Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not profit from this work.
Acknowledgements: Thank you to the invaluable Duskfall of RiverClan and DracoNunquamDormiens for beta skills unsurpassed.
Spinner's End.
That's where Tobias Snape chooses to house his family. A small, tightly cramped, dirty hovel of an estate. That's what they call them here: the dismantlement of a household into something awkward, broken and inglorious. A fitting home for a woman who had the world at her feet and magic coursing through her veins and gave all of it up for a man she met who had none of those and note even the faintest inclination to acknowledge the possibility of their existence.
Sometimes, in the deepest recesses of her soul, Severine allows herself to think of Eileen as Maman and herself as Severine in the way it was meant to be said, with the vowels all beautifully softened: the 'i' becoming an elongated 'e' that melts into a lovely end of longing and wanting and wistfulness. It is always uttered in that cultured, rakish purr Eileen has from smoking too many bulky, flakey cigars out the bedroom window during summers spent in France. A sweet history condensed into one faded, hazy photograph folded around a snippet of some Parisian gazette tucked into Eileen's cracked compact.
Severine's father never calls her by name. She thinks that Tobias Snape holds a deep-seated resentment towards his wife for choosing to name their child something so unabashedly foreign and, to add insult to injury, French to boot. She doesn't understand why Eileen chose to call her Severine. Eileen never even acknowledges the question no matter how many avenues Sev takes in her pursuit of the answer. Eventually, she pilgrimages to the main branch in the city centre after her local library yields no results and finds only the briefest of entries scuttled away between 'Severe' and 'Sevruga' in the crumbling, dusty encyclopaedia whose print is slightly faded and peeling amongst the feathery sheaves of paper. She's forced to give it up as a lost cause. She chalks up her attendance at the local Cokeworth Comprehensive as a tactical retreat on Eileen's part. Her victory in name leaving an open playing field where Tobias presses the home field advantage with zero remorse.
Her first day experiencing state-funded education is both frightening and dreary. She is dropped off by an extremely prejudicial Eileen for whom the concept of public education under the age of ten is somehow both beyond her comprehension and barbaric. Eileen eyes the decrepit industrial brick building with extreme distrust. Eyes narrowed, lips pursed and brow furrowed, she takes in the other children arriving at the gate. "Mind your manners. And be discreet." Eileen snaps, jerking Sev's collar into place and surreptitiously muttering spells under her breath that wrap around Sev like stiff cellophane. Sev had yet to manifest any extant magical ability and this, she is sure, is possibly the greatest reason for her attendance at this muggle institution. Not withstanding her father's well-meaning stolid vehemence approximating towards some semblance of parenting.
The children filtering through the school gates and into the cracked asphalt yard look as though life has leached them of all colour. their pale, wan faces, dusty from the pollution and debris of transit, seem to Sev as though they are looking at her through a shallow pool of murky water. Every emotion and reaction muted and distorted by the despondent atmosphere that permeates the air of Cokeworth. Sev feels a forceful nudge between her shoulder blades and turns round to see the back of Eileen's worn jacket bobbing though the crowd. "Bye Mam." She mouths to her feet and turns to face her fate.
"Who's that then." A frank, clear voice demands by her ear. Sev startles, bumping into the shoulder of a tall, stocky girl with bright, beady eyes and stumbles back from the force of the collision.
"Me mam." Sev says, hesitating as she takes in the thick coat, new shoes and manicured hands of the speaker. The girl snickers, the sound multiplying and Sev notices the girls loitering about her tall frame, smiles sharp and eyes sharper.
"Your mum thinks you're a boy?" The girl jeers, stepping uncomfortably close, the other girls forming an intimidating cloak of bodies behind her. Sev follows the girl's eye-line to the oversized jacket hanging from her shoulders and looks back up, perplexed.
"It's me Da's." She says, voice gravelly with nerves and low from uncertainty. The gaggle of girls giggle at her words and the ringleader's smirk blossoms into a smug grin.
