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Sirius stopped at the edge of the corridor, right before the hallway turned, at the sound of footsteps and someone speaking.
“Sir, please – I can—” Recognition slammed into Sirius like an oncoming train, sudden and striking. Snivellus. That was Snape speaking. But to who? “I’ll be good – I can help with – with sorting books or cleaning or—”
Snape suddenly quieted. Sirius risked a look around the corner, and facing away from him was Snape – he knew it was Snape! – but also Professor Dumbledore, who was holding a hand up, a gesture that had likely been the reason that Snape had stopped talking. They had stopped walking, but their backs were to Sirius, and neither appeared to notice that he was there.
“I’m afraid that I cannot allow you to stay over the summer,” Dumbledore said. “It is not my place to keep a child away from their home.”
Snape was trying to stay at Hogwarts over the summer? Sirius frowned at the thought. But why? Snape was a Slytherin – he had probably made the rest of his evil family happy with that one – so why did he appear so distressed at being told that he would have to return home?
Snape was shaking his head. Sirius couldn’t see the expression in his face, but he could guess from the desperation in his voice. “But—!”
“I understand that you have troubles with your father,” Dumbledore said kindly, “and they may seem overwhelming at times, but I assure you that your family loves you, even if they don’t always express it in obvious ways.”
“Headmaster,” Snape tried, but even from an outside perspective, Sirius could see that he wouldn’t be able to get a word in edgewise. “He doesn’t—”
“He does,” Dumbledore said, effectively cutting off whatever Snape was trying to say. “Deep down, he does love you, and perhaps, you will realize it when you go home this summer.”
“I – okay,” Snape finally said, shoulders falling, words spilling out in a single breath.
“Have a nice summer, Mr Snape,” Dumbledore said, before continuing down the hallways. Snape didn’t respond. He didn’t move from his spot in the hallway either.
Sirius couldn’t understand why Snape was trying so hard. Snape couldn’t have it nearly as bad as Sirius did – with his harpy of a mother that had expressed her disapproval of him even before Sirius had become more vocal about his dislike for their family, even before he had been Sorted into Gryffindor, even before he had made a point to avoid Bella and Cissa at Hogwarts and keep his letters to Regulus short and clipped – and Sirius wasn’t begging Dumbledore for summer housing.
(Though, some part of him wanted to do just that, to go up and ask for some way that would keep him out of that horrible house with his horrible mother who would surely go on and on about how horrible of a child he was for tarnishing the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.)
So, maybe it was jealousy that had Sirius shaking with nervous energy, desperate to get the clawing emotions in his chest out, out, out where he wouldn’t have to think about it, and maybe that was how he ended up stomping down that corridor and shoving Snape into a wall before he even realized what he was doing.
Snape stumbled, but didn’t fall, pushing himself against the wall to keep his balance as he glared at Sirius. “What do you want, Black?”
“Why were you asking Dumbledore to stay at Hogwarts over the summer?”
Snape tensed. “That’s none of your business.”
The curiosity was burning inside him, an insistence that thrummed inside him asking why, why, why – he had to know. “Tell me.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Snape tried to get around him. Sirius blocked his path.
“What reason could you possibly have to want to stay away from – who did Dumbledore say – your father? Those of us who need it more are just forced to deal with it, but—”
“Need it more,” Snape echoed. “Because your life is so terrible, is it? You don’t—”
“But you’ve probably made both of your slimy parents proud, haven’t you?” Sirius continued, speaking louder, bitterness seeping into his tone. It wasn’t fair. “But that’s still not good enough for you.”
How could Snape possibly stand here acting like his life and family was so awful when he fit right in with all the rest of those Slytherins? His mother would love if Sirius had been like that, and wasn’t that proof in itself how terrible Snape was?
Snape scoffed. “Proud – right.”
“I haven’t heard a howler sent to you, so clearly they’re not disappointed.”
“You would know about that, wouldn’t you,” Snape said through gritted teeth, hand moving slowly towards his opposite sleeve, “I’m sure everyone knows from how loud your mother’s letter was.”
“Would your father send a howler now,” Sirius pressed, batting Snape’s arm down before he could grab his wand, “if he knew you were begging Dumbledore?”
Dumbledore wasn’t a well-liked figure to his parents, and Sirius was willing to bet that Snape’s were the same. If they were the sort who would laud Slytherin, then surely, surely—
“Like any shopkeeper would let a muggle purchase a howler,” Snape said, anger and resentment dripping from every word, “like he wouldn’t attack everyone in sight at the mention of magic.”
“You – wait,” Sirius’s argument died in his throat, forced out by confusion. Muggle? Snape’s father was a muggle? If that was true then that meant— “You’re not a pureblood?”
