#Post-Willow incident and I think I stuck enough clues in about the when and the why that happened

[momo-t-daye]

Full text under the cut for folks who like to read on Tumblr instead of on Ao3!

I had hoped I'd be able to add annotations in hover text, but, alas, I am not sufficiently tech savvy. Oh well!

Sirius was bored.

Boredom bore down upon him, he was burdened with boredom, buried by boredom, bored of his boredom!

James, blast him, was busy with his paragon of virtue act helping Peter revise for the Charms O.W.L. before his scheduled detention with McGonagall (who, blast her too, had cruelly scheduled their detentions in shifts to spitefully deprive them of the comfort of camaraderie whilst they wrote dull moralistic lines about the appropriate uses for the owl post and why geese did not belong inside parcels). Peter, blast that chump twice over for good measure, was behaving like such a lump, fretting about the upcoming exams and moaning so piteously for James’ patient explanations that Sirius couldn’t lure either of them out of the library.

Ennui ate at him, until, at last, in dire desperation for James’ company, he deigned to trespass into the dusty bookshelf realm of the studious wretches.

Sirius poured himself over the books, dipped his toes into reference texts, sluiced into a study guide, and cascaded over old coursework.

“Sirius, mate, come on,” James sighed, struggling to roll Sirius out of the books and off the table.

“Are you really reviewing the elementary theories of balance and cost underlying spell duration and agonizing over switching spells and color changing charms?” Sirius demanded, irked at his failure to kick over Peter’s inkstand on his way down to the floor. “Peter, Peter, Petey-Pete, Petey-pie, please! This is all such kid stuff, why are you both fermenting indoors over this rot?”

Sirius’ tutors had tried to hammer anything and everything the O.W.L.s would cover into his skull before he’d experienced his eighth birthday. They knew what he would need to know; why, many of his former tutors would be administering the O.W.L.s!

Old Griselda Marchbanks used to make him eat a spoonful of honey with every lesson under some misapprehension that making him associate sweetness with studying would encourage a scholarly attitude. It was almost a pity that his appetites had always leaned more carnivorous and all her sweet bribes had quite failed to bind him to bookishness. Still, she could hardly give him anything less than an “Acceptable”; she couldn’t, she wouldn’t, it would reflect quite badly on her tutelage if her former pupil was anything less than “Acceptable”.

Peter looked to James for an opinion and a decision with the same pathetic fawning face Reggie wore whenever dear mother felt like putting thoughts and ideas into his empty little head. At least James had better thoughts and ideas and opinions that Walburga. At least Peter could, occasionally, come up with a spark of brilliance all by himself.

“Lay off,” James sighed, hauling Sirius off the floor. “We didn’t all have the opportunity to suffer through intense scholastic preparation from infancy until the Hogwarts invite arrived. Besides, a bit of a refresher and a review can’t hurt.” Peter’s face completely failed to hide his obnoxious gratitude with a hint of triumph that only managed to grate on Sirius’ nerves.

It wasn’t as though Peter was the first Pettigrew to qualify as a Pureblood, there were several generations of Pettigrews between Peter and any muggles. Perhaps Peter’s particular parental Pettigrews hadn’t sprung for the top-class tutors Sirius had been subjected to, but there were always plenty of freshly minted Hogwarts graduates of middling breeding who needed to establish themselves socially and would have been happy to play the role of tutor in exchange for room and board and proper introductions.

Remus would probably do well on the tutor circuit, particularly for History or Charms, even if Potions and the more odoriferous aspects of Herbology or Care of Magical Creatures were a bit too much of a headache for the old fellow. He’d probably enjoy tutoring more than introductions into adult society and the crowded gossipy parties that entailed. Remus could thrive as one of the top-class and full-time and high-demand tutors like old Griselda Marchbanks.

Of course, Remus’ furry little problem would, probably, make live-in arrangements, a typical perk for a prized tutor, a tad tricky.

Ugh. Remus.

Remus was still acting all aggrieved and churlish and curt. Even though it had been weeks and weeks and absolute weeks since that one little incident with Snape in the willow back in March. Even though shunning company from Padfoot and staying locked up in the Shack had left Remus looking all the worse for the wear after the last full moon. Even though he had agreed to help with their little owl post experiment earlier and was dutifully serving the first sentence. Even though Sirius had been exceedingly devoted to keeping Remus, and Dumbledore too, safe by sticking right inside the lines of Narcissa’s draconian new rules despite Snape offering up opportunity after opportunity to contravene her commandments.

Snape. Right.

As far as Sirius could gather, anyone sensible and sane would be grateful for Cissy’s unilaterally negotiated truce and stay safely ensconced beneath her watchful eye. But Snape had not gone about skulking around the dungeon depths nor did he stick to Narcissa’s side like a particularly unpleasant barnacle. Rather, Snape had taken to intruding on Sirius’ morning ablutions, sashaying up to the Gryffindor heights without an escort just to paint strange cosmetics across his face while his former tormentors were forced to watch without recourse or comment (it was a test, of course it was a test, because Snape never showed up to class with kohl dripping down his face or caked on his lips). There was definitely something deeply wrong with Snape, Sirius had sensed at least that much on their first Hogwarts Express ride. Nevertheless, the brazen audacity was astonishing.

“Look, Sirius, mate,” said James, “I’ve only got about ten minutes before I’m due to meet the tartan for my hour of toil. Can you let me help Pete with his color changing charms? He’s almost got it if you want to stick around and lend us a hand.”

