Princess

Severus drew his feet back, enjoying the cool breeze caresing his lanky hair, then, when the momentum gathered, he kicked out with all his strenght, let go of the chains and flew. He stretched out his hand and Lilys' petite fingers entangled with his. They stayed suspended in mid-air for a second and then nimbly landed at the playgrounds gravel. 

Laughter of the two children rang through the air like silver tinker bells.

Severus basked in the affection that shon from his friends' astonishingly green eyes. He smiled, but suddenly Lilys' face paled and contored. "Something is wrong, Sev" she shirlled.

He followed her gaze and gasped when he saw her small hands slick with blood. "Lily!"

But when he looked up at her again she was no longer a nine year old girl, but a young woman, her long red hair falling in cascade over her shoulders and the green eyes of hers were wide in fear. She tried to speak, but only bloody foam bubbled past her lips.

Something crashed and Severus' head snapped up. He had wand in hand, even before he fully woke up. 

He shuffled up to inspect what caused the sudden commotion, but before he as much as stood up the culprit promptly revealed itself with a soft hoot. It was a tiny owl, carrying damp newspapers in its beak.

Severus' breaths were coming out in sharp staccatos as he tried to calm down from the fright of his sudden awakening and from the terrible dream, but with the thought of the dream all memories of previous night returned and crushed over him like a tidal wave. He bit down a groan and craddled his pounding head. Oh heavens.

"Fuck you off" He bristled and slashed his wand. The postal owl - who until now demanded to be paid for its morning delivery by nibbing on Severus' ear in downright rude manner - squeaked and was thrown at the other side of the room, leaving only handful of feathers in its wake. Severus was quite certain that he just canceled Blacks' subscription of the Daily Prophet.

Thankfully the owl incident didn't caused Ida to wake up, for Severus wasn't in a slightest feeling ready to be dealing with a lucid toddler. He sniffed, leaned over to fix the cloak so it covered the girl proprely and he himself shivered.

With everything going on Severus didn't paid much mind to his physical discomforts the previous day, but now he could not unnotice how awfully he really felt. The white shirt of his was drenched in sweat, uncomfortably sticking to his body and the bouts of vertigo were back with revenge. He could also feel every and all of the wounds recieved during the yesterdays skirmish and the hollow ache which settled in his chest last night now spreaded up his throat and down to his stomach too, acomponied by an evergrowing nausea. He couldn't abstain from a small, pathetic whine.

To get his mind on to other things, his eyes darted to the newspapers, but a second too late he realised how stupid idea that was. All the headlines read; He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is gone! A baby survived a killing curse, The Boy-Who-Lived vanquished You-Know-Who, The Potters' are dead! 

He furiously threw the papers aside. He was all too ready to set them on fire, just as a futile outlet for his churming, and maybe to warm up a little too, but then something caught his attention. During their flight the papers opened up and from one of the pages stared face of a man he saw just few hours ago; his unlikely host. The caption spread: Sirius Black - captured for murder of Peter Pettigrew and twelve muggles.

"Well, that escalated" Severus commented dryly for himself and let out long breath. According to the article Black was also accoused of collaborating and high treason, and by now was sound of his way to Azkaban, to await his trial.

The news left Severus with mixed feelings. The idea of Black rotting away in prison weren't anything to make his heart any heavier than it already was, but what he could not stomach was the way in which it got all twisted, so that Pettigrew got to look as some kind of tragic hero. He just hoped that Black took him off in some especially painfull way. Well, he better should, if it was necessary to kill twelve innocent people on top of it. That Black was a psychopath capable of a murder Severus knew since their fifth year, yet still, twelve? That was quite shocking, and to shock a Death Eater with ones' brutality really said something, albeit if the Death Eater was admittedly shitty and decidedly no longer active.

Late morning listlessly passed at 12 Grimmauld Place with Severus aimlessly brooding through the kitchen, unsure of what to do and desperatedly trying to ignore his rising discomforts. In attempt to busy himself, he set to heal his burned elbow, but the wound was on such an awkward place that he was unable to reach it, he threw up and also tried to clean his shirt that got besmirched by Rabastans' filthy blood when he sliced open his artery. In short, he did lot of things in order to keep his mind occupied so it wouldn't stray in to undesirable places, but it was mostly for naught, for he was deteriorating by the minute, his body racing with his mind of who were going to snap as first.

Ide grew fussy over the last hour, but Severus always did all in his power to patt her back in to sleep. He maybe even hummed one time, though he would deny that under any and all circumstances, so it didn't really count, he presumed.

Just as he settled back after one of those please-sleep-some-more actions, Severus' ears precieved the unmistakable sound of the lock-work from the front doors. His tachycardia increased; he hadn't has a clear idea of what kind of visitors could be expected in this house and in these times, so he stood up, positioning himself in between Ide and the entrance, and waited with his wand rised.

