he took it as his solemn duty to maintain his inn as a bastion of lonely misery for those lost souls who preferred to drink themselves ill This made me snort; no one could put it better, and it's got that self-aware, sourpuss humor that betrays Aberforth's sympathy for outcasts and underdogs.
There had been enough of a pause that he knew his brother and the boy were not actually on a first-name basis, or at least not mutually. This is another of those perfect, pinned-down moments that compresses whole relationships into a deceptively simple observation.
And then, oh my goodness, the scene at Christmas: Aberforth’s mouth twisted. It was nearly a smile. "He believes in true love, my brother."
He expected the boy to smirk. But the look that crossed his face was worse than that.
(…) It was none of Aberforth's business what a boy of twenty-one knew about true love. Or cold-blooded murder, for that matter. It's like a physical blow, because Snape's comings and goings and little airs and sullen sidlings have been tolerated as one might a child's moods. But this moment shifts the ground; the painful irony is suddenly intolerable, and Aberforth extends mercy as if administering medicine.
"I'm not offering pity. I'm offering a hand job. Take it or leave it."
(…) What was the season for but getting rebuffed after a sad grope in the kitchen? Aberforth's voice is one of the great triumphs and pleasures of this fic. His sarcasm is a joy, his stoic pessimism infinitely attractive.
Spring made a man feel alive, but that wasn't always a welcome feeling. Aberforth followed him upstairs, carrying his trunk for him, and they spent most of the next three days fucking. There was no real joy in it--only the scratching of a terrible itch as the spitting drizzle turned warm and the heady smell of damp earth got into everything. Another example of an entire short story condensed into one paragraph. The stubbornly unromantic, utilitarian approach to the flesh is exactly what's needed. Snape, facing his first spring after Lily's death, has to learn to live with being alive, feeling life stir even against his will. And sexual release is as good a way as any of hiding an emotional breakdown.
When he was young, he said, as if he wasn't still soft-skinned and hardly able to grow a beard even after three days of idling in bed. Aberforth was old enough to want to smile at such a thing, and not enough of a knob to actually do it. My heart melted all over them at this moment; such temporary sweetness is meant to be cherished.
he supposed the boy could likely slit a lamb's throat just as dispassionately as he could deliver it. The thought was comforting, and he felt a stirring of fondness. There was nothing a man like him could do to hurt a boy like this. Although I'd say Aberforth is just as capable; capable, for example, of breaking a rooster's neck to ritually distribute its blood. And I think he doth protest too much about the impossibility of hurting this boy. Defense mechanisms, perhaps.
The conversation about Snape helping to deliver a breech birth is fascinating, the perfect backstory touch. He's not squeamish or sentimental, and he works hard; he'd fit right into a farm where death is an accepted part of life.
"You too," he ordered, and a straggler crept out from beneath his shirt collar. A lovely piece of whimsy that made me smile.
He managed to sound rather put-upon for someone already fidgeting to accommodate a hard-on. This is so Snape, grouchy and loath to admit he wants something. Which makes the act of hiding his face almost touching. You do a fantastic job of reminding us, again and again, how young he is, still experiencing so many things for the very first time.
It was from the apothecary, and he could have billed Albus for the loss if he was that petty. Today, he decided he wasn't. Always that tension in the background, except today the boy matters more than whatever debt Albus owes Aberforth.