The Man Who Came In From The Cold

It started halfway across the Channel. The murmurs amongst the crew speaking Jèrriais was that they were gearing up for the storm of the century. The ferry would be out of operation indefinitely once they docked in its capital, Saint Helier. The air was thick with snow and the twinkling lights of Jersey that had been observed upon cast-off were now completely obscured. The ferry slowed down to a crawl – but Snape was feeling very fortunate indeed.

After a time the crawl slowed even more to a faint put-put; there was a sudden lurch and then everything stopped.

‘Beinv'nu a Jerri! Bienvue a Jerri! Welcome to Jersey!’ came a voice over the tannoy followed by disembarkation instruction for those who were from the Island and Mainland UK, the EU and other points of national origin. ‘Il est sept heuthes et d'mie!’

‘Seven thirty in the morning; I should have been in my office, preparing for breakfast in the Great Hall,’ Snape thought to himself.

As quickly as the thought rose from the depths of the quagmire that was his brain he forced it back down. It would not do to dwell on such things. He would not torture himself with the thought that for all the reasons he’d had hate Hogwarts and plot the day that he might actually leave the place of his own volition, he now would give a great deal to be safely ensconced within its hallowed walls.

Hate.

There was indeed a thin line between Hate…and Love… He didn’t believe in love and love didn’t believe in him. The word rarely entered his formidable vocabulary.

For everything he had hated about the place, and the denizens he had despised; there were things that…intrigued him; things that enchanted him still.

xxxOOOxxx

The former professor rose carefully after stretching his cramped legs. He would not be the first to leave, nor would he be the last. He collected his things and eased himself into a throng of people clamouring to get off the ship. He simply let himself go almost limp and be carried through immigration with other British and Jersey nationals who did not require identity documents.

Snape found his feet and kept walking, ignoring the aromas of coffee that permeated the terminus along with that of wetness due to the weather. He had a quick look around – at least the folk in Jersey seemed to have far more sense than those back on the mainland. With the exception of one coffee shop, all retail establishments showed no sign of opening; there were no hordes screaming to be free, fighting for a place near the barricades. The passengers disembarking from this last ferry for some time was all there was aside from necessary staff.

No one with the means to get to their destination had any intention of lingering. Snape didn’t have a destination, but he had no intention of making the terminus his home and he knew enough that it wouldn’t have been allowed. He strode quickly now, wanting to savour the reality of being free. He emerged in a raging blizzard. St. Helier was a beautiful town – but there was little to be seen of it in weather like this. He looked at the taxi rank which was empty; it was foolish to even think about it. He could easily spend what little he had just on the ride alone.

How the hell would he make it to the far side of the island in weather like this? His glasses were wet with snow and he tucked them in a pocket. He only needed them for reading, but they served a useful purpose as no one had been looking for a bespectacled man. His clothes made him look a lot heavier than he was, given his malnourishment – not a bad thing either. He swore in Jèrriais as he looked around. His bony shoulders sagged slightly as he dropped his bags on the pavement with a hard thud. He could barely see the streetlight in front of him.

‘Bouônjour à matîn,’ came a voice interrupting his thoughts. ‘Comment va?’

‘Comme eune pouque mouoillie…’ came Snape’s snarky reply.

For the English it would have been considered extremely rude, but on Jersey it was the exact opposite. They would find great humour in his response that he was like an old wet bag when asked how he was – the response was typically Jèrriais.

Snape turned to his right to see a burly man standing with a woman who had clearly not enjoyed the trip from England – or her husband’s laughter at the stranger.

‘Oh for heaven’s sake, can we drop the countryside colloquialisms? Is it so terribly bad to speak in English?’ she huffed. ‘It’s damned rude for a start!’

‘English is for the English – I am Jèrriais…’ the man answered. ‘You will just have to accept it and learn. Jèrriais is the language of the Parish. You did not marry un rosbif; you married me…’

‘Bouônjour à matîn; good morning,’ Snape mumbled as the man once again turned his attention to him.

Good Lord – of all people they could bother, why him?

