after the battle was over.” He sighed. “A lot has changed, Snape.”

Severus did not reply, but Potter did not seem to need him to, and continued talking as though a dam had been broken in his mind. 

“Anyway, you’ve been here since the war ended, because you were injured. If you’d woken up right away, I think the Ministry would have sent you to Azkaban, but I gave the Wizengamot Special Commission the right information, and you’ve been cleared. So, no Azkaban, though for a while I wasn’t sure if that was going to matter.” His face fell. “The Healers were sure you were going to die. They’ve been saying, all this time, that even if you were to wake up, you might still be really sick, but… you’re talking, and sitting!"

He did not feel it was necessary to remind the boy that his voice sounded like that of a chainsmoker with a bad case of whooping cough, or that he had been unable to sit himself up, and would likely have to be aided in lying down, too.

Harry seemed to have said everything he could think of in a short amount of time, and he sat awkwardly for a few moments, before he opened his mouth again. “I can answer your questions, if you have any.”

It was not true that Severus had no questions; he had many of them. How had the Dark Lord been killed? How was Potter alive? Had he heeded Dumbledore’s last instructions, or had he not? Who was controlling the Ministry? Obviously, someone who liked Potter a great deal more than Fudge, Scrimgeour or Thicknesse had, since he was able to convince the ministry that Severus should not be thrown into prison. What had become of everyone? Potter was alive, but who else was? More importantly, who wasn’t ? His survival may be going on miraculous, but Severus was sure that that May night had hardly been one of miracles for all. The problem with all these questions was, quite simply, that Severus had no idea how to ask them. It would be distasteful, even for Severus, to ask who was dead in a brash way, and he also felt it was a touch insensitive to ask Potter why he was not dead either.

“I did listen to what your memories said,” Potter informed Severus, after a pause. “I went and found Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, and he did try to kill me, I didn’t resist or anything, but I didn’t die. I was a Horcrux, you knew that, right? He killed the bit of his soul that was inside me, and I survived, only I pretended to be dead, and then I was able to sort of duel him again, and I won.”

Severus tried, rather fruitlessly, to search through the mess of memories and thoughts crowding his brain, sure that one of them was trying to poke its way through to him. Something he had worked out on his own, not an instruction of Dumbledore’s, what was it? He tried occluding, so he could begin to look through methodically, but it did not work. 

“The…” Severus fought to find the word. “The wand…”

“The Elder Wand?” Potter asked, stiffening slightly. Severus attempted, and failed, to nod. The Elder Wand, that was it. He couldn’t entirely recall what it was for, but it had been relevant in some way, he was sure. 

“Dumbledore did intend for you to be the master of it,” said Potter. “He told me, I’m not sure if he told you. But it didn’t work out that way. Malfoy- Draco Malfoy, disarmed Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower before you got there. He mastered it before you, and then I took Draco’s wand in April, and mastered it. Voldemort had the Elder Wand, but he wasn’t the master.”

So, it had been luck . Severus did not say this, mostly because he could barely talk, but still, he thought that. It had been entirely by chance, which sounded just like Potter. Remarkably lucky, with some nerve and a bit of skill, but careful balancing acts and coincidences had killed the Dark Lord. Still, Severus thought that Potter would not call the Dark Lord ‘dead’ unless he was gone for good, and so it was a little bit relieving. Not everything had been in vain, then, both his bad and good. All had been resolved, and maybe he had played a part in it. Maybe. 

The next days were filled more with Healers and potions than anything else. After the haze of his long sleep had faded completely from him, Severus had found that his pain was really rather bad, and he had required Pain-Relieving Potion, along with several others for muscle atrophy and nerve damage. The Healers did not describe everything that they were doing to him, but Severus recognised everything that he was being offered, or rather, force-fed, due to his own experience. As far as he understood, the Healers did not want to give him too much Pain Reliever, because it tended to induce drowsiness or numbness, and they really wanted to make his limbs move again. 

Because it was his limbs that were the issue. As a Healer with a kindly face whose name Severus did not yet remember had told him, the snake’s venom had remained in his body for a number of hours before there had been any treatment, and had spread through his bloodstream very quickly, owing to the site of the bite. That, as well as him being unconscious for two months meant that his legs and arms had been inflicted by nerve damage, as well as the natural weakening that came with lack of use, and who knew what else, since Nagini’s venom was unique, and there was no other patient in the records with this level of contamination who had survived. Arthur Weasley, Severus knew and had been told, had been bitten by Nagini, but he had been given treatment within minutes and had been fully recovered in weeks. 

“You’ll get better, don’t worry,” Potter said, a week after Severus had first woken up. To his great annoyance, the teenager had taken it upon himself to visit Severus often, though he could not see why: Severus had always hated the boy, and the feeling had seemed mutual. 

“The Healers reckon if you start trying to move about a bit, you’ll regain muscle mass, and it’s only up from there.”

Severus knew that Potter was being very optimistic. He had tried to move again, and he was regaining the use of his arms slowly, but that was not the end of his worries. He had thought his troubles occluding on the first day had been due to tiredness, but no matter how much he tried, Severus had been forced to realise that he could not do it anymore, and that was the real worry to him. His limbs being permanently or temporarily out of use was annoying, but Severus had always lived inside his mind rather than his body, and that appeared to have been destroyed. His last shield, his pride was damaged, and what else? Occlumency may have been as familiar to Severus as his own greasy hair, but it was still in essence, part of his magic, and it was now faulty. What else within that other part of him was damaged or destroyed? He had not tried to use his wand, though Potter had brought it to the hospital, because he was afraid of it not working. 

For Severus, being a wizard, being able to do magic, had always been what kept him going. The fact that he was, in this way, better than his filthy excuse for a father, the bit of power it had given him, the hope Hogwarts had presented to him as a child who wanted nothing more than to leave his house. Whilst a student, Severus had also jealously guarded his magic, knowing, if nothing else, that he was good. He always understood spell theory, always grasped things before most others, always felt that he had some talent. It had been what made him more than a poor, working-class half-blood amongst the aristocratic wealthy pure-bloods which saturated Slytherin house in his day. His talent had been what got him noticed, and what kept him alive. Would Severus have even survived to be bitten by that snake if not for his power, his Occlumency, his skill? No, he would not have. And so the thought of having lost it all was more painful than the wounds on his neck, whose dressings had just been replaced. Severus Snape had never been anything, except of course, his talent, his magic. He had never had family connections or money or good looks to recommend him, he had relied on skill, and that might have gone from him forever. It mattered not what people thought of his actions, he could never live up to any of the good or bad he had done when all of it came from a power that was lost.

***

In order to fully distract himself from the fact that he may have lost hos best shields and skills forever, which was, admittedly, a weighty task, Severus devoted his time to understanding the whole story, and what a story it was. The tale of Potter’s hunt for Horcruxes - yes, multiple - could have filled at least two very large novels, Severus thought, even if it did comprise of a hefty amount of luck. Potter seemed to somewhat enjoy the retelling of his adventures, though Severus was not sure why. A lot of it sounded fairly traumatic, and Severus could not honestly say that he would have been at all happy to retell his own tale. Perhaps Potter simply enjoyed the bemusement or shock that invariably popped onto Severus’ still-pale face upon hearing of a particularly daring escape or else a particularly ingenious brainwave of Miss Granger’s. Severus was well aware that he had been very critical of Potter’s affinity for getting himself into trouble, and thought that perhaps the boy’s enjoyment merely came from the fact that he was able to one-up his old teacher by showing that his affinity had won him a whole war.

Because he certainly had won the war. Strangely, Potter did not talk very much about the battle, nor his own heroism in saving the whole goddamn wizarding community, but Severus knew, from reading older copies of the Daily Prophet that Potter was being celebrated up and down Britain with triple the vigour with which he was celebrated the first time he had defeated the Dark Lord as a baby. Severus wondered if perhaps all this glory had humbled the boy, because certainly he did not seem half as arrogant as Severus remembered him being at school. Following this thought, he had had a good log mental discussion with himself, trying to figure out if Nagini’s venom had somehow turned him soft as well as weak. 

Because he was still weak. Slowly regaining the use of his body did not kid Severus into thinking he was getting back his old precision. His hands were clumsy, and Severus often dropped things if he did not have a firm enough grasp on them, and although he could get up and walk around his hospital room, the walls had become as much a tool to keep Severus standing as they were to keep the building up. He could not last more than about a minute before he needed to rest, and that was on a good day; often, simply getting up and depositing himself in the armchair six feet away was enough to tire Severus out to the point that he would fall back to sleep for another hour. The Healers had offered him a cane, but Severus had said no. He was a stubborn man, and told himself he would not be walking about with a cane aged only thirty-eight. Potter had attempted to convince him too, but Severus had refused to hear of it. He felt internally humiliated enough, not having recovered his Occlumency, and did not want to appear outwardly affected by his injuries. 

That, however, would apparently make people very happy, when the time came that the Healers would finally agree to release Severus from the hospital, so he had heard. Potter had been unable to avoid the topic any longer after Severus had got his hands on issues of the Prophet from mid-May, and had found a number of opinion pieces debating his own morality and whether or not he should be thrown in Azkaban upon his recovery. Potter seemed to think Severus was an integral part of the good side, but it seemed that his opinion had not extended to everyone. Once the news had broken that Severus was, indeed, awake, a number of people had called for his immediate transfer to Azkaban, despite his exoneration, and Potter had finally admitted, under questioning from Severus, that there were people who would like nothing more than to kill him in the street if they ever saw him. 

“I know it’s not fair,” Potter said, uncomfortably, writhing in his seat like an uncomfortable cat. “The Ministry wouldn’t have exonerated you without good evidence, and they’ve tried explaining to the public, but some people are a bit stupid. They know you killed Dumbledore, and they can’t believe it was anything other than the original story, and they’ve heard all these rumours about you and got it into their heads that you’re still a murderous Death Eater responsible for as much as Voldemort was.” He said this all very quickly. “It’ll die down, I’m sure the hysteria is just because you woke up. That’s what Hermione said, anyway. Give it all time to settle, and you’ll be fine.”

But Severus did not agree with Potter here. It was true that things tended to be forgotten as time passed, but Severus doubted if everyone would forget everything that he had done. Even with the explanations about it all, Severus had still killed Dumbledore, had still played host to the Carrows, had still willingly received the Dark Mark at some point in his life, and that was something that many people would not forgive, Severus was sure. For one thing, he had killed a man, and there were undoubtedly people who thought that would always be bad, no matter the reasoning. Secondly, there were students who had suffered at the hands of the Carrows, and their parents who dealt with watching that trauma, and the excuse of ‘it was to keep my act up’ would simply not rid him of wrongdoing in their eyes, because they were parents. It was the same with Severus taking the Mark. How many people, across the two wars, had suffered directly or indirectly because of the Death Eaters? Many. And, even if he had left behind the beliefs of a Death Eater, and repulsed them to this day, those people who had lost loved ones to the organisation he had once devoted himself to would never be happy with his pardon, would never want any scum who had ever been a willing servant of the Dark Lord to walk free, and Severus could not blame them. He was surprised that Potter was willing to be in his presence; he had ended the life of his mentor, had given the Dark Lord the information which had killed his parents, and had allowed his friends to be used as punching bags by the Carrows and their lackeys for a year. 

Potter seemed to think that Severus was being melodramatic about it all, and that he should focus on his recovery instead. It was easier said than done. For one thing, recovery was slow. On several occasions, Severus’ Healer, a wizard named Hippocrates Smethwyck, had explained that he was not sure of the full extent to which Severus’ nerves had been damaged, and that he could not tell whether the damage he could detect was permanent or not. He had been warned that he would need frequent appointments at the hospital even after discharge, and thus focusing on this strand of his life was no more cheering than on his reputation in society. For the time being, it looked as if Severus would be facing a rather grim experience, both in his body and in the world. 

He had, at least, tried to do magic, after Healer Smethwyck had said it would help him to further diagnose the problems Severus was still having with pain and fatigue and mobility. Severus had not explained his lack of Occlumency, because he did not want to explain all of it, nor admit to it, but he did, grudgingly at first, pick up his wand to attempt some simple spells. Lumos worked, and so did a Summoning Charm, and Severus also managed to cast a Shield Charm, but it all made him more exhausted than walking, and Healer Smethwyck decided that, like moving, this was something which Severus would have to build up again, start from scratch. Essentially, he understood, he was starting from first-year all over again, only this time without any energy. Healer Smethwyck had already advised against Apparition, saying that it could kill Severus, and considering the relatively awful day he had had before that pronouncement, he had considered it just to get it over and done with, since life didn’t have much point anymore. 

Truthfully, Severus had never looked seriously past the war, had never thought about what he would actually do or be if the Dark Lord fell. He had assumed that he might be thrown into Azkaban, and had not dared to hope for more. Faced now with a future that was not going to be spent in jail, Severus could not fathom what he would do upon leaving the hospital. He would not go back to teaching; Potter had come out with some nonsense about him taking up the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, which he had rejected quickly. The fact that he hated teaching aside, Severus knew quite well that the wizarding community would not appreciate his return to Hogwarts when many of them still thought he deserved to have died from the snakebite. Teaching had been Severus' only serious, real job; being a servant of the Dark Lord was hardly something one could write on a CV and he had been at Hogwarts since his twenties. He couldn't remember what he had once hoped to be, and Severus had no idea if that was because of the affects of the venom on his mind, or because it had been a good twenty or so years since anything such as hope for the future had crossed his mind. Maybe it was a mixture of both.

"You could brew potions and write papers," Potter suggested on one September afternoon when Severus had been forced to let him come in for a visit since he had nothing else on his schedule. "You reinvented all of the N.E.W.T potions, you could rewrite the textbook."

Severus held back a sneer as he recalled the fate of his once-treasured Potions textbook. 

"My name is mud with plenty of people, you have already said this," Severus replied. He was sitting in his armchair, and had managed not to feel like passing out from the walk over there. "I doubt I would be a sought-after academic or brewer."

Potter frowned. "You're being quite negative about this, Snape. I'm sure there are people who know how good you are. Besides, academics don't have to be nice, they have to be good at what they do. Maybe they wouldn't care, if you had clever ideas, and got things right."

Severus said he would think about it. He didn't mention this to Potter, but he couldn't be sure if the damage to his mind and magic would extend to his abilities in potion-making. His fingers and wrists were certainly less nimble, something which was required for the skill, but Severus knew that if he lost his focus and deft mind, he would not be able to brew like he had done once. 

"I can't say for sure," Healer Smethwyck replied when Severus finally dared to ask about the impacts on his magic and movement long-term. "I know it's not a very reassuring answer, but this is all so unprecedented. Personally, I think you will be able to get back some of your old strengths. Magic that's within a person can't be taken by anything, so I don't think you've lost your abilities forever. The problem is the control, the usage. Right now, your body is physically reeling and recovering. That's why your magic isn't as strong, you're just too tired to do what you used to do, but it's not the sort of tiredness you can get over by sleeping. Remedies and treatment is the way to go, and to make sure you're taking care of yourself even when you get discharged."

Discharge was what Severus wanted most. He was beginning to tire of his room, and the fact that he was being watched all the time by people who could barge in at any moment. The only problem with this, however, was that the hospital seemed to doubt his ability to care for himself, whether it be because of his fatigue, frequent pain, or because Potter had mentioned Severus' state of health before his bite, when it had been fairly obvious to everyone that he did not take care of himself very well. Severus suspected that Minerva McGonagall had had a 'discussion' with Potter about that.

"Undereating," he could imagine Minerva saying. "Even before the war. I don't know what he meant by it. He was always a scrawny boy, looked hungry and never ate well." Yes, Minerva would probably have a hand in ruining Severus' chances at ever having a quiet and solitary life, that was unless she still hated him.

She did not, or not really. 

"For goodness sake, don't sit there looking so sorry for yourself!" She had come to visit him after the chaos of the beginning of the school term had passed. 

Severus said nothing. 

"You're alright, aren't you?" She peered at him like she had done so many times in the past, her quick eyes trying to discern his mood or state of health. "I mean, you're not-"

"I am not dying," Severus replied, curtly.

"Of course not," Minerva said, quickly. "When are you going home?"

"When they've decided if I can live alone." He had not meant to sound so depressed. 

"But-" She straightened herself. "You're not an invalid . You know how to feed yourself." She eyed him with a severe sort of look. "And you'll do it."

"I'll have to come back here for appointments," Severus explained. "And I can't Apparate, so that makes things more difficult."

At first, Potter, of all people, agreed that he would escort Severus to his appointments after discharge. He had delegated himself as being Severus' emergency contact, and since Severus had nobody else to fill that role, he had had to agree. It worked, at the very least, in theory. They would use the Floo Network, and Potter's presence would mean that Severus would not be fussed over and not run the risk of being absent and unnoticed. 

After all, it seemed that that was the way Severus was doomed to remain, unless he was being hated by the world, and that was just fine with him. Severus didn’t know exactly why he preferred to be alone, or if it was a part of his intrinsic character, but he often theorised, to himself, that it was because he could really only be honest with himself when he had no company, nobody looking into his mind, nobody asking him questions about the most recent batch of torture from the Dark Lord, no students squeaking about mistakes they would not have made if they had learned to read properly. Alone was the only state in which Severus could roll down his shields and attempt to relax. 

Of course, the shields had been smashed now, but it did not change that part of Severus

Chapter Text

It happened for the first time three days after Severus returned ‘home’. It was not that he had been going out at all, not as though he was making a great effort to parade himself about for all to see, limited as he still was, but it could not be avoided, a short trip to the run-down general store three streets over.

Even in Severus’ youth, when the neighbourhood had been less deserted than it was now, thirty odd years later, the place had seemed to be on its last legs. The owners of the shop had never properly cleaned the floors or dusted the shelves on which packets of sliced bread and tinned soup had been shoved, but the prices had been cheaper than the large supermarket in the other side of the river, and so Severus had many memories of accompanying his mother to the place to try and find something that could be made into an edible meal with his father’s pitiful wages or his mother’s pay from doing odd jobs for the richer folk who lived somewhere where the streets were not grimy and the houses had proper front gardens. He had learned to prowl the rows of food to scrounge for the best deals, or occasionally the food he liked best, if his father had not been docked any pay or gone to the pub so often that week and left more money for the family. He had never before exchanged words with the cashier, who was always either one of the grim-faced couple who owned the shop, or else the teenager they employed part-time who, as far as Severus could tell, was now a full-time employee and probably in his middle ages now. He was shuffling around the aisle, arranging and rearranging bags of dried pasta on the shelves that were fine the way they were. 

“You’re Snape’s boy,” said the woman who Severus had thought of as being somewhere near his mother’s age when he had come here as a boy. Now she had grey hair and wrinkled skin. 

Severus grunted. He knew that he would be ‘Snape’s boy’ until his dying day here. 

“Haven’t seen you for a long time,” she continued, and Severus wished she would take less time putting his selected items into a rustling plastic bag. “Thought you moved on.”

Severus nearly snorted at the irony. He had, very nearly, moved onto the afterlife, but no luck. “Moved back,” he settled for. He would not, and could not, explain that he had been a teacher at a school for wizards and witches and a double agent, but had been bitten by a venomous snake during the climax of a war and had now returned to his childhood home to attempt to recover. 

“You bring Toby with you?” The cashier’s hands had ceased at packing away his purchases. 

“No,” Severus said, coldly. 

“What about ‘Leen?"

“No,” he repeated. 

The cashier made a disapproving noise, and Severus could not tell who exactly it was aimed at - him, for not bringing his parents back to this hellhole, or his parents, for not being present. He wondered how she did not know that his mother was dead. 

Severus knew, as he left the shop, glad to be away from questions about the past, that he had been out for too long. His legs were beginning to ache badly, and he could feel his fingers becoming slightly numb as they gripped the bag. This was a set of symptoms he had learned was his normality now; his legs protesting in pain after too much use, and his hands losing dexterity as he got tired. Healer Smethwyck had explained that it was because his whole body reacted more severely to exhaustion, and that the best thing Severus could do alongside being sure to exercise was to rest when he needed it, for risk of doing himself damage or sustaining a further injury if he had a fall. As he tried not to hobble back through the alleyway that formed a shorter path back to his house, Severus almost wished he had accepted a cane from St. Mungo’s; to lean on something would be blissful, to have an extra bit of strength. He would have conjured one for himself there and then, if not for the fact that he was wary that the residents of the surrounding houses may be lurking just beyond their grime-speckled windows, and that he was not completely confident in his magical abilities just yet. 

“Oi!” An angry cry sounded from Severus’ left. He was reaching level with the back alley between two rows of houses, just one block from Spinner’s End.

“Is it him?” called a different voice, this one more gruff. 

“I dunno, looks like it. Nasty piece of work, his nose is just as big as they say.”

Severus had heard enough taunts from Potter and Black to know that when a large nose was mentioned, it was usually in reference to him. He froze, almost involuntarily. 

“So, it is you, Snape.” The gruff voice was cold. Severus looked to his left and saw two men, stalking towards him. They were dressed in robes, and he knew before either of them said any more what they wanted and why they had sought him out. 

“Bit bold of you to show your ugly face, isn’t it? Since you’re a murderer, and Death Eater scum to boot,” the first man jeered. Severus didn’t recognise him. “I’m surprised they haven’t carted you off to Azkaban, though this Muggle slum is something like Azkaban is, I’d imagine.”

The gruff-voiced man seemed to think that talking was pointless. He raised his fist and drove it into Severus’ cheek. In times before, Severus would have been quick enough to send him flying with a Stunner before his hand had reached shoulder height, and strong enough not to stagger against the brick walls of one of the houses, losing his balance on his already weakened legs. He felt as though the fist were a searing glob of molten iron, and the force caused Severus’ head to jerk back slightly, and he felt his neck scream in agony.

“He seems very weak, Crosby,” the first man sneered, clearly relishing this. “I suppose we could kill him and they’d think he’d dropped dead on his own.” A malicious grin twisted the man’s pale face. “Not that anyone would think to look for you, murderer . That’s what you get, see? For being filth.” As Severus righted himself, and tried to think of what spell he could use, or how fast he could run, the man moved close to him, disturbingly close. 

“You may have fooled Harry Potter into thinking you’re some kind of saint, but make no mistake about it, the rest of us with sense know exactly what you are, and we’re not going to let you off scot-free. Don’t show your face about, if you know what’s good for you.” 

The gruff man scowled. “Let’s get it over with. You said we’d kill him, Dixon.” 

Dixon smirked but pulled back. “I did, Crosby, but I don’t want to give this little slimeball the easy way out. Perhaps we can work on him.” He turned to his fellow. “No pain, no gain, remember?”

Severus could not remember exactly what happened next, in hindsight, but he did know they he experienced more pain somewhere in his face, and then in his gut, and before long, everything was black. In future, he would become sure that there had been more than two blows before he had gone down, but everything had become very hazy after the verbal taunting had stopped. All that he did know was that he came to leaning against the wall of a house, his bag of shopping spilled out beside him, a high-pitched mewing cutting into his head. 

Of course nobody would have raised the alarm if they had noticed him passed out like this; in the years since Severus had left Spinner’s End for what he had thought was for good, plenty of the old residents had died or moved away, seeking work elsewhere after the mill had closed and most prospects for a good life had dried up, and so it was highly likely that the majority of the dilapidated houses were empty anyway, but there was no sense of community spirit in the area. Nobody looked out for each other because they were all too busy looking out for themselves. Severus expected that anyone passing him by would simply think he was a drunk, and pay him no attention. Even the cat, from which the tinny mewing had come, seemed only interested in the can of soup that had split, presumably as it fell to the ground, for she was now lapping it up rather contentedly. 

Severus glowered at the feline, more out of habit than anything else. Glowering was his preferred form of communication, and his neck was throbbing so badly that he didn’t want to use his voice at present. The cat looked up at him, through her bright eyes, which seemed almost to glow in the half-light, unabashed by his withering gaze. She seemed to be appraising him, deciding what she thought about him, as though he was the intruder, and it was not her in the wrong for eating his food. Perhaps, Severus considered, this alley was hers. He didn’t know much about the habits of cats. His family had never had one, and though some of his schoolmates had owned them, Severus had never taken a liking to them. He had seen Minerva in cat form a number of times, and she had always seemed to be an intelligent cat, but Severus had always assumed that this was just because she was an intelligent woman.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Severus croaked, as the cat continued to stare at him. He fumbled around for the salvageable food, stuffing it back into the plastic bag, and prepared to push himself up. The house wasn’t far, he would make it and then he could sink into an armchair, maybe rest for a bit and then make something to eat. 

With great effort, Severus got himself standing again, and stars popped back into his vision. He leant against the dirty brick wall of the likely-empty house he had fallen again, breathing and trying not to pass out again for several minutes. Slowly, as it had always done, Severus felt his head clear slightly, felt the world become more real and not a hazy image that might have been an illusion. It came to him that the cat was mewing again. 

“What?” he demanded of her. “You can’t have any more of my food.” Severus glared down at the small animal again, but she did not shrink away like the first-years had always done, but merely blinked, her luminous eyes wide as ever. 

Giving it up as a bad job, Severus simply began to walk away. The cat probably just wanted him out of her alleyway, and once he was gone, she would calm down. Severus didn’t think he would be able to outrun her, but, then again, she was unlikely to follow him. He could see, just feet away, Spinner’s End, and never before had he been so glad to turn onto the street. Just up at the end, he knew the house was waiting, and if nothing else, it would be warm there; he had lit a fire just before leaving, though he did not exactly know how long ago that had been.

Severus tried to focus his mind on the old armchair that was in the sitting room. It was hardly luxurious, but it was, at least, comfortable, more comfortable than the pavement, and he would not have to hold himself up once he got there. It would not matter if the fire had gone out, being indoors would be warmer than here, and, most importantly, he would be able to let his guard down. Though he knew that the two men had probably long since disappeared, Severus was now hyper-aware, as much as his muddled mind could be, that people did not want him to live in anything near comfort, and would attack him to try and stop his continued existence. How had they found him? How had they known where to look? The war was over, and Severus had come to accept it, but he suddenly felt as he had done when he had been in the Dark Lord’s service. On edge, waiting for something to happen, anxious that he had made a transgression that he did not yet know about. Anticipating pain. 

When he finally reached the front door, Severus was beginning to feel his legs start to give way. Knowing its location by memory rather than sight, he collapsed into the armchair, letting out a lengthy sigh. As the immediate worry that someone would jump him again subsided, having made it into the house, Severus became aware of the poignant pain in his whole body. His muscles felt like tongues of fire wrapped around his bones, and as he attempted to shift his arms, Severus found his joints suddenly stiff and creaky like those of a much older man. Focusing on breathing, Severus closed his eyes against the room that spun despite him being entirely stationary, trying to stay conscious as exhaustion pressed in on him from all sides. He felt sick, and strangely humiliated. It was not the first or worst instance of pain in his life, but something about the reason for it made a lump form in his throat. Severus, for all his self-hatred, had tried hard, harder than anything, to do what was right. He had not necessarily succeeded every time, but he had tried to think of himself as someone on the right side ever since he had defected, nearly twenty years previously. He had been challenged by the Order’s mistrusting looks and their questioning, but still, he had known, or thought he had known, inside, that he was on the right side, the good side. 

But that was beginning to crumble. It was one thing that the Death Eaters had sometimes wondered whether he was loyal, and that he had sometimes paid a price for that, because their beatings or curses had been a reminder of why he did not ally himself with those sorts anymore. When the Order had not entirely welcomed him, Severus had accepted that as being part of his role, and part of his story being hidden. But now, it was different. The backing of the Ministry, which had once convinced the majority of the wizarding population that the Dark Lord was not back or that Rufus Scrimgeour had resigned, was not enough to clear his name. Those men, whose names Severus would never remember, had been on the same side as him, hadn’t they? They were anti-Voldemort, they were appalled at the atrocities of the Death Eaters, and they hated him, despite how hard he had tried, and how much he had done. 

He wished for death in that moment, not because he pitied himself, but because he felt so futile, so insignificant, like a child. Everything he had told himself over the years, that he was gathering valuable information, that he was loyal to Dumbledore and the Order completely, that he had helped with the things he had done, information he had given, had disappeared. What did it matter, that he had done that? What was the point, when the world that Severus had fought to make was turning in on him as surely as the world he had left for Lily and goodness all those years ago? What was the point in keeping going, continuing to fight, when the blows would never land, and the rest of the world would keep going without him, glad for his loss, because he was too complicated and undesirable to be anything to them?

A sound sliced through Severus’ misery, and he opened his eyes just as a weight landed on his lap. He looked down and saw the cat from the alley standing, looking into his eyes with curiosity, and, was it, pity? She blinked several times, and the impulse to shoo her away was extinguished within Severus, and suddenly he wished he could know what she was trying to tell him, could talk to her in a way that she would understand. Somehow, he knew that she would understand him, if he could explain himself to her, because she had followed him home and sensed at that very moment that hope had vanished from him, and had therefore come to the rescue. 

“I don’t suppose you’re going anywhere,” Severus said to her, his voice shaking slightly with the mixture of grief and exhaustion. She did not reply, but instead lay down in Severus’ lap, answering his question. Suddenly, the deep hopelessness that had infested Severus’ heart was replaced by amusement, and he was reminded of a mother figure he had never had who would have put him to bed and forced him to stay there and rest. That seemed to be what the cat was doing, settling herself in the fabric of his clothing as a way to stop him from getting up, and Severus allowed the warmth of her to seep into his body.

He felt peace then, and the strangest sense that everything had not been lost. It was odd, because Severus had never really had thoughts creep up on him like that. He supposed that it was something Occlumency had taken - his mind had always been so rigidly fastened shut that it had been impossible for something to sneak up on him unawares. He had had intuition and gut feelings, but always related to danger, and this was not a feeling of danger. It was like he had taken the Draught of Peace. Severus had only ever done so once, and it had not been voluntary; Dumbledore had forced some into him after he had returned from being tortured by the Dark Lord straight after he had risen again, and it had been strangely wonderful to forget about everything that had just happened. Severus had never taken it again because he remembered a softening of all his thoughts, and that was something he had never been able to afford. Still, he knew well that a shade more powdered moonstone would achieve further submersion in the sense that everything was alright. He looked down at the cat, which was now asleep, her breaths even and gentle. She was like that, a shiny moonstone that created such blissful effects in the Draught of Peace, and Severus wondered what her name had been before as he fell asleep too, his mind on Moonstone. 

***

When Severus told Potter about the attack he had been victim to, his reaction was extremely predictable. Potter had seemed to have gone through some sort of personality transplant since the war had ended, because he was suddenly interested in Severus’ affairs, and, he hated to admit it, caring of his continued existence. It was abnormal in and of itself that Potter had come to Spinner’s End of his own accord, but by the time he had begun to question Severus quite forcefully about his health and quality of life, he had accepted that Potter really had, somehow, come to care for his old nemesis.

Wiping the horrified expression from his face, Potter frowned. 

“I can’t pretend not to have thought some people would be angry… there was a bit of a fuss when everything first happened, though you weren’t awake at that time so obviously you wouldn’t have known.” He paused. “Maybe it’s not safe here.” 

“It is fine,” Severus contradicted him, stiffly. He could not say that he was completely at ease with Potter’s new regard of him. “Any street could be dangerous, it does not matter where it is.”

“You have the right to live safely,” Potter asserted, and it was strange how that tone that Severus had heard used in vehement dislike of him was now jumping to his defence. “You’re not well, Snape, we both know that. You shouldn’t be somewhere that you’re so… vulnerable to attack.” He looked sheepish and Severus was sure he understood why - Potter would probably hex anyone who called him vulnerable. 

Severus scowled. “I said that it is fine.”

Potter shifted uncomfortably. “You don’t have to do this… but I’ve been thinking, and talking with Healer Smethwyck…” He stopped, looking pained, as though he did not know what words would be the right ones. “Well, I wondered if, for now, some sort of assisted living would be helpful. You know, as a temporary thing whilst you’re getting better,” he added quickly.

“No.” 

It did not seem that Potter had been expecting a different answer. “I know it’s not ideal for you, but-”

“No,” Severus repeated. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know,” Potter argued, his bravery at the sharp look Severus was giving him infuriating. “But maybe you’d be more comfortable , and you could get better faster if you could get treatment more regularly, and then you could come back here and live your life normally.” Severus followed his eyes around the dismal sitting room. 

“No,” said Severus, for the third time.

Potter’s shoulders seemed to droop. “Alright then.” He sighed. “Look, either way, we need to talk about you getting to St. Mungo’s.”

This struck Severus as odd; Potter had already insisted he agree to allow him to escort Severus to his appointments at the hospital. The arrangement was not necessarily destined to become the highlight of Severus’ weeks, but he thought it was probably better than living in a home.

“I’ve started Auror training,” Potter explained. “I don’t have as much time. I can ask Smethwyck to keep your appointments on a schedule that works for me, but I don’t know, I’m worried it’ll make things more difficult and you need to go to everything he thinks you need.”

“I could go alone,” Severus suggested, knowing that Potter would not allow this. 

Potter shook his head. “You need someone with you. Just to make sure you’re alright on both ends.” Moonstone had jumped onto the arm of Severus’ chair and was snuffling around his right hand, clearly looking for a pat or a stroke. 

“Perhaps I could use public transport.” Severus had used Muggle trains before; when he had been at school, he had caught the train into London from the station in Cokeworth. He always associated those journeys with anticipation, the sheer happiness of getting out of his parents’ house for a few months.