"You sound like a boy." She says acidly, tone loud and cutting despite the noise of hundreds of children around them. Sev notices more eyes turning int heir direction. She hunches her shoulders and bows her head, long hair obscuring most of her peripheral vision, the gazes disappearing amidst dark strands.
"She's got long hair though!" a voice from the posse of girls calls out and Sev looks up too late to catch a face. Titters erupt at that proclamation and Sev digs her hands into the deep pockets of Tobias's jacket, fingers latching onto a jagged piece of metal nestled in the seam. The instigator's beady eyes alight with unholy glee.
"Oi!" a boisterous shout jars the glint from the ringleader's gaze as she's forced to scramble back or risk being bludgeoned upside the head by a rugby ball. The ball rolls to a stop right by Sev's feet.
The same voice calls out, "Chuck it 'ere!"
Sev lets go of her grip on the metal piece and reaches down to pick up the dirty old ball. She shakes her hair out of her eyes as she looks around the asphalt yard filled to the brim and sees a pair of arms outstretched over the head of a boy with rumpled clothes and hollow cheeks.
He shifts impatiently, waves his arms and shouts, "Just throw it!" Severine purses her lips, hopes fleetingly for something undefined and sends the ball sailing over the heads of ringleader and crew, straight into the chest of the boy with open arms who grunts from the force of impact but does not drop it.
"Cheers mate!" He yells in her direction before disappearing into the crowd just as a shrill bell pierces the cacophony of the schoolyard.
"All right! Orderly! Form lines, please!" a short, ,buxom woman with coiffed hair standing in the open doors calls out. The milling horde of kids slowly forms a queue that begins to filter into the building, Sev joining the stragglers. She watches the bobbing blonde head of the abrasive girl and her minions as they slowly file past the woman guarding the doorway. She smiles in acknowledgement as they pass her. Sev's hand finds her pocket again, her fingers running against the sharp edge of metal, slowly warming in her grip as she ducks her head, hair falling like a curtain and slips inside the school.
Sev lets herself be herded down damp hallways with peeling walls into a gymnasium with shiny floorboards worn smooth from age. A perpetual draft from windows cracked open even in the mid-September chill of Cokeworth keeps the room the same balmy temperature as the schoolyard. The girls who had accosted her in the playground arrange themselves in a neat row towards the front, near the stage, while the grubby rugby player is nowhere to be seen. His ball however is in the hands of a portly gentleman with a rotund middle who has it nestled snugly underneath one arm, eagle-eyed stare dissuading any misbehaviour. Sev slips into a row populated chiefly by a group of boys whose heads are all bent around something obscured from view, the only thing emanating from the are frantic whispers and the odd flailing limb.
"All right!" The lady from the front doors, now standing at the podium located on the small raised stage proclaims. She grips the podium with rigid fingers and looks clinically into the assembly ."Settle down!" she screeches and the noise gradually abates, silence and stillness reigning.
"Welcome to a new year at Cokeworth Comprehensive. I am the headmistress. My name is Mrs. Chatham." Mrs. Chatham pauses and looks down at her papers before looking back up with a hard gaze. "Cokeworth students are well-known among the neighbourhood, aren't they?" she asks pointedly. "We, the teachers and I, work very hard to make sure that all you students can reach your full potential. That means we want you to do your very best. And you can only do your very best if you behave; if you are polite and well-mannered; present yourselves properly in that you are neat and tidy..." Sev finds herself focusing more acutely on the jagged metal piece in her pocket while taking in the assembled students. She notices the rugby player slither in through a side entrance with a flushed face and crimson ears, finding a seat at the back. He is followed by the portly man who is still in possession of the rugby ball. The man slides into a seat himself among the other teachers who exchange pointed gazes and raised eyebrows.
"...discipline is crucial here at Cokeworth. Mr. Wilson!" Mrs. Chatham calls out suddenly and several heads turn in response but only the rugby player with still burning ears stands slowly, back rigid.
