Work Text:
“…heard you’re allowin’ your boy to racket about with the Potter set.”
Severus heard the adenoidal tones that meant Gwendolyn Whitlow found another victim. He drew back slightly, letting the curtain of his alcove shield him. Old habits died hard, he supposed, but listened in anyway. One never knew what one might learn.
“Oh, yes. Family, you know.” Lucius answered coolly.
“Isn’t one of the girls not magically born?” She made that sound like a communicable disease.
“Miss Whitlow, I know you, tragically, have yet to enter the beautiful precepts of parenthood, but when one’s only son is determined to do the right thing by his…relative, then one simply must support him in that endeavor. The Granger girl is more palatable that I imagined.”
Severus could see, in his mind’s eye, Lucius’ expression given the chilly tone. He’d bet a month’s salary Lucius had his monocle out. Or perhaps he twitched a fan at her. The monocle, Severus decided, was more likely. Lucius’ liked people to feel as if they were being examined and found wanting.
“Don’t you worry at all about low company?”
“Quite frankly, Miss Whitlow, Draco’s manners and marks both have done nothing but improve since he took up with Potter, not that it is any of your business. I think, perhaps, it’s time to repair your own ignorance on the subject of the non-magical world.”
Miss Whitlow sputtered something at that. Severus swallowed hard. Low company. He’d been that, once. The little urchin graciously taken in hand by Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black. Eileen’s boy, so tragic she’d gone and married that muggle.
He didn’t belong here. He’d never belonged in this glittering world of balls and routs and card parties and boxes at the opera. His world was chalk dust and bubbling cauldrons and sticky children managing to have the most ridiculous accidents possible in class.
“Right, my lad, that’s quite enough of that.”
Severus startled as his husband suddenly loomed up at his side.
“I…Dare…I’m…” he floundered at seeing the stern set of Dare’s jaw.
“Hiding behind a curtain and thinking you could never belong here?” Dare raised an eyebrow.
How did the bloody man know that?
“Oh, Severus. Do you think I never had those moments myself?”
That put a different complexion on it.
“Come with me, pet. We’re going to plead a headache. You look peaky enough.” The wry twist of his mouth took the sting out of that one.
In short order, Severus found himself standing on the pavement waiting for their carriage. Dare wrapped an arm about his shoulders.
“Why don’t we try somewhere more to our taste?” Dare asked.
Severus looked up at him, the misery of ruining their first evening out together in Society dissipating with his surprise.
“Where?” he asked.
“Will you trust me?”
Severus felt his heart melt at that and tried to keep from smiling soppily. “Of course I trust you.”
“Then hold on. I sent the carriage back.”
Severus tucked himself close, closer than one really needed for side-along apparition, and closed his eyes. One squeezing moment later, he felt their feet hit pavement again.
“We’ll have to put your hair up, if you don’t mind, but the rest should be right.” Dare held up a clip and Severus turned around.
His husband’s hands were gentle as he carefully combed his fingers through Severus’ long hair. He plaited it quickly and clubbed the heavy length of it up at the nape of Severus’ neck with the clip. Severus looked at the brigtly lit façade before then and choked on air.
“A dance hall? Dare, if someone sees…”
“No one here will utter even one peep about us. They knew my father.”
How he said that and kept a perfectly innocent expression Severus would never know. He snorted.
“He used to dance here?” he finally choked out.
“Apparently,” Dare bit his lip. “That would have been in the forties. He used to bring his Slytherin cronies with him, slumming it.”
“The imagination boggles,” Severus murmured.
“Come along,” Dare grinned, anticipation lighting his eyes. “I’ve been watching you in set dances all evening. I cannot believe Mrs. Sedgwick thinks waltzing immoral, even now.”
Severus let Dare lead him in, suddenly happy he’d worn the flame-colored evening pajamas Narcissa and the tailor insisted he required for less formal events. The flowing trouser legs gave him some comfort—Dare seemed like the sort who danced energetically.
Who would ever have thought that Tobias Snape deciding that the best way to tire out energetic magical children was to teach them both swing and jive would come in handy? He could hear his mother even now, leaning out the kitchen window over the cramped back garden and laughing:
“Toby, why is Severus learning all the lifts?Surely that would be for Lily?”
“Nay, ‘leen. The lass’ll be taller than our Severus in weeks! Growing like a weed, that one.”
So Severus learned how to be lifted and all the aerials. Did Dare know any of them? He supposed he’d find out. They secured a table around the edge of the dance floor after checking their cloaks. Dare marked it as engaged and led Severus out to the floor.
Severus let him swing them into the flow of dancers, following his lead in a slow fox trot.
“Can you keep up?” Dare grinned down at him.
“With this?” Severus raised an eyebrow.
“This is just a warm up, my lad.” Dare stole a quick, smacking kiss.
It was. The more decorous fox trots and waltzes slowly trailed off into Stompin’ at the Savoy and One O’Clock Jump. Severus matched steps with Dare, following his lead easily. Several numbers he didn’t recognize passed as he and Dare familiarized themselves with each other.
He’d forgotten the joy of it, giving over to the music, the bass thumping in his blood up and down the scale as the band kicked the tempo faster and faster. He’d never felt like this dancing with Lily—so wholly in sync.
He realized that many of the other dancers had cleared off the floor, leaving more space for the jitterbugs. Dare laughed down at him, and swung him out, his hair falling over his forehead.
“Can you do the aerials?” he shouted over the pounding drums.
“All of them,” Severus bellowed back. “My father said it was my patriotic duty so I could show up the Yanks and scandalize the Malfoys!”
Dare snorted and steered them to an emptier section of the dance floor.
“Want a go?”
“Yes!”
He hadn’t trusted Lily’s muscle strength enough to try anything like a candlestick or an around the world with her. They’d confined themselves to some of the tamer pops and throws. He might regret it in the morning, but he couldn’t resist Dare’s infectious enthusiasm.
Frankie flips, around the worlds, k flips, tick tocks, and coffee grinders followed in quick succession. Severus knew they were drawing a crowd, but he didn’t care. He matched Dare step for step.
“See now, Davey, I told you that were Tommy’s boy. No one else danced like that.”
Severus caught Dare’s eye and laughed in delight as Dare supported him into a candlestick.