Warnings for Evan is a rather tactile person and is indiscriminately happy to cuddle with and smooch people he doesn't detest, regardless of gender. Because in this 'verse wizards aren't particularly interested in muggle sexual mores or gender norms. Of course, Severus is muggle-raised, and working-poor at that, so also mild warnings for internalized homophobia. But, really, don't worry about it.

This is what to worry about: Evan is a Taurus. And a Black. And Severus has no sense of self-preservation. Vinegar, meet baking soda... or do I mean bleach?

Notes: A reviewer I couldn't reply to in a PM noted that Narcissa is often portrayed as a bit of a bimbo. In fact, she and Evan are both portrayed that way in this universe—just not to you. Your narrator knows better, just like he doesn't know (or care) that James, Peter, and Remus have redeeming qualities. On the note of language, I actually put Severus a bit north of Manchester, in a less urban area. More on that later in the arc. And I am, honestly, humbled that you've charged through this story despite not being a native-English speaker. My beta wanderinginthoughtspace (thank yooooouuuuuu) has helped me simplify, but what she calls 'writing twisty' is one of my besetting sins.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, or followed—and to everyone who is going to! I'm posting the first chapter of the fifth-year bit, The Wicket Gate, right away: there will be no interruption in service.

January, 1975: Fourth Year

They had about a week and a half of peace when they got back from the holidays, although most of it was spent settling Reggie's home-frazzled nerves and shooting down Lockhart's insane and Lestrange's terrifying ideas for same. It was, Narcissa said with actually sterling and possibly even platinum diplomacy, lovely that Reggie's roommates were sympathetic to his home situation.

On the other hand, Bast Lestrange really should have been drowned at birth, along with whoever had repeatedly bounced Lockhart on his head. His brother was a gentleman, if not a wizard one wanted to cross or be muggleborn in front of, but Rabastan was a wizard one didn't want to be in front of at all. Or next to. Or behind. Reggie had been dubbed a cat-snake early because it was too easy a pun off 'Regulus' and he was, really, everybody's kitten they wanted to pet. Bast had gotten his even earlier, because it was obvious he was a stiletto snake before his first mid-term exams.

Severus behaved horribly on his birthday, which should have surprised nobody. He tended to, when embarrassed, and obviously-positive attention invariably got his hackles up. He had a being-sure-it-was-bait problem.

He also had a thing about gifts he couldn't have at least almost-afforded for himself and therefore couldn't match. Wilkes had obviously done it on purpose to be annoying, which helped, but Avery was quite put out.

Evan noticed that Spike's little fit distracted attention from the yearly time-bomb from his father. He'd wondered what kind of sick, obsessive muggle would write such a long book about ringworms, of all things. Eyeurgh. Then he realized the title was really 'Ringworld' and stopped wondering. There was no point. Muggles were just insane.

Spike was nicer about the little gifts from the kids who were always asking him for homework help, even though these were mostly sweets and he didn't have much of a sweet tooth. That didn't mean he accepted them. Instead, he said plainly (if incorrectly) that one person couldn't eat that much sugar in one term, and made them the kitty for an impromptu Gobstones tournament.

Evan had watched his and Mulciber's absolutely vicious games, so it was obvious Severus had been cheating to lose-by-a-hair like mad. The baby snakes were obliviously smug, which made Montague laugh and Narcissa coo and Reggie puzzled.

Regulus got him a book of wizarding recipes. His mother would have had a fit if Reg had gone into a secondhand shop, so he yellowed it a bit with a charm, thumbed through it a few times, and dropped it down a flight of stairs. Evan gave Spike a watercolor of St. Mark's Basilica he'd done over the summer. These he could deal with, and he was properly appreciative. The painting, in fact, got so many protective charms on it that Evan was amazed they could still see the picture afterwards.

