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5lazarus · 3 years

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Weavers

this was meant to be severitus, or at least Snape-mentors-Harry, so let’s call this the precursor to it

Summary: Bored before the start of sixth year, Harry goes through Petunia's old family photo albums. He demands some answers, and Dumbledore sends Snape. Read on AO3 here

The days are hot and dusty and Harry is left roving the same suburban streets, bored as hell, as the Dursleys pretend nothing is wrong and everyone he knows acts the same. Voldemort’s back, and he wants to kill him. His godfather’s dead. No one wants to talk about Cedric, and he doesn’t even know how to talk about Cedric, even if anybody knew to ask. Harry just walks, and kicks at fluttery bits of newspaper littering the ground, and tries not to let the heat sour his mood. When Aunt Petunia’s busy at the neighbor’s garden parties, Harry steals into the living room and starts going through the photo albums. Why, he’s not so sure, he just wants to know, to see, to remember that there was a past before Hogwarts, and so he flips through grotesque faded photos of Dudley and Uncle Vernon eating cake with him a shadow cut in half, just barely in view. These were not happy days, but Harry’s not sure he’s ever had any of those. It was fun laughing with Sirius and Ron and Hermione and the Twins sometimes, and he feels free and devoid of all this heavy thoughts on a broom. He finishes one photo album, slots it back in the shelf, and pulls out another. This one is older--before he was born. Maybe he’ll find a photo of his mother in it. He flips through time, ignoring a wedding photo--after his grandparents’ deaths--and polaroids of truly soul-crushing dates. He laughs at the bad hair, though he knows he of all people shouldn’t point fingers. Finally, he reaches his aunt’s teenage years, and he hopes he’ll find his mother there. It’s a weird thought, that his mother was barely more than a teenager when she was killed. She was only twenty when she had him. He’s almost sixteen now. He can’t imagine that, the pressure of having a baby with a target on its back in the middle of a war, and he wishes desperately he could know what she was like. Sirius didn’t like to talk about her, and Lupin talks in circles about everything. He wishes there was someone he could ask. He finds a photo of her laughing with a boy who is not his father, who’s got his long black hair and a hand thrown up, too, covering his face. She’s about his age in this photo, or a bit older. Carefully he slides it out of the plastic. There’s writing on the back: “Weavers, Sev & Lily, 1976. to Baba O’Riley and the rest of our lives!!” The writing is familiar, spidery, almost indecipherable, and he squints because it reminds him of someone, it’s strangely familiar, and then he drops the photo in shock. Because he knows: that’s Severus Snape.

