BLACK LOVE
Chapter One: Spinner's End
The television was blaring on the hot summers day. A man wearing a wife beater and boxers was passed out by the open window in a tired armchair. His beer gut rose and fell with his breathing. His arm was limp beside the chair. On the floor were several empty beer bottles. The man was balding and getting along in age. A small black haired boy was seated on a chair on the dining table in the corner, his head pouring over a thick dusty paperback. His onyx black eyes narrowed as he stumbled on one paragraph. Despite the weather he was wearing a long sleeved tunic. From the kitchen he could hear his mother singing as she baked her son's favourite, pumpkin pie.
Severus Snape jumped when he heard the shatter of glass and his mother shrieking. "Freak!" He heard a child's voice scream from outside. His father grunted, still heavily asleep. Severus ran to his mother who was shaking, glass on the front of her hands as she shielded herself from the impact. Severus got her wand from the counter and started healing the cuts as his mother weeped softly.
"I wish you'd tell them off." Severus muttered as he bandaged her hands.
"They're only children." Sniffed his mother. "Such a good boy."
Severus gave her a small smile.
"It's a beautiful day." Eileen Snape said, dusting her apron and continuing to stir the mixture. "Why don't you go and play with Lily? Come over later for tea and we can have pumpkin pie and iced tea in the garden."
Snape nodded and ran outside. It took him ten minutes to walk over to the Evans house. Her house was much nicer than his. Large and light, with a front lawn bigger than his garden. It was a Georgian house with a large white door at the centre of the house. He knocked on the door and fidgeted as he waited. Tucking his hair behind his ear he thought he probably should have had a shower before but it was too late, someone was opening the door.
"Sev!" The red haired girl ran back inside, slamming the door in his face. Snape barely managed to formulate a response when she returned with a purse slung across her shoulder. They both headed the same direction without conferring with each other. Over the last year they spent most of their time in the park round Lily's house. Whether it rained or shined. Lily Evans was his first ever friend. His best friend. She was radiant. Everything he wasn't. She managed to balance him. He felt complete in her presence.
"No Petunia?" Severus asked as he sat on their regular spot. An old swing in their favourite derelict park. A new park had been refurbished by the council ten minutes away from Snape's house but they prefer their privacy. Rather, Severus did. He turned to see her frown as she kicked the ground and lifted her legs to let gravity sway her in the still and humid air.
"She hasn't talked to me since I got my Hogwarts letter." Lily said sadly. "I think she hoped that you were making it up."
Severus didn't know what to say. So he didn't say anything at all. He told her about the book he was reading. Past case studies of the dangerous things people have done off strong love potions. Lily laughed, finding it hard to believe that love could be destructive.
"You'd be surprised" Snape said softly looking at her as she looked straight ahead at the burning sun as she swung without force. Accidental magic again, yet, he suspected she had learnt to control it. She was going to be a powerful witch. The thought made him hungry with- for- her- power. Only ten years of age these impulses lay dormant and for now, the thought just made him proud of his friend.
"Crabbe!"
Severus and Lily turned to see a tall boy with white blonde hair walking after a younger boy. Following him were two dark haired children. One boy and one girl. They looked almost identical. The girl was smoking on a cigerette. The tall boy turned and snatched it out of her mouth.
"Muggle filth!" Then the boy slapped her. "Wait till your mother hears about this."
The girl spat by his feet, brought another cigarette and lit it in front of his face. The boy's face turned red and he stormed off.
"Do you have to aggravate him like that?" Her brother sighed before taking the cigarette she offered him as she lighted it for her.
Severus and Lily stared at eachother. They were children! They looked their age and they were smoking on the stuff Snape's father was dying of.
"He's a poncy twat that's why." The girl blew the smoke in accomplished hoops.
The boy snorted in agreement.
The girl looked around and saw Lily gawping at her. Lily blushed as their eyes met but she couldn't look away. The girl couldn't be older than ten yet there she was, carrying herself like a young adult. Smoking with such an art she wondered when she started.
Lily then smiled at her and gave her a little wave. Snape cringed.
