capeandcowllogs | What Shall We Use / To Fill The Empty Spaces

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What Shall We Use / To Fill The Empty Spaces

WHO: The greasy halfblood and the pretty pureblood. No, the other pretty pure blood. NO,

andromynous, dammit.
WHERE: Snape's MAC apartment.
WHEN: Thursday evening.
WARNINGS: Snape.
SUMMARY: Snape and Andromeda have dinner. It is not a date. Ever. They just have a lot of crap to deal with, okay?
FORMAT: We like words, punctuation, words, and more words.

With at lesat two fights in the span of two months, Severus Snape was getting a reputation in the MAC; it was one he didn't care for, but really, it didn't hurt him either. It was when it reached the ears of other wizards in the building that it became a problem. Andromeda had left a message inquiring about dining and discussing things, and finally, Snape had acquiesced to her request for a visit, and arranged something suitable; they could discuss whatever idiot thing she wanted to lecture him about over dinner.

His small table is set with a humble repast; sauted summer squash and zucchini provides a bed for chicken breast straight from the skillet; a light salad accompanies. He doesn't have wine, and quite frankly, doesn't bother with it for now. It's not like he's working to impress her. He's happy enough to cook for two for a change, providing a new challenge since he's modified every recipe he has down to a single serving out of habit. Reversing it's not hard, but he has to keep in mind that two people have to eat it, for a change. Something minor, to keep him occupied.

Now all he needs is Andromeda. She best be prompt; he hates tardiness.

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Despite having a messy husband and a hectic job, Andromeda didn't make a habit of being late - it was something that her childhood had drilled into her and she'd never seen a reason to change it. She was certainly not going to be tardy for a dinner conversation with Severus Snape, particularly when she was planning to give him a good talking to.

Honestly, she could've forgiven one fight with his childhood rivals shortly after his arrival -- surely he'd just been frazzled, he hadn't settled in -- but a second already? With Lily Potter's husband, no less? They'd been loud enough that she'd heard (and heard about) the ruckus. She lifted her hand to knock, pleased to smell something delicious even before she entered his apartment.

"Open up, Severus."

A gesture, and the door opens-- and Snape is some distance to the side. He heard Andromeda-- but these days, he gets quite wary opening doors these days. Never know who is going to be on the other side.

"'Open up'? And here I thought this was a friendly meal," he replies with mock innocence. He knows very well why she's here, just as he knew every time Albus called him to the office if was only going to get half the story for anything... up until he got himself cursed, at least.

"Don't play coy. It's really a terrible state of being for you, anyway." And she wasn't going to attempt to sugar-coat the reason that she was here for him - that would be downright insulting. He had to be aware that most of the building had heard him shouting, at least if they were within a floor of him.

She slips into the room and closes the door, turning to face him with an arched brow. "Concerned that I was not who I claimed to be? Perhaps ready for a rogue fist to come your way?"

"I prefer the illusion that you are not going to attempt to mother me. Again," Snape replies, his eyes flat as she bring up the fight. Of course everybody heard it. It was in the hall, voices were raised, he shouted.

They're lucky they didn't hear him in Jersey.

"Sit down, and don't presume to lecture me," he says. "Or I shall spit in your drink or something else equally uncouth."

"I'm sure you know that's a tenuous illusion," she says in return, sitting despite her apparent irritation. She's going to get her dinner out of this even if they have to sit in tense silence.

It's just like her childhood!

Snape fills water glasses, and pulls out a chair for her for a moment; manners are a big deal in Slytherin House; the pretense of civility is important. It's speaks of a great deal of Snape' character that he disdains it so often-- it shows how little he thinks of people.

Andromeda is not one of those people, no matter how irritated he may be with her.

"I'll indulge it while I may," he says simply. "But at least allow me to eat before you attempt it."

She's glad to see that he's still being polite even if he's tense, and that helps put her at least mildly at ease. She takes a seat in the chair and allows him to tuck her into the table, nodding.

"As you wish. I thought you might wish to soothe yourself with food afterward, but it is certainly your choice." And true to her word, she won't speak about it until then.

"Unsurprisingly, things smell lovely."

"We shall hope that the taste matches," Snape replies, though he knows that it will."

