Chapter Text
As always, the young Sirius Black is bored.
The summer afternoon stretches out like a restless shadow, and the grass beneath him feels warm and pliant. The world smells of wildflowers and dusty, golden sunshine. Voices rise and fall further up the hill — his classmates’ bickering, too far away to matter — so he lets his hands roam idly through the grass until they catch on a stray daisy.
The little bloom looks impossibly pure up close, its tiny white petals fanned around a perfect yellow centre like a miniature sun. Its slender green stem looks lively and innocent between his calloused fingers.
And without thinking, Sirius begins to pluck it apart.
He loves me.
A petal flutters into his palm, and absurdly, the softness reminds him of a rabbit — one that might scamper through these weeds with long, twitching ears and a cute quivering nose. Exactly how Snape looks whenever Sirius strays too close, all skittish and quick to dart away. The image of those wide, cautious eyes sends a thrill up Sirius’ spine; a hunter picturing his prey.
He loves me not.
They are so large and dark they seem bottomless — like a doe’s, Sirius thinks. That hair, too, casts him in such a girlish air, long and lank and ink-black, forever curtaining his gloomy paleness. Hideous, really. Sirius tosses a lock of his own hair back, smug at the thought that his is silkier, shinier, much more voluminous.
And yet, Sirius catches his gaze drifting to those stringy strands more often than he’d ever admit, wondering if they feel as greasy as they look.
He loves me.
Then there are Snape’s hands, pale and long-fingered, forever smudged with ink and whatever nonsense Slytherins brew up in their dungeons. Almost delicate, until Sirius remembers the way they can gut fish and crush beetles without batting an eyelash.
And oh, speaking of eyelashes, Snape’s are his most unfair feature — ridiculously long and elegant, casting dusky crescents across his cheekbones.
He loves me not.
No matter. Even if his eyes are strangely entrancing, his entire face is simply a mess of angles and contradictions. That sharp nose — too large, too hooked — ought to ruin it entirely. And his mouth is much too thin, too often twisted into nasty remarks and haughty sneers. The way those lips part a second before one of those scathing insults slips out… Merlin, it makes Sirius want to lean in and —
He loves me.
“Black.”
Sirius jolts, thinking at first that he’s conjured him up with his wild imagination. But Snape is actually there. He can tell without even looking, by the faint trace of damp wool and bitter herbs that follow him everywhere.
“Mutilating weeds, are we?” drawls Snape, standing with his arms crossed and one brow arched in evident disgust. “Truly living up to your future career as a killer.”
Before the boy can come any closer — before those pesky eyes can read too much into him — Sirius tosses the daisy aside.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he replies breezily.
Snape’s brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing,” Sirius says too quickly, rubbing his hands on his robes as though to erase the evidence. His face prickles with heat.
Snape narrows his eyes suspiciously, probably searching for the barb that never caught; some hidden insult that might explain the odd, breathless edge in Sirius’ tone. But eventually, he just huffs and turns away, robes stirring the grass like the wing of a brooding crow.
And Sirius stays where he is, hands empty, heart knocking against his ribs. His gaze falls to the last stubborn petal clinging to the fragile stem, and his lips twitch into a smile before he can help it.
He loves me not, he thinks, and for some reason, it feels more like a dare than an answer.