Forever Seventeen
Chapter 2
James later awoke to the sun's harsh rays descending upon him like a scorned beast, dotting his vision and burning into the sterile sheets. The infirmary was warm, hazy and James felt it too demanding to move his bruised eyes away from the spot on the stone wall he had been watching for the past five consecutive minutes.
“Oh, dear", he heard Madame Pomfrey mutter to his right. He heard the ruffle of her various skirts get increasingly closer as she approached him warily, her footsteps light so as to not disturb him. He internally scoffed at the thought of deserving any kind of peace after the news that had just broken.
The mediwitch stopped at his bedside with a tray-full of potions, some taking on a sickening greenish hue and others plain and colourless. “Lily's done quite a number on you hasn’t she?”, she muttered, partly to herself as she worked on separating the miscellany of potions. He gave no reply.
“Here, drink this, it'll ease the pain”, James heard her whisper as raised the foul-smelling potion to his chapped lips. He turned his head away, his eyes tightly shut, blocking out the world and all its miseries. He couldn't bear to down the thing, knowing it would erase any trace of his pain. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to feel the sting of guilt he had worked so hard to avoid any time his eyes met Snape's.
“Oh dear..”, she trailed off, shaking her head. She crossed her wrinkled hands neatly on her lap and began, “I won’t pretend to know what happened out there Mr. Potter or how you’re feeling at this moment but what I do know is that you can't regrow your bones without at least a bit of pain relief.”, she ended by raising the potion vial to his lips once more. This time, he downed it without protest.
The potion’s side effects were felt immediately. The pain subsided into a dull ache and rendered him sluggish. He lowered his head onto the pillow once more, sinking into its softness with a relieved sigh.
Everything went dark.
His whole body shuddered.
James's eyes flew open. He blinked away the drowsiness caused by the foul-smelling potion before he registered a familiar voice.
“James...”, the calm voice seemed so close yet so far away. He turned his head to the source.
Snape.
Snape?
James's breath hitched. He was here. Severus was here. He was alive and calling out to him.
His eyes widened to the size of saucers.
“Severus...”, he whimpered, his voice pleading, for something, anything from the boy in front of him. He didn’t know what he wanted from him or why he was calling out in the first place. Maybe he wanted Severus to fill the sinkhole that had been rapidly forming in his chest or maybe he wanted an acknowledgement.
Severus’s body seemed to waver, shimmering. A spectral. His face was blank, a calm expression that James hadn’t been able to recognise had been etched onto his ethereal face. His pale skin had taken on an almost unreal tone, flawless. His hair was different from how James remembered it; greasy and unwashed. Snape now wore his hair in a soft braid as he stood at the edge of the bed. Watching, waiting.
James choked on a sob. His arms lay uselessly by his side, they felt heavier than boulders, the toned arms that he had used to win Quidditch and to woo girls had now failed him.
Another sob had escaped, they were suffocating him now. He concentrated all his willpower into lifting his hand. He reached out for Severus.
“Please...", another plea escaped through the deafening sobs, for what? James was none the wiser.
“Come back...”, this seemed to get a reaction out of the boy in front of him. Severus titled his head to the side, as if utterly confounded by James's question, as if it was something so completely out of the realm of possibility, it was laughable. His eyes had even widened a little.
The bed-ridden boy had at this point been crying rivers, his tears and snot mixing together to smear across his face. His eyes were blood-shot and he was having a hard time stifling his sobs.
“Come back to me...please...”, another choked off sob shook James's figure.
The two boys were inches apart but James felt as if they were light years away. Severus was in a different place now and deep down James knew it but he failed to accept the fact. The utterly crushing and demoralising fact.
“James...”, Snape whispered again, his words now increasingly slipping away from James's range of hearing. The latter barely registered it before letting another whimper escape.
“Stay...please...come back..”, another gasp, “and stay this time...”. “Come back to me...”.
Snape merely looked puzzled at James's pleas, as if the latter had been speaking an alien language, indecipherable and completely new to him. His face contorted into an unreadable expression as he moved farther from James.
