tetsubinatu (tetsubinatu) wrote in lupin_snape, @ 2008-08-04 11:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | fic: pg13, prompt: fantasy fest 08 |
That boy - Part 2 of 5 - fantasy fest '08 - REVISED
Title: That Boy - Part 2 of 5
Author: Tetsubinatu
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount (this part): 800-ish. I know it's short! Sorry.
Pairing(s)/character(s): Snape/Lupin
Challenge: Fantasy Fest 2008
Summary: Long-fic Challenge 25 -- Post-war, plausible survival scenario, established relationship (either new or long-standing). Somehow R finds out that Sirius left a child, and wants to adopt it. I like my S snarky, but not cruel. Any rating. Happy endings are best! :)
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just for fun.
Warnings: none
It had been two years, but the bar of the Hag and Badger - known to its regulars as the Hag’n’Bag - looked just the same as ever. Severus ordered a pint of Old Mild before turning to check the dark corners for the man he was after. He was still in his old corner, and luckily he was alone.
“Make that two,” Severus told the bar maid, holding up two fingers.
He slid into the corner booth at the same time as he slid the pint over to the man in the corner.
“Been a while,” said the man, eyes sharp as a weasel’s.
“I turned respectable,” Severus granted.
The man took the beer, and they drank quietly for a few moments.
“So what’s a respectable War Hero want at the Hag’n’Bag?” the man finally asked.
“Same as ever: a pint of Old Mild and a chat with an old ... acquaintance.”
The man grinned, showing yellowed teeth. “Pay well, War Hero-ing?”
Severus raised one eyebrow, “What do you think?”
“I think you turned respectable. Got a little house, aint’cha? An’ a business?”
Severus pursed his lips. “I answer to no master now,” he conceded.
The other man’s lips twitched. “What, no deep pockets to draw on, no more?”
Severus sighed.
“Twenty galleons,” his informant said briskly.
“Two!” Severus scoffed, “and even then, the information had better be worth it.”
In the end he paid eight. He’d been in a hurry.
The boy called his uncle ‘Uncle Bill’. Everyone else called him Squid. Severus’ informant had assumed that he was interested in Cuttle for his smuggling services to Azkaban, which were apparently reliable enough to make him the premier contact for such services. He was a fighter, a respected street-boxer when he was younger, and still free with his fists. His care for the boy was at best negligent and occasionally brutal, but the boy was well-liked on the street for his good humour and outgoing nature.
And there was one more thing.
Everyone knew, for Squid had made the matter plain upon more than one occasion, that he had promised his mother on her death-bed not to sell the boy for bed services before he turned twelve.
Severus was thinking about this as he apparated to Fortescues. Had the grandmother expectations of a Hogwarts letter? In Knockturn Alley that would be ambition indeed. Or had she merely hoped that by twelve he would be old and swift enough to keep out of his uncle’s grasp?