REFLECTIONS ON A PRINCE'S LIFE
In a dusty corner that daylight never fell upon crouched a skinny dark haired boy. Feelings of rage surged through his frail body, his head burning, his hands trembling as she sat hunched against the wall. His body rocked to and fro, his head hitting the wall behind him, soothing his rage and preventing the tears from falling.
Severus was undernourished and rarely saw the light of day; a pale and sickly looking boy of ten. Since his earliest memories he had lived on the scraps thrown from his father's plate and never dared to stray from his dingy corner of the kitchen whilst his father was present in the house. His father, Harry Snape was tall in height and had a distinctive hook-nose; he was a poor but proud man who prided himself on his physical strength and power; each evening he would use the dismantled parts of a car engine as weights to build his muscles.
To test his strength Harry would wait until his wife, Eileen, began preparing the evening meal, a task that she still found difficult without the use of a wand. Each demonstration of strength would follow the same pattern; Eileen's thin delicate form would hunch as Harry entered the room. She struggled with the hot pans of boiling water her head lowered trying to disappear. Harry would grab her long lank hair and throw her against the wall. The crash of crockery would ring throughout the room, Severus would press into the wall hugging his knees in anticipation and dread of hearing his mothers screams.
"This is for your own education boy", Harry ranted at his son, "this is all that mutants are good for" he would shout as he demonstrated his rage on Eileen.
Severus' Mother Eileen was a fully trained witch and had graduated with honours from Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry was however a muggle and had confiscated Eileen's wand during their first year of marriage. Severus reflected on his memories of his Mother with sadness, but also comfort. When his Father was out of the house Eileen would take her son into the woodlands surrounding their house to pick herbs and collect small and unusual animals. Always she would speak softly to him and stroke his hair away from his eyes. Eileen rarely embraced her son and he grew to associate affection with this one simple contact.
"You have beautiful hair darling but it keeps covering up you deep dark eyes". she would say as they stopped to pick herbs.
One particular bright spring day the two of them walked across a broken down country road that led to the dark woods carrying empty jars to collect pieces of nature. Eileen let an explanation of surprise as she stooped to the ground and retrieved a shrivelled kidney shaped stone.
"Look Darling! Look at this!
"What is it?"
"It's a bezoar"
Severus looked into his mothers sunlit face with puzzlement.
"These are really rare and very useful" she turned the stone over and over in her fingers looking at it intensely, "you don't normally find them just lying around on the floor".
She held out the shrivelled stone to Severus who took it tentatively.
"Let us walk on now, I need to get some more of my special leaves today"
Severus tore his eyes away form the stone and nodded his agreement to her.
"Tell me more about the stone, Mother, is it something special from your world?"
"I'll tell you anything you want to know as we walk Darling, but you must never mention anything of this to your Father"
