Once you get them started,,

[SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE]

SEVERUS TOBIAS SNAPE

The wizard hated Gladrags. He hated the industrial lighting that lit up the rooms. He didn’t like the ambient music that flowed from the speakers. Too easy, too soft. He didn’t like the way it felt. He felt like he was being swooned into buying a suit, or a shirt; whatever he needed in this place, he would much have preferred buy it elsewhere, but there was no other convenient place to shop in Hogsmeade. As a seventh year, Severus was permitted to make occasional visits to the town nearby Hogwarts. Hogwarts, the magical school of gifted young wizards and witches. As far as he was concerned, the school was a state-funded haven for do-gooders and the well-groomed, who boasted about their parents who were Aurors or who vindicated the poor and the tired, who worked at that incessantly dull swamp nest they referred to as The Ministry. Well, now, Severus was pessimistic about a good deal of things. He was pessimistic about Hogwarts in general. He was pessimistic about the people that were in it, crowding its enormous, swooping stone halls. He was pessimistic about his own family, and so he knew he had no place else to go.

Drat it,] the lanky late-teenager cursed himself, and his thoughts that wouldn’t stop dragging on and on in his head. If not for the curious little tinkling bell on the glass door that was the only entrance to the wizards’ department store, he would’ve blasted the damn thing open. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel in the mood to draw attention to himself today. He needed a clean shirt, and one black leather dress shoe for the left foot. True, he still had one set of black boots, both of which he’d been forced to wear today, outside, in the January snow, to Hogsmeade. Last night, an unknown assailant had magicked one of his dress shoes, hexing it into a gray pile, obviously without time to hex the second. Obviously an inexperienced wizard; he failed to conceal his wand’s signature, and Severus was easily able to trace it.

Severus quietly shoved his hands in his robe’s pockets, straightened his bony back and disappeared to the back of the store, where the plain cotton shirts hung, looking shameful and shrugging with their clothes-hanger shoulders. Far less gaudy than the delicacies adorning the many other aisles. Severus sorted through the men’s sizes quietly, selecting a cotton specimen in his size. It fit snugly around his midsection and ample chest. Re-folding it, he hung it over one arm and proceeded to the shoe section. The tailor greeted him amicably. Severus provided the exact specifics, unknowingly prompting a raised eyebrow from the man. He had leathery skin and a sagging mouth, and seemed experienced enough in his trade, but Severus simply wasn’t in the mood for idle chatting. He swiftly checked his pocketwatch –yes, he carried around a silver pocketwatch– as the man disappeared behind the cream-colored wall. He was supposed to meet the Slytherin boys in the pub down the street in thirteen minutes.

The clerk wanted to fiddle with his foot, once he’d brought out the single shoe for Severus’ inspection. “Sir, would you like to purchase both shoes? I think you’ll find they go quite well together,” suggested he as Severus pried open the box and slipped his boot off. “No,” he growled, “I don’t want two shoes.”

“Ah, but, sir, you see…we don’t have a price listed for but the one,” said the man, as if he were addressing a complete infidel. He offered up a pleasant smile, but Severus missed it. He’d noted the shoe’s condition, thought it was a good match. The brand, make, and cut were identical. He had, therefore, no reason whatsoever to have three shoes. He wasn’t about to explain this to the man; he wouldn’t understand him properly, obviously. The man acted like he was talking to his five-year-old grandson.

He took the shirt, and the shoe, and produced one or two galleons and some sickles from his robe pocket. The clerk was apparently the only man in the store. He looked disdainfully at the tall, increasingly vexing young man. He had it in his mind to explain to the boy why it was unreasonable for him to—“Excuse me, I…I have a schedule!” The clerk begrudgingly took the money from him. Severus looked out the shop window, hoping there wasn’t anyone that maybe, he might know, watching him…he had the intuitive feeling that there were eyes burning into his back. When he received change in knuts, he pocketed the tiny coins and swept up the shirt and shoe rather ungracefully, rather hurriedly, and slipping them inside his robes. He gave the man an ugly look and shuffled angrily out of the store.

The cobblestone roads weren’t noisy, today at least. Only a few folk drifted about. An elderly wizard dressed in flurried garb, a young woman perched on the arm of an equally young man. Severus looked away, a tear in his eye. No, he would not, he would not, he would not. He walked onwards at a quick pace, leaving the sight behind him. His hands up to his mid forearms were invisible within the pockets of his school robes. Most people would wear something ice to town, something comfy, but not he. It wasn’t as though he really cared, anyhow, but he really, really didn’t. And the wind was blowing; it was a cold January afternoon. He quite liked the infinite security of his black robes. They were creased and hadn’t been washed in a little while—Severus couldn’t even remember when that last was. He’d been busy with his classes, and unlike the majority of the student population, Severus felt he wanted to succeed in something. So many of them just wanted to lie around here and bicker and babble about living with rich parents, or being accepted into the school. He thought standards were lax at the school. If they really paid attention, they’d have caught him already.