Pensieves lined the walls of their flat, filling shelves both magical and mundane. Before Severus was old enough to know what that meant, he leaned over and peered into one. The air tasted like sulfur and his mother's perfume, and voices he didn't recognize whispered and taunted and jeered. A wand snapped. Someone laughed. His father pulled him out and cast petrificus totalus before Severus could ask any questions.
*
It rains the day he leaves for Hogwarts. The train pulls out of the station only seconds after he boards; loud and smelling of old socks and sour milk, it bullies Severus into knocking on the first door he finds. Inside, a boy with glasses and a smug mouth tells him to "piss off, please and thank you, before you drip mud all over me."
"A nasty little thing, isn't he," another boy says. "Smells a bit like wet dog, that one does."
"Bet he's a poofter," adds the roundish thing near the back. "A bloody stupid poofter."
The lone girl in the car says nothing at all, but she stands up and shuts the door in Severus' face.
He doesn't cry. Their faces are burnt into his memory. The movement of the train is dizzying, and Severus walks until he can no longer hear their laughter before sliding to the floor. No one is looking, and he slips his wand out of his sleeve and casts an anti-nausea charm.
"Impressive," someone says, taking Severus by the hand and pulling him into a nearby carriage. "That charm isn't taught until sixth year." He isn't quite a boy, exactly, being a bit too tall and serious for that particular designation, but he wears student robes and a prefect's badge and he smiles as he hands Severus a chocolate frog. His hair is long, held back with a green tie, and so blonde as to be almost white; his robes are immaculate and obviously new. Though Severus doesn't feel safe, exactly, or warm, he thinks that this might be the closest approximation he can manage.
*
Books lined the walls of their flat. When Severus was old enough to want such things, he stood on his tiptoes and reached for the largest tome on the shelf outside his room. No one noticed. He hid it under his pillow and read it every night for a week, and when no one noticed him putting it back, he grabbed the next book in line. And so on and so forth, until he'd read everything he could reach. He memorized anything that looked useful, writing down spells and potions on old handkerchiefs and the backs of letters. He practiced wand movements with a spoon he'd nicked from the kitchen.
*
"I'm Malfoy," he says, "nominatim Lucius. Slytherin prefect."
"Snape," Severus says. "Don't know what house I'm going to be in yet, but I think I should like to be a Slytherin." He certainly doesn't want to be in Hufflepuff; his mother was a Hufflepuff. Or Gryffindor, for that matter, no matter how dashing and heroic Hogwarts: A History tries to make them out to be. "You may call me Severus, if you like."
"Why, thank you Master Severus," Malfoy says, laughing. "I think I shall." And then he bows.
Severus buries his head in his satchel and pulls out his Potions text; it's offensively simple, but he holds it in front of his face and pretends that the chapter on the proper storage of powdered ingredients is the most interesting thing he's ever read. The rain beats a tattoo against the window. The information on asphodel is wrong. Malfoy peers over the top of the book.
"Your face is all blotchy," he says, reaching up to touch Severus' cheek. "Interesting."
Severus puts the book on his lap. Malfoy's hand is warm. Severus shivers.
*
When his grandfather died, he dropped his wand near Severus' feet. Severus waited until no one was looking and slipped it into his sleeve; once locked in his room, he tried out the spells he'd copied out. "Lumos," he whispered: a flare of light appeared. "Accio hairbrush." And again and again and again, "Accio hairbrush." The bristles stung against the palm of his hand.
*
"Are you cold?"
Malfoy sounds concerned, but he looks amused. Severus shakes his head, mouth not functioning and tongue swollen and heavy, as Malfoy puts his arm around Severus' shoulders. Malfoy doesn't say, "I'll keep you warm." He doesn't say anything at all. Instead he rubs Severus' arms, up and down and up and down, slow and soft and steady.
Severus is still. He doesn't know what to do with his hands; they flutter like papers left too close to a drafty window. Malfoy is quiet, and he watches Severus like he might actually be worth looking at. Severus wants to run away. He wants never to leave this compartment.
"All right?" Malfoy asks.
The whistle blows. When he looks out the window, Severus sees Hogwarts for the very first time. It is raining, even this far north, and the castle looms out from the grey like a predator.
"I'm all right," Severus whispers, and Malfoy's hand slips beneath the book on Severus' lap. It hurts. Severus closes his eyes, tight enough that the dark beneath his eyelids flares into light, and he bites his lip to keep from crying out.
"Oh, yes." Malfoy is panting, grunting, his voice guttural and uncultured. "Oh."
The hand on Severus' prick slows, then stops, as he feels Malfoy's body tense beside him. It still hurts, and Severus can't decide whether to laugh or to cry. Malfoy's cleansing charm is too harsh, and he swipes half-heartedly at Severus' robes before gathering his belongings. "Come, Master Severus," he says, "first years take the boats over, and they're doubtless waiting on you." He sweeps out of the room.
Severus collects his things and follows. It is still raining.
*
He kept the book in a disillusioned trunk beneath his bed. It was old, the oldest by far of all the books he'd read, and the leather binding crawled beneath his fingers when he opened it. He practiced only at night, waiting until his mother drank her nightly Draft of the Living Death and his father left for work; he checked his form in the ancient mirror above his chest of drawers. "Expelliarmus," he said, firmly and purposefully as directed. "Expelliarmus!"
*fin.
---
Notes: Title lifted from a Czeslaw Milosz poem. For furiosity, as part of Slashfest 2005. Thanks and freshly baked cookies to Luna for swift and sharp beta action.
[once more into the fray]