Seven Preposterous Things

Title: Seven Preposterous Things
Author: Bloodcult of Freud
Warning: Drunks, Poor Taste, and Worse Judgment
Chapter Title: The Prince and The King
Summary- In Which There is Necromancy
Disclaimer- I don’t think JKR would ever write a story like this

Greatness unclean! Dishonour marvelous!
Charles Baudelaire
Tu mettrais l’univers entier dans ta ruelle

On the morning of January 9th Hermione woke up to the sensation of light streaming in her bedroom window. She had managed to complete a spectacular night’s sleep, deep and unbroken and above all comfortable; mostly because she’d had the bed entirely to herself. It was too narrow a bed to share with anyone much less a person with as many angles as Severus.
The realization hit Hermione, stinging her brain into alertness like a shot from a hex. Severus was conspicuously absent.
Her husband had not come home from work last night. Her jaw set hard and her stomach plummeted even as she forced herself out of bed.

She had classes to attend, the vagaries of Severus Snape be damned. She had classes.

To which she went. Besides, knowing Severus and knowing it was his birthday it was likely he had “celebrated” with Shakeleg after work and was now asleep on Shakeleg’s couch, unable to safely make the trip home. Still it seemed unlike him not to appear in the wee hours, rouse her from a peaceful sleep and insist she throw on clothes and join them. It was even less un-Severuslike to admit his driving ability could be hampered by much of anything.

Or perhaps, taking his peculiar quality of Severus-ness into account, he might have some idiosyncratic and maudlin birthday tradition to uphold. One that required solitude.

When she arrived home after class, after taking a ride from the redoubtable blonde, Jessica, the driveway was woefully empty.

The moment she came through the front door she was met by Draco, standing worriedly with baby Phil in his arms.

“Uncle Severus didn’t come home from work last night,” he said. Hermione had some time ago noted that Draco didn’t call him “uncle” unless he was too upset to be concerned about sounding childish.

“I know,” she said her gut flipping over for the fiftieth time. “There isn’t something he usually does on his birthday, is there?”

“Not that I know of,” Draco said, as though he was the world’s foremost authority on all things Severus Snape. Perhaps he once had been, but that position had been taken, quite literally. If he cared to dispute it Hermione could challenge him on the sensitivity of his “uncle’s” nipples and undoubtedly that, would be that.

They stood and looked at each other.

It came to Hermione as she stood staring at an obviously worried Draco there was only one thing for it.

She walked to the corridor outside the loo, Draco trailing close behind. She picked up the telephone book and phone from the niche cut in the wall and called Albert Shakeleg.


Apparently, Severus left work alone except for his new dog and in a timely fashion. He hadn’t seen fit to mention his birthday.

This was not good.
She called round to the hospitals. Nothing.
She refused to even consider contacting the police.
Millie came home an hour or so later and her gravity did nothing to improve the household mood.

Much as she distrusted divination Hermione didn’t see how it could reasonably be avoided. She wasn’t entirely sure how to broach the subject in front of Draco.

Millie was still floury from work and a bit red in the cheeks from standing over the cooker.

“Millie,” Hermione said as her friend took the baby into her arms.

Millie didn’t respond verbally, simply cut her eyes in the direction of the kitchen.

“What’re you two up to?” Draco asked, rather inevitably if you asked Hermione.

“Granger and I’ve come up with a method of divination,” Millie said briskly, “looks like it’s time to put it to work.”