Sirius groaned, a wordless and primeval distress at the horrendous chore of sitting around in the library for the sake of reviewing and overthinking the absolute basics. If Peter’s brain got any more mushy and muddled and overheated he’d start forgetting how to make his heart beat or his lungs breathe, and then what? Sirius wasn’t so sure James would still be down to hide a body.

“You could run some time trials if you’re bored,” Peter offered, clearly eager to avoid another round of Sirius condescendingly condense complex magical theory instead of providing practical preparation.

Sirius considered the suggestion. Peter, cowering under the intensity of Sirius’ riveted attention, began to babble. “Binns is on the patrol duty for tonight, right? And he’s so predictable and he wouldn’t notice if you ran right through him! And Dumbledore and Sluggy are at some Ministry thing with Professor Meadows, McGonagall and Flitwick are running detentions, and the squib is busy fixing the Cadogan canvas after the thing with his cat in the armor yesterday! So, thing is, no one is going to stop you from running in the halls, right? You, uh, you did say we needed to be confident in our timing so we could synchronize the fireworks next time Gryffindor wins, you did say a premature release would be mortifying, and, well, there’s less than a month until the big game against Slytherin…”

“You always come through with the gossip, don’t you, Peter?” Sirius beamed, trying to ignore how his little friend deflated in relief. “I think I might just run a few laps, get the blood pumping, good plan.” “Don’t have too much fun without me,” James said heartily, as though he feared Sirius might do something disastrous again. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Jamie,” Sirius vowed, more earnestly than was strictly appropriate between friends. “Toodle-oo!”

Sirius heard a routine “ta-ta” from James and a bright “pip pip” from Peter as he swanned out and started to sprint.

*

The leg from the Great Hall to the Gryffindor tower was, by dint of familiarity and muscle memory, the fastest. Sirius’ feet knew the pattern of the moving staircases and a running start made leaping the widening gaps much easier.

Sirius tapped his hand by the target window and spun on his heel to race back down the stairs while the portrait of the Fat Lady yelled at him for waking her up.

The route from the Great Hall to the Ravenclaw tower was trickier, if only because the blue and the bronze had all been infected with the habit of getting distracted and plonking down in middle of the hallway to read or debate or scribble some thought down. Still, if they were planning to set off fireworks, Ravenclaw’s roost was a better launch site than the owlery even with the shifting obstacle course of distracted scholars. Owls had all sorts of distasteful responses to unwelcome disturbances and could hold grudges better than any Ravenclaw. No one wanted that sort of trouble in their breakfast.

Sirius vaulted over a startled seventh year who was attempting to absorb his textbooks face first via osmosis and knocked over a little blond firstie.

“Don’t you know who I am?” The tiny twit squeaked out in fury as Sirius galloped on.

“Don’t know, don’t care, Lockhart!” Sirius shouted back, tagging the planned launching pad and spinning around. He even managed to knock the squawking Gilderoy back on his bum on the way down the stairs again.

It was the little things in life.

His legs were burning by the time he made it up the North Tower, lonely without the enthusiastic company of Sir Cadogan racing through the portraits on the walls. Hopefully Filch would finish fixing the shredded sections of canvas sooner rather than later.

One more tower, Sirius told himself when he made it back down to the Great Hall for a third time. Maybe he shouldn’t have left the Astronomy Tower to the last, but he didn’t have a Time Turner so there wasn’t much point in regrets. He had at least forty minutes before he had to report to McGonagall, but Sirius found stopping always made it harder to get started again. Besides, the run was doing him good, lifting his mood even as his calves complained. So, with momentum on his side he spun around yet again and charged up the tallest tower.

Perhaps if he hadn’t been so driven to conquer the final tower, he wouldn’t have been so heedless and grateful to gravity on his way back down. Perhaps.

As he sailed down the spiraling stairs and swung around the corner, Sirius collided with a pile of elbows and knees and charts and a telescope.

With reflexes honed by years of James practicing his Quaffle passes in the dorm, Sirius caught the tumbling telescope with his right hand while his left hand reached out and captured the other student by the robes before they could topple backwards to break their neck. It was quite the athletic feat for such a narrow stair and, for a brief untroubled second, he rather hoped his collision companion might recognize and congratulate him on his impressive talents.

Severus Snape, notes and charts and almanacs scattered, was clinging to Sirius’ left arm like a cat dangling above a bathwater perdition. Sirius froze. Snape had the sort of fearful expression that had almost stopped being familiar after a month of mornings spent watching the git primp and preen and pout at the mirror.

“Hullo to you and good evening,” Sirius said, hauling Snape safely upright onto the step.

Snape stared.

“Your telescope, I presume?” Sirius asked, pressing the instrument towards Snape. He wasn’t going to disappoint James, he wasn’t going to break Narcissa’s prohibitions on pranking, he hadn’t done anything to Snape in the last three dozen days despite the ceaseless rounds of temptation offered as reliably as the dawn.

Snape stared. Rather like a deer, transfixed by an oncoming disaster.

“Fancy running into you up here,” Sirius added, feeling a tad desperate. “This is a bit outside your normal range, isn’t it?” He’d watched Snape on the map often enough, waiting for those rare moments when the target strayed from the flock, and he’d never spotted Snape’s dot make the trek up to the Astronomy Tower outside of class. Everyone knew that anyone sneaking up to the Astronomy Tower really meant to get a good bit of snogging in and no one harboring hopes of hanky-panky could possibly be bothered to lug a telescope up to their trysting; such a smokescreen would just be silly.

