For Dine

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation"
     -Thoreau

Severus owned a house in Hogsmeade that he never visited. He would crash there sometimes, when it was late after a Death Eater Meeting and he couldn't walk all the way up to the castle. Over the summer he often found himself stranded there, but he avoided it when possible. It was a small house, nothing special--more of a flat, if he wanted to be exact, which he did. A bedroom, a kitchen, a living room, a lab. The bookshelves were organized by topic, then alphabetically by author's last name (or editor's, or, in the case of magazines, by volume and number.) The spice rack was also aphabetical. The lab he kept fully stocked, ingredients labelled in the careful, meticulous handwriting his mother had taught him, not that he needed the labels anymore. He could reach for something with his eyes closed, know right where it was. He hated the house, though he was never quite sure why.

His rooms in Hogwarts were organized exactly the same.

He had three sets of regular robes--one to wear, one to be washed, and one spare in case of accident. He had two sets of dress robes, on the theory that he rarely had to attend formal functions two days in a row.

His linens were changed every week.

He drank coffee in the mornings, black but with sugar to soften the bitterness. His first morning back at Hogwarts, Albus said there was enough bitterness in his life already. Severus had pushed the coffee away entirely, which of course had given Albus the excuse to sweeten it and hand it back.

When he stopped reminding himself that Albus was a great man, a good man. When he stopped repeating that Albus was wise, and kind, that Albus trusted him, that he had done terrible things and Albus gave him a job, gave him children to raise, when he stopped going through the motions of his life and sat down and thought about it, he hated Albus Dumbledore.

He refused to think about it often.

The problem, and he knew it was a problem and laughed at himself, but it was a problem nonetheless--the problem was that he was jealous.

He had been overlooked as a boy, ignored by everyone except James Potter and Sirius Black. There was a part of him that thrilled at their notice, because it meant a break in the monotony. It meant that someone minded his own business besides himself. It meant that someone saw him.

When Remus Lupin first returned to Hogwarts, Severus had been livid. Angry and hateful and spitting vitriol. Minerva McGonagall looked at him over the rim of her spectacles and told him, "boil it down, Severus. Remus Lupin never did anything to you in his life."

That was the problem.

His colleagues rolled their eyes at him behind his back and welcomed Remus Lupin with open arms, and Severus stewed in the dungeons and made Wolfsbane. It was childish, of course, but knowing it was childish did not stem his hurt. He worked with people for 11 years, and in one day he was 17 again, 16, 15, 12. In one day, Remus Lupin was home at Hogwarts, and Severus was the greasy Slytherin boy that nobody noticed.

And what had Remus Lupin done, but become a Gryffindor?

Then Sirius Black died, and there was no one to look at Severus and care.

There was never someone to see him trudge up towards Hogwarts in the mornings and ask if he was alright. He made his way to Albus' office, slowly, composing himself. His hands were shaking slightly, so he tucked them into his sleeves. His face had looked gray in the mirror, so he shook his hair loose. He spoke calmly, carefully, and he walked downstairs again, flight upon flight, to face his first period students, and he didn't let himself think that Remus Lupin was alone, and he didn't let himself think that he had always been lonely, and he wrote the ingredients for a Sleeping Draught out on the board, one after another, in elegant joined-up writing.

Sometimes he thought that his whole life was an infusion of wormwood.

Mostly he tried not to think.