capeandcowllogs | [OPEN] All the angels on the wires || Gettin' dizzy from the heights...

Entry tags:

[OPEN] All the angels on the wires || Gettin' dizzy from the heights...

WHO: Srs and YOU!
WHERE: ALL OVER THE PLACE
WHEN: All week long
WARNINGS: ...Sirius?
SUMMARY: Sirius flies around the city. Sort of.
FORMAT: ANY

Just because Sirius didn't have a day job didn't mean that he sat around idly. He'd moved his workshop to a new location, and had several projects going on at once to keep himself occupied. The project that concerned him most today was refining the broom that he and his friends had been working on for the past year / since he was 15, depending on how you looked at it.

...He tried not to look at it too close, it made his thoughts go crosseyed.

Having tried something different with the varnish on this one, he's decided to take it out for a spin, and will do over the course of the week as he tweaks this and adjusts that. And really, there are worse things to do than just fly around the city, seeing the sites and meeting people. All in all, it's been a rewarding enterprise.

Or it was, until something went a bit wrong, and a strong updraft sent him tumbling head over heels in mid-air!

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Stopping there in his slow drift backwards, Snape allows a smirk to spread across his lips.

"I don't need revenge on you, anymore." Well, that's not the most warm and cuddly of cryptic statements ever, there, Severus. "Having you remain in my debt is revenge enough."

...something says that's not entirely what he means, but Merlin forbid to let Snape say anything straight unless he must.

Are you...sure you want to stop, Snape? You're looking a bit strained. Sirius, meanwhile, crosses a leg over the shaft of the broom and regards the floating potion's master in relative comfort.

"Oh, let's not let anything so crass as debt come between us, Severus, not when we've turned over this beautiful new leaf." He smiles expansively, but it comes nowhere near his eyes.

"I'll call this an even exchange for the present I got you earlier. Such a shame you don't seem to be using it, though. I rather thought a chemistry set that let you make your own shampoo would improve everyone's lives all around, but I apologize if the skills required were a bit beyond your abilities."

Should... know... better... than to rise to Gryffindor taunting. But Snape has something up his sleeve that Sirius will never see coming:

The truth.

"You're pathetic," he says with the sincerity of a man who has seen exactly how low a man can go. There's no real fear of Sirius anymore; it's hard to fear a man you understand, even if you hate him all the same for it. "Less than a week and you're already back to juvenile pranks because you have nothing, are nothing, will never be anything except a fond memory for a boy you fail utterly, in the end."

His lips, pale and bloodless, curl in a smirk. "And you do fail him. You fail terribly Black. Think on that, the next time you look at your happy little clan -- you failed all of them, in the end. The only one to see things to the end... was me."

His voice has gone tremulous -- and before his strength fails, he snaps his cloak around and zips for the window. Otherwise, he's going to be the splatter for playing hero for a man who simply... doesn't really deserve it.

But for all his bluster, a traitorous voice reminds him: The only reason he saw it to the end is... because he's the one who set it in motion in the first place.

"Spare me your psychology, Snape, you never did understand the first thing about successfully caring about someone."

It lacks the usual confidence however, and when Snape gets back to the window and turns, Black isn't smiling anymore.

"What do you mean, 'fail' him?"

"You're an idiot," Snape says flatly, reaching out to grip the window-sill to keep himself upright. "You get yourself killed because you can't let the rest of us do our jobs. You have to rush off, despite not being in top form, and you leave yourself wide open for Bellatrix to go after you."

Uneven yellow teeth flash, but it's in a snarl, not a smile. "You put Potter in danger by destroying his focus, leaving him grieving and lost when we have ill time to afford a boy who has never had parents lose the only thing he deems close to blood kin, you moron!"

There is something-- odd here.

Something invested in Harry that Sirius may have never seen before from this man. Something that didn't exist until long after Sirius was dead and Snape was in the thick of things.

Something changed, and sometimes, Snape is not even aware of it.... or he's in very firm denial of it, one or the other.

Sirius hangs there in midair for a few moments. He's always worn his emotions on his sleeve - no Black made a good Occlumens, save perhaps Narcissa, and of the Marauders Sirius had always been the absolute worst at hiding his thoughts - but his current expression is hard to read. Not because he is trying to obscure his reaction, but because there are too many things to react to. Gradually, clearer feelings unwind themselves from the knot in his chest and play across his face.