James’s knee-jerk reaction was to reach out to him but when he went to grab him, there was nothing.
James awoke once more with a gasp, his eyes frantically darting around the room. He fought for air as his hands thumped on his chest, trying to get something, anything. The infirmary had emptied out at this point, the only other occupant having pulled their curtain so as to not suffer any awkward encounters.
He laid down on the bed once more, now thoughtlessly gazing at the spot Severus has been in.
He looked so real. So human. James felt as if he could’ve reached out and touched him. But he couldn’t and James didn’t want to admit how much disappointment the fact had brought him.
Severus had uttered a total of two words during the potion-induced dream but had communicated a thousand to James. He said his name like a question or a mantra and yet a prayer at the same time.
James felt as if they had had a million conversations between them, a million emotions exchanged and even more grievances.
Just then, he heard Madame Pomfrey come in once more by the sound of her skirts. She approached him warily and once ensuring that he was wide awake began furiously fussing over him, fluffing his pillows and checking his bandages. James stayed silent throughout this whole ordeal. Yet again, he couldn't bear to say anything.
“Glad to see you’re awake Mr. Potter, I was beginning to worry to tell you the truth, you’ve been sleeping for ages.”, she ended her rant by shaking her head, seemingly exasperated by his affinity for ending up in her infirmary.
She raised her eyes to look at him with a fondness she reserved especially for him.
“Did you sleep well, my boy?”, she looked at him expectantly. She was already used to his many visits and the interesting stories that came along with them, today should be no different, she thought.
James was still boring holes into the wall and barely registered her inane question.
“No.”, he stated bitterly, closing his eyes for a brief moment. Just to shut out the world, if only for minute, so that he could pretend all of this hadn’t happened and that Snape was alive and well, still being the resident dungeon bat he had deemed him.
“Oh well, that was kind of expected if I’m being honest. The pain reliever that I gave you has a few unpleasant side effects, one of them being unusual dreams, I’m suspecting you had those?”, she asked sympathetically.
James nodded in response. He was too tired to actually give a proper verbal answer.
The mediwitch was just about to exit the infirmary before he stopped her in her tracks.
“Why aren’t you speaking about him?”, he asked her simply, his voice low and teeth grinding against each other, as if wanting to spill way more than he was letting out. James could not make out her expression clearly but he could tell that her shoulders had tensed. Good. He was tired of her skirting around the issue like it was something unimportant and unremarkable.
“About who Mr. Potter?”, she replied with a question that aggravated him.
“Snape. Severus fucking Snape. The student that killed himself yesterday whom I believe you’ve tended to many times. So why?”
“I don't believe speaking about such matters with a student is in any way appropriate Mr. Potter. I am not a mind healer, therefore I won’t pretend to know why Mr. Snape did what he did and I certainly won't discuss it with a student. But I want you to know that I am saddened by his death just as much as the next person and that I won’t ever forgive myself for missing the signs”, she finished her monologue just as tears started to collect in her eyes. She quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand and cleared her throat in a manner that suggested that the conversation was over.
“I’ve given you various portions that have helped speed up your recovery so I believe you should be well enough to attend the Christmas feast, that is, if you wish to.”, and with that she promptly left.
James dressed in silence, the ruffle of his freshly laundered uniform (courtesy of the elves) the only thing disturbing it. He felt the familiar tightening in his throat again, a ball of pent up frustration fighting its way to the top.
The trek to the Great Hall was hellish. Not only was he still feeling the dizzying effects of the pain reliving potion, he also did not know why he was even going to the feast in the first place.
It was Christmas and Snape was dead.
New year’s would come, then he'd graduate, become an Auror, get married, have kids, live out his life and Snape would still be dead.
Severus Snape will be seventeen forever.
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The Great Hall had been completely transformed in honour of Christmas Day. Moat wizards do not celebrate Christmas but Dumbledore thought the muggleborn and half blood students would appreciate a taste of something familiar.