"Quite rich of you, trying to attack me in my own kitchen, Snape" Absolutely haggard and dishevelled looking Black appeared in the doorway.

Severus had to remind himself to snap his mouth shut, for his jaw dropped by its own volition upon beholding such sight. "Oh, I wasn't exactly expecting you. Ever again at that" He retorted, lowered his wand and nodded towards the newspapers. Black grimaced. 

Severus placed one palm on to the table to steady himself, still recovering from the shock and the transmission in to fully vertical position. "How did you avoided Azkaban?" He asked then with pinch of suspision.

"Well, avoided" Black growled and fully entered the room, taking off his ruffled cloak and imedilately summoning a carafe of fire whiskey.

"How? Here on the picture you seems to be all nicely shackled up"

"Like I'm going to tell you, Snivellus" Black snapped, after taking a long swing of the bottle. 

Severus sat back down and picked up the papers. "Not gonna lie Black, you surprised me. Thirteen in total, that's quite a number. Wouldn't have expected such a slaughter from a Dumbledores' boy" He taunted in falsly mild voice, eager to let off some steam from his own misery by adding bit more in to Blacks'.

Only the other man hadn't played along. Instead of thorny reaction, Black sank in to a seat two chairs away from Severus and let out a shaky breath. Oh, guilty then, are we? Severus guessed, and privately thought that it served him just right. Such a deed was definitetly worthy of haunting the offender.

But what Black said next rendered Severus speechless. Well, at least for a while.

"I hadn't kill a single person"

"Wha- what do you mean?"

"I hadn't kill a single person" Black repeated and dully stared at the fat headline drawning him out a murderer.

"So Pettigrew is still alive?" 

The room, all of sudden, grew unbearably, suffocatingly hot, Severus noted and swallowed forcefully.

Black only nodded, his hands holding the bottle shaking.

"How?" He asked again and this time, Black answered.

"I cornered him at the street, there were some muggles around, but I paid them no mind. I just wanted to destroy Peter for what he did" He let go of the bottle and instead craddled his head. Severus had to strain his ears to hear proprely.

"I was just about to finish him off, when he... When he blew the whole street up in the air, with all those people" He swallowed thickly before continuing. "Then he screamed from top of his lungs, that it was me to betray James, cut his own fucking finger off and ran away down the drain"

Severus frowned. Until then he could picture the scene quite vividly and was even surprised by Blacks' candidness, but now either he was too tired to comprehend proprely or something was not adding up.

Black looked up and barked humorless laugh. "He's an animagus, Snape. He turned in to a fucking rat and scuttered down the ditch. And yes, before you say something to demonstrate your blade-sharp wit, the irony is not lost on me"

Severus held his tongue still, partly awed to learn that such a dim-wit as Pettigrew could became an animagus, and partly because indeed, he was just about to point out the wry coincidence of the selected animal. 

He hasn't expected Black to go on, but the man continued. "That's how I escaped. The auror guarding me wasn't the sharpest. I snatched his wand and turned in to dog. I bit him too on my way out"

"You are an unregistred animagus?" Severus groaned and shook his head. That explained so many unexplainable things from when they were at school. Ah, bloody hell, had he only knew... He could have him thrown out from school in a blink. Why, he could have got him in to a prison. "You son of a bitch" He uttered sourly.

To his surprise Black chuckled. "While I don't appreciate your tone, you might not be wrong about my dear mother"

"You all were, three animages and a mangy werewolf, weren't you?" Severus spat with disbelieving contempt. Of course they were, filthy bastards.

"Jealous, Snivelly?" Black mouthed around the bottle.

"Why, of your happy, little, friendly quartet? Not really, when I see how well it played out" Severus watched Blacks' face intently, to see whether his remark hit him sufficiently, or whether he should spell out that - one of them was dead, one a treacherous rat, one an outlaw and generaly despicable human being, and the last an unhuman abomination - but by the way the other man visibly paled, Severus supposed that he got the message all right.

"Fuck you, Snape" He mumbled softly.

Severus had a half mind to fuck him back, but before the words progressed the journey from his brain on to his tongue, the will to retort completly subdued. What were they even talking about and why? All at once he felt completly spent and struggled to fathom why were he even baiting Black in his goddamn kitchen. In fact, this was the last place on earth where he wanted to be right now, with the last person and in the worst situation imaginable. What of petty grudges when Lily was dead and Pettigrew was free - partly owing to his incapability to aim proprely - and when death awaited him and his unwanted ward right behind the doors of this infernal house?

To the hell with all, he wanted to go away.

Numbly, Severus stood up, but imedilately regreted the decision, for the ground tilted and all went black.