Shock. Disbelief. Dawning understanding. Horror.

Sirius Black sits on his broom and stares at Severus Snape, and for once the disgust on his face isn't aimed at the Slytherin. It didn't take a brilliant Legilimens to understand why: no one had told him. So many of his friends here were from future points in his world, and none of them had seen fit to tell Sirius his fate.

"You're lying. You'd...say anything." Oh such a broken note in his voice, but being broken in the face of overwhelming emotion was not a good sign. Sirius had not yet gotten around to feeling anger, but Snape of all people should know that it's coming. When the storm of Sirius's pain breaks, it would need an outlet, and Snape was his very favorite scapegoat.

This could get very ugly.

Edited 2011-07-29 20:24 (UTC)

This is a good time to back away from the window.

A very good time.

"Why? What in the world would it gain me? I've never actively sought your suffering, which is more then you can say about me, dog." The whole wanting him executed was-- well, that was about Lily. And that was pretty damn intense. He'd believed Sirius her betrayer, after all... After knowing he wasn't, that fizzled out. Then it was sniping and bitching and two grown men acting like children, because neither had grown up and it was questionable if either would.

His hand finds his wand, a light touch. His other hand finds the edge of his cloak; when all else fails-- you may need to improvise.

"That's shite and you know it. DEATH EATER. How dare you!?"

Sirius pulls right up to the window, following Snape.

"How many people have you killed, Snape? And you sit there and judge me? And that's discounting seven years of vileness at school."

He grabs the windowsill, eyes completely wild. The lights inside flicker as his anger builds and his control slips. So sloppy.

"Remember this one, Snivellus the Meek? SECTUM SEMPRA!"

"Only one!" Snape roars back -- omitting the one that he had a hand in, his own father, the only one. He'd never been a thug like Nott or a fanatic like Bellatrix; running about blowing up Muggles wasn't what he was after, and never would be. "And nly because he begged me for the mercy." But that'll be another story for another time, as Snape has no desire to retread Albus' death with Sirius Black. Ever.

Neither does he want to talk about STEALING HIS SPELLS. The counter is up in an instant, that strange melodiousness that he uses in all his counter-curses. "How dare you turn my work against me. Who do you think you are, dog? Let's get you LEASHED! Incarcerous!"

"Then let's haul you off to Azkaban, and you can finally get your first kiss."

Sirius doesn't try to counter the curse, he ducks out of the way, hauling a dresser away from the wall to crouch behind. He knew defensive spells but preferred always to be offensive, and had bragged as much when James and Remus called him on it.

"I'm better than you, murderer, and always have been." Good enough at offensive magic that there are any number of spells that he can toss wordless. He appears just long enough to fire one off - but Snape may recognize the gesture for petrificus totalus.

Magical rope piles in a corner, only to fade away when not used. Snape, on the other hand, has gestured to the couch and flipped it, wandless magic costing him energy but saving him time.

He takes his own cover, as the wall takes the spell.

"You have no idea what I did for the Order! You have no idea what Albus asked me to do -- because none of you cowards could face what I did, day after day!" He shouts back, fingers darting into a pocket and pulling out the cigarette case, filled with tiny vials. He buys time with working to enrage Sirius, popping one open and downing it's contents before he spoke. Duro in a bottle; he wished he'd had the good sense to take it before meeting with Voldemort.

"I spied and I lied! You're right! But I have a list of people I watched die so that people like you could live! Fifty-seven dead at the Battle of Hogwarts. Fifty-seven! You were dead and gone for two years, by that time, you useless lush -- or you would have been fifty-eight!" And then he's over the couch again, sallow skin grayish in tone from the potion's affects. THe next jinx his launches is boils. That one never goes out of style.

"Oh you never did anything on my behalf, Snape. Nor did you give two shits about anyone. You watched them die so that you could strike at just the right time to get the most benefit for yourself."

Another spell goes flying, leaving a scorch mark on...Snape is hiding behind a sofa?!

"Ah, -fuck!" Up just a little too long, Sirius gets that one full in the face. (Which is not the worst place to get hexed over with boils, let the records show. The incident with Mulciber and Peter's trousers in fourth year shall stand forever in evidence.)

