FIC: Infatuation
Title: Infatuation Author: nice_girls_play Rating: G Word Count: 750 Challenge: ##311: Song Characters: Severus Snape, Sirius Black, OMC, eventual Snape/Black Warning: AU, post-DH Summary: Third in the series after Absolution and Judgement. It's his first day as a truly free man, and he's spending it on a train.
--
He was spending his first day of freedom on a train.
Not the Hogwarts Express. Not the secret chunnel from Paris to Shanghai or many other magically constructed vehicle of transport. Ordinary British Rail.
He'd managed to give the final, straggling members of his entourage the slip at King's Cross, veering off to the right instead of to the left. He wondered, with a small pang of guilt, what Miss Granger had thought as she watched his retreating back. He didn't give a damn what Black or Mister Potter thought. The two of them had been shadowing him since the day Poppy had refused both the aurors and St. Mungo's admittance to the infirmary, pleading that Hogwarts' staff and resources were more than adequate to care for their injured headmaster. Always hovering, speaking for him when Nagini's bite hadn't allowed him the luxury of speaking for himself. He'd had enough.
He'd renewed his ancient rail pass last year, when he thought Draco might need a quick escape. The boy had returned it, along with an equally ancient car key, secreted in an envelope under his blanket.
The East Coast Main Line took him to Leeds. The Caldervale Line would take him to Halifax, to the lot where he'd stored Toby's Falcon and, finally, to Spinner's End. The whole thing was completely absurd. He was a free man -– no masters to serve, no anticipation of prosecution or imminent death, no responsibilities -– and he was going home. Returning to the seat of misery and toil. It was even absurd to be spending five hours on two trains and forty minutes in a car when he could apparate there in seconds.
He didn't care.
He liked Muggle rail travel. It was soothing. And it allowed him time to think.
His seat was by the window, giving him a full view of green fields and grey, effulgent skies threatening to burst into tears. The air inside the car was cool. He shifted his folded hands in his lap, pushing the sleeves further down his arms. Across the aisle from him, a girl with pink hair and facial jewelry tapped out a tune on her portable music player. After several minutes, Severus thought he recognized it, scratching out the notes on the fabric of his robes:
*“I see you walking... I see you talking... With all of my friends I'm shadowed under... You're like some thunder... I wanna be your friend...”*
He leaned his head against the glass, closing his eyes.
--
He almost didn't feel it: an ancient memory, struggling to the surface. His life was filled with ghosts. What was one more?
--
Marshall Olds had smelled like cigarettes.
Cigarettes, sandalwood incense and some bitter, vaguely fruity scent his mum attributed to 'Spanish antifreeze'.
Marshall wasn't Spanish. No one in any of the neighborhoods around Spinner's End seemed to know where he'd come from. He'd spent most of his adult life abroad, only returning to the house on Pierce Street three years after his brother Sasha had died. There were whispers of him selling drugs in Paris and performing onstage in women's clothes in San Francisco. He'd made the newspapers in Aberdeen by waking up after a year-long coma.
“He attacked his nurse, you know,” Mrs. Bergen whispered over his mother's chipped tea cup, spitting raspberry scone crumbs onto the table cloth.
“He did not.”
“Oh yes he did. After he woke up. Nearly strangled her, I hear. Psychosis they call it. Kept him an extra week just to make sure everything was all right up there...”
They were standing two people behind him in the market the first time Severus got a glance at him. At nine years old, he was just tall enough to see the torn pocket on his denim trousers, the wrinkled silk shirt hanging below the waist of his leather jacket. He had long, stringy brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail and tattooed fingers he drummed on the counter as he waited for change.
“Don't lame me.. Baby strange..”**
“16 p, sir.”
“Thank you, dear. 'Afternoon.”
Severus peered around the woman in front of him, trying to see the man's face as he walked out the front door and towards the pavement. He winced at the sting of Eileen's palm on the back of his head.
“Severus, it's not polite to stare.”
He kept staring, unable to look away.
“Severus!”
--
His eyes opened as the train lurched to the platform.
* The song is "Baby Strange" by T. Rex from their 1972 album Slider.
** Yes, Marshall is singing the song in 1969 (and we are supposed to be confused as to why).