A/n: In my head this was going to be a chapter fic but I'm now on the fence about it. If you like the story go ahead and alert it though, because in the end Snape-who by the way I don't own, Ms. Rowling does-will probably convince me to go on with it. Warning!: This first part does contain violence. If you don't like, don't read. If you do read, reviews are much appreciated! One last thing-I know I'm not the first to do a rewrite like this...but hopefully, I do good at my own version of it though it will follow many things canon.

In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small... -Charles Dickens "Great Expectations"

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The city of Cokeworth sat under the dark cover of night. Against the raven backdrop a tall tower loomed upwards like the dreadful monster in a child's horror story, though it didn't lurk in a closet or breathe heavily beneath the bed. No, it was visible always. During the day time it belched dark clouds into the pale, lifeless sky, and at night it was quiet but seemed ever watchful as the moon hung just above its peak to give it an eerie glow. Under the dark eye of the chimney and the pale face of the moon, sat row upon row of small houses, nearly identical, along dirty brick streets littered with garbage and riff raff. Drunks hunkered in the gutters and wove along the streets, tripping over broken stones and strewn rubbish. In shadowed alleyways men slept on whatever they could, or leered around corners, eyes and teeth glinting wolfishly in the night, waiting for prey to fall upon them. Women with broken teeth and greasy hair haunted the corners and disappeared with men who would treat them badly, but for a few coins it didn't matter anymore.

During the day, men would file in their clunky boots and half-buttoned shirts, down to the mill—if they still held a job there. Even as the cities main source of employment it didn't fare well. More men were laid off every day it seemed, their haggard faces screwed up into misery as they plodded with stooped shoulders towards homes that held nothing but uncertainty behind their closed doors. How would there be food on the table? It was a struggle and common question for many, and chins were down more than they were up.

The poorest lived near the river, on a derelict street called Spinners End. Spinners End was where no one wanted to end up. The lowest of the impoverished lived there in tiny run-down houses. The stinking odor of the polluted river permeated everything down there, and it was a local jibe to say that it wasn't the river, but the people of Spinners End who gave off the pungent stench. There was always something wrong going on in Spinners End, but any authorities had long since given up responding. The one thing about Spinners End was that no matter what vermin lived there, it always remained consistent: consistently horrible, and no one wanted to be bothered with being there unless they absolutely had to.

It was inside one of these tiny and unkempt houses that a small boys screaming sounded. Neighbors were near enough to have heard, but such things meant nothing to these people. They were used to commotions at all hours from all sides and much like those off of Spinners End, those on it held little concern for whatever might be going on. Even the loud, monotonous, buzz of bug drone from the rivers banks did not stop in their whirring and humming. It was as if they too were used to such things as if screaming and shouting was as common and expected as the rise of the sun each morning—and down here, it was.

"Yeh worfless focken' brat!"

The roar of Tobias Snape spilled out from his twisted mouth, heavily accented, and sloppy on a noxious exhalation of alcohol soaked breath. One of his enormous, hard, workman's hands closed around the tiny upper arm of a terrified boy who was so pale he looked as if he'd never seen a ray of sun. They boys black hair was limp and uncared for. It fell over his forehead and into his wide eyes which were just as dark and gleaming under a sheen of frightened tears. They boys breaths were panicky, his thin chest rising and falling quickly beneath a stained shirt which was ridiculously large on him. Some of the stains were old, but the large wet blotches were fresh, and the sheet on the cot in his closet of a bedroom matched. He didn't mean to let it happen, but sometimes when he slept, he didn't feel it in time to wake up and go to the bathroom properly.

"How focken' ol' are yeh now, boy!" Tobias shook the boy who gave a small scared squeak, as his body was shaken and his head flopped on his neck as if it wasn't secured well enough. The boy didn't know if he was meant to reply or not. His throat seemed closed however, and when he opened his mouth timidly to reply, nothing came out. "Too soddin' ol' for this rubbish, that's wot! Lookit ya all dirty an' pathetic an' stinkin' a'piss!"

The back of Tobias' enormous hand struck loudly into the side of the boys face, wrenching his head to the side. The boy's face was curtained behind his hair but for the end of his large nose and the bottom of his slight chin. His thin lips quivered and he closed his eyes tightly, resigning himself not to scream again or what was more likely—to cry. The boy could feel every horrible feeling building up inside of his body, making it tremble and quiver, making his lungs and throat ache and his eyes sting with need to release it but he knew he'd only be in more trouble. His father hated crying. His small hand touched the side of his face where it throbbed from the hard slap. His other shoulder ached and his arm was beginning to feel numb from the unrelenting grip his father still held around it.

