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Severus's natural instinct―or rather, aspiration―towards propriety ought to have deterred him after the word "brothel." His natural disinclination towards his former teachers ought to have stopped him at the word "we." Yet somehow the two instincts had collided and then momentarily bounced off each other in entirely the wrong direction upon Kettleburn's proposition. In the instant that Severus had paused to suppose that 1) he didn't wish to embarrass Kettleburn and 2) the rest of their colleagues would be perfectly scandalised by the excursion, Kettleburn had already taken him by the arm and gently steered him out of his office and towards his rooms with a suggestion that he change into evening robes.
He only had one pair of good robes. He had burned the other set several months ago; he never had been able to get the smell of hex-fire out of them. The remaining pair were black and plum, and serviceable, if plain. He washed up and dressed, combed his hair, decided his boots could live without a shining, and then stepped self-consciously out of his bedroom to find Kettleburn sitting on the sofa with a book plucked from the shelf.
Kettleburn looked up and smiled. "Very smart," he said and levered himself up to his feet.
It still felt strange to be inside the school when it was deserted save for a handful of staff and the ghosts. Their footsteps seemed to echo more than usual as they made their way up from the dungeons onto the ground floor.
"I appreciate the company on such short notice," Kettleburn said, climbing the stairs slowly. "I'll be camping out in the Kenyan wilderness for most of the summer with no company save for Mouse and the mosquitoes, and I do like to give myself a proper send-off."
"Yes, well," Severus said uncomfortably, but whatever he might have dredged up to add to that floundered as they turned the corner and found themselves directly in the path of Professor Dumbledore.
Professor Dumbledore smiled brightly when he spotted them, and he headed them off, blocking the way to the door with such a benevolent expression and happy swish of his robes that it nearly seemed accidental.
"Professor Kettleburn, Professor Snape―out to the gardens for an evening stroll? It's a wonderful night for it."
Up until that moment, in their six months of acquaintanceship, Severus had rarely heard Kettleburn speak without a certain lazy warmth. Now, however, his voice grew clipped, even though he smiled in a fashion that showed his teeth.
"London, actually."
"London?" Professor Dumbledore looked at Severus over the rim of his spectacles, and for a moment Severus was torn between wishing to be forbidden to go and rankling at the very supposition that he might be reprimanded for leaving the school on his own time.
“Out to dinner," Kettleburn clarified, "to celebrate the end of the term."
For an instant, something seemed to flicker in Professor Dumbledore's eyes, and Severus was suddenly, coldly certain that this was it. The imagined to-do note regarding his sacking had finally turned up, and he was going to be told that his services wouldn't be needed next year. That he was being put out with no references and the threat over his head that if he contacted any of his old friends, his Ministry testimony might just be accidentally leaked.
He occluded his mind, not wishing the last gleaned thoughts of his employment to be about sex and the nervous, guilty, almost nauseated expectation thereof.
The moment passed, however, and Professor Dumbledore wagged a finger in mock sternness at Kettleburn. "I do hope you're not looking to replace Professor Slughorn as your partner in carousing."
It was obviously meant to invite a chuckle, but Kettleburn only looked from Professor Dumbledore to Severus with an eyebrow sharply arched. "Dinner, Albus. Nothing more."
Professor Dumbledore laughed pleasantly, as though Kettleburn had said something charming. "I hoped to meet with Professor Snape tomorrow morning about the final marks. I trust you won’t keep him out too late.’
Kettleburn smiled another sharp, toothy smile. "I'm sure you did, and I'm sure I won't. Now if you don't mind..."
The motion was too quick for Severus to catch, but he was fairly certain Kettleburn had just poked Professor Dumbledore with his walking stick, making him step aside. Kettleburn strode towards the door, leaving Severus to uncomfortably follow, aware of the weight of Professor Dumbledore's gaze upon his back.
The door shut behind them, and Kettleburn snorted as they crossed the grounds and entered the stables. "Her Majesty is in particularly fine form tonight."
Wondering what the queen had to do with anything, Severus climbed into the carriage. This was a mistake. He could feel it in the tension in his shoulders, the moths in his stomach, the heat at the tips of his ears. It only grew worse as they made their way to the Hog's Head and then used the public Floo to travel to London.
