Severus Snape in the Hogwarts Dorms with Wizarding Pornography -- Part 2 Title: The Unicorn Test Author:ratherbrightred Character: Snape Location: Hogwarts dorms Object: Wizarding porn Other Characters: Sirius Black, Lucy (OUC), various others Rating: porny (nc-17) Warnings: Zoophilia. Melancholia. Loneliness. Humor. Word Count:~15k Disclaimer: I don't own the snacky snunicorn. Not for profit. Author's Notes: --Fast & loose w/Mauraders timeline, because, I never really figured some of that stuff out. --I owe it all to the snunicorn shippers, whose dedicated work inspires me in all aspects of life… --Some might find the whole premise of this is very OOC for all involved. But is it crack? I'm not sure. --graciously beta'd by hannahfmuk (LJ)
The holidays arrived entirely too soon. Severus went through the familiar routine of packing up some of his things, setting his animals free (except for two of the birds who still needed his attention) and reporting to the mostly empty Ravenclaw dorm, where he stopped by the door and looked at the parchment for his room. Severus Snape, Sirius Black, third floor back bedroom. There were only five other names on this list, and only two other boys. Why couldn't they all have their own rooms? There was plenty of space. Snape sighed, making his way to his appointed room, where he found Padfoot stretched out by the fire, his feet twitching in sleep. A promising start. If only he would stay like that for the next two weeks. Severus was very quiet as he put away his things; Sirius had claimed the spot closer to the fire by tossing a pile of hastily assembled belongings on top of and around the bed.
Padfoot still stirred some deeply-buried affectionate part of his soul. He smiled at the sleeping dog as he tip-toed out of the room, hoping to get some reading done in Ravenclaw's spacious, light-filled library. It was so nice to be away from the dungeons. He found Slytherin House oppressive, both architecturally--the dim light filtering through the lake made him feel like he'd wandered into a submarine--and socially.
Three uneventful days passed before the inevitable climax, as it were, with Sirius. Sirius spent the first night as Padfoot, endearingly nosing under the covers with him as he slept. The second night, Sirius produced a small bag of marijuana, or pot, as he called it, and Severus spent a hazy evening devouring caramel popcorn and savory scones while staring into the fire. He'd commandeered a comfortable chair with padded armrests, and he spent most of the third day and night sitting in it reading. Sirius spent the evening of the third night firecalling people, and he had the courtesy to do it elsewhere.
Severus awoke to an empty room and a plate of scones and knew something was afoot, but he couldn't say precisely what. Sirius was trying too hard. He must have known Severus would appreciate Padfoot, getting stoned, being left alone last night, and now the breakfast. Snape sighed. He had a fairly good idea what Black wanted in exchange for these niceties.
A day of tinkering with Wolfsbane almost completely redirected his attention. He settled into his chair after dinner, ignoring Sirius, who was flopped on his belly in bed, fidgeting a bit, his feet waving back and forth in the air behind him. He was flipping through a magazine, pausing now and then to smack his lips, something Severus never did while reading.
"Oi! Sniv!" he called, wiggling around to face Snape, who looked up from the fire just in time to be hit in the face by a more recent issue of the porn he'd been gifted two weeks ago.
"Black!" Snape threw the magazine back as if it had burned him.
"Did you like the other one? With the 'Leather and Western' feature?" Sirius tossed the magazine back and Snape glared at Sirius, glancing at the cover and blushing. "Well, did you like that one? Did you even look at it? I've also got the nautical issue." The man on the cover winked at Severus, slapping his bare arse and making kissy faces.
"Black," Snape said, his voice high and squeaky. He swallowed, trying again. "Black, where do you even get these?"
"Got the first issue in London. My folks live there, you know. Then I subscribed. They deliver by owl," he added. "Not very many decent queer rags. Not that I read the articles much, mind you, but at least they have some. Reviews of lube, interviews with the models, that sort of thing."
"Do your friends know? That you, you know?"
Sirius shrugged. He didn't seem to care.