The dizzying effects of the potion made it hard for James to register the two dozen Christmas trees lining each wall, all that could be deciphered was a line of gleaming lights, burning a familiar ache into his head. A miscellany of flashy lanterns and tinsel hung precariously over the students' heads. James could make out a few Ravenclaws huddled together, whispering about something he could not care less about.
He staggered towards the table and collapsed on the nearest jovially decorated bench. Just then, his ears picked up the unmistakable ruffle of Dumbledore's flashy robes sweeping through the hall and settling on the head table.
The old wizard was the picture of innocence as perched on the decades-old chair reserved for the headmaster. His eyes met James's foggy ones just as he clinked his glass goblet, effortlessly silencing the rowdy hall. The familiar twinkle was replaced with a solemn mutedness now, once again twisting James's stomach into a complicated knot.
“ If I may have everybody’s attention please... Yesterday, we lost one our most diligent students. Severus Snape was one of the most hardworking and dedicated people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. I still recall the day the sorting hat placed him in Slytherin. I still laugh about it to this day because that was the moment I realised that Hogwarts was about to witness something it had never seen before. And it did. Severus Snape had been the top-scoring student in all of Hogwarts up until his last moment. I remember his confidence and assurance in himself as he told me that he wanted to earn a potions mastery and go on to open his own apothecary. At just the young age of twelve, he was so sure of himself that it was almost laughable. He wanted to be someone great, someone who would change the world with his potions and more. And I have absolutely no doubt in my heart that he would have gone on to become the finest potions master if there ever was one...had he not left us so early. But I want you all to remember him by his soul, his fighter spirit and not by the actions of his weakest moments.”
Dumbledore’s voice cracked at the final words, a rare sight for Hogwarts' normally composed and jovial headmaster. The wrinkled eyes that usually held a twinkle were now glossed over, a sheen so bright it made his eyes look like glass spheres embedded into empty sockets.
James couldn’t breathe.
It felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his body and the hall itself. He stood up shakily and staggered towards the gigantic doors, his hands working overtime to support his trembling frame. He didn't know where his feet were carrying him or how he was going to get there but his utmost concern at this moment was getting access to some oxygen so it didn’t really matter.
Before he knew it, he was on his hands and knees in the middle of the astronomy tower gasping for air. The overstimulation coupled with the untamed hair sticking to his forehead had him going haywire, his eyes nearly bulging out their sockets. His hand had formed into a fist that had been repeatedly banging against his chest for the better part of his stay at the tower, willing his chest to open up.
Severus wanted to be a potions master.
The thought beat around and echoed in his head till all that was left were those seven words.
James eventually collapsed against one or the pillars, his back sliding down the rough stone dramatically. His breaths still came in short spurts but he was finding it a tad easier to compose himself.
Potter never put much thought into his emotions, considering he had grown up in a happy healthy home, he almost didn’t have to. His parents had been present and supportive every step of the way, anything he asked, they provided and if they refused, it was for a good reason.
His mother and father were not all that interested in arguing or fighting or going through the negative, yet natural motions of married life that everybody and their mother droned on about. They moved in tandem and peace, a general air of indifference and quiet content hovering around them, which was a given if one were to consider the security and stability they had built for themselves.
Any other concept was difficult for James to understand because he had been brought up in a bubble of his own, shielded from the pessimism and harsh realities of life. Granted, he was not completely unaware of the injustices of life, considering he had suffered some in his lifetime but said injustices only extended to McGonagall giving him detention for a prank he had not participated in or his father fulfilling his regular parental obligations by taking away his wand for blowing up the fireplace with it.
This, naturally, meant that James Potter had never been met with much adversity in his lifetime thus leaving him much the same as his parents, not exactly gushing with happiness but a buzzing contentedness. This fact made it especially difficult for him to recognise stronger emotions or think further than what his plans were for tomorrow. It also gave him an undeniable charisma and a zest for life trademarked by him and only him.
The invisible barrier that his parents, peers and even his teachers worked so hard to protect shattered before his very eyes as he leant against the stone wall, fighting for breath. And because it had collapsed so suddenly, he did not know what to do with himself or where to go.