Draco nodded tensely.
~~~~~~~~~~~
In the kitchen Draco watched as Millie and Granger pulled all the magnetic words off the refrigerator and tossed them in a tea mug.

“You pick,” Millie said to Granger, and Draco, being Draco, felt a bit miffed. She might be his wife but Draco was the closest thing Severus Snape had to a child.

Granger closed her eyes and reached into the bowl, laying seven words face down in a row.
Millie turned over the first one.

Panic. That was what it said.
“That seems fitting,” Draco said.

“I wonder whether it’s an instruction or a description of Snape’s mental state,” Millie said.

Granger turned the next two.

Birthday. Surprise.
“What did you do?”

“I’ve not seen him since he left for work last night, don’t try to blame me, Draco Malfoy.”

“Cut it out, you two, obviously something surprised him, on his birthday, that’s all. Bickering doesn’t help anything and it definitely isn’t going to bring Snape home.”

Granger turned over another word.

Gas.

It was at that precise moment Draco moved from worrying over Severus and began to fear for their collective future. Severus had watched out for him and Millie, and Granger to a lesser extent, since they were eleven years old. How were they to manage without him? The very idea of finding Severus, at large, in his car, if he was even on the continent any longer, seemed too unlikely to even consider seriously.

Granger breathed in deeply and turned over the last three.

Food. Used. Tire. Nothing but gibberish as far as Draco could see. Panic indeed. The cold welled up in his belly twisting as it went.

Granger and Millie stared at the words, as if by staring they could force them into something useful. Little Phil mirror Millie’s expression, his lips raised to a pucker.

“Millie, he’s got something in his mouth.”

“What? “Millie asked, obviously roused from some deep level of concentration.

“Phillip has something in his mouth,” Draco repeated.

As much as anyone he was surprised when Millie fished out two words from between Philly’s lips.

“What does it say?” Granger beat him to asking.

“Drive East,” said Millie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Severus Snape rifled through the pile of dog-eared reading material in the petrol station’s decidedly stale magazine rack. There was nothing even vaguely distracting. The local Neanderthal they had dragged out from his cave to change Severus’ tire had better make quick work of it. It was unfortunate the Grand Marquis was already held together by more magic than he cared to admit or he would have simply charmed the shredded treads right again. As it stood the steel belted radials, as proclaimed by the barely legible legend on the tires themselves, had reached the state best described as having “no ‘there’ there” and he was forced to fall back on the mundane.
He was also unbearably dry.
There was no tea to be had in the place, unless one counted something garishly and improbably canned in the cold display. Against his better judgment he opened the door and took one for himself. Bracing himself he raised it to his lips. Swallowed.

And spat it right out again.

It was worse than he imagined. Miss sniffed tentatively at the ersatz tea spatter and, in apparent agreement with her master, decided to leave it be. He could hear the apelike creature with the coverall and name tag swearing ineffectually beneath the Grand Marquis. Severus still had not so much as an inkling as to what he was going to do, but in the distance, down the thrice accursed highway he spied a friendly neon sign calling out to him.

Liquor.
Open.
Liquor.
Open.
If it weren’t for the tender mercies of intoxification he’d have swallowed poison years ago. The irony wasn’t lost on him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following morning irony reared its head in Texas as Hermione, the same Hermione who had lectured, chided, and railed at Severus Snape for fascinating Muggle clerks out of cigarettes and crisps, used the same technique to relieve a Muggle salesman of an entire automobile.
Millie agreed it was the right thing to do, a fact which did not entirely soothe Hermione’s conscience though it did rack up points towards the inevitability of the act. Millie was practical if nothing else.
In their mutual defense they had nowhere near enough money to pay cash up front. Severus had spent most everything he’d saved over the past six months to pay for her upcoming semester at school and Draco and Millie had sunk every single spare penny into Christmas, which meant there were laptop computers and cashmere jumpers all round, not to mention enough shoes to start their own shop, but no cash to speak of.
When they spoke to the salesman about buying on credit the finance department came back with a rate of interest so high Hermione felt as though she’d been slapped.
Finally, there was the salesman himself. It only stood to reason that somewhere in the States there had to be a single smarmiest most condescending male. It was a matter of simple logic. Still, she didn’t see why she and Millie had drawn him on their first attempt at buying a car.
She wound up fascinating him into showing her the best car on the lot and buying it for a button and two five cent pieces Millie had in the pocket of her dress. So while she would admit she had taken advantage somewhat it could not be said they had stolen outright.
So it was that she and Millie left the dealership with a convertible of German make, the color of a nacred pearl.

~~~~~~~~~~
Two hours later Millie waved goodbye to her little family as she and her partner left the drive in the jerking fits and starts common to those who have never before driven a motor vehicle. It was the most logical course. Draco could stay behind with Phil and the goat, keeping the home fires burning leaving the rescue of Snape, because each one of them felt fairly certain Snape did need a good rescue, to those less apt to make a bad situation worse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Somewhere near the bottom of a bottle of Scotch, which he dedicated to Minerva McGonagall’s tartan knickers, Severus Snape had not so much an fully formed idea as a notion as to where he could get one. Two really. He had two notions. One, he had an epiphany as to whom he could turn to for wisdom in his hour of distress. Two, it occurred to him that he could stomach it through if he didn’t allow himself to sober up somewhere along the way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It only took a few hours for both Millie and Granger to get the hang of driving the car. By the time they stopped for food and the loo a worry that had been niggling in the back of Millie’s brain pressed its way to the fore.