‘You seem like a man in need of a ride,’ the man offered in Jèrriais, which only served to vex the woman next to him even more.

‘Yes,’ Snape sighed, thinking that she had a face like a slapped arse. ‘I rather suppose that I am.’

‘Where to then?’

‘The far side of the island…’ Snape said vaguely.

The man looked at Snape appraisingly and seemed to understand that though he was definitely Jèrriais – he hadn’t been home in a long time. He probably didn’t have a home to go to as such to not know straight away where he was going. The man could only wonder out loud why the mainlander had come back – and why he had left in the first place.

‘You don’t have a place to stay, do you?’ he said finally. ‘You are welcome to come with us – to St. Martin Parish, the finest in all of Jerri.’

Snape didn’t answer and instead picked up his things and started to walk. The man started to follow and the woman berated him in English for sticking his nose in other people’s business. The man caught up to Snape and offered his apologies for saying something that he would have been better to keep to himself.

‘I didn’t mean anything by it…’ he said earnestly. ‘You sound typically Jèrriais when you speak the language, but when you speak English it is obvious that you were raised on the mainland…there is no Jerri accent…it’s quiet… a paradox, as you say in English.’

‘If you will excuse me – I do have somewhere to be…’

‘I don’t mean to pry. Look – it’s suicide to be out in this weather. I’m Guillaume D’Arcy and my wife is Elizabeth. You are welcome to come with us, and if you like perhaps I can help you with getting settled; that is if you are intending to make Jerri your home?’

‘D’Arcy? – one of the old Jèrriais families… Do you make it a habit to pick up strangers Monsieur D’Arcy?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes on both counts. Some might think it foolish – but I would like to think that if I or any of my family and friends were in need, that someone would help them too…’

‘The world is not in agreement and I can’t imagine that any in your family would ever be in a situation to require such assistance as the likes of which you offer me.’

‘We have done, that I can assure you. And I do think it is most unfortunate that the world is not Jèrriais…Monsieur… Tch'est qu'est vot' nom?’

‘Ravenscroft, Sebastian Ravenscroft…’

‘Pleased to meet you. We are not formal people, Monsieur Ravenscroft; just call me D’Arcy as everyone else does. We can carry on this discussion over a nice hot café au lait and a croque-madame at the house...’ Monsieur D’Arcy said as he turned back towards his wife who had stormed over to their four-by-four to get out of the weather.

‘And what does your wife make of your penchant for picking up strays?’

‘Little more than she does of my beloved Jerri…or me…’ came a sad reply.

xxxOOOxxx

The tension was so thick it could have been cut with a knife. Snape didn’t say much on the drive to the D’Arcy home. When they finally stopped it was an immense relief. There was nothing worse than being in such a tight and confined space with a couple at war. Guillaume and Elizabeth D’Arcy were at serious odds with each other and there was no love lost between them, only a dunderhead would ignore the obvious.

Yet again, Severus Snape had confirmation that love, romance and marriage and all it entailed was utter folly.

He had learned that from his parents…and then from her.

xxxOOOxxx

Snape followed as D’Arcy showed him to one of the spare bedrooms to get cleaned up for brunch. There had been too much snow, wind and ice to make out the frontage of the property as they pulled up just outside the front door, but once inside he could see that his saviour was quite well off indeed. There were six bedrooms alone spread throughout the property.

‘It is easy to be so hospitable when one can easily afford to be so,’ the former professor thought snidely to himself.

He could not understand why anyone should risk their neck for someone they didn’t know. For all D’Arcy knew, the man he was trying to make a friend could be a deranged psychopath. Elizabeth D’Arcy certainly thought so and didn’t hesitate to say it. She was typically bourgeois English.

Jersey had the dubious distinction of having an extremely low crime rate. Rape and murder were almost unheard of here – though he wondered if it was a matter of simply being covered up and unpublicised. He was at least sure that did he have any ill intent, it wouldn’t be long before the long arm of Jèrriais law tracked him down. Snape couldn’t find fault with Madame D’Arcy’s reasoning in some respects, but he deeply resented the aspersions she cast against his character. He had spent the whole of his life being judged unfairly, having every aspect of his manner and countenance picked apart.