Severus's death hit him like a freight train. It was something so out of the realm of possibility for him. It almost seemed impossible that Snape would follow any other path than the one James had destined for him. It seemed a natural means to an end for Snape to die a snivelling cowards beneath the Dark Lord's feet, anything else was laughable to suggest. The sad thing is, James was not the only person at Hogwarts to assume this future for Severus, it was his teachers, his peers and even Dumbledore.
Dumbledore, the wise headmaster that had spent James's entire time at Hogwarts telling him that help will always be offered at Hogwarts for those in need. The words seemed almost childish to James now, an empty sentiment repeated to scared first years.
As James sat on the dusty floor of the tower, he wondered why Severus was not offered the same help Dumbledore spoke so surely of. He thought about the number of times Severus had been punished and the number or times he and his friends had been punished and it seemed so silly to him now; how vehemently he would fight against Severus's imagined evil, his alleged bad intentions and all those accusations his friends liked to throw around without any proof to back them.
He threw his back against the wall, the impact resonating in his skull. James tried to come up with a reason as to why he had behaved the way he had with Severus. To him, Severus had always been a natural enemy. He targeted the boy for being too close to Lily, which he found threatening because James being James, had the biggest crush on the girl and made it known to the entire school.
Even later on, when Severus was far away from Lily after their fall out, their only form of communication being cursory glances towards each other, an invisible act to the rest of the school but a heart-wrenching gesture to the two doomed friends, James didn’t falter. He still managed to get under the raven’s skin, wayward insults and well-aimed hexes.
Now, as he sat here, head in hands and chin nuzzled to his chest, it seemed so silly, so childish, so stupid it almost hurt him to think about. Entertaining the thought that Severus might have killed himself due to completely different reasons sent another pang of guilt to James's chest because it seemed as if he wanted it to absolve him of his sin.
James’s thoughts were scrambled and for the first time in his life, nothing could comfort him. Not the thought of graduating or becoming an auror or even winning over Lily and starting a picture perfect life with her.
He inhaled a big gulp of air and stood up shakily. He swiped his hands over his face, momentarily composing himself to face the outside world. The cruel world beyond the tower that had abandoned Severus, the one he was expected to live in and surrender himself to. James was going to go out and pretend like a sinkhole hadn’t opened up in his chest the minute he had read those cursed words.
The trek from the tower to the dormitories was as painful as it was long. The stars were shining brighter now, their light casting eerie shadows as he crept along the now desolate halls, the portraits all staring at him pitifully. Every step he took weighed on him like a boulder and every reminder of Severus tore at his heart, the lake visible through the Victorian windows he had humiliated Severus in, the whomping willow Sirius had lured the raven into, the door to charms classroom he had hexed Severus silly in. James could picture these events so clearly and while he usually would have laughed at them with his friends, they now only served to worsen the knot in his stomach. It was not funny anymore. Any joy he might have found in recalling these incidents had been replaced with a sickening disgust.
Once he reached the bright crimson dorm, he collapsed on the couch by the fireplace, exhaustion seeping into his bones, sending pangs of pain through his limbs. The bespectacled boy’s eyes glazed over, staring at nothing in particular. His mind was racing and he was loathe to admit that he could not stop it. He let the thoughts of Severus wash over him like a wave as his hands drew mindless patterns on the throw pillows.
He eventually went upstairs and threw himself onto the awaiting bed, his friends already having been in deep sleep by the time he got there. Just as he was about to doze off, the day’s events weighing heavily on him, a sharp thought came to the forefront of his mind. Severus's funeral. His breathing sped up again as he curled into a foetal position, willing the sleep to come and claim him again, send him into a world where he was not obligated to speak or think or do anything really.
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Scotland got really cold in the winter and sitting on a train for hours on end was starting to weigh on James. The passing greenery flitted past his very eyes as he leaned into the window, his cheek resting on his palm. The compartment was silent aside from the occasional rustle of a page being turned by Remus.
