Unity Equals "No one can stop us"

Autumn Tea

*This is a birthday gift to one of my childhood besties, the one whose account I am using.*

Sirius is pacing in his room nervously, racking his brain for a solution that does not involve his friends finding out SSS. He messed up and he knows it. Unfortunately he does not have much time and he is panicking so he is just imagining worst case scenarios at this point. He stops. Takes a deep breath. And lets it out. He has to focus. His Secret Mission needs him and if he has to blackmail or bribe his friends for his safety, then so be it.

Now, how will he solve this dilemma...

• • • — — — • • •

Platform 9¾ is too loud, smelly and bright for Severus' fuzzy senses. The exceptionally uneventful summer has made him careless and now he is paying dearly for his mistake.

His father laid a hand on him for the first time this summer.

And boy did that hand hurt.

It was Severus' fault, he knows. A whole summer without pain...he gained hope. Such an idiot he was. He should have known it would not last.

He does not have any tears left. All consuming numbness is all he feels. The throbbing pain from the bruises on his upper body, the dull ache in his head and the familiar hunger are messing with his mind. Severus stumbles towards the general direction of the train and has to stop to regain his balance. He needs time and to rest for at least a few hours alone. He cannot afford to go to Hogwarts like that...cannot risk the Marauders or Lily seeing this part of his life.

Colours are swimming before his eyes. He stumbles again. The floor is coming nearer and he briefly wonders if he is in some kind of shock or the strain has finally proved too much for his body to handle.

Two pale hands appear in his line of vision. Then he stops falling.

'Why would anyone bother?' is his first thought. Then a voice penetrates the fog around his mind and he tries pulling away with all his might, which is admittedly not that much.

"I'm sorry for having to do this, Severus, but I have no choice." Regret and sorrow fill the words, but Severus is consumed by the fear gripping his throat and crushing his heart. He knows who that voice belongs to. He knows what is going to happen now.

He knows somewhere in the back of his mind that he should be angry, spitting insults and hexes, fighting a battle he knows he can never win.

But he is terrified.

There is nothing he can do to stop the hands from picking him up and carrying him to the steaming train. Nothing he can do when he is placed in a confined space, without hope of escaping, with the four people who loath him.

Severus is going to wish for death when the eight hour ride is over, he is sure.

• • • — — — • • •

James stares as his best friend carries their supposed arch-nemesis bridal style in their compartment.

Said arch-nemesis is limp and looks even paler than usual, if that is possible. His hair is out of his face for once, revealing the deep bags under his eyes and the black eye left by a fist far larger than a child's one. His eyes are scrunched up in the tiniest expression of distress and James wonders if it is from fear or pain. Probably both.

Sirius is looking back at him with a carefully guarded expression. James wants to laugh and cry at the same time. How have their lives come to this?

"He's too light," says Sirius quietly, putting Severus Snape gently on the seat next to the window and sitting beside him.