SNARRY-A-THON12: FIC: The Morning Commute Title: The Morning Commute Author:faynia Rating: PG Word count: ~2,800 Content/Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Non-magical AU, pre-slash* Prompt: Non-magical AU: When the subway train he's riding breaks down, Harry's desperate for some way to pass the time, and finds a rather reluctant conversation partner in the stranger beside him. Summary: A series of morning commutes has the potential for something greater. A/N: A big thank you to my beta, rothas_writing and the mods for giving me an extension that was sorely needed.
The Morning Commute
Everything about the man screamed don't touch me, so that is exactly what Harry set out to do.
The man's jacket was tweed. Tweed! Who wore tweed anymore? It was buttoned up fully, too, finished with a white collar and a nice tie. Yeah, he definitely wasn't the sort who would jostle over to squeeze in an extra rider. Harry stood there for a moment, hanging onto the metal beam as the train lurched forward before making his move. The man might not move over voluntarily, but that didn't mean he wouldn't move if he had to.
"Here." Harry held out the man's briefcase with a crooked grin, and waited a beat before depositing the bag onto the man's lap and sitting on the now available seat.
As predicted, the man shuffled over with a terribly ugly sneer, revealing yellowed teeth. Harry boggled a moment, wondering if his subconscious wasn't conjuring up some sort of deranged train rapist; as though it would keep his too-jumpy thoughts focused on something else entirely instead of his more pressing problems. Offering a blinding smile in return, Harry decided it was the goatee and that large nose of his that did it. He looked like an old fashioned villain straight out of the cinema. Mustache twirling and all that madness. It was ridiculously intriguing. Though he supposed he ought to give the man some space and quit staring.
Harry stopped staring in amazement long enough to rummage through his own tattered leather satchel, and withdraw an outdated iPod. The earbuds were disgusting – old and dirty, the wires exposed – but at least they functioned. The iPod functioned too, which was more than he could say about a lot of things in his life. Harry settled back in his seat, letting his eyes drift closed and giving his music a chance to drown out any other distractions. He didn’t realise his leg was jiggling until a large, firm hand grasped his knee and forced him to stop moving it. Harry blinked owlishly, first at the hand and then, following its arm, at its owner.
“Sorry,” Harry rubbed the back of his neck with his hand apologetically. “Got caught up in the music.”
It wasn’t disappointment he felt when the man did nothing but remove his hand, and return his attention to the papers in front of him, Harry reminded himself. Fine. He turned up his music. It wasn’t like he had wanted to start a conversation to begin with.
* * * * *
Two days passed before Harry saw the man on the train once more. He sat in precisely the same seat that he had the first time – briefcase firmly on the seat beside him – physically flawless and just as cold as before. Harry didn’t bother apologising when he took the man’s briefcase from the chair once more and dumped it in his lap to take his seat beside him. All that had changed was that the train was practically empty. There was no mistaking the fact that Harry had chosen to take the particular seat that he had on purpose. A slight twitch and the ever-permanent scowl he had grown to associate with his travelling partner was all Harry needed to know that he had been remembered.
“Weather’s terrible outside, isn’t it?” Harry watched the droplets of rain that rolled down his nose and between the lenses of his glasses, “You’d think the rain would let up now it’s summer.”
He smiled to himself. This was Britain; rainy days were as common as the sun rising. He glanced to his side, but the man said nothing, his eyes not even leaving the documents in his hands as he crouched over the papers to circle a single word on the page. Harry didn’t let it bother him. He wasn’t all that chatty with strangers normally himself, either. Except today was different. Apparently today Harry James Potter was something of a masochist.
“I’ll feel like a complete twat if it turns out you’re deaf or something, Sir.”
There were maybe three witnesses who could tell the police where they had seen Harry last if the stranger took Harry’s brilliant remark to heart. At least the man turned to look at him. That was something, he supposed. Of course, he could have done without the scowl, the eyebrow, and the vicious glare. One word would have been enough.
“What?” Harry played the oblivious victim. “Is there something on my face?”
“Your presence,” the man said, in a deeply menacing voice. Or rather, what would have been a deeply menacing voice if Harry was easily menaced, “Is irritating. If you insist on speaking, do so elsewhere.”
“I have as much right to sit here and talk as you do. I paid to be here just like everyone else.”
“Idiot.” The man whirled away – or something that approximated it – and Harry shivered suddenly, wondering how he could even manage the allusion when all he did was turn his head away.
“Git," Harry said before reaching for his iPod instead. He only had three stops left to go. They couldn’t pass fast enough.
* * * * *
Shocked wasn’t quite the right word for how Harry felt the next morning, when he stepped onto the train and saw that the stubborn git was exactly where he had always been. Stunned. Confused. Possibly angry, but not shocked.