“It’s been botherin’ me how we’re supposed to find Snape. I mean how do we know he’s even still in the country,” Millie said, shoveling as many chips as she could manage into her mouth as they sat in the so called food-court. It was more of a fried dough court if you asked Millie. Didn’t Muggles bake anything?

Granger chewed her mouth full of salad slowly as if looking for a good answer.

Millie went on. “I mean he could be hiding out in Egypt with his Muggle dad for all we know.”

Granger wiped her lips with her napkin as her eyebrows shot up like twin racing brooms. “Severus’ father lives in Egypt?”

“Sure, he’s said it himself, his Muggle granny gets a post every now and again from Memphis askin’ for money,” Millie said, only remembering halfway through that she had a mouth full of potato.

Granger apparently knew something Millie didn’t because a light seemed to dawn in her eyes that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.

“Did he specify which Memphis?” she asked.

“Is there more than one?” Millie asked Granger’s back as she jumped from her seat and walked at a fast clip toward a bank of silver alcoves, each with a tellyphone nestled inside.

Millie kept close as Granger used the wand tucked discreetly in her sleeve to coax the pay phone into connecting her to someone called “long distance operator” who gave her the address and tellyphone number of one Tobias Snape residing in Memphis, Tennessee.

It seemed there was another Memphis, fancy that.
And now they had a destination it was a stab in the dark but it was better than nothing. And it was still in the same country, so how far away could it be.

Pretty bloody far as it turned out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hermione Granger had never consciously formed an image of Toby Snape in her mind’s eye. From what little she had heard of him from Severus she should have expected the figure that opened the door of the narrow row house but he was so totally unlike Severus, at first glance, that she stuttered for a moment.

“Hello, Love,” the man with a smarmy smile and a thick Northern accent. His hair was obviously dyed and improbably greased into a pompadour. If that weren’t enough he wore blue jeans so tight he might as well have painted them on and had faded tattoos running up and down both arms. A packet of cigarettes was rolled up in one of the short sleeves of his vest. Muscles bulged through the thin cotton, a testament to vanity and more hours devoted to his appearance than a man with a job could manage. He was clearly old enough to be Severus’ father provided he’d been young when Severus was born, but he had the sort of sculptural male face - high cheeks, Roman nose, square jaw - that is only enhanced by the weathering of age. She saw absolutely nothing in him that reminded her of Severus. One look, and it was clear he knew he was handsome. There was not so much as a hint of Severus’ diffidence, Severus’ depth. If he was Severus’ father, and she didn’t want to think he was, he hadn’t passed a thing down to him. From head to toe he was lewd and lurid.

“Hello… sir, I’m not certain I have the correct Tobias Snape, the man I am looking for has a son named …” it all seemed ludicrous, this man, this Muggle could no more be Severus’ father than…

As she looked she realized that among the many colored markings under his skin, like something out of an anthropological film, was the name “Eileen” in florid script, marked through with a black line like an incorrect answer on one of Severus’ tests.

“The Toby Snape I’m looking for has a son named Severus,” she said, hoping to sound confident.

“He knock you up?” the man said with a laugh.

“No, he...” she started to explain but was cut off.

“I had a boy. His mum said he was mine. I was married to ‘er at the time at any rate. She used to call him ‘Sev’rus,’ she may have even registered him that way with her people. Her people…weren’t my people if you catch my meaning,” the man said keeping one hand on the door frame and one on the screen door, effectively barring the way.

“I’m your son’s wife. My name is Hermione,” she said patiently, at least she hoped it was patiently. “Severus has gone missing. I have reason to believe he may have come to Memphis. Have you seen him? He’s having a bit of difficulty with the authorities in England.”

“Is that so? In that case he may be the fruit of me loins afterall. What’s this Sev’rus fella look like?” he asked a coy smile on his lips.

Hermione could see a glint of devilry in his eyes.

