"you cannot save me
you can't even save yourself"
- Stabbing Westward

"I think, I think I might be. Into something," he says, and he didn't mean to, but it just came out, and Potter laughs.

"Snape, are you trying to--"

"No, it's."

--they say it makes you stronger, but then, that one boy (he walks a bit funny, with a wrong sort of roll of to his hip) whispered (at least I thought he did) that it burns and ice lollys just don't taste the same and a warm bed just doesn't feel right and I don't know if I could take that, no warm beds, even if I don't eat sweets, never, as mother always said they made slow children, all fat and dull minded--

And Severus says yes, yes he's trying, and don't call me that, please, it sounds funny in your mouth (but he doesn't say that last part, just about the trying, and then he touches Potter's mouth with his thumb and feels stupid and kisses him).

And he realizes that it sounded stupid and childish off Potter's lips -- that's it. Like it's much too big for him, like it's something to grow into. Like stealing father's broom when he was seven, and he doesn't know how to kiss well at all (Potter probobly hates it) and,

"I may have done something awful."

Maybe.

It's just a feeling, little pointy dots of bad feeling at the small of his back, along the sides of his neck.

Or he might be lying (he does that a lot), and Potter must wonder too, because he says, "What're you playing at?" with an odd quiet voice, muffled by the back of his hand swiping hard over his mouth.

And the boy doesn't want an answer, he wants--

give me a sign, tell me: why this is my problem.

And it isn't, but.

--the wolf, and it doesn't have another name now, not after that, and it was close and he could feel it breathing and the air tasted like death, and he's not being dramatic, like Lucius says he is (because Lucius is older and loyal and knows death is for other people and he's never smelled it on The Lord's breath, he says -- it's those four, they made Severus think the worst of everything), and Potter's eyes were wide and not blinking and so white but he spoke anyhow and the wolf turned, not much but enough--

Because, he wants to say, that's what you do. Except Potter doesn't, actually, and he's mostly cruel, but. People change, Severus changed (he thinks, he worries), and.

It can happen in an instant, in the span of a smile. As Potter says, "Tell me. I'll see what I can do."

return