Severus opened the magazine cautiously, slapping it shut again when he saw two completely naked wizards, one sticking his cock up the other one's bum. He felt his heart start racing and his cheeks flushed a fetching shade of pink. Sirius winked at him, his hips wriggling obscenely on the duvet.
"Fancy a wank, Sniv?"
Severus did, rather. He turned toward Sirius and suavely gulped some air, choking desperately until Sirius leapt off the bed and slapped his back.
"Well then?" Sirius certainly had a one track mind.
"Have you got any, you know, cream or anything?"
"Better than that." Sirius rooted around in his trunk and tossed Snape a tube. "Muggle stuff. Really good."
Snape snatched the tube up and looked at it, then smelled it. Was this a horrible practical joke? Would he end up with his hand glued to his bum? Seeing the magazine confirmed that he'd been doing it right before. Apparently the arse was the key thing.
"Oh, come on, I'll use some too, we'll keep it right here. I'm not trying to fuck with you." Sirius snorted. "Well, I am, but not like that." Sirius flopped in the other armchair, tossing the lube on the table and unbuckling his belt.
Severus briefly thought that this might be a terrible idea, but then mustered up his courage and undid his trousers, pulling them down along with his pants and yanking off his socks.
"You're going all out!" Sirius said approvingly. Snape glared at him, settling back in his chair and kicking his knees up over the armrests. If he'd looked, he would have seen Sirius blinking at him, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as Severus pushed one of his long, slender, glistening fingers up inside his pale, bald bum. Snape shut his eyes, at first imagining his fantasy future with Lily and lots of stray animals. His mind eventually wandered back to the dirty magazine. He couldn't envision a whole entire cock fitting up there. Even as he added a second finger, he knew his cock was a good deal wider than that. He searched around for that spot and found it more accessible with his legs hooked over the armchair.
Sirius, meanwhile, had slid down to the ground and moved as close to Snape as he dared. He'd been expecting five minutes of furious wanking, with maybe a glimpse of Snape's cock, perhaps even just the head of it, but instead, here was Snivellus with his fingers up his bum, his other hand stuffed two knuckles deep in his mouth, sucking and moaning. He couldn't have paid for a better show. He fished himself out of his pants and wanked slowly, feasting his eyes on those long pale legs and the obscene activities going on between them. Snape's legs trembled when he pushed deeper inside, and his cheeks hollowed around his fingers in a very alluring way.
Sirius made a quick decision, abandoning his cock to grab the bottom of Snape's dingy vest and horrible jumper and yank everything up over his head, interrupting his busy hands in the process. Severus looked up, wild-eyed and surprised, as if he'd forgotten Sirius was there. Sirius grinned at him, gently shutting his eyes with his fingertips and guiding his hand back to his arse. Snape started to return his free hand to his mouth, but Sirius stopped him, taking his soft, wet fingers between his own lips. He arranged himself on the floor so he had a good view of Snape's lovely arse, and his cock, which was magnificent, twitching, and completely neglected. He didn't dare touch him there. Better to just watch this time.
Snape seemed to like how he was sucking on his fingers, if the noises he was making were any indication. Sirius required only a few choice pulls before he spunked up all over the chair and his trousers, and Snape had just gotten going, moving his hips against his fingers and curling his toes. Sirius let his fingers go with a pop, smiling in what he hoped was a soothing way when Snape's eyes snapped open. Sirius slicked up Snape's hand with a generous blob of lube and guided his palm to that gorgeous cock, wrapping Snape's long fingers around his own throbbing flesh. Snape gasped, straining against his fingers and pushing them in further, and was soon overtaken by an orgasm beyond Sirius's wildest expectations. His legs shook, his toes curled, he let out a pained cry, and then he went limp, his scrawny chest splattered with an enormous amount of spunk, as if he'd been saving it up for months.
