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Pinched	By : KohakuShadow Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 4355 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own harry potter and I'm not making any money off of it.

Chapter List
- 1-i
- 2-ii
- 3-iii
- 4-iv
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Warnings are to the best of my memory. If I've forgotten anything let me know and I will add it.

Written as a gift for hairsprayx12. Charlie/Severus.

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I.

Charlie looked back. They say you're not supposed to, but he didn't know who 'they' were, anyway, and he didn't ever want to forget the tall trees, the lush grasses, or the whispering winds of the country he'd called home since he'd left Hogwarts. So, duffel slung over his shoulder, he looked back, as if knowing what he was leaving behind might be enough to convince him to stay.

Looking back wasn't enough.

*

Severus didn't look back. It was difficult to feel attached to a pile of ash and soot, charred timbers, the old frame of a door, blackened bricks. When they'd burned down his childhood home, and everything he owned with it, the last lingering Death Eaters had left nothing to chance, and the stacks upon stacks of books had only made for good kindling. So, he didn't look back.

There was nothing left to see.

He'd done the only reasonable thing, with no home to speak of, and no immediate source of income – he rented the cheapest London flat he could find. He intended to begin brewing at home for income, and so it made the most sense to be as near Diagon Alley as possible without being so close as to contend with the extortionate rent.

What he'd ended up with was the lower level of the tiniest two-family brownstone imaginable, with a bedroom the size of a closet, a bathroom you could scarcely bend over in without clocking your head on the sink, but a perfectly respectable kitchen and living area. This suited him fine. He was rather accustomed to confined living quarters, and besides that, he had no furniture to speak of save the patchwork sofa and scratched kitchen table that had been in the home when he moved in. He kept them for expediency's sake, and because he could see no reason to get rid of perfectly functional furniture only because it might not be to his taste. The table would gain cauldron scratches anyway, so there was no sense in getting a new one only to ruin it. He simply transmuted a broken hunk of brick to sit cleanly beneath the wobbly leg and considered the apartment perfectly adequate in furnishings for one. All he absolutely required in life was somewhere to sleep (the couch), somewhere to brew (the kitchen), a refrigeration unit and stove, a properly working loo, and a place to keep his books (the bedroom), when he finally managed to re-collect them all.

He sighed at that thought. All those books, nothing but ash on the wind. It had taken him a lifetime to gather such a collection, and he was doubtful that he would be able to locate some of the older tomes again. Where in Merlin's beard was he going to find Daphne Dundlebury's Big Book of Stools and Warts again? It had been only chance that he'd managed to get his hands on a copy in the first instance. It had been out of print since nearly twenty years before he was even born, and yet, it remained the most comprehensive text on the subject to date. Alas, Severus had a feeling he would simply have to live without it.

He put his shopping satchel on the counter – a small black messenger bag that was, of course, magically extended inside – and flicked his wand over it, casting his recent purchases across the table. The meat, rice, tea and spices he sent along to various places in the cupboards and refrigerator. The kettle he placed manually atop the stove.

The cauldron was left to rest where it was, and a new rack of vials and flasks beside it. Parchment and quills were relegated into what one might typically use as the silverware drawer, but one small set was all he needed, and thus, he left those out on a drying rack beside the sink. A small bag of clothing he carried into the living area and set to hanging in the closet. He would have to purchase a bit more of that, he supposed, if he didn't want to do the washing more than once a week, but it would suffice for now. He was exhausted. He sank back into the battered couch and loosened his collar, rubbed at the scar on his neck. It hadn't particularly hurt in a good while, but he still found his throat became sore and his neck and shoulders stiff when he was tired.

He laid back on the couch, far too short for him, and closed his eyes. It was the middle of the afternoon, but a nap was desperately needed after spending all morning restocking his life. He'd purchased one or two books as well, but they would not be enough to hold him terribly long. Best to rest now, and read later, he decided.

*

The ride through London improved Charlie's depressing mood a bit. He was well enough to keep a smile on his face and hold some casual conversation with the driver. It was true that he wasn't going to be working directly with dragons for the moment, which was rather a bit of shit, really – he'd loved his job – but he would get to see his family whenever the mood struck him, there was that. It was so important to him to be near family now, after what happened to Fred. He'd returned to Romania at first, but he would wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, worried sick that something horrible had happened back home, and he was too far off to get there in time. He didn't know how many late night firecalls he'd awakened Bill to in a panic before consciousness fully settled in and he realized, unsettling as they were, they were only dreams.

After three months of this, he could remember Bill's face in the fire, looking properly exhausted, saying, "Char, listen. Maybe it's time you came home."