Rapidly now he flips through the pages. There’s one of his bright-eyed mother with a sullen-looking boy with a big nose and greasy hair, glowering at the camera as she laughs. There’s even one of her and Petunia and him all together, sitting in someone’s garden, and Snape is wearing too-big jeans and a stained t-shirt, staring solemnly at the camera. Now that he’s seen it he can’t unsee it. Aunt Petunia comes clattering in, throwing her keys onto the coffee table, and stops sharply at the sight of him with the photos all around him. “Put those back!” she shrieks. “You knew Snape?” he shrieks back. Petunia rears back, apopletic. “You know Snape?” “Yeah, I know Snape,” Harry yells back. “He’s my Potions professor, that greasy git. How do you know Snape?” Petunia sinks onto the couch. “That--awful boy,” she says falteringly. “A teacher? At your school?” She puts her hand over her mouth. “He hated it there, he’s went back to teach?” Harry says, “Yeah. We hate him too.” Petunia begins to laugh. “Bastard,” she says, chortling, “serves him right. I always thought he’d end up teaching chemistry, or in prison. I suppose your Headmaster made him one of those offers you can’t refuse, like he did with me. I never wanted you, I hope you know.” “Believe me,” Harry says wearily, “I picked up on that early on, thanks.” Aunt Petunia yells at him for nosing into her family’s business and Harry heroically resists the urge to inform her that it’s his family too, and instead keeps the photos of his mother stealthily hidden in his pocket. When she’s done, he rushes to his room, pulls out a piece of parchment and a quill, and writes a simple sentence: “Snape knew my mom?” He sends it off to Dumbledore. This complicates the whole Prophecy bullshit he told him about, and he wants answers. Hedwig knows how to charm them out of people, too. She won’t peck the Headmaster, but she sure will be cute. Sure enough, two hours later--or however long it takes for an owl to fly from Surrey to an unknown part of rural Scotland--the doorbell rings. Harry rushes downstairs and throws open the door. He falters. It’s not Dumbledore. “Mr. Potter,” Snape sneers. He’s wearing muggle clothes, black jeans that actually fit him, a band t-shirt, and a blazer with its sleeves rolled up. Harry blinks. Snape likes the Clash? Snape likes things? “I have been told to take you on a walk.” Harry says, “Uh. Do you have that in writing?” Snape’s a Death Eater, after all. He doesn’t want to die. Snape grabs his shoulder and pulls him out of the house. He closes the door. Harry yelps. “Rest assured while I have no interest in ending your idiocy as of yet,” Snape hisses. “Now, to walk. This way.” Sharply he turns, and Harry runs to catch up. “You wrote the Headmaster.” “You knew my mom!” Harry says. He pulls out the photos from pocket and fans them out like a hand of cards. “For your whole childhood! And my age, too!” “Obviously,” Snape sneers. He snatches the photos from him and scrutinizes each snapshot. His scowl deepens. In Potions class, this would be a sign to get out of blast range. Unfortunately, the only thing around to hide behind is a street lamp and a hedge, and Harry’s pretty sure Snape can get around that. Snape snorts when he gets the Weaver photo. “Your aunt kept these? She hated your mother--and me.” It’s on the tip of his tongue to say, “Well, you’re not very likeable. Sir.” With truly heroic, Gryffindor-standard effort, Harry restrains himself. He shrugs instead. He wants information. He’ll have to tap into whatever Slytherin qualities the Sorting Hat identified in him to get it. Snape says finally, “I grew up across the river from your mother. She was my friend. Then we went our separate ways.” “Well, you called her a Mudblood,” Harry says. “I mean, of course she’d stop talking to you.” “Do not say that word,” Snape hisses. Harry mentally kicks himself. He shouldn’t have brought up the Pensieve incident--except, ravenously, he wants to know everything about the Pensieve incident. Dumbledore sent him there, to answer his questions. He’s got nothing to lose by asking. Snape’s gonna lose his shit anyway. “Yeah, sorry,” Harry says, annoyed. He stops under a lamp post. Dusk is coming on thick, and even on Privet Drive, it’s turning to a pretty night. Snape crosses his arms and looks at him sardonically. He is sneering, preparing to spit his usual venom, but Harry persists, “How’d all that even happen? I mean, clearly my dad was a bit of a prick--I don’t know what she saw in him--” “Potter,” Snape says. “Shut up.” Harry holds his hands up. “Fine. We won’t talk about it. But you and my mother were friends. No one tells me anything about her. It’s like she had nobody but--you, I guess, and my dad. They just say I have her eyes. It’s almost my birthday, uh, Professor.” He adds the title and the respect a little thick. Snape is unamused. “Aunt Petunia just says she was a showoff. What was she really like?” Snape says, “Your aunt’s right, she was a showoff. But she was barely more than a child when she was killed. She never got the time to grow out of it. Dumbledore sent me, Potter. I’m supposed to bring you to the Weasleys. But I am not dealing with your aunt’s histrionics. Bring your things and meet me the block over. I’m parked over there.” He points at the rather nondescript gray car. “I’ll answer your questions on the drive over. You will not mention this to anyone, particularly your little friends.” It sounds sketchy, but Harry’s willing to do it just for the rumors that will circulate around the neighborhood as they see him sneaking into a strange man’s car with a wooden trunk and a bird cage. Harry darts back home and drags his things down the street and piles them into Snape’s car. Funny thought, that--that Snape has a car, and a driver’s license. He goes in for the back first, to sit with Hedwig, but Snape snaps, “I am not your chauffeur!” so he returns to the front seat. He eyes him warily as he steps in. Snape does not look at him, but sorts through a pile of CDs. “You do a lot of driving?” Harry asks disbelievingly. Snape’s nostril twitch in reply. He pulls out a battered case--The Who. He puts it in, starts the car, and there they go, driving away from Privet Drive. This is not the most surreal thing that has ever happened to Harry. He’s watched a baby hatch into a man out of a cauldron before, and listened to the whispers of the dead, and ridden on an invisible horse, as well as a broom. But Snape is serene, tapping his long, skinny fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the music. Harry sneezes. The car stinks of weed. “Are you high?” Harry asks. Snape says, “To deal with you during my time off--there is no other way.” He looks at him suddenly. “Get the map. I haven’t driven through Devonshire in years. When does the road merge?” Harry shuffles through the hatbox of the car, shoving aside a pair of leather gloves, a pack of cigarettes, and a spare wand. He pulls out the map and looks at it despairingly. “What, Potter? Can’t read a map?” Harry says, “Uh. Think we drove past it. Sir.” Snape curses and does a U-town, flipping off the cars that beep in their wake. Harry is beginning to get a little scared. Snape hates him, that’s obvious, and sometimes he thinks he wants to kill him. He really doesn’t want to die in a car crash, he can just imagine the headlines. Eventually Snape gets them on their way, nasty and irritated. They detangle the suburban streets and drive into the night, getting out of the suburban tarmac into the muddy rural. When Harry tries to ask a question, Snape turns up the music. They listen to “Baba O’Riley” three times. Harry stays silent the whole time, afraid. His mother wrote this on the back of the photograph, after all, maybe there’s a subliminal message here. She wanted to go. Harry wonders, but where to? The end of Avada, a flash of green light. Maybe a car crash would have been better, more glamorous, like Princess Diana. What would she have even thought of that? Harry musters up the courage. He says, “She wrote about this on the back of one of the photographs. 