"Let me clean you up," Sirius whispered, going to work with the warm wet flannel that slapped into his hand when he murmured a summoning spell. Snape was possibly unconscious, his wiry muscles twitching. Sirius longed to use his mouth and lap up all that delicious white spunk, but he contented himself with a surreptitious swipe of his tongue across his upper lip, where a convenient pearl rested against his skin. "There you are," Sirius set down the rag and sat back on his heels, not sure what to do next. Snape had shut his eyes and curled up in a ball, tucking his knees under his chin. He was as limber as a circus freak, Sirius thought appreciatively. What possibilities! If he peered between his feet, he could still make out that lovely arsehole, glistening with lube. It was almost enough to make him go hard again. This was so above and beyond anything he could have anticipated. How could Snape have allowed this to happen? Was it because Snape had that bizarre way of trusting him and feeling comfortable with him? Or, even more alarmingly, was this a normal wank for him? Sirius nearly sobbed at the thought, his overwrought cock stirring painfully in his lap.
"Snape," he whispered, running his hand up his smooth, warm calf. "Severus," he added, a little louder. Snape opened his eyes, tucking his legs in closer. He didn't recall ever hearing his first name from Black, who was now holding out a hand to him and pulling him shakily to his feet. What had he been thinking? How could he have possibly ended up naked with Sirius Black, and not just naked, but sticky and post-wank naked? Sirius, he noticed, had not felt compelled to take his trousers off, and was fully dressed. This was profoundly embarrassing. Nonetheless, he felt strangely passive and tired as Sirius herded him over to his bed and settled him in, climbing in beside him and pulling him close.
"Is that what you always do?" he whispered. Snape looked up at him, his face as open and trusting as when he was Padfoot, and nodded. Sirius shuddered against him, pushing his cock against Snape's soft stomach. "That's what you always do? You fuck yourself with your fingers? That's unreal, absolutely brilliant!" Severus decided not to mention he'd only done it twice. "Will you let me kiss you?" Snape looked horrified. "All right, we don't have to do that yet." He pushed Snape's scraggly unkempt hair away from his face, enjoying his sharp cheekbones and unnaturally long eyelashes.
"You're not so hard to look at without that mess hiding your face," he said. Snape looked dazed, as loopy as Sirius had ever seen him, even more out of it than when he'd been thoroughly stoned.
"Sirius--I--why?"
Sirius shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "I just wanted to see you happy. Like you are with Padfoot. You're positively radiant."
Snape's brow furrowed and Sirius smoothed out his forehead with his thumb, smiling at him. Snape shook his head, as if driving his thoughts from his mind, then shut his eyes. Sirius was shocked to find him dead asleep in five minutes. Well, nothing to be done. Snape was one of those blokes who had to have a bit of a lie down after buggering himself silly with his own fingers. He sighed, untangling himself from all those pale, smooth limbs.
Sirius crawled out the window to the small stone landing that wrapped around Ravenclaw's tower and lit a cigarette. For the first few puffs, he felt optimistic, even elated, at the prospect of properly fucking Severus Snape. But after this first cigarette, when he was considering a second, he started to worry about his almost-innocent wanking invitation. What the hell had he done? What would he do when James and Remus and Peter came back? How could he possibly get away with this? Wouldn't Snape's inherently bitter, spiteful personality assert itself eventually?
Surely one of them would cock this up, and it would probably be Sirius, given his track record with Snape and virtually everyone else in his life. And despite his sarcastic tongue, Snape was innocent. Innocence mixed with unintentional and devastating hotness, Sirius added. Who the hell brought themselves off with their fingers up their arse? And who would dare do it in front of another person? That was the bit that blew his mind, that Snape would have the courage to strip off and fondle his bum with an audience. Sirius briefly wondered what else he could get Severus to show off for him. But back to the problem at hand. What had he done? He wasn't concerned about his family; they were alienated enough already, despite his good credit with Madame Malkin. His friends had to be somewhat prepared for this, what with his constant mooning about over Snape and his dog washing abilities. It was just that Snape would never ever fit in with them. But then again, did Sirius really fit in with them? He was pretty sure he was the only queer among them, although Peter struck him as someone who would accept a blow job from any willing source.
