Disclaimer: I own naught but a thought.
This will be HG/SS ... eventually.
Apologies in advance, for I am an author with no patience and so I'm not quite sure how I'm going to pull this off or even where it will eventually lead...
It had been disappointingly easy to give Tobias the slip and leave the little hovel they called a home.
She'd told him she was heading out to buy groceries, and it was telling how far into drink he'd been when he failed to remember that they hadn't the money to buy groceries. She didn't worry about leaving Severus alone with his father though, as at the age of three going on four, her son had yet to openly show any signs of being magical. After the mill had shut down, Tobias had grown to hate magic and she'd learned quickly to never so much as touch her wand in his presence. If her magic couldn't transfigure them real food or money, then she wasn't to show off her freak powers at all. But even drowned in the cups as he was, Tobias had yet to lay a hand against his son.
His darling son who wasn't going to grow up into a freak if his Da had any say in his life.
With even breaths and trembling fingers, Eileen pulled her stick of ebony from its hiding spot within her sleeve. Obscured as she was by the shadows of the overgrown brush along Cokeworth's decrepit river, there was little fear of being noticed.
There was not a doubt in her mind that her son was magical, that Severus was a wizard. He'd shown accidental magic heartrendingly early a few weeks ago. Rather then the cold steel grey of her family, he'd inherited Tobias' beautiful brown eyes. Brown so dark that whenever light caught his eyes at just the right angle, it seemed as if a splash of molten chocolate had been captured in those irises. A quiet child, Severus' eyes seemed to convey his every emotion, his very thoughts.
To one day look into her little prince's eyes, and realize that they'd darkened to the point where pupil was no longer discernible from iris...
Standing in the kitchen, she wiped the plates clear of the crumbs left behind from their meager dinner of beans on toast. Her left pinky bled from a cut Tobias had just inflicted upon her when she'd suggested he try finding a job on the better side of town, opposite the closed down textile mill and poor community so lacking they didn't even have a food bank. In anger he'd stood and slapped the plates from her hands, raging with his voice like thunder that he was doing the best he could. Luckily the plates had survived the clatter to the tiled floor.
From the look of the cut, he hadn't cut his nails in a couple weeks.
As the sound of Tobias opening another of his cheap bottles floated to the kitchen Eileen absentmindedly sucked at the minor wound, the tang of iron reminding her that they hadn't had meat to eat for the past couple months. A small acidic grumble pulled her attention and she turned to see Severus still sitting in his chair, clutching the pillow he'd pulled out from beneath him which acted as his makeshift highchair to his chest. He'd already learned to make himself impossibly small whenever his father raised his voice.
"Severus," she began.
"I'm not h'ngry, Mam," he spoke; voice soft yet sure as he looked her in the eyes in the wake of his bald lie. His usually emotive features kept carefully blank even as he clutched his pillow tighter in an attempt to muffle his treacherous stomach.
Eileen had paused, realizing that if broken angels were real they'd sound like her son.
She'd instantly recognized that look. In the steel grey eyes of her lord father the look translated into slate, devoid of any reflection of light. In her baby's face, with his already dark eyes and long lashes the look translated into the disconcertingly wide-eyed stare of a doll, making his pupils look impossibly large and terrifyingly hollow.
How terrible their situation must be, for her child's first show of accidental magic to take on the form of occlumency.
How gentle her boy must be, for his first act of magic to be done in an attempt to protect his mother from his own pain.
"Mother," she heard herself correct, speaking seemingly on autopilot. "You are a Prince, Severus. And you must learn to speak like one. Do not pick up your fool father's thick tongue."
"Yes mother."
For the past three days she'd ingested nothing but water, rationing the last of their food so that Severus would be satisfied enough to not look at her with those empty eyes. Her brilliant little boy had forced her hand to wandlessy transfigure crumbs into extra bits of whatever single meal-of-the-day she could scrounge together the first afternoon he'd caught on that she'd not eaten along with him. Her magic stretched itself to its limits, smothering her hunger and exhaustion as her body was denied the nutrients it craved.