1976, weavers.” He puts it on the dashboard, and Snape, keeping one hand on the wheel, picks it up and glances at it. His expression, already sour, curdles. “What does that mean?” “Tuney doesn’t talk about her childhood much, does she?” Snape remarks. He faces the road and misses the exit they were supposed to turn onto. Harry puts his hand into his other pocket and surreptitiously takes ahold of his wand. Snape’s probably not trying to kill him, but as Moody--well, fake-Moody says, “Constant vigilance!” He keeps his mouth shut. Snape’s always been garrulous, using ten words when three would suffice, and cramming as many syllables into them as he can. Hermione once despaired that lectures with him were like a speech class. It was all about the enunciation. Finally, Snape says, “We grew up in a textile town. Most of the men worked at the factory, until it closed. They were the weavers, and we were too, if it weren’t for magic.” “You’re not muggleborn!” Harry says, alarmed. “How--” “No,” Snape says. “I am not answering any questions about myself, Potter.” He veers sharply on the road, finally getting them back on track. By Harry’s reckoning, they’ve got about a half hour left. He sinks in his seat, sullen. “So what about my mum?” he asks. “Did she like--weaving? Growing up in the town? What was she like?” Snape says, “No, no, and--young, because she was young. Headstrong. Sarcastic. She didn’t suffer fools, until she did.” Harry says, “My father wasn’t a fool!” “Your father used to run around school grounds with a fully transformed werewolf.” Harry has to say, maybe his father was a bit of a fool, after all. He does not, though, have to say all that aloud. He says, “Sarcastic?” Snape says, “I think much of her wit went above her Housemates’ heads. They always said she was kind. That was not my experience. She was extraordinarily righteous, and outspoken, and strict with herself and everyone around her. To the point where one wondered how anyone could measure up to Saint Lily’s grandiose proclamations.” The CD ends, finally, and Snape clicks a button. He seems amused. “Lupin didn’t like her much, and she didn’t like Sirius. I am not surprised they avoid talking about her.” Eyes on the road, he goes through the electronic piles by touch, and pulls out a tape. He sticks it in. Harry blinks. It’s the Velvet Underground now, “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” “What costume shall the poor girl wear,” the car radio warbles, “to all tomorrow’s parties?” Harry says, “They said she was kind.” “Perhaps she was to them. She was always demanding of me, and I do not call that kind.” “You called her a Mudblood.” Snape says wearily, “And no one has ever let me forget it, twenty-one long years later. Righteous, and demanding, and strict--but never kind.” “Yeah, well, you joined the Death Eaters, too.” Snape laughs suddenly, sharply, bitterly. “Much worse than calling someone a slur. And I have spent the rest of my life repenting of it.” They’re in Devon now, getting close to the end. Harry’s gotten used to the smell and he’s enjoying the music now, even though he thinks it’s a little sad. He wonders if Snape is thinking about himself, or his mother, and if his mother would’ve liked this song. It’s the first time he’s ever heard someone talk about her like a person, not a saint, and he wants more. He wants to see her be mean--meaner, he guesses, than what he saw in the Pensieve. He wants to see her being too hard on herself and snapping back for justice, whatever she thought justice was. But she’s dead, and he’s only six years younger than she was when she died. That’s an insane thought. In six years, if Voldemort doesn’t kill him, he’ll be the same age as his mother when she died. Maybe he’ll be even older. He looks at Snape, who is meditative, hands relaxed on the steering wheel. Snape’s watching the road. He looks not-old for once, not angry or sour or raging. He just looks like a guy approaching middle-age, who’s tired, who’s thinking about the past. Harry thinks, he’s not really ugly when he lets his face be. Maybe he’s thinking not-ugly thoughts. Melancholy makes a person look human. Snape doesn’t seem like a Potions professor in this car--just sad. They pull through the town of Ottery St. Catchpole and Snape stops at a park. He looks at Harry directly and says, “Your mother...she was more than her eyes. She was an extraordinarily vibrant young woman, who died too young, who had plans for herself and everyone around her. You’re nothing like her. No one is. There was only ever one Lily Evans, and we wouldn’t want anymore.” Harry gets out of the car and clambers to the boot of the car, getting his trunk and rattling Hedwig’s cage as he goes. She squawks at him, outraged, and he smiles at her affronted dignity. He’d thank Snape for telling him all this, but he doesn’t think he deserves it, because he only did it on Dumbledore’s orders. He gestures with the cage that he’s heading to the Burrow now. “Uh, bye then,” Harry says. He doesn’t necessarily want to wish him a safe trip. He gets five paces before Snape stops him. “Potter!” Harry turns back. Snape is standing in front of the car, illuminated in the headlights. His wand is up. Harry drops Hedwig’s cage, going for his own, but Snape is faster. “Obliviate!”The days are hot and dusty and Harry is left roving the same suburban streets, bored as hell, as the Dursleys pretend nothing is wrong and everyone he knows acts the same. Voldemort’s back, and he wants to kill him. His godfather’s dead. No one wants to talk about Cedric, and he doesn’t even know how to talk about Cedric, even if anybody knew to ask. Harry just walks, and kicks at fluttery bits of newspaper littering the ground, and tries not to let the heat sour his mood. When Aunt Petunia’s busy at the neighbor’s garden parties, Harry steals into the living room and starts going through the photo albums. Why, he’s not so sure, he just wants to know, to see, to remember that there was a past before Hogwarts, and so he flips through grotesque faded photos of Dudley and Uncle Vernon eating cake with him a shadow cut in half, just barely in view. These were not happy days, but Harry’s not sure he’s ever had any of those. It was fun laughing with Sirius and Ron and Hermione and the Twins sometimes, and he feels free and devoid of all this heavy thoughts on a broom. He finishes one photo album, slots it back in the shelf, and pulls out another. This one is older--before he was born. Maybe he’ll find a photo of his mother in it. He flips through