Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: Winterborn
Author: hana-akira AKA rurichi
Character: Severus Snape
Rating: 17+
Warning: OOC, nothing-at-all-to-do-with-Canon-really
Genre: General
Prompt: Severus Snape's Birthday (January 9th). Inspired by the lyrics of Vienna Teng – Tower, Akira Yamaoka –Room of Angel, and Meg & Dia – Monster.
Summary: Winter was the season when all things died (Winter was the season when you were born.)
A/N: Wikipedia had a hand in helping me out with info about the month of January. Most if not all of my footnotes info are actually from it. Anyway, if you can't tell, Severus Snape is one of favorite characters from the Harry Potter series so I typed about him. Mother by Silver Pard also had a big hand in turning this baby out the way it is.
—
1: January 9, 1960.
—
The day Severus Snape is born is nineteen days after the winter solstice, the first day of winter, the twenty-first day of December. He is born on the ninth day of January, eight days after the first day celebrating the New Year, and it is the coldest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. He is a small thing, a tiny thing, and he is a newborn, delicate and fragile like a flower trying to bloom in the snow(1), his skin a pale pink like the cherry blossoms of Japan in the Spring.
He is winter's child and the way he comes into existence in the world is exactly like that of winter—desolate, cold, hushed, and alone. There is only quiet murmuring from the midwife and only silence from the mother who brought him into this place of dark ceilings and even darker floors.
There is no man in the room. There is only the baby boy and he is voiceless as the wind outside howls at the window like a white beast of snow and ice. The beast is the color of clouds and it wails as if it is its first time coming into the world and into being. It shrieks as though it was the one that was just born from the womb of Mother Nature.
The infant boy opens his eyes and his eyes are the color of frost. They are cold and glacial, and they freeze the midwife's whispering.
He is Wintarmonath's babe(2) and like the coldest month in the year, he too will be the coldest person that walks upon this earth. Everything dies in winter and yet he was born. Such is the blessing of winter's touch. Such is the curse of winter's words that are tattooed into its children's veins.
(The boy's lips part, a noiseless sigh that might have been trying to say 'Mother' even though it should not have been possible at all for a newborn.)
—
2: January 9, 1967.
—
Seven is a beautiful number, a lucky number. It is a magical number full of promise and good fortune and it is the age that Severus Snape is on this day. It's just superstition that this number actually brings anything good at all, but the little boy of dark hair believes it and it's enough for now.
He is January's child and January was named after Janus (Ianuarius), the god of doorway, the name having come from Roman Myth(3). January is the door of the year, the opening and the beginning and so the boy, too, will be the pathway for winter. There are other names for January, so many that Severus must become in order to live up to the name of being one of winter's many forgotten children, but he will become it because it is this month which has nurtured and cherished him beyond any others (Spring turns away from him, summer burns him, and autumn tries to hold him but somehow can never love him enough.)
In Finnish, the month of January had been called tammikuu, the month of the oak, but in actuality meant the month of the heart of winter(4). In Czech, the month had was known as leden; the ice month(5). In Ukrainian, the month had meant січень, cutting or slicing or perhaps in reference to the wind(6). Either way, the month of January had many meanings that winter's child will become.
He is only seven now, a bit taller and older, but not really any wiser at all, but he will grow into becoming more of winter's child than he already is. He will have the heart of winter—merciless and ruthless in all of his actions, but with a purpose that will show that it was necessary for him to act and behave so. One season had to be cruel, to be the personification of harsh reality, and so winter took that place and played her role. He will be ice, sharp frost and hard glass, a spectrum of colors like a heartless diamond. And he will cut and slice down all the other months and seasons and all will remember his callousness as much as they do of a bitter wind.
Seven and severe, the boy will become the name and the name will become him. Snow is his skin, ash is his hair, and coal were his eyes, forevermore.
(He is breathless and the word 'Madre'(7) spills from his lips like honey and wine, fulfilling and succulent, yet somehow still bittersweet.)