“If people find out you have regular appointments, then they might try and get you outside the hospital or something. I don’t think it’d be a good idea for you to take the train. Anyway, what if you fall asleep? Or get ill? Like I said, you need someone with you.” Something seemed to strike the boy, but he said nothing more. 

Giving Severus up as a bad job, Moonstone vacated her position on the armchair and landed on the old sofa beside Potter and began sniffing at him, before apparently deciding that she didn’t think he was anything to worry about, and climbing onto his lap. This seemed to be a habit of hers; Severus had found that the cat thought his lap was preferable to the bed he had set up for her. Potter grinned as the cat settled herself on his lap, and scratched behind her ears. Moonstone purred happily, content spreading across her furry feline face. 

“I didn’t know you had a cat,” Potter commented, raising one of his eyebrows.

“She followed me home,” Severus said, making an effort to keep his voice indifferent. “She thinks this is her home now and I doubt throwing her out would achieve anything.” 

“What’s she called?”

“Moonstone,” Severus answered briefly. 

“Moonstone…” Potter frowned in thought. 

“You wrote an essay about it in your fifth year,” Severus said, shortly. “An abysmal one,” he added, curtly. “It is used in the Draught of Peace, a potion which you were also particularly awful at brewing.” He could remember the incident well, of Potter forgetting the Syrup of Hellebore. It had been a fairly hellish day, Severus could remember going to see the Dark Lord the night before. 

Potter seemed to be remembering the encounter as well. “It’s a nice name,” he managed, at last. He seemed to have more to say, but thought better of it. Once, Severus would have known what he was going to say, but like Occlumency, his natural talent at Legilimency had gone from him. Trying to close his mind or open someone else’s made his head throb as though he had been hit over the head with something heavy and hard. It was infuriating, but also caused him some reflection. He no longer needed the skill, did he? Severus’ panic at losing it was not necessarily that he had lost a weapon, something to wield at those whom he was trying to fool, but at the fact that it represented a decline in magical skill. It would be convenient, and satisfying, for Severus to gain back the ability to see inside minds with a simple meeting of the eyes, but he recognised, with a strange sort of jolt, that he no longer needed people’s thoughts like he had done before. It would not kill him if people mistrusted him, because those that did not like him were vocal about it. The Death Eaters were gone, were they not? There was certainly no master to carry whispers to. 

The idea of this suddenly sank into Severus after Potter had gone. There was no master left. Really, Dumbledore had been his ‘master’ for the last two decades, but even after Severus had killed him, it had not voided him of responsibility. There had still been the Dark Lord to answer to, still an act to play. It had, in a strange way, kept him going. Every morning he had risen, dressed and played his part, keeping himself sane and something near healthy in order to present the facade that he was delighted that his master was taking over the world and putting right the wrongs that had been committed by the Muggle-lovers. There had also been the quest to give Potter the sword, which had felt almost like doing something good, even if the trips up and down the country had been pointless due to the extensive protective enchantments cast, no doubt, by Miss Granger. Now there was nothing, and no reason to have any skills. What did it matter if he learned to use Legilimency and Occlumency again? It would not make people like him, would not make them trust him, and so it was utterly pointless. 

Moonstone climbed cautiously from the sofa where she had been sitting in Potter’s lap, back to the arm of Severus’ chair. This time, without really realising what he was doing, he stroked her head, breathing in time with the strokes of his fingers that had once been so precise and nimble. It felt clumsy, and yet she purred happily, her body relaxing into the threadbare fabric. Severus found himself wondering, for the first time, how she had come to decide to follow him home. He had not shown her any real kindness, had never expressed a desire to care for her, but she had quite suddenly barged into his home and demanded to be cared for. She had assumed in a way that Severus had never been able to that she deserved shelter and food, that the world owed her a life that was not uncomfortable for no other reason than that she was a living being. Severus could not find her naive, as much as he would have liked to. She had something Severus wanted - a confidence in her own existence. 

And he was now responsible for that, too. She had placed her trust in him, decided that he would provide for her, that he was the one worthy of protecting her life which she had such high regard for, and how could he step away from that? There may have been a time where Severus could have shooed her out of the door, but he thought that the reality was that there had never been an opportunity for that. She seemed to have known all along that he would never have the heart to get rid of her, and that perhaps she was what he needed. He had never considered the intelligence of cats before, but, Severus supposed, you were bound to get anomalies in every species that had more brains than the rest, just as there was in the human race, only with the inverse; there were some human beings whose intellect blanched in comparison to this cat’s.

Severus looked down at Moonstone, and she blinked up at him. For the first time, he knew exactly what she was saying to him. 

If you off yourself, what happens to me? You’d never be able to live or die with that.

Chapter Text

Severus settled into a highly uncomfortable routine fairly quickly. He spent his days trying to unstiffen his body every morning, to little success before ten o’clock, then fed Moonstone, who mewed incessantly until he got himself something to eat along with her, and then settled into his armchair to rest. Once a week, Potter would show up to take him to St. Mungo’s, a thoroughly depressing experience which usually comprised of Healer Smethwyck trying and failing to make Severus feel less bleak about the prospects of his recovery. 

In that department, which was one that Severus did not visit in his head unless strictly necessary, things were not going very well. Pain-Relieving Potion worked, but Severus knew that it should not even be needed. The fact that he could not do more than cook a meal without having to take a rest was worrying to Healer Smethwyck, and, even without that professional input, Severus would have known that something was chronically wrong with him. The trouble, according to Smethwyck, and another one called Whittle who had been brought into Severus’ recovery, was the fact that the poison seemed to have inflicted a lasting damage on his immune system, stamina, and nerves, which was exacerbated by the extensive experience Severus had with the Cruciatus Curse. Both Healers claimed that they were trying to see what they could do to repair this damage, but Severus was aware that this would take time, as all research did, and that it was time he might not possess. 

Nobody had yet told Severus of the fact that he may well die before he was completely cured, but as he had started to improve in small increments, or at least become more used to his limitations, he had had more space in his mind to think, and a better ability to remember his old research he had done before he had become Headmaster. Due to his own experience with the Cruciatus Curse, Severus had become aware of the possible effects of long-term nerve damage, and had been seeking to find a way to repair himself in order to strengthen his instincts and keep himself on his feet as a double agent for the longest possible time. Now faced with hours in which the only usable part of his body was his brain, Severus had pieced together everything he had found out in those weeks and months that felt like years ago, all the while softly stroking Moonstone on the head. She seemed to have decided that the arm of his chair was a very good position in which to receive attention from her owner, or perhaps she was his owner now, and would periodically yowl when she thought it had been too long since Severus had eaten or drank anything. 

Severus’ main source for his research in the early days had been the Hogwarts library. Despite being a mostly friendless student, he had not combed it in its entirety in his youth, and certainly not for the information he had wanted when he returned as an adult. There had been a good amount of research papers and medical journals stored there, and Severus had learned the rudimentaries of the Cruciatus Curse’s mechanisms and the ways in which they affected human beings. From there, he had plumbed all the wizarding bookshops in Britain, and even some Muggle ones, which had turned up a number of useful sources about nerve damage from the more scientific lens of Muggle medicine. Through this extensive reading, Severus had discovered some key points: first, that nerve damage was not one hundred percent irreparable, but it was more difficult to fix as time passed, second, that if someone suffered more damage whilst in a weakened state, it would have worse effects, and, third, that the Cruciatus Curse, being Dark magic, was the sort of thing that never really left a person. As a lot of the pain was psychological rather than physical, Severus had concluded that the first damages of the Curse were probably mental, but, and this was where his research had been left incomplete, lasting and progressive physical damage was certainly possible if one had enough exposure to the Curse. Severus had no idea if his exposure was enough to warrant that - none of the journals he had read did not contain actual trials. Most people who would fit into the category of having had long-term and sustained contact with the Cruciatus Curse were either dead, insane, or in Azkaban. 

There was also, for Severus, the added factor of Nagini’s venom. In his long, pensive moments, he had decided that the more severe effects of it on him in comparison to Arthur Weasley was the result of his pre-existing damage from being tortured, alongside the fact that he had been left with it seeping into his veins for a lot longer. Severus knew, and had known since Arthur was bitten, that Nagini’s venom was unique; it had taken Healer Smethwyck himself a good few weeks to develop an antidote that had to be made from scratch, and therefore there could not be any record of the outcome of mixing her venom with a depleted immune system from the effects of the Cruciatus Curse. Severus thought that his decline in dexterity was probably the outcome, but it was the why that so bothered him. If he knew why the venom and the curse had mixed in this way, he might be able to theorise on how to reverse it, and would thus be able to break out of his state of weakness. It was not that Severus had anything he was burning to do, but since the incident with the two men, he had been more afraid of venturing out of his house in case there was a repeat. He knew he could not defend himself in his current state, and thought that, if he did manage to recover his strength, he would at least be able to fight back if he were to be attacked. 

For although Severus had not been physically attacked again, there had been two more incidents in which his past continued to hunt him like a belligerent dog. The first had been when he attempted to take a short walk to the moors, when a couple had sighted him and started muttering about how he looked ‘just like that filthy killer Snape’, and the second had been when he was with Potter. It had been after an appointment at St. Mungo’s, and Potter had wanted Severus to accompany him to Diagon Alley to make some purchases (though Severus suspected Potter had simply wanted to get him out of his small world), and a gaggle of drinkers in the Leaky Cauldron had tried to stop them from exiting the pub into the alley, roaring that people like him should not be allowed in public, even if he had been able to con the Ministry and get away with atrocities. Potter had immediately abandoned his shopping pursuits and apologised profusely, but Severus hadn’t cared. He was expecting it by now. Potter had arranged to try and make sure groceries were brought to Severus so that he did not have to go out, which was supposed to be for his health and safety, and Severus had not attempted to thwart this plan. He was, he knew, unable to stop someone from killing him in the street if they wanted to, and therein lay the main reason he wanted to figure out how to recover.

“It’s certainly not unlikely,” Healer Whittle replied, when, one appointment in mid-January, Severus finally revealed the contents of his musings. It had taken a number of appointments with the man for Severus to realise that the young Healer had been one of his students; he had been in Gryffindor, and had reminded Severus for a long time of James and Black, until he had managed to get an ‘Outstanding’ on his Potions O.W.L and had continued into the sixth year with a much better attitude. It had still been a little jarring for Severus to know that this once-arrogant and loud boy had become a gentler and better man, a Healer. 

“The Cruciatus is a strange sort of curse. Very Dark magic, of course, but the Imperius gets more attention out of the Unforgivables, since it can be resisted, and the magic of minds is so interesting to people.” Healer Whittle was not an unpleasant man, but he did sometimes get wrapped up in sidetracks. “I don’t know the long-term effects of Cruciatus that well anyway. Not in your sense. There are some people in Spell Damage who’re suffering from it, but that’s not from the sort of use that I understand Death Eaters went through.” He turned red. “Sorry. I know you weren’t a Death Eater, not since a long time ago, but-”

“I understand what you mean,” Severus replied, quickly. 

Healer Whittle tried to smile. “Right. Well, as I was saying, there’s never been any sort of research done into what happens if a person has the curse used on them over a longer period. It’d be interesting to find out, of course, though I’m not sure there are any test subjects around. Unfortunately, you’ve got the whole snake venom thing going on, and all of the real Death Eaters are in Azkaban, and it’s hardly allowed to experiment on prisoners.” He frowned. “Do you have your old research? I can’t promise I could do anything with it, and of course, it might not help you, since the venom situation, but…”

“I do not know,” Severus replied, and he envied the interest and excitement in Healer Whittle at the prospect of moving further, discovering more. He was too tired and too depressed for that now. “My personal belongings were in the Headmaster’s Quarters until May, and I do not know where everything is. I have not had the chance to go through everything that was sent to me.”

“No, of course not.” He nodded. “You’re not really in any fit state to look over that stuff… I’ll talk to Hippocrates about it. He might have some ideas on what to do about this.”

Sometimes, Severus remembered things most clearly. At this moment, it was not really a remembrance, but a realisation. In sharp, colourful detail, Severus suddenly came to the realisation that a younger version of himself might feel excitement right about now. It struck Severus that this sort of discovery, this sort of quest, was what he had wanted, and that he might have jumped at a chance to help the Healers, to prove that he too was intelligent. Now he felt nothing but the crushing weight of how much time and effort all this would take, and how the end of the road might be a dead one, blocked by a wall they could not knock down or huge brambles with thorns the size of swords. He did not want to trudge along, his limbs stiff and painful, passing all the places where his resolve would be weakened, only to reach nothingness and the confirmation that his destiny, his Hell, was to stay like this forever, until such time as the universe chose that he could go on to whatever pain was next. 

***

The moors had once been beautiful, though perhaps that was nothing to do with any gifts of Nature. Severus sometimes went back there, days in July when he wasn’t at the local Muggle school, or else rainy Octobers during the half-term break. After he had discovered his mother’s old school books, he had gone out to the wide expanses, empty of prying eyes except the occasional walker, and had pretended to do magic. At this point, he had had no wand, and had hardly ever made anything happen, but it had been exhilarating nonetheless to imagine what he could do if he did, to lie in his small and uncomfortable bed at night and chant spells over the sounds of his parents fighting. Then, early in the morning, he would slip quietly out, dress in silence, and go downstairs, skipping the last stair which had started to creak after his father had kicked at it with his work boots still on. Sometimes, he would get something to eat before he left out the back door, but others he wouldn’t, because he knew when money and food was particularly scarce and that both his parents would fly into a rage if he snuck a morsel. On those days, he would simply have a glass of water, anticipation and excitement becoming his fuel. 

The open space of the moors had been the first enthralling thing to Severus. The house in Spinner’s End, like all the houses there, was cramped and never had quite enough space to feel satisfactory. The staircase was too short, the living room too low-ceilinged and dark, the kitchen full of the dining table, the bathroom barely had enough space to maneuver and Severus’ own room had always been little more than a bed, with space for his trunk, a small wardrobe and a spindly bedside table. More than that, Severus hated the proximity of his parents to him. No matter where he was inside that house, one of them was just a layer of wood and plaster away, and would hear him if he started being too noisy. His father had always had a habit of bursting into his room whilst drunk, and so Severus had become jumpy, and never felt secure when reading about magic. He had always known the man would beat him within an inch of his life if he caught his son learning about detestable magic. 

So the fact that the moors were a seemingly endless stretch of space with nobody else there had been so freeing. Sometimes, he had sat on the hard ground and read, until he had discovered the wood about twenty minutes walk away, which was sheltered but not stifling like the house. He would settle in the roots of a tree and read until he felt the temperature drop, because it wasn’t safe to trek across the open moors in the dark. When he wasn’t reading, Severus used the wide planes to pretend he was practicing magic. He duelled with fierce enemies, or else administered life-saving aid to injured comrades. When he had read about the Dementors and the Patronus Charm, Severus had spent a good week pretending to save villages of people with his own strong Patronus. It had always been just in his head, but he had never cared. He had not had to pretend to be a good son who respected his parents, had been able to see something bigger and better than the life of neglect, abuse and poverty he had lived thus far. A foolish and childish dream, he now knew, but a blissful one nonetheless. Had the moors been covered with a wealth of magical plants that he could make into healing potions? Severus doubted it, but it had been so real to him that as he stood, frail, leaning on a new fence that had been erected around the area since he had last come, he could still see the luscious leaves that shined with fat dew droplets of every tear he had shed and every dream he had dreamt before it had all disappeared. 

How he would have loved to feel the stirring of excitement in his heart, to think of jumping the fence and running home. He would like to be that boy, just for a few moments, not because that boy had been happy, but because that boy had been hopeful. Hope was gone now, as pathetic as it sounded. Severus did not know what there was to live for except that cat. A cure? It was unlikely, and he knew it. What would life offer him? More insults on the street, or else more self-loathing inside? 

“How do you do it?” he murmured to Moonstone, after returning home. His legs ached, his back ached, his shoulders ached. He did not know why he had even gone in the first place. 

Moonstone looked up at him. Her eyes were as luminous in the light as in the dark. 

“You want to live, don’t you? You kept going. I am sure someone abandoned you, did they not?” He stroked her absent-mindedly. “I suppose that is me, too. Though I am not sure there was anything to be abandoned by. I do not think I was picked up in the first place.” A humourless snort escaped Severus at his own self-pity. “Maybe you are another cruel joke, sent to keep the pain going.”

She didn’t seem to think so, for the sadness present in her eyes was striking and made Severus’ throat tighten. How he would have liked to hear her talk back to him, because she seemed the sort of being that could give him comfort, would know the right words, words Severus did not know himself. That was the brilliant thing about some beings, that they knew what you wanted when even you didn’t know. It was the tragedy too, because he knew that she could not respond, and that all the yearning in the world for a real companion would not bring him one.

These moments became what Severus called his moments of weakness. It would have been possible, even easy, for him to sink fully into this self-pity and longing for comfort, only that his own mind stood in the way and, even without Occlumency, stopped him. From youth, he had been conditioned to be stoic, as it was part of ‘being a man’, or rather, part of Tobias’ great plans in hiding what he was doing to his wife and son. Either way, Severus could not remember a time where he had been completely at one with his feelings for the natural length of time. Grief and guilt and loneliness had ripped through him many times, but every time that had felt, Severus had also stopped feeling. Locking thoughts of what he didn’t have away into places that nobody, not even Dumbledore, could see. It had always made him feel strong and powerful to deny his nature the chance to control him, and although power and strength was entirely gone from his vocabulary, something like pride made Severus push away the festering loneliness that kept pace with his heart that refused to stop. It was not so instinctive, as the magic that had facilitated this was gone, but it gave him something to do that required no use of his atrophied muscles. 

The words and eyes of others similarly forced him into this state of denial of human feeling. Severus rarely ventured out, a mixture of poor health and fear, but it had become normal for him to receive verbal abuse if he ever ventured into territory inhabited by wizards. He would have avoided it completely, except for the fact that he was frequently in St. Mungo’s for treatment which took him into a positive hub of wizards and witches. Potter had taken to staying with Severus until he was back at home, but it did not entirely stop people hissing things like ‘filthy Death Eater’ at him in hallways. Severus supposed it might have left him hopeless, feeling as though there was nothing to live for, only he chose to take in all of it and turn it into a stony mask. The more people fired insults at him, the stronger he felt when he pushed away the rush of emotion that sometimes threatened to take over him. If they could not harm him, then he had managed to regain his one great power - the power that had kept him alive until the snake had bitten him. 

But despite the fact that Severus had small moments of glee in refusing to allow comments to penetrate his thick skin, it did not clear up his lethargy and overall increasingly poor moods. Never one who had been very talkative, his complete silence unless it was strictly necessary to talk was probably not striking to anyone, since Severus did not find himself in company except when Potter came to escort him to the hospital. A number of times, Minerva had invited him to dine with her, but Severus had left all those letters unanswered. Potter had put up a bit of a fight at that, but Severus had argued not inaccurately that he was hardly well enough for such engagements anyway, and that Minerva must know that and only sent letters to remind him that she was still there. Nobody else darkened Severus’ doorstep, because nobody else cared. It was an awfully victimising statement, the sort Severus hated, but he knew it to be true. Potter’s friends might not think of him as one of the bad lot, but they had no reason to visit their least-favourite former Professor. Severus was vaguely aware that Lucius had made it out of the war, and was now serving a sentence in Azkaban, but he knew that even if Lucius was not in prison, he would not come to see him. They had been friends because of their service to the Dark Lord; Lucius was now one of the people Severus had betrayed. He supposed the same would be true for Draco and Narcissa. He had never had the idea that either of them were as into Voldemort’s world order as Lucius, but they had, nonetheless, believed in blood supremacy and therefore would detest members of the Order of the Phoenix, and all those allied with it. Severus had not been Draco’s favourite for a while, and that was not destined to change. 

So Severus’ main companion was his cat, and he supposed that she was not a terrible sort of being to have at your side. She required feeding, and thus inserted some routine into Severus’ life, and was also someone who he could talk to, if he ever felt so inclined. She did not answer him - that moment of sadness had passed, but nothing had changed - but it felt less lame for Severus to speak his frustrations to her upturned face than into a void of nobody. She did seem to listen, or at least Severus liked to kid himself into thinking that she was, and maybe in that way he was able to cast off the worries and plaguing thoughts of the day, though he would not internally recognise that talking about his problems made things more bearable. He considered that he had simply gone soft; it was a part of age. Severus was, by now, thirty-nine, an age he ought not to have reached at all, but here he was, moving towards forty. Would he make it that far?

Healer Smethwyck and Healer Whittle seemed determined that he would. They claimed, each time Severus saw them for examinations and treatments and adjustments of medicinal potions, that the work he was doing was good, that he was improving, even if it was at a slow rate, and that they were constantly looking into his previously mentioned ideas surrounding the Cruciatus Curse and snake venom, which was sure to turn up a lead at some point. 

“The curse stimulates your nerves,” Smethwyck explained. “It causes them to react with a painful response when there’s no injury, no real reason to alert you to something being wrong in your body. If this happens once or twice, it’s no problem. But a sustained exposure to false positives, as it were, weakens nerve responses. That’s why you get numbness after a certain amount of physical exertion. It also just makes things very unstable, your nerves lose the refined systems of reaction and will give you pain without a real stimulus, since that’s what the curse does.” He sighed. “That much has been known already. In your case, well, it seems that the snake venom just added more onto the nervous system. I think this is somewhat to do with the fact that you didn’t get antivenom so quickly, but it damaged nerve responses even further. It’s damage that could spread.”

It was a bleak prognosis, but Severus was grateful for his honesty. 

That evening, after Potter had cleared out, Severus found himself crying. He had felt like doing so often, had sometimes shed a tear or two, but he had never allowed himself more than a few sobs before stuffing the emotions back inside his weak body. Tonight, however, he could not stop it, and did not want to. He was going to die. Healer Smethwyck had not said it outright, but Severus knew it was true. They would not find him a cure, and he would slowly break down like some sort of old machine, losing abilities and gaining hardships until his body gave out entirely and ended the misery. Why could he have not died then? Why did he have to stay on, living on time borrowed from who knew where, in a body that rejected him?

Still, Severus was afraid of dying. There had been a moment of clarity when he had been Headmaster in which he had suddenly realised Dumbledore had sentenced him to death, and he remembered being afraid then, but ready. Now, for some reason, he didn’t feel ready, despite the fact that his abilities had left him and he was not really living. Something made his throat tighten and more hot tears spill from his eyes at the thought of death swooping down over him, and his mind raced with thoughts about what would happen to Moonstone, and what the Healers would think when they really were trying hard to save him, and how Potter would react to his newfound freedom when he did not have to accompany Severus to the hospital. The realm of unknown that had always seemed peaceful, an end to the complicated and frightening war, but now it was unfamiliar, the thought was no longer one Severus greeted with tired but glad camaraderie, but a stranger, cold and frightening, a place he was not sure that he wanted to visit just yet. 

He was not ready. 

But of course you’re not , Moonstone’s eyes seemed to tell him through the blur of salty sadness. How could you be ready when I’m still here?

Severus let out something between a sob and a laugh. It was too twisted, all of it. That he had opened his heart at the very time that his body was destined to crumble, that he had decided he wanted to live just as he was surely dying, it was a cruel trick of the universe. Of course, his life had never been simple, and Severus hardly expected things to be easy, but he would have hoped, even if it was foolish, that there would be something about this new existence that was comfortable. But something, a being, an entity, a phenomenon, had come along from nowhere and changed that, had shaken the simplicity that would have snuffed his life with peace and gladness right at the wrong moment.

Eighteen years ago, it had happened too. On the precipice of his life’s greatest grief, Severus had wanted to die, wanted to be done, and had been too afraid to do it, had had something tethering him to this life that he would never undo. He had loved Lily, he still loved her, and so he had stayed behind in the realm she had left to protect the son she had given her life to. It was because of that knowledge, that he might be the only one left who could play this role, that he had not flung himself into the void, and perhaps that had been for the better; Severus’ perception of his own deeds had been thoroughly manipulated by the world’s perception of them, but he did know that some of the things he had done had been good. The unconscious world had made Severus stay on Earth because it had known or suspected what his use was, so that he could fulfil his moral duty. Yes, morals had taken over then, and they took over again now as they stopped him from dying here too. 

But was it really morals? Severus had spent a lot of time pondering morals, in his own attempt to decide if he was or was not a moral person, and still did not understand them. Conscience had been debated since Aquinas and before, and nobody yet knew what it was, really. Severus was inclined to agree that his own conscience was some separate part of him, but a strong part that showed him his path and set him on it. He had imagined it lifting weights as the years passed, growing stronger. His conscience had lifted his arm to try and save Remus Lupin, his conscience had shown his brain the solution for Miss Lovegood, Miss Weasley and Mr Longbottom. His conscience had sent him flying out of that window so that he would not hurt Minerva or Pomona or Filius. Those events were so isolated. Those had been moments of fast decision when he had not known what to do. What was this now? He was still here because the fear of death gripped him, but that fear was of the fact that he would not come back to his cat. So then, he thought, rather hazily, it was love. He supposed he must love the little beast that made him get up, forced affection from him and soaked in his misery without wavering for a moment. In fact, Severus no longer supposed it as the supposition came to him, he knew it. It was true, completely true, that he loved that cat as if she were his dearest friend or his child, which she was, in a way. He loved her, and because of that, he could not leave her despite the difficulties of his life here. He would sentence himself to the unknown void of death without hesitation, except that he did not want to go on without Moonstone, and would never want Moonstone to die, and so they would both have to live. Severus did not know it as clearly, but this was his selflessness - powerful, and a product of his great ability to love. He cared little what happened to himself, but because he loved that cat, because he could love at all, he was living, and there was some peace to him as the moon rose silently over the neighbourhood that knew so little love but still held this powerful symbol in its depths.

Chapter Text

England is not known for its good weather. A meteorologically dull nation, the best that can be said is that it is at least predictable that Spring will come with rain and murky cloud-covered skies, with the occasional beam breaking through the vapour-cushions by the end of March. The chill of Winter will begin to fade and as the equinox approaches and recedes, the lengthening days can foster some hope in the hearts of those to whom pathetic fallacy is not merely a literary technique. Yes, the continued fanfare of a non-secular state provides the ground for many bunnies and pastel colours come Good Friday, but the rebirth of flowers and leaves matters little to the modernising nation that favours cars and computers. 

To our Severus, the blooming of March and April was nothing, because his own neighbourhood did not care for window-boxes or trees planted along the pavement. Instead, the months were something of a countdown, a strange ticking bomb that got closer, hour by hour, to the explosive day that would mark a year since the Dark Lord had fallen for good, a year since so many had died in the fight, and a year since he had not been one of them. Severus was not sure exactly what would happen when the day came, though he predicted a memorial service, and, if nothing else, renewed interest in the whole war. He knew that this would make things worse for him, knew that the memories of that awful time would be refreshed and people would start to blame him and seek him out again. Potter seemed to know it too; he had avoided the topic of the anniversary of the defeat of the Death Eaters and had seemed to imply, when he had briefly said something about plans for it, that Severus should not go to any public events, because it would draw attention and possibly violence. Everus did not care. He would not have been able to go to anything anyway, even though he wished there was a way to honour those that had died in his stead. 

So Severus had already settled himself into a period of even lower spirits than usual by mid-April, and thus had reached a point wherein he did not think anything could get worse for himself. It was mundane, really, to wake up in pain, to feed his cat and then recuperate his energy, to inevitably sink into his feelings of depressiveness and hopelessness before lunchtime had even arrived. Those were his days now, and that was fine by him. Or at least, Severus knew that there was nothing he could do to change the situation, and therefore did not complain about it. 

Potter had taken him for a routine appointment with Healer Whittle and they were back in Spinner’s End. Severus felt tired, but slightly energised. The young Healer had been working on a new remedial potion and had used a little of it, and something about it had made Severus feel a little stronger, though that may have just been the placebo effect. Nonetheless, he was glad to be back in his armchair, which was still threadbare and old, Moonstone in his lap, clearly happy that her companion was back home. She had taken to ‘guarding’ the living room when Severus was gone. 

Usually, Potter would have left right away, but he sat down on the sofa, hands in his lap, looking nervous, and seemed to steel himself, with something to say. Severus did not encourage him; he simply stroked his cat and thought about when he would be able to get up and make a mug of coffee. 

“The Aurors are sending a bunch of us on a sort of expedition,” Potter said, at last. 

Severus raised an eyebrow. He could not see how this information was relevant. 

“It’s going to be for a week. Next week. I won’t be able to take you to your appointment.”\

“Then I suppose I will have to cancel it,” Severus replied, simply. 

Potter shook his head. “No, no, you can’t. I’ve arranged… Well, I’ve arranged for Sirius to take you. He said he would.”

The boy must really be insane.

“I do not think that is a good idea,” Severus said, stiffly. “I doubt that he wishes to do it, and that feeling is mutual. I can go myself, or else arrange for another person to do it who does not crave my destruction.”

“Sirius doesn’t crave your destruction,” Potter frowned, and Severus snorted. “I’m serious,” he persisted. “I didn’t even ask him. I just mentioned to him that this Auror training thing would get in the way of getting you to the hospital, and he said he could do it instead. He even offered to use the bike, since he knows you can’t Apparate.”

“I am not going anywhere near that pestilential thing,” snapped Severus.

Potter sighed deeply. “I don’t see who else would do it, and honestly, I don’t trust anyone else either. Ron’s coming on this thing with me, Hermione’s at Hogwarts, Hagrid’d just smash up your house by accident, and Mrs Weasley might do it, but I don’t like to ask her, she’s already done so much…”

“You trust Black?” Severus questioned. “You think he would not harm me? Considering-”

“Yes I do,” Potter interrupted. “That was years and years ago, Sirius is different . I’m not denying that stunt with the Willow was right,” he added, “but he’s different. He trusts you now, doesn’t he? I think you should at least trust him back. I’m not asking you to become best mates, it’s just a one-off occasion where he’s going to take you instead of me, and then you’ll never have to see him again, if you don’t want to.”

Severus looked down at Moonstone, who did not appear to share in his displeasure, and scowled. “Fine,” he grunted, knowing there was no point in arguing. Black had made it through three battles without losing his strength; he would probably be able to force Severus into it even if he refused. “You can let Black play nursemaid, but I will not go near that bike of his. Have you not been thoroughly disillusioned with it, considering your experience on it two summers ago?”

Potter smirked slightly. “Alright, I’ll tell him he can’t use the bike. He’ll probably just use the Floo Network like normal.”

***

As the day of Black’s arrival approached, Severus found himself going through waves of emotions akin to those of a teenager: nerves, annoyance, anger, and nothingness. One day, he woke up convinced that Black was coming to gander at his near-invalid status, and the next, he could not think of either Potter or Black without wanting to liberally curse the both of them for ever having been born. If he could be sure of one thing, it was that he did not want to see Black, and would be very glad when the whole affair was behind them. It made no sense, anyway, that Black wanted to come and help his arch-nemesis. Severus would not have chosen the man in a million years, and, by the time Sirius’ arrival was only a half hour away, Severus was considering that he would rather miss his appointment and be dead than allow the mangy mutt within ten feet of him. He weighed up putting some protective enchantments on his house, so that Black would search fruitlessly for it, but in the end did not do so, since he did not trust his own magic skills yet. Instead, he chose to soak up his last moments of peace in his armchair, Moonstone on his lap. She was not sleeping; she seemed to know it would be unwise, could sense that her natural enemy was approaching. 

At five minutes to two, there was a loud knock on Severus’ door. He was not happy about this; his appointment was not until three and he had counted on Black not coming until two-thirty at the earliest, never having had a high enough regard for the man to view him as punctual. Moonstone tensed up at the sound, and sprang to life, standing bolt upright on Severus’ legs, her luminous eyes pointed at the source of the noise. 

“It’s alright,” Severus told her, softly. “Just a mongrel. Get off, I’ve got to open the door.”

She turned her furry head towards him with a look of contempt at his mistrust of her judgement that he ought to do nothing of the sort. There was another knock, it sounded as though Black was bashing his empty head against the door.

“I mean it,” said Severus, and she leapt off his lap, retreating under the sofa. Severus lifted himself out of his armchair and regained his balance with difficulty; he was not ready to get onto his feet, he had not prepared enough. Hobbling towards the door, Black knocked for a third time, and Severus let out several swear words under his breath at the man’s impatience. Could he not wait for just a few moments? Did he not know that that foul snake had done what Black had only dreamed of, and significantly weakened him physically?

Severus wrenched open the door, and was met with one of his least favourite faces in the world. His long curly hair still fell into his eyes like a schoolboy’s, his lips still made an arrogant smirk, and his posture still communicated the self-assurance that Severus had never himself known. Black may not look fourteen anymore, but Severus still saw his school tormentor in the face, still remembered when it had been smoother and beardless. Still remembered the power he had wielded, and hated that there was still such a gap in strength between them. Black’s face was not pale or sweaty from the smallest exertion; he was fit and healthy, and spoke with a voice not marred by snake bites. 

“Afternoon, Snape,” he said, raising a hand. He spoke cheerfully. “Glad you finally opened the door. Is it going to take longer for you to let me in the damn house?”

Severus wordlessly stepped aside and Black swaggered into the tiny sitting room, his grey eyes roving around the place. Severus was sure that he was judging his shabby abode, and did not feel shocked. Black had been raised in privilege and abundance; his bathrooms were probably bigger than this sitting room. Grimmauld Place had not been clean or pleasant, but it had always retained the air of old money and habitual luxury. Spinner’s End was probably cleaner than that house had been, but it was more run-down, and spoke of working class, a part of Severus’ identity that he had always denied to his aristocratic friends in Slytherin. 