He’d thought he would have given up by now but there he was, paperwork spread across the whole bench to block any successful chance Harry had of interrupting his morning with a cheery wave of sunshine. It made Harry feel like an arse for even contemplating reorganising what appeared to be an incredibly organised pile, but he couldn’t explain why. So instead, he opted for the seat across from the stranger, leaning forward and clasping his hands together in front of him.
“You know that isn’t much of a barrier,” He pointed out, smugly, “You can still hear me.” The man stiffened for just a second, his dark gaze sliding across the narrow aisle to level a glare that could melt an ice cap. Harry, who had seen worse, shrugged it off. “I’m pretty persistent.”
“You’re a pestilence.”
“Aw, hey now, that’s not nice.” Harry flashed a winning smile. “I’m brilliant. Ask anyone.”
But the man only scoffed reaching for a sheet of paper – Harry thought it might be a form – at the end of the bench. “Anyone who believes that sentiment isn’t worth listening to.”
“You’re unbearably posh, did you know that?” Harry asked, apropos of nothing, and grinned with the man balked. His mouth seemed momentarily caught open, lacking an insult that he couldn’t produce. Anger turned his face purple and drew his eyebrows down into a sharp slope. The light of the train made his skin appear even more sallow than it had before. It was almost precious, Harry thought, that he could rile the man so well after only knowing him for an hour or so.
“You’re a classless buffoon.”
Harry laughed, and finally sprawled back in his seat. “Never said I wasn’t, mate.”
“I am not your ‘mate’.”
“I’d know your name if you were,” Harry agreed, already in a better mood, “See, that’s something people do, when they meet. They introduce themselves. It’s called being polite.”
“You are an annoying, noisy imbecile with no manners or concept of privacy!”
“Tell me what you really think, Sir.” Harry couldn’t help but cajole him.
“Snape.”
Harry blinked and looked around on the floor for any loose reptiles, before glancing back up at the man whose expression held only exasperated disinterest. Harry didn’t know how to respond. “Excuse me?”
“You wished to know my name.” The man, Snape, explained. “And now that I’ve given it, my hopes are that you will keep your mouth shut and remain quiet.”
“Oh.” Harry deflated slightly, tilting his head to his side in consideration. He supposed he could manage that.
* * * * *
“You surely can’t hate me as much as you’d like to believe.”
Harry greeted Snape as usual the following morning finding, much to his surprise, that the man was sitting in his customary position but with nothing on the seat beside him. His head and shoulders were crooked over a table that he muttered into in some language that might have been Latin, but Harry wasn’t a linguist. It was an invitation, clear as daylight, or at least that was what Harry decided to assume as he claimed the empty seat for himself. He dropped his bag to the floor and manoeuvred the heavy box under his arm into his lap.
“I loathe you every bit as much as I believe. Probably more,” grumbled Snape, otherwise ignoring him. At least today he had replied immediately, and Harry considered it a victory despite what followed, “You’re lucky, boy, that I haven’t called the police on charges of harassment.”
“You didn’t stop me sitting down,” Harry pointed out in a reasonable tone. “I respected your need for space yesterday.”
“Only after standing around and gaping like a blithering idiot.” Snape arched a brow; Harry found the sudden emotion surprising. “I had assumed you would have taken into consideration how immense my dislike for you must have been and entered a different carriage this morning. Clearly,” he sneered, the eyebrow dropping, “I overestimated your intelligence.”
“You think I’m smart?”
“I have no desire to listen to you natter on for the duration of this trip.” Snape sniffed, “Listen to your music, boy, and leave me alone.”
Right. So that’s how things were, then. Harry did as he was instructed, his pride content in the fact that he would have done so in his own time anyway. Playing it safe seemed like a good idea for the moment.
“Harry,” he offered after a pause, as he tried to drag his bag around to one side so that he could lean over and scoop it up. “And I’m twenty five. I’m not a boy anymore and my music is probably the last thing you ought to be complaining about.”
With his comeback said, Harry fished out his iPod and let it drown out any retort Snape did or did not make.
* * * * *
Snape’s stare was blatant when Harry next stepped onto the train. Another surprise: Snape making the first move.
“You’re a composer.”
“Caught that did you, Sir?” Harry took his seat without any fanfare, silently smirking. “Impressed?”
“Hardly.” Snape didn’t have a briefcase and he wasn’t holding his tablet. His jacket was missing and for once, his shirt actually looked rumpled. “Your music is tolerable but nowhere near the standard that it ought to be.”
Harry bristled; the sudden reversal of roles left him unbalanced. His music was one topic that no one touched. It was private and unheard, but Snape, little more than a stranger to him, made it sound as though he’d heard every piece Harry had ever written and found great, fat failures across all of them.
“How would you know?"
“You’re a child prodigy.” Snape considered him for a moment. “I’m no fool, Potter.” When he spoke again, after a brief pause, his words seemed painful for him to say. “And neither are you.”