—
3: January 9, 1968.
—
Flowers are in his memories and he remembers them like blurs and ghosts of the dead that should have gone to rest long ago, long before he was even born and had come to this world. No flowers flourish in the winter, none of them bloom to their fullest potential because it is too cold and dark for them to, but there are still flowers that symbolize it. Birth flowers, adults call them, even though such flowers cannot blossom in such wintry weather, especially in a month like January.
The carnation and the galanthus nivalis are the January's birth flowers(8), flowers which celebrate the birth of the month of January. The "Dianthus", the Latin name for the carnation means the "divine flower" and the galanthus nivalis is actually known as the snowdrop or "milkflower". More often than not, though, the carnation is the more notable of the two being the birth flower of January. While the snowdrop is simply known for consolation and hope, the carnation is known for love, fascination, and distinction. The Japanese floral emblem for this month is the camellia(9), known in the meaning of flowers as gratitude and loveliness while the Chinese floral emblem for it is the prunus mume(10), the plum blossom known for beauty and longevity.
All these flowers are symbols of January, but none grow in that month. They are signs of the month, representations given a solid form, characteristics which make them distinguished from the rest.
Winter's child is eight and eight is an eternal number, a looping number. It creates knots and it makes twists that are like a snake coiling in and out of itself. It never ends even though it has to begin from somewhere and the meaning of the flowers is the same in the fact that they have to begin from someplace but end up nowhere. January means all of those things—consolation, hope, love, fascination, distinction, gratitude, loveliness, beauty, longevity—and so her children will mean those things, too, but will mean more than that because the end is never in sight.
The sky is bleak and dark, and the boy's cheeks are rosy from the cold as his breath comes out of his throat like mist and smoke.
('Mère(11),' he whispers to the bleached air, the words floating along on the wind like a message in a bottle that's being carried away into the sea—lost and abandoned.)
—
4: January 9, 1969.
—
He is winter's child and he is a Capricorn despite the fact that not all of January's children are one. From the twenty-second of December to the twentieth of January, only those born on those or through those days are considered Capricorns. It is the tenth astrological sign of the Zodiac, originally originating from the constellation of Capricornus with its symbol being of a goat(12).
January's jewel is a garnet, a stone of a dark red, and Severus thinks it thinks because that color had always been the one constant in his life (Blood had been there when he had been born and that color has always been there behind his eyelids.) The color of fresh blood is a dark red so it fits in a morbid and gruesome kind of way like stories of monsters underneath the bed or skeletons in the closet.
Nine is an odd number, his Birthday number, and it's weird to think that his age now corresponds the day of his birth, but he doesn't really mind because it doesn't change anything. He is still winter's child and she will dote on him even though it feels like it's always Birth Day and Death Day all in one space on this day. This is life and life is pain and so it's only natural that if the mother is in pain, the child would be, too. She will love him, sing to him, embrace him, and he will come home and into her arms because he is a dutiful son if nothing else. She will cover and encompass him and he will let her because that is what he has always done.
Snowflakes fall softly like feathers down onto the ground and he looks up in pleasure and awe in that moment, and he is winter's child all over again. He holds his arms out, to catch the falling snow in delight and wonderment, with only complete enchantment on his mind.
('Matris(14),' he calls, and he is Winterborn.)
—
A/N: Footnotes ahoy!
(1) "Flower trying to bloom in the snow" was shamelessly taken from Vienna Teng's absolutely beautiful and wonderful song, Tower. I love this song with all my heart and her lyrics are especially meaningful.
(2) "Wintarmonath" was Charlemagne's designation of the month of January. The word, as I'm led to believe, actually means "winter/cold month".
(3 – 6, 8 – 10, 12, 13) This info was taken from Wiki. Look up January and you'll find it. Or you can use Google, whichever one suits you more.
(7) "Madre" is Italian and also Spanish for "Mother".
(11) "Mère" is French for "Mother".
(14) "Matris" is Latin for "Mother."