All the same, it was aggravating as all hell - not only had Snape hit him, but he'd hit him with a childish jinx. That Sirius was lucky Snape hadn't hexed his tongue out only makes him more angry. Snape's specialty may be potions, but Sirius's is transfiguration. Transfiguring a couch into a crocodile was not particularly difficult.

So now there was a massive snaggle-toothed reptile in the room. This is an improvement?

Snape's pulling of his punches is intentional; he's upset, he's angry, but-- when confronted with an angry, upholstered reptile -- he's wishing he'd gotten serious (Ahem) and downed the Dragon's breath potion instead.

"ARE YOU DAFT?" That was never in question, Snape. He's firing off stinging hexes at the thing as it lumbers about. Hopefully, it can't dodge... because he's gotta do that, manage a shield charm, and get the right potion out of the case with a double-team.

Hopefully the boils are making it hard to see over there, so Snape's not too glaring of a target.

"Only if by 'daft' you mean 'about to make you wish you were still skulking around a basement terrorizing eleven-year-olds'."

Snape, if the thing's skin is still upholstered, it can't exactly feel anything. Which is good for you, as crocodiles tend to react poorly to things that hurt them. All the same, it was not happy about being in a small room, and reared its head back, making a (slightly-wheezy) hissing noise. At least it hadn't tried lashing its tail around...

The boils did not obstruct his vision, but they were distracting enough that Sirius was content to take a moment to let the couchrodile eat one of Snape's legs or something while he tried to come up with a plan. Not that he wasn't going to occasionally toss a Langlock jinx over his shoulder. You never knew when you were going to get lucky.

Or not, as it was another of Snape's own spells.

"STOP USING MY SPELLS!" That really only pisses him off more. Having reaches the point of bellowing at the top of his lungs, sure to alert his neighbors, as he ends up with that thing grabbing his trousers. They're repairable, but-- you know, he's only got one set of robes here and the rest of the clothes Gemma's made for him... It only makes the rage worse, the blood pump all that much harder. "You're not even competent with them you BLOODY ARSE!"

Finally, he settles on Incarcerus again, to keep the thing's jaws busy, but that didn't mean it was going to be happy -- what about that tail agian?-- while he backed toward the wall-- breathing hard, much to hard for a simple tussle like this.

Something was going very wrong.

Edited 2011-07-30 00:13 (UTC)

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to share, Snivelly?" ...If she had she was a leg-up on Sirius's own mother, but that's beside the point. "You only wish-"

We'll never know what Snape would only wish, in Sirius's opinion, as at this point the frustrated couchrodile, dismayed at having ropes around its face, thrashes expansively. And thoroughly.

Sirius is saved the worst of it, crouched behind his dresser, but other items of furniture go flying. Snape is actually not in a bad position by the beast's head and is spared the whip-crack violence of the tail, but it's writhing still slams its head and shoulders into him. ...Where were all those potions materials again?

Sirius wisely assists everyone by casting a slicking jinx on the floor, making it extremely slippery. And chuckling quietly. Ohhh this was a proper mess.

"Anytime you've had enough, feel free to apologize!"

"Go to hell you coward! Oh -- wait. You'll beat me there by a couple of years!"

Furniture is flying sliding about and the couchodile is just speeding things along as Snape's legs start taking a pummeling from a long, unhappy head. He manages to slide away, only to hear something over the din.

There is the tinkling of glass as a table with a small set of ingredients and equipment is upended in the chaos, and there are vials and broken glass and carefully collected herbs all over the floor now, going willy nilly.

Snape's eyes, beetle-black, fix on those broken items.

"Harry Potter brought me those, you motherless curr!" He snarls, rage only fueling his pain, eyes going dim, "DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD EARNED THAT WAS?"

He's trying to get up, but it's--slippery, hard to see, and there's that thing flopping about his apartment. Progress is minimal.

"This place was heaven before you and that massive beak of yours showed up, Snape."

Sirius's attention snaps to at the mention of Harry's name, and Sirius instinctively popped up long enough to shrink the couchrodile until it was little more than an ottomanchus. It was still spazzing out, but to the tune of light tinkling, rather than massive splintering.

"What did you say about my godson?"

Snape looked...horrible. Even for Snape. A disturbing shade of grey. Too bad there wasn't someone here who didn't loathe his guts to care.