They had both not said a word to each other for the better part of the day, except for when James pleaded with Remus to accompany him to Spinner’s End as his frame shook with nervous breaths. The former had also begged Remus to not bring Sirius along because he could simply, in his own words, not bear it.
“Please...do not bring him, he wouldn’t understand and I cant bear it. He's like a brother to me, you know it, I know you know it Remus, I just need you to promise me that you won’t say anything because he just wouldn’t understand.”
Remus had hesitated for a brief second before registering the look on James's face. His eyes had glazed over, his hands curling into shaking fists.
“Please...”
Lupin nodded sympathetically and immediately pulled James into a bear hug, a rarity for someone as aloof as himself.
Remus had quickly scrawled a few words explaining where the were going to both their parents before sending them off with James's owl. They were both gone before they could receive a reply.
Now they were sitting in uncomfortable silence as Remus pretended like James's behaviour was totally normal and that no he wasn’t acting irrationally by ambushing Severus's poor mother at her own son's funeral due to his overflowing need for closure. Remus knew James like the back of his hand so he refrained from speaking further. The situation was complicated and for the first time in his life, Remus was unable to make sense of it or come up with an excellent solution that would leave everybody content in the end. That’s what he was, a fixer and now he was quite frankly feeling useless.
The bespectacled boy didn’t speak of his emotions like other people did but Remus noticed early on how it worked for him. For the most part, James was quite happy, if not a bit hyperactive but on the very rare occasion that he wasn’t, all hell would break loose. The boy felt everything too deeply, to the point of mental decline at times. If one of his friends was mad at him, he would quickly lose his breath and apologise repeatedly until said friend had reassured him that they had accepted his apology. Any negative emotions would eat at him, unsettling him to the point of physical discomfort. He saw everything as black and white, good and bad. There was no middle ground and this mentality, Remus concluded, is what made him such an ass to Snape and put him in his current dilemma. Suffice to say that the prank almost put James into a comma.
The train came to a halt with a deafening groan. The few people that had rode with them quickly spilled out, leaving only the two of them. James fiddled with his hands before taking a deep breath and disembarking along with the rest of the students, Remus following wearily after him.
Lupin made quick work of hailing a taxi to take them to Cokeworth, the driver looking at them suspiciously before muttering to himself and speeding off. Remus was unable to figure out how James had discovered Severus's address but he kept his mouth tightly shut considering James's fragile state at the moment.
The road to Cokeworth was as depressing as it was long. The cab driver kept sneaking glances at them through the rear-view mirror, trying to figure out why two posh boys would be going to such a dilapidated area. Of course, James took no notice of this as he was too busy watching the grey houses pass by, the wind occasionally whipping his hair the opposite direction.
Cokeworth was unlike anything James had ever seen before, patchy paintwork and decrepit houses littered the neighbourhood, every single one of the either missing a door or a window. Not to mention the smoky smell that had buried itself in every nook and cranny in the neighbourhood, sending jolts of nausea up their throats. James had read up on it the night before boarding the training; mill town. Cokeworth was a mill town, that explained why Severus always smelled like that every first day of school.
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“You sure this the right address Jamie?”, Remus asked carefully. James had been staring the splintered door for the better part of an hour now, waiting. For what? Remus was none the wiser. His eyes darted from the door to Remus and from Remus to the door about a billion times before the werewolf nudged him towards the steps leading up to the greying house before them. “How about you just knock, I’ll be right here beside you”, Lupin's words seemed to restore confidence in James as he took a deep inhale and knocked lightly on the door.
Silence engulfed them in a suffocating bubble. The hairs of James's nape had stood at attention, waiting for anything, a faint sound or a loud crash. Just anything.
Nothing came.
James tried again, this time more hurried, his breathing was getting faster and his knocks more frantic. “Mrs. Snape?”, he asked warily. Again, no reply came except for the faint sound of dogs howling from afar.
They waited with in silence with bated breaths. Remus was too afraid to break it lest he send James down a mental spiral again. The winter air had rendered their fingers numb, James's hands now aching as he banged them against the door. “Please..” he muttered to himself.
