A/N: After reading Marauder fic over the last few weeks I decided to try my hand at my favourite pairing, James/Lily. But be warned, characterisation is my favourite part of writing so this fiction will definitely not be skint on that. The fic will not be exclusive to James and Lily. First Harry Potter fiction. Please please review!
Disclaimer: If I owned Harry Potter, I'd be living in Holland Park.
Chapter One: Nothing So Queer as Cokeworth
If a stranger went walking down the streets of Cokeworth, it would be plain that it was a town where dreams came to die.
There seemed to be a permanent chill in the air, and a cool mist that could be part-fog or part-smog, no one could be certain. It was not exactly an industrial wasteland, but there was an old factory and an old mill that had long ago ceased producing anything. A fitting description of the town itself really, and of its residents.
That being said, Cokeworth did have a nicer area, with better-kept houses and lawns that were overgrown but not horribly so. There was also a small park nearby with swings the more fortunate children of the town liked to play on. A few shops dotted the streets here and there – a small grocery, a pub, a café, a bookstore.
This was the nicer area, but even the nicer area was dismal, most of the time.
Mum was crying again, Lily noted with a despondent sigh. She could hear her whimpering softly into a pillow, even though she was trying her best to be quiet. Her youngest daughter, with ears as sharp as a fox's, could hear her anyway through the thin wall separating their bedrooms.
Privately, Lily thanked God that Petunia was at a friend's house that evening as she glanced at the empty tiny bed on the other side of the room. She would always be so upset and often end up weepy herself if she heard their mother crying. Of course, Lily often felt like crying too when it happened, but she was better at keeping herself in check, despite being three years younger than Petunia.
With reflection that beguiled her seven years, the small girl wondered when her mum would stop being so sad. She could hear that her father had joined her mother in the bedroom now, and was talking to her in a quiet murmur that was barely audible from the other side of the wall.
It had been weeks since it happened and her mum still cried every night. Lily didn't know what to do, and what was worse, she was starting to doubt if her father knew what to do, either.
Just earlier today they'd been playing tea cups with Petunia and her mother's hands shook so badly she'd dropped the pot and the china had broken. Lily automatically had tried to help mop up the tea with a small handkerchief and immediately succeeded in burning her little finger. Lily had flinched and her mother had gasped. Lily had been led to the tap and her mum had run cool water over it.
Remembering, Lily leaned over to the rubbish bin next to her bed and gingerly extracted two shards of the broken china. This had been one of their favourite pots, with small flowers decorating the surface, stems wrapping around each other and hugging. The girl fit the pieces together the way they had been so that the two flowers entwined again, frowning at the crack that still separated them visibly even though she was holding them tightly against each other.
Lily could hear her mother crying a little louder now, and her dad's voice was louder too, more desperate, more urging. Shame seemed to burn Lily's cheeks and she looked away from the wall over to Petunia's side of the room again. She didn't know why she felt embarrassed that her father couldn't stop her mum crying.
"…Maybe move it out of the room?" came her father's voice, the first discernable words from him Lily could make out, and she winced, wondering if this was the right thing to say. She kept her eyes resolutely glued to Petunia's calendar – to the fluffy kittens in a basket above the bold green letters spelling out MARCH, ignoring her mother's escalating sobs.
She felt a sudden warmth in her fingers and she looked down at her hands and gasped. The crack between the two pieces had grown fainter. Lily hesitantly pulled one of her hands away from the left piece and grew flushed with nerves and excitement when she saw that it stayed put, attached to the other piece. The line was still there, and Lily could tell if she tugged at the piece it would probably come loose and break in two again, but…still.
It was getting stronger, whatever it was inside of her, and it was happening more frequently. Strange things had been happening for the last few years of her life, and she knew her family brushed these off, but they were wondering too, she knew.
The noises on the other side of the wall had ceased. Lily realised that in her discovery she'd neglected to hear her parents go downstairs and turn on the telly, probably to drown out the sounds of her mum trying to talk her dad into letting her go visit Wivenhoe Park again, where she'd grown up. Lily had often heard her mother talk about the green open spaces and abundant rabbits. It always sounded like a fairytale, about as far away from Cokeworth as it was possible to get.