The commotion coming from Severus Snape's room is not exactly a gentle rumble; it's more of a horrible din, in fact. This is the reason she ventures out of her own apartment even though she'd just arrived home from job-hunting.

Several loud knocks on the door yield no answer, and when she thinks she hears furniture crashing about she lifts her wand to mutter, "Alohomora!"

Her wand is still raised as she steps through the door to find Severus and her cousin apparently engaged in a ... disagreement. She wasn't altogether surprised considering what she'd seen of their first few years of schooling together, but that wasn't to say that she wasn't disappointed. The floor looks glossy and if Severus' apparent inability to get up is any indication, it's probably slippery. He doesn't look well, either (not that Sirius looks much better, boils and all).

"I don't know what exactly is going on here," she announces loudly, with the authority only a mother can really radiate, "But it stops now!" She shoots them both an unimpressed look while trying to keep her balance on the slick floor (and mostly succeeding).

"I said, you miserable animal, that Harry Potter gave me that. He brought it to me my first miserable day in this city. It was a hard won moment, you--"

Wait, is the door opening?

The Duro potion is wearing off, and he's starting to really feel the earliest bruises. The potion has handled the rest, but -- there's nothing making that blinding headache any better.

But then there's Andromeda's voice-- and it sounds like thunder in his ears right now. He slides about until he's on his backside, sitting forward, blood starting to trickle from his nose.

"...not what it looks like." Which is them trying to kill each other. Resting his head on his knees, he breathes hard and fast, he's just going to sit there; Sirius will behave with Andromeda there as a witness. Bullies always go weak when there was a witness.

Snape was the rare type that'd bully WITH a witness, all the same.

Nothing about this is good. Lily knows how the two of them feel about each other, and--

Oh. Oh. Yelling. And magic. Double plus ungood. Nothing about this is going to end well. And this is why Lily sets off at a run up the stairs, taking them two at a time. And when she finally reaches Snape's room, she doesn't even bother knocking before bursting in.

"Stop bloody calling me an animal!"

...Sirius this is not going to convince anyone that you are ready to stop behaving like one.

He stands there panting for a moment, eyes still on Snape. Who really did look quite terrible.

"Cousin, if you would be so kind as to make sure the old git isn't about to keel over because we needed to have a little discussion here? Lily, did your son actually give him a chemistry set?"

He should put his wand away, he knows, but Snape still has his and Sirius is not going to lower his arm first.

Edited 2011-07-30 17:06 (UTC)

Fortunately for Lily, the door of the apartment is already open because of Andromeda.

"Not what it looks like? Really? Because it looks to me like you two are still behaving exactly the way you did in Hogwarts despite your apparent age and experience!" Not that this is unexpected from Sirius, given where a good chunk of his adulthood took place ... but still. Explanations shouldn't always have to be excuses.

"Sirius - I'm not stepping over this floor until it's anything less than the death trap it already is. Both of you - put your wands down, or I swear to Merlin I am going to come over there and punch you both in the noses." Already-bleeding or not, Severus. There is muttering, mostly about old grudges and bloody stupid immature ... well, you get the point. She does start to slowly try and make her way over to where Severus is hunched, however.

"When you act like a dog, you'll be kenneled with them," Snape says, glowering from where he sits. Oh, Andromeda. It's so quaint that you think you can stop either of them. "Look at you! Barking when your fangs are pulled!"

He smirks, now; a small victory over Black -- that Harry doesn't loathe him. It's a win, he'll take it.

"There's no discussion. There's nothing to discuss. ANYTHING I do -- stopped being your concern years ago, and even when, there was nothing you could do about it! The only person I take orders was the same one holding your lead: Albus Dumbledore, and he's not here to yank your chain OR mine."

His crooked teeth flashed in a grimace, a rictus grin.

"I'm my own man, for the first time in years. Don't think you're going to tell me what do, Sirius Black!"

It takes a moment for Lily to collect her thoughts about everything that's going on. Three people in the room, and a whole lot of things happening at once. She's glad that Andromeda's there, so she doesn't have to deal with Severus and Sirius on her own.

"My son did what?" She doesn't even know what Harry did, and she's curious, but now isn't really the time. "Wait, no. Tell me later. What is going on here?"

She feels like she's fifteen, back at Hogwarts, and trying to get Sirius and James to leave Severus alone.

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HOW DID I MISS THIS ICON THIS WHOLE TIME

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