Besides, who would want to snog Snape? His nose would probably get in the way of amorous intent and his thin lips were generally chapped and gnawed on and there was unattended acne on his chin.

Besides, who would Snape want to snog? He had to be some sort of ascetic, there wasn’t the slightest smokey whiff of unseemliness or impropriety around Snape with either Evans or Cissy. No one with eyes and a pulse could be quite that oblivious, and he spent more than enough time around the girls for any sparks to catch.

Snape continued to stare.

“Doing a spot of stargazing are you?” Sirius attempted, wincing at the edge of manic cheer creeping into his voice. If only the blighter would take his telescope already!

“Lovely night for it, marvelous sunset over the Quidditch pitch just now and the moon won’t be up for hours!”

Really, it was amazing how incredibly annoying Snape could be without speaking a word. He just stood there, staring, listening, forcing Sirius to fill up the crushing silence with frenetic blathering.

“Your telescope, here, yes, thank you.” Thank goodness.

“Why don’t I lend you a hand, help you get your books up the tower? Would you like that, Snape?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Snape demanded, finally, as soon as Sirius knelt to graciously gather the fallen notes.

Sirius considered the question. Sirius considered Snape. Snape was hardly a simpleton, but he could leap to conclusions like a rubber frog with springs on. With the way his scrawny body seemed to be trying to meld arse first into the stone wall, he had probably hopped his head right into some dire soup. His shoes were scuffed, clearly second-hand, and his green stockings had been mended rather clumsily (Cissy really ought to buy her little pet project some new stockings).

“I am collecting your notes and books,” Sirius said. The loose parchments were worn thin and covered with the ghostly stains of older essays. Snape, driven by thrift or some magpie impulse, had probably fished discarded assignments out of the rubbish and scrapped the old ink off the salvaged skins.

“So you can toss my things off the tower and laugh when I go outside to find them while you lock the Great Hall door behind me?”

That was the most iniquitous of accusations! Sirius hadn’t tossed Snape’s books or notes or bag or other belongings over any balconies or down any stairs or into the lake since probably October. Sirius hadn’t locked Snape in or out of anything or anywhere since early February. Sirius had been a perfect little penitent over the past five weeks, Sirius had even been polite to Snape since his little talk with Cissy after that small snafu under the willow and whatnot.

Sirius had—

Sirius had not been left alone with Severus Snape since— Since he’d cornered Snape behind the greenhouses. Since he’d asked about that ridiculous new hex Snape had pulled off; the one that had made such a mess of Peter’s toenails, and had guessed, correctly, that Snape had managed to reverse engineer the Rapunzel curse. Since he’d praised Snape’s ingenuity and asked to see the hex again, offered himself as a target, insisted he wanted the challenge of unravelling Snape’s brilliant upgrade to a classic curse rather than free instruction. Since he’d convinced Snape, flustered and flattered stupid and so pathetically starved for praise, to meet him somewhere they wouldn’t be interrupted. Since he’d hinted he might be amenable to sharing a few of the more esoteric jinxes his family had collected, or, perhaps, other knowledge Snape might find of interest. Since he’d explained how Snape could get into the Whomping Willow, suggested meeting at the far end of the tunnel an hour or so after sunset.

After all, there would be plenty of moonlight to see by.

They had never intentionally spent much time alone together before. There was the occasional double-detention, the incidental crossing of paths around the toilets, the sporadic hit-and-run jinxes when James was busy with Quidditch practice and the other two were too lazy to help hunt down Snape, a few minutes here and there while they waited for Narcissa. Snape and Evans were generally joined at the hip and Sirius preferred the company of his friends.

Every morning Snape had pranced up into Gryffindor territory to scribble on his face, James or Remus or Peter had been there too. Sirius had thought Snape irrational, intentionally seeking to put himself in situations where he would be outnumbered. Maybe he’d really expected James or Remus or Peter to act as witnesses, to intervene if the goading and provocation became too severe for Sirius. Stupid. Probably right too.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sirius said. Snape’s expression slipped from frozen fear and Sirius braced for offended outrage, yapping machismo, some tedious “I’d like to see you try”-flavored bravado.

“Why?”

Snape’s voice had gone crashing down out of the childish soprano over the last year, sinking steadily into something decadent deep and hypnotic dark. But the tiny question, the baffled word, came out in the voice of the titchy kid with the funny accent on the first train ride.

“Cissy said not to.” That was the safe answer. That was the easy answer. Narcissa would be delighted to claim every credit and accolade for Sirius’ noble behavior and self-restraint. “We’re not enemies. Can’t be. Not anymore. Because Cissy said so.”

“Oh. Just that easy for you, is it?” Snape sounded so bitter and brittle.

No. “Naturally,” Sirius lied breezily. “Now, do you want a hand lugging all this up the tower or are you going to pretend you’re on the way to meet someone else and send me away so I won’t ruin your rendezvous?”

“Lily went to bed,” Snape said, as though Lily Evans was the only possible person he’d consider meeting up with. “She stayed up too late working on her Charms project yesterday.” “—and you’re such a swot you’ve got to go review the stars?” Sirius suggested, schlepping Snape’s stack of study notes up the stairs.

“It hasn’t exactly been…” Snape hesitated, a fascinating little furrow between his eyebrows trying to unearth the right emotion, the exact words. “…safe. For me. To wander around alone. Or study in isolated locations. Especially at night.” That was definitely a dig at Sirius, at the Marauders. “I thought, perhaps now, I could devote some time to preparing for the Astronomy practical.” “Of course you’re safe,” Sirius said. “Seems a bit silly, though, to worry about Astronomy out of all your courses. The stars haven’t changed their paths or patterns. I know old Lulu Malfoy and darling Cissy like to act as though they plucked you out of some miserable muggle gutter, but even so, you should’ve been able to look up at the stars from down there.” Sirius couldn’t imagine how anyone could get less than an “Acceptable” in Astronomy but Snape was squinting at him as though he’d mangled some profound parable into terrible parody.