"Toby, please!" The boys mother—tall, thin, pale, black-haired—spoke up in a timid voice from behind her drunk and furious husband. The boy looked up at her through his lank hair with pleading eyes, but she seemed to be trying hard not to look at him. Instead she kept her eyes on her husband, her jaw set tight, her hands and slender twig like fingers wringing themselves as she went on in a voice that trembled just as much as her son was. "He's only five years old. He doesn't mean-"

Tobias' reached out for her with the same hand he'd slapped his son, and curled his sausage-thick fingers into the fabric of his wife's shabby and faded nightgown. He yanked her near to him, their noses pressed together, and snarled.

"Eileen-"

"Mummy!" The boy squeaked.

"Shuddup!" Tobias roared at him, turned back to his wife, advised her with spit flying off his words to do the same, and then gave her a great shove. Eileen fell backwards onto the stone floor, and lay still for a moment. Her hair was spilled over her face and her gown so far up her legs that her son could see the sick colorful smudges of bruises both old and new that tattooed her thighs.

"M-mum!" The boy was now hiccupping with sobs that he tried desperately to keep from coming. He smooshed his hand against his lips as if that would help. Tears spilled over his long black lashes and down his sallow cheeks. His father's heavy hand was colliding with his head again, horrible things were being screamed at him, but he could hardly make sense of them as he was dragged just a few feet into the cubby of a bathroom.

"…see to it ya do it n'more boy!"

His father was shouting, his eyes flashing as if fire was behind them. His brownish rotting teeth were bared in a monstrous snarl of twisted lips set below a bulbous nose and above a prominent chin that was poorly shaven. He wasn't holding the boy by his arm anymore, but by the back of his oversized and filthy shirt. The boy barely felt the stinging or tingling that was needling back into his arm as the numbness drained out of it. The faucet for the dingy, black-ringed bathtub had been turned on, and the pipes gave a great rumbling quiver before a gush of water that sounded unearthly loud to the boy pelted into the tub in which a moldering stopper had been shoved into the drain.

"Tha's where yer goin' boy. Y'see?" Tobias leaned the boy over the edge of the tub, both hands wrapped savagely into the scraggly black hair. They boys prominent nose was just shy of touching the shallow surface of the water. He could smell the overwhelming sour of mildew and mold. The water touched the tip of his nose, and with a horrible, taunting laugh, his father yanked him back a bit, just enough to put a bit more space between the boy and the rising water.

"Goin' soak yer fock-ugly head 'til it gets through to ya. Which'll prolly be never." Tobias leered. He yanked the boy back again as the water rose over the tip of his nose. "Goin' go for a swim, wash this greasy mop a' yours, grind yer nose to the bottom an' maybe leave ya ta rot. What use're ya anyway? Jus' anuffer worfless bitch ta take me har' earned money!"

Again Tobias yanked the boy back, tormenting him with the rising water, and sending sharp pain through the frail neck with his careless twists and turns of the boys head as he struggled though he was too small and weak against his large father to have any hope of getting away. The boys frantic cries begged him to stop, he sobbed—unable to stop—that he would be good and not wet the bed again.

"Please, please Fa-"

The boy's pleas were cut off as his head was plunged under the cold water, his mouth still opened on its last word filled with water that he tried to swallow down rather than to inhale, but his nose had filled up too and his throat burned as the liquid poured down and choked him. His nose screamed with pain as it was jammed against the bottom of the tub. His fathers hand pressed even harder at the back of his immersed head. The boy waved his small arms, the large sleeves of his shirt flapping and dangling into the water. He kept struggling because it was instinct, and just now there was nothing left in him but that. His father still held him under, crushing his nose so hard against the floor of the tub that among the seemingly magnified rush of water that still pounded from the faucet, the boy could hear a sickening crackle and the pain in his nose doubled and seemed to fill his whole face. His throat felt on fire, and his lungs ached and throbbed with need for oxygen and to cough out the water that had gotten in. His struggling began to lessen, and a heavy, dizzy, feeling began to swim into his head and wrap some sort of gauzy barrier between himself and the pain at various points in his body. The pain in his nose felt dull and far away, his chest felt impossibly tight but it wasn't hurting anymore, and his shoulder might as well have been across the street for what he could feel of it. The haze coming over him was warm and comforting, but then his body began to act again of its own accord, as if it knew this was its last chance before that warmth took over for good. I have to get out…

The thought exploded into the boys mind, and he felt a renewed strength and will to fight again. His arms jutted into the tub, his small hands finding the bottom and palms resting against it. He gave a great shove up against his father, his arms trembling like spaghetti, his neck crying out in pain, bubbles exploding from his mouth and his lungs gulping in even more water—and then suddenly, the pressure at the back of his head was gone and he whipped his head out of the water, gasping and choking, coughing out water and taking in such tremendous breathes of air that he felt as if he would explode from it.

