The Upper Hand

Rain misted down from the cottony grayness above, soaking the pavement with little puddles, as well as soaking Severus as he sprinted along the mostly empty Platform 9 ¾, his cart weaving crazily in front of him and squeaking incessantly.

He ran at full speed, thanking his genes for long legs and excellent endurance as train compartments blurred past him. Each leap forward seemed to propel him into a bigger puddle, and soon his shoes and socks were soaked through and freezing.

"Luggage, luggage, luggage, WHERE IS THE GODDAMN LUGGAGE!" he muttered, skidding to a halt and squinting through the rain on either side of him. At last, he thought he could make out a small sign standing beside the train a distance to his right. "LUGGAGE!" He cried again, this time relieved rather than agitated.

Just as he reached the sign, the train made an enormous hissing sound and groaned forward slightly.

"NO!" he bellowed, pounding frantically on the closed door to the luggage compartment. "LET ME IN!"

Slowly accelerating still, the door finally burst open and an enormously irritated looking wizard stood in Severus's way.

"Here!" snapped Severus, practically chucking his trunk at the man. Letting his cart fall to the pavement behind him, he leapt into the moving train. "Why the HELL would they pull out so early??! What do they think they're DOING?!"

The wizard, who had flown backward with Severus's trunk, was now sprawled against several knocked-down trunks, moaning and rubbing his back. "They DIDN'T pull out early, you brat!" He snarled at Severus. "You're five minutes late! Check your watch next time!"

"Well perhaps if they considered the quantity of students to board the train, coupled it with the weather, and tried to muster up some kind of acumen, they would wait a few goddamn minutes! Doesn't take that much brainpower, does it?"

Soaking wet and in a horribly nasty mood, Severus kicked his way past the fallen trunks and out into the corridor. He stumbled along as the train sped up, peering into compartments as he went. Finally, halfway down the corridor, he spotted Charity sitting in an otherwise empty compartment.

He slid the door open and stumbled in. Charity was curled up in the seat by the window, her arms around her knees, staring out at the rain as it splattered the glass. She glanced Severus's way, but barely seemed to take in the fact that he was soaking wet.

He sat down in the seat across from her, squelching uncomfortably as he did so. "Euuuurrrrggh..." he groaned, leaning over and squeezing water out of his hair onto the floor.

He did this partially to annoy Charity, expecting some reprimand for making the floor slippery, or something, but she didn't even look at him. He cleared his throat....no response.

"Erm," he said, deliberately flopping his hair back so that it sprayed her slightly with water. "Hello?"

She jerked as the water hit her, turning her face to glare jokingly at him.

"Hi, Sev," she snapped. "Thanks for the shower."

He gaped at her.

There were deep shadows under her eyes, and her face was pallid. She had her arms around her knees, each hand gripping it's opposite arm, knuckles white. Gripping.

"Charity," he gasped. "You look wretched...!"

Her eyes flashed, and in an instant she looked almost back to normal.

"Gee, thanks, Sev," she snapped. "You, on the other hand, look like a million knuts. Love the dreadlocks, by the way."

He grinned, feeling somewhat, if not completely, relieved. At least she sounded normal. "Well, sorry. You just look...tired, I guess. Did my father find your house all right last night?"

"Yes," she said quickly, looking back out the window.

"Sorry about that," he sighed, squeezing out a new puddle directly from his left pant leg. "I wanted to take you home myself, but I guess Father likes you or something."

She continued staring out the window.

"Anyway," he said, moving on to another handful of sodden cloth, "I've got something here with me that should make the Welcoming Feast quite a spectacle indeed..." He grinned, and pulled a small bottle out of his pocket, the contents of which were a murky, disgusting looking green.

Charity curled her lip at it. "Is that the one with the mutated loins?"

"Right in one," Severus said, smiling at his bottle and shaking it slightly. "Whipped up this batch last night. Works like a charm."

Quite suddenly, Charity's face split into an enormous grin.

"Stand up, Sev," she said, looking intrigued.

"Why?" he said suspiciously.

"Just do it."

He was about to, but then he realized just why she was asking.

"NO!" He yelled, his cheeks tinged pink, highly affronted. "It only lasts twelve hours, anyway! You sick...!"

She burst out laughing. More than just being embarrassed by the indication, Severus really didn't want her glancing at his pelvis every time he stood up.

"I thought you said it lasted twenty four hours?" she said, once she had finished laughing.

"Well, the mutated grindylowe loins seem to shorten the length of the potion's effects. But it makes it much more, er, powerful while it lasts."

By now he was fully red. Even Charity was blushing slightly...or rather, she was temporarily of normal coloring.

Thankfully, the food cart arrived to break the tension with a selection of delightfully delectable snacks. Or at least Severus thought so.

"I'll take two bags of the Beans," said Severus, digging in his saturated pockets, "aaaand a cauldron cake. Want anything Char?"

Quite apart from wanting anything, she looked like she was about to be sick at the thought.

"Or not," he said, eyeing her strangely. He paid the witch and opened his Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans as the food cart went creaking away down the corridor. "You sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," she snapped rather defensively. Then she gurgled and looked away as he put a bean into his mouth.

