• 1-The Last Good Year

September means rain, and taking the stairs to Albus’s bedroom two by two. There’s always something he’s left up there.
A book, stacked in the teetering bedside tower, or untidily shelved under S for Severus. Odd socks under the bed. Clean
shirts still hanging alongside Albus’s in the wardrobe.

Sometimes Severus climbs to the top of the stairs, only to forget what he’s come up for. He sits on the edge of the bed,
staring blankly into empty corners, lying back after a moment and pressing his cheek against the quilt, trying to remember
just what it is he’s missing.

October brings the grey: the first tentative attempts at snow and quiet. The first years are sleeping through the nights
now, while their upperclassmen renew acquaintances from dormitory to dormitory, bed to bed.

Severus hears them sneaking out through the back staircase, a waxy sound of slow, bare footsteps on stone. Sometimes he
intercepts them, when he can move quickly enough to be waiting at the foot of the stairs, arms crossed, smirking.

Most nights, he doesn’t bother, and stays curled beneath the covers. It’s cold outside, and even colder in the dungeons.
He cannot begrudge them such rare warmth.

November is wanking in the shower. It’s Albus’s empty bedroom, and the light shining out from under the headmaster’s
office door. Scrolls pile up on Severus’s desk.

A Slytherin-Gryffindor prank war. Detentions.

He reads a pornographic work when he should be sleeping.

Albus stops him in the hallway. "Have you not been sleeping well?"

A discreet squeeze of his hip before they part.

At night, Severus twists under the blankets, riding his own fingers. He muffles himself with a pillow, suffocating his
prick with a stiff old handkerchief.

He smells the first snowfall in the air days before it comes.

December is a series of red Xs on his calendar, and the careful consideration of two words: cruciatus and crucifixion.

The mass exodus of the winter holidays is a holy event.

Albus brings hot cider to the dungeons. They get pleasantly drunk on the hearth. They stumble to bed, and Severus nearly
brings the walls down moaning. He says foolish things. Another day, they exchange gifts. They go for meandering walks
around the snowy grounds. Severus pretends to enjoy the staff Christmas party.

They kiss once, at midnight, under the mistletoe, when there is no one around to see them.

January brings resolutions. Albus proposes they begin having Sunday tea again, and neither can recall how they fell out of
the practice in the first place.

Sunday the first: He spends the hour on his back, biting down on his hand until Albus draws it aside, cruelly crooning,
"Ah-ah, I want to hear you..."

Sunday the second: They make it as far as the coffee table.

Sunday the third: The Chinese blend is surprisingly pleasant with honey. The almond biscuits are rather dry.

Sunday the fourth: Honey on his lips and fingertips, sticky on his cheek and between his thighs.

February is short, and dark, with a bloody red Valentines Day in the middle of it. They quarrel. They do every year, but
this is by far the worst because out of the blue Albus starts nattering on about the little Potter brat, and Severus
doesn’t meet him in the Astronomy Tower at ten o’clock.

He sits in his room, in front of the fire, watching the clock. By the time he’s desperate to go, he knows that Albus will
no longer be waiting for him. He lays awake half the night, and scripts the apologies they will not exchange.

March comes in like a lion, with Severus being bent over his own desk, and fucked with such abandon that he’s certain he’s
going to go blind. He’s drooling on a stack of first year quizzes - one of the scratches on his chest feels like it’s
bleeding - and as the desk begins to inch its way across the floor, all he can think is that whatever unholy thing has
gotten into Albus is welcome to visit anytime it likes.

...goes out like a lamb. They discuss the curriculum. He sits at Albus’s feet, as he hasn’t done in years.

April is the cruellest month.

Where has he heard that before? He can’t recall, but when he gets rip-roaringlynk onk on the second Saturday, he stares up
at the ceiling of his bedroom and repeats it until it’s meaningless.

What did they argue about? Something about...something about Potter. Not James. The other one. How do you think he’ll be
sorted, Severus? (Not in Slytherin.) I have it on good authority that Harry is a fine boy, Severus. (Not a Slytherin.)

And then rus rus had said...something...something that had made Albus look at him like he was...nothing.

They don’t speak for weeks.

May is a small mercy. Good rain.

On the first warm night, Severus walks barefoot to Albus’s bedroom. He sheds his nightshirt at the door, and slides down
under the covers. Albus wakes up enough for his purposes, and whispers silly, sleepy praise.

"Wake me up before you leave," Albus says, drifting back to sleep.

Severus doesn’t. He never does. It’s only Albus’s way of reminding him not to stay too long. That his duty lies down
there in the dark.

He listens to the rain and Albus’ snores for a while before getting up to fumble for his nightshirt.

June brings the usual barrage of NEWTs and OWLs. Lazy students, failing students, neurotic children in and out of his
office at all hours. He becomes hyperaware of the shape of each day: the hurried mornings, the yawn of afternoon classes,
and the eye-blink between dinner and midnight.

Distracted pecks on the cheek in private. "Have you been eating properly, Severus?"

Albus seems to mourn the passing of each day, while Severus gleefully sends each to its rest. Tests, essays, practical
exams, and letters of recommendation. Next year’s curriculum.

Severus’s end-of-term mantra becomes: When this is over, I will sleep.

July is.

He breathes relief.

There is no more talk of Harry Potter. Severus ignores the owls going out, and if there are spaces in conversation where
the boy’s name might lurk, he has become adept at carefully stepping around them.

They fuck on the centre circle of the Quidditch Pitch while Hagrid and Filch are off the grounds for the day. In the
library. In the prefects’ bathroom. Albus murmurs the coarse words of an imaginary audience, second-hand obscenities
dripping from his tongue like dark honey.

"They adore you, Severus...they cove> yo> your filthy mouth..."

Just the two of them.

August slips away.

"Go back to sleep," he mutters, when he feels Albus stir.

It’s early, and Albus was up late with Hagrid – back from Gringotts, and from playing delivery-boy for the Potter brat,
who apparently thinks himself above owl post.

"Mm...perhaps an hour or two. Getting up?”

Severus shivers. ‘Up’ means their little project: the seven bottles lined up on Severus’s desk, and innumerable scrapped
riddles. He imagines Albus shan’t appreciate the irony of the latter.

"Not just yet," he sighs, pressing his cheek against Albus’ shoulder.

He shuts his eyes against September.

"Not just yet."

September means rain.









delphi@popullus.net


Singing the Body Electric