She folded her arms across her chest and scowled “Six feet tall, perhaps a bit more, black hair, thinnish build.”

“Thin..ish? “ he repeated with a smirk. “ He been takin’ seconds on puddin’ lately? What about the?” and Toby tapped the tip of own hawkish his nose playfully. It was large, unless you compared it to Severus’.

“The Severus Snape I’m looking for has an enormous nose, is that what you want me to say?” she said, exasperated.

“Gahh, I swear when he was a lad his poor little head used to tremble under the weight of it,” he laughed again in a way that made his mocking seem far more charming than it was. Hermione, for one, was not impressed.

“Have you seen him?” she asked.

“First you tell me somethin’, “he said suddenly serious.

“Certainly,” Hermione said.

She’d heard the phrase, to be undressed with the eyes, but having this horrible man, reeking of pomade, look at her in such a frankly sexual way made her feel filthy and uncomfortable. Particularly because it was not entirely unlike being ogled by Severus; who stared as if looking were in itself a physical act.

She felt nauseated.

Something about Toby Snape was pointedly nasty. On second thought Hermione struck that idea through like the name on the man’s bicep. Everything about Toby Snape was nasty.

“You a witch?” he leered as he said it.

“Yes,” she said “Yes, I am.”

“An’ her in the car, she a witch, too?” he said, gesturing over her shoulder at Millie in the car with her arms folded across her chest.

Hermione nodded.

“You armed?” he asked.

Hermione wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Got any suspicious lengths a’ wood about your person?” he said in a sarcastic tone Severus must have learned at his knee.

“No, neither of us has a wand,” she said and then wondered after if she should have been honest. Surely he wouldn’t be able to know the difference.

“Right, then, if he’s in these parts I got a pretty good idea where we can find ‘im,” he said pushing an errant lock of hair back into his pompadour. “Gimme your keys.”

“Excuse me?” Hermione said.

Toby Snape had turned his back and screamed into the house at the top of his lungs. “Shift yer arse, Suzette!”

“Why should I hand over my keys to you?” she asked.

“’Cause I drive, that’s why. It’s one of me rules. If you don’t like it you can get fucked …metaphorically,” he said looking hard as flint, the formerly flirtatious eyes gone dead and mouth turned down, although there was next to no resemblance to Severus in his features the expression of immovability was identical to the one she knew well.


“Suzette!” he bellowed again as Hermione handed him the keys and there behind him, appeared a woman, if you could call her that. Hermione would be surprised if she was out of her teens. Besides being young she was small, even shorter than Millie, with skin the purplish black of a ripe plum, and a rounded belly that could only mean one thing, Severus Snape was not far away from having a sibling.

Hermione felt mortified on his behalf.

“This is the latest Mrs. Snape; Suzette, lucky number seven,” Toby said with a grin. “ Don’t forget your wand, Suze,” he said reaching a proprietary arm and swatting the poor girl on the bum.

Alarm bells rang in Hermione’s mind but she warily handed him her keys all the same.

Hermione wedged herself into the backseat beside “Mrs. Snape”. She could have kicked herself as soon as they turned onto Elvis Presley Boulevard. Severus hadn’t come to Memphis to have it out with his father. He’d gone to Graceland.

She knew it as certainly as she knew she was a witch. The street was dead and silent and all the hallmarks of an enchantment lay over the entire area.

Though she needed no confirmation, the thick magic that lay like a rug over the house all but smelled of Severus and there, parked along the brick wall, was a certain black Mercury Grand Marquis, mounds of empty liquor bottles in the back seat. Lovely.

She heard a sound, a long low mournful sound that rose like a swelling tide accompanied by the howling of a dog. He was round back, she was sure of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~
And he was, beside a kidney shaped swimming pool and next to lit up fountain was a circle of graves and Severus Snape knelt on one of them …singing.

As if his empty bottles weren’t proof enough that in itself was confirmation he was pissed.

It was a pity that his voice sounded so …perfect, so low and smooth and full. As she approached she strained to hear the words.

“You can bury my body as deep as you want but my spirit will rise to you,” he drew the words out long and gliding. “Ain’t that lovin’ you, baby and you don’t even know my name,” and then burst out in a strange fit of shrieking laughter.

