The weather was much too bitter to occur in the middle of summer. Wind blew throughout many small cities in the Northern part of Great Britain: some cases found the storms to be much too strong against the decaying foundations of the houses, and many residents opted for an impromptu vacation in the South.

This is why many brick houses along Spinner's End sat alone, not a single source of life emerging from behind thick yellow curtains, or from the backyard.

Even the chimney from the mill, which was a prominent feature in the town's landscape, had not issued a single cloud of dust or pollution for several weeks.

In fact, if one were to take a mid-afternoon stroll down Spinner's End, all the way to the river that served as a border for the town, one would be quite right to assume that this town had been empty for several years.

That is unless, of course, one would take into account Severus Snape.

But no one ever does.

Severus Snape, of Number 922, had inherited the house of his parents after his father left, and his mother passed on. The house rarely received any cleaning, as a young man left alone in a house definitely has other things to do before he begins to tidy up.

Severus rarely emerged from the house: the few times he did, mothers would urge their children to turn the other direction: many residents even saw an appearance by Severus Snape as a threat of the neighborhood pedophile, and would shut their curtains and lock the doors.

This did nothing to stunt the children's fascination with him, though: a multitude of rumors had been spread from child to child like cooties on the playground. Many children believed that 'Old Man Snape' failed to come from his house because of his 'terrible murderous past, that forced him to keep locked up in his house': while other children saw Snape's dark and pale appearance as evidence of his vampirism, and that going too near to Number 922 will have you sucked into his vampire clutches, only to never emerge.

But Severus was not the neighborhood pedophile. He was not a former serial killer. And he most certainly was not a vampire. Severus Snape was simply a quiet young man, age twenty, who did not care for the company of strangers, or for that of Muggles. He preferred to sit alone in his house all day, reading books from the impressive library in the sitting room.

Occasionally, if the urge struck him, Severus would emerge from his house at around twilight. He would then walk towards the woods, and the river that sat before them. Very rarely did he see anyone else out for a walk: this was especially true now, as the entire population of Spinner's End, if not of the Mill Town itself, had evacuated, leaving Severus as the temporary sole resident.

Which was how he preferred it.

The wind carried various items of trash across the cobblestone: if it wasn't for the heavy rain, the wind surely would have been able to carry the trash higher above the ground.

But it was how it was, and so Severus nearly lost his balance several times because of the trash on the ground. The strong gusts whipped back his dark greasy hair, while the rain hit his body with strong force.

Anyone with much sense and no purpose would have turned back and headed home, but Severus had little sense at the moment, and much purpose.

As he came nearer to the woods, he passed a small playground. The swing set had fallen into ruins, with one seat detached entirely. The monkey bars had been bent, and the slide was beginning to decay as a sign that several years had gone by without so much as the second glance of a child: when the new playground was put up eight summers ago, no child bothered to come back to this playground. Severus still tried to visit while on his evening walks. He looked over his shoulder at a clump of overgrown bushes. He paused for a moment, looking back over at the swing set.

He smirked slightly to himself as he turned back to his home: tears stinging his eyes, though he'd believe it to be rain.

Severus returned to his house in no time at all. Closing the door tightly behind him, he tossed his cloak onto a wooden chair near the armchair in the den. Severus picked up his book from the armrest where he had left it, and continued to read.

It was quite a heavy book, on the history of pure-blood wizards in England, and also quite dull. Not soon after resuming to read, Severus closed the book and placed it on the small coffee table. Lifting himself from the armchair, Severus proceeded to search for a book from the shelves that lined the walls.

On the third shelf from the top sat the book that he chose: notably thinner than Pure-Bloods of Great Britain, but nevertheless impossible to finish in one sitting. Severus summoned the book with an 'Accio', and soon he was back in the armchair, and opening a rather old copy of Dreadful Demziens of the Deep.

Severus began to thumb through the yellowed pages, disappointment mounting as he realized it was just another donated book from a deceased wizard friend of his mother's. He was about to close the book when a photo fell from somewhere between page 320 and 394.

Severus picked up the photograph, intrigued. It was the first photograph he had ever seen present in his home.

In the photograph, a bright young girl waved cheerfully to the camera, while a sallow, hook-nosed boy hung back. His face was covered by greasy black curtains that was his hair, while the girl's hair was pulled back into two neat pigtails. Both were wearing robes, jumpers, and a striped tie: the girl wore a skirt, while the boy wore trousers. Though the picture was black-and-white, Severus knew that the girl's tie was red and gold, while the boy's was green and silver.

He held the photo steadily, four inches from the tip of of his nose. He did not pay much attention to his younger self: instead, he studied the beautiful girl who sat closest to the camera.

She still waved energetically: with every move of her hand, her eyes continued to sparkle, and with every sparkle in her eye, Severus felt his heart soar. What he wouldn't do to still be able to see that woman daily. But he hadn't seen her for three years: Wizard God knows where she was now, or what she was doing.

If only he could go back in time, and take back his offensive slur. Maybe she'd forgotten about it: he should drop by to say 'Hello'.

"You know, she and James Potter just had a baby boy."