He is a very precise eater, goes through one item, then the next, mixing flavors to enhance only as appropriate -- apparently the 'experimentation' phase of cooking is gone, and he eats food like he drinks potions: exactly as intended, thank you.

"How is the clinic?" he asks, between bites.

"A refreshing break from the wizarding world's clinics," she admits with a shake of her head. "Things are, for the most part, much simpler."

Life-threatening wounds are still life-threatening, of course, but wizarding magic can fix them a little easier in some ways. Mordin's omni-gel is, additionally, quite amazing.

Andromeda eats most bites of her food as a mix of everything on the plate, giving little care for how much of each bit is on her fork. It tastes good whatever blend she gets, after all.

"I imagine it should be," he says, before pausing to chew thoughtfully on his food, quiet for a moment. "Dr. Mordin was an eminently reasonable man for a giant salamander. Does he remain so?"

It's small talk. If he maintains small talk, will he avoid lecture? He doesn't really hope that he will, but at least he can ferret out good info in the mean time.

"He's highly logical. I'm sure he would've made an excellent Ravenclaw," she pauses, then, "or perhaps a Slytherin. I suppose it would depend on many things, as the sortings do." She still thought that the houses had, especially in the past few years, been a disadvantage to students in some ways.

He can hope all he wants to, but that isn't likely to happen.

"I'm sure either would have been happy to have him... were he a wizard, and not a giant salamander." Snape is a bit amused, but he likes Mordin as much as he likes anybody he has had casual contact with.

This is because it two enormous nerds finding kinship with one another, though.

Hey, look, those plates are getting empty as spare small talk is made.

They are, which means that lecture time is fast approaching.

Unless...

"Is there a dessert I ought to be holding my breath for?" She takes another forkful of assorted food, tempted to lean her elbows on the table but choosing not to for the moment. She'd at least wait until they weren't eating.

"I've never mastered desserts. There's never been much point, as I rarely have any guests." And he certainly wasn't going to make sweets for Wormtail unless he thought he could lace them with Arsenic.

He's just going to take his now-cleaned plate away and clean up his spot, yup. Not even going to give a bit of consideration to the potential lecture that'd be coming up.

That's all right, Severus -- Andromeda is a master of walking and talking.

"I'm not supposing that telling you that you're still acting to the same maturity as James and the lot of his friends, and that it's unbecoming to stoop to their level is going to change anything, but the point must be made."

She pauses. "If you are aiming to best them, you're likely to succeed only if you can be the one to overcome your pasts first."

Damn. Next it will be chewing bubble gum while rubbing her tummy.

Snape makes a derisive snort.

"I did what I needed to. Potter is the one who stalked his wife to my doorstep, to make sure she's safe. As if coming by for months unharmed wasn't a clue," Snape replies, as snippy as ever, as he puts dishes in the sink.

"Did it occur to you that he might have actually been planning to try and get along in order to placate his wife, however unsuccessfully? That's a possibility." A possibility that puts James ahead of you in maturity on some twisted level.

She puts her own dishes in the sink politely enough, ignoring the snippiness neatly. That's a talent she honed during school.

"No, I don't. Not with the way he was instantly defensive once the door was open. He doesn't trust me. He's here because he doesn't trust me. That's all." He doesn't give James and ounce of credit.

Why would he, though? James has only saved his life the one time. And that, Snape is sure, was to protect his friends from the consequences of their actions. No more, no less.

"Well, that may have been another element of his intention -- but I'm sure he was hoping that the former would be the reason Lily would see. Up until his lack of restraint got the better of him, of course."

She settles back down at the table once her dishes are taken care of. "Anyway, we're not here to talk about James. We're here to talk about how you can be an actual adult about things occasionally. Or are you planning on juvenile antics for the foreseeable future?"

"...juvenile antics?" Snape has the audacity to sound indignant. No, really! He gives her a look before retreating from the small dining space in the apartment to sit.

"What do you expect me to do?" he asked, hackles up. "Pretend that he is not an irredeemable ass? He is. He's a dog. Lower then a dog; swine. A coward who needs four to take on one."

Does he actually not see that --

"What else would you call picking a fight in the middle of the hallway of a very crowded apartment building. I'm sure you did not only embarrass Lily by willingly participating in such an argument, but certainly yourself as well. Is that how you want people to know you here, that bloke who shouted at the twenty-somethings in the hall?"

