Chapter Text
"A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze."
— Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale
*****
Severus’s body trembled with a suppressed gag reflex as he rushed into the bathroom at the last possible moment and bent over the toilet. The pain in his abdomen was excruciating; the cramps made him lose his balance, and he had to drop to his knees on the floor. This kind of sickness had been going on for several weeks now, and Severus did not know how much longer he could endure it.
Every morning he ran to the bathroom, and then repeated the ordeal again and again throughout the rest of the day, feeling weak the entire time. The bouts of nausea were so powerful and so sudden that sometimes he did not manage to reach the bathroom in time and soiled the carpet, collapsing to the floor, overcome by stomach spasms, struggling to catch his breath.
He tried to eat as little as possible, because food only intensified the attacks; even the mere smell of a meal was enough to make him feel worse. But it did not help for long. Lately it had become so bad that he was losing sleep, as even at night he had to get up to be sick.
Although Severus spent nearly every waking hour in the laboratory, unsuccessfully trying to improve an anti-emetic potion, nothing worked, and he was losing weight rapidly. He had always been very thin, but now he had become positively gaunt.
Four months had already passed since the day of his forced marriage to Sirius, and it was mid-October. The autumn that year was warm and mild, yet he felt cold all the time. He wrapped his robes tightly around himself, unable to warm up properly.
*****
On that accursed evening, on the night of the summer solstice, Sirius had not carried him to the Slytherin common room but to some empty chamber Dumbledore had previously designated. He laid him on one of the two beds in the room and drew a curtain between them so that they would not have to see one another when, several hours later, utterly drunk, Sirius returned there to sleep as well. Still dazed and shocked, Severus felt so unwell that he merely changed into his nightshirt and fell into a heavy sleep, not even noticing Black’s return or the presence of others in the room.
*****
The following morning, Severus awoke with the sensation that his body was made of pain and lead, his head filled with sand. The first feeling that reached him was naked, paralysing fear. When he realised he was not alone, it only grew worse.
Waking in the same room as his rapist was a torture he could not put into words. His heart immediately leapt into a frantic rhythm, pounding against his ribs as he heard a muffled movement on the other side of the curtain. Worse still was the fact that when Severus woke, Sirius was already awake. Though he had gone to bed later, he had risen earlier; Severus’s battered body had clearly required a long rest.
How long had he lain there defenceless, sleeping so close to Black? He had exposed himself to attack, let down his guard, revealed his weakness. The very thought made his hair stand on end. He struggled to contain the panic threatening to erupt.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He had to get up immediately, flee, shield himself. Yet just as he gathered enough strength to rise, the curtain separating the two beds was yanked violently aside, and Severus flinched as though struck by lightning.
Sirius stood there, washed and dressed in fresh robes, looking infuriatingly brisk, his hair carelessly brushed back. In his hand he held a thick stack of papers and a letter he was tearing open. His gaze was cold and impersonal, as though he were looking at an unwashed plate rather than a human being.
“At last,” Black muttered, ignoring Severus’s trembling. “Breakfast.”
At that very moment a soft pop! announced the arrival of a house-elf, who placed a tray with a bowl of porridge and a steaming cup of coffee on the small table between the beds. At the mere smell of food, nausea rose sharply in Severus’s throat.
He sat stiffly on the bed, trying to ignore the pain in his abused muscles, pulling the blanket up over his knees in a futile attempt to preserve some illusion of privacy in his nightshirt. He felt weak and pathetic, sitting there half-dressed before the fully clothed Black.
Sirius tossed a card bearing the Malfoy crest onto the table as though it were rubbish.
“An envoy from your would-be master. Malfoy wanted to see you.”
He looked up, attempting to read Severus’s thoughts, but Severus only stared back blankly, still too stunned by the sudden and brutal change in his life. It felt as though his mind had been severed. He had not even had time to think.
“I refused him,” Black added with a shrug, reaching for the coffee pot. “From today, you are not to meet any Death Eater or prospective Death Eater. Do you understand?”
There was no overt threat in his tone, it was a dry statement of fact, a new legal reality.
Severus understood that this was the point of the law, but he did not agree with it and had no intention of complying. Nevertheless, he said nothing. He tried not even to look at Black, sitting rigidly with his gaze fixed on a spot on the wall somewhere beyond him. Being shut in one room with him made his anxiety climb higher and higher, and the awareness that no one could help him only made it worse. The physical ailments of the previous day seemed trivial compared with the psychological weight now pressing down on him.
