Shampoo
A little boy sat on a little metal bed in a grey room the little grubby window of which came out onto a grey little street in the town of Spinner's End.
The sky outside was grey and the November wind blew gusts of chilly air against the window of the boy's little room. Everything around him seemed to reflect how he felt on this gloomy autumn day.
He sat on his bed, his arms around his knees, listening to the voices downstairs. The voices were yelling. He didn't like it, and yet it was such a common phenomenon in his home that he was no longer frightened by it. His parents were always fighting. He could not recall one day of all the six years of his life when his parents didn't have something to argue about. The door of his room opened slightly, and the boy on the bed shut his eyes in fear, afraid that it was his father who's come, seeking to take his anger out on somebody. Yet it was not his father. It actually wasn't a person at all, but a black, skinny cat, which slid into his room and began to creep towards his bed.
"Hello Spooky," the little boy said to the cat. The cat gave a raspy meow in response and jumped onto the boy's bed. The boy picked the cat up and held her close, his head against her lanky side, listening to her rhythmic purring. The cat was the only living thing he knew that didn't yell or argue or fight, and he loved her for that.
At that time the yelling downstairs seemed to have subsided, and the boy decided to brave coming out. He slunk down the stairs as quietly as possible, and found himself in a poorly-furnished and badly-lit living room. A woman stood at another dirty window, a hand parting the curtains so she could gaze outside. Her straight black hair curtained her face and shoulders as she breathed heavily. Suddenly aware of the presence of her son behind her, she turned around to look at him.
The boy looked at his mother, and he noticed that her face was red and that she looked as if she's just been crying. She walked towards him, got down on one knee so that her face was at the same level as his, and hugged him closely.
"You shouldn't be down here, my little Prince," she said quietly into his ear, but before the child could explain himself, an angry voice came from the kitchen.
"Why are you calling him Prince?" The boy saw his mother close her eyes and heard her inhale in distress.
"Tobias, please -" she began in a begging voice.
"He's no Prince," the voice continued, ignoring her, and a hook-nosed figure now became visible through the kitchen doorway. The figure spoke without giving one look at the pair in the living room. He had a glass in his hand, and was now looking for something on the kitchen shelves. "He's a Snape, and you bloody well know that, Eileen," the man finished, taking a bottle of whiskey from a shelf on the wall, opening it, and draining its contents into his glass.
The little boy Snape's mother exhaled, opened her eyes and gave Snape a weak smile. Then she pulled him towards her once again, and breathed into his ear, in a whisper barely audible
"You will always be my little Prince." Little Snape marveled at his mother's bravery.
Down in the kitchen, Snape senior drained his glass and then smacked it down onto the table with such force that it seemed miraculous that it didn't shatter, and with such noise that the pair in the living room shut their eyes in fear once more and gripped each other ever more tightly. There was a strained silence as the man surveyed his wife and child in disgust, and then gave his empty whiskey bottle a look of contempt. Finally having made up his mind, he yelled to his family, in a drunken voice, that he was going out, threw on an old tattered coat, and disappeared out the door.
At the sound of the shutting door, mother and son gave a nervous sigh of relief. Eileen pushed Snape away from her for a second and looked into his deep-blue eyes. She smiled a little more warmly, and he smiled back slightly.
"Mommy's got to go get some groceries for dinner tonight," she said, stroking his shiny black hair, "and you be a good boy and stay home. Spooky will keep you company, alright, Severus?" The boy nodded, blinking as his mother's silver eyes smiled at him. Then she kissed him on the forehead, got up, threw a cloak around her dress, and left the house. Severus ran up to the living room window, parted the curtains, and watched his mother walk down the cobble-stone street. She turned around, found her son watching her through the window, gave him a little wave, and then, looking around with a peculiar smile, she disappeared into thin air.
