BFS ENTRY: A Glorious Future (G; Severus Snape)
Title: A Glorious Future
Category: Two (11- to 20-years-old)
Character: Severus Snape
Author: inspired_ideas
Beta Reader: My Helpful Hubby
Rating: G
(Highlight to View) Warning(s): None.
Word Count: 1568
Author's Note: I admit I'm obsessive enough that I had to look to see which day of the week January 9th fell on in 1971. This is what came of learning it was a Saturday.
Summary: Eleven-year-old Severus contemplates his birthday gifts and envisions his future.
"Boy! What were ye told about this door?" The shout accompanied a hard fist banging against the wood. Severus scrambled to hide away his birthday present under the loose floor plank beneath his bed. "I won't be kept from any room in me own home!"
Severus rattled the doorknob and pretended to have trouble opening it too. It couldn't look easy or his father would know he'd been up to something. "It's stuck again, sir," the boy hedged. His dad gave a mighty shove and Severus was knocked back against the wall.
"Sorry, Dad," Severus said politely. He attempted to look contrite, as though the door had been an accident. It hadn't been, but then his father didn't allow locks on any of the doors inside the house except the one to the cellar, so he couldn't actually prove that the door didn't occasionally stick like Severus claimed. Then again, Tobias Snape wasn't the sort to rely on logic, especially not when he was in a temper. And his father was almost always in a temper. "Thanks for your help." The boy had learned that showing appreciation for his father's efforts was best. It didn't matter how measly Tobias' efforts had been. It didn't matter if Tobias had meant for his actions to be punishing rather than helpful. It didn't matter how insincere Severus actually felt. All that matter was placating the man. Severus knew to tell him what he expected to hear and stick as absolutely close to the truth as possible so he could not be spotted telling a lie. There was little that couldn't be twisted slightly or colored in a way that would appeal to a tyrant bent on having absolute obedience and having his own way.
Tobias stomped into the tiny bedroom and glared at his son. "What were ye doing, Sev?" His father refused to call Severus by his first name. He said it was 'too high and mighty', and that he never should have left the naming of him up to his mother. Severus himself was thankful he'd not been stuck with something ordinary and obviously Muggle. It was bad enough his mother sought to please her husband by giving Severus his Tobias as a middle name. That wasn't something Severus was willing to risk telling his father, however.
"I was working on my maths, Dad." Severus gestured toward the rickety little desk under the narrow window where his school work was lying half finished. He had been working on his assignment. He just hadn't been working on it at the moment his father had pounded on the door, but he's placed it there strategically in case his father had finished the odd job he'd taken for that Saturday earlier than expected. It paid to be prepared and Severus knew from experience that Tobias Snape would verify that Severus had been doing what he claimed and the assignment was actually in progress. Severus had also had the sense to pick the subject he did because his father approved of mathematics.
A quick stride to the desk assured Tobias that his son had been working. The man picked up the tiny stub of a pencil that was all Severus had to work with and smiled. The pleased smile on his father's face instantly put Severus on guard. It appeared genuine, but the boy had learned to never assume. He approached warily, but careful to keep his face from showing it. He did allow himself to show the curiosity he felt over his father's fascination with what remained of his only pencil.
"Happy birthday, boy. Looks like I be bringing your pressie just in time, eh?" The man reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a pair of biros with the local tavern logo on them, and to Severus' surprise, a brand new pencil. Completely new, with no chew marks and an unblemished eraser. The pencil was so new that it hadn't even been sharpened.
Severus beamed a huge smile. The present wasn't nearly as good as the one his mum had taken him out in secret to get that morning while his father was working the odd job he'd managed to pick up on the far side of town, but a brand new pencil and a couple ink pens were more than he usually received on his birthday. He wondered if the pencil had been nicked from the house where Tobias had been working, but frankly Severus didn't really care. People who could afford to leave pencils laying about where anyone could pick them up probably wouldn't miss one. "Thanks, Dad," Severus said with absolute sincerity this time.
"See ye put them to good use, Sev. You'll need your maths to find a good job what with the mill still being closed. What do you reckon? Maybe you'll get to keep books for one of them shops on the other side of town if ye learn them well. Make something of yourself." His father clamped him on the shoulder, obviously pleased with the thought that his son might be able to hold such a steady job as a bookkeeper.
Since the mill had closed down when Severus was still a toddler, Tobias Snape had worked nothing but odd jobs and a little construction here and there as he could find work. It had turned the formerly proud and cheerful man into a hard, angry one. There was little of the Tobias Snape that Severus' mother told her son stories about to be seen in one that Severus knew. His father had never been much to look at according to his mum, but he'd been full of life. Eileen Prince, having never been a beauty herself, hadn't fallen in love for her husband's looks. It was unfortunate that only a handful of years after turning her back on her family for love, the Muggle she'd left everything for lost his job, and with it, the cheerfulness that made the proud man the person she'd fallen in love with. Severus thought that it was even more unfortunate that he couldn't remember anything of that time when his father had called his mother 'Princess' as a sign of affection instead of mockery.
"Yes, Dad. I'll study hard and make something of myself," he said as his father left the room.
Severus would do it, too. Only his father couldn't know yet that he planned to accomplish that with the present his mother had taken him to buy that very morning. The present that was lying in the space under the loose floors beneath his narrow little bed. The first of the supplies he would need when Severus left for Hogwarts come next September. No, his father wouldn't be pleased.
In fact, Severus was sure he'd be livid when he found out. His mum had ways of defending herself, as he knew from sneaking out her spell books full of curses, hexes, and other dark magic, but that did not stop him from being worried about what his father might try to do when he learned that Eileen had gone behind his back and sent Severus off to a magical school.
Come September, Severus would be going to Hogwarts, the greatest magical school of all, according to his mum. For as long as he could remember, his mum had told him great tales of wizardry and witchcraft, stories of creatures and places that Muggles like his father couldn't even imagine. His mother had painted a picture of a glorious world where having loads of magic gave you the ability to secure yourself a future wasn't dependent on a boring job at a noisy, smelly mill for your pride and happiness. It was a world of infinite possibilities. And within Hogwarts, there was a place called Slytherin. It was a place where being ambitious meant more than learning maths in order to find work toiling away for someone else as a bookkeeper in the back of some shop.
The son of Pure-blood Eileen Prince was not going to let his Muggle father or anyone else set the course of his life. No one would rule over Severus Snape. He was going to make something of himself. Severus would join the magical world and take his rightful place. Soon he would learn more than simply the words and motions to the spells in the few books snuck away from his mother's secret collection. He would make his own spells, maybe even brew his own potions. Yes, potions and spells. Severus would show them all how clever and able a wizard he was. He would be as well known as that headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, his mother talked about. A great wizard. A powerful wizard. There would be no living in Spinner's End with faded furniture and rats for company when he was grown up.
Yes. Severus Snape would be a mighty wizard, as only befit the cunning, clever Half-blood Prince.
Severus thought again of the present lying in the space under the loose floorboards beneath his narrow little bed. The present his mother had been willing to risk obtaining with magic and gold, two things his father would be furious to know she had used. The present that every eleven-year-old boy with magic would eventually need if he planned to become a great wizard. Ebony, 11-inches, firm, and the first step toward a glorious future. His very own wand.