His silence was evidently taken for assent, for Black nodded.
“Then that’s settled.”
Sirius paced a few steps across the room before stopping again.
“He told me about your job applications. If anyone offers you a position, I shall decline on your behalf. You no longer need employment. Everything you require will be provided.”
Severus’s hands clenched into fists of fury; his breath shook as he tried to suppress his furious protest. Pale with anger, he listened as his plans for the future, his only possible escape, were casually dismantled. He looked at Sirius as if unable to believe what he was hearing, and their eyes met.
“Oh, and one more thing. Return to this room immediately after classes. Do not speak to any Slytherins. Take your meals here as well.”
The confident, arrogant tone, edged with superiority and disdain, grated on Severus’s nerves. He felt his anger rising still further. He knew that if he said a single word, it would end in a fight.
The tolling of the school clock saved them. Lessons would begin shortly. Without waiting for him, Sirius left, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Severus briefly considered skipping lessons. There was only a week of term left, and he had no desire to show himself after the previous day’s events, when everyone had seen Black carrying him off in his arms. But he decided to face it as soon as possible; he did not want anyone to think he was hiding.
He had only just stepped into the corridor when Avery spotted him, called out, and hurried over.
“Oi, Sev! So this is where you’ve been hiding? The lads and I were wondering where you were! You really gave everyone a surprise!” He began to laugh, ignoring Severus’s mounting discomfort. “Unbelievable you managed to keep a romance like that secret. I’d have let it slip ages ago!”
He did not get the chance to say anything more, because Sirius appeared a moment later, practically out of nowhere, and to Avery’s shock seized Severus by the arm, tugging him slightly aside.
“From today you’re forbidden to go anywhere near Snape. Pass that on to the other would-be Death Eaters. And I suggest you get out of my sight while I’m still feeling charitable.”
Already broad-shouldered, Black made a deliberate effort to draw himself up even more menacingly, emphasising the weight of his words and leaving no room for discussion, though Avery had no intention of arguing. Still stunned, he nodded and hurried away.
“I knew it had gone too smoothly.” Sirius dragged the humiliated Severus towards their temporary bedroom, opened the door and shoved him inside, stepping in after him and blocking the doorway with his body as a precaution.
“You don’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation, Snivellus! If I tell you something, that’s how it will be. Do you realise I could keep you in this room twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and no one would so much as blink? You could have a chain round your ankle and it would still be perfectly legal.”
His voice was thick with barely restrained fury and such naked hatred that gooseflesh prickled along Severus’s arms. He did not know whether Black noticed; it made no difference, for Sirius went on, and each successive word tightened around Severus’s throat and his future like an iron band.
“All I’m asking is that you keep away from those aspiring Death Eaters. Personally, I couldn’t care less, you could go running to Voldemort today for all I care, but you understand, I showed you my memories. You know Dumbledore requires this of me. Is it really that difficult to comprehend?”
He frowned and stepped closer to Severus, who stood rigid as stone.
At last the shock ebbed and Severus regained the ability to speak and move.
“You must be bloody joking if you think you’re going to order me about! You’ve clearly gone mad!” He snatched out his wand, ready in case Sirius tried to attack, though he wondered whether using it would make any difference and how their bound magic might respond. “It’s you Dumbledore’s threatening, not me!”
He had endured enough. He was beginning, slowly, to come back to himself, and he intended to make it clear to Sirius that he had miscalculated.
But instead of drawing his own wand, Black seized Severus by the arm in a single swift movement and slammed his back and head against the wall so hard that for a moment the world went black. Then a large, powerful hand closed around his throat, and dark spots swam before his eyes once more.
“Don’t make this harder! Your situation can become a great deal worse. Don’t make yourself my problem.”
He held Severus like that for another moment, until his body sagged, then released him, letting him fall heavily to the floor.
The pounding pain in his head brought Severus back to himself. Propping himself up on one hand, he pushed himself up slightly and began searching for his wand, wanting something, anything, for self-defence. But it was unnecessary. Black had evidently decided that was enough, Severus would understand, and he had already gone back to lessons.
And Severus did understand.