Carne Alley was a narrow, dead-end street separated from Diagon by a large wrought-iron gate and an age line. Inside, the doorways were deeply recessed and populated by shadowy figures. Lamps wrapped in red scarves shone from the windows above. Severus had put the hood of his cloak up, but Kettleburn strolled across the damp cobblestones as if he were window-shopping on the high street.
Their destination proved to be the Swan and Swain. A painted sign hung outside the establishment, upon which the Greek god Zeus, in the form of a swan, made altogether-too-graphic love to a naked Leda. Severus braced himself as the door opened. He might have been a virgin, but he was no innocent. The situation had simply never arisen organically, so to speak, and his life had up until that point been too busy for him to arrange things for himself. He was very aware, however, of exactly what people did to each other, from the unimaginative to the grotesque, and he was prepared for something unsavoury and sophisticated to lie within.
To his surprise, the interior of the Swan and Swain was no different from that of a well-appointed pub. The lighting was low and warm, the walls wood-panelled, and the seating ample. There was a bar, a few tables and chairs, and a sitting room of sorts. The place was populated by a half-dozen men, about an equal number of women―all pretty and dressed in rich robes―and two handsome young men whom Severus supposed were security. Severus's gaze almost immediately fell upon Mathias Yaxley, who was sitting in an armchair with a drink at hand and a petite brunette perched on his knee.
Their eyes met, and they both looked away. He and Yaxley had never been formally introduced, but they knew people in common, as they said. As they used to say.
"Jemima, my dear," Kettleburn called out as a beautiful older woman approached them. "You're looking lovely as always."
The woman in question was tall and generously proportioned, and Severus could hear the crush of velvet as she hugged Kettleburn to her ample bosom and exchanged cheek-kisses with him. "Always a pleasure, Silvanus. And you've brought a friend!"
Something about her tone suggested that she was not in fact surprised to see him, and Severus glared at Kettleburn, attempting to communicate silently that something very terrible was going to happen if this got out. Kettleburn only smiled, and before Severus could protest, the woman had pressed a key into his hand.
"Why don't you go upstairs and make yourself comfortable? Marguerite has already drawn a bath for you, and she should be along in a few minutes."
Severus looked down at the key sceptically. Its bow was shaped like a heart, with Room 5 engraved upon it.
Kettleburn smiled encouragingly. "Meet me back here and I'll buy the first round. Or the third or fourth, as the case may be."
His legs felt heavy as he climbed the stairs. The problem with putting something off, he reflected, was that the longer you procrastinated, the more complicated the task seemed. He had to fumble with the key to get it in properly, and his cheeks flushed at the implication before he reminded himself that the human race would have died out long ago if this sort of thing were remotely difficult.
He had never been the prurient sort. As a teenager, he had often imagined the pleasures of married life but had never lingered upon the wedding night. There was only Lily, and despite their quarrels, despite how angry she had made him, he had respected her too much to imagine her like that. Sex seemed like an utterly Muggle invention: undignified, out of control, and messy. A necessary evil, but one that a man was unfortunately expected to be well-practiced in.
Room 5 was dominated by a large four-poster bed. There were several mirrors positioned around the room, and behind a folding screen a hot bath was waiting. Severus awkwardly undressed and lowered himself into the hot water. He felt the faint prickle of an antiseptic brew in among the bath oils, and he had a sudden sympathy for everyone who had to work here.
He washed quickly and dressed again in his robes rather than the paltry dressing gown that hung over the back of the screen. Then he sat down at the edge of the bed, his fingers digging into the mattress, and waited.
The door soon opened. The woman who stepped inside was perhaps his own age, blonde and pretty―not beautiful, which set him slightly more at ease. She managed a credible smile of surprise when she saw him, as though men simply appeared at random in her boudoir just as she wished to be bedded.
"I'm Marguerite," she said. "I don't think I've seen you here before."
"No," he said shortly. He could hear faint sounds from the next room. Moans. The creaking of a bed. For an instant, he wished ridiculously that he were alone so that the could listen in and have a wank. The pit of his stomach was contracting, and he couldn't tell if he was getting stiff or going to be sick.