“Maybe we should leave Jamie, nobody’s answering and it’s getting really cold, I don’t think it’s safe to be out here any longer. Let’s go back.”, Remus carefully suggested, his eyebrows slightly furrowed in worry.
James swung his head to face him, teeth gritted and eyes watery. His eyes had widened to an unimaginable size as he furiously inhaled and exhaled.
“Please Remus, I can’t give up. I can't give up on him. Go if you want but please don't stop me.”, James fists had tightened to an almost unbearable level, his breath hitching on sob. Remus felt a pang hit his chest, how could he deny James, the purest and most loyal person he had ever met, his request? The realization struck him like a thunder clap; James would rather die than leave without something to satiate him, something that would put his mind at ease, assuage his guilt. This would eat him alive.
“Alright, I’ll wait, we'll try together”, Remus muttered reassuringly. James sagged in relief at the words, giving the werewolf a wet smile. The bespectacled boy encased his hand in his own and squeezed tightly, a silent thank you. They were still standing at the decrepit door, cheeks stinging from the biting air. James looked at it with a renewed sense of hope, he was going to talk to Severus's mother today and nothing would stop him.
James knocked once again and the door swung open, startling the two boys and revealing a ghostly-looking woman, her hair curtaining her sallow face. James felt his stomach drop, she looked so much like Severus. The eyes, the long, black hair, the wispy frame, the high cheekbones, the bony hands, everything. James felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs, leaving only a pulsating muscle aching for more. Looking at her was painful because if he looked long enough, he could almost pretend that Severus was the one staring at him suspiciously.
“I see you've not given up... who are you and what do you want?”, her voice was quiet, so low that the boys had to strain their ears to hear. She looked as if she had just been woken up from a long slumber, her eye bags stretching kilometres. The half-hooded oh-so-familiar onyx eyes surveyed them, looking for a clue as to why they were standing at her door in negative degree weather. Her frail body shook, the white night gown she had been wearing doing little to insulate her from the biting cold.
“Mrs. Snape.”
“Ms. Prince.”, she corrected Remus sharply.
“Ms. Prince...my name is Remus Lupin and this is James Potter, we were Severus's classmates...”, Remus supplied. James looked as if he had just been stupified, his mouth hanging open, body frozen, either from the cold or from not knowing what to say in such a moment. Remus was having a hard time keeping it together, Snape's mother looked exactly like him and those onyx eyes had just brought back a wave of unpleasant memories.
The witch looked them up and down again, scrutinizing them for more information. “What do you want?”, she cut through the haze, straight to the point. The boys blanked. What did they want? They just showed up at a random witches house expecting her to welcome them with open arms. James, in particular, was floored. The look on the witch's face unsettled him, she did not want him here and he could understand why. Her teenaged son had just killed himself and now two boys she has never heard of show up at her door, waiting to be let in.
Remus snapped back to reality faster than James, who had been standing like a deer caught in headlights for the past minute. “We just wanted to offer our condolences ma'am, we know it probably hasn’t been easy since...you know...”.
“Since my son killed himself.”
Remus sputtered while James, who had been slowly building up the words to talk, was rendered silent again, his words shoved back down his throat. The Welsh boy swallowed loudly, breaking the tense silence that had enveloped them.
James side stepped Remus and all at once he spit out his first sentence. “We want to offer our condolences...”. The witch seemed taken aback by this, though the only hint of this being a twitch of the eye. As far as she knew, Severus did not have friends. He could barely stand being around other people, let alone have two friends after Lily. This sparked a twitch of curiosity in her, it also brought a touch of relief. She had been searching high and low for anything about Severus, trying to understand why he did what he did. Now, these two young men were in front of her silently pleading to be let in so she gestured for them to come in, opening the door wider.
The house, though visibly old, was clean. Not a trace of dust or disarray, which is what they expected upon entering considering the current situation. Eileen led them to the living room, the flowery wallpaper doing little to hide the creeping desolation.
