Salisbury

He was free of them. Of that seething mass of people he despised -- the puerile students at Hogwarts, including his arrogant, demanding peers in Slytherin; that idiot bastard James Potter and his henchmen; of the Hogwarts Headmaster and his steady, unnerving gaze that seemed to bore into Severus Snape's soul. He ran into a few of his Form mates and the class before them, true -- but only at the occasional, larger lecture -- there were only one or two others in the Potions programme, and Severus had already progressed to private tutorials with the Department Head. For the most part, he was free of them all.

Not of Voldemort, of course. He didn't delude himself on that account: his debt to Voldemort and his fellow Death Eaters would have to be paid eventually, both literally and figuratively.

But that was further down the road than Severus chose to think about -- he was here to study, to earn his Mastery, to prove that the Snape name still carried weight in the field of Potions. To prove his brilliance and worthiness.

He was given a princely sum per term, largely by the Notts -- princely, in comparison to the mite that Aloysius Snape had granted his de facto charge while Severus was still at Hogwarts. He could have taken quite comfortable rooms, had he been accustomed or predisposed to luxury; eaten well, acquired a taste for the many fine liquors readily available to the well-heeled pureblood undergraduate -- but he chose not to. Some part of him rejected the thought -- only partly on the basis of the social interaction required -- so he carefully husbanded his funds, instead. His room, singular, was in a meaner section of the town, far away from the university precincts, and he liked it that way: there was something about the quads and arcades that made him uneasy, a residual memory of his father's time there, perhaps, and he avoided the landmarks -- especially the venerable, ancient college of Arithmancy and Astronomy -- as much as possible. His meals consisted largely of bread and cheese, and a watery butterbeer from the tavern across the alley from his bedsit.

His only indulgence was books. And not the standard texts, either: Severus had an eye for the unusual, esoteric, and rare. The type that could not be found in Flourish and Blotts, and certainly not in the abysmally mundane shop that served the university. He loved the type of book that could only be found at Wainwright's.

It was a tiny shop crammed to the rafters with obscure and out-of-print works and scrolls in all areas of magical disciplines, and it had a more respectable Potions section than any other shop Severus had ever seen. It wasn't even in Wizarding Salisbury proper: the proprietor, an otherwise seemingly sensible man, had chosen an area on the verge of the Muggle shopping district, and glamoured his storefront to appear to Muggle eyes as an abandoned shop building.

But walking into it.... The smell! Dry, dusty, the tang of oiled leather and old vellum, but without the hint of must that signaled decaying parchment -- this was heaven. Like Hogwarts' Restricted Section, but better, because few students bothered to leave the vicinity of the university. And just across from the Potions section was an old wing-chair, seat sprung but still immensely comfortable, in which Severus could curl his gangly limbs, stack of books and parchments beside him, and absorb knowledge to his heart's content.

Mr. Wainwright didn't seem to care: he'd sized up the dour, lanky young man on his first visit, and satisfied himself that here was a true seeker of knowledge -- and that was fine with him. Wainwright's trade came mostly from outside orders for his hard-to-find stock, and one penniless student who obviously loved and cared for books bothered him not at all. So he, in turn, bothered Severus not at all.

Wainwright's daughter was another matter. She sometimes spelled her father at the shop so he could attend to other business, and was curious about the silent, intense young man. Severus hadn't encouraged her -- had greeted her few attempts at small talk with pointed grunts and refusals to lift his face from his texts, in fact.

By the third week of his visits, cups of tea and plates of biscuits began to mysteriously appear at his elbow, and, distracted by some bit of arcana and undeniably hungry, he would absently partake of them. Until midway through spring term, at least.

"You could at least say 'thank you' once ," came a low voice in the familiar, comforting Wiltshire dialect.

Severus tore his eyes away from an exceedingly absorbing treatise on the uses of unicorn blood, and found himself fixed by a pair of deep-blue eyes, highly amused, which belied the exasperation in the voice.