Black deposited himself on the sofa without invitation. “Well, we’ve got three-quarters of an hour, I’d say, before we have to go.”

Severus arched an eyebrow as he closed the door and leant against it for support. “Then why are you here so early, Black? Or did you once again fall victim to your inevitable foolishness, and misread the clock?”

“Old friends need time to catch up!” Black protested, a grin on his face. “Better late than early, Harry said I should be on time or you’d get antsy with me.”

“We are not friends,” Severus snapped.

“Right, of course.” Sirius nodded seriously. “We are comrades at least, aren’t we? That’s what Harry’s been saying.”

Severus narrowed his eyes. Was this a jibe from Black, an indication that he did not believe his loyalty, even after his dear godson’s vouching?

“I believe him, I believe him,” Black reassured Severus, waving a hand to dismiss this unspoken curiosity. “Don’t get me wrong, I still think you’re an unpleasant, greasy git, but I believe you’re on our side, or whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “You think I’d be here if I didn’t?”

Severus had to concede that this was a good point, a rare moment of clarity from the mutt. 

“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asked, stiffly, eager for a chance to get out of the room. Black’s general present was uncomfortable. 

Looking taken-aback, but pleased, Black nodded his shaggy head. “Yeah, thanks Sni- Snape.” 

Severus had not missed Black’s near-slip into the old nickname, and he fought the urge to punch the man with difficulty as he stumped into the small kitchen. How dare he? Perhaps someone naive would have said that Black had been making an effort to be friendly, but Severus saw right through it. He was appeasing himself and Potter, doing his arrogant best to assure himself that he had done a good deed, though he was as much of a bully as he had been as a teenager. Even after all these years, he had not forgotten the petty insults, and continued to define Severus by them. Severus wondered what else he had planned. They were alone, and Severus was weakened. If Black chose to whip out his wand, Severus would be at an even greater disadvantage than he had been when his three cronies were around. How fitting. Black had lost his three comrades, but Severus would never be able to triumph over them, because he had lost his strength in turn. Perhaps Black had volunteered to come simply because he wanted to give Severus a piece of his mind, blame him for surviving when James and Lupin were dead. He doubted Black cared for Pettigrew anymore, but the other two must still be in his high regard. The wound of Lupin, Severus considered, must still be somewhat open for Black. 

Ten minutes later, Severus emerged from the concealed door to the living room, tea tray balanced on his weak and unsteady hands. He had spent longer than usual on the simple task of making tea; he wanted to stay away from Black for as long as possible, but could not rationalise taking any longer on the task, and now attempted to maintain his balance for the last few feet that he had to walk. As he crossed the threshold, Black pulled out his wand, and Severus tensed unconsciously, waiting for a curse that never came; Black simply summoned the tea tray from Severus’ hands and directed it neatly over to the spindly side table. It landed gently, with a small bump, not spilling a drop. Black looked rather pleased with himself, and it occurred to Severus that he had noticed his shaky hands. He did not like it, Black being aware of his weaknesses. 

“I’ve brought my bike,” Black said, conversationally.

“No,” Severus interrupted, flatly. “We will use the Floo Network.” He indicated the fireplace, and the pot of floo powder beside it. 

Black rolled his eyes. “That’s boring . Don’t you want a bit of fun?”

“If that wretched bike is your definition of fun, Black, then no. I do not want a ‘bit of fun’.” Severus scowled as Black started to pour himself tea, and then, without being asked, poured one for Severus too.

“Alright, alright,” Black grumbled, looking bad-tempered. “Shouldn’t have expected anything more from a bastard like you.”

Severus felt a number of insults well up inside him, but chose to act as though he had not heard Black speak.

Black reclined slightly in his seat, taking a monstrous gulp of his tea. He swallowed luxuriously, as though he were a connoisseur, and smacked his lips. Severus wondered if the man was able to do anything without putting on a performance as he grinned broadly, quite as if he had just been told that he had won the Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw. When his eyes roved around the squalid room again, they seemed almost comfortable. 

“That’s some good tea,” Black declared, crossing one leg over the other. “Really good.”

Severus had no idea what to answer to this.

“Not a bad place you’ve got here, either. How did you find it?”

“You are a terrible liar, Black,” Severus replied, feeling more and more incensed with the man. “If you have nothing of value to say, keep your muzzle firmly shut.”

“I’m being serious!” Black sat up straight. “It’s cosy. Not grand, or anything, but you know, it’s got enough space for one or two, it’s not big and empty.” He gestured flamboyantly at the shelves, all packed with books, and boxes enchanted to look like books. “You’ve got all your stuff in one place. What’s the fun in a library, really? You want to have all of what you need exactly where you need it.”

Severus snorted without realising what he was doing. “Black, this is possibly the most undesirable house for any wizard or Muggle, and you are well aware of it. Your feeble attempts at niceties are painfully awful, it would be more prudent for you to cease.” 

Black frowned. “You can’t take anyone’s compliments, can you, Snape? It doesn’t matter if I’m horrible or nice to you, you’ll always take offence. That’s why nobody can get close to you, but you act like it’s a problem with the world rather than you.”

“I did not invite you into my house for a lecture, Black,” Severus cut in, sharply. Anger was bubbling inside him now. When had Black ever been at all ‘nice’ to him? When had Black or his gang ever done anything to make him feel as though he were wanted or valued? Who was he to lecture Severus on social etiquette when he was the reason that Severus had been lonely for all his school years? Black had never attempted to become close to him, and he had done his best to get in the way of anyone else who might have ever wanted to.

Black rolled his eyes ostentatiously. “I’m not lecturing you, I'm pointing out a fact. I’m here, extending the ‘olive branch’, or whatever, but you’re staying true to form and just rebuffing anyone’s attempts to be nice! You can’t make friends and stop being lonely if you just keep pushing everyone away.”

“You think I am the one at wrong here, Black? I have not asked you for your opinion on my mannerisms, and I do not want to hear them. If you expect me to call you a hero for basic pleasantries, you are setting yourself up for disappointment, I am afraid. You are hardly a good samaritan, Black. I have not forgotten things, despite my encounter with that snake, and if you think it is possible to move past it as though it had never happened, then you have failed hugely to grasp any of the situation.”

The words fell into the silence, heavy droplets that seemed to have cost Severus all of his energy. He watched Black, and saw the momentary shock register on his face, before he smoothed it out again, looking unabashed, as though he did not understand. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Severus knew that Black had no idea that he could have ever done anything bad, being as egotistical as he was, and so he would never acknowledge Severus’ words. They would bounce off his thick skull as the ragings of an unhinged, weakened man who had nothing better to do than complain all day and no feelings like that of a human being. It was old news now, that Black was an inconsiderate swine. Still, Severus felt a part of him that had wondered if Black would have changed with the war die, though it was a resigned sort of death that came not as a surprise, but just a given part of living. 

Black did not reply, but gulped his tea. Severus was glad for it; he had nothing to say to the man and did not have the energy for rebuttal. Several minutes passed, in complete silence, until Moonstone suddenly shot from underneath the sofa, and jumped up onto Severus’ armchair. It did not make Severus jump, he was used to her antics and had known she was lurking there, but Black started, looking at the cat as though he had never seen one before in his life.

“You’ve got a cat?” he asked, and Severus thought Black had a great deal of reckless bravery to speak up after what he had been told minutes earlier.

“Yes,” replied Severus, curtly, in a way that he hoped indicated that the conversation was over before it had begun. 

“Cool.” He sounded like a schoolboy. “When did you get it?”

Severus did not attempt to suppress his annoyed sigh. “Some months ago.” He flicked his eyes to the clock. “I think it is time to go.”

Moonstone jumped lightly down from the armchair at Severus’ words, allowing him to push himself up. The addition of tea would usually have given him a bit of strength, but the tension lingering in the air after the confrontation with Black had stolen that. He felt weak, untrusting. It had always been a real possibility that Black would try to do something to him, but the mongrel’s ignorance of his real impact made it even more possible, even more real to Severus. Their water was not under the bridge, really.

Black rose to his feet, much stronger than Severus, and, presumably, without the room spinning before him. “Alright,” he replied. His tone was slightly businesslike, no longer comfortable. 

The hospital was as familiar of an environment as Severus’ own house at this point. He had lived there for a number of weeks when in his first stages of recovery, and returned at the very least, once a week. He knew the hallways well, could trace the path to the Creature Induced Injuries Department with the same easy memory as he had once traced the path to his office in the dungeons in Hogwarts, in a time that had somehow been simpler. The staff all knew him, and he knew them. Some steered well clear of him; Severus knew he could hardly win over an entire department of people with his mere presence, and Severus stayed away from them. He did not speak, for example, to one of the helpwizards whom he knew was not friend, even if there was nobody else on duty. Those who did not show him open hostility did not exactly come near Severus, but they might bid him ‘morning’ or ‘afternoon’, and he did not feel on edge when they were there. The only people who seemed to be at all caring towards Severus in the department were the two Healers, Healer Smethwyck and Healer Whittle. Sometimes, Severus even thought they liked him, though usually shut down this assumption by deciding that they just had a professional interest in his situation. Healer Whittle, especially, seemed almost excited by the prospect of Severus’ continued treatment, as though it was a project. Severus might have objected, but he could not take Healer Whittle’s enthusiasm; it was strangely thrilling to see that in him. 

“I think you’re doing better,” Healer Whittle asserted. “This is the advantage of time. Increased mobility is doing good things for your muscles, and in gaining strength there, you’ll gain stamina and improve.” He paused to scribble something on his notes. “Have you considered going on walks?”

Severus did not answer immediately. He had sometimes ambled to the moors, because he knew a shortcut, but had not been out recently. He did not want to, not with the anniversary approaching.

“I have been out on walks occasionally,” he answered at last. “Perhaps you will understand that it is not always easy for me to be out in public.”

He nodded, looking sympathetic. “Yeah, I get that.” He seemed to understand more deeply than he was letting on. “You don’t seem so happy about being a bit better.”

Severus shrugged. He thought anything was unlikely to make him happy, considering the outcome of his meeting with Black. “I do not notice the improvement. I do not have your charts and assessments and notes.”

The Healer frowned rather shrewdly. “How often do you see other people? I mean, how often do you meet with friends? To socialise, and such?”

He fought the strange urge to laugh. “I meet with Potter, when he comes to escort me here. That is once a week, or more.”

“But you don’t see anyone else?”

Severus shook his head, unbothered. Healer Whittle frowned still deeper. 

“You didn’t come with Potter today.”

“He is an acquaintance of Potter’s. Potter is attending to some business with the Auror Office today. It is a temporary arrangement that I will not be at all sad to finish.”

Whittle adjusted his posture slightly. “I think you should look into being more social. Obviously, just spending time with friends won’t heal you completely, I’m not going to lie to you like that, but I think you would see some improvement if you did. Your mental state… Well, it doesn’t seem like you really feel there’s any end goal to recovery. You don’t seem to be at all encouraged by the fact that I’m seeing a bit of improvement, and I think that’s because you don’t have any hope. There’s nothing you want to do with your recovery, is there?”

His blunt questions might have angered Severus, but he felt them too deeply for that. Healer Whittle was a good man, he was not out to get Severus, and he was a medical professional whom Severus trusted with his health. He could not vilify him for noticing what he noticed, and when the words came from his sensible mouth, Severus knew they were true, and felt himself shrink inside. 

“There is nothing to hope for,” he found himself saying. “I do not expect you to understand why. But I do not think it will be possible for me to associate with people when most think very little of me.”

Severus did not want to look at his face, but as he took a furtive, quick glance, he saw something of pity, mixed with what was perhaps grief, and resignation. Because Healer Whittle knew that, as bleak as it was, there was no point in denying these facts. He was certainly compassionate, but he was no liar. Even he could not deny that an almost certain bout of depression in Severus came not from perceptions, but reality. The fire had been stoked by Moonstone, but she could not fan the flames. She could not do more than keep the embers glowing, small as she was, and try and shelter in their warmth. She had done well in finding someone to care for her, in uniting two beings who needed each other in different ways, but she could not necessarily repeat the miracle. Severus wondered if this was to be it for him now. The admission that the betterness was not going to last, that there really was no hope. Perhaps this was the start of the real decline, and perhaps, that unreadiness had gone with the winter. 

Black had remained entirely silent in the minutes before they had left Spinner’s End for St. Mungo’s, and when Severus emerged back into the waiting room, he held his tongue once again, and Severus was glad for it. He did not want to talk to Black, he had never wanted to, but he especially did not want to at that moment. They traced the silent path back to the Floo exits, Black clearly being deliberate about his lack of speed because Severus was slow on his feet still. They climbed into the fireplace in silence, and Severus lost himself, or tried to lose himself, in the rushing of the other fireplaces through which he passed, willing the journey to last forever because the strange feeling of flying was better than the heavy cage his depleted body had him locked in. But it was over, and all too soon, and he had landed back in Spinner’s End, the place he hated, and the familiar place was horrible to him and he hardly wanted to sit down in the armchair he had often fantasized about during the moments of being out of the house and eager to return home. Moonstone was sitting on the sofa, and Severus looked at her with terrible sorrow in his freezing heart. He was not strong enough for her. 

“Well,” Black said, after several tense seconds. “You don’t need anything, do you? You’re, uh, feeling alright and everything?”

“I am perfectly fine,” Severus replied, coolly. 

Black nodded and put his hands in his pockets before taking them out again. “Right. Good. I suppose I’ll, um, go, then.

Severus nodded stiffly. 

“I- I hope things get better, Snape,” Black said, his tone not compassionate, but strained, as though he had fought against saying those words. He half-raised a hand, and then looked towards Moonstone. He inclined his head to her, and was gone.

Severus thought about what Black had said regarding him not letting people in. Had he actually cared? Had he tried, but ultimately failed, to be nice? To seem concerned? It was preposterous, unheard of that Sirius Black ever go back on his famous grudges, and yet, he had volunteered to escort Severus to the hospital. He had not, at any point, actually attacked him, despite having all the opportunities in the world to do so. He had stopped himself from calling him Snivellus. It was out of character, was it not?

Yes, but, Severus decided, it did not matter. It was a coincidence, and it would not repeat itself, because, just like with himself, bursts of change did not stop the eventual decay.

Chapter Text

As May finally approached, Severus became more reclusive than ever. He stopped going out, even if it would have been beneficial in the end, and kept his curtains drawn, firmly rebuffing anyone who might try to come and call. He would have placed heavy protective enchantments over the house, but Severus found that his strength was not good enough yet, and so gave up on that plan. He doubted that anyone knew he lived here, otherwise they would have come knocking far sooner to loot him or leave him bleeding out on the living room floor. Severus \ assumed that most people still thought he hated Muggles, and would therefore never sink to living amongst them. Certainly, Severus did not like Spinner’s End, but it was nothing to do with Muggles as a whole, but merely one Muggle, the hated Tobias who had left years earlier and had probably forgotten the wizard son he had left behind. 

On the day of the first, Severus did not feel anything. He remembered his Mayday morning of a year earlier, but it had been normal, or at least his new normal. He had risen in the Headmaster’s quarters, which he hated, and had had a cup of coffee in his rooms. He had eaten, he thought, probably a small breakfast, without going to the Great Hall. Nobody wanted him there; the Carrows had been happy to reign over the students without him and none of the staff with any goodness in them had wanted to get anywhere near him. Leaving his presence out of the daily lives of the students had been one of the few things Severus had ever managed to feel even slightly good about. He was not walking around proudly after the kill, maybe they would know, deep down, that he was ashamed of himself, acutely so, even though his killing of Dumbledore had not been the cold-blooded action they thought. At the moment of casting that spell, Severus had felt something burn in him. It had evoked the emotion nobody thought he really had. 

The day had progressed with increasing tension. Just before lunch, Severus had received a message that there had been a break-in at Gringotts, from Alecto Carrow, and Dumbledore’s portrait had been, strangely, delighted by this prospect. Severus had independently suspected that it had been Potter, hence the apparent scenes of rage that had gripped Malfoy Manor, this time according to a slightly gleeful, slightly terrified Amycus. Then, as the afternoon had been winding down, the Dark Lord himself had sent a warning that Potter may attempt to get into Hogwarts, and, specifically, to Ravenclaw Tower, and Severus had decided that, to the best of his ability, he would allow Potter into the castle, then act to capture him, and give him Dumbledore’s final advice. The Dark Lord had seemed vulnerable, and Severus had decided that the time was finally right. He had sent Alecto to Ravenclaw Tower, and Amycus to patrol the lower floors. He had gone out himself, emerging into the corridors for the first time in a while, and that was where he had met Minerva. 

It was not until the sun began to sink low that Severus remembered the duel properly, and how he had felt. Severus didn’t know if he could have ever beaten her if the emotions disappeared from the situation; he may have once been very good at duelling, and had a quick mind, but she had experience and drive that he did not. Either way, Severus had known from the moment that he had stepped from behind the suit of armour that his time was finished, that he would needs to surrender the school, and he had done so without any real unhappiness. To fly, to be away from what was like a prison, had been wonderful, even if it had lasted little more than mere moments.

Severus did not want to think about what came next, not in any sense. Next came innocent people being murdered, the school he had once loved being destroyed, and his own magic being crushed under the fangs of a snake. He would never be able to know why the Dark Lord had chosen Nagini as his weapon, but there was no doubting that it had been an extremely painful manner of almost-dying. Had he known, in that last moment, that Severus had not been loyal? Had he figured it out and decided on Nagini’s bite to punish Severus? Sometimes, it seemed that way, for the Dark Lord was sadistic, cruel in that way. Others, however, it seemed that it had been a practical choice. Of course, the Dark Lord had thought Severus was the master of his wand, the Elder Wand, which should, in theory, make it impossible to use against him. Therefore, Nagini would have been the only option, since the Dark Lord would not have trusted his wand of yew against the master of the Deathstick. Certainly, would the Dark Lord not have used more horrific spells on Severus, if he had known he was a traitor? Perhaps he had not trusted the wand even for that. It was a conundrum that Severus would never know the answer to, and he did not know why that bothered him. 

Waking on the second day of May, Severus felt ill. Not in the sense that he usually did, but mentally tired, as though something more had been taken from him. He had woken, but there were many who had not, many who had not risen for a year. He thought of Remus Lupin. Black’s great friend, for one thing, but also a new father. Stolen from his life. Severus had preserved that life once, with disastrous effects for George Weasley, and now he wondered whether he should not have done that. It would have saved the pain of orphaning a son, perhaps. But maybe it would have changed so much else, and Severus was not prepared to give up an act of his truth to ponder that. Lupin had not been the only tragedy of the battle, though. Fred Weasley, for example, was dead, taken in his prime. Nymphadora Tonks, a promising Auror, had fallen. There were students who had perished, and even if he had vacated his post, Severus felt responsible. He had, officially, been Headmaster, had he not? He had let students die, and yet one of his own students had not let him die. He thought about the many families that would wake up today, if they had slept the night before, and remember the absence of their loved ones which was far more immutable than Severus’ loss of physical health.

And had he been a part of that? Severus had been unable to reconcile his conflicting roles in the two wars that had fought against the Dark Lord. Sometimes, he had felt that he was doing the right thing, but it was difficult to figure out what it had been when he knew there were people who hated him, and when their reasons were not wrong. He had killed Dumbledore. It was a fact. Perhaps he had not done it for the Dark Lord, indeed, he would never have done it if not for Dumbledore’s insistence, but that did not erase the fact that he had still killed the man, had ended his life. He could not resent anyone who hated him for that. Then he had allowed the Carrows to be abusive to the students. Severus had thought, at the time, that he must let them reign because he had a role to play, but now he wondered, with hindsight, if he could have done more. He could have reminded them that students would prattle to their parents and that Dark magic being taught at Hogwarts would surely provoke rebellion against the Dark Lord, or else he could have simply said that spilling the blood of ‘real wizards and witches’ would be going against the Dark Lord’s new line of purity. There were probably hundreds of things that he could have said or done, and yet he had seen none of them. That, Severus thought, might be what made him a bad person. Any good person would have understood how to save innocent people and would have fought to ensure that it happened, and he had not. 

The Dark Mark was all but gone from Severus’ forearm now. He didn’t like to look at that place, it had become habit after he had left the Death Eaters, not to remind himself of what sort of person he had been, but still, he had sometimes caught a glimpse of the ugly Mark, faint in the years of the Dark Lord’s exile, but a horrible, jolting reminder of everything he had done. It kept the guilt poignant. After Wormtail’s escape, Severus had changed tune, becoming almost obsessed with it. He had looked at it intensely as it grew more pronounced, trying to draw knowledge from it of what was to come. He had hated the reappearance of his past’s tattoo, but he hadn’t been able to look away when he had known the terror of what it meant. Once the Dark Lord was back, Severus went back to trying not to look at it, since he knew it was there to stay until the Dark Lord’s true defeat, but it had been far more noticeable and bright, and he had been more on edge, waiting for it to burn, ready to go quickly to avoid the latecomer’s punishment. It had not been the same anticipation he had felt as a new Death Eater, there had been no excitement for the noble service, but still, it had been there. 

Now it was just a scar, a faint line that you could only see on Severus’ pasty arm in good light, a disturbance in his skin that you could feel if you ran the palm of your hand over the place. Severus had known for sure that the Dark Lord was gone for good when he had seen this change in the Mark; even during his exile, there had been a clear marking, a red tattoo. Only his true death could kill the power of the Marks. And yet there was no joy, no relief in seeing it, even a year after it had faded away forever. Severus could tilt his arm one way and it would look like he had never been branded, but mostly, he could still see it. It would follow him forever, that symbol. Desertion didn’t change it, a switching in values didn’t change it. More than a decade of fighting for the other side didn’t change it. Severus knew that the public knew that he still bore this faint marking, and that he could never go back on his choice. The Mark would linger, and so would those eyes and minds. 

A knock shattered Severus’ thoughts and he felt his heart and stomach drop to the floor. This was it. Someone, one of the grieving, had found out where he lived, and they were coming for him now, a symbolic sort of crime. They had not been able to kill him on the day of the battle, and so they had decided the anniversary would be a fine day on which to punish the last Death Eater who remained free. Severus wondered if he should try to get away, or else stay seated. Maybe he could even open the door for them, and make it easy. They would not have to beat the thing down, and could get away well before anyone would ever notice a disturbance. Another knock sounded, and he decided to get up. Whatever was coming, there would be no point in delaying it. 

When Severus wrenched open the door, his hand nowhere near his wand, he was not met by a mob of angry malcontents, and yet what he did see made him more annoyed, and made his aching body angrier than it would have been if there had been a murderer waiting. It was Black, with an appraising look on his face, clutching a bottle in his arms. 

Severus immediately closed the door, or rather, tried to, only Black stuck out his foot, preventing it from closing all the way. He kicked it back o pen, a look of dramatised upset on his face. 

“What are you doing here, Black?” Severus demanded. His tether was short enough, and Black’s appearance had just halved it. He had mostly shelved their interaction on the day of the St. Mungo’s visit, but it had not been forgotten entirely, and Severus still felt bitter about it. 

“I came…” he trailed off, as though he himself did not know. “I came to talk,” he settled, after a moment.” “I have no interest in talking with you,” Severus replied, his voice a perfect imitation of his old, scornful self. “Remove your foot from my door.”

Black shook his head. “No,” he said, simply. “I have things to say. I’ll say them out here if I’ve got to, but I’d rather do it inside, over a drink.” He held up the bottle of dark liquid he had been carrying. “I’m not here to taunt you or hurt you.”

It was like he knew. It was like he knew exactly what Severus had been expecting as he opened the door, like he knew that people hated him especially today, like he knew that Severus had been dreading more gazes from the eyes that did not look at him properly. It was strange, to feel that Sirius Black understood him. Sirius Black, who had always hated him. Who had done his best to torment him. Who ought to have been the first to join the angry mob, purely for satisfaction. 

Severus stepped aside, and Black loped into the sitting room, depositing himself uninvited onto the sofa. As Severus struggled back to his armchair, Black whipped out his wand, and wordlessly summoned two glasses from the kitchen. Severus felt jealousy burn inside of him. Effortless magic was all but lost on him. He would have rather hobbled to the kitchen for the glasses than try a spell, magic was more taxing to him than walking. 

Moonstone leapt lightly onto Severus’ lap and he unconsciously resumed stroking her head, whilst Black busied himself pouring drinks. He lifted his own to his lips and took a long draught, but Severus didn’t touch his. He did not trust his body and mind to behave if he was under the influence of alcohol. Even if the drink was not poisoned, Severus knew from experience that it was best to be on one’s guard when Sirius Black was in the room. The two sat in silence, therefore, as Black smacked his lips in appreciation of the drink, looking every bit as arrogant and self-assured as Severus had always known him to be. 

“Not going to have a drink, Snape?” Black asked, ostentatiously, after he had finished his. “I didn’t bring the good stuff just for you to turn your nose up at it.”

Severus scowled. “Drop the pretence, Black. I am not here to have a cosy drink, and nor are you. You claimed to have something to say, so say it and get out. I have no desire to remain in your company longer than necessary.”

“I figured you might be lonely today,” Black explained. “You know, it’s a strange sort of day, but you’re alone, aren’t you?”

Severus said nothing. 

Black sighed. “Look, I’ve needed to talk to you for a while. I know it’s not the best day, but I can’t let it go on any longer, alright?”

“Spit it out,” Severus snapped. He could feel his temper rising slightly. 

“I’ve done a lot of thinking,” Black began. “I did it a bit after the war ended, but what you said to me when I came to take you to St. Mungo’s sort of stuck with me, I guess, and I realised that I probably hadn’t done enough thinking. I’ve known for a long time that I was an arrogant git when I was a teenager, but I suppose I didn’t really see the extent of it.” He paused. “I never really saw what I did as truly wrong , just embarrassing and conceited, you know?” Black didn’t wait for Severus’ answer that would not have come anyway. “I didn’t really get it, that what I did, and what James did too, was really hurtful. Might have caused you some damage. And I suppose I didn’t really realise that that sort of damage can last, either. I always forgot about those things after they were over, and I guess I assumed that you did too, since you didn’t look like you were having a really tough time. But I was- I was wrong.” 

Severus nearly fell out of his chair. Sirius Black had just admitted that he was wrong . 

“The point is,” Black ploughed on, “that I’ve realised that I was a dick to you. More than that, really. I didn’t get it, and I know that’s not really an excuse, I know I ought to have known better even then, but I didn’t, so the best I can do is say that I’m sorry now.” He took a breath. “I didn’t understand that you could change, either. I spent all the time in the Order thinking that you must be a traitor or something, I didn’t see that it was, is, possible for you to be someone else. I was too blinded. And I know it’s a bit late, but I’m sorry about that too. I know I said so already, but I really do think you’re on our side, and I believe that you were always loyal. And, well,” Black shifted uncomfortably, “I think you’re pretty fucking brave, to be honest.” 

Black finally closed his mouth, and sat back, looking awkward, yet relieved. He seemed to have planned everything that he wanted to say, but he was not self-assured in its reception, because Severus could feel him looking at him. 

Black had said sorry . He had admitted that he had misunderstood Severus during their school days, that he had been in the wrong and had failed to be objective in his viewing of him both as a student and as an adult. And then he had said that he thought Severus was brave , which was a compliment from the Gryffindor Black. It was unprecedented, and Severus felt a war start up in his mind. A large part of him wished to throw Black from the house for no good reason, to close off and withdraw, because it was all too much. This made no sense, it was ludicrous, it must be some sort of joke, an extension of the deranged pleasure Black and his cronies had always taken from tormenting him. Yes, it was another joke, because that is always what it is. 

But there were no other Marauders here. They were all dead, so Black could hardly leave this house and laugh with his friends behind Severus’ back, because there were no friends left. It struck him, as though from far away, for the first time, that Black must be rather lonely, and that he must notice the difference more poignantly than Severus. After all, Black had been used to friends all around him, and those voices had faded one by one. Severus had not lost anyone in the war, because he had not had anyone. It had been a miserable sort of existence, that was true, but it had preserved his heart, if in an icy cage. Black was a bit soft, really, but Severus found some cold pity for him somewhere, and it was strange to feel it and to understand this fact of his losses. Still, it was true that Black was only not laughing because he had no one to laugh with, and that was not a real repentance, was it? 

Yet he had just said that he did have real repentance, and Severus could not ignore that, his prior conclusion acknowledged. If Black could not go and make fun of Severus, then it followed that everything he had said was serious, and that his repentance was true, which might have been the hardest thing to fathom of them all. 

“Why did you decide this?” Severus asked, at last. 

Black did not look surprised at his lack of warm acceptance.

“I thought about it.” Black took a swig of his drink. “I’d never thought about it properly before, that’s all.”

“And why are you telling me this?”

“I thought that one was obvious,” he replied. “I want you to know that things are different. What’s the point in me realising that I’ve been in the wrong if I don’t tell you? I can’t expect anything to change if you don’t know, I realised that quite quickly.” He shrugged.

Change . Was Black under the impression that this would somehow change everything? Or anything at all?

But maybe it did change things. After all, Black had never shown any inkling of feeling remorse for his actions, and that had always been what Severus had hated, had always been the reason he wouldn’t move past it. That had been his condition, and it had been met. So, logically, things ought to change, shouldn’t they? Otherwise, that meant that there was something else between the two of them that Severus had never been able to uncover, and he wasn’t entirely sure if it existed, and he didn’t know about it, or if it wasn’t there at all. Severus reasoned that he wouldn’t be able to tell unless he suddenly uncovered the thing, and so, by logic again, he should proceed as he would if there wasn’t anything else, and only change his tune when there really was a good reason to. Severus hadn’t imagined what it might be like if he had received an apology from Black; half of the resentment towards him came from an assumption that the stupid mutt would never aquire enough brains to figure out what he had done wrong, but now the situation had arisen, and it left Severus completely unsure. Things had happened in an unprecedented way, so maybe he should act in a similarly unprecedented way to balance it out, or maybe he should act in his own characteristic way to nudge off the strangeness of it all. 

 “What do you want out of this?” Severus asked, after some moments of thought. 

This one seemed to be something that Black had not expected because he took his time in answering. 

“I don’t know that I want something,” Black started, “I just wanted to say it, not because I was going to get something out of it. I mean, I think I hoped you’d understand me a bit, you know, accept the fact that I’m sorry, but I didn’t come because I wanted to gain something.”

That was an odd thing to come from Black’s mouth. 

“Do you think you have done a valiant job of apologising?”

Black shrugged. “I know I’ve said my piece, and I’ve said what I wanted to, what I think I need to. Doesn’t mean you have to think it’s enough, but if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that a forced apology isn’t a real one. You can tell me if you think there’s something I haven’t covered, and I can think about it, but at the end of the day, I think it’s a case where we’ve got to meet in the middle, or at least not right down at either end.” Black looked sheepish. “I’m sure you wouldn’t like to hear it, but you do hold grudges. I think you’ll have to move away from your previous way of thinking about me if you want to forgive me or accept the apology and, even if it’s overstepping to say this, I do think it’d be good for you to at least think about doing it.”

Severus frowned. “Because you believe I shut people out?”

“I don’t believe it,” Black replied, dismissively. “I know it. I’m Harry’s godfather, remember? He’s told me that you’re like a cactus. It’s not an insult,” he added, likely in an attempt to assuage Severus’ frown, “but it is true. You don’t let people near you. I know that’s partially because I used to hex you if I got within ten feet, but I also know that sometimes you’ve got to trust first. That’s what Dumbledore did with you, and what he didn’t do with me, isn’t it?”

He opened his mouth to ask what Black meant, but the question died in his mouth and was replaced.

“Do you mean that Dumbledore did not wait for your story to allow you to be sent to Azkaban?”

Black nodded, and looked very bitter. “He could have asked me face-to-face. He was a good Legilimens, I’m sure you know that. He could have cleaved my brain open, I’d have let him. But he wouldn’t. I asked for a meeting with him, and he wouldn’t have it. Moony told me after I got out. He knew about it, that I’d requested to see him, and he refused. Said that too many in the Order were against it, and that it was a safety risk. But I know that not everyone was, and we both know that wandless me, with some of the Dementors’ influence, wouldn’t have been able to so much as break his nose.”

This shook Severus somewhat. He had not always agreed with Dumbledore’s methods, and understood what it was like to be the victim of them, but he had always thought of Dumbledore as a person who trusted, who gave the benefit of the doubt at first. Certainly, Severus had benefited from this trait he had always assumed ran in Dumbledore, having been trusted by him that first time so many years ago, and whilst Severus understood that Dumbledore did not always act benevolently, nor was it possible to maintain such a philosophy in war, he had thought that he would not simply leave Black without attempting to verify the truth, not when he had been so loyal to the Order ever since he had left school. 

“I did not know that there had ever been any contact from you after you were taken in,” Severus said, because he didn’t know quite how to respond. 

“He didn’t share it with everyone, Moony told me. Just people like Mad-Eye, who were at higher levels, and then people like Alice and Frank, who had known me a bit better.” He snorted derisively. “I can’t say I expected him to fight tooth and nail to get me out, but I thought he might at least humour me. I didn’t expect him to believe me straight off the bat, but to just accept that I was guilty, despite the loyalty I’d shown… Well, you went through that, didn’t you?”

“Sorry?”

Black looked confused. “When you killed Dumbledore,” he stated, and Severus felt himself contract uncomfortably inside. 