That day he did not attend classes, and the next he wore his collar high to conceal the violet, finger-shaped bruises on his neck.
The daily return to their new bedroom was unbearable. Severus spent all his time behind the curtain, trying not to draw attention to himself. Sirius appeared in the room only in the evenings. Going to bed was torture, and falling asleep took hours. The only advantage was that Black seemed as uninterested in Severus physically as Severus was in him. Apparently Black considered that whatever had needed to be done in that regard had already been done and had no intention of repeating it.
From that day onward he spoke to no one, passing through the corridors like a shadow, and no one spoke to him. Sirius, too, kept his distance for most of the day, clearly far from delighted with this enforced union.
The remaining days until the end of term passed as though in a haze. Severus suspected conspiracy everywhere; he felt betrayed, deceived, worthless and humiliated. He would not so much as glance at Dumbledore if he could help it. He attended no lessons, presenting himself only for his N.E.W.T.s, and the fact that he passed every subject with top marks was nothing short of a miracle.
******
After finishing their studies and receiving their certificates, they both moved to Grimmauld Place, which Sirius’s parents had left to him as a beginning on his “new path in life”.
Black returned there with relief, almost happiness, as though shedding a heavy skin and drawing in the air of his native place. Severus, by contrast, resisted to the very end, even as the house-elves carried his modest belongings, locked inside a single trunk, and Sirius, in a tone that brooked no argument, told him to “stop being ridiculous”. In the end he yielded, because his resistance meant nothing in any case, but it tasted like iron in his mouth.
When they tumbled out of the fireplace on the ground floor of Grimmauld Place, Severus looked about cautiously. He had never previously known where Black lived, but he had more or less expected what he saw: a vast, oppressive, multi-storey house. He suspected that every floor was furnished with the same heavy, ancestral opulence as the room in which they now stood.
Apart from the house-elves, no one was waiting for them. But that meant nothing, Severus did not know how many people actually resided in this residence. He assumed he would find out in time.
Kreacher, accompanied by several other elves, led him upstairs.
The room assigned to him as a bedroom was larger than the sitting room at Spinner’s End and had its own bathroom. Kreacher, carrying his trunk, entered first, followed by the other elves. Severus paused on the threshold, as though stepping inside would somehow symbolically seal his status as a prisoner.
He looked around, assessing his new cell. The room was enormous and yet stifling. Heavy velvet curtains, fastened with thick tassels, blocked most of the daylight, their burgundy-black colour staining the little light that entered into a murky, sullied hue. The air was still, thick with a mixture of lavender and preserved fabrics. Nothing suggested that anyone lived there: no personal belongings, no trace of anyone’s presence. That, in fact, unsettled him most, he did not know whether he would once again be sharing a bedroom with Sirius.
Suddenly he heard Black’s voice just behind him, he must have approached utterly soundlessly.
“Why are you just standing there? Shall I carry you over the threshold?”
Severus flinched and shot him a furious glare, but at last he crossed the threshold and moved further into the room. Wanting to increase the distance between himself and Sirius, he headed towards the bed that dominated the space. He touched its cool frame, a monstrous, carved four-poster draped in dark satin.
He sat cautiously on the mattress. The bedding was alien, too soft, excessively luxurious, cluttered with unnecessary decorative cushions that irritated him with their sheer uselessness. He felt awkward amid such excess.
The rest of the furniture was no better: a massive dark mahogany chest of drawers, a wardrobe reaching up to the ceiling, two tall leather armchairs by an empty fireplace. The entire room emanated the weight of inherited wealth. The walls were covered in embossed dark green wallpaper that swallowed what little light there was.
On one wall hung a portrait - a woman with a sharp profile and a cold gaze, evidently one of the Blacks, observing everything in the room with excessive attentiveness. Her stare irritated him from the very first second. With a swift flick of his wand he removed the portrait and turned it around, provoking a cry of outrage from Kreacher. Severus ignored him.
“Take that out.” Sirius’s voice rang sharp and commanding.
One of the elves immediately obeyed. The others bustled about the room a little longer, bringing trays with drinks and refreshments, drawing back the window coverings, until Sirius dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
The door closed softly. They were alone.
Severus held his breath with tension. His heart hammered in his chest like a trapped bird. He did not know what would happen next, whether Dumbledore had devised something else. His fingers clenched convulsively in the mattress until his knuckles turned white.
