Kinda Lush Fic: Hate to See You Go, Snape Family G
Title: Hate to See You Go
Characters: Severus, Eileen, Tobias
Rating: G (my first completely smut-free story ever)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Young Severus prepares to go to Hogwarts.
Notes: Thanks to sor_bet for the beta. I promised James/Severus Hate!Sex, I ended up with gen about Severus and his mum. I have no control over my muse.
"With a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat tat-tat-tat, too," murmured his mother, lying next to him in his narrow trundle bed, her lips pressed close to his ear.
"And the dragon will come when he hears the drum." Severus recited the words with her in a small, awed whisper.
"Bedtime, then," she said, rolling out of the bed. Severus pulled the blankets up to his chin and closed his eyes obediently. He heard the floorboards creak under her bare feet as she walked away, leaving him there in the darkness to dream about ancient times, before Azkaban, when all wizard executions were done by dragon. Severus wiggled his toes. He would love to see a dragon, but his mother said none lived in Northern England. It was a shame really.
He heard his father's deep voice shouting, "Don't nag me, you daft freak." His mother's replies were loud angry whispers that he couldn't make out. Though he was sure he heard the word "Severus" every once in a while. The s's hissed up the stairs and it sounded to him as though the house had been invaded by a swarm of agitated snakes. Severus rolled on his side.
"Rat- ta-ta tat," he whispered. He could imagine the dragon with scales sparkling, iridescent, in the sunlight, and the condemned man, pale and tied to a stake. He would love to see a dragon or a mermaid or any of the magical things his mother always talked about.
"So what if I'm drunk. Oh, no, don't point that wand at me. I'll snatch the breath out of you. I swear it!"
Severus fell asleep to this familiar lullaby.
***
"A witch. A real, honest to goodness magical witch and for all that she can't manage not to burn the toast," his father huffed. Tobias was using a knife to scrape the blackened surface off his breakfast.
They were all three at the kitchen table, Severus still in his pajamas. His mother was levitating a cauldron over his bowl to pour out a serving of lumpy porridge. "If you got me a house-elf...." she said.
"Slaves!" his father barked. "In this house. You want to make a slaver out of me, you medieval bint."
Her wand hand shook. Severus, who was quick to notice such things, slipped off his chair and hid under the table. The cauldron went flying toward his father who ducked just in time. It hit the wall with a loud bang, splashing porridge all over the yellow wallpaper before falling to the floor with a clatter.
His father stood up in a rage. "Bloody hell! Are you trying to kill me, woman?"
Severus watched the table rattle over his head as his father's fists thudded down. His mother cowered in a corner while Tobias let loose a string of colorful swear words.
Eileen had a tongue but could never use it in a straight confrontation. Only when the screaming stopped with Tobias gone and the mess cleared up could she unload her endless complaints on Severus.
"I hate your father, sometimes. Always drunk and no control of his temper. The things he says sometimes.... Oh, Severus, he's awful. You don't believe those awful things he says about me, do you?"
She chattered on like that throughout the morning. Severus was her constant companion and confidant. He never went to school. So, he could stay with her all day, tallying her grievances and plotting the joys and revenges he would give her once he was a big and powerful wizard.
Eileen had taught him to read herself. He had taken to letters eagerly when he learned what worlds they opened up to him. At the beginning of the summer, she had presented him with an old chest full of books -- every volume crackling with magic.
"My old school books," she said. "And some others that my father gave me. They're yours now. You'll need them when you start school." By the time autumn came around, he had read them all.
"Gobstones?" asked his mother, dumping the smooth round stones out of a leather bag. She was kneeling on the lounge floor, her long bare legs tucked under her and covered by her black skirt. Severus grabbed his gobstones from the hall cupboard and sat opposite her. She always let him go first. He sent his best shooter towards a lovely blue stone he'd been coveting but missed. Eileen retaliated with a trusted obsidian and Severus got a face full of inky sludge.
"He says I'm a nag when nothing could be farther from the truth. Why I married him? Honestly I wonder sometimes. Do I ever complain?" Severus looked up at her, disbelieving. She complained constantly. "I only worry," she continued. "Because he can't keep a job for five minutes. We'll end up in the poorhouse, you'll see." Severus wiped his face with his sleeve. He could tell she was taking aim at his favorite stone, a solid silver orb etched with an elaborate "S".