“What in Merlin’s name made you think I was a pureblood?” Snape snapped, glare returning.
“Oh,” Sirius said lamely. The silence was suffocating now, and he needed to say something, anything, to fill in the oppressive quiet. “I guess that explains why I’ve never seen you at any galas.”
Snape let out a laugh that almost sounded like a sob at the end, hair falling over his face and obscuring his eyes. “This whole time – you thought – is that why…?”
He didn’t need to finish the question for Sirius to realize what he was trying to say.
Well, fuck.
Sirius and James believing that Snape was just another entitled Slytherin pureblood was most of the reason they had gone after him – that he seemed like everything that Sirius hated and still couldn’t keep away from Gryffindor. Snape just kept getting in the way by talking with that one girl, even though she was a Gryffindor and he was a Slytherin and they ought to stay apart, except every time James tried to explain that to Evans, she would brush him off and tell him to leave her alone.
Now the guilt was settling into his stomach, and Sirius hated it. He hated the feeling of it eating away at his insides, because it wasn’t supposed to go like this and he shouldn’t be feeling bad over Snape of all people, but, but—
“Over the winter hols, my mother made me sleep in the basement dungeon,” Sirius said, the words rushing out of his mouth. “She said that if I wanted to spend time with filth then I shouldn’t complain about getting dirty. I think she had the ruddy house elf add extra grime before having me tossed in there.”
Snape pressed his hands to his face, and Sirius could hear a muffled, breathy laughter escaping him. It was the same sort of laugh that Sirius had done during his first night in Gryffindor, when it had properly sunk in that he was absolutely fucked, and the situation was the furthest thing from amusing, but he wouldn’t cry, he wouldn’t, so there was nothing to do but laugh.
He could see Snape’s shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to get himself to stop, and several seconds later, Snape had composed himself, mostly, looking up at Sirius with an expression that held a mixture of grudging understanding and bitter irony.
After a pause, he said, “After I got my letter, my pa used me as target practice with his empty beer bottles – said that I should use my ‘freak spells’ to do something useful. Like he ever does anything useful, the drunk.”
The words settled between them, caught in the tense atmosphere that neither of them knew how to deal with – not after Sirius had shared information that he hadn’t even told James, not after Snape had told him something that he would have sooner died than share with Sirius, but here they were.
“Dumbledore knows?” Sirius hedged. Snape said nothing. Oh. “What a dick.”
Snape let out a small laugh, the tension broken. “Your mum sounds like a bitch.”
“She is,” Sirius responded. “Your father sounds like a dickhead.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
What a sorry pair they made.
“I could fight him,” blurted Sirius.
He could. He really could. Then, maybe, Sirius could just hide out there.
If Snape’s father was a muggle – a muggle that hated magic – then he most likely didn’t live anywhere near the Wizarding World. It could be a refuge. His mother would never think to look among muggles to find Sirius – or maybe she would, but she wouldn’t dare look among muggles to search for him.
“You can’t fight him, Black. You can’t just—” Snape broke off there, sinking to the ground, back against the wall. Sirius took a seat beside Snape. The corridor was still empty. It was just the two of them, with everyone else probably off packing the last of their things for the train.
“I don’t think a muggle could match up to me, even if he’s an adult,” Sirius said. “I fight your father, you let me stay there for the summer, and I get two months away from my family. How does that sound?”
“You can’t cast spells outside of school,” Snape said scornfully, and there was jealousy there, like he had many plans of how to get around that rule, for what purpose, Sirius thought he could guess.
“There are plenty of magical things that I could use without casting any spells,” Sirius responded plainly. He had a trunk full of Hiccough Sweets and Frog Spawn Soap and Dungbombs. “I’d win.”
“You’re mad,” Snape said.
“Madness runs in the family,” Sirius replied. “So, are we doing this?”
Snape looked at him for a long moment, lips moving minutely, and it almost sounded like he was saying, ‘Better him than me.’
Then, louder, Snape said, “Alright.”
“Alright,” Sirius smiled, standing, then held out a hand for Snape to take. After a moment of hesitation, Snape accepted, and Sirius helped pull him to his feet. “I’ll meet you at the station by—”
His parents would expect him at the Apparition point where he would meet with Kreacher – they would never show up to meet Sirius at the station, even if he had been a Slytherin – and the elf would be the one to take him back to Grimmauld. It would be best if he wasn’t near that area at all.
“—by the ticket booth,” Sirius finished. “In the area between the stand and the barrier.”
“Alright,” Snape said again, meeting his gaze with dark eyes, before making his way down the corridor without another glance behind him.