“Cokeworth’s got plenty of gutters,” Snape said slowly, “but the industrial pollution is a bit much for the stars to get through.”

Sirius had never seen a night sky without stars. The stars would always shine on the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Even at Grimmauld Place, besieged by an ever-growing ever-glowing muggle-London, the night sky stayed clear and dark whenever Sirius went out to look.

“Are you telling me you don’t know your stars?”

That made Snape bristle.

“I have studied the textbooks and I am thoroughly acquainted with the current celestial reference almanac and I read a lot about space as a kid,” Snape snapped, as though ‘space’ had something to do with ‘stars’. “I just need to get some practical experience with the telescope before the O.W.L.s.”

“I’ll help you,” said Sirius, before he could say something that might offend Snape enough to displease Narcissa, before he could say something that might encourage Snape to tell that utterly implausible story about muggles walking to the moon, the actual moon in the sky, yet again. “I’ve got an hour of lines with McGonagall at nine, but I can give you a few pointers before then and you can check your charts to see I don’t lead you astray.”

Severus Snape had such tar pit eyes. The gaze was dark and inexplicably sticky as he studied Sirius. There was no escape from that sort of stare.

“You’re offering to help me because,” Snape said, “…we aren’t enemies anymore?”

“That’s right,” Sirius agreed. “I can think of worse reasons to help someone, can’t you?” Snape considered his shoes, silently trailing Sirius onto the open tower roof.

“Since we aren’t enemies,” Snape’s voice was deliberate, careful, pondering the possibilities of the strange new world he’d stumbled into. “Then, yes, I should warn you.”

Oh, spectacular. That wasn’t ominous at all.

“Warn me about what, Snape?” Snape didn’t have his wand out, so he probably wasn’t going to try to fling Sirius off the tower. He seemed too preoccupied with the loose connection between his second-hand telescope and the wobbly stand to be plotting an attack.

“Jorkins, in your house, she’s a seventh year, I think?” Snape fumbled with the telescope as two of the tripod legs collapsed inward.

“What, busybody Bertha? She’s a nuisance, but she’s pretty harmless.”

“She wanted to give you a love potion,” Snape proclaimed. “So, you should be careful.”

Sirius relaxed. He could have laughed.

A love potion?

For all Snape’s dire tone, the little git was issuing a warning about something as paltry and banal as some barmy girl fantasizing about slipping him a love potion again.

Sirius should probably give Peter a heads up. Dimwits like Bertha Jorkins saw Petey’s angelic baby face and assumed they could use him as an innocent little dupe to get to Sirius or James. Peter appreciated any forewarnings, it gave him time to calculate the price he could extract from the assorted aspirants in exchange for delivering spiked chocolates to the intended victim. He could probably get a few galleons off Jorkins, and it was hardly her business if the laced candies went right into the rubbish once delivered.

“Well,” Sirius said cheerily, “I suppose if you did her brewing, I won’t have to choke down another bezor to survive!” There had been a dicey few weeks at the start of the school year, after Slughorn introduced the idea of Amortentia to his sixth years and they all started thinking about love potions. Bezors were disgusting.

“I didn’t—!” Snape spluttered, “I— I wouldn’t! I don’t. I don’t make love potions.”

“Really?” Sirius had been under the impression Snape would brew most anything for the right price.

“I don’t make those. Not for anyone, not for anything.” Snape sounded defensive, and he’d stopped trying to put his tripod together upside down. “People ask me to, because I’m good, you know, at Potions.” That was an understatement. “I’m good at Potions and everyone knows… knows I’m skint. But I don’t. I won’t. I don’t care if people want to take mind-altering substances for their own fun, but doing that to someone else, drugging them and messing with their mind for, you know, sex reasons and stuff, without their consent is, Lily says it’s evil, and she’s right. So, I don’t, we don’t, don’t do love potions.”

“That’s jolly decent of you,” said Sirius, plucking the tripod away from Snape’s inept assembly attempts.

“I told Narcissa,” Snape said to his empty hands. “So you probably don’t have much to worry about. She’s very efficient at handling this sort of thing.”

“You tell her about ‘this sort of thing’ very often then?” Sirius asked lightly.

“Yes. Usually once a month or so, since last year. Sometimes more.”

That was interesting. Pete tended to be flush with cash around Valentines, but his extra money tended to fizzle out outside of holidays and after Sluggy moved on from love potions.

“Narcissa is our friend. You’re her cousin. She cares about you.”

Narcissa cared about the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, she could recite the lineage back at least a thousand years before the Romans arrived (probably longer, but Sirius tended to doze off), and she dutifully accepted Sirius as part of the package deal and thought his marital prospects were entirely her business. That was all.

“It would upset her if someone did that sort of thing to you. So, when they ask me or Lily to brew that kind of potion, we tell Narcissa. And Narcissa handles everything before it can get messy.”

“Oh, yes, Cissy does hate anything messy,” Sirius agreed, annoyed as the telescope refused to lock into position for him. “But she doesn’t have to get Jorkins expelled or sabotage the ninny’s limited career options. I’ve had girls trying to dose me with that crap since second year. I’m not oblivious, I’ve got James and the others watching my back, and we know how to take matters into our own hands.”