"Is it "s" for Severus?" he had asked his mother the first time he'd seen it.
"No, Slytherin."
"Who's that?"
"You'll find out."
She had received it as a gift from her head of house after winning an inter-house tournament, years before Severus was born. It spat out a stinging venom that left spots all over its victims face for almost an hour. It had taken Severus a month of hard practice to win it away from her and now it looked likely that she was about to take it back.
"Don't, Mum," he said, trying not to whine. His mother hated whining. "I want it for school."
"You can't expect favors from people, Severus. She narrowed her eyes, her heavy brows lowering into a flat black line. No one is going to make life easier for you. You have to take care of yourself," she said as she knocked Severus' silver ball out of the ring.
***
Severus squirmed as Eileen struggled to button up the robes he was wearing. They were too short, and his bony wrists and ankles protruded from the sleeves and hem.
"These are girls' robes," he complained.
"No one can tell, honestly," his mother sighed. "You wouldn't even have known if I hadn't told you that they used to be mine." She secured a button and shook him hard. "Now stay still. We'll buy you new ones when we get there, but I'm not taking you to Diagon Alley looking like a Muggle."
His father's heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs. It was the Saturday morning before Severus started at Hogwarts and he and his mother were up at dawn preparing to floo. "Why are you putting him in a dress?" his father demanded loudly.
"It is a dress. I knew it!" said Severus, wiggling harder. "It is for girls."
"Oh, be quiet," said Eileen fastening the last button and standing back to observe her handiwork. "Neither of you know what you're talking about."
"I don't suppose you thought to see that I were fed before you run off to the wonderful land of Oz," said Tobias gruffly.
"Well, I am stupid and worthless, aren't I?" Eileen replied. "Or so I've been told."
"I told you I were sorry, didn't I?"
"Unappreaciated, hated. That's what I am." She brushed at the wrinkles on Severus' robes.
"Don't start your carrying on," said Tobias, looking for his newspaper in the mail slot.
"I can't do anything right."
Severus cringed. Hs mother could use her self-pity like Chinese water torture when she put her mind to it. He hoped she wasn't planning to go into that now. It seemed to him that if his father wasn't out of temper, she had to do her best to hector him until he lost it. It was her way of defying his bullying. Severus preferred hiding.
"Porridge on the cooker," she said. "Have I ever not made you breakfast? Here...." she reached into her pocket, pulled out a parchment and handed it to him. It was the letter Severus had received by a real live owl just a few weeks earlier. "This is what I need to buy him."
Tobias scanned it briefly, his face growing redder and redder. "You intend to spend my hard-earned money on this rubbish," he said brandishing the letter. "Cauldrons, parchment, robes, what is this nonsense?"
"You know very well," Eileen responded. "And you haven't given me half enough to buy it all. You don't care at all about Severus' future. Do you want him to go to school looking like a beggar?"
"What do I care? I don't even want him to go to that school. All those wizards -- think they're better than everybody else. What's wrong with the State school?"
"You great dunderhead!" his mother shouted with unusual fire. "You know nothing."
"You're calling me stupid, you -- you --" His father's sharp features were almost purple with rage and his black eyes glittered ominously. Tobias tore the parchment in half and flinging the pieces to the floor he started his standard litany on the faults of wizard-kind in general and Eileen and Severus in particular.
"...dressing queer and talking odd with all them strange words and acting all 'frightfully frightfully' when you can't even operate a telephone..."
Severus swooped to pick up the two pieces of parchment that had been his Hogwarts letter and darted for the fireplace. He crouched there until his mother joined him, muttering grievances under her breath. "Not even enough for a wand. What am I supposed to do?" She tossed the ashy powder to the ground with a loud and defiant "Diagon Alley!"
Severus could hear his father shouting after them as they swirled away.
"...and traveling by fireplace. It's ruddy odd!"