But they'd officially run out of food today. And her already withered heart had broken when Severus had peeked around her to see the pantry empty, devoid of any cans.
The fridge went unnoticed as it was empty as well, nothing left but stale air, having been unplugged to avoid wasting energy last week. In fact, everything had been disconnected to save money on utility bills. At night the only source of light came through the grimy windows that Eileen had long since stopped bothering to clean.
At the damning sight, beautiful dark chocolate eyes had gone black as her boy neither frowned nor smiled.
"I'm only thirsty, Mother," he'd whispered, biting into the edge of his pillow. Even with cloth to stuff his cheeks, little could be done to hide the fact that her child was prematurely losing the baby fat that would normally fill the gaunt frame. Clothes he'd fit snugly only months before now hung loosely even as they ran short on his growing height.
Resolution for an idea she'd long been hoping to avoid began settling in her mind.
With the softest sigh, she'd gently pulled the pillow out of her son's mouth, accompanying her action with a stern look and raised chin. Filling a glass with water from the tap, Eileen made certain Severus had a careful grip on it before lifting his slight frame to her hip.
"Your father won't be home for another hour or two," She told him, as she made her way to the bookcase in their small little sitting room. "What shall we read in the meanwhile?"
Ignoring the few muggle children's books they had, Severus had opted for her copy of Hogwarts, a History, and she had sat and read to him, distracting them both from their hunger as she watched the light slowly return to color his eyes.
When exhaustion eventually called him to the land overseen by Hypnos, no doubt to further ignore his hunger pangs, Eileen had tucked him into bed with a brush to his feather-soft hair. She covered him in a wandless warming charm, strong enough to aid him to that empty land of dreamless sleep, though so weak it'd dissipate long before the night grew old. Replacing his pillow beneath his head, she'd closed the door to his room and made her way back down, sliding the book back into its place just as Tobias slammed the front door closed in his return. The fool man had come home reeking of cheap liquor and fish and chips from the local pub, no doubt fed by his drinking buddies and fellow brutish patriarchs.
He'd brought nothing home. Again. Despite the last row they'd had when she'd sliced into his pride like a hot knife to butter and gotten ringing ears and a bruised arm in return.
Her resolve cemented.
Mind made up so without further ado, Eileen went and grabbed her wand from beneath the kitchen sink, hidden atop the pipes. She gave her excuse to Tobias' gruff inquiry, and left out the front door in a brisk walk toward the unkempt river.
Her wand wasn't truly necessary for the transformation. But she'd prefer having it, along with her clothes, on her in the off chance some suspicious fool threw a homorphus charm her way.
She'd only done it once before, and would have to be careful not to attract undue attention this time around as she'd lied on the registration form. Though to be fair, it really wasn't her fault the Ministry was so incompetent as to not check in person. And as she was indeed registered, if she were to be found out all that would result of the mess would be a hefty fine, rather than time in Azkaban.
A fine that she could little afford however, so she would have to keep vigilant.
In quick succession, she placed both a notice-me-not and an obnixe charm on herself. The spells would wear off quickly, (the obnixe charm, instantly) as she hadn't the magical strength to sustain them beyond a transformation. But they would do for now.
Closing her eyes, Eileen breathed, and remembered.
Seconds later a long-furred, primarily black canine with the build of a greyhound stood where Eileen Snape, beleaguered mother and housewife, once stood. Had anyone been near enough to see (and magical and observant enough to look beyond the notice-me-not charm), they would have noticed the creature hunch in apparent agony, ribs and spine and hips prominently showing what type of pain, before straightening itself and silently trotting further upstream.
Tell me your thoughts, please! :3
Obnixe is Latin for "with all one's strength." I think it's rather self-explanatory, but you're more than welcome to ask for clarification!