Remus and James sat on the larger sofa, the springs digging into their thighs, while Eileen settled with a heavy sigh on the blue armchair before them. The room was quiet except for the faint sound of a church bell ringing in the distance, though this was only familiar to Remus, having endured countless nights kneeling by the family altar before bed and then being woken up by a devout Christian mother to go and kneel again at the Church altar. A few minutes passed in an unyielding silence before either of them spoke, the words lodged in their throats, suffocating them slowly.
Eileen’s eyes darted between the two of them, a heavy exhaustion prominent in the hunch of her shoulders and an almost painful looking furrow in her brows. Her chest moved in slow, little motions, as if the simple act of breathing was taking a toll on her – James could relate. Remus looked around wearily and began, “I...uh...well...we actually, we want to say sorry for your loss, we know it mustn’t be easy to deal with all this...ahem...”.
“All this?...”
Remus felt as if he was communicating with a brick wall, Eileen’s face had contorted into so many indescribable expression, it was getting increasingly difficult to tell which was which. Her open-ended questions were also tying a knot in his stomach and skirting around then would not do much good considering they showed up at her house unannounced.
“Go home, Remus", James piped up, after having been tracing patterns one of the old throw pillows throughout he whole ordeal. Remus blanked, hadn’t James begged him to come with him to meet Severus's mother? Remus felt a hot rush of annoyance, he didn’t know what was going on with James or why he had dragged him away from Hogwarts for this little visit but he quite frankly did not care anymore, James was obviously frazzled and Remus did not have the mental capacity to deal with the fact. He figured the bespectacled boy would at least know how to get himself home safely and with that final thought, he chucked his coat back on and made for the door.
The door closed with a resonating bang and they were both left in silence yet again. These silences were starting to take a toll on James, he wanted to speak, say something, break something, literally do anything but he was paralyzed, his limbs heavy from the cold or disuse, as if they had been chopped off completely.
“How did you know my boy?”, the innocence of ‘my boy’ astounded James. Now that he had come to think of it, Severus was just a boy, no more than a sixteen year old boy that the world had deemed a vicious death eater. Eileen's words struck a chord in James, Severus was a boy and would continue to be a boy for the rest of eternity.
“I am...uh well...I was Severus’s classmate", James replied, the reality of the situation hitting him like a freight train. His thick winter coat was starting to suffocate him, the warmth a claustrophobic feeling rather than a comforting one. His face was flushed, from embarrassment or shyness or nerves, James didn’t know. All he knew was that Eileen's face now held a longing gaze, her obsidian eyes boring holes into him and he couldn’t breathe.
“Were you his friend?”, Eileen enquired innocently, her expression hopeful. James wanted to dig himself a hole and crawl into it. Why had he come here? Why was he so adamant on meeting Severus’s mother? What did he want out of this? He wondered if maybe this was some kind of messed up atonement ritual he was putting himself through. He figured that even if it was, he deserved it. His perfect life had unravelled before him in the span of two days and now he was faced with the cutting truth. The sugar-coated years he had lived now seemed like a sickly sweet fairytale. A war was brewing within the halls of Hogwarts and all he had done was turn his head away, choosing to pick on the kid that needed help the most during these turbulent times.
All those times Lucius Malfoy had encased Severus's nape with his large manicured hands, all those hisses and insults he threw at him, all those whispered threats and thinly-veiled contemptuous remarks that had slithered from his mouth, James turned a blind eye. He placated himself with the thought that Severus wanted it, he wanted the glory of being a death eater, he wanted to hurt muggleborns and climb up the rotten social ladder of pureblood society and James often made fun of him for that, not knowing that with each taunt, Severus was getting closer to the edge, with each cruel laugh, Severus was tearing apart even more.
James snapped back to reality, his train of through dissolving into an acidic sludge of negativity in the back of his mind. He had been staring at the wall behind Eileen for the better part of a minute now and Eileen was getting confused so he figured it was best to give her a quick reply, however much it ate at him to lie to this poor lady and tell her that he had actually been more of a tormentor than a friend to Severus.
“Yeah...kind of. I mean, yes.”
“Oh...”.