***
Diagon Alley was a revelation. It struck Severus as unlike anything he'd ever seen before and as something strangely familar at the same time. Severus couldn't help staring at everything and everyone. It seemed there were more colors accumulated on those narrow cobblestone streets than in the whole of Northern England. And the storefronts, filled with all the magical devices he'd heard about from his mother and read about in his books. He would have liked one of everything. He started to realize, quite suddenly, why his mother was always going on about money. The lack of it was fustrating.
"Can we get an owl, Mum?"
"No."
"Can we get a broom, Mum?"
"No."
"Look! Solid gold gobstones."
"No."
She held his hand and dragged him past the most tempting shops. They kept to the list, only purchasing what was absolutely needed.
"We won't get back until after the pub opens," his mother was saying as she yanked a rueful Severus past the open doorway of the ice cream parlor. "So at least your father will be gone when we get home. Getting money out of him is like pulling teeth. He doesn't appreciate what I've given up for him. Did you see the looks I was getting in the cauldron shop? Mind, he was ever so exciting when I first met him. He had a motorbike. It didn't fly or anything but still.... Oh, my parents hated him. I should have listened to Father...."
"Eileen?"
Severus' mother stopped short in front of a tall, imposing-looking woman in a fancy black velvet cap.
"Walburga," said Eileen, stiffening somewhat. Her grip on Severus' hand grew tighter. "May I present my son, Severus." She swung Severus forward. "Severus, this is Mrs. Black."
Severus took the pale hand that Mrs. Black proffered toward him. He stared at her fingernails. They were long and painted blood-red. His mother never painted her nails.
"Oh, this is that boy of yours we've all heard about, of course," said Mrs. Black, barely glancing at Severus. "He's going to Hogwarts, is he? He got his letter, then? No trouble on that account?"
Eileen narrowed her eyes. "No trouble at all," she said stiffly. "He'll be a better wizard than the two of us combined, he's so clever."
Severus didn't swell with pride. His mother was just stating fact after all.
"Hmm, then he'll be the same year as Sirius." She indicated a rangy boy standing a few feet away and looking bored. "Sirius," she called. "This is Eileen Prince, er- Snape and her son Severus."
The other boy gave his mother a disinterested look and made a rude face at Severus. Severus had had very little contact with children his own age -- he wondered if they all scowled that way. He was happy to see that Sirius wore robes very similar to his own. So, they weren't just for girls. But he also noticed that Sirius' robes hung much better on him. Severus felt self-conscious for the first time -- a strange feeling that made his ears burn. He pulled futilely on the sleeves of his robes, trying to hide his thin wrists.
Once they were out of earshot of the austere witch and her sullen son, his mother started talking, "The Blacks are rotten toffs. Worse than the Malfoys. You'd think they were the only purebloods left. The Princes are just as pure, we're just not showy about it. The Averys are all right. Not a particularly old family. Let me think... one century, I believe. That's all.... What? Severus?"
Severus had frozen stock still. He was looking through the doorway of a cheerful shop filled to the rafters with books. More books than he'd ever imagined existed. It was Flourish & Blotts, the bookshop. He begged his mother to let him go in.
"We have all the books you need. My old books...."
He pleaded and pulled at her hand until she relented with a sigh. "Oh, all right." She agreed to let him wander the bookshop alone while she went to buy him some second-hand robes. "I'd rather you come with me to try them on. Oh well, if they don't fit, that'll be on you."
He darted excitedly from one section to another, marveling at the variety. There were invisible books, books that groaned when you opened them, glassy books that felt cold to the touch. And books on every subject -- potions, astronomy, and magical theory. Severus was quite beside himself. He finally settled in the section labeled Dark Arts. He pulled out a heavy volume as thick as his arm and settled on a green velvet pouf to read it until his mother came to fetch him.
He had just got to a chapter on werewolves when he glanced up to see a tatty- looking boy watching him warily.
"What?" Severus said.
"It's just -- Is that --," the other boy stuttered. "I mean -- if you'll pardon me for bothering you, but is that the book we need for Hogwarts? First Year, for Defense Against the Dark Arts?"
"No," said Severus. "Mum gave me her old book. I've already read it. This one is better. Look. It has a whole section on the mating habits of werewolves -- nothing like that in our First Year book."