time, ignoring a wedding photo--after his grandparents’ deaths--and polaroids of truly soul-crushing dates. He laughs at the bad hair, though he knows he of all people shouldn’t point fingers. Finally, he reaches his aunt’s teenage years, and he hopes he’ll find his mother there. It’s a weird thought, that his mother was barely more than a teenager when she was killed. She was only twenty when she had him. He’s almost sixteen now. He can’t imagine that, the pressure of having a baby with a target on its back in the middle of a war, and he wishes desperately he could know what she was like. Sirius didn’t like to talk about her, and Lupin talks in circles about everything. He wishes there was someone he could ask. He finds a photo of her laughing with a boy who is not his father, who’s got his long black hair and a hand thrown up, too, covering his face. She’s about his age in this photo, or a bit older. Carefully he slides it out of the plastic. There’s writing on the back: “Weavers, Sev & Lily, 1976. to Baba O’Riley and the rest of our lives!!” The writing is familiar, spidery, almost indecipherable, and he squints because it reminds him of someone, it’s strangely familiar, and then he drops the photo in shock. Because he knows: that’s Severus Snape. Rapidly now he flips through the pages. There’s one of his bright-eyed mother with a sullen-looking boy with a big nose and greasy hair, glowering at the camera as she laughs. There’s even one of her and Petunia and him all together, sitting in someone’s garden, and Snape is wearing too-big jeans and a stained t-shirt, staring solemnly at the camera. Now that he’s seen it he can’t unsee it. Aunt Petunia comes clattering in, throwing her keys onto the coffee table, and stops sharply at the sight of him with the photos all around him. “Put those back!” she shrieks. “You knew Snape?” he shrieks back. Petunia rears back, apopletic. “You know Snape?” “Yeah, I know Snape,” Harry yells back. “He’s my Potions professor, that greasy git. How do you know Snape?” Petunia sinks onto the couch. “That--awful boy,” she says falteringly. “A teacher? At your school?” She puts her hand over her mouth. “He hated it there, he’s went back to teach?” Harry says, “Yeah. We hate him too.” Petunia begins to laugh. “Bastard,” she says, chortling, “serves him right. I always thought he’d end up teaching chemistry, or in prison. I suppose your Headmaster made him one of those offers you can’t refuse, like he did with me. I never wanted you, I hope you know.” “Believe me,” Harry says wearily, “I picked up on that early on, thanks.” Aunt Petunia yells at him for nosing into her family’s business and Harry heroically resists the urge to inform her that it’s his family too, and instead keeps the photos of his mother stealthily hidden in his pocket. When she’s done, he rushes to his room, pulls out a piece of parchment and a quill, and writes a simple sentence: “Snape knew my mom?” He sends it off to Dumbledore. This complicates the whole Prophecy bullshit he told him about, and he wants answers. Hedwig knows how to charm them out of people, too. She won’t peck the Headmaster, but she sure will be cute. Sure enough, two hours later--or however long it takes for an owl to fly from Surrey to an unknown part of rural Scotland--the doorbell rings. Harry rushes downstairs and throws open the door. He falters. It’s not Dumbledore. “Mr. Potter,” Snape sneers. He’s wearing muggle clothes, black jeans that actually fit him, a band t-shirt, and a blazer with its sleeves rolled up. Harry blinks. Snape likes the Clash? Snape likes things? “I have been told to take you on a walk.” Harry says, “Uh. Do you have that in writing?” Snape’s a Death Eater, after all. He doesn’t want to die. Snape grabs his shoulder and pulls him out of the house. He closes the door. Harry yelps. “Rest assured while I have no interest in ending your idiocy as of yet,” Snape hisses. “Now, to walk. This way.” Sharply he turns, and Harry runs to catch up. “You wrote the Headmaster.” “You knew my mom!” Harry says. He pulls out the photos from pocket and fans them out like a hand of cards. “For your whole childhood! And my age, too!” “Obviously,” Snape sneers. He snatches the photos from him and scrutinizes each snapshot. His scowl deepens. In Potions class, this would be a sign to get out of blast range. Unfortunately, the only thing around to hide behind is a street lamp and a hedge, and Harry’s pretty sure Snape can get around that. Snape snorts when he gets the Weaver photo. “Your aunt kept these? She hated your mother--and me.” It’s on the tip of his tongue to say, “Well, you’re not very likeable. Sir.” With truly heroic, Gryffindor-standard effort, Harry restrains himself. He shrugs instead. He wants information. He’ll have to tap into whatever Slytherin qualities the Sorting Hat identified in him to get it. Snape says finally, “I grew up across the river from your mother. She was my friend. Then we went our separate ways.” “Well, you called her a Mudblood,” Harry says. “I mean, of course she’d stop talking to you.” “Do not say that word,” Snape hisses. Harry mentally kicks himself. He shouldn’t have brought up the Pensieve incident--except, ravenously, he wants to know everything about the Pensieve incident. Dumbledore sent him there, to answer his questions. He’s got nothing to lose by asking. Snape’s gonna lose his shit anyway. “Yeah, sorry,” Harry says, annoyed. He stops under a lamp post. Dusk is coming on thick, and even on Privet Drive, it’s turning to a pretty night. Snape crosses his arms and looks at him sardonically. He is sneering, preparing to spit his usual venom, but Harry persists, “How’d all that even happen? I mean, clearly my dad was a bit of a prick--I don’t know what she saw in him--” “Potter,” Snape says. “Shut up.” Harry holds his hands up. “Fine. We won’t talk about it. But you and my mother were friends. No one tells me anything about her. It’s like she had nobody but--you, I guess, and my dad. They just say I have her eyes. It’s almost my birthday, uh, Professor.” He adds the title and the respect a little thick. Snape is unamused. “Aunt Petunia just says she was a showoff. What was she really like?” Snape says, “Your aunt’s right, she was a showoff. But she was barely more than a child when she was killed. She never got the time to grow out of it. Dumbledore sent me, Potter. I’m supposed to bring you to the Weasleys. But I am not dealing with your aunt’s histrionics. Bring your things and meet me the block over. I’m parked over there.” He points at the rather nondescript gray car. “I’ll answer your questions on the drive over. You will not mention this to anyone, particularly your little friends.” It sounds sketchy, but Harry’s willing to do it just for the rumors that will circulate around the neighborhood as they see him sneaking into a strange man’s car with a wooden trunk and a bird cage. Harry darts back home and drags his things down the street and piles them into Snape’s car. Funny thought, that--that Snape has a car, and a driver’s license. He goes in for the back first, to sit with Hedwig, but Snape snaps, “I am not your chauffeur!” so he returns to the front seat. He eyes him warily as he steps in. Snape does not look at him, but sorts through a pile of CDs. “You do a lot of driving?” Harry asks