Chapter One
It had been a long time – a very long time – since he had lived at home. The terrace house was musty; dust lay on the furniture like a layered veil, slowly obliterating the faded patterns and mercifully hiding the holes where the mice had made merry. Grime on the windows obscured all but the strongest rays of the sun, which were rarely seen in this grubby little town anyway. Severus Snape, formerly of Hogwarts and now in that limbo between the end of his education and the beginning of the rest of his life, put down his school trunk and muttered a curse at the lack of house elves and the complications inherent in living in a Muggle location.
A small cloud of mould and soot rose behind him as he strode through the house, flinging open doors to discover further signs of neglect. The dampness from the river at the end of the lane had seeped through the floorboards and started eating at the carpet, and black beetles scurried into shelter when he incautiously lifted a curtain to peer through the window. Another moment and Snape discovered exactly how comfortable the beetles had made themselves, as the fabric of the curtain shattered in his hands and fluttered to the ground like so many dead moths.
He was starting to wonder exactly what he had intended to achieve by coming home after all this time when there was a knock at the front door. The house was not large, and within a few seconds he reached the door, managing to avoid barking his shins on the trunk he had left in the front room that came straight in off the street. He opened the door cautiously, and donned his most supercilious attitude to face the stranger knocking.
"Yes?" The coldness of the single word would have frozen a less determined person, but the little shape at the bottom of the soot-stained steps was not daunted. Snape peered down , and a pair of bright eyes look up at him with a friendliness he had not encountered since Lucius Malfoy had left at the end of his first year.
"Good morning! Oh my." The voice was slightly croaky, and came from what might have been a pepperpot except that it was actually a rather short woman, rounder than she was high and swathed in a coat of indeterminate hue and a scarf of very determined carmine. "You've grown."
"I. Beg. Your. Pardon?"
Snape's voice could hardly have been less welcoming, but the visitor did not seem put off by its rudeness. She bustled up the stairs and stood on tip-toe to peer closely at the youth, peering through a bottle-lensed pair of glasses in a way that suggested that they were not as effective as they were thick.
"You were such a scrawny lad – nor as far through as a kipper, and now look at you. Wherever it was they sent you, at least they fed you well."
Snape's patience was running extremely thin, and the thought of having to cope with this old biddy was becoming intolerable. "I don't believe I know you, madam. Now if you'll excuse me I have a house to rescue." He turned, but her hand shot out and grabbed at his arm, preventing the door from closing.
"No, of course you wouldn't remember me. You'd gone to school by the time I met your mum. Lovely, she was, poor lass. And always talking about you. Couldn't say enough about how well you were doing, and how you must have been brighter than all the rest. But silly me! I haven't introduced myself. Mrs Pennyman, your next door neighbour." Somehow, before he could stop her, she'd bustled past him and into the front room.
"Oh it would break your mother's heart to see the state this is in now. As if it wasn't already broken ... but I'll not speak ill of the dead. She had a hard time of it, but once she had the place to herself, she kept it neat and clean! Not a speck of dust, though the furniture had seen better days. Well!" Mrs Pennyman turned to face him, her hands on her hips. "It's not fit for a body to live in, and that's the truth. You look tired beyond belief, and I don't believe this house has seen a duster or a broom for the last four years, so we'll have a nice hot cup of tea and then we'll get this place livable again!"