The boy blushed crimson. Severus couldn't understand why. Other children were odd, he decided.
"Well, I don't want that one. I want the one we need for school."
"It's here," said Severus, pulling out a small red book. "They also have loads of them stacked up front."
"Oh." The boy looked even more embarrassed. "I'm a little turned around. I'm Remus, by the way. Remus Lupin."
"Snape." said Severus, taking the other boy's small hand. "Severus Snape. You talk funny."
Remus smiled. "No, it's you who has the accent, you Lanky. See you at school, Severus, I hope we can be friends. "
Severus shrugged and watched the boy run away.
***
"Dad?"
"Leaving?"
"Yes."
Severus was in his school robes, bought second-hand at Diagon, they still fit him better than his mother's had. He was in the lounge with his father, who was sitting in a worn out armchair. His mother was in the kitchen complaining about having to take a bus to London. They couldn't take the floo because of Severus' luggage.
"Well, give us a kiss, then," his father said.
Severus crept closer and found himself wrapped uneasily in his father's arms.
"Remember who you are," Tobias said after kissing Severus' cheek. "Don't put on airs like your mum."
His parting from his mother was longer but not that different. They stood together on platform 9 and 3/4. Passing through the brick wall onto the huge cavernous platform had been like a miracle to Severus. He he'd never seen so many children in his life.
"Will they all be my friends?" he asked his mother.
"Enough of them will be. Stick to the right sort, understand?"
He didn't.
"Remember, you're a Prince. You're a half-blood but just as good as any of them." She glanced around the station. "Don't let anyone tell you differently. Here's my wand. It's yours now, until we can get you a new one. I dub you the knight of -- No. The prince. The half-blood prince." She tapped each of his shoulders in turn and then handed him the wand. He gripped it tightly, feeling a surge of energy explode inside him. The wand coughed and produced a tiny puff of black smoke. Eileen laughed. Her laugh for Severus was something rare and thrilling.
She was still smiling as she waved good-bye to Severus who had his face pressed against the train window. But he saw her smile fall just before she went out of view. He strained to watch as she looked around the emptying platform and, hugging herself, walked slowly toward the exit.
Characters: Severus, Eileen, Tobias
Rating: G (my first completely smut-free story ever)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Young Severus prepares to go to Hogwarts.
Notes: Thanks to sor_bet for the beta. I promised James/Severus Hate!Sex, I ended up with gen about Severus and his mum. I have no control over my muse.
"With a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat tat-tat-tat, too," murmured his mother, lying next to him in his narrow trundle bed, her lips pressed close to his ear.
"And the dragon will come when he hears the drum." Severus recited the words with her in a small, awed whisper.
"Bedtime, then," she said, rolling out of the bed. Severus pulled the blankets up to his chin and closed his eyes obediently. He heard the floorboards creak under her bare feet as she walked away, leaving him there in the darkness to dream about ancient times, before Azkaban, when all wizard executions were done by dragon. Severus wiggled his toes. He would love to see a dragon, but his mother said none lived in Northern England. It was a shame really.
He heard his father's deep voice shouting, "Don't nag me, you daft freak." His mother's replies were loud angry whispers that he couldn't make out. Though he was sure he heard the word "Severus" every once in a while. The s's hissed up the stairs and it sounded to him as though the house had been invaded by a swarm of agitated snakes. Severus rolled on his side.
"Rat- ta-ta tat," he whispered. He could imagine the dragon with scales sparkling, iridescent, in the sunlight, and the condemned man, pale and tied to a stake. He would love to see a dragon or a mermaid or any of the magical things his mother always talked about.
"So what if I'm drunk. Oh, no, don't point that wand at me. I'll snatch the breath out of you. I swear it!"
Severus fell asleep to this familiar lullaby.
***
"A witch. A real, honest to goodness magical witch and for all that she can't manage not to burn the toast," his father huffed. Tobias was using a knife to scrape the blackened surface off his breakfast.
They were all three at the kitchen table, Severus still in his pajamas. His mother was levitating a cauldron over his bowl to pour out a serving of lumpy porridge. "If you got me a house-elf...." she said.
"Slaves!" his father barked. "In this house. You want to make a slaver out of me, you medieval bint."
