Chapter Text
Snivellus— Snape— Sn— Sniv— Sniverus— Sneverus— Sever— Snape. Snape. Snape. Snape is too skinny. Snape is—
It’s like he can’t get the feel of the man off him. The feel of the man. In his arms. That light weight— then, on the bed, behind him, supporting the all of him while Lily worked. While— Skinny. Yes, skinny.
Such a long throat. Head tilted back against his shoulder. Such a long— the expanse of it, just there. Such— The slight weight of him. Sniv—Snape. Snape is taller than him. Galls him to admit it. Sticks harsh and prickly under his skin, but the other is. Not by much. No. No, not by much, but by a little. A little taller than him— yet Snape must weigh— Well. The man doesn’t weight anywhere near what he weighs.
Too skinny. Tiny little wrists, bones and tendons standing stark on the back of his hands, those cheekbones, slender neck. Slender— Shoulders too. Slender shoulders.
Was he always so slight? Always so breakable?
‘He has to have been lying, right?’ Oh, yes. Prongs is still going on about whether or not Snape is really queer. ‘He’s not actually— I mean. He was always after Lily, wasn’t he? Dirty little pervert. Creeping around— He’s not actually— Is he? Because—’ He is going to have to obliviate himself in a moment, isn’t he. Obliviate himself or Prongs. Potter as he’s rapidly becoming in the privacy of his own mind. Certainly before the man starts going on again about how it was never because Snape’s a queer, because he isn’t like that, he’s not the sort to go tormenting poor unfortunates that can’t help how they were born.
‘Wormy said he was,’ he finally interjects, feeling more than a little like someone’s Wingardium Leviosa’d his brain out of his skull. ‘Said Moony knew as well and told him not to tell me.’
‘What?!’ Prongs squawks, ‘When?’ and then, annoyingly, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known— It really never was about that. I really had no idea— You believe me, don’t you, Pads? I mean— I would never. What kind of wizard— Well. Not the kind of wizard I am, certainly. When was this? It wasn’t when we were at school, was it? If it was you really should have told me.’
‘No, it wasn’t when we were at school!’ he snaps, rubbing both his hands roughly across his face, Merlin’s beard he needs a cigarette, ‘You were there for part of it. It was that time in Diagon Alley when your wife cracked the shits with me and went sloping off home.’
‘Which time?’ the man asks, which is a sad commentary on the fact he and Lily really don’t always get along.
‘That time she called me a pig when she overheard me—’ he trails off. Overheard him suggesting— Well. Not suggesting, outright saying—
‘Oh, you mean when you were going on about Snape bending over for You Know Who and all the Death Eaters?’ James asks, frowning, ‘Does that mean you meant what you were saying? I just thought you were— Well. Being a bit disgusting, really. I mean, I don’t think the idea of—’ his face scrunches up, ‘That would ever have occurred to me. He has always gotten under your skin though—’ a tiny hesitation, ‘He has always brought out the worst in you,’ Doesn’t he just know it. Snape’s always— There’s just something about— but before he can even try to work out why the other man irritates the unholy, screeching hell out of him, Prongs adds, ‘Do you think he has? Bent over for Voldemort, I mean? I don’t think I’d wish that on even Snape—’
‘James!’ he snaps, sharp and annoyed. He shouldn’t have ever said it, thought it, certainly not thought it— sometimes can’t stop thinking about it— but he really never should have. Not about a wizard that it turns out isn’t as Dark as all that. Not as Dark as he always assumed. Was it just that? His own desperation to get away from his family, from everything that reminded him of his family, and then being faced with this ugly little Muggle-born— but is Snape, really? Surely if he was then there’d never be the slightest chance of You Know Who recruiting him. Must be a Half-Blood. Though what the half is— He has no idea. Snape certainly isn’t the name of any magical family he’s ever heard— Anyway. Being faced with Snape, free from all the awful fucking obligations that came along with being born of a Dark Pure-Blood family and chasing them anyway, like he didn’t know how good he had it being born free— But then, he’d hated the boy on sight, long before he ever got sorted into Slytherin. Saw him on the train and the urge to hurt had risen— ugly little thing. Yes. Ugly. Badly dressed. Dirty. Wild looking. Black eyes darting about the place, so nervy it irritated him, like he expected to be attacked at any moment— Fucking prescient that, wasn’t it?