Narcissa gave him an IOU for instruction in a dauntingly long list of charms that would give him control over his clothes. That, Evan thought, could have been interpreted as selfish, since she'd been doing most of them for him since before she would even acknowledge his existence. Severus wanted the control badly, though, and the gift sent him into a library-dive of planning for her birthday. Fortunately, this was limited by the extra work occasioned by Slughorn letting him study at OWL-level. Otherwise it could have gotten silly.

Unsurprisingly, as the game with Gryffindor approached Severus got snappy and taciturn and inclined to pick at his food. Evans was surely partly to blame, but there was the game, too. Evan started saving rolls and fruit from meals for him to eat later, although he usually didn't, and told him, "Will you please relax? I'm not going to die, I promise. Neither is Reggie. He promises, too."

Kicked, Reggie dutifully promised, "What?"

"I know you're not," Severus replied shortly, and showed no sign of relaxing. Evan sighed.

"No, what?" Reggie asked, giving each of them a slightly panicky look. "I should do something?"

"No, rabbit," Evan told him kindly. Reggie wasn't unique in signing things with his initials, but nobody as adorable as he was could get away with it when their initials were R.A.B. Similarly, Evan knew he struck people as absentminded, and therefore did not sign himself E.R. "You just don't die."

"Oh," Reg said, eying him suspiciously. "I can probably manage that?"

"Ha," growled Spike.

"I'm going to study with Bast now," Reg announced, getting up, as though this was somehow a safer prospect than studying with them. Or jumping off the Astronomy tower.

On the morning of the match, Evan was almost too distracted by all the good and ill-wishing from the expected parties to notice something odd. When Gamp came by to clap each of his players on the shoulder and deliver his usual pre-game lecture on what a proper pre-game breakfast should consist of, he gave Wilkes a little nod.

It might just have been due to her looking especially pretty, if that had been that. She, however, nodded back with a roguish wink before going back to fussing over Avery. And before breakfast was over, Avery had come out in painful spots and double vision and had to be taken to the infirmary.

"Who's best reserve Chaser?" Evan asked Reggie. Gamp had said the reserve Seeker needed more practice dodging bludgers and wasn't ready to race him for the snitch, so Evan hadn't been coming to mixed-team practices.

"I-have-no-idea," Reg answered far too quickly. Evan frowned. He smelled skullduggery.

When Gamp assembled the team outside the changing room, Avery's replacement had black hair gathered into a stubby little club with only moderate success, an outsized nose, and shoulders hunched vulturishly with so much defiance that it was an almost physical force.

"What," Evan demanded flatly.

"Oh, right," Gamp said as casually as if he were not a vile and scheming traitor of Fawkesian proportions. "You haven't been coming to reserve practices. Snape joined up a few weeks ago. Don't worry, he's not a disaster. Come on, we're due on the pitch."

Evan dropped back as they walked to grab Severus's arm. "What," he repeated, feeling something start to boil in his stomach and the muscles of his arms. It was most unpleasant. Severus just looked at him, his posture straightening out now he was being directly challenged. It was a quirk of his that usually made Evan smile, but not right now. "This isn't funny," he said.

"It isn't meant to be."

"This is a Gryffindor game! They've got Sirius and Pettigrew on the bats!"

"I am aware."

"If you're trying to make me quit—"

"I'm trying to play," Severus said coolly. "In fact, I'm going to win. I suggest you do the same."

"Rosier! In line!" Gamp called back.

"I'm not done with you," Evan hissed, but hurried back into place before they made it onto the pitch.

Evan could barely see the game, he was so angry. Not useful in a Seeker. He had no trouble seeing Severus, though, dodging and weaving more like a hummingbird than the bat some people liked to call him, jerky and graceless and very clearly always where he meant to be. Evan had called it right: he was pulling nearly all the Bludgers.

At one point, he was vaguely aware, Potter buzzed up to taunt him, but he wasn't interested. He could barely even hear the other wizard; it was as though there were a thick glass wall between them. He faked a snitch-sighting to shake the annoyance, which at least reminded him what he was supposed to be doing.