She stands to follow him into the living room, crossing her arms over her chest. It's full on lecture-mode now, really.

Snape just frowns. It's a very impressive frown, one forged from years of not smiling very often and being miserable on a regular basis. Years was spent on that dark expression. Years.

"And what should I do, then? Please, enlighten me." Sure, tell Snape. We dare you. That'll be like walking into the lion's jaws. Does she want to do that, one Snake to another?

See, this is where she has to pull the self-preservation card. She was trying for them to be friends, and it seemed to be working on some sort of level, but she wasn't about to throw herself on a bed of spikes for his benefit. He hadn't earned that sort of loyalty from her yet, no matter how loyal he'd been to his own perceived causes.

"I doubt you'd listen to me even if I did advise you on the matter, as prickly as you're being. I'd just hate to see you squander an opportunity to on some level be happy. Yes, this place brought us here for its own motives -- but that doesn't mean we have to be passive participants. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to find some sort of good in this, to outsmart that damned machine at its own game." She huffs, turning a tired gaze on him - the sort of tiredness you get from losing most things and then suddenly finding almost all of them back but the one thing you really wanted. Snape might recognize that look from seeing it in his own reflection.

Oh god. The "Happy" word again. He hates that word. He hates that perceived idea of what he should or should not be doing to be happy. Everyone wants to tell him how to be happy, from Voldemort to Albus and now Andromeda.

"I have, in the last month, made contacts, arranged to start a business, found work in the interim to simply keep myself busy, and then had to content with the sudden arrival of Draco Malfoy'in the City; factoring his continued safety and care into the rest. I do not lack for things to do, but I cannot say that any of them make me 'happy' as you would call it," he says, ticking off each item on a finger. "I see Lily Potter from time to time and our visits are as pleasant as they can be with the hanging pall of questions she refuses to ask that I cannot broach without possibly upsetting her." Or worse, saying too much; there's no lion's courage to be found where Lily Potter is concerned. If there ever had been, the story would have been a much different one.

Yes, he knows that look. He's wearing it now.

"Tomorrow, I am going to that Magic Convention; I will meet Miss Maggotbone and continue our work, as I do what I must to build something here. But doing that is merely-- occupation. I have not had any time to think about -- happiness as you put it, in the last two decades. I've had a purpose, and it's fulfilled. The rest..."

He spreads his hands; he has no idea what to do now. Groping about blindly toward purpose. He is thirty-eight and has never known love, never known happiness, never known security or real peace. He's not got the slightest idea of what will make him happy.

But he does know what's easy: falling into old habits, old fights, and old grudges. Those are nice and comfortable, dammit. Very comfortable, and he is loathe to give any of them up. Then what would he do?

"Don't expect me to simply frolic through daisies and sing firesides with the lions," he says, digging his heels in. "I won't. They owe me, but not a one would ever admit it-- or believe it, from my lips, and you know it. They don't know what you do."

In truth, she doesn't even know the half of it.

"That is one of those things that you must find time to work on, even if it is a foreign and alien concept. It will be hard to find and it will be painful, but isn't it something to work towards other than the same easy routine?" It's easy enough to see as someone who could have -- in her young life -- fallen into the habits that were easiest, and she will certainly admit that here she's fallen into some of the habits from her 'better' life that were less than ideal (smoking too much, working too much). That does not mean, however, that she's going to sit by and watch someone who has known such great sacrifice to continue to bring about the same hate-spiral that she assumes he's been in for most of his life.

She snorts. "I am not asking you to join hands and dance around a maypole with any of those silly cubs. I am merely asking you to consider that perhaps you can use their being here for something useful -- to extract what you need out of them to find some sort of semblance of peace so that the life you claim to be trying to build here can be a different one from the one you lived before. " She's drawn up her arms against her chest again, thin fingers gripping her opposite arm tightly; this sort of conversation makes her want to tear her hair out.

"There is nothing wrong with routine," Snape protests. Not that he ever lived in one; Hogwarts doesn't really allow for routine, especially once Harry got there. Then it was anything BUT routine.

"You've gone from mother to therapist now. I do not think I asked for either," he says as he watches her squirm and be unhappy. He doesn't want to make her so; she was kind to him, when he came to Slytherin House. Their time in school together was short, but it was good. "Can we simply be-- friends, instead? With all the faults and dangers that implies, as opposed to the idea that you are required to either fix or nurture me?"