How much of his life has Snape spent being attacked? By Voldemort’s followers recently, but before that the Marauders at school— and he can’t lie to himself, they were right horrors to the boy. It had been so much fun— had it? It had certainly kept those black, black eyes on him. Kept Snape aware of him, always. Made Sure Snape could never forget him. Like he could burrow inside—
Slender and slight and running far too hot. Feverish. Sick. Sick and helpless and relying entirely on him. He could have killed Snape and the man wouldn’t have been able to stop him. He could have whisked him away and locked him up in some tower somewhere so no one else could ever—
Worst? What Prongs means is the Dark. Snape has always brought out the Dark in him.
Snape is naked. Just up the hall, behind that door, Snape is naked.
He is going fucking insane.
‘I really did think he was after Lily. I thought he— I just thought she couldn’t see what he was, couldn’t see the danger, the Darkness there, and that she’d—’ Oh hells, James is at it again. ‘I really didn’t know he was queer. It really wasn’t about that. Do you think Lily thinks it was about that? She does know I didn’t know, doesn’t she? Do you think he’s really queer, or is it some kind of ploy? It’d be just like him. He always was such a cunning little shit— What do you think?’
‘I think—’ he snaps, ‘That he almost died because he chose to resist Voldemort— and I don’t think even Snape would willingly undergo multiple rounds of Cruciatus just to try and get in your wife’s lacy knickers, Prongs. So, I think we were wrong about him, but I don’t think I know what to do about that—’ he sighs, exhaustion lapping at him. He hasn’t slept. Not in those three nights since he first brought Snape here. Not in those three nights when they didn’t know if the man would live or die. Part of it was staying up with the other, watching that pale, slender form, staring at that narrow little chest, his own breath catching in his lungs every time it seemed the man had stopped breathing, panic rising whenever the man’s muscles would cramp, limbs contort— never a full seizure, not after the first dose of the potion, but Snape had been in a bad way. A really bad way. It was always him or Lily by his side, never Prongs, James, Potter. His best mate somehow becoming untrusted. Untrusted with what?
The other part was when Lily would take over from him and he’d go to lie down in the room James keeps for him in this house— nominally for when things are falling apart, but— But. The room he is, he’ll admit, just to himself, just in the chaos of his own head, actually living in full time— and then spending the night staring up at the ceiling, heart racing, thoughts racing too fast for him to catch. ‘I think I need a cigarette,’ he eventually manages, ‘— and some more coffee.’
‘Pads—’ Prongs begins, but he ignores him to go stumbling down the hall towards the stairs and the kitchen and the small, elegant backyard. Oh the wealth and privilege James still enjoys. Able to move from house to house, all belonging to his parents, nothing to get in his way— Well, he’s near the same too, now. He could buy a house, at least. But he does remember what it was like, those few years, the fear and uncertainty. He had been used to certainty. James is used to certainty. Wealth brings a certain kind of certainty— no wonder Lily sometimes looks at them like they’re strange, stubborn children.
Snape’s clothes are greyed, faded, repaired, but clean. He was clean. His whole body clean. None of that strange, unnerving scent of unwashed body that used to cling to him every time he came back from the holidays.
He wasn’t wearing anything perfumed though, no cologne, his hair, the nape of his neck, had just smelt of clean human warmth. Faintly musky. Faintly, almost, sweet.
It’s like it’s all over him, this thing he doesn’t understand, like he’s crawling with it, crawling with strange, unnerving ideas. Snape in his arms, so thin, too thin, too breakable.
He’d sent the man, the boy as was, in after Moony— What the everloving fuck is wrong with him? Why would he send the boy, so skinny even then, underfed and nervy and so, so angry, after Moony?
Prongs made it all alright, but it so easily could have not been, and then all that long, skinny, too skinny body, and all the heat of it, all the scent of it, all the elegant silken drape of it— just wouldn’t be here anymore.
‘What the fuck is wrong with me?’ he mutters as he stomps down the last of the stairs into the kitchen, staggering over to the cooker like he’s had his strings cut. There’s a coffee pot on it, one of those fancy Italian ones, and— Merlin’s beard it makes him want to laugh. How fucking spoilt are they? There’s a war out there, St. Mungo’s has been attacked, and they can take days off just sitting around drinking Italian style espresso— But they did have to take care of Snape. They had to save Snape. Well. Not Prongs, Prongs still doesn’t give a shit— but he was never going to leave his wife.
Not with Snape.
Though she’s with Snape now and Snape’s naked.
Naked.
Of course Snape wasn’t going to let him— and why should he want to? Why did he volunteer? Why does that rejection enrage him so much? He wants to march up there and storm into the bathroom and prove Snape can trust him when he’s naked and vulnerable. Who is he kidding? He’s kidding someone— Himself, probably.