Black, of course, noticed. His eyebrow twitched, then he rolled his eyes and growled irritably:
“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve no intention of ever touching you again.”
He took a few steps towards the centre of the room.
“You may go wherever you like in the house, but you are forbidden to leave the residence on your own.” He made a brief gesture with his hand, as though indicating boundaries Severus was not to cross. “My bedroom is at the other end of the house. We shan’t run into one another by accident.”
Severus’s grip on the mattress eased slightly. So the move had one advantage, he would have a separate bedroom from Black. Evidently Sirius had decided that here Severus would be under sufficiently constant observation; the house-elves kept an eye on him, the old spells woven into the house sensed every movement, so Sirius himself did not need to guard him. Black was clearly as weary of the enforced proximity as Severus.
The matter of not leaving, however, sounded troubling.
“For how long?” he asked, striving to conceal the tremor in his voice. He could not decide whether he felt relief or even greater unease.
Sirius walked to the window and drew the heavy curtains back further still, letting in more light. He did not turn round, he spoke as though addressing the glass.
“Until Lily gives birth.”
Severus frowned.
“Lily is pregnant?”
Black gave a short, bitter laugh, devoid of even a trace of amusement.
“No. She isn’t.”
Severus’s heart quickened. A rushing filled his ears, drowning everything else for a moment. No timeframe. No plan. Simply an indefinite imprisonment.
“You can’t...” His voice broke. He was ashamed of it, but he could not control it. “You can’t.”
At last Sirius turned and looked at him with something that was not hatred, rather the indifference of someone forced into the same uncomfortable arrangement.
“Of course I can.” He sighed heavily. “Just don’t do anything foolish. If you cooperate, I’ll restore your freedom as soon as it’s possible.”
Before leaving, he looked at him once more. “Don’t do anything stupid, Severus. I’m not joking.”
When he was finally alone, Severus took from his trunk the most important personal possession he had with him, a dark vial of calming draught. It was already obvious that he would need it in large quantities, provided Black allowed him to purchase it, for he was no longer master of himself.
He looked around once more at this gilded cage. He felt no fear. Only anger and a growing mental exhaustion. At Spinner’s End he had been irritated by the cramped space, the creaking stairs, the thin walls. Here everything else irritated him: the excessive space he was forced to share with a man he hated, the scent of old, preserved wood and above all the knowledge that he had control over nothing.
Nothing here belonged to him. Not even the silence was his. From the corridor came the distant sounds of the house, a clatter of shifting crockery, the groan of a pipe, footsteps he could not yet recognise. Grimmauld Place lived, breathed, watched.
******
He could not fall asleep for a very long time that first night.
It was the first night since the solstice without Sirius beside him, without listening to the sound of his breathing, which in itself was already something and ought to have been a comfort, yet Severus could not relax at all.
He had been so stressed by the move and so lost in his thoughts that he had not even noticed night falling. When a house-elf suddenly appeared with supper, he realised with surprise that it was already dark outside, the darkness spilling into his room as well. The elf muttered something about helpless humans who could not even light a lamp in their own rooms, or at least a few candles, and then vanished.
With a sigh, Severus rose and went to the bathroom to wash his hands before eating. The sight of the beautiful antique fittings and the elegant décor, matching the style of his bedroom, stirred resentment in him, underlining the gulf between the social classes from which they came.
He had never before been in such a place. Hogwarts had not been particularly luxurious, though it was light-years removed from his childhood home. Here one could clearly feel old money.
After supper he changed into his nightshirt and, for the first time, slipped beneath the bedclothes waiting for him. The mattress was too soft, it yielded beneath him, robbing him of any sense of stability. Every movement caused a faint, unsettling ripple, as though the bed meant to swallow him whole.
He did not know how long he lay there motionless, staring into the darkness broken only by a narrow seam of light slipping through the heavy curtains.
At Spinner’s End the night had smelt of mould and river water, at Hogwarts it had been thick with the damp scent of the lake, tinged with boot polish and heavy woollen robes. Here the air was dense with the smell of old polished wood, freshly burnished silver and the heavy, waxen scent of candles.
He turned onto his side and the silken sheets rustled irritably beneath his weight. Even the silence was foreign and unsettling. He reached for his wand, kept close at hand, and wrapped his fingers tightly around it.