“I do not see what you mean.”

“You showed a lot of loyalty to the Order before the fact, but everyone believed the surface-level explanation and condemned you without ever examining evidence.”

Severus shook his head, and dredged up old thoughts, old reasonings that he had sifted through in the days after the act. 

“I had shown loyalty to Dumbledore, that is true,” Severus relented. “He knew that I would not betray him, but the entire aim of the plan was for my betrayal to be easily believable by outsiders. My defection was never explained to the Order, partially at my request, but also to preserve the secret. I was never in a position of full trust, and I rather think that Dumbledore intended that to be the case.”

Why was he saying this now? He had thought these things before, in those many lonely hours in that high office that had never been his, but he had never shared them with anyone, had never thought of talking about the ways in which his role had not been perfectly justified. And now he had told Black that for a long time, he had suspected Dumbledore of being a master manipulator. 

Black considered the words for a moment, and then frowned slightly. “I can see why he didn’t tell any of us everything, it is the proper way of secret-keeping, but do you think he always intended for your allegiance to be so dubious? I mean, I don’t think he needed to explain everything at first, but what about after Voldemort came back? When so many people suspected you weren’t really loyal? Did he really know that he’d need you in that capacity a year or two later?”

This was a question Severus did not want to answer, not because it was personal, but because he didn’t want to believe either option. That Dumbledore had carefully marked his route was horrible to behold; that he had left Severus as a hazy figure for no reason was similarly uncomfortable. 

“I do not know what he did and did not know. But he did have the foresight to know that Potter was a Horcrux and would have to be ‘killed’ more than a year before it happened. Perhaps he simply foresaw that I could not remain on both sides, and that it would be somewhat safer for me to pretend to be a Death Eater than an Order member.”

“What do you mean?” Black asked. 

Severus scowled. “You know as well as I, Black, that those who are disloyal to the Dark Lord were hunted and killed with terrifying efficiency. The Order, on the other hand, did not ever succeed in hunting that little rat, even after they knew he was alive. I think Dumbledore knew that I would not be able to convince both sides that I was loyal to them forever, and decided that it would be better for me to defect from the Order, since that was unlikely to cause my death.”

He nodded slowly. “So, he knew that you’d have to go back to the Death Eaters full-time, or at least pretend to, to the extent that all of us in the Order would think you had betrayed us?”

“Yes.” 

“I don’t like it,” Black decided. “Why didn’t he just tell you?”

That was a good question. “His mind worked in a far icier way than I ever knew.”

Black pushed a glass of the alcohol towards Severus with a look of grim sympathy. “I’d say it’s time for all of us to warm up a bit.”

Chapter Text

How long did they spend, recounting things? Severus had been unwilling to take the drink from Black at first, but after a lot of bartering, had agreed, only because Black had asserted that they needed to be on even footing - he had already consumed a glass, and so it was only right that Severus joined him in his second. The stuff was quite good, really. Severus had never been a drinker, because his father’s reaction to alcohol had been so awful, but he had sometimes had wine with the aristocratic Malfoys, or nursed a beer in a Muggle pub after a night’s meeting. The drink that Black had brought was not like wine or beer; it tasted deeper and stronger than either of them, and warmer, too. They drank it in smaller installments, and yet it loosened his muscles more quickly than wine or beer ever had. Severus found that he liked the taste. It wasn’t sweet, exactly, though there was something like sweetness in it, but it wasn’t bitter in the way that lemons were bitter. The first sip burned Severus’ throat but every subsequent one felt like drops of thick warmth coating the inside of his still somewhat mangled neck.

First, Black had enjoyed a round of abuse at Dumbledore, in vengeance for being left in Azkaban by him. Some of the things, like the man being a calculating puppeteer, Severus could agree with, but some of the things Black claimed, such as Dumbledore’s lack of all regard for human life, Severus was not so sure about, but for some reason, be it the alcohol or the occasion, he let Black plough on with his tirade, which quickly turned against his family, the former inhabitants of number twelve, Grimmauld Place. Severus would have usually been highly uncomfortable, but the drink that had been provided made his brain feel light and fluffy, and like nothing was too deep a subject to be broached.

“My mum,” Black declared, his words slurring slightly, “was more of an old bat than you, Snape. No heart. Relished in the misery of anyone except herself. Happiest day of my life, when I found out she was dead.” He let out a laugh that was like a bark. “Course, she left that pestilential portrait behind, so she’s not really gone. I’d like to tear that thing up.”

Severus grunted his approval, vague memories of a screaming woman’s portrait penetrating the surface of his mind. 

“Felt like being a teenager again, when I had to go back. Locked up with her and that stupid elf again, Only difference was that Regulus wasn’t there.” He focused his eyes on Severus. “You knew Reg, didn’t you? He was in your house.”

Severus nodded vaguely. “Yeah. Knew him.”

“What was he like, when he joined Voldemort’s side?” The question was odd, because it was a serious sort of question, and yet Black sounded unbothered.

“Loyal,” Severus answered. “Happy. They all were. Regret never sets in during the early days.”

Black nodded, a sombre look on his face. “Changed, though. Did you know?”

“No, I didn’t.” Severus shook his head, honestly. “He was good. Good at hiding it, I mean,” he added. 

“Not as good as you, I’m sure.” Black chuckled. “God, Snape. How come you managed to do that? How did you go from that greasy kid to some kind of spy? Never would have thought you’d be good at all that Occlumency stuff."

Severus did not answer. He didn’t want to say the truth, or rather, he was avoiding it.

Black gave another doglike laugh. “Come on, Snape, now’s not the time to be modest , I know that’s not all in your nature. We’re drunk. We won’t remember half of this when we wake up.”

Something like a chuckle came from Severus’ mouth. How had it all happened? Alcohol or injury, his memories were fuzzy, and yet some things came to him like crystal shards, clear and acute. 

“Mind power,” Severus stated. “It wasn’t something anyone else could do, that I knew of. So I learned about it. Loneliness, Black.”

This was a lie, or part of one, and it seemed that, even in drunkenness, Black knew this, because he folded his arms and frowned, looking almost like a much younger man.

“C'mon, Snape. I know you didn’t do all that because you were bored . Your greasy nose was too busy poking into all the Dark Arts books you could get your hands on.”

Severus shrugged. “Where I come from, you don’t show how you feel.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Here.” Severus gestured vaguely at the living room. “Nice, isn’t it?”

Black wrinkled his nose. “You grew up here?”

“You’re not the only miserable sod re-confined to the house of his hated parents,” said Severus, surprised at his blase tone on this subject. He had never before been so light about his parents and his childhood and everything else.

“Right.” He nodded, slowly. “Didn’t realise. Sorry about that, mate.”

Severus shrugged. “Don’t care anymore.”

“Yes, that’s what I told them all, too.” Black grinned slightly.

“Told who?”

“Harry did his nut about me running off tonight. Thought I should come to the memorial and stuff. I told him I didn’t care about remembering anymore. That’s a lie, of course. All I ever do is remember them.”

Severus took ‘them’ to mean his dead friends.

“Do you think about her?” Black asked. “Lily. Do you think about her on days like these? On the day she died, too, I suppose.” He leant back. “You’ve had more experience, I suppose. What do you do to get through it?”

He shook his head. “Don’t. Dumbledore made me attend that stupid Hallowe’en feast every year. Never let me feel anything about it. I don’t like to think about it anyway. It’s just regret.”

Black nodded. “That’s how it is for me, too.”

***

The sun was high in the sky when Severus woke up, and something loud and shrill was piercing into his brain.

“Severus Snape!” 

He opened his eyes with difficulty, but found that there was not much to be seen; his vision was blurry like it had been on the first day he had woken up. He tried to blink.

“Severus Snape!” the voice repeated. “What on earth are you doing?”

Severus grunted. Along with the irate voice of Minerva McGonagall, he could hear Moonstone mewing incessantly. 

“That is not a sufficient answer. Why, may I ask, are you passed out in your armchair ? Did you go to bed last night? No, I suspect not.”

“Why are you here?” Severus asked, lamely, and he felt Moonstone drop onto his lap.

“Why-” As Severus’ vision began to improve, he saw Minerva looking as though she were close to the end of her tether. “I am here , Severus, because I was concerned for your welfare. Is that not allowed? Should I have waited for clearance from the Wizengamot to enter these chartered premises?”

“Worried?” 

He would not have been surprised if sparks had flown from her nostrils.

“Yes, Severus, worried! Nobody has heard from you for two days, and, considering the date, I was concerned something had happened! Is that so ludicrous to you?” She scowled. “You are, in terms of time , an adult, and I was under the impression that you were intelligent , though it seems that something has possessed you and taken that quality. A shame.”

“Was I supposed to contact someone?” Whether it be his mild hangover or his inability to read Minerva’s mind, Severus could tell that he was missing something, and he did not like it, though, truthfully, he had not the desire to use his brain at all in that moment.

Minerva deposited herself on the sofa, and Moonstone leapt from Severus’ lap to her, and she began to pet the cat, if a little grudgingly. 

“It is a sensitive time, Severus, and you know that. The anniversary of the Battle, and Voldemort’s downfall, the deaths of…” She faded for a moment. “These things are still very raw amongst the Wizarding community in general, and on the year anniversary, those hurts are likely to run deeper. As much as I disagree with it, did you not see that there was a possibility some of that heightened emotion may be levelled upon you ? Did you not think some violence could happen, and that it might be prudent to let someone know that you had not been dragged off by a mob?”

“I-” In truth, he had thought it was possible that people might want to symbolically murder him, he had even assumed that a hazy knock at his door had been something to do with it. But he was still alive. 

Minerva’s eyebrows moved closer together. “You are not an unintelligent man, Severus, and yet you have been extremely foolish. What have you been doing all night?”

Severus thought for a moment. Someone had been there, the person who had knocked on the door, and they had had a drink together and talked about things. What things specifically, Severus had no idea. But they had talked. Who was it? Potter? No, Potter would not have consumed so much alcohol with him. He strained his brain, and then let out an involuntary gasp.

“Yes?” Minerva raised one of her eyebrows.

“Black,” Severus answered. “Black was here.”

“Black?” She looked momentarily confused. “Sirius Black?”

“Yes.” Severus nodded painfully, and started trying to shift through his mind to remember what on earth had happened the night before. “He came over last night.”

“Why? I was under the impression that the two of you detested each other.”

“I don’t remember,” Severus answered, honestly. “I think we were drinking.”

Minerva was not satisfied by this answer, as honest as it was. Severus would have very much liked to give her a clear answer, but he could not help the fact that his mind wasn’t as good any more. He tried pointing this out to Minerva, but she did not seem at all mollified by this and continued to stare at him malevolently as she forced him to drink a cup of tea and eat a slice of toast. Moonstone padded around the sitting room all the while, stretching here and there, but would give no help to either of her human companions. Minerva, who was an animagus, had always, Severus thought, been able to have a good connection with cats, but Moonstone was treating her like any old human. She seemed to regard Severus with a somewhat smug look, and it made him feel worse. He couldn’t be sure whose side Moonstone was really on; she was his cat, technically, and he did think that she liked him, but he also wouldn’t put it past her to be on Black’s side in some cases, since he knew that some cats could be very partial to dogs, despite the nonsense Muggles came out with. 

Even after Minerva grudgingly left in the early afternoon, Severus could not recall the details of what had happened between him and Black. He knew that they had spent a considerable amount of time together, since he never would have consumed enough alcohol to get a hangover if he had been along, and, besides, he hadn’t any alcohol in the house, but the contents of their conversations remained blurry, as did another key point: why had Severus allowed Black into his house, and let him stay, and taken a drink with him? Severus considered that he might have gone mad for some reason, but still, he found that, for one reason or another, the thought of Black did not fill him with cold fury. 

The limitations of a damaged mind, he knew. This was the sort of thing he would always deal with, no matter the genius of Healers Smethwyck and Whittle. His mind, that had been sharp and clean, was messy, shaken and rearranged in such a way that the years of careful sorting that Severus had done would never again be achieved. How many more things of importance would he forget? How much would he have to strain and suffer to reclaim details of things he had probably enjoyed? Probably not much, Severus considered, simply because he did not envision many more scenarios in his life where he would have enjoyment. Indeed, his life might be short from here on out; his condition would probably not improve, not fast enough, and the brains set to try and reverse Nagini’s damage were simply not quick enough to stop it, because they were those of humans, no matter how kind or intelligent those humans were.

So Severus resigned himself to forgetting the night that he had passed with Sirius Black and instead chose to focus on the nights that the rest of the world had had; he busied himself for the rest of the day with reading the Daily Prophet , which was, of course, running more articles and columns about the anniversary of the Dark Lord’s fall, a horrible mixture of reminiscences of the war and views of what should happen going forward. 

DEATH EATER SENTENCES: MINISTRY'S UPDATE EXPLAINED

The Ministry of Magic has today announced, as expected, their plans going forward for the futures of the Death Eaters who were imprisoned last year at the conclusion of the Second War. The Wizengamot Special Commission, which was formed in late May 1998, gave indefinite sentences to all convicted Death Eaters at the time, in order to collect opinions from victims before making a final decision on each individual sentence. For the past year, families of those killed during the war and Muggle-borns who faced persecution by the Death Eater-led Thicknesse Ministry have given statements and made campaigns regarding their views on this subject matter, which has been consistently controversial. 

Today, only a day late on their promise of giving a final decision, a spokeswitch for the Special Commission stated that “the decision to enforce indefinite sentences on all imprisoned Death Eaters has been overturned. In the coming months, each case will be reviewed and a final sentence will be handed down to each individual. Life sentences may be imposed, or reduced sentences, depending on the case”. The spokewitch refused to comment on any individual cases, though this is unlikely to quell either side of the campaign, both of which have been active for the past year.

“I’d say that the lot of them should be locked up for life,” Craig Creevy, 49, told the Daily Prophet after leaving an inquest in January. Creevy is a Muggle milkman who lost his son Colin in the Battle of Hogwarts. Although Mr Creevy’s views on the harshness of punishments are shared by many in the Wizarding community, his is not the lone view. Joe Seton, whose daughter also died in the Battle of Hogwarts, is a prominent member of the movement calling for rehabilitative punishments rather than lifelong sentences. 

“These people must be punished, and we have always agreed with that viewpoint,” Seton said at a conference in March. “The issue is that the lifelong punishments that our community has bestowed on criminals for years does nothing to aid the community; deterrence is proven to be inadequate, and poisonous views that Death Eaters and other blood supremacy groups hold will not be purged if we just imprison those caught having them. We need a program of education and rehabilitation for all criminals, but especially those who commit crimes for certain political viewpoints, or else we will end up with a third war.”

Indeed, there are also plenty of people concerned that holding all convicted Death Eaters indefinitely will have an adverse effect on society; just last week, on the eve of the beginning of commemorations to mark the end of the war, a group of Ministry workers were hounded and attacked by those claiming to be Death Eater allies, in revenge for the Ministry’s lack of statement on the futures of those currently detained under the Special Commission’s ruling. It seems that the Special Commission has chosen a more individualistic approach, which is likely to cause some anger, especially following Minister for Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt’s announcement of Azkaban reforms last week.

Severus frowned to himself and set the newspaper down on his knees, wondering why an article about something like this was making him feel so strongly conflicted. How did he feel about Death Eaters roaming free? Wasn’t it the gut reaction of any good person to be instantly disgusted by it? Well, he supposed that he was not really ‘good’, not in the normal way. Some of these people had once been his friends, had been people he liked, and even respected. Much of that had disappeared now, and Severus didn’t find himself necessarily wanting to engage in company with people like Lucius Malfoy or Walden Macnair anymore, but it was hard to imagine them going to prison for the rest of their lives. Perhaps not Macnair, on second thought, but Severus could remember a time when Lucius had been good to him, even kind , and it was difficult for him to place Lucius in a box of people who were all horrible and rotten to the core. That was it, wasn’t it? Severus could not quite condemn every part of some of them, because they had not been evil to him all the time, and therein lay his weakness. He should want them to rot, and had always, during his last years as a spy, looked upon them as the worst, but now, in practice, his mind was too weak to properly hate them, and it made him hate himself. Dumbledore had been right, hadn’t he, not to trust him completely? He must have known that a sliver, even if it was just that, of badness, still lay inside Severus somewhere. A soft spot for the bad ones. 

“He didn’t know good properly,” a voice declared in Severus’ head, and he jumped. Moonstone mewed loudly, and he tried to remember where that voice came from. It was not his internal voice, it was someone else’s voice, clear and yet blurry and far away. 

“Maybe you never read that damned book by Skeeter, but Dumbledore was as black as my name sometimes. Yeah, he knew that it was wrong to persecute Muggle-borns but he wasn’t above child murder, was he? He used us all, put us all in danger like we were objects. He did it to you, didn’t he? You know better than me that Voldemort treated his followers with the same sort of icy hand. He wasn’t as boundlessly good as we all thought, he just wasn’t on the wrong side of ideology.”\

Severus frowned to himself. That sounded strangely like Black’s voice, and that comment about his name… that was Black, surely? So he must have said that last night, when they had been drinking. Severus wondered why they had been talking about Dumbledore, and, even more, why Black had seemed to be siding with Severus himself, including him in the group of people who worked for Dumbledore. Why? How? He begged his mind not to be so slow. What had happened? It occurred to Severus that it must have been something quite big, but how could it have been so big that Severus entirely changed his subconscious reaction to Black, but small enough that he did not remember it? He half wanted Black to come back and explain it, but he did not think he would be able to handle the mutt’s smugness if he found out that he didn’t remember what had passed between the two of them on that night. 

Maybe it had been about the Battle of Hogwarts, and the Dark Lord’s fall. They had both been intrinsically wrapped in that path, even if they had hated being comrades. Severus remembered, with sudden clarity, the night that the Dark Lord had risen again. He felt his left forearm burn hot, although the Dark Mark was no more than a faint scar now, and the dread of thirteen years’ waiting pile up in his chest. It had not shifted at all, even whilst listening to Barty Crouch Junior’s story, and it had scorched him when he had torn up his sleeve to show the Minister for Magic who had been so stupid. Then, Dumbledore had asked him to shake Black’s hands, because they were both on the same side now. It had been strange, like a moment in someone else’s life. Wrong, yet fitting, because everything about the Dark Lord being back and the Diggory boy being dead was wrong too. For a fleeting moment, there had been hope, though it had died quickly. But, Severus recalled, when Dumbledore had dispatched him to the Dark Lord’s side, the dread had been gone. He had strode through Hogwarts, the last home that had failed him, feeling nothing except a desire to live, but a resignation to the fact that he might not. That resignation had not been deeply depressing, but natural. It had, Severus thought, saved him, because he had never been so afraid of death after that, until the moment right before what should have been his death had come to him. 

Severus didn’t like to think about that night much. He had done nothing, he felt, had been complacent in his final moments. He had always hated complacency, had liked, if nothing else, that he was able to do something in this war, that he did not have to sit around and wait. Maybe that was why the last year of his life as a spy had been so deeply frustrating for him. Sitting in that tower had not suited him. Despite the lethargy, the self-hatred, he had liked taking the sword to Potter because it had been something to do other than sit by and watch people being hurt that he might have been able to protect if not for Dumbledore’s manufactured role. Maybe, Severus considered, he was more like Black than he realised, restless, desirous of a little danger or risk because it ignited the fading life in him. He snorted to himself. What a world, what an existence, to think himself somewhat similar to Black. Maybe it was true, despite the ludicrous nature of it. After all, his lack of mobility had rendered him depressed and bad-tempered to an extent which Severus could not recall having ever imitated in the past, and maybe that was because he couldn’t do anything powerful anymore. Yes, Black had liked power, and so had Severus. The secrecy, the planning, the skill, it had all given him the false version of something he had always craved: necessity, ability, and value. Of course, that value had only ever been to Dumbledore, and, even then, Dumbledore had never given Severus much praise, but it had fuelled that part of him that wanted to be needed, and respected, and powerful, and Severus supposed that Black had wanted that too, hadn’t he? That was why he had not wanted to stay locked up in Grimmauld Place, and Severus wondered if he had only made such a fuss over Black’s ‘laziness’ because he had known, deep within himself, that the predicament was the worst he could fathom. 

Perhaps then, that was why Black had come to Severus the previous evening, and had been able to get on his good side. Black had experienced what it was like to be a man disarmed, a man weakened, a man unneeded, and he had somehow managed to pity Severus for it and had wanted him not to be alone as he had been at Grimmauld Place for those many months. It was a sobering thought, to think of Black having that sort of human compassion, and yet something in Severus’ still-hazy brain did not entirely reject the notion. What was it then, that he didn’t know? Because his mind seemed to have internalised it rather well, and it had changed his instinctive perception of Black in quite a way.

“Some things just happen the way they do,” Minerva said, leaning into the back of the armchair more, swaying her glass slightly. On nights like these, she had the sort of sound advice that fitted her age, and Severus let her talk, because it was comforting to his tired soul. “We don’t always know why. You have to accept it, my boy.”

When she called him ‘my boy’, it made Severus’ heart swell with the emptiness of a young boy who had never been properly loved, and he always tried to quieten it. 

“There’s a reason for everything,” he replied. 

She shook her head. “Not in the way you want. We can’t know everything. That’s not how the world works. Now, I don’t claim to understand everything about the world, but I know one thing, and that’s that we aren’t privy to everything that goes on. You’ll have to learn to accept the way things are, that’s what it’s like to live. If you feel something, then it might be right. You won’t always know why you feel some things.”

Maybe she was right, Severus thought, unhappily pulling himself away from that recollection. He didn’t like going back, because going back always reminded him that things had once been better, but that he had not appreciated it at the time. He had always wanted more, better, greater, and had not realised he would not get it. Stupid. Foolish. That was why Minerva had always been better than him. She was the real wise one, she did not give into stupidity. She was not so greedy. If he were to emulate her even in the smallest amount, he would have to do as she had always advised him, and stop looking for reasons, and accept the unknowns. Life would surely be simpler then, if he could do that noble thing, but it was so out of his realm. He had always wanted to know, and had usually managed to do so. 

Though that had changed with the beginning of his new life after Nagini had bitten him. Curiosity had been mostly sucked away, leaching like his own hot blood from the closed wounds in his neck, mostly because he no longer had the ability to find things out. He recalled his musings on his own condition. The old him would have wanted to join Healers Smethwyck and Whittle in their pursuit of the reason and the cure, but his current self didn’t want to, because he didn’t have the ability. One day’s searching and discovering would have wiped him out, if he had even been able to make it to the end of one. It was the worst thing about it, that knowledge. Even if he had wanted to know, Severus would never be able to, that his life was forever changed. Did Black pity that in him? Had he seen the horrible predicament, and had his pity turned Severus soft in the face of his prior decision that Black was forever beyond his forgiveness? It made some strange sense, though not in the subconscious part of Severus’ brain that he had once lived in, but which now had locked the damaged version of him out, perhaps for the rest of his miserable existence?

How he wanted the answers, despite the sage words that had told him that he shouldn’t always yearn for such shallow things. It was a block, a block that came in front of an unknown path that may take the traveller onto a life that was better, or else one that was weak, that didn’t seek, that didn’t crave for anything and submitted itself to the workings of a universe that may not have the sentience assigned to it by many human beings. That, maybe, was the most frightening thing Severus faced in his stationary existence on Spinner’s End, the street that everybody wished to leave. To stay, rooted to the safe and unpleasant spot, or to go on, to travel beyond what he had known, to leave behind that which he could no longer understand, and to renew himself for the new self, not the old self which lay, faded and inaccessible, in another realm of time?

It was impossible to know, and therein lay the beauty and the terror. To be oneself was the only assurance anyone had ever had, and to leave that self behind was like a forsaking of everything that was comfortable. And yet, as the river is never the same river twice, the self is never the same self twice, and it is perhaps that which must be accepted in order to recognise that the changing through time is a leap that should be embraced with open arms, and with joy at the way in which the human soul will renew itself without intention, but with instinct and understanding of the greatness of the place it inhabits.

Chapter Text

Severus discarded his efforts to remember what had happened on the night of May Second, not because he was no longer curious, but because he knew that he couldn’t do anything about it. That was life, or rather, existence, now. Resigned, accepting. There was no other way to continue, because, in a way, Severus knew that pining for what once was would only dig his grave deeper. 

“I’m sure most of us don’t remember what’s happened the morning after a spot of drinking,” Healer Whittle had said, a boyish grin on his face. Sometimes, Severus forgot that he was only about twenty-four. “I wouldn’t worry that it’s a show that things have become worse, unless you’ve had an entirely different experience with alcohol before?”

Severus hadn’t told Healer Whittle for comfort, but he felt, in a strange way, that he could tell his Healers about these things, and that they’d listen, and that it was the only way he could be useful to them. 

“I was never a drinker,” Severus replied. 

Healer Whittle nodded. “I’m sure that’s it then. Even a totally healthy person wouldn’t bounce back uninhibited from getting really drunk if they weren’t used to it, and you’re, I’m sorry to say, not in the peak of health. If you don’t want it to happen, I’d suggest staying away from alcohol, but, at the same time, it doesn’t seem to have done anything really serious to you, so don’t go passing up on socialising under my advice.” He wondered how Healer Whittle had known that he had been socialising and drinking, and not just drinking alone. He hadn’t mentioned Black or anyone else at all being involved in the incident. 

“You’re not a characteristic lone alcoholic,” the Healer explained, at Severus’ unintentioned look of curiosity. “You’ve just said that you’ve never really been a drinker, and most people don’t go from staying away from the stuff to downing half a bottle of whiskey in one night on their own. It usually takes an external influence.” He smiled. “If you’re being social, that’s good. Obviously, as a medical professional, I’d rather you do it alcohol-free, or maybe just without getting black-out drunk, but if you’re feeling more ready to socialise, it’s a good sign that you’re getting more comfortable in yourself and your new way of living.” Healer Whittle gave him a look that was almost stern, like something a teacher or older sibling might do. “It is important to connect with your fellow humans, even if you don’t think so. All the evidence points that way, and even if it doesn’t cause you to start cartwheeling, it’ll make you feel better emotionally, and that’ll help you physically, even if that physical help is just adjusting to how things are now.”

The positivity was nice, even if Severus had no belief in it. 

“Anyway, Smethwyck and I are still working on the cartwheels thing,” Whittle continued. “I can’t pretend we’ve had our breakthrough yet, but I think we’ll get there eventually. We’re closer to knowing what it is we need to solve.”

That was all very well, Severus thought, as Potter went to make them both a cup of tea once they were back from the appointment. He had taken to doing this, despite Severus’ multiple insistences that he didn’t need Potter to stay any longer than necessary. If the Healers were working out what needed t be fixed, it was a nice bit of progress, only until they didn’t know how to fix whatever it was, which Severus thought was likely to be the case. He was, as arrogant as it sounded, a unique case. Although Arthur Weasley had survived Nagini, Arthur Weasley had never had the complications that Severus had. He bore no more than an epidermal scar of the attack, because his body had not already been damaged. Severus was sure that he was not special in his experience with the Dark Lord’s Cruciatus Curse, but none who had also been bitten by the snake had survived, if this was what survival was. So Severus’ fundamental pessimism told him that there was no real hope for cure, despite the Healer’s assurance that they would get somewhere, one day. 

“So, is it true that Sirius came here on the night of the second?” Potter had re-entered the room but Severus had not noticed, being too deep in his own misery. Potter placed a mug of tea on the side table and allowed Moonstone, who had taken an unfortunate liking to the boy, to hop into his lap.

Severus scowled. “Where did you hear that?”

“McGonagall told me, since I was the one who asked her to check on you. She said she didn’t believe it, thought you’d had too much to drink and the effects hadn’t worn off yet, and Sirius said it was true, only he seemed like he wasn’t serious.” He looked expectant. “So?”

“I believe he came over,” Severus answered, irritably. “I had some alcohol, I do not remember the evening in entirety.”

“Cool,” Potter said. “I’d like to drink like that one day."

Severus frowned. “Potter, whatever happened, there was no wild party that you seem to be imagining. I would not recommend the experience, personally, and whatever Black may tell you, there is no good at the bottom of a bottle.”

“Yeah, alright, whatever you say.” Potter rolled his eyes and took a gulp of tea. “Live a little. You’re doing better, aren’t you? Healer Whittle looked quite optimistic.”

Severus fought the urge to sigh dramatically. “Healer Whittle is an optimistic man. He also possesses vestiges of Gryffindor arrogance that gives him much confidence in his own skill. He is not an untalented Healer, but he may not be realistic.”

Potter looked exasperated. “Maybe you’re being pessimistic.” He grinned. “Have another drink with Sirius, that’s not much, is it? It didn’t kill you.”

Severus had no intention of ever sharing a drink with Black again, though he said nothing to Potter. Maybe it was that, then, that made the knock sound through Severus’ shabby living room on the following Thursday. Moonstone perked up, and Severus groaned internally. He rarely had visitors, but he thoroughly disliked all of them.

“Hello, Snape. Nice of you to answer more speedily, this time.” It was Black, the very last person who Severus wished to see, partially owing to the fact that he still didn’t remember what had happened between him and Black last time they had met.

“What are you doing here?” Severus asked, blandly.

Black shrugged. “I was just passing through. Thought I’d drop in and say hello, since you don’t get many visitors.”

“I highly doubt that you were ‘passing through’ this deeply unpleasant part of the country.” 

“Well, maybe I wasn’t. Are you going to let me in or not? I came for some of that tea. It was good.”

Severus stepped aside only because he knew that Black did not understand the meaning of the word ‘no’, and Black swept across the threshold as though he was entering his own house, looking around comfortably in a way that suggested he had entered a delightfully cosy space. Moonstone, the traitor that she was, bounded towards Black. 

“Ah, your cat’s still here! Excellent.”

He did not reply, and instead hobbled out of the room to the kitchen, to fetch the wretched tea, and to think about what was happening. 

Maybe Black did like the tea that Severus had, but that hardly warranted a visit to his house, which was far from London, where Black lived. There was nothing else to recommend the area either; the moors might be the most beautiful part of the surroundings, but even they left much to be desired. The city of Cokeworth was dingy and grey, and Severus had not liked it even as a boy. As for the riverside neighbourhood, it was derelict and depressing. Severus doubted even the world’s best tea would give most people a good reason to stray into these dirty streets that reeked of unhappiness more than anything else. Was this something to do with the things that Severus could not remember? It had to be. Maybe they had agreed on this meeting whilst drunk, and Black had retained the information whilst Severus had not. Severus wondered whether he had instead given Black drunken permission to call whenever he felt like it, though that did not seem entirely in character for him, even whilst inebriated. But Black had not acted as though their meeting was pre-arranged, so really it had just been a coincidence. Severus considered that just because he hated Cokeworth with a burning passion did not mean that others could not sustain such extensive brain damage as to think that it was a lovely cultural attraction of Britain.

Severus returned to the sitting room to find Black had made himself at home on the sofa, and was scratching Moonstone behind her ears. He was loading to sit back down; he could feel his hands shaking slightly on the tea tray from overuse and privately scoffed at Potter’s optimism in his head. Then he felt the tray leave his hands, and, for a split second, thought he had dropped it, but saw it flying across the room, and Black with his wand out. He had summoned the tray from his hands and guided it gently to rest on the side table. 

“She prefers to be scratched on her belly,” Severus grumbled. He wasn’t sure if Black had done that out of kindness or spite. 

“She seems to like it here just fine,” Black replied, infuriatingly. “Maybe you shouldn’t be such a stubborn bastard all the time.”

He was surprised to find that this did not anger him. “Pot calling the kettle back,” Severus mumbled in response, shooting a look of deepest loathing at Moonstone who was making no effort to remain loyal to her real owner. “Now, Black, tell me why you are really here.”

“I already told you,” Black replied, airily, leaning over to pour himself a cup of tea. “I like the tea here. I wanted some more of it, even if it had to come with a side-serving of bat.”

“A side serving of what ?”

Black laughed with a bark. “Come on, Snape. You must know what I mean.” He rolled his eyes. “I mean, isn’t it deliberate?”

Severus scowled. “No, Black, I have no idea what you mean.”

He raised his arms ludicrously and started flapping them as though trying to take flight. “You dress a bit like a bat, Snape. Hasn’t anyone ever told you?”

“I do not see what you mean.”

“The black cloak? Sweeping around everywhere? Come on, you must have realised it, or someone must have told you.” Black looked incredulous. “I always thought it was a deliberate thing, you know, to scare people and stuff.”

“I have certainly never paid enough attention to my clothing to use it to scare anyone, Black.” Severus busied himself with the teapot. “Did you seriously think that I did? Who gave you that idea?”

Black shrugged. “I dunno. Minerva used to say it sometimes, as a joke, and I guess I agreed with her. I’m not saying I’ve ever dressed to scare anyone, but I always thought it came with the whole mysterious thing you had going on. You know, spying and all that. Wouldn’t have surprised me if you’d had a whole wardrobe full of carefully curated disguises.”

Severus actually snorted, though he hoped it sounded derisive. “I am very sorry to burst your bubble, Black, but unfortunately you will be disappointed. I have never dressed with intention , and I never had any disguises either.” 

“You should pretend that you do,” Black said, with conviction, taking a sizeable gulp of his tea. “It might be good for your aura.”

“My aura ? Perhaps they were right, and Azkaban has turned you permanently mad.”

“I’m not talking complete rubbish,” Black protested. “But, you know, you’d be a cool and slick spy if you fabricated some of the finer details of the operation, wouldn’t you? Not that you weren’t, well, slick, when you were actually doing it, but it’s the perception that matters, isn’t it?”