Hermione kept her distance, half waiting for the others behind her, half curious to see exactly what he was doing before she burst in and ruined the moment.
He stumbled to his feet and it reminded her of nothing more that night he’d kissed her school girl self.

“Well,” he shouted down at the grave below him. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
He waved his arms and she could see there was a bottle in his fist.

“I would appreciate a pearl of wisdom at the moment. One bloody pearl’s all I ask,” he said wagging an extended finger at the grave. “What would you do? As soon as she finds out she’s going to leave me. Like that,” he said snapping his fingers unsuccessfully. He attempted to snap them twice more, finally abandoning the idea.

Hermione reached out and grabbed hold of Millie’s sleeve with her right hand, holding her back.

“Never mind that this means, this means I’ll be hounded for the rest of my days. He’ll look under every stone, every rotten log, in every public loo. No doubt I’ll find aurors in the soap dish next time I take a bath. I shall never bathe again,” he said decisively.

“You ever been in the nick, Your Highness?” he went on blearily and Hermione wondered where he found the wherewithal to enchant the grounds, drunk as he was. “I’ve been in Azkaban, which I would not recommend to the seasoned traveler… but I’ve never been quite stupid enough for Ol’ Bill to …what the fuck am I going to do?” he said hanging his head.

“It hardly need be said he was in love with her as well. There are times, Elvis, may I call you Elvis? If you find it unduly familiar feel free to object,” he shook a cigarette out of the pack with one hand and swayed as he spoke, “there are times, when I believe every third male at that accursed institution was enamored of my darling; Potter, Weasley, Longbottom, The entire house of Ravenclaw including a few of the females, Lupin…Myself. That shit smear Black. You know he and Regulus …their own mother…people said she was the mad one but they were all similarly tainted. The Black Stain. I feel relieved that little Draco has managed to escape relatively un…barmy. Bahhh Sirius Black. I watched him fuck her with his eyes at Grimauld Place often enough to know. All she would have had to do was crook her finger and the dog would have been on her. ”

“Did you know she had a famous Quidditch star as a lover, fourth year? Gave him the boot for being dull. She’s very discerning. She never would have fucked the dog… unlike some I could mention

“But she’s mine now. I won. I beat out every other sod who wanted her. She. Is. Mine. Where’s my bloody happy ending?” he said angrily before erupting in a shrill scream. “Why can’t I have nice things?”

Hermione was torn between bile at the thought he classed her a ‘nice thing’ which in his mind included double thick cauldrons and silver cigarette lighters, and embarrassment that he had set her price too high, and might have to mark her value down on consideration.

“I should have let Longbottom blow himself up when I had the opportunity,” he muttered, “though with my luck I would have been castrated in the explosion.”

She watched his head hang limp again, perfect little smoke rings rising from his crumpled form.

Like a marionette, he jerked himself to a gangly attention out of the apparent blue.

“What’s next?” he asked still addressing the grave marker. “‘Jail House Rock’ would be appropriate but somehow I lack the stomach at present. Wait. Wait. I’ve got it.”

In retrospect magic was such a mundane word for what happened next.

Hermione knew Severus Snape was a legilimens and an occlumens. She’d known since her sixth year he was adept at casting spells without uttering a word and while they had been in Dallas she had learned he was one of the rare wizards with the focus to perform most spells without the benefit of a wand.

But none of that was this.

He sang.

It was a long accepted fact his voice was drop dead sexy. And she had been surprised by how casually tuneful he was as he habitually sang along with the radio. Her own family was decidedly uninterested in music and she’d never really thought twice about it until recently.

But now he sang. In earnest.

The song itself was immaterial. It was one she’d heard before and it had never struck her as particularly meaningful or poetic or even notable. Not that she paid much attention to songs before Severus. Now though, now it contained multitudes. Something in her chest felt as though it were in danger of breaking open with the sound of his voice, something red and raw as magma at the sorrowful heart of the world. It was a kind of broken contentment she had never experienced before, as deep and true as love, as deep and true as truth, and it beckoned like a cinema femme fatale. Then at an unexpected moment the song soared and she almost wept with relief. The sound seemed to come up from some place deeper than his own body, almost as if he was drawing it up from the earth through the soles of his feet and out of the sky with his upraised fist still clutching the neck of that bottle.


And he was singing it to her.

