FIC: The Wandering Hat (G)
Title: The Wandering Hat
Type: Fic
Age-Range Category: One
Characters: Severus Snape, Original Characters
Author: whimsyckle
Rating: G
Summary: Severus finds an interesting thing while searching for scraps to sell at the local landfill.
There is a local landfill near Spinner's End. From Severus's window, he can see the dumpsite in all its rubbish glory: vast and large, piles of waste and garbage stretching on for miles. Sometimes, its unpleasant stink reaches to Spinner's End and permeates inside his room, seeping into his bedsheets and even the clothes in his dresser, and nothing but Eileen's diffusing charm could ever make the smell go away.
For years, Tobias and the other men have complained about the stench and the location of the landfill; it's a hazard for it to be placed so near a residential area. The people in Spinner's End tried everything they could think of, from petitions to protests, but all their pleas and complaints have been widely ignored.
The landfill has been part of Severus's life for as long as he can remember that it is one of the truths in his life: the sun in the morning, the moon at night, and the large stretch of rubbish from the view of his bedroom window.
He thinks of the origins of where all that rubbish came from, and why there is an abundance of it. In his own household, everything that isn't edible is repurposed and used at the very least three times, until it's no longer serviceable. It is out of necessity, Eileen and Tobias doing whatever they can to make ends meet.
When Severus was younger, Tobias promised things will be better once the Mill heeds the demands of the worker's union.
Years passed and Severus still wears Eileen's old smocks, they are always at the risk of having all their services cut off, and Tobias has started to spend money they do not have on alcohol, his temper morphing into something ugly with each passing day.
His father's temper is like a contagious parasite, and Severus's magic goes haywire whenever he's at the receiving end of the temper, making their light bulb flicker and the air around them tense with energy.
Because of that, whenever Tobias is at home, Severus prefers to be outside of it.
His feet take him elsewhere, lurking and never making his presence known, all around Spinner's End where he can see what his neighbours are up to, the dirty river where he can look at rubbish being washed away by the currents, and to the playground in a park a bit farther away where he observes other children and wonder if they too, have magic they cannot control.
Once or twice Severus finds himself wandering near the landfill, but never really crossing the threshold that is the flimsy wired gate. At a distance he watches the men working in the dumpsite and watches as dustbin lorries arrive and dump even more waste into the landfill. There are also other people, non-workers, loitering around the landfill, people who are from Spinner's End or other neighbouring areas. The workers didn't seem to mind them.
Severus regularly sees a group of rowdy older teenagers from Spinner's End. They sift through and pull rubbish, most specifically different types of metals, from the endless piles, collecting them in the little wooden hand cart they lugged around. Afterwards, they cart off their finds somewhere far, farther than the next neighbourhood that Severus is scared to wander out on his own, and then come back just before dark, counting coins on their palms.
"Oi! You there!"
Severus blinks. He's been staring blankly at the teenagers, lost in his own thoughts, that he only just noticed one of the teenagers waving towards his direction.
Me? He points to his chest.
"Yeah! You! Com'ere!"
Hesitantly, he crouches through the flimsy wired gate separating the landfill from the residential area, and into the landfill. This is the first time he's stepped foot on it, the first time he's stood on a ground made of trash.
"Oi, you're Snape's boy, right? Steven?" asked the boy who waved at him. He had a large gap in his tooth.
"I-It's S-Severus."
"Sev'rus, what an odd name," the gap-toothed boy nodded towards Severus. "Hullo, Sev'rus. I'm Charles."
Severus wrinkled his nose. The smell is even worse this close. He brings his smock up to his nose.
"You'll get used to it," smiles Charles wryly.
"Who's that?" Another boy peered out of Charles's shoulder.
"Snape's boy. Sev'rus."
"Snape's boy? The weird one-" A boy with a brown cap started before getting elbowed in the sternum, "ow!"
"Be careful around here, mate, lots of broken glass and sharp objects poking through the rubbish, yeah?" Another one said, with lots of freckles on his face.
"Does your mum know you're here, Steve?" A boy with glasses asked.
"Ah, never mind that, he's here now. 'Might as well help us, we could really use it," Charles said. "Help us out mate, yeah? We got a big load today, we gotta hurry before they start crushing 'em."
"You called a six year old to help us, Charles?"
"I-I'm s-seven!" huffs Severus.
Charles laughs. "See, Robs? He's seven. And I know Sev'rus can do it. You're a fast learner, aren't you? We'll make it worth your time. You ever done this before?"
Severus shakes his head.
Charles gestures around.
"You see all this? You might think they're rubbish and worthless, but think again. A lot of these you can take to scrap shops at Brewsters Road and sell them. A whole line of shops, just waiting for you. They take anything, things like metal, wood, textile, glass, you name it. You can even take broken appliances, they sell for more!"
"Think of it as treasure hunting," the freckled boy supplies.
"Right you are Tony! Exactly like treasure hunting. You look for treasures, not to keep, but to sell. So, are you in, mate?"
Severus nods.
"Awesome," Charles grins, clapping his back. "Let's get started, then."
The boys teach Severus how to differentiate metals from each other, which offcuts are worth collecting, which scraps sell for more, and how to be careful to avoid getting hurt when sifting through the rubbish. Severus absorbed everything like a sponge, eager to learn.
One of the boys gives him his pair of thick gloves, which are very large on Severus's own little hands, and Severus immediately gets to work, being no stranger to handling rubbish. He examines the colour, weight, and feel of each metal material, flips it around, carefully manoeuvres around its sharp and rusty edges.