Severus frowned into his mug. “I do not think it would matter if I gave reports to the Daily Prophet that I used to have five hundred disguises. I doubt it would satisfy the mob, unless I were to jump off the Astronomy Tower directly after.” 

“You don’t read into the mass perception of yourself, do you?” Black looked somewhat sympathetic. “I mean, I get that it’s easy to, believe me, but it’s fruitless.”

He arched an eyebrow.

“Look,” Black began, “I had my fair share of horrible press and being hated by the entire wizarding community, and the Muggles to boot, remember? Everyone thought I was a mass murderer for more than a decade. I’d never have made it through Azkaban if I’d let that be my guide. You’ve got to know what’s inside, what’s really true, and that’ll keep your head up. It’s been years since I was exonerated, but some people still think I got off scot-free. It never really ends, but that’s no excuse. You know what you did and didn’t do and why, better than anyone who writes stuff or says stuff. Why should they matter, when they don’t know you?”

Severus had forgotten, momentarily, that Black had been under the heading of murderer for so long. Not that the reveal of Black as a ‘traitor’ had been insignificant to him; Severus had vehemently hated Black for it for thirteen years, would have been glad to give him up to the Dementors, but that had disappeared when he had discovered the truth. He had still disliked Black very severely, but as a person, not a criminal. He had not thought of Black as a murderer for a while, and couldn’t imagine him as such anymore. 

“It is different,” Severus said, gruffly. “You never killed anyone, never betrayed them… You did nothing that you were accused of.”

“Didn’t I?” Black seemed to crumple. “I let them use Peter as the Secret Keeper, didn’t I? I went back on my original plan, persuaded them to do what was ‘safer’, and it killed them. My hands aren’t clean.”

“Nor mine,” replied Severus, surprising himself. “If not for me, none of that would have happened. You would not have had to make that choice, would you?”

Black nodded slowly. “I suppose… but it wouldn’t have got anywhere without me, would it? You could have told Voldemort anything you wanted but it wouldn’t have got him closer to his goal if I hadn’t created the weakness in their security. I’m not saying it was good… but, well, it was only the start, and it wasn’t intentional about Lily and James. I knew exactly who was in danger, and they were my best friends, and I let them get killed.”

“It is no saving grace that I did not know who the Dark Lord would go after,” Severus replied, his voice strong but quivering. “I did not care for the life of an innocent child, or any others, that could die in the crossfire of his plans and gains. You say that it was you, but you cannot be sure. Perhaps the Dark Lord would have dispatched Peter to take on the role of Secret Keeper by some other means. We can never know, but we can know that he went after Lily and James on my information.”

“But that was his choice,” Black said, suddenly. “He killed them. He did it. Even with our involvement, nothing needed to happen if not for Voldemort. He chose to cast those curses in the end. I’m not saying we’re not to blame, but it’s him as well, isn’t it? He made the choice. Neither of us would have killed Harry or James or Lily. That was him.”

Severus would have liked to have said so. Certainly, he knew that, even as a budding Death Eater, he would never have killed Lily, and probably not Potter either, since he had been a baby or barely even thought of. But what about James? In his current life, Severus knew he would not kill James Potter, that for all the hatred he harboured, he would not kill anyone , not after the pain of Dumbledore, but could the same be said about a version of himself that was twenty years younger? It repulsed him to consider it, but it was possible, even probable, that during his days as a loyal Death Eater, he may have even been glad to kill James Potter for the Dark Lord’s cause, because he had always hated James so much, and it would be a righteous act of revenge. Severus barely remembered anything more than the pain of Lily’s loss on that November night, and he could not recall if he had been sad about James. He hoped it was nothing worse than indifference, he hoped that there had been no secret happiness or gladness that James had been wiped from the world. Today, Severus regretted James’ death, because, despite his flaws, James had been a human, and deserving at least of life, but twenty years had done many things to Severus Snape, and though it made him better today, it made him worse yesterday. 

“Look,” Black said, after a long silence. “It’s happened. I still feel a lot of things about it, and I’m sure you do too. That’s fine. That’s normal. It was… it was a lot. But I don’t know that we should do more than try to be better in the future. You can always return to and regret your mistakes, but what’s the point if it doesn’t drive you to take any action? Why regret if you don’t want to make sure it doesn’t happen again?”

“You are optimistic,” Severus stated. “Because you are more confident in your repentance.”

Black nodded. “Maybe I am. I know thirteen years in Azkaban is about as much payment as I can do. But do you think you’ve not done enough? You spied for years, and, I don’t know, I feel like that’s pretty good payback. You took that snake on.” He shrugged, and picked up his mug, took a sip, and then promptly spat it back into his mug. “Cold,” he explained. “I’ve got a big fat mouth, I don’t need to be told.”

“You have an incredibly large mouth, Black,” Severus said, unbothered. “And a proclivity for running it dry and then some.”

He grinned. “I’m sure you could give me a run for my money if you weren’t such a grumpy piece of work.” He pointed his wand at the tea tray. “Where’s your kitchen? I’ll wash this up. Well, unless your kitchen is a bat cave. I’m afraid I don’t like real bats.”

Severus scowled after him, and Moonstone crept over to his lap. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” He barked at her, but she did not jump off. “Sucking up to Black. Do you take me for granted? You cannot come crawling back to me after taking his side.”

She gave him a look as if to say that he was in no place to tell her what to do.

Severus sat in silence after that, though he refused to pet Moonstone. He had just had an entirely sober conversation with Black, a conversation in which neither had said anything truly nasty, and in which they had, perhaps, even tried to defend the other. The world must have gone truly mad, then, because Severus had hated every fibre of Black, scorned his every action, since their first meeting nearly three decades ago. So what on earth had come over him to make him do such a thing? To tolerate Black’s presence, to tell him something that was vulnerable, to let him wander around his house unaccompanied? It was entirely preposterous, and yet entirely real, and Severus could do nothing to stop it. First of all, Black had already stayed long enough to be sure that he was, in a sense, ‘welcome’, but Severus also didn’t have the physical ability to hex him into oblivion.

It then further surprised Severus that he did not want to hex Black into oblivion, a strange feeling, because he had always had a great urge to hit Black across the face during the Order’s heyday. But he did not feel the urge to spit something nasty at Black, if and when he returned to the sitting room, nor did he feel a need to defend himself to himself about why they had spent some time talking about things that Severus had never really talked about. It had been almost normal, or what Severus might assume was normal, and though he wasn’t sure he felt good , there was something refreshing about sharing with another person. Severus wasn’t sure he had experienced it before; even if Dumbledore had been somewhat sympathetic to his plight at times, he had never been someone that Severus could confide in in a friendly way. Dumbledore had been a person in power, Severus’ chief and from whence he took orders, not someone who he could connect with personally. He had put up with Severus’ grief, but if he had been able to understand it, he had never let him know. There was always distance, never the intimacy and understanding between friends. Minerva had been more of a friend, that was true, but he had never been really honest with her. He had never spoken of guilt or grief with her, and thought their light and shallow conversation had always been a welcome respite from the horrible workings of Life, it had never been deeply soothing, not in the way he had perhaps always needed. That must be why he did not resent Black, because in a twisted way, he needed Black, or needed what he represented. The damn Healer was right. 

“I made some more,” Black declared, sounding pleased with himself. 

“How very intelligent of you,” Severus drawled. “Honestly, I fail to see why you were not put in Ravenclaw with those brains.”

Black grinned lazily. “They missed a good one. Why didn’t the Hat put you in Ravenclaw? You’re a clever bloke, aren’t you?”

Severus shifted through the murky depths of his brain to remember his Sorting. He could see it as if from far away, through water, the thoughts that had crossed his mind. His desire to go to Slytherin burned bright, but it was chilled in reaching him, the potency dulled with time and age. What had been his reasoning? His mother, maybe, because she had been a Slytherin and it was all he knew how to do, be like others. Uniqueness was bad, and so he had tried to enjoy the idea of Slytherin as much as possible, was that it? Perhaps. He could not remember ever considering Ravenclaw, though perhaps it was a long-gone wisp of thought. Had the Hat had any confusion about his placement? He knew that sometimes it did, but he could not recall if it had ever considered putting him in Ravenclaw. 

“I suppose,” Severus replied, carefully, “that I did not care to be intelligent at that time, so Ravenclaw was not the best choice. Certainly, I wanted to be in Slytherin. I wonder if that has an effect.”

“I’m not sure,” Black admitted. “I mean, I didn’t want to go to Slytherin, I always fancied Gryffindor, so did James. And we both got there, but I always assumed that was just because we fit in there. Maybe it can be because you wanted it. Remus… well, I don’t know about him, really. Did he want to be in Gryffindor? Maybe not. Perhaps he just wanted to be with us. I’m sure it’s not just about what you want, after all, Muggle-borns don’t have a clue…”

He trailed off, and Severus thought about the people he had surrounded himself with at school. He would never speak of them like Black spoke of James or Remus, even if he had somewhat liked those boys, he didn’t think about them as fellows anymore, not even fellows of a time passed. He wondered what it was like, to think about people in that way. 

“Maybe they ought to do away with the whole system,” Severus suggested into the silence. “Divide them randomly into dormitories and classes.”

Black looked understanding. “It’d get rid of that inherent prejudice. All the little pure-bloods would have to spend time with Muggle-borns and they’d get it that prejudice is wrong. As a more mature person, it makes sense. But it’d take the fun out of school, I think.” He shrugged. “Even without values, the House system was fun. Competitiveness. Earning something for yourself and others. There’s skills to learn about teamwork and camaraderie in there.”

Severus wondered if he had seen real camaraderie in Slytherin. He had been a student in that House for seven years, and the Head of House for seventeen. Had he observed the students he had so unwillingly taught being like comrades, one in the same? Or had they all wanted to win for themselves and the glory it might bring them as individuals? He supposed he had never really thought about it. Each student had been one amongst a mass to him, but he had never really taken time to think about what the parts of the mass meant to each other. He had never been comforted by his House, so he had probably assumed that nobody was, but had that been a fair observation? That was part of what had always made him such a lamentable teacher, he supposed. He had never really understood the way those childrens’ minds had worked, how they really felt. Not everyone was a robot who came to school just for learning, and Severus supposed that he ought to have known that; he had not come to Hogwarts just to get an education. 

“Once,” Severus said, quite suddenly, “Dumbledore told me I could do a great deal of good for the students of Slytherin House. I did not know what he meant.”

If his sudden diversion in topic had shocked him, Black did not show it. 

“I didn’t know half of what Dumbledore meant most of the time,” Black admitted, dolefully. “Maybe he was talking about unity. He probably wanted House unity, and thought you’d somehow manage to persuade all the little Slytherins to be anti-Voldemort.”

Severus shook his head. “No, this was not during the war. I must have been twenty-five or so. The panic was over, we were living what many thought to be a normal life. I was no spy, and no Death Eater. I think he thought I might be able to understand the students who felt that they did not belong in the way they had hoped. I admit I had forgotten about that interaction until today. I told him, I think, that I did not really know what he meant and he seemed to take that to mean that I could not do whatever he wanted me to.”

“Well,” Black reasoned, cradling his mug like it was a talisman, “I think that’s sort of true. If you don’t understand the request, you can’t do it. It’s the same with small things, isn’t it? If you don’t understand the theory of a Memory Charm, you can’t do one, no matter how much you’d like to. And I suppose if you were to help the students in any way, you’d need to understand what they needed. And maybe Dumbledore thought you needed to understand yourself, too. Maybe there was something about you that he thought would be of use, but you just didn’t realise it.”

“He could not have expected that of me.” Severus found himself scowling at the old fool, who was not an old fool, but a clever man pretending to be eccentric and loving and trusting all to achieve what he wanted whilst he tore other people apart. “I was never a good teacher. No doubt Potter filled you in on that. It was not my calling. Practice was no use.”

Black smirked. “I know you weren’t a good teacher. I wouldn’t have been either. Still, there are some things that you can be good at that don’t require practice.”

For a man as blunt and shallow as he was, Severus thought that Black had the tendency to be vague sometimes, as vague as Dumbledore had sometimes been. It reminded him, in a way, of those passing years, the gap between the wars, when his relationship with Dumbledore had almost felt like it was real, not an act. As the time since the Dark Lord’s fall had widened, the looming fact that Dumbledore was the reason for Severus’ liberty had begun to fade, and so had the possibility of a quick return to a state of war. Sometimes, during those middle years, Dumbledore had felt like a colleague, always a superior colleague, but a colleague nonetheless. He had often asked Severus about his day, talked in small ways about things that didn’t matter for anything except retaining normality in life, teasing out personal details in a way that had been falsely friendly. Had that all just been for use? Severus could recall fragments of the things he had said in passing to Dumbledore in that space, that time, and he thought maybe Dumbledore had been trying to learn about him to put him to work. Had he asked after Tobias and Eileen in that casual way because he really did not know? Had he asked Severus about who he socialised with outside of the school faculty because he was genuinely concerned that his youngest staff member still had a social life despite the time he laid down to Hogwarts? Had he attempted to reminisce about student days just for the sake of a common thread?

Severus did not know, not even after he had waved Black away with another few slights about his intelligence and resemblance to an ugly dog, receiving some barks back about his nose and battish appearance. He supposed he believed in coincidence and chance, and that no man, not even Dumbledore, could be planning every move before he made it, but he could not say, either, that he believed anything innocent anymore. Not about Dumbledore. If that year had taught him anything about that non-fool, it was how he did most things whilst thinking about gains and motives. 

To be free from such a life was perhaps the only blessing from this existence. He would not die in manipulation.

Chapter Text

By the time Black left, Severus was feeling sufficiently tired that he did not want to get up from his armchair, despite Moonstone’s telltale nudges that it was about time for him to feed her and himself. He had never really realised how tiring it was to socialise with people, especially not after the fact. He had hardly felt tired when he was talking with Black, but now he was quite exhausted. Certainly too exhausted to remember the details of their alcohol-filled night, though he suddenly found that he didn’t care. Did it really matter anymore? Black had come and proved, whilst sober, that he was not necessarily the malicious and arrogant mutt that he so often had seemed. It was strange, but not unfathomable. That unknown thing that had swayed Severus must have been strong, and he found himself willing to accept that he might never really understand it.

He also found that he was willing to accept Black’s return; the following Thursday, Black showed up unannounced, though somehow not surprisingly, requesting tea, and, without saying it, company and conversation. Moonstone made a fuss of him, which Severus thought was still bad for Black’s ego, though it was perhaps a good sign that he was able to take to cats, despite being a dog. 

“So, she really just followed you home?” Black asked, tickling Moonstone’s stomach as she stretched luxuriously on the sofa next to him. 

Severus nodded. He hadn’t told Black why Moonstone had found him.

“Lucky.” Black snorted. “I wanted to have a cat, once, when I was younger, but when my dear mother took me to the Menagerie to get one, they wouldn’t come near me.”

Severus smirked. “Perhaps they could all tell that you were more of a dog person.”

“I’ve never really taken to dogs,” Black admitted, shrugging. “I mean, it’s not like I hate them or they hate me, since I do understand them and stuff, but I’d never want to keep one as a pet. Even when I am a dog, I’m never that friendly with others. They know, see. They can tell I’m not a true dog, and they’re more mistrusting than cats.”

“Cats trust you ?” 

He laughed. “In my experience, yes. That year when I broke out of Azkaban to try and catch Wormtail, I made friends with Hermione’s cat. He helped me get into the castle and find Peter. I think he might have liked me better since he knew I wasn’t a real dog.”

Severus thought back to that particular encounter. He did remember a large ginger cat, though he had never registered that it and Black might have had any affinity for each other. 

“But you have never considered owning a cat since?” 

“No.” Black shook his head like a dog trying to dry itself. “I don’t really care for pets. You’d think I was a pet person, but I’d rather… Rather be left alone to my thoughts, these days. Well, sometimes. Other times I like being with people. But I’d rather not have another creature dependent on me. Just in case I need some time.”

Severus did not chastise this; he understood the notion too well. He had never really entertained the idea of having a pet until one thrust her into his life, but he knew that his active self would have taken this viewpoint. What was the use in having a pet to take care of when he had scarcely wanted to care for himself? Moonstone had not been a choice, she had come into his world and become a reason to stay, but Severus doubted he would have ever made the conscious choice to take her in. 

“You seem to like my pet, though.” 

“Well, she’s a good cat,” Black replied. “She’s half the reason I come here.”

She was a good cat. Severus thought about that a lot. The small things she did to ease his pain, even if he internally grumbled. Her ‘reminders’ to eat that were more like death glares and threatened scratches, and the warmth of her presence on days where his bones ached from the inside out. His hatred of her had never been real; there had always been a soft spot in his heart for her and it only grew with time, for some inextricable reason. That was love, coming in unknown ways and sticking around for unclear reasons, and it was never something that could be controlled. He wondered, as sleep came creeping around the door, if Moonstone loved him. She must not hate him, because she did come to him for scratches and curled in his lap in the evenings, but sometimes she felt like his irritated carer, and he wondered if she did not wish for a companion who was more lively, more interesting. Happier. 

He didn’t really know what happiness was, did he? All he knew of that matter was that this wasn’t it, no matter the brightness that existed in places. Black’s visits were something like enjoyable, a moment where Severus forgot about the fact that his pain got worse every day, but it didn’t feel like enough to do more than stoke the embers. Was it that, and Moonstone, that kept him going? It felt like it sometimes, because there seemed nothing to live for, not as the world passed by him and healed itself. Hell, was it? Maybe it was all just a cruel joke, and yet there was nothing he could do to break himself from it, nothing that relieved the pain or gave him purpose as the summer nights descended with breeze and muggy haziness that Severus hoped would disappear when the winter snapped in.

As he stuttered into consciousness on an August morning, the pain was twisting and writhing inside of him. Concentrated at his neck as it always was, it was like fire, scorching but freezing, making him sweat and shiver, catching his lungs in two tight fists and squeezing them whilst molten metal was poured into his throat. Taking in air was effort enough without his muscles being frozen tight, taut and immovable, screaming and yet locked in place by something. He had no idea where he was, and no concept of time as he fought to stay breathing, stay alive, for in that moment like the first time the snake’s fangs had pierced him, he wanted to live even though this living could hardly constitute that. Because death was a void to which he could not travel alone, unaided, unheard. Who would know he had gone? What would be of the small cat that was mewing loudly, unheard by her owner who could not save himself now just as he had not been able to save himself then. 

So the hands that held his lungs and heart would squeeze more tightly, popping the darkness back into his vision, like a person returning to sleep after being momentarily jerked by a far-off sound, because this time had been borrowed from better people and it had been spent, wasted on nothing for he was nothing and would soon be nothing again, his mangled soul departing to the place from whence it would not return, to face the final judgement and battle against who knew what.

When Severus came round, it was like time had restarted itself, though the familiarity of waking in a room like this with smells like this whispered to Severus that this was not the same as that time before. 

“Oh, good.” There he was, Potter, right on cue. “I was beginning to think it’d be night before you woke up.”

The sound of some footsteps, and a pair of clear blue eyes. “It’s about four thirty.” Healer Whittle answered the question that had not yet reached Severus. “You gave us quite a turn.”

After some effort, Severus unstuck his mouth. “My cat,” he croaked. He heard Potter laugh. 

“The cat’s fine, don’t worry.” 

“It’s you who you should be worrying about,” Healer Whittle said, with the faintest trace of disbelief. “Have you been taking your potions? Getting enough rest?”

Severus tried and failed to shrug. Someone was propping him up on pillows so he could see the Healer and Potter better. His pain had begun to get so bad over the last few days that he had struggled more with daily tasks, but it had been a rough patch. 

Healer Whittle pulled up a chair and sat by the bed, concern written all over his face that was too young to bear this sort of thing. “It’s not good, what’s happened. I think that Smethwyck and I are partially to blame, and I’m sorry about that. I think we need to reformulate what you’re taking, we should have been doing more checks. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is serious. We think it might be something that could happen again, and you’re very lucky that someone found you. It’s probable that you might have stopped breathing if you had been left much longer.”

“Who found me?” Severus asked, and the raspiness of his voice prompted Potter to force water on him. It was delicious, and yet his insides felt so hot that it seemed to sizzle as it hit his stomach.

“It was Sirius,” Potter said before Healer Whittle could speak. “Reckons he was coming over for a cup of tea, but you wouldn’t answer and he bashed your door in and called the Healers immediately.”

Severus didn’t know if he should be grateful it was a Thursday or not.

“It was very fortunate,” Healer Whittle said, as though he could tell Severus was asking himself this question. “You’ll have to stay here for some time, I think, but you’ll live, and hopefully recover if we get to the bottom of the medicine issue.” The young man paused and Severus saw something in his eyes that said he wanted to say something else, something teetering within him, flashing for a moment before he seemed to decide. He gave Severus a smile and stood up. “I’ve got to make some rounds, but I’ll come by tomorrow and see how you’re doing, alright?” He did not bother to tell Severus how to call a nurse. Both men knew that he did not need to be reminded of that.

“Sirius has got Moonstone,” Potter declared, once the Healer had left. “He insisted he take her, though Hermione offered to take her, since she’s got Crookshanks and knows about cats.” When Severus said nothing to this, he added, “I didn’t know he came to see you. I mean, I know he’s usually busy on Thursdays, but he never said that it was to see you. When did that start?”

Severus felt like his brain was about to implode. “Potter, I am very tired.”

The boy grinned, though he was not really a boy anymore. “I’m not upset . It’s a good thing. If you two have made your peace, I’m glad.”

The following morning, Severus felt only slightly less like he had been run over, and suspected that the feeling would return with time, as the day progressed. He did not need to adjust to the hospital routine; he was still used to the way nurses came in and out, fully acquainted with the general architecture of the hospital and the appearance of Healers was not alarming. He had seen more of his Healers than anyone else in the time that had elapsed since the war had ended, and whilst Severus didn’t consider them friends, he never thought of them as people to whom he could not be honest about his medical condition, and did not hate them,despite the fact that they had all the health in the world. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop by this morning,” Healer Whittle said, when he arrived in Severus’ room in the early afternoon, clutching a file that Severus assumed to be his own, looking like a man who had been rushed. “Things have been busy. You chose an inconvenient time to take a turn for the worse, Mr. Snape.” The joke did not annoy Severus. He recognised the easy smile of youth and had no desire to take it from this man who had done more for him than he deserved.

"I've been talking to Hippocrates, and we think that the problem was what it sort of always is. Strain and exhaustion all building up. Your body sort of reacted to something that wasn’t there, because it was so tired that it thought you were under attack. Does that make sense?”

Severus nodded. 

“Good. Well, the good news is that we got it under control, and we’re going to adjust your medication to deal with it. We think we can keep everything stable, I won’t bore you with all the details of it now. The point is, we don’t think it’ll start happening all the time, not if you get enough rest and sustenance. That’s what I wanted to speak with you about.” His expression became suspicious. “I can’t help noticing that you’ve lost weight. Have you been eating properly?”

There was little point in lying. “Not as much as I think you would deem ‘properly’. It is very difficult to cook when one’s hands do not want to co-operate with the process.”

Healer Whittle nodded. “As I thought. I’m not angry with you, don’t worry. It’s no wonder, really, considering your injuries. Have you been getting any help around the house? Potter mentioned to me that you’ve been having more guests, which is good.”

He thought of Moonstone. “No. I can hardly hire a housekeeper.”

The sarcasm in his tone seemed to make Whittle smirk. “That wouldn’t be a terrible idea, you know. It’d take the load off you. But there are other things.” He sighed, and the happiness vanished from his face. “You remember that you were assessed before your discharge, don’t you? Your ability to live alone, I mean. Well, because of the nature of this particular flare-up, it’ll have to happen again, and, well, it’s not looking very good.” He steeled himself. “Of course, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing, even if it sounds bleak. In practice, it’s better that you receive the accurate assessment so that you can be given the correct support. We want you to live comfortably, and it’s just not going to be that if you continue on your own.” 

The optimism did not fool Severus, and he felt black clouds uncharacteristic of August descend. Thirty-nine, and unfit to live alone, when less than two years earlier, he had been a spy, capable of powerful magic. He had once been able to fly , for Merlin’s sake. And now he was not deemed well enough to take care of himself. It was like being told he was a small child. 

Healer Whittle pulled some leaflets from his file. “These are some of the homes that you could go to.” He tried to smile. “I know it’s not your top option, but when you feel up to it, have a look.” He sighed, and did not bother to make it seem better. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair.”

Severus knew little about Healer Whittle personally, but he believed that he really was sorry. 

***

Over the following days, Severus began to wish that he had not been found. Perhaps the new medicines were working, but he no longer cared. He had even tried to be good about the whole affair, trying to look through the pamphlets left by Healer Whittle, but they had been of no use. All of these homes looked like depressing places to live out his final existence, no more than places to shove those who weren’t welcomed by society because they were too sick. He did not want ‘friendly carers’ snooping in on his life, or a ‘community of support’ that would simply exclude him for who he was and what he had done. This fact was not necessarily a part of Severus’ dread; he had no desire to ‘connect’ with anyone, but for all its bad parts, Spinner’s End was, at least, private. 

Privacy had been a part of Severus’ life for as long as he could remember. Shutting things away was a method of control, and choosing who knew what and saw what had often been the only way that Severus could ever have any power over what happened to him. He had done it when he was a boy, hiding his mother’s spellbooks from Tobias, feeling a secret victory, and then when he was a student, pretending to be more mediocre than he was, never telling about most of the spells he had made, not giving Slughorn his revisions of their set potions. Then as an adult, hiding had been his lifeline. Occlumency had come naturally to him because he was used to pretending one thing whilst being another, and knowing that he could lie to the Dark Lord had kept him going when he had been forced into things he hated. Now, Occlumency was gone, but Severus still found his thoughts to be protected, truly his. There was no more intruding Legilimens, and he spent most of his time alone, shielding his existence from the world. If he were to go to a home, that would all be over. He would never be able to feel properly like he belonged to himself, and it was terrifying. 

To seal his fate, Severus found that none of the homes accepted pets, meaning that he would have to go without Moonstone. Severus did not count many things in his life as ‘good’, but Moonstone’s presence was one of the few things, and even though they had only spent a year together, Severus was determined that they should never be parted. It might have been bearable, if his little companion was able to be with him, but not even having their wordless communication to get him through the day made life no longer worth living, and so he began to contemplate the future with a progressively grim outlook. 

“Look, I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Potter said. He had come to visit and Severus hated the pity and sympathy on his face. “You won’t be able to be discharged yet anyway, and you’ll be able to look for more possibilities and get more information. Don’t give up on it just yet.”

“When did I say I had given up?” Severus snapped, angry that Potter seemed to have guessed this without him having to mention or imply it. 

Potter shifted uncomfortably. “I know you’re not happy about it. It’s obvious, really. Nobody would be happy about it. Least of all you.” He shrugged. “I know it’s not ideal, and I’m sorry about it, but… Well, I don’t think there’s anything we can do. I did speak to Healers Smethwyck and Whittle about it, I tried to make them see that a home wasn’t what you wanted, but they’re both being firm about it. They reckon you need, for your health, to be in a place where your needs are taken care of. They don’t think you’ll be able to get by on your own, and they won’t accept someone regularly checking in on you either.” He paused. “They’re worried, and so am I. That sort of thing could happen again, and it’s not a joke. You were lucky, but if you’re alone, you might not be lucky again.”

It didn’t feel very lucky. Severus felt a never-before pang of dislike for his Healers. They must not understand him correctly. They seemed not to get that he could very well take care of himself, and did not need to be babied, and would rather just get on with his life, even if that was going to shorten it. That was the problem with these St. Mungo’s people. They wanted to prolong life too much, they had not the wherewithal to understand that sometimes it was best to give up on a failure and cut your losses, accept that not everyone was Albus blasted Dumbledore and lived past a hundred years old. Still, Severus considered, they didn’t quite get Dumbledore either; the man had arranged his own death, a concession that Severus was apparently not allowed. It wasn’t even so suicidal as Dumbledore had been. He hardly wanted to have someone pitch him off the Astronomy Tower, he just wanted his life to run its natural course, not to be propped up by more borrowed time. 

But the Healers refused to hear it. Severus attempted to argue with both Smethwyck and Whittle over the following week, as both of them came to check on him and see if their new regime of medicinal potions were working, and both of them flatly shut down Severus’ arguments. Healer Smethwyck, who was the elder of the two Healers, told Severus that he was being too negative, and that he was poisoning himself against the idea because the immediate prospect had been so undesirable, but that if he tried to look for things that he might not hate, he would have a better time trying to select his next destination. He refused to accept Severus’ argument that he would be unhappy, and told him quite plainly that he would be most unhappy if he went back to Spinner’s End, a statement that Severus would usually have agreed with. Healer Whittle was not quite as abrasive as Smethwyck, and chose a more sympathetic route. He did, he said, understand that no part of the situation was desirable and agreed that any reasonable thirty nine-year-old man would not want to go into a home, but explained that there was nothing to be done, and that medical advice had to be heeded. According to him, he understood that Severus was not going to look on any of the presented options with glee, and said that there would always be support available for dealing with the ‘difficult predicament’, but that he ought to ‘try to persevere’ so that he didn’t make things more difficult for himself. Privately, Severus thought both Healers were demonstrating uncharacteristic ignorance; they were too medical, and did not understand exactly how it all felt, because they were too healthy to be placed in the situation themselves. 

Potter all but stopped bringing it up altogether, which Severus thought was a wise tactic. He didn’t need to hear a repeat of the things he had heard from his Healers, and, despite his weakened state, Severus could see that Potter feared the outcome of encroaching of the topic. Instead, his visits turned to narrations of his opinions on the news, or else recounting his most recent mistakes in his Auror training, which Severus presumed was to cheer him up. He listened, and tried to see the incident Potter was describing, wherein he knocked a large cauldron of Polyjuice Potion all over his superior, in his head, but it was a very faraway picture, and did not invoke the smirk it might have once done, to imagine the boy doing something idiotic. 

What Severus really missed, and it was somewhat difficult to admit to himself, was Black. Black had never acted like Severus was an invalid, and it was always so much nicer to be treated like a human being. Black did not care about saying the ‘wrong thing’, and Severus had adjusted himself to rather enjoy the playful slights on the size of his nose, or else listen to Black abusing a member of the Wizengamot who had tried to show repentance for allowing Bartemius Crouch to throw him in Azkaban without a trial. Black was, if nothing else, a friend , someone who didn’t walk on eggshells or hold some ulterior motive around Severus. He was honest, he was interesting, and yet he had not come. Severus did not necessarily expect him to; their arranged meeting had always been at Spinner’s End, not St. Mungo’s, but it was still somewhat disheartening that he was missing this engagement. Gloomily, Severus supposed he would never again get to repeat it; when he was inevitably shoved in a home, he would probably not even be allowed to make his own tea, and the meeting would never be complete without Moonstone’s traitorous love of Black. 

He did not raise the subject with Potter; Harry Potter was the very last person who Severus wished to know about his and Black’s friendship, but he wished Potter might read his mind and send Sirius along anyway. Still, he thought, broodingly, Potter was not gifted with perceptiveness.

“What the HELL do you mean?” A very loud voice echoed up the corridor and into Severus’ gloomy contemplation of his life. “Those bastards told me it was ‘family only’! You’re not bloody family!”

A few seconds passed, and Severus could have sworn the whole hospital rattled as someone punched his door open, making it thud loudly as it hit the wall, swinging violently back only to be stoppered by the leather-booted foot of Sirius Black, who was glaring into the room as though sure it was concealing his worst enemy. 

“Sirius, please don’t be so-” Potter came trotting up behind his godfather. “What if he’s asleep?”

Sirius gave an appalled grunt. “Of course he’s not bloody sleeping! He’s not your fucking grandfather, is he, Harry? For God’s sake!”

Severus beat back the urge to grin and opened his mouth. “Black, although it may cause you physical pain to cease being the centre of attention, shut up.”

Potter broke past Sirius and into the room, panting. “Sorry. I’ll get him out, he just barged-”

“Go and find some tea, Harry,” Sirius ordered, loudly. “I’ve already told you, I have business here. Find me and Snape some tea, or go home.”

Potter looked cautiously between Severus and hid godfather, as though he were not quite sure if one of them had gone completely mad. 

“Go, Potter,” Severus said, hoping beyond hope that Potter would leave the room and they would suddenly be back in Spinner’s End, with the sun coming through the grimy window, Moonstone purring on one of their laps, strong tea on the side table. 

Sirius advanced towards the chair beside Severus’ bed, dragging it with ease a little closer, and planting himself on it with a look of discontent.

“I was told that only family were allowed to visit you,” he grumbled, folding his arms, his posture terrible, as usual. “And then I saw Harry around here, and he said he was visiting you. So it was all total bollocks. Did you have anything to do with that?”

Severus shook his head painfully. “No. It does not appear that I have any control over those sorts of matters. I am sure it was Potter’s idea of keeping me safe, and he is only included in the equation because he has barged himself into being my emergency contact.”

Sirius scowled deeply, though it was more affected than anything else. “No thought for the bastard who brought you here then,” he muttered. “He must know you haven’t got any family, mustn’t he? Why would he put that role in place?”

“Well, Black,” Severus started, feeling his lips twitch ever so slightly, “it may be sensational news to your tiny brain, but there are many people who do not like me, and would jump at the chance to walk into this public hospital and get rid of me for good. Perhaps that was your godson’s mindset, since he and everybody else in this wretched place is so concerned with preserving my life.”