"Yes m'am." He says, voice as loud and carrying as if he were still in the schoolyard; a tightly coiled undertone of barely discernible scorn the only difference.
"Mr. Wilson here is one of our special students." Mrs. Chatham says sweetly, turning back to the assembled crowd. There is a heightened tension of expectancy permeating the air, heads strain taller while others sink in a slow inexorable drift with gravity.
"You will find that if you misbehave and break the rules, you cannot escape the consequences." The Wilson boy is as still as a soldier at attention. However his eyes are glazed over, dull to the events transpiring around him.
"Mr. Wilson here, thinks that he is above the rules, that they do not apply to him and he can do as he likes. He is tardy, rude and a ruffian. Today, however, Mr. Wilson went further and did something criminal, isn't that right Mr. Lucas?"
The tubby teacher who had followed Wilson into the gymnasium stands up, "That's right Mrs. Chatham. I caught Tommy here trying to get into the supply closet with this." In his grip the tattered rugby ball is held aloft for all to see, as necks crane in his direction.
"School equipment can only to be used during physical education periods and only with permission from a teacher. Did you get permission Tom?" Mr. Lucas queries, placing the ball casually under his arm and looking expectantly at Tommy Wilson who somehow manages to stand impossibly straighter.
"No, sir." He intones, carefully emotionless.
"No indeed." Mr. Lucas expels smugly, bouncing slightly in triumph.
"Thank you, Mr. Lucas." Mrs. Chatham practically snaps and Mr. Lucas nods magnanimously before resuming his seat, the ball still glaringly in his possession.
"Taking things without permission is stealing. That rugby ball was stolen today, by you, Thomas Wilson. You've gone above and beyond rule breaking and entered into criminal territory." Mrs. Chatham is swelling up like a hot-air balloon, filled with the self-righteousness of her conviction. Sev thinks fleetingly for a moment of the Bubotuber pustules that Eileen nurses to growths of impossible proportions before explosion. She lets go of the metal piece and instead moves to grip the edges of her seat.
"Since we are an place of learning, let's have our very first lesson now. Come up here Mr. Wilson." Mrs. Chatham steps back from the podium. Tommy steps stiffly into the aisle and marches briskly to the stage, stomping up the steps. Mrs. Chatham reaches into the podium while gesturing for Tommy to step closer, her hand returning to view in possession of something Sev has seen before: a strip of wood made for a very specific task. Sev's grip on the seat tightens in response to Mrs. Chatham's flexing fingers. Tommy Wilson stands tall, chin jutted at a harsh angle that belies the stoicism of his stance. Mrs. Chatham narrows her eyes.
"What do you have to say for yourself, Mr. Wilson?" She asks Tommy. In the hush of the gymnasium his silence is deafening. The whistle of wind from jammed windows feels preternaturally loud. Mrs. Chatham pauses before saying softly, "Well then Tommy, you know what the punishment is."
"Yes Ma'am." Tommy responds, not meeting her gaze.
"Your hands, please." Mrs. Chatham asks as though inquiring about the price of apples at market. Tommy presents his palms to her, elbows bent and she snatches his hand in her grip almost immediately, as though fearing it would disappear from sight.
Severine feels some piece of herself come unmoored, as though she were an abandoned raft at sea, buffeted by the natural forces of winde] and tide and waves. She feels the grainy, rough-hewn wood of the bench underneath her fingers, digs her nails into the soft mealy underside of the plank as the sounds of instrument meeting flesh resounds throughout the charged silence of the gymnasium. She feels her ribcage expanding and contracting, convinced she can hear the air whistling through her trachea and down into her lungs before rushing, galloping, pushing itself through her nose and into the room, outside of her body. She wishes, with that pull, that inexorable, unconscious, involuntary motion of breath for breathing's sake; without thought or intention. She wishes for that same inextricable emotion, the pressure gathering beneath her breastbone, to find its way out and subside as the oxygen that becomes carbon monoxide finds its way throughout her body.