He has few friends. He could do with more of those, now that he has this vaunted second chance to ...explore, and possibly bollix royally.

"The rest-- I can make no promises," he says. "I do not seek them out, but there will be no avoiding them. Not with what's brewing here."

Not with Hermione and her damned Horcrux.

"There is plenty wrong with routine if it's an unhealthy one to begin with. I'd make a medical analogy to back myself up, but that hardly seems necessary."

She can see that he's watching her, and she's more than a little surprised by the offer of friendship -- if only because it's blatant. She can't expect much else from him though, really.

"We can be friends, Severus, but you'll still have to deal with me trying to give you advice about the Potters and my cousin. Friends do that more often than therapists, it seems." She listens to his words, though.

"What is that supposed to mean, what's brewing here?"

It seemed the correct thing to do; he has few of them, it seems like the positive change she is looking for, and it's not like he doesn't know how to be someone's friend. He's just not very good at it. Perhaps more people to practice on will make it a lot less awkward.

Lily, Lucius, Narcissa, Albus -- these were the only four people he called friends for a very long time. One was dead due to his inability to save her, two were terrorists who be betrayed, and the last manipulated him flagrantly and they both knew it. He's not got the best track record ever.

Maybe it'll be just as dismal as all of those before, but still. THey're the only ones who understand certain things -- both from a House perspective to a personal one. The war cost them greatly. The City taxes their reserves.

This could be the only safe place they have.

"I suppose I'll have to learn, then. Lily had her moments too, though. So it's not that alien." Lucius and Narcissa knew better. Albus, well. Albus just wrapped him around his finger and did as he pleased.

"Very well. I'm not sure how this will factor into your interactions with my sister, of course." Unless they were going to be some sort of 'secret friends', but saying that out loud sounded juvenile and she was really hoping to have to avoid any complications if at all possible.

She could relax just a little, finally. If Severus was going to count her among his friends, she hoped it would mean he'd actually think about the things that they'd talked about. That was enough for now.

She wasn't going to let him get away without talking to her further though, so she repeated, "And what do you mean by 'what's brewing'? Am I that out of the loop with the rest of the people from our world...?"

But! Ignoring the question was a totally valid response! Pressed, Snape frowns, but answers.

"The Order is convening. Or at least, I am going to try and get them to," says Snape. "Hermione brought an artifact back that must be dealt with."

There. He finally answered. He's not exactly jumping to explain it all, and few people know. After all, few people trusted him. Andromeda was one, but she had the taint of Slytherin house on her, even if her husband and daughter had borne the badger.

"So you'd best start to resolve your problems with some of the Order members before it convenes completely or you're going to be much less in-the-loop about goings-on than I think you'd like."

She purses her lips and sighs, though, arms crossed over her chest. She's tense again, if only because she can think only of dangerous artifacts that need to be destroyed. If someone who has dabbled in the Dark Arts such as Snape agrees that it needs to be destroyed ... she's not sure she wants to know what it is.

That's for the best, because Snape's not telling her.

"I am more then capable of working with someone I loathe. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were members of the Order," he points out helpfully. "If there is anything I am capable of, it's being professional in time of crisis."

Now if he could only manage it the rest of the time.

"Now you just need to master being able to be professional when it isn't a time of crisis."

No, really. It's a useful skill to have, being able to be more mature than the people nearly twenty years your junior.

"I'll take that under consideration."

When he feels like it.

"I'm going to make tea. I am going to hope that you are adult enough to not make a fuss over bags, yes?" Because if he has to deal with that again someone is getting hexed.

Andromeda can't help but snort at his words.

"Not in the least. I might've at one point been snobbish about my food and drink, but raising a daughter on first-tier healer wage with whatever else Ted brought in was a challenge enough in the first few years that I was just pleased to have tea at all. Personally, I never tasted much of a difference as long as you didn't over-steep."

"Good." Then there will be no more tea snobbery. Once he gets his business up and running, we'll see an improvement in his standard of living, okay?

For now, he just puts on some camomile tea-- for calming nerves. He'll get the water boiling, and get some cups down so they can perhaps, you know, just try and be people instead of lecturer and lectured.

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What Shall We Use / To Fill The Empty Spaces

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