“Good,” he replied, doggedly. “I don’t want my hard work to be wasted.”

Severus remembered for the first time in a while that it had been Sirius who had saved his life, Sirius who was the reason that he was sitting here, conscious. Not Potter, not Healer Whittle, Sirius Black. 

He sighed, more to himself than Sirius. “I think you are fighting a lost game, Black,” said Severus. “Your act, however valiant and chivalrous, or whatever else Gryffindors prize, was not to preserve much that is worth living.” To say it outloud was the catharsis he had needed for centuries.

“Don’t say that,” Sirius barked, sharply. “Your life isn’t lost just because you’re a bit… weaker. I don’t want to hear you say that sort of thing, it isn’t true. What would I do on my Thursdays? What would Moonstone do? I’m sure she detests me, but she puts up with me because she knows that’s the way back to you in the end.” His eyes seemed to blaze with something Severus had never seen in a person before. 

The mention of Moonstone was what did it for him. That cat, who meant more to him than anything, was what made it horribly real. Moonstone wanted a way back to him, but he could not provide even that anymore. No matter what happened, he would not see her again, would not sit on long painful evenings with nothing but her soft mews for company. If he went to a home, he might be able to take day trips to visit her, wherever she was living, if Sirius consented to keep her, but she would not really be his cat anymore. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Sirius said. “She does like you better, what’s the harm in admitting it? She likes me, probably because I’m feeding her, but there’s no doubt you’re her favourite.”

Severus shook his head. “Don’t be an idiot, Black. Of course I know my own cat prefers me over you, the issue is that she may not be my cat after very long, which would swing the matter.”

His face fell and twisted into confusion. “What do you mean? She followed you home, didn’t she? That makes her yours. She’s not going to abandon you, you must know that. I thought you were supposed to be smart , Snape.”

And it tumbled from him.

Chapter Text

When he was finished, Severus felt strangely empty, but not in a blank way, not in a lonely way. It was as though something had built up inside him ever since he had arrived at the hospital, or perhaps even longer, and it had finally cleared, leaving a path that wasn’t entirely visible, but was there, nonetheless. In comparison to the day that Healer Whittle had first told him that he had to go into a home, it was practically freeing. Sirius didn’t say anything straight away, but Severus didn’t need him to. The fact that he had listened without immediately jumping on the ‘this is the best thing for you’ bandwagon was enough. Perhaps that was what made him a decent person.

“Look, mate, it’s pretty rough,” Sirius agreed. “Obviously, they don’t really understand you. I mean, springing this sort of thing on you when you’re still unwell, not really giving you any support… Aren’t this lot supposed to have your best interests at heart?”

Severus snorted. “They’ve already decided before me what my ‘best interests’ are. I don’t think it matters what I want, really.”

Sirius nodded, looking thoughtful. “This one’s really going to take some thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Sirius rolled his eyes. “This can’t be. I’m not letting them shove you in some home, that’s for sure. There’s a way around it, there’s always a way around these things.” He grinned, and looked almost like a schoolboy. The cheeky Sirius Black who liked to cause trouble and do exactly as he liked. 

“Becoming an unregistered animagus is hardly going to solve this problem,” Severus answered, recalling that Sirius was adept at finding solutions to problems of a more wolfish nature.

Sirius laughed heartily. “That’s not what I’m thinking of.” He pursed his lips. “Now, what did the Healers say? That you’ve got to go into a home?”

“Yes. Apparently, I am not allowed to live on my own.”

His eyebrows ploughed deeply down his forehead, and Severus realised that Sirius was really thinking . Severus had always assumed that he didn’t know how to think, at least before knowing him properly since the war’s end. He was probably fairly intelligent, if Severus thought about it properly. Sirius had been in the Order, and he had become an animagus as a teenager. And he had performed well in school tests, and not all of that could have been teaching. 

Sirius clapped his hands suddenly, and Severus jumped. The silence had been broken with a gunshot. 

“I’ve got an idea.” Sirius straightened up. “I’m not sure how much you’ll like it, it’s not the best plan I’ve ever had, but you could come and live with me.” He grinned. “Though I know you still think I’m a bastard.”

“You are a bastard,” Severus snapped at him. “It’s not a matter of opinion.” He was glad that Sirius smirked at that. “Is that even allowed? I had the sense that the Healers are of the opinion that I need round-the-clock care.”

Sirius scowled. “That’s a whole lot of bullshit. You’re not getting that right now, are you? I know you can call for someone if you need it, but there’s hardly a necessity for you to have a crowd of nurses around you at all times. I’m not saying that I’m a perfect carer, but you said it yourself, you don’t need to be ‘looked after’.”

\

“You will have to pretend to be a conscientious and respectful person, Black. Can you manage that?”

\

Severus was convinced that either Healer Whittle or Healer Smethwyck would object to Sirius’ idea, because they had seemed so set on him going into a ‘residential facility’. Furthermore, whilst Severus did believe that Sirius was a sensible person when he had to be, he was not entirely sure that the Healers would see him as such. Someone must have heard Sirius’ fit of swearing in the hallways, and that would surely not recommend him as a potential carer. He was fully prepared to fight the case, and warned Sirius as such too, as they prepared to make the proposition. 

The biggest issue, however, came first, in the form of Potter. 

“You two? Live together? I thought the aim of this decision was to stop further injury.”

Sirius looked mortally offended. “Are you suggesting I’m a careless bloke, Harry? I’m not going to drop things all over him or turn into a dog and eat him, who do you think I am?”

“You two detest each other,” Potter reminded them. “I’m surprised you haven’t had a duel yet.”

“Catch up, Potter,” Severus snapped. “Times have changed. Black has my cat, for one thing, and I need my cat. I can put up with a mongrel for that.”

“I’m still concerned that something’s not quite right here.” Potter frowned, his green eyes flitting between both their faces. “Anyway, Sirius, you’re just living in a flat, aren’t you? Isn’t it a bit small for two?”

Sirius snorted. “Don’t be stupid. You’ve been there plenty of times. It’s spacious enough for two, you know that.”

The next hurdle was the Healers. Though Potter was a technicality, and his concern for the matter was not easily assuaged, his opinion didn’t practically matter. It was only under the decisions of Severus’ Healers that he could be released from hospital, and their nos would be more damning than anyone else’s. The subject of Severus going to live with another person, but not in a residential home, had never been breached. Severus assumed this had something to do with the fact that he was not known to have many acquaintances, or any family at all. He was not sure if he was annoyed at his Healers for assuming he was lonely, or grateful that they never brought up the issue so that he did not have to admit with his own words that he was. Still, it presented a difficulty. Would they believe him when he assured them that he and Sirius really were good friends and would muddle along just fine? Severus knew that Sirius would never neglect him if he was unwell, indeed, he had been the one to bring him to the hospital in the first place, but it was unclear if the Healers would sanction it. 

“I’ll have to talk to Ia- I mean, Healer Whittle about it.” Severus didn’t see Healer Smethwyck as often as his younger counterpart, but he had decided to tell him about it first, because he might be less biased. Or maybe it was just easier, for some unknown reason. “We’ll need to have a chat with this man, either way, I’m sure you understand that. It wouldn’t be a responsible decision, otherwise.” He fingered one of the discarded leaflets. “It wouldn’t be the same as…”

“I know,” Severus cut in. “I am well aware of what you think may be best. But it would be more beneficial for my mental health to live with someone that I already know.”

Healer Smethwyck looked uncomfortable. “I know it would. I’m sure everyone would feel that way. But we’ll have to make the decision as Healers, as well as humans. I’m sure you understand that.”

But, Severus thought, annoyance tickling him, he was a human, and lived life as a human. The humanity of his experience couldn’t be pushed away so easily, or else he would be little better off than if he were dead. It was the problem with all of them. They wanted him to be alive, but not really to live. 

Sirius, at least, was a reflection of Severus’ continually rising annoyance at how much his future was hanging in the balance. He did not, it seemed, have much to do with himself other than come to the hospital to rage at the slow pace of the Healers’ decision, all whilst letting his tea get cold, barely touching his custard cream. Severus understood this frustration. He too wanted the decision to be made, even if it was the unfavourable option, because he really could not stand being in this liminal realm of knowing nothing. Every time he questioned one of his Healers, they simply said that they were still making their choice whilst reviewing all the evidence and cautions in a thorough manner.

“Thorough,” Sirius spat, scowling and folding his arms like a ten-year-old. “How much more time can they spend? They’re taking the piss, I bet they’re just taking an age because they’ve got the power to. Gits, the lot of them.”

Severus reserved this particular judgement. He didn’t think his Healers were gits, but he was certainly feeling frustrated with them.

“They have procedures,” Severus replied, vaguely. “All sorts of rules and regulations, since this is a healthcare setting. It’s not like Hogwarts, where one simply had to get Dumbledore to like them.” 

Sirius scowled. “I don’t care about rules.”

"You astound me.” Severus rolled his eyes. “If they hear you saying that, you’ll never get the answer you’d like.”

He knew he was becoming desperate. St. Mungo’s was very familiar to Severus, and he knew it would be for the remainder of his life, but the way that the days started to stretch was not a good sign. He had noticed it when he had first returned to Spinner’s End and time had been all nothingness, weak and long. How long would he be able to bear this? Of course, he had existed for months in Spinner’s End, but he had had Moonstone there. Sirius visited often, and Potter even swung by with Minerva once or twice, but it was not the same. Most of the time, days were filled with empty loneliness, the pounding reminder that he had no companion. Perhaps he would never have one. Even going into a home seemed more appealing now, because at least there might be someone there who would add a bit of something to life, perhaps by fighting the nurses or hiding playing cards so people got irate. Severus knew he would never participate in the politics of a residential facility, but he had always liked following the staffroom drama that inevitably unfolded each year at Hogwarts. Hiding behind a book or some marking he might listen in to Filius narrating the argument that had taken place between Filch and Professor Sinistra, or else why the Hufflepuff sixth-years were giving the cold shoulder to the fifth-years. But that had always been different. It was not his life-blood, not the thing that kept him hanging on. He could not bear the thought of the mundane goings-on of a residential facility being the only thing he would have to entertain him until his life ended.

How strange, for him to actually long to go and live with Sirius Black, his sworn enemy of decades, a man he had hated and promised himself he would one day have the pleasure of seeing in incredible pain. The world had turned on itself, that was true, but even so, this was real proof of something having gone even more wrong. It was one thing not to hate him, but for the prospect of living with Sirius to seem appealing, there must have been some real change, somewhere along the line. 

But, everything was different. Wasn’t that the whole problem? The whole horror of the situation with which Severus had been grappling since he had woken up in this very hospital was that things were different, and that he did not like that. It was not as if he had never asked for change, willed something about his miserable life to change, but he had always counted on his power and choice remaining intact. If he was honest, autonomy had been gone since he had been pierced by that snake. Maybe even before. If he were to look at it more baldly, Severus thought he might have given up his autonomy the moment he entered into the Dark Lord’s service. He had certainly been willing to dedicate his body and mind, back then. When he had defected, it had been the same. He had had a youthfully reckless lack of care for anything but the end goal, had placed everything on the line, since the achievement seemed the most important. Much more than his sanity. Even if he had come to resent Dumbledore’s unabashed use of him, Severus could hardly pretend that he had never given him that right. In the moments where his decisions might have meant something, he had given Dumbledore the right to use him for anything, and he was reaping the reward now. No thanks, no comfortable life. No health. The true payment for being one of the bad ones. 

I’m sure they’d love this. They’d say I deserve it. Do I deserve it?

“I was rather hoping that Mr. Black would be here, but no matter.” 

In his reverie, Severus had not heard his door open, not seen anyone taking a seat next to his bed. Perhaps he was good at immersion, even after all the time and poison. 

Drawing himself away from his mind’s world, Severus focused on the slightly ruffled-looking Healer Whittle. 

“I’m sorry to come by so late,” he began, perhaps not having noticed that Severus had been miles away, “we’ve been very busy. Obviously, that’s not to say that you’re not an important patient, but-”

“If I am not the focus of your attention, it is better,” Severus overrode him. “Surely, it means I am not in immediate danger.”

Healer Whittle grinned. “Yes, I suppose it does mean that.” He shifted slightly. “I’ve come on behalf of myself and Smethwyck. We’ve reviewed the case, and we’ve made our decision.”

The decision. 

“We’ve had a good look at everything, and tried to think about the future too, and we’ve decided that you can live with Sirius Black.”

Severus would have dropped anything he had been holding. 

“Are you serious?” he questioned. “This isn’t a ruse to make me go into a home quietly?”

“No, it’s not a ruse. We’re serious.” He pushed a distracted hand through his blonde hair in an attempt to neaten it. “This doesn’t mean forever, I hope you know that. There is a chance, if you get worse, that you will really require round-the-clock care from professionals, which means we’ll have to re-evaluate your living situation again. But, for now, we think it’s better for you to live with a friend, so you can continue to socialise and live somewhat normally.”

Somewhat normally was better than invalid, wasn’t it?

“Have you told Sirius?”

Whittle shook his head. “No, I haven’t had the chance to. I know he’s been to see you a couple of times, but I’ve been too busy to come by. As I said, I was hoping he might be here, but I can find him later. Or you can tell him. Once he knows, it’s just about you deciding how to get your things from your old place to his, and you can get out of here.” 

Get out of here . Being gone from St. Mungo’s, back with Moonstone. It was as close to heaven as he’d ever be allowed to get. 

Whittle seemed to be happy about this arrangement, too. Severus noticed, and he thought he could be wrong because he was bad at understanding other people, that he seemed more upbeat, more lighthearted, having conveyed some good news. He wondered if ‘busy’ translated to there being a lot of mentally taxing cases. Patients who weren’t as lucky as Severus was, or, if you were being pessimistic, were luckier than Severus, and were with the world no more. He suddenly felt very bad for all of the less-than-complimentary things he had thought about Whittle, and Healers in general, over the past days.

“You will need to come back sometimes, of course,” Whittle continued. “Appointments, and such, but that’s it.” He smiled. “I hope things will get a bit easier.”

Sirius was ecstatic, though Severus could tell he was pretending not to be, for ‘comedic’ purposes.

“Good,” he said, strongly. “Moonstone’s pining, and it’s getting irritating. She’s a good cat, but I wish she wouldn’t whine and look sulky just because I’m not you coming to feed her.” He snorted. “You’d think she’d be a little more grateful, honestly. I could have left her to become a street cat again. I don’t see why she prefers you over me, but, well, I can’t change that.”

“Dogs, Black,” Severus snapped, good-naturedly. “She can smell a mutt from a mile away, she knows you are her sworn enemy.”

Sirius scowled. “And you’re saying she prefers bats?”

“I could not say,” Severus replied, arching an eyebrow. “I do not know if there is any affinity between cats and bats, but, as I am not a bat, I think it must simply be that I am not so arrogant that my head is close to falling off from the weight of my own ego.”

“Funny.” Sirius frowned, but grinned. “It’s a shame you can’t learn to be an animagus now. You’d definitely be a bat, if you decided to learn.”

“Suggest it as part of my treatment,” Severus offered. “Perhaps the Healers, and the Ministry, will enjoy the idea of two unregistered animagi running around together.”

“Bats don’t run, do they? Well, normal bats. I know you can run, but-”

Severus raised his mug of tea in a threatening manner.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry. It was a joke.” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Harry told me I should ask you for a list of all the stuff you want from your old place. So I can move it to my flat before you come. I think it’s a stupid idea, we can go to your place any time to get anything else, but he’s going through a phase of being really practical and organised right now, so I think you’d better do it, just to be safe. He’s getting even better at duelling.”

“I do not have anything of value there,” Severus replied, thinking of Spinner’s End with dislike. “Only my clothing, really.”

“Nonsense. You’ve got a whole load of books, haven’t you? You must want some of them, you’re a fairly brainy sort of bloke.”

Severus was unsure if ‘fairly brainy sort of bloke’ should be taken as a complement. “I have not read any of my books in a long time, Black. The issue with being poisoned is that it affects your brain. They are no more use to me at Spinner’s End than they would be if you moved them. Besides,” he added, “I doubt you can read the titles to get me the correct ones.”

“I’m going to take some,” Sirius said, as though he had not heard this last remark. “You’ll regret it, otherwise.” He pulled a quill and parchment from his pocket and scrawled something down. “What else? You must have a few things you want. Keepsakes. Did nobody ever buy you something nice for Christmas, or your birthday, that you always kept? James got me a little model of a dog once, made from gold, and I’ve still got it.”

Severus shook his head. “I am not the sort of person that anybody buys presents for, Black, being as unpleasant as I am.” He pursed his lips. “I am unsure if some of the staff at Hogwarts even knew when my birthday was. Many of them were my teachers, but I know that I never cared to learn the birthdays of every student, and I am sure that even my own Head of House learned mine .”

“But you had friends!” Sirius protested. “Rich friends. Even if they’re all bad people now.”

“Not like your friends, Black,” Severus sighed. “Even if I detested Potter, he did at least care about you. That is not a privilege that ‘Death Eater pals’ afford their poorest and lowest-class friend. I think Lucius may have given me a gift, once, to make himself look good. They all considered it a gift in and of itself that they allowed me in their company.”

In another time, this comment might have made Sirius look uncomfortable, but the traded tales and insults meant that both of them had mostly stopped feeling sorry for one another, and stopped feeling that anything was oversharing. Instead, Sirius snorted derisively, in a way he might have done at Severus, twenty-five years ago. 

“Gits,” he stated. “That’s why I detested my family. The whole lot of them thought their presence was a privilege. It must be something to do with Slytherins. That pure-blooded lot.” He scowled, and Severus was sure he was well aware that he was a pure-blood, and Severus was a Slytherin.

Severus had long thought Sirius was someone like that. Who thought of himself as royalty, his mere existence a blessing upon the earth. Perhaps he had been, Severus hadn’t stopped viewing Sirius’ fifteen-year-old self as an arrogant, nasty piece of work, but it was no longer the case. Perhaps it had not been the case for a while. Many of the moments in which Severus had been around Sirius since leaving school had been blinded by their mutual hatred. Had Sirius felt that he was a gift to mankind during all those Order meetings where he had complained loudly about Severus, and anything else he could think of? It didn’t seem so, not with hindsight and context. Sirius had been a man confined, as locked up as he had been in Azkaban. Even without Dementors present, he had had a bad time of it. Stuck in a place that reminded him of what he had tried to escape. It was like Spinner’s End, really. Severus remembered summers when he had been forced to return there, whilst his parents had still been around, and even after that. It had always been stuffy, though that had never had anything to do with the size of the place. Everywhere in that house was steeped in memories of unhappy times, and further ones were layered on each year, as every summer passed with Severus feeling worse and worse about the man he had become. Teaching, however, unpleasant, had taken up brain space. Summers of the middle years had been empty. Sorting through the material he was supposed to teach had lost its interest and occupation after a few years, and he had taken to reflection. Hating all of the things he had done wrong. Never changing them as a new year arrived. Nothing ever changed, sometimes. 

Until everything changed, of course. That summer when the Dark Lord had returned had not left Severus any space for reflective self-hatred. Instead, he had nursed wounds by candlelight and struggled to pull himself from painful sleep when the sun rose. He remembered how Minerva had told him he looked absolutely terrible on the first day back at Hogwarts. For the first time, returning had been a rest. The Dark Lord had accepted that Severus could not easily sneak out of Hogwarts without drawing the attention of his colleagues, and had given him the privilege of not having to attend any gatherings during the week. Occasionally, he had been summoned at the weekends, but it hadn’t been quite as awful. With fewer tasks, there had been fewer things to fail at. Fewer instances of praise, yes, but fewer instances of punishment, too. None of the students had ever noticed that he was more worn. None of the students had ever cared, and that was how he had wanted it to be. 

And now, someone did care. That was a fact with which he had been unconsciously wrangling for a while. Sirius cared about him . Sirius wanted Severus to live with him so he could give him something of a life. He had understood without experiencing it that living in a home would not grant him that. Every other person that Severus had encountered since being bitten had not offered him the chance to live properly. Was it the case that they didn’t care? Severus didn’t want to make that accusation of anyone, and he didn’t think that people like Potter or Minerva just didn’t have a single thought for him, but he did understand that they didn’t quite care enough . They didn’t feel as strongly as Sirius, otherwise they might have tried to do more than placate him. They might have really wanted to take that burden themselves. Severus didn’t expect to be offered ten different new homes by any means, but it didn’t mean that he couldn’t recognise the fact that Sirius’ extended time was special, and represented something real. More real than the Slytherin Death Eater pals. More real than Dumbledore’s fatherly act. Maybe even more real than Minerva’s glasses of mead or whiskey, in which he had hidden his truth. Yes, that was it. He could not hope to have received anything real from anyone else, because he had not been so honest with anyone else.

Honesty. Had he been afraid of that? Possibly. Never be honest, he had once chanted in his head. Never tell those who ask the real answer, because they’ll take you away to somewhere foul. Do you want to have to leave the security of the little house at the end of the End? No. No matter how difficult things get, don’t tell a soul. It’s not worth it, and he’ll find you anyway. Someone will always find you. Dumbledore will come and find you if you try to do anything he’d call stupid and wasteful. The Dark Lord will come and find you if you leave his ranks. You’ll never really be hidden, even if you lock away everything you’re thinking. Someone always wants to rifle through it. There’s no freedom in Occlumency. No security in the open mind.

He wondered how closed he had to be now. Occlumency had left him, but her flight had not given him freedom; it had never been a choice, really. If he had chosen to let her go, it would be different. But now he was sitting with the prospect of making the choice. Of living freely, with another person, speaking his mind and trying to be something like relaxed. Moving on. Even though it was difficult to move. 

Still, he thought, as Sirius Black of all people kicked open the door, the world had a habit of being uncanny. Anything was possible, now, wasn’t it? Now that it was the beginning?

Chapter Text

“I still think she’s thinner,” Severus said, in the most contemptuous tone he could muster. 

“Bullshit,” Sirius spat, slamming the teapot onto the table with a little more force than necessary. “I feed her very well. Went to a pet shop and all, made sure I was doing it right.” He rolled his eyes. “I knew you’d kill me if she was unhealthy.”

Severus did not answer. He was too busy stroking his Good Cat, with whom he had been finally reunited. He had forgotten, momentarily the way she warmed his lap, the comfort of her weight on his legs. The soft purrs she made. Her fur was as smooth as ever; Sirius had already boasted about having taken her to a groomer. 

The flat was in a nice area of London that Severus had never set foot in before. Sirius said that the River Thames was just a short walk away, as was St. Paul’s Cathedral, a place Severus had heard of, though he had never seen it beyond a photograph in a very old history book that had for some reason been lying around Spinner’s End when he was a young boy. As they had been rising in the lift, Sirius had gone on about brutalist architecture and its ‘unadmired charm’. Severus had told him that he thought the tower blocks were ugly. This had just made him grin, and say that Severus’ posh Death Eater friends would be impressed to hear that he was living in the Barbican. The view from the windows in the flat stretched London before them, which Severus supposed was nice. He had occasionally stopped to look at the view from high places in Hogwarts Castle, but as a boy, a student, and a teacher, he had lived much lower to the ground, or, in many cases, underground altogether. He could see why Sirius preferred to live up high; Gryffindors had always slept in a tower, and he must have been used to the view. Furthermore, there was something freeing about being able to see for miles around. The morning light would surely stream in here. The opposite of Azkaban. 

“I usually eat at about seven,” Sirius said, once he had poured them both mugs of tea that were by far better than anything they had drunk in the hospital. “But I don’t know if you’re still a ten-year-old, and like to eat at five o’clock or something.”

“I am not a child, Black,” Severus answered.

Sirius laughed. “C’mon, give the ‘Black’ thing a rest now.”

“What?”

“We’re flatmates now. I think we should move to first names, don’t you?” He shrugged. “I mean, you can just call me Sirius. I still get flashbacks to McGonagall yelling at me when people call me ‘Black’.” He shook himself as if trying to expel an unpleasant memory, but he was still smirking. 

“Alright, Sirius ,” Severus replied, being careful to roll his ‘r’ and sound particularly eloquent. “I thank you for this great privilege.” He didn’t add that he had thought of Sirius by his first name for quite a period now. 

“What about you?” Sirius asked. “Were you Severus? Or just Sev?” 

Lily had called him Sev. She had always said it suited him better, that Severus was the sort of name that an old person would have. Most others had called him by his full first name, if they had used it. Dumbledore had always called him Severus. 

“Not sure,” Severus answered, unwilling to commit to either as his permanent name for Sirius to use. “I do not hear my first name very often. Even from people who might have been ‘friends’. I was always Snape.”

“Do you like that name?”

“Maybe. I don’t know,” he admitted. Snape was, technically, Tobias’ name. Severus hated Tobias, even after all this time. He had never felt proud to carry his name, and the mononym ‘Snape’ had been forced upon him by others. “I don’t suppose I have ever thought about it.”

Sirius frowned. “I’ll just have to cycle through them all, then. See what you prefer.” He paused. “I heard Lily calling you Sev, once.”

Severus could tell that he was unsure if he should broach that subject with him, felt in the tense and apprehensive manner of his speech that Sirius was not trying to be intrusive, but did want to know, did want to extend a hand, so to speak. Severus couldn’t be sure what he wanted. 

“That was what she called me,” he relented, his throat feeling oddly stiff. “

“It’s the sort of thing she’d do,” Sirius replied, smiling to himself. “She always pretended like she was above me and James’ mischievous ways, but she liked a laugh, liked a smile. She expressed it by making other people feel comfortable enough to laugh with her.” He gazed out of the window, over London. “She used to listen to all the stories of the upper class rituals my family did and agreed that it’d be very tiresome. Once, she confessed to me that she was worried James’ parents didn’t like her, since she wasn’t as used to wizarding customs. I didn’t realise it at the time, but it was all because she liked to be friendly and warm. Anything stiff and cold, she didn’t like. Warm, she was. Well, when she liked you. If she didn’t… I’m sure you know.”

Severus nodded, and the pain was not from his neck. He remembered her coldness after he had ruined everything. It had been so terrible, especially after the warmth she had given him, the way she had made him feel worthy. 

“How did you meet?” Sirius asked. “Even if I thought you were a total slimeball, I was always curious about that. Was it on the platform? Just before you came into our carriage?”

“No.” Severus still remembered what had happened on his first train journey to Hogwarts. He ought to have known at that point that things would not go well, he thought. “She grew up near me. In the nice part of town, of course. But there was a small playground nearby, and I saw her there, probably thirty or more years ago now, doing magic. She didn’t know what it was, but I did.

He had no idea why he was telling Sirius this. He had never told anyone about this, except Potter, through his memories. It seemed that Potter had not shared the details with Sirius, only that it was evidence enough to warrant his pardon from a term in Azkaban. Severus had always told himself that he would take these secrets to his grave, that the good times with Lily would be locked inside him forever, the only golden moments of his life. Not to be shared. 

“I told her she was a witch,” Severus continued. “She didn’t believe me, not at first. Her sister, Petunia was there, and poisoned her against me, of course. But she came around, eventually. Started to realise that I was right. That was when we became friends. I knew about magic, my mother had given me many of her old books, and I told her about the world she would enter when she turned eleven.”

Severus could see much of that very clearly. Perhaps because it was so genuinely good, it had not faded with time or torture, and he could picture their days on the moors, or underneath a tree whilst the sunlight cut through the leaves. Sometimes, only if it was empty, they would sit on the swings in the playground, rocking gently back and forth, toes scraping the ground, and talk until it became cold. Then Lily would jump up and laugh at the telling-off that she was going to get when she arrived home so late, and the moment would be over. Severus had rarely found himself being scolded for arriving home at a late hour; his father would usually be at the pub, and his mother may have been out working, or else doing something in the house. He had known since an early age that his presence in the house at the end of the End was a nuisance. There had been occasions where Tobias had been angry at his son’s late return, mainly on days where there had not been a lot of money for alcohol, and so Tobias’ emotion spilled into whatever else there was - usually, his wife and son. Still, there had never been any reason to mention it to Lily. In the moments where she had laughed off her parents’ anger, Severus had felt wildly jealous. To have a parent who would have cared for the safety risks of being out late, and who’s anger was not something to be greatly feared, was like a dream.

“So, that’s how you knew so much about the Dark Arts before you arrived at school?” Sirius enquired, jerking Severus from his thoughts.

“It was not only the Dark Arts,” Severus replied. “I wanted to know everything . But Slytherins favour and glamourise the Dark Arts, and I did not care to be noticed for knowing about plants when it would lead to my ridicule.”

“You were good at Potions,” Sirius agreed. “Good enough for the Slug Club .” His sneer at this title was partially joking, but Severus was sure that resentment did linger.

“A high praise,” Severus agreed. “Considering that I had nothing to recommend myself like family or wealth, my inclusion in that group was certainly a risk for Horace.”

He grinned. “But he was right, wasn’t he? I’m not saying Slughorn thought you’d go on to be a spy, but that’s not too shabby, is it? You did some ‘formidable’ things, didn’t you?”

Severus felt himself smirking. “I doubt Slughorn thinks of me as being something great . His opinion, conveniently, seems to fall in line with the opinion of the wider wizarding community. I am afraid that he will want to have nothing to do with me as long as I am top of the murder list amongst so many.”

“In some years, you’ll probably be some sort of wizarding legend,” Sirius argued. “Severus Snape, the morally grey spy who continues to confound wizards to this day. Powerful and clever, that is assured, but good or bad? Whatever the answer, it is undeniable that this war figure did not influence the world.” He said these phrases dramatically, and it was enough to make Severus chuckle. Moonstone mewed, either because she had found Sirius amusing too, or because she was displeased at Severus’ momentary quiver in his laughter.

“You must promise me,” Severus said, “to make a great deal of money selling the story of what it was like to offer this ‘war figure’ houseroom, all because he could not be parted from his cat.”

***

Life with Sirius was a concept that Severus was not sure how to get his head round. Their conversation and tea drinking was all very normal, but they were used to parting after that, Sirius going home. Or, Severus corrected himself, Sirius coming back here. Only Sirius was already here, and so was Severus.

His room had a good view, and Sirius had helped him move his bed so that it was by the window, agreeing that there was something freeing to waking up in the sunlight. It had always been murky in Severus’ rooms at Hogwarts, and though that had been a comfort to him once, he did not find that he hated it so much here, with London sprawled in front of him. Moonstone enjoyed leaping up onto the windowsill and looking out, too. Severus rather thought she was glad to be staying, and looked upon her as a betrayer, though only for a few seconds, since he was so glad to be reunited with her again. She was as good of a companion as ever, and seemed to make something about this new mode of living complete. Severus had never known a good relationship with Sirius without having Moonstone there, but he was quite sure that, if she were to run away, things would be different between them. Maybe she had been the little bit of softening that Severus had needed to accept apologies and learn to move on. 

It transpired that Sirius was really rather good at cooking, though his state of routine bachelorhood may have suggested that he could only make a few basic things. Even with twelve years in Azkaban to have stunted his skills, Severus enjoyed nearly everything that Sirius made, and wondered at how he had learned to do it. It had not been long since his escape from the prison, really, and yet he whipped up roasted meat as though he had been doing it for years. Severus theorised that the dismal service of Kreacher may have forced Sirius to learn to feed himself, and perhaps his wealthy upbringing had given him, even after Azkaban, a far more refined and picky taste than Severus was used to. Food with flavour had been an entirely foreign concept to him until Hogwarts, and, even now, as he was approaching forty, Severus didn’t recognise the names and flavours of everything that Sirius put into the food. 

In the daytime, Sirius spent most of his time immersed in motorcycle and other automobile manuals and magazines. He had mastered the use of the Muggle postal service and had a number of subscriptions to glossy magazines with highly-coloured pictures and blocks of text about engine mileage and fuel efficiency that made Severus’ head spin. It reminded him a little of the shopping centre in Cokeworth that had been opened when he was about thirteen. Once, he had gone there with his mother, since she had heard that there was a sale, and he had disliked it a great deal in comparison to Hogwarts’ muted tone and ancient stone. Sirius seemed enthralled by everything he read, however, and Severus only teased him about it in the good-natured way that they were used to. He could appreciate someone having an interest in something entirely for fun, and recognised that Muggle transportation devices blocked out memories with more than just their loud engines. 

“It’s the only problem with London,” Sirius said, when Severus had asked him, in a sarcastic manner, why he did not spend his days rocketing around everywhere on a motorcycle. He owned one, Severus knew it, but Sirius went out far less often than Severus would have assumed. 

“I do not follow your immense intelligence.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and threw down his magazine onto the already-littered coffee table. “Obviously, people drive here. But the roads are just so busy , and so many of them here in the old parts of the city are a bit twisty or narrow. I’d love to just shoot down a long, smooth road. Feel the speed and power of the bike.” He shrugged. “There’s more to motorcycles than driving them.”

Severus did not challenge this; though he had wholeheartedly failed to share in Sirius’ interest in them, he could certainly appreciate that there was far more to motorcycles than getting on and riding. 

“Still, you could use it to impress people,” Severus suggested. “Tell whichever woman you are currently pursuing that you could take her for a ride, and you may get lucky, even with your mistake of a face.”

Sirius snorted.

“I have watched many young teenagers in my time, Sirius. I think that most normal girls like men who have something flashy, like a motorbike.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that,” he replied, still chuckling slightly. “God, I thought you knew… Well, I suppose…”

“What?” Severus snapped.