He started circling, trying to keep his eyes open again. But Severus got a goal in split-seconds before a bludger sent his broom flipping end over end, and he got control over it again only a foot or so above the ground. Another clipped him in the shoulder, and Evan could have sworn that Pettigrew hit him in the eyes with a bat. This was allowed, but generally understood to be Not Really The Thing. Elbows were expected, but bats were just… not on. Crass. One might strike out with them as a last resort, but just because someone was in range? No.

Then Severus was veering off from the word he'd been having with Gamp. He zipped up to Evan, his face full of thunder and nose. "Eyes on the balls, Rosier," he snarled.

"I'm going to kill you," Evan breathed tremulously. His fingers hurt.

"If you want to do that," Severus told him—and dropped three feet to avoid an incoming bludger which Evan barely dodged. Maybe Severus did have some bat in him, hearing it come up behind him. He finished, "If you want to do that, you'll have to end the game."

And then he was gone again.

"Good point," Evan said conversationally to the bent-perpendicular bristles of Spike's completely pants school broom, shaking with rage. "Excellent point."

In the end, Potter was the one to end the game, but Evan's fingers were only inches behind his; a fair showing. Since Reggie got a last-second goal in, Slytherin won by twenty points. Potter couldn't have been paying attention to the board, which was some comfort. Or maybe he was just a personal-glory-grubbing see-it-and-snatch-it magpie sort of Seeker, which would be consistent with his behavior off the pitch.

Evan could feel a distant corner of his brain acknowledging that Severus was an asset to the team. Some of those goals had been his, although nowhere near a third. In a way he'd been responsible for all of them, as his presence had kept the Gryffindor beaters so distracted that Reggie and Rackharrow's only real opposition had been the other team's chasers.

It was a very distant corner, though.

He shook off Gamp, who understandably wanted to shout at him, and made a beeline for the walking dead wizard. He interrupted the almost friendly exchange (of the I'll Brain You Next Time / In Your Dreams variety) Severus was having with Sirius with a cordial, "A word, Snape?"

"Certainly," Severus said, equally cordial. He had a black eye after all (so three black eyes, really), and there was a friction burn on his cheek. They left Sirius rolling his eyes at Slytherin formality and strolled nonchalantly to a secluded corner of the bleachers.

That was when Evan turned like his snake and punched his best friend in the mouth. For some reason, Severus's complete and resigned lack of surprise made him feel he might throw up. Instead, he heard someone whose voice he didn't recognize snarl, "I am killing you, you are dead, I will—"

"That's how much you scared us last time," Severus said quietly, raising his wand to heal his mouth. Evan could only assume eyes were more fiddly and he didn't want to risk it.

Evan's hand ached, and his throat ached, and his hand hurt more after he hit Severus again. Shoved him, really, but it still hurt. "I'm not afraid, you prat," it must have been him who yelled, "I'm GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"Yes," Severus said, with a not-unsympathetic tone and head tilt that struck Evan as more him-like than he was himself at the moment. "That's what it feels like."

That went through Evan like an arrow, left him wrongfooted and quivering as he'd never felt. After a few seconds that felt like minutes, Severus reached out and inexplicably wiped at Evan's face with cool fingers.

Evan swallowed. His voice sounded stripped raw, and his eyes were locked on Severus's face where he'd hit him. "You felt like this," he rasped, "and you…"

"It's all right," Severus said, reaching out tentatively and wrapping a hand around Evan's wrist. "It's new for you. I know. You get used to it."

"No thanks," Evan said. He sounded wobbly to himself.

"I know," Severus said again, sending one of his sad and bitter looks down at their boots. He dredged up a piece of an ironic smile from somewhere, and added, without looking up, "It's something of a comfort, though."

"What is?"

"Seeing you can feel things after all."

That was the last straw. Evan couldn't have put his finger on why if he'd sorted through himself for days. All he knew then was that he wanted to scream more than anything, but his throat felt like someone had stuffed a Quaffle down it and Severus's face was blurry, and his eyes and fingers and palms hurt.