After hours of smoking on the narrow ledge, Sirius let himself relax into dog form, wishing that Padfoot could smoke cigarettes. He pawed around until he was comfortable enough to sleep, feeling too guilty about what he'd done to Snape to continue sleeping next to him. If only he didn't have a bottomless sense of doom about where this whole thing was headed. He could handle merely taking Snape's quivering, wailing virginity, and he could also handle ruining a relationship, Merlin knows he'd done that plenty of times before, but he couldn't handle both in the same go. He'd never been with anyone so dramatic, someone whose virginity was so palpable and momentous. And that fucking unicorn. Hell. He buried his nose even deeper into his paws, remembering how happy and relieved Snape had looked to hop on that ethereal creature and ride away. If Sirius fucked him properly, as he was destined to do, he'd never be able to do that again. Padfoot covered his eyes with his paws, groaning.
Severus woke up alone and smelly. Sirius was nowhere in evidence, nor Padfoot, but the room reeked of spunk and cigarette smoke, so he couldn't be far away. He followed his nose to the window, peering out and finding Sirius perched on the little balcony outside their window, wrapped up in a quilt, only his hand and a cigarette, and sometimes his nose, poking out from it. Severus wasn't sure what to do. It was freezing cold, and he didn't smoke, so there was no natural reason to go out and join Black. When he turned away with the goal of shuffling his sticky bum into the bathroom, he saw that a small but beautiful Christmas tree had been installed while they slept.
He rapped on the glass until Sirius stirred, crawling back into the room. Snape pointed at the tree and Sirius smiled, but his eyes looked puffy and sad. They sat in front of the tree for a few minutes, Snape enjoying the fairy lights, Sirius overwhelmed by existential angst.
"Oh, fuck, Snape, what have I done?"
Severus raised his eyebrows, not sure what to say. Sirius launched into an anguished monologue about how he was sure he would destroy any possible relationship they could ever have, and how Snape would never be able to ride the unicorn again, and how he was such a shit for wanting to jump his bones, because he was so innocent, yet hot, but mostly innocent, and he must hate Sirius so much, and he didn't blame him if he was angry, because he was angry at himself. Black's eyes were bloodshot and he smelled terrible, his breath a combination of cigarettes, dog, and morning stench. And he had stubble all over his face, which Snape confessed made him a bit jealous. Just when he thought the situation couldn't get any worse, Sirius bent down and looked into his eyes, sniffling back tears, real tears, as he continued babbling about what a horrible person he was.
"Didn't have a tree last year," Severus said, hoping he could simply redirect the conversation. Sirius continued blathering about his innocence and the unicorn and some other rot, until Snape interrupted him. "I'm not going to tell you you're not a terrible person, because I only recently thought otherwise myself, and my assumptions have yet to be reliably proven. And anyway, you didn't despoil me or whatever you think you did. It was just a wank."
"But--but I will despoil you, it's inevitable--"
"Not really."
"What are you saying? That we just…wank?"
Snape shrugged.
Sirius looked thoughtful.
After a safe amount of silence elapsed, Snape tried once again to change the topic of discussion.
"So why don't you go home for the holidays? I mean, what happened with your family?" Snape looked over at Sirius nervously, as if he might not respond.
"My family's completely nutters, the lot of them. Spat tacks after I got sorted into Gryffindor, which is like, who really cares, because golden boy Regulus is in Slytherin, and I'm sure some other Black sometime has been in some other fucking house." Sirius rolled his eyes. "My father said he'd stop supporting me, but mum is worried I'll look shabby, so she sends me money and I can charge stuff to her Malkins tab. They've got a London branch too, so that works out all right." Sirius slowed down, muttering other bits of peripheral information about buying textbooks and the library at Grimmauld Place, which Severus decided must be his family's house in London.
"You don't think it's because you're queer?"
Severus snuck a quick look at Sirius and saw that his face briefly crumbled, but then he put himself back together and shrugged.
"Probably had something to do with it," he conceded, adjusting one of the baubles on the Christmas tree. "What about you, Snaples?" he grabbed Snape and hooked his elbow around his neck, pulling him down to the floor and mussing his hair with his knuckles. Snape slipped out of his hold almost effortlessly, glaring at Sirius. "Come on then, why don't you go home?"