There was a screw missing from the connector plate, that must be why Snape’s downright prehistoric telescope wouldn’t stop wobbling. Sirius would have to tell Narcissa to tell Snape to stop scavenging for school supplies in dumpsters. There were smarter ways to economize.

“Second year?” Snape sounded scandalized. “We were twelve!”

Why had his mouth said that? To Snape, of all people? It had to be those stupid beautiful fathomless eyes watching him. Observing, absorbing, witnessing, whatever. Severus Snape’s full attention was intoxicating. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, drowning in those lightless eyes. His bones could rest with all the other skeletons buried down there.

“I was thirteen, thanks.”

Carefully carefree, deliberately dismissive.

“It was right around Christmas and it wasn’t so bad. Trudy Netherwart, you remember her? Hufflepuff, half-blood, seventh year back then? She had the biggest fucking tits I have ever seen in my life.” Snape recoiled at the vapid vulgarity, nose wrinkled with prudish disgust, and that appallingly appealing attention released Sirius before he could become hopelessly addicted. “Nothing happened, James and Peter got me up to the Hospital Wing and Madame P fixed me up and Remus kept me company for the night and we all learned a valuable lesson about watching our drinks instead of looking down girls’ shirts.”

He made it a joke, to show he could take a joke; to keep James from freaking out. He’d still been glad to hear that Netherwart had hopped on the Knight Bus that morning, to get out of the castle for the rest of break.

She hadn’t come back.

The Aurors still hadn’t found all the bits, but they’d found more than enough to stop looking for her. It had probably been Bella (it had definitely been Bella). Sirius hadn’t known Andy’s new address back then and he wasn’t about to write to his mother. Two days later, Bella and Roddy had sent him a bag of bezors and a ring carved out of unicorn horn and set with amethysts. The ring wasn’t even cursed. He’d assumed it was whole marriage thing that was making Bella go soft, but there had been the card. There was that mandatory message about how much they all missed his company at home and how lovely it would be to see him in the summer but, under Bella’s lipstick stain signature, she’d added a quick postscript assuring him that: “Aunt Wally doesn’t need to know a thing”.

Sometimes it was hard to hate everything Slytherin.

“But—” Clearly Snape couldn’t understand.

He wasn’t the premium grade cut of fresh meat getting put up on the marriage market, he wasn’t even a wilted vegetable. Snape was just the scraggly son of a muggle with a nose that took up too much of his face and a habit of responding aggressively to small talk with fun facts about parasitic worms and brain-eating amoebas or by pulling out heliocentric heresies.

Not a vegetable. Maybe he was some sort of a fruit. One of those all covered in spikes.

“You’re going to need a sticking charm to keep your telescope in place,” Sirius interrupted. “You really should get a new one next time you stop in Diagon Alley, do try to borrow something better for the O.W.L.s.”

“What?” Snape looked as though he had no idea where the telescope in question had come from.

“Focus, Snape! We’re looking at the stars,” Sirius said. “My time of terrible torture with the tartan tartar is coming right up and you’re the one that needs help with the heavens.”

“Right, okay,” Snape said, as though he was the one humoring Sirius. “Stars. Astronomy. Studying. Yes.”

“It won’t be proper dark for another hour or two,” Sirius warned, “—but it won’t be proper dark any night in June. Because the Ministry is run by morons, they’ve managed to schedule the Astronomy O.W.L. two days ahead of the full moon, so the sky will be unsuitably bright.” Snape let out a huff that could almost pass for laughter, which was more than enough encouragement for Sirius. Remus and Peter, dutiful sons of Ministry employees the pair of them, got all ‘hem-haw’ whenever Sirius complained about the Ministry. Lately, even James had started frowning, like he half-expected Sirius to pull out Reggie’s nasty little political scrapbook and slogans, whenever Sirius so much as grumbled about decisions from the Wizengamot.

It was nice to have an appreciative audience.

“Knowing old Tofty, he’ll want us up alphabetically. Poor bastards like me are going to be called right after sunset while you’ll get to wait until midnight. Luckily, Tofty likes to think he’s a fair man, so, what with the moonlight and the lingering dusk, he won’t ask for anything particularly faint and he’ll probably keep his questions focused on the northern side of the sky.”

“…and you are certain this Tofty person is going to be conducting our exam?”

“Unless something dire happens to him,” Sirius shrugged. “Even then. I expect Tofty wants to take a page out of Binns’ book just to supervise the O.W.L.s post-mortem. He wouldn’t trust anyone else with the job. We used to host him for a few months in the winter, but mother always had to schedule around the Wizarding Examinations Authority planning committee meetings.”

“Oh,” Snape said sourly. “And are you also going to say the O.W.L.s are more about who you know rather than what you know? If the examiners have known you since you could talk, they can’t possibly let you fail, is it?”

“Since I could talk? Please, Snape, don’t underestimate the length of my acquaintance with old Tofty. Since I could talk indeed! My parents probably hired him to chart the most auspicious times for my very conception,” Sirius scoffed theatrically, watching the jealous tension in Snape’s shoulders. “Obviously it matters who you know, Snape, and right now I am offering you a peek into the particular psychology of your proctor, knowledge on his opinions and most adored celestial bodies you can’t find in a book. You can have all of my insight on the inner workings of our invigilators without enduring the inevitable mortification of Marchbanks pinching your cheeks and remarking on your height or Tofty telling the entire Great Hall about the most adorable things you said or did in the days before you even wore breeches.”