disbelievingly. Snape’s nostril twitch in reply. He pulls out a battered case--The Who. He puts it in, starts the car, and there they go, driving away from Privet Drive. This is not the most surreal thing that has ever happened to Harry. He’s watched a baby hatch into a man out of a cauldron before, and listened to the whispers of the dead, and ridden on an invisible horse, as well as a broom. But Snape is serene, tapping his long, skinny fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the music. Harry sneezes. The car stinks of weed. “Are you high?” Harry asks. Snape says, “To deal with you during my time off--there is no other way.” He looks at him suddenly. “Get the map. I haven’t driven through Devonshire in years. When does the road merge?” Harry shuffles through the hatbox of the car, shoving aside a pair of leather gloves, a pack of cigarettes, and a spare wand. He pulls out the map and looks at it despairingly. “What, Potter? Can’t read a map?” Harry says, “Uh. Think we drove past it. Sir.” Snape curses and does a U-town, flipping off the cars that beep in their wake. Harry is beginning to get a little scared. Snape hates him, that’s obvious, and sometimes he thinks he wants to kill him. He really doesn’t want to die in a car crash, he can just imagine the headlines. Eventually Snape gets them on their way, nasty and irritated. They detangle the suburban streets and drive into the night, getting out of the suburban tarmac into the muddy rural. When Harry tries to ask a question, Snape turns up the music. They listen to “Baba O’Riley” three times. Harry stays silent the whole time, afraid. His mother wrote this on the back of the photograph, after all, maybe there’s a subliminal message here. She wanted to go. Harry wonders, but where to? The end of Avada, a flash of green light. Maybe a car crash would have been better, more glamorous, like Princess Diana. What would she have even thought of that? Harry musters up the courage. He says, “She wrote about this on the back of one of the photographs. 1976, weavers.” He puts it on the dashboard, and Snape, keeping one hand on the wheel, picks it up and glances at it. His expression, already sour, curdles. “What does that mean?” “Tuney doesn’t talk about her childhood much, does she?” Snape remarks. He faces the road and misses the exit they were supposed to turn onto. Harry puts his hand into his other pocket and surreptitiously takes ahold of his wand. Snape’s probably not trying to kill him, but as Moody--well, fake-Moody says, “Constant vigilance!” He keeps his mouth shut. Snape’s always been garrulous, using ten words when three would suffice, and cramming as many syllables into them as he can. Hermione once despaired that lectures with him were like a speech class. It was all about the enunciation. Finally, Snape says, “We grew up in a textile town. Most of the men worked at the factory, until it closed. They were the weavers, and we were too, if it weren’t for magic.” “You’re not muggleborn!” Harry says, alarmed. “How--” “No,” Snape says. “I am not answering any questions about myself, Potter.” He veers sharply on the road, finally getting them back on track. By Harry’s reckoning, they’ve got about a half hour left. He sinks in his seat, sullen. “So what about my mum?” he asks. “Did she like--weaving? Growing up in the town? What was she like?” Snape says, “No, no, and--young, because she was young. Headstrong. Sarcastic. She didn’t suffer fools, until she did.” Harry says, “My father wasn’t a fool!” “Your father used to run around school grounds with a fully transformed werewolf.” Harry has to say, maybe his father was a bit of a fool, after all. He does not, though, have to say all that aloud. He says, “Sarcastic?” Snape says, “I think much of her wit went above her Housemates’ heads. They always said she was kind. That was not my experience. She was extraordinarily righteous, and outspoken, and strict with herself and everyone around her. To the point where one wondered how anyone could measure up to Saint Lily’s grandiose proclamations.” The CD ends, finally, and Snape clicks a button. He seems amused. “Lupin didn’t like her much, and she didn’t like Sirius. I am not surprised they avoid talking about her.” Eyes on the road, he goes through the electronic piles by touch, and pulls out a tape. He sticks it in. Harry blinks. It’s the Velvet Underground now, “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” “What costume shall the poor girl wear,” the car radio warbles, “to all tomorrow’s parties?” Harry says, “They said she was kind.” “Perhaps she was to them. She was always demanding of me, and I do not call that kind.” “You called her a Mudblood.” Snape says wearily, “And no one has ever let me forget it, twenty-one long years later. Righteous, and demanding, and strict--but never kind.” “Yeah, well, you joined the Death Eaters, too.” Snape laughs suddenly, sharply, bitterly. “Much worse than calling someone a slur. And I have spent the rest of my life repenting of it.” They’re in Devon now, getting close to the end. Harry’s gotten used to the smell and he’s enjoying the music now, even though he thinks it’s a little sad. He wonders if Snape is thinking about himself, or his mother, and if his mother would’ve liked this song. It’s the first time he’s ever heard someone talk about her like a person, not a saint, and he wants more. He wants to see her be mean--meaner, he guesses, than what he saw in the Pensieve. He wants to see her being too hard on herself and snapping back for justice, whatever she thought justice was. But she’s dead, and he’s only six years younger than she was when she died. That’s an insane thought. In six years, if Voldemort doesn’t kill him, he’ll be the same age as his mother when she died. Maybe he’ll be even older. He looks at Snape, who is meditative, hands relaxed on the steering wheel. Snape’s watching the road. He looks not-old for once, not angry or sour or raging. He just looks like a guy approaching middle-age, who’s tired, who’s thinking about the past. Harry thinks, he’s not really ugly when he lets his face be. Maybe he’s thinking not-ugly thoughts. Melancholy makes a person look human. Snape doesn’t seem like a Potions professor in this car--just sad. They pull through the town of Ottery St. Catchpole and Snape stops at a park. He looks at Harry directly and says, “Your mother...she was more than her eyes. She was an extraordinarily vibrant young woman, who died too young, who had plans for herself and everyone around her. You’re nothing like her. No one is. There was only ever one Lily Evans, and we wouldn’t want anymore.” Harry gets out of the car and clambers to the boot of the car, getting his trunk and rattling Hedwig’s cage as he goes. She squawks at him, outraged, and he smiles at her affronted dignity. He’d thank Snape for telling him all this, but he doesn’t think he deserves it, because he only did it on Dumbledore’s orders. He gestures with the cage that he’s heading to the Burrow now. “Uh, bye then,” Harry says. He doesn’t necessarily want to wish him a safe trip. He gets five paces before Snape stops him. “Potter!” Harry turns back. Snape is standing in front of the car, illuminated in the headlights. His wand is up. Harry drops Hedwig’s cage, going for his own, but Snape is faster. “Obliviate!”

