In your skin

Our last night

"Alright. So here is the plan: Us three will distract Tobias, Snape's father, as if we were three muggle children trying to get inside his house to steal something. Once he's out, Snape will go inside past his mother Eileen and get James out of there. Simple, easy done, and James will be out of trouble in no longer than a few minutes" Lupin explained. It was already night when they finally gathered to talk about the plan. Pettigrew gave him a certain nod while Black just rolled his eyes.

"I'm not even going to ask why he's the one that has to save James because I know I'll get a snap" he said, making Lupin look at him in a way that even scared Snape a little.

"Tomorrow morning I will talk to Potter's parents and we will probably go by floo network. There is one abandoned house close to Lily's that is perfect for us to arrive. It's called 'the Prince's mansion'" Severus said, and the other three nodded. "It's around three miles from Lily's house, and my house is around ten miles away from hers, so we will take a while to get there. My house is in a muggle village, so we cannot do any kind of magic, not even the ones that the ministry doesn't 'see'" he continued, but at that Pettigrew looked at him with wide eyes.

"There are spells that the ministry doesn't know we are using under seventeen?" he asked, his eyes shining, and Severus rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"Yes, there are. Most of the non wand needed spells aren't seen by the ministry. They are not that advanced yet" he said, thinking that would end the subject, but once again Pettigrew opened his mouth.

"There are no wand needed spells?" he asked, gasping, and Severus growled deeply, giving Lupin a stare that was supposed to say 'shut your friends up before I do'. Lupin got the message quite quickly and turned to Pettigrew with his mother face.

"Very well. We should sleep and rest now so tomorrow we are very awake. My father may not be a wizard, but he knows his way around muggles, and that's what all of us will be tomorrow. Yes?" he asked, and the others nodded together. "Great. Get your sleeping bags and put them around here somewhere. I'll be back soon" he said, before he walked out. That would be his last night there for sure, so he walked to the library and smiled to himself when he saw Potter's mother reading a book about muggle botanic. He walked to her and sat down next to the woman, making her smile.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be with your friends?" she asked, but he just shook his head and laid his head on her shoulder.

"I wanted to spend more time with you. Also, they are showering" he said, and then both laughed lightly. "Can you tell me what you're reading about?"

"Of course sweetheart. Can you see this plant here? Muggles think it's medicinal, but ac..." her voice died off as Severus stared at her face. She was so beautiful, like a mother should be. She was nice, warm, sweet, perfect. He watched her lips move as if he was a baby hearing a story before bed, and slowly he ended up falling asleep on her arms, her warmth and perfume making the perfect lullaby.

He had never slept so well in his entire life.

When James woke up, he couldn't see a thing. The whole room was dark, and as he tried to stand up, his head started to hurt so bad he had to lay down again. Slowly, he started to see a bit better and sat up on the bed he was laid on. He stood up slowly, lifting his hand, but as soon as he touched his nose, it hurt so much that he hissed and bit his tongue. It was obviously broken. Damn. He then felt the dry blood under it and sighed.

He walked to the door of the room, but when he tried to open it, it didn't budge. It was locked. It was locked! With wide eyes, James tried to push it open, kick it, pull it, anything, but it didn't help. It was locked, and James wasn't strong enough to break it. Suddenly, a dread feeling filled James up and he gasped out, looking around as the walls seemed to be closing up on him.

With the last drop of sane thinking, he ran to the window and opened it up. Even though it had bars on it, the light of the moon still lit up the room, and the surroundings made James breathe a little easier. He could see a few muggles walking by and opened his mouth to scream, but then thought twice. Maybe Tobias would hear him and find out he had woken up.

James shook his head and moved inside again. With a shaky, terrified sigh, he sat down on the floor and looked around. Just now he had realised how small the place was. Also, Tobias must have had entered there, because now all the caldrons were scattered around the floor, a few of them even broken, together with the books that were once on the shelves. A few pages were even ripped off. Good thing that James had hidden away Snape's potion book inside the bag and put a spell on it. He didn't know who he would find and he knew that losing such a content filled book wasn't something smart.

And then his heart started to get heavy. He looked around again, once more, another time, and he curled up on himself even more. Was that was Snape went through every break? Did he have to come here, to this house, and spend days, weeks, even months with these people? With people that hated him, called him names, hit him for no reason whatsoever, made his life a living hell for something he couldn't even be blamed for, and then he would go to school, the only place that he could be happy, away from those people, and there...

There he spent months with people that hated him, called him names, hit him for no reason whatsoever, made his life a living hell for something he couldn't even be blamed for, and then he would go back here when school was over, and the cycle repeated itself in a way that even made James nauseous. How could he deal with all of that for an entire year? If it was James, he would have probably killed himself already. Snape didn't seem to have one single thing that made him happy, that lit up his day...

Light. Sun. Lily. Lily...

That was why Snape was always with Lily, never wanting James close to them. He was afraid. He was afraid of losing the only thing that kept him from disappearing, from going to the dark, the only light in his life.

The weight in James' heart was so huge that he felt himself unable to breathe for a second or two. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before looking out to the moon, hands closed tight around his trousers. He had never thought how bad he was actually being. How mean he was to Snape. He never even gave himself the time to actually find out why Snape seemed to hate him so much. Everything made sense now. Everything was fitting in place. And he felt horrible. He felt like a monster. He hated himself so much.

He closed his eyes again and tried to relax. There was nothing he could do. Not at the moment. But in the morning, he wouldn't even hesitate.

He had two wands, and he would make use of them. Tobias Snape was going down.