He almost choked to death on the bean in shock at the noise she made. "Perhaps I'll just save these for later," he remarked, cinching the top of the bag and putting all his treats on an empty seat.

They went the rest of the trip in silence, and once the journey to Hogwarts was about a quarter of an hour from being over, Charity told Severus to change into his robes.

He left her in the compartment and ran back to the luggage compartment. The man curled his lip at him.

"Oh bugger off," snapped Severus, "I just forgot my robes, that's all."

He located his trunk among the others, opened it, and pulled out his school robes. He then found another empty compartment, peeled off his clothes, and threw on his robes. He crumpled his wet clothes into a ball, deciding to carry them rather than throw them in the trunk with his dry clothes.

He walked back to the compartment and walked in without knocking.

Charity hadn't quite got her robes on, and quite a bit of her legs were showing.

"Woops," said Severus. "Sorry."

To his complete shock, Charity went hysterical.

"GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!" She screeched, looking panicked.

"What--I--" choked Severus, jumping. "But you're dressed now--!"

"OUT!"

He flew back out into the corridor, eyes wide. Good God...! Had she always been that diffident?

The train slowed to a stop, and people began to join Severus out in the corridor, crowding around him and making an eruption of noise. In the compartment behind him, Severus could have sworn he'd heard snuffling... He would have gone to see what was wrong, but he was quite simply too terrified of Charity's wrath. At any rate, in half a second the noise in the corridor around him was all he could hear, and he figured he must have imagined it.

"You coming?" He called timidly at the compartment door behind him as people started pushing past him to get off the train. "We...we're here..."

"Go on!" she called back, and Severus wondered if the echoes of the voices around him were what made her voice sound strange. "I'll catch you up in the Entrance Hall!"

"All right," he said, more to himself than to her, and he joined the stream of people pushing toward the exit.

***

Severus waited in the Entrance Hall for a very long time. The rest of the students had gone in and sat down, and Dumbledore was standing as though he were about to speak.

"You!" hissed a voice by the doors to the Great Hall. Minerva McGonagall was standing there, in front of a massive line of new first years. She snatched him by the arm and shoved him toward the Slytherin table. "Get a move on, Mr. Snape! The sorting ceremony is about to begin!"

Severus couldn't help but glower down at the first years before he grudgingly yanked his arm out of McGonagall's grip. He could have sworn that the wizarding population was getting shorter and shorter by the year...why, some of those first years were barely up to his waist!

Smiling smugly at the look of pure terror he got out of the few closest to him, he stalked over to an empty seat at his House table and sat down, peering over toward the Ravenclaw table. Perhaps Charity hadn't seen him...?

But she wasn't there. He swiveled around and looked back toward the entrance hall, earning a raised eyebrow from McGonagall and an elbow in the ribs from a snooty Slytherin fifth year as Dumbledore began his annual speech. She wasn't anywhere at all!

Throughout the feast, the Slytherins ignored Severus, and he them. He periodically checked the Ravenclaw table and the Entrance Hall for any sign of Charity, but she was nowhere to be found.

Honestly! Severus snapped mentally. If she was still upset about him walking in on her in the train, he had no intention of apologizing. There was really no reason to be so immature about it...and DAMMIT! If she didn't show up, how was he supposed to prank Black and Potter???

He glared over at the Gryffindor table. Potter was telling some delightfully funny antic of his, with half of the table at his attention. Within seconds, a great burst of laughter came from that direction. Severus narrowed his eyes with disgust as he watched Black roar with laughter. His mouth was probably full of food, spraying bits of potato and steak all over everyone, but nobody minded, ohhhh no. Because it was handsome, popular Black, sooo clever, sooo close to Potter...

He could just imagine the Gryffindor fourth year girls, simpering as his flecks of canine drool and half chewed meat landed in their hair: "Ooooh! We are sooo lucky, we got hit with Sirius's half-masticated cow...!"

Oh how he wanted to...

WHERE--WAS--CHARITY?????

She never showed up, and Severus was forced to endure the gloating laughter of happy, un-humiliated Gryffindors as he stormed past their table.

"Your hair looks exceptionally disgusting today, Snape, if I do say so myself!" Lupin crowed.

Normally, Severus would have thought of something brilliantly scathing to rebuke with, but in his current state, his anger was fixated wholly on someone else.

He ignored them, and marched straight up to the prefects' bathroom. He was not surprised to find the door locked.

"CHARITY!" He roared, pounding on the door.

Silence.

"I know you're in there!" He shouted, leaning on the doorframe. "What the hell do you think you're playing at, eh?"

Nothing. Then:

"Go. Away. Severus."

"I waited in the Entrance Hall until the sorting ceremony, Char! I watched for you all through dinner! WHERE WERE YOU?!"

"Just leave me alone!"

"What about the potion, Char??? You ruined the whole thing, you selfish--"

"LEAVE--"

"--stupid--"

"--ME--"

"--infuriating--"

"--ALONE--!"

"--wench!"

And with that, he whipped out his wand, snapped "Alohamora" at the door handle, and burst into the bathroom.

