Chapter 4

Chapter 4

In this project, unfortunately, he was constantly stymied. If he wasn't being waylaid on Sunday nights by disciplinary or medical crises in the Slytherin common room, or stupidly falling asleep on his own sofa only to wake stiff and cranky on Monday morning, he was arriving at McGonagall's rooms to find her either alone or already sleeping, Aberforth spooned behind her. Salazar on a stick, why were these old people always unconscious by midnight?

He did manage to see McGonagall naked, though. Some time after the Easter holidays, balked yet again in his hope of finding her writhing under Aberforth, he watched her drink a cup of tea in what she imagined was solitude and then head off to her bedroom.

He followed.

Even though she was alone, he vaguely expected her to undress the way his gran had. It would be just his luck, because if she did, Severus wouldn't get to see so much as a square inch of skin. When he'd stayed with Gran, she'd got ready for bed by pulling her nightgown over her head before she removed her day clothes. Then she'd dropped skirt and blouse and stockings to the floor one-by-one as she unfastened them under the voluminous yards of fabric. She must have slept in her girdle and brassiere, for Severus always waited in vain to see those.

But McGonagall, in more ways than one, was no Gran Snape. She didn't bother with modest nightgown tents. She merely stood in front of her wardrobe and removed first her robes and then her undershift, folding each carefully away. Her bra and knickers were plain and white, and she took off each methodically, floating them away towards the loo, where, if her bathroom were like his, Severus knew a built-in hamper awaited them; the elves collected staff laundry from the hampers once a week.

And then there she was...naked at last. Her body was slim and pale and rather angular except for some softness around her stomach. Her breasts weren't large, but they couldn't be called small, either: they'd give Ab a good, round handful.

She looked. . .like herself, only without clothes. Ordinary. Nice.

As Severus watched, she Summoned a nightdress to her with wandless magic and slipped it over her head; it was neither the Victorian horror he'd once imagined, nor the lacy wisp of his more heated fantasies. It was simply a cotton nightgown, long-sleeved and very practical for a chilly spring night in a draughty castle.

When she went into the loo, Severus took the opportunity to make his escape.

Then he went back to his rooms and wanked himself raw.

*-*-*-*-*

He didn't return to McGonagall's chambers for several weeks after that night, though he couldn't have said why. He did continue to visit the Hog's Head throughout the spring and summer, though. Often, when the pub was busy, he exchanged no more than a word or two with Aberforth; he'd merely drink his whisky silently and then, after fifteen minutes or so, depart.

A parchment would show up in his pocket about half the time. He never made any attempt to read one: he had no doubt that the contents would be encrypted, and of course the Dumbledore brothers would have covered the things in enough protective spells and hexes to blast Severus into smithereens if he tried to break them.

But occasionally, the pub would be empty, or close to it, and then Severus would stay longer and talk with Ab, enough to learn what kind of man he was. Severus didn't delude himself that he'd learnt Ab's full story...he could tell by the bitterness that sometimes crept into the man's tone that there was a lot he wasn't saying...but he knew enough to know that Ab had had a tough life, one way or another.

Still, Ab didn't whine about it or feel sorry for himself. He didn't hide the mistakes he'd made, but he didn't beat himself up over them, either. What was done was done, he'd sometimes say, which was something Severus's da had said, too.

To his surprise, Severus sometimes found himself talking in return...about his parents and his life at Spinner's End.

"He sounds a hard man, your da," Ab said once, and Severus couldn't tell whether he thought this a bad thing or a good one.

"He was," Severus agreed. Some of his earliest memories were of his da's angry voice. "He and mam fought a lot, especially in the year or two before I went to Hogwarts. But once I started school, it got better. They were calmer when I was at home."

As a child, he hadn't realised how much tension was caused between his parents by his being magical. But oddly, once he went to Hogwarts, things did get better. It was as if the magic had become official somehow. At any rate, Tobias had been more accepting of it. Or at least more resigned to it.

Yes, things had been better, and yet Severus had still gone ahead and fucked up his life royally.

Suddenly, he felt the phantom burn of the Mark on his arm, and all he could think of were the wasted dark years and his da's death. And Lily. For a moment, a black mist swirled before his eyes, and he wished desperately for the escape of his Invisibility Cloak.

But Aberforth was still talking, and Severus forced himself to concentrate on the old man's voice.

"No more fighting after you went to school?" Ab was asking.

"Oh, they always fought," Severus replied, once he remembered what their conversation was about. He marvelled at how controlled he sounded, and he talked on just to distract himself. "But I think it had become more habit than anything else. I used to wonder why they stayed together, but then I saw them when they got along with each other, and they were all right."

"Feisty, your mam, was she?" asked Aberforth, grinning wolfishly. "There's nothing like a good spitfire of a woman to hold a man's interest."

"Like you and McGonagall?"

The words came out before Severus could stop them, and he was furious with himself. Of all the dumb-fuck things to say.

Ab, who had been engaged in his interminable glass-wiping, put down his rag slowly. "Minerva told you about us?" he asked.

"No. But things get around. You know." Severus could hear how lame he sounded, and he fully expected Ab to take offense.

Yet Aberforth just looked at him for another few seconds before picking up his rag. "Aye," he said. "Like me and Minerva."

"You love her."

The words came out sounding like an accusation, but it was one Ab didn't deny; he merely studied Severus and kept wiping his damned glass. "And if I do?" he said finally.

"You're twice her age! She's twice my age!"

Wherever that had come from, Severus had no idea, but he knew he'd really crossed the line this time. He couldn't help himself: everything was spinning out of his control, and he could do nothing but let the tide carry him where it would. He waited for Ab to yell at him, to tell him to mind his own fucking business and get the hell out.

And he did, more or less, though not in those words, and he didn't yell. He spoke mildly, which in its own way was even worse.

"The first is not your concern, lad," was all he said. "And the second has nowt to do with owt."

He gave the glass one last swipe before setting it on the bar and saying, "I think maybe you should call it a night, eh?"

Severus stumbled off his stool and out into the darkness, and it wasn't until the next morning that he even thought to check his pocket for a parchment.

*-*-*-*-*

He spent the better part of the next two weeks feeling like the world's most prize imbecile. How could he have sat at Ab's bar like such a gormless twit, bleating on about love? The memory was a constant Cruciatus in his brain.

To take his mind off his stupidity, he also spent a lot of time under his Cloak, escaping into other people's lives. He even started going back to McGonagall's on Sunday nights, hoping to find her in bed with Aberforth. He thought that maybe if he could watch them have sex, he could get his world back in perspective. Then their relationship wouldn't be about love, it would just be about fucking, and that, Severus could handle.

No luck yet, though; now that they were deep into the summer hols, McGonagall seemed to be spending most of her Sunday nights at Ab's place.

Ever since that embarrassing talk with Aberforth, Severus had been keeping a weather eye on McGonagall, waiting for her to upbraid him for meddling in her personal life, or at least to start acting differently towards him. When she continued to behave just as she always did, baiting him about Quidditch and entertaining him against his will with acerbic comments on students, colleagues, and Malfoys, he was forced to conclude that Aberforth hadn't told her the sorry story.

So it was only Ab that Severus had to worry about. Which shouldn't be a problem, he told himself, since he didn't really give a fuck with the old man thought of him.

Except that he did.