Planes, trains, automobiles - what mode(s) of transport do you prefer and why?
He’s not quite sure when the love affair began but it was long before the Hogwarts Express. If anything the promise of escape from Spinner’s End in that iron colossus only cemented his affinity for locomotives. Understand it’s not a passion, nor something he has ever given thought to- which, for a man like Severus Snape only proves how sincere the devotion is. He keeps it without questioning which is better treatment then he’s offered anything he’s loved.
But if you must know when it began it would have been in childhood at Christmas although he never celebrated it in any sort of real way. His grandparents lit candles and remembered miracles and most holidays were too hard for Eileen but store fronts became pictures in magazines and idealized versions of life around Christmas and always, always there was the little set of tracks- either around a tree or through weaving and winding paths, in the windows and Severus pushed his face to the window like a sticky fingered child he never was, oblivious to the cold and his red, frozen fingers as he watch the little machines chug, chug, chug away to their intended destination.
There was safety in the rhythm, magic in the little puffs of smoke that never smelled like Opa’s pipe or of his father’s clothes- foul with grease and oil from hard work and little pay. The trains of his memory were clean and precise- as exacting as his potions.
That he met James and Sirius on the train never diminished the escape they represented in his head, or the cleanliness. During school, they became quiet moments that were never so much about the destination as the journey- as the memory of Lily with her head on his shoulder or in his lap fighting off sleepiness and her distant dreaming voice asking him silly questions whose answers she never heard.
There no mysteries about trains, and their magic is purer then anything Severus has ever studied. They invoke time and passing as easily as they seem to keep memories fixed and unfading. They seem strong- somehow- like comforting arms of parents that are as they’re supposed to be; protectors always pushing forward- and moving, moving to take you where you need to go.
In fact, the only time he ever really hated trains wasn’t hate at all. It was dread and his reasons were as simple as they’d always been.
He was Headmaster and the Carrows had been installed as teachers.
And without knowing why, Severus waited on the platform for the train to arrive as he had all those years ago- cold, raw fingers and a child who was never a child- waiting for whatever destination awaiting these children to greet them.
Severus Snape
Harry Potter
458
But if you must know when it began it would have been in childhood at Christmas although he never celebrated it in any sort of real way. His grandparents lit candles and remembered miracles and most holidays were too hard for Eileen but store fronts became pictures in magazines and idealized versions of life around Christmas and always, always there was the little set of tracks- either around a tree or through weaving and winding paths, in the windows and Severus pushed his face to the window like a sticky fingered child he never was, oblivious to the cold and his red, frozen fingers as he watch the little machines chug, chug, chug away to their intended destination.
There was safety in the rhythm, magic in the little puffs of smoke that never smelled like Opa’s pipe or of his father’s clothes- foul with grease and oil from hard work and little pay. The trains of his memory were clean and precise- as exacting as his potions.
That he met James and Sirius on the train never diminished the escape they represented in his head, or the cleanliness. During school, they became quiet moments that were never so much about the destination as the journey- as the memory of Lily with her head on his shoulder or in his lap fighting off sleepiness and her distant dreaming voice asking him silly questions whose answers she never heard.
There no mysteries about trains, and their magic is purer then anything Severus has ever studied. They invoke time and passing as easily as they seem to keep memories fixed and unfading. They seem strong- somehow- like comforting arms of parents that are as they’re supposed to be; protectors always pushing forward- and moving, moving to take you where you need to go.
In fact, the only time he ever really hated trains wasn’t hate at all. It was dread and his reasons were as simple as they’d always been.
He was Headmaster and the Carrows had been installed as teachers.
And without knowing why, Severus waited on the platform for the train to arrive as he had all those years ago- cold, raw fingers and a child who was never a child- waiting for whatever destination awaiting these children to greet them.
Severus Snape
Harry Potter
458