Charlie had been floored by the frankness of the statement, but Bill had been right. If he was this worried, if it was impeding his quality of life this much to be away, if he couldn't focus on the work he loved for his worry over his family, then moving back to England really was the only reasonable option. Still, he'd gotten so accustomed to his freedom. Bill had offered him his guest room, and Molly had been quick to offer him his old room – with a complaint that the house was too quiet now that all the boys had moved out – but he declined both for the upper level of an old two-family brownstone. It had no yard to speak of, neither front nor back, the tiniest kitchen he'd ever seen, and a pretty small living room too, but a large bedroom and a nice, large bath with a tub he could really stretch out in for a good soak.

That had been his number one priority, after figuring out how to open the bloody Big Bed in a Bitsy Box properly. Who would ever thought a box that could fit in the palm of his hand could cause so much trouble! Once he finally manhandled the blasted thing into opening (and nearly got crushed in the doing), he felt he'd more than earned it. The Sectional Sofa in a Small Shoebox was going to have to wait. Depending on how that went, the Lovely Livingroom in a Lilliputian Letterbox might well be returned entirely. The room might well be too bloody small for much more than the sofa, anyway. In fact, now that he was looking at it, he didn't think it was going to fit at all. He'd have to go back to the Alley tomorrow. At least the last tenant left the kitchen stools behind. As long as he had a bed to sleep on, he supposed the rest could wait.

*

After an hour in the tub, Charlie felt much-refreshed. He pulled on a pair of jeans and an undershirt, and padded back out into the more miniscule portions of his unbalanced flat. There was a small balcony, though, he supposed most would refer to it as more of a fire escape as he had to climb out the window to reach it, and he thought the ledge looked properly wide enough for the housewarming gift he'd gotten from Percy, who, yes, was still a bit of a prat and ever the know-it-all, but also very sweet for putting in the effort. He pulled the box of flowerpots out behind him and placed one on the sill. Clumsy oaf that he could sometimes be, he knocked into it with his elbow when he turned.

It was, perhaps, unfortunate for a certain other tenant, that at that precise moment, he happened to be leaning over his patio in an effort to scare off a stray cat that refused to let him drink his tea in peace.

*

Severus only barely dodged the flying snapdragon in time. He glared up at his new neighbor only to find himself stunned silent.

"Sorry!" Charlie called down. "I'm a clumsy troll. Are you o—Professor Snape?!" Charlie's eyes widened in surprise. "No way! What are you doing down there?"

"Making my best effort not to be killed by a potted plant, Weasley," Severus recovered enough to retort. "It is somewhat hindered by your trollish nature."

Long before Harry Potter had ever heard of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and a long, complicated chain of events unfurled, Severus Snape had always equated Charlie to a troll. Charlie hated him for it, a little, especially when the comment was followed-up with another about how much better/quicker/more adeptly his older brother was at potions. It had made Charlie steam when he was an insecure young wizard.

In retrospect, he could shrug it off. He had been a bit of a troll when it came to potions, especially compared to the golden boy – otherwise known as his beloved, over-achieving, elder brother, who Charlie was convinced must have had a time turner on hand, because he never saw the ponytailed Head Boy study. Bill, of course, would never admit to needing one.

Charlie pulled himself out of his wandering thoughts. "Oh, uh, I mean, I didn't hit you with that, did I? Hang on then, I'll be down in..."

Severus said nothing as he patched up the broken plant, and sent it back up a bit more abruptly than he ought to have.

Charlie caught the renegade pot between his meaty fists. "So, uh, I guess asking to borrow some sugar is out?" he joked sheepishly.

"Not even if your sugar bowl were the last one on earth," Severus droned. It would have been intimidating, if it weren't for the fact that stray cat – who had run off at the crash of the pot, had returned, and was trying to squeeze itself between the patio bars.

Charlie grinned. He couldn't help it. It was adorable, and he loved animals. "I think he likes you."

"If you do not watch your tongue, I will send him up to your landing to wreak havoc among your plants."

"I'll keep him!" Charlie answered cheerfully. The landlady said they weren't allowed to have dogs, which kind of sucked, but the doddering old woman hadn't said a word about cats. Old ladies liked cats, didn't they? She looked as though she had about fifty of her own. "I'll name him Fred," Charlie joked. Then, on second thought. "Hey, your living room, is it puny?"

"It is of respectable dimensions. Why?" Severus replied skeptically.

"Mine's puny," Charlie said. "Smaller than I thought, from the picture. You don't happen to have a small couch you might want to trade for a boxed sectional, do you?"

Severus hated to admit it, but as he didn't have a bed... "...I will be up in a moment."

"Great!" Charlie declared, trying not to laugh as Severus scooped up the mangy, half-starved stray in the process.
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