‘He called her Lils, did you hear that Pads?’ Oh for fuck’s sake. James. ‘Lils— she won’t let me call her Lils.’
‘They’re friends, Prongs,’ he sighs, cleaning out the dregs of the last pot of coffee and refilling the pot, putting it on the hob, ‘They’re friends and he’s queer and you and me we were barking up the wrong tree entirely.’
‘But it’s not like they’ve talked in years,’ James moans, coming to stand leaning against the cupboards near him, ‘It has to be what— five years? They were fifteen— How can they still be so close after all this time? Like those five years never happened? Do you really think he’s queer?’
‘I do!’ he snaps, except it’s coming out way more tormented than he intended, and he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t— ‘And I think she knows too. Lily. She didn’t look surprised.’ That gets his friend to shut up for a minute, finally. ‘Maybe they’re like siblings,’ he adds after a while, ‘Maybe that’s why they’re still so close. Siblings, but not from the same parents—’
Oh, Merlin’s beard, Reg— How will he even manage to contact Reg? He needs to get him out of there, away from the Death Eaters. Of course it’s serious, he’s always known it’s serious, the war, Voldemort, all of it— but there’s serious and then seeing school mates use Cruciatus on other school mates. On Snape— What if they use it on Reg? He doesn’t trust Bellatrix not to. She’s always been— wrong. Cruel, even as a child— and she used to like to hurt Reg. Little hexes that weren’t so innocent and were sometimes dangerous. There were a few times he thought she maybe wanted to kill—
What kind of man is he? Not even looking after his own baby brother.
‘Well, if it was just that they were like siblings I would never have—’ James begins, then sighs. ‘No wonder she didn’t want anything to do with me for all that time— If you’re right. I really didn’t know he was queer, though. I would never— not just because someone was queer—’ a little pause, then Prongs gives him a look. ‘Would you? I mean, it’s— it’s not good if that was why— but I can understand it. You were raised in a Dark household, and we all know what some Dark families think of queers— an embarrassment at best, a symptom of Blood Impurity at worst— so I can understand if that’s why you—’
‘No!’ he snaps, whirling on his friend. ‘Merlin’s beard Potter! What do you take me for?! I had no idea at school— no idea. The first I heard of it was from Wormy. No. No. My reason for hating the little—’ the little what? The little wizard as brave as any of them? Braver, even? ‘Snape. Had nothing to do with whether or not he was queer. He just always rubbed me up the wrong way. That’s all. That’s—’
‘He just seemed so Dark,’ James muses after a moment, just as the first spurt of coffee erupts into the top of the pot. ‘Dark and strange and— and dangerous. And she was all Light—’
‘And we were a right pair of pricks,’ he snaps, interrupting whatever his friend is going to say next. ‘Dark or not he wasn’t a Pure-Blood, he wasn’t from some Dark family, he was just a weird little grimy kid, and you and me, we took a set on him from the get-go, for no good reason except he was—’ whatever it was he was. Dirty, poor— unimpressed. No innate respect and awe directed towards two of the brightest sons of the Wizarding world in those black, black eyes. ‘He’s Snape,’ he says after a moment, ‘He’s kind of Dark and he’s got an acid tongue on him, but— but I think we are the ones that fucked up, Prongs, we are the ones in the wrong—’
‘I never thought you’d say that,’ his friend says after a moment, ‘Not when it comes to Snivellus.’
‘Snape,’ he corrects, snaps, then, ‘I never thought I’d witness him standing up to one of his supposed friends, taking a Cruciatus, because he didn’t want to serve Voldemort. It was— I don’t know I could have done it. Not again and again, like he has been, like he’s carrying the damage from doing. I feel humbled, if nothing else.’
‘There’s a first,’ Prongs says with a laugh, ‘Sirius Black, humble—’
‘Maybe you should learn a bit of humility too,’ he says, trying for light-hearted, but that’s hard when it feels like your heart’s in a vice. He feels like he’s going mad. The Blacks do, sometimes— but then it’s usually a Dark kind of madness. Like Bellatrix.
There were times she went after him too, but he was soon bigger than her, and he always fought dirty, not like sweet little Reg, and if she did he was never afraid to bite, and she didn’t like that. Didn’t like the possibility of scars.
Coffee— coffee, coffee, coffee— He pours himself a cup, pours all of it into a cup for himself, ignoring James’ whining about that, dumps in six teaspoons of sugar in the hope it will help, sips it, then adds a slog of milk hoping that will cut some of the excessive sweetness. Coffee achieved. Cigarette next.
