He was crouching in the corner, hunched over, partially hidden by rather sad-looking hat holder. He was staring really hard at the junction where the two walls met with the floor. The wallpaper and the wooden baseboard of this room were in a decent enough state except these corners. Here the wallpaper peeled and revealed its stained beige underside as well as the original wall whose colour Severus guessed had not always been a sick kind of grey.

Despite never having tried it, he instinctively knew that if he pulled the wallpaper off the wall his parents would get angry. Their apartment had to be in its best condition at all times, else they would not get their deposit back, his mother would say. Severus didn't know what a deposit was or how it worked, but his mother always used it as an excuse to make him play outside, even in the cold winter days.

As far as he could figure, this mythical deposit had something to do with the landlady, Mrs. Behm. Tall and thin, with beady grey eyes that seemed to miss nothing, she showed up periodically at their doorstep to argue with his mother about arrears and money, always leaving Eileen in a bad mood after.

Whenever she was around, Severus had trouble deciding whether he was more awed or scared of her. Clare Behm always visited her lesser tenants in her casual home clothes and yet her dress was always clean and pressed, her hair perfectly styled into a demure beehive and her nails always pedicured and in a different colour each time he saw her. Severus had never gotten a motherly vibe out of that woman, even though he had nearly always seen her in a simple kitchen apron and had been told she had a grown daughter that lived in London. Perhaps it was because Mrs. Behm behaved nothing like his own mother.

Unlike Eileen, Mrs. Behm was straight and to the point and hated to waste time in idle gossips. She was an exacting woman who knew what she wanted and got it. Most importantly, Mrs. Behm was visibly not intimidated by Tobias Snape.

There had been very few times that the two adults had been in the same room together and probably for a reason. Despite being too young to attend elementary school, even Severus had felt the tension in the room the last time Mrs. Behm visited while his father was in the house. They had argued intensely, Tobias calling her a few names that Severus did not understand, but she stood her ground. Even when Tobias shot her that look, the look that sent the little boy running for cover, Mrs. Behm crossed her arms and did not take her sharp grey eyes off the man's dark ones. For some reason, Tobias never struck Mrs. Behm, even though he looked like he very much wanted to. Back then Severus didn't understand why the man who didn't have a problem threatening to hit his wife and son all the time was being cowed by a woman half his weight.

When nobody said anything for a full minute, Mrs. Behm calmly stated that they had until Friday to pay or she would send some men Saturday morning to start removing the furniture. What followed after the exit of the landlady was one of the worst rows Severus could remember. The next day Tobias left with the car in the morning and returned walking. Nobody said anything during dinner.

Severus was snapped out of his repertoire by a loud bang. He turned to see his father's black-and-white television flickering the face of what was clearly the villain in a gangster film. He would have liked to see more, but he didn't want to get caught watching. Tobias always said that he would allow Eileen's "witchy things" around the house as long as he had exclusive rights to the "normal" ones like the telly. Since Severus definitely fell into the former category, he was permanently banned from using the apparatus.

The boy turned his attention back into the corner. Even if he had never touched the wallpaper in his life, it was still being damaged. There chunks of it missing, almost as if something had bitten a chunk out of it. He was almost positive that he had seen a mouse disappear into this corner of the house yesterday. The baseboard here looked mostly moldy but he thought he could distinguish the corners being chewed. So far his quest for a mousehole had been unsuccessful, but he had plenty of lousy time to waste now that school was over.

He wasn't exactly sure what he would do if he found mice. Keeping them as pets would be impossible, but still a tempting action. He wondered if he could make them disappear like his mother did. She wouldn't say anything, she would just wave her wand and tap whatever she wanted to disappear and it would be gone. There were some days that her mood made Severus scared that she would make him disappear. Playing outside did not seem so bad those days.

He heard someone stepping on the front porch and knew his mother was home. The door opened without being touched and the thin, pale woman that was Eileen Snape stepped into the threshold. She did her best to dress like a Muggle, but her witch influence could still be seen. She was wearing a dark blue dress with a cut that had not been in fashion in Europe for at least one hundred years and her long dark hair was efficiently tied into a single braid.

Severus got up and began to approach her cautiously, as going shopping never really put her in the greatest of moods.

He stopped dead on his tracks when he saw what she was holding.

The was an enormous gilded cage that he could probably have fit in if he crouched. As he began getting closer again, thinking that it was empty, he noticed something on the bottom. It's was a nest, containing a single dark purple egg.

Eileen carried the cage carefully to the empty kitchen table, her son close behind. By now Tobias had glanced at them from his program and noticed something unusual.

"Mom, what's going on?"

"Yes, what is the meaning of this, woman?"

Severus had asked this with his most earnest curiosity, since it was the first time as far as he could remember that Eileen had brought something so wonderfully curious to the house. Tobias' tone of voice was already hinting hostility.

Eileen ignored Severus and glared directly at her husband. "I'm tired of living in squalor. There is absolutely nothing pleasant or enjoyable about this bloody apartment. No matter how much I try to spruce it up, it still feels empty and cramped and moldy."

"So you went a blew God knows how many pounds on this blasted...egg? Have you hit your head or something? We cannot afford this!"

"I didn't spend one pence on this, if you need to know! I paid five galleons out of me own pocket for this, so you don't have to worry! You'll still be able to play snooker with the lads at the pub in the evening, because that's all that matters, innit?"

As the volume of the conversation escalated, Severus began to tune it out. Instead, he concentrated on this egg his mother had brought to make their apartment livelier. He had hunch that this was no ordinary egg and when he heard her say that she paid in galleons he was sure. She had bought this from a wizarding place and the creature inside it was most surely magical. As he examined the cage more closely, he noticed there were no hinges, no openings, no place where he could stick his hand in. Or maybe it was so the creature could not get out.

