Platform Nine and Three Quarters

No one told him it would be like this. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, and he had to run himself into a wall? A wall? Perfect. At least he wasn't alone.

"Go with me," he muttered into the arm of the sullen woman beside him, for her arm was as high as he could reach.

"Of course, I'll go with you, Severus," came the quiet reply. "You needn't be so nervous. How can you imagine making friends while hiding behind my elbow?"

He looked up from the burnt orange cloth into which he'd been burying his eyes. She was smiling. He liked it when she smiled.

"You've got everything you need, all right? And you can send an owl whenever you like." She said this, but Severus didn't believe. He didn't want his dad to get the owl by mistake.

She held him by his shoulder and walked him forward. He pulled back.

She bent down swiftly to meet his eyes. "Come." Her face had no more feeling—it was normal again.

She pulled by his wrist now. "You will be glad you went, Severus. It's where you belong. Trust me." And they continued walking.

The bricks were very close. Was she crazy, his mother, to think they could walk through walls? He closed his eyes tight. Strange things had happened before, but he'd never walked through solid—

"Open your eyes, Severus."

He did.

A brilliantly scarlet locomotive steamed before his eyes. We made it!

"It's waiting for you."

He looked into her face again. "Just me?" No response. "You're not coming?"

She looked ahead. "I told you I would come with you here. You didn't think I meant I'd be following you to Hogwarts?" Severus thought he heard her give a funny laugh, but wasn't sure.

"No," he lied. "I know you can't go…" He wanted to say "with me", but people were looking at him now, and what if they thought he wasn't brave enough? He'd been brave before… His memory flashed back a short little ways, to just the other day…

"Is that letter for me?"

"Shut up, Severus!" In a few steps he cornered his mother, and he was ranting about the letter, and then something else that didn't make sense, and then his mother retorted, and then had to duck…

Severus's eyes opened wide, though before he was just turning to leave them to it. This was new. This wasn't right. He'd never done that before… Surely he wouldn't do—

A woman's scream erupted in his ears. And with it, such anger as he'd never felt before. A rush of light filled his vision, and his feet were taking him somewhere, flying him fast. And a moment later, he could see everything again. His father was on the other side of the room now, his back to them, cradling something… had he broken something?

A familiar hand tugged on his clothes. "Get—out!" His mother was pulling him quick out their door.

"Mum?"

"Be quiet, Severus!" she hissed.

She closed it behind them and did something funny to the doorknob. "We're going to a friend's home to visit, Severus…"

"All right." His eyes drifted to her hand, where it held a crumpled and wrinkled chunk of oldish papers. He wanted to smile, but it wasn't right. But at the same time, he couldn't help it… he'd protected her…!

A loud train whistle woke him from his trance.

"Hurry, Severus, get on!" His mother pushed him and his belongings (not many of his things resided at the house where he'd been staying) toward the train.

He wrapped himself around her one last time, though in seconds his mother pried him off her. "Go."

"Mum…" He felt like he should say something to her, to let her know he didn't want to see her hurt.

She wasn't even looking at him now.

He sighed. That's as good as it's going to get. And heaving his things onto his shoulders to carry, he struggled up the steps. At the last one, his foot missed and back he and his belongings fell in a swoop onto the ground.

"Come on, come on," someone's grown voice called impatiently from the interior of the train.

And as he turned the corner into the train and supposed he should find a compartment, he heard snickering. It didn't take much thought to know to whom it was directed. And though he poised himself so that he looked defiant, maybe angry, his field of vision clouded a bit. He blinked it away furiously, storming faster and faster past the windows as the train lurched forward. It caught him off guard, and he stumbled forward. Feeling his face flush, he turned haphazardly into the nearest compartment, muttering, "I don't care who—"

Four pairs of laughing eyes met his face. At his sight, they quickly stopped and turned to the window. Severus, now reluctant more than ever, sat, though keeping himself in the farthest corner.

"So…" one of them said slowly. "I'm Remus… Remus Lupin. Who're you?"

It took him a moment to realize it was he who was being addressed. Severus did not take his eyes off of the wall nearest him. "Severus Snape."

The bespectacled one next to him snickered, he was sure. And those four went back to their own conversations, the one nearest him kept on about the House Quidditch teams and other stuff he couldn't care less about. But though in the same small quarters, he felt as though he was unwillingly under an Invisibility Cloak. And he was certain that when they dropped their voices, they were talking about him. So far, he didn't feel like he belonged very much.

Mum's a liar.