Her wand hand shook. Severus, who was quick to notice such things, slipped off his chair and hid under the table. The cauldron went flying toward his father who ducked just in time. It hit the wall with a loud bang, splashing porridge all over the yellow wallpaper before falling to the floor with a clatter.
His father stood up in a rage. "Bloody hell! Are you trying to kill me, woman?"
Severus watched the table rattle over his head as his father's fists thudded down. His mother cowered in a corner while Tobias let loose a string of colorful swear words.
Eileen had a tongue but could never use it in a straight confrontation. Only when the screaming stopped with Tobias gone and the mess cleared up could she unload her endless complaints on Severus.
"I hate your father, sometimes. Always drunk and no control of his temper. The things he says sometimes.... Oh, Severus, he's awful. You don't believe those awful things he says about me, do you?"
She chattered on like that throughout the morning. Severus was her constant companion and confidant. He never went to school. So, he could stay with her all day, tallying her grievances and plotting the joys and revenges he would give her once he was a big and powerful wizard.
Eileen had taught him to read herself. He had taken to letters eagerly when he learned what worlds they opened up to him. At the beginning of the summer, she had presented him with an old chest full of books -- every volume crackling with magic.
"My old school books," she said. "And some others that my father gave me. They're yours now. You'll need them when you start school." By the time autumn came around, he had read them all.
"Gobstones?" asked his mother, dumping the smooth round stones out of a leather bag. She was kneeling on the lounge floor, her long bare legs tucked under her and covered by her black skirt. Severus grabbed his gobstones from the hall cupboard and sat opposite her. She always let him go first. He sent his best shooter towards a lovely blue stone he'd been coveting but missed. Eileen retaliated with a trusted obsidian and Severus got a face full of inky sludge.
"He says I'm a nag when nothing could be farther from the truth. Why I married him? Honestly I wonder sometimes. Do I ever complain?" Severus looked up at her, disbelieving. She complained constantly. "I only worry," she continued. "Because he can't keep a job for five minutes. We'll end up in the poorhouse, you'll see." Severus wiped his face with his sleeve. He could tell she was taking aim at his favorite stone, a solid silver orb etched with an elaborate "S".
"Is it "s" for Severus?" he had asked his mother the first time he'd seen it.
"No, Slytherin."
"Who's that?"
"You'll find out."
She had received it as a gift from her head of house after winning an inter-house tournament, years before Severus was born. It spat out a stinging venom that left spots all over its victims face for almost an hour. It had taken Severus a month of hard practice to win it away from her and now it looked likely that she was about to take it back.
"Don't, Mum," he said, trying not to whine. His mother hated whining. "I want it for school."
"You can't expect favors from people, Severus. She narrowed her eyes, her heavy brows lowering into a flat black line. No one is going to make life easier for you. You have to take care of yourself," she said as she knocked Severus' silver ball out of the ring.
***
Severus squirmed as Eileen struggled to button up the robes he was wearing. They were too short, and his bony wrists and ankles protruded from the sleeves and hem.
"These are girls' robes," he complained.
"No one can tell, honestly," his mother sighed. "You wouldn't even have known if I hadn't told you that they used to be mine." She secured a button and shook him hard. "Now stay still. We'll buy you new ones when we get there, but I'm not taking you to Diagon Alley looking like a Muggle."
His father's heavy footsteps pounded down the stairs. It was the Saturday morning before Severus started at Hogwarts and he and his mother were up at dawn preparing to floo. "Why are you putting him in a dress?" his father demanded loudly.
"It is a dress. I knew it!" said Severus, wiggling harder. "It is for girls."
"Oh, be quiet," said Eileen fastening the last button and standing back to observe her handiwork. "Neither of you know what you're talking about."
"I don't suppose you thought to see that I were fed before you run off to the wonderful land of Oz," said Tobias gruffly.
"Well, I am stupid and worthless, aren't I?" Eileen replied. "Or so I've been told."
"I told you I were sorry, didn't I?"
"Unappreaciated, hated. That's what I am." She brushed at the wrinkles on Severus' robes.
"Don't start your carrying on," said Tobias, looking for his newspaper in the mail slot.