"They don't want to cough up the train fare. But they aren't awful because they're poor, they could be perfectly nice and still be poor. My dad's a muggle, so my mum's family doesn't approve of him, cut her off, not that they were ever wealthy, but you know. They don't help us. And my dad's a spectacular drunk. He--" Then Severus stopped, thinking better of what he'd been about to say.
"He what?"
"Nothing."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "He regularly beats seven shades of shit out of you, is that what you were going to say?"
Severus turned away and crossed his arms. "No, that wasn't what I was going to say."
"Potter told me already, you don't need to bother denying it."
"Potter? How would Potter--" and then he realized what must have happened. Lily was the only person at school who had witnessed this particular element of his home life.
"He told me after the whole Shack cock up."
Snape sighed. "Bit more than a cock up that."
"I would have figured it out anyway. You're a tad skittish, you know."
"I'm just…I…" Snape searched for words for that feeling he had nearly every day, that being his father's favorite punching bag had translated into the regular attacks he endured at school. "I know how to get hit," he said at last.
There was a long pause. Snape worried that Sirius had fallen back into his pit of abstract despair, but then he said, "You stay here, I'm going to get breakfast and bring it back."
"I don't eat meat."
"Bring you a big bucket of carrots, then, you big horsey git?"
Severus glared at him, then lowered himself to the floor in front of the Christmas tree, wriggling around so his face was right underneath it and he could look up into the lights and smell the pine. He'd spent hours like this as a child, completely entranced by the idea of having a real tree inside the house, and one with lights besides.
He must have fallen asleep, because he upset the fairy lights something awful when Sirius blew a wet patch onto his belly button, his lips spreading spit everywhere.
"You're disgusting."
"Snape, I don't know how you stay alive without eating meat. I got you this bloody bowl of porridge, and some bread, and a bit of cheese, and some fruit, but fuck! Fruit! Who eats fruit for breakfast? Who eats fruit at all? And I got extra potatoes, so you can have some of my stupid potatoes." Sirius pushed a tray toward Severus and made short work of his bacon and sausages. Snape choked on his porridge when he looked up and found Sirius to be suddenly and completely starkers, reaching out and pulling away the quilt Snape had wrapped around himself. He did all this quite nonchalantly, as if this was a logical conclusion to breakfast. "Don't be such a prude. If you're going to eat fucking blueberries, might as well do it properly. Come on, hop in my lap, there's a good Sniv. Now open your mouth." Snape went limp as Sirius slowly fed him pieces of fruit, giving in to the warm fire at his front and the warm body at his back. He felt like he could stay that way forever, half asleep and half hard, the taste of hothouse berries in his mouth.
He felt Black's fingers approaching the base of his cock and drew in a sharp breath, moving to pull his knees together and stop him. "Please, it--no--I don't like that--"
"You don't like your cock touched. Right." Sirius raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical.
Snape nodded, shutting his eyes and kicking his legs in an effort to remove Black from his person, but Sirius had grabbed him under the knees and was observing his cock with a determined glint in his eye. "Merlin, you're bendy," Black muttered, experimentally parting Snape's thighs to see how far they would go. "Right then, does this hurt? Here, you do it yourself." He grabbed Snape's hand and moved it over to his confused but somewhat excited prick. Snape screwed his eyes shut, bracing for pain when Black encouraged him to wrap his fingers around the base of his cock, then inched higher, eventually tugging at his foreskin.
"Please don't--"
"So it won't fold back properly? What about this--" Severus screamed, as high-pitched and undignified a scream as he could manage on such short notice. "Oh fuck, I'm so sorry!" Black caught Snape's waist as he was scuttling away and pulled him into his arms. "Listen, I'm not…implying anything, but really, don't you beat the meat? I mean, like normal, not fucking yourself?"
Snape shook his head, resisting as Sirius tried to pry his hands away from their protective hold on his bits.
"You never do?"