*Pop*
*Snick*
*Rrrip*
*Clunk*
She hears the unmistakable sound of fabric tearing and something clattering through the tableau of an audience coerced into playing witness: polite, guarded, removed and yet observing. Sev can see heads upturned, riveted to the motion onstage, while a few are downcast.
Mrs. Chatham is gripping the lapels of her suit jacket together in one hand as she announces, slightly breathless, "I believe we have all learned a very valuable lesson from today's assembly."
At these words, the adults seated begin to rise and the bubble of silent tension breaks with their movement. Children begin shifting and whispers traverse the rows before Mrs. Chatham, pocketing the birch rod so that she can rearrange her suddenly shapeless apparel screams, "You will all follow you assigned instructors! Any disobedience or unruly behaviour will be appropriately addressed! Conduct yourselves with rigour and have a productive year!" Tommy Wilson remains a pillar on stage amidst the chaos that erupts despite Mrs. Chatham's admonishments. Sev keeps him in her sights as long as she can but finds herself herded away before he's moved at all.
After depositing Tobias's coat with the other children as they file into the room, Sev finds a seat in a corner by a wall with windows, and observes with dawning horror as the grand marshal general and her troopettes file into the classroom. They make a beeline straight for the teacher's desk wherein they descended upon the woman in shared exclamations of rapture and delight.
A chorus of "Mrs. Briggs!" can be heard over the muted din of classmates and friends reuniting.
"Girls!" Mrs. Briggs cries, standing up to greet them.
"Joanna! How was your summer, darling?" She asks, looking down at the blonde ringleader with a doting expression.
"It was lovely, Miss." Joanna responds brightly, basking in a spotlight of approval, "We spent most of it in the country with Louisa's-"
"-with my family!" Louisa interjects, stepping closer, "The cottage at Brock-Cornwall is beautiful in summer."
Mrs. Briggs surveys the girls as they view to report on their holidays with a look of fond indulgence on her face.
Sev's view is obstructed by a couple of boys who fall into the seats in front of her own.
"Mate that was rough." a boy with slick blond hair says, slumping on the desk.
His friend, who sports a shock of ginger curls, twists round, elbow hooked on the chair and says, "Too right. O'l Hammy's gettin' vicious. Getting the switch on the first day?"
"Tom's an unlucky bastard."
"Better him than me, I say. It's nice havin' dinners and free periods."
"Fair play. Bad bit of luck getting caught, though."
"She was in a right tit too. Did ya see her?"
"Yeah, her tits were definitely not in." Here the blond raises his hands in a lewd pantomime of breasts, face morphing into a pinched mask in clear mimicry as he mimes losing control of two large balloons that seem to have a life of their own. His friend is nearly doubled over in mirth.
Catching his breath the redhead say, "Lucky her goobers popped when they did. She was really going for it."
"Got a whole summer's worth of spite, don't she?"
"Poor sod, getting the first switchin'." the redhead shakes his head remorsefully.
"Ham's a pig." the blond retorts and issues a lengthy snort. The two of them dissolve into laughter that has the teacher calling the class to attention.
Mrs. Briggs calls her Sever-in the first time, because the underpaid and overworked codger, staring down the barrel of obscurity couldn't be bothered to put in the effort of pronouncing it with the proper inflection. Thereafter, she is known only as 'Miss Snape' or more often, 'Snape' and Sev grits her teeth each time she hears it.
Mrs. Briggs sees fit to question her as the only new student in a well established class of primary school friendships and the class looks on in coached respect.
"Where do you come to us from?" Mrs. Briggs questions, perusing the papers a her desk as she addresses Sev.
"Erm..." Sev begins tentatively, unsure of the required response.
Mrs. Briggs looks up, eagle-eyed, and sharply directs, "Stand up when you are speaking!" Eyes narrowing, she watches as Sev stands abruptly, scraping the chair back until it thuds against the wall behind her. There is an awkward silence as Mrs. Briggs evaluates her, gaze cool and expression cold as she demands impatiently, "Well? I asked you a question. I expect an answer."