Then Severus was holding him, tight and secure and not brained by Sirius or blinded by Pettigrew. His uniform creaked. He smelled like sweat and leather and grass instead of his usual herbal thing, but familiar underneath it anyway. "I," he said quietly into Evan's hair, "am sorry. Even if it is Quidditch. And you won't make me quit, either."

Evan chuckled as he accused, "Mule," but it sounded less like a laugh than rough cloth tearing, or a joint wrenched out of a socket. Which thought made him realize Severus had only been using one hand this whole time.

"That's me," Severus said, and drew back. He hesitated, then kissed Evan between the eyes and touched his face with that weird swiping motion again. It made Evan just want to bury his face in his long neck and hold on through about three breakfasts (by which point surely even Spike would be hungry). "Come on and see Pomfrey before Gamp catches up with you. You've got splinters under your fingernails."

"Severus," Evan said, steadier with the sudden rush of more familiar exasperation, "your eye's swollen shut and you've got an arm hanging loose there." Then he processed what Severus had said and looked down at his hands. Huh.

…Also, ow.

"You're hopeless," Severus told him, which, coming from him, was enough to make anybody choke, and summoned the splinters right out of Evan's hand. This would have been a boneheaded move if he hadn't been wearing a Quidditch glove, but they bounced safely off the leather. "And you may have to have your broom professionally serviced. Assuming it ever consents to fly for you again."

"Ow," he mentioned.

"Good," Severus said, looking thoroughly above it all. "You hit me. Twice."

"If you didn't know you were going to regret cutting me out of the loop, you should have," Evan told him, scowling.

Severus looked at him in fascination and announced, "I want a camera." Evan made a face, and then stopped making interesting faces. That was Severus's job.

They started for the castle, going through the bleachers to avoid Gamp. By now there were quite a number of snogging couples secreted here and there, and some groups passing around potion bottles and butterbeer bottles and twists of fragrant smoking papers. Probably there had been a few even during the game. No one was actually naked, though. Maybe there were some of those under the Hufflepuff bleachers, farthest away from the school.

Just before they emerged into the open, Severus stopped. "I did know you'd hate it," he told the drapery. "I couldn't let you talk me out of it."

"I shouldn't have hit you," Evan said, just as quietly.

"You'd never been really afraid before," Severus said, looking at his boots again. "Next time you'll be more prepared." Then he lifted his gaze to meet Evan's, an eyebrow rising into a cockier look Evan much preferred. "Do it again and I'll hit back."

"Right," Evan said, relieved (because Spike should have hit back in the first place), and pulled him in for a kiss to seal their understanding. Practically everyone else in and around their year who wasn't a near relative or Sworn Enemy of Slytherin had pecked, snogged, or groped him at least once after the November game. Some of them had even been Gryffindors-who-weren't-trolls. It was really about time he got as friendly with his best friend as he'd been with Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs whose names he'd barely known at that point. None of them had given him a rubdown when they were furious and he could barely move and everyone else was celebrating and then stayed with him half the night.

It was all warm and sparking for a few lovely, hummy seconds, and then Severus pulled back, a little wild-eyed. "What?" he asked, touching his lips.

Evan blinked at him. It was the same look he'd gotten every so often in their first couple of years, when some new Wizarding custom his mum had failed to mention threw him. "What, muggles don't kiss on the mouth?" He must have seen people snogging before now, though. Maybe it was just one of his ego failures, a who-would-kiss-me sort of thing fueled by the thugs.

"Ah," Severus swallowed, still looking blindsided with his one working eye. "Er… not other boys, they don't."

Evan shook his head. "Completely mental," he sighed. "As if they weren't limited enough, just not having magic. Maybe Bella's right and someone ought to take them in hand."

"…I'd express an opinion, but I wouldn't put it past your cousin to have spies down here."