For a few moments the boy just lay there against the broken and dirty tiles, his fingertips twitching, his eyes rolling exhaustedly up to the ceiling, his thin chest heaving and falling in watery gasps. He was vaguely away that his nose was throbbing, and a diluted taste of blood seemed to be on his lips. With much effort, the boy curled onto his side, and then propped himself up on his knees. For a moment he thought he was going to vomit, but the urge passed, as he watched water from his soaked form pool around him, dappled with dots of blood that dripped warmly from his nostrils. He managed to look up, though his neck gave protest after having been abused. He saw his father lying motionless, his legs sprawled across the small space of floor, his back slouched into a corner and half against the door. The boy, now terrified again, backed himself up into the tiny space between the stained and smelly toilet stool, and the sink that was no longer to be used because the bend in the pipe had rusted through. There he stayed in a tight, shivering ball, his hands clamped over his mouth to make sure he kept quiet.

Moments later, the door was pushed as opened as it could be with his father partially against it, and his mother slipped inside. She stepped over Tobias's legs, turned the water off just as the tub was ready to spill over, and then looked back to her husband again. She knelt for a moment studying him, paying no attention to the boy huddled up in the corner and bleeding on himself. Without turning to look at him, she spoke to him, in a quiet voice that was eerily calm given the circumstances.

"Severus, go to your room."

Severus reluctantly un-wedged himself from the cramped hiding place, carefully stepped over his fathers large booted feet, pried the door open enough to let himself out, and scampered to his room. He stopped only to grab his flattened pillow from off of his cot, and then hid himself away in the closet. Up above him a few odd and pieces of clothing hung lopsidedly from bent wire hangers. The bottom contained only his one pair of shoes which were both too small and so worn that there were holes in the dirty canvas and the sole of one of them flopped like a tongue when he walked. As was most things in the house, the closet too was tiny, but so was Severus. He felt especially small and helpless just now, and his cold, frail, arms held tightly to his pillow which was splotched and stained brownish from sleep-drool, a greasy head, and tears that fell too often in the night.

"Severus?" His mother's voice which was never loud anyway, came very quiet and muffled. He heard the knob turn, and then the door creaked open. From the corner and underneath the shabby clothing, Severus could see her pale and boney legs, and the bottom of her nightshirt. "Come out." She said simply, and so he crawled out, still clutching to his pillow. She made no move to rush to him, to take him into her arms, to fawn over him or offer him any sort of comfort.

"S-sorry..mu-um." He said in a faint voice that barely conveyed the stuttered syllables. His throat still stung horribly, and the taste of blood was still in his mouth. He didn't look at her, but kept his eyes downwards on his pillow, noticing that now it was smeared with blood also. Eileen turned her back to him, peeled the wet sheet from his thin mattress, and flipped it onto the other side. Little good it had done, as the wetness had already begun to seep through. She pursed her lips together so tightly at this that they seemed to disappear. She muttered something under her breath, then turned back to Severus who was soaked and shivering, his hair clinging to his face and neck, his enormous shirt suctioning to his pale, fragile looking frame.

"Severus."

He looked up at her timidly, his cheeks red with embarrassment from what he had done to cause such a scene tonight.

"You okay, Mum?" He asked her so very quietly.

"Yes." She said cooly, and sat down at the end of Severus's cot. "What happened to your father?" She asked, looking down her long and hooked nose at him. His brows knitted together in confusion, an expression which hurt his swollen nose—as if it needed to be any larger.

"Dunno wha' 'appen mum. He…was…hol'in me down in…in there." Severus shivered hard, for a moment the sensation of the water closing in on him back again as though he were still struggling and drowning. "An' then…alls a sudden…'ee was offa me." Severus shook his head painfully, droplets of water coming off the wet tendrils of his hair. "Dunno. Is 'ee…awright?"