“Thank you for the days,” it came from him low and long. It came from he who never thanked anyone.
And then.

And then. The ground began to ripple and the Earth seemed to be answering him. The moon had gone red in the sky.

A knocking seemed to come from the grave beneath him. Bloody Hell he was raising Elvis Presley from the dead. Necromancy was very nearly as dark as it got.

Hermione knew, objectively, that he should be stopped as soon as possible but the thought of moving made her more weak-kneed than a jelly legs curse. It was as though she’d never seen the pure beauty of Dark Arts till that minute.
She watched numbly as Toby Snape approached Severus’s imposing figure and proceeded to box his ears.

“The bleeding Kinks? You worthless cunt, singin’ a fucking Kinks song at the grave of Elvis fucking Presley!” he shouted as he swung.

Like the flicking of a switch the spell was broken, literally, and the night was one like any other. The grounds seemed to sigh with relief. The knocking receded into silence.

“Ooaaaaaaaw,” Severus said raising his arms instinctively to cover his head. “Fucking…”

“Philistine. Tune deaf pop music poofter Philistine like your ugly slag of a mum,” Toby said slapping his head once more for good measure.

“Fucking...Toby?” Severus said squinting one eye. “Father?”

“Father?” Toby repeated in snarling mockery of Severus’ careful accent. “You always were a wanker.”

Severus stared in drunken disbelief.

It must have been one of those infamous moments when time and Hermione’s mind were not in sync, because before she realized it she caught up with Toby Snape and hit him dead in the eye with a fist that, though attached to her body, seemed to have a will quite its own.

A snigger she recognized as Millie’s echoed in the darkness as a dispassionate voice in the back of her mind counted off the blows she’d seen Severus take from Toby as she attempted to visit each of them back on him.

Time still out of joint, or her perception of time at least, Severus stepped between her and her prey in a move both agile and intimate, wrapping his arms round her waist and burying his face in her hair. Shielding her in his arms, his back to his father, he hissed in her ear.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked and time was restored.

“I don’t believe so,” she said panting. “Why didn’t you tell me you could do that?”

“Do what?” he asked.

“Sing…sing magic,” she said although that might not have been the word for it.

She felt him chuckle. “Little more than a parlor trick.”

Hermione had certainly never heard necromancy equated with pulling coins out of people’s ears but before she could say so the thought was interrupted.

“Let me at her, Sonny,” Toby threatened his voice low. “She brought it on herself.”

“Did you follow me here?” Severus asked.

“More or less. I thought you came here to have it out with your father.”

Hermione felt rather than heard Severus chuckle deep in his chest. “Not even close.” The alcohol was like a separate entity enveloping his body; it was like stepping through a Hogwarts ghost the smell was so strong.

He turned both of them round to face his father so quickly it made Hermione a bit dizzy in his arms. Severus’ heart thumped loudly against her left ear as he spoke, his tone deceptively casual.

“Have you any idea, Old Man, how many men I’ve killed?” he said. “I’ll give you a hint, raise a hand to this witch and the number will be seven.”

Hermione tensed, fighting the urge to twist out of his arms and demand an explanation. It never occurred to her he might have harmed anyone other than the Headmaster. They were going to have a long talk once he was sober.

“Bollocks,” Toby snorted. “You haven’t the bollocks for a felony.”

Severus’ entire person shifted, he drew himself taller and his shoulders went back, his legs braced themselves against the ground. “Care to try me?”

“Little Sonny wants to be a bad man, is that it?” Toby snorted.

“My name is Severus,” he said in a quiet way that chilled Hermione.

Toby laughed bitterly. “Sodding predictable, take her side.”

“I am not ‘taking anyone’s side’ you were both abysmal parents,” Severus said, letting go his grip on her.

“Long as you admit,” Toby said, stepping closer, “she weren’t no better than me.”

“With pleasure,” Severus said. “If she’d been half as concerned with being a mother to me as she was with attracting your attention…”

“And your name is Sonny Liston Snape,” Toby went on.

Hermione looked from one to the other. Severus’ temperament had always been quick silver but she’d never seen his anger distracted so thoroughly so quickly, drink must have played some part.

Severus rolled his eyes. “Do I look like a ‘Sonny’ to you? No one other than you has called me that since I was eleven years old.”