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jessepinwheel · 4 years

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Omgggg fives u lovable disaster, what balls, what irreverence- I'm so torn right now, i wanna see him go far with obi wan and just render his brothers apopletic with his boyfriend stealing shenanigans, but also i want scenes where wolffe just all out threatens obi wan lol. So torn, so so torn!

fives broke bro code, now he's gotta face the consequences

Cody shuts the door behind him and takes a deep breath. "Brothers," he says. "We're all gathered here today for a terrible reason. We've been betrayed by one of our own."

"I can't believe you called me out here for this." Wolffe mutters under his breath.

Cody ignores him. "This will break our hearts, but we have to do our duty." He clasps his hands and looks each of his gathered brothers in the face. "We have to kill Fives."

A round of muttering goes around the room, some in agreement, some in confusion.

"As you all know, our honored Captain Rex--"

"Honored to you, maybe--" Fox grouses.

"--is dating a civilian known as Obi-Wan Kenobi. He's a private investigator and also runs seminars once a week for Jedi about information sciences. Many of us here have been to at least one of his seminars."

"Isn't he that guy who showed up a while ago and kicked your ass?" Jesse asks.

"That's not important right now," Cody says. "The important thing is that Obi-Wan is Rex's boyfriend, and since he's our favorite little brother, we have to make sure he doesn't get his heart broken."

Tup raises a hand. "Isn't Rex older than like, half of us in in this room?"

Hardcase elbows Tup in the side. "If Cody says Rex is the little brother, he's the little brother."

"What? How does that work?"

"Big brother privilege," Jesse replies, not looking up from his holomag. "You're the squad baby--you wouldn't understand."

Tup does that thing where he makes his eyes really big and pathetic. "I'm not a baby!"

"You are as long as you do that thing with your eyes," Hardcase says, clapping him on the shoulder. "But it's okay, we love you and your baby eyes, Tup'ika."

Cody claps his hands sharply. "Back on topic!" he says. "Fives has violated our code of honor and tried to steal Obi-Wan from Rex! He received multiple warnings and continues to commit offenses, so now he has to die."

"Are you sure you aren't overreacting?" Fox asks dryly. "Detective Kenobi is a popular person, especially after that holovid of him dumping your ass on the mat in front of several witnesses. We're not trying to kill everyone who talks to him, are we? Because we're not going to have a lot of brothers left if we do. Hell--you're on first name terms with the guy yourself."

"Fives isn't just talking to Obi-Wan--he's dating him! Just a tenday ago, he asked Obi-Wan out to dinner."

“At the end of his seminar. In front of the whole class. I’d be impressed by his sheer balls if I thought he even considered what he was saying for a microsecond before it came out of his mouth,” Hardcase adds. “He took it back, but after the seminar was dismissed, he doubled down. Didn’t you see the holos?”

“Unlike some people, I have to actually do work,” Fox says. “What holos?”

Wolffe leans back in his chair to show him.

“Oh, what the--” Fox says, squinting at it. “He went out in public wearing that? And Kenobi didn’t laugh him out of the room? I mean we all know Fives is a slutty clown, but he didn’t have to show it.”

“Kenobi thought it was funny, but he’s too polite to laugh in people’s faces, unfortunately,” Hardcase says. “I tailed them to the restaurant and you wouldn’t believe the looks they got.”

“Wait, you’re the one who tailed them? Did they kiss?” Jesse asks.

Hardcase snorts. “No, obviously not. If they kissed, Fives would already be dead--he looked like he was going to pass out every time Kenobi smiled. It was disgusting. Not to mention our Fearless Ori’vod would have killed him,” he says, shooting a look at Cody.

“But that’s not all,” Cody cuts in. “Apparently, Fives decided he hadn’t gotten enough, so he’s going on another date with Obi-Wan. To the aquarium. There were at least six witnesses, myself included. They’re going tomorrow, so there’s not a lot of time.”

Wolffe rolls his eyes so hard it’s almost audible. “Well, maybe it wouldn’t be so urgent if you’d called this stupid meeting a few days ago. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is this!” Cody pulls out a flyer. “Tomorrow’s a special couple’s event at the aquarium! They get half off admission if they kiss, and Fives is not allowed to kiss Rex’s boyfriend!”

Tup raises his hand again. “Rex says Obi-Wan isn’t his boyfriend, though.”