"No, it hurts, you daft bugger."
"You want pudding?" Sirius asked after a long silence, unable to respond to this horrible scenario. A world without wanking was inconceivable.
"Didn't we already have the berries?"
"Look, fruit is not proper food. It certainly isn't pudding."
"I'm all filled up," Snape said, slowly easing his grip on his crotch.
"Yeah, right, you're all filled up, all five stone of you."
"Nine stone, I'll have you know."
Sirius snorted, reaching for a teacup left over on his tray.
"Between eight and nine stone…closer to eight."
"I guess I'll have pudding without you then," Sirius sighed, tipping the teacup over Snape's chest. They both watched a slow moving drip of warm toffee sauce meander around his ribcage and quivering stomach, then up over his chin and his lips, letting the last of it drip over his balls and down the crack of his arse. Severus licked his lips, scooping a bit of it on his fingers and sucking them into his mouth as Sirius methodically licked a path around his torso, dragging his teeth over his nipples and biting that soft fold of skin near his armpit. Severus was wrenched away from imagining how sick Sirius would be after essentially drinking an entire cup of toffee sauce when he felt Black move lower, pushing his hips up and moving his sticky messy lips dangerously close to his toffee-drenched hole. Before he realized what he'd done, Snape kicked Sirius firmly, knocking him away.
Sirius sat up and rubbed at his ribcage. "You kicked me!"
"I thought we were just wanking!"
"But how will you get all this toffee sauce out of your bum?"
"There are such things as bathtubs--"
"But I'd like to, that is, wouldn't it be nice to, well, do more than wank? Or, um, mutually wank? Or, let me lick your bum, just for a minute?"
"No, shut up, Black, honestly."
"Anyway, the damage is already done, I mean, the unicorn probably won't let you near her at this point anyway, so why not--"
"I just don't want to!"
Sirius sighed. "Saving it for someone special, then?"
"No, I mean, not anymore, but--"
"Not anymore? What then? Lily Evans still haunting your dreams? Would you even know what to do with her bits if they nipped you on the arse?"
Snape blushed, pulling his toffee sticky limbs into a bony ball and turning away toward the fire. Sirius dug through his clothes for his wand and cast a number of cleaning spells in Snape's general direction before crouching beside him and staring into the flames.
"I suppose you've been with lots of girls," Snape said reproachfully. "Despite being queer, or is that only convenient queerness?"
"Well, you've got to get your end away in a variety of places before you decide what you like best."
Snape was quiet, but Sirius glanced over and saw that he was earning his nickname; tears were welling up in his eyes and he was sniffing back emotional snot.
"Aw, Sniv, what is it?"
He shook his head, scooting away.
"It's Lily, innit?"
Snape was still quiet.
"Well, I understand if you want to save your virginity for your imaginary girlfriend who isn't currently speaking to you."
Snape stifled a sob. Sirius bit his lip; he'd meant that to sound sort of light and humorous, but it had come out cruel and a bit too honest.
"That didn't sound right, I meant to say--"
Snape stopped listening, picking through the clothes strewn about the floor until he found his trousers. He really didn't need to be here. Sirius had finally satisfied whatever base urges he'd been harboring, and now Snape could safely leave.
The truth was, during Black's verbal assault he hadn't been thinking of Lily much at all, but mainly of Lucy, and how she hadn't offered him a ride last time. His heart stuck in his throat just remembering her kind but firm distance from him. Of course Black's idiotic observations had hurt, and using Lily as bait was very effective, but Snape knew deep in his heart that Lily was destined for someone taller and more popular. James was perfect, really; they were both so…average…with even, pleasant features, strong, clear magic, the sort of no-nonsense magic that wouldn't even detect the dark pulsing fear hovering beneath every spell Snape had ever cast.
At last he extricated himself from Black and the entire Ravenclaw compound, and made his way across the bleak, brown ground that eventually yielded to the Forbidden Forest. Snape wouldn't know what to do with Lily, it was true. He kicked at branches and the odd owl pellet as he sank into the familiar depths of the forest.