Marguerite sat next to him. Her warm, soft fingers brushed over the back of his hand. "Looking for anything special?" she asked.
"No," he said. "The usual."
Her perfume smelled of myrrh and cinnamon. Her lips were faintly tacky with paint when she kissed his cheek.
"You're tense," she said as her arms came around him. "How about a massage?"
He was silent for too long, aware of the time period for a casual answer closing. He remembered being sixteen and getting hard in a heartbeat. Watching Quidditch. Glimpsing so much as an ankle or a collarbone under the voluminous black robes all students wore. At times, sitting very close to Henry Mulciber in History class. Now he felt as though someone had poured liquid lead into his parts.
"Listen," Marguerite said affably, the tip of her finger turning in warm circles down his neck, "this is your night. Whatever you'd like to do, just let me know. If you want the lights off, or if you want someone else in here, or if you'd like to lie back and let me do all the work..." Her smile flashed. "...I'm easy."
"I have a headache," he blurted out before pulling a face in mortification when he realised how it sounded.
Marguerite seemed poised to laugh, but then she took him gently by the chin and peered into his eyes, perhaps seeing the broken blood vessels or some contraction in his pupils. She frowned. "Oh. You really do, don't you?" Her voice wasn't so husky now. She sounded like someone he might meet in a shop. "Do you want some headache powder?"
"It doesn't work," he said.
"Well," she said, patting his hand, "your friend already paid for the hour. Do you want to lie down for a bit and let me know if you start to feel better?"
What he wanted was for the earth to yawn open beneath him and end his misery. When he said nothing, she got up and put out all the lights save one and then poured him a glass of water from a pitcher atop the chest of drawers. Then she settled in a chair by the window and retrieved a bag from underneath it.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her draw out a long, thin skewer. The potential applications thereof flashed dangerously through his head, intensifying when she pulled out a second one. Then a ball of wool and what looked like half a sock followed. He watched her work for several moments and then flopped over on the bed.
"I despise my existence," he said.
"Not that I keep track," Marguerite said, still knitting, "but about one in ten of the men who come in here keep their pants on."
He squinted at her in suspicion.
"Hand to God," she said. "They've had too much to drink, or they end up talking about their wives and children, or they just want to be somewhere quiet for an hour. Everyone's entitled to a bad night."
By his calculation, he'd had over eight thousand consecutive bad nights, but he didn't say so. He toyed with convincing himself that he was being chivalrous, not forcing himself upon some poor woman who had fallen into a trade like this. He had done some terrible things in his life, but he had never done anything like that. The fantasy held as little appeal as the sex, however, and eventually he simply lay there until his time was done, making idiotic small talk about Quidditch and the weather while her knitting needles clicked away.
He could come back over the summer, he told himself. When he wasn't feeling so poorly, when he wasn't put on the spot, he would come back on his time and his own money and get the whole embarrassing thing over with. He reassured himself of this as he waited for Kettleburn at the bar, nursing a rum and pumpkin.
At Kettleburn's return, these confident thoughts fled.
The sound of a heavy walking stick echoed on the landing. There was a soft, low laugh. Severus had looked up with instinctive relief, but the feeling died when he saw that Kettleburn was not alone.
The young man was not, it seemed, there for security. He was tall and brown-haired, with an expression of dull amiability on his handsome face. The two descended the stairs together, Kettleburn's brass fingers wrapped securely around the young man's elbow. Their heads tilted in conspiratorially, and Kettleburn murmured something that made his companion laugh.
Severus startled at the overly loud thunk of his own glass on the bar top. He felt for an instant as if someone had inserted a knife just below his sternum and pulled down in a quick jerk, leaving his insides to spill out in open air.
He looked away. Then he looked back. The dull brunet was smiling like the vacant idiot he was. Kettleburn smiled back and said something that Severus couldn't make out from where he sat. Then the idiot kissed Kettleburn on the cheek. Kettleburn laughed again and gave the young man a friendly shove that disentangled them from each other and sent them off in opposite directions.