“I’m into blokes,” Sirius said, baldly. “Didn’t you know that?”

“No, I did not.” Severus scowled. “How am I supposed to work that out by myself?”

Sirius shrugged. “Dunno. I thought everyone knew. It’s just, well, a fact about me, y’know? Most of the time, I don’t even need to tell people.” He looked more intently at Severus. “It doesn’t bother you, does it?”

“I don’t see why it should,” Severus replied. “I am not my father,” he added, contemptuously.

He nodded, understandingly. “I put pictures of scantily-clad Muggle girls on my walls when I was a teenager, just to infuriate my parents when they wanted me to be more straight.” He smirked at the memory. “It wasn’t what they were hoping for.”

“I would have gone for naked men,” Severus said, lazily, surprising himself. “I think that would have been more irritating. A reminder of what they did not want.”

“Maybe,” Sirius agreed. “Kids are idiots, though. Permanent Sticking Charms never come off at that age.” He looked slightly wistful and sad, and it struck Severus that Sirius was the same age as he was. A little older, actually, for Severus could remember he would be made a fuss of every year around November. Sirius was nearer to forty than he was. 

Severus didn’t feel insecure about age. On the contrary, he considered it an achievement that he had lived this long, and was sure that many who had fought in the war felt similarly. The fact that they still had birthdays was a gift not extended to everyone. But this upcoming milestone hit Severus in an odd way. Forty was a new decade, and it would be the first one without war. Even if they had only been in their early twenties when it had ended, both Severus’ and Sirius’ twenties had been marred by the war, and they had spent at least half of their thirties fighting in the second one. Now they would both start a new, their fifth decades in life, a new chance, or else a reminder of how many years had been eaten up by pain. He wondered how Sirius felt about that, probably because he didn’t know his own views on the subject. Severus had never considered forty before, because the present had always been more important. The future was what he was fighting for, but the present governed the future and whether or not he would ever see it. Now the fighting was done, did that mean the future was here? Or had it passed, long passed?

“You are still remarkably like a kid,” Severus said.

Sirius grinned. “I think you’ve told me that before, though maybe in slightly harsher tones. You’ve called me immature, right?”

“I have,” he agreed, “but I was not calling you immature just now. You certainly can be immature about some things, but I do not think anyone who has come out of the other side of this war could be immature anymore. You simply… appreciate fun. You are not abashed at things you are interested in, and you still sometimes yearn for your youth.”

“I’m still young,” Sirius said, a little stupidly. 

“Forty, before too long,” Severus reminded him. 

“Maybe.” He frowned. “I suppose I never did want to let go of childhood. Or maybe teenage-hood is a better term. I loved Hogwarts. Being with friends. I never had that at home. It was freeing, at Hogwarts, for me, anyway. I miss the ignorance a bit. I don’t regret being in the Order, but I sometimes wonder what it’d be like if I hadn’t been.” He cleared his throat. “I know that Hogwarts wasn’t the same for you, and that I’m partially-”

“That is passed,” Severus interrupted. Once, he would have hungered for Sirius’ remorse. Now he did not, because he knew it was there, and had accepted that they had moved beyond it. “I can understand you. Even if it was not so idyllic, Hogwarts was certainly, in some ways, a place of refuge. The years of being a child are always different to being an adult. Perhaps it is wrong, but I miss the way I did not feel guilt. Now it is all I am, sometimes.”

Sirius leant back and gazed out of the window. It was mid-afternoon, the sun was still up. London was growing steadily colder, and darker in the evenings, but they were protected from that in here, and instead the city stretched out beneath them. Always busy, always alive. 

“I think I’m afraid of getting older, sometimes,” Sirius admitted. “Maybe it’s just now that I’m getting close to forty, but I don’t want to be old . I don’t necessarily know why, but as time passes, a lot of the people I care about just get farther and farther away. I don’t want to forget things. Don’t want to be complacent. But I don’t want to be frozen, either. I’ve got to let the years pass, otherwise I’ll never get anywhere, and I do want to get somewhere, eventually. I’ve never really had the chance to make anything of myself, being in prison for so long, then being a wanted convict.” He eyed Severus meaningfully. “I suppose you’re the same.”

“Do you think so?”

Sirius nodded. “I do. You’ve never really done what you wanted, have you? You didn’t want to be a teacher, I’m sure of it. I know you were free from prison and all, but I don’t think you were really able to live to the fullest extent that you wanted to, not with Dumbledore on your back and stuff. Things aren’t perfect for you now, but you’ve got more of a chance, haven’t you? If you wanted to, I don’t know, invent a self-making potion, you’d have more time, more opportunity, wouldn’t you?”

“I had not thought about that.” Severus looked down at his hands. “I am not who I once was, physically. I am used to limitations that mean I cannot do as much as I used to. I think I have improved, in small ways, but I am still far from capable of getting up and becoming a world-famous inventor.” He shrugged, and Moonstone prowled out from under the sideboard. “I have never considered a post-war life very seriously. I would not know where to begin, even if all my abilities were restored to me.”

“No, I wouldn’t either,” Sirius agreed, looking at his magazines. “I do things I used to do, like reading motorcycle stuff. I still enjoy it, but I suppose that I don’t really know what more I could do. I’m not sure which things I used to dream about are possible, or which I still even like.”

“What did you used to dream about? Other than becoming the most admired Gryffindor in all of Hogwarts?”

Sirius’ eyes seemed to momentarily glaze, as he was lost in thoughts of times before. Severus thought, even if he could not say for sure, that he was trying to push through all of his time in Azkaban, back to the days when he had had dreams and hope for the future. Even if he had not projected a poor mental state, Severus felt suddenly certain that hopes and dreams had not been a part of Sirius’ life from the moment that his best friend had died. Maybe he was the same. 

“I think I used to want to study more,” Sirius said, his voice sounding more faraway than usual. “I always liked being at Hogwarts. Some of that was because of friends, that’s true, but I liked learning and growing. All of my family were so backwards and stagnant, I couldn’t stand it. I thought about travelling as well. Obviously, this was all going to wait until after the war,” he added. “I wasn’t going to take off for continental Europe when there was a battle to win.”

Severus felt that this picture of Sirius was exactly like the intelligent man he had come to know, though he would never have suspected him of having such an academic dream in the past. 

“You could still travel. Forty isn’t too old to visit France for the first time.”

Sirius shook his head with a sad smile. “I don’t think I feel the same about it anymore. Even if I’m not really old , it just feels like I’m past the point of being able to start anything. Everyone who does those sorts of things is young and fresh. They haven’t seen enough for the whimsy of the word to have been dampened. I’m too old to study, I don’t have that desire for learning anymore. I’m tired.”

The tiredness was something Severus could relate to. Inexplicable, yet definitely there, tiredness had consumed him many times over the years. In the final, or nearly final, moments in the Shrieking Shack, he remembered how very exhausted he had been. Living sleep had seemed inadequate to cure this exhaustion, and he had felt suddenly peaceful, as though a long-awaited rest was coming. Even now, with his second chance in life, he felt that tiredness. As though it were all too much, to keep going with treatment that might never work, to keep dragging himself above the water again and again, for seemingly no reason. For there was nothing that he could do anymore, nothing more to contribute. He was too old, and too broken, and too hated to ever make something good of himself, and that was the bitter truth of it. Whatever he had dreamed of was gone, more assuredly than Sirius’ wishes. 

“I used to think there was something wrong with it,” Sirius said, into the silence. “But I don’t think so anymore. Not as much.”

“Really?” Severus asked, surprised. He had always thought that the exhaustion showed some clear mental problems within himself.

“Really. Don’t you agree that we’re allowed to be tired? We fought in two fucking wars, Severus. That takes its toll, mentally and physically. Even if we’re both about to be forty, that doesn’t take away the fact that it hasn’t really been that long since it all ended. Less than two years. I’d say we’ve earned the right to do whatever we please, even if all that we want is to rest and not do anything.” He smiled, lazily. “Let the young ones, the kids, make something of themselves whilst they’ve got the energy. Maybe, in a few years, you or I will feel ready to embark on something new, but for now, I think I’m all out of teen spirit. I don’t see how anything else could be expected. We’re not teenagers anymore.”

Severus considered this. Allowed to be tired. He supposed he had not given himself anything like that before. 

“I think… I think you might be right,” Severus agreed.

“Course I’m right,” Sirius answered, grinning. “I’m Sirius Black . Master of intelligence.” His expression turned a little more serious. “But it’s basic logic, especially with you. You got bitten in the neck by Lord Voldemort’s snake . Wouldn’t you say that, at the very least, grants you several aeons of relaxation, considering how much it’s wrecked you?”

“Wrecked,” Severus echoed. “I think you might be the first person brave enough to say that.”

“I am a Gryffindor.” Sirius stretched. “It’s not offensive to you, then?”

Severus shook his head. “My body is wrecked. I may never get back the dexterity and strength I once had. I have had to accept that. I am not sure that I am necessarily at peace with it, but I know it to be fact, and I will not try to deny that. I cannot see where it would get me to do that, can you?”

“No,” Sirius agreed, “but you might not want people to be so… so brutal about it.”

“Being bitten by that snake is fairly brutal,” Severus admitted. He hadn’t really talked about that before. “Condemning your ‘best servant’ to a gruesome and painful death is brutal. I see no reason why the brutal intentions and actions should not have a brutal outcome, or why anyone should want to preserve my feelings by amending their language. I tell you, it hurts far less to hear the truth than those fangs. Perhaps,” he added, bitterly, “it will make it a little easier when I die.”

“Don’t say that,” Sirius cut in, sharply. “Don’t talk about dying.”

“Why not?” Severus asked, feeling strangely carefree in a way he had not done for years. “I will die. You will die too, though not from the long-term effects of snake venom. I have been prepared to die since April, or even before, I think. I am not happy about it, I cannot say I have no fear, but my body’s state is a constant reminder to me that I will die. Perhaps my forties will be my final decade. I cannot say. But if you are opposed to hearing about it, then you should talk about it more. It is a fact, Sirius, and I would rather you understand it, if we are to live together.”

“I-” He broke off. “I don’t like thinking about my friends dying.” He sighed. “But I suppose I know that it’s true. I’ll just have to make sure whatever you’ve got left is as full as it can be.”

“And what are your plans for that ? I have said it already, I will go nowhere near that erratic bike of yours, even if I am inches from death and only that will save me.”

Sirius shook his head, and smiled rather roguishly. “I don’t know exactly what my plans are, yet. If I have to, I’ll be your hands and help you discover an anti-Gryffindor potion. But I’ve got to do something, so that nobody remembers you as a boring old bat who’s only friends were a cat and a dog.”

He found himself smiling, then. He did not know where they might begin, but that did not matter anymore.

Chapter Text

Sirius’ first plan of action emerged relatively quickly after their first discussion of Severus’ death, and it transpired that it was cooking. Severus was initially unsure about why Sirius wanted to venture into this ballpark, but had to admit that his reasoning was rather good, and, if nothing else, certainly well-intentioned.

“Cooking is like potion-making,” Sirius explained, rolling up his sleeves. “You need to combine things in the right way to make it perfect, and keep a watch over it. It’s an art, and a science. Only it’s not so dangerous, since you don’t use stuff that’ll kill you if you swallow it.” He bit off the end of a carrot. “Everything’s edible whilst you’re doing it, and at the end, you get something nice to eat as well.”

“Do you think that I cannot cook?”

Sirius shrugged. “You lived at Hogwarts for years. I know you probably went back to that Spinner’s End place during the summer, but that’s not a big part of the year, is it? I doubt you’re some kind of world-renowned chef.”

Severus was slightly taken-aback at this quickness of wit, not because he was a sceptic of Sirius’ intelligence, but because it was rare that someone was this intricate in their evaluation of him, to the point of looking back years. 

“You are right,” he admitted. He had always disliked cooking, it had felt like a waste of time. “Where did you learn to cook? Classes in Azkaban?”

“Just sort of taught myself,” Sirius answered, with a grin. “I ran away when I was sixteen, had to fend for myself when I wasn’t at school. That was five years before I went to Azkaban, and, since I’ve been out, there’s never really been anyone cooking for me. When you’re bored, and you have to eat anyway, you might as well figure out how to make it fun and interesting.”

This did not altogether fit with Severus’ own concept of eating. It was not that he hated the task, but even though it had been more than a year since the war had ended, Severus still somewhat associated meals with bad. Though the food at Hogwarts had been good tasting, dining in the Great Hall had always, even whilst Dumbledore was alive, meant that it was time to don a mask. Appear stoic to the students, rebuff conversations or else engage in them unwillingly. Then, as Headmaster, he had had to endure the hatred of everyone in his vicinity, except the Carrows, from whom he simply received resentment. At least, in the high office tower, Severus had been able to show his true face, even if only to himself. As a child, mealtimes had been a reminder of how poor they were. Clearly, Sirius had never developed these associations around preparing and consuming food. Was that because his family was wealthy, or because he had had a group of friends to make it into a social occasion?

“I thought we could start with bread,” Sirius said, into Severus’ thoughts. “I’ve never made it before, I was always too lazy. But I think it should be fun.”

‘Fun’ was a word that might have been accurate, though Severus was not sure. Clearly, no matter how adept he was at cooking dinner, Sirius did not have much experience with flour, because he succeeded in sending a good amount of it puffing into the air when he began to mix it vigorously with water. Still, Severus could not altogether deny that the sight of his usually-shiny curls coated with a layer of white dust was not amusing , and Sirius was a very good sport about it. There was further complication when Moonstone ventured into the kitchen, summoned no doubt by the movement, and proceeded to knock the bag of flour onto Severus, which made Sirius roar with the sort of laughter which sounded almost indecently happy. 

Neither of them were quite sure how much to knead the dough, when it was eventually done, and Sirius seemed to view it as the head of his worst enemy, considering the force with which he punched it and pushed it around the countertop. Severus did not have this strength; he was glad that the task did not require much nimbleness of his fingers, and it was much easier than measuring out potions ingredients, but it made his arms ache quickly. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Sirius said, bracingly. “You’ll get stronger if you keep doing it.”

This was not a point upon which Severus was as confident, but he did not say anything. He appreciated the spirit, strangely. It was a nice thought, that he would get stronger if they kept making bread, and that one day he would graduate to being able to do it alone. 

Only, Severus did not want to do it alone, he found, as he breathed in the smell of the baking bread. For a very long time, he had wanted nothing more than to be alone and isolated. But now, he didn’t want that anymore. Being with another person, a person who genuinely cared for him, made things different. What would life be, even if Severus was fully recovered, if he did not wake up to Sirius whistling as he made himself morning coffee or fed Moonstone? Was it really worth stroking her on his lap if he did not have Sirius bugging him to get a turn with the cat? And did making bread really matter if there was nobody to share it with, nobody to commemorate it with? Nobody else knew about this, nobody else was aware that Sirius Black and Severus Snape had made a loaf of bread, but that didn’t matter, because they knew about it. It had already been shared, and so was everything else they did together. It was strangely miraculous, to have found a friend like that.

So, did it matter if he got physically stronger? No, Severus didn’t think so anymore. He wasn’t so concerned about being ‘better’, when that word had stopped being about how far he could walk before he needed to sit down. There was nothing wrong with sitting down anymore, since, more often than not, a rangy mutt would plonk down next to him and start waffling about a recipe he had seen in the supermarket’s magazine aisle the last time he went to pick up some bananas. 

Maybe this was what was meant when there was talk about people making it better.

“I think you should get into making cocktails,” Sirius said, on a dusky October evening. 

Severus merely arched an eyebrow. He was trying to get his left leg to stop twinging. 

“It’s like making potions, isn’t it?” Sirius asked, grinning, “only, you can get drunk and have a bit of fun after you’re finished.”

“I am not sure it is wise to allow you too much alcohol,” Severus replied. They frequently had a beer over dinner, or wine, if the meal allowed it, and Severus found that a tipsy Sirius was amusing, if a little reckless and loud. A drunk Sirius may actually try to make Severus teach him how to fly off the balcony. 

“Alcohol brought us together,” Sirius declared. “That was our first proper discussion, wasn’t it? Over whiskey? If it wasn’t for good old drink, we’d still hate each other.”

“This flat is up high ,” Severus explained, slowly. “Do you remember, two weeks ago, when you took liberty with the red wine, and convinced yourself that you might be able to fly? I cannot have you plunging to your death and predeceasing me.”

“You’re so boring .” Sirius rolled his eyes and frowned like a child. “I’m allowed to get drunk on my birthday, right?”

“Totally pissed,” Severus agreed. “Throw up in your hair. Fall over the coffee table. Confuse me with Minerva McGonagall and swear you didn’t set a Kneazle loose in the west wing of the castle. I would not expect anything else from you to celebrate being middle-aged at last.”

Sirius barked with laughter. “I didn’t set a Kneaze loose in the west wing. I promise you that. I did a lot of stupid things, but never any Kneazles. I have ruined a good shirt with vomit though. But that was when I was nineteen.”

“I will not be washing anything that is vomit soaked,” Severus assured him. “If you do make yourself sick, then you will have to wash it out of your hair yourself.”

“Wouldn’t want you washing my hair anyway,” Sirius replied, ostentatiously preening his curls. “If you even know how to do it.”

Severus scowled at him. “Of course I know how to wash my hair. It is hardly a skill , especially if meatheads such as yourself can do it.”

“What’s your product of choice, then? Olive oil?”

“What?” he snapped. “Who on earth would use olive oil to wash their hair?”

Sirius shrugged. “Not a clue. You seem to be idiot enough to try.” He reclined on the sofa, stretching more like a cat than a dog. “So, what do you actually use?”

“Water. Is that a question worth asking?”

To Severus’ surprise, Sirius burst out laughing, which created a small diversion; he coughed violently as well, seeming to have done something idiotic like inhaling his own spit. 

“Are you finished?” Severus asked, raising one of his eyebrows suspiciously. Sirius had never been above explosions of hilarity like this, being far less reserved than Severus, but there was usually a good reason for this. Severus failed to see why this was causing Sirius this amount of enjoyment. 

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Sirius choked, still grinning, “but do you mean that you don’t use shampoo?” He let out a childish giggle. “Do you know what shampoo is?”

“Of course I know what shampoo is,” Severus snapped. “It is for stupid, fancy idiots such as yourself.”

“No it isn’t,” Sirius argued. “I mean, people who like to take care of their hair do use shampoo, but it’s not specifically for them. Everyone should be using shampoo on their hair, especially if it’s long.” He paused. “Did you seriously not know that?”

“We never had any in the house,” he replied, rather edgily. 

Sirius sat up, the look on his face a mixture of amusement and guilt. “Well, I can understand that. But what about when you got to school? Did none of those Slytherin pals mention it? Lucius Malfoy’s always been a bit vain, hasn’t he?”

Severus rolled his eyes. “Lucius Malfoy is vain, that is correct. Vanity usually concerns one’s own appearance, not the appearance or wellbeing of others .” He looked, stubbornly at Sirius. “I do not see why I need to be party to over-excessive vanity practised by either of you two.”

“I am not vain,” Sirius protested. “Yeah, I like to look good,” he agreed, at Severus’ look of disbelief, “but I’m not vain . I’m not obsessed with how I look. I don’t care if people see me when I’m a bit scruffy. I just like to, you know, do a bit of self-care from time to time. I wouldn’t say that washing my hair counts as excessive attention to my appearance. It’s normal , mate. Didn’t you ever wonder why you’ve got such oily hair?”

He shrugged. This may be one of the big differences between himself and Sirius. Sirius, even if he was not vain, paid attention to his appearance. Severus never stopped to look in the mirror or even think about what he looked like. The state of his hair was of no concern to him, nor was how ‘clear’ his skin was or whether someone walking down the street might find him good-looking or not. As far as Severus was concerned, he was fairly ugly, and that was just a short straw some people drew in life. Nothing needed to be changed, because there was no use pretending to be something he was not. Severus had never mourned his lack of good looks. It was of little importance to him now. 

He voiced this to Sirius. “I do not care how I look. I am, as you might put it, an ugly, big-nosed bastard.”

“No, not really,” Sirius contradicted him. “Alright, you do have a big nose. But there’s nothing wrong with that, not really. I think people have only said you’re not good-looking because you’ve always been too thin and too tired. If you took care of yourself, you’d be just fine. Nothing on me, though,” he added, jokingly, dodging Severus’ attempted smack. “Why not mark the occasion? Wash your hair before forty?”

Severus narrowed his eyes. 

“Do it for me, then,” Sirius persisted. “Look all spectacular for my birthday bash.” 

“I will not be attending any birthday bashes,” Severus argued. “I have no desire to socialise with your pack of mutts.”

“I’m not having a party, stupid.” Sirius got up. “I meant for us . I’ll be staying here, getting pissed, just like you said. And you can get pissed with me.” He reached down and scratched Moonstone behind her ears. “You’ve got to stay sober though,” he told her, seriously. “If me and your best friend get black-out drunk, you can tuck us into bed and bring us water in the morning. It’s the least you can do, seeing as we feed you.”

Severus rolled his eyes. An idiot. 

“Now,” Sirius continued, in a businesslike manner. “Shampoo. Time for a masterclass, I think, though it shouldn’t be too difficult. You’re good with potions.”

Severus couldn’t believe that he sat through Sirius’ whole lecture, because that’s what it was: a lecture on Sirius Black’s Shampoo Etiquette. He presumed this was one of the ways in which he had gone soft since meeting that blasted snake, because he would have never stayed to listen to anything like this before, unless it had been useful for spying. Frankly, Severus could not think of anything less useful than learning to use shampoo properly, but Sirius seemed passionate as he described how much he liked the particular brand he had recently started using, so Severus let him talk. Though he knew a great deal about magical potions, many of the ingredients such as ‘shea butter’ or ‘coconut oil’ were entirely foreign to Severus, as was Sirius’ detail about ‘the way that different hair types responded to different products’. Severus could only assume this was its own branch of witchcraft; he did not see how there could be different ‘types’ of hair, when it was all just cells that grew out of a person’s head. 

“This seems like a lot of work,” Severus said, when at last Sirius had concluded on the finer points of conditioner. “And a waste of brain space.”

“Not anymore,” Sirius replied, genially. “War’s over, remember? You can be shallow now.”

The only plus side, Severus thought, standing under the hot water and following Sirius’ instructions mainly so that he wouldn’t harp on about it for days, was the smell of the stuff, which, he had to admit, did remind him of Sirius, no matter how many times he insisted that Sirius reeked of wet dog. He did suppose that Sirius was right, however. It was true, that Severus had nothing to fill his days with anymore except miscellaneous hair care information. He had always resented that, but perhaps it wasn’t so bad. Hadn’t he always hoped for a rest? If rubbing scented soaps into one’s hair didn’t count as resting, he wondered what did. Nobody had time to do this if they were always expecting a summons. No, the Dark Mark was gone now. Nothing but a scar that Severus only remembered when he stared at his arm long enough. Sirius had managed to embrace, beyond all of his troubles, the fact that the war was over, had begun to enjoy himself. That should be the goal, shouldn’t it? After all, whether or not this life was to stretch many years, that was all he could do. Try to enjoy what he had left. 

Severus thought he had managed to do that. Or, rather, he had done it as much as someone like him would be capable of doing it. He doubted whether he would ever run at life with the gusto of some of the Hogwarts students he could see, but he thought about the things he did these days. They walked around the estate, they discussed what to eat, and they sat, savouring the fact that there was peace, as the sun set. Severus recalled the times shortly after he had left St. Mungo’s. He had been miserable then. Hardly living, wishing to die. Severus didn’t think he wanted to die anymore. He had no goal, that was true, but perhaps he didn’t need a goal anymore. Perhaps he was content, if not happy, to stay in this place until the universe moved him on. He remembered his contant, uncomfortable anguish. He didn’t think that was so omnipresent anymore. Once upon a time, he had never felt right in anything, never stopped to relax. But he did now. It was not as if the sadness, the guilt, the loss, never returned to him, but it was different. A storm that would pass, not persistent rain. He almost laughed as he thought about how smug this would have made Healer Whittle. Maybe he knew it already, had sensed something since he had moved in with Sirius. Severus found that he didn’t care very much. 

“So, how was that?” Sirius asked, looking maddeningly smug. It was a look that Severus would have gladly smacked off his face. It was comforting in that way. 

“The soap,” Severus answered, sitting down and allowing Moonstone to curl up on his lap, “stings the eyes. Why did you not mention that? Do you still desire my death?”

Sirius snorted. “Soap suds won’t kill you.” He grinned, broadly. “I just forgot that you know nothing about living life as a functioning adult. I’m a fallible man, what can I say?”

“A fallible man?” Severus raised his eyebrows. “Did you, Sirius Black, just admit to having a flaw? Are you feeling quite well? Have you contracted an illness? Or had a personality transplant?”

“Shut it,” Sirius grunted, still smiling. “I’m going to make a cup of tea. Want one?”

***

“What the hell have you done to me?” Severus felt almost like his old self, felt strength bubbling in him from the time before.

Sirius jumped violently, and looked up. He had been poring over a magazine at the kitchen table. He frowned slightly, as though he was confused, and then he started to laugh. 

“Stop laughing!” Severus felt his voice reaching a shriek. “Explain! What have you and your stupid hair potions done to me?”

Choking himself back to sense, Sirius got up and moved closer to Severus, though backed up slightly at the sight of his drawn wand. “What’s the problem?”

“My hair,” Severus said, raggedly, “has gone curly . Can you not see that?”

“No, it’s not curly ,” Sirius replied, with the air of trying to placate him, “it’s just… wavy. My hair’s curly. I don’t see why you’re so upset. It doesn’t look bad, definitely not worse than before.”

“But-” Severus blustered. “Why? What sort of sorcery have you done?”

“Nothing,” Sirius replied, simply, sitting back down. “You’ve had, what, forty years of grease on your hair? I guess you’ve discovered that it wasn’t supposed to be straight.” He shrugged, as though this was not some kind of problem. “Embrace it. I’m glad you’re paying attention to your looks a bit more, though. This must be a good sign.”

“It is not a good sign!” Severus wondered if Sirius had gone blind. If they could both see the same thing, how could he not see the issue here? “I have been used to, been accustomed to not having clouds for hair! Had I known this would happen, I would not have followed your stupid instructions!”

Sirius looked to be suppressing a laugh. “Calm down. You’re just… not used to this way yet. Of course you feel like your hair is really light and fluffy, but honestly, mate, it just looks like hair’s supposed to look when it’s clean and healthy! It’s a good thing! So there’s no need to threaten murder over it. This is normal . You just haven’t experienced this kind of normal before, but I promise, you’ll prefer it to that greasy mess from before. Anyway,” he continued, “what’s wrong with curly or wavy hair?”

“Nothing,” Severus replied, grumpily, dropping into a chair because his legs were beginning to ache ever so slightly. “Not for you , anyway. You seem to like it.”

“You’ll learn to like it,” Sirius said, dismissively. “I’m really the best thing that ever happened to you. You ought to know that.”

Severus chose to reserve complete judgement on this for the time being, though he could not entirely believe that Sirius had only innocent intentions. He no longer viewed Sirius as an enemy, an antagonist who revelled in his misery, but in knowing the man, he had come to see that no amount of fondness for another person could quell his mischievous side. Nearly forty, but more like nearly fourteen, as Severus liked to think to himself. It was mostly an endearing quality, Severus had decided, since he found that Sirius enjoying himself was no longer a bad thing to him, no longer something which ought to be stamped out. 

More than once, Severus had wondered if he was turning as gay as Sirius often proclaimed to be. Frankly, romantic relationships and feelings were not something that Severus even considered as a part of his life, but discovering new sides to himself had made him begin to ask more questions, during the night or when he was alone. To Severus, love had rarely been about things like hand-holding and kissing. He had never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, and though he had often thought about how nice it might be to one day marry Lily, that had never been a real possibility. Doing what he had done had never been about something as trivial as romance. Severus didn’t think what was going on now was romance either, but he did remember words from people with more experience than him. He remembered, in a rare moment of connection and honesty, Lucius explaining why he wanted to marry Narcissa. He had gone into unusually tender detail about how he wanted her to be happy and protected, how he wanted her to feel safe with him. Then, on late nights in the staffroom, Minerva had described long-gone loves, the aching of a heart, the resolve that nothing was worth more than this one person, and being with them. The arms of one man, or one woman, being the only place in the whole world. She had also gone into depth about the ways that love made you change. Made you find new things interesting because the other person found it interesting. Going out of your way to let the other into your heart, into your life, because they, as they were, were all you needed. 

Severus had absolutely no desire to be physically involved with anyone, and that was not just because his body felt old and weak and undesirable. The thirst for sex, the lust for passion, had always been far from his reach. The way the Slytherin boys had described it, it had sounded more annoying than anything, to be wanting for something so badly that only lasted mere minutes. He had also never understood the point of kissing. One’s own mouth could be wet and foul-tasting on its own, and exchanging spit seemed an odd way to express love for someone else, in Severus’ mind. He disliked being touched, and, as far as he was aware, touch had everything to do with romance, even if it was not explicitly sexual in nature. 

He was sure that Sirius would have known the answer to this question, only Severys thought he would rather jump off the balcony than ask him about it. 

“Once,” Sirius garbled, “I was head-over-heels for this Ravenclaw boy.” It was Sirius’ fortieth, and they were drinking whiskey, for, as Sirius put it ‘ceremonial and traditional’ reasons. “Thought the sun shone out of his every orifice. Could do no wrong. James found out and never let me hear the end of it. Kept nudging me whenever he went past.” He chuckled, blithely.

“Is that your sort of love, then? Puppy love?”

Sirius barked with laughter. “That’s not love, Sev. Wanting to sneak off to a quiet corner and snog - or worse - with some boy you’ve never spoken to isn’t love. It’s just attraction, y’know?” He made a very clumsy thrusting motion with his hips. “Teenagers love sex.”

Severus snorted, drunkenly. “Wonder how many of the pests were doing it behind my back.”

“Oh, loads.” Sirius waved his hands vaguely. “I did. Bet you’re not innocent.”

“You must be joking.”

“What, I know you were a greasy little git, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get some!” Sirius stood up, wobbling. “Everyone’s got to be desperate sometimes.”

“Didn’t care.” He yawned widely and tried to focus on Sirius as he made his way over to the counter, for the bottle, which was still on the table. “I’d have rather let you and your little friends string me up in the dungeons by my ears.”

“Course.” Sirius stumbled back to the table. “You’re all deep, and stuff like that.”

“Deep?”

He nodded, and smiled. “You don’t do things un-properly.” He giggled. “I don’t think that’s a word. Anyway. You don’t just mess around. When you say you loved Lily, it was, you know, the real thing . More than just about getting her into bed or something. Doubt you’ve ever loved anyone without it being real. Me, on the other hand… I’m too easily confused by desire. I’ll think I love someone just because I think they’re hot, and stuff.” He tried and failed to unscrew the bottle. “Sometimes, I wonder if I even know how to really love another person.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Severus gave a short, brutal laugh. “You managed to love Potter. Impossible, if you ask me."

“That’s different.” His speech was slurred, yet his thoughts seemed coherent. “He’s not like, I don’t know, a close friend. He’s my best mate’s son. With you , on the other hand… Well, it’s weird. ‘Cause I like you a lot, Sev. You’re a great bloke, I’ve realised. But my brain won’t let me believe it, just because I don’t want to fuck you. No offence,” he added.

“If you wanted to have sex with me, I would move out,” Severus said, sharply, though his mind was still glazing over. “Don’t know if I really know how to sort out my feelings either. I’ve never had a good friend like this. Someone who I just like . I have no idea what the difference between friendship and… and other-ship is like. Only time I’ve ever heard people talk about being really fond of someone is when they want to, I don’t know, marry them or something. But I’d sooner live in a sewer than get married or be in a romantic relationship.” 

“Friendship is important,” Sirius replied, yawning. “Best times I’ve had are ones with friends. I reckon that’s us, you know? Friends, but not like shallow friends. Something more like family.” He shrugged. “Like you and Moonstone. You’re not in love with her, but she’s…”

“Important,” Severus finished. 

“Yeah. So you can love someone without needing to be their boyfriend or husband or whatever,” Sirius concluded. “I ought to have known that.”

“You had some good friends,” Severus agreed.

“I think I did,” Sirius answered, sadly. “At least… I did back in school. But that sort of thing disappears. That’s what I never really realised. I thought we’d be the four of us, close as brothers, forever. I never thought that one of us would betray another, that we’d be so fractured at barely twenty years old.” He looked down at his hands and Severus had the uncanny impression that he was fighting tears. “I had a long time to think in Azkaban. But I never understood it. Why did Peter do that? Why did it have to be James? Sometimes, I was angry with him, for not stepping aside. I know it’s selfish, but I wished that he’d made it out. He would have been able to clear my name. We would have been together still.”

“I wished that too,” Severus replied, hollowly. “After it happened, I wondered why Lily hadn’t stepped aside.” He felt shame wash over him. “That’s all I cared about, for a time. Not anymore, but I suppose that grief does bad things to people. I didn’t even have the excuse of being in Azkaban, with the Dementors.”

“The world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters,” Sirius said, and laughed like a bark. “I said that to Harry once. About Umbridge. But it’s true, I guess. We’ve all got bits of everything.” He sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing will bring them back. Live in the moment, or whatever.”