What was inside? A bird? A dragon? An alligator? A snake? A chimera?

Severus' imagination ran wild even though he knew it was unlikely his mother had bought a dangerous man-eating monster to make their living space more pleasant. He studied the colour, shape and size of the egg intensely, trying to remember if he had seen anything like it in his mother's books on magic upstairs.

Unfortunately it was getting harder and harder to ignore his parents, who were shouting. Usually by this point in the fight he crept away quietly to avoid any objects thrown in the heat of the argument. But he didn't dare leave the egg alone in the same room as his father like this. The man was capable of smashing it just to spite his wife.

Severus wanted to protect the egg at all costs, even if it meant risking his parents' wrath.

"Mom?"

"And don't think I don't know what you do at the pub! If I had any sense I would have flown away in broom years ago-"

"Why don't you then? It would be a fitting image! You're a witch in more ways than one!"

"Mom?"

"Don't you dare take that tone with me, who do you think-"

"Who do you think you're talking to, woman? Do I need to give you a reminder of who is in charge?"

"Mom!"

"What!"

Both his parents turned to face him, their faces contorted angrily. Severus realised too late that the argument was not about the egg anymore and that he had missed his chance to slip away with it quietly.

"Could...can I-can I take the egg to room? I promise I'll be really careful."

"No! Your mother is returning that thing, right now!"

"I can't."

"What?"

Eileen tried to hide a look of triumph.

"The merchant I got it from left this afternoon. Today was his last day in England before he goes back to Persia to replenish his wares."

Tobias glared at his wife angrily for several minutes, as if trying to see through her ruse. Then he threw his hands angrily in the air. "Do whatever you want! Just beware: if I found there's a single penny unaccounted for from my salary, I am making an omelet!"

The next few weeks were some the of the happiest that Severus had experienced. Even though no one had given him the responsibility, he had taken it upon himself to nurture the egg. Two days after Eileen had brought it home, a scrawny chick with pink down feathers burst from the confines of the shell. Severus kept a constant watch on the little food and water bowls his mother had made appear inside the cage, perfecting the art of refilling them without disturbing the nest. The chick quickly grew and molted new feathers, each layer a different brilliant colour that impressed even Tobias.

Severus decided to call it Ramuthra, a name of a powerful wizard he read from one of his mother's books. He felt rather proud and affectionate that it was growing so quickly. For the first time in his life, he felt as if his presence was crucial for something else to exist. He was sure Ramuthra would not exist without him, and it made him feel good.

After two months Ramuthra reached adult size and began to fly about in its cage. By now it was completely obvious this was the kind of bird Muggles never saw. It had strong, large wings covered with dark red feathers that seemed almost liquid. The plumage on its chest was fire-orange and it stuck out, giving Ramuthra a puffed look. The feathers in its tail never seemed to be one single colour. It took a while for Severus to realise the colours of its tail changed according to the bird's mood, but he eventually noticed they always turned black when his parents were shouting. Ramuthra's head was rather uncanny. Instead of having circular eyes like most birds, they were almond shaped, like a human's. In fact, Severus would have said Ramuthra had completely human eyes except he had never seen a human being with golden pupils and purple irises. A mane of what could be hair or could be feathers covered the top of the head of this bird, separating two red horns.

But the most impressive thing about this bird was the way it sang. Not long after Ramuthra had grown its wings to full length, it began to sing. It was an incredibly beautiful sound that made the whole family pause and just listen, regardless of what they had been doing at the time. Severus wanted to describe it as something similar to a flute and and violin, but he couldn't do it justice.

As the weeks passed, Severus began to think of how soft Ramuthra looked. The plumage looked so soft, especially on its chest and he began to obsesses with the thought of stroking his beloved bird. Even when Ramuthra flew around the cage, Severus never got the opportunity to touch it. His fingers could barely fit between the thin gold bars and the bird seemed to shy away from him.

As the days passed the thought of touching those silky feathers consumed the mind of the young child until he could stand it no longer. He put the cage on the kitchen table and concentrated. Doing magic had not been an easy task and his mother had warned him against trying before his time. But he had a level of control now and he wanted to, no, needed to know how those feathers felt.

He envisioned a hole in the in cage, a door, an opening, almost anything. Slowly, very slowly, the bars he was staring at began to bend. He tried not to thing of anything else, just those gilt bars and they bent further. He closed his eyes. He could feel his fingertips prickling and he knew he was doing magic.

When he opened his eyes again there was a hole easily the size of his head in the cage. And then a red blur streaked past him.

"Wait, no!"

Ramuthra flapped around the kitchen, its long tail the colour of a brilliant blue sky and flew past its panicked master and out the open window.

Severus gave out a strangled cry and burst outside into their tiny backyard garden, looking at the dull grey sky for signs of his dear Ramuthra. A bird like that would stand out and there were no nearby trees it could hide in and still Severus saw nothing.

He began to run to check the other side when he noticed movement at the corner of the fence. A yellow tabby cat he had often seen around the neighbourhood stood there, its green eyes staring defiantly at Severus. Ramuthra hung lifeless from its mouth.

Without thinking what he was doing, the boy whipped his hand forward. The cat yelped in pain and let go of the bird, disappearing between the endless fences separating the terraced houses.

Severus stood dead still for a while. He then slowly walked over and softly touched his pet. It was indeed the softest thing he had ever touched.

The shock he felt was so strong that he barely felt his mother's backhanded slap when she found out what happened.

It wasn't until he noticed a red-headed girl a few weeks later that the image of Ramuthra's limp body began to fade. He noticed she could remain dry in the rain while her sister had to carry an umbrella. He decided to follow them.

Still, for the rest of his life, Severus Snape never owned another pet.