Charity was curled up on the cushy bench beside the tub, laying on her side and facing the wall. Severus stomped over to her, grabbed her arm, and yanked it so that she was forced to look at him.

In that instant, his universe flipped upside down, denying the laws of gravity and logistics, and leaving Severus with a wave of nausea he only barely fought back. He let her arm go with a jolt, and it snapped back around her knees as if it were elastically connected to her body.

Her face was pale, much paler than it had been on the train, and her eyes were enormous, a likeness of a stunned and horrified Severus in each one. Her face was streaked with tears, and she was shaking. What horrified him beyond anything else, though, was her avid expression of fear. Fear of him.

"I--" Severus stammered. "I--didn't...What did I...What did I--do...?"

Her expression softened--or masked itself, Severus couldn't tell which--immediately.

"Nothing, Sev..." She said quietly. Then she looked up at him, and Severus thought he caught a hint of anger deep within those eyes. "You did nothing. Nothing."

He reached out to touch her face, but she jerked back so violently that he froze midway through the movement, his eyes widening.

"What happened to you?" He whispered.

"Nothing," she snapped, standing abruptly. "I'm fine."

"But--"

"That means 'shut up and quit worrying, if you didn't catch the insinuation,'" she said, forcing a smile on her face.

Severus tried to smile back.

"Sorry I didn't turn up at dinner," she said, speaking rather quickly, turning her face away from him and wiping her cheeks with her sleeve. "Truth was, I was feeling a little bit sick. I really didn't feel like eating, and I totally forgot about the potion."

"It's okay," said Severus cautiously, watching her back. She turned around, her face dry, and smiled at him again.

"I'm going to go to bed. I'll probably feel fine by morning." She turned and walked toward the door.

Just as she was about to leave, Severus whispered, "I told you everything, Char. Remember?"

She stopped, but didn't turn around. "I remember." And then she was gone.

***

Over the next few weeks, Severus began seeing less and less of Charity. He still sat by her in Potions, but she rarely showed up at meals, and he could never find her between classes.

As a result, Severus started feeling horrible. He snapped at anyone who even brushed against him in the corridors, completely lost interest in taunting Potter and his gang, and completely devoted himself to his homework. He did, after all, have his N.E.W.T.s coming up, and he wanted to be ready for them. At least, that's how he reasoned with himself.

On the Thursday night of the third week of term, he was sitting, as usual, in his dark table in the corner of the Slytherin common room.

Mandrake juice is a fundamental ingredient in many healing potions. It can be found in Pepperup Potions, pain-relieving potions, and even some bone-mending elixirs because of its effect on the production of white blood cells and protein--

SLAM.

Somewhere outside Severus's concentration, two hands had dropped from the sky, each grabbing a book cover. The book had snapped shut directly under his nose, sending a cloud of dust unfurling in his face.

"Hardly the kind of thing you need to be reading," sneered the voice of Lucius Malfoy above him. Amazing how he could emphasize the word "you" in exactly the same way as Severus's father, even in the context of a compliment. At least, Severus thought it had been a compliment...

"The boys and I have seen how hard you've been working," continued Lucius, smiling as he pushed a large pile of Severus's papers off of the table, so that they fluttered to the floor in a scattered mess. He then moved to sit in the spot on the table where Severus's work had been; Severus stared, jaw slack, eyes squinted, down at the mess of papers at his feet. "And we've decided to give you a break."

"Give me a break," Severus repeated faintly, still staring at the floor.

"Precisely," said Lucius. He lowered his voice. "I notice your little mudblood friend has been avoiding you, Severus." On any other occasion, Severus would have hexed him right then and there. But circumstances being as they were, and Severus being somewhat angry with Charity anyway, all he did was look up at Lucius and narrow his eyes. "Hardly surprising, though, is it?"

"What do you mean?" asked Severus suspiciously, staring up into Lucius's cold, calculating gray eyes.

"Well, if there's one thing about mudbloods--" (there was that word again) "--that I've learned, it's their inconsistency...infidelity, if you will. Sure, she was a good friend for a while, but then she got bored with you. Moved on."

Severus narrowed his eyes further. "What's your point?"

"Oh, come on, Severus. Don't you want some real friends? Want to have some real fun? Why don't you hang out with the boys and me...we'll show you some good times, we will."

Severus didn't respond. He bent down and started picking up his papers, shuffling them back into unruly piles. His mind was racing.

Lucius and "the boys" were the most popular Slytherins at Hogwarts. Nobody messed with them. Nobody denied them. Nobody ignored them. Severus knew that they sometimes got into trouble, but what did it hurt, really? They were the type of people his father always wanted him to make friends with, and--a little thrill rushed through Severus--he would be proud of Severus for getting in with Lucius's crowd...

He could always back out if he changed his mind, he told himself. Why not? Why seclude himself from everything and everyone just because Charity didn't bother talking to him anymore? And he was in desperate need of a little fun.

Severus felt a small smile form on his lips. Yes, he would have lots of fun with Lucius. He didn't need Charity and her stupid pranks at all.

"Sure," he said to Lucius, and the blonde boy grinned at him.