"Aye, that's a good one," Charles comments every now and then at the item Severus is holding, gesturing at their hand cart.
In one of the piles that Severus is sifting through, he comes across a black wooden box, wrapped in a brown paper bag. Good wood, he thinks, excited that he has found another item to sell, when the lid of the box falls off its rusty hinges, spilling what looks like an old piece of cloth into his lap. He picks it up and unfolds it to reveal a frayed hat with a wrinkled wide brim.
There is something strange about it. Or rather, it makes Severus feel something strange.
He puts it on and finds the hat to be extremely large on his person, his entire head almost swallowed whole by the brim.
"Ah, finally. Someone after years!"
Severus jolts, jostling the hat off his head. He looks around and sees no one near him, the other teenagers preoccupied with their own piles to go through. It's strange, he could've sworn he heard a voice of someone, perhaps someone older, talking to him very closely, almost as if their mouth is directly to his ears.
"Alright there, Steve?" Tony asks, a few piles of rubbish away.
Severus nods and waves him away.
He takes the hat and wears it again.
"Oh no, darling! I didn't mean to scare you. Don't go away!"
Is this inside my head? Severus thinks.
"Why yes, dear, it is! I go on top of your head and inside your mind," the hat-voice says.
How?
"Magic, of course! I'm made of magic, and so are you! You do know you're a wizard, don't you? Otherwise I wouldn't have awoken and you wouldn't have heard me."
Yes, my mum's a witch.
"Yes, Eileen Prince. A wonderful lady and a brilliant witch."
Severus jerks his head at the mention of his mother's name. You know her?
"Only through your mind dear, I can see your memories and from your memories I'll know you better and tell what type of person you are."
What type of person am I? Can you see my future?
"You're still so young, dear. What I see now will likely be subjected to change as you grow older, but I do know you adore your mother and you respect your father, despite what he's slowly becoming. I also see your passion in magic, your unending curiosity, the strong independence you harbour, and the flames of your ambition. These are all traits of a wizard that'll do great things, Severus Snape."
Severus's heart speeds up at the thought of being a full-fledged wizard, complete with his own wand and set of brand new robes. I want to be a wizard that'll do great things.
"And you can be! I've been around for a long time. I've talked to many witches and wizards before you. I witness some fail and some succeed. The road to greatness is never easy, you must have dedication, discipline, and determination. Build connections with other witches and wizards, as well. There is strength in numbers."
His head spins. What exactly are you?
"Why, I'm a talking hat, dear!"
Severus sniffs and he swears he feels the hat shake in mirth on his head, pleased with itself. But who created you? Why did they create you?
"Goodness me, Severus. I say I am made of the minds I have seen. There are only a handful of my kind created in the Wizarding World, long, long ago. I haven't crossed paths with a single one in centuries, unfortunately. I reckon some of them are no more.
"I am certain, though, that you will meet another one of me someday. I've heard they've been calling themselves The Sorting Hat and have stayed in Hogwarts for a very long time."
Hogwarts! He knows Hogwarts, his mother has shared stories of when she was a student there. Why didn't you want to stay at Hogwarts? Severus imagines Hogwarts the way Eileen describes it: a large old castle filled with excitement, knowledge, and magic. It's infinitely better than here, in this landfill. How did you end up here, anyway?
"Staying in one place isn't the life I wanted. I want to explore the world, see as many brilliant minds of all ages from all walks of life as possible! I didn't want to restrict myself only to the minds of children, no offence, Severus.
"I will leave that to the Sorting Hat, though I have some objections as to his insistence that someone's character can only be defined once and put into such narrow classifications. That's an entirely diminutive perspective of a person. I believe people can change who they are, if they put in the work of course.
"Oh dear, I'm getting sidetracked, what was your other question? You truly are too curious for your own good. How I ended up here? The movement of life, dear. I prefer to be in a constant state of motion. One day I'm with you, the next I'll be gone."
The feeling of envy washes over Severus. What would it be like to come and go as one pleases? To not feel bound to another place? I want to explore other places too. I want to leave this place. I want to go far away.
"Someday soon, Severus. Your life has barely begun. I have faith you will go far in life."
"Oi, Sev'rus, you alright mate? What's with the hat?" Charles asks.
It takes Severus a few seconds to remember he has to use his mouth to speak.
"I-I f-found it in this b-box."
"That's good wood," Charles says when he sees the black box, "I bet it'll sell good. You done here, Sev'rus? We best be going to the shops, it's a bit of a walk from here. You gonna keep wearing that hat?"
"Y-yes."
"Thanks, darling," the voice says.
"Cool hat, Steve!" Tony remarks.
"Awesome!" Another boy says. "You look like a proper warlock."
The boys fill their walk towards Brewsters Road with chatter and banter, with Severus towing behind them, having his own conversation with the hat. By the time they're done, when the sun was setting against the dilapidated brick houses of Spinner's End, walking home from the scrap shop, his pocket was heavier and clinking with coins, the patchy old hat still on his head.
He feels full in the belly, though he hasn't eaten since morning, and tingly all over, though he doesn't feel cold.
"I believe that is called happiness, dear," the hat-voice says. "You're happy tonight. You've made new friends, and you earned money selling scraps!"
Severus smiles. Maybe it's all in his head, but he feels like the wrinkles of the hat shift into an upcurve smile.