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Severus dragged deeply from the cigarette between his long fingers, his back to the whipping wind beyond the mouth of the alleyway. He vanished the butt before it could burn through the snow at his feet. With the toe of his dragon hide boot he scuffed the ashes into the dirt so they were undetectable. He didn't think he would get into trouble for smoking, but he didn't want to contend with the litany from Minerva if she caught him outside ruining his lungs with cheap Muggle cigarettes.
What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.
The hour he spent per week rolling his own was therapeutic, in a fashion. It brought back more memories than he would ever admit. He'd come to Hogwarts with the supplies to make them in his trunk, sneaking his father's old set away from him, expecting to need to make them for older students for money. His father had made it clear Severus was not to expect any sort of monetary assistance from him, and there was a scar he could still trace now, twenty years later, across his cheek that reminded him of his cheeky reply: "Yer got no quid t'help me, anyway, Da."
His mother cared enough to heal the cut before he got on the train. Severus wasn't positive if it were out of truly caring or to avoid the odd looks their clothes usually earned them anyway.
Standing against the brick wall of Grimmauld Place, skulking in the tiny alley between 12 and 13, Severus huffed a bitter laugh, steam filling the air for a moment. The cold wasn't enough to chase him back inside, yet; he'd grown up in the north, after all, and the idea of rejoining the joyful assemblage of the Order rallying around Arthur Weasley was enough to put him off his tea. The accent that he'd used as a final insult to his father before leaving for school didn't last long past the first few weeks of living in Slytherin. No one else carried the tone. Those with the posh vowels and crisp manners were the ones with power and influence, so he'd swiftly followed suit. It had earned him the scar across his shoulder blades when he'd come home sounding like a city boy.
Returning for Hogwarts the next year earned him an alley he'd not expected. Regulus, with his effortlessly beautiful hair and clear skin, did not laugh when he overheard Severus practicing a different accent by reading his texts aloud. The small boy who resembled his brother too closely for Severus's initial comfort had quietly left his primary books on a table he knew Severus used to study in the common room. It made Severus look at him closer, learning to spot the differences between the younger Black and his brother, rather than the similarities.
For instance, Sirius was not the one who pinched his lips in outward disappointment when he caught Severus smoking on the other side of the lake at fourteen. Regulus was not sending debilitating hexes his way every time they passed in the hallway. Sirius'sbarking laugh carried down corridors effortlessly, whereas the hushed breaths out of Regulus's parted lips as he clung to Severus's shoulders were as different as night and day.
He hadn't realized he'd lit another cigarette in his reverie until he brought it to his lips out of habit. The fingers gripping the lit cigarette were trembling a bit now, a combination of cold and regret, remembering the time Regulus had asked to learn how to roll his own, lying in Severus's bed over the winter holidays, wishing they could laze about undressed but the chill of the dungeon proving too much to bear for longer than a few minutes, unless they were otherwise engaged. The memory made him slam his fist into the metal trashcan nearby, a satisfying dent left on the lid and the lingering ring of a clang filling his ears.
He didn't care what this house did to Sirius's mind, how trapped he would feel in this doghouse. Severus's hands ached to cover the hands of the brother, teaching him how to mix marijuana with tobacco perfectly so the scent of one covered the other, and only took the edge off without destroying Occlumency shields.
Severus admitted defeat from the cold after another three cigarettes, siphoning any lingering smell from his robes, and darting back inside. Remus walked out of the drawing room, his arm slung over the shoulder of the Black brother Severus hated as much as he loved the other. Pain flooded his chest, another prick in the walls of his heart at their shared happiness together. He stayed at the front door for a bit longer than necessary, drying the snow from his robes and shaking the flakes from his hair. He was blessedly ignored this time, before making his way down to the basement laboratory to check on the Blood-Replenisher and Murtlap Essence, trying to forget whose bedroom he'd be sleeping next to again tonight.