Sev startles and says tentatively, "Cokeworth?" in a voice cracking with nerves. Joanna and her crew erupt into hastily concealed titters. Mrs. Briggs immediately raps on her desk to restore order. "This is Cokeworth. What was the name of your previous school?" she reiterates, jabbing the words out like bullets.
"This is my first school." Sev responds hoarsely, throat dry. Joanna turns vigorously to the girl seated next to her, Louisa, and begins whispering intensely. Louisa smiles as she digests whatever information is being relayed. Mrs. Briggs turns a blind eye to their behaviour and continues her interrogation, tone arched and voice carrying, "You have never attended an educational institution prior to today?"
"No."
"You will address me as Ma'am or Mrs. Briggs." The teacher instructs sternly, making a note on the ledger laid out before her. There is a momentary pause in which the blonde boy sitting in front of her turns his head slightly, hissing something too quiet to hear. Sev leans down slightly in an attempt to catch the words when Mrs. Briggs looks up quickly and pointedly intones, "No Ma'am." with exaggerated slowness. There is another terse pause, broken eventually by hushed whispers and a few suppressed giggles.
The redhead in front of her turns his head even farther than his friend and loudly whispers, "Say it!" Sev does so with a tone so puzzled that the giggles break out in full force and Mrs. Briggs raps on her desk, calling for quiet.
"Can you read?" She inquires bluntly.
"Yes."
Mrs. Briggs leans forward, eyes widened to an alarming degree before Sev catches her mistake and hastily tacks on a "Ma'am." so quickly it's like she's swallowed the syllable.
"Write?"
"Yes Ma'am."
"Small mercies..." Mrs. Briggs mutters, turning back to her ledger and jotting down notes that have her immersed. Sev shifts uncomfortably and the blond hisses over his shoulder, "Wait."
"Have a seat." Mrs. Briggs mutters absentmindedly, still writing and Sev sits down gingerly, expecting another arbitrary code of conduct to sprout out of nowhere. She leans forward on her elbows and whispers a quiet "Thanks." to the lads who reply, "Don't mention it." followed by a hasty and emphatic, "Seriously. Don't."
The rest of the day passes in a slow slide of controlled tedium and enforced confusion. She is tasked with keeping the coal stove lit by virtue of her proximity to the coal-box and suffers various pointed remarks about her inexperience, history and lack of materials from Mrs. Briggs, who sees fit to continue her permissive stance towards Joanna and attachés. Their sly glances and whispers escalate to caustic words, forceful brushes and vandalism of her belongings in the space of breaks between lessons, study periods and dinner. The day progresses and Sev feels only relief as the final bell rings and Mrs. Briggs dismisses them for the last time.
Sev hates Cokeworth Comprehensive.
"Oi!" Sev recognizes the voice calling out and instinctively looks round to find its owner amid the bustle of children trickling out of the school gates and into afternoon traffic. Some with dutiful parental chaperones and many more unaccompanied, rowdier and less inclined to abide by the unspoken politesse of public demeanour. Sev holds herself a little tighter, muscles constricting to fill out the edges of Tobias's much shabbier coat against the flow of the crowd as she stretches taller than she ever has to catch a glimpse of Tommy Wilson.
She spots him leaning against the stairs of a side entrance to the building amid a congregation of lads and he waves his arm in recognition.
"Over 'ere!" he calls out as she continues to stand, stock still against the tide of home-goers. She starts off towards him as though walking in a fog, uncertain to the last.
"You the one who thrown that ball, yeah?" He says, as soon as they're face to face. She looks at the boys gathered haphazardly about the steps and recognizes them from the assembly, huddled at the end of her row, holding a heated, whispered conference. She can see them eyeing her dismissively and she juts her chin just so as she gruffly counters with, "What of it?"
"Lads over 'ere wanna play some ruggers." Tommy starts, hands in pockets and is immediately interrupted by a tall, lanky boy who says with clear distaste, "I ain't playin' with no girl." He is met with a jumbled consensus from the rest of the group.