“It’s your sodding name,” Toby insisted, “and nothin’ t’ be ashamed of, bloke was heavy weight champion of the world.”

“He was a petty criminal …like you.”

“There’s nothin’ petty about armed robbery, son.”

Severus sighed and rolled his eyes in the exact same way he did when Dumbledore made him pull a Christmas cracker.

“C’mon back to the house, Sonny, your new Mum’ll witch up some jerk chicken and beds fer your mates.”

“No, thank you, one inadequate mother is quite enough …besides which I have a room at the Marriott…” Severus’ words trailed off as Suzette, standing near Millie, gestured ineffectually with her wand.

“You managed to manipulate another witch into marrying you…What is she fifteen …sixteen?”

“Twenty-one next month… that’s older than your mum was,” Toby said.

“How is it that you get older and older and yet your wives remain in their teens?” Severus said with disgust.

“She don’t look no forty to me, lad,” Toby gestured to Hermione with a jut of his chin.

“Twenty,” Severus bit out.

Toby sniggered. “That apple fell close to the tree, dinnit?”

“I am nothing like you,” Severus said enunciating each syllable.

Toby’s eyes narrowed and he gave Severus a studious look followed by a grim smile. “You’d never know it by lookin’, Sonny, but you might be most like me of all of ‘em.”

Severus curled his upper lip into a cruel snarl. “Unlikely, since I, for one, do not spend my seed like a pocket full of counterfeit currency.”

“Why not?” Toby cocked his head. “Got some kind o’ plumbin’ problem?”

Severus threw his head back, hands combing through greasy tangled hair, and laughed a drunk exasperated laugh.

“Have you even the vaguest idea how absurd this conversation is?”

“You know what I think’s absurd? Mr. fancypants wizard squanderin’ what nature gave ‘im; tossin’ yer greatest gift down the shower drain, and what fer? Spite?”

“I have elected to remain childless precisely because I have no desire to follow in your piss filled footsteps, Old Man.”

“That why you run off from your missus here?”

“Not that you’d understand it but I was attempting to protect her.”

“That’s a right funny way to pronounce abandonment, Sonny,”

Toby stepped closer to Severus and Hermione watched in something like hot horror as Severus placed his hand against the old Muggle’s chest and shoved him backwards.

The old man pushed back and in an instant it had turned into a scene from her school days and she and the plum skinned witch held back their respective Snapes, who stood chest to chest like school boys.

Toby surged forward first, spitting squarely in Severus’ face, not even backing away as Severus slowly raised his arm to wipe his face with the back of his hand.

Severus spoke softly and dangerously. “Get out of my sight old man before I lose my patience.”

“Kiss my arse, Sonny, We ain’t walking home.”

“Granger?” Severus’ or should she say Sonny’s voice was accusatory. ”You gave this piece of offal a ride?”

All she could do was nod.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Notes:
Special Thanks to Shiv not only for being a good beta but also a good friend
Special thanks also to the long suffering Scattered Logic for giving this fanfiction a home, otherwise it would be sleeping on the sidewalk of the internet in a virtual cardboard box

Story Notes:
1) For those interested the song first sung by Severus Snape in this chapter is
“Aint that Loving You” written by Jimmy Reed and covered by many artists including but not limited to Link Wray. It most certainly would have been part of a self-respecting Teddy Boy’s record collection.
A cover by The Thin White Ropes is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs0w252DQ_4

2) The second song is Days, written and performed by Ray Davies of The Kinks. It was most certainly in heavy radio rotation in young Severus Snape’s pre-Hogwarts days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmcYqmDoAxk&feature=related.

3) Charles “Sonny” Liston held the heavyweight title in boxing in the early 1960s and proved to be one of the most unpopular yet feared champions in the history of the sport, English heavyweight Henry Cooper flat out refused to fight him. He was born a poor child, the son of sharecroppers, learned to box in prison after his arrest for armed robbery, and was known to have many associates in organized crime. It may be noted that his own abusive father was named Toby. At Liston’s autopsy the medical examiner noted multiple scars from childhood beatings.
Since I am giving out links to songs like they were candy here is Mark Knopfler’s “Song for Sonny.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euMvfLIii7o

Further note: one or two reviewers have asked if I was in fact English *smiles enigmatically* English isn't even my first language