“I see. What a painful price to pay for privilege,” Snape agreed, sarcastic but less sullen. “Well, spill his secrets. The more O.W.L.s I can get, the better off I’ll be.”

“Certainly. As I said, our examiner wants to be a fair man so he’ll concentrate on the northern side of the sky to avoid the moon and he won’t ask for anything too faint. That means Uncle Cygnus is practically guaranteed, and, since he includes Deneb, Tofty will probably ask us to map Altair and Vega and call that an easy bonus. Tofty won’t snub Andy, he’s always had a soft spot for her, so finding her should be a priority. Reg will still be up in June, even if he’ll be sitting low on the west. Oh, of course my grandfathers are a given, Tofty will consider them both soft questions and be pretty harsh on anyone that misses either of them.”

Snape was not taking notes, which seemed rather uncharacteristic.

“Sorry,” Snape said cautiously, as though speaking to someone on another plane of reality. “When you say: ‘Uncle Cygnus’, you meant the constellation that Narcissa’s father is named after, not, er, the man himself.” Just for that tedious bit of pedantry Sirius wished he could bribe his uncle Cygnus to show up on a broomstick and interrupt the last Astronomy practical session.

“Sure, smartarse, since you’re such a clever dick, why don’t you go ahead right now and show me where we can find the constellation Cygnus?” Sirius had a broom. Maybe he just needed to purchase some Polyjuice potion and ask Uncle Alphard to retrieve some hair from Uncle Cygnus…

Snape, jumping at the challenge, grabbed his star charts and started thumbing through the guide to find the April sky. “The constellation Cygnus is going to be low on the northeast horizon,” Snape announced, fishing some flat object out of his pocket and unholstering his wand.

“Whoa, hey, don’t you go casting Lumos, you’ll ruin your night vision,” Sirius said. “Is that a compass? Why do you have a compass?”

“Compasses can be used to find north, and even northeast,” Snape explained with a hefty helping of condescension. “According to these charts, Cygnus, the constellation, is going to be in the northeast.”

“Or,” said Sirius, supremely supercilious, “you look at the stars instead of attempting to read a compass in the dark. How do you not just know where north is? What if you went out looking for your little potions ingredients and got lost in the woods and you had to find a way to get out?”

“I could just retrace my steps,” Snape replied, baffled at the hypothetical dilemma.

“No, you can’t, because you’re lost. Super lost. In the woods.”

“Well,” said Snape, who was pretty damn sure he was standing on top of the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts and indulging a madman, “I believe in contingency plans. So I’d have a Portkey. Or my Appartion license after next year. So I could just apparate out of those woods.”

“No, you can’t,” Sirius insisted. “Because what if there’s an evil wizard who warded the whole woods against apparation and your Portkey was in your bag with your compass and the evil wizard’s minions stole your bag already. And he’s hunting you for sport. What then, Snape?”

“In that case, I think I’d have bigger problems than trying to find north,” Snape replied. “I think setting up a defensible position, maybe laying a few traps or an ambush, might be a priority.”

“So you’ll just hide in the woods, forever, until you die?”

“No!” Now Snape was getting frustrated. “I will have told Lily where I am going and when I planned to return. If I’m missing, she’ll come find me. And, as you lot may have noticed, she’s been taking a rather dim view of people hunting me for sport lately, so your imaginary evil wizard doesn’t stand a chance. And once he’s dead, we can just apparate out. Tra la la.”

“You’re so stubborn!” Sirius lamented. “You really think waiting for Evans to show up and save you is a better contingency plan than knowing how to find north?”

“Yes—!” Whatever ranting retort Snape was about to serve up was cut short, his attention fixed behind Sirius, beyond Sirius.

“…was that just a shooting star?” All of the irritation and confusion had fallen from him and his voice had gone hushed with wonderment.

“Probably,” said Sirius. “It is a good night to catch the spring star fall.”

“I’ve never seen one before,” Snape whispered, shockingly naked awe making his face almost beautiful.

“Really? What about the summer star fall? Or the winter show? Those are both quite active.”

“Never.” Snape was mesmerized by the vast night sky. “I didn’t even expect this many stars. I thought it’d be too cloudy to see much.”

There was a moment of quiet, of Snape devouring the sky, hunting for another falling star like a child harvesting wishes.

“There was a comet, too, wasn’t there? Or is it gone now?”

“Don’t worry,” Sirius said sourly, mood curdling at the reminder. “That one is long gone and whatever it came to foretell passed without having anything to do with us.”

Sirius had run into Narcissa up on the tower over the late February nights. His cousin had always been more conscious of omens and the unfamiliar streak of light marring their sky had caused quite a bit of consternation.

Regulus had claimed it was a harbinger, portending political victory for that foreign demagogue he’d gone all gaga over.

Sirius, was pretty sure he’d met that man, years ago, at Bella and Roddy’s wedding. Of course foreign wizards would have foreign manners, but the bloke had been so transparently trying to mimic proper pureblood behavior that Sirius had nearly been sent to his room for snickering at failing façade. It had been baffling how his parents and Bella had been able to overlook such bumbling, how they had ever come to invite the bounder to their table, and to think they’d supported his earlier, hilariously unsuccessful, political campaign.

Unfortunately, fratricide was rather frowned on, and so, after Reg, the little fathead, had started parroting lines from the speech Lord absolutely-nobody-cares made at that Ides of March rally, something facile about the wide tail of the cosmic visitor representing his hand come to crush the impure and save their society from contamination, Sirius had avoided the tower until the transient star had faded from the morning sky.