"Shut it, Pillar." Another boy says with a hint of menace, standing up from where he had been leaning against the railing.
"I ain't gonna, Matt. Now am I?" Pillar responds, drawing out the boy's name with a deliberate emphasis.
"You scared of a girl beating you then?" Matt taunts to a chorus of 'oooh's' from the audience of boys gathering closer to witness the rising tension. their eyes alight in anticipation.
"Mate, that ain't ever gonna happen, cuz I ain't lost one game." Pillar scoffs and leans back against the railing with bravado.
A voice from the small crowd calls out, "You're losing the bet Matt!" which is met with laughter and heckles.
Matts face crumples, his cheeks ruddy and he shouts, "You dickheads-" before he's cut off by Tommy with a straightforward, "We playin' or what?"
"Go on." Matt sighs, shoulders slumping in defeat.
Pillar rights himself and states with finality, "I said I ain't playin' with no girl and I mean it!"
"Well why not?" Tommy asks him, point black. Pillar opens his mouth and closes it like a goldfish sucking in water while Matt echoes Tommy smugly, "Yeah, Pillar. Why not?"
"Can she even play?" a lad in a pea coat calls out derisively. Pillar's face lights up with inspiration and he turns round to shout, "Too right, Mikey!" before turning back to look Tommy straight in the eye and demanding, "Can she?"
"She's got a mean arm, wicked aim too."
"That don't mean she can play."
"She sure as hell got better aim than Tim." Tommy responds and is met with jeers, snickers and a very indignant, "Feck off!" from a boy with a tartan scarf and a peaked cap.
"Well I am not playing when we're a player short!" Matt snipes, crossing his arms churlishly.
"Can't handle the heat, eh?" Pillar jibes back with smug confidence.
"You wanna stick it to Chatham's face? Be my bloody guest." Matt shoots back, riled. The mood immediately sobers. Pillar shifts uncomfortably and Matt glances at Tom, guilt plain on his face. "Alright then. Who's gonna sit this one out lads?" Tommy asks the group and is met with terse silence. "Fair's fair. Come on."
"You sit it out, Pill." Matt suggests.
"You what?!" Pill exclaims in utter disgust as Tim calls out, indignant, "He's our best player!" Matt's statement is the hand that topples a domino reaction of seemingly ceaseless series of digs, threats and insults hurled between what quickly becomes apparent is the two teams.
Tommy ambles over to the railing and proceeds to knock it with his foot until the resulting banging settles the group to near silence. Tommy opens his mouth to speak and is interrupted by a portly figure leaning precariously out of the nearest second storey window, yelling, "Clear off you lot! Or I'm coming down there!" He squints down at them, leaning even further out and Sev recognizes the second chin and overflowing belly of Mr. Lucas as he shouts, "Mr. Wilson! Do you need a reminder of this morning's demonstration?" They all scarper.
Matt immediately sidles up to her as they're running through the now empty yard and out the front gates. "Can you play?" He asks her, worry evident in his tone. She shrugs. She's caught glimpses of the matches Tobias watches with religious devotion in the sitting room each weekend as she tiptoes around the house with catlike agility. Matt heaves a world weary sigh and then spends the entire trek through the side-streets and alleys of Cokeworth explaining in scattered detail the intricacies of 5 aside rugby.
As they reach the outskirts of Cokeworth proper, very near Spinner's End, the road peters off into a set of dilapidated houses that are clearly uninhabited, many roofless, the rooms bare shells of boarding and walls, open to the elements. They stand by the side of an empty railroad yard where the tracks break off unevenly, rusted and warped in places and in many others completely absent, picked off scavengers.
"Careful round this bit." Matt pants, out of breath from running and lecturing simultaneously. Sev is sure to give the protruding spikes a wide berth, following in the footsteps of tartan-scarf Tim who looks back as she carefully manoeuvres round the hazardous area. "It ain't the best place but no one comes 'ere-during the day at least." He states sagely.