"Not her style, but other people might," Evan said. He shrugged a little to himself. It was better to let Severus get used to new ideas on his own than argue with him about them. It wasn't as if there was anything to argue about, anyway. "I suppose that clinches it."

"What?" Severus asked, looking panicky.

"Well," he explained, "when you and Reg kept sneaking off, I thought you might be snogging. Looks like not."

"…WHAT?!" Evan shrugged, and walked out into the sun. Severus followed him after a moment, hissing like a great green goose. "It was reserve practices! He's approximately three years old!"

"He's one year behind us," Evan contradicted, grinning at him a little.

"Which is really odd," Severus said. It wasn't much less clumsy than his usual subject changes, but he didn't sound like he was evading on purpose this time. Evan remembered he'd said his mum did midwife work in their town, so he might have been honestly diverted by inherited professional interest. "Didn't his mother want a rest?"

"I can tell you haven't met my sweet Aunt Wally. She had a rough time of it with Sirius, Bella says. Lots of nausea the whole time, and afterwards she was really down and her temper was off the charts, most unpleasant for everyone. Including her, one assumes, although she's very good at passing that sort of thing along. So she told my cousin Orion he was getting his heir and his spare as fast as humanly possible and then she was taking a sterility potion. And he'd been living with her, so he agreed with alacrity and sent her to live at a nice resort in France while she was baking up Reggie."

"Fair enough," Severus allowed. "I'm going to go ahead and assume Reg was a less toxic embryo, given that she hasn't made him hate her."

"Or the resort had healers with more expertise in making cranky pregnant witches comfortable than their rather young male house-elf."

"That could do it."

"Or he just looked at what she's like with Sirius and decided he didn't want any."

"True, one does sometimes forget he's actually Slytherin."

"So sayeth Spike Snape."

"Who ought to know."

That was when Gamp found them. Their captain opened his mouth to start shouting, but Evan genially pre-empted him, "Quite. So don't surprise me another time, will you?"

"He's been punished," Severus tacked on before Gamp had finished regrouping. "He hit me."

"He's been punished," Gamp repeated slowly, "because he hit you." Inconveniently observant of him; Evan had dared to hope he'd hear that wrong.

"Blacks and their fits and control issues," Severus said, rolling his eyes in a dramatic display of disgust and despair. "Scared the hell out of himself."

No, he hadn't. It was the memory of grave eyes and attentive hands that had shaken him. Finding out that some people didn't always react to inner tempests by flying into Black rages, even people who sometimes did. Having it proven there were, actually, other ways, that wanting that badly to scream and hurt didn't mean you had to. If it had been a hell or devil in him, it hadn't fled in fear but in shame.

"All right," said Gamp, shaking his head, "but I still say there's something really wrong with you two."

"Just him," they chorused, jerking their thumbs at each other.

"Yeah," Gamp said, not agreeing with either of them but underlining his own opinion. He shrugged. "Nothing like that ever again, Rosier."

"Don't blindside me again and there won't be," Evan returned. He wasn't as sure about that as he'd managed to sound. Spike had proved he could fly through a scrum, and they wouldn't all be Gryffindor games, but Siri and Potter were as popular as Evans, in their own way. There were a lot of people who'd jump at a chance to impress them, and those were the sort of people who tried out for Beater and sometimes made the cut.

"Good, fine. Hospital wing for both of you," he ordered. "Post-mortem tomorrow after dinner. And by post-mortem, Rosier, I do mean yours."

"Right, right," Evan sighed, and they started off again.

But, "Snape?" Gamp called. They turned. "You can't stay on reserve. That's rubbish and it's nonsense and it won't fly."

"The hell I can't," Spike said. "Main team meets every other day. I have homework."

"We all have homework."

"He's taking nine classes and Flitwick's music club and he's a perfectionist," Evan told Gamp, long-suffering. "He turns in two feet for every foot assigned and his handwriting's tiny."

"Well, cut it down. Sounds like the professors will thank you."