“That’s too bad,” Snape murmured, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a comet.”

There were too many other stars, lesser stars, crowding Snape’s eyes, commanding his attention. Sirius did not like being half-forgotten, displaced by sheer fascination, listening to Snape dream about comets.

“Pop quiz time!” Sirius whooped, shattering the swallowing silence, thrilled to see Snape flinch out of his trance. “Where am I? It’s the brightest star in the sky! Can you find me, Snape? Here’s a hint, it isn’t my greatest time of the year.”

Snape dropped his notes, fumbled, reached for his telescope, his head swiveling wildly as he scanned the sky.

“I don’t know what you’re doing with that telescope pointed at Uranus,” Sirius heckled happily. “But your’e way out of line. Use your eyes, Snape, come on, the clock is ticking and the examiner is getting impatient, what’s your answer?”

“That’s a bright star up there?” Snape guessed, badly.

“Ew, no, that’s grandfather Arcturus!”

“Then—?”

“Capella? Capella?! Do I look like a she-goat to you, Snape? Wait, no, don’t answer that. Clearly your eyesight is terrible from spending too much time lurking underground. Are you going to guess again? Three chances, that’s two more than you’ll get in June! No! That’s Mars. That’s not even a proper star!” Sirius hadn’t had such fun for weeks.

“Look, stop.” Sirius caught Snape’s head in his hands, steering them both to the parapet. “There, on the horizon, just about southwest for your information, that’s me. Sirius. Brightest star in the sky.”

“On the horizon,” the captive Snape said, his voice gone up a tense octave, “doesn’t exactly qualify as ‘in the sky’, does it?”

“It is not on or under the earth, so it counts.” Sirius tilted Snape’s head, pleased to find him so unusually compliant and cooperative. “Moving west, do you see the line of three stars? That’s my father’s belt, Orion, and cousin Bella, Bellatrix, is on the shoulder with the shield. The red star on his other shoulder is Betelgeuse.”

“Another cousin of yours?” Snape asked, only a tiny quavering in his tone. “Or a grandmother this time?”

“Oh, no, the family has long maintained that ‘Betelgeuse’ would be entirely too much name to bestow on a baby. You’d wind up calling the darling squaller, oh, Juice, or maybe Juicy, or perhaps you’d go from Betel to Beetle and wind up with Bug. Can you imagine? Juicy Bug Black. Terrible name. Totally inauspicious and undignified. Of course I’m saving it for my firstborn.”

He could feel Snape trembling, head still held fast between Sirius’ hands, but it was probably suppressed laughter. Sirius had promised he wouldn’t hurt Snape, so he shouldn’t be afraid. He couldn’t be cold, Snape felt so warm, almost feverish, inches away from Sirius’ chest.

“If we turn to the north, after Mercury and past Perseus, we reach cousin Andy, Andromeda. She’ll be up for the O.W.L.s and she always got along with Tofty, so make sure you can recognize her.”

“Bellatrix and Andromeda,” Snape echoed. “Which one is Narcissa?”

Oh no. “She’s not up there.”

Uncle Cygnus had been so mathematically convinced his third child would be the long awaited son, had set his heart on calling that imaginary child Sirius, that he had entirely failed to nominate and appropriately empyrean appellative for a child of the feminine variety. Walburga, never one to skimp on salt when her brother had an open wound, had been more than happy to steal the title of ‘Sirius’ for her own first son two months later. Sometimes Sirius suspected Cissy kept a little record of all the times and ways she would have made better use of his name.

“If we dive into the Celestial River— and don’t call it the Milky Way, Tofty considers all references to bodily fluids vulgar in the extreme— we can find Uncle Cygnus in the northeast.”

“The bright star in Cygnus is Deneb and this Professor Tofty will ask us to map the triangle between Deneb, Altair, and Vega,” Snape recited. “So Altair and Vega are…?”

“Well, look who’s such a stellar scholar, you were listening to me!” Sirius beamed, and then he had catch Snape as the shorter boy stumbled, staggered, knees buckling. He probably tripped over an uneven flagstone in the dark. “Altair won’t be up for another hour or so, but there’s Vega, in Lyra, and Altair will be roughly east around midnight, when the other two will be higher. Those three will be about as close to the moon as Tofty will want to go in June, so let’s just move over to this long line with a hooked tail, which is what constellation?”

“Uh, Leo?” Snape sounded strangled and slightly squeaky, as though he had something else on his mind.

“No, wrong! This one is Draco. But since you’re interested in lions, we can turn around to the south, and there’s Reg up there with the rest of Leo on either side. If we move down the sky, there’s Uncle Alphard in Hydra, he won’t be up for the O.W.L.s, and if we’re back on the southwest horizon, the bright star we’re looking at is—?”

“…Sirius,” Snape said, the name tumbling from him like a snowflake ready to set off an avalanche. “Sirius, the star, the star called Sirius. That’s the star.”

“Nice work, you brainy bean,” Sirius rather liked the way his name tripped up Snape’s normally quick tongue. “As your reward for being such a good student, I’ll show you how to find north before I have to meet with McGonagall.”

Maybe Sirius had been steering Snape around a tad too quickly, rushing through the heavens and leaving him dizzy, because Snape seemed to be having some trouble with his balance. He probably needed to start an exercise regime, now that Cissy had forbade Sirius and his friends from chasing Snape around the castle, to balance out all the time he spent hunched over a cauldron.

“Look up, why don’t you lean on me, and find the plough. Go down the long shaft and follow the tip of the blade. Do you see where it points?”