"Lily" he hissed, but it was too late, they had caught the girls attention. She was walking over to them with her brother following after her, surveying them with interest.
"Hello" Lily hopped off the swing and offered the girl her hand. "I'm Lily, this is Severus, what's your name?"
"Aw isn't she darling?" The girl took her hand and shook it firmly. "Aquarius. This is my brother Sirius."
"You're not from around here." Severus blurted out. Lily blushed a little at his lack of decorum.
Sirius snorted.
"I take it you are."
"We live just round the corner." Lily offered, not wanting to make things awkward. "What brings you to Spinner's End?"
"A family gathering" said Aquarius with distaste. "Lucius has to keep an eye on us but thank god we lost him. Crabbe ran off so he's gone looking for him."
"Aren't your family very nice?" Lily enquired. "Sev's father isn't nice either."
Severus glowered at her. Lily was so nice and open she expected others to be just the same.
"Our family are… " Sirius hesitated.
"Evil." Aquarius said quite seriously, inhaling her cigarette. "They're prejudiced against…your kind."
"Aqua." Sirius said warningly.
"Poor people." Aquarius corrected herself.
"Excuse me?"
Then Severus looked at the two siblings closely and realized they wore cloaks, not coats over their clothes. They were dressed formally. The girl wore a black dress and the boy a shirt and undone bow tie.
"You don't mean muggles?" said Severus.
"Ah!" Aquarius looked at her brother, poking a tongue out. "You see, they're wizards."
"But I'm muggleborn"
"How fascinating." Aquarius looked at her hungrily. "Our parents never let us talk to your kind. Where do you get your magic from if it's not hereditary? Mother says you steal it but I can't see little children capable of stealing magic."
"I didn't steal my magic!" Lily said with outrage.
"Didn't hear me say I didn't believe it." Aquarius gave her a hard look before going on "So how do you do it?"
"I didn't do anything" Lily folded her arm defensively. "I started doing accidental magic. I didn't know what it was but then I met Sev, he's a half-blood. He told me I was a witch."
"Hmm." Aquarius sat down on the grass and lay back. "I wonder how that works."
"You've got your Hogwarts letters then?" Sirius asked. "We're twins, we received ours a few weeks ago. Can't wait to get out of this hell hole."
"You don't act eleven" Lily said suspiciously.
"That's the Black charm" sniggered Sirius. "Treated like little adults as soon as we can walk. Pure-blood lords and ladies."
"You're from the Noble House of Black?" Severus said with awe.
"The heir" said Black with a hint of disgust.
"Keep acting that way and Regulus will take your throne dear brother" said Aquarius proudly. "Lets just say we are the black sheep of the family."
"When did you start smoking?"
"A year ago. Snuck them from my uncle's pocket." Aquarius shrugged. "I do it coz mother says it's a filthy muggle habit of Uncle's. Everything she despises I seek to perfect."
Lily went to sit near the girl who looked years beyond her age and gave her a hug. Sirius and Severus looked at eachother. Aquarius relaxed and hugged her back a little with a small chuckle.
"You are a fascinating creature." Aquarius took a strand of her hair and played with it. "Are all muggles like you?"
Lily laughed.
"You really have no idea do you?"
"Not a clue."
Lily looked at her watch and jumped seeing the time.
"Sev I've got to go!" Lily looked back at them and said "I guess I'll be seeing you at Hogwarts."
"Bye Lily" Aquarius waved.
There was a silence as Severus scuffled his shoes and looked anywhere but at the two new acquaintances.
"Aren't you going to go home?" Aquarius asked, looking at the boy properly for the first time.
"I don't like going home." Snape said honestly.
"Hmph." Aquarius laughed bitterly. "I should introduce you to my mother."
"But-" Severus stopped himself.
Aquarius looked back at him, her silver eyes like pools of mercury.
"You're a Black, you're nobility."
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet." Her voice sounded so tragic. Severus felt his heart falter.
"And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you," he murmured.
Sirius was lying on the grass, his eyes closed as his sister sat beside him looking blankly at the creeping sunset. Being with her made her crave Lily. Her aura was full of grief and despair. They were two hearts beating to the same slow death march.