He was no longer in a situation where people had to tolerate him who clearly did not want to be bothered to know him, let alone like him. And he most certainly did not have to tolerate anyone for reasons other than his own.

xxxOOOxxx

It was good to have a hot shower and fresh clothes, even though they weren’t his or even new. His room was generously proportioned and had its own bathroom. He tried to find fault with the accommodation but couldn’t. It was decidedly impressive, as no doubt it was meant to be for those that came for a stay.

Snape came down to the dining room dressed simply in his usual monochrome fashion. His hair was lanky even after being freshly washed and he took a rubber band that he’d found and pulled most of it back securing at the nape of his neck. He looked anything but a gentleman to the fastidious Madame D’Arcy; she didn’t need to say a word for it was written all over her face.

He took a seat resentfully, sat across from her as he was. It would have been ludicrous for her to be seated at the other end of the long table when there were only three of them, her husband had snapped as Snape neared the room. He had held himself back and heard all that he was willing to take from that woman.

Even on Jersey, he could not escape condemnation.

The sooner the storm let up, the sooner he could be gone.

xxxOOOxxx

The conversation was stilted and forced. D’Arcy wisely steered it to the island and the goings on in the Parish.

‘We’re mostly farmers and fisherman here in the Parish of Saint Martin le Vieux, as it’s always been. My family made much of its fortunes on agriculture and tenancies. Our situation has changed little in the last two centuries.’

‘A gentleman farmer – how quaint… and terribly understated I can assure you,’ his wife sniffed before directing a servant about the proper way to set the food on the table.

‘How in Merlin’s name did these two end up married being so ill-suited for each other?’ Snape thought to himself as yet another killing curse of a silence fell between them.

Elizabeth brought peace to the table simply by leaving the two men to finish their brunch in peace after finding fault with everything put before her. If it was not English she seeemed determined to not like it.

‘You won’t find a better meal to be had anywhere in the world…’ D’Arcy sighed before tucking into his second helping of Crepes with flat mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, basil and Jersey cheddar cheese. A perfectly fried egg with soft yolk was placed on top and garnished with spring onion.

The farmer explained that all the produce was local and organic during the growing and harvesting season. There were some who experimented with greenhouses in winter, but he himself was quite reluctant. It just didn’t seem natural.

The instincts of his former role as Potions Master kicked in, and Snape was able to engage in conversation that turned somewhat spirited (well, spirited enough for him) on the subject of agricultural cultivation in greenhouses, particularly with non-native species.

‘You sound like a man who speaks from solid experience, Mr. Ravenscroft...’

‘I am not inexperienced, no. I have always had an interest in ethnobotany and herbalism…even when I was younger than yourself.’

‘Yours is quite a well-informed interest, if I may say so.’

Snape did not reply and instead popped another baguette slice in his mouth.

‘I would like you to meet a friend of mine; you could be of great help…’

‘Thank you but no, I other matters that need attending to.’

‘Oh – I see…’

D’Arcy fell silent, but Snape could see that he was greatly disappointed.

They ate in silence and then the farmer decided to change his tactics.

‘You will be in need of a living, will you not?’ he asked Snape hesitantly.

Snape dabbed at his mouth with his serviette and then tossed it on the table. That was certainly true enough. The money in his rucksack wouldn’t get him very far. Like the mainland, Jersey was very expensive. And unlike there, outsiders couldn’t just come in and snap up property even if they had the means to do so. The island government safeguarded the interests of its inhabitants very carefully, far better than the British Parliament at Westminster did for its own.

‘As it so happens, I will…’ the former Potions Master answered tersely.

‘Well – I don’t exactly know what line of work you were in, Ravenscroft, but the living here is mainly agricultural and maritime industries; any other enterprise stems from those, outside of the odd tourist or two now and then.’

‘I aim to put my hand to whatever opportunity presents itself.’