He closed his eyes, trying to breathe evenly, methodically, as he had trained himself to do for years at Hogwarts, when he had first learned to adapt to his new life.
It did not work.
His thoughts returned obsessively to Black, to his imprisonment in Grimmauld Place, to his complete severance from the outside world.
He felt his heart quicken and his breathing shorten, though he lay perfectly still.
He reached for the calming draught more quickly than he had intended. He swallowed the bitter liquid, feeling the metallic aftertaste settle on his tongue, heralding the onset of an unnatural calm.
He lay back again, staring into the dark.
The potion worked slowly.
When at last he slipped into a shallow, restless sleep, he dreamt of a labyrinth in which he wandered for hours, unable to find a way out.
*****
Severus did not take to his new captivity well.
He would not have been himself if he had not attempted to break the prohibition. Yielding so quickly was not in his nature. Even if it was only to test the limits, even if he knew it would not end well for him.
Less than a week after the enforced move, Severus decided to probe the situation. It was early evening. Black, as was obvious, was not at home and, from what Severus had managed to observe in that short time, would not be returning for many hours. There was only himself and the house-elves.
Without overthinking it, he left his bedroom and went downstairs to the ground floor, heading towards the main front door.
Grimmauld Place was quiet, almost drowsy at that hour: the elves cleaned distant corridors, and the heavy curtained windows admitted only the pale glow of streetlamps.
Until he touched the handle, he could pretend it might succeed.
The reaction was immediate. Something invisible halted him, as though the very space before the door had turned solid and impenetrable. The wards - spells embedded into the fabric of the house, activated without hesitation. There was no bang, no flash. Only an absolute, cold refusal.
Severus looked down at his hands. The metal handle was icy, almost burning with cold, yet it left no mark upon him.
Of course. Black had not been speaking metaphorically, he had physically barred his exit.
When Severus tried again, this time uttering an incantation, the magic snapped around his wrists like shackles.
Literally. It dragged him a step backwards.
Then he understood. The wards were not blocking the doorway. They were blocking him.
A thought surfaced at once, not entirely conscious: Does this trigger an alarm?
Has Black been notified immediately?
Under the mocking gaze of the ancestral portraits, he returned to his room with the slow, measured tread of someone trying not to shake with rage.
He sat down on the bed.
He waited.
In the silence, the sound of his own heartbeat, too fast, was unbearably loud. He had the impression the house was listening. For a moment he considered taking the calming draught, but decided against it. That would be too great a defeat. Besides, he was not certain Black would not detect the scent on him.
He would not endure such humiliation.
The door opened without a knock.
Sirius. He stood in the doorway with the composure of someone who knows he holds the stronger position. His face wore a studied expression of indifference as he assessed Severus from head to toe, like a guard checking whether a prisoner is still breathing.
“Seriously?” he asked at last. “I told you barely a week ago that you’re not allowed to leave.”
Severus lifted his head too quickly. His throat was dry. He hated being alone with him; the unease set in at once.
“Do you think this is a game?” Black continued, stepping further into the room as though he had not noticed Severus’s flinch. “Care to tell me what, exactly, you thought you were doing?”
Clenching his fists until he felt the crescents of his nails bite into his palms, Severus straightened his back with a dignity that was only a shadow of the real thing.
“You didn’t define the terms,” he replied coolly. “The garden is part of the house.”
It did not sound convincing even to his own ears, but he had no other cards to play, and he did not intend to yield so easily.
“No, Severus,” Sirius cut across him.
He stepped closer, one pace, then another, until he stood near enough for Severus to catch the scent of his clothes: cigarette smoke, alcohol, and some cloyingly sweet perfume that was certainly not his own. Their eyes met. Severus flinched again and had to fight the urge to recoil at once. Though every instinct in him was screaming, he held Black’s gaze and did not look away.
“No leaving the house,” Sirius repeated slowly. “That is precisely what I said.”
Severus held his breath for a moment. In his eyes there flickered something Sirius had seen before at Hogwarts: that thin, infuriating spark of stubbornness that invariably ended in confrontation. At last he exhaled with a quiet sigh.
“I had every right to test the boundaries,” he shot back. “I do not intend to become some docile sheep simply because Dumbledore has mapped out my future and assigned you as my keeper. If you expect obedience, you should...”