"I can't do anything right."
Severus cringed. Hs mother could use her self-pity like Chinese water torture when she put her mind to it. He hoped she wasn't planning to go into that now. It seemed to him that if his father wasn't out of temper, she had to do her best to hector him until he lost it. It was her way of defying his bullying. Severus preferred hiding.
"Porridge on the cooker," she said. "Have I ever not made you breakfast? Here...." she reached into her pocket, pulled out a parchment and handed it to him. It was the letter Severus had received by a real live owl just a few weeks earlier. "This is what I need to buy him."
Tobias scanned it briefly, his face growing redder and redder. "You intend to spend my hard-earned money on this rubbish," he said brandishing the letter. "Cauldrons, parchment, robes, what is this nonsense?"
"You know very well," Eileen responded. "And you haven't given me half enough to buy it all. You don't care at all about Severus' future. Do you want him to go to school looking like a beggar?"
"What do I care? I don't even want him to go to that school. All those wizards -- think they're better than everybody else. What's wrong with the State school?"
"You great dunderhead!" his mother shouted with unusual fire. "You know nothing."
"You're calling me stupid, you -- you --" His father's sharp features were almost purple with rage and his black eyes glittered ominously. Tobias tore the parchment in half and flinging the pieces to the floor he started his standard litany on the faults of wizard-kind in general and Eileen and Severus in particular.
"...dressing queer and talking odd with all them strange words and acting all 'frightfully frightfully' when you can't even operate a telephone..."
Severus swooped to pick up the two pieces of parchment that had been his Hogwarts letter and darted for the fireplace. He crouched there until his mother joined him, muttering grievances under her breath. "Not even enough for a wand. What am I supposed to do?" She tossed the ashy powder to the ground with a loud and defiant "Diagon Alley!"
Severus could hear his father shouting after them as they swirled away.
"...and traveling by fireplace. It's ruddy odd!"
***
Diagon Alley was a revelation. It struck Severus as unlike anything he'd ever seen before and as something strangely familar at the same time. Severus couldn't help staring at everything and everyone. It seemed there were more colors accumulated on those narrow cobblestone streets than in the whole of Northern England. And the storefronts, filled with all the magical devices he'd heard about from his mother and read about in his books. He would have liked one of everything. He started to realize, quite suddenly, why his mother was always going on about money. The lack of it was fustrating.
"Can we get an owl, Mum?"
"No."
"Can we get a broom, Mum?"
"No."
"Look! Solid gold gobstones."
"No."
She held his hand and dragged him past the most tempting shops. They kept to the list, only purchasing what was absolutely needed.
"We won't get back until after the pub opens," his mother was saying as she yanked a rueful Severus past the open doorway of the ice cream parlor. "So at least your father will be gone when we get home. Getting money out of him is like pulling teeth. He doesn't appreciate what I've given up for him. Did you see the looks I was getting in the cauldron shop? Mind, he was ever so exciting when I first met him. He had a motorbike. It didn't fly or anything but still.... Oh, my parents hated him. I should have listened to Father...."
"Eileen?"
Severus' mother stopped short in front of a tall, imposing-looking woman in a fancy black velvet cap.
"Walburga," said Eileen, stiffening somewhat. Her grip on Severus' hand grew tighter. "May I present my son, Severus." She swung Severus forward. "Severus, this is Mrs. Black."
Severus took the pale hand that Mrs. Black proffered toward him. He stared at her fingernails. They were long and painted blood-red. His mother never painted her nails.
"Oh, this is that boy of yours we've all heard about, of course," said Mrs. Black, barely glancing at Severus. "He's going to Hogwarts, is he? He got his letter, then? No trouble on that account?"
Eileen narrowed her eyes. "No trouble at all," she said stiffly. "He'll be a better wizard than the two of us combined, he's so clever."
Severus didn't swell with pride. His mother was just stating fact after all.
"Hmm, then he'll be the same year as Sirius." She indicated a rangy boy standing a few feet away and looking bored. "Sirius," she called. "This is Eileen Prince, er- Snape and her son Severus."