She put the piece of china back into the bin and turned back towards the wall, biting her lip and putting her hand against it. She knew what was on the other side of it, a few inches of cold concrete separating her warm flesh from its old wood and peeling white paint. Lily Evans knew that there was a crib that had been hauled out of the storage room a few months ago, and was going to go back in shortly. Its resident had never come home.
The stranger would also see how grim the people living in Cokeworth looked, particularly if heading in the direction of Spinner's End, where dodgy was perhaps a more fitting description. Though nothing in the town was luxurious, for lack of a better word, Spinner's End was the symbol of rock bottom. The neighbourhood's houses littered the dreary streets in indistinguishable, dilapidated brick boxes, like broken teeth in an old tramp's mouth. The filthy river's grey water bore the burden of empty crisp bags and fish-and-chip wrappers, adding to the ugliness of the area instead of detracting from it.
And it was a web. Sticky and suffocating, Spinner's End never quite let any of its inhabitants go. It was intent on keeping them twisted and knotted into place, sucking their blood until they grew old, withered, and died. It was the right order of things.
And it just so happened that in a particularly shabby little house on Spinner's End, overgrown weeds clambering around the fence, moss creeping over the sides of the residence, there were even darker happenings afoot.
What was supposed to have been a (somewhat) lovely birthday dinner had gone horribly awry.
The cold lobster linguini, a special dish his mother had slaved over, was now splattered across the tile, nauseating, worm-like in a sea of broken porcelain.
Severus cringed as his father, eyes flashing and red-rimmed, towered over his mother who sat at the table still, head bowed in a demonstration of shame and acceptance. All the fight and defiance had gone out of her the instant his father's voice had escalated to yells.
"What business is it of yours where I decide to go?"
He could feel his pulse thudding in his throat. His father's voice had transformed into strangely snake-like hissing, and that was when he was at his most dangerous.
His mother's eyes were now slightly raised, eyes transfixed on her son's frightened face. She stood.
…And Severus's heart plunged to his mismatched-socked feet.
His mum never did this, he thought wildly, and he was scared for her.
His father looked momentarily stunned at his wife's insolence, but recovered quickly. In one large stride he was in her face, causing her to stumble back. A savage pleasure filled him.
"If you don't think it's my business," she started, somewhat loudly, "then I should just go. Severus and I. We'll just –" her voice faltered, dying in her throat as she saw the rage in her husband's eyes.
Severus cried out as he saw his father grab his mother's wrists tightly. He made to stand up but over his father's shoulder caught his mum's frantic face, and the slight shake of her head.
He was shouting again, though his voice had taken on an even more menacing quality. The small boy hadn't thought it possible. He trembled in his seat, biting his lip, trying to force the impending tears back. He wanted to leave, but he didn't want his mum to be alone when his dad was this angry. He knew he couldn't move anyway; he was too scared.
Coward, Severus told himself. Coward.
"Stupid bitch, I have a right mind to –"
His eyes screwed up with the effort to keep from crying. A strange sort of animal whimper escaped him when he realised it was too late.
"Sev," his mum gasped, reaching out to him even though she was feet away. His father slapped her arm down, yelling, advancing and making her step backward, lengthening the distance between the mother trying to comfort her son.
Severus slipped out of his chair and dashed into the corner of the kitchen, curling into it and sobbing silently, rubbing at his eyes and running nose with his threadbare sleeve. He looked everywhere, anywhere, trying to –
There. On the counter.
Mum said never to touch it. He could hurt someone or something. But she'd never said he couldn't use it when someone else was being hurt. It could surely protect as well.
He knew he would never forget the sheer terror in his mother's eyes when he raised the wand at his father's back. His father, noticing her looking at something behind him, slowly turned. His mouth turned upward in the most horrifying expression of deadly mirth Severus had ever seen on someone.
"Reckon you'll make that work, son?" He croaked, hoarse from yelling, now chuckling noisily. "Reckon you'll blast a hole into your dear old dad?"
He knew he would never forget the red sparks that flew from the end of the wand, or his mother screams, nor his father's eyes opened wide in surprise.
Oh, but how he wished he could.