Severus's gaze was fixed firmly on the bar top when Kettleburn joined him. He caught a whiff of a familiar scent that took him back to the boys' dormitory and nights staring staunchly up at the canopy of his bed as he, like everyone else, pretended he was the only one awake and wanking. He flinched when Kettleburn patted him on the back.
"Drinks and then dinner, or dinner and then drinks?" Kettleburn asked cheerfully. "Or, if you're feeling particularly sturdy, how about drinks and then dinner and then more drinks?"
Severus looked at him. Kettleburn's hair, usually neatly combed, was more curl than wave now, and it was flattened in the back. There was a purpling mark just below his collar.
"I need some air," he said abruptly.
He wasn't entirely conscious of getting up. His head was pounding so hard that he could hear the rush of blood in his ears. The next thing he knew, he was out in the dark street, striding away from that ludicrous place.
The sound of heavy, stilted steps followed him. He refused to turn around, even when he realised that he was heading for the dead end.
"On the off-chance you actually do want me to catch up with you," Kettleburn called out, his voice loud and conspicuous in this, the sort of place that demanded whispers, "you'll have to slow down."
It was only then that he glanced back over his shoulder. Kettleburn was quite far behind him, struggling with his walking stick. Severus stopped instinctively. Suspiciously, Kettleburn's subsequent steps immediately became rather more coordinated.
Severus crossed his arms, looking around at the dark buildings, hearing voices from the streets beyond.
"There's a problem, I take it," Kettleburn said when he had caught up to him.
He had no desire to lie about his evening with Marguerite. His vision was nearly blurring with the throbbing in his head as his mind writhed with all the thoughts he wasn't supposed to think any more about the stupidity and depravity and unimaginative concerns of lesser beings.
"You should have told me you're a―" He had no qualms about taking the offensive, but he could neither find the right word nor force it past his lips.
"A what?" Kettleburn asked, sounding legitimately puzzled. Then he looked slowly towards the Swan and Swain and back at Severus. "A homosexual?"
That was not the word Severus might have sought. He fought the urge to parrot it, to feel the oddly clinical shape of it on his lips. "Yes."
Kettleburn's left eyebrow rose sharply. "I would have thought," he said with some apparent deliberation, "that if student gossip hadn't got there first, it would be rather obvious nonetheless." He made a vague gesture at himself that Severus couldn't interpret.
Severus said nothing, and after a moment, Kettleburn heaved an impatient-sounding sigh.
"Look. Nothing good ever comes of being left alone in Carne Alley after sunset. Shall we call it a night and go back to the school?"
"Fine," Severus said grudgingly.
Despite the sentiment often expressed by his parents, Severus did not in fact usually intend to ruin other people's evenings, and he didn't always enjoy it. They had Flooed in via the Leaky Cauldron, and the walk back down Diagon Alley was heavily and deliberately silent. Severus kept his hands shoved in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. He could sense Kettleburn looking at him now and again, but he did not look back.
The noise of the pub was jarring, and it was not much better on the other side, where the Hog's Head was just warming up for the night. Severus half expected Kettleburn to stay for a drink and leave him to find his own way back to the castle, but he was shadowed out into the street, and soon they were both standing in front of the parked carriage.
Kettleburn approached the thestral and patted it on its pointed nose. He could see it, obviously. Severus hadn't given that much thought before, but out here, in the quiet darkness, his mind strayed to uncomfortable places.
"You shouldn't have invited me," Severus said.
It was as close to an apology as he could bring himself to utter, but it was more than he might have otherwise been inclined to give. He liked Kettleburn. He supposed they were friends, if this was how one made friends outside the assigned camaraderie of Sorting. (He certainly didn't imagine, he thought darkly to himself, that Kettleburn talked to that brown-haired idiot about his research or took him out for lunch.)
"Why not?" Kettleburn asked as he rigged up the thestral.
"I'm not very social."
That wasn't quite true. It was more that bad things tended to happen when he let himself fall in with other people.
"You're fine," Kettleburn said. "I like you."
Severus stared at him blankly.
"Why shouldn't I like you?" There was something oddly defensive in Kettleburn's voice. "You're interesting. You're intelligent. You're funny, although I'm not certain you always mean to be. I enjoy spending time with you. I―"
"Don't," Severus said, cutting him off.