“Rex’ika is shy,” Cody says. “If you’ve seen the two of them together, he’s obviously head over heels for that detective, and by the stars are we going to get them together. So we can’t let Fives continue. We have to kill him. All those in favor?”

“We warned him. He knew the consequences,” Hardcase says.

“If he’s wearing shit like that, then yeah, he probably deserves to die,” Fox says.

“I don’t give a damn,” Wolffe says. “Whatever gets me out of here sooner.”

Cody nods. “All those opposed?”

“Killing him seems...a little drastic?” Tup says.

Echo raises his hand in the back. “We can’t kill Fives. We already signed the lease for our apartment and he’s going to pay half the rent. You’re not going to leave me without a roommate and having to pay twice the rent, are you?”

“Dammit, you’re right. We can’t do that to you,” Cody says. “When does your lease run out?”

“A little over a year from now.”

Cody scrubs a hand over his face. “Shit. Okay, we need to come up with a new plan to stop Fives from stealing Obi-Wan. Any ideas?”

“Maybe we can get him arrested?” Hardcase suggests. “Fox could detain him for crimes against fashion.”

“I could,” Fox says. “I’d have to be in close proximity to him, though, and that sounds awful.”

“We could break all his legs,” Jesse says.

“All his legs?” Echo asks. “Like he’s got more than two?”

Jesse raises a brow. “We could also break all his arms.”

“Jesse! That’s terrible!” Tup says.

Jesse waves him off. “They’re just broken bones. It’s not like it’s permanent.”

Cody opens his mouth to interrupt when the door slides open.

“--find even one bottle of...” Detective Obi-Wan Kenobi trails off. “...cleaning solution. Sorry, am I interrupting something?”

“We were planning our monthly strip sabacc tournament,” Hardcase says.

“In a supply closet?” Obi-Wan asks, lowering his commlink. “This is a supply closet, isn’t it?”

“Cody likes supply closets,” Hardcase says with a completely straight face. “It’s harder for people to eavesdrop.”

“Eavesdropping. On your planning of the monthly strip sabacc tournament,” Obi-Wan says.

“It’s extremely high stakes. Isn’t that right, Cody?” Hardcase says. “Since you’re the reigning champion and all.”

Cody shoots Hardcase a murderous look for this stupid, stupid cover story. “We try to make things different every time,” he says. “So it doesn’t get old.”

“Yeah, there’s only so many ways to get ori’vod to take his shirt off before it gets boring,” Echo jumps in. “We were thinking of changing the venue. Like the aquarium.”

“Really?” Obi-Wan says. He glances down at the flyer sitting on the rickety card table. “Oh, Charduul Aquarium? I wouldn’t suggest that one--the exhibits aren’t very good, especially since they changed management a few years back. I’m fairly certain they’re only still in business for legacy reasons.”

“Aren’t you going to the aquarium? Tomorrow?” Hardcase asks.

“Where did you hear that?” Obi-Wan asks. “Yes, in fact, I am. Not Charduul, though--you couldn’t pay me enough to go there. I’m visiting the Vespid, a few districts south--it’s much better, and it’s a free admission day tomorrow. Boba wanted to go, and it’ll be good for him to see some new things, so Feral and I are taking him.”

“What about Fives?” Jesse asks.

“My goodness, you’re all gossips, aren’t you?” Obi-Wan says. “I told Fives that it was a free admission day, and he said he’d love to come along. Rex and Ahsoka are coming, too. You are all free to join us--the aquarium is very good, and it deserves at least one visit while you’re still on Coruscant.”

“Oh. I see,” Cody says. “We’ll...consider it. Out of curiosity, Obi-Wan, what do you think of Fives?”

“Fives? Well, he’s got a peculiar sense of fashion and he’s very nervous when speaking. I still would have preferred he hadn’t asked me to dinner at the time that he had, but he’s a decent sort. He cares very much about his brothers, which is always admirable. Is there a point to this line of questioning?”

“No, I just...wanted to know,” Cody says.

“I see. Is there a bottle of cleaning solution in here? There was an incident in one of the refectories and the cleaning droids are malfunctioning.”

Echo hands him a bottle.

Obi-Wan smiles, making Cody’s heart do something slightly peculiar. “Thank you, dear. In that case, I’ll let you go back to planning your monthly strip sabacc tournament. It sounds very exciting--perhaps someone should take holos. Good luck defending your championship, Captain,” he says, winking at Cody, then leaving.

It takes a full ten seconds for Cody’s brain to start working again after that, but fortunately everyone else seems to be suffering from roughly the same problem.

“Rex, that lucky son of a bitch,” Hardcase says, voicing what they’re all feeling.

“So...” Echo says. “We have to actually make a monthly strip sabacc tournament now, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” Cody says.

“And we’re all going to the aquarium tomorrow, aren’t we?”

“Yeah...”

“All right,” Echo says. “What’s the funniest thing I can get Fives to wear tomorrow?”

#star wars #fanfic #fic: asynchronous circuit #I'm not tagging all these people.#jessepinwrites

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merry-go-round-jailhouse · 5 years

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The best part of new Pokemon game releases is how apopletically disappointed fans on the internet get

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monsterbookworm · 5 years

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🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃

#im. mad #i literally said i couldn't hang out with one of my friends on the expectation that i might have plans #and then #when i asked #are we doing smth #guess :) what :) happened :)#NOTHING #i have to check if the person who proposed plans read the message #but if she did!!!#and we're not doing anything!!!#and i said no to my other friend!!!!#for fucking NOTHING #i will be #apopletic

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rickssoberjourney · 5 years

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Am I Ready to Surrender?

Like Bluto in the GIF I'm waving the white flag. I surrender! "To what?" you might be asking. Hard to say.