“Nghrk,” said Severus Snape.

“Right,” Sirius said. “Grandfather Polaris, the North Star, who stays fixed in place as the heavens wheel around his nibs every night and throughout the year. If you trace a direct line to the ground, that will take you north, and now you can get out of the woods and escape from evil wizards without waiting for Lily Evans to save you.”

“Right above the greenhouses,” Snape agreed tightly. “The greenhouses are north. That will be very useful for the exam.”

“That’s only north from right here,” Sirius complained, rocking Snape’s head back and forth to drive the lesson home. “You’re going to get lost in the woods if you try to orient towards the greenhouses.”

It had occurred to Sirius, as he led Snape headlong across the stars, that his hair was not as greasy as Sirius or James had long theorized. It had always looked slightly damp, like Snape had crawled out of some watery depths. It hung in limp curtains and reflected the light with oil slick shades. But, to Sirius’ idle surprise, his questing fingers had informed him that Snape’s hair was almost unpleasantly dry, slightly coarse, and alarmingly crunchy. Split ends, definitely.

And then his wandering hands, absently tangling though Snape’s hair, made a most misfortunate encounter with a mysterious waxen lump.

Sirius could have screamed. He could have recoiled. He could have shoved Snape off the side of the Astronomy Tower and just hoped that Cissy might not notice. But the basal simian instincts screamed instructions up his spine and through his skull and Sirius, no stranger to impulse, obeyed the illogical interest.

“—the fuck?” Snape squeaked, cracking a shrill three octaves above his normal range.

The offending object dislodged and Sirius, with a sudden sneaking suspicion, sniffed.

Bergamot and patchouli.

“Tell me, Snape. How are you washing your hair?”

“The hell—?” Snape sputtered, trying to squirm out of Sirius’ clutches.

“Your hair, Snape, what are you using to wash your hair?” It was, Sirius felt, a subject of near national importance.

“Soap,” Snape spat, prim and pugnacious and perplexed.

“Soap. Hand soap? Is this the soap out of the second floor bathrooms?” It smelled like the soap out of the second floor bathrooms.

“There’s a fresh bar in there every morning no matter how much is used the previous day. That just seems rather wasteful.”

“You can’t wash your hair with hand soap,” Sirius wailed. “That’s terrible for your hair, damages it something dreadful!”

“Soap is for getting things clean!”

“You know you’re supposed to rinse the soap out, right? What do you use for a rinse? Do you even condition?”

“What?”

“What what? Your split ends are atrocious!”

“What?”

A plan, so simple and brilliant, dawned in Sirius’ mind. “Come with me to the fifth floor, the prefect’s bathroom, I got the password out of Remus ages ago. I can’t promise miracles, but I know a bit of relevant magic, and some wrongs can be put to right. Besides, the bath is tremendous, you’ll love it.”

“WHAT?” Sirius wondered if Snape was suffering form an apoplectic attack. His much vaunted vocabulary seemed to have evaporated into mere exclamations.

“We’re going to take a bath—”

The bells of distant Hogsmeade began to toll the hour and Sirius realized his own stellar namesake had sunk out of sight. He was late.

“—tomorrow night, okay? Meet me on the fifth floor, by Boris the Bewildered, why don’t we make it seven?”

“What?” Severus Snape was significantly more bewildered than any Boris had ever been.

“I will bring everything, even the towels. I can have a few useful products rush ordered, so you just need to bring yourself. Now, I really do have to run, I’m late to detention and for every five minutes I delay, McGonagall will add an extra hour to my sentence and claim another night of my life to lines.”

“What.”

“Enjoy the stars, Snape, toodle-oo and goodnight to you!”

Snape, finally stunned into silence, sat down as Sirius sprinted wildly down the tower stairs for the second time that night. His legs twinged something terrible but his heart was warmed by his own generosity and the fuzzy feeling of a good deed done well.

All told, it hadn’t been such a dull evening.

There were no ill omens polluting his sky, Snape had been passably civilized for the most part, and Sirius had enjoyed teaching Mr. brainy-rather-than-brawny a trick or two.

Cissy would surely approve of his comportment and magnanimous instruction. James would be relieved that Sirius hadn’t shoved Snape off the side of the tower or done anything terribly rash. Why, Remus and that dear old plodder Peter would probably appreciate Sirius’ insight into Tofty’s most probable examination now that he’d thought about it. Sirius kept musing over Snape’s open astonishment at a single falling star and the way his name had sounded in Snape’s mouth.

It had turned into a rather delightful evening after all.

Revising Their Stars (8306 words) by Momo_T_Day Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Sirius Black & Severus Snape, Sirius Black/Severus Snape, Sirius Black & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter Characters: Sirius Black, Severus Snape, James Potter, Peter Pettigrew Summary: Sirius is horribly terribly dreadfully bored now that dear cousin Narcissa has prohibited him from tormenting Severus Snape (despite every tantalizing opportunity Snape goes out of his way to provide!). Maybe helping Snape prepare for the upcoming Astronomy O.W.L. will be more fun than Sirius could have expected, Snape certainly seems to be learning something interesting during their tour of the stars. Or Sirius Black is not impressed with Severus Snape’s “#genius lifehacks” for a “#frugal life”

Or

This is the longest fic I've written and I probably spent too much time looking up old star charts and moon phases and comet visibility records but I love stargazing so the research stays in!

Follows "A most wretched raccoon" and takes place before "Bad taste in men"

Should I post the text here as well as on Ao3? I find reading easier on Ao3 for myself, but I do know I'm not very tech savvy...