“Oh, no,” Sirius hissed, and now there was not even a pretence of patience in his voice. “You’re not testing the rules. You’re testing me. And that isn’t particularly wise, as you well know.”
His tone was mild. The worst possible kind. Not angry, didactic. Like a teacher patiently explaining to a child that the stove burns.
Severus felt it in his stomach.
Silence fell.
Heavy and airless, as though the room had sealed itself shut.
Sirius’s gaze travelled over the door, the handle, then back to Severus, as if mapping in his mind everything here that belonged to him.
When his eyes returned to Snape, they were sharp and utterly without hesitation.
“The wards reacted immediately,” he said calmly. “And yes. Of course I was notified.”
Severus failed to conceal the slight twitch that crossed his face.
“So there is an alarm.”
“Did you imagine I’d rely on your word of honour?” Sirius arched an eyebrow. “That I’d trust you?”
He was standing so close now, towering over him, that Severus wanted to retreat, to draw his legs up and scramble onto the middle of the bed, but he did not. He was too paralysed even to shift.
He registered the words, yet his body was reacting to something else: Sirius’s presence in the room. The fact that he was so near, far too near. His pulse quickened, his mouth went dry. A week without seeing Black had made his sudden presence more acute, more tangible, more dominant.
Only a narrow strip of space separated them, narrow enough to feel more like a threat than a comfort.
It was hard to tell whether Sirius noticed the change in him, the state Severus was in. If he did, he gave no sign.
“You treat me like a prisoner,” Severus whispered. His voice was as soft as the rustle of leaves, he was not even certain Black would hear. The room was beginning to spin, and had he not been sitting he might already have fallen.
But he heard.
“Of course I do, because that’s what you are,” Black replied, as though commenting on the weather. “Personally, I’d rather not have to deal with you in any capacity at all. We can both thank Dumbledore for this arrangement.”
In that moment Severus hated him more than anyone alive. Almost more, Dumbledore still held first place. The hatred was pure, stripped of metaphor. And yet beneath it, like a worm that refused to die, fear crawled. And the knowledge that if he pushed too far, the consequences would be immediate.
Severus’s chest rose sharply, dread tangled with fury.
“And if I try again?” he threw out, out of sheer defiance.
Sirius met his eyes with something Severus could not decipher, not triumph, not anger. Something worse. Boredom.
“Then you’ll try,” he said. “The door won’t let you leave. Nor the windows. Floo won’t work. Apparition won’t either. And you’ll end up back here again. Or the elves will bring you back. In every case, you’ll finish exactly where you are now.”
He turned away, as though the matter had been settled long ago. He was already heading for the door when he stopped suddenly and studied Severus for a moment, as if reassessing the situation.
“You’re actually in a better position than I am.”
Severus stared at him in such shock that his mouth fell open. He had never expected to hear something so profoundly delusional.
“In what possible way?” he hissed once he found his voice.
“Considering how you chose to celebrate Midsummer Night, it’s fairly obvious you prefer men. I don’t.”
Heat flooded Severus’s cheeks. Fury surged, overpowering fear, and before he could stop himself he sprang from the bed, lunged at Black and shoved him with all his strength. Sirius shifted perhaps half a step.
“But not you! Never you!” Severus shouted, teetering on the edge of hysteria. “Did you think your gender worked in your favour here?”
He swung, aiming a fist at Sirius’s jaw, but Sirius moved aside in time and caught him by the wrists. Severus writhed in his grip, shaking with rage, almost spitting with contempt.
“You’re more deranged than I thought!” he shouted until his voice turned hoarse.
Sirius watched him in silence for a moment, then shoved him hard so that Severus fell back onto the bed.
“Keep your hands to yourself, unless you want me to return the favour,” he spat with hatred, his alcohol-laced breath brushing Severus’s face. “Essentially, you got what you went there for, just not from the person you wanted.”
Before Severus could answer, could protest, he had left the room.
Severus dug his fingers into the mattress until it hurt. His heart was pounding in his throat. Anger, fear and humiliation tangled together into something new and corrosive. For a long while he tried to steady himself, but Black’s words kept returning, again and again.
That complete idiot could run from reality by drowning his mind in alcohol. Severus could not afford such a luxury; he needed clarity of thought.
At last he reached for the vial of calming draught and swallowed several drops, waiting for the painful hammering of his heart and the roaring in his ears to subside.