‘So you are looking for paid work then?’ D’Arcy said eyeballing Snape’s scarred hands and less than fashionable attire. The man was clearly working class and was used to making a living using his hands.

The former professor’s face turned the colour of soured milk. He was not one of the landed gentry or anything near aristocratic like this Muggle was. He had to do his own dirty work and didn’t have the means to pay others to do it for him. He was not going to justify having to do so to anyone and he would be damned if he was going to be made to feel bad because of it.

‘As I said, I aim to put my hand to whatever opportunity presents itself.’

The farmer nodded but did not say another word on the subject and directed the conversation back to the Parish and its goings on.

‘There are noticeboards up in the Public Hall advertising all manner of things,’ he said. If you want to know what’s what – the hall was a good place as any to start with. I would be happy to take you down when the weather clears, introduce you to our little society…’

Snape nodded faintly as he mulled it over. His host was merely pointing out the obvious – if there were jobs and rental accommodation to be had, it would be in the form of a notice in the Public Hall for a start. He needed a place to live and a job; he wouldn’t survive the night if he had to sleep rough. Still, no one ever did something for nothing; there was always a price to pay – too high a price.

‘And what I am expected to do in return for such benevolence?’

The farmer looked at Snape as if he’d lost his mind as a phone rang in the distance.

‘I ask nothing and you owe me as much. You struck me as a man in need, Mr. Ravenscroft. There have been times in my past when I would have sold my cowardly soul to L'Dgiâbl'ye himself for the consideration you currently enjoy.’

‘You – a coward? Cowards are not in the habit of risking their necks for a stranger, Mr. D’Arcy.’

‘Ah – well; my wife would disagree with you there…’

D’Arcy looked pained and Snape was beginning to truly consider this more a curse than a blessing. He most certainly would not be laying bare his soul to anyone, let alone a stranger. To lower himself in another’s eyes deliberately was abhorrent to say the very least.

‘Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur D’Arcy – l’telephon,’ his manservant said with a faint nod from the doorway.

‘We have an extensive library and recreation room at the other end of the house. Feel free to make use of them – do not insult me by hiding yourself away upstairs….’ D’Arcy said rising.

He rushed out of the room with the servant in tow, leaving his houseguest to wonder what had he gotten himself into? This new start was to be one of complete anonymity.

It was turning out to be anything but.

xxxOOOxxx

Snape tried to remember which end of the house the library was in and instead found himself nearing a darkened corridor. He could hear a faint muffled noise that could only be someone talking. He moved with such great stealth it put the Ministry Aurors to shame. He knew that he shouldn’t be doing this, but given the circumstances he felt completely justified.

A chink of light shone from a slightly opened door. He leaned a bit to get a good look – it was indeed D’Arcy and he seemed terribly upset.

‘Nothing I do or say is good enough for her anymore…’ D’Arcy said tightly to whoever it was on the phone. ‘I should have questioned it when her attitude towards me changed so radically after seeing what she’d turned down before…’

D’Arcy ran a hand agitatedly through his dark curls and Snape was inspired to move closer for a better look. His host raised his head and there were tears visibly welling up in his bright brown eyes as he listened to whoever it was that served as his confidant.

‘I’ve done everything she wants! I have nothing else left to give and the best she can ever do is insult and humiliate me! England – even that was no good in her eyes! Even her family hates me!’’

There was a pause.

‘I would like that – but, no. She’ll only kick up a fuss. Besides the weather is far too dangerous and especially coming such a long distance…’ D’Arcy sighed. ‘I should have never pursued her after she turned me down the first time…’

He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose as he listened.

‘No, you’re wrong about that! She has a lover… As a matter of fact, she has more than one!’

Tears began to steam down the younger man’s face as he laid bare the shambles of a charade that was his marriage.

‘I… I don’t know that there is anything else that can be done…’ he said resignedly. ‘She doesn’t want me – just what I can do for her and her family… No! No! You cannot make her into the good soul that she isn’t! I acted against my better judgment when every cell in my body told me she just wanted the fortune and connections that were impossible otherwise! If only…’

D’Arcy held the phone close as he unlocked a drawer to the desk at which he was seated. He took out a large square of paper, a photograph, and stared at it while he listened.