His unicorn revealed herself almost immediately, giving Snape hope that he could go on as before, the sticky toffee lodged in his arse notwithstanding. He knew what to do with Lucy. He knew what she liked, what sorts of apples and carrots she preferred, and that if he touched her just so, down where her tail emerged from her body, she would shiver, and the veins at the base of her horn would darken and pulse.
This time, she shied away, her eyes as pale and pearly and loving as ever, but her body just out of his reach. He stopped trying to pet her, holding his lips together with his fingertips to stifle the sob at the back of his throat. "But I didn't," he whispered, taking a step toward her. She took a graceful step back. "I didn't let him, nothing happened," he added, knowing with cold clammy certainty that there was little he could say to change the situation. She'd been lost to him since the bum fondling.
And then she was gone, truly gone, disappearing into the trees until the evergreens swallowed her up like a patch of sunlight being covered by a cloud.
Snape watched the place where she'd last been for several long moments. He sat down and spent the better part of the day there, hoping that if he just stayed still, she'd know where to find him and come back to him. The light had faded to a pale, weak wintry trickle before he stood up, shook off his robes, and turned back. He saw a small bird hopping weakly around in the underbrush, its wing obviously broken. He paused, but walked on; he didn't have space for a bird, especially with Black around. Padfoot had been eyeing his two remaining shoeboxes with sparkly eyes and drooly chops for the duration of their forced cohabitation. And a small sliver of him didn't care about the squawking, fuzzy bit of bird. Without Lucy, the animal world was a bit less compelling. Kittens and birds and baby mice died every bloody day, and his saving a few of them made no difference at all, really.
Hogwarts loomed. And Black, and the toffee sauce, and the little Christmas tree and whatever awful, expensive gift Black would produce for him, while he had nothing, as usual, only holes in his pockets. Could he sleep elsewhere? That strange room of requirement, perhaps? Or an empty Ravenclaw room? He was afraid of what the room of requirement might manifest, so he tried opening various doors in Ravenclaw, all locked, then out of desperation slipped through several staircases until he was at the Slytherin dorm, where he was denied entry, even after pushing on the door and poking around for loose stones in the wall.
As he settled into the best sofa in the Ravenclaw library, tucking his school robes around his feet to stay warm, Severus tried to sort out what Black was really up to. He'd driven away his unicorn, which was significant, and meant that Black was more than he might appear to be, or at least more than his own two fingers. But did he feel anything for Black, besides a sense of unease and a conflicted affection for Padfoot? Did he feel anything for people at all? He certainly felt less and differently about Black, and even Lily, than he did about Padfoot and Lucy.
"She's gone, isn't she?"
Snape gasped, nearly falling to the ground as Black manifested on his sofa, pushing his legs over so he could sit down.
"You followed me."
Black shrugged. "Dogs are protective," he said, plucking a thorny brown evergreen needle from Snape's trouser front.
Snape sighed, looking away.
"Let me," Black whispered, his hand sliding over Snape's hip and around to the small of his back. "She's gone. Let me. Or would you rather Padfoot do it?"
Snape raised his eyebrows. "No," he said firmly.
"No Padfoot? No everything? What?"
Snape shook his head.
"Wanking, then? Does it really matter? Wanking was enough. She's gone."
Snape's dark eyes roamed around the room, hoping to settle on something other than Sirius and his intense, focused stare.
"You like animals because we're like you, always afraid, always a bit vulnerable, no clothes, no magic, no philosophy. And the fear keeps us safe, doesn't it?"
Snape was silent, contemplating the truth of this, that he spent most of his time sensing predators at the fuzzy edges of his clumsy senses. If he could only learn when to run, when to turn, when to follow some unnamed cue, like a bird in flight, he might survive. He knew he wouldn't survive in his current state. He knew he was prey.
"I'll wait for you," Sirius said, pulling his hand away from the small of Snape's back. It left a damp, cold place. "Dogs are very loyal," he added, even as he walked away, fading into the dark corridor, where Snape's human eyes couldn't follow him.