I've been fighting God for a very long time. But it wasn't always that way. I had a very emotionally intense "born again" experience during my senior year in high school. For five years or more, I considered myself to be a Christian who believed that the Bible was the inerrant Word of God. To me, if the Bible said it, I believed it LITERALLY...and that was final!

I sought God's will. I did all the crazy (read "immature") stuff that new Christians do. I prayed for parking spaces and to make that red light and I couldn't understand how God refused to honor my supplications. Imagine! The God of the Universe...the God that I worshipped...not doing what I asked! I reasoned that those things weren't really important and I chalked it up to my anthropomorphized god was just too busy. I accepted that...sort of.

I decided (notice I said, "I DECIDED") to become a minister. I didn't want to pastor a church or preach. I wanted to be a psychological counselor in the church. So, I applied to the University of San Diego for get a Religious Studies degree. USD is a Jesuit university and, if you know anything about the Caholic Orders, the Jesuits are the academics of the bunch.

I chose a Catholic university because they promised to let me grow in my own faith while the other schools (like Point Loma Nazarene University) were going to shove their religion down my throat with the goal of converting me to their faith. Nah. Not having any of that!

Of course, the radical thinking of the Jesuits bothered me, but I just dug my heels in and told myself that I wasn't going to listen to their teachings. I would simply put in my time, learn about the Bible, get a second major in psychology, and graduate. I wasn't having any of their theological mumbo jumbo.

Well one day in class, Father McDonald, a priest from Ireland with a brogue I could hardly understand said, "Scripture is a myth!" OMG!!!! I wanted to walk right out of class. I was really upset. Myth means "untrue," right?

But, somehow, I got it in my mind that I would listen to what the Jesuits had to teach me and I would use the brains that God gave me to weigh what they were teaching against my fundamentalist beliefs. That was a breakthrough of major proportions. It didn't end there.

By the time I graduated 4 years later, I was about 180 degrees away from my old fundamentalist self as I could get. It made sense to me that the Bible had been an oral history for centuries and that those stories had been passed down, family to family. I had no problem with the idea that the Old Testament was filled with stories, or "myth" is you will. The word "myth" simply came to mean something different.

Every religion from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the early Tribes of Judaism, to the Native American people, to modern-day Christians use myth to explain what we humans simply cannot understand.

I love the Native American story of how the stars got up into the sky. The Shaman explained that the Earth was dark and flat. The people wanted room to move around so they used tree branches to prop up the sky, poking holes in the firmament. Those stars were simply the sun shining through those holes.

So, I reasoned, if cultures had been telling stories to explain what they didn't understand, the early writers of the Bible probably did the same thing. Was it lying? No. The stories of Noah's Ark and Adam and Eve were simply that - stories. They were never meant to be taken literally and the ancients knew that.

I graduated, went to work as a youth pastor and Christian Education director for a large church in Scottsdale, Arizona. I spent over 12 years in various capacities in a number of churches from Arizona to California. But all during that time, something was happening to me.

For one, I was sturggling with the idea that I could be married with kids and be gay. I never felt that God hated me for that. I'm not sure why. And, as I struggled with my sexuality and what to do about it, my faith began to change as well.

The idea of a white-bearded humanoid that lived in the clouds just didn't cut it anymore for me. I began investigating other religions like Buddhism, Islam, and a variety of others. I came to realize that each of these schools of religious thought basically taught the same thing: loving God and my neighbor as myself. Self-sacrifing love.

I had one person tell me that was evidence that God existed. But, to my way of thinking, that just signaled that the human brain, no matter what culture, used the concept of god to explain life. It didn't convince me that there was a god.

Today, after coming out of the closet over 20 years ago and after experiencing everything from gay relationships, wanton sex, and even drug addiction, I find myself saying that I'm an athiest.

Really now...???

I'm a pretty introspetive person. I usually know why I do the things I do. There has always been this deep anger and resentment toward the god that I used to worship. And, in recovery, I have met that resentment in a different form.

I attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. I try to go every day. I learn a lot and I have found true support in those rooms. But, I have also found judgement and what appears to be passive-aggressive behavior on the part of my fellows.

How does that manifest itself? People that I know...people that I text with and am friends with on Facebook...will ignore my greetings. The look right through me as if I'm not there.

Resentment.

The same resentment that I feel toward the god I used to worship.

I'm savvy enough in the ways of psychology to know that when something bothers me that much, the problem is most likely mine. I can't possibly know why a person would behave like that but my codependent brain always takes it personally.

Jeeze! Where the hell does that leave me? Am I an athiest? An agnostic? Or, am I just acting like a spoiled brat who didn't get his way with God? I don't know that I have an answer for that just yet.

I do believe in my Higher Power...Icall it LOVE. I don't resent LOVE. But when I think about praying to God, that raises my hackles! When they say that Third-Step Prayer at meetings, it bugs the shit outta me! Oh, and just let someone decide to end the meeting with the Lord's Prayer and I get practically apopletic!

Why?

There's that resentment again. Someday, maybe I will discover where all that anger comes from. Maybe someday, if I stay open to the idea and to what my Higher Power has to teach me, I can put back together a realtionship with God of my understanding. A different God this time. One who loves me and nurtures me and wouldn't do anything to arouse such resentment in anyone let alone in me.

So, I quote the Book of Mark in the New Testament. A man approached Jesus, asking him to heal his son. Jesus asked, "Do you believe?" The man answered with gut wrenching honesty, "I believe...help me with my unbelief!"

So, that's where I'll leave it...

I believe...help me with my unbelief!

I surrender.

Amen

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