‘I would…I want to so much,’ he confessed, ‘but we have a guest…’

Pause…

‘Yes – I have,’ he smiled. ‘…Yet another stray; only he’s not as pretty as you are and I don’t think I’m his type.’

He laughed and then brushed the tears from his eyes.

‘Ahhh but it’s the same thing that led me to you, remember?’ he said softly. ‘I don’t know what I would do without you now. My mind won’t let me think to how bad things were before you were here…’

D’Arcy’s voice had taken an intimate tone as its register deepened. The look on his face…

The man was in love – he had to be. And if he was not, he most surely was ready to fall and fall hard. Snape jerked his head back – this was far more than he needed to know. He made his way quickly and quietly down the hall and moved down another corridor that led to the opposite end of the house.

Once in the library he mulled over the events of that day since he’d arrived in Jersey. D’Arcy seemed like a good man – too good to be true, to be honest. Snape knew such good men existed; they just weren’t a part of the peculiar circles in which he’d traveled. He himself was not a good man as his host seemed to be. There certainly wasn’t anyone in his old life who thought as much.

And he could never be what the younger man was – for anyone.

Snape would rot in hell before he would render himself pitiable in anyone’s eyes. D’Arcy biggest problem was that he appeared a fool who wore his heart on his sleeves. It was no wonder he landed himself with that harridan for a wife. He couldn’t have learned his lesson to be bearing his soul to yet another woman. That was no male friend of his on the phone – not with the way the conversation turned when he left it.

The former professor took down a book absent-mindedly.

“Pride and Prejudice”

‘Merlin help me,’ he groaned as he put it back.

He was not in the mood for convoluted Regency-era romances. It was the sort of thing that could only be written by a woman. He wanted be free of these people and their dramas. Life presented him with enough problems without getting entangled in the shenanigans of others. And in his situation, unnecessary entanglements and obligations and were the last thing he needed.

He did not need to be within anyone’s sights, period.

xxxOOOxxx

The storm was easing up; the snowfall was still thick but at least he could see the landscape that surrounded him. It was a winter wonderland indeed. Jersey typically enjoyed mild winters, but not this year.

‘I certainly picked my moment,’ Snape thought bitterly as he crunched through the snow.

He finally saw a signpost.

‘Fifteen miles to Rozel!’ he hissed as he looked around the rolling landscape of the North Coast and the waters of the Channel and Atlantic beyond.

He was freezing his bollocks off out here – as beautiful as it was. This was enough for one day. Any thoughts of leaving now were pushed to the back of his mind. He had spent the better part of his life outwitting the Dark Lord and now the Ministry of Magic. For the sake of survival (and the undeniable appeal of being very comfortable) he could endure the D’Arcys for as long as it took to get himself situated.

The reality was he had very little choice. He just did not like owing anyone anything. He was in the Headmaster’s debt for far too much than he could never repay in one lifetime. And then there was Potter, until the Boy Who Thought He Knew So Damned Much cocked up beyond belief. If Dumbledore died…

No, not if – when…

Snape turned around and headed back toward the D’Arcy estate. The situation between man and wife was none of his business and he would not get involved under any circumstances. The only matters that concerned him were his own.

He could not simply turn up anywhere and just get a job; he had no references, no identity papers and no connections – save the man who was throwing him a lifeline. He had no fortune or titles to his name, no distinguished pedigree that would open doors. And most importantly, he could not use his magic under any circumstances. For the first time in his life, he was going to have to yield to the half of his bloodlines that was Muggle.

He had to place some level of faith in D’Arcy and accept the help that was being offered though he’d done nothing to earn it.

Still – being the mercurial and innately suspicious man that he was, Severus Snape was waiting for the moment when the situation proved itself to be anything other than what D’Arcy was making it out to be; waiting for the moment when D’Arcy proved to be other than what he wanted Snape to believe he genuinely