𝚅𝙸𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙽𝙸𝙰 » 𝚂𝚂/𝚁𝙻

𝚇𝙻𝙸𝙸 » 𝙿𝙴𝚁𝙴𝙽𝙽𝙸𝙰𝙻 𝙼𝙴𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙸𝙴𝚂

7 June, 1982

I will say today and will keep saying from here on out that I associate rain most with Severus Snape.

He seems to claim himself within it. He becomes its soothing darkness, his eyes growing comforted and dim as he stands and watches it fall and drip from the sky, off the edges of the rooftops, over the panes on his old and tarnished windows. He reminds me of rain, and rain reminds me of him. In my home, alone and quiet, it will rain and I will feel as though he is there.

But today I was not in my home. I was not far away or on my own. The rain was not a distant reminder; it was a package deal.

I had unpacked for the most part. I'd left my last suitcase full of books and trinkets alone, because fuck it all. I was exhausted from traveling regardless. I had unpacked what was necessary then and there and needed nothing more extraordinary other than to sit and relax and be with the company I had been so terribly missing.

"How was the rest of the school year without me?" I asked, sitting with him by the front window and watching the rain. He had a small round dining table there, chipped and well-used, and he had set two mugs with tea upon it. I watched them steam while he looked past them, out the window at the storm.

He barely shifted when he spoke (he rarely ever does, aside from small and intricate changes in the corner of his lips and the way he darts his eyes). "Beleagueringly ordinary; beguilingly tedious."

"No former professors trying to set up any massacres? Anything of the sort?" I followed up jovially, as that has always been my role in our conversation. "Peritus rise from the dead?"

His eyes warmed just enough where I knew he received and appreciated the joke, but he did not laugh. It was not like him to laugh much. "No... yet there... was a massacre of sorts."

I leaned forward in my seat, playfully feigning shock. "Another! You don't say! Hocus-pocus at a school made for that nature?"

His arms clenched around his ribs, crossed tight over his chest. "The children kept making those blobs," he complained sharply, glaring at the window, which was dark and wet and gray. "I had to take down the recipe and tell them to bloody stop doing it. They were all over the damned place. Other professors were bringing boxes of them back into my classroom to... humanely dispose of."

I laughed at his antics; at his drama regarding the little harmless blobs. "And did that work? Taking the recipe down?" I gave him a tight-lipped smile, an expression that he often brought out of me unintentionally.

"Of course it didn't bloody work!" Snape growled quickly. "You think they wouldn't know it by heart the moment it was learned? Simplest recipe on the face of the earth, Rem. Take a liquid, take a thickener, take another constituent for a personality trait, overmix until it forms a living organism. They still do it when I'm not looking. I bloody abhor them. They're exactly as I was... as I am." His fingers dug into his cloak, which he wore even away from work. And I did not blame him for that; it was a fine cloak. It fit him well.

"Hate them?" I replied with a small laugh. "I'm sure you're fond."

Quiet. He was always quiet when I was right.

"You enjoy the children," I reiterated, taking my tea from the table. He only scowled at the wall; he must have lost interest in the window.

"Tell me of your job, Rem," he said, changing the subject so I couldn't bully him into being softer than he'd already become in my presence. "You've got a job out there in the country. You must have... worthwhile experiences there."