“Oh yeah?” Harry rolled his eyes, already tugging his iPod from his bag, this time eager for the conversation to end. But not until he proved that he, too, had done his homework. “You’re a bloody professor at the Royal College of Music. You specialise on the clavichord.” He sniffed, “Not exactly hard to track you down once I had your last name.” A first name, though, would have been a lot more difficult to place, especially one so common as his. “You’re a pretty decent professor at that. Though your students seem to hate you. I wonder why that is…”
“Because not one of them has half the talent they claim they do.”
“They’d never have gotten into the college if they didn’t.” Harry snorted and shook his head. “And that is why I never once took a music class if I could help it.”
Snape smirked. “You’d benefit from one.”
“It hasn’t hurt me so far.”
Harry combated the accusation and efficiently ended the conversation by conceding defeat and moving to a different seat.
* * * * *
For a whole week, Harry took a stupid taxi to work in the morning instead of getting the train. He hated the way that Snape had looked at him, and the way that he clearly thought he knew him just because of a handful of stories he’d probably found on the Internet. How dare he judge his music, without even trying to understand it.
Fuck, of course it was raw, and odd, and a little bit manic, but that was how he’d always meant it to be. It wasn’t supposed to be pretty or lyrical or even ready to be played on the radio. It was written for himself, and it wasn’t his fault that no one else seemed to think that.
But his bank account and his lack of patience couldn’t take another day stuck in traffic and so the following Monday morning found him standing on the platform once more, waiting for the train to pull up to the station. He doubted Snape would even be there anymore; he’d probably moved on to a newer, quieter carriage on the train, or maybe even bought himself a whole one so that he wouldn’t have to deal with ‘morons’ on the train any longer.
Thus he wasn’t expecting Snape to be sitting waiting for him when the doors of the train finally slid open.
“What the hell, Snape?” he swore when the older man suddenly grabbed his arm before he could turn and find a different carriage.
Snape hissed for him to keep quiet.
“Look, kidnapping is kind of a crime,” Harry pointed out, not entirely resisting Snape as he was manhandled through a thinning crowd and into an empty bench. The lights of the carriage flickered twice before the train lurched forward again, trapping him on board. “People go to prison for this sort of thing.” He added that as an afterthought, as he was allowed to carefully remove his bag and set it aside, his arm released.
Snape rolled his eyes and took what seemed to be a fortifying breath before he reached for his own briefcase and briskly snapped it open. Harry tried his best to pretend he wasn’t curious but damn, was he ever. When Snape turned back to him he held a usb drive firmly between forefinger and thumb and Harry, suddenly nauseated, swayed in place as he struggled to swallow down the sudden dizzy spell and the cotton in his mouth.
“How’d you get that?”
He croaked, reaching for it unsteadily, thankful that Snape merely batted away Harry’s hand and placed the stolen drive into its owner’s palm. No matter how shaken Harry’s manner was, Snape didn’t appear shaken in the slightest.
“You dropped it last week. I assume you would want it back.”
“I didn’t-”
“You are a bigger fool than I thought.” Snape suddenly appeared uncomfortable. “But I was the biggest. Your talent is undeniable, Potter. I had hoped…” He paused. “I am never proven wrong. Child prodigies are about as rare as street vendors these days, and hearing the small offering the Internet supplied did nothing to dissuade me from the assumption that you claimed that title for nothing more than the fame.”
“Are you…?“ Harry sat back, still clutching his usb to his painfully loud heart, certain that it echoed in his ears and the entire carriage as well. “Are you trying to apologise?”
“Yes.”
Snape didn’t waste any time. And just like that he stalked off, an immense cloud of uncomfortable humiliation leaving Harry dumbfounded in its wake.
* * * * *
Apparently the apology had marked Snape’s turn to run and hide. But even this second bout of silence between them couldn’t keep the man far from Harry’s thoughts. His composure was, frankly, shit, and he hadn’t even tried to make an excuse for it, and Snape clearly agreed despite his hard-earned compliments. People tended to stay out of his way when he acted like this, but for the first time Harry wished that someone would come over and let him talk his way through his own thoughts. God knew he couldn’t get through them on his own.
Perhaps a psychic evaluation was the way to go. This freak meeting had changed everything and left him sick with confusion. Whatever was brewing between him and Snape scared him shitless; he had never felt so off balance and uncertain about where it was he stood with any person in his life and this person, this damn ugly git, knew more about Harry than anyone in the world.
So yes, terrified was a good word for what he felt when he boarded the train and saw Snape gazing out the window, the seat beside him notably and pointedly empty. Like a chastised child Harry sank down into the seat, staring at Snape’s ear and greasy hair and waiting for something, anything, to happen. And whatever that was, whatever happened next, Harry hoped that he might, for once, be ready.