"Blasphemy," Severus named it, looking genuinely offended, and swept off towards the castle.

"I mean it," Gamp said to Evan. "Can you talk him 'round? Avery's got an arm like a catapult and Rackharrow can fly at speed through the corridors and Black can get things done when no one's looking like nothing I've ever seen, but Snape's got a head on his shoulders and a wicked turning ratio. Even on that shite Moontrimmer. I think with some more practice he'll be able to stop on an actual knut. And he's insane," he added approvingly. "If we told Avery he's too strong not to use as a Beater, which, let's face it, he is, he could spend the rest of the year working on how to aim with—"

"…You want Snape on the main team because he's insane," he repeated, sounding the words out slowly, like oddly-shaped pebbles in his mouth.

"Right. He—"

"I DON'T WANT HIM PLAYING!" Evan bellowed, seeing red. "AT ALL! BECAUSE HE'S INSANE! HE DISLOCATED HIS SHOULDER AND LOST HIS DEPTH PERCEPTION AND BRISTLE INTEGRITY AND DIDN'T CALL FOR ONE TIME-OUT!"

"Uh." Gamp swallowed, stepping back hastily. "Right. You've, uh, you've got some, uh, things. Your, you should, ah—"

"NEITHER DID YOU!"

"Okay, but—"

"HOW THE HELL IS ANYONE SUPPOSED TO MAKE A GOAL WITH ONE ARM AND NO DEPTH PERCEPTION AND A HALF-DEAD BROOM?!"

"Yeah, okay, but Lance—"

"TEAMS HAVE THREE CHASERS! NOT TWO CHASERS AND A BLUDGER-SPONGE! FOR A REASON!"

"Fair point, but, look, you've got—"

"YOU MENTION THAT AT YOUR DAMNED POST-MORTEM!"

"Okay, right, I'll do that," Gamp said soothingly, his hands up. He was several steps away now. "Um, do you want me to find some hedge-clippers or…?"

"NO!"

Evan tried to get his breathing under control as he watched Gamp try to keep his retreat dignified. A shadow told him Severus was coming back, but he didn't turn even when a hand fell on his shoulder. "Quite a pair of lungs you've got there, Fer-de-lance," Severus said, sounding amused. "And you've sprouted prehensile foliage, did you know? Is it trying to hug or strangle me?"

"Oh." He took a deep breath and pulled it back, leaves and thorns retreating and melting back into his skin. "Rot," he sighed, and shot an obliviate at Gamp's back. Now he'd have to bring up his grievances himself tomorrow. What a nuisance.

"Don't mistake me, I'm just as pleased he won't remember that," Severus commented slowly, whimsical. "I've about got used to 'Spike' and 'Naja;' I don't much fancy being called Bludger-Sponge until I graduate. Better than 'Snivellus,' granted, but still, not my preference. And yet… why?"

"Not supposed to do that in public. Excepting emergencies, of course. Family spell," he explained, a little sheepishly. "It's 'practice every day, Evan,' 'you're not going to school until you can do it wandless every time, Evan,' and then 'use it when you have a choice and I'll cut you off with a knut, Evan.'"

"Rosier. Cle-ver," Severus drawled. "Although it is an interesting spell. How long did your family spend working it out?"

"My great-great-great-grandad's whole life. Many guinea pigs died for the cause. Probably some muggles, too."

"Ah." There was a brief silence. "So… it wouldn't have gotten me thumped by the whole team to ask for a time-out?"

Evan made an aargh sort of noise and yanked him in for a rather bitier kiss, because it was that or punch the idiot again.

Art at AO3; link in profile:
I'm going to win. I suggest you do the same.

Blacks and their control issues. (Is it trying to hug or strangle me?)

Why Evan Thinks Severus Should Not Play Quidditch For Points
(originally from Brillig)

Continued in The Wicket Gate, largely because people turn sixteen in fifth year. Not that Severus's fifth year doesn't warrant a higher rating just because.