The other boy gave his mother a disinterested look and made a rude face at Severus. Severus had had very little contact with children his own age -- he wondered if they all scowled that way. He was happy to see that Sirius wore robes very similar to his own. So, they weren't just for girls. But he also noticed that Sirius' robes hung much better on him. Severus felt self-conscious for the first time -- a strange feeling that made his ears burn. He pulled futilely on the sleeves of his robes, trying to hide his thin wrists.
Once they were out of earshot of the austere witch and her sullen son, his mother started talking, "The Blacks are rotten toffs. Worse than the Malfoys. You'd think they were the only purebloods left. The Princes are just as pure, we're just not showy about it. The Averys are all right. Not a particularly old family. Let me think... one century, I believe. That's all.... What? Severus?"
Severus had frozen stock still. He was looking through the doorway of a cheerful shop filled to the rafters with books. More books than he'd ever imagined existed. It was Flourish & Blotts, the bookshop. He begged his mother to let him go in.
"We have all the books you need. My old books...."
He pleaded and pulled at her hand until she relented with a sigh. "Oh, all right." She agreed to let him wander the bookshop alone while she went to buy him some second-hand robes. "I'd rather you come with me to try them on. Oh well, if they don't fit, that'll be on you."
He darted excitedly from one section to another, marveling at the variety. There were invisible books, books that groaned when you opened them, glassy books that felt cold to the touch. And books on every subject -- potions, astronomy, and magical theory. Severus was quite beside himself. He finally settled in the section labeled Dark Arts. He pulled out a heavy volume as thick as his arm and settled on a green velvet pouf to read it until his mother came to fetch him.
He had just got to a chapter on werewolves when he glanced up to see a tatty- looking boy watching him warily.
"What?" Severus said.
"It's just -- Is that --," the other boy stuttered. "I mean -- if you'll pardon me for bothering you, but is that the book we need for Hogwarts? First Year, for Defense Against the Dark Arts?"
"No," said Severus. "Mum gave me her old book. I've already read it. This one is better. Look. It has a whole section on the mating habits of werewolves -- nothing like that in our First Year book."
The boy blushed crimson. Severus couldn't understand why. Other children were odd, he decided.
"Well, I don't want that one. I want the one we need for school."
"It's here," said Severus, pulling out a small red book. "They also have loads of them stacked up front."
"Oh." The boy looked even more embarrassed. "I'm a little turned around. I'm Remus, by the way. Remus Lupin."
"Snape." said Severus, taking the other boy's small hand. "Severus Snape. You talk funny."
Remus smiled. "No, it's you who has the accent, you Lanky. See you at school, Severus, I hope we can be friends. "
Severus shrugged and watched the boy run away.
***
"Dad?"
"Leaving?"
"Yes."
Severus was in his school robes, bought second-hand at Diagon, they still fit him better than his mother's had. He was in the lounge with his father, who was sitting in a worn out armchair. His mother was in the kitchen complaining about having to take a bus to London. They couldn't take the floo because of Severus' luggage.
"Well, give us a kiss, then," his father said.
Severus crept closer and found himself wrapped uneasily in his father's arms.
"Remember who you are," Tobias said after kissing Severus' cheek. "Don't put on airs like your mum."
His parting from his mother was longer but not that different. They stood together on platform 9 and 3/4. Passing through the brick wall onto the huge cavernous platform had been like a miracle to Severus. He he'd never seen so many children in his life.
"Will they all be my friends?" he asked his mother.
"Enough of them will be. Stick to the right sort, understand?"
He didn't.
"Remember, you're a Prince. You're a half-blood but just as good as any of them." She glanced around the station. "Don't let anyone tell you differently. Here's my wand. It's yours now, until we can get you a new one. I dub you the knight of -- No. The prince. The half-blood prince." She tapped each of his shoulders in turn and then handed him the wand. He gripped it tightly, feeling a surge of energy explode inside him. The wand coughed and produced a tiny puff of black smoke. Eileen laughed. Her laugh for Severus was something rare and thrilling.
She was still smiling as she waved good-bye to Severus who had his face pressed against the train window. But he saw her smile fall just before she went out of view. He strained to watch as she looked around the emptying platform and, hugging herself, walked slowly toward the exit.