Severus had never considered that Sirius might have once been similar to him, that he might also have had flickers of despair at the sacrifices made by Lily and James. He supposed this was because Sirius had always seemed so fond of Harry, but, in hindsight, he could see a different side to this. What if, especially in the first years after his escape from Azkaban, Sirius had been so friendly to his godson because he had hoped that he could replace James? Certainly, Potter looked like his father, and to some extent, behaved like him, and it therefore did not seem ludicrous that Sirius might think that he could step in and fill the hole left by James’ sacrifice. It filled him with pity and regret to realise this. It was not that he had never considered that Sirius had been deeply hurt by the death of his best friend, but he hadn’t thought about it like this, hadn’t seen any desperate attempts to go back. 

He had often wanted to go back. Severus had spent hours wishing he really could turn back time, but to no avail. It now seemed an absolute no-brainer that Sirius felt the same. After all, hadn’t Sirius had his best times when he was at school? Hadn’t his adult life been marred and shattered by his false imprisonment, being on the run, and then fighting another war? He must be as tired as Severus, and it was clear why he enjoyed simple things, why he wanted to laugh about Severus’ formerly greasy hair or immerse himself in motorcycle magazines. It brought him back to simpler times. He wanted to stay fun as he aged because fun linked him to the idyllic times he had spent at Hogwarts, a home, a family, a sanctuary. And when he wanted to talk, he talked deeply, maturely, because, despite every struggle, he was still a man, and he had been aged as surely as Severus had. The pain didn’t disappear, but it had been covered. Only this time, when he wanted to pour out his heart to the night, it was not dark. 

That was what he enjoyed, too. The moments of honesty. Severus had been a man caged by lies, by Occlumency. He still missed that mind magic, but he realised how valuable it was to be able to say whatever he wanted, to talk candidly about how he felt, or what he didn’t know, or the things he regretted. When, before Sirius, had he been honest? Not with Dumbledore, not really. Dumbledore was a calculative man, not a friend. Severus had given him information , but not feelings, not concerns, not troubles. Not life. They had rarely talked about how life was, how time passed and performed transformations. Not unless it had pertained to the war effort. He had conned Severus into believing he was being honest, but it hadn’t been true honesty. Strategic, that was it. There was no strategy with Sirius, their path meandered through a moonlit night, going where it wanted, no goal in sight. 

One day, there might be an end to that path. In fact, it was probably the only certain thing about it. That it would be over, that they would not be like this forever, but it didn’t matter so much. Forward-looking was for the strategist, for Dumbledore, who lay beneath the earth, not the free man. He had long since resigned himself to an unsure existence, only it was not resignation anymore, but comfortable acceptance. This was how it was, and he did not feel agitated in that. It was part of being free from that old man, from the Dark Lord, from himself, even, for Severus to move into this phase, and though, as he slumbered, still at the table in the high-up flat, he did not know that it was happening consciously, he moved nonetheless. 

The Good Cat jumped onto the table, and looked at the men, and their empty glasses. Once, she had been due to leave. Now, there was no need to. Somehow, the house had become home for her, because it was home for them.

Chapter Text

Despite the fact that Sirius’ birthday meant that winter had firmly arrived, Severus did not feel the chill of the season so acutely from their high flat. London was warmer than Hogsmeade or Lancashire, partially due to being further south, partially due to being busier, but he did not think that was the exact reason why he could not feel a bone-deep coldness. Usually, he would have haunted the dungeons, refusing to light the fires because they did nothing to warm him. November was representative of the early days after Lily’s death, and he had always hated it.

He and Sirius had marked the anniversary of Lily and James’ deaths, but not in the way that Severus usually would have. They had done something that felt very like them; had a glass of wine and talked about things that used to be. It had felt very different, but the most peaceful that Severus had ever been about the whole affair. He was becoming a little more used to peace, both in the world, and in his heart. He wondered if it was just natural, or whether his body was simply slowing down, folding to the inevitable. Maybe he was weaker, simply because he had stopped trying to be stronger. 

Severus certainly thought that he had stopped trying to fight as much. In his time of isolation at Spinner’s End, he had consistently tried to go on as normal, to live like he had lived before the bite, to try and deny that any such thing had even happened. Confronting his weakened body had been too scary, and in the end, Severus thought it had led to his health deteriorating further. He remembered when he had almost died. Hadn’t that happened because he had refused to accept that he might need more help? Perhaps if he had tried to lean on others, he might never have been confined to the hospital like this. 

But, after all, who would he have leant on? He wasn’t so sure that he would have been able to go to Sirius and ask him for help, nor Potter. The only option would have been a home, which he had barely avoided. Yes, Sirius had done that of his own accord, and it hadn’t exactly been a surprise that Sirius had the decency to offer this sort of thing, but Severus would never have assumed that Sirius would offer him a home. That had been why all of this had been so terrifying. To be returned to a place that reeked of abuse and neglect with no power to fight against it or make it anything better. To know it would only get worse, but for the future to be dark with no guarantee of comfort or care. Now, if nothing else, Severus did know that Sirius would be there for him if there was bad news, or any further decline in his health, and so it was a little less frightening to think about.

“I’m glad things are going better,” Healer Whittle said, before Severus had even said anything about such a subject. He just seemed to know these things. “I’d say we made the right choice, giving the OK to you going to Sirius Black.” He grinned to himself. “Never thought I’d say that .”

“Because he was a murderer?”

“Yes, maybe. But I think we can agree that he’s not really carer material.”

“Is he supposed to be my carer?” Severus asked. He didn’t think that was what Sirius was. Yes, they weren’t going to let each other die, but it didn’t feel like Sirius was some annoying nurse, forever reminding him to guard his health. 

“Well, not in the typical sense, I suppose,” Healer Whittle agreed. “He’s not appointed as such officially. He doesn’t get paid or anything to live with you. But we said, didn’t we, back when you asked if it was alright to live with him, that you needed to be with someone who could care for you if need be. We weren’t going to send you somewhere where your needs couldn’t be met.” He paused. “We didn’t know how things would be, did we? There wasn’t a way to tell exactly what direction your health would go in. So no, Sirius isn’t your carer, but he’s not just some indifferent roommate, either.”

Severus was inclined to agree with Healer Whittle here.

“And I’m afraid that that’s a good thing.” The Healer’s face seemed to fall slightly. “Your nerve damage isn’t healing like we’d hope it to in normal circumstances. I think you already knew that that was a possibility.”

“Does this mean,” Severus asked, carefully, “that I am going to become worse?”

Healer Whittle looked uncomfortable. “Possibly. It’s hard to give a definitive answer, because this is such an unprecedented situation. I think the biggest bit of reality we can focus on is that things aren’t necessarily getting better, and that they might not be able to in the future either. I know you’re enjoying more mobility and stamina, on these current medications, and that’s good. But I’m not sure if that’s always going to be the case. Your body is tired.”

Severus wasn’t sure if he felt sad, or shocked, or scared, or all of it, or none of it. His health had been both dominant and blissfully miniscule to him during the past months. He hadn’t really paused to think about the pain because he didn’t feel so emotionally exhausted. Was there stiffness and aching? Yes, there was, but that was just normal for Severus now. He had become very used to his limited body, and, with Sirius’ help, had been able to accept it, live with it. He thought now that his anguish in his months alone at Spinner’s End had been born of his inability to properly accept his new reality, and in that changing, so had his outlook on his physical weakness. It wasn’t an embarrassment anymore, it didn’t feel like he had lost, because his life had changed markedly for the better in recent times. He no longer wanted his stronger body back, because to get it, he would have to go back to difficult times, where he was always lying and anxious. 

To get worse, however, was a different thing altogether. This stasis, this consistent reality, was bearable, even enjoyable. Severus had come to terms with what he could and couldn’t manage, and Sirius had been able to make it all work out, never acting as though there was something wrong or disappointing about stopping on benches or returning home early, or popping out on his own to get the last few ingredients for dinner. It had become comfortable, but things getting worse would not be. How would their lives have to adjust again to more limitations? The easy routine would become difficult, and they might lose the things they had enjoyed. Then the resentment might start. Severus didn’t think he would be angry with Sirius if he resented him for being ill and difficult to manage, but he didn’t want to die with Sirius far away, already lost to the fact that his health had ruined their bit of happy friendship. 

So he didn’t tell him what Healer Whittle had said, and instead reverted to his more gruff and silent self that gave short answers. This probably wasn’t something that Sirius was ill-adapted to; Severus had bouts of quietness, as did Sirius. The two of them were not entirely whole, as is common with those who have been smashed through wars like they had, and it would sometimes push them inwards for a while. They usually chose to leave each other alone in these moments. It was better to allow for reflection and be ready to listen than to prod and poke whichever wound had come open until it got inflamed. They did, usually, talk about things in the end, and it nearly always felt better when it had all come out, but Severus didn’t think he wanted to talk about this with Sirius this time. Because it would not get better, that was the whole problem. Things would not improve, but would get worse, so what was the point of talking about it as if it could be resolved?

Once, Severus had talked about his impending death rather flippantly. Had he been drunk? He could not remember anymore. But it was ludicrous and strange, all the same, that he had once cared so little about this inevitability, had failed to see what it meant. Death had maybe always been something to quaff at because it had seemed like an immediacy, a blow that would strike one day, fall without sluggishness. In his new euphoria, Severus thought he had forgotten that his death was destined by his serpentine enemy to be slow, stretched by the very hands which had pieced his neck back together in the first place. The Healers had given him life, but it had always been artificial. A suspension in failing stasis.

“It didn’t go well, did it?” Sirius asked at dinner, the day after the visit to St. Mungo’s. “With Healer Whittle, or whatever his name is.”

Severus took his time answering, not sure of what he wanted to say. 

“You’re stupid,” Sirius went on into the silence, rather conversationally. “You think I don’t know when something’s wrong? Please. You’re not so much of an Occlumens anymore.” His expression softened. “It’s always better out in the open, I think. And I’m not going to fly into a rage if it turns out that you’re going to turn green or something.”

Fighting a smirk, Severus turned his fork over. “He said I am not getting better.”

Sirius frowned. “I thought… I thought that was normal. Not that I’m happy about it, but I thought that was pretty much guaranteed. That you weren’t really going to improve a whole lot."

“He thinks I will probably get worse,” Severus explained. “Not being any better is… It is not so good, considering that I probably ought to have improved since I stopped living alone.”

“Says who?” Sirius asked, harshly. “Did he say that you were supposed to be getting better?”

“Not necessarily,” Severus relented. “But it seems logical… considering…”

Sirius shook his head. “I don’t think so. I thought the whole reason the Healers wanted you to live with someone was so that you didn’t get worse . Since that’s what happened when you were on your own. Nobody ever told me that you were going to suddenly start doing backflips if you had a roommate.”

“I think,” Severus persisted, “that he meant that me being the same is only a result of better care. That if I had been at Spinner’s End, I would be worse, and that staying the same is not something that will necessarily last considering it is only a product of my change in living situation.”

“But your living situation is staying the same,” Sirius argued. “So maybe that just means that you’ll stay the same.” He paused. “I don’t think any of your Healers will ever tell you that you’re ever going to get worse. That’s… that’s a bit unrealistic.”

“And if I agree that I am getting worse?”

“Then we’ll deal with it,” Sirius replied, instantly. “I can’t say that we’ll be completely prepared, but we can make adjustments, we always can. But we can’t do that if you’re not honest, you know?”

It was laughable. Severus didn’t think he had ever before been able to be found out for lying so quickly. This was the recession of Occlumency, he thought. Or was it the accession of friendship? He thought that maybe, this was nothing to do with his own weakness, and everything to do with that new addition to his life, that thing called friendship.

“Honesty is not one of my best traits,” Severus answered. 

“I don’t know, I think you could make it one.”

“So, is this my next class? Now that you have finished with cooking, will I be subject to lectures on the virtues of verity? I must prepare myself, perhaps get a new quill.”

“No, this isn’t a class from me ,” Sirius answered, a ghost of a smile on his face. “This is a lesson you and I probably have to teach ourselves. We’re not very good at honesty.”

Severus was surprised at this assessment. He hadn’t really thought about ‘learning’ to be honest. His whole adult life had been about hiding things that would get him killed if revealed, and he had spent a lot of his childhood hiding things too. That was the role of Occlumency in his life, the protectorate barrier against the Dark Lord and Dumbledore alike. Severus had eschewed true honesty, because it gave away all of one’s flaws straight away, and that was a disadvantage in his books. But he had never considered that a lack of practice had rendered him bad at honesty. No, he had always thought it was something he knew how to do, but he began to accept that perhaps his deep dislike of the task was rooted in the fact that he was not good at it. 

Certainly, chances to tell the truth had never really come up, but when Severus contemplated revealing his feelings to someone, anyone, it made his skin crawl. How could he let anyone know how he felt about even the most mundane things, when feelings were private, but could become weapons? Whenever he had lamented his persistently occlument state, he had never really done so with a desire to go and tell everyone what he was doing. No, his desire to, for example, tell someone that Dumbledore’s death was planned, had come from his age-old need to be accepted and understood, not from a desire to be truthful. He would not, he thought, have ever told anyone how it made him feel to kill Dumbledore. Even to himself, Severus preferred not to examine those things. It was over now. He hardly needed any of it to come to light. It wouldn’t help. 

The idea that Sirius Black, however, was bad at honesty, was something that Severus did not grasp so easily. Sirius, who had always held his opinion in the highest esteem, afraid to speak his mind? It was impossible. Sirius had always been happy to be scathing or doting or whatever he felt, hadn’t he? If he had been afraid of honesty, would he have been so outright horrible to every Slytherin that came within his eyesight?

Ah , a small voice told Severus, but that’s not the same, either, is it? That’s just for fun. That’s not deep .

Still, Sirius had had friends, hadn’t he? He still spoke of his friendship with James like brotherhood, so surely those two rascals had been honest with each other. That was what one was supposed to do with friends, weren’t they? Severus had always thought that, if he had not been so deeply suspicious of his fellow Slytherins, that there would have been some relative honesty with them. If they had not been the sort to use and abuse all bits of personal experience, Severus quite thought that he could have trusted them. Wasn’t trust what held James and Sirius together? Indeed, hadn’t trust been the hole in the sinking ship? It had, so how had Sirius ended up unable to be honest? Severus wondered if the betrayal of Pettigrew had caused a sudden fear of trust. That was certainly logical, and Severus had grudgingly accepted that Sirius was intelligent, so perhaps that was it. But hadn’t he and Lupin mended their trust in a single moment, that night in the Shrieking Shack?

“Oh, I’m impulsive ,” Sirius replied, when Severus questioned him on his honesty a few days later. “I don’t hide my feelings, it’s true. That’s because it just wasn’t in my nature. But ranting about Dumbledore or Slytherins or Kreacher or whatever isn’t the same as being honest. It’s just a bunch of emotion exploding. It’s not controlled. True honesty is when you’re really able to sit down and choose to tell the truth. If I had an outburst and started shouting about how much I hated Dumbledore for keeping me locked up, that wouldn’t be like having a chat about how lonely and caged I felt.”

Severus frowned momentarily. “I suppose,” he replied, after a while. “Still, it seems more in your nature for things to be better out than in.”

“That’s better for everyone , idiot.” Sirius rolled his eyes and beckoned Moonstone. “It’s practically gospel that everyone is better off if they talk about their feelings calmly and consciously. That’s why therapists are still around. That stuff works . Just not everyone does it. Some people are like me, and they let it explode everywhere at the wrong times, and some people are like you, and they bury it so deeply that they can’t find it anymore and spend their whole lives looking for it. Neither are very good. The first way is messy and tense. The second way is unfulfilled and intrusive.”

“Perhaps you should become a therapist,” Severus grumbled. 

“Oh, this isn’t therapist stuff,” Sirius said, airily, successfully reeling in Moonstone and scratching her behind the ears. “This is what happens when you’ve got so much time to think. Don’t you have any revelations like this? You’ve had loads of thinking time over the years, haven’t you?”

Severus gave a bitter chuckle and imagined what he would have been like if he had used his lonely times to ponder feelings and truth. 

“For the first time, Sirius Black, I am more solipsistic and arrogant than you. I spent much of my isolation thinking about my own abhorrence and how the earth would be better without such a stain. Wallowing, some may call it.”

“I’m not some kind of scholarly saint, don’t run away with false ideas,” Sirius corrected him, quickly. “I’m always thinking about me, me, me, you know that. It’s more post-war that I’ve really thought about more ‘noble’ things. Looking back, and such. Just thinking about what could have been different, or how it’d be now.” He shrugged. “I started thinking about honesty when I started thinking about all the hiding you did, actually. And how much it changed the way people saw you. I started to wonder how much that affected things in regression. How much my friends and I really kept from each other and what it meant. How much I’d kept myself hidden, and what that had done to me.”

“And your conclusion?” Severus inquired, feeling somehow hungry to know. 

“I think everyone’s guilty of being dishonest by omission,” Sirius declared. “Even me and my friends.” He frowned and started stroking Moonstone. “We were really close. We probably loved each other, though as boys we wouldn’t have admitted that to each other. But we definitely hid stuff. Remus hid his aversion to me and James being hooligans. Peter hid how intense his fear of abandonment was. James hid how much he really wanted people to approve of him. Me, I hid how much I needed them. I pretended like it was nothing, they were just my mates but I was Sirius Black the Great who could have anyone he wanted and just condescended to pick who I did. Really, I hated my family and knew I couldn’t rely on them, so my mates were my family, and I’d have been seriously lonely without them. I was seriously lonely without them. I got bitter and resentful and sullen towards everything once they were gone, and I wonder if I’d just bloody said what they meant to me, then maybe we wouldn’t have fallen apart.”

He looked devastated, and it pained Severus to see. This was real honesty, this was Sirius pouring his heart out, being controlled and calm, but altogether real and true. And it was real pain and regret he had, emotions Severus might once have thought impossible from this man. But they were there, and Severus felt them as though they were his own, even though he had no feelings of warmth towards Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew and James Potter.

“I do not think that it is just you ,” Severus consoled. “It seems… it seems like a group effort.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He sounded unconvinced. “But I could have… I don’t know.” He sighed. “What if I’d admitted I needed them? Maybe it would have changed a lot. Remus would have seen me as more human, less self-satisfied, and therefore less of a hooligan. Peter would have realised that I’d never abandon him, that I need him and the rest just as much as he felt he needed us. Then James would have realised that there was nothing shallow about me liking him. That I really thought he was a good guy, and that he didn’t have to be good at hexing people to be interesting or liked by me.” Sirius shrugged and looked down at Moonstone’s furry back. “But I also know it’s too late now. I should have been this mature at eighteen.”

“Nobody is mature at eighteen,” Severus said. “I agree. There is nothing that can be done now. But isn’t it a good sign that you know? You can see that there were perhaps real, tangible reasons why things fell apart, that it wasn’t a twist of fate or lack of compatibility. You just… had things you needed to figure out, and it was the wrong context to figure it out in. The Dark Lord, I mean. Had the Dark Lord not been causing the amount of anxiety and terror that he did, things would have been different, and that is most certainly not your fault.”

Sirius nodded, but he looked unconvinced. “But I’ll never really know that. Even if not for Voldemort… maybe there would have been something else. Part of me has just accepted that it was, in the end, me and them who caused us to fall apart. Not the outside. It feels… it feels the most realistic, doesn’t it?”

Severus did agree with this. It reminded him of Lily, and the way that they had fallen apart. He could blame any number of external factors for the collapse of his relationship with Lily, everything from their class differences to the Dark Lord to James Potter. But, when it came down to it, he always returned to the same conclusion: he had had the power to stop them from ending on such a sour note, and he had relinquished that. It had been coming on for some time, what with his continued involvement with those particular Slytherins, but the final blow had come from his mouth. Yes, it had been James and Sirius’ taunting that had done it, but Severus knew that it had probably just been expedited by that. If not the slur, something of his behaviour would have turned Lily away from him before long. That was something he hadn’t been able to see when he went to apologise to her that first time. Nowadays, if he had the chance to do it again, he would understand that it wasn’t just about him calling her that word. It was about the fact that that word rolled easily from his tongue. That him using it towards her had just topped off the pile of red flags. So it had been he who had instigated it, really. Not anyone else. Sirius was right. In the end, context didn’t really matter. People controlled their relationships with each other. If it mattered enough, there would be a way to save it. 

That was how he was with Sirius now. It was nothing but their own mutual dislike and unwillingness to move on that had put them at odds for so long, and it was also their conscious choices that had brought them together. It was Sirius, being able to empathise with him after all this time, and Severus, being able to step down from the pillar of victimhood. Had the context of their lives sown the seeds? Maybe. But all the context in the world was not enough to convince either exceptionally stubborn man to do what he was not ready to. It had been them that created them. 

And was it them that would destroy them too? Although Sirius said that they would deal with any and all weakening of health, Severus wondered whether there would not be a change. Sirius was a good person, and generally meant what he said, but he could not help but wonder if something about the pain of losing a friend would push Sirius away sooner. Sirius had admitted how much he needed people, needed friends. Though he hadn’t explicitly said so, Severus was sure that Sirius was still the same, that he still wanted companionship, hence why he had been so eager to offer Severus houseroom. What would he do when it became glaringly obvious that things were going to change? When Severus was a dependent, not a companion? Sirius might not have the ability to deal with that, not out of weakness, but out of his own experiences catching up to him. He had watched his three greatest friends fade before his eyes, both with emotional distance and then the final blow of death. Severus did not think he could blame Sirius for not wanting to experience another friend dying.

He wondered what he would do. He could go into a home, in the last months, and if he was out of sight, maybe he would be out of mind. He could let Minerva have Moonstone, or maybe Potter would go mad and volunteer to take her, and then he could remain as a memory for Sirius, a more whole memory than a dilapidated and broken man. Severus imagined that Healer Whittle would grumble about this, but hadn’t Healers Smethwyck and Whittle originally suggested the home? They might even approve, if his condition got too bad. 

The problem with this ingenious plan was how much it scared Severus. He had never wanted to go into a home, preferring even Spinner’s End and public backlash to a home, but he realised now that it terrified him to think of leaving this place. How could he live without Sirius, when Sirius made up nearly all of his social contact? When Sirius provided a useful backdrop on which to have discussions about life and time, when the two shared in so much these days? The thought of not having that counsel was frightening, and so was the thought of Sirius bestowing his worries on other ears. Severus had to admit that he liked hearing about the things that whirled around Sirius’ head, that he wanted to hear it and help to heal it. Even if healing just meant Sirius being able to say it, Severus knew he wanted to be a part of that, and that he couldn’t leave this place. Even the views would be missed. He didn’t want to wake up in somewhere that wasn’t home and not even be able to see St. Paul’s Cathedral, rain or shine. He didn’t want to eat food not prepared by a mangy mutt intent on proving that cooking and potion-making were the same. He didn’t want to rest on benches next to someone who didn’t have five hundred different nose-related insults tucked up his sleeve. And he certainly did not trust anyone else with his cat, though Severus thought he would rather bathe in bubotuber pus than admit that to Sirius, owing to the smug smile that he would no doubt wear like a crown for several days.

This was not the first time that Severus had found fear to be the thing stopping him from doing what was overall best. It was the Slytherin in him, he supposed. That self-serving streak of his. Hadn’t he been too afraid to counter his dorm-mates as a boy? And that had led him down a worse path than if he had had the guts to do the hard thing the first time it came knocking. Was this the same? He wanted it not to be so; disconnecting himself from Sirius in order to protect his friend in the long run didn’t feel the same as staying in the snake’s den to keep his own back covered. 

In the end, Severus thought that he should ignore it. Not because it wasn’t important, but because it was too important. A great sadness and anxiety welled up within him whenever he considered the future these days. Not when he thought about what he might have with his breakfast the following day, but when he thought about what was coming in a more distant sense. What would he be like in January? In January, Severus would turn forty, and would that turning affect his health? Would he live to see another decade change in his age? All of these thought started to spiral and jumble and made him forget to breathe, and so Severus locked them away, though not behind Occlumency shields. He had learned simply how to suppress some things by human might, not the magic of the mind, and it was a comfort for him to know that he was able to control his emotions still. 

And it did work, most of the time. He could laugh with Sirius, who took to recounting his various methods of skullduggery that he had attempted during his lockup in Grimmauld Place, or else discuss parts of the war that neither had talked about with others. He could watch and pretend to be learning when Sirius cooked, though Severus did not understand the process, and enjoy it with him as though they were any two blokes having a meal together at the end of the day. 

Life, he thought, was for living. And the only time living could really stop, was death. Perhaps it was better not to waste the dregs, no matter how soon the end was to come.

Chapter Text

The sun refracts strangely through drawn curtains in high up places. Arms reach between the gaps and open wide, pulling on eyelids and announcing the morning. In the freshness of the new day, London is quiet, or relatively so, just for some moments. The hustle of morning commuters heading for the old city – which now is the new city – has not begun, and those left out late have mostly returned home. Only a few vehicles and ambulatory stragglers remain in this newly-minted time, yawning for the early rise, or the late fall, whichever it might be. 

And yet this is one of the things about a city like London that sets it apart from rural environments, or even other towns and cities. Even when it is most close to sleep, it never quite stops living. There is always someone here who is awake, always someone with a purpose. Blood pumps around the city’s body and heart all day and all night, every day of the year. To some, it is dangerous. There may always be someone lurking around the corner. But to others, it is a haven. You will never be alone in London. Nearby, a night-shift worker, partygoer, lorry driver, or workaholic will be cutting their path through this place. And in this more lonely time of day, perhaps they will remember you more. The brief exchange of human consciousness will remain in their mind, and they may become lost amongst wondering what your story is. Or maybe they will forget you in a single moment. It is never easy to tell. But what is certain about this city is that it is never truly empty, and therefore you can never truly be alone when you are in it. Someone will always see you, will briefly know of your existence. Like a passing shower, the people who hurry through here will leave the most temporary of marks. 

In a small flat in an area of architectural interest to many, the idea of being alone permeated like noxious gas. It did the same in a small miner’s house in a northern mill district. That is the thing about being alone. It is hard to see the people who come and go around you when you have decided there is nobody at all. The small things are forgotten as the feeling of utter abandonment swells like the gaudy balloons children beg their parents to blow up on birthdays. And yet, strangely, despite the vastness of a balloon, it is defeated by the smallest of objects. A pin, thin enough that it is barely visible, meets with the taut plastic surface, and and the moment it is largest, it pops. The tension disappears forever. 

And herein lies the wonderful thing about this balloon. Once popped, it cannot be re-inflated. 

The thing called ‘the end’ was neither further nor nearer than the mismatched trio of cat, bat and dog expected. This is because after the wallowing, the fear, it was discarded. Severus chose not to think about death, as he had wasted so much time doing so already. Sirius shouldered his courage for which he was Sorted all those years ago, and in doing so swallowed, for the moment, his worries for the future. There could be no future without a now. Moonstone wished to live up to her name, if she knew why she had been given it. They jumbled on, as did the revolving characters within their periphery. 

In January, Severus turned forty, a grand old age he never believed he would reach. It was only nine days after New Year’s, after all the calendars changed to an entirely new millennium. The shiny year 2000 glowed everywhere even more than a week after it had been reached, as humanity reeled from the fact that it had survived into a second millennium Anno Domini. Severus, however, wasn’t bothered about that. He would never be able to boast a four-digit age, but to reach a new decade was a blessing the fourth time around. On his tenth birthday, there had been no real celebration, it was simply a year closer to eleven. On his twentieth, there had just been a continued feeling of wrongdoing. On his thirtieth, Severus had felt the fear of Lord Voldemort stir within him. But on his fortieth, it was good. Sirius did his usual – irritating him to no end, but presented him with Moonstone, a ribbon tied around her middle, and cooked all three meals of the day, and deliciously so. He also attempted to make a cake, which Severus rolled his eyes at, but did appreciate. It tasted good, even though Sirius had coated the whole kitchen in icing sugar. 

“It’s not my flat, technically,” Severus had said. “You’re my guardian.”

At that, Sirius had grumbled but fetched a cloth before Moonstone started tracking icing sugar pawprints into the living room. 

Sirius didn’t get Severus a present for his birthday. The reasons were twofold. Firstly, Severus didn’t want for anything special. He had never really had presents nor did he feel a desire to begin such a tradition. Secondly, they did both know that Whatever it was would one day just gather dust. Sirius was fond of Severus, but he hated dusting. 

All the same, they knew, as that monumental year of 2000 progressed, that the final act was drawing close. It didn’t evoke fear, but it did evoke reflection. The two men, in their time as friends and flatmates, had spent much time discussing their past, going over the things they regretted, thinking about what might have been different. But this time, they did not travel back to boyhood or the time of Voldemort, but the far less distant past. 

“I never would have believed it,” Sirius said, in the evening sunlight, on the flat’s balcony.

“Everyone says that,” Severus agreed. “Once, Whittle laughed at himself for saying he was glad he’d sent me to live here.”

“I wonder why, though.” Sirius frowned. “I know that we used to be at odds, but wasn’t that always just because we were childish prats? Why didn’t anyone believe we might be able to get over it one day? Even Dumbledore, who wanted us to, never seemed to think so.”

Severus paused, and looked out over the skyline. “Perhaps… perhaps because we were so different.”

“I don’t think we’re that different from each other,” Sirius said, looking if anything, offended.

“No,” Severus agreed. “Not from each other. I mean that back then, we were so different from how we are now. We are both still stubborn and proud and grumpy at times, but I think many remember us as two people who were completely stuck. They cannot conceive that either of us would change and come to see how really, we are quite similar, and quite compatible for friendship.”

Sirius nodded slowly. “That… that makes a bit more sense. I guess I agree. I was always set in my ways, I never believed I’d change the way I thought about anything at all. Stupid of me. Azkaban changed a lot of things, I just never realised it.” He chuckled. “Still, I can’t say I’m any more receptive to change these days.”

They fell silent, a change hanging in the air. 

“You don’t have to be,” Severus said, at last. “You just have to accept that it’ll happen. That was my problem. I never accepted that things were going to happen. It never stopped them from happening. That’s the real way we’re different now. We know we cannot stop the universe.”

And, in the cruellest of ways, that was entirely true. 

***

They were worried, after Severus died, that Sirius would become a shell. Missing his best friend and housemate, unable to find something to fill the void that Severus’ nonexistence would no doubt leave. They debated even before it happened what should be done, how the funeral should be conducted and what should happen with his meagre possessions, sure that Sirius would not want to deal with it. He didn’t like dealing with things. 

But they were wrong. Sirius was there when it happened, because he had known for a few days that the end was truly coming now, as Severus found it harder and harder to breathe. Healer Whittle visited the flat and agreed that things were coming to a close, that the right thing to do was to make Severus comfortable, ease him out of life in a way that Nagini’s venom never had wanted to. He left some potions and instructions, but left quickly, sensing, as real Healers do, when their services are more of a burden than anything else. 

Sirius was nattering away right up until Severus drew his final breath. It was a mixture of insults, him not having dropped the joke about the bat, and also the genuine sadness of losing a friend. How he would really miss Severus’ company and diatribes, and yet how he was glad that they had been able to find some peace, and that Severus wasn’t going to be on his own. Some of the time, it was not clear if Severus could hear him, but at times, he opened his eyes and threw insulting looks at Sirius, ones that said ‘stop being a sentimental fool, Black’, or ones that said ‘I will miss your company, counsel and cooking, Sirius’. That was them, really. A marble cake mixture of things that made it hard for the untrained eye to see if they hated each other or not. 

When it was finally over, Sirius took charge. He arranged a simple service with only a few attendees. No long speeches, just a few words from himself and Minerva about what an unpleasant bastard and good friend he had been. Everyone present already knew how he had strived to be better, given everything to the war, and they didn’t need to hear it again. Severus wouldn’t have wanted that, because he was more than that. After some debate, he was buried just outside of London, in a place he had never visited, but would have liked all the same, because it was quiet, and Moonstone liked pawing at the plants. Sirius didn’t plant flowers, but the plants of a potioneer. He was sad that Severus had never been able to return to his discipline, and thought that, if he would not have been touched by this gesture, it would have given him a good barrage of insults about how utterly pathetic Sirius could be. 

There was no use for Severus’ room. Sirius left it as it had been, fairly plain and simple with some books and personal effects, but all in all, the space of a man who had not had much time in which to live comfortably. Moonstone liked it in there, because of the way the sun streaked through the curtains in the morning. He would never admit it, but sometimes Sirius went into the room and sat on the floor and cried, because he could not barge in there and call anyone a greasy bat with a huge nose. 

The grief of losing this friend was never easy, but Sirius did his best to smile at the empty chair as he read motorcycle magazines or cooked dinner. He had Moonstone, after all. 

They had all come to each other for care, Sirius remembered. Moonstone had wanted a home, Severus had wanted another being to keep him company. Sirius had wanted a flatmate, and Severus and Moonstone had wanted feeding. Severus may have departed but, Sirius thought, he had left Moonstone behind, and he could hardly abandon her. In any case, she probably thought she owned him.

And so, for a long time, it was different. Really, it would always be different. There would never be another Severus Snape. But Sirius learned a valuable lesson in his forties: as well as being able to accept change, people needed to accept a lack of it. So, in time Sirius accepted that he wouldn’t stop missing his friend, wouldn’t stop wanting a chat or a drink with him, and that that was alright. It meant that he had meant something, and really, that was what people searched for, in this life. Meaning. 

On January 9th, 2010, Sirius looked up at the winter London sky, and muttered as he raised his glass. 

“One day, you better let me in, you prick.”

Then he smiled, downed his whiskey, and returned inside. Moonstone had started mewing.