Chapter Text
Tonight is deceptively calm, silent, safe. The streets, which are usually crowded with people during the day, are incredibly empty at this late hour. In this peaceful atmosphere, nothing even remotely reminds of the events that took place a few hours ago.
Just like this night, the bar in which Severus Snape is now sitting, hunched over and staring at his palms, is just as quiet and secluded.
Apart from the bartender opposite, he is the only customer.
This room is ridiculously small for a place that, one would think, should accommodate a large number of people every day. The only source of light is a few lamps on the tables and candles on the walls, which barely cope with their basic tasks. The interior could also be better, considering the terrible, dark wallpaper, worn by time.
Under the fingers of the young wizard is a wooden bar counter, whose coldness completely corresponds to the temperature in the room. But the Hogwarts graduate, dressed only in a thin black summer shirt and jeans of the same color, seems not to notice that his fingers, with which he holds a glass of alcohol, have already turned white from the cold.
As he does not notice that the local bartender is leaning towards him, threateningly leaning his hands on the bar counter, thus looming over the young man in black.
— Oy, have I seen your I.D? — the man's voice is serious, and his movements are smooth and calm – obviously, he has been working here for a long time and has already gotten used to asking questions to those who barely look like they are eighteen years old.
The Slytherin's thoughts are in a completely different place, and certainly not in this casually furnished bar, which he accidentally wandered into in search of alcohol.
Without taking his eyes off the glass in his palm, the Half-Blood Prince raises his magic wand and sharply casts a spell in the direction of the Muggle man: Obliviate.
After the spell hits the bartender, he looks around in confusion for a while, not understanding what is happening and how he ended up in this state. Looking at the young man in front of him, his heart was momentarily filled with anxiety, as if warning its owner not to act recklessly. However, having driven away this strange feeling, he again looms over the young wizard and repeats the question: Oy, have I seen your I.D?
Severus Snape again repeats the actions he has already learned over the past few hours, causing the man in front of him to lose his memory again: Obliviate.
While the bartender is recovering from the spell, the bell that hangs on the front door rings throughout the bar. Without even looking back, both Severus and the bartender understand that someone else has entered this godforsaken bar.
The Hogwarts graduate furrowed his brows in irritation, realizing that he couldn't stay here any longer. He could cast the Oblivion Charm on one Muggle as many times as he wanted, but on several at once? It was too risky. The Half-Blood Prince didn't want to inadvertently break the Statute of Secrecy and then face the Wizengamot.
While Severus was mentally preparing himself to return home, the stranger sat down next to him and asked: Difficult day?
Without even looking back at the next Muggle, he was about to cast a spell at him, when he suddenly hesitated: Obli...!
For a second, his breath caught, and his heart froze in fear when his gaze briefly fell on the stranger.
The one he first took for a Muggle was dressed from head to toe in a black wizard's robe, which completely covered his thin body, leaving open only his bony, unnaturally pale wrists, which looked a little creepy in the semi-darkness of the bar. This stranger's head was so hidden behind a hood of the same black color that no matter how hard anyone tried, even the eye would still not be able to see it.
For a second, Snape thought that he was facing a Dementor. However, of course, this was not the case, because the bar was not covered in frost when the stranger entered, and the hooded man was also in no hurry to attack Eileen Prince's son and the Muggle bartender.
— Let me get you another one, — despite the Hogwarts graduate's unfriendly manner, the wizard barely raises his hand and makes a graceful gesture with his palm to order something, thereby demonstrating the refined manners that are usually inherent only to members of the pure-blood society to which the Half-Blood Prince once so strongly aspired to belong.
The bartender's eyes instantly glazed over, and without asking anything, he slowly walked to his workstation to fill the order. What's surprising is that the man never once asked what exactly the customer wanted.
Snape's body instantly tensed up like a spring. He understood perfectly well what had just happened: «Imperius».
Spoken without words or a wand.
— Yeah, — Severus answered either the order or the offer of the stranger in the robe, and immediately asked warily: What do you care?
In fact, he was little concerned about what was happening around him. If the young man were in better physical shape now, he would, of course, be horrified by what he saw and immediately run away from this mysterious wizard. But now he felt so exhausted that he would not care even if the stranger put a wand to his throat.
After today's skirmish with the Marauders, which had quickly turned into a fight; moments of euphoria when the deadly curse, so easily almost slipped from his lips, almost killed James Potter; tearful familiar eyes of the once beloved woman, who again chose not him... and the gentle smile of an unfamiliar young man, whose eyes were so similar to those of Lily Evans, and whose face bore a terrible resemblance to his sworn enemy – the Stag.
It had taken all his strength.
The older wizard replied patiently, obviously wanting to continue their conversation: I enjoy a good story.
Severus chuckled sadly and downed the contents of his glass in one gulp, wincing at the unusual bitterness of the alcohol: Trust me it's nothing special.
The Half-Blood Prince glanced down at his body, looking with disdain at his clothes, torn from the fight. Just think – what a naive fool he was, to dress like that for today.
And what happened?
Here he is – all rumpled and with disheveled hair – sitting in the first Muggle bar he came across, drinking alcohol because his heart was broken again.
It would seem that it is high time to feel disgust at himself, remembering his father's bad habit, but even for this he no longer has the physical or mental strength. All feelings are flooded with loneliness, and before his eyes, as if in reality, the events of this day are repeated over and over again.
The wizard's tone is calm and unhurried, as if he really wants to hear Snape complain about his unfortunate fate: Try me.
Severus does not argue with him. He has already spent all his inner fire today. He might as well tell a stranger, whom he will probably never see again, what happened to him.
About the wounded body of James Potter, the sight of whose blood gave him a momentary sense of triumph before everything was swallowed up by a dull emptiness.
About the beautiful red curls and tear-stained eyes of the woman he once loved, about the bittersweet warmth of her embrace, which first lifted him to heaven, and then – threw him into the impenetrable abyss of Hell.
And finally – about the eyes of an unknown boy, from which the Slytherin graduate could not take his eyes off. Their color resembled Lily Evans's eyes, but was still different. If hers were pure green, then the boy's were with bright impurities. The moment Severus looked into those eyes, a field of morning sunlight appeared before him. Beautiful, fresh green grass covered the ground, and drops of dew from the morning mist sparkled in the sun, shimmering in a variety of colors, like jewels, creating a beautiful picture.
He was captivated in that instant.
The healthy flush on his cheeks, the slightly parted inviting lips and the look from under the long eyelashes that the stranger with green eyes was giving him at that moment took Snape's breath away.
The warmth of someone else's body so close to his own made him dizzy and sent a warm stream throughout his entire body. He felt as if he was burning both inside and out.
Harry Potter.
Severus Snape closed his eyes, admitting his defeat.
After all, having lived for so many years, he still could not understand what kind of evil his ancestors had committed, that now the Half-Blood Prince had to pay for it... by connecting with another Potter, from whom it was unclear what else to expect.