That means he has to go outside. Lily makes a fuss— Well. That’s not quite true. James does too. The houses he grew up in was neat and clean and well serviced by neat and clean House Elves, and no one would ever have dreamed of smoking inside anywhere but the drawing room. So he stomps out onto the back step, followed shortly after by his best friend.
‘What are we going to do about him?’ James asks after a moment, looking tall and clean and neat and handsome and utterly out of his depth. ‘She can’t really expect me to be happy about keeping him here? We’re supposed to be living as man and wife, not man and wife and wife’s weird, off-putting friend.’
He shrugs, ‘Why not? You’re already living as man and wife and man’s incredibly handsome best friend.’
‘Yeah, but that’s different,’ Prongs says, then, after an anxious moment, ‘You do know that’s different, don’t you Pads? Things have been hard for you, these last few years.’
‘I’ve got the money now,’ he points out, ‘And, hard or not, it’s not like I’ve exactly been on the run from Voldemort and his bunch of nutters while being intermittently Cruciod. I think I rather lose out on the hard time stakes, don’t you?’
James’ face wrinkles up, ‘Whether or not that’s true, you’ve still had a hard time— and, anyway, it’s my house, and I like you. I don’t like—’
He snorts, and when James whines at him about what he’s laughing at answers with, ‘You married Lily Evans, mate. Your house or not, I don’t think it’s going to be your way that wins the day. What happens every time you try and stand up to her—?’ James opens his mouth to answer, to defend himself, but he speaks over his friend, ‘She ends up pointing out all the ways in which whatever you had to say were completely stupid, gives you that look, and you end up giving her what she wants anyway. Anyway— what could it hurt, letting Snape stay here until he’s back on his feet? I don’t think turning him out on the street to be caught by my deranged cousin or any of her sadistic friends is the right thing to do.’
‘I suppose—’ Prongs muses, reluctantly, before adding, ‘Maybe we can recruit him for the Order. Dumbledore has spoken about getting a spy in You Know Who’s—’
‘No!’ the word escapes before thought, propelled forward on a burst on unexpected fury. He could almost hex James for suggesting it— ‘No! I know you hate him, Snape, but I didn’t think you wanted to see him dead. You saved him when I— Made that stupid mistake. Bellatrix will fucking kill him if she gets her hands on him again, I know she will, I know her. You’d be throwing away all his bravery. You’d be—’
‘But think of what we could learn,’ his friend tries to persuade him. ‘They’ll believe he had a change of heart, Dark wizard like that— You know they will. We could get eyes and ears right there at the heart of You Know Who’s inner circle.’
‘Or,’ he tries to reason, mind racing, ‘We could have the best potions brewer in our entire year on our side—’
‘We already do!’ James interrupts him, irritated, ‘You’re not going to say Snape is better than Lily?’
‘Ok, ok—’ he says, no use trying to win that fight, especially as he’s not good enough at potions himself to know for sure, ‘The two best potions brewers in our year, on our side— and, on top of that, you know how good a duellist he is—’ by seventh year, at least— ‘—and he probably knows more about the Dark Arts than even— even— Well. Most, if not all, of Voldemort’s inner circle. Wouldn’t he be more of an asset—’
A clatter in the kitchen makes him break off, then skitter out of the way of the door as Lily comes storming out, ‘Gimme a smoke,’ she demands, holding out her hand towards him. He exchanges a look with James, before doing as she asks, watching her light up with the tip of her wand then take a deep, angry draft. Did Snape do something to— ‘Skin and bones,’ she snaps a moment later, ‘Skin and bloody bones. What has he been eating? Has he been eating? Take your eyes off him for one moment and he forgets how to take care of himself—’ she takes another deep lungful, green eyes glaring off at the back fence as if she wanted to Cruciatus it, then hisses, ‘If I was a Dark witch I’d Apparate to Spinner’s End and hex his bloody father’s bloody bollocks off.’ After a moment’s more furious glaring at nothing she blinks, then stares down at the cigarette with surprise, as if she has no idea how it got into her hand. With an elegant flick it ends up on the path as she whirls around, heading back inside muttering about what we have he’ll be able to stomach.
He stares at the glowing ember for a moment, then glances at James, finds his friend’s head craned around awkwardly, so he can stare through the window in the door into the kitchen, where Lily is muttering to herself with her head stuck in the fridge.
Upstairs, he thinks, Snape is alone. He wonders if the man’s still naked. If he’s lying in the bed in the guest room, still naked, all pale and slender and breakable and alone and waiting and naked and— and—