Severus wished darkly that no, his father was not all right. He hoped for a moment that maybe something really bad had happened to his father, and that he wouldn't get up from the washroom floor, that he'd never get up again and never yell anymore or drink or curse or hit. Severus' eyes welled with tears again. He knew it couldn't be true, and he knew he was horrible for thinking such things.

"He will be fine." Eileen said, her expression not having changed, but still hung in grim seriousness upon her features. "You simply stunned him, Severus. You…you're magical. You see…" She lowered her soft voice even further, and when she spoke again Severus had to move closer to be able to hear her. She bent close to him, her lips near his ear. "I am a witch, and you are a wizard."

Severus gasped, and for moments stood completely still, clutching limply to his pillow.

"Wha' d'you mean?" He finally asked, unable to believe her.

She laid her hand upon the top of his head, and spoke some strange word, and Severus gasped again. His entire person was dry. She then touched his shirt, said that word again, and it and his underpants were both dry as well. He dropped his pillow and snatched up the end of his shirt, lifting it up and peering at his grayish underwear beneath as if to make sure they really were dry. The elastic band that hugged his bony hips was frayed at one edge, and his mother touched this too, with the tips of her pale fingers.

"Reparo." She said, and the elastic mended itself. Severus's eyes were wide, and his fingers, much like smaller versions of her own, ran across the mended spot in wonder.

"We—we can do magic?" He asked her in awe, his mouth hung slightly open revealing his crooked and dingy teeth.

Severus climbed up onto the cot, a million questions clamoring to be asked. He listened to his mother speak of such things for hours, only daring to interrupt her now and then with a question simply because his growing excitement could no longer be contained at some points. She told him in hushed tones about a place called Hogwarts where young wizards and witches went away for school. She told him about the big scarlet train that took them there, and how one reached the platform by running through a barrier that was hidden from 'Muggles' which were non-magical people. She told him so many things that by the time she had finished for the night, he had nearly forgotten about the horrific scene from earlier, and his head felt on the verge of exploding with information and possibilities, and his young heart the same felt like bursting with hope.

"Mum, wait!" Severus stopped her with a small hand clinging to her nightgown. "If we're magic…then…then we don' 'afta stay do we? We could—we could leave, an' go live in the magic world!" His dark eyes looked up at her with a hopeful, pleading, light in them. She looked down at him sourly.

"No." She said plainly, and reached for the doorknob.

"But why!" Severus blurted out. She looked upon him even more severely.

"I am committed to your father, Severus."

"But…but…" Severus stammered. He felt as if she had just slapped him too. The pains from the nights worse experiences at his fathers hands reared up again and made him remember that he still hurt, and that he would hurt the next time his father went mad about something. "But wha' 'bout me, Mummy? He hurts me…" Severus hated how his last words came out on a whine. His mother wasn't looking at him now, but at some spot on the wall above and behind him. She looked cold, devoid of any comfort he longed for.

"He hurts me too, Severus. Go to bed." She opened the door then, but turned back to him once more, watching as he climbed up onto his cot. The dark urine stain had soaked through to this side by now, but it was beginning to dry up a bit. Severus was staring at it. "I can't fix that." She said, nodding slightly towards the slow-drying stain. "There's been enough magic done in this house tonight, and there wont be anymore. It isn't allowed. Do you understand?"

She waited for Severus to look up at her and nod, his dry hair now hanging in clumped ropes over his ears and at the sides of his face. His nose and eyes were swollen, dark purple bruising like a harsh mask against the pale skin. She looked away from him quickly, and left, shutting the door behind her.

As soon as she had gone, Severus scurried down off of his cot and across the tiny room to the one window. He stood on tip toe to reach the ledge and peer out into the night, up at the stars winking in the sky, at the moon hanging above the shadowy, smelly chimney. Somewhere out there, far away from Spinners End, there was a place for Severus Snape. All he had to do was make it until he was eleven years old, and then he would get a letter, be whisked away on a speeding scarlet steam engine, and he would be free from horrible people and horrible things. Hope bloomed strongly in his chest once more. He turned away from the window, crawled back into bed, and closed his eyes as he hugged his pillow. Severus drifted to sleep with a smile on his battered face, as he imagined how wonderful his life would be one day.

A/n: Please review! I like to know what you all think whether it be good or bad. The only way I know if anyone gives a flying duck about the fic is if you guys let me know! :)