"Aye. Don' be comin' round 'ere night-wise, eh?" Tommy calls out from his perch atop an exposed beam, his bulging school bag resting at his side.
"Don' be comin' round 'ere at all!" Pillar shouts amid laughter, as his teammates form a huddle, dumping their coats and belongings in a pile behind the shell of what used to be a shed.
Sev looks for Matt and sees him engaged in his own pow-wow and feels the pit of her stomach clench. She looks up at Tommy who is entranced with his hand as he forms fists, slow and careful and winces, lays them palm up and heaves a world weary sigh. He looks up, then, and straight into Sev's eyes, gaze indiscernible.
"Alright!" Tommy yells, breaking eye contact, as the huddles reluctantly disperse. He reaches over and gingerly pulls the infamous worn rugby ball from his bag to resounding cheers.
"Ol' Chatty's gettin' meaner, the bint." Pillar mutters to Tim who nods emphatically and spits.
"The terms!" Matt shouts at Tom who puts fingers to mouth and issues a piercing whistle.
"Losers are on Ham duty til christmas!" There is a discontented muttering that spreads throughout the lads, expressions hardening. Tim begins stretching before Pill knocks him upside the head and shakes his own.
"Ham duty?" Sev asks absentmindedly and is surprised with a vehement response from Matt.
"Chatham's a right sadistic bitch and she gets worse every year. If she finds any equipment missing, it's not just Tom on the chopping block, it's the whole bloody school."
"Aye. Made us clean the bathrooms last year." A boy with curly hair and patched trousers adds.
"Nah. That was two years ago, Ben. Couldn't get no dinner before summer hols." Mikey responds darkly, shrugging out of a peacoat at least two sizes too small.
"Checks every morning, don't she?" Ben says, throwing his cap onto the growing pile of belongings.
"Tommy's been the one returnin' things, early doors, since his dad's up with the birds." Matt says.
"Can't do that no more." Ben comments.
"Workin' for his Da, eh?" Mikey says.
"Aye." Looks are exchanged between them while Sev shrugs out of Tobias's coat with forced nonchalance.
"Can't make a grammar school out of a mill town." Mikey mutters and Matt hunches his shoulders.
Sev is complete rubbish at rugby, as it turns out.
Sev learns to be a bystander in grudge matches: the adrenaline of sour, seeping resentment that fills the eyes of the injured party and the accompanying barb-wire ragged rage of retaliation, setting her teeth on edge. She listens as her mother outclasses Tobias with rhetoric that belies a public school education, again and again and again, in shouting matches that last well into the night yet somehow never disturb the neighbours.
She listens avidly to her parents loudly and vehemently conversing and catalogues what elicits the greatest reactions. On especially frigid nights when the windows will not shut right, the heated anger and vicious responses are what keeps her warm.
Her mother says 'Mudblood' with the same vile cruelty as when Tobias spits out any manner of dirty phrase and hurtful insult. When the arguments spiral dangerously out of control; all manner of restraint left by the wayside and the pair of them out for each other's blood, like wolves chasing a deer, they are hungry, hungry, hungry for a meal to fill their crying bellies. Eileen always screams, "You filthy Mudblood scum! I left everything behind to marry you! And you cannot even..." and here Eileen would fill in any manner of deficiencies she felt the need to address on that particular occasion.
Sometimes Tobias was negligent, sometimes he was mean, other times he was selfish or stupid or rude but oftentimes...most of the time...he was just-poor. And that was the crux of every petty and monumental issue Eileen and Tobias have with each other. They are so diametrically opposed on such fundamental levels that Sev can never reconcile how they had managed to find one another, get married and live until she came along. She wonders, every once in a while, when things are particularly bleak and it's the early morning hours when even Tobias is sleeping, if things were ever so bad before her crooked nose even entered the picture. She can't help but think it wasn't.