Severus ceased his waving and stepped away from the window. He has always wondered how his mother managed to do that, but every time he would ask, she said nothing but that he would understand eventually. Left alone in the little house, Severus pondered what he could do. He had no television like other people and he did not find listening to the radio very exciting. Suddenly an idea struck him. Some time ago, having little to no toys to amuse himself with, he created his own form of entertainment. Ever since his mother made him his own personal volcano out of a plastic bottle, baking soda, vinegar and red food-colouring, he was always fascinated by what mixing different things can do. The last time he tried it, he mixed some basic household materials and created a white substance that seemed neither liquid nor solid, or perhaps both at the same time. Feeling that familiar feeling of inspiration, he filled a pot with some water and placed it onto the stove, lit the stove with a match, and began to search the kitchen for the key ingredient.
Something that would make lots of bubbles, he thought, yet there was nothing of that sort in the kitchen, only an old sponge. Slightly disappointed, but not defeated, he zoomed out of the kitchen and burst into the white, ancient-looking bathroom. There, the answer stared him in the face. He reached for a big shampoo bottle that stood on one of the shelves above the sink. Then, with his prize in his hands, he zoomed back into the kitchen and drained the entire contents of the bottle into the pot, where the water was already boiling. Immediately, his potion began to bubble, and a rather maniacal grin spread over Severus's face. The grin disappeared in a few seconds' time, as the shampoo was now bubbling out of control.
"Ay!" Severus cried out, as the foam began to spill over the pot's edge. He quickly turned off the stove, and went to grab a cloth to wipe the bubbles off the stovetop, but at that moment the front door was swung open, and Tobias Snape staggered into the hall. He stunk of alcohol and cigarettes, and Severus realized that he's been at a pub. Tobias gave his petrified son an unfocused look, but then his eyes drifted onto the bubble-capped pot and the mess around it.
"Watcher doin' here?" he mumbled, staggering into the kitchen and leaving muddy footprints from his boots all over the floor. He stumbled up to the stove, belched loudly, and, swaying, tried to find something to hold on to to steady himself. His hands came to rest on one of the pot's handles, and, as Tobias put his entire weight on it, the pot toppled over, bringing Snape senior down with it. The hot soapy water splashed over Severus's legs, much of Tobias' body and all over the kitchen floor. Tobias roared in pain. He tried to get up, but because of his drunken state and the fact that most of the floor was covered by soap, he toppled back over after every attempt, roaring more loudly with each fall, his face distorted by fury.
Severus looked at his legs where the boiling water had spilled over them, but to his greatest surprise the pain that he's experienced seconds ago was no longer there, and the raw-looking burns were gone. He wondered if this was like his mother's ability to appear and disappear as she liked.
Severus's father staggered up and fell once more, cursing loudly. Seeing his anger, Severus suddenly became very afraid of Tobias. Forgetting all intentions of helping him, Severus turned and ran, slipping and sliding, towards the kitchen door, fear of what his father would do once he managed to get up driving him like a whip. He heard his father cry out behind him
"Come back here, you coward!" but didn't even dare to look back.
Taking two steps at a time, he ran up the stairs and into his room. Spooky was sleeping on his bed. He shut the door, and had every intention of locking it, but remembered that the lock was ruined, broken by his father after he made the discovery that Severus could keep him out of the room that way. Panicking now, he fiddled with the lock, hoping against all hope that it was still somewhat usable. Then, something inside the mechanism clicked and creaked, and a little cloud of dust came out the handle. Tenderly, Severus tried the door. It was locked. He tried again, harder, just to make sure, yet it was closed fast. Surprised and a little bit afraid, he backed away from the door, climbed into his bed, grabbed Spooky, pulled the sheets over his head and waited.
* * *
That night, there was a lot of yelling. Severus wasn't too sure what the yelling was for, because, for all he knew, mommy could clean up the mess with a wave of that stick she calls a wand, and she could heal father's burns in a flash with that gross-looking liquid she calls Dittany. Yet there was still a lot of yelling, more yelling than during any other time Severus could recall. After Severus told mommy about the burns and the lock, she looked pleased, but before he could ask her why, she went downstairs to do all the yelling. Now he sat on his bed, watching the shadows of his parents downstairs moving across the landing ceiling through his half-open door. Never again, he thought, never ever again in my life will I go anywhere near shampoo again....