Kettleburn opened the carriage door and climbed in. After a moment, Severus followed.
"I'm a selfish creature," Kettleburn said. "I avoid pain and I seek pleasure. If I didn't enjoy your company, I wouldn't bother."
"That sounds like something Professor Slughorn would say." Severus had never thought he would miss his former head of house in any form, but he was now the only Slytherin over the age of eighteen left at Hogwarts.
Kettleburn smiled as the carriage started rolling. "We've always got on, Horace and I. We might not seek our pleasures in the same sort of places, but our philosophy is the same."
Severus leaned against the cool window.
"Does it bother you?" Kettleburn asked.
"Hm?" Despite the faint jostling of the road, he was not inclined to lift his head from the chill of the glass.
"That I'm a homosexual," Kettleburn clarified.
Severus crossed his arms and shrugged. "No."
He was not unwordly. By the time he was eight years old, he knew that poof was not another word for wizard when applied to young men with long hair. In his later years at Hogwarts, the inclination was mentioned as casually as any other mild perversion. Somewhere in between, it had occurred to him that there would not be so much pressure to marry and carry on one's bloodline if everyone did not occasionally think that they would prefer the company of their own sex.
"All right," Kettleburn said quietly, although he did not sound as though Severus had convinced him. "I trust you enjoyed yourself, at least."
Severus crossed his arms tighter and scowled.
"Ah," Kettleburn said. He was quiet for what felt like a very long time, stealing several sidelong glances his way, which Severus chose to ignore. Then he drew a deep breath and said: "I would like to ask you something, and if you are the least bit tempted to draw your wand on me, I hope you will remember I was willing to pay for your evening."
Severus glanced at him in suspicion.
Kettleburn briefly bit his lip. "Is there any chance you would have rather I set you up with Roderick?"
Roderick was, Severus gathered, the brown-haired idiot. He made a disgusted sound.
"Don't be stupid," he said. "He looked like a dolt."
A strange expression seemed to tilt Kettleburn's eyebrow and the corner of his mouth at the same time. He was silent for a moment, as if he had taken offence, and yet something seemed to have lightened in his voice when he finally said: "Roderick is a very nice young man."
Severus merely snorted. They rode on wordlessly back to the castle, whereupon Kettleburn abruptly picked the conversation back up by himself.
"I'll be leaving in the morning," he said as they drew into the carriage house. "First the train to London, and then the International Floo to Istanbul, and then another Floo to Nairobi."
Severus climbed out with him when the carriage stopped and mutely stood back, watching him manage the thestral.
"I plan to stay in the city for a few days to catch up with colleagues and gather some provisions. Then I'll be heading out into the parks for two months. The leopard population follows the water buffalo in the summer, and where the leopards go, so goes the Nundu."
The inside of the stable was warm and stuffy and smelled of hay and leather. Severus kept to the far side, well away from the row of stalls and the unnerving sounds within. The thestral was watered, patted, and put away.
"I won't have access to a messenger bird often, but I'd like to write to you."
Severus felt something in his shoulders loosen and something in his chest tighten up. Perhaps his rudeness had been within the bounds of a night out. "I'll be lodging at the Leaky Cauldron."
"All right. Good." Kettleburn nodded rather vaguely at him and then crossed to the stable door. There he paused, and then he turned around and advanced back upon Severus.
"What―" Severus said, or tried to say, because he was shut up with a kiss.
He froze, his brain processing very slowly the hand upon his cheek, the press of lips against his own, and the brush of beard and breath against his skin. Then something shifted inside of him, and he grabbed a fistful of Kettleburn's robes. His lips parted, and the next insistent press of Kettleburn's mouth turned the kiss into something harder and wetter. A faint sound escaped his throat just before Kettleburn drew back.
Severus relinquished his grip.
Kettleburn's eyes were bright. His tongue darted briefly over his lips, and Severus could only stare at it.
"Thank you," Kettleburn said, sounding slightly breathless, "for a very odd evening."
Then he turned and left, and Severus watched him go, leaning heavily against the wall lest his wobbling knees give out on him.