Sev watches the next morning (and many more after) as Eileen purses her lips and scrubs down the dusty crates Tobias brings home from the mill, in the yard. The tracks in the house serve as a blueprint to a minefield badly mapped and haphazardly navigated. Eileen is always jumpy: touchy and overly sensitive in the morning after, hyper-vigilante to any noise or sudden movement, as she carries herself with a delicate finesse that speaks of aching muscles and tender joints.
As a resident Sev learns to treasure the more and more fleeting moments of peace. Sitting before a bubbling cauldron, steam curling up the chimney, heady odours teeming throughout the room, she breathes.
Eileen is a dead, silent creature when Tobias isn't around to arouse her into paroxysms of visceral emotionality. She smokes cigarettes out the back door into the small concrete yard, languidly tapping the incinerated tobacco into the potted shrub that stands sentinel by the door. They rarely receive owls though there is always a copy of the Daily Prophet in Eileen's hand by the time Sev is awake, the house empty of Tobias's presence.
She shuffles into the kitchen and goes straight to the cold box, in search of a bite of breakfast with nary a glance from Eileen. There is a half empty bottle of milk and some slightly suspicious smelling containers. Sev sets the kettle.
"I'll need that flame soon." Eileen says sharply, turning a page.
"Why?" Sev asks, yawning.
"Number 34's asking for more, the cow." She sniffs before taking another drag.
Sev heaves the cauldron out from the cupboard under the sink. The thunk of it landing on the counter has the kettle wobbling, ever so slightly, on the hob.
Eileen heaves a sigh before saying, "Go on and get it."
That has Sev scrambling up the stairs to retrieve her mother's wand before the words have fully before the words have fully sunk into her conscious.
Her wand is of a short and tastefully embellished wood that always warms whenever Severine touches it. The feeling mirrors the gentle tickling sensation that trickles down her limbs like a gentle caress of fond regard that leaves her with goosebumps from the sensation. She greets it every time, sheepishly and only in her head, but it feels so much like coming home that the response is nearly reflexive. She pockets it.
She returns to find Eileen at the table with a cup of tea in hand and the kettle out of sight. Sev sighs and heads over to the stove, bracing herself before levering the cauldron, and with great effort, executing a controlled drop onto the old appliance. She hears only a shuffle of paper as the clanging fades into the dull stillness of the room. She turns round to see Eileen hastily folding the Prophet up and moving swiftly to the cupboard under the sink.
"I'm making a Floo call." Her mother says tersely as she rummages through its contents, looking for the small tin of green powder.
"34 needs the potion by this afternoon." She informs Sev as she marches out to the sitting room, absently smoothing her skirt as she goes.
"Bye Mam." Sev says to Eileen's back as she disappears into the other room.
Sev moves to the kitchen table eyeing the folded Prophet, catching a glimpse of a moving photograph depicting pandemonium and the bold heading of "Ministry on High Alert" on the front before it's snatched out from under her nose by an agitated Eileen.
"You know where the ingredients are. The instructions are in the cupboard. If you need more just put it in stasis and go down to Kettermire's." She sticks the Prophet in her purse, her lips a thin line before she whirls round and disappears, the whoosh of the fire deafening in the stillness of the house.
"It's just you and me, eh?" Severine says softly to the wand as she lights the stove with a wave, the magic buoying through her veins and smiles.
Sev is on her way to the abandoned houses one day but she feels too...hollow and restless so she just...keeps going until she finds a quiet, moderately well-maintained playground with a slide and a swing-set.
And a girl who can fly.
"It is real, isn't it? It's not a joke? Petunia says you're lying to me. Petunia says there isn't a Hogwarts. It is real, isn't it?"
"It's real for us," Sev says. "Not for her. But we'll get the letter, you and me."
"Really?" whispers Lily.
"Definitely," Sev says with confidence.
"And will it really come by owl?" Lily whispers.
"Normally," she says. "But you're Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain to your parents."
"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?"
Sev hesitates. She takes in Lily's bright eyes and fiery hair, crisp starched pinafore and fingers twisting a carefully braided charm bracelet around her wrist.
"No," Severine says. "It doesn't make any difference."