She grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly around the slim wood handle. He tried not to cringe at the pain as she adjusted his grip impatiently.
"Try it again."
He held it up, his thumb at eye level, drew it in the arc she'd demonstrated and repeated the incantation.
The cat on the crumbling brick wall blinked at him and began grooming its face placidly.
His mother snatched her wand back and for a moment he was afraid she'd strike him. She rarely ever did, that was more his father's job, after all. Still, he ducked his head, more hoping she wouldn't see the tears he fought to keep back than in fear of a slap.
"Do you want to be helpless? Do you want to be a victim? You'll be going in less than a year! It will be easier with your own wand but I can't get you one yet and you won't be able to use it until you're on the train or you'll be expelled before you get there."
She pushed her wand back into his hand, a look passing over her face, too much like the one she got when his father came through the door in the evening.
"Severus, do you want to be a Slytherin or not? Or would you rather be some crybaby Hufflepuff for the rest to walk over for the next seven years? This is for your own good."
Severus looked past her at the cat, which was now stretching itself out in the afternoon sunshine. He didn't really want to hurt the cat, though. It hadn't done anything to him.
His mother had showed him the stinging jinx on a pigeon nearly an hour ago. The bird had made a horrific noise and flown off in a panic, as if the cat on the wall had just given it a hard scratch. Severus had felt vaguely ill afterward.
His mother looked more than angry now, she looked positively disgusted with him. Now he wished she really would have just slapped him and had done with it. He wanted to please her, to make her proud of him. He couldn't remember the last time she'd actually smiled at him. Or paid him much mind at all.
He raised the wand again as his mother stepped back, looking at the animal and trying to steady his breathing.
It's not that he couldn't imagine using the jinx. Just not like this. Not on something that hadn't done anything to deserve it. He had to do it, though. He had to be strong. He had to not be a victim.
Someday he'd come back and use this jinx for her. Someday when he was bigger and stronger than him, he'd take her away from all of this. He'd be a good son and she'd be proud of him.
Severus took one more breath as he imagined his father's face, almost seeing him standing there at the wall, his breath stinking of beer and cheap tobacco.
The cat yowled as though it had been burned, jumping from the wall and dashing off at a gallop into a patch of overgrown shrubbery.
He felt his mother's hand at his shoulder, her grip almost painful. He looked up at her, smiling hopefully. She didn't smile back, but there was a hard gleam in her eye that almost looked like pride as she took her wand back and hid it inside the sleeve of her blouse.
"We'll try another after lunch, then."