"No, but I can't let you starve to death in Dad's shop, can I? You're skinny as an alley cat -- don't you ever eat? Apart from here?"

"No time," he muttered, and tried to ignore her by gluing his eyes back to the page.

Severus shot a glance at the clock over the counter. Forty minutes past time, in fact. She'd already drawn the shutters and hung the "closed" sign on the door. He'd been so involved in his text he hadn't even noticed.

"Sorry," he mumbled, closed the book, and, hastily rising, replaced it on its shelf.

"Prove it," she challenged, banishing tea and biscuit plate with a wave of her wand. "It's already dark: walk me home."

He was tired and humiliated, and more than a little angered -- by both her bossiness, and his thoughtless acceptance of tea and her unspoken sympathy.

But if truth be told, he only waffled for a few seconds. She was attractive and forthright -- he liked that, no coyness; and she had fed him -- for many weeks now, in fact. He owed it to her to see her safely home. He buttoned his jacket, nodded an assent, and waited by the door while she doused the lights.

It wasn't a far walk, thankfully, though he'd have to backtrack to reach his room, and she didn't push him for much conversation. But when they reached the Wainwright house -- Severus suddenly awkward with the necessity of a polite if not gracious leavetaking -- she stunned him with a causal "Why don't you stay to supper?"

He didn't have time to escape, either. Wainwright must have been wondering what was keeping his daughter -- or suspected what it was: for suddenly the front door opened, and the man peered myopically up at Severus.

"Of course, Dad, but it seems the kneazle's got his tongue," Gillian said, and gently nudged Severus' arm with her own.

"Nonsense. All you do is study, don't you, lad? Time enough for a decent supper. In with you," Wainwright insisted.

It is entirely possible that were it not for the tantalizing odour wafting from the dining room -- steak-and-kidney pie -- Severus would have been able to resist.

"Thanks," he muttered, and followed Gillian Wainwright into the hall, and from thence into a tiny, dark dining room where the aforementioned pie awaited its doom.

Mrs. Wainwright, it must be said, was an excellent cook, and Severus had no difficulty demonstrating his appreciation in the time-honoured manner of starving students everywhere.

Gillian left Severus alone the next time he stopped by the shop. (He'd managed to resist for a week, but the call of the unicorn blood text lured him back.) She simply smiled and went about her business, and he gratefully sank into the chair, undistracted by idle chatter. He restricted himself to a single cup of tea and biscuit. (It was only polite not to refuse, after all.)

When closing time came he was punctual about stopping -- irritated, having kept one eye on the clock for the preceding hour, which had proved distracting -- but she matter-of-factly said "Sit still," and went about closing up and shelving the books that had arrived in the last post. (One was an intriguing-looking South American potions text -- Blast it, why couldn't she have shelved it earlier?)

By the time she'd finished it was dark, and Severus again found himself walking her to her door, and again seated at the Wainwright supper table. (Lamb chops, this time, which had never set well with him at Hogwarts -- but his delicate stomach seemed to have no quibble with Mrs. Wainwright's version.)

"Snape, eh? Related to the Augustus Snape?" asked Wainwright, just absently enough not to seem nosy.

"Distant uncle," Severus allowed, assuming Wainwright meant the 8th Lord Snape, one of several Augusti in the family. "I'm not in the direct line."

"Undergraduate Potions, First Year, correct?" Wainwright prodded him after a few more bites.

"Yes, Sir," Severus dutifully replied, and determinedly took another bite to discourage the man.

"Not many Potions students lately. Too many slackers these days -- everyone buying from the shops. Nothing home brewed anymore," Wainwright noted. "It's going to be a lost art someday, you mark my word. You ought to hear Professor Walker on the subject -- you wouldn't have him yet, of course, not in First Year --"

"I have, and I do," Severus interrupted rather pridefully around a mouthful of lamb, and swallowed hastily to elaborate. "I did advanced work at Hogwarts: Mr. Burkett set me undergraduate-level assignments my last term. Professor Walker reviewed my projects and accepted me for private tutorials."

Wainwright's eyebrows shot up. "Has he? My stars and garters. I've known him forty years and more, and I can't think of more than one or two he's taken on. So your skill matches your thirst for knowledge, does it?"

His eyes were firmly fixed on his plate, perhaps unfortunately; for he missed the appraising look Wainwright shot Gillian --- the one which said, quite distinctly, 'If you want him, I, your father, approve.' The boy wasn't much to look at, but he had brains and drive -- and Gillian could set everything else to rights soon enough.

He would have vociferously denied that he was walking out with Gillian Wainwright had anyone known him well enough to observe it and had the impudence to rag him about it. But even he had to admit, one fine Saturday morning, that it looked bad, very bad. Walking a girl home was one thing: but sitting with her in a secluded hillside grove ostensibly admiring the river whilst eating her mother's excellent ham-and-cheese sandwiches was another thing entirely.

It was very disconcerting; he didn't recall hesitating for a second when her father had suggested the outing and then had slyly allowed him to take back to his room the coveted South American text for leisurely perusal.

Gillian was, thankfully, not much of a talker -- not in the inane way of most young women, at least; she was as comfortable with silence as he. So it was a bit of a shock when she casually asked "What do you plan to do after you get your Mastery?"

He froze; a frisson of shock ran from the base of his spine up to his neck. Gauging the potential ulterior motives of others was a highly prized Slytherin skill, and Severus had honed his sense of such to a needle-fine point.

"No idea," he said nonchalantly, striving for a casual tone himself, and wondering exactly where this was headed.

"There's Mangel and Mortars, I hear they're always looking for good researchers. Or the university itself. Dad said Walker's been talking of retiring."

Severus snorted and fell back on his elbows, long legs stretched out on the grass.

"No, Dad says he's serious. One of the senior dons will move up -- that leaves a junior position open."

"I don't think," Severus said grimly, shoving aside the unbidden thought of his father's failure, "that teaching is for me. I really haven't thought that far ahead."

"Well, you've got two years to think it through. One, actually. You'll be finished by next year, after all," she said contentedly.

He nearly blushed at the implicit praise, and looked at her with a new interest. Her acknowledgment of his intellectual prowess was a bit... arousing.

She really wasn't bad at all, and he could do worse. Long, straight chestnut hair that fell to her waist, and those huge blue eyes that mesmerised him, if he looked too long into her face; a generous mouth with a luscious lower lip made expressly, he assumed, for kissing; of more than average intelligence, though not up to his level. She hadn't been to Hogwarts: she'd stayed home with her elderly parents, but they'd taught her well in the practical Arts, and her magic was well-controlled. She might someday run, like her mother, to a certain matronly plumpness, but for now she was slender, with high, delicate breasts that gently swelled the gauze of her blouse.

No. Severus Snape, with no prospects other than what his brains could provide, could do far worse than to take Gillian Wainwright up on her unspoken offer.

"I just need to know, Severus," she said, gazing at him levelly, "whether I should wait, or not."

"You shouldn't plan your life around mine --" he managed faintly before she interrupted him.

He couldn't bear to look into those earnest eyes anymore, and averted his to the river.

"I have obligations," he finally whispered. "Loans to pay back, possibly very specialized work in exchange. That's why I'm not thinking of a job. I don't know where I'll be expected to go, or how consuming it will be."

"Then there's no reason we can't have an understanding -- unofficial, if you like -- until you do. Dad would expect a long betrothal, anyway."

This wasn't on the agenda. He was supposed to attain the highest potions marks in 100 years and finish the programme in record time to boot, not saddle himself with a wife and all the attendant problems he imagined one caused. And he was only just nineteen, for Merlin's sake. He had to get out of this somehow.

"I don't think I'm marriage material, Gilly," he said solemnly, unconsciously using her father's pet name for her, and rolling slightly onto his side to pin her with his eyes -- not to intimidate, though he probably should, but simply to impress her with the utter seriousness of the statement.

"Oh, I know that. You're short-tempered -- especially when you haven't eaten as you should -- and you're far too serious, and you totally lose track of time when you're studying -- presumably you will when you're working, too. That doesn't bother me."

He opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't get it out in time; Gillian leaned down into him and captured his lips with hers.

Gods, I was wrong. Definitely made for kissing, was the only fuzzy thought in Severus' head.

He wasn't as inexperienced as most might assume. He'd had several conquests at Hogwarts -- easily discarded when they became too clingy and demanding -- and there'd been that glorious night in celebration of taking the Mark, when the Elders had provided entertainment for the new initiates: Severus had proven his prowess in more than intellect that night, several times over.

But this was different. He hadn't thought of her in those terms at all -- at least not until recently, if truth be told; he'd shoved all thoughts of dallying into the furthest recesses of his mind, determined that nothing would distract him from his goal. He'd eventually decided that she was an acceptable companion who happened to be female, the daughter of a man who'd been kind to him -- the whole family had been, in fact -- and he'd kept any impulse to view her as the soft, attractive young woman that she was at a safe distance.

Gillian was sweeter than the others, somehow, her skin tasting of honey and almonds and a faint tartness of sun-inspired sweat, and her hair flowed smoothly through his fingers when, unconsciously, he raised them to the back of her head to draw her closer.

"Gillian --" he tried once more, desperately, to stop this before it went too far.

"Shhhhh," she breathed in his ear, eliciting an involuntary shudder from him. "Don't worry about it; I've been on a potion for weeks. I don't want to trap you, Severus," she said, quite honestly, pulling back enough to meet his eyes and brushing the hair away from them. "But I do want to show you how serious I am," she added, slipping first one braces strap from his thin shoulders, and then the other -- and then her free hand slipped lower down his belly, fumbling with his trouser-buttons just a bit in her own excitement and anticipation. "Let me take care of you," she urged as she lay back and pulled him over her.

It was, he would much later reflect in brandy-induced bouts of self-pity, the most glorious two months of his life to that point. And, sadly, for many of the following years as well.

The twice-weekly visits to the shop became thrice-weekly, and then practically every day. By rights he should have been exhausted -- he refused to stint on his studies merely because he felt ridiculously in love -- but it seemed to have the opposite effect: simply being in the same room with Gillian seemed to energise him, not to mention the weekly trips out to the river, where they continued (discreetly) to explore each other's bodies and their reactions to certain stimuli. (He was growing impatient, however, for the day when he could have her properly, in a bed, with no clothing to fumble around and with the leisure and privacy to discover every inch of skin.) He didn't take her to his room out of respect for her father and a sudden embarrassment for the shabbiness of it: she deserved better than a rickety bedframe and thin mattress, and the smells of stewed cabbage and filthy nappies drifting up from the flat below.

Wainwright had scored a coûp at an auction, securing many thick texts and grimoires, and sent them on ahead for Gilly to catalogue and shelve. They were far too heavy for her to place on the higher shelves, and clearing the lower shelves would be a messy process; as Severus was there, he offered (uncharacteristically) to help. It was a stifling day for Wiltshire, and he'd unbuttoned and rolled his cuffs back.

He hadn't been called since his initiation: a kind of sick courtesy on Voldemort's part, perhaps, to allow him a year's grace to adjust to university and immerse himself in his studies. The Mark lay dormant on his arm, but still clearly incised; the power required for its making left it clearly visible, though he'd been assured it would eventually fade and be discernable only when he was called. He'd quite forgotten about it.

He didn't realise anything at all was wrong until she dropped a book. She never did: she loved them as her father did, for their own sake, no matter the subject and despite her lack of academic training. Severus' immediate assumption was that she'd hurt herself, and he glanced over his shoulder, still poised with long arms reaching above his head, hands on the highest shelf.

She was staring at his left forearm: at the ugly mark that stood out so proudly against his milky-white, scholar's skin.

He quickly lowered his arms and turned to her, and moved to roll down the sleeve; her hand shot out and grasped his wrist, forcing his forearm up so she could see the Mark in all its glory, and he stilled.

"It's nothing to be afraid of, Gilly," he said matter-of-factly. "It was an honour to be asked."

"Of course. To be asked to join the most powerful wizard of our time; to support our pureblood traditions. You know what I'm talking about, Gillian, I know enough of your bloodline -- I checked --" He took a step closer to her, cornering her against a bookcase. "They've not asked me to commit to anything I didn't already believe, Gilly. How could it possibly matter? It got me here; brought me to you -- I couldn't possibly have managed, not without their help."

He drew a blunt finger over her cheek and bent to kiss her, and she pushed away from him and stepped briskly behind the counter to put more distance between them.

And then it hit him. She was ashamed of him; ashamed of the one truly noble thing he thought he'd done up to now.

Anger and fear competed in his brain, and for a split second anger won out; he lunged across the counter to pull her to him, make her face him so he could explain --

-- and came to his senses when she gasped in pain as his fingers bit deeply into her wrist. And then she jerked away from him and stood, cradling the bruised flesh in her other hand.

"I want you to go now, Severus," she said flatly. "I need time to think about this."

"Now, please," she commanded; and Severus -- who'd never taken orders from anyone since Fourth Year at Hogwarts, and never pleaded with anyone since Second Year -- turned to gather his jacket and the notes he'd been taking when the bloody shipment of books had arrived.

He strode from the shop, head high, and confident with the arrogance of youth that she'd come 'round.

He sauntered past the shop several times, but no Gillian was in evidence. He resolved not to moon about her home, like some love-sick idiot -- though part of him did feel distinctly ill. And he grew increasingly angry with her.

It was toward the end of July when Professor Walker asked him to stop by Wainwright's to pick up a text he'd ordered. It wasn't negotiable: he had to do it.

Again, no Gillian: Mr. Wainwright was manning the counter alone, and his usual absent, cheerful smile dimmed only slightly when Severus stepped through the door.

"Oh, yes, of course." Wainwright turned to rummage around in the stacks of parcels behind the counter, and eventually handed over a slender volume -- which, Severus mentally noted with disgust, could easily have been owled to the Potions college.

"You know you're still welcome for supper," he said earnestly. "I don't want you to think you're not. I know we're not such good company as our Gilly, but we've grown used to having you around."

"Thank you," Severus said mechanically, and tried to sort through the shambles: Still welcome? After Gillian's reaction?

"I don't know what it was, Severus, but I wouldn't take it to heart. She's better off in London right now, she says --"

"-- and she'll come home when she's ready. But that needn't stop you from visiting us. She'll get over it soon enough, lad: give her time."

"Just a misunderstanding," Severus replied smoothly, and forced a smile to his lips. "I'll try to stop by, but Professor Walker's keeping me busy."

"Of course, of course. Take care of yourself in the meantime, Severus, and we'll see you soon, eh?"

And with a nod Severus left the crowded shop and made for Wizarding Salisbury, dropping the ridiculous Muggle glamour one had to affect when outside the verge as soon as was safely possible.

She's left. Run away, from me, without another word, Severus thought numbly. But with each stride up the High his rage increased, supplanting the dull ache in his chest.

A flash of silver in his peripheral vision caught his attention, and he stopped and turned back to the shop display of Salisbury's most fashionable Wizarding tailor. A long black frockcoat, very smart, with silver frogging at the throat, cuffs that extended onto the backs of the mannequin's ghostly, frozen hands, and buttons from the edge of the cuffs nearly to the elbow.

He wasn't known for refined sartorial sense (never having had the benefit of interest or the Galleons to acquire it), but there was something about this style that appealed to him. Something about the purity of the silhouette, the dignity it seemed to exude, the slightly forbidding aura of "Touch Me Not."

It wouldn't do for a student to wear such a garment, of course. One couldn't appear in the university precincts in better attire than the senior dons.

But it was perfectly acceptable -- though perhaps without the